| Romans 1-3 continued...
Romans 1:24-32.
Romans 1:24-32, "Therefore God gave
them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual
impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped
and served the created things rather than the Creator--who
is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over
to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations
for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned
natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for
one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and
received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain
the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind,
to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with
every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They
are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They
are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and
boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their
parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do
such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these
very things but also approve of those who practice them."
Sexual immorality is nothing new. Homosexuality is nothing
new. Homosexuality was rampant in the Roman Empire. It was
written that Julius Caesar was every woman's man, and every
man's woman. The dean of a 1.1 million person Christian denomination
said that he doesn't believe that homosexuality is a sin.
This is a dean of a seminary! He just lost the nomination
for president of that 1.1 million member denomination. He
says "Homosexuality is by no stretch of the imagination a
Biblical theme. Sodom and Gomorrah had nothing to do with
homosexuality" he said. "Paul criticized immorality, not homosexuals"
said this theologian. An Episcopal Bishop has written a book
in which he says the apostle Paul was a self-hating repressed
homosexual. In his book "Rescuing the Bible From Fundamentalism"
Don Shelby Sponge, Bishop of the Newark, New Jersey Diocese
contends that, "the apostle Paul was a self-loathing and repressed
gay male." According to this AP article (in a newspaper being
quoted by pastor Martin) Sponge also argued that the Biblical
accounts of miracles such as the virgin birth and the physical
resurrection of Jesus Christ never took place, they're not
to be taken literally. Even more recently in USA Today there
was an article titled "Out Of The Church Closet", talking
homosexuality in the Christian Church, with such headings
as "Gay Clergy Fight For Their Rights To Minister Their Faith."
A lesbian Presbertyrian minister, who is a practicing lesbian
pastor of a Rochester, New York Presbertyrian Church is fighting
the church courts and says she will go to the civil courts
to keep her position at the church because she feels she has
a right to minister even though she is a practicing lesbian
in a lesbian relationship right now. Bishop Sponge is also
quoted in this same newspaper spread. He says, "We should
open our heart." He says he has ten openly gay priests serving
in parishes serving in his diocese and he also believes and
says "That as long as the church refuses to allow gays to
come honestly into the church then I don't think the church
has the right to say anything to the gay community about sexual
ethics." "I think we should open our hearts to accept the
gay community" he says, "and only then can the dialogue begin."
He continues, "The only thing I think the church should require
of gays and lesbians is that they live their life with integrity.
That they be in life giving and faithful relationships with
their partners." Recently in Pasadena, California, All Saints
Church, an Episcopal congregation of 3,000 performed a blessing
ceremony for two men in a homosexual relationship. It was
basically a homosexual wedding service. I quote from the Moody
Monthly, "Such ceremonies have occurred previously in the
United Church of Christ, the Pro-Homosexual Metropolitan Community
Churches and a few other liberal congregations. But All Saints
Church, the largest Episcopal congregation west of the Mississippi
is the most prominent church to sponsor one."
What does God think about homosexuality? Genesis 19:1-13.
"The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was
sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got
up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground.
'My lords,' he said, 'please turn aside to your servant's
house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then
go on your way early in the morning.' 'No,' they answered.
'we will spend the night in the square.' But he insisted so
strongly that they did go with him and entered his house.
He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast [this
could have been during the Days of Unleavened Bread], and
they ate. Before they had gone to bed, all the men from
every part of the city of Sodom--both young and old--surrounded
the house. They called to Lot, 'Where are the men who came
to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex
with them.' Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door
behind him and said, 'No, my friends. Don't do this wicked
thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with
a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you
like with them. But don't do anything to these men, for they
have come under the protection of my roof.'
'Get out of the way,' they replied. And they said, 'This fellow
came here as an alien, and now he wants to play the judge!
We'll treat you worse than them.' They kept bringing pressure
on Lot and moved forward to break down the door. But the men
inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and
shut the door. Then they struck the men who were at the door
of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could
not find the door.
The two men said to Lot, 'Do you have anyone else here--sons-in-law,
sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs
to you? Get them out of here, because we are going to destroy
this place. The outcry to the Lord against its people is so
great that he has sent us to destroy it.'"
