January 31, 2010
Sermon #822
Holy Sex
Genesis 1:20 - 31 (NKJV) 20Then God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.” 21So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23So the evening and the morning were the fifth day. 24Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. 25And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
26Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. 30Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so. 31Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Introduction:
Why am I starting this seminar on marriage about sex? Why?
82% of adolescents reported that they had experienced sexual intercourse before age 19
The pregnancy rate of females ages 15-19 is 21%
The abortion rate is 3.8%
Because there are 333 million new cases of curable sexually transmitted diseases among adults each year and among these are 3 million teenagers
85% of infectious diseases in the US are sexually transmitted
HIV infection/AIDS is the second leading cause of death among ages 25-44
641,086 AIDS cases were reported to the Center of Disease Control
30.6 million people living have AIDS
86% of convicted rapists say they regularly used pornography
77% of those who molested boys used pornography
87% of those who molested girls used pornography
“God said ‘It was very good!’”
God made all the fish
God made all of the fowl
God made all of the beasts
God made men and women
To all of them, He said, “be fruitful and multiply” and He gave them a way to do it – SEX! And He called it “very good!”
ILL: There is the story of a hermit who had a son. One day the hermit decided to take his son to town to see the things he had never seen. They passed two girls. “What are they?” the boy asked. “Oh,” the hermit said, “they are geese.” After the son had seen everything in town, the father asked, “Is there any thing you saw in town you would like to take back with you?” Without hesitation the boy answered “A goose!”
How sex became unholy
It was not made unholy by the “fall”
Genesis 8:15 - 18 (NKJV) 15Then God spoke to Noah, saying, 16“Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. 17Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you: birds and cattle and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” 18So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him.
All of the birds and animals and Noah, his wife, his sons and his sons’ wives were to be “fruitful and multiply” and God did not change the how!
Genesis 35:9 - 12 (NKJV) 9Then God appeared to Jacob again, when he came from Padan Aram, and blessed him. 10And God said to him, “Your name is Jacob; your name shall not be called Jacob anymore, but Israel shall be your name.” So He called his name Israel. 11Also God said to him: “I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you, and kings shall come from your body. 12The land which I gave Abraham and Isaac I give to you; and to your descendants after you I give this land.”
Israel was to “be fruitful and multiply” how? “With his body!”
It was not made unholy by the Bible – the Bible is not bashful
ILL: The Son of Solomon was once forbidden reading – the X-rated Bible
Song of Songs 7:1 - 10 (NKJV) 1The Beloved How beautiful are your feet in sandals, O prince’s daughter! The curves of your thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a skillful workman. 2Your navel is a rounded goblet; It lacks no blended beverage. Your waist is a heap of wheat set about with lilies. 3Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle. 4Your neck is like an ivory tower, your eyes like the pools in Heshbon by the gate of Bath Rabbim. Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon which looks toward Damascus. 5Your head crowns you like Mount Carmel, and the hair of your head is like purple; A king is held captive by your tresses. 6How fair and how pleasant you are, O love, with your delights! 7This stature of yours is like a palm tree, And your breasts like its clusters. 8I said, “I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of its branches.” Let now your breasts be like clusters of the vine, The fragrance of your breath like apples, 9And the roof of your mouth like the best wine. The Shulamite The wine goes down smoothly for my beloved, Moving gently the lips of sleepers. 10I am my beloved’s, And his desire is toward me.
Along came the Gnostics
Gnosticism is a belief that “knowledge” is good, “physical” is bad
“Saint” Augustine:
Left his wife, his 2nd mistress, and his 17-year-old son to set up a monastery in Hippo. He wrote that while “sex was necessary, it was a sin to enjoy it.”
Saint Clement wrote that having sex for pleasure was to be discouraged
Ambrose said that sex was a defilement
Saint Chrysostom wrote “among all the savage beasts none is more harmful than a woman”
Tertullian renounced his relationship to his wife and wrote that sex with a woman drives out the Holy Spirit
Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote that a woman is defective and accidental – a male gone awry
A book called the Acts of Andrew stated that sex was a foul, polluted way of life, an experiment of the serpent
Origen – castrated himself
In the “dark ages” the Bible was banned from the public
It was taught that the Angel Gabriel impregnated the Blessed Mary through her ear
Jesus could not have touched Mary’s parts of shame so he was born through her navel
The Council of Trent in the sixteenth century placed celibacy on the priesthood. The body was “bad” so it had to be covered in black. The white “clerical collar” separates the body from the head, which is “good”
The movement to make sex holy again
Martin Luther
Romans 11:6 (NKJV) 6And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work.
ILL: Luther married a nun and went about to joyously fulfill the scripture to be fruitful and multiply.
The “Puritans” and the “holiness movement” drove it back into the dark.
ILL: I had an Amish Pastor friend who had been married 16 years but had never seen his wife undressed.
What is “unholy” sex?
All sexual acts outside of marriage is fornication in NT Greek, (porneia)
The Septuagint – the OT in Greek used in the time of Jesus porneia was the word used.
