When I was a kid I got a snazzy new tape-recorder one Christmas. In the days that followed I had a blast with that thing. One of my favorite past-times was covertly recording the conversations between my mom and dad. You just never knew when you’d catch some juicy bit of gossip, some unguarded moment of candor, or some piece of incriminating discussion that they’d rather not have laid down on cassette tape for anyone to hear. I thought it was all funny, but they weren’t always amused when they heard my playback.

I was reminded of this the other day when my youngest, Royce, tried to secretly record me on the Nintendo 3DS he got for Christmas. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it? Fortunately for me, I caught him before I could utter any blackmail-worthy remarks. Unfortunately for me, God’s tape-recorder is always running. Actually, He has more than a tape-recorder; He has a videotape-machine.

It’s with this in mind that I’ll ask you if you’ve been committing some supposedly “secret” sin lately? If you have, just know that “secret” sin on earth is open scandal in heaven. You might be fooling some of the people all of the time or even all of the people some of the time, but you aren’t fooling God any time. Furthermore, the Bible still says, “…be sure that your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23). And if you don’t believe that, the only person you are fooling is yourself.

But what bothers me about our little county (approximately 15,000 in number) is how easily we blur the line between authentic Christian conduct and rank worldliness. Some of the same people who go to church every Sunday morning don’t mind doing a good deal of drinking and carousing on Saturday night. Some of the ones who rant and rave about the sexual sin of homosexuality evidently don’t understand that adultery falls in that same category. Some of the ones who are quick to request prayer for themselves or their families are also far too well versed in backbiting, gossiping, and rumor spreading.

My point is that a lot of people love to hear about Christ, the Bible, forgiveness, grace, and salvation, but the numbers dwindle significantly when the topics become repentance, godly conduct, separation from the world, and personal holiness. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not promoting a works-based plan of salvation here. I myself sin every day and have to spend more time than I should asking the Lord for forgiveness of those sins. But with me sin is the exception, not the rule. It occurs outside the norm. It’s the uncommon, not the common. That’s what salvation has done to me (or better yet for me).

Perhaps an illustration will help me say what I’m trying to say. Little Billy was dressed for church in his Sunday best, but his mother wasn’t quite ready to go. So he went out in the back yard and started playing in the dirt. In just a few minutes his clothes were absolutely filthy. When his mother saw him she was furious. Passionately, Billy said, “Mom, I’m real sorry. Please forgive me.” She replied, “Okay, you’re forgiven but go change.” But Billy didn’t want to go back in the house and go to the trouble of dressing again. So he said, “No, I’ll just go as I am.” You see, he wanted forgiveness but not change. And, unfortunately, there seem to be a lot of Billys running around out there these days.

Let me start by quoting Proverbs 5:18-19, which says:

Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of your youth. As a loving deer and a graceful doe, let her breasts satisfy you at all times; and always be enraptured with her love.

Notice that the man’s wife is specifically described as the wife of his “youth.” We find this same idea in Proverbs 2:17, which describes the immoral adulteress in this way:

Who forsakes the companion of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God.

The “covenant of her God” refers to the marriage covenant the woman once entered. Notice that she entered into that covenant with “the companion of her youth.” The picture is one of a young couple getting married and the woman cheating on the man sometime when they get older.

Truth be told, it is a simple fact that in Bible times people got married when they were relatively young, typically when they were teenagers. This was especially true for Jewish girls. Since there are no Bible instances of children getting married, there’s no need to get all weird here and take the age down too low.

And now let me give you three practical reasons why I believe that getting married in one’s later teens can be a good thing. Actually, I didn’t even get these from the Bible. They are just real-life facts that back up what the Bible teaches about getting married young.

Reason #1: It is a biological fact that when a young man or woman hits the teenage years, the urge to have sex increases.

I ask you, would God wire us this way and then expect us to resist that urge until we are married at 25 or 30 or whatever? It seems to me that the way He has designed our bodies points to Him being in favor of us getting married relatively young.

Reason #2: The whole idea of sowing your wild oats, getting drunk with your friends, laying out all night, carousing around, and acting like a typical early-twenty-something certainly takes a major hit if you’re married.

Imagine the following conversation:

“Hey, it’s Friday night, let’s go bar-hopping.” “I can’t, me and the wife are headed to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to pick out a shower curtain.”

Or this one:

“Hey, it’s ladies night at the club. Can you go with us?” No, my husband will be home soon and I’ve got to cook some dinner for him.”

Do you see what I mean?

Reason #3: Physically speaking, raising children is a game best played when your body is younger.

When Tonya and I got married, I was 27 and she was 25. When Ryan was born, I was 30 and she was 28. When Royce was born, I was 34 and she was 32. So now Ryan is almost 14, Royce is 10, and I am 44. That means that I speak with some authority when I say that kids and the infinite list of things that you have to do for them absolutely wear you down.

