Scripture Trumps Feelings

Let us begin with prayer. Lord Jesus, we thank

You again for the manifestation, the revealing of the mystery hidden from the time of the ages that has now been revealed to us in Jesus Christ.

We pray as we again open up Your Word, please send Your Holy Spirit so that we may rightly understand it.

Help us to understand what we are to believe. Help us to firmly believe it and trust it as a revelation from You.

Help us to confidently believe that we are forgiven because of the Gospel. And then bear fruit in keeping with repentance, showing us what to do from Your law in order to love and serve our neighbor in good works.

All this we ask in the name of our crucified, risen, and now revealed Savior to the nations, Jesus Christ, Amen.

Before we get started, any questions from the sermon? Anything percolate up?

You sit there and go, what was that? What? It was just amazing how the

Myrrh I was looking through there and thought... You know, it's like the light.

You know, it's really funny, God hides all these little details right in plain sight. So yeah, the

Myrrh being an embalming... I was going to say the same thing. Yep, that's right, that's right.

So King, God, and sacrifice. He's going to the grave.

Again, kind of a weird, morbid thing to give to a child. I mean, could you imagine? Those of you who are younger, you know, you have a baby, and then at the baby shower,

I don't know if you've seen how those things work. It's a mysterium tremendum to me. There's lots of estrogen in the room when things are going on like that.

Generally, when my wife had her baby showers, I was in a different room, and I was basically told not to show my face and tell everybody

I'd left, because that way nothing stupid would happen. That being the case though, could you imagine at a baby shower somebody giving a 2 -liter bottle of embalming fluid?

What was that? They look at you like you were crazy, the person who came with that. Yep, the person who came with that probably would get blocked on Facebook now, maybe not invited to the

Christmas parties. But there it is. I mean, this embalming thing showing up with the presence of the

Magi. Very fascinating. Any other comments or questions from the sermon? I do. Okay, so the statement was made in here, they went to the house.

Yes. So how old is Jesus? Is it like two when they saw him, when they came upon him?

So they had moved back to their home. Because it says in here, they found him in the house.

Yes. So apparently, so no longer are they, the Holiday Inn is no longer full in Bethlehem.

They've taken up residence there for some amount of time. And you're going to note then in the part that follows in the

Gospel of Matthew, with the slaughter of the innocents, Herod, when he figures out that they haven't come back, and remember he inquired carefully, it said he inquired carefully.

When did the star appear? He took copious notes. And then when the order was given to execute all of the infant males in Bethlehem that were two years old and younger, this was according to the calculations.

So we don't know the exact age of Christ. It could be anywhere from he's a toddler to he's two years old, to really two years.

But he's not any older than two. Yeah, he's no older than two, but we don't know where he is.

So it's somewhere between zero and two. And so the idea then, you're going to note that, boy,

I hate to mess this up, but all of our nativity scenes that we purchase and put out in our homes or in our yards and stuff like that, they always have the

Magi there at the manger. They do. Yeah, there were no Magi at the manger.

There were shepherds. But there was no Magi. There were no Magi. They're later. So you're going to note then that they don't show up at the manger, they show up at the house.

Different thing altogether. It's funny how traditions kind of crop up. And what's always fascinating to me is that when you biblically point these things out, some people will bear you a grudge.

Because they have great fond memories kind of wrapped up in the tradition.

You sit there going, you know, that's not exactly quite right with what's going on in the text. And it's like they want to pinch your head off or something.

So I can see no one's got any knives out. This is a positive sign. Clearly your sanctification is starting to kick in.

Good. Let's take a look. We're going to continue wrapping up on the commandment thou shalt not commit adultery.

Consider some of its further implications. But I wanted to, again, make another point regarding the days that we live in.

Because in order to keep the commandment thou shalt not commit adultery, it presupposes that God has made us male and female.

We've talked about the fact that there's a lot of people nowadays who reject what

God has made them. These things are easy to figure out. And if you're having difficulty, ask somebody else to help you.

Ask your anatomy professor. Yeah, ask your anatomy professor. Right. But I want to show you this in the text. In the back end of the book of Genesis 1, we see the creation of humanity.

And I want you to note this. Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.

Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, over the livestock, over the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, He created him male and female.

He created them. Who made us binary? God. Now let me ask you this.

