Sexual Survival in an Age of Temptation Part 1 & 2, Complete Edition

Sexual Survival in an Age of Temptation Part 1 & 2, Complete Edition

By John MacArthur

We return in our study this morning to Paul's letter to the church at Thessalonica. And I would encourage you to look with me at this wonderful passage in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. This morning we will embark upon an examination of verses 3 through 8. And the subject at hand is the matter of sexual immorality...sexual sin.

Through the years I have preached many many times on 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verses 3 through 8. In fact, years ago when I preached frequently to high‑school students, college students, it seemed as though there was the continual need to speak on this subject. That need has not lessened, it has increased. But as often as I have preached on this passage elsewhere, I have never preached on this passage here, that being because we've never before studied 1 Thessalonians in the 20 plus years of ministry here. So I come to a familiar text to me, if not a familiar text to you.

And wanting to make it as poignant and direct as possible, I thought, "Well perhaps if I'm going to speak from the Word of God on this matter of sexual sin, I ought to establish the problem of sexual sin in our society and let the people know something of what is going on and then show how contrary to that the Word of God is." And so I began to rummage through my files looking up articles and newspaper clippings, reviews and various and sundry things that I have collected through the years regarding the sexual revolution. And it didn't take me long, in fact it was a relatively brief exercise in going through, to say to myself that having studied this great lofty glorious magnificent majestic passage, having come to grips with what it means and what it says and what level of purity God calls us to, to drag you all through the garbage of what is going on in our society would in my judgment be counterproductive. So I basically took most of that stuff and threw it in the waste basket...not particularly wanting even to be exposed to it again myself.

It should be patently obvious to all of us that we live in a sex‑mad culture, that we live in a culture that is indulging itself in every conceivable and inconceivable sexual activity. In fact, it probably would tax your imagination and mine beyond its ability to conceive of a more sexually perverted or immoral society than the one in which we live. Not only is sexual sin tolerated in any form by any one with anyone else any time, any place in any way, but more than just being tolerated it is advocated, it is promoted, it is marketed through every media means possible. For me to take your valuable time and mine and to clutter your mind and mine with a cataloging or a chronicling of vices either by way of illustration or statistics would be to beg the point. It would be like taking ice to Eskimos. You really don't need that.

It is apparent that all of us have been living in a sexual revolution of sorts where it is not uncommon today to find people who call themselves Christians also engaging in every imaginable and unimaginable sexual vice. From what I hear from our pastoral staff, 75 percent of the Christian young people who come to our staff for premarital counseling have already engaged in sexual intercourse. That's in the church, that's in this church. It is apparent that we are living in a sexual revolution. I don't think any of us needs to be informed on that any more than we already are. We live in a culture where there are absolutely no standards or rules about that kind of behavior.

And the freedom of sexual expression is so demanded that it has become the god that in some ways is ruling over all the other gods in our culture. To put that into an illustrated form, we want to allow people sexual freedom at any cost even if it means they have to kill the product of that sexual union, right? Therefore the sexual fulfillment itself is more important than life. We want our sexual freedom even if it means murder of the victim of that freedom.

Looking over at the homosexual community, they want their freedom even if it means the whole population dies of AIDS. You see, we've come to the point where we so totally are consumed with sexual behavior that we literally live with unspeakable, unthinkable consequences.

I suppose in some sense, Hugh Hefner has been the guru from the start of this rampant pornographic life style. He's the one who really philosophically articulated it. Very early in his career as a panderer of vice, which he has done for all these years, he wrote these words which I found quoted in a Christian magazine, by the way, just so you don't think I read his magazine. This is what he said, quote: "Sex is a function of the body, a drive which man shares with animals like eating, drinking, and sleeping. It is a physical demand that must be satisfied. If you don't satisfy it you will have all sorts of neuroses and repression psychoses, sex is here to stay. Let's forget the prudery that makes us hide from it. Throw away those inhibitions, find a girl who is like‑minded and let yourself go," end quote.

Now that is the philosophy of the sexual revolution. There are several components to it. First of all, sex is simply an animal function. It's no different than eating, drinking or sleeping. Secondly, it is a physical demand that must be satisfied or you will wind up in a psychiatric office cause if you don't satisfy it you're going to have all kinds of repressed problems. Thirdly, there are some prudes who would want you not to do that, you've got to ignore them, find a girl who feels the same way and do it.

Now we live in that society today. Its reduced itself to bumper stickers, "Do it in the dirt...Do it here," and the innuendo of all of those kinds of things is sexual. The underlying philosophy of our time is of absolute sexual freedom to express yourself in any way you want, any time with any one under any circumstances. The extent of this is absolutely unimaginable and unthinkable.

We might ask ourselves, "Has there ever been a society worse than this?" May I be so bold as to answer the question by saying yes...yes. Hugh Hefner could have sold his same philosophy in Thessalonica. Hugh Hefner could have sold his same philosophy in Corinth. He could have sold it to Greek culture in the Roman world. And somebody with another name did or somebodies with a lot of other names did because in the Roman world at the time that Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians there was a sexual revolution which if anything surpasses the one we are now living through. They had experienced a sexual revolution which included homosexuality, which included pedophilia‑‑sex with little boys, homosexual sex with little boys‑‑which included effeminate transvestism, men dressing up like women, which included every form of fornication and sexual perversion. It was true in the Roman world. And unlike today there wasn't any preliminary Christian culture to act as a sort of a small barrier along the way. Consequently they had their venereal epidemics as we do and all the rest of the things that are attendant upon a fornicating society.

Now the Greek language has an immense capacity to articulate because of the vastness of its vocabulary and the specificity of its words. So I pulled out a few of the Greek words that would help you get a feeling for the kind of culture to which Paul writes here. The Greek language is amply capable of cataloging all kinds of deviant sexual sins and there are varying words that make that very clear.

For example, this quick survey will help. And I'm only dealing with the heterosexual sins at this point. The first word to look at is porne...porne literally means the purchasable one, the purchasable one, the one you buy, the harlot, the whore, the prostitute. They had that word because they had that. In the society in which Paul lived and to which he penned this letter and in which he founded churches under the power of the Holy Spirit, there was prostitution. It was apparently legal, rampant.

I just had the experience of, a few weeks ago, being in the city of Amsterdam. When we first arrived in Amsterdam we were taken to a little village called Markum(?) outside of Amsterdam in Holland. Holland is a fascinating country. Sixty percent of it reclaimed from the sea and so you have all these dikes all over the place. And we were driving along one of these dikes and we came to the little village of Markum, quaint cute little fishing village built right on the Baltic Sea, or the North Sea. All the buildings painted green and all of them with red trim, this cute little village. And someone said to me, "This is a Calvinistic village. Everybody here is a Calvinist." They still dress in their ancient costume. A man came clonking along the cobblestones with wooden shoes, black stockings and little puffy pants and a funny little shirt and a hat on his head. And a lady came along with a sort of an apron with all that Dutch trapping all over it, and these are very serious people. In fact, we were told that they would be very serious in demeanor, very serious in attitude because they're all Calvinists and the guide said everybody knows that Calvinists are very sad and miserable people.

