Sexual Infidelity (Part 1)

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Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Avendrock.

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Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

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Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures verse by verse with No Compromise.

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Well this morning is going to be an exciting morning. We are going to cover 23 verses in the

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Bible. Do you believe it? Over the course of six months, we will cover 23 verses.

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Open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 8. We're going to look at one verse in the New Testament, 18 out of Torah, our numbers, numbers in the book of, in the

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Torah rather, in the instruction, and then four in the Psalms. So 1 Corinthians chapter 10, but it's so packed full of information, we'll be going back to the

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Old Testament, 1 Corinthians chapter 10. Let me read you the verse and then we'll talk about the subject at hand and catch you up to the context specifically.

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Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 8, we must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did and 23 ,000 fell in a single day.

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We live in a society today that is sex saturated, sinful, illicit sex is promoted in every way, shape, and form.

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I think our culture is popularized by infidelity.

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Society bombards us with sexual sin 24 hours a day.

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Quite some time ago, physicians Wood and Dietrich wrote a book called The AIDS Epidemic and they said this, a society spends the most time and energy once the basics of life are satisfied on what it deems most important.

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In ancient Hebrew and American Puritan writings, one can hardly read a single paragraph without encountering a reference to God Almighty.

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What items have replaced God in our communication media? Sex, money, and self -love satisfy the time and energy requirements for what is sacred in our culture.

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These are the gods of the new age. It's a crazy world and everybody here knows that.

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Often, our society acts like Judah. God says of Judah in Jeremiah 5, they were well -fed, lusty horses, each one named after his neighbor's wife.

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What do we do? The world influences the church and then how do we stem the tide?

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After all, really, how bad is sexual sin? And if we're not careful, we can buy into tolerance, acceptance, forgetting what

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God says about sex. Isn't it fascinating when you study 1

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Corinthians? There's a lot of information in here about sexual immorality and sexual purity.

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There's a culture at Corinth that spilled into the church and sexual sin was everywhere and now

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I thought it was enough that Paul addressed it in chapter 5 and in chapter 6 and in chapter 7 and now he addresses it in chapter 10 as well, sexual purity.

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An easy sin for Christians to fall into is sexual immorality because if you're not thinking properly, you'll say to yourself,

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I've been justified by faith in Christ Jesus, I cannot be more justified, I cannot be less justified,

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I cannot be more forgiven, I cannot be less forgiven, I cannot be more regenerated,

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I cannot be less regenerated and if I sin sexually, it's already covered because when

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God forgave me because Christ's death was so great, he forgave me past, present and future sins.

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And for the people that like to come to the edge of liberty, they fall into certain sins.

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People that like to push the limit and say I'm free in Christ, come what may, they run up and like lemmings that run off the cliff, they fall into sexual immorality, they fall into idolatry and Paul says, be careful.

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Of course you are justified by faith alone and of course you are free in Christ but you're never free to push the limits and sin.

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So Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, lots of people were blessed in terms of the

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Israelites but they didn't all make it and so he says in chapter 10, 1 to 5, all, all, all, all, they were all blessed yet only some of them made it and then he gives four exhortations for those who like to push their liberties.

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We saw two weeks ago, number one, don't be idolaters and you can see it right there in 6 and 7.

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Remember chapter 10 verse 6, now these things about the Israelites, concerning the

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Israelites took place as an example for us, a bad example, a tragic example that we might not desire evil as they did.

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What would be some of the evil that they desired? One, do not be idolaters as some of them were, as it is written,

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Exodus 32, the people sat down to eat and to drink and rose up to play. And now

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Paul gives the second exhortation, he tells them the second thing that you can fall prey to as Christians, everyone here could fall prey to this very issue, whether it's with only your mind, our mind and body, you can fall prey to sexual immorality and God wants chastity,

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God wants purity. God is a God who of course has designed sex and he's not some

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Victorian prude, but he has a context for sexual relations that is in the marriage bed.

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And so here's what Paul does and he talks in a way that Christians sometimes don't like. Here's how Paul talks, well

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I'll just make it as blunt as possible since I think Paul is fairly blunt here. If you are a

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Christian and you entertain in sexual sin, God might kill you, that's a sermon.

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In other words, sexual sin is a very, very big deal, pornography is a very, very grievous sin.

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Mental adultery, mental fornication is very, very serious.

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How serious? Can you imagine for sex, God killed 23 ,000 people in a day.

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But I thought if you're not hurting everybody, anyone, it's fine. I thought if you both love each other, it's fine.

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Think about what the world says, go for it. Food is for the stomach and the stomach for food, right?

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You're hungry? Eat. You've got a desire for sex? Go for it. And in the context of marriage,

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God as again, Song of Solomon, 1 Corinthians 7, enjoy, eat, drink and be merry as it were.

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The Christian sex ethic is not, no. But the Christian sex ethic is only in marriage and those who entertain these ideas and then actually do it,

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God says, it's a very, very big deal. And look there again at the text, verse 8, and 23 ,000 fell in a single day.

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Remember verse 6? These things are given as an example for us that we might not desire these evil things.

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Now, I said I was going to do 23 verses today. That's just one verse here in 1 Corinthians. But what's loaded in?

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This is like some kind of zip drive just filled full of all kinds of information.

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What is Paul quoting? What account is he referring to? What is he alluding to?

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What's going on in the background when you're thinking about reading the New Testament? We've got 70 % of the Bible as Old Testament.

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He's referring to something that happened in the Old Testament. And by the way, no one here is going to sleep when we go through this next chapter.

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It is amazing. It is one of these chapters where you read it and you almost want to say, I almost wish that wasn't in the

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Bible. Because it is stark, it is sharp, and it's a good lesson for all of us.

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Let's turn to Numbers chapter 25. Numbers chapter 25. This is the passage which

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Paul is referring to in 1 Corinthians 10. And it's hard to understand 10 .8 unless you get numbers down.

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And this will help you when you think of purity and desiring that you would live a life commensurate with your calling.

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If God has called us as a faithful God, we want to respond to Christ's great love for us and his death for us and his resurrection for us with a holy life.

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Since God is holy, we want to be holy. And the world is going to say you're missing out if you don't indulge and engage.

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And God is going to say you are going to be missing out if you don't indulge and engage.

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You'll be missing out on assassination. How about that? You say, well, God doesn't kill every

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Christian that commits sin. Sexual sin, does he? No. But every sexual sin committed by a

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Christian is worthy of death. God is just very generous. God is just very gracious.

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But as we watch what happens in Numbers 25, we're all going to say, wow.

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I hope something happens today besides learning this passage. I hope you think, I've got to start reading the

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Old Testament. It reminds me of the time I was up at the Anchorage Inn up on York Beach and I was sitting in the jacuzzi.

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I think I've told you the story. And there was another young man sitting in there. And he was probably 12 or 13 or something.

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He thought he was kind of a big shot. And I kind of got in the jacuzzi and I said, hi, how are you? And he said, my dad's a policeman in Rentham.

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Oh, hi. That's good. I didn't know I was doing something wrong by getting in the jacuzzi. And I said,

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Rentham? Wow, I'm the mayor of Rentham. I said, no,

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I'm not really the mayor. I am a Bible teacher. And he said, the Bible's boring. I said, really?

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Yeah, that time where that guy snuck in the tent and wanted a place of shelter and he laid down his head and that other lady got out the tent spike and the hammer and put it up to his temple and drove it through for the glory of God.

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That part. And he goes, I guess I didn't really read that part. This would be one of those other chapters when you read it and you just think, golly, wow, that's in the

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Bible. Have I ever said golly? I preached for 15 years here. Morning, noon, night,

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I've never said golly. Gal darn? See, we don't say darn in our house.

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Paul's quoting numbers and when we read in our mind numbers, the book Numbers, it's where we get the word arithmetic, arithmetoi.

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And the Hebrew though, it doesn't call it numbers, it talks about in the wilderness because that's really the key for the book of Numbers.

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If you'd like to understand numbers, you can say to yourself, there's a lot of numbering. Chapter one, two, three, four, et cetera.

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It's all talking about numbers and all the numbers in numbers. That's true. But 48 times, something else is going on and it's the word closely translated as wilderness.

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It's about the wilderness. What happened to Israel in the wilderness? The fifth word of the

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Hebrew text of Numbers 1 .1 is in the wilderness. And so it's what's going on in the wilderness and here we come to chapter 25,

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Israel's final rebellion. And Paul is going to use this as a lesson.

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Read the Old Testament so you learn these lessons. Chapter 22, 23, 24,

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Balaam, Balak, we think that they're kind of in the rear view mirror. He tried to get him to curse

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Israel but didn't and God discombobulated the whole thing and he couldn't curse and we're hoping that's all behind us but there's more than one way to skin a cat for false teachers.

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They're going to try to get Israel to sin sexually and then God will judge them that way.

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If you want God, if you want to get rid of a people and you can't get rid of a people, then let's get them sinning against their

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God and then God will get rid of their people, get rid of his people. This chapter, chapter 25, doesn't have anything to do with Balaam in terms of the exact word in Numbers 25 but let me just read you

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Numbers 31 just for a second, one verse. Behold these on Balaam's advice caused the people of Israel to act treacherously against the

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Lord in the incident of Peor and so the plague came on the congregation of the

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Lord. So here's what's happening, 22 through 24, Balaam, Balak trying to get rid of Israel didn't seem to work but there's another way to infiltrate the believing people, the nation of Israel.

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How do you, how would Satan say, you know, how can we get into the minds of these people to disobey

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God? How could we get, let's use today's terminology, how could we get a Christian to sin? They seem to be doing so well in every other area and I'll tell you the area that Satan uses and it's sex.

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I don't, I used to keep a file, I try not to keep it anymore, of pastors that have fallen to sexual sin and if I use that for pastors

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I'm sure the file would be much bigger for congregants who fall to sexual sin.

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Seemingly everything else is right but then when it comes to sexuality and it comes to sexual sin and engagement, they lose control and God says it's a very big deal.

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No matter what the world says, it's okay, enjoy it, the media is pushing it down our throats and God says, you know what, sexual sin is a sin against God.

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Watch what happens to Israel. They're so close to the promised land. We would say they're so close you could taste it.

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They've waited, they've waited and they're so close and now chapter 25 verse 1 and as I'm going through this, by the way,

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I do want to say this is a good case study in how quickly sin can happen, how sin spreads so quickly, how bad sexual sin is and how many people are affected by it.

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It's just this Mach 4 acceleration of sexual sin, they just go headlong. You've met people probably like this, they just lose their mind when it comes to this issue.

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Chapter 25 verse 1, starting off with defiling language, putrid language.

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This is the kind of language that it just reeks as you read it.

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You go out of town for two weeks and you've forgotten to dump the trash and you've put a bunch of sloppy joe meat in the trash can and you forgot to dump it and you open it up and you smell that, just how rancid, how gross.

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Sloppy joe stuff is gross anywhere, anyway, and you just go, it's just the odor.

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I'm telling you, this passage has an odor. It just is, it's vile and it's supposed to be.

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It talks about things that you just think, you know what, by the way, I would never thought I would talk about this in public in my entire life, but it's in the

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Bible so we preach right through it. And you don't understand first Corinthians 10 unless you get numbers 25 right. While Israel lived in Shittim, or the

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Asher Grove, the people began to whore.

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By the way, whore is usually used of a female, here it's used of the people, the men.

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They began to whore with the daughters of, of all people, Moab. These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods.

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And then with language that you remember from Exodus 32, and the people ate and the people bowed down to their

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God. Who is the people? The Israelites, the Moabites seduce and the people, the

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Israelites eat and they bow down. So think, Israel, Corinth, get together to worship the idols, go have sex as worship.

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That happened both back in those days with the bales, right here, let's have our feast and then you have communion, except communion is fornication.

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That's exactly what happens at Corinth. Let's get together back in those days, let's have a wonderful feast in front of all these false gods and then the communion is not bread and juice, communion is a whore.

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Now, who can come up with such a thing that communion with God is sexual immorality with a prostitute?

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Now, just how sick is that? Something that's supposed to be reserved for the marriage bed as pure and holy.

