Contending Against Idols: Round 3 Mike Moultrie VS. Sexual Perversity

For having me, your beautiful church, thank you for coming out this morning.

Would you pray with me? Father, as we come to you at this time, we ask you to fill us with courage and conviction.

At this time in our culture, there's this beast that demands attention. He wants us all to sacrifice our bodies on the altar of sensuality, lust, and all kinds of sexual immorality.

Please use your word to strike us at our core so we may contend for the faith with everything we have.

May we not remain silent nor give in to this great beast. In the name of Jesus we pray, amen.

When I was a child, I had a female friend named

Paige. She wasn't like most girls.

She was tough. We rode bikes together, played in the dirt together, threw rocks at one another, you know, doing those things that most kids do when their parents aren't watching.

We had fun, but one day something changed. Another friend of mine who knew

I was hanging around Paige asked if she was my girlfriend.

I said, yuck, girlfriend, no way.

But the seed was planted. It was almost immediately that I began to see her differently.

I actually looked at her and I said, she's kind of pretty. And then one day

I got up enough courage to reach out and just touch her. And I felt different.

I felt all tingly inside, right? Unfortunately, she didn't feel the same.

It's like this metamorphosis came over her and her face began to change.

You know, for you who remember the incredible Hulk, that metamorphosis, when someone would make him angry, well, she became the incredible Paige.

And I made her angry and I could see, I knew what was coming. She began gathering as many rocks, the biggest ones that she could find, to hurl at me.

But good thing I was a skinny and elusive kid, so she didn't hit me.

But where did I get the idea that two people who are friends can enter into some type of physical boyfriend -girlfriend relationship?

Where did I get that idea from? From a friend who was influenced by the world's thinking, who influenced me.

So the world came in at a young age, a young age, and began working in my heart and my flesh.

And that's all Satan needs. Drop a seed, change their view.

Speak a word, change their view. As we get older, things don't change all that much.

A touch turns into a kiss, and a kiss turns into something that was supposed to be special and reserved for marriage.

My task today is to inspire all of you to contend for the faith in the midst of a sexually perverse world.

We have to fight for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints in the midst of a dark world, a world that said there's something wrong with you if you're not sexually involved with someone.

When the letter of Jude was written, the church was facing severe political attack from Rome and spiritual infiltration through pre -gnostic -like apostates and heretics.

All of the apostles had been murdered except for John. At that time, Christianity was thought to be in an extremely vulnerable state.

It is in the midst of that mindset, that culture, that Jude wrote,

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation,

I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

Jude said contend or fight for the doctrine and practice that was long ago established by Christ and the apostles.

Although it had only been about 35 years since Jesus was resurrected and the church established, the faith was taking a hit.

Jude refused to put his head in the sand and pretend as if everything was okay.

His letter is the only New Testament letter that is devoted exclusively to confronting apostasy.

Similar to the apostle Peter, he was calling for all believers to be prepared to make a healthy defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.

And I say healthy because not everyone who attempts to defend the faith engage in healthy arguments.

Some do more damage than good. If you ever go around Times Square, you may see some people carrying signs that says, you're doomed and going to hell.

That's not a healthy attempt at apologetics, making a defense for the faith.

That's a narrow view that leaves people skewed. But then you have the other side, the other people who will tell you, he gets us.

And they'll hand you a track saying he gets us. Basically saying he understands your position.

So don't worry, God loves you. And if you have someone tell you that God loves you and don't explain the full counsel of God, you can actually be doing more damage than good.

Stick with me for a minute. Picture the family coming, father, mother, son and daughter.

On the outside, they look like a healthy family, a good family. And so you hand them a track.

Each one gets a track. The saying, God loves you just the way you are.

But you didn't know that that father or mother was abusive to their children.

By you giving them that track and then just hearing that one -sided view that God loves you, not only is that child abuser on his way to hell if he doesn't repent, but those children want no part of some

God who says it's okay to abuse your children. Contending for the faith means preaching and teaching the whole counsel of God.

That means we not only share the love of God, but the holiness and the justice of God.

By telling the world that God is holy, holy, holy, and just, it shows that individual, even if he won't admit it when you're first telling him this, he wants to stand in his position.

But you've, as Pastor Phil said, you've placed a pebble in his shoe, giving him something to think about in the quiet time.

I know my heart isn't right, but God is holy, God is just. What's going to happen when

I see him face to face? When it comes to contrition and repentance, that's where we want people to get to, a place where they have this contrite heart and they recognize their sin.

And not only recognize their sin with a contrite heart, but biblically that contrite heart means you're going to turn.

You're not going to stay there just feeling sorry for yourself that you're a sinner. You're going to turn. As long as you have breath in your lungs, you have to turn.

You have not been snatched from this realm and placed in the presence of God where you have to give an account for your life and it's over, you are still breathing.

That means turn and recognize the Lord of glory. But I'm not sure if there's a more difficult area of turning and dying to self than in the area of sexual sin.

It's tough. This sin is so pervasive that we have to be careful.

It's easy to look out there and say, man, this world is corrupt. But to look inside, to look at our homes and be honest, has this sin invaded my home?

Has this sin invaded my heart? Everywhere we look, the culture tries to redefine sexuality as a personal right to be exercised in any way that any individual desires.

But God has a say so. God has a line. And to cross that line is to miss the mark.

That's called sin. At the same time, we're dealing with a world that makes it a sin to call almost anything sin.

Today, you have to be exceedingly wicked to be called a bad person. Even then, many are hesitant to call someone a sinner.

It is so much more kinder to say, perhaps they have some issues that are resonating from when they were a child or even a mental disorder.

That's a popular one today, Lord. I mean, people, that's a popular one that it's easy to shift the blame.

If I can put it on something else, if I can put it on my childhood, then

I don't have to deal with sin. I'm even hesitant to use the word addiction.

I'm hesitant to use it because what happens is there's this redirecting of the heart issue.

There's this deflecting just by that word. The biblical word that I like to use is enslaved or enslavement.

The difference is if it's an addiction, then some help can come from the outside that man has made.

But if I'm enslaved, the Lord said, he whom the son has set free is what?

Free indeed. The Lord is able to set me free. When anyone comes to the

Lord, I'm not sure if we all get exactly what happens. In John chapter three, when he tells

Nicodemus, who as Pastor Phil said, would have had a PhD in Old Testament history.

He knew it, right? But Jesus goes right to the heart. He ignores the flattery.

We know you're a teacher from Israel. No one can do the things that you do. You must be born again.

Unless you're born again, you're on your way to hell. You will not even see the kingdom of God that you know so much about mentally.

But there has to be a heart change. There has to be the Lord coming in at the moment of salvation and writing his laws on your heart.

All you know is you want to do things differently now. All you know is you are filthy and only the

Lord can save you. That's all you know. You don't know all the theology behind that at that point, but God does.

And God says, you need me and you can't do it on your own. So I'm going to come on the inside and then

I'm going to take the scales from your eyes and the scales from your ears. And when you hear the word of God, the things you've been told all your life biblically are now making sense.

And you run to the Lord. It has to be an inner work with the mental disorder.

Please hear me clear. I understand that the fall and the sin that attacked life and brought death has an effect on our thinking.

There's this glaze where we cannot see the glory. We cannot fellowship like Adam and Eve did before the fall with the

Lord. We don't see things correctly. So I do understand that our thinking isn't always right.

I do understand that people get in depressed states. I do understand that people are up one moment and down the next moment.

But when we begin buying into the tag, the name of what they're calling us, now we're quick to identify ourselves as this instead of a blood -bought believer in Christ who walks by faith.

The issues come from zero to a hundred. The issues come, but we push through through the power of God, trusting him.

I don't know what's going to happen the next moment, but I trust that God is going to bring me through.

I'm going to trust him. That's walking by faith and not by sight.

But when we talk about the labels that we put on ourselves from psychologists, we have to be careful.

We listen to them with a grain of salt. Be careful. Because this is new.

This is new stuff. Around the early 1900s, doctors began attributing many cases of depression and non -normal behavior to mental disorders just about 120 years ago.

And they labeled it as quote -unquote traumatic memories being repressed and consigned to the unconscious.

That's why many times they'll want to know what happened in your childhood, and they want to dig it out and have you answering about 15 questions.

Now they can prescribe you something. You have to be careful. I ask you to Google DSMs, the

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Medicines, and they will be honest with you for the most part, and they'll tell you, we're experimenting, we're trying.

This worked from the 50s to the 70s, but we switched it up because people were coming out worse.

They will tell you, and just look it up, and you want to know what they're prescribing you.

That's all I'm saying. Sigmund Freud, for example, he developed this interview method to bring people to consciousness, to get to the heart of what's going on.

So he also began interpreting dreams, and he argued that nearly all neurosis arose from repressed sexual impressions.

And this type of talk therapy was called psychoanalysis. And under influence, many neurologists such as Wilhelm Reich and D .H.

Lawrence began to adopt psychoanalytical techniques, and here we are. It just developed and developed and developed to where when they speak, it's like fact.

But I ask you to check and see how many times things have changed. What was a fact 10 years ago, we've moved past that because we're growing.

But while they're growing, they're experimenting. Be careful. Today, when someone has an issue that causes them to respond to life in a non -normal manner, the psychoanalytical techniques begin, even when it comes to sexual sin.

The average person doesn't even realize how much they've bought into it. For example, about 10 years ago, a woman

I knew called me to let me know that her boyfriend had a sexual addiction disorder.

The thing about it is I also knew her boyfriend personally, way before she met him.

He didn't have a sexual addiction disorder. He just liked sex.

He just liked sex, that's all. He was a thoroughly fleshly human being once you get to know him, but he just needed the gospel.

Roughly a year later, he would receive the gospel. He received Christ as his

Lord and Savior, and his life changed dramatically. They got married, they had children, and what do you know?

The disorder went away. Cured. Now, like most married people, they have their other issues, but they came to understand the sanctifying nature of the gospel and that the daily pursuit of purity is a worthy pursuit.

It's a worthy pursuit. I truly believe the two -quick diagnosis of a mental health disorder is one of the great veils that has blinded the eyes, hearts, and minds of so many people within our society.

The vilest acts of sexual sin may not be socially acceptable, but are considered justifiable by many due to the diagnosis of a mental health disorder.

The problem is, when do we call sin, sin? If we can't call sin, sin, then repentance isn't necessary.

If I can't help it, how can you expect me to change?

This is who I am, and how do we get there by that first step?

The doctor said, I have this, and that's what I am, and I can't change. You have to accept me the way

I am. But brothers and sisters in the church, we cannot stand away from the

Bible, apart from the Bible. We have to stand in the scriptures, and what the scriptures call sin, we have to call sin.

That's the first step when it comes to contending for the faith in a sexually perverse world.

That's how the average Christian may be moved to make it their personal mission to fight for the faith in a midst of a culture that's swimming in sexual immorality, and don't even know they're wet.

Don't even know that they are drowning. The effects upon the world are devastating, and while these things may cause us to mourn, how much more when sexual immorality begins spreading within the church?

So, in order to attack this monster head -on, I have broken this section, this session, into a four -part plan of attack, and that four -part plan of attack is based on 1

Corinthians chapter 6, verses 18 to 20. If you will, can you turn there for me?

1 Corinthians chapter 6, verses 18 to 20.

There the holy word of God says, flee from sexual immorality.

Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?

You are not your own, for you were bought with a price, so glorify God in your body.

Part one, identifying sexual immorality. Part two, identifying the unique nature of sexual immorality.

Part three, identifying the defiling nature of sexual immorality.

And part four, identifying the sin within before contending for the faith in the midst of a sexual immoral culture.

I pray everyone in here will be moved to battle. Part one, identifying sexual immorality.

Within the marriage union, God blessed it with sex.

It is a gift to a husband and wife to make their relationship unique among all other relationships.

This is the only God -ordained way that the human race would expand.

By the coming together of a man and a woman, but man defiled it through sexual immorality.

