Applications: Sexual Identity and Purity

Introduction and Overview of the Conference Theme

0:00 Now let us once again pause to seek the blessing of God upon the study of his word. There will be a time constraint upon us this morning that is not quite the same as in the other sessions, and I have made an ethical commitment to Pastor Dickey that I will conclude no later than 20 till the hour, and more preferably at 25 till. And so I will try to keep my eye on the clock on the wall, which, by the way, has indeed repented of its dishonesty and now speaks the truth and also the watch that I have before me. So between the two of them, I should be able to keep that commitment.

0:43 Well, let us look to God in prayer and ask the help of his Holy Spirit. Our Father, how we thank you for the abundance of truth embodied in the psalms and hymns we have offered you. As we have already sung this morning, we thank you for David's invitation. Come, ye children, and I will teach you the fear of the Lord.

1:08 And we would take the posture of little children before your word this morning. We pray that we may not be found among the wise and the prudent from whom you hide your truth. But, O Lord, give us the disposition of children who know and feel their ignorance. And who look to those older and wiser to instruct them.

1:33 And, O Lord, we look to you, the ancient of days, and to your Son in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge that we may be taught of him in this hour. Come by your Spirit and grace this place with your presence and power. And what we ask for ourselves, we pray for Pastor Earl and his wife, as they inspire. Instruct the younger ones.

1:59 May the Holy Spirit attend that endeavor as well. With grace and with power, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Now, from what Pastor Earl said, apparently we have some here with us this morning who have not been with us in the previous segments of our conference.

2:24 And for your sake especially, let me take just two or three minutes to give a very brief, overview of where we are in our study of that which is the announced theme of the conference, namely, the Christian's role in a wicked society. In the first two studies, I attempted to prove from the Scriptures that ours is indeed a wicked society and what the precise identity of a true Christian is. Yes. Only the real Christian whose role is defined in the Word of God as that Christian relates to a wicked society. And then last night, we addressed the heart of our theme, the precise identity of the Christian's role in a wicked society. And I suggested that that role can be understood under two major headings, one negative and one positive. The negative, the Christian must not allow the wickedness of this generation to shape his thinking or his lifestyle in any area.

3:42 And we looked at three key texts which teach this, the first of which was Romans 12 in verse 2, be not conformed to this age, be not conformed to this world, or in the language of Ephesians 4, do not walk as the dead walk. Do not walk as the dead walk. The Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind. And then positively, we saw that the Christian is to be transformed in all of his thinking and patterns of life in conformity with the standards of God.

Areas for Application of Christian Living

4:19 We are, in the latter part of Romans 12, 2, instructed to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, that we may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For in the language of Peter that we studied, we are to be holy in all manner of living, even as he who called us is holy. Now, if I were to have another 10 or 12 messages, I would like to address some of the very critical areas in which these general principles, in my judgment, need desperately to be addressed in our day. And if I had that, at lengthier time, I would address such things as the biblical view of work and of labor. This present wicked generation has a wicked view of work and labor that is antithetical to the biblical view of the sanctity and the dignity of work and of labor. I would address the biblical view of recreation and entertainment. This is the age that is crazed with its obsession with entertainment and recreation, and you and I will make little progress as Christians if we are conformed to this age in our views of recreation and entertainment.

5:42 We must be transformed, and the Bible has much to say about those things. Furthermore, I would like to address the biblical view of money and things. This present age is totally out of whack in its view of money and things. What they can and cannot give, what we ought to be willing to do in order to obtain them and have them.

6:06 And I would love to address that subject. I'd love to address the biblical view of courtesy and manners. How our age desperately needs to know there is a biblical doctrine of courtesy and manners. Our age is a discourteous and mannerless age.

6:23 It's part of its wickedness. It's part of its crass obsession with self and do-my-own-thing-ism. What? I don't have ten or twelve messages.

Sexual Identity and Function: God's Design

6:36 So I can't address all of those things. And I've had to reduce the things that I want to address explicitly as applications of this great theme, the Christian's role in a wicked society, to three major categories. And I want to address the first one in this Sunday school hour, the second one in the morning worship, and the third in our last session tonight, God willing. And so this morning, I want to speak to you on this very critical matter of sexual identity, function, and purity.

