One of my favorite preachers is Dr. Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church (PCA) in New York City. Thursday I was listening to him discuss Potipher’s wife, Joseph, and what their encounter means in the present American context of sexual promiscuity.
Here is a quote from the message…
Freud said that spiritual longings are just frustrated sexual desires. God says that sexual desires are frustrated spiritual longings (Think on that! R.E.).
Here’s what you need in the deepest depths of your soul… an ultimately beautiful person to look at you and say, “I find you beautiful and I give myself completely to you. I give myself wholly to you.” In the Gospel you have that. Jesus, the ultimate beauty, says to you… “I’ve given myself to you!” That’s what you need.
I know there are single people here saying, “If I was only happily married, then I wouldn’t have any problem with sexual temptation.” That’s not true. I’m happily married, and I want you to know that the desire we have for an ultimate beauty… for ultimate love… is something that even the best married love cannot possibly satisfy.
Unless you have the spousal love of Jesus… an exestential present constant reality in your heart… this unfulfilled desire will spill out into sexual temptation, no matter how happily married you are.
But if you have Him (Jesus), if He is the great thing you desire, all the other desires in your heart will be properly ordered… they’ll know their place.