Honoring Christ in Male/Female Roles (3)

Introduction and Ministry Disclaimer

0:01 Now, before I read the word of God in your hearing and then together seek the face of God in prayer, I just want to say several have asked me for the address of the Trinity pulpit, so I've just taken one of my own little business cards that has the general box number, and I've circled it, just put Trinity pulpit, and there's the box number, and that will go to the manager of that ministry. And I do want to say, as a disclaimer, this is a subsidized ministry of the Church. I do not receive any royalties. The Church receives no profits.

0:40 It costs us anywhere from usually $5,000 or $10,000 a year to subsidize this ministry, and we count it a privilege to have it as a ministry. When I want one of my own tapes, I have to go down and pay my dollar and a half, like anyone else, plus six. Since, New Jersey state tax. And I'm glad it's that way because I'm then able to affirm without being fear, being afraid of contradiction, that we are not making merchandise of the word of God.

1:13 So for some of you who might not be aware of that, I did want to make that plain. I think it most shameful when preachers hawk their own wares to their own profit, and I would not have my good evil spoken of, and so I make that public disclaimer. I'll just leave this here for any of you who wish to have the address, so that you can send for that series of tapes. Or if you'd like the newly printed catalog, the sixth edition has just been printed.

1:41 They were being mailed out just as I left, and one of them will be sent to you free of charge if you simply write and request the copy of the new catalog. Now let us turn together to Paul's letter to the Corinthians. His first letter, 1 Corinthians chapter 6.

Reading of 1 Corinthians 6:9-20 and Prayer

2:06 And will you follow, please, as I read in your hearing, verses 9 through 20. And if some of you wonder what version I am reading from, for years I have used the old 1901 called the American Standard Version, which is basically the ERV of 1887. But I automatically changed. I changed the Elizabethan endings of the verbs and the pronouns and the rest.

2:37 I've done it for so many years, and the public reading in my eye just automatically does it. And some of you may wonder, what version is the man reading from? So I'm reading from the Martinized edition of the 1901 American Standard Version. Now then, the word of God in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 9.

3:02 Or know you not? Know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

3:28 And such were some of you, but you were washed. But you were sanctified. But you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. All things are lawful for me, but not all things are expedient.

3:50 All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats. But God shall bring to naught both it. And them.

4:07 But the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord. And the Lord for the body. And God both raised the Lord and will raise up us through his power.

4:22 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? God. God forbid.

4:38 Or do you not know that he that is joined to a harlot is one body? For the two, said he, shall become one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. Flee fornication.

4:59 Every sin that a man does is without the body. But he that commits fornication sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, which you have from God? And you are not your own, for you were bought with a price.

5:24 Glorify God therefore in your body. And as some of the old texts have it, and in your spirit which are his. now then let us seek the face of God that God will write upon our hearts his word as it is expounded in our hearing let us pray our father we come into your presence with thanksgiving and with praise for all of the joys we have known together in this blessed weekend with one another but above all in your presence we would together give you thanks that in your kindness you have put it into the hearts of people in places of strategic responsibility to plan such a conference we thank you that in your providence and will you have brought each one of us together for this conference we thank you especially for those who have labored long and selflessly to make so much of our time together so efficiently run and for all of these mercies we are indeed thankful and our father as we now meet

6:53 in this final formal session of worship and ministry we pray that the Holy Spirit would come down upon us in such copious measures as to crown this entire weekend in such a way that we will all be able to see and hear in this conference what God has so dearly blessed us with and even to call upon in this limited time we wish to ask you how you would make a difference in our life and in the hereafter in our lives and may the Lord have mercy with you and may we also be able to have this wonderful opportunity to see the same beauty that you have in us and may the Lord have mercy with you and may we really be blessed and be perfect and may we reach out in God's name may we be blessed and may we be filled with the glorious and the onto his body and may we be blessed with the strength in the midst of a godless and a perverse generation. Come then by your Spirit and minister to us, we pray, as together we make our plea through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Now, as I have previously announced, we come tonight to the third of the messages that I have been privileged to bring on the general theme of male and female relationships and roles

The Greco-Roman Context of Sexual Impurity

8:20 and especially how to honor Christ in them. And what I propose to do in our study this evening is to speak on the subject of the divine antidote to sexual impurity. The divine antidote to sexual impurity. And as we stand on the threshold of this study, it's important, first of all, to note that when the gospel came into the Greco-Roman world of the first century, it came into a world that was literally steeped in the horrible moral degeneration which is the inevitable result of paganism and of idol worship.

9:12 Wherever paganism and idol worship, their horrible moral degeneration will inevitably be present. And one of the dominant manifestations of that moral degeneration was the tragic and widespread dominance of sexual impurity. It was therefore necessary for the apostles in the nurturing of the gospel and in the nurturing of the early churches to address head-on and frequently the subject of sexual purity. They did not assume that the mere coming of the gospel with power would automatically sort out the sexual aberrations of first century Christians. A classic example of this very fact is the passage that I have read today. The passage that I have read in your hearing. But perhaps the most telling example of this, and it troubled me for years, is the decree that went forth from what is commonly called the Council of Jerusalem as recorded in the 15th chapter of the book of the Acts.

