Applications: Sexual Identity and Purity

Driving home: And you and I will never, never, never, never begin to fulfill our role in this world. This wicked generation, unless we have a biblical view of our human sexuality, and by the power of God, are working out that biblical…

Martin imagines Adam's reaction to seeing Eve, his counterpart yet different, to illustrate the distinct yet complementary nature of male and female in God's design.

And brought the woman to the man. And in the woman Adam saw his counterpart. And how I wish there had been a digital tape recorder hidden somewhere among the trees of the garden. When God brought the woman to the man, and he saw Eve, and he saw in many ways an image of himself, and yet he saw something different from himself.

13:29 - 13:54 Read in full sermon

Driving home: A woman does not know what she is as a woman until she sees herself in terms of the Creator's word and action with respect to her identity and her function. This is not an idea imposed upon women by male chauvinist pigs …

The analogy of a fish wanting to perch on a limb instead of swimming is used to illustrate the self-destructive nature of women who refuse their God-given identity and function.

Was it cruel for God to make a fish with gills and the ability to swim and then put him in the ocean and not on the tree next to a bird? If the stupid little fish thinks, well, I've been denied my liberty because I can't perch on a limb, he kills himself by his arrogant unwillingness to accept his God-given identity. And I say it weeping. We've got a generation of girls and women who've killed themselves by refusing to accept their God-given identity.

17:01 - 17:38 Read in full sermon

The point: Resist letting your eyes glance on sexually suggestive material, even in innocent news magazines, and stay clear of explicit magazines.

Joseph's refusal to sin against God with Potiphar's wife is presented as an example of commitment to uncompromised virginity of mind and body until marriage.

For this generation has become so debased that millions are made by even making skin magazines of men so that women can ogle and lust. Take Joseph as your example, young men. Potiphar's wife perhaps was beginning to get some middle-aged wrinkles. And all she did with creams and lotions couldn't deny the realities.

34:31 - 35:00 Read in full sermon

The point: For those in courtship, establish clear physical boundaries to avoid provoking or promoting fornication, even if it means communicating personal struggles with temptation.

An example of a young man communicating his need for strict physical boundaries in courtship to a godly Christian girl is used to illustrate fleeing fornication.

You're so charged with extra supplies of testosterone and memories of past relationships you go beyond holding a girl's hand in courtship and you'll start touching the erogenous zones and before long you'll be on the border of fornication. You're going to have to do with that godly Christian girl you're going to have to say to her once it's appropriate and the relationship is developed and it's heading toward marriage you're going to have to say to her dear I don't want you to get mixed signals. I'm not queer. I've got all the drives of any ordinary man plus a little more.

38:36 - 39:13 Read in full sermon

The point: For young women, communicate to your partner if certain physical interactions inflame desires that could lead to fornication, prioritizing a clear conscience for your wedding night.

An example of a young woman communicating her need for strict physical boundaries to a young man is used to illustrate fleeing fornication and preserving a clear conscience for marriage.

Likewise you young women. Some of you may be so put together that someone giving you anything more than a very quick furtive closed mouth peck on your lips will inflame desires in you that you fear will lead you into the path of fornication and say to that young man look I'm determined to obey the word of God to flee fornication. I want us to come to our wedding night. To our wedding night with a clear conscience.

39:36 - 40:14 Read in full sermon

The point: For young women, communicate to your partner if certain physical interactions inflame desires that could lead to fornication, prioritizing a clear conscience for your wedding night.

The example of discreet, non-sexual embraces in Christian fellowship is used to clarify that not all physical contact is wrong, but rather that which inflames fornication.

And I know you mean nothing by that more intimate embrace when you kiss me goodnight. But John, Henry, Pete please there's more than I can handle. That's what we're talking about. It means that if in the ordinary interaction of brothers and sisters where a discreet non-physical chest to breast embrace and you can discreetly embrace a woman without that kind of contact.

40:14 - 40:45 Read in full sermon

The point: As a man, determine that only your wife will have reason to believe that your look is one of sexual desire and interest, preserving the sacred sanctuary of your marriage.

The Song of Solomon's imagery of the wife as a 'sealed garden' is used to illustrate the sacred, private, and chaste nature of marital sexual intimacy.

It's too sacred to be paraded before the world. The Song of Solomon has some beautiful imagery where the lover calls his wife wife a sealed garden. And as he goes to enjoy her sexual favors, he enters that garden. There's the element of free and holy abandonment, but the element of chaste, sexual, I'm sorry, a chaste silence and privacy with respect to the sexual intimacy. That's why Job could say in Job 31.1, I've made a covenant with my eyes that I should not look upon a maiden. And I love that passage in Ezekiel 24.16. Ezekiel was no kid and God was going to take

51:46 - 52:37 Read in full sermon

The point: As a man, determine that only your wife will have reason to believe that your look is one of sexual desire and interest, preserving the sacred sanctuary of your marriage.

Ezekiel's description of his wife as 'the desire of thine eyes' is used, along with a personal anecdote about Martin's own wife, to illustrate the exclusive and enduring sexual desire a husband should have for his wife.

his wife. And you know how he described his wife? He said, this day I will take away from thee the desire of thine eyes. Isn't that beautiful? Ezekiel still looked at his wife like this when she passed. My wife and I have a little thing about this. She said, honey, you give me that look. I said, well, I have to. You're supposed to be the desire of my eyes. You used to be the desire of my eyes, not only when you were young, but now that you're a grandma, you're still the desire of my eyes. And when you determine as a man that there's only one woman that will have any reason to believe that that...

52:37 - 53:38 Read in full sermon