I held up pretty good until I hit 40. That’s when I fell apart physically. And yet I’m far from out of the woods on this raising kids thing. Right now I’m coaching Royce’s baseball team of 9 and 10 year olds. I’m lugging all that equipment in and out of my car. I’m hitting ground balls in practice. I’m crouching down in that catcher’s position to warm up my pitchers. Needless to say, when I get home after a game or a practice, I am done for the day.

The fact is that Tonya and I have often talked about how it would have been better if we’d gotten married when we were younger and been physically younger as we raised our kids. Honestly, if we had our lives to live over again, and we could go back and fix our sins and mistakes (which cost us several years), I think we would get married right out of high school and go to college as a married couple. We dated a lot in high school, and we both know now that it was always God’s will for us to marry each other. So we could have done that right after graduation and then gone to college together.

Someone says, “But Russell, you’ve got a good marriage. How could things have worked out any better than they did?” Are you kidding? The years of my late teens and early twenties were filled with sin and mistakes. Trust me, I’m still feeling the scars those years left on my soul. As a matter of fact, I actually know one couple who did get married right after high school and attend college as husband and wife. They’ve been married for many years now, have kids, hold down solid jobs, and seem perfectly happy and contented. Just think about all the temptations that come with college life, temptations that could be pretty much defanged if you were married.

Now, in closing, there is one last thing that I need to say on this subject. And please hear me well on this: Getting married young doesn’t magically preserve your marriage and mean that you will never get divorced. I hope you understand that if you want your marriage to work the way God intends, you have to make Him the center of it. That applies whether you get married at age 18 or age 98. My whole point with this post has been that the idea of entering into the marriage covenant with the companion of your youth is indeed Biblical. No, it’s not the average mindset in American culture, but that doesn’t automatically make it wrong. To the contrary, with the way America stands spiritually these days, not to mention our high divorce rate and scores of troubled marriages, how can we possibly say that our way is better than the way the Bible describes?

“A man I knew through my ministry was going with a girl who, some of us thought, was not at all worthy of him. We breathed a sigh of relief when he went away into the army for two or three years (this was during the war). The girl drifted around with other fellows, and, most happily, the young man met a worthy girl in a distant city. He fell in love with her and married her.

When the war was over and he had returned to his home with his bride, the first girl drove by the house one evening and dropped in to see her old flame and meet his wife. But the wife was not there. The first girl made no attempt to hide her affection and moved in such a voluptuous way that the young man realized he had but to reach out his hand and she was his. He told me about it afterwards.

There was within him all that goes with male desire. There was something much more within and he began to talk about what a wonderful girl he had married. He showed the pictures of his wife to the first girl and praised his wife to the skies, acting as though he did not understand her obvious advances. It was not long before she left, saying as she went, ‘Yes, she must be quite a girl if she can keep you from reaching.’”

I wonder how many affairs could be prevented, how many temptresses and tempters defanged, if only spouses would start bragging on their better halves the way the fellow in Barnhouse’s story did. You see, happy homes make poor soil for sexual sin. Are you married? Then get in the habit of singing the praises of your spouse to others. That’s a great way to keep potential home-wreckers at bay.

Romans 1:18-32 is one of the most terrifying passages in all the Bible, if people would only realize it for what it is. The passage explains what God will eventually do to those who persistently, consistently, and steadfastly refuse to come under His lordship. He will “give them up” (or “give them over”) to uncleaness, immorality, and wickedness so that they can fully indulge in the lusts of their hearts. This “giving up” allows them to dishonor their bodies by letting their debased minds and vile passions run free and unencumbered.

I used to drive a school bus, and that bus had a governor on its motor. A governor is a little device that kicks in when a bus reaches a certain speed. Its purpose is to slow the motor down to keep the bus from going any faster. The governor kicked in at 50 m.p.h. in the case of my bus. Okay, just as that governor served as a restraint, the Romans passage teaches that God reaches a point with hardened sinners where He takes His governor off their lives and says, “Go as fast and live as dangerously as you want. I’ve tried to help you, but your heart is so set against Me that you won’t heed Me. So have it.”

I once heard a baseball coach say to his players, “Boys, if I yell at you, it’s because I care about you. The day I stop yelling at you, that’s when you need to worry because it means that I’ve given up on you.” The Romans passage explains that God works the same way in the lives of individuals. It’s when He stops yelling that the situation gets scary.