10:36 You will remember that certain people supposedly had come down from Judea authorized by their claims by the apostles to come down from Judea. The apostles to teach at Antioch and they were teaching doctrines contrary to apostolic truth. And so representatives were sent from Antioch up to Jerusalem to consult with the apostles, the elders and the church about this matter. Well, the upshot of that council was that the apostles drew up a declaration that was to be sent as a cyclical letter among the churches that were being formed out of raw, paganism in the Roman Empire.

11:20 And when that decree went forth, this was its basic content. Acts 15 and verse 19. Wherefore my judgment is that we do not trouble them that from the Gentiles turn to God, but that we write unto them that they abstain from the pollution of idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood. Now I confess that troubled me for years.

11:56 I said, why in the world would they have to send a cyclical letter to churches into which spirit-filled preachers had come? Apostolic preachers preaching the gospel of the grace of God. Why would they have to send a letter to these young churches saying, that if you are to be consistent as Christians, you must abstain from fornication? Doesn't everyone know that to be a Christian means to cease and desist from every form of sexual impurity?

12:32 Well, I've lived long enough to understand why they had to send such a letter, for such days are now upon us. In the paganism of the Greco-Roman world, fornication, that is, illicit sexual activity among Christians, among the unmarried in particular, was no more considered sin than sneezing is considered sin if you've got an itch in your nose from smelling pepper. Fornication was not looked upon as anything other than a biological release. The whole concept of casual sex, recreational sex, and even religious sex, was very much a part of the world into which the gospel first came. In fact, as now, most evangelical churches try to fill their Sunday night congregation with vying for the Sunday night crowd with various musical groups and so-called Christian entertainment, the way you got your Sunday night crowd in pagan Corinth was to advertise the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's the most shapely temple prostitutes. And frankly, I think we're soon coming to the place where evangelical churches will have something very close to attracting people with their

13:59 temple prostitutes, their miniskirted, frizzy-haired, pop singers swiveling their hips in the name of the God of heaven. I marvel that God doesn't strike them dead. But that's the situation. And into that situation, the gospel came.

Three Preliminary Assertions on Human Sexuality

14:20 And into that situation, apostolic instruction came that the churches might indeed reflect the new humanity in Christ as it ought to be reflected. So as we face living out our Christian profession in this generation, we, like the early church, need to be instructed in some of the most fundamental matters concerning sexual purity. And as I stand with you on the threshold of attempting to expound 1 Corinthians 6 and its sevenfold or seven-ingredient antidote to sexual impurity, I want to make three fundamental preliminary assertions. All of the treatment of human sexuality in 1 Corinthians 7 assumes these three fundamental concepts. And I'm going to run by them quickly, but it's essential that I articulate them. Number one, our sexuality, including our capacity for sexual pleasure, originates with God and not with the devil.

15:36 Our sexuality, including our capacity for sexual pleasure, originates with God and not with the devil. Genesis chapter 1 and 2 make this abundantly clear. God made them male and female, and in so doing he made them with their primary sexual organs, with their secondary erogenous zones. God made them with all of their capacity for sexual function and enjoyment.

16:13 It is not as though these two concepts and these elements of their physiology were absent until the devil is introduced in chapter 3. And when God looked down as we saw yesterday upon Adam and Eve in total nakedness, in the embrace of marital love, he beheld what he made and behold, it was very good. The second principle that must be clearly understood is this. The God who designed and created us with our sexuality is the only one who has the right to determine and dictate its legitimate functions. The God who designed and created us with our sexuality is the only one who has the right to determine and dictate its legitimate functions. The God who invented and created us with our sexuality is the only one who has the right to determine and dictate its legitimate functions. Common societal consensus

17:41 is no basis of determining licit or illicit sexual standards. The God who designed it has the right to determine and dictate its functions. Then thirdly, we need to understand that the God who created our sexuality ordinarily intends that it should be joyfully fulfilled in the self-giving delightful abandonment of the bonds of marriage. God who created our sexuality ordinarily intends that it should be joyfully fulfilled in the self-giving delightful abandonment in the bonds of marriage. 1 Corinthians 7, 1-4 Let the husband render to the wife her due. Let the wife render to the husband his due.

18:54 Marriage is honorable in all and the bed undefiled. Proverbs 5 Rejoice in the wife of thy youth, let her breast satisfy thee at all times, and be thou always ravished, intoxicated, go astray, be exhilarated. But the concept of delightful abandonment is certainly inherent in that word be thou always ravished with her love. Now when we come to 1 Corinthians chapter 6 in which the darker the more negative side of sexuality is set before us in terms of its abuse and the divine antidote to its abuse we must always view this more concentrated negative perspective against the backdrop of this more positive framework of the theology of human sexuality which I've articulated in these three propositions or assertions. And why is it necessary? Because we are the victim of extremes. And it's very interesting that while apostles lived they saw a reaction against the hedonism and the sensuality of paganism and already there were

20:23 people who were heeding doctrines of demons and do you know what the doctrine of demons was? Forbidding to marry. In this reaction against total involvement with carnal and fleshly indulgence men quickly were swinging all the way to the other extreme. You find it again in Colossians touch not, taste not, handle not, which things have a show of will worship but are of no use to true mortification. And it would be tragic if in our reacting against the horrible excesses of the glut of fornication and sexual impurity any one of you young men or women were to go into the extreme of a depreciation of the noble glorious sanctified place of human sensuality as revealed in the word of God. Alright with that background introduction and framework conditioning our handling of the passage now then let us come to the divine antidote to sexual impurity and there are seven things that Paul uses

