Sex Gone Wild!
Sex Gone Wild! When Sex Goes Bad.
Sexual Immorality. I still find it amazing that when my Podcast show has the word sex in it that the ratings go through the roof. Society is so interested in anything that relates to sex. Even in the church, people are just curious about it and want to know more. That’s why there are so many undercover sex addicts in the church.
We find in studying the New Testament, the word most often translated is porneia it means “sexual immorality.” Porneia is also translated as “whoredom,” “fornication,” and “idolatry.” Its meaning is “a surrendering of sexual purity,” primarily used of premarital sexual relations. This Greek word Porneia is where we get the English word pornography, it’s from the concept of “selling off.” So, in actuality, sexual immorality is the “selling off” of sexual purity that involves any type of sexual expression outside the boundaries of a Biblical defined marriage relationship. Jesus addressed this in Matthew 19:4–5 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?.
In the context of 1 Corinthians 6:18, the connection between sexual immorality and idolatry is best understood when Paul writes, “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.” If we would continue reading we would discover that our bodies, as believers, are the “temple of the Holy Spirit” look at 1 Corinthians 6:19–20 Paul says, “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
The reason God was so upset with those in the church following after pagan idol worship is because it often involved perverse and immoral sexual acts performed in the temple of a false god. We are imitating pagan worship by profaning God’s holy temple with acts He calls detestable when we use our physical bodies for immoral purposes (1 Corinthians 6:9–11 “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites,10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”)
Warnings against impurity is often coupled with the prohibitions against sexual immorality in the Bible (Romans 1:24 “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,”; Galatians 5:19 “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality,”; Ephesians 4:19 “They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.”). There is a Greek word that means “defiled, foul, ceremonially unfit” and it’s called, “akatharsia” (a-kartha-sia). In other words, don’t even try to enter into the presence of God, because your actions of sexual immorality render you unfit. None of us can come into the presence of God if we persist in unrepentant impurity and immorality. We have to come to Him with a repentant heart, this is the only way to see God. Jesus said in Matthew 5:8, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” and in Psalm 24:3–4 “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? 4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully”). How can we maintain a healthy intimacy with God when our bodies and souls are given over to impurities of any kind? We can’t, it is impossible.
I mention in another in one of Podcast that “sexuality is God’s design and He is the only one that can define the parameters for its use.” I also made mention that “sex was created to be enjoyed between one man and one woman who are in a covenant marriage” and not to be expressed outside of one’s marriage, the Bible is very clear on this (Matthew 19:6 “So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate”). But life happens right? We slip and fall. And we find ourselves in the bed of another that is not our spouse. In my latest book entitled, “If He Won’t, Jesus Will” I share how there is a cure for that, but you will just have to pick that book up when it comes out to know what that cure is. But you can pick a copy of my newest book Pathway to Christ.
The best gift God gave to human beings is sexuality, it is His sacred wedding gift. You can abuse His gift, and what constitutes abuse is any expression of sexuality outside the parameters of God’s design. Abuse is the use of people or things in ways they were not designed to be used. This is called sin in the Bible. Premarital sex, adultery, homosexual relations, fornication, and pornography, are all outside God’s design, which makes them all sin. There is no distinction between sins. You can’t point finger at those having sex outside the natural order of God and nature as any worse than having sex with someone else’s spouse. It’s all wrong. Even in the laws of nature it’s wrong for two male animals to try and mate, it just won’t happen. That’s how the devil has tricked and deceived man’s mind. Just like he has tricked and deceived those married to step outside of their marriage.
To be continued...
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