Sexual Sin (Part 1)

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No Compromise Radio Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author,

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Dr. Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the

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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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We live in a sin -saturated world, a sexually sinful -saturated world.

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And the Bible addresses sexual sin, how to stay pure, how to overcome sexual temptation.

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And if you take your Bibles and open to 1 Corinthians this morning, we're working verse by verse through this magnificent book, a book that deals with all kinds of problems and then gives good biblical gospel advice on how to avoid these problems.

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The corrections in the problems are found in the book as well. And while I don't think we're Corinthian, I'm sure some of us act

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Corinthian -like at times. Some of you maybe are acting like Corinthians. But overall, we're growing and learning and maturing as a church.

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And so we're not going through Corinthians because it's needed to correct behavior but to keep us with preventative maintenance away from the same sins that happen to the church of Corinth.

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And so today we come to this passage. By the way, if you're older, you need this message. If you're younger, you need this message.

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This is not the kind of message where you say, okay, all the children are dismissed. This is actually sex education from the

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Bible that everyone needs. Is this profitable? Is it God -breathed?

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Is it good? Yes, it is. And it's to be preached. And so it'll be done in a right way, in a biblical way.

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But it's the kind of message that we need because we all struggle with sin and most people struggle with sexual sin as well.

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And so can God help us? Can God instruct us? Can God tell us what to do? By the way, let me just start with this.

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If you have been involved or you are involved now in sexual sin, can you be forgiven?

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Of course we know, just like the Corinthians, they were dirty. They were filthy.

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They were defiled. And just like the song we sang, when

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God looks at us now, he sees us through Christ's what? Perfection. Can you imagine?

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To be forgiven of all the sins that you've done in your body, with your mind, we can come and say,

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God, thank you for forgiving me based on what Christ Jesus has done. So as I attack some of these sins today and help us think biblically,

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I want you to remember from the get -go, sexual sin can be forgiven.

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And so let's go to 1 Corinthians 6 and we're going to go through verses 12 through 20 today.

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Let me read it first. We're only going to get to about verse 13, but that's all right because it's an important topic.

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And as you know, Paul in Corinthians has been dealing with problems, the problem of disunity and he deals with that in chapters 1 through 4.

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He deals with, really kind of starts the sex topic when it comes to incest in the church with no church discipline.

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And he says, you know what? We're going to judge this situation apostolically and we need to excise that sin.

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Then he talks in chapter 6, 1 to 11 about people suing each other.

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Can you imagine Christians suing each other? And Paul basically says, why don't you suffer now if someone's suing you and inherit later because you used to be the kind of people, as unbelievers, who inherited now, but will suffer eternally for what?

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Forever. And you can see the hinge verse here that talks about this sexual sin found in verse 9 of chapter 6, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

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Do not be deceived. It's easy to be deceived. That's why he said, do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.

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And then he says, wonderfully, graciously, and such were some of you, that's what you used to be, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the

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Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God. Do you get that? Lord Jesus, the spirit and of our

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God. This great triune washing, triune sanctifying, triune justifying.

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You used to be this way, you're not that way any longer. And when I look at those lists of sins, I see kind of one common denominator, and that is selfish, self -serving, self -indulgent.

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You used to serve yourself with your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and as we heard in the baptismal font today, but God.

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And so you can see his theme, his mind is thinking about sex sins in Corinth, chapter 5, sex sins in Corinth, chapter 6, and he moves into this issue in verses 12 to 20, where he wants them to be pure.

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Now do you live in a sex -saturated culture? Choking with sex sins is our culture today. And it was no different back in those days.

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Corinthianize meant to what? Fornicate. They were people who just loved it.

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And actually, it was tied to worship. Just how sick is that? How sick can it be if you think having illicit sexual relations is part of your worship?

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And I've stood there in Corinth before, and you see 1 ,500 feet up to the Acropolis where they had all the temple prostitutes, and every day the 1 ,000 temple prostitutes would come down and descend upon the city of Corinth for what?

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Of all gross things, worship. How'd you like to experience God? You'd experience

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God back in those pagan days? Small g, of course. It's not the real God, but they thought they would experience

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God by paying a temple prostitute. It's just sick. I don't think our society is much different.

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We have a selfish, self -indulged sexual culture, and Paul wants to address the issue.

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Let me say from the very get -go, remember, when you think about this, you've got to think properly. God invented sex.

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We even heard that from Danny Akin. It's his idea. Furthermore, God gives people hormones.

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That's not a bad thing. It's been tainted by the fall, hasn't it? It's been torqued and perverted and dislocated by the fall.

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Remember, I'd pick up my brother sometime when he was really little by the arm, and his socket arm thing really wouldn't go together, and I'd pick him up, and he'd go out of the socket, and he'd just walk around like this, crying, don't tell

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Dad, don't tell Dad, don't tell Dad. Well, I have to tell Dad to put it back in, he'd say. And so we have this culture that has something good.

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What God made was very good. Intimacy, sexual intimacy, it's a good thing, but it's been twist and perverted and contorted by the fall, and so Paul wants to make sure that people realize

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God looks favorably upon sex in marriage. Always it's holy, always it's right, always it's good, we'll get to that in chapter 7.

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But outside of marriage, sex is always dirty, filthy, defiling, staining, and Paul says when it comes to sex sin, run.

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So let's read the passage in verses 12 through 20, and we'll look at some ways this morning on how to overcome sexual temptation.

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First Corinthians 6, 12 to 20. This is the fourth problem Paul deals with. All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful.

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All things are lawful for me, but I will not be enslaved by anything. Food is meant for the stomach, and the stomach for food, and God will destroy both, one and the other.

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The body's not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. God raised the

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Lord, and will also raise us up by His power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?

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Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never. Do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her?

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For as it is written, the two will become one flesh, but he who is joined to the

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Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee sexual immorality.

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

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

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You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So, glorify

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God in your body. Here's what we'll do this morning and the next week or two.

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Let me give you some ways to overcome sexual temptation. Some will come from the passage, some will go elsewhere, but it'll be a list so that you can be helped, and if you are pure,

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I want you to stay pure. If you're pure, I want you to help people who are struggling. This will be good for sexual immorality.

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It will be also good for those who struggle with pornography. It will be very, very good, and one is just as defiling as the other, so this will be good medicine for the soul from Paul to the

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Church of Corinth and now to us. So let me give you some ways to overcome sexual temptation. Number one, you can overcome sexual temptation by rehearsing the gospel, by rehearsing the gospel.

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Now, before I get into chapter six, remember, it's been 14 years since we were in chapter one, so we have to remember, well, it seems like, it may be 14 months.

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Let's go back to chapter one and see that Paul teaches them who they are in Christ Jesus.

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He rehearses the gospel, so this is just not moralism. Mormons will tell you, be pure. Cults will tell you, be pure.

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The society, most mothers I know and fathers would want their children to be pure.

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They may be thinking because teenage pregnancies, because of venereal disease, because of this, that, or the other, they might not be thinking about your glorifying the

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God of the universe. But Paul doesn't just say, sex is bad, flee from sexual immorality, he's saying, remember who you are.

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This has nothing to do with moralism, so let's go back to chapter one, verse one, and if you're struggling with sexual sin,

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I kid you not, one of the main issues you need to be reminded of is who you are in Christ Jesus, your position, what

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God the Father has done for you, and then you'll say, in response to my loving Father, my gracious God, I want to honor you with my body.

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That's the whole point. So we don't want to miss our context of chapter one when we dive in and parachute into chapter six.

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Just look at the greeting again. This has nothing to do with morality and lists and virtue.

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This has everything to do with who you are in Christ Jesus. Paul, chapter one, verse one, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus and our brother,

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Sosthenes, to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those, listen to this language, sanctified in Christ Jesus, set apart for holy purposes, directly involved in the sexual arena, you have been set apart for holy purposes, you're not set apart for defiling, dirty, rotten, filthy purposes, you've been set apart in Christ Jesus.

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Can you imagine? You are placed in Christ Jesus, you're part of Christ Jesus, and just as I said before about that song we sang, you know, you see us,

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God the Father, in Christ Jesus, and you see us as perfect, and a God that would do this for us?

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He says more about sanctification. In verse two, called to be saints together with all those in every place who call upon the name of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours. We're sanctified, we're saints, we call upon the

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Lord, we're no longer our own Lord, we've been bought with a price, 1

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Corinthians 6 will talk about. Paul wants this,

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Paul says remember who you were, remember the gospel, so you'll have total commitment with your body for the

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Lord, fulfilling your commitment to be holy. God has given you, think about it, eternal life, this is just a short list, based on Christ's perfect atonement,

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Christ the great high priest has given you eternal life. No condemnation, you've passed from death to life, you'll be with Jesus in the

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Father's house in heaven, you'll rise again, your body will, you'll never die, you've been forgiven, you've been redeemed,

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God has made propitiation for your sins on Christ Jesus the Son, you've been sealed by the

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Spirit of God, God will never leave you nor forsake you, He's adopted you and your family and He's done all the more, and so you say,

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God, you've been so good to me, I want to serve you, I want to honor you, I don't want to say no, if you've got a good

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Father, don't you want to live in light of that good Father with obedience and faithfulness?