The Seven-Fold Divine Antidote to Sexual Impurity (Part 1)

21:43 by which to concoct this antidote to sexual impurity and I want to state them in such a way that I hope they have burs and hooks and arrows and anything else that makes something stick. If I could immerse them in crazy glue and plaster them to the walls of your soul I would do so. Or epoxy or anything else that will make them stick. And so I want to express the basic content of the passage in terms of convictions which you must have based upon the word of God convictions inwrought into the very fabric of your soul by prayer meditation and constant reflection. Number one. You must have the conviction that a lifestyle or a pattern of sexual impurity will bar you from heaven. Now that's starting point.

22:48 Number one. You must have the conviction that a lifestyle or a pattern of sexual impurity will bar you from heaven. And if you're barred from heaven there's only one place for you and that is hell. And where is that taught in our passage? Verse 9.

23:08 Do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Don't let anyone in the name of teaching you biblical truth ever deceive you. No fornicator no adulterer no homosexual will ever inherit the kingdom of God.

23:39 Full stop without exception. Now I am not saying nor does the word of God say that one who is to inherit the kingdom cannot fall into an act of fornication into an act of adultery. The Bible is honest about the sins of even its most glorious saints. But what Paul is saying is that no one committed to a lifestyle in which he says virtually my sexual organs and my preferences and their functions are my business and they have nothing to do with my eternal destiny. Such a man is self deceived. Such a woman is self deceived. And therefore I say to such groups as evangelicals concerned in the United States and no doubt you have them in the UK who claim to be evangelical Christians, born again Christians who are advocating that responsible monogamous lesbian and homosexual relationships are a tolerable Christian alternative. Such people are wicked, cannibal deceivers and don't believe them.

25:01 My Bible says be not deceived. Fornicators, effeminate adults shall not inherit the kingdom of God. And I'm going to state it bluntly because of the play on words from the original. If men are determined to say I'll have orgasms with whom I will and how I will God says you will undergo the orgy of God. The Greek word for the wrath of God is orgy. And when someone says I shall have my orgasmic experiences with whom I please, when I please, how I please God says you shall have my orgy poured out upon you in the lake of fire and there are no orgasms in hell of any relationship. There is merely the orgy of God running over the fiber of body and soul forever. And when you're tempted to begin to pair all the

26:17 right angles of the moral standards of the word of God, never forget, no one became a fornicator as a pattern of life, an adulterer as a pattern of life, a homosexual as a pattern of life who did not first of all choose to indulge in a specific fantasy of fornication, a fantasy of adultery, a fantasy of a lesbian or homosexual relationship, an initial encounter of fornication, adultery, a lesbian or homosexual relationship, and as John Owen has so masterfully demonstrated in his book on the subject of temptation and sin, every sin in its first and most modest approach has as its ultimate end the consummate manifestation of that very sin. So to state it very bluntly, the next time you're tempted to pause by that book rack in a magazine shop with salacious literature young man, remember that could be the beginning of an addiction to pornea, pornography, the Greek word pornea, covering the whole canopy of sexual uncleanness.

27:46 Tell yourself, 30 seconds by that book shelf may make me an addict to pornography and to mental fornication and perhaps eventually to physical fornication that will land me in hell, run from the bookstore like you would run from the mouth of hell myself. I had the horrible experience this past year of dealing with a man in his late thirties who acknowledged that from the time he was seven years old he has fantasized about sexual relations with other men and though he went through and contracted a marriage with a Christian woman, himself a professing Christian, fathered three children, now in his late twenties he is a practicing homosexual. He thought he could indulge his mental fantasies and get away with it, but his sin has found him out. You better settle it as a non-negotiable fact of divine revelation with reference to having a Biblical antidote in your soul against sexual impurity that a lifestyle or a pattern of sexual impurity will

29:15 bar me from heaven, full stop, no fine print, no exceptions. That's the truth of the passage before us. Do you see it? Do you see it with your own eyeballs in this book? Well then when your hormones are all crying out and your flesh is longing to be indulged just tell yourself am I prepared to pay the price of everlasting burnings for the sake of the titillation of a few nerve endings for a few moments? God help you to be honest with your soul. But now there's a second ingredient to this divine antidote to sexual impurity and it is this. I must have the conviction that my body including its sexual organs and functions exists for the service of the

30:13 Lord. I must have the conviction that my body not accepting but including its sexual organs and functions exists for the service of the Lord. Where do we find that? In verses 13b and 14.

30:31 Notice. Meats for the belly. In other words God has provided foods and for the foods he's provided the digestive system. The stomach and all of the other organs by which food is digested, assimilated and then eliminated.

