Why was Joseph able to resist a powerful temptation that has brought so many others down? Was it extraordinary self-control, unwavering determination, or something far greater? In Part 2 of Overcoming Sexual Temptation, discover the surprising secret behind Joseph’s remarkable stand—and why it matters for every one of us today.

Checkout these other Family Fortress Ministries Podcasts:

TIME FOR THREE daily couples devotional: https://time-for-three.captivate.fm/listen

RELATIONSHIP REALITIES: https://relationship-realities.captivate.fm/listen

Donate: https://familyfortress.org/donate

Free Online Premarital Training: https://preparingforpartnership.org/

Welcome to the Fortifying youg Family podcast.

It can be daunting to navigate through an anti marriage and family culture.

Our teacher will expound biblical principles to help fortify our families and keep these sacred institutions strong.

And now, here's this week's teaching from Sam Wood.

But here's the key and what I want you to really see here today how Joseph responds and in his response, God gives us some very insightful instruction about how to resist sexual temptation.

Look at verse eight.

But he refused and said unto his master's wife, behold, my master wotteth not what is with me in the house.

And he hath committed all that he has to my hand.

There is none greater in this house than I.

Neither hath he kept back anything from me but thee.

Then look what he says, because thou art his wife.

How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?

And it came to pass as she spake to Joseph day by day, that he hearkened not unto her to lie with or to be with her.

Notice at the beginning of verse 8 it says, but he refused.

This begs the question, I believe, how was he able to refuse?

How was he able to so quickly resist this sexual temptation?

God gives us, I believe the answer in these verses.

In verse nine, the one thing that's very, very important for us to see, he says, because thou art his wife.

Because you are his wife.

When Joseph says you are his wife, he's also implying at the same time, you are not my wife.

You're his wife.

You're not my wife.

Joseph has a correct understanding that God created sex as whole life commitment that is to be only manifested in the marriage relationship.

In Anthony thelston's commentary on First Corinthians, he says this when Paul quotes Genesis 2:24, the two shall become one flesh.

And he takes it to cover all sexual intercourse.

Instead of devaluing sex, the very opposite comes about.

Paul was far ahead of first century cultural assumptions and perceiving the sex act should be one of complete self commitment that involves the whole person, not merely the manipulative parts of the body.

In the context, Paul is saying, you must only give yourself to the one to whom you completely belong.

Wow.

This is what Paul says in 1st Corinthians 6 and verse 15 when he says this.

Know you not that your bodies are the members of Christ?

Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot?

He says, God forbid, absolutely not.

What?

Know you not that he which is joined to a harlot is One body for two, saith he shall be one flesh.

Paul is stating that God had made sex for the consummation of whole life commitment in the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman.

So when a married couple comes together intimately, they are renewing their covenantal commitment of being one flesh in every way.

Physically, emotionally, spiritually, socially, in every way.

They're committing themselves in all they are to each other.

CS Lewis makes a very profound statement when he says to have sex without being married, to want pleasure without a promise, to want pleasure without a commitment.

Now listen to what he says is like trying to taste and eat food and then vomit it up.

You say, preacher, what in the world does he mean by that?

He's describing a person who wants to taste food, who wants to eat food, but doesn't want that food to become part of them.

They want to eat, but they don't want the consequences of what they're eating.

They want all the pleasure of eating.

They don't want to have any of the responsibility of eating.

They want the food, but they don't want the food to become part of them, we might say, or they don't.

They want to eat it, but they don't want to digest it.

We know what happens when you do that.

It's called bulimia in a physical sense.

You eat food and you throw it up.

You eat food and throw it up.

It ravages you physically.

It's utterly unnatural to separate tasting and eating from digestion.

And God created sex as a way for you to say to somebody, I belong to you and you belong to me.

We belong to each other exclusively.

We are one.

That's what marriage is designed to be.

If you say, I want you physically, but I don't want you in any other way, then you're destroying what God made sex for.