According to this text, are men made exclusively in the image of God, and women not so much?

Or how about women made in the image of God, but men not so much? In the image of God, He created them male and female.

But He created the male in His image first. Well, yes. It's Adam first, and then

Eve comes from Adam. We are mankind, not womankind. And I find it fascinating that the devil is always trying to mess things up.

Pagan New Age religions. Are they all about male deities or female deities?

Female. Nature. Is she a mama or a papa? She's a mama. Do you ever get the feeling we may have gotten that all wrong?

Huh? Yeah, Father Time. You see, Father Time, he's always depicted as kind of decrepit, old.

Yeah, ships are female. Ships are female. But the reality is this, is that God has ordered things in such a way that humanity reflects

God. And all of the personal pronouns for the Father, the

Son, and the Holy Spirit, all of the personal pronouns, masculine or feminine?

Masculine. So the idea then here is that humanity reflecting in the image of God, in the way things are ordered, and it's true, we are created in the image of God male and female, but God has ordered that men are the ones who lead.

Now, we've got to make something very clear here. Men are not to lead from a domineering, abusive, do what

I tell you to do or I'm going to smash you into the ground kind of way. Men, like Christ, rule from the bottom.

They don't dominate, they love sacrificially. And so true patriarchy reflects

God's character as loving, kind, patient, long -suffering, sacrificial, not domineering, demanding, abusing, cracking the whip, obey or else.

You see, that's how the world operates. The world operates using coercive power and when coercive power and domination comes into a marriage, it ceases to look anything like the mystery of the bride of Christ and the groom who is

Jesus. It looks like something completely different. And so one of the things

I find fascinating is that in our culture there is a reaction in liberalism against patriarchy, just the blanket patriarchy.

And I understand it, I get it. Because what they're really in some senses reacting against is the abuse of patriarchy in the name of God.

You ever heard of the proverbial good old boys club? Yeah, that's a total abuse of patriarchy.

Total abuse. It's abuse of justice too. And so in some senses they're reacting against that and their reaction is equally as toxic, by the way.

Matriarchy is not the solution. The solution is biblical, Christ -like patriarchy.

You want to see the ultimate example of what it looks like to be a man.

When I invoke the image, what comes to your mind? Arnold Schwarzenegger doing this?

Some guy with the war paint on going... No. You want to know what the quintessential example of what it looks like to be a man?

It's Jesus suffering on the cross. That is the quintessential moment of ultimate maleness right there.

Laying down his life for his bride. That's what it looks like. Now, so then we're going to note the idea then here is that the rebellion that's taking place today is a rejection of what

God has made us. And the person who says, I might have been genetically gendered as a male but I'm really a woman, he's rejecting what

God has made him. The people who say binary human beings don't exist, gender is a matter of what you feel inside of you, and it's not limited to male or female.

They're literally rejecting God as creator and saying God has no say at all whatsoever in gender.

But this text says God created them, male and female. And God continues to create by the way.

We were all created in the image of God, male and female. There is no zim -zam -za or whatever the things they say now.

So the question then comes up. We recognize that marriage is an institution created by God.

The marriage bed is to be kept sacred. We talked about that last week. What about the unmarried among us?

Those who are single or widowed. What about that? Let's take a look at some texts and pay attention to how we are instructed by God through these texts.

1 Corinthians 7 is where we're going to take a look. And I'm going to rework through a portion that we covered last week and keep going because you're going to see something here.

Now, I always have to make this point. When you read the book of 1 Corinthians, there's a little missing bit that you can reconstruct.

And that is that the church in Corinth sent a list of questions to the Apostle Paul to have him address.

And so there's these section headings in there. And the section headings oftentimes will have the statements from the church at Corinth that they are asking the

Apostle Paul for clarity on. And in this particular case, the church at Corinth for some reason came up with this statement.

Now concerning the matters which you wrote, here's what they wrote. It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.

Okay, you can just see the Apostle Paul going, oh man, okay. So we're going to have to straighten some things out.

Because Corinth is really a seedy town, it's really known for its sexual immorality, it was a seaport where they would take boats out of the water and drag them across the isthmus of Corinth.