Before we can identify why sexual sin is such a unique and defiling sin that we must contend against, we have to define our terms.

What is sexual immorality? Well, 1 Corinthians 6 .18 says, flee from sexual immorality.

Now the word sexual is not in the original, but the word immorality qualifies the phrase.

Immorality is the word porneia. It is used to describe all acts of illicit sexual activity.

Adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, sex with minors, sex with animals, etc.,

etc. God defines any sexual activity outside of the husband -wife relationship as an act of sexual immorality.

The Bible is clear about the guidelines because the one who has created sex has given us the guidelines.

God has set the boundaries. I think we can all learn something about porneia if we look at its other manifestations that are found in Galatians 5, especially in verse 19.

The scripture there says, now the works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, the list goes on, but at the top of the list,

Paul not only mentions sexual immorality, but he also introduces its close cousins, impurity and sensuality.

The original word for impure means uncleanness, uncleanness, a catharsia, a catharsia.

It could refer to a physical uncleanness, you know, just dirty and you need to wash or a moral uncleanness where you're just dirty and you need to wash in the blood of Christ to be clean.

It also means lustful and of fleshly motives. So Paul moved from the act of sexual immorality to the motives and the intent of the heart.

Pornography, for instance, to many seems like, oh, not that big a deal.

It's not that bad. But not only is it a sexually immoral act, but it also reveals the motives and the intent of the heart that if you could get away with it, you would swap places with the people you're watching in a heartbeat.

That's why some believe it's a justifiable cause for divorce. The porn epidemic is killing our people slowly and most of those who are engaged in it don't even realize that.

For married couples, it's ruining their intimacy, and that should be expected since it's ruining the intimacy between the perpetrator and the

Lord. Pastors, teachers, mature Christians, we have to get into our people's lives.

We have to help them to contend for the faith and fight purity in the midst of a culture that changes sex partners like they're changing a pair of sneakers.

As faithful shepherds, we have to lead them away from the visual scenes of pornography that will corrode their view of the beauty and special nature of sex between a husband and a wife, a man and a woman.

Paul also used the word sensual, asalgia, sensual.

Definition, unbridled lust, excess, licentiousness, which is lacking moral restraints, especially sexual restraints.

When we compare these works of the flesh to God's original purpose for sex, we can see why sexual immorality corrupts and degrades what sex was and is designed for.

From the 1960s to the 1970s, looking at the progression, looking at the progression of sex from what it used to be to where it came to, that decade, the sexual liberation movement produced this mindset that all forms of sex outside the boundaries of the traditional heterosexual monogamous relationship should be pursued.

Go after it. What followed was the normalization of masturbation, pornography, premarital sex, contraception and the pill, homosexuality, shame -free sexuality, and the legalization of abortion.

That's the result. Live how you want, then commit murder to cover it up. The morality of the culture wasn't that great to begin with, but by the time the 60s were over, society was dying, the individual as well as the family, because God created sex to unite as one not only our bodies but also our hearts and souls.

Whenever the sexual act takes place, it's much more than just a physical act.

Our whole mind, body and soul is engaged. That's why sexual immorality is such a unique sin.

As we attempt to contend for the faith in a sexually perverse world, we must keep that in mind.

And this brings us to section two, part two, identifying the unique nature of sexual immorality.

Sex was designed to consummate the lifetime union between a man and a woman.

Now, without being too graphic, God designed male and female parts differently so that they would be fitted together, literally making them one flesh.

This is an act that has a lifelong effect on the soul. The intent is to make the two one, not just for the duration of the sex act, but for the duration of life.

Sex is a unique act. Therefore, sexual immorality is a unique sin.

Whether a quick sex hookup or a long -term monogamous relationship, sex outside of marriage destroys this wonderful gift and mocks the giver of the gift, which means all who engage in it will certainly reap the consequences.

Unconstrained sexual habits have contributed to many sorrows. God created boundaries for our good so that we can enjoy his gift as it was created to be enjoyed.

Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed underfiled. But whoremongers and adulterers,

God will judge, Hebrews 13 and 4. From the Old Testament scriptures, we saw marriage used as a metaphor to describe the covenant relationship that God had with his people,

Israel. In Jeremiah chapter 3, for instance, verses 6 to 8, the

Lord asked Jeremiah, have you seen what she did, that faithless one,

Israel? How she went up on every high hill and under every green tree and there played the whore?

And I thought, after she has done all this, she will return to me. But she did not.

And her treacherous sister, Judah, saw it. She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one,

Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. That's marriage language. God was

Israel's husband. But because of the destructive nature of adultery, which is the act of giving your whole self to another,

God divorced her. However, in the New Testament, God put into place an unbreakable covenant between Jesus and his bride, the church.

This is what makes sexual sin a unique sin because God created the sex act to be a consummation of an eternal covenant relationship.

On top of that, did you know that the marriage covenant is a covenant in which the spirit of God participates in?

In Malachi chapter 2, verses 14 to 15, the

Lord declares, I was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.

Did he not make them one with a portion of the spirit in their union? The full depth of that is beyond my understanding.

I know the spirit of God is there, and he's in both of us, and he's working in our marriage, but the full depth of what

God is saying as far as making us one and having the spirit a part of that, it's beyond my understanding.

But what I do know that is to engage in any type of sexual activity outside of your marriage grieves the

Holy Spirit. You're bringing God into the sexual filthiness, the holy, pure God who came to sanctify you.

And the thing about those who believe you can lose your salvation, over and over we're told that he's not going anywhere and we've been sealed with him, so don't grieve him.

If we could lose the salvation, he would leave, not be grieved, but he's grieved because he's there, he's with you, and he's working in you.

And if we ever get to the point where we're just turning a deaf ear, well, as a good father, we're going to feel something.

We're going to take this chast, this chastening from a God who loves his children and will not allow you to stay there in your sin and call yourself his child.

I believe any responsible parent would do the same. Sexual sin defiles the marriage covenant.

And that brings us to part three, identifying the defiling nature of sexual immorality.

In 1 Corinthians 6, 18, the apostle Paul goes on to say every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his or her own body.

John MacArthur told the story of a 16 -year -old girl who wanted to kill herself.

He said she looked like she was about 40 years old, just haggard. And he asked her, why?

What has you wanting to kill yourself? And she said,

I've had so many sexual partners that I feel like nothing.

I feel so filthy. So he proceeded to tell her about the power of Christ to redeem and cleanse, to love and forgive.

And she would soon give her life to Christ. And from that day forward, she refused to look back.

And she testified that she felt like a new person. And that's because she was a new person.

Praise God. Praise God. I used to live out here about 30 -something years ago.

And as I'm driving here, memories start coming and flooding my mind.

And I'm just saying, thank you, God. Thank you, Lord, for delivering me from what

I used to be, from that. Oh, man. Old places, you know, a lot of things are new, but the roads haven't changed.

And those roads take your mind down that road. And you remember what you were doing.

Say, thank you, Lord. Only you know the depths of what I've done on that road, and the road that connects to that, and the other road, and the place, the people who lived on that road.

Thank you, Lord, God. That road was leading to death and hell.

But God loved me with a great love. This young lady had turned and never looked back.

She began living out 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 19, and the first part of verse 20. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the

Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.

This young lady now possessed this treasure within her earthen vessel.

She was no longer a slave on the market, ready to commit sexual sin with the highest bidder.

She was purchased by the precious blood of Christ, which is priceless. For the young person coming up in this culture, the future looks dark.

Oh, I wouldn't want to be there. The future looks so dark. However, every one of us who has been redeemed, we have been given the answer, the light of the gospel.

We have the light of the gospel. Inheriting the gospel light to the impressionable is how we contend for the faith in the midst of a dark world.

Then we have the end of verse 20. Oh, man. 1

Corinthians 6 .20, you have to get a hold of that. You have to grab it, or you have to let it get a hold of you, as the apostle

Paul says. It says, so glorify God in your body. Glorify God in your body.

As good as that is, in the original, it's a perfect tense imperative.

