Where Satan Goes, the Clothes Come Off: Spiritism, Sexual Immorality, and the History of Nations
By Dr. Wayne C. Sedlak | Chokepoints Through Time
A Pattern of Evil That History Cannot Ignore
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Throughout history, civilizations have risen and fallen under the influence of ideas, religions, and moral practices that shaped their character. But there is a recurring pattern that deserves our attention, one that Scripture identifies and that the Christian historian must not ignore.
Where Satan gains influence, sexual immorality and idolatry, including spiritism, frequently become instruments of corruption.
I have often expressed this principle this way: Where the devil goes, the clothes come off.
Ironically, within marriage, Satan seeks precisely the opposite. The Apostle Paul warns in 1 Corinthians 7:5 that husbands and wives must not willfully defraud one another sexually, lest Satan exploit their behavior and tempt them for their incontinency.
The biblical contrast is striking. What God has ordained for the privacy and sanctity of marriage, sinful societies frequently drag into public life.
And what God has ordained as a blessing within marriage, Satan seeks to destroy.
The Ark of the Covenant: God’s Judgment Upon Philistia
Consider the capture of the Ark of the Covenant in 1 Samuel 4–6.
Israel had become a morally compromised nation. Eli’s sons, Hophni and Phinehas, corrupted the priesthood, dishonored the worship of God, and committed sexual immorality with women serving at the Tabernacle.
God brought judgment upon Israel. The priesthood suffered devastating losses, and the Ark was captured by the Philistines.
But the Philistines made a terrible mistake.
They treated the Ark as a trophy of conquest, placing it before their god Dagon.
What happened?
Dagon fell before the Ark of the Lord. When the idol was restored to its place, it fell again, this time with its head and hands broken off.
The Philistines subsequently suffered a devastating affliction described in Scripture as emerods which struck them in their genitalia (“private parts”). This was the Lord using His Law to expose their immoral sexuality, often accompanying their worship.
The lesson was unmistakable. The God of Israel would humble an arrogant people whose immorality was exposed and associated with the spiritism (idolatry) of Philistia.
The law of the Lord creates a testimony, even when His own people have failed to provide one. And that Testimony struck the Philistines.
Balaam: When Sexual Immorality Becomes a Weapon
The account of Balaam provides another example.
Balaam could not curse Israel directly. Yet Scripture identifies his counsel as instrumental in leading Israel into idolatry and sexual sin.
Numbers 25 records Israel’s involvement with the women of Moab and the worship of Baal-peor. Revelation 2:14 later identifies Balaam’s role in teaching Balak to place a stumbling block before God’s people.
Here was a calculated assault upon Israel’s covenant faithfulness.
The enemy could not defeat Israel by a prophetic curse, so corruption was introduced by counsels that sent prostitutes into Israel to seduce the men. That brought God’s wrath upon Israel.
This is an important principle of biblical history: A people may withstand an external enemy while surrendering themselves through internal moral corruption.
The Ancient World: Idolatry, Spiritism, and Sexual Practices
The ancient civilizations of Babylon, Canaan, Greece, and Rome provide numerous examples of religious systems that combined pagan worship with practices condemned by biblical morality.
Baal worship included fertility symbolism and, in certain contexts, practices associated with sexual immorality. The prophets repeatedly condemned Israel for abandoning Jehovah and pursuing the gods of surrounding nations.
Babylonian religion likewise incorporated divination, ritual practices, and the worship of numerous deities.
The Greek historian Herodotus described a Babylonian custom involving women and sexual activity associated with its temple. His account is an ancient testimony that explicitly states that women in coming of age (sexually) were to present themselves at the temple for use of men, by law. Thus, all women were humbled by the occultic idolatry of Babylonian customs.
Among the Greeks, public nudity became an established feature of athletic culture. Plato’s Republic, Book V, even endorses women participating in physical training in the nude.
Greek athletics also existed within a religious civilization devoted to numerous gods and by the gods, such athletes were to compete in the nude… for cultic purposes.
The Bible does not require us to admire a civilization merely because it produced impressive architecture, philosophy, military achievements, or political institutions.
We must also examine its gods, its ethics, and its treatment of the family. That said, patterns of nudity show up regularly in civilization after civilization alongside their occultic practices.
From Ancient Greece to the Hellfire Clubs of Britain
The connection between religious irreverence and sexual libertinism was not confined to antiquity.
Eighteenth-century Britain provides a particularly revealing example.
Sir Francis Dashwood, a prominent politician and Chancellor of the Exchequer, established the notorious Medmenham Society, commonly associated with the Hellfire Clubs.
Its gatherings employed pagan imagery, religious cultic parody, and a reputation for sexual libertinism.
