The Shame & Price Of Ministerial And Pastoral Misconduct

Proverbs 6:32-33 (NKJV)

"Whoever commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding;

He who does so destroys his own soul.

Wounds and dishonor he will get,

And his reproach (disgrace-shame) will not be wiped away."

I didn't understand the cost of sexual misconduct until I came clean. The Lord granted me repentance so that I could recover from the snare of the devil. However, the stigma remains. A pastor has no business entering the den of darkness and then enter the pulpit to preach God's Holy Word.

Thankfully, the Lord was merciful and He didn't judge me, and condemned me to hell.

Preachers egregiously assume that they would enter into heaven if they've died after being judged on earth.

Hell is full of preachers that knew the judgment of God and continued in sin. Thinking that the Lord would give them a free pass. Depending on the heart of God, He may deliver your body to satan for the destruction of your flesh that your soul would be saved in the day of Christ (see 1 Corinthians 5:1-5 and 1 Timothy 1:18-20).

It's a risk that every sinning pastor takes.

It's not worth the risk.

It's a terrifying thing to close your life on this side of life, only to open your eyes in hell.

It's a terrifying thing to miss the coming of the Lord in the rapture. Everyone that's righteous is taken to heaven but you with the others didn't make it.

The Lord had mercy on me and kept me from crossing lines to act out my sinful sexual fantasies with another woman. This would have been devastating to my relationship with the Lord, my wife, my family, and the people that's under my spiritual care. It's hypocritical to preach holiness to God's people when you're not holy yourself.

When you immorally touch another woman that's not your wife, the shame and the disgrace remains with you for as long as you live on this earth.

When it comes to pornography, the Lord made it clear that if any man looks upon a woman to lust after her, he has committed adultery with her already in his heart (see Matthew 5:27-30).

Porn is a fantasy. You're pretending to have sex with the image. In fact, it's covetousness, which is idolatry and adultery because you've objectified the image on the screen. But you could be walking the street, sitting in the park, or in church and begin to have sexual fantasies with her or him in your mind. And according to the Lord, "look but don't touch" is just as wicked.

This is called lust but when you take it further, this is just acting out your fantasies.

Bill Clinton, Robert Morris, Michael Brown, Jamal Bryant, William Murphy, Mike Bickel and others have acted out their fantasies in one degree or another. In other words, they've taken it to a physical level.

Either the women were complicit in offering their bodies for pleasure or they were taken advantaged of. Sexually immoral women are not innocent. Some of them are on an assignment to take a man down.

Proverbs 7:24-27 (NKJV)

"Now therefore, listen to me, my children;

Pay attention to the words of my mouth:

Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways,

Do not stray into her paths;

For she has cast down many wounded,

And all who were slain by her were strong men.

Her house is the way to hell,

Descending to the chambers of death."

The lesson will not be learned by most men because as Dr. William Struthers said, "Men are wired for sex." Every man is sexually stimulated by the sight of a beautiful woman.

And according to the Lord, "look but don't touch" is just as wicked.

Therefore, the intent as you look is the motivation. The moment that he sexually looks at a woman that's not his wife, whether they're on assignment or not, when he chooses to fulfill his sexual urges and impulses, most of the time, he will accomplish his mission.

There's also the woman that intentionally wears sexually provocative clothing because she knows that men are stimulated by sight. On the other hand, she may not be wearing anything provocatively. A sinful hearted man could imagine anything and still look lustfully.

When a pastor seeks out a weak willed woman and she consents to his advances, if he commits adultery or fornication with her, his shame is with him for as long as he lives. Even after he may have repented and the Lord grants forgiveness, his stigmatization remains with him all the way to the grave.

It's the price of sinning against the Lord. You're no longer "blameless."

You now have the reputation that you've committed adultery against the Lord and against your wife if you're married. If you're not married, you've committed fornication. Some pastors have committed adultery and or fornication only to impregnate the woman, and she may or may not have kept the child. Some of the women kill the child with abortion or offered the child up for adoption.

David never escaped his stigma. Today, because of David's sin to commit adultery with Bathsheba and kill Uriah, even though the Lord put the sin of David away, David is known as a murderer and adulterer.

David is a man after God's own heart. The Lord Jesus is a son of David.

Psalm 51 is a clear expression of the heart of David in full repentance. He poured out his heart to the Lord. Had David maintained his discipline, Psalm 51 wouldn't have been necessary.

Psalm 51 is also a revelation of the forgiveness, grace, and mercy of God.

It's not an open invitation to sin as David did but it serves as a warning not to be numbered as a person that despised the commandment of the Lord as David had done.

David threw himself on the mercy of the Lord.

Psalms 51:17 (NKJV)

"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,

A broken and a contrite heart—

These, O God, You will not despise."

David was thoroughly "contrite" or crushed because he offended God.

True repentance is when you're beyond sorry that you've sinned against God.

Luke 18:13-14 (NKJV)

"And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Where there's true contrition, repentance may be granted along with mercy and forgiveness from God is obtained.

Proverbs 28:13 (NKJV)

"He who covers his sins will not prosper,

But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy."

If you continue to make excuses and try in desperation to cover it up, you will not prosper.

The pain you feel in your heart that you've sinned against the Lord is you feeling how hurt God is because you've betrayed Him. It's beyond tears, though tears may fall.

You've grieved, saddened, or caused pain to the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 4:30 (NKJV)

"And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption."

David realized that He offended or saddened the Lord.

Psalms 51:3-4 (NKJV)

"For I acknowledge my transgressions,

And my sin is always before me.

Against You, You only, have I sinned,

And done this evil in Your sight—

That You may be found just when You speak,

And blameless when You judge."

David wanted God to be in his life like before but he strayed away from His commandments and he sinned against the Lord. But when David understood how crushed he must become, he laid it all on the table.

Take everything else from me but....Psalms 51:10-12 (NKJV)

"Create in me a clean heart, O God,

And renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Do not cast me away from Your presence,

And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of Your salvation,

And uphold me by Your generous Spirit."

What would you do if the Lord took His presence away from you like He took it away from Saul?

David knew that he was a dead man if God withdrew His Spirit from David.

Saul ended up in hell.

We just don't hear this kind of contrition from today's preachers that were caught in sexual sin and exposed by the Lord.

When Paul wrote his second epistle, he observed how repentant the Corinthian church was because they've sinned against the Lord. Paul's first letter was a stinging rebuke but look at what it produced.

2 Corinthians 7:10-11 (NKJV)

"For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death."

"For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter."

But today, we hear excuses. We see preachers in sin lay the blame on others that just put out the facts of the events. They seek to silence and censor with the fear of suing the true believers that simply write the facts.

This doesn't mean that no one will slander them because the world is the one that does the slandering. But true believer seek to "speak the truth in love" and write their stories to serve as a warning to others that the Lord mercilessly exposing sexual sin.

Sexual sins in the church brings great reproach and shame on the name of the Lord and His righteous believers.

A few of them accuse true believers as being "the world" but that's just a blame game.

Many of them may have read the story of David and Psalm 51, but they've never took on the heart of David in similar fashion. It underscores that the Lord may deal with them severely if they refuse to be crushed by the Lord.

We all need to fall on the stone or the stone will fall on us and grind us to powder.

Paul's admonition is clear.

1 Corinthians 6:18 (NKJV)

"Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body."