pc10 Sexual Purity

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pc10 Sexual Purity is an exhortation to purity in sexual matters for the Christian. We look at various aspects of the issue.

By David Cox

[PC10] v1 ©2008 www.coxtracts.com
This tract can be freely copied for non-profit use.

It is not an impossible fight!

1Pet 2:11 Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;

Gal 5:17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

With the increase of pornography and the constant lowering of standards, sexual temptation has become one of the principle problems for Christians. It is a spiritual fight so intense that almost every Christian has it. This fight is not impossible to win, but it is very difficult.

The Biblical Model

1Cor 7:3-5 Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. 4 The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. 5 Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency (not have sex).

We can say that no alternative of God’s plan (one man with one woman which marry until death do they part) is acceptable. All the alternatives are going to have problems because they are not what God wants. God recognizes the sexual necessity of every human being. God made this part of their being. God is not ignorant of this, nor is he without interest that we enjoy this part of life. God has made the sexual desire as part of reproduction. We need to clarify here, that sex is not sin. Heb 13:4 “Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed (sex) undefiled”. Only sex outside of what God permits, God’s plan, is sin.

1Thess 4:3-5, 7-8 For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: 4 That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; 5 Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God 7 For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. 8 He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit.

God sees that part of holiness is cleanness and spiritual purity that comes from keeping ourselves sexually pure, and from keeping our minds clean. In this passage, the word “vessel” is sometimes translated “wife”, and in other versions “body”. The idea is in relation to his sexual being. It is important that the Christian learns and strives excessively to keep himself sexually pure from sins and desires. When someone refuses to honor God and to give him the supreme place in his life, then he will allow other things to take the place of God (which is idolatry).

Roman 1:23-24  And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.  24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:

God always gives them up to be prisoners of their own sinful lusts (strong desire and passions) when they do not exalt God. They reject the sovereignty of God by seeking what is pleasant to them instead of what is pleasant to God (His will) and this is always idolatry.

Homosexuality and Prostitution

In the Bible, the word “sodomite” is qadesh, a masculine prostitute in a temple. Some would propose that this is not the sin of sex one man with another, but the being of a priest in a pagan temple. Actually, the word describes the character of such priests, which are people that dedicate their lives to sex as their god (their life rotates around sex). Here we see female and male prostitutes as being the same thing, as people who live of sex (it is their pleasure), it really doesn’t matter with whom they have sex. We need to understand that sex becomes idolatry in our lives when it is the most important thing, and we make everything in our lives to rotate around sex, then we have left off worshipping the true God. There is a very strong relationship between the worship of sex (so prevalent in our day) and idolatry[1] as God sees it. The sodomites and prostitutes were condemned to death (Deu 23:17) because of the gravity of this sin in the eyes of God. The point is not that the prostitutes and homosexuals worshipped a pagan god, but rather that their worship of sex is the pagan god in itself, irrespective of their beliefs.

1Cor 6:9-10 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind… shall inherit the kingdom of God.

God identifies these groups of sins as idolatry, in other words, they put such importance on these things that the person takes God in a lesser importance. He specifically mentions the sin of fornication (sexual sins in general), the men who act like women (effeminate[2]), and men who have sex with other men (homosexuality). Lesbianism is condemned in Rom. 1:26. All these are in the same class of being types of idolatry, which block, prevent, or are chosen instead of salvation.

1Cor 6:18 Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.

Sexual sins are very dangerous sins against the body, which cause such a strong physical feeling that they become a physical addition that is very difficult to conqueror. This should cause us to be doubly careful. The Bible clearly condemns all types of sex which is contrary to what God has established. These sins are incest[3] (sex between relatives), sex with animals[4], sex with people of the same sex (homosexuals[5] and lesbians[6]), sex outside of your own marriage (adultery), etc. All these are captured in the concept of “fornication.” “Adultery” is a specific case of sex with some other than your own spouse.

Rom 1:27-28 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.  28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

The sin that Paul has in mind is clearly men with men, as if they were having sex with a woman.

[1]              2 Kings 23:7 “houses of sodomites” (connecting Sodomy with idolatry.

[2]              It is an abomination when a man dresses or appears as woman, when he is “effeminate”,
Deu 22:5 “The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.”

[3]              Lev 20:11-12, 17, 19-21; Deu 22:30; 27:20, 22-23; Eze 22:11.

[4]              Exo 22:19; Lev 18:23; 20:16.

[5]              Genesis 19:4; Judges 19:22; 1Tim 1:10
It is an abomination:: 1Kings 14:24. Lev. 18:22 “thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination”. Lev 20:13 “If a man lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination.”

[6]              Romans 1:26 “their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature”.

Nudity and the Mind

Because of the perversity of our day, we have come to view complete nudity as an accepted thing. Actually God condemns this and even condemns nudity when the person has underwear on. In Latin, the word for a loose outer garment is “nudus”, and the removal of it as “nudity”. Thus we understand Mark 14:52 and John 21:7 as not being total nudity but nonetheless nudity in God’s sight. God has commanded that each have their spouse (a moral and civil obligation), and we are not to have intimate relations with other people.

Job 31:1 I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?

Job understood that sexual sin begins with the sight, and the seeing before desiring. Job made a covenant with himself, a commitment that he would not look on young women to desire them or to let his imagination run wild with them even their image or in his thoughts. Equally, Jesus taught us in Mat. 5:28 that even thinking sinful thoughts without doing them is as sinful as actually doing them. This is an amplification of Exo 20:17 “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife”. David saw before taking (2Sam 11:2). Pro. 6:25 warns us of coveting alter the beauty of a woman, and neither should we be captured by (or through) the eyes (sight).

Self-Stimulation

The stimulation of one’s own genitals is also a spiritual problem, even though it is not directly mentioned in the Scriptures. Perhaps we should see this as an exaltation of one’s sexual feelings over all else (the same as sodomites and prostitutes). When sex becomes an obsession in one’s life, we have let our carnal body order our life for us and set our priorities. God has given us a manner in which we can release this drive (through marriage), and sexual impurity is not it. God has given us marriage for life, but we have ignored and destroyed it, so we suffer.

Resisting the Temptation

2Tim 2:22 Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

The spiritual battle is to not enter into sin, especially fornication (1Cor 6:13 “the body is not for fornication”). It is being firm in your heart, “having no necessity, but hath power over his own will” (1Cor 7:37).

Fasting is to teach us that the body does not control over us, and this is exactly what is necessary for people with this problem. This sin is pinned to the thoughts, “for as he thinketh in his heart, so is he” Pro 23:7. “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” Phil 4:13.

Col. 3:5-7 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:  6 For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience: 7 In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them.

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