SEXUAL IMMORALITY-GENERAL
The church at
Ephesus faced a culture characterized by immorality. We, too, live in a culture
tolerant of sexual immorality. It is popular to be open-minded to many types of
sin, calling them personal choices or alternative lifestyles. But when the body
of believers begins to tolerate sin in the church, it is lowering the church's
standards and compromising its witness. Remember that God's approval is
infinitely more important than the world's. Use God's Word, not what people
around you are willing to accept, to set the standards for what is right or
wrong.
The first
characteristic of sexual sin is deceit. It never delivers what it promises. It
offers great satisfaction but gives great disappointment. It claims to be real
living but is really the way to death.
John MacArthur
1 Corinthians, Moody, 1984, p. 147.
No sin that a person commits has more built-in pitfalls,
problems and destructiveness than sexual sin. It has broken more marriages,
shattered more homes, caused more heartache and disease, and destroyed more lives
than alcohol and drugs combined. It causes lying, stealing, cheating and
killing, as well as bitterness, hatred, slander, gossip and unforgivingness.
John MacArthur
1 Corinthians, Moody, 1984, p. 147.
The biblical exhortations to resist sexual sin are
motivated by a recognition of how it deprives us of
even greater satisfaction. The principal reason for saying No to physical
immorality is that it undermines the ability of our hearts to deeply enjoy the
multifaceted joys that God provides for His children. Sexual sin diminishes our
capacity to feel God’s delight in who we are. It drains us of His power and
hardens us to the loving overtures of His Spirit.
Sam Storms
Sexual Morality, November 6, 2006, www.enjoyinggodministries.com.
Used by Permission.
What are [most] rationalizations based on? One lie. The most pernicious, heinous, Satanic
lie of all. They are based on the lie that God really isn’t good after all;
that God is neither able nor willing to do for our souls or bodies what they so
desperately need done; that therefore God can’t be trusted with our fears and doubts
and hopes and hurts. Since God doesn’t care and can’t be trusted, we’ll find
satisfaction somewhere else. And so often, we do.
Sam Storms
Sexual Morality, November 6, 2006, www.enjoyinggodministries.com.
Used by Permission.
Sexual sin
never begins by accident. People do not suddenly fall into an illicit sexual
act simply by having an opportunity confront them. There is always some
specific preparation. This preparation we call “pre-sexual” experience.
Pre-sexual experiences are those experiences of mind and action which excite,
train, or develop our sexual drives.
Jerry White
Copied
from Honesty, Morality and Conscience by Jerry White © 1996, p. 180. Used by
Permission of NavPress – www.navpress.com.
All rights reserved.
In cases I
have seen, some common threads emerge and seem characteristic of men who have
fallen into sexual impurity:
1. The macho image and a sense of
dominance.
2. A perceived failure in one’s job or a
blow to one’s ego or pride.
3. A feeling of being “above the rules.”
4. Going easy on one’s self…in many areas
like diet or exercise.
5. Carelessly allowing one’s
self to be in places or situations that boost temptation.
6. A roving and undisciplined eye.
Jerry White
Copied
from Dangers Men Face by Jerry White © 1997, p. 85. Used by Permission of
NavPress – www.navpress.com. All rights
reserved.
[Men]
experience sexual temptation daily. It is our plague, our persistent sickness.
Jerry White
Copied
from Dangers Men Face by Jerry White © 1997, p. 80. Used by Permission of
NavPress – www.navpress.com. All rights
reserved.
Because
marriage comes from God above and not from man or beast below, it involves
moral, not merely physical problems. A sin against the commandment of purity is
a sin against God, not simply the outraging of convention, the thoughtlessness
of youth, the evidence of bad taste. The Savior tells
us that, when God's children are joined in wedlock, they are united by God, and
beneath the evident strength and courage and love that this divine direction
promises there is a penetrating, ominous warning. Those who tamper with God's
institution have lighted the fuse to the explosive of retributive justice.
Marriage is so holy that of all social sins its violation invokes the most
appalling consequences. Sodom and Gomorrah were burned out of existence because
of the vile disregard of the holiness of marriage. David's rule over Israel was
blackened by his marital follies and by the royal lust that forgot God and
dedicated itself to raging passion. The Hebrew people dropped out of the family
of nations largely because of the vicious practices associated with Balaam
worship.
Walter A. Maier
For Better, Not for Worse, St. Louis:
Concordia, 1935, p. 83.
Sexual immorality might occur for many different reasons:
erotic pleasure, financial advantage, revenge on a spouse or parent, fear of
saying no to an authority, pursuit of approval, enjoyment of power over
another’s sexual response, the quest for social status or career advancement,
pity for someone and playing the savior, fear of losing a potential marriage
partner, escape from boredom, peer pressure, and so forth.
David Powlison
Seeing With New Eyes, P&R Publishers,
2003, p.153.
The deepest
problem of our lives, whether heterosexual or homosexual, is the terrible
exchange of the glory of God for images (Romans 1:23). The
exchange of the truth of God for a lie (Romans 1:25). The
disapproval of having God in our knowledge (Romans 1:28). Failed worship
is our worst disorder. This is beneath all the maladies of the world. Repairing
this, not first our disordered sexuality, is our main
business in life.
John Piper
The
Other Dark Exchange: Homosexuality, Part 1, October 11, 1998, www.DesiringGod.org, Used by
Permission
The only
sinner who can successfully battle his sins is a justified sinner. In other
words, you fight against sexual sins from relationship, not for a relationship.
John Piper
The
Other Dark Exchange: Homosexuality, Part 2, October 11, 1998, www.DesiringGod.org, Used by
Permission.
Consider the popular
“I need sex.” When this is elbowed out of the category of desire and lust into
the biological, the assumption is that sex is a biological need, nearly
identical to food and water. The reasoning is that since it is a biological
need, sexual self-control is unnatural, and the only option is to practice
“safe” sex. Abstinence, therefore, is both old-fashioned and biologically
untenable.
Edward T. Welch
When People are Big and God is Small, P&R
Publishing, 1997, p. 138. Used by Permission.