In Lot's opening statement to the two men he was basically
saying "stay with me till morning and then get out of town
quick!" In the Middle East, when you ate with someone, you
were obliged to be a friend with that person for life and
you were his protector as long as he was under your roof.
He would protect you with his life. He would spare nothing
to spare your life. These two men who were really angels were
his guests. The ethics of the day said, "You do anything within
your power to spare your guest harm." This is reflected in
Jesus' statement in Revelation when he says "Behold I stand
at the door and knock. If anyone will hear my voice and will
open the door, I will come in and I will eat with him and
he with me." He's saying, "I'll be your friend forever--I'll
defend you with my life." He's already done that with the
danger of our sin.
They said about Lot, "He's an alien, and now he's acting like
a judge?!?" This is the homosexual community's constant accusation.
There's this society that wants to abuse children [Namibia
or something like that], and they're fighting for their rights
to abuse children! And if you raise a stand against them,
they say, "Oh, so you're our judge?!? You're so much better
than us?" This complaint they have is nothing new. They were
so bent on sinning that when God smote them with blindness
they still didn't stop trying to find the door to Lot's house.
They wore themselves out trying to find the door. This is
how inflamed they were, how perverted they were. God judged
them, Jude said, because these men went after strange flesh.
God made them an example of eternal fire [an eternal fire
being a fire that isn't quenched, but burns itself out when
the fuel is used up.]. They were punished for their sin. God
lays down his laws for his society in Leviticus 18:22-29.
"Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable
[Hebrew: audacious depravity]. Do not have sexual relations
with an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a
perversion. Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways,
because this is how the nations before you became defiled.
Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and
the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you must keep my
decrees and my laws. The native-born and the aliens living
among you must not do any of these detestable things, for
all these things were done by the people who lived in the
land before you, and the land became defiled. And if you defile
the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations
that were before you. Everyone who does any of these detestable
things--such persons must be cut off from their people."
This takes care of the argument that when God talks about
homosexuality, he is talking about promiscuous homosexuality.
God says, "I don't care if you are promiscuous about it or
not." He says in verse 22, "You shall not lie with a male
as one lies with a female, it is an audacious depravity."
God goes on to say that the people who do that should be cut
off. In ancient Israel under God's authority there was a death
penalty for that.
Let's look at 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. "Do you not know that
the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be
deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers
nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves
nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers
will inherit the kingdom of God." In Ephesians 5 the apostles
Paul tells us "Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds
of darkness, but instead even expose them, for it is disgraceful
to even speak of the things which are done by them in secret."
1 Timothy 1:9-10. "We also know that the law is made not for
the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly
and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill
their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for adulterers and
perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers--and for
whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms
to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted
to me." If you have a problem with this you have a problem
with God, not me. The Bible says homosexuality is a sin problem
not a genetic problem.
The top named sex researchers are saying the same thing. Masters
and Johnson said in 1979, "We're born man, woman and sexual
beings. We learn our sexual preferences and orientations."
Masters and Johnson are the famous sex researchers that everyone
quotes when referring to sex problems--they're quoted all
the time. Then in 1984 William Masters said, "The genetic
theory of homosexuality has been generally discarded today,
despite the interest in hormone mechanisms in the origin of
homosexuality. No serious scientist today suggests that a
simple cause-effect relationship applies."
I'm not gay bashing, because I believe with all my heart that
God loves homosexuals. I believe he hates the sin of homosexuality.
And I believe that Jesus Christ can set you free if you're
struggling with homosexuality or lesbianism or any perversion.
God can set you free. It's a learned behavior, and through
the power of Christ you can unlearn that, and you can be given
new desires, and the power to say "No" to those old desires
by the power of the Holy Spirit. I believe that can happen.
And it has happened. Dr. Alfred Kinsey stated "I have myself
come to the conclusion that homosexuality is largely a matter
of conditioning." Dr. R. Kronimeyer, in the New York Tribune
said, "With rare exceptions, homosexuality is neither genetic
nor the result of some glandular disturbance. Homosexuals
are made not born that way. From my 25 years experience as
a clinical psychologist I firmly believe that homosexuality
is a learned response to early painful experiences and that
it can be unlearned." Kinsey was convinced that "The psychologists
were making matters worse by starting with the assumption
that homosexuality was an inherited abnormality which could
not be cured simply because it was inherent. Kinsey was confident
that there was absolutely no evidence of inheritance." Of
course the Bible has said this for 2,000 years. The Bible
isn't right because Masters and Johnson agree with it. The
Bible isn't right because Alfred Kinsey has discovered the
Bible is right. The Bible is right, and these guys, for once,
happen to hit it right on the mark.
