SERIES: Christ Is the Answer When the Church Is in Crisis
Six Reasons Why Sex Outside Marriage Is Wrong
SCRIPTURE: 1 Cor. 6:12-20
Introduction: I read recently of a wife who went to lunch with eleven other women who were taking a French course together, since their children were all in school. One rather bold woman asked the rest, “How many of you have been faithful throughout your marriage?” Only one raised her hand. That evening when the woman of our story related the incident to her husband and admitted she was not the one who had raised her hand, he looked devastated. “But I’ve been faithful to you,” she quickly assured him. “Then why didn’t you raise your hand?” he asked. Her answer: “I was ashamed.” She was actually embarrassed to admit that she had been faithful for fear of being viewed as a prude.
Friends, that’s a true story. It demonstrates how absolutely messed up our society has become. J. Allan Petersen, a man who has invested four decades in helping Christian marriages, has written,
“A call for fidelity is like a solitary voice crying in today’s sexual wilderness. What was once labeled adultery and carried a stigma of guilt and embarrassment now is ‘an affair’–a nice‑sounding, almost inviting word wrapped in mystery, fascination, and excitement. A relationship, not sin. What was once behind the scenes–a secret closely guarded–is now in the headlines, a TV theme, a best seller, as common as the cold. Marriages are ‘open;’ divorces are ‘creative.’”[i]
I will not spend time this morning citing statistics, because any thinking Christian knows how badly the moral cesspool has overflowed. From daytime soaps to the primetime sitcoms, somebody is invariably getting in or out of bed with someone other than their spouse. Prominent psychologists are actually calling adultery “healthy,” and now it’s fidelity, not infidelity, that needs defending in our sex‑saturated society!
It’s of little value, however, for us to lament the awful moral deterioration out in “the world.” In fact, the more we rant and rave about the slide in moral standards among unbelievers, perhaps the more we tend to ignore the slippage in our own. I am not here today to preach against the immorality of the world; I am here to preach against immorality in the Church. And if you think it isn’t a problem, you’re hiding your head in the sand. A close friend of mine working in another evangelical church told me of two 13‑year‑old girls in his youth group who confessed to having gone all the way with their boyfriends, both of whom were 12. Unbelievable? Well, believe it. The incidence of sexual immorality the average pastor sees in his counseling would shock you.
Not only is the problem of sexual immorality widespread; it is also incredibly damaging. John MacArthur has stated that “sexual sin has broken more marriages, shattered more homes, caused more heartache and disease, and destroyed more lives than alcohol and drugs combined. It causes lying, stealing, cheating, and killing, as well as bitterness, hatred, slander, gossip, and unforgiveness.”[ii]
It was no different in Corinth, where sexual immorality was so common that a euphemism for engaging in prostitution was “to Corinthianize.” (A parallel might be the modern term, “Californication.” Paul wrote a letter to this church, laying out six reasons why sex outside marriage is wrong. I want to state right up front this morning that I believe the terms “sex outside marriage” and “sexual immorality” are synonymous terms. Adultery is immoral. Premarital sex is immoral. Living together is immoral. Casual sex is immoral. Committed sex is immoral if not within marriage, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s gay sex, straight sex, teen sex or geezer sex–it’s immoral. And even sexual activity that does not involve sexual intercourse can be immoral. Viewing pornography and entertaining sexual fantasies is immoral.
I am disappointed in our former President for a number of reasons, but as a father I am downright angry at the results of his brazen contention that he “did not have sexual relations with that woman.” He forced parents to discuss issues with their children that were not age appropriate; he encouraged young people to experiment with behavior many of them would never have dreamed of; and he almost singlehandedly led a whole generation of American kids to believe they are not guilty of sexual immorality if all they do is what he did with “that woman.”
Young people, don’t buy the lie. In your heart and conscience you know when the line is crossed, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise–not even the President of the United States. And that goes for adults as well.
Our Scripture text this morning is 1 Corinthians 6:12-20:
“Everything is permissible for me”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me”—but I will not be mastered by anything. {13} “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food”—but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. {14} By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. {15} Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! {16} Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” {17} But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.
{18} Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. {19} Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; {20} you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
We begin this morning with a key principle:
The believer has remarkable freedom in Christ, but his freedom is not without limits. (12)
Twice in verse 12 and again in 10:23, the Apostle Paul mentions a slogan that was apparently being bantered around the Corinthian church to describe the freedom the believer has in Christ: “Everything is permissible for me.” Notice that Paul doesn’t object to the slogan, for Christian freedom was a beautiful thing to Paul, a truth he never tired of emphasizing. In Gal. 5 (1,13) he writes, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery…. You, my brothers, were called to be free.” Again and again, he makes the point that believers are “not under law but under grace.” In 1 Timothy 4 he writes, “For everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected, if it is received with thanksgiving.”