And that had been a great part of the influence of Dutch past. Very religious. We then went in to Amsterdam to find an absolutely opposite culture. Went in to the city square of Amsterdam, there are about three or four thousand teen agers and college kids milling around the city square, drinking beer, consuming alcoholic beverages, taking cocaine, smoking marijuana and all of that. Why were they gathered there? Because adjacent to the city square in the beautiful city of Amsterdam is the red‑ light district where prostitution is legalized and subsidized by the government. The red‑light district where literally there are red lights all over the place and women hanging out the windows plying their trade to people passing along the streets. It has become the mecca of young people in Europe because free sex reigns there.

Well they had that same kind...and by the way, it was an appalling experience, an experience that makes you want to do one thing and that's leave and get out. They had that in Thessalonica. They had a sort of a free sex mentality because prostitution was legal. Women could be bought.

A second word to keep in mind in the Greek language is a form of the first word, porneuan(?) and it sums up the filthy business of making a living by prostitution. It encompasses the prostitution, the pimping, the whole thing that goes on with that entire business. So they not only had the individual woman who could be bought, who sold herself, but they had the big business, the stable, if you will, of prostitutes.

Then there's the Greek word puloke(?), puloke means a concubine. A concubine was a slave whose primary function was to fulfill sexual desire. Literally you purchased the concubine, you added her to your fold of concubines and you used her for sexual pleasure. That too was legal, that too was rampant in the Roman world. So there was the one‑time woman you purchased and the whole business of prostitution and then there was the long‑ term purchased woman, the concubine, the slave for sexual pleasure.

And then there was another word, eteri(?), a plural form, which means mistresses. This was different than the concubine, you didn't buy this woman, this was a friend. And the mistress was a friend for intellectual stimulation and sexual fulfillment. Typically men and women had these kinds of friends outside their marriage. By the way, your wife was primarily to take care of the house, cook the meals, keep the clothes clean and watch the children. The wife was not primarily the sexual partner. Sexual fulfillment was found in the one‑time enterprise of a prostitute, the long‑term responsibility of a concubine or the now‑and‑then relationship to this friend who was both an intellectual friend as well as a sexual partner.

And then there was moichos, another word. And moichos refers to the adulterer or the adulteress. You could have a sexual relationship with a prostitute on an occasional situation which you purchased, you could own a concubine or more concubines for sexual pleasure, you could have mistresses or reversing the situation, mistresses would have men for every man who commits sexual sin there is a partner obviously. And this was a friend you didn't buy, this was sort of a mutual agreement, sort of casual sex with someone you knew very well. And then there was moichos, that was adulterer or adulteress, that was having sex with somebody else's spouse. And it was all going on...all of it, filling up the Thessalonian as well as the Corinthian as well as the whole Roman culture.

Unmarried young men were also allowed to have intercourse with mistresses. They were encouraged to have intercourse with mistresses but those mistresses could not be daughters of families that had full citizenship in the Roman Empire, those were considered significant families and these young men were not to touch those girls. But they could engage themselves with prostitutes and they could engage themselves with mistresses whose parents were not full citizens of the Roman Empire.

Now you could go one step beyond that and add temple prostitutes. The Babylonian cultic mystery religions that filtered all the way down into the time of the Apostle Paul and were the mythological religions of that time advocated prostitution. Why? Because they taught that if you have relationships with a priestess, prostitute, you are communing with the deity she represents. The way to get in touch with the deity is by a sexual liaison with a priestess. The temple in Corinth, for example, had three thousand temple prostitutes to get people in contact with the deity. By the way, a very popular and convenient form of religion. But you can see by that that it was not only not illegal, it was condoned. Today, at least in America, religious prostitution is still a crime.

But they had it all. Now you add to that homosexuality, pedophilia, whatever other kinds of deviant things were going on and that was the culture in which Paul lived and to which he wrote. If you think it's bad today, you probably would have found it worse then. The difference would have been media. You wouldn't have to have been exposed to it sort of involuntarily to the degree that you do today, to the point now where young people think nothing wrong with it at all, even going so far as some Christian couples who think that because they're engaged they can engage in anything they choose. We have been so desensitized to this sin but so had they in Paul's day.

Sexual sin then was common. Sexual sin was tolerated. Sexual sin was customary just as today and even more so. Now why is that important? It's important because of this, Paul went in to Thessalonica with his two friends Timothy and Silas. They went there to preach the gospel. They went there to found a church. In founding that church they were rescuing people out of this pornographic culture. Obviously these people had lived a pagan life style. They had a former religion in which they engaged in sexual intercourse with temple prostitutes. They probably were involved with concubinage, they no doubt had their eteri, their mistresses. They perhaps had their harlots and their whores.

And now all of a sudden they come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. And there's this little island of salvation in a sea of paganism. And Paul is very concerned about them because he knows that old habits act as a very strong temptation to the new life. You don't forget those habits easily if at all. And the Apostle knew that this relatively new group of Christians only months old in the Lord, he only preached three Sabbaths in the synagogue, a few weeks after that to the Gentiles and then he's gone a few months and he writes back 1 Thessalonians. It's only a few months since they were saved. He knows the pull of those old habits and he knows the push of that wicked culture is going to make this a major problem.

And so, finally he comes to chapter 4 which is his real purpose in writing. The first three chapters he's just been defending his own integrity and the integrity of his ministry and affirming the integrity of the church. It's all been a discussion about himself, his ministry and the church. It's all foundation. Now here's what he really wants to talk about. He wants to reiterate the commands of Christian living. He wants them to walk as they ought to walk so to please God. He wants them to excel still more and keep the commandments he gave them by the authority of the Lord Jesus. And he starts off in verse 3 all the way to the end of chapter 5 with those commands. Now this is review. He says, "You know what commandments we gave you." Verse 1, "You already received the instruction. You know what we've said." This is only a reminder. Verse 6 at the end, "We told you before and solemnly warned you."

Now it's a good thing to note here, folks, Paul went in, preached the gospel, led these people to Christ and then believe me, he fulfilled the great commission which is not only to go and not only to baptize, that is to get them saved, but to teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, Matthew 20:20 says. So he gave them principles of holy living. But he's been gone a few months. He knows the pull and the push, the pull of old habits, the push of a godless sexually deviated culture. And he is concerned and he wants to share this with them. If he had his choice he would go and tell them face to face, right? Look back in chapter 2:17 and 18, he says he was hindered, he couldn't get there, so he has to write. So starting in chapter 2 he unfolds these exhortations. Number one on the list is a call to sexual purity, that is THE first issue. Why? Because the pagan society was so wretched, that was the compelling sin. Why do you think when the Apostle Paul writes about the standards for leadership in the church he starts with being above reproach, being a one‑woman man? Because that was the dominating cultural milieu, sexual deviation. It's just like today...just like today.

Paul then is building on what he already told them. And he's going to clarify it and he's going to drive it home. The first subject on the list, sexual sin. Why? Major problem, major issue. The desire is so strong, the temptation is so compelling, the past was so sinful, the society was so corrupt. Paul knows this is a major issue. By the way, no shame was attached to premarital intercourse, no shame was attached to extramarital intercourse. This had been their life style. The Thessalonian culture was famous for sexual vice.