What this means is that there is tremendous potential for
men and women to be set free from the sexual perversions and
bondage's, because it isn't genetic. If it's genetic, how
can you change it, right? But it's not, and if you're having
these struggles right now, and maybe you've never done anything
yet, I want you to listen to me, God didn't make you gay.
God didn't make anyone a homosexual or a lesbian or a pervert
of any kind. God has not made you that way. A lot of people
get their introduction into homosexual lifestyles by being
molested, by someone who was molested who was molested. It's
a cycle, this pattern that goes on and on. And if you've been
hurt that way, Jesus Christ can heal you, and you need to
be healed, and he has great compassion for you. So don't get
this idea, even if you're involved in it, the Lord loves you,
and wants to save you and set you free.
We're not bashing anybody, that's not the spirit of the Word,
but the Word is saying, now if you're going to get militant
about it, and demand your rights, we have to say, 'Well look,
the Bible says, "It's a sin." And it shouldn't be a "right."
It will destroy society. Why is it, those of you who know
history will attest to this, why is it that every civilization,
just before it fell, it's like the thing that pushed it over
the edge was a rampant acceptance of homosexuality? The Greek
Empire, the Roman Empire, the French just before the revolution
occurred, there was this rampant acceptance of homosexuality.
When the family gets attacked like that, and the basic building
block of the society is the family, the family structure rots
and the society is given over to these perversions, then the
land itself spews out the inhabitants just like God's Word
says [it did in ancient Canaan]. This last month somebody
gave me a video of a Gay Rights, Gay Pride Week parade, one
held in Portland. I have never in my entire life seen anything
as sick and perverted and obscene as what was done in public
in this parade. This is what we want to pass tomorrow night.
The city [of Phoenix, Arizona] wants to pass Gay Rights legislation.
Everyone should see the video I saw, but no one should see
it, if you know what I mean. It is absolutely gross. And this
is in broad daylight, stuff that like the Bible says, is too
gross to even talk about. And yet it needs to be exposed.
It's scary. [If you have a gay or lesbian friend, how would
you share Jesus with them? This question is answered in David
T. Moore's cassette "What Do I Say To My Gay Friend?" which
can be ordered online at: http://www.mooreonlife.com
. Be sure and order a copy of this tape. True Christians,
like Jesus, aren't out to destroy and kill like the Pharisees
wanted Jesus to do with that woman caught in adultery. True
Christians want to spare, forgive and see Jesus save those
who are in bondage to sin, and the gays are no exception.
If you've been gay bashing, look closely at your motives,
because they're not Christ inspired.]
Well, it's sure easy to point the finger at homosexual
immorality, but what about heterosexual immorality?
Some people reason, "One's better than the other, I'll sin
straight." Let's look at 1 Corinthians 6:9 again and see who
God picks on first. Who's the first group mentioned?--Fornicators.
What is fornication? It's just the Bible's word for any kind
of pre-marital sex. You've been living together for three
years? No you've been fornicating for three years. You love
the girl? Well if you love her that much why don't you marry
her? Adultery is when you have sex with someone who is not
your married partner. Homosexuality is the last thing Paul
talks about. The first thing he talks about are promiscuous
heterosexuals. The book "The Day America Told The Truth" revealed
that one in five Americans loses his or her virginity before
the age of 13. At least one third of married men and women
are having or have had an affair lasting, on the average,
one year. And saddest of all, the survey showed that religion
plays no part in shaping more than half of all Americans opinions
on sexuality. His survey, funny thing, showed that most Americans
believe in God, and they believe in the Bible. But when it
comes to what they do with their sexuality,
the Bible is thrown out the door--who cares what God says?