Remember I said earlier that lust is a desire out of control and desiring pleasure without a promise.

But lust is also desiring pleasure without a person.

You don't want to be in whole life commitment with that person.

Lust is the opposite of love.

Love says I want you as a person.

Lust says I want the pleasure.

And the person is only a vehicle to get my pleasure.

Love says a person is non negotiable.

The pleasure is negotiable in lust.

It's a pleasure that's non negotiable.

But the person is negotiable.

It's a big difference between love and lust.

I hope you're listening to me, especially you singles here today.

It's important to understand What I'm saying here this morning.

So the first reason Joseph quickly refuses Potiphar's wife.

He says, you are his wife and you are not my wife.

And sex is for whole life commitment in the marriage relationship.

But look at the second reason.

Very important reason too.

He says, how then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?

How does Joseph resist sexual temptation?

Joseph doesn't do it the way most people try to do it today.

You say, preacher, how do most people try to resist sexual temptation today?

They try to resist it with self control and self will.

They say, if I try hard enough, if I will myself hard enough, if I practice enough self control, then I can have victory over sexual temptation.

Joseph is saying that he doesn't need more willpower and that we don't need more willpower to overcome and resist sexual temptation.

We don't need willpower.

We need heart power.

We need heart power to overcome sexual temptation.

Believe me, I can give you countless illustrations of different people I have counseled who have tried hard to overcome sexual temptation.

They've exercised a lot of self control, a lot of willpower, and yet they stay in an addiction.

They stay in this sexual grip of addiction, enslaved to pornography or enslaved to something else.

Because it doesn't take willpower, it takes heart power.

Joseph looks outside of himself to God and says, how can I do this wickedness sin against God?

He sees this sin as a sin against God.

You might ask, why is he saying it's a sin against God?

I mean, isn't.

Wouldn't this be if he yielded to Potiphar's wife?

Wouldn't it be a sin against Potiphar?

Well, certainly it would.

The answer is yes to that question.

He would be sinning against Potiphar if he commits adultery with his wife.

But Joseph realizes that he would be ultimately sinning against God.

How?

Because he would be saying, God, I have a better plan for sex than you do.

Your way of sex is okay, but my way of sex is better than yours.

The Creator has a better idea.

The creation has a better idea than the creator.

God.

That's what he would be saying.

But instead Joseph says, how can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?

You see, here's the key.

Joseph had a greater desire for God than he had for sex.

He had a greater desire for God than he had for sex.

That's why he could have heart power and he could overcome sexual temptation not through willpower, self control, but through heart power.

He had a greater desire for God than he had to have sexual relations.

Let me illustrate what I mean here.

I want to give an illustration of this because I think this is so important.

Do you remember the story of Jacob and Rachel in Genesis, chapter 29?

It's a very interesting story.

Jacob, Joseph's father, falls in love with Rachel.

Laban, Rachel's father, says, you can have her and marry her if you'll do what?

If you'll work seven years for her.

Now, Jacob, who was a great deceiver, was dealing with a great deceiver too.

Laban.

And so he went to bed on his wedding night and he got up the next morning.

It's hard to understand, but he got up the next morning and it wasn't Rachel, it was Leah that he was with.

He had married the wrong woman.

Wow.

He gets upset.

He goes to Laban and says, I. I don't understand.

You said I could marry Rachel.

He says, you have to marry the older before you can marry the younger.

So they negotiate another bargain.

And Laban says, just work for me seven more years and you can then have Rachel.

And it's very interesting that as he works these seven years, and the seven years come to a conclusion in Genesis chapter 29 and verse 20, it says, and Jacob served seven years for Rachel.

And you know this verse.

And they seemed unto him as but a few days for the love he had for her.

I mean, he worked seven more, excuse me, seven more years for Rachel.

But the Bible says they only seem like a few days because he loved her so much.