But Paul says, "In spite of cultural habits, in spite of your old patterns, the Lord does not tolerate sexual sin." The church can't live like the world. It doesn't matter how the world lives. Just because the world sinks deeper and deeper and deeper into the muck, doesn't mean we sink with it. Just because they lower their standards lower and lower and lower and lower doesn't mean we lower ours a little bit. This is not a relative morality, this is an absolute standard. It doesn't change. It doesn't fluctuate. All forms of sexual gratification may be indulged in by a society but not the church...not Christians.

Now you might ask, "Well were there some specific people or groups or specific sins that the Thessalonians were committing?" Paul doesn't mention any, not like 1 Corinthians where he writes about the same issue and mentions one guy who was having a sexual relationship with his father's wife, or his step‑mother. We don't know of any particulars but we can be very sure that because this is at the top of his list of exhortations as he begins the exhortative section that this was the major problem. And I would believe that it is preventative rather than some specific rebuke or he would have perhaps zeroed in on someone.

Now we come to the passage. As we come to it I'm going to ask three questions and these three questions will give us a very clear understanding of this issue...just three simple questions. Question number one, what? Question number two, how? Question number three, why?

Question number one, what does God require? Question number two, how can I fulfill it? Question number three, why should I? Okay? That's verses 3 to 8. That will take us right through...those questions will unfold the deep and direct powerful meaning of this text. Question number one, for this morning, two and three for next week.

Question number one, what does God require in this area of sexual behavior? Verse 3, "For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that is that you abstain from sexual immorality." Pretty clear, isn't it? Just to make sure nobody finds an escape hatch here, let's look more closely at it. "For this is the will of God." It always amazes me how many people are stumbling around trying to find the will of God. You notice that? "For this is the will of God. You want to walk and please God? You want to excel still more? You want to do what God wants you to do? Well then this is it. The word "for" simply introduces the explanation of how to excel more, how to walk right, how to please God...do His commandments. And since all Christians have holy longings, since all Christians have holy aspirations, since all Christians to some degree want to do what's right, because that's what the new nature does...then Paul assumes his readers are desirous of doing God's will and all they need to know is what it is. He assumes Romans 7 that you're going to desire to do what's right even though we don't always do it. So he says this is the will of God.

This is not my opinion. This is not some human system. This is God's will. And again I say, I am constantly amazed at how many people struggle to know God's will. I really do believe that most of the problems, well I could say it simply, all of the problems that people have are strictly a result of not doing God's will. Would you agree to that? Yeah, I mean if you're in the middle of God's will, that's not a problem. You may have trouble in this world but you'll be riding across the top of it. If people would just know God's will it would be the elimination of all the difficulties in life, not by all positive circumstances but by all positive attitudes under the grace of Christ.

Now what is God's will? I can give it to you very quickly. God's will is that you be saved. And you've heard me say this before. James 1:18, "By His will He begot you." By His will He begot you. God wants you to be saved. Secondly, He wants you to sacrifice. What do you mean by that? "To offer your body as a living...what?...sacrifice which is holy and acceptable and is the will of God." God wants you to yield up yourself to Him. He wants you to be saved and He wants you to make the sacrifice of yourself.

He wants you to be Spirit‑controlled. "Don't be unwise but understanding what the will of the Lord is, be not drunk with wine but be filled with the Spirit." God's will is that you be Spirit‑controlled. God's will is that you be saved. God's will is that you make the sacrifice of your body continually to Christ. God's will is that you be Spirit‑controlled.

God's will also is that you be satisfied. First Thessalonians 5:18 says, "In everything give thanks for this is the will of God concerning you." Be satisfied. God's will is that you be satisfied. God's will is that you be submissive. First Peter says, "Submit yourselves to all those in authority." That's the will of God. God's will is that you suffer. First Peter 3:17, "It is the will of God that you suffer a while for the cause of the gospel." God's will is that you supplicate, or pray. First John 5:14 and 15, all of that is God's will.

Now you show me a person who is saved, continually yielding over their body as a living sacrifice, Spirit‑controlled, satisfied, submissive, suffering for the sake of the gospel, supplicating or taking their needs to the Lord according to His will knowing He hears and will answer and I'll show you a person who is victorious, right? That's not the kind of person who needs to go to the Christian therapist.

But there's one other thing God's will...is God's will and it sort of gobbles up all the rest, it's right here. This is the will of God, your sanctification. What do you mean by that? What do you mean sanctification? The word hagiosmos means separate, apart, set apart, holy. It simply means this, to be set apart from sin to God. God's will is that you be set apart from sin to God. Very simple concept. Here he says this is God's will, your being set apart unto God. Now that's a process, the process of becoming holy. That's God's will. He wants you to become holy, this is His will.

By the way, that little phrase "this is the will of God your sanctification" could really be the sort of umbrella to cover the rest of the book cause every other principle that he gives and every other exhortation is an element of sanctification. So there's a sense in which the first part of verse 3 sort of just covers it all. God's will is that you be set apart unto Him in a process of becoming holy from sin toward God and here's how...and all the rest of the whole book will tell you how. But principle number one, look at it, verse 3, that you abstain from sexual immorality. That's the first principle of a sanctified life. If you're not covering this principle in your life, the rest in some ways is a moot point. This is where we start. We start with a holy life.

Back in chapter 3 verse 13, what was Paul's great prayer? That your hearts would be unblamable in holiness before God. God wants you holy. God wants you separated. God wants you set apart from sin to Him. Separation from all that is wicked, all that is filthy, all that is evil, all that is impure, all that is fleshly, all that is sinful. That's the general concept. That's the general introduction to the whole section.

You see, when you were saved you were saved unto sanctification. Paul says in Romans 6:19 and Romans 6:22, "You used to be the slaves of sin," then he says, "you're now the slaves of righteousness which results in sanctification." The process of becoming holy is a direct result of salvation. You were saved and the process of becoming holy began and step one, abstain from immorality. Simple.

What does that mean? Stay away from sex sin. Stay away from sexual sin. Now young people always want to say, "How far away? How far away do I have to stay?" Which means, "How far can I go and still be okay. Is it okay, you know, to hold hands and hug each other? Is it okay to kiss? Is it okay to touch each other? Is it okay to go beyond that as long you don't do the very act? What can I do? Is it okay if we're engaged? Is it okay if we've decided that we're really the ones and somewhere down the road we are going to get married? How far can I go?"

That isn't even the right question. That question betrays a sinful heart. The question isn't how far can I go and get away with it, the question is how can I be sanctified, separated from sin and holy unto God, that's the question...that's the question. How can I conduct my physical relationships so that I am holy which means separated from sin? And as you begin to play with the emotions that God has designed to lead to consummation and intercourse, you begin to allow your mind to move in to the area of thinking about that, you are in sin because if a man in his mind commits adultery, God's eyes, he's committed it, right? If woman commits it in the mind, it's been committed before God because He sees the mind.

You have to stop short of the impure thought, the impure motive, the lustful passion. And we'll say more about that next week, show you how passion works. The question isn't how far can I go and still be okay, the question is how can I be holy, how can I be utterly separated from sin, how can I be totally pure, completely holy unto God, pleasing Him, excelling still more? How can I excel still more? How can I be more excellent? Not how can I drift a little bit the other way and just get on the edge?

As I said, every imaginable and every unimaginable form of sexual vice was running loose in the society in Thessalonica as it is in ours and there were Christians who were weak just as there are Christians today who are weak. There were Christians who were sort of witless and ignorance about things and a bit naive, maybe willfully. There were Christians who were shallow. There were some who because of former life style or because of exposure to pornographic experiences had had their lusts pandered and pandered and pandered like people who go to the movies all the time or read dirty magazines or listen to that kind of music who literally fuel the fire of their own lusts. They had them then just like there are people today like that. And they would be strongly pulled toward sexual sin. It would have been easy for them to fall into it and that was Paul's concern.

Sometimes some of us think, "Well I don't have those pulls, I didn't have an adulterous life before I was converted. I didn't fornicate before I was converted, or I got married as a virgin and I don't go to those kind of movies." But I'll tell you right now, you live in a society that is lowering and lowering and lowering and lowering the resistance continuously by overexposing us to all of this and laughing at it and treating it as triviality so that we no longer think anything of it. We can see a television show where a prostitute is a comedic character and we can laugh about that because our senses have been so totally dulled to that and as that gets lowered and lowered and lowered and lowered even though we haven't had a wide exposure to that kind of behavior, we can become more susceptible to that kind of a temptation because of our resistance being broken down.

Paul knew that reality. And so he makes a very simple direct command. It is not complicated at all. He says, "Abstain from immorality." What's the word abstain mean? I've got to tell you what it means. Apechomai, complete abstinence, stay away from it all together. You say, "What is sexual immorality?" Any act that violates the principles of God's Word, any thought that violates the principle of God's Word leading to that act. Whatever relationship you have with someone in the opposite sex other than your spouse, it had better not include any act or thought designed to culminate in sexual intercourse. I don't care whether you're engaged to them, or whether you're committed, or whatever that might mean, God says total abstinence.

What is immorality? Immorality is the word porneia. It simply means illicit sexual behavior. It's a broad word. It covers all form of sexual sin. Anything other than a monogamous relationship in a marriage, anything other than husband and wife, any other sexual relationship to any degree is pornographic by God's standard. Now God isn't down on sex. Hebrews 13...by the way, God invented it to start with for man's pleasure...it even says in the Old Testament...some people say, "Well it's just for procreation, it's just for having children." No, because even the Old Testament talks about one of the patriarchs sporting with his wife. Now I'm not going to go in to a Hebrew definition of sporting, you can use your imagination. But the idea was it was for pure pleasure.

Now you come to Hebrews 13, in Hebrews 13:4 it says, "Marriage is honorable in all and the bed is undefiled." A marriage bed is undefiled, you can't defile a marriage bed. Two people who are married in bed, that is undefiled...the full expression of sexual pleasure there is by God's design. But fornicators and adulterers, God will judge, Hebrews 13:4. God draws the line at that point. The marriage bed, that's where the line is drawn. Any bed other than a marriage bed, God will judge.

Now some of you will remember when we first started talking about 1 Thessalonians, I told you that there were very likely critics who were accusing Paul of being like the rest of the false teachers, charlatans, frauds and people who came in seeking sexual favors from women followers. It was pretty typical of ancient times that these phony philosophers and religious leaders and they would seek women around them and their goal was to get prestige, to get some power, to make some money and to get sexual favors from women followers. That was pretty typical. By the way, if you think that's old, you better think again. That's going on even today. There are all kinds of religious charlatans who are in it for the sexual favors today as much of the scandals of our own time have revealed. They were accusing Paul of seeking sexual favors from women, so when he says this, that God's standard is total abstinence, he not only gives them a command but he puts his own life on the line as subscribing to that very thing as well.

His attitude, very simple, total abstinence. God has designed it for the marriage bed alone. In Ephesians 5:3 it says, Paul wrote, "Do not let immorality or any impurity even be named among you as is proper among saints. No kind of immorality, porneia again, sexual sin, no kind of impurity should ever be named among you because you are saints," hagios, same word, you are set apart, you're holy, you're in process of becoming like God. No kind of sexual sin should ever be so much as named among you, it is utterly inconsistent with sanctification.

In Colossians he says very much the same thing. "Your life is hid with Christ in God, you belong to God, you're in a process of sanctification, consider then the members of your earthly body as dead, or desensitized, insensitive, unresponsive to immorality, impurity, passion and evil desire." Words with sexual significance. You're a Christian, your life is hid with Christ in God. You're headed for glory. You can't be responding to that.

Now the command is very very clear...very clear. Total abstinence from any sexual relationship outside the marriage bed. And I'll promise you that's God's design not to make your life unhappy but to make your marriage all the bliss that God could possibly intend it to be. Violate it and you will throw into your marriage a component that may result in a disastrous or divorced union. God has given His Word, that's the basic command.

Now you say, "Well that's easy for Him to say." That's easy for you to say. We're not supposed to do any of that. The next question obviously comes, how am I supposed to fulfill that? Right? How do I control myself? Come back next week and I will tell you and in the meantime do your best without the information coming. Let's bow in prayer.

Father, we come to You this morning with this serious subject which has so devastated and violated Your church. It is not proper for saints, holy ones, it is not Your will who longs that we be sanctified. God, help us to hear very loudly and clearly and straight forwardly Your command, stay away from it, not to do it, not to feed on it in our minds, not to watch it on a screen or read it. Help us, Lord, help us to be totally separate from this sin and like the Thessalonians, it's all around us and some of these dear folks have been saved out of these very habits. This is not easy, this is Your Word to us. Thank You that the design of this is to make our life joyous, blessed and utterly fulfilled in Christ's name we pray. Amen.

Abstaining from Sexual Sin, Part 2

We come now to that high privilege of the study of the Word of God and I would ask you, if you will, to look with me at 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 as we continue our study in verses 3 through 8 on the subject, abstaining from sexual sin. First Thessalonians chapter 4 verses 3 through 8 is our text.

A new book crossed my desk this week, the title of it is The AIDS Epidemic, it was written by a couple of medical doctors, Glen Wood and John Deitrick(?). And in that book there were several very helpful paragraphs. One of them goes like this, "A society spends the most time and energy once the basic necessities of life are satisfied on what it deems most important. In ancient Hebrew and American Puritan writings one can hardly read a single paragraph without encountering a reference to God Almighty. What items have replaced God in our communications media? Only sex, money and self‑love satisfy the time and energy requirements for what is sacred in our culture. These are the gods of a new age," end quote.

Obviously we are very much aware that daily we are bombarded with this encroaching sexual idolatry. Recently I noted as I was going through the first section of the L.A. Times a half‑dressed girl advertising the body beautiful on every single page of the first section of the L.A. Times except the first three pages. That is the god of this culture. And all of that body beautiful is somehow related to that sexual idolatry. Sexual revolution has obviously been successful. The rebels have totally overthrown traditional Christian values and morals and they've come up with the new theology of the God of immorality.

Now to help you understand this theology of the God of immorality, let me just see if I can't give you some of the basic tenets of this particular theology. Here's one...since people are basically good everything they do is basically good. And their sexual activity is just a way to please others. That's one of the basic tenets of sexual theology. Obviously it's a lie. The truth is immorality destroys instead of pleasing and helping others.

The second in their theological statement might go like this...since immorality or sexual activity is only a biological function like eating, it is a necessity that must be satisfied without restrictions. In other words, we're simply biological creatures, we're simply...we're simply the last step at least for now in the evolutionary chain and we ought to function in accord with whatever instincts are operating within us.

A third premise in their doctrinal statement might go like this...since casual sex, whatever in the world that is, is just a form of fun and pleasure, it should be enjoyed recreationally with anyone any time who agrees.

A fourth rule, a standard by which they live is...fulfilling sexual desire is the goal of life, rather than making meaningful relationships.

It should be brought to somebody's attention that the latest statistics indicate that the average married couple has a sexual relationship three times a week, the average length of which is eight minutes. That leaves you with a lot more time to do something else that must rise or fall, dependent upon the quality or lack of in the relationship.

And the theology of the new idol god, the new god, sex, would also have another principle, it might go like this...instant pleasure is much more important than delayed gratification. Grab it now, get it immediately.

Another one of their tenets might say something like this...good sex relations mean a good relationship, so start every relationship with sex and if its good it will lead to a good relationship. Live together to determine sexual compatibility, then you can decide whether you want to get married.

Statistics clearly show that people who live together have a far higher rate of divorce than people who don't. That doesn't seem to deter their perspective.

And then one other principle of this new theology of immorality might go like this...have safe sex so you don't get a disease or a baby. But if you get a baby just kill it.

Now this is the theology of the new idolatry. And there might be more that could be said. We understand all of that. Paul understood all of that because if anything in Thessalonica it might have been worse than it is in our culture. You see, there were absolutely no Christian traditions anywhere in the fabric of Thessalonica because Christianity hadn't even arrived there yet. At least in America we have something we can go back to that is still found at points in the fabric of our laws and how we live.

Our society is fast being devastated. The result of all of these kinds of things is a destroyed family and the result of destroyed families is destroyed society. I guess the thing that disturbs me most is that the church appears to be so deceived by this new idolatry as to have fallen victim to it.

Again Wood and Deitrick have some good insight. They say this regarding the church, "Although few Christians accept the basic goodness of man, we do worse and accept the basic goodness of ourselves. We are vulnerable to the sins of the flesh as we have seen repeatedly among Christian leaders and laity alike. We compete with the world's hyper‑sexuality, saying that good sex will make a good marriage when it is commitment, communication and sacrifice that come first. By implying that sex is the key to marriage, we teach our unmarried youth to focus on the physical in their relationships with the opposite gender. We encourage technique instead of commitment. And we prepare all for disappointment in marriage because sex is not meant to be the ultimate satisfaction." And I like this, they say, "Marriage is two lumpish people joining together with all their faults. How can we expect total bliss from that? We have embraced eros instead of agape love. And no Greek word could better describe the sexual revolution than eros, the advocates of this sexual freedom would unashamedly agree, this is the heart of the problem because eros is love that desires to have or possess and so is basically self‑centered. A person controlled by eros enters a relationship, if there is a relationship at all, to seize what he desires. The Christian version of this is the adoption of self‑actualizing psychology which demands self‑fulfillment in marriage in place of sacrifice," end quote.

The church has literally imbibed this. And when you go back and look at the roots of it all, you really could start with Charles Darwin. Once the thinking of Charles Darwin, which I believe was certainly spawned by Satan, invaded the world and said, "We are not the creatures of God, we are simply the products of chance," then all morality was questionable. If we are nothing but the result of a collection of atoms that occurred some time in the past or something that crawled out of some primeval ooze somewhere, then there is no real morality. Charles Darwin influenced people like Karl Marx who took Darwinian evolution to its logical extreme politically and he influenced people like Sigmund Freud who took Darwinian evolution to its extreme in terms of psychology and personal behavior. They influenced people like Friedrich Nietzsche who decided that really there was no God, God was dead, family life was unimportant. All that was important was pleasure and fulfillment.

The influence philosophers like Bertrand Russell who mocked all Christian values and along came people influenced by them. Margaret Sanger who founded Planned Parenthood, Ernest Hemingway, probably the most classically famous Hedonist in western culture. Havlok(?) Ellis(?), Margaret Mead, Alfred Kinsey, Masters and Johnson, Hugh Hefner, and they all flow out of that same basic line of philosophical thinking. What you have is a sexual revolution produced by atheistic, hedonistic, pleasure‑mad, anti‑ family, homosexual, pornographic, perverted people. It starts, as it were, supposedly in the environs of science and philosophy, it ends up in behavior. And mix that kind of behavior with alcohol and drugs and you have the American culture. And what is so frightening about it is that the church doesn't seem to be aware of what's happening and it jumps on the self‑fulfilling, feeling good bandwagon, unwittingly capitulating to the philosophy of atheists and evolutionists.

And I guess we would have to say that in Paul's time the kind of behavior that existed there would have been as bad, and as I said earlier maybe worse, there was no shame attached to immoral behavior at all in Paul's time. No shame attached to any sexual conduct at all. There was in that society a plethora of prostitutes, concubines, mistresses, homosexuals, pedophiles, transvestites, temple harlots, adulterers and adulteresses and they abounded in that culture. In fact, it was from that very mass of people that the churches were plucked. Paul says to the Corinthians, "And such were some of you." What? "Fornicators, adulterers, homosexuals, effeminates."

Now keep in mind that as Paul is writing back to the Thessalonians, he's writing to some people who have only been Christians a few months. They're in every sense baby Christians. He spent but a few weeks there in the Jewish synagogue, a few weeks more, no doubt, evangelizing Gentiles. He's been gone a few months and now writing back deeply concerned that these people are not falling victim to the pull of their old habits and the pressure of that ungodly immoral culture. And when he finally then in chapter 4 gets to what he really wants to say, the first thing on his list is this matter of immorality. The dominating idolatry of their day was sexual immorality, as it is of our day.

Now what is Paul's word to a people who are in the muck of that kind of society? Last week we looked at the first. It told you there were three simple questions...what, how and why. And we looked at the what last time...what is the command? Go to verse 3 and I'll just review briefly. What is the command he gives? "For this is the will of God, your sanctification." By the way, that statement overarches the entire remainder of this letter. Everything he's going to say fits into the will of God, even your sanctification, your holiness, your purity.

The first thing covered is this, that you abstain from sexual immorality. That's his first command, his first exhortation. That's the "what"...that's what he wants to say. Now remember last time I told you that people who habitually live in sexual immorality will not enter heaven. They'll go to hell forever. First Corinthians 6 says they don't enter the Kingdom. Galatians 5 says they don't enter the Kingdom. Revelation 21:8 and 22:15 says they're outside heaven. People who have this kind of habitual behavior go to hell. They're consigned to an eternal hell of damnation. Yet Christians can do these things. We're not exempt from them as long as the new creation exists incarcerated in unredeemed human flesh, there is the capability for us to commit those sins. I do not believe we will live in an unbroken pattern of that. People who live in an unbroken pattern of immorality end up in hell, that's what the Bible says. But Christians can commit those sins. Very clearly the Scripture indicates that. It may have been such sins that were on the mind of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 10 when he says, "How in the world can you come to the Lord's table when you've just been at the table of demons?" Maybe he's saying, "How in the world can you come and take the bread and cup when you've just had a relationship with a temple prostitute to worship a false god?"