7:17 If we are in any way to fulfill our God-assigned role in this wicked generation, we must not only reject the world's perspectives, but be faithful. We must be thoroughly steeped in and regulated by the perspectives of God in this critical area of sexual identity, function, and purity. We live in a generation that has utterly thrown off the revealed will of God in these matters, both in general revelation and in special revelation. For the Bible says, leaving the natural use of the woman, Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 11, doth not nature itself teach you? And in both of those instances, sexual identity is involved in the discussion of the apostle. And then, of course, in special revelation, the Bible, everything the Bible reveals about the fact that there is something called distinct masculinity and femininity that go far beyond the definition of femininity. That is the difference of our primary sexual organs.

8:32 That is being aggressively denied in our day. And we are being told by the so-called experts that the only fundamental difference between men and women is to be found in their primary sexual organs. And up till now, only the woman has a womb and can bear child, and only the man produces semen and can impregnate a woman. That's what we're being told.

8:59 Take away the distinction of primary sexual organs. There's no such thing as essential masculinity and femininity. That's all culturally conditioned. We're being told that the teaching of God's book, Revelation, concerning distinct roles for women and distinct roles for men, and certainly the sanctity of the sexual act itself as being set by God, within the sacred sanctuary of monogamous, permanent, marital commitment, why that's scorned and laughed at and mocked at all the way from popular sitcoms to intellectually sounding books produced by psychiatrists and sociologists and anthropologists. 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 view with increasing fullness and joy. And so I want to begin, first of all, by touching briefly on the subject of sexual identity and function,

10:25 and then I'll recommend some things that can help you to study this further on your own, and spend the remainder of the time on sexual purity and integrity. First of all, then, sexual identity and function. And I want to say two simple things. As to sexual identity and function, these have their origin in God's wise, creative design.

10:53 These have their origin in God's wise, creative design. Our identity and function as males and females does not have its origin in some accidental twitch of certain factors in the so-called evolutionary process. The fact that every one of you sitting here this morning is a boy or a girl, a man or a woman, a male or a female, is the result of God's wise, creative design. And this truth is placarded in the opening chapters of Genesis, for we read in Genesis chapter 1, concerning God's activity on the sixth day, verse 26, And God said, Let us make man after our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing, that creeps upon the earth. And God created man, that's the term we would say, mankind, God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God created he him,

12:18 male and female created he them. So everything that constitutes maleness and femaleness has its ultimate origin in the wisdom of God's creative design. And in the amplified version of how he precisely made the male and female in chapter 2 of Genesis, you remember God made the male, and he gave him his task, and placed him in the sphere of his labor. And Adam had begun to fulfill his task and to complete that job assignment. But the scripture says in Genesis chapter 2 and in verse 15, verse 18 I'm sorry, And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make a help answering to him. And then we have the record of how God designed the woman.

13:29 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.

13:54 He saw that with which he could communicate, and yet that which was different from him, and he said this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. And she should be called woman, Isha, because she was taken from man, Ish. She is like me. She can think and speak.

14:16 And her eyes sparkle. And yet she is different from me. Where God has made me for my task of harder, tougher flesh. She is softer.

14:31 She is woman, Isha, made from the man. So any thinking about sexual identity and function that does not begin with this fact, not theory, this fact, it has its origin in God's wise creative design, any thinking is doomed to fail. And the world's thinking, utterly rules out this reality, and that's why their thinking is doomed to fail. Second principle is, sexual identity and function not only have their origin in God's wise creative design, but they have their interpretation in the Creator's word and action. They have their interpretation in the Creator's word and action. What is the fundamental significance of the woman? God says it.

15:39 I will not make an equal to him in all things to rival him, so that they can compose the song, anything you can do I can do better. I will make a helper answering to him. And based on what God said and what God did by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, in 1 Corinthians 11, the Apostle Paul builds the doctrine, the man was not made for the woman, but the woman for the man. And so this idea that it is demeaning to a woman's identity if she must find it in terms of relationship to a man that lies at the heart of modern feminism is striking at the very roots of femininity. 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 toting Bibles. It is the loving Creator who made the woman to function that way.

17:01 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.