And we're paying the price. A year ago U.S. News & World
Report stated that teenage sexuality is way up from what it
had been, and American college students are the most sexually
promiscuous group in the country. Well, who's to blame for
all this? I think, first of all, parents are to blame. Many
teens are simply taking their cue from Mom and Dad. The All-American
now has seven sex partners in his or her life. Kids know what
you're doing. It doesn't work anymore to be saying, "Don't
do as I do, do as I say." That never really worked, and it's
not going to work today. Parents can't continue to do that
and have their kids unaffected--do you understand? Parents
are to blame. Our media is to blame--sexually explicit movies,
television, programs, sitcoms, late-night movies and very
sexually oriented commercials are to blame. Garbage in, garbage
out. Lot got real comfortable [living] in Sodom. The angels
had to drag him out of the city before it was destroyed. He
was so numbed by what was going on.
Even our public schools are to blame for what's going on.
If you're a public school teacher, hats off to you. I am not
talking about you, but I am talking about sex education text
books that are used in most American classrooms today, that
are going far beyond a simple biology lesson explaining the
physiological matters of reproduction and birth. Instead they
try to teach sex and sex education without any corresponding
moral responsibility. And the results have been disastrous.
Since they started sex education in school teen pregnancies
have soured--it just follows. Look at when it started. When
they started giving kids contraceptives, what has happened?
In a corresponding relation, teen sex and pregnancy have also
increased. Sex education textbooks encourage pre-marital
sex as valuable and good. I'm not making this
up. I'm going to read, and I've had to edit like crazy to
be able to read this to you. One text designed for elementary
and High School students says, "Sex is like learning to play
a game," and then it goes on, I didn't write it, "encourage
the kids to practice so that they can become very good at
the game." These textbooks also encourage sexual promiscuity
and irresponsibility. Listen to what one textbook says, "Not
so long ago, boys believed that they were somehow obligated
to marry a girl if they had intercourse with her. That idea
isn't nearly so prevalent now. One relationship may end with
intercourse and then the boy goes onto a different kind or
the same kind of a relationship with another girl. This is
all part of the process of growing up, of maturing." Sick!
One very popular textbook gives the advice to homosexual teens
on how to pick up older homosexual men. I couldn't even read
it to you. Now, your kids are in public school, Mom and Dad.
When's the last time you checked out what they're being taught???
When's the last time you went to a P.T.O. meeting or a P.T.A.
meeting? When's the last time you took their textbook and
said, "Let me read this" and you looked up the sections that
you need to see? You have a responsibility to do that. "Well,
I'm paying them to do that." No, you're paying godless, amoral
people who write those textbooks to teach your children what
you don't believe in! That's what you're paying for. That's
what your tax dollars are giving you. Praise God, we've got
some Christian teachers in there, but I tell you, they're
fighting a battle that is a losing battle, and they know it.
Thank God for those missionaries in the public schools. But
they can't stem the tide.
Our heroes are to blame as well. Magic Johnson's dear friend,
1984 Olympic Woman's Basketball team member Pamela McGee shared
the following in a Los Angeles Times article, "I guess it
didn't surprise me that Magic had the disease, knowing his
flamboyant lifestyle. It was bound to happen sooner or later.
Magic's closest friends always knew him as a major player
and womanizer. He had one-night stands with what he'd call
"freaks" all across America. The reason he probably made it
public is to warn the thousands of women he has slept with.
So it didn't surprise me that he had the insidious disease
we call H.I.V." In Sports Illustrated Magazine, Magic stated,
"That from the time he first arrived in Los Angeles he accommodated
as many women sexually as he could." Oh, he's our hero. And
now he's the great A.I.D.S. spokesperson. A guy who by his
own admission went out with every freak that would come his
direction. What kind of heroes do we have? Wilt Chamberlain,
recently made the startling claim that he had sex with nearly
twenty thousand women. Why not 500 thousand, Wilt? I don't
know if he's telling the truth or not.