So literally, it's saying, always be glorifying God in your body.

A question. It's going to seem like I'm going off topic, but bear with me. A question for you.

What is your why? I'm going to bring it back. What is your why?

Have you ever pondered that or had somebody ask you that? They're saying, why do you do what you do?

Maybe they're talking about your job or your hobby. But if you ask yourself that question, in every area of your life, your life would change.

You wake up in the morning. Why am I doing what I'm doing? You're on your way to work.

Someone cuts you off. And you let out a few words that you shouldn't say.

Or your heart is seething, thinking those words you shouldn't say. Why do

I do what I do? Why am I so angry? Why? I'm going to a job

I don't even like. Why? Selfism, fleshliness, glorifying self.

First Corinthians 620. Glorify God in your body, includes your mouth. It's related to First Corinthians 1031.

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, glorify

God. Do all to the glory of God. Glorify God. Whatever you do, from the basics of life, do it all to the glory of God.

Why? Power of God, for one. If God should say to the earth, go dark, we would all be groping around.

These lights are gone. Everything is gone and we're groping in pitch black darkness.

The power and the mercy of God. Because if God should speak to the oxygen and say, be gone, within a matter of minutes, we'd all be dead.

We have to glorify God. Everything we do, we have to do to the glory of God.

Therefore, the number one reason we ought to flee sexual immorality is for the glory of God.

We have to always be glorifying God in our bodies, especially in the church.

Because in Ephesians chapter 5 verse 31, Paul quotes that wedding charge that God made to Adam and Eve in Genesis 2 .24.

As he's dealing with husband and wife now, before he gets to the children, he started with the church, moved to the wife, went to the husband.

Before he goes to the children, in Ephesians 5 .31, he quotes that wedding charge that he gave to Adam and Eve in Genesis 2 .24.

Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.

Then in the next verse, he said, this mystery is profound and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

The church, the bride of Christ must remain faithful. Committing sexual sin keeps us from glorifying

God. It doesn't matter what we do on Sunday mornings, whether we're preaching, whether we're a deacon, whether we're an usher, whether we have cleaned the place, we came a couple of hours early.

None of that matters if we're committing sexual sin in the dark because we have to remove that plank before we can try to remove the splinters.

We have to deal with self before we want to go out there and tell the world right here.

It has to be dealt with. This brings us to part four, identifying the sin within before contending for the faith in the midst of a sexually immoral culture.

If we expect to make an impact as we contend for the faith, I think we'd agree it takes prayer.

Before we start anything, before we speak to someone, it takes prayer. God is in control of all hearts.

Since we have to go to God in prayer, we have to make sure our hearts and hands are clean.

We have to go before God and just confess it and repent and say,

Lord, help. And we think about people who we've spoken to and who are hurting and we bring them before God.

And we ask God to give us wisdom as we try to minister to them. But it starts with prayer.

However, we have to be careful. So many areas of our lives may contain blind spots.

And I'll tell you, carrying willful and unrepentant sin before the throne of God makes our prayers an odorous stench in God's nostrils.

We ourselves must be cleansed, especially from sexual immorality.

So to help us identify and battle the sin within before contending for the faith, I want to end by sharing six negative consequences we may face if we fail to fight for holiness with a passion, with a passion.

Negative consequence number one, will be a deliberate participant of evil, will be a deliberate participant of evil.

Hebrews chapter 10, verses 26 and 27a says, for if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment.

Self -explanatory, but I'll explain. If we continue to constantly sin on purpose, even after we have come to understand the gospel with all of our mental faculties, we are proving that's all it is, mental assent.

There's no real relationship, no sacrificial dying to self and no love for Jesus.

We can feel bad. We can even cry after we have committed the act. But if we continue to run after sin like a pig to the mud, we can't possibly love

Jesus. We should fearfully expect to be judged by a righteous judge.

Negative consequence number two, we become slaves to our desires, slaves to our desires.

Romans 6 and verse 12, let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions.

It was for freedom that Christ has set us free, but sexual immorality seeks to enslave us.

That's why giving into it often becomes easier and easier.