Recommended Resources for Further Study

17:38 Now, I recommend for your reading, that's all I'm going to say, and for your listening, Alan Dunn, Pastor Alan Dunn's series, recently preached at our singles retreat on male and female identity from Genesis. It is nothing short of masterful. He takes Adam as the paradigm or the model of the single man and builds a beautiful picture of what God would have a single man to be, and then he builds a picture of what femininity is from God's creation of Eve. I highly commend that series.

18:18 I hope it'll show up in your church tape library here. Then I commend Pastor Sam Waldron's series on 1 Corinthians 11, 19 sermons in which he expounds male and female roles carefully, verse by verse, word by word. And I've listened to that entire series and have found it tremendously helpful. And then a book that my girls were brought up on, Betty Elliott's wonderful book, a collection of letters to her daughter, Valerie, called Let Me Be a Woman.

18:51 Highly commended. It's on the book stall. And then a collection of her letters to her nephew called The Mark of a Man, two of the finest statements of God's design for masculinity and femininity as to sexual identity and function. And that's all I'm going to say because I must now move in the second place to that which is the burden of my heart this morning, sexual purity and integrity.

The Dominant Place of Sexual Purity in Scripture

19:20 If ever we're going to fulfill our role in this wicked generation, if ever we're to be light and salt, if ever we're to be luminary, sparkling stars shining against the dark backdrop of a wicked generation, it will be, if ever, by the grace of God, we are marked by sexual purity and integrity in an evil and adulterous generation. And in opening up this theme, I want to do three things. Number one, I want to show the dominant place of this issue in the Word of God. I'm not speaking upon it because I'm a dirty-minded old man and want to talk about sex.

20:05 I'm a preacher of the Word of God and I'm called to preach the whole counsel of God. And the Word of God is full of a doctrine of sexual purity and integrity and the horrible results when sexual purity and integrity are forfeited. And then secondly, having shown its dominant place in the Word of God, first in the Old Testament, then in the New Testament, then finally, I want to give you seven propositions which embody the Biblical concept of sexual purity and integrity. So its dominant place in the Old Testament, its dominant place in the New Testament, and thirdly then, seven principles that embody the Biblical teaching of sexual purity and integrity. Now don't expect me to turn to all these passages. We don't have time, but I'll cite the references and just briefly allude to them. First of all, the creation account ends on a pervasive, exclusively sexual note.

21:12 And I've chosen my words carefully. The creation account closes with these words. After Adam exclaims, this is now bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. And though there is far more to one flesh than mere sexual intercourse, of course, that is the foundational concept of one flesh.

21:43 Because when Paul is trying to show the Corinthians why they shouldn't consort with harlots, he says, do you not know that he that is joined to the harlot is one flesh with the harlot? So we do not over-spiritualize this. They shall be one flesh. Doesn't say one mind, though they will be one mind if they have a good marriage.

22:06 One soul, but it says, one flesh. And the last verse of the creation account, and they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. There they are in their image-bearing capacity, in total vulnerability to God and one another, in total nakedness, without shame. And I always ask couples in premarital counseling, can you contemplate Adam and Eve there in the garden in total nakedness in the embrace of their sexual intimacy and believe God looked down and said, that's good.

22:46 If you can't, you've got a sub-biblical view of human sexuality. How dominant is this matter of sexual purity and integrity in the Bible? The creation account ends on that very note. I didn't write it.

23:04 God did. Then when we come to see the two lines beginning to emerge, the line of Cain, which is the seed of the serpent, subsequently the line of Seth, the seed of the woman, notice the place of this matter in the description in Genesis 4, because it is in the line of Cain that Lamech comes, and it is said of Lamech in verse 19, Lamech took unto him two wives. He broke God's original pattern of monogamy. A man shall leave father and mother and cleave to his wife, singular, and the two shall be one flesh, not the three, not the four. And we find one of the most crass outcroppings of the seed of the serpent was the violation of the sanctity of sex in terms of a monogamous marital relationship. And then in that generation, before the flood, look at the place that sexuality had in terms of beginning to make sexual attraction the basis for marriage. And it came to pass, Genesis 6, when men began to multiply on the face of the ground and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God,

24:31 those of the godly seed of Seth, saw the daughters of men that they were fair. They knew nothing of their character. They knew nothing of their godliness. They just knew that they had the dimensions that go over big in a beauty pageant.