But we must realize from the outset that when Paul speaks of freedom, he is not referring to those things God has clearly forbidden, such as the prohibitions found in the Ten Commandments. He is saying that all things not expressly forbidden by God are permissible. But that leaves an amazing amount of liberty for the NT Christian, especially as compared to an OT believer.
Under the Old Covenant a Jew was subject to 613 commandments, which covered just about every aspect of his life. In contrast the NT Christian has relatively few do’s and don’t’s to follow. Our diets are not prescribed, our worship times and procedures are a matter of personal preference, we have virtually no ceremonial rules to follow, and civil and criminal codes are delegated to the state rather than the Church. The larger part of our daily decisions is open to individual judgment. Ours is not a rule-book sort of religious faith.
Unfortunately, the believing Church has not often realized and appreciated this freedom. In fact, there has been a tremendous tendency for Christians to put themselves back under a burdensome system like the OT Law. Think, for example, of some of the actions that have been considered sinful by many Christians: drinking, smoking, dancing, going to movies, even card playing. Not a single one of these activities is condemned in Scriptures; in fact, most are not even addressed. As a Christian I have the right to have a beer for lunch, smoke a stogie after lunch, and spend my evening playing 5‑card stud. But having the right to do something doesn’t necessarily mean I should do it. Verse 12 mentions two qualifications on the believer’s freedom.
Some permissible actions are not beneficial, and …
Some freely chosen actions become controlling habits. Perhaps the best way to understand his point is to pick an area of freedom as an example. Let me choose smoking, a habit that no doubt a number of those in this room once wrestled with, and some still do. You have the right to smoke, for it is not specifically forbidden in Scripture and it is not illegal (yet). But we all know it’s an unhealthy addiction, without lasting benefit, and it invariably enslaves the one who practices it. To prove that, just walk by a public building when the wind chill is 20 below and see all the people standing outside smoking. Besides, it significantly shortens both the quantity and quality of one’s life, not a small consideration in itself! Smoking will never keep a person out of heaven, but it probably does violate the limitations placed here upon the Christian’s freedom.
You have often heard a person say, “I will do what I like,” when he really means he is intent on indulging a habit which has him in its grip. It is only when a person has the strength of Christ in him that he can say, “I will not do what I like;” rather, “I will do what is right.” William Barclay has observed that “the great fact of the Christian faith is not that it makes a man free to sin but that it makes a man free not to sin.”[iii] It is so easy to allow habits to master us, but when a person really experiences the power of Christ, he becomes, not the slave of his body, but its master.
Now with the freedom principle established and qualified, Paul moves to our second principle, the specific area that concerns him and should concern us.
Sex outside marriage is not an area of freedom. Why?
Oh, to be sure, sex itself is an area of freedom and fulfillment and joy, but not outside marriage. God, you see, has given us all things richly to enjoy. Everything that He has given us is good and nothing basically evil. But Satan takes the good things that God creates and distorts and twists them and tempts us to use them in wrong ways and at wrong times.[iv] Not only does sexual activity outside marriage violate the two qualifications on freedom, i.e., it is not beneficial and it makes a person a slave, but there are at least six additional reasons why it is harmful by its very nature.
1. The body was not designed for immorality. Verse 13 quotes another slogan, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food.” Some of the Corinthians were apparently using this slogan to rationalize their sexual activity outside of marriage. Here’s their logic: body parts should be used as they were designed. Just as the stomach is for food, so the body is for sex. When you are hungry, you eat, and nobody claims you are sinning when you do so. Well, God has also given us sexual desire, the urge to merge. Sex is a normal biological appetite. What you do with an appetite? You satisfy it.
Paul responds by challenging the food‑stomach analogy. Food and stomachs are adapted for one another, true, but this is a temporary situation and relatively insignificant. Food has no effect upon the eternal destiny of the body. Bodies and sex outside marriage, however, are not adapted for one another. As a matter of fact, immorality, as he will tell us later, actually results in destruction of the body. Sexually transmitted diseases are of no threat whatever to a married couple who are faithful to one another. None. But they are, or should be, a constant concern to those who are sexually promiscuous. Even nice people can get AIDS, and AIDS can cause death. And besides the physical danger, there is psychological and spiritual damage to face.
In place of the Corinthian formula,
food X sex
stomach body
Paul offers a different formula:
food X body
stomach Lord
The one who uses his body for the Lord, i.e., in accordance with Scriptural principles, will find maximum joy, pleasure, fulfillment, and safety in his sexual life.