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And look at the rest of the things that are in chapter 1, look at verse 4, I give thanks to my

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God for you always, because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you are enriched in Him, in all speech and in all knowledge, even as a testimony about Christ was confirmed among you, so that you are not lacking any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our

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Lord Jesus, who will sustain you to the end, even guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ, God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our

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Lord, now a God that has done that for you, don't you want to say in response, you've given me a body, you've made me a sexual creature, but I want to honor you with my body, now if you had a hard task master for a servant, for a master rather, you might say,

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I don't want to do anything to honor him, but God is so good and faithful, you want to honor

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Him, so number 1, overcoming sexual sin, don't forget the gospel of Christ Jesus, the substitutionary lamb who was slain for our sins, what it cost the

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Father, number 2, don't rationalize your sins, don't rationalize your sins, sexual sins we're talking about here specifically, let's go back to chapter 6, the

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Corinthians were good rationalizers, and we know we are too, it doesn't take you very long to go down to the hospital and find sexual addicts, it doesn't take you very long to say,

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I've got some disease and it's kind of sexual immorality, a syndrome, the

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Corinthians did the exact same thing, they were slogan Christians, quote unquote, let's look at 3 of these slogans and how they rationalized their sin, so we see how ludicrous it is, and then we don't do it ourselves, so number 1, we have to start with the gospel, number 2, we're looking at how people rationalize sin, they have 3 slogans found in verses 12 and 13, now

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ESV does a great job by putting them in parentheses, NAS doesn't, but you can see the slogans, and these slogans were something that Paul probably taught them, but they turned out of context, they only took a portion of it, and they used

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Paul's words to then rationalize their sin, so all things are lawful for the Christian, true or false?

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True, but what are the all things? And so here, you're going to see the slogan, and then

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Paul say, but let me tell you what the truth is, 3 slogans found in verses 12 and 13 that the

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Corinthians used to rationalize their sin, and then you begin to think to yourself, yeah, but do I rationalize my sin too?

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3 slogans of rationalization, let's look at the first one found in verse 12, all things are lawful for me, all things are lawful,

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I have so much liberty in Christ Jesus, I have liberty to sexually sin, that's what they're saying,

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I have liberty to sexually sin, and of course the Corinthians are walking around thinking, you know what, this is not kind of Gnosticism, the spirit's good, the body's bad, doesn't matter if I use my body to sexually sin, because my spirit's really what's important, that's the culture the

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Corinthians lived in, and they heard Paul say, all things were lawful, comma, and they latched on to it like a person with a locked jaw would have and say, you know, with pit bull tenacity, all things were lawful, and all things include sexual sin, fornication's lawful, homosexuality's lawful, everything else is just lawful.

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Now how can that be, when he just got done saying in chapter 6, verses 10 and 11, drunkenness is not lawful, homosexuality is not lawful, and you know, if it didn't sound so, it looked so stupid to me, so sinful, but then

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I thought, yeah, but I like to rationalize things too, all things are lawful for me, but what does

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Paul say, but not all things are helpful, that's Paul's correction, so the slogan is all things are lawful, that they took out of context, they just took a portion of it, but Paul corrects him and says, but not all things are lawful.

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By the way, this is probably the slogan that got the guy in chapter 5 in trouble who thinks it's okay to sleep with his mother -in -law, all things are lawful, the incest is fine too, chapter 5.

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This is a cloaking thing, you know, they told me in seminary, never use a Star Trek illustration, never use a

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Star Trek moment, so you know, don't touch wet paint, here we go. This is some kind of cloaking device for sin.

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If I ever taught him the effectual call, it would be, you will be assimilated, but that's another sermon. The church of Corinth was called effectually, not all things are helpful, they don't help.

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He's going to try to correct this kind of rationalization. Sin isn't lawful, sexual sin isn't lawful, holiness isn't lawful, what did

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I just say? I meant to say fornication, holiness is lawful. That's why we have people edit.