30:49 Meats for the belly and the belly for meats. Isn't that amazing? God made meats foods perfectly suited to the digestive system and he made a digestive system fully suitable to receive the meats. There is a divinely intended congruity between food and the digestive system between the digestive system and food. You see that in the text? You see that? Wiggle your ears, shake your head, do something. You see that? Very plain very simple. Alright? But now he says, but God shall bring to naught both it and them. In other words, a time is coming when that present bodily function found in the congruity between the digestive system and food and food in the digestive system will be brought to naught. The resurrection body

31:42 apparently can eat food when it wants to or finds some delight in it. Our Lord in his resurrection body broiled some fish down by the seashore and I imagine it must have been delicious. So he ate, but apparently in the resurrection state there is not that necessity as we now know it. So he says, God shall bring to nothing bring to naught both it and them. Body says this, the body is not for fornication but for the Lord. You see they reason this way. If you have meats, foods that are perfectly suited to the digestive system and you have a digestive system perfectly suited to receive the foods, well if you have a body then that is perfectly suited to perform fornication then the body must have been made for fornicating. He says, oh no, don't you go drawing unwarranted parallels.

32:34 He said, no, the body is not for fornication but for the Lord and the Lord for the body and God both raised the Lord and will raise us up through His power. And what is Paul saying? Simply this. He is saying, you Corinthians if you are to stand against the tremendous pressure to sexual impurity you must have this conviction that your body including its sexual organs and functions exist for the service of the Lord. The body is not for fornication but for the Lord. In what sense is the body for the Lord? It is for the service of the Lord. The most devout seraphic soul can only serve God in this body. And

33:31 even in the abnormality of the intermediate state which the Bible never regards as anything other than unnecessary expedient. The great doctrine of Scripture is that our salvation comes to consummation, not when our spirits depart and be with the Lord at death to go be with Him at death, but at the resurrection when in the integrity of our humanity soul and body joined and resplendent with the glory of Christ Himself does our redemption reach its true consummation. And that's why he brings in then the doctrine of the resurrection to underscore that this body including its sexual organs and functions exist for the service of the Lord. Now you say how will that help me with sexual impurity? Well I trust you see the connection. Yes I have these sexual organs and capacities and hormones which at times create tremendous tensions and pressures and frustrations and I need to tell myself this body and all of its sexual capacity exists to serve the Lord who designed it, who will care for it when it's rotting in the grave and will one day raise it with glory at the last day.

35:00 We need to have a Biblical view of the tremendous place of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body in the Christian faith. We have altogether too much romanticized about the intermediate state. Frankly the thought of this spirit being violently wrenched from this body is not a pleasant one for me. The thought that in my spirit I shall somehow look upon my Savior and commune with him is indeed a glorious thing.

35:32 But I long for the day when the body that now feels very keenly the seeds of death at work in it will be able to worship and serve and praise and honor the God and the Savior who has redeemed me and never feel an ache or a pain or weariness. Imagine a spirit rid of all the last traces of sin so that it will love God perfectly, joined to a body that can be the servant of such a spirit. I tell you that's enough to make the dullest person jump for joy. Isn't it?

The Seven-Fold Divine Antidote to Sexual Impurity (Part 2)

36:08 Isn't that enough to make you jump for joy? A spirit that will have unflagging love and zeal joined to a body that will be its handmaid in the fulfillment and expression of that holy longing. Well you see what a tremendous antidote to sexual impurity to recognize that this body with all of its faculties and capacities including its sexual organs and functions exist for the service of my Lord and not for the service of the devil or for the service of my remaining sin. But then thirdly and this is where Paul goes into an area that I found it difficult for years to preach on because it just seemed to go beyond anything that I could handle without feeling I was bordering on blasphemy. And this is the way I'm expressing it. I must have the conviction that my union with Christ involves my body and is neither cancelled nor suspended in the midst of illicit sexual experience. Now that's quite a mouthful but I didn't know how else to state it accurately. I must

37:35 have the conviction that my union with Christ involves my body and is neither cancelled nor suspended in an illicit sexual experience. Verse 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Now would you like to trade places and become the expositor? My body this pile of decaying flesh is a member of Christ.

38:16 That's what the text says. Don't you know that your bodies are members of Christ? In the mystic union of the redeemed with the redeemer that union is not merely spiritual. Oh it is spiritual. Verse 17 He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. But I tell you this body of mine is not a spirit body. You come up here and stick a pin in it it'll bleed. It's a flesh and blood body.

38:55 And in a way that I am not prepared to expound in any detail but simply to declare it because it's here. This body is united to Jesus Christ. In virtue of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within this body. This body is united to Christ. Now then he asks a question and this is the one that I say it seems to almost border on the black blasphemous. I tremble to even read it. Now his question shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Now what members of a man's body are joined to a harlot? His primary

39:51 and sexual primary and secondary sexual organs. I don't need to give you a lesson in anatomy. I just tell you that much and you know exactly what I mean. And Paul says shall I then take away the members of Christ and make members of a harlot?