2. The body must be treated as the eternal vessel it is. Our bodies were designed to serve the Lord not only in this life, but also in the life to come. Verse 14 says, “By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also.” What an intriguing avenue of thought here! Because our bodies are going to be resurrected in the future, we should not mistreat them now through immorality. Perhaps we can state the point this way: if God considers our physical bodies sufficiently important to resurrect them, then we ought to consider them sufficiently important to abstain from misusing and abusing them.
3. The believer’s body is an extension of Christ; therefore, we involve Christ in our sin when we engage in immorality. (15) I’ve added the word “believer” in this third reason. The first two apply to believer and unbeliever alike, but this one is true only of the believer. According to 1 Cor. 12, every believer is a member of Christ’s body. Verse 15: “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!”
The term “member” signifies organic connection. If one of the members or parts of your body gets hurt, you hurt. If you smash your thumb, your stomach gets sick. If your neck muscles tighten up, your head aches. That’s because there is an organic connection between each member and the whole body. Applying that truth to the spiritual realm, Paul in effect asks, “What sense does it make for one who is organically connected to Christ, to be involved in an illicit sexual relationship? Perish the thought! May it never be.”
Imagine your reaction if you should awaken some morning to find that your neighbor has built a fence in your front yard and moved in some hogs. Then it begins to rain, and in a few hours your rich green turf is turned into mud and filth. Your anticipated outrage would certainly be justified, for to use the property of another against his consent and for purposes detrimental to him is both inconsiderate and illegal. In the same manner, the believer who uses his body for immorality is bringing disrepute upon Christ. Wherever we take ourselves, we take Him; whatever we do with our bodies, we involve Him.
4. Immorality violates our spiritual intimacy with the Lord. (16-17) Verse 16 says, “Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, ‘The two will become one flesh.’ But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.” The word for “unite” in these two verses is a word which was used for gluing. An immoral man glues himself to an immoral woman. A believer, on the other hand, should glue himself to the Lord.
Why do you think the word “glue” is used of sexual relationships? After all, aren’t many sex acts purely physical, without any real personal involvement? No, Paul says, it is impossible to have a physical‑only sexual relationship. There is no such thing as casual sex or inconsequential sex or recreational sex. The sexual act is such an intimate act that it involves and affects the whole person. And he quotes the OT to prove his point. In Gen. 2:24 God says of the sexual act, “the two will become one flesh (or one personality).”
C. S. Lewis wrote in his Screwtape Letters that every time a man and a woman enter into a sexual relationship, a spiritual bond is established between them which “must be eternally enjoyed or eternally endured.”[v] Eugene Peterson expresses the thought this way: “There’s more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact.”[vi] Whenever you have sex with a person you leave a part of yourself—physically, emotionally, and spiritually—with that person. Clearly, sex outside marriage involves a person in a solidarity that is incompatible with the believer’s spiritual solidarity with Christ.
Now let me try to anticipate a reaction that some may have to this fourth reason. You may be saying to yourself, “Paul is talking about paying a prostitute for sexual favors. That’s disgusting. I would never do that. There’s no love involved–just lust. But there’s no way you can compare that to the relationship I have with my boyfriend or girlfriend.” Fair observation, but I don’t think it releases you. Even though there is undoubtedly a moral distinction between a one-night stand with a streetwalker and a passionate interlude with a steady date, sin is still sin.
I don’t think anyone would want to argue that since armed robbery is worse than shoplifting, petty theft is OK. Yes, it is true that Paul is addressing the specific issue of prostitution in verses 15 & 16, but the theme of the whole passage is clearly broader. The Greek term porneia deals with all kinds of sexual immorality.[vii]
5. Immorality is uniquely self‑destructive. (18) Verse 18 offers the first command of our passage: “Flee immorality.” It is a present imperative and should be translated, “Make it your habit to flee!” or “Keep fleeing until the danger is past.” The Bible’s advice for avoiding sexual immorality is simple: stay as far away as possible from the persons and places and things likely to get you into trouble. Romans 13:14 says, “Do not even think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” Proverbs 5:8 says concerning the immoral woman, “Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house.”
For many men this may mean putting a moral filter on their computer, blocking out the adult movies in the hotel room, and steering clear of those areas of town where temptation lurks. For both men and women, it may involve changing jobs or changing offices to flee a person who has a grip on you. I confronted a man in this church about his relationship with his office manager, which was becoming a major area of contention in his marriage. He said he could handle it; his wife was just paranoid. He’s now divorced and married to that office manager.
In anticipation of this sermon, a formerly married but now single woman in this church sent me a list of what it means to her to flee immorality. After talking about staying in God’s Word, choosing an accountability partner, and watching your thought-life, she passes on this advice to other single women:
“If you do find someone to date, make sure you are equally yoked in the Lord. Meet them out in a public place. Do not let them come pick you up at your home. There is temptation when they take you back home for more than a handshake or a hug. Avoid too much physical contact. Kissing leads to sex, don’t kid yourself. Keep your relationship pleasing to the Lord and Christ-centered. Pray before you go out that the Lord will give you strength. Call your accountability partner and ask her to pray with you while you are out with that person.”
Those are some great practical ways to flee temptation. Joseph, of course, is the great biblical example of someone who knew how to flee. Last night as I was going over this sermon, I became convinced that I should not go on to chapter 7 next Sunday, as I had planned, but rather to present two character studies on the subject of “fleeing immorality.” Lord willing, next Sunday I will be speaking about one who fled, namely Joseph, and the following week about one who did not, namely David. Sometimes we learn more through flesh and blood examples than we do through logical analysis.
And why should a person flee? Because immorality is a unique sin. “All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.” Other sins involve things outside the body. Sexual sin arises from within. Other sins serve exterior purposes (i.e., drunkenness enables one to forget his problems, at least temporarily; theft gives a person the use of the item stolen), but sexual sin has no other purpose than the gratification of the lusts. Many sins are sinful because of excess, but sexual immorality is sin even in moderation.
The book of Proverbs says the one indulging in sexual immorality will come to discover that he has lost his “years to the cruel one,” that his “hard‑earned goods” have gone “to the house of an alien,” and that he will “groan” in his later years and find his “flesh and his body are consumed.” The “stolen water” of sexual relations outside of marriage “is sweet; and bread eaten in secret is pleasant;” but “the dead are there.” Sexual sin is a no‑win situation. It is self‑destructive of body, mind, and spirit.
6. The believer’s body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. (19-20) For the sixth time in this one chapter the Apostle Paul asks the same rhetorical question, “Do you not know?” “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” It should be obvious by now that in mentioning “your body” here Paul is not talking about the local church, as in chapter 3:16-17 (“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.”). Both passages warn us against desecrating God’s temple, but in chapter 3 the temple is the local church, while here in chapter 6 it is the physical body of the believer.
The term used in both passages for “temple” is not the word for a pagan temple, or even for the Jewish temple per se; rather it refers to the Holy of Holies, the most sacred place for the people of God in the OT. This flesh, this physical body of mine is a place so sacred that the Shekinah glory of God dwells here. Almost no one, no matter how perverted, would commit an act of sexual immorality in a church sanctuary, but the fact is, as disgusting as that would be, it would be no worse for a Christian than committing the same sin anywhere else. A church building is never called a Holy of Holies, but the believer’s body is.
The very Spirit of God indwells our body, our individual sanctuary. This is not true just of pastors or elders or Sunday School teachers. It is not just true of mature believers. It is true of everyChristian. The Holy Spirit of God lives inside of us, taking up His residence at the moment we trust Christ as Savior and remaining with us until He presents us as sealed documents to the Father. What a sobering thought! Everything I do with this body, everything I put into it, everything I say with it, everywhere I take it, I am involving not only Christ, but also the Holy Spirit. Some of us need to improve the maintenance on these temples. If we keep these sanctuaries holy, the Holy Spirit can continue to dwell in them with all His power and glory.
Furthermore, he says, “You are not your own; you were bought at a price.” Earlier in the passage Paul had called for sexual purity because of the way sexual sin affects the body. But here he goes back a step further and calls for purity because the body that is affected is not even the believer’s own. We no longer belong to ourselves because we have been bought and paid for; we have been redeemed. Peter says in his first letter, 1:18‑19, “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” Jesus bought us out of the slave market of sin. What better motivation could one have for abstaining from sexual immorality? No wonder the conclusion is then given:
Therefore, honor God with your body. Our responsibility is to honor God with our body, not just our heart, not just our mind, not just our soul. We cannot divide ourselves and give our heart to God and our body to immorality. It can’t be done! So, Paul goes to the lowest common denominator and says, “honor God with your body.” If you honor him with that, He will automatically have the rest of you.
Now there’s a final issue we must touch upon this morning. It comes in the form of a question:
What should you do if you’ve already blown it, i.e., desecrated the temple of your body?
I’m sure many of you here this morning wish you had heard this truth earlier, or perhaps you did hear it and wish you had obeyed it. A message like this can bring painful memories to the surface and perhaps a great deal of guilt along with it. Young man, young woman, if you’ve already lost your virginity; engaged person, if you’ve already been intimate with your future partner; married person, if you’ve already committed adultery; men, if you are in bondage to pornography; women, if you are living a fantasy sex life through soap operas or romance novels,
let me suggest three important things you can do.