It is obviously true of Christians that we can commit these sins. So the basic command comes to us and assumes that capability and says "abstain from sexual immorality." And what is he asking for? Total abstinence. And somebody will always say, "Well it says stay away from sex sin, how far away?" Far enough away to do the will of God, far enough away to be sanctified, set apart, pure and holy, untainted and unstained. Stay away from sin, so far away that you are unstained. That was the command, we went through that in detail last time, total abstinence from sexual sin.

Now for this morning let's ask the second question...how? How can I keep that command? We are incessantly bombarded with this stuff, we live in a society that worships immorality. It is rampant in our world. Our flesh is temptable. We are over exposed to all of this. We might say we are over exposed to being under exposed. We are in a situation in our culture where we get over exposed to the immorality but under exposed to the divine implications of it. So I want to see if I can't bring a little balance to that. How can I protect myself? How can I live a pure life in an impure society? How can I not be stained when my flesh is weak?

Three principles...three principles Paul gives. Very basic, very direct. Principle number one, don't let your body control you. Don't let your body control you, look at verse 4, "That each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor." That each one of you means all of us as Christians. Every one of you individually.

Now what is he saying there? He's saying that this is something that you must do. It would be nice to think that I could have some kind of accountability relationship to somebody who could control my body for me. It can't be done. That each one of you must know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor. The verb "know" here, adoni(?), is often used to mean to know how and that's its meaning here. The knowledge or the skill necessary to accomplish a desired goal is the idea. So every individual Christian is to know how...now note this little verb "to possess"...it means to gain mastery over. Every individual Christian is to know how to gain mastery over...what?...his own, something very personal, vessel. The word is skeuos, it means utensil, implement, vessel.

Now some say the word vessel means wife. In fact I read probably 20 commentaries this week to see what they said about this and the majority of them said it means wife. I don't know how they can conclude that, to be honest with you. Why would he say that in the middle of a context about sexual immorality? Each one of you know how to gain mastery over your wife. What is he saying that she is a tool for your sexual gratification and what you've got to do is get mastery over her so she succumbs? Is she a tool? Is she an instrument or an implement? Those who hold that view will endeavor to make a parallel between this and 1 Peter 3:7 where it says, "the woman is the weaker vessel," but that is an inadequate parallel because in 1 Peter 3:7 the woman is called skeuos, she is the weaker skeuos but the man therefore by comparative is a weak skeuos. So both of them are vessels there. The Bible does not see the man as the power and the sovereignty and the woman as a tool in his hand for his own gratification. No, no comparison with 1 Peter 3:7 works because there the woman is a weaker vessel, the man by comparative is a weak vessel. She is not the vessel of the man, they are both the vessels of God.

Furthermore, the context here is not about marriage and wife, it's about body. The view, I think, of skeuos here that sees the woman as some kind of tool for a man is very demeaning to women and furthermore makes nonsense out of verse 5, "Possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor and not in lustful passion like the Gentiles who do not know God." If he's talking about your wife, it's fine to have a passion for your wife so why would he even say that? It wouldn't make any sense.

The term skeuos is used metaphorically for utensils, for tools, sometimes for people like in Acts 9:15, 2 Timothy 2:21, 2 Corinthians 4:7. And in some Jewish literature in rabbinical sources it is even used of the body. And that is its meaning here. It's not about controlling your wife, your wife isn't your problem, it's about controlling you, your body is your problem. It's your unredeemed human flesh that is the beachhead to sin. That's why Paul says in Romans 8, "We wait for the redemption of...what?...of the body." It's our body that gets us into trouble. That's why Scripture says you've got to renew your...what?...your mind. You've got to renew your mind. Repeatedly does Paul say that in a number of his epistles. Don't let your body control you.

Now we live in a society where the body is in control. The bottom line philosophy is "if it feels good...what?...do it." You don't use your mind, bury your mind, man, and do whatever your body tells you. Like that great theological statement in "You light up my life" which says, "This can't be wrong because it feels so right." Truth by feeling. We are a society that has literally committed some kind of suicide in terms of thinking and left the body to live and dictate conduct. Our society is totally controlled by bodily feelings. Whatever you feel you do it, you're just an animal, you're at the end of the evolutionary chain, it's an impulse, fulfill it. Don't...says the Scripture...let your body control you.

Look at 1 Corinthians...well just remember 1 Corinthians 6:12 we won't turn to it...well we better, 1 Corinthians 6:12, cause I want to make a couple of points. First Corinthians 6:12, Paul says at the end of the verse, "I will not be mastered by anything, I will not be mastered by anything, I will not become a victim of anything." And then he makes is specific in verse 13 what he's talking about. "Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food." Remember I told you that was sort of a cute little saying that the Corinthians had which was very much like the saying today, "It's only biological." Hey, food for the stomach and the stomach for food. It's just biological. Sex for the body and the body for sex, that was the idea. That was the implication of that little statement.

But he says in verse 13, "The body is not for immorality but for the Lord and the Lord is for the body." That's wrong. The body cannot be allowed to do whatever it wants. The body cannot be allowed to master you. "Do you...verse 15...take...do you know that your bodies are members of Christ?" Are you going to take away the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Are you going to let your body call the shots and take the members of Christ and link them with a harlot? No. You cannot do whatever the body tells you to do, you have to control the body.

Look at 1 Corinthians 9:27, this is a very direct statement with regard to this. First Corinthians 9:27, Paul says this, "But I buffet my body," that's buffit not buffet, same spelling, different concept. "I buffet my body," the verb means to give a black eye, a knock‑out punch, a whallop. I hit my body hard and seriously and I make it my slave. What do you mean? The slave to my mind. "Lest possibly after I have preached to others I myself should be adokimos, disqualified." In other words, I will be rendered disqualified for ministry if I don't control my body. By the way, in this day and age when people want to forgive pastors' adultery and let them back in the ministry, nobody seems to be wanting to deal with that verse. If you don't control your body so that it honors God, you're disqualified from ministry. Paul says I have to...I have to give my body a black eye, I have to beat it into submission, I have to make it my slave. The body is the unredeemed beachhead to sin. You cannot...you cannot be controlled by your body, your feelings.

Now the key to controlling your body, now follow me, this is going to be a fast little trip here, the key to controlling your body is the Holy Spirit...walking in the Spirit. If you walk in the Spirit, Galatians 5:16 and 17, you will not fulfill...what? The lust of the flesh. So the key to controlling your body is walking in the Spirit. The key to walking in the Spirit is being filled with the Spirit. Ephesians 5:17 and 18, "Being kept filled with the Spirit, not in dissipation but being filled with the Spirit."

The key then to controlling your body is walking in the Spirit. The key to walking in the Spirit is being filled by the Spirit. The key to being filled by the Spirit, Colossians 3:16, is letting the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. As the Word saturates your life the Spirit then controls you and you walk in that control. The key to letting the Word of Christ dwell in you richly is hiding the Word in your heart that you might not...what?...sin. Not a superficial reading of your daily devotion, but a serious apprehension of, comprehension of, application of, the Word of God in my life allows the Word to dwell in me richly which yields control to the Spirit of God so that He fills me and I walk in Him. That's the only way you will not fulfill the lust of your body.

Don't ever let your body control you. Don't ever play with sexual emotion. You see, once you begin to feel the impulses of sexual emotion, you are beginning to turn control over to your body, your mind has yielded it up. God has designed those things to culminate in intercourse and you are out of control.

You say, "All right, I'm not supposed to let my body control me, what does that mean?" That means not only you're not supposed to jump in bed with someone, but long before that you better make sure that you're very careful about what your body sees, what your body hears, what your body touches, what your body feels long before the consummation so that you aren't so far in that control is gone.

Now notice the end of the verse. Here's the degree to which this control is to be exercised. "Know how to control your own body in sanctification and honor." "In sanctification" means to be separated, separated unto God from sin, separated unto holiness, separated unto purity. And honor means respect. In other words, your body is to be so holy that it is worthy of respect toward the God who owns it, toward the God who dwells in it, toward the God whom it represents, toward the church of which it is a part. You're to live your life not asking how far can I go and not go over the line, but how far can I stay away and be utterly set apart from sin and bringing honor to my body which is God's which should be used for the glory of Christ.

No, the question is never...what can I do and get away with it?...the question is never how far can I go, the question is how can I live so pure, so sanctified, so noble in my Christian living that I honor my body, I honor therefore my Lord and His redeemed church? Don't let your body control you. And we live in a culture where the whole name of the game is get the mind away and let the body go and Christianity is the opposite, absolute opposite.

I have said this so many times when talking to other pastors who have fallen into sin, isn't there some point in time where you say, "Wait a minute, this is my marriage, this is my ministry, this is everything? Stop." And the answer I get is, "You never think about that." Why? Because long before the mind has been eliminated from the process and all that is left is the passion of the body. Don't let your body control you. That means walking in the Spirit which means being filled by the Spirit which means letting the Word dwell in your richly which means putting the Word in.

Principle number two, don't act like the godless pagans. Don't act like the godless pagans. Verse 5, "Control your body in sanctification and honor not in lustful passion like the Gentiles who do not know God." Don't act like the godless pagans, the rampant uncontrolled desire and passion for sexual gratification that is typical of unregenerate people is not to be characteristic of Christians, plain and simple.

By the way, lustful passion is kind of a strong term. Either one of those words might have worked, both of them together make it very strong. The word "passion," pathos means excited emotion, means uncontrollable desire, means compelling feelings, overpowering urges. It is used here in a bad sense as in Romans 1:26 and Colossians 3:5, though there could be legitimate passion for the right thing, a passion for God. And then he adds the word epithumia, that word which means lustful, lusting, craving. It's kind of an out‑of‑control craving. And again there are a few occasions where that can mean a craving for the right thing but usually a bad thing and here it's bad for sure.

So here's a characterization of the unregenerate, right? They don't know God. Consequently they are driven by lustful out‑ of‑control cravings, compelling urges, overpowering desires of the body. That's it. Christians can't live like that, that's how the godless people live. In fact, in Galatians 5:24 Paul says, "Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." We killed that when we died in Christ, arise to walk in newness of life. What do you want to do, pick up that dead thing and haul it around? Colossians chapter 3, Paul says essentially the same thing, "Consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire." That's the past, that's a dead issue. Don't act...look at this...like the Gentiles, or the pagans, the ethnos, the unregenerate who do not know God, non‑ Christians. They are further described, by the way, in 2 Thessalonians 1:8, they're going to receive retribution, the ones who do not know God, and who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. You're talking about the ungodly, those who rejected Christ by ignorance, the unregenerate heathens sink into the depths of immorality. Those who know God should never fall to such a shameful level. We expect it of them.

Go back, for a moment, to Romans chapter 1, let me show you just a couple of verses, actually three maybe....three or four. Verse 24, in the Fall, when men fell and were alienated from God, it says, "God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity that their bodies might be dishonored among them." It is characteristic of unregenerate people that they operate on a bodily feeling level...that is characteristic of unregenerate life. God gave them over to that.

Verse 26, "For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions, women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desires toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error." Homosexuality, lesbian kind of conduct, all of that is characteristic of unregenerate people who have been literally abandoned by God to their own bodily lusts.

Verse 28 says it another way, "They didn't see fit to acknowledge God any longer so God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper." They do things that aren't right, they live in lustful passion, they are homosexuals and lesbians and fornicators and adulterers and transvestites and pedophiles and you name it cause they don't know God. They have no internal restraint. They don't operate out of a renewed mind. Scripture says you're to have a renewed mind and your mind renewed in Christ dominated by the Word of God, controlled by the Spirit is to control your body, beat it into subjection. And the unsaved can't do that. Don't act the way they act.

So don't get caught in their traps. Don't indulge yourself in the idiocy of their philosophy. They are slaves to bodily passion. We said a little earlier how silly it is for the church to buy into this stuff. I was raised in a time where nobody ever had a sexual seminar. I don't think there was ever a Christian book written on Christian sexual relationships in marriage. Everybody seemed to figure it out, children were being born. People seemed happy, marriages stayed together. Now we buy into the world's philosophy, even Christian bookstores get stuffed with junk that is intended to convey the philosophy that some kind of passion even in marriage is the key to a good relationship.

You can't buy the world's goods. They function only on passion, only on feeling. And as soon as the society condones divorce, marriage will be destroyed because as soon as the feeling runs out they've got to get another feeling with another person. The only thing that restrains it is some kind of cultural compunction, if that's gone there's no way to control it, it's history. We know God, we don't operate on that level. The physical relationship is wonderful. Let marriage be honorable in all, Hebrews 13:4, and the bed is undefiled. God blesses marriage and the relationship, the conjugal relationship of marriage. But we are not reduced to the level of the unregenerate who do not think but only feel. We know God and in that intimate relationship with Him there is no place for doing what the godless world does. You don't want to think the way they think or not think the way they don't think. You don't want to feel the way they feel. I'll tell you, if you expose yourself to their trash in print and on the media, you will engender the feelings that they feel. And you will wind up linking the members of Christ to a harlot as it says in 1 Corinthians 6.

Pagans have no thought for holy conduct. They have no thought for thought. They're driven by lustful passion right into hell. We can't be. We must not act like them. We are God's own bride. Can we shame the name of Christ and spurn His love and grace and bring disrepute upon Him?

Third principle, don't take advantage of others. Don't take advantage of others. Verse 6, "That no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter." Simple, that no man transgress. What does that mean? Go over the line, go beyond the bounds, exceed the limits, go pass the law. Don't go too far. Don't transgress.

What is he talking about? "And defraud his brother." What does that word defraud mean? Very interesting word, it means to selfishly greedily take something at someone else's expense. It means to take advantage of someone for personal gain, personal pleasure. And the matter, see that little statement the matter, that's sexual sin. So the simple statement is this, don't go beyond the line that God has drawn and take advantage of another believer in the matter of sexual sin. Don't do that. Don't take advantage of someone else. And that's exactly what you're doing. When you want your sexual pleasure, your physical pleasure and you take advantage of someone else to get it, you violated this.

I tell young people all the time, if a guy comes to you and maybe you're dating and he says to you, "You know I really love you, I really care about you," and he wants to take your purity and he wants to take your virginity...guess again, he doesn't care about you, he doesn't love you, he lusts for you. If he loved you, love would seek your highest good, love would seek the noblest treatment of your purity. Guess again what you've got, don't marry that guy because if all he had going for you was lust, somebody else will attract that same thing in him in the future.