40:20 The antidote to illicit sexual experience is the conviction that my union with Christ involves my bodily organs and is not cancelled or suspended if I enter an illicit sexual union on the one hand we must say that our savior as we were reminded last night even when he was consciously voluntarily bearing our sins in his own body up to the tree received no stain or pollution from them so we must affirm that whatever this passage teaches Christ is in no way defiled with the fornicating act of a true believer but the text says shall I take away the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? And then Paul answers with that strong response God forbid may it never be may the thought be with a holy may I be well armed that if I am a true Christian I am so united to Christ even in terms of the members of my body being members of Christ

41:48 that that union is neither cancelled nor suspended when that Corinthian went into a lapse and went up to the local temple and spent fifteen minutes with a temple prostitute he implicated his savior in his sin. That's staggering isn't it? That's what the text sets before us and you see one of the horrible subtleties particularly of sexual sins is they have an amazing power to short circuit all of the spiritual realities which at other times regulate and govern our lives I've dealt with many men addicted to pornography and almost without exception they've said to me pastor I don't understand it I can be thinking and living and acting as a Christian man living in the fear of God but once I get near the pornography it's as though a veil comes down and God and the presence of God and Christ and the cross those realities seem to be utterly neutered in my thinking and for the few moments that I indulge that filth

43:16 it's as though none of those realities exist and as soon as I turn away from it they all break in back upon me with such pressure that I feel such a depth of remorse and despair and guilt the same thing to those who have fallen into fornication godly young men and women loved Christ but didn't listen to the warnings it was too much cuddling too much snuggling too much allowance for being in places where fornication was possible no Christian couple ever fornicated with mom and dad in the next room or rarely if they were asleep but I mean if they knew it anymore they could come into the door they didn't fornicate in the living room in the presence of other people and they began to put themselves in circumstances where fornication was possible and their testimony was we don't know what happened pastor we went right from having devotions and a half an hour later we were illicitly intimate all of those realities just went out of our minds you see when your hormones and your passions begin to debate with you they never lose a debate don't give them a chance to enter into debate but load your mind and your spirit with this great truth until it becomes a visceral conviction inwrought by the Holy Ghost

44:44 that in union with Jesus Christ I sustain a union involving even my bodily organs that is neither cancelled nor suspended in an illicit sexual experience now there's a fourth ingredient in the apostles antidote to sexual impurity and it's this and oh I hope you hear me because now I'm coming right against the mindset of our generation and if anything would get me labeled as something out of the dark ages it's this but it's here in the word of God I must have the conviction that there is no such thing as casual and non committed sexual activity I must have the conviction that there is no such thing as casual and non committed sexual activity the in term in the states is recreational sex and where do we find that out verse 16 Paul raises another question do you not know that he that is joined to a harlot is one body for the two said he shall become one flesh but he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit now isn't it interesting that when Paul is dealing

46:12 with this part of the ingredient of his holy antidote to sexual impurity he quotes from the original marriage institution of Genesis chapter 2 remember we saw it yesterday this is now bone of my bone flesh of my flesh she shall be called woman therefore shall a man leave his father and mother cleave to his wife and they too shall become one flesh you see what Paul does Paul extracts the very concept of one flesh and says even in the flirt the fleeting short quote non committed sexual encounter of the Corinthian with a temple prostitute there is a level of involvement that warrants the two one flesh concept that is embedded in the marriage institution according to Genesis 2 what's he saying he's saying when two people become intimate sexually in spite of all their rationalization in spite of all of Hugh Hefner's horrible pop hedonistic philosophy in spite of everything that the hot shot sociology majors have tried to tell our generation there is no such thing as casual non

47:41 committal sexual non committed sexual activity God has so designed us that when there is sexual intimacy there is a bonding of one flesh and though a man or a woman may be able to count his or her sexual encounters with different partners in the dozens or the hundreds the reason they become so burnt out and many times so tortured in their psyche as well as in their consciences is they have been toying with that which has levels far beyond that which they are willing to acknowledge and this is because God has designed the sexual intimacy to be just that and even when men violate its context which is the commitment of two whole people to one another for life a man shall leave father and mother cleave to his wife that is be joined to her whole person the whole person committed to another whole person and in that sanctuary of mutual commitment the sexual act has its proper context but Paul says even where the context is violated there is something in the act itself that can never be casual

49:05 the two shall be one flesh as surely as union with Christ makes us one spirit with him so union with a harlot makes a man one flesh with her now do you see why you have no business watching trashy soap operas in which there is paraded before your eyes the idea of casual sexual encounters from which people can walk away and simply just wipe their mouth like they do at the end of the meal and it's over that is propagating a lie it's propagating a lie that's why no Christian should say well that wasn't a bad movie only one sex scene in it I hear Christians talking like that and I say what in the world is wrong that wasn't a bad movie only had about a dozen foul words in it what in the world are you doing voluntarily exposing yourself to stuff like that don't you have enough rot coming up out of your own remaining corruption without hiding it by voluntarily letting your eyes look upon stuff on the television and in the cinema that appeals to the

The Seven-Fold Divine Antidote to Sexual Impurity (Part 3)

50:28 lowest basest remnants of remaining sin the common denominator of all of the stuff in the sitcoms and in the night time trash and I'm sad to say your foul Benny Hill is now a big popular figure in the states no as Christians we must be convinced there's no such thing as casual and noncommittal sexual activity you had to sit where I did as a pastor and I'm sure every pastor here will affirm this and talk to people who though years into grace still struggle with the haunting bonds that are there with former sexual encounters and though God has cleansed them as we said this afternoon and granted restored moral innocence they have found to their grief and pain there was no such thing as casual sex but then I must hasten on now and touch number five if I'm to have the full antidote to sexual impurity I must have the conviction that sexual impurity is a unique form of self destruction verse 18 sexual impurity is a unique form of self destruction flee fornication every sin that a man