And so you had sailors getting into town all the time and sailors do what sailors do. And it was just a place of debauchery and drunkenness and sexual immorality on what was called the

Acrocorinth, which was a hill there in Corinth. At the very top of the hill there was a temple set up to,

I think, Aphrodite. And the way the sailors would worship there, it was with temple prostitutes.

So it's just a town that is just as messed up sexually as you could possibly imagine.

It makes Las Vegas kind of look tame. And as a result of this, with the sexual immorality being the way it is, oftentimes

Christians will overreact to something. They will overreact and say, well, with all of these temptations to sin this way, it's probably best if we just don't do that at all.

You see, because there's people who abuse alcohol, therefore we're going to say if you have alcohol, it's a sin.

That's not the solution. The solution is to remember that one of the fruits of the

Holy Spirit is what? Self -control. Fruit of the Holy Spirit? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness.

And this one? Self -control. So the solution to a problem is not something that creates the opposite problem.

So they're saying it's good that a guy not have sexual relations with a woman. You can just see

Paul beating his head against his desk at this point. He says, but because of the temptation to sexual immorality,

Paul says, each man should have his own wife, each woman her own husband. Have you ever considered that for the young and the single that are struggling with sexual temptations and sexual sin, that maybe the reason why they're having so many problems is because they haven't recognized that God has created marriage to address that.

If you're having problems along these ways, get married. So the husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, likewise the wife to her husband.

You're going to note here that I pointed this out last time, the husbands belong to the wives, the wives belong to the husbands.

They belong to each other. It is not the husband says you belong to me.

Get in the kitchen and make me a sandwich. No, they belong to each other.

So the husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, likewise the wife her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body but the husband does, likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body but the wife does.

And do not deprive one another except perhaps by agreement for a limited time that you may devote yourself to prayer but then come together again so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self -control.

So you're going to note here the Apostle Paul correcting the church at Corinth. No, marriage is a good thing. It's also one of these things that helps us not succumb to the temptations of the devil.

But you're going to also note that Paul is describing it in such a way as this that the person who is single and is courting a woman, the day before their marriage for them to come together sexually is a sin.

For them to come together sexually after they are married is a good work.

You see it? So the idea then is this as Christians we must soberly and with self -control recognize that God has created this.

It is a beautiful thing and although people are abusing it and falling into grievous sins that we must recognize it for the good gift that it is.

It is the means by which humanity is procreated and you're going to note here that the expectation is that in a

Christian marriage that Christian marriages are not, and I'm going to use this word, it's a little stark but they are not sexless.

And that's kind of a vital thing. I know this is going to sound weird but there is 30 % of all marriages, 30 % of all marriages are sexless.

There's no coming together between the man and the wife. None. This rules that concept out.

Which requires, and boy I hate to say this, requires you to put your cell phones down and actually talk to each other because making this happen sometimes in a marriage relationship is complicated.

There was a meme that made the rounds a few years back that basically talked about how simple -minded males are.

Men are easy to please. There's like two buttons beer and sex. But then you look at the buttons for a woman, it looks like you know, the space shuttle controls.

You know, good luck figuring out how that all operates. And listen to me, it's important that you all figure that out within your relationships.

First year of marriage, anybody who's been married, first year of marriage easy or difficult? Liar. You're totally lying.

I'm going to call you to repentance right here. She'd say you're lying.

It's difficult. You get two sinners now cohabitating under the same roof in a lifelong commitment and so divorce shouldn't be on the table.

And he's doing something that's ticking you off and she's being mad and making him upset that one's going to take a while to figure out how to unwind.

Good luck. And listen to what I'm saying. In our marriages, those difficulties the face -to -face, dealing with each other's strengths weaknesses, things that upset us and other things like that these are the places, this is the crucible of our sanctification.

Period. Then throw kids into the mix? Holy guacamole.

I mean, what was already a barbecue that you couldn't cook on because the flames were still going now take 10 gallons of gasoline to pour that on that thing and you figure it out.

Those of you, first child born was that easy to adjust to or difficult?

No, it's not my turn to get out of bed it's your turn to get out of bed, baby. I don't want to change the diaper, you change the diaper.