You see, during these seven years, Jacob still desired all the normal things that he probably would desire.

I mean, he wanted rest, he wanted to eat, he wanted to sleep.

But his passionate, his supreme desire was to have Rachel.

And he had that in the forefront of his mind every day when he went out to work.

Everything he did, he says, I'm working.

That day is coming.

The seven years are going to end sometime, and I'm going to get the one, sometimes supreme love of my life.

So those seven years only seemed like a few days to him.

You know what Jacob had done?

Jacob had reordered the desires or loves within his heart to where Rachel was the supreme desire and the supreme love.

Listen, real self control does not come from suppressing the desires of the heart by the will, but reordering the loves of.

Of your heart through one overarching supreme love that puts all the other loves into the right order.

It puts all the other loves in your life, in your heart, in the right place.

We all need a Rachel.

We need a supreme Love that puts all the other loves in their right place.

This is what Joseph did.

God was the supreme love of his heart.

How can I do this wicked thing and sin against God?

I can't do that.

I love God.

He is the preeminent supreme love of my life.

God was his Rachel, we might say.

But we can see another Joseph who is also very beautiful, who lived in heaven with his Father.

This Joseph was equal with God.

He had power and glory like Joseph in chapter 39.

But he lost it.

Isaiah 53 tells us about him.

It says in verse two, he hath no former comeliness.

And we.

And when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

He is despised and rejected of men.

A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

And we hid, as it were, our faces from him.

He was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried out our sorrows.

Yet we did not esteem him.

Stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions.

He was bruised for our iniquities.

The chastisement of our peace was upon him.

And with his stripes we were healed all.

We, like sheep, have gone astray.

We have turned every one to his own way.

And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Why did Jesus leave heaven and come to earth as God incarnate, as God in flesh?

Why did Jesus go to the cross at Calvary?

Why did Jesus endure the shame and rejection and sorrow and the torment he endured on the cross at Calvary?

He did it for us.

We are His Rachel.

Listen, folks.

When you see Jesus doing that for you.

When you really see Jesus doing what he did for you.

And to the degree that you know that you are His Rachel, he'll become your Rachel.

When you see Jesus on the cross and you realize to the degree that he sees beauty in us.

That he loved us with such a great love, then you will begin to love him with the same great love.

He will become then beautiful to you.

He will become our Rachel.

To the degree that you begin to see his beauty.

He will become your beauty.

Listen.

You may be single here today and thinking to yourself, if only I was married, I wouldn't have any more problems with sexual temptation.

Yes, you would.

Listen.

Single or married, unless Jesus is your Rachel, unless he is the supreme love and desire of your heart.

The unfilled desires of your heart will lead you to yield to sexual temptation.

No matter whether you're single or whether you're happily married.

We see it happening all over America.

We see it happening in epidemic rates in our churches today.

But let me mention two other very practical things quickly that we see that Joseph does here.

That is also helpful.

Look at verse 10.

And it came to pass as she spake to Joseph day by day, that he hearkened not unto her, to lie with her or to be with her, to protect himself from her advances.

You know what he did?

He tried to avoid her.

He tried to stay away from the sexual temptation.

He.

He didn't stay near it.

He got away from it.

We need to use some common sense.

If something is sexually tempting to you, then you need to stay away from it.

If you cut on the television and all there are is sexual images that come up on there that tempts you sexually, cut it off.

If you're single, maybe what you need to do is say, you know, I'm going to set a boundary in my life where I'm not going to be with another single of the opposite sex by myself or going to make sure there's a chaperone with us.

We're never going to allow ourselves to be by ourselves because we don't trust ourselves.

That'd be a good boundary.

You mom and dad think that would be a good boundary?

I believe so.

Maybe as a married husband and wife, you say, you know, I'm not going to.

I'm going to make sure that I'm not somewhere with some other man or woman of the opposite sex where that we're alone.

