Every transgression of that which is right has consequences, but the costs sexual compromises are endless. Individuals, children, communities and nations pay a high price when personal sexual gratification trumps God’s law.

Let Jacob answer that question. When Shechem saw Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, he seized her and lay with her and humiliated her. He followed this dastardly act by seeking the permission from Jacob to marry her. After setting up Shechem and his father, the prince of their city, by promising that if they would circumcise all the men of the city Jacob’s family would agree to give Dinah to Shechem in marriage.

When the men of the city where at the peak of discomfort Simeon and Levi slaughtered them. When Jacob heard this he said, “You have brought trouble on me by making me stink to the inhabitants of the land…I shall be destroyed.” Only God’s intervention kept the house of Jacob from retaliation and retribution. (Genesis 34).

Let David answer that question. “And it came to pass, after the year was expired, at the time when kings go forth to battle” as the KJV so poetically puts it, “David tarried still at Jerusalem.” What follows is the tragic story of a godly man gone rouge. David determines that this woman is the wife of his commander, Uriah, but determines to take her anyway.

If Barbara Walters where to interview David subsequently and ask, “What has been the price of that one night stand?” he would no doubt give the following list.

It cost me my honor. It cost me engaging in conspiracy to commit murder. It cost me implementing my top general in the plot. It cost me the loss of the child. It cost me personal misery and embarrassment. It cost me the hot displeasure of God.

Let Amnon answer that question. He would answer, “After I raped my sister I ‘hated her with very great hatred, so that the hatred with which I hated her was greater than the love with which I had loved her (II Sam 13).’” He would go on to tell you that his sister lived her life out as a desolate woman and that his half-brother, Absalom, hated him and two years later murdered him.

Let Tiger Woods answer that question by observing the fall out in the market place.

Have you calculated the economic impact of Tiger Woods’ indiscretions? Accenture which contracted Woods for $7 million a year in endorsement fees pulled its deal because the firm built its pitch around the signature line “Be a Tiger.” That line was totally compromised by Wood’s extra-marital activities.

Gatorade put a similarly themed contract on hold, and now has officially cancelled that contract. AT&T severed relationships with Tiger impacting not only him but his foundation.

Every transgression of that which is right has consequences, but the costs sexual compromises are endless. Individuals, children, communities and nations pay a high price when personal sexual gratification trumps God’s law. The next time you are tempted remember to “NOT be a Tiger!”