When Good Men Are Tempted

Also by Bill Perkins

Awaken the Leader Within

When Young Men Are Tempted

(Bill Perkins and Randy Southern)

Six Battles Every Man Must Win

6 Rules Every Man Must Break

Bill Perkins

ZONDERVAN

When Good Men Are Tempted

Copyright © 1997, 2007 by Bill Perkins

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.

ePub Edition January 2009 ISBN: 978-0-310-54338-1

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Perkins, Bill, 1949 –

When good men are tempted / Bill Perkins. — Updated ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN-13: 978-0-310-27434-6

1. Husbands — Sexual behavior. 2. Husbands — Religious life. 3. Lust —Religious aspects — Christianity. 4. Sex — Religious aspects — Christianity. 5. Sex in marriage. 6. Sex instruction for men. I. Title.

HQ28.P47 2007

241'.66081 — dc22

2007013732

Published in association with the literary agency of Wolgemuth & Associates, Inc.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189. All rights reserved.

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other — except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without

the prior permission of the publisher.

07 08 09 10 11 12 13 Bullet 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Paul Saunders and Phil Shaffer

You’re good men and good friends.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Introduction: A Case of Identity Theft

PART ONE: THE STRUGGLE

1. Why Naked Dogs Look So Dressed

2. Why Naked Women Look So Good

3. Why Other Women Look Better

4. The Power of Taboo-Charged Sex

5. The Thrill of Young Love

PART TWO: ADMITTING THE STRUGGLE

6. How Big Is Your Problem?

7. Three Ways to Lose the Battle

8. Crawl into the Cave and Drag Out the Bear

9. Grab the Grace of God

PART THREE: FINDING FREEDOM

10. Count the Cost

11. Choose Your Master

12. Discover the New You

13. Four Steps to Freedom

14. Guard Your Thoughts

15. Break the Temptation Cycle

PART FOUR: LIVING FREE FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE

16. The Four Phases of Friendship

17. What to Look for in a Friend

18. For Married Men Only

19. The M Word

20. For Wives Only

21. Tools for Tight Corners

22. A Final (Very Short) Story

Notes

Acknowledgments

About the Publisher

Share Your Thoughts

Introduction: A Case of Identity Theft

About five years ago a friend of mine, Dr. Justin O’Brien, sat in my office and told me one of the most unsettling stories I’d ever heard.

John Jones is an evil man, he said. But when I first met him I thought he was an angel who would help my wife, also a surgeon, and me get the resources we needed to find a cure for AIDS.

AIDS?

That’s right, he said. There’s a lot of political stuff going on behind the scenes. Stuff the public knows nothing about. But I believed, and still believe, that a scientist I knew was close to a cure. He needed money and recruited me to help him get it.

And that’s where Jones enters the story? I asked.

Right. He captured my interest by describing the wealth of his family. He also mentioned personal friends — I’m talking about internationally famous people. He assured me they would be interested in donating to the cause.

Weren’t you suspicious? I asked.

Of course, he said. That’s why I hired a former FBI agent to do a background check.

And . . . ?

He said the guy was squeaky clean and extraordinarily rich.

So what happened?

He scammed me. And when he was done, my wife and I had lost our homes, cars, yacht, credit rating, savings, and investments. Bill, I didn’t even have the money to buy a loaf of bread.

So what’s going on now? I asked.

He’s about to be sentenced, and I had hoped you’d go to the hearing with me.

On March 23, 2002, John Robert Jones, alias George Robert Jones, was sentenced to ten years in the federal penitentiary for numerous crimes — including possession of a deadly weapon, interstate mail fraud, financial fraud, theft, and grand larceny. John Robert Jones stole my friend Dr. Justin O’Brien’s identity and almost everything he owned.

As I watched him shuffle out of the courtroom, his legs linked together by chains, Jones turned in our direction and smiled. I’ll see you in hell, he shouted across the courtroom to my friend. I’ll get out. You watch. I’ll get out.

As a cold chill raced down my back, my friend turned to me and said, He’ll keep his promise too. Just watch. And even if he doesn’t, he’ll continue to steal from other unsuspecting people from behind prison walls. All he needs is a computer.

I can’t help but think how much Jones looked like any other man. Yet he had so thoroughly deceived my friend that it took Dr. O’Brien years to restore his identity as well as his lost wealth.

Often when a man falls into a sexual sin he thinks the core issue is about behavior. He tells himself, If I could just stop flirting with women or surfing the Web, I’d be okay.

There’s a sense in which the problem one of behavior, but that’s not the core issue. The root issue is identity theft.

When a man trusts Christ as his Savior, God makes him a new man, a good man, in Christ. The identity a man is given is so new that it inspired the apostle Paul to write, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV). This change is more radical than that which transforms a caterpillar into a butterfly. We who know Christ are, by nature, children of God.