24:50 That's all you can tell about a woman from a distance. And when they saw that they were fair, they had beauty queen physical dimensions. What did they do? They took them wives of all that they chose.

25:08 They made physical attractiveness and sexual chemistry the basis of their marital choices. And that was one of the major factors that produced that wicked generation before the flood. I didn't write it. God did.

25:25 I didn't put it at the beginning of Genesis 6. God did. You see the dominant emphasis in the word of God? When men begin to view marriage only as a means to legitimize sex, and they view marriage as primarily a means of having heightened sensual pleasure regardless of its foundation in godliness, you've got a generation that's ripe for God's judgment.

25:56 Well, then you go on. The one major blot on the life of Noah. How does it come? Unseemliness.

26:06 Shameful nakedness. Genesis 9, 20 and following. And then when you turn to the Old Testament law, and here I'll just quote the passages. Leviticus 18, 3 to 5.

26:19 God has to warn his people, you shall not do this and do this. And he speaks of things it's almost indiscreet to read in a mixed assembly. And if God had not said these things were to be read every seven years to the whole congregation of Israel, I would not read them in a public assembly. But if God was not so fastidious as to command that they be read, and God speaks of various forms of bestiality and homosexuality and lesbianism and incest.

26:50 And he says, you shall not do these abominations of the nations that I drive out, for it is for this very reason that I drive out these nations. You find the same in Leviticus 20, 12 and following. The sexual practices of the land of Canaan were a major factor in the judgment God brought upon them. And in giving the standard by which his people were to live, highlighting those very sexual practices and saying you shall not do after these abominations fills up verse after verse after verse in the book of Leviticus.

27:32 And again in the book of Deuteronomy. And then as we scan through the Old Testament, who has any acquaintance that does not remember the shameful rape of Tamar by Amnon, her half-brother? Who does not remember the grievous sin of David with Bathsheba? Solomon's heart turned away by his many wives.

27:56 Who does not remember the book of Proverbs with Solomon in a better day speaking to his son, warning him about the strange woman, the foreign woman, the married woman whose husband is away on a journey to Ernie. And she gets the hots for this young man and seduces him. And he speaks in the most blunt language. Go not near the door of her house.

28:20 Then he gives the positive. He says, Drink waters out of thine own cistern and running waters out of thine own well. Be satisfied with the wife of thy youth. Let her breast satisfy thee at all times.

28:35 Go astray, be ravished with her love. And all the way through the book of Proverbs and then in the Prophets, the imagery of Israel's unfaithfulness that is brought forward again and again is the imagery of marital infidelity, spiritual whoredom. Now why do I give all that overview? To underscore that this has a dominant place in the Word of God in the Old Testament, but it's nonetheless dominant in the New Testament, in the Sermon on the Mount, of the one or few commands that Jesus picks out and amplifies.

29:13 You remember Matthew 5, 27. You've heard that it was said, Thou shalt not commit adultery. And they had put an interpretation on that which said if you didn't spend a night with a woman in bed, you were all right. He said, But I say unto you, Whosoever looketh to lust upon a woman hath committed adultery already in his heart.

29:32 Matthew 19, questions about marriage and divorce and Jesus takes them back to the beginning and says in the beginning it was not so. What God hath joined together let not man put asunder. And then when you turn in the New Testament to the categorical descriptions of human sinfulness, whether in the Gospels or the Abyssels, sexual sins often are at the head of the list. Mark chapter 7, verses 20 and following.

30:01 For from within out of the heart proceed, and our Lord mentions adultery, fornication. Galatians 5, 19. The works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness. 1 Corinthians 6, 9.

30:21 Be not deceived, the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God, neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor effeminate. Dear people, our New Testament is full of naming sins of sexual purity, sins that show the absence of sexual integrity. And when Christians are called to a life of holiness, often these matters are brought forward. Colossians 3, 5.

30:51 Put to death therefore your members which are upon the earth. And then there follows a list of sins, and at the heart of them are sexual sins. The same with Ephesians 5, 3 to 6. 1 Thessalonians 4, 1 to 8.

31:06 Where Paul says, You know how we taught you to live a holy life. And then he specifies particularly that you abstain from fornication, that each of you know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and in honor. That great epistle that sets out Christ as the final high priest and last message of God to men. Hebrews 13, 4.

