What does the Bible say about infatuation?

Our natural desires can easily lead us into a wrong even dangerous position. Especially when we are young it is easy to become so convinced that we have found the right one that our judgement becomes blurred if not blind. There have been many who through an impetuous decision have been led into a sad relationship or led away from a path of devotion to the Lord and obedience to His Word.

How do we see someone else's commitment to the Lord? If we are involved in the Lord's work in whatever capacity our abilities allow, we will meet others who are like minded and this commitment to serve the Lord will flow into our marriage. Let us not deceive ourselves into thinking that an attraction to someone is sufficient and assume that other difficulties will be overcome after we are married.

How wily and deceitful is our heart! What slaves does an idol make of us! For although we may endeavour to escape the danger, yet we take means to secure the accomplishment of the thing that we desire, even while we flee from it. What a terrible thing it is to get away from God! This young person before she was entangled through this affection, would have shrunk with horror from the idea of such an action. When the heart has abandoned God, it dreads man more even than God. The God who loved A., and who was really beloved by her, must needs take her away from this world where she had not the courage to return to the right path. God took her to Himself. She died in peace, and through pure grace she triumphed. The Christian, whilst enjoying peace in his last moments, should always feel that it is God whose hand is there. What a solemn lesson for those who wish to depart from God and from His holy word, in order to satisfy an inclination which it would have been easy to overcome at first, but which, when cherished in the heart, becomes tyrannical and fatal! May God grant to the reader of these lines, and to all His children, to seek His presence day by day.

3 Love is used, I know, in human language for desire, in the best and most amiable sense. But though the same word be used in the sense of an inferior to a superior, or even an equal, this is in connection with a motive - is moved.

But love, as goodness itself, is blessed in itself and free in its actings, unless want or misery draw it out; but it has not a motive which characterises it by its object. This is always the case in desire, even when it is in no way evil, but has the character of affection. In ordinary desires it forms so far the character; money, power, pleasure, give their character to the man who seeks them; but though love be used as to them, it is evidently in a lower sense, and, where desires are, the desired object so far rules over us. Where love exists in a divinely-formed relationship, it is, or may be a just affection. I say, "may be," because it may run into a mere desire and be idolatry, and the relationship falsified. But when rightly in exercise, save as man in certain aspects represents God, it looks up, and characterises the person in the affection. It is conjugal, filial, and the like. A husband and a father in certain respects represent God in those relationships, and so far it partakes of what He is. But in the closest relationship where it is not this, it has the character I speak of: "Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."

Having warned us against lust, that would lead to sin against God and wrongs to one another, the Apostle exhorts us “to love one another”. Lust is the very opposite of love. Lust is the gratification of self, in seeking our own pleasure, even at the expense of others. Love is the effacement of self, in seeking the good of others. Knowing that the Christian company can only truly live in an atmosphere of love, the Apostle would have these young converts, and ourselves, appreciate the mighty power of love. Already he has recognised with joy their “labour of love” (1:3); reminded them of his love for them, and in this way brought them into a circle of love (2:17); prayed that the Lord would make them increase and abound in love one toward another and toward all (2:12); now, having heard of the good tidings of their love (3:6), he exhorts them to abound still more in love (4:10). In the last chapter of the Epistle the Apostle encourages the saints to put on the breastplate of faith and love and to esteem those who labour among them “very highly in love” (v. 8, 13). Love is the bond of perfectness, binding the saints together to exhibit Christ. Whatever other qualities they possess if love be lacking there will be no true setting forth of Christ, for the Lord’s own words are, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35).

She meets with the daughters of Jerusalem. She cannot hide the great longing of her heart. She naturally speaks first of the one thing that preoccupies her thoughts. She is so possessed with this one object of finding Him again that she does not even wait to exchange the customary greetings but says at once, "I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell Him, that I am sick of love." We sometimes say, "I am sick of this," meaning that we have enough of it, but that is not the meaning here. Her affections for Him and desire to be near Him are aroused now to such a point that it just makes her sick that she cannot contact Him nor know just where to find Him. She has no taste for anything else anymore; nothing can satisfy now but Himself. The daughters of Jerusalem naturally conclude from this that her beloved must be someone altogether exceptional to have drawn out her affections to such an extent as this, and so they ask, "What is thy beloved more than another beloved, O thou fairest among women? what is thy beloved more than another beloved, that thou dost so charge us?" They want to know more about Him.

Desire and love may be very exactly distinguished. Desire supposes the capacity to enjoy the thing we desire, that is to say, spiritual affections, which, as to their very nature, have God for their object. It supposes one to be born of Him, although Satan often, in an astonishing manner, imitates this class of feelings; but this state also supposes that one does not possess what one desires.

Love supposes that we have full possession of the object of our desires. It is no longer a want, but enjoyment, appreciation, delight in the object itself.

It is an immense thing to get a due sense in our souls of the difference in this respect between Christ and every other man. Here is One who never had a motive in His heart save the will of God — One whose meat and drink were to do that will. And the presentation of anything else to Him brought the most intense suffering, the deepest pain and anguish. Why? Because He was, as Man, absolutely perfect. Temptation to other men is pleasure. There is in us a kindredness to it; there is that in us which responds readily and gladly, which accepts, entertains — yea, even welcomes, the allurements of the enemy. Have you not found this out, my beloved brethren? Is it possible that you have not as yet discovered that there is an open door, the flesh in us, for all comers? Are there no pleasures in sin? And that too even though they be but for a season? Mark what the Spirit of God says as to lust. What is lust? It is a principle of the flesh that desires to have for itself; it matters not what it is. It is the desire to possess independent of God, and that independent will in the creature is the root and essence of sin.

When Potiphar's wife desired Joseph to lie with her and commit fornication, he replied, "How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" (Gen. 39:9) One act of fornication or adultery was great wickedness to Joseph and is such before God. It begins with lusting after another and committing adultery in the heart, (Matt. 5:28) and then the actual sin follows.

Adultery in the heart

The Lord Jesus now explains that before God it is not just the accomplished act that is sin, but the looking with lust on a woman, for this is adultery in the heart. The word “adultery” shows that either the man or both are married. Nevertheless, no unmarried believer should think that these words of the Lord have nothing to say to him.

The Lord is not speaking here about accidental, unintentional looks which can hardly be avoided, but about the conscious covetous looking: “Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her … ” The intentional look is therefore preceded by the sinful thought in the heart.