51:58 does is without the body now again here's an absolute for the relative certain sins are within the soul envy jealousy pride grudges so you don't take this as though Paul is speaking absolutely but it's an absolute for the relative every sin that a man does is without the body if a man's a glutton what's he do he takes something external to his body called food and he puts it into his body if a man takes tobacco and takes this external weed and puts it into his body and thereby defiles that body every sin that a man does is without the body in other words the pattern of many sins is one in which a man a woman takes something external to himself and by ingesting it by coming into very contact with it he sins but he says there's something unique about sexual sin and here it is but he who commits fornication sins against his own body in other words Paul says that sexual impurity is a unique form of self destruction a unique form of self destruction whereas

53:27 with gluttony and drunkenness and illicit drugs something external to us is taken into us in sexual impurity the impulses and materials are from within turning not an external gift into an enemy but turning my very self against myself he that commits fornication sins against his own body and I'm personally convinced that this is why God that medical science cannot keep ahead of the various diseases that flow out of sexual promiscuity just when everyone thought penicillin has forever taken care of gonorrhea what does God do God allows a strange strain of gonorrhea to rise up that spits on every bit of penicillin as you can and it's got some of the scientists in medical world pulling their hair out I believe it's God's affirmation both of Romans 1 and of this passage in a unique way when men are determined to indulge in sins that are self destructive God says alright you want to destroy yourself I'll see to it that you do and with all of the hype

54:55 about AIDS and all of the discussion at the end of the day there's a very simple way to treat the whole problem apart from poor hemophiliacs who have unwittingly been given blood that it's been defiled and apart from those other rare exceptions there's only one way people get AIDS and that's by sinning against their own bodies by illicit sexual activity virginity and conjugal fidelity are God's answer to the problem of AIDS keep yourself pure cohabit with one wife one husband and apart from those other unusual exceptional things of being given blood that's been defiled or a situation where you might and they are rare as far as we know presently come in contact with the body fluids of another in a social situation you need not worry about AIDS you see God is affirming such simple statements as these and his pride goes on defying God and killing himself in the process but I must turn now to number six the sixth ingredient in this divine antidote to sexual impurity is this

56:22 I must have the conviction that my body is the very sanctuary of God by a sovereign act of grace and power verse 19 a or do you not know you see how he keeps bringing in these new thoughts with the question do you not know it's amazing instead of simply saying look you want an antidote to sexual impurity the seventh commandment he could have done that but he didn't he's given us this antidote that is filled out with such a fullness don't you know that your body is a temple a sanctuary the peculiar dwelling place of God the Holy Spirit who is in you which you have from God so he makes two assertions he says your body that is this organism that if right now mine were killed and they laid it on the table and the mortician were to split me open he could take every square inch and analyze the tissue and all the rest and he'd say I don't find the Holy Spirit and he'd mock in his arrogance in a way that transcends the ability of man to see and to perceive and in a way that is as real as any other element of reality this very body

57:51 is a sanctuary of almighty God by an act of grace and power what know you not that your body including your sexual organs and capacities and faculties is a temple of the Holy Spirit may I say it reverently did the Holy Spirit cordon off the primary and secondary sexual organs and say no no that's an area I must not come near does he say all but your sexual organs are part of God's living sanctuary no your body in the entire integrity of that organism is a sanctuary of God and it has become such by the act of God's gracious power which you have from grace has made my body a divine sanctuary this body apart from grace would have been nothing but that which is described in Ephesians 2 the vehicle of fulfilling the lust of the flesh and of the mind to the control of the devil and then it would have been raised at the

59:19 last day to be joined to the unregenerate spirit and soul and body cast into Gehenna to be the eternal monument of the folly of sinning against the God of heaven and yet wonder of wonders God in grace and power has come to me in the gospel and made my body his sanctuary and it's all of God oh Christian fill your mind with that reality when you sit with that young woman to whom you've begun to be drawn in that mysterious chemistry of romantic affection which may grow into true principled biblical love or it may not and don't forget that and when everything in you longs to begin to express that growing affinity and bond of mental and intellectual and spiritual and aesthetic oneness and everything in you longs to touch the warmth and the softness of her flesh remember remember the Holy Ghost dwells in her it's his sanctuary

60:46 not your playground his sanctuary not your playground not your hand sanctuary until God says in the joyful abandonment of your marriage bed his sanctuary becomes your possession with his smile and with his blessing you begin to look at your lady friend that way and I tell you you've got something with which to resist all those urges and pressures she's God's property blood bought property with impunity and that brings us finally by anticipation to the seventh in what I think is beautiful in its unfolding the capstone the masterful ingredient the one that completes the antidote and it's this I must have the conviction that my body including my sexual organs is the purchased body of Jesus Christ look at it you are not your own why for you were created by God

62:14 that would be true but Paul does not rest the assertion upon creation he says you are not your own for you were bought with a price glorified God therefore in your body which makes you I believe me for you and you are not your own by the allow you to ask what is your body, including your sexual organs, is the purchased property of Jesus Christ.