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Something to be thankful for, now it's whoredom. What kind of language began to whore themselves with the daughters of Moab?

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This is the action of men. This is harlot language.

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Pagan religions of the day, eat, prostitution later. Matter of fact, remember if you have thought about Corinth or remember what

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I've said or you've been there, there's that big hill at Corinth and a thousand priestess come down from that top of the mountain every day at night time for worship.

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The act of worship is perverted sex. The sex god is alive and well.

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Now God had been clear to Israel, let me just read you a little bit of Leviticus.

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The Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the children of Israel and say to them, I am the Lord your God. As they do in the land of Egypt in which you have been living, you must not do.

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As they do in the land of Canaan into which I'm about to bring you, you must not do. So the way they do their sexual perversions in Egypt or in Canaan, don't do what they do.

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Do not walk in their statutes. You must observe my regulations and you must be sure to walk in my statutes.

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I am the Lord your God. Do not defile yourselves with any of these things for the nations which

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I'm about to drive out before you have defiled with all these things. The land has become unclean and I have brought the punishment for its iniquity on it.

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Do not let the land vomit you out because you defile it just as it has vomited out the nation which was before you.

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I am the Lord your God. How can I get a curse on these people? You know what?

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I'm going to tell this prophet to curse them. The curse came out of the prophet's mouth as a blessing, chapter 22, chapter 23, chapter 24.

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So let's get the Israelites by bringing in the prostitutes, bringing in the women and let's get them to fall that way.

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They invited people to the sacrifices, chapter 25 verse 2, of their gods and the people ate and bowed down.

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A far cry from you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not bow down to them or serve them,

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Exodus 20. Now it's interesting. I want you to think through this.

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The language is pretty cloaked both in 1 Corinthians and in Numbers. Why? Why isn't there all kinds of lurid, intimate details like a

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Mark Driscoll book? Answer, because they knew when they read this exactly what was going on and number two more importantly.

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The scripture cloaks language in such a way that when you see it, you don't want to say, great,

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I want to do it. You can listen to someone or watch something go on that's lurid and salacious and be tempted and drawn into it if you're not careful because it's so graphic, it's so clear, it's so descriptive.

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But you know, the scriptures don't do that. It's given to us in such a way that when you read it, you don't say,

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I want to embrace it. You say, you know what? Like charcoals on my lap, hot charcoal, I want to get rid of it.

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You see the evil, you don't get enticed into it. The poison multiplies, the virus spreads, verse three.

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Just what this is, this language is crazy. So Israel in every way, shape and form yoked himself to this false

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God, Baal of Peor and the anger of the

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Lord Yahweh was kindled against Israel. That's very powerful.

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God became enraged. They bound themselves with body and with worship and God, literally the

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Hebrew is, got a red nose. Language that helps us,

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God doesn't have a nose that's red, but if you describe a man as angry, then you can understand.

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That's a good way to understand God anthropomorphically. Well here it's not even like a man, it's like, like, like, like empathy.

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This is anthro. Here's your, here's your free word of the day. This is anthropopathic, pathic language.

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Woodward's looking at me like what? It's like anthropomorphic, except it's anthropopathic, empathy.

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It's talking about emotions. The emotions a man would have mad. There's his wife there with another man and he's enraged and he's angry.

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That's exactly what's happening here. The wrath of God. And you know what's interesting?

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Yahweh was enraged against the Moabites. What's the text say?

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He was angry at Israel, his people, the

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Moabites, they'll get theirs later. But here they're coupling themselves with the false

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God. They're succumbing to these enticements. People risk everything for five minutes of pleasure.

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They do it as Christians. They risk it all for a bed of fornication.

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This is not just for Israel. Paul is writing to the church of Corinth. You know what? Better be careful because this world will allure you into sexual temptation.

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And unless you're with your wife, then what you do with another person is an obscenity.

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What you do with another person is vile. And you can talk about love and you can talk about tolerance and you can talk about acceptance, you know, about no one's getting hurt.

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And God says it's carnal and it makes him angry. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Ebendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 8 .30 and 11 a .m. and Sunday evenings at 6 p .m.

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We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org

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or by phone at 508 -835 -3400. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff, or management.