1. Confess the sin; God is able and willing to forgive you. The first and most important one to confess to is God Himself. David wrote following his sin with Bathsheba, “Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight.” (Psalm 51, KJV) Oh, he had sinned against others alright–against Bathsheba, against her husband, Uriah, whom David ordered to be murdered, against the child that was born to them and then died, and against the whole nation. But the sin against God was so much greater than the sin against anyone else that the other victims paled into insignificance.
The question of confession to others besides God is a difficult one. One Christian leader has suggested that any person who has ever been guilty of sexual immorality, no matter how long ago in the past, should search until he finds the one he sinned with and ask for forgiveness. I personally see far more potential for harm than for good coming from such a procedure. However, if one has regular contact with a person one has sinned against sexually, or if that person could be contacted without injuring innocent people, then I think confession is in order. Generally, confession should go as far as the sin went, and no further. Confession will not always produce forgiveness from people. Some will not forgive you, but God will, and His forgiveness is far more important than anyone else’s.
2. Purpose in your heart to quit now. Some people are tempted to say, “I’m already guilty. I’ve blown it. What difference does it make now? One more act of fornication isn’t going to make me any worse.” Don’t kid yourself. Sexual sin is cumulative in its damaging effects, kind of like carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide stays in a person’s system for a long time, with the result that a non‑lethal dose can sometimes kill because of the accumulation of poison in the system. A second act of immorality is not a freebee–it compounds the sin of the first one, spreads the cancer a little further, and eats away at a little more of one’s personality and spirit. The only way to deal with such sin is immediately, radically, permanently, and in complete dependence upon God. Covenant with God that you will never let it happen again. Ask Him to give you strength. Become accountable to someone.
In recent years there has been a movement among Christian young adults called “secondary virginity.” It’s been a way to encourage those who have already sinned sexually at a young age to establish a new marker and commit to abstinence from now until marriage. Some in the liberal press have made fun of this effort, but I applaud the young people who have committed to starting over.
3. If not guilty yourself, be willing to forgive others who are. “But you don’t understand, Pastor, my wife’s infidelity was a breach of faith so traumatic I will never be able to forgive.” Or, “My husband’s addiction to pornography has been so degrading I will never be able to trust him again.”
I have just one question for you: “How much has God forgiven you?” Was this sin in the life of your husband, wife, child, closest friend, any worse than the cumulative sins you have committed? And has God forgiven you? Jesus said, “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.” You may not think you can forgive, but the Lord can change your heart. Forgiveness is not just a feeling; it is a decision to do what God does for you every day!
Conclusion: My friends, sexual allurement is extremely enticing and powerful. It promises nothing but pleasure and satisfaction. But it rarely delivers what it promises. It claims to be “real living” but is actually the way to death. I want us to take a few moments this morning and individually do business with God. No one knows your heart but you and God. I’m not going to ask for any visible action this morning–the subject is too personal. But if you need to confess something to God, if you need to flee, or if you need to forgive, now is the time to make a commitment to do exactly that.
DATE: January 28, 2001
Tags:
Sexual sin
Fornication
Adultery
Freedom
Confession
Forgiveness
[i] Bibliographical information has been misplaced.
[ii] John MacArthur, Jr., The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, 1 Corinthians, 147.
[iii] William Barclay, 1 Corinthians, 56-7.
[iv] Gary Vanderet, Glorifying God in Your Body, Discovery Papers, Catalog No. 788, p. 1.
[v] C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, 83.
[vi] Eugene Peterson, The Message, 346.
[vii] William Barclay, in his book, Ten Commandments for Today, 148-149, offers the following perceptive observations regarding sexual relations between unmarried people who love each other:
“There is sexual intercourse by what we might call anticipation. This is a situation in which two people claim that they love each other so much, and that they are so certain to marry, that they can anticipate marriage by having sexual intercourse before they are actually married. There is no question of promiscuity, or of what one might call deliberate immorality. There is simply the anticipation of that which will, as they believe certainly, be someday a right.
There are two things to be said here. The first is that it would be equally possible to say that they love each other so much that they will not have sexual intercourse until they are totally and irrevocably committed to each other . . . that love has taught them that self-control, self-discipline and self-giving are very closely connected. The second thing is that nothing is certain in this life, and it is not certain that they will marry. All of us have seen two people who seemed utterly certain to marry, but who in the end did not. The human heart is not so completely predictable that anyone can take its future movements for granted. It is not wise to anticipate that which we have neither the right nor the power to anticipate.”