You see, God is right now pouring out His wrath (1:18) upon America by allowing stubborn, sinful men and women who are dead set in their own ways and rebellion against Him to do whatever they want. Do they want to engage in homosexuality and lesbiansim (1:26-27)? No governor here. Do they want to live lives marked by “sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, malciousness, envy, murder, strife, deceit, and evil-mindedness” (1:28-29)? God’s not yelling. Do they want to be “whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, and unmerciful?” God is sitting up in heaven and watching it happen without lifting a finger to stop it.

But how can God’s lack of action be classified as Him pouring out His wrath? It’s because He understands something that hardened, calloused rebels don’t: He understands that the rebel lifestyle, when carried out to its desired extreme, is a fire that ultimately gets so big and so hot that it consumes the rebel himself. The rebel truly believes that he is living the high life, but in reality he is only destroying himself. In this way, he virtually judges himself and pours out God’s wrath upon himself. And, make no mistake, this is exactly what is happening with millions of Americans.

Furthermore, dare I say that God has even taken this “hands off” approach with our nation as a whole. He’s letting us have the corrupt, greedy politicians so many Americans favor. He’s letting us have the perverse, immoral national laws so many Americans will take to the streets over. To sum up, He’s letting a bunch of ungodly, undiscerning, and unbroken sinners have their way. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why our nation stands on the brink of ruination.

First, the person gets counsel from the ungodly and walks in that counsel. That gets him started in the wrong direction. That’s why the verse speaks of walking in the counsel of the ungodly.

Second, walking in that counsel leads the person out of the will of God and into the path of sinners. Once he is in that path of sin, he realizes that he enjoys the sin and decides to stand around for a while in that way. He isn’t in any big hurry to confess the sin, repent of it, and get right with God. He’s stopped walking. Now he’s standing.

Third, he ends up sitting down in a seat in the midst of the scornful (hardened, calloused sinners). To take a seat is to settle in for a lengthy stay. It is to become part of the group.

Let me use just one kind of sin as an example of the progression of sin. Let’s say that a man is considering having an affair. He’s having some trouble in his marriage, and there is a woman at work who seems to be just what he needs.

Rather than seeking out counsel from a godly person who knows the Bible and how to apply it to life, this man gets counsel from an ungodly buddy of his. The buddy has been married and divorced three times and had numerous affairs over the course of those marriages. The buddy says, “Go for it. Have the affair. Take it from me, you’ll be glad that you lived a little.” So, the man takes that ungodly counsel, walks in it, leaves the will of God, and has a one-night stand with that co-worker. What’s he doing? He is walking in the counsel of the ungodly.

Well, the man discovers that he enjoys that one night stand. He doesn’t get caught, and he finds that the sneaking around is sort of exciting. So he keeps the affair going. Once or twice a week he meets with his “other woman.” What’s he doing now? He is standing in the path of sinners. The rebellion against God is now deeper and more concrete.

Then, somewhere along the way, the man goes from standing in the path of sinners to sitting down in the seat of the scornful. He becomes cynical and hardened. In some illogical way, he’s angry at God because God didn’t give him a “happily ever after” marriage. He gets to the point where he mocks the things of God and despises anything remotely spiritual.

Do you see the progression of sin? First, there is the walking. Then there is the standing. Finally, there is the sitting.

And that is where the cycle tragically begins to repeat itself on another victim. Sticking with my example, when a young man naively asks the hardened, scornful sinner about getting married, he sarcastically answers, “Yeah, that’s what you need to do. Go and get married. Hook yourself up to that old ball and chain.” You see, that answer comes under the category “the counsel of the ungodly,” and the naive potential groom then has to make his own decision as to whether or not to walk in it and begin his own line of sin’s progression.

This was just the latest chapter in a sad series of events that have played out over the past couple of weeks. The timeline runs like this:

-At 2:25 a.m. of November 27th, Woods crashes his vehicle into a fire hydrant and his neighbor’s tree. He is taken to a local hospital and treated for minor facial lacerations. He is quickly released and returns home. (Woods refuses to talk to Florida State Troopers for the next three days, and is finally cited for careless driving and fined $164.) 

-Shortly after the accident, the tabloids and internet become abuzz with rumors of Woods’ marital infidelity. (As of now, it’s impossible to sort out fact from lies, but the current number of alleged mistresses stands anywhere from seven to ten.) 

-On November 29th, Woods releases a statement on his website in which he says the accident was his fault and asks for privacy while his family works through a difficult time.

-On November 30th, it is announced that Woods will not be participating in his next scheduled golf tournament. The given reason for his withdrawal is injuries from the accident.

-On December 2nd, Woods releases a new statement in which he says, “I have let my family down and I regret those transgressions with all of my heart.”

-A few days later, several media outlets begin reporting that Woods’ wife, Elin Nordegren, has moved out of the house. (I haven’t heard whether or not she took the couple’s two-year old daughter and infant son with her.) 

-Then comes Tuesday’s story about the mother-in-law being rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night.