Infamous Dallas Cowboy linebacker Hollywood Henderson admitted
in his book "Out of Control, Confessions of an NFL Casualty",
he admitted that with the five years he was with the Cowboys
he had "affairs with over a thousand women, from one night
stands to three day romances, to four or five women a night
at orgies." What kind of heroes do we have? Pete Rose turns
out to be a major league gambler, and Sugar Ray Leonard was
discovered to be punching his petite little wife. What kind
of heroes do we have? Men running for the highest office of
the land talk about their adulterous affairs, like the deceit
and immorality that has to accompany an affair will not have
any effect on how they operate in public office--and we should
not let their affairs effect what we think of them and their
credibility. [For more on this subject CLICK ON: http://www.ChristianBooks.com/khouse
and order the cassette series "The Most Dangerous Gospel"]
I have a problem with that. I think that those who are in
public places and public offices and public leadership have
a higher standard [to maintain] than anyone else in our land.
Oh but Christians are different, aren't they? I wish.
A number of years ago a survey of recently divorced Christians
of a large church appeared in Christianity Today. They
weren't all recently divorced, some of them were divorced
for a long time. And its research showed among other things,
that Christians are involved in sexual immorality in numbers
that you never even thought of. Get this. Now before I share
with you these statistics, I want you to grab this. In the
very beginning of the survey all of the people were asked,
"Are you Christians?" "Yes." Well, we know there's a difference
between Christians and born-again Christians, right?
So the next question was: "Are you a born-again Christian?"
And all of them responding to this survey
said "Yes." "We are born-again Christians and we know what
that means." So when they were asked, "Is celibacy realistic
for a formerly married Christian?" Only 47 percent of the
divorced men, and 24 percent of the women reported that celibacy
is realistic. Now I thought that it would be the guy who would
say, "Now forget this, man." It's the women. 29 percent of
the men and 28 percent of the women reported that they weren't
sure that it was wrong. Oh wait a minute. I don't know where
they're going to Church, do you? Only 9 percent, listen, only
9 percent of the men and only 27 percent of the women had
been celibates since end of their marriages. That means that
celibacy means you don't have sexual relations with anybody.
Only 9 percent of these born-again Christian men and only
27 percent of the born-again Christian women had been celibate
since the end of their marriage. The rest of the group of
born-again Christians were sexually active, some having relations
more than 50 times since their divorces. One fourth of the
men said that celibacy was unrealistic. Almost half of the
women said they could not practice celibacy. The survey asked
them an obvious question: "Well, don't you care about what
the Bible says and with what you're doing?" And you know what,
they almost all of them said? 67 percent of the men, 58 percent
of the women said, "Yeah, we've got a conflict going on."
One person replied, "Sometimes I feel so despondent after
I've been out and engaging in immorality that I feel like
I want to die, rather than live in this torn apart feeling."
Maybe some of you know how this person feels. Another person
said, "I have tremendous guilt when I am sexually immoral.
My guilt prevents my spiritual growth." And maybe some of
us can relate to our spiritual growth being stifled because
of sexual immorality that we're engaging in. But I think one
of the most interesting results of this survey is to see how
the Christians who are sleeping around justify their sexual
immorality. One person who'd slept around 10 to 20 times said,
"I've prayed about my sexual needs and God has answered them
and given me someone to relate with. I couldn't have planned
it that way." Give me a break. Don't any of you come to me,
and tell me that God wants you to have this married man--that
God's brought him into your life. Don't tell me that. Because
God would never do anything to contradict his Word. And God
never makes exceptions for us. You're being deceived. That's
sin. Another person who had slept around 20 to 50 times simply
stated, "I don't feel condemned by God." Well, you know why?
Because probably about the 20th time the Holy Spirit
stopped bugging you about it anymore. You know you can sin
and sin and sin and finally God says, "I'll give you what
you want, you can have it, but what you sow you're going to
what?--REAP. And you'll stop being convicted of sin. And if
you're in an immoral relationship right now and you don't
feel guilty about it, YIKES!!! You had
better hit the panic button! Hit it! Because you're in danger!
You might not even be a Christian if you don't feel condemned
by sexual immorality. What makes you feel you are a Christian?
Someone who had 10 to 20 episodes said, "My personal faith
affirms God's law for the whole man, not unreal antiquated
rules." MAN! The One who made us made
this Book! You buy a new car and the manual comes with it.
You buy a VCR, state of the art, a manual comes with it. You
buy a T.V., a manual come with it. And you don't throw it
out and call it antiquated rules! I mean, that's how to program
things for success. And God's written the rulebook, and He
knows how life should be lived, and if you don't live this
way you're gonna get yourself in a lot of trouble.