Leviticus 18:6 - 29 (NKJV) 6‘None of you shall approach anyone who is near of kin to him, to uncover his nakedness: I am the Lord. 7The nakedness of your father or the nakedness of your mother you shall not uncover. She is your mother; you shall not uncover her nakedness. 8The nakedness of your father’s wife you shall not uncover; it is your father’s nakedness. 9The nakedness of your sister, the daughter of your father, or the daughter of your mother, whether born at home or elsewhere, their nakedness you shall not uncover. 10The nakedness of your son’s daughter or your daughter’s daughter, their nakedness you shall not uncover; for theirs is your own nakedness. 11The nakedness of your father’s wife’s daughter, begotten by your father—she is your sister—you shall not uncover her nakedness. 12You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s sister; she is near of kin to your father. 13You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister, for she is near of kin to your mother.
14You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s brother. You shall not approach his wife; she is your aunt. 15You shall not uncover the nakedness of your daughter-in-law—she is your son’s wife—you shall not uncover her nakedness. 16You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother’s wife; it is your brother’s nakedness. 17You shall not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, nor shall you take her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter, to uncover her nakedness. They are near of kin to her. It is wickedness. 18Nor shall you take a woman as a rival to her sister, to uncover her nakedness while the other is alive. 19‘Also you shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness as long as she is in her customary impurity.
20Moreover you shall not lie carnally with your neighbor’s wife, to defile yourself with her. 21And you shall not let any of your descendants pass through the fire to Molech, nor shall you profane the name of your God: I am the Lord. 22You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. 23Nor shall you mate with any animal, to defile yourself with it. Nor shall any woman stand before an animal to mate with it. It is perversion. 24‘Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for by all these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you. 25For the land is defiled; therefore I visit the punishment of its iniquity upon it, and the land vomits out its inhabitants.
26You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations, either any of your own nation or any stranger who dwells among you 27(for all these abominations the men of the land have done, who were before you, and thus the land is defiled), 28lest the land vomit you out also when you defile it, as it vomited out the nations that were before you. 29For whoever commits any of these abominations, the persons who commit them shall be cut off from among their people.
All of these are Porneia
In God’s eyes, they are all equal sins
Matthew 15:16 - 20 (NKJV) 16So Jesus said, “Are you also still without understanding? 17Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? 18But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. 19For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. 20These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.”
Acts 15:18 - 21 (NKJV) 18“Known to God from eternity are all His works. 19Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, 20but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood. 21For Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath.”
B. The Facts
From the Janus Report on Sexual Behavior (1993)
59% of religious people have sex before marriage
31% of religious people have had been in extra-marital sex
70% of unmarried, “saved” Christians are having sex of one kind or another
The murder rate is 9X higher among people who are having sex outside of marriage
Revelation 2:14 14But I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality.
God’s Rules for Sex
Genesis 2:21 - 25 (NKJV) 21And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. 22Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. 23And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.” 24Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
The word “flesh” is not meat
Sex is the joining of the physical, soul, and spirit
Sex is communication at its highest level
ILL: I am going to surprise you. I want to tell you what Pope John Paul II wrote about sex. “Words and bodily action have meanings. Sexual union means, ‘I find you attractive, I care for you. I will try to work for your happiness. I wish to have a deep bond with you.’ When a person wants sex without marriage, they are lying with their bodies. They simply want to use the other for their pleasure. They cannot fulfill the words their bodies are saying. They are not prepared to work for the other’s happiness, or achieving a deep bond with another. Such achievements take a lifetime to complete; they cannot be accomplished in brief encounters.”
Hebrews 13:4 (NKJV) 4Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.
ILL: The Bible contains no rules or guidelines for specific, prescribed lovemaking techniques so I will not. I personally believe that Christian lovemaking should be the most passionate, playful, and super-satisfying expression of sexuality known.
Why?
Because we are celebrating the sacrament of creation and freedom in Christ
Matthew 22:37 - 40 (NKJV) 37Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38This is the first and great commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
Your mate is your closest neighbor
If one loves the mate as they love themselves they will not – do anything that brings pain to the mate – they will do nothing that dishonors the mate – they will do nothing that brings only self satisfaction and pleasure, but that which brings the most pleasure to the mate – they will always respect the mate’s feelings.
Conclusion:
Pope John Paul was right. Sex speaks and it should say, ‘I love you, I care for you, I want a deep bond with you.’ Faithfulness is the cornerstone of marriage. It may seem odd to say that you need to be faithful to your spouse before you meet him or her, for your sexuality belongs to one’s future spouse as much as it does to oneself. This creates trust, which is an essential for marriage and for a joyful sex life. A good high school teacher told me that Mary Jane and I were getting too close and some separation would do us well. One year in the Air Force away from her was a great blessing to our marriage. In that year, we learned we could trust each other and that we really loved one another. If you are one of the 59% of religious people who had sex before marriage, you can receive Christ’s forgiveness and also forgive yourself and develop trust. If you or your spouse has had an extra-marital sexual affair, it is going to be much more difficult but, with Christ in both of your lives, it can be done!
If you are living in a sexual relationship outside of marriage, (Porneia has no degrees or distinctions) there is no “good” or “bad” Porneia. You need to break out of it and get free.
1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 (NKJV) 1Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God; 2for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus. 3For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; 4that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, 5not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; 6that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forwarned you and testified. 7For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. 8Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.
“Whoever Christ sets free is free indeed!”