31:31 Marriage is to be held in honor among all and the bed undefiled. But whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. So many passages. Dear people, you and I, if we're in touch with our Bibles, must be convinced that sexual purity and integrity are an integral part of the mark of God's true people, whether in the old covenant or under the new covenant.

Principle 1: Virginity of Mind and Body Until Marriage

32:00 Therefore, in keeping with our theme, the Christians' role in a wicked generation. One of the dominant wickednesses of this generation is its absence of sexual purity and integrity, along with the issue I dealt with earlier, sexual identity and function, maleness and femaleness and what they imply. And if we're to have any credibility in this area, we must show that we're committed to an alternate lifestyle, to a radically different lifestyle. We're prepared to think God's thoughts after him about our identity as males and females, our function as males and females, and our sexual activity as males and females. Now let me then try in the remaining 20 minutes to give you these seven principles that embody the standard of God. And if you're serious, if you're serious about being light and salt in this generation, may God write these things upon your heart. Number one, virginity of mind and body must be an uncompromising standard until marriage

33:26 for Christian men and women. There's the first great principle. Virginity of mind and body must be an uncompromising standard until marriage for Christian men and women. I say mind as well as body because Jesus said, whoso looks with a view to lust hath committed adultery.

33:58 It is not enough that you remain a virgin physically. You must strive to be a virgin mentally. That means you're going to have to resist letting your eyes glance on the stuff that even appears in innocent news magazines, let alone stay clear of the newsstands. With the slick, not only girly magazines, you've got to call them boy magazines now.

34:31 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.

35:00 And so she sets her eyes upon this handsome young man figuring if I can get him into bed, that'll be a star on the fact that I still haven't lost it in my sexual attractiveness and prowess. But Joseph would rather be thrown into jail under false accusations than sin against his God. He was committed to uncompromised virginity of mind and body until his wedding night. God help you young women, you men, to say by the grace of God that's the standard I take from God and I will not compromise.

35:42 For the only divinely ordained outlet for sexual burning according to 1 Corinthians 7 is marital intercourse. To avoid fornications, let each have his own husband, his own wife. It is better to marry than to burn. Autoeroticism, mental fantasies are not God's way of sexual outlet.

36:11 They are the world's way, the devil's way, not God's way. Virginity of mind and body must be an uncompromising standard until marriage. And I thank God by His grace that He put that conviction in me as a young Christian and by the grace of God. I have no regrets, never tortured with comparing my wife with anyone else for there's never been anyone.

Principle 2: Flee Fornication Through Careful Physical Interaction

36:43 Secondly, any physical interaction, I've chosen my words carefully, of a sexual nature which provokes or promotes fornication violates 1 Corinthians 6.18. Any physical interaction of a sexual nature which provokes or promotes fornication violates 1 Corinthians 6.18.

37:21 Flee fornication! There's certain sins you can't run from. They are inmate, gross sins. They're in your heart and ingrained in your very disposition.

37:37 Would to God you could run from them but you'd have to run from yourself. But you can flee fornication. And I didn't say any physical contact between men and women is wrong. No.

37:51 The Bible doesn't say that. The Bible says greet one another with a holy kiss. It doesn't say men with men and women with women. I've embraced thousands of women in a non-sexual way without the slightest twinge of eroticism.

38:10 I've embraced thousands of men without the slightest trace of homosexual interest or desire. But any physical interaction of a sexual nature which provokes or promotes fornication violates 1 Corinthians 6.18. You know what that means for some of you guys?

38:36 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.

39:13 But I'm so put together if I go beyond holding your hand if I so much as kiss you it starts motors whirring in me that before long I fear my hands will be upon your breast. And God knows where it'll stop and I don't want to defile you. Do you understand? Please bear with my determination to flee fornication.

39:36 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.

40:14 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.

40:45 I do it hundreds of times. Whole societies and churches do it. And it doesn't inflame fornication. That's a lot of nonsense.

40:55 Unless you want it to. But if just another man touching your shoulder and discreetly pecking you on the cheek elicits something in your heart that you can't put to death you go to that brother lovingly and say brother I don't believe you have the slightest intentions that are evil that I'd appreciate if you'd just shake my hand and leave it at that. Flee fornication! Third principle.