Resistance becomes more and more difficult. It's far better to stop sin at the door and protect our hearts from impure fantasies and sensual lifestyles while we can.

Negative consequence number three, if we are overcome by it, we may lose everything.

We may lose everything. Proverbs 6 verse 26, the price of a prostitute is only a loaf of bread.

What is Solomon saying? He's saying the cost begins low.

By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Solomon is telling this truth, but I also believe he's speaking from experience.

In the beginning, it may seem to cost next to nothing like a loaf of bread, but over time, we'll need to give more and more just as Solomon did in order to satisfy our lust.

If we want to say the 700 wives were because of treaties and deals with other countries, so what?

What about the 300 concubines? What were they for? That lust that was created couldn't be controlled, couldn't be controlled.

Negative consequence number four, our punishment is inevitable.

Our punishment is inevitable. Hebrews chapter four in verse 13, and no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

No creature is hidden. All are naked. All are exposed.

We, he's speaking to Christians, he's speaking to Christians, can't dive in headfirst into a pool of immorality and hope

God doesn't notice that we're wet, wet with sin, sensuality, and uncontrolled lust.

We may be able to cover it up from men, our spouse, we may be able to get around and tell a good lie, but all are naked before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

God sees, and he is a consuming fire.

Our punishment is inevitable. Negative consequence number five, if we commit adultery slash fornication, we may destroy ourselves, and that comes out of Proverbs chapter six in verse 32.

Those who commit sexual immorality do it because it feels good. The flesh is loving that.

But like someone who's enslaved to alcohol and willingly destroys his or her life, or the smoker who feels so relieved and relaxed when they puff on that cigarette, yet at the same time they're destroying the cells in their lungs, we are killing ourselves and feeling good while doing it if we're engaged in sexual immorality.

Easy sex is all about self -gratification and following self.

But Jesus said, if anyone serves me, he must follow me.

And where I am, there will my servant be also. If we love Jesus, we're going to follow him.

We're going to serve him. If we love self, we're going to serve ourselves. It's just that simple.

Of course, I'm not speaking about perfectionism. I'm speaking about the definition of the word blameless.

When we see the word blameless in the Bible, it's this pursuit, this pursuit of holiness, this pursuit to be right with God.

That's honorable to God. And he says, did you ever, did you see my, did you see

Joe? Did you see Noah? As my father in heaven is perfect, you also must be perfect.

What is he saying? No, Noah wasn't perfect, Joe wasn't perfect, but they had this pursuit for holiness.

So the Bible calls them blameless. And finally, negative consequence number six.

If we fail to fight against sexual immorality within, we'll find dishonor and disgrace.

We'll find dishonor and disgrace. According to Proverbs chapter six in verse 33, we'll receive dishonor and our disgrace will not be wiped away.

Meaning we're setting ourselves up for church discipline in this life, reproach in this life, embarrassment, and a bad name in this life.

But those last two may carry on for a little while. Those tears, as you stand before the

Lord Jesus, there's going to be tears of joys, but there may be tears of regret. Knowing that you didn't serve him in purity as much as you could.

And looking at this one who says, enter into the joy of the Lord and your heart being crushed, knowing for real that you didn't deserve it.

We say that, but when we're standing for his throne and all these things that we've read about and sung about have become realized, the tears, like I said, tears of joy.

But if we're not living right and the Lord snatches you, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, Lord God. Each of these negative consequences comes as a direct result of not glorifying

God in our body. I want to close with Romans chapter 13, verses 13 to 14, because it sets up this beautiful outline of everything

I just said. In those two verses, here it goes. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy, rather clothe yourselves with the

Lord Jesus Christ. And do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.

And that my friends, is how you contend for the faith in a sexually immoral culture.

Let us pray. Father, we don't deserve you.

You knew us before the foundation and you still saved us.

You still called us with this effectual call and we came.

As your son said, all that the Father gives me will come to me and no one will be cast out.

Oh my Lord, please help us. Let us contend for the faith,

Lord God. Let us also contend for purity within, that we may be faithful vessels.