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I've felt so sick lately. Adultery is not lawful, fornication is not lawful, and it's not helpful either.

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Fornication doesn't profit, adultery doesn't profit, homosexuality doesn't profit. 1

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Thessalonians 4 says, this is the will of God, your sexual sanctification is the context, that is, you abstain from sexual immorality.

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Remember, God is not this God who says, no, I tell this to my older kids all the time. He doesn't say no,

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Christianity is not the religion of no. This great, gracious God we have says,

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I've made you a sexual creation, and the answer is not no to solve the problem, the answer is yes in the right context, and that is in the covenant commitment of holy matrimony.

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It's not no, it's this will be hurtful to you, it's not helpful, it's not profitable, it's not edifying, but over here in marriage, the answer is to God, and we'll see in chapter 7, the answer is yes.

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The answer is, if you're able and you're not, it's sinful, how about that? It's yes, and in joy, and you can read the song of Solomon, where God gives his blessing to couples, so it's not no, it's, this is harmful, this is hurtful, this doesn't help you.

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And look at the second slogan. It's the same slogan at the beginning, but Paul makes a different contrast.

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All things are lawful for me, but he says, but I will not be enslaved by anything. I'm not going to be enslaved by sexual sin, the

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Gordian knot of sexual sin. I don't know if there's any other enslaving sin like this enslaving power of sexual sin.

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Paul says, I'm not going to be mastered by my body. I will not be enslaved by anything.

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I find it fascinating that those that are unbelievers who so tout free will, and they're living with their girlfriend, or a boy living with their boyfriend, or all the list of all the other kinds of sins, sexual sins outside of marriage, and they want to triumph the power of free will, and I think, you know, the really, really sad, sad part is, you're a slave to sex, to your own self.

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Paul puts first person in here, do you see that? But I will not be enslaved by anything. I'm applying it to myself, and I'm a good illustration,

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Paul says, of what to do and what not to do. I wonder if you have a rationalized sin.

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I wonder if you have a rationalized sexual sin. We have our own slogans. I came up, I discovered a few of them.

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What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Everybody else is doing it.

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If it feels good, do it. The old poem that some of you might remember, free from the law, oh, happy condition.

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I can sin as I please and still have remission. Well, I have

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Jesus as my Savior, but he's not my Lord. In other words, I want to go to heaven when

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I die, but if you think, I'm going to let Jesus tell me who I can have sex with and who

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I can't, that's another story. And now Paul gives another rationalization that they have, and if you don't think kind of like they did in the culture, you might miss it.

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So look at verse 13. Again, this is all driving us to A, understand the passage, and B, we don't want to rationalize our sexual sin.

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If you sexually sin, confess it and forsake it, and you get mercy. That's Proverbs 28, 13. Food is meant for stomach, and the stomach is meant for food.

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When you get hungry, what do you do? Eat. The Corinthians thought, when you get hungry, you eat.

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It's a God -given desire. I have hunger pains. Guy's got a growling stomach. Have you ever stood by somebody and their stomach is growling, and you go, man, you should eat something.

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And the Corinthians also thought, you know what? I get hungry, I eat. I get hungry for sex, then

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I must have to what? Have sex. I'm craving something.

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After all, God gave me the desire. It's just like food. That's right.

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Sex is no different than eating. My stomach and my palate are made for food, and the rest of my body, my sexual capabilities, that's just made for it.

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And you know what this probably was? It was probably like their first rap that was ever invented.

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It was a slogan. It was a slogan, and they probably could just have it come right off the tip of their mouth where they knew it, because the

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Corinthians loved this slogan, and they used it for all kinds of things, including illicit sex. And again, all sex in marriage, pure, holy, wonderful, right, gift from God, all sex outside of marriage, defiling, dirty, enslaving, not helpful, not profiting.

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And what they would do is say, you know what, this is kind of hard to get around, and who wants to sleep at night, actually sleep with somebody at night, and then having this whole

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Damocles judgment of God over your head that God's going to judge you. Let's figure out a way to get around that. Hey, we just have urges.

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We've got to fulfill them. So they came up with this little slogan. Food is meant for the stomach, and the stomach for food.

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And you could just hear them. Food is for the stomach, and the stomach for food. Food is for the stomach, and the stomach for food.

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Now, I'm not going to go any farther, because you guys are just looking at me like stick to the text. It's like a guy wrote me on No Compromise Radio.

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I said something about something. He said, stick to what you're good at, and quit talking about that other topic. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

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You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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