Yet even though we’re new men in Christ, we still must deal with the lustful appetites that reside within us. These have not been taken away or changed. But they do not define who we are. The problem is that for much of our lives those appetites exercised free access to our minds, exercising control over our thoughts and actions, and during that season of our lives our identity was defined by those evil thoughts and actions. We saw ourselves as lustful men who delighted in indulging our sexual appetites in any way we wanted — or at least we enjoyed fantasizing about such behavior.

If as new men we allow those same lustful desires to exercise control over our minds, we’ll once more see ourselves, not as new men in Christ, but men driven by and controlled by our sexual appetites. In a sense, our sinful lust will have stolen our identity.

Such thinking and behavior is out of character with our new identity. In Christ you’re truly a new and good man. But good men are tempted — and it’s crucial for you to know how to respond when you face temptation.

This book isn’t based on the belief that if you just think the right thoughts and look in the right places you’ll live a pure life. It’s based on the idea that as you understand who you are in Christ, you’ll no longer let lust steal your identity and control your behavior. Indeed, as you comprehend your new and true identity, God will give you the power to live in a way that expresses your true self.

This concept is so radical, so revolutionary, so life changing, that if it grabs hold of your mind and spirit, you’ll never be the same. You’re about to embark on a journey that will forever free you from identity theft of the worst kind and release you to live like a son of God.

PART ONE: THE STRUGGLE

1. Why Naked Dogs

Look So Dressed

This book was birthed one sultry Friday night in south Texas while I was turning on my sprinkler system. Because of an extended drought the city only allowed grass watering between midnight and six a.m. No big deal to me since I was a night owl.

As I walked across my backyard, I noticed my neighbors’ lights were on. Curious as to why they were up so late, I approached the fence and looked through the slats. I expected to see a handful of people playing cards inside their home. Or at least, I convinced myself that’s what I expected so see. Instead I saw a hot young brunette talking on the phone. That wouldn’t have been any big deal if she had been dressed. But she wasn’t.

Instantly my eyes locked on her. Adrenaline raced through my body.

In that moment my mind flashed back to the night I was playing on the swing set in the backyard of the home where I grew up in Roswell, New Mexico. As I swung up and down, to my right, I saw my older sister’s bedroom light turn on. A moment later one of her high school friends, with the body of a goddess, undressed in front of the window. At the time couldn’t believe my good luck.

Yet on that balmy night in Texas I wasn’t a kid. I was a thirty-year-old pastor, with a gorgeous wife, a son . . . and . . .and . . . and I wondered, What am I doing?

After gazing at her for a few seconds, I pried myself away from the fence. Okay, it might have been more than a few seconds. But it wasn’t a minute . . . definitely not a minute. Anyway, as I walked away I felt intoxicated by the spectacular beauty of that naked woman’s body. And I couldn’t help but wonder why the form of a nude female would affect me that way.

Since that experience, I’ve addressed thousands of men around the world and talked personally with hundreds more. I’ve administered confidential surveys to find out what men are thinking and doing. In the process, I’ve discovered a reality that will no doubt surprise you as much as the presence of salt in the sea — namely, every man, Christian or otherwise, has his own personal battle with lust.

Those who disclaim such a battle are either in denial or lying. I guess they could also be dying and just too sick to think about sex. But even dying men may have sex on their mind. My eighty-seven-year-old father was talking about sex just hours before dying of pneumonia.

The point is, if you’re a man you’re wired to enjoy the beauty of a woman, and that enjoyment can take your mind and body to some sinful places with severe consequences. And I suspect you’re reading this book because you’re trapped in a sinful place and want out or you want a map to keep you from going there. Before providing you with such help, I want to talk about the question raised on the night I saw that au naturel brunette. Namely: why do naked women look so good?

Actually, I wrote this chapter and the next one after finishing the rest of the book. As I basked in the belief that I had banged out the last line of the last paragraph, a thought occurred to me. The more I contemplated this thought the more it bothered me. The thought flowed from my observing that a lot of Christian men, maybe even you, think it’s sinful to enjoy looking at a beautiful woman.

Such thinking is reinforced by writers and Christian experts who, in an attempt to call men to sexual purity, decry not only adultery and pornography-fueled masturbation, but the act of drawing pleasure from a woman’s beauty as well.

Christian men live sexually pure lives. While the book provides helpful insights and practical suggestions, the author gives the impression that whenever a man derives pleasure from looking at a woman — he seemed to mean any woman in any situation — other than his wife, he has committed adultery, or at least foreplay, in his heart. In essence, he seems to insist that the magnetism a man feels for a beautiful woman who is not his wife is always fueled by and feeds sexual lust. So the author coaches the men to never look at a woman except his wife. With such superspiritual and utterly impossible.