Principle 3: Reject Auto-Eroticism

41:23 And here I've chosen larger words because I don't want to be offensive to any. Those who are old enough to understand will know what I'm referring to. Any auto-eroticism any auto-eroticism self-terminating sexual stimulation end of parenthesis is a perversion of God's design and contrary to the will of God. Any auto-eroticism parenthesis self-terminating sexual stimulation end of parenthesis is a perversion of God's design and contrary to the will of God. In spite of what certain so-called Christian authors are writing in so-called Christian books. In spite of what certain Christian authors are writing in so-called Christian books. And saying it's a means to keep pure until you're married.

42:27 And a means for married men to keep pure when they're away on a business trip. That's nonsense. The very physiology of the way God has made us indicates that the sexuality of the male is to find fulfillment in the intimacy with the female and vice versa. That's why Paul says in 1st Corinthians 7 if any man is burning with sexual passion what is the outlet?

42:58 He does not say let him get a wife or let him indulge in auto-eroticism. That is not given as an option because it is self-terminating instead of other-terminating. And some of the deepest problems I've had to deal with in marital counseling with couples fouled up in their sexual lives is because they were addicted to auto-eroticism and they cannot think in terms of the self-giving of human sexuality. They so program themselves to be self-terminating.

43:35 It's a form of perversion. Fourth principle. Again, I'm going to use technical words if you're not children. Heterosexual.

Principle 4: Heterosexual, Permanent, Monogamous Marriage

43:49 That's male and female. Heteros, other. Homo, of the same kind. Heterosexual, comma, permanent, comma, monogamous marriage.

44:08 Heterosexual, permanent, monogamous marriage is the only God-ordained context for God-honoring sexual relations. Heterosexual, permanent, monogamous marriage is the only God-ordained context for God-honoring sexual relations. Only context. How do we know that?

44:47 Go back to creation. When Jesus was asked the question, Is marriage permanent? Can a man put away his wife for any cause? He says, Have ye not read?

44:57 He who made them in the beginning made them male and female. And for this cause said, A man shall leave father and mother, cleave to his wife. They too shall be one flesh. Then Jesus added something.

45:09 What God therefore hath joined together, let not man put asunder. And whoso puts away his wife, except for pornea, except for invading the sacred citadel of the two-one flesh relationship by uncleanness, for man joins himself to another man, another woman, to a beast, that's pornea, the broad term for sexual uncleanness, which violates the marriage at its very citadel. Jesus said, A man who puts away his wife, except for that cause, and then marries another, commits adultery. Why?

45:46 Because in God's eyes that other bond is still viable. He says, It is permanent. It is monogamous, cleave to his wife. It is heterosexual, not cleave to another man or a woman cleaving to another woman.

46:05 Dear people, we're losing our ability to be shocked anymore. Ever since the so-called coming out of the closet of the lesbian homosexual movement, it seems we've lost the edge of being shocked that on popular talk shows people would dare to appear seen by millions over network television as so-called homosexual husband and wife, males and females. God says, Thou hast a whore's forehead, thou refusest to be ashamed. That's this generation.

46:44 Part of its wickedness. It's shameless. It's shameless! It can't blush!

46:50 If you don't watch out, it will wear you down. Once you begin to say, Oh, well, it's kind of gross, but no, no, it's not just gross, it's wicked. And if they can't blush, then you do like the prophet did. He blushed.

47:09 He said, I blush and am ashamed and cannot look up. Blush, blush vicariously. All right? Fifth principle, and we're going to get through it, God helping us.

Principle 5: Fulfilling Marital Sexual Obligations

47:21 We're on time. Here's the fifth principle. Marriage partners must make conscience of fulfilling each other's sexual obligations. If you're going to be transformed by the renewing of your mind, you must see as a Christian that as a marriage partner, you must make conscience of fulfilling your partner's sexual needs.

47:52 I've stated it this way, marriage partners must make conscience of fulfilling each other's sexual obligations. And that is taught so clearly in 1 Corinthians 7. I don't know how some of these so-called pious men and women I've met who deny conjugal rights to their partners can say they have their devotions. They must conveniently skip 1 Corinthians 7.