John Montagu, the Fourth Earl of Sandwich, was also associated with this circle. He subsequently served as First Lord of the Admiralty during Britain’s struggle against the American colonies.
John Wilkes, another political figure connected with the Hellfire Club milieu, became known for both his scandalous personal conduct and his support of American colonial liberties.
These examples demonstrate that political power, moral character, and religious convictions cannot be neatly separated.
Yet we must also distinguish between documented conduct, contemporary accusations, and the theological conclusions we draw from them.
Benjamin Franklin and the Question of National Character
Benjamin Franklin moved within the intellectual and political world of eighteenth-century Britain.
His personal life was complicated, and his religious convictions developed over time.
But one of the most remarkable moments in his public career occurred during the Constitutional Convention of 1787.
As the delegates struggled with profound disagreements, Franklin reminded them of the prayers offered during the Revolutionary War and proposed that the Convention seek divine assistance.
His appeal reflected an awareness that human wisdom alone was insufficient for the task before them. America was decidedly different from the world and our Founders and the common folk were often quoted as referring to the War of Independence as a battle against immoral powers under the direction of Satan.
America’s founders were not all equally orthodox in their religious beliefs. Nevertheless, biblical ideas, Christian institutions, and appeals to Providence exercised a profound influence upon colonial American society. And the resultant Christian consensus throughout America provided a Light to the nations, drawing people throughout the world to our land.
The Church Must Recover Its Responsibility
The greatest tragedy is not simply that societies embrace immorality.
It is that churches may cease to confront it.
Too often, the modern pulpit retreats into a Christianity concerned exclusively with private devotion while abandoning the duty to instruct society.
Personal piety is essential. But withdrawal from the responsibilities of Christian testimony is another matter entirely.
In Ezekiel 3, the prophet receives a solemn warning concerning his responsibility to warn the wicked.
The principle deserves serious consideration today.
The Church is not commissioned merely to observe the decline of civilization. It must teach the whole Counsel of God, expose wickedness, call sinners to repentance, and proclaim the righteousness of Christ.
And there is another important lesson.
In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul commands the Church to exercise discipline against a man involved in grievous sexual sin. In 2 Corinthians 2, Paul also commands forgiveness and restoration toward that same repentant offender. If not willing to forgive a contrite, repentant sinner, the apostle warns us all that Satan can gain jurisdiction over us, even whole churches.
The Church must never confuse faithfulness with cruelty, nor forgiveness with indifference toward sin.
Satan exploits both moral corruption and the refusal to forgive genuine repentance.
Where Christianity Goes, Lives Must Change
The transforming power of Christianity is not merely a change in outward appearance.
It is a change of heart.
Jeremiah foretold the day when God would write His law upon the hearts of His people. Hebrews 8 declares the fulfillment of that covenant promise.
The Christian faith confronts idolatry, calls for repentance, restores the proper dignity of marriage, and establishes a moral responsibility extending beyond the individual to the family, the Church, and society. it also confronts the sexuality it finds therein…if abused in immoral ways.
The Bible provides the Christian historian with a framework for interpreting the moral struggles of nations.
We must not ignore that framework simply because modern scholarship prefers to treat religion as an isolated cultural phenomenon.
History is more than the movement of armies, the decisions of kings, or the accumulation of wealth.
It is also the history of the human heart.
And the human heart is never morally neutral.
A Final Warning
Where Satan gains influence, he seeks to corrupt what God has established. One such pattern is sexual immorality, public nudity, and sexual defrauding within marriage.
He attacks worship. He attacks marriage. He attacks the family. He attacks the moral foundations of civilization. And sexual immorality is a powerful enticement for such corruptions.
But the Gospel of Jesus Christ calls men and nations to repentance.
The responsibility of the Church is not to remain silent while these foundations are destroyed. Tragically, the churches avoid a confrontation with immoral sexual practices, fearing humiliation, backlash and the corruptions of men.
It is to testify.
It is to instruct.
And it is to call men back to the righteousness of God.
May God grant His Church the courage to recognize the patterns of evil, the wisdom to interpret history through Scripture, and the faithfulness to stand against corruption in our own generation.
Dr. Wayne C. Sedlak
Chokepoints Through Time | Vision Viewpoint Network
Scripture references: 1 Samuel 2:22; 1 Samuel 4–6; Numbers 25; Numbers 31:16; 1 Corinthians 5; 1 Corinthians 7:5; 2 Corinthians 2:5–11; Jeremiah 31:33; Ezekiel 3:17–21; Hebrews 8; Revelation 2:14.
Historical references: Herodotus, Histories, Book I; Plato, Republic, Book V; Benjamin Franklin’s speech to the Constitutional Convention, June 28, 1787.
