A man lays down a $10,000 chip on the blackjack table. He loses. He puts down another. Gone.

Two women with hardly any clothes on dance around poles outside the Pussycat Club.  Men gather around trying to get a closer look or even a photo. They whistle and shout. The women pretend not to care that they have been minimized to nothing more than the object of men’s perverted desires. All in another day’s work. 

Outside, people try to hand passersby a card. On it is a photo of a naked call-girl. And phone number.

I had to go to Las Vegas earlier this week to attend a conference for my job. Although the conference was beneficial, the city was not. Sin city. Check. The city that never sleeps. Check.

Vegas is the most vile and disgusting place I’ve ever been. It’s a city of excess. Of greed. Of sex. A place where it’s not only OK to act on the desires of your flesh, it’s encouraged.

At a time when our economy is in one of the worst recessions of history, we’re encouraged to throw our money away in big, shiny slot machines. At a time when STDs and abortions have become a fact of life, we’re encouraged to have sex with strangers. At a time when families are being ripped apart by divorce because people don’t take their marriage vows seriously, we’re encouraged to get hitched in some cheap, one-stop wedding chapel.

God’s instructions to us are simple. We are to love him with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind, and we are to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-39). We are to abstain from every kind of evil (1 Thessalonians 5:22). We are to throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus (Hebrews 12:1-3).

Think about what our world would look like if people actually followed God’s instructions. Our economy wouldn’t be where it is today because, without greed, people wouldn’t spend beyond their means and lending institutions wouldn’t extend too much credit. If sex only happened between one man and one woman in a committed marriage as God intended it, innocent lives wouldn’t be murdered through abortion and STDs wouldn’t be running rampant. If people followed through on the promises they make to God and to their spouse on their wedding day, families wouldn’t be broken.

God wants what’s best for us. The desires that Vegas satisfies are meant to harm us. No wonder what happens in Vegas stays there.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11