And finally, a person involved in 50 plus episodes sleeping
around stated, "Christ wants us to live abundant lives. To
me that includes sex." Whoa! Well I'm not anti-sex and I don't
believe God's anti-sex. Sex is great, in marriage. God meant
for sex to be placed in the protection of a marriage where
you're with one partner for the rest of your life. Not to
see how many conquests you could make. You know, any dog could
do that. I mean, any dog can run around and make conquests.
But I like the definition of a good lover. It says, "A man
who can satisfy one woman all her life, and a woman who can
satisfy one man all her life." That's the definition of a
good lover. There's all this pressure to prove you're macho,
you know. Macho, smacho, you're just a dog in heat, you know,
that's all you are. Well this has been a very interesting
message, very uplifting. I feel like apologizing and yet,
I mean, it's God's Word.
Now what if the shoe has fit, what if the Holy Spirit has
knocked you along side of the head today? I just want to warn
you. Listen. We are not talking about something now that is
not dangerous. We are now talking about a life and death issue
when we're talking about sexuality. We are not being told
the whole truth about A.I.D.S. The information I get from
sources other than the Center For Disease Control--it's telling
me things that you're not hearing. In fact, a little tiny
piece in USA Today, about this tall, that nobody probably
read, was clipped and given to me. And it's an announcement
from the C.D.C. stating, "That we now know, and believe, that
there are two to three times as many A.I.D.S. cases as we
have reported." So you take the current number, what, 200,000
and multiply that times two or three. And then you multiply
that probably times 10 [six million, and this sermon was given
around 1995--the data is five years old already. The infected
figure could be as high as 20 to 30 million infected A.I.D.S.
cases!--one eighth of our population in the United States!!]
Because you can have the disease and be passing it along and
not have the symptoms yet. A.I.D.S. will kill you. And the
sad thing is, A.I.D.S. won't just kill you, it'll kill your
family too. I mean, there are families now where the father
messed around, his wife got A.I.D.S. from him, the baby got
A.I.D.S. because she had it, and the entire family has been
killed by this awful disease. You see, it doesn't select the
guilty party. It's gone beyond that now, O.K.? You're endangering
not only you but the ones you love. You're a fool to be fooling
around. God said, "I'm not going to be mocked, whatsoever
a man soweth, that shall he also reap." And I'm warning you,
if ever--you better be serious about what God says about morality,
about sexuality and purity, you'd better be serious today,
because we're not living in the 70's, we're not living in
the 60's, we're living in the 90's and people are going to
die, and this congregation if affected already. And it will
be more and more. And it's tragic. And it could have all been
avoided had we lived what we know. Dear precious flock, I
love you, I don't want to see you hurt. Listen to the Lord.
Now next week what I want to do is I want us to get together,
and I want us to talk about some of the pressures that you
experience as a single, maybe a divorced single, maybe a single
single, a married person with strong sexual temptations. We're
going to talk about what the pressure is. I mean, in the dating
scene today, if you say no, you may never get a date again,
right? So, what do you do? Let's talk about that next week.
Let's see what God's Word says, and let's see what God's Word
has given us, to stand victorious in purity, O.K.?
Now if you have sinned sexually, I don't want you to think
it's the end of the world, either. I want you to know that
you are forgiven, if you will repent of your sins, Jesus will
forgive you. If you'll turn from it, if you'll leave that
lifestyle Jesus will forgive you.
He's already done it at the cross, you've been forgiven. You
need to claim the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. And it says,
"And such were some of you, but you are washed, you were sanctified,
you were justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and
in the Spirit of our God (I Cor. 6:11-12). You are forgiven
in Christ. He doesn't hate you. But you can reap awful consequences
from your sin. God's forgiveness doesn't mean you won't get
A.I.D.S. or syphilis, which is now in epidemic stages [to
say nothing of incurable herpes which will destroy your ability
to have a loving sexual relationship in marriage for the rest
of your life!]. What you sow you will reap. We can pray for
a crop failure, though. [Jesus in John 8 said to the woman
caught in adultery, "Now go and sin no more." He forgave her
and set her free."]
[This has been a transcript of a sermon given
by pastor J. Mark Martin of Calvary Community Church, Phoenix,
Arizona.]
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