As for Woods, he still hasn’t been seen publicly since his accident. Whatever the exact details of everything are, it now seems fairly obvious that it’s a sad situation. The entire family needs our prayers. I have been praying for them, and I hope you will as well.

With that said, I’d like to offer some Biblical lessons here. I don’t do this to kick Tiger Woods while he is down. As I said, I’m praying sincere prayers for him and his family. I offer these merely as a way to view the story through the lens of God’s written word.

Lesson #1: A son needs his daddy. Tiger’s father, Earl, died on May 3rd, 2006. He was a military man who stood for honesty, integrity, and responsibility. Up until his death, he was the driving influence in Tiger’s life. He was the one who molded young Tiger into a golf prodigy. Later on he wrote two books about his no-nonsense parenting style. Tiger has often mentioned how much he misses his dad. In 1st Thessalonians 2:11, the Bible teaches that a father should exhort, comfort, and charge his children. Proverbs 1:8 speaks of a father instructing his son. Would Tiger be in the mess he’s in now if his dad was still alive? No one can say for sure, but many would answer, “No.”

Lesson #2: Every husband must work at remaining sexually satisfied with his wife. Affairs typically occur when husbands aren’t sexually satisfied with their wives alone. The lust for more sex or “different” sex is a powerful, primal thing. That’s why Proverbs 5:18-19 warns: “Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of your youth. As a loving deer and a graceful doe, let her breasts satisfy you at all times; and always be enraptured with her love.”

Lesson #3: The sin of adultery is a fire that burns the one who commits it. Proverbs 6:27-28 says: “Can a man take fire to his bosom and his clothes not be burned? Can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be seared?” 1st Corinthians 6:18 says: “Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.”

Lesson #4: No matter how much success, fame, and wealth a man has, his world can still come tumbling down if he doesn’t practice self-control. Proverbs 25:28 says: “Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls.” A city without walls is wide open to be attacked and destroyed. So is a life lived without self-control.

Lesson #5: If you want to fall, be full of pride. Tiger Woods is well known for being supremely confident in his abilities, even to the point of being egotistical. Proverbs 16:18 says: “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Surely one of Woods’ motivations for committing adultery was that his ego told him he could get away with it.

Lesson #6: All the self-will one can muster will eventually lose out to the power of the flesh (that inborn sinful nature of individuals). Woods’ strong will on the golf course is a major part of what makes him so good. But no man is so strong-willed that he can keep his inner nature of sin at bay for long. In Romans 7:18-19, the apostle Paul writes: “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.”

Lesson #7: Your sins WILL eventually be discovered. Numbers 32:23 says: “…be sure your sin will find you out.” Isaiah 29:15 says: “Woe to those who seek deep to hide their counsel far from the Lord, and their works are in the dark. They say, ‘Who sees us?” and ’Who knows us?’”    

Lesson #8: Wealth doesn’t equate to contentment. Even though Woods has earned multiplied millions through his golfing and endorsements, there was obviously still something that prevented him from being content with his family life. 1st Timothy 6:6-8 says: “Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content.”

Lesson #9: When you raise a child to worship the idol of sports, you shouldn’t be surprised when that child grows up to be lacking in morality and character. As I mentioned earlier, Earl Woods was an uncommonly influential father. No one can deny that he raised a champion golfer. But all those championships came at a high price. As far back as Tiger can remember, Earl led him to obsess over the sport of golf and devote himself fanactically to mastering it. Earl never taught Tiger how to keep golf in proper perspective and allow his spiritual side to develop. That inevitably caused some chinks in Tiger’s character and morality. In Matthew 16:26, Jesus asks the profound question, “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”  

Lesson #10: Buddhism simply cannot offer the help people need. By Woods’ own admission, he is something of a nominal Buddhist through his mother, who is from Thailand. He especially values the Buddhist practice of meditation. In a March, 2008 interview with Reuters, Woods said of Buddhism, “In the Buddhist religion, you have to work for it yourself internally in order to achieve anything in life…and in Buddhism to set up the next life. But in Buddhism it’s all about what you do and internal work.” Sadly, this religion and philosophy fly right in the face of Christ’s words from John 14:6: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” They also go against Ephesians 2:8-9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God., not of works, lest anyone should boast.”

So, let me close by saying that Tiger Woods is just like anybody else on planet Earth in that he needs to place his faith (belief) in Jesus as his personal Savior. That will bring him forgiveness of sin (Colossians 1:14), spiritual life (John 5:40), salvation (Acts 16:30-31), and the empowerment to resist temptation and sin (Philippians 4:13). Certainly Tiger’s life has taken a tragic turn for the worse, but if that turn leads him to the open arms of Jesus, the best will be yet to come for him. That’s my prayer, for not only Tiger but his entire family.