63:16 To state it as crassly and yet delicately as I know how, I must say to myself, when my Lord lay under the billows of divine wrath, voluntarily giving himself up as surety and substitute, offerer and offering, he was doing this to purchase me, every part of me, that I might live to his glory in the totality of my life. He purchased me, including my sexual organs, capacities, desires and energies. Several of the married folks spoke to me and hoped we could have some, discussion on the whole matter of the bearing of children. Let me just, by an aside, give you this little note.

64:19 You young women who are married, are your eggs that have been there in your ovaries from the time God made you, were they purchased on the cross? Yes, they were. They're not your ovum, they're his. And the sperm that is continually created in your body, Christian man, that's not your sperm.

64:42 It's his. And when you begin to think about your procreative stewardship in terms of a passage like this, the whole matter of shall we bear children, if so, when, how many, is no longer a matter of what are the current conventions, what are the conveniences, what are the economic goals that I have. You begin to think of the stewardship of that procreative faculty as the purchased property of another. And I tell you, it'll revolutionize the way you prayerfully consider the whole matter of family planning.

65:21 So I'll just sow that seed, let you work it out. But do you see it in the passage? You were bought with a price.

65:31 Glorify God, therefore, in your body. Now there is a question textually as to whether or not Paul wrote, and in your spirit, which are his.

65:43 But without claiming to be an expert in textual knowledge, I'm convinced that it's questionable that he wrote in your spirit, which are his. I believe it was the introduction of an already degenerating concept of the nobility of our bodilyness as Christians. I shall never forget the day when sharing, blessed privilege, sharing a conference with Professor Murray in London back in 1970. We had a two-week school of theology.

66:15 I shall never forget when I heard, I heard him say that we shall have a sensuous existence even in the world. He used the word sensuous, and it shocked me. Because for me, sensuous always had the connotation of something that was illicit in the realm of the sexual, but he was using it in its classic sense, that we will have full bodily existence and function even in our glorified state. And it had a profound impact.

66:47 Because in my background and training and influences of the deeper life movement and a naturally sensitive conscience and a number of other factors, I had a sub-biblical view of the sanctity of the body in God's purposes. And I personally am convinced that the text as I wrote it is the text as Paul wrote it, or as I've read it is the way that Paul wrote it. But there is no question, textually, that Paul did write, Glorify God, therefore, in your body. Well, what does that mean at the practical level?

67:24 It means, again, that when my appetites cry for fulfillment, I say, If I'm to glorify God, what I do with my body must be commensurate with the purposes for which Christ purchased my body. And why did he purchase my body? Not that it might violate. the law of God, but that in loving obedience and in the power of the Spirit, it might operate in evangelical law-keeping to the glory and to the praise of Almighty God.

Practical Application for Engaged Couples and Personal Testimony

68:04 Here again, it has great practical implications.

68:08 I speak to you who are engaged, and there's already a commitment of heart and of soul and of mind, and now it's just chomping at the bit, waiting for the wedding day. And, oh, how easily you can begin to rationalize. I found this to be one of the most helpful antidotes to stepping over those barriers of illicit activity before marriage during the period of engagement, to regard my beloved as purchased by the Lord Jesus. And though God was pleased to keep me from sexual impurity outwardly as a young man, and I thank God for it, I know what it is to have every single cell in my body, every single cell in my body, craving fully to possess the woman that was going to be my wife.

68:59 And yet, when I would remember my Lord purchased her, He alone has the right to say, when I can touch that body, when I can possess that body, He is her purchased possession. And until the one who purchased her in redemption hands her to me and says, My son, my purchased possession, property is now yours within the sanctity of my word. What a great help it was to come to my wedding night with a good conscience. Now, I don't say these things in ordinary pastoral ministry.

69:43 I don't know that I've ever said them anywhere publicly before. But I believe in this context it is safe, and I trust right and discreet for me to say this. Why? Because as much as we try to let you know, know that we are made of the same stuff of which you are made, the image that young men and women get of conference speakers is this bigger-than-life, totally unrealistic image.

70:08 And some of you could sit there and say, Yeah, it's all right for you to talk that way, but you, yes, I do know what it is. And we had determined that there would be certain limits to our physical contact and expression of affection. And had we not set those standards, I don't...

70:27 I don't believe we could have come to our wedding night with a good conscience. Because as we said earlier this week, grace does not neutralize hormones.

70:39 And when a relationship is established on the deepest levels of spiritual affinity, you have a context for the most powerful stirring up of your God-given eroticism. And if you don't have the standards that are set by the Word, and convictions based on such passages as these, you're not going to make it. I wrestled with whether I should have read tonight a letter sent by a woman who used to come to this conference. And she wrote a letter to Mr. Murray, and she was pleading with him in a very gracious way that this very subject would be taken up because she said, Now, working with young people in a church, my husband and I are broken-hearted. We're dealing now with two girls who used to attend a bachelor's, minor youth conference, one age 17, pregnant, out of wedlock, another age 18, living with a married man twice her age. And she was pleading that these notes be sounded.

The Capstone: Flee Fornication

71:44 It never happened to me. Whoso trusteth in his own heart is a fool.

71:51 You say, Mr. Martin, there's one part of the passage you didn't touch on. That's right. I passed over deliberately because I want to leave it for my final word in your ears, as we prepare to close and go on to supper.

72:07 It's the first part of verse 18. Flee fornication.

