2005-05-27
Good Morning Faithful Readers,
As you know, I have been led by the Holy Spirit to discuss the difficult subject of sexual immorality. Christ brought it up in the Sermon on the Mount in MT 5: 27, 30. “You have heard that I was said, ‘Do not commit adultery’…If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away! It’s much better for you to lose one of your limbs than to have your whole body go off to hell.” We are all told to believe what Christ says; after all we have JN 14: 6, “I am the truth, the way, and the life. No one goes to the Father but by Me.” However, I think it helps for us to see the teaching from the Father that came before the Sermon on the Mount, teaching to which Christ certainly had access and expertise. So, I’m led to share some of it here.
GN 16: 1-16 is the story of Hagar, Abram’s slave with whom he committed deliberate adultery (with his wife, Sarai’s, permission). This unhealthy act was brought about by impatience and disobedience on Abram, Sarai, and Hagar’s part- borne out of Abram’s impatience in waiting for God’s perfect time for Sarai to become pregnant with Abram’s child. Remember PS 27: 14, “Wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart. Wait for the Lord.” These people weren’t willing. The net result over the years was the origination of a group of people, the Arabs, who later were to become sworn enemies of God’s people. GN 19: 4-8, 30-38 depicts the story of the sexual immorality of the men of Sodom and the difficulty Lot had of protecting his angelic visitors [One of whom I believe was a theophany-possibly even Christ Himself] from their sexual advances. It also shows the consequence of Lot’s two daughters committing incest with their father, whom they had gotten drunk. That is how other enemies of the Jews, the Moabites and the Ammonites arose from the offspring of these illicit unions. The evil consequences of sexual immorality are frequently ignored in the heat of the moment.
God has made His will known clearly in EX 20: 17, one of the Ten Commandments. “Thou shalt not covet another man’s wife, his slaves, his cattle, his donkeys, or anything else that he owns.” I have often written about the fact that coveting is the basis for every other sin committed. RO 1: 18-32 outlines clearly how immorality gets started with an idea that gets converted into evil action. PR 6: 20-35 is devoted to the teaching given a young man on sexual immorality by his parents. PR 6: 23-24, for example, “Their instructions are a shining light; their correction can teach you how to live. It can keep you away from bad women, from seductive words of others men’s wives.” The sad story of the Israelites at Peor in NU 25: 1-3, 6-9 shows more of the destructiveness of sexual immorality- in this case, combined with idolatry. The Moabites worshipped their god, Baal of Peor, which angered the Lord. Baal worship was fraught with illicit sex acts with Moabite women. I suspect that the courage of Ruth, the Moabitess who demonstrated her willingness to be obedient to God later in their history, can be better appreciated with this understanding of the culture of her origin. When the Israelites of NU 25 began practicing this kind of idolatry, had orgies with Moabite women, and defied God in general, God’s wrath arose, and He ordered her leaders to be executed in broad daylight (NU 25: 4). This was carried out by Phinehas, the son of Eleazar and grandson of Aaron the priest, and others under Moses’ orders, stopping this horrific epidemic of sexual immorality in the camp. Before the end came to this, 24,000 people were killed (9).
There seemed to be no end to the ways mankind could commit sexual immorality. One particular example is that discussed in 1 SAM 2: 22-25 when an elderly Eli kept hearing about everything his sons were doing to the Israelites, even sleeping with the women who worked at the entrance to the Tent of the Lord’s presence. Eli told them to stop doing this. “If a man sins against another man, God can defend him; but who can defend a man who sins against the Lord?” he asserted to them. “But they wouldn’t listen to their father, for the Lord had decided to kill them (25).” In each of these cases we can see unwanted and often dire consequences. Nothing has changed through Christ’s time and today. The only difference is that because we don’t have the hindsight that history gives us, we can’t see both the immediate and cosmic consequences of today’s disobedience yet. I don’t know how each of you is reacting to these stories about sexual immorality in the Scriptures, but I can tell you that I’m led to continue sharing them, for two important reasons: 1) The obvious direction we have from God concerning what is acceptable sexual behavior and what is not; 2) our opportunity to see the backlog of history that came before Christ’s direction at the Sermon on the Mount from which He was drawing His attitudes and views.
PRAYER: O Lord, You are bringing the painful topic of sexual immorality to our attention for Your righteous reasons. We live in a time when most of the world disagrees with Your truly faithful believers in what is acceptable and what is not. As You expressed through Paul in RO 1: 18-23, none of these people has any excuse, no matter what time he lives in or how sophisticated or primitive his culture. “God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all the sin and evil of the people whose evil ways prevent the truth from being known. God punishes them, because what can be known about God is plain to them, for God Himself made it plain. Ever since God created the world, His invisible qualities, but His eternal power and His divine nature, have been clearly seen; they are perceived in the things that God has made. So those people have no excuse at all! They know God, but they do not give Him the honor that belongs to Him, nor do they thank Him. Instead their thoughts have become complete nonsense, and their empty minds are filled with darkness. They say they are wise, but they are fools; instead of worshipping the immortal God, they worship images made to look like mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles.” O Lord, we stand before Your throne today to acknowledge that You are the One and Only God, our Savior and our Lord. We not only have consciousness of Your divine presence and power in our lives, but we are awestruck by Your ability to create our earth and everything on it. No other entity in the universe can be everywhere all of the time, has the power You possess, is as righteous as You are, and can bring us the opportunity for salvation that You have through the Atonement of Your Son on the cross. The very faith we have is a gift from You, as is the guiding, encouraging, and sometimes correcting presence in our lives of Your Spirit. We stand ready for the world’s opposition to the faith You have given us. We believe in the reward You will give us for doing this. PS 8: 1 expresses what we understand. “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth! You have set Your glory above the heavens!” We promise to witness to Your truths, attributes, and deeds. PS 71: 16-17, “I will come and proclaim Your mighty acts, O Sovereign Lord; I will proclaim Your righteousness alone. Since my youth, O God, You have taught me, and to this day I declare Your marvelous deeds.” We praise and thank You for Your wisdom shared with us, Your patience and compassion, and for the opportunity to be saved through the death and resurrection of Your Son. In His holy name, we pray. Amen.
Next week, as I mentioned above, I am led to continue writing about the wisdom God gives us to prepare us to understand the intent of His teaching on sexual immorality. Those of us who are obedient believers are left with a difficult challenge. We know and do our best to live by God’s teaching on sexual immorality and yet have been commanded not to be judgmental. No human being fully understands God’s plans for himself, much less for every other person- even ones who are engaging in sexual immorality at the present time. As we can see in going through the Scriptures, there are times when individuals doing this have stopped the behavior, confessed their sins, and have been forgiven. The only One with the right to final judgment is Christ Himself. Think of David [2 SAM 11: 2-4; 2 SAM 12: 13-14] and the prostitute who was about to be stoned, when Christ asserted, “Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone [JN 8: 7]. No one single person who engages in this behavior goes without experiencing some kind of negative consequences for it. God is generous enough to give us the opportunity to confess sin, repent from it, and come to obedient faithfulness. He encourages us to have an active prayer life as a part of our relationship with Him. He wants each of us to have a relationship with Him that is full of ongoing conversation, willingness to listen to His direction and take encouragement from Him when it’s given, and the daily study of His word. His reason for this can only be explained by the overarching truth of His immeasurable love for each of us.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn