Sexual Sins
We are to avoid all immorality, especially adultery.
Here's Gene:
It's interesting, immorality
or sexual sin is the third time that this
has come up in specific ways
in the book of Proverbs.
And repetition is pretty important in Scripture.
Third time he's dealing with this issue.
Now there are, as I've said all along
in the study of the book of Proverbs,
he's using adultery and specifically
the sin of adultery and immorality as--
yes, the reality of an immoral act.
But he's also using it to illustrate
all wisdom of this world that is
counter to what God wants in our lives.
But I think there's something significant
about the fact that he uses immorality
because immorality can be the basis of
all kinds of sin that comes into our lives
and into this world.
But let's look at it literally first of all
in this particular principle.
And what he does is he gives us
a story of seduction.
It's a pretty graphic story of a young man
who walks out,
he sees a woman and, obviously
she is going to try to seduce him.
He goes across the street
and then he goes down the path
that leads to her house.
And then from there she seduces him
and he falls into her trap.
Now that's basically the general story.
But when you come to verses 21 and 23
you see the end result of that seduction.:
She seduces him with her persistent pleading; ...
And if you go back and read the story
leading up to that you will see how that happens.
It's pretty specific--pretty graphic.
...She seduces him with her persistent pleading;
she lures with her flattering talk.
[And] he follows her impulsively like an ox...
And by the way, the similes that
Solomon uses are pretty strong.
We've seen that in other similes,
in other principles.
But here he's dealing with immorality.
...He follows her impulsively
like an ox going to the slaughter,
like a deer bounding toward a trap
until an arrow pierces its liver,
like a bird darting into a snare--
he doesn't know it will cost him his life.
Solomon goes on then to give
a very specific warning.
And he broadens this now
not just to his son.
He says: My sons. My sons.
And I think he's speaking to every male
particularly whose listening.
Now, my sons, listen to me,
and pay attention to the words of my mouth.
Don't let your heart turn aside to her ways;
don't stray onto her paths.
For she has brought many down to death;
her victims are countless.
Her house is the road to Sheol,
descending to the chambers of death.
Now that's a pretty strong statement
in relationship to the result
of this kind of sin.
When we look at the New Testament of course,
Christianity came into existence
in the midst of the Roman world.
Solomon is dealing of course,
with paganism in the Old Testament settings
with the Assyrians and with
the Babylonians who were some of the
worst immoral people on the face of the earth.
And even backing up to that are the
people who were the Canaanites
who inhabited that land before
God gave it to the children of Israel.
And by the way, God gave that land to
the children of Israel for two purposes.
One was to deal with the horrible sin
that existed in Canaan.
It was beyond imagination.
It was--he used Israel as
a form of judgment.
But secondly, he also gave them
this land as a promise to fulfill
that promise he made to Abraham
in order to ultimately give us the nation Israel.
Ultimately to give us the Messiah
who comes--who came of course
to bring us eternal life.
But in terms of sexual immorality,
the Roman world was
horribly degenerate as well.
As any culture is apart from the truth of God--
who ignore the truth of God.
And for example, in his first letter
to the Corinthians--and Corinth was
noted for its immorality
in the New Testament world.
I've stood with some of you in that city--
the ruins of that city.
And the reflections of immorality
are everywhere including the temple of Zeus,
including the huge mountain to the north
where there used to be a temple to Aphrodite.
And all of that was permeating that culture.
And the gospel came and
permeated that evil.
And many people came to Christ.
But Paul had to deal with the flow over
of their pagan backgrounds
even into their Christian experiences.
And this is what he wrote in 1st Corinthians:
Run from sexual immorality! ...
That sounds like Solomon doesn't it?
I just wish Solomon would have
carried out his own instructions.
...Run from sexual immorality!
"Every sin a person can commit
is outside the body."
[But] on the contrary, the person
who is sexually immoral
sins against his own body. ...
There's something very unique
about that sin in terms of the
psychological and even the physical
aspects of our physical body.
...Don't you know that your body
is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit...
See he's writing to Christians here.
If their bodies weren't a sanctuary
of the Holy Spirit, they wouldn't be Christians.
But they're Christians. And he says:
...Don't you know that your body
is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit
who is in you, whom you have from God?
You are not your own,
for you were bought at a price.
Therefore glorify God in your body.
Immorality has been around since
sin entered into the world.
And one of the things that characterizes
every culture of the world,
apart from the gospel of Jesus Christ,
is the darkness of evil and sin
that often begins with immorality.
And goes down from there
in terms of the results.
And so the question for application:
Though God forgives all sins [all sins],
including the most flagrant forms of immorality,
what are some of the pervasive results
in our society today that demonstrate
why immorality is so destructive?
I heard a message rather recently
by Dr. Al Mohler, probably one of the
most brilliant men in relationship to
the Scriptures and understanding culture.
And he made a statement
something like this--and I'm paraphrasing:
The speed at which our culture
has deteriorated morally is
unprecedented in history.
The speed at which our culture,
our western culture, has deteriorated morally
is unprecedented in world history.
And that's true.
And so when you think about that and
some of the causes, it's pretty easy
to put our finger on the problems:
Pornography.
Illicit sexual relationships
that violate the will of God.
We see it in movies.
We see it on television.
It's everywhere on the internet.
Not only just violating the normal
sexual relationships between men and women
that God has created. But a perversion of that
as Paul deals with it in Romans chapter 1.
Leading from heterosexual sin,
to homosexual sin,
involving open marriages,
involving same sex marriages,
same sex relationships.
And that has happened in the
American culture at a very rapid
speed of deterioration.
The college campus today where they
actually have sex weeks
where they bring on the campus some
of the most sordid kinds
of sexual activity under student
supervision that's beyond imagination.
And this has just happened, you know,
within a short period of time.
And all of this obviously is leading to
all kinds of problems in our culture.
Divorce rates are increasing
because people don't even understand
what marriage is.
Because they've been so distorted
in their thinking of what is normal,
what is natural.
Sexual abuse and all of the sins
that grow out of that. And of course,
Romans chapter 1, if you read it,
really describes the direction of our own culture.
A culture that was one time based upon
the values of the Old and the New Testament.
So this Principle is pretty significant.
And it helps us to understand what
God's will is in relationship to morality.
So here's the Principle to Live By:
We are to avoid all immorality, especially adultery.
Because once the marriage is destroyed,
it's amazing how quickly everything
falls apart within our culture.
And we need to pray that God,
through our being light in this world,
will help to bring hope to those
who do not understand the
importance of this principle.