72:15 Now, why did I leave it to the end? For this very reason. When you put the petrol of these seven principles into your gas tank, and you get your gearbox into gear with these seven principles, I tell you, you've now got a basis for some high-powered fleeing. Thank you.

72:41 You see what I'm saying?

72:43 If you cannot take seriously the exhortation, flee fornication,

72:52 with this kind of four-star petrol in the tank, and this 3.8 liter engine under the hood, and this high-speed gearbox, and high-speed differential, then I wonder if you know anything about the grace of God. If these seven great principles don't touch you, don't hold you, don't exert pressure upon you, then frankly, I wonder if you know anything of the grace of God. If you know anything of the grace of God.

73:29 And fleeing fornication means exactly what it says. Avoid the circumstances which make fornication possible. Avoid the relationships which provoke to fornication. Avoid the sites, the books, the entertainments.

73:46 If you've got to be considerate, stupid, behind the times, I would rather be ignorant of current events. If the television is the stumbling block, you can go to heaven ignorant, but you can't go to heaven if you're a fornicator. I'd rather go to heaven ignorant of current events and go to heaven.

74:11 If walking into the news shop and being around the pornography leaves you vulnerable to look at stuff you shouldn't, don't go in the news shop. It's just that simple. Flee fornication.

74:40 Help the young men who want to be pure.

74:45 There's a way without bruising their egos unnecessarily when they begin to make it evident that they want to take liberties they shouldn't. Just lovingly place your hand upon the hand of that young man who wants to touch parts of your body he shouldn't and say to him, Now, John, Harry, Pete, whatever your name is,

75:08 my body's the purchased property of Jesus. You don't want to dishonor him. You don't want to dishonor him in that way, do you? Well, I tell you, if he's got any grace in him, he's going to say, I'm sorry, dear, forgive me.

75:23 And then he'll lead in prayer and say, Oh, God, forgive me that I would have even thought of violating your property. And if you're not going with a man that's made of that kind of stuff, drop him. God's got something better for you, young woman. God's got something better if he whimpers, whines, and tries to wear your leave fornication.

75:54 And if when she snuggles up to the point where it begins to stir things in you that you know are not healthy and you try to take the leadership, young man, and say to her, Look, that cuddling up may just be innocent for you, but I tell you, it starts things in me that are not wholesome. And if she starts whining and saying, Well, if you really like...

76:14 Drop her, man.

76:17 Drop her. Run from...

76:21 Say, God... I want to be pure.

76:29 ...are not the woman that God's given to me.

76:31 God doesn't give you a woman who seeks to draw you from the very things he's commanded in his word. Flee fornication may mean fleeing that particular person.

76:44 You can go to heaven single. Yes, you can. Some of God's best saints have gotten there single. But you can't go to heaven fornicator.

76:55 You can glorify God in your body as a single person. But you can't glorify God in your body. If...

77:02 If you are violating the standards of purity.

Pastoral Exhortation and Hope for the Bound

77:06 Well, I must say in closing, how grateful to God I am for the privilege that you have afforded me to bear my heart as a preacher of the word, as a father. And I am old enough to be father to just about most of you here. If you're not cheating on the age, I think the age bracket is, what, 16 to 25? And my oldest son is 26.

77:33 And we were married almost five, years before the Lord gave us to him. So I could easily have a son or a daughter 30 years of age. So I could be father to most of you. And I've spoken to you in a mingled role as a preacher, as a father, as a pastor.

77:51 But I hope also as a Christian friend who loves you.

77:57 I hope I've not spoken with any indiscretion. I've prayed that God would help me to be on the razor's edge of sufficient bluntness. That there'd be no mistake. That there'd be no mistake in taking the concerns, but with sufficient chastity and restraint.

78:14 That I would not provoke any to sin, even in their minds. I trust God has helped us in that. And I pray that God will write upon your heart the things that I have sought to give to you. And that as we reflect upon what we heard last night, the death of our Savior really was.

78:36 He went through all of that. He went through all of that. In one sense, to make you sexually pure. Oh, he went through all of that for a lot more.

78:47 But my Bible says he gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify to himself a people for his own possession, zealous of good works. May you lay to heart God's antidote to sexual impurity. And if you're here as someone who's all, all bound up in sexual sins that have got their chains around you, I have good news. Whom the Son sets free is free indeed.

79:22 I have seen God take from my own family a young man who let himself be bound with every imaginable sin and snap his chains. And he sits there under the word of God every Lord's day. And as I sit on the platform, and look out, I say, Oh God, may I never doubt the power of the gospel to transform men and women. Oh, dear young man or woman who thinks it's hopeless.

80:02 I've so abandoned myself and no one knows my sins of secret. No one knows. God knows. Christ knows.

80:13 And the blood and the spirit are able to set you free. Don't leave here in bondage. Leave Christ's liberated man or woman through the power of his grace. Let us pray.

Closing Prayer

80:35 Oh, our Father, how we bless you for the gospel. What thanks can we render to you for a Savior who sets the captive free, opens the prison to those that are bound, proclaims the true year of life, and gives us the power of jubilee. And we thank you for his liberating power. And as we commit to you now the exposition of your word, we pray that the Holy Spirit will so write it upon all of our hearts that we may be kept for him who loved us and gave himself for us.

81:16 We ask these mercies in his name. Amen.