I’m convinced your ability to enjoy the beauty of a woman is a gift from God. That doesn’t mean God would approve of your feasting your eyes on Internet porn or the gyrating hips of the skimpily dressed girls who dance during a beer commercial. Nor is it okay for you to check out the lingerie ads in the morning paper — an entry point ritual for me. But I don’t buy into the idea that if you’re walking through a park and a gorgeous girl walks by it’s wrong for you to notice her beauty and enjoy it. Would it be okay for you to ogle her? Or to follow her so you could continue enjoying her beauty?

Umm . . . do you need me to answer that question? Come on . . . you know the difference between glancing at a gorgeous girl and locking in your visual video recorder and capturing her every move for future reference. The key issue is for you to enjoy a woman’s beauty without compromising your character and using her excellence to feed your lust.

Okay, you may be asking, how do I accomplish that?

I’m convinced the first step down the path of sexual purity involves understanding why naked dogs look so dressed and — more importantly — why naked women look so good. Once we understand the sacred gift God has given us, we’ll realize why we should cherish it and keep it pure.

I’d like to lift the magnetism you feel

toward beautiful women to the high and holy place

I believe God intended it to occupy.

The Mystery of a Woman’s Beauty

When I saw my wife’s body for the first time, I beheld something heavenly. Nothing in all of creation compared with the beauty of her nakedness. Being the modest type, she refused to run, or even walk, around our apartment naked . . . even though I pleaded with her. I simply couldn’t see enough of her unexcelled naked beauty. I remember feeling as though I shouldn’t stare. But I wanted to stare.

Evolutionists strip the mystery from a woman’s beauty. They tell us men are attracted to naked women because of natural selection. They reason that if men didn’t find women attractive, they wouldn’t be inclined to reproduce. While that makes sense, it also reduces sexual magnetism to a purely biological, animalistic experience. It isn’t. God created men with sexual appetites. He wired us to be attracted to women.

There’s more here than some sort of accidental evolutionary programming. The book of Proverbs addresses the magnetism between a man and a woman. Agur, son of Jakeh (some of those ancient Jews had weird names), described four things too amazing for him to understand. One of them was how a man loves a woman (Proverbs 30:19). That ancient sage couldn’t decipher the mystery of the magnetism between a he and a she.

So why do naked women look so good? The answer may disappoint you like the punch line to a very long and bad joke. You see, there’s something about the buzz men get when they look at a beautiful woman that defies understanding.

At the deepest level, nobody understands

the attraction between men and women.

It’s kind of like sleep. Did you know that nobody fully understands why people need to sleep?¹ Doesn’t that seem odd to you? Researchers understand what happens when we sleep and what occurs when we’re sleep deprived. They can even state the benefits of sleep. But nobody knows exactly why humans need to sleep.

Similarly, we don’t know why naked women look so good to men. God has created something wonderful for you that defies understanding. If, as though it were a mathematical formula, you could understand the attraction you feel for the female face and form, there would be no mystery.

So if someone ever asks you, Why do naked women look so good? you can answer, Metaphysically, we just don’t know. That will definitely impress them.

Having said that, there are aspects of the answer that are as simple as 2 + 2 = 4. For instance, naked women are beautiful because we seldom see them that way. This whole idea of nakedness is a special treat God has given only to people. Animals, for instance, can’t be naked.

Why Do Naked Dogs Look So Dressed?

Over the years I’ve had several dogs. My most recent was a 185-pound Great Dane. When I’d take him for a walk people would comment on his size and then ask me his name.

He’s Big, I’d say.

He sure is, they’d reply. What’s his name?

He really is Big, I’d say as I patted his massive black head with my right hand.

Frustrated, they’d ask again about his name.

By then I was laughing as I explained, "That’s his name, Big."

I gave him that name because I anticipated just such conversations. They always reminded me of the Bud Abbott and Lou Costello routine, Who’s on First?

It’s amazing how quickly I bonded with that Great Dane.

If you have a dog, you understand how they blend into a family. They ride in our cars. They sleep with us (forget that one with Big). We talk to them as though they could understand us. Occasionally my boys even dressed Big in clothes. They’d slip red Nike shorts over his hind legs and a white sweatshirt over his front legs. Next they’d secure a hat to his head and sunglasses on his nose.

While Big looked cute all dressed up — umm, maybe stupid would better describe him — the truth is he didn’t need shorts and a sweatshirt. Why? Because even without them he wasn’t naked. No animal is ever regarded as naked. Think about it for a moment. Have you ever seen a dog strolling down the street without shorts and a shirt and wondered why it wasn’t dressed? Of course not! And