I'm not going to go out and have lunch with another woman because I don't want to be tempted.

I'm going to put some boundaries around my life.

That's exactly what Joseph was doing.

He says, I'm going to make sure to stay away from that.

But look at the other thing we see in the scripture.

In verse 12, it says, and she caught him by his garment, saying, lie with me.

And he left his garment in her hand and fled and got him out.

You know what he did?

He ran.

He ran away from it.

That's exactly what it says in First Corinthians 6, where it says, flee fornication.

Listen, young lady, if you're in a relationship with a young man and he begins to come on to you, then run.

If you're married and somebody of the opposite sex begins to come on to you, then run.

Amen.

Flee fornication.

Good advice.

This is biblical advice.

So Joseph is able to resist sexual temptation by realizing what God made sex for.

You are his wife.

You are not my wife.

And by God being the supreme desire of his heart.

By heart power, not by willpower.

Now this brings us to the last temptation I want to close up with this morning.

Look at it with me.

And that is a temptation to despair.

The temptation to despair.

Now, I'm only going to take a few minutes and I'll close.

Folks, listen.

The temptation to despair is a great temptation that we all face, and especially if we're walking with God.

You think it would have been easy for Joseph?

Here's a young man who was living for God, who feared God, was devoted to God, and yet he did what was right, and he ended up in a prison cell.

He was falsely accused.

It would have been easy for him to despair.

It's very obvious, I think, that in that day and time to be accused of what Potiphar's wife accused him of was a capital offense.

Normally you'd be put to death.

Potiphar did not put him to death.

He put him in a prison.

That even shows me that Potiphar had a great respect for the integrity of Joseph, maybe even doubting that his wife was telling the truth.

Joseph did everything he could possibly do to please God with his life and to obey God.

It would have been easily easy for him to be tempted to despair and say, what's the use in serving God when I serve him?

Look where it got me.

I ended up in prison.

But Joseph didn't do that.

When you resisted all other temptation and life appears to go bad, it's easy to be tempted with despair.

But notice at the beginning of the chapter, as I said a while ago, it says in verses 2 and 3, the Lord was with Joseph.

And it's very interesting.

At the end of the chapter, in verse 21 and 23, after he's put in prison, it says, but the Lord was with Joseph.

We might say the bookends of this chapter have the statements on Joseph's life.

The Lord was with Joseph.

He was tempted.

He didn't yield to the sexual temptation.

He was put in prison falsely.

The Lord was with Joseph.

I like that.

Listen, folks, nothing can derail God's plan for your life.

Nothing.

God is sovereign.

We need to remember that.

The ultimate Joseph, Jesus lived a perfect life upon this earth.

He committed no sin.

He resisted every temptation that came his way.

He ended up being crucified on a cross.

But on the third day, resurrection time came and he was resurrected and he was alive.

And we can be alive because he is alive.

Listen, we don't see the book of our life written.

We see what we're going through right here and now we're reading about Joseph.

We see the whole story.

We can read over to the end of the book in chapter 50.

And we know what happened in Joseph's life.

We don't see that in our life, but God does.

But God was with him over here.

But God was with him over here.

And when it seems like everything's going bad in our life, when it seems like our life is out of control, God is in control and resurrection is coming for every one of us.

There's a resurrection coming.

There's a day that he is going to shout and we're going to go to be with him forever.

Listen to the words of William Coper, the great songwriter of yesteryear who often he often struggle with depression.

I love these words, he says.

God moves in mysterious way his wonders to perform.

He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace.

Behind a frowning providence there hides a smiling face.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take Ye clouds, ye so much dread Are big with mercy and shall break with blessings on your head.

Thank you for joining the Fortifying youg Family podcast, and if you feel encouraged by today's teaching, give us a follow so we can invite you back and share us on your socials so more marriages and families can be strengthened and fortified through the truths of God's Word.

Remember, fortifying your family starts with a strong belief in God's Word.