48:17 For he says very clearly in verse 3, let the husband, isn't it interesting? He starts with the recognition that the wife has her sexual rights. And he says, let the husband render unto the wife her due. Her due, what's owed her.

48:37 It's a debt to be paid. It's not a privilege for you to pick up and take down when and where you wish. You have a debt to your wife. Pay it.

48:50 The wife hath not power over her own body, but the husband. Likewise, the husband doth not have power over his body, but the wife. Do not withhold yourselves from one another except it be by mutual consent and that only for a brief period of time that you may give yourselves unto prayer and then may come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your incontinency. See what he's saying?

49:21 What could be plainer? There must be open, free, frank communication between a husband and wife with respect to their own needs. How can I know what is due to my wife if she does not communicate in some way by our own little set of verbal and non-verbal signals to one another? And every married couple has its own.

49:48 Or has their own. But we are to make conscience of this. So what? You've had a rough day at the office?

49:54 Big deal. If your wife sends out those signals that she wants to snuggle and wants intimacy, kick yourself into behind and say, you lazy old buck, fulfill your God-given responsibility. Say, Lord, give me grace. Because there's many a time when you get all lovey and snuggly and she's been chasing kids all day and washing your clothes and washing your clothes and washing and she no more feels like being a lover in that sense than she feels like running around the block and jogging.

50:28 And yet she lovingly gives herself to you. God says it's supposed to work both ways. Who says the Bible is prudish? That seems to me that's pretty practical, isn't it?

50:40 And in our pastoral oversight visits, this is one of the passages we read to couples and say, are you fulfilling this? What's the result if you don't? You're opening the door to the devil to come in and disrupt your marriage with infidelity. You're opening the door for the devil to come in and create adultery and uncleanness.

Principle 6: Guarding Marital Sexual Intimacy

51:03 Principle six. Time is getting away real quick now. Marriage partners must jealously guard the sacred sanctuary of their sexual intimacy. Marriage partners must jealously guard the sacred sanctuary of their sexual intimacy.

51:22 Marriage partners must jealously guard their sexual intimacy. I know it's popular in our day, you see, for people to show, well, I'm mature and grown up so I can talk before a national television talk show audience about the details of my intimate life with my husband or wife. My friend, that's shameful. It's not that we're prudes.

51:46 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

52:37 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 look is the look of sexual desire and interest, you are preserving the sacred sanctuary of your marriage. And then, last of all, single and married Christians alike, single and married Christians alike must resist all

Principle 7: Resist Undermining Influences

53:38 the influences that would mock, erode, or undermine these standards. Singles and married Christians alike must resist all the influences that would mock, erode, or undermine these standards.

54:01 That's why you better be very careful. Very careful what you watch on TV. First Corinthians 1533, be not deceived, evil companions corrupt good morals. If you can watch on the so-called innocent funny sitcom, young couple where they've got teenagers 14 and 15 having their first sexual experience and the whole plot is built around losing their virginity and it's suffused with humor, you can find yourself watching that with interest and laughing.

54:31 It won't be long before you'll be laughing at it in your own life. Be not deceived. You watch the movies you go to if you attend any. The movies you rent for your VCR. Watch your even so-called innocent news and family magazines. You watch the music you listen to, especially country music. The theme of country music again and again, somebody's got the hots for somebody else's wife. Somebody's discouraged and down because they're not going to get married. They've just been jilted and they're out hot to trot with someone else. You watch any influence coming into your eyes or your ears that would in any way undermine, erode these biblical standards. Brethren, sisters, young and old alike, if we are to fulfill our role in this wicked generation, we had better by the power of the Holy Ghost have biblical standards for sexual identity. May God help us by his grace. Let's pray. Father, thank you for helping us to cover

55:52 so much ground in so short a time. May your spirit take the word and embed it in every heart. Pray especially for the dear young people among us. Oh, Lord, keep them in an evil and an adulterous generation. That they may come in your presence. That they may come in your presence. That they may come in your presence. That they may come in your presence. That they may come in your due time and will to their marriage night with a clear conscience.

56:19 Oh, Father, have mercy upon us. Have mercy upon us. As our generation sinks itself in a sea of sensuality, will you not yet rescue by the mighty power of the Spirit? We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.