And if you're married and somebody comes along and says, "You know, I really want to have a relationship with you," and you fall into that and you violate your marriage and you fall prey to that, you have been defrauded, you have been robbed, you have been plundered, you have been raped. That's not love, that's lust. When a married person steals another married person for personal gratification, that's defrauding a brother or sister.

So Paul says, look...number one...don't let your body control you. Number two, don't act like the godless heathen. Don't see what they see, hear what they hear, feel what they feel. Don't get in that trap, that process. And number three, don't take advantage of another person. And if you don't do that then that will restrain you. And if the church won't allow itself to be taken advantage of, that can be thwarted. Such a simple truth. In the matter of sexual sin don't you dare defraud someone else, don't you dare implicate them in your sin, don't suck them in to the fulfillment of your own lustful pleasure. Don't use people.

By the way, that is so serious that in Matthew 18 verse 6 it says, "If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in Me," that's a Christian, little ones...what little ones? The little ones who believe in Me, not little babies but Christians, "Causes them to stumble into sin, better if a millstone were hanged around his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the sea." And what Jesus is saying there is, before you cause another Christian to sin you'd be better off dead. You'd be better off drowned. Don't you defraud someone else. You'd be better off dead, that's how serious it is to God.

The command then, totally abstain from sexual sin. That's...what? How? Don't let your body control you, don't act like godless pagans and don't take advantage of others. Last question...why? That's what the kids always say, why? Why? Why keep the command? Three reasons, very rapidly, very important. Reason number one, because of God's vengeance...because of God's vengeance. The middle of verse 6, "Because the Lord is the avenger in all these things just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you." Because of God's vengeance. He is the avenger. What does that mean? The one who exacts judgment. That's a strong reminder of Deuteronomy 32:35, "Vengeance is Mine and retribution, I will repay." Hebrews 13:4, "Let marriage be honorable in all and the bed undefiled but fornicators and adulterers God will judge."

How will He judge? How will He wreak vengeance if we violate this? Could be in an unfulfilling sexual life and marriage, could be in a miserable marriage, could be in a divorce, could be in temporal chastening, could be through venereal disease, could be any other disease, could be negative circumstances, the absence of blessing, trials, trouble, even death, it certainly will be the loss of eternal reward in some measure. God can do anything He wants to to avenge it but He will. So if you need to reason not to do it, God is the avenger because of God's vengeance in all these things. None of them escape Him. In all sexual sins God is the avenger. And He reminds them that this isn't something new, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you. He had told them when he was there about this which is a good indication that he gave them not only the full understanding of the gospel, but he taught them to observe all things whatsoever Jesus had commanded too while he was there. He had done a full orbed job of evangelizing.

Sexual sin disregards God, it ignores His holiness. It spurns His will, it defies His commands, it rejects His love, it flaunts His grace and mercy, it abuses it. It is disobedient, it is selfish, it is ingratitude and God will avenge it. He will avenge it.

Second reason, because of God's purpose...because of God's purpose. Not only because of God's vengeance but because of God's purpose. Verse 7, "For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity but in sanctification." You see, the effectual call of salvation was a call to holiness, not unholiness. God has not called us for the purpose of impurity. It isn't grace so that sin may abound. Paul's point is that the very nature of God's calling and justification is a calling to sanctification. He called us to Himself for the purpose of sanctifying us, making us holy, making us pure, making us sinless. You have a holy, pure, and sinless God who brings salvation through His holy, pure and sinless Son, who then applies that salvation through His holy, pure and sinless Spirit in order to produce a people who are holy, sinless and pure. And thus the heart of the Apostle is to present the church without blemish and without spot, holy before God.

There's no place in that for impurity. The purpose of God was to make a holy people, a people who would walk in a manner worthy of the God who called them into His Kingdom and glory as he said back in chapter 2 verse 12. That little phrase "in sanctification" indicates the state resulting from the calling. The whole of the Christian life is in separation from sin, in holiness, in sanctification. The call to salvation then can never be separated from holy living. It can never be separated from the result which is sanctification. Sexual sin is utterly inconsistent.

Why obey? Because of God's vengeance, because of God's calling or purpose. Thirdly, because of God's Spirit. Verse 8, "Consequently," that introduces a conclusion, "he who rejects this, he who nullifies this makes it void, cancels it, disregards it, despises it, is not rejecting man." This isn't Paul you're rejecting, this isn't some church group you're rejecting, this isn't the elders, this isn't John MacArthur, "But the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you." You're rejecting God. This is God's standard and God who gave you His Holy Spirit to make you pure and to enable you to be pure. By the way, that verb there, "the God who gives His Holy Spirit," marvelous. It's a timeless Greek idea, characterizes God as the unceasing giver of the timeless gift of the Holy Spirit. And here in the Greek, the Spirit is "the Spirit of Him, the Holy One." How can you enter into sexual sin without knowing you're rejecting the God who gave you the Spirit of Himself who is the Holy One?

Not only did He call believers to salvation but He called them to sanctification and continually breathes His Spirit into them for the purpose of producing holiness. And then to sin is to grieve the Spirit and quench the Spirit. That's why Paul says, "What?...1 Corinthians 6 talking about sexual immorality in Corinth...don't you know your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which you have of God, you're not your own, you're bought with a price, so glorify God in your body."

To live in sexual sin is to literally reject God who gave His Spirit, to reject Christ who gave us justification to sanctification, and to reject God who is the avenger. Sexual sin violates the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and the work of each, so may God help us to be faithful to the command through the means that God has given us with the fear of His recourse should we fail. Let's bow in prayer.

Father, we thank You again this morning for the Word and the reminder of this call to sexual purity. Lord, help us to know what should be obvious to all of us that if we are obedient You will bless us, You will bless our marriages, You will bless our physical relationships with all the goodness that You intend. Father, we would pray that if there are young people here who are sinning in this area, who are going together, dating or whatever and they're engaging in fornication, Lord, please may they come to grips this morning with the seriousness of that sin, may they receive the solemn warning of this Scripture, may they know what they're doing and may they be separated from it. If there are couples that are engaged anticipating marriage and feeling because the commitment is set in place and the marriage is to come that they are free to commit fornication, Lord, may they know that is not true, may they immediately cease from this sin. If there are married people committing adultery, Lord God, may they repent immediately. We know You have every right to bring chastening, to enact Your vengeance and retribution for they have literally rejected You, they have spurned the grace of salvation which leads to holiness. They have quenched and grieved the Holy Spirit who is in them. You have every right to chasten. And, Lord, we would ask that You be merciful in such and that having led them to holiness through the chastening you would grant them grace.

For those here who have committed these sins in the past, Lord, may they enjoy the forgiveness that is theirs in Christ knowing full well that what has been forgiven has been removed as far as the east is from the west, buried in the depths of the sea and is remembered no more. And may they rejoice in such abounding grace. O God, give us pure relationships that we might know the fullness of blessing and that we might be the kind of people that You want us to be who in the power of the Word and the Spirit control our bodies, who do not act like the godless pagans act, who do not take advantage of other people for selfish pleasure, who do not put ourselves in a place to receive retribution from a vengeful God, but, O God, may we be the faithful and the obedient who know the fullness of Your blessing. To that end we do pray for Jesus' sake. Amen.