As the saying goes, “Charming beauty makes men fall.” It means that people’s lust will lower their alertness to crises and make them vulnerable. Actually, the part following the sentence is even more terrible. It says, “Unable to resist the temptation of beauty, men shall die.”
This article, the third in the series called “Pastor's Downfall” (see Episode I and Episode II ), depicts the fall of a church pastor who failed because of sexual immorality.
Rev. Enguang had no idea about the Christian faith when he was young until, one day in his college life, an evangelist shared with him the gospel.
He took a very contemptuous attitude towards Christianity at first, but finally, he decided to go to the fellowship to have a look after the evangelist’s repeated invitations. The intimate love among believers in the fellowship impressed him, and in this love, people could even relish simple food more than the delicacies outside.
A few months later, he became a Christian and made up his mind to devote his life to the Lord.
No longer an ordinary Christian, he became an amateur evangelist. Later, he even resigned from his job and went to study theology. After serving for several years, young Enguang was ordained as Rev. Enguang.
Rev. Enguang, such a young and handsome pastor who also had a sense of humor, fell in love with a single sister in the Lord, and then they got married. Things went smoothly, and their child was born about a year later.
One day, the wife of Enguang accidentally saw on his phone a record of his hotel stay at a local hotel. What Rev. Enguang told her at that time was that he would go away on a business trip to attend a study for a few days. She then found the hotel and the record of his hotel stay there. It showed that Rev. Enguang stayed in the hotel with another young woman for two days.
She chose to put this fact on the table and talk with Rev. Enguang, whose conscience was already uneasy because of what he had done. He then wept bitterly and admitted what he had done. It turned out that it was not the first time he had done such a thing. Things like that happened over a year ago.
Rev. Enguang said that this woman was also a believer, and he met her during his visit to another church to preach. After knowing about each other, this woman tried every means to get his contact information and then expressed her love for him. But Rev. Enguang rejected this young and beautiful woman, saying firmly that he had already gotten married and asking her to stop harassing him.
However, this woman still sent some messages and pictures to Rev. Enguang from time to time, but he kept her contact information instead of deleting it or blacklisting her.
One day, when the woman contacted Rev. Enguang again, he didn’t reject her. So they had sex in a local hotel that afternoon. Since then, Rev. Enguang often met this woman by attending meetings or going to serve in other places. Rev. Enguang’s wife never doubted these things out of her absolute trust in him.
As always a very gentle and tender woman, Rev. Enguang’s wife almost obeyed him on everything. However, this time, she firmly said no to his cheating on her. She chose to divorce. The beautiful and happy family was reduced to nothing.
The church also unanimously decided to dismiss Rev. Enguang, and he could not serve the church anymore.
Both in society and in the church, there are also more and more examples where women or sisters are unfaithful to their spouses. They often feel that their husbands don’t care enough about them and don’t have much time to keep them company. They also have much dissatisfaction with their husbands due to their lack of expression. We need to admit that we are weak and easy to fall before God and pray not to fall into any temptation; if we are already tempted, we must reject it like Joseph did to Potiphar's wife.
- Translated by Stephen Huang