Isn't it my weekend to sleep in? And that's just the tip of the iceberg because then you've got vomit that comes into the mix and strange, weird things that the kids do

I won't embarrass my kids, but there's stories that we tell and then you'll find then that in your marriage there are the tall weeds and difficult times to get through and you feel like hacking through it with a machete is taking forever and then there are times when things are calm and peaceful and you take the good and the bad together and it's in this crucible that the

Lord is sanctifying us and it's difficult and it's hard and in the midst of all of that God reveals that we are to continue to keep coming together, this is a good work and in the keeping of coming together we are taking away the temptation to sin and that's a vital piece of all of this over and again when you see a relationship, a marriage that has become sexless, that is the open door to adultery it is the open door and the person who becomes the adulterer oftentimes will justify it by saying well,

I wasn't getting any at home I remember years ago when I was working in the corporate world

I had a colleague of mine come into my office and tell me that he was leaving his wife and going to be running away with some lady in the office he's a

Christian, goes to church I said no you're not, that's an absolute sin that is adultery, what you are doing you need to repent of to which he said no,

God has revealed to me in my heart that she is my soul mate no he hasn't, you are utterly deceived no he has not he didn't listen, not only did he lose his wife his kids, didn't take more than a year and a half before he lost his soul mate too temptations, so again it's kind of strange to talk in these terms what is a sin one day becomes a good work the next and that's how scripture would teach us now,

Paul then goes on to say this interesting portion of scripture I say this

Paul was a fellow who was not married he was celibate each one has his own gift from God one of one kind and one of another so to the unmarried and the widows

I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am but if they cannot exercise self control they should marry for it is better to marry than to burn with passion they should marry that's straightforward, the reality is this celibacy is technically a gift given by God but it's a rare gift and if you don't have it, don't sweat it get married and it's kind of interesting that the

Roman Catholic Church ended up idolizing virginity and requiring their pastors to be celibate, where no scripture says that in fact scripture says that a pastor should be the husband of one wife, children obedient and believers that would require certain things happening in a marriage and so they've taken that away from their pastors and what has that led to in the

Roman Catholic Church straight up debauchery how many years has it been that we haven't had a major Roman Catholic priest abusing children of one stripe or another you know the reason for that it's real simple, they don't have the gift of celibacy get those priests married, this problem starts to go away or at least it simmers down to the same level of problem that you have within the

Protestant churches and you've got to note that being married isn't the solution to everything because there are still fellows who are married who are pervs that's just how this works but the percentage of them drops dramatically when we understand that we were made to procreate

I'm not familiar yeah it's very rare the sexual immorality that everybody keeps talking about burbles up to the surface what does the world think about the church as a result of these continued scandal after scandal year after year after year and all of the money that the

Roman Catholic Church has paid to families to settle these things and keep them under wraps everybody knows about it

Netflix recently did a documentary it's very disturbing but worth the watch the name of it is called

The Keepers it's like an 8 part series that addresses this exact problem and they interview the survivors of those who've been abused by these priests it's rough to watch but it'll give you an idea of the nature of the problem how much of this goes away if you just let them fulfill the requirements of scripture husband of one wife

Paul says to the unmarried I say that it's good for them to remain single as I am but if they cannot then there's nothing there there's no shame it is better for them to marry than to burn with passion to the married

I give this charge not I but the Lord the wife should not separate from her husband she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband the husband should not divorce his wife to the rest

I say that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever and she consents to live with him he should not divorce her if any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever and he consents to live with her she should not divorce him for the unbelieving husband is made holy or you can say sanctified because of his wife and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband otherwise your children would be unclean but it is they are holy there's a word we don't use in polite company anymore that has to do with the procreation of illegitimate children children who are conceived outside of the bond of marriage that's what he's referring to here because they are married their children are holy but if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so in such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved

God has called you to peace for how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife and I've got to tell you if you don't know anybody who's in a marriage where one spouse is believing and the other is not those are difficult marriages they are really tough let me just give this advice, kind of throw it out there you who are single in the room if you meet him or her and you've got that wibbly wobbly feeling and all the hormones are running and you feel like every time you think about that person you're walking on air that lasts just a very short amount of time and that will never come back it doesn't come back that's not how our bodies work if the person you are having those feelings for is not a believer in Jesus Christ don't listen to your feelings separate yourself from that person and I assure you the hormones will settle down and you'll come back to your right mind because if you make the decision to marry an unbeliever while you're having those types of feelings you are setting yourself up for an extremely rough ride because when the kids come and you say you want them baptized and we've got to go to church the conflicts that are going to ensue are epic it's like trying to fight a land war in Asia it's very difficult the unbelieving spouse is not saved this has to do with the fact that the institution of marriage is holy still even though it's an imbalanced one it is not that the institution or the spouse is somehow oblite because they're not saved that's what it's referring to they must consider them holy at least within the office of marriage itself or the institution it's a little civil it's a little ceremonial this rules out the idea that I'm a believer and my husband is not because he's not a believer that means he's a low down dirty filthy rotten pagan and I can leave the relationship that's ruled out here he's still holy in this institution and your children are holy as well regardless of the fact that he's an unbeliever and his sins are unforgiven he's still holy as your husband holy as your wife yes sir under that Lutheran scenario how does that equal out now with Christianity yeah

I'll say this that conflict will manifest in similar ways when one spouse is of one belief as far as their doctrine and another spouse is different so if you get a

Roman Catholic and a Lutheran together which is very common around here you're going to have some bumps in those relationships and conflict centering around catechesis, communion, where the kids go to church and things like that and believe me when

I tell you these are not easy issues to sort out if you want to make things as smooth as possible marry somebody who has the same confession you do then it does work because if that husband and that wife are true believers and they are strong in their faith they're going to relay that to their children no matter which church they go to I'm not saying their kids won't believe the conflicts that are created around religion and denominational differences within a marriage that adds a whole dynamic of conflict that I'm just going to say it's a lot easier in a marriage

I think generalizing it to say that it would be tough you're not giving that husband or that wife

I just lost my word credit due for their faith

I'm not challenging the faith I'm just talking about the dynamic of marriage let me give you an example personally

I became a Lutheran before my wife did my wife and I both were Nazarenes if you know anything about Nazarene theology it's extremely strict, very legalistic it's a combination of Wesleyan Methodism and Finite Revivalism which is an interesting mix and it is all law you don't really hear the gospel as a

Christian that almost made an atheist out of me when

I started attending Christ College Irvine that was my first exposure to Lutheran doctrine and theology and this biblical distinction between law and gospel

I had never heard that before and I bristled against it, fought against it but eventually said no, this is what the scriptures say and so as the story goes over and again

I would debate I was a Nazarene when I was at Christ College my first couple years there and I would get into these theological debates with my

Lutheran colleagues in college the Lord's Supper and Baptism and it really irked me because every time they would open up the

Bible it would say what the Lutherans believe but it didn't say what I believed and it really bothered me that I would get my clock cleaned by these guys because I was getting better grades than all of them

I graduated at the top of the class so you've got C students that can clean my clock on Baptism and the

Lord's Supper so I'm in my second year Greek readings course and we're translating through Titus and so it's the fall and it's like the month of October we're in chapter 3 and I'm translating and of course me,

I'm always waiting to the last second to do anything anyway so I'm doing my homework late at night I'm up translating this text and it says let me show you the text because I think it would be worth a look it's found in Titus 3 and then

I'll tell you the rest of the story verse 4 notice who's doing the saving and here's the phrase over here on this side and the idea that the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the

Holy Spirit when I saw this word I looked it up and it's a ceremonial washing it refers to baptism, it's a religious rite and so it says in the text that God saved us through the washing of regeneration that's not what

I believed but the text says it so clearly so I went and got a different lexicon to see if I can get around this so I went and grabbed my other lexicon looked it up and sure enough, no, it's referring to baptism and so I let out an expletive

I was pretty upset, I was mad I said, that's it, I'm a Lutheran and I had to bend the knee,

God's word was clear what I had been taught and what I believed was not what the scriptures say I have to bend the knee, in order to be honest

I have to say this is what God's word says I bend the knee to what God's word says and every other text says similar things like this so Barb woke up the next morning and when

I finally tooled out of bed I said, Barb, we're Lutherans and she said, oh no, we're not

I gave her an explanation, not only about this text but about the fact that Lutherans rightly understand law and gospel and it's correct that we are saved by grace through faith alone, not by our works and she would have none of it and from that moment it began to create conflict within our marriage conflict that I learned if I pig -headedly and stubbornly and immaturely pushed, it would set her off and rightly so so what do you do in a situation like that?

because you talk to my wife, she's actually more Lutheran than I am in a lot of cases, so what made the difference?

I decided pretty early on that this butting heads and fighting her all the time wasn't going to do it, because it wasn't some clever argument or coercion that made me realize that this is what the scriptures taught it was the scriptures themselves,

God opened my eyes showed me what his words said so I decided to take a different approach and she, like every good evangelical woman insisted that I not slack regarding being the spiritual head of our family and she says, you have to be teaching us the

Bible to which I said, yes if I have to be teaching you the Bible guess what we're going to be learning about I initially tried to have topical studies that dealt with like baptism or the

Lord's Supper or salvation by grace through faith she would have none of it, she caught on to that really quick and she said, nope, you teach us entire books, stop that alright, fine,

I'll teach entire books and so we have a tradition the tradition basically went like this, we eat dinner and before we take the dishes off the table out came the family

Bible and I started teaching my family it took 10 years and when texts would come up by working through them that conflicted with what she believed she would ask questions and I would say, here's what the text says and I had to trust

God to open her eyes I couldn't push, I couldn't coerce

I couldn't fight, I could teach, period and believe me, during those 10 years man, there were some touch and go times and so there was a whole religious conflict dynamic in our marriage, and I gotta tell you

I don't miss that one bit it was tough, it was really hard and I would say this, you people who are single you're going to save yourself a lot of conflict if you marry a fellow or a gal who believes the same as you, you're going to have a lot of conflict if you don't no, she agreed to go to a

Lutheran church and fairly early on I was asked to teach at a

Baptist church which is crazy, that's a whole other story so we were attending two churches for a very long time which made

Sundays just exhausting so in the morning we were at the Baptist church in the evening we were at the

Lutheran church and we did that for a long time yeah, that's true, once we started going to the

Baptist church and she could see for herself the big contrast that's the thing that kind of made her go, oh and it kind of you get it, but yeah so I mean, again long time of conflict though yeah, the case for Christ yeah, no, fascinating movie very fascinating movie and I love how patient and kind and not pushing his wife was and he was so awful to her as an atheist he really was trying to knock that Jesus out of her and she had to take on I loved how she exemplified love and patience and steadfastness even in the midst of persecution great movie by the way, really great theologically there were some things that were squirrely but I don't expect even

Christian movies to get it right 100 % of the time I loved how she exemplified the love of Christ for her own husband although he was hostile and he was a complete jerk and he had literally set out to do this investigation in order to take

Jesus away from her she still, when he would try to fight her she wouldn't fight and that's kind of the approach that you have to take let's keep reading though so hopefully that answers the question, you get the idea now concerning the betrothed, verse 25

I have no command from the Lord, but I give my judgment as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy

I think that in view of the present distress it is good for a person to remain as he is apparently there was some kind of a problem going on in that part of the world that getting married may have been an unwise move and in light of that present distress that was taking place he had made a recommendation and again, this was his idea at the time this is not something we're bound to are you bound to a wife, do not seek to be free are you free from a wife, do not seek a wife but if you do marry, you have not sinned if a betrothed woman marries, she has not sinned yet those who marry will have worldly troubles and I would spare you that and this is true by the way and it is this portion that was the primary impetus behind Rome's move to require celibacy for its priests and that is that married pastors have a flock to look after and they've got a family to look after the family life and the dramas that go along with it and the unexpected things oftentimes will divide the interest of a pastor but that's all part and parcel of it so he was saying that he would spare them these things but says, this is what

I mean brothers the appointed time has grown very short from now on but those who have wives live as though they have none

I guarantee you, your wife will not like that and those who mourn as though they were not mourning and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing and those who buy as though they had no goods and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it for the present form of this world is passing away now

I want you to be free from anxieties the unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord how to please the

Lord but the married man is anxious about worldly things how to please his wife and believe me, that's a lot of anxiety right there and it's very mysterious as to how to accomplish this task so his interests are divided the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the

Lord how to be holy in the body and spirit but the married woman is anxious about worldly things how to please her husband and I say this for your own benefit not to lay restraint upon you but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the

