The phone call was so different from the others that I had received from the man I will call Gary. Over the past several years he had called several times to share the joy of his new found freedom. After years of homosexual activity he had found an Exodus ministry . Its leader - a man of great sensitivity - was counseling him, and his life had turned around completely.
He was in another city, but because he was being helped by our newsletter articles and because he sensed that we were about the same age, he called Regeneration from time to time.
One of the joys of his new life was the friendships he was making with heterosexual men and with married couples from his church. It was one of these relationships that prompted the call. One of these men, totally unexpectedly, had made a sexual advance to him and Gary had succumbed. Gary took total responsibility for what he had done, but he had, in fact, been blindsided. He had no idea that this married Christian man was interested in homosexual sex.
As I was trying to minister to him, he asked if I had ever written on what a person should do if he or she does have a fall. I had not, but it was a good idea for an article, so here it is.
I was going to title this article "If You Fall," but I decided on "When You Fall," recognizing that in truth we all do fall in sin from time to time. There was only one perfect man. Our thrust here, of course, will be sexual sin, but what is said will not be confined to sexual falls with another person; it will be applicable to indulging in pornography, to masturbation or to just wallowing in lust. In what follows I am drawing on my own experience, on Gary's, and on what I have seen happen in the lives of other people to whom I have ministered.
The type of situation addressed here will be like Gary's; that of a person who has been going along with a good measure of victory, and then to his great distress, falls.
When hit with a sexual fall, the person's reactions are usually a mixture of appropriate and inappropriate responses. If the person is a fairly mature Christian and is in touch with the Lord, usually the appropriate responses will follow and overrule the inappropriate ones. Let's look at both types.
Inappropriate Responses
When a person like Gary has been "sober" for 3 years - or 3 months for that matter - and then gives in to the type of sin which he thought he had put behind him, here are some typical wrong responses:
1. Despair over his tarnished record - "I was doing so well and now I've blown the whole thing." The person's attitude is that all of the good of the past months or years has been wiped out and now he or she has to start all over again. Not so at all. Surely God has been working during that time of obedience. There has been growth and change. One weak moment does not nullify months or years of success.
This despair may reveal a bit of pride in the struggler. In the secret heart there may be a voice saying, "I'm too good a person to have this happen to me." Or, the record of sobriety may have become a matter of pride rather than gratitude.
2. Using psychology for justification - After the despair starts to wear off, people sometimes start to look for reasons why they did what they did. There is nothing wrong with this - unless it becomes a subtle justification for sin. Usually there are triggers that set us up and make us especially vulnerable to sin, but triggers are not causes. The cause is the darkness dwelling in our heart.
3. Withdrawing from our sources of help - Over and over we find that when someone stops coming to one of our groups and/or stops going to church, it is because they have fallen back into sexual sin. How ironic. When they most need help and they most need the body of Christ, they run the other way. Sometimes it is shame; sometimes it is feeling like a hypocrite. More ominously, it can mean that they are running from God because they can't stand the conviction that they feel when they are in His presence.
4. Using the fall to justify more sin - This ties in with number 1 above. "Well, I've blown my record now; I might as well go all the way." Or the person may feel that since they are going to have to go through the whole repentance and recovery thing anyway, they might as well have a little fun now, and then confess and deal with it all later. This may account for people's tendency to binge on lust. Again, this shows that the focus was on their lily-white record and not on how their sins hurt the Lord.
5. "God must be totally disgusted with me" - The person sees all that the Lord has done for him, all the help that He has made available, and then he feels like he threw it all back in God's face. How could God love him or her now? In reality, God always knew that the person was capable of these things, but He loved him or her anyway.
Each of these responses provides a golden opportunity for the enemy to accomplish his greatest purpose, to drive a wedge between us and God. Satan is more interested in drawing us away from God than he is in having us sin sexually. For him, the sexual sin is merely the means to a more diabolical end. This is why our responses to our falls are so critical.
Appropriate Responses
There are many ways that we can respond to a fall appropriately. Here are a few:
1. Let your grief be over the sorrow you have caused the Lord - A certain amount of grief is appropriate when we sin. We are called to have contrite hearts. But our grief and contrition should be over the fact that we have hurt the One who loves us most. Sometimes after I have sinned, I will picture myself walking up to the cross and throwing another of my sins around the shoulders of Jesus; adding one more sin to the weight tearing at His body. "Against Thee and only Thee have I sinned" (Psalm 51:4). This is true sorrow for our sins, not simple regret for having let ourselves down.
2. Confess the sin to God and to the appropriate people - Don't feel that you should linger in the grief stage. Your sorrow is not what pays for your sins; Jesus has already done that. Once you have fully recognized the reality of the sin, confess it quickly and completely to God and to whomever else you should confess it; your spouse, your pastor, your accountability partner, your group leader.
Great things can come out of your confession to another person. A minister I know recently had a sexual fall - his first - with another person, and in less than 24 hours he confessed to his wife and to his overseer in the church. The consequences, although painful, were wonderful. The minister and his wife started to communicate at a depth at which they had never communicated before. The overseer suspended him from his ministerial duties for a time, but he also sent him to get help. The man was led to deal with issues that he had kept pressed down for years. None of this would have happened if he had not confessed to the appropriate people.
3. Let your confession and repentance be a reconciliation with the Lord - No, we must not sin more that grace may abound more (Romans 6:1), but I have found that some of the times when I have been most overwhelmed with the Lord's love and mercy have been when I have just confessed a sin. This realization of His marvelous grace becomes a powerful motivator to not sin again.
4. Get back on the horse - Don't stop going to your group meetings. Don't stop going to church. Don't further Satan's victory.
5. Let the fall be a stepping stone, not a millstone - "Though I fall, I will not be cast headlong" (Psalm 37:24). I have seen many good things happen in people's lives after they have sinned and repented. For instance, some people have become more humble and more in touch with the reality of their need for Jesus every day of their lives.
I have seen others who when sinning after a long period of abstinence have their eyes opened to the grossness of their sin. They realize that it is not what they really wanted, and this particular sin becomes the last nail in the coffin of their old life.
Romans 8:28 runs through all of these appropriate responses. The Lord can work good through all circumstances if we love Him and are seeking to live our lives in accordance with His purposes. Never despair.
Regeneration News, September, 2000
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Copyright © 2000, Regeneration News.
All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
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