Lord if anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly towards his betrothed if his passions are strong and it has to be let him do as he wishes, let them marry it is not a sin marriage ends up becoming the pressure release valve for sexual sin rightly so whoever is firmly established in his heart being under no necessity but having his desire under control has determined this in his heart to keep her as his betrothed he will do well so then he who marries his betrothed does well he who refrains from marriage under the current crisis will do even better a wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives but if her husband dies she is free to be married to whom she wishes only in the

Lord yet in my judgment she is happier if she remains as she is and I think that I too have the spirit of God you get the idea so my bible uses the word virgin virgin and betrothed are the same thing?

technically they should be here's the idea betrothed would mean they're engaged so you've got a young couple, a guy and a girl the woman often times will be referred to in terms of her whether she's had sex or not, she's a betrothed virgin big thing in the ancient world

I don't know off the top of my head we do have a clear reference that Peter traveled with his wife and the apostle

Paul even talked about that so we do know that it is most likely the majority, if not all, with the exception of Paul were married and Peter, it is well documented, traveled with his wife which

I think is fascinating because Rome claims that Peter was the first pope yet it is required of the pope that he be celibate so you get a note here that the real subtext of all of this is self -control depending on what gift

God has given you and honoring and recognizing that we are to honor

God with our bodies that's the gist of it now I'm going to pull up another text, I want to spend a little bit of time in this one back up to 1

Corinthians 6 and let's read this out in context neither drunkards nor revilers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God and such were past tense, some of you, but you were watched notice the baptismal language you are sanctified, you are justified in the name of the

Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God all things are lawful for me but not all things are helpful all things are lawful for me but I will not be dominated by anything food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food and God will destroy both, one and the other the body is not meant for sexual immorality but for the

Lord and the Lord for the body and God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by His power do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ you get a note here the fact that you is saved and that you've been united with Christ in His death and His resurrection and the waters of baptism you are now united to Jesus shall

I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute never! or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her for it is written the two will become one flesh but he who is joined to the

Lord becomes one spirit with him flee sexual immorality every other sin a person commits is outside of 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 so you are not your own you were bought with a price glorify

God in your body let's just say that there are different periods in Roman Catholic history where clearly there were men who were doing things that were sexually immoral some keeping mistresses and concubines and things like that but I would say this, we must be fair to Rome those stories are the few and the far between they do occur but that's not the total scope and one of the sad things is that how do they say it?

it's the bad apple that ruins the whole barrel of the bunch for every Roman Catholic priest who is sexually immoral and has done something reprehensible, how many more are there that are not?

they strive to be faithful, they strive to honor God with their body so it's important for us to recognize that although there is a percentage of people who are doing these wicked things and that that percentage would decrease if they would just pay attention to what

Scripture says and implement it rather than these man -made rules but there are still very faithful men who are striving to honor

God even in celibacy within Rome we must give them that credit and so yes, there are examples in history of even a

Pope keeping a concubine there are stories to that effect but that's not the majority of them so again you're going to note because you are blood -bought, our bodies are not our own isn't that though the argument for sexual immorality in our day?

my body, my choice yeah, don't get me started on that it's also what they say for abortion yeah, they say it's my body you're going to note here as Christians, can we say it's my body,

I can do with it whatever I want nope it ain't your body your body belongs to Jesus, period and He has not left it up to your whims to decide what's right and wrong with your body

He has put it into Holy Scripture what He intends for you to do with the body that He has purchased you sit there and go, when you talk like this it makes it sound like it's so serious there's no room for right there isn't this is black and white this is good or evil there's no in -between here and Scripture is extremely clear what about that exotic, bizarre thing look in the book of Leviticus it'll clean that right up for you the book of Leviticus leaves nothing for the imagination it gets down to the explicit nitty -gritty detail

God wills for you, brothers and sisters because you belong to Christ to honor

God with your body sexual immorality is a grievous sin and it's a sin against Christ, also against yourself it hurts you in ways that you could not possibly imagine so the idea then here is that when you are tempted what are we to do in these situations?

do what Joseph did flee you're not strong enough to say no so flee

Joseph was very wise when Potiphar's wife said lie with me and he would run away you run away don't even worry about the appearance of evil that's like the least of your problems don't put yourself in a situation where your own passions will get the better of you and if you have come and see me there's an absolution for you