SS01-29-06.

STUDY THEME: THINGS THAT MATTER. 1-29-06.

“SEXUAL PURITY MATTERS.”

GEN. 2: 18, 21-25; PROV. 5: 15-20; ROM. 13: 11-14.

PLEASE OPEN YOUR BIBLE TO GENESIS 2.

January 1, 2006 we began this series of the Study Theme lessons titled “Things That Matter.” We learned that the things that matter to most people were “Gaining Personal Possessions, Power, Pleasure, and Prestige.” During this five-week study we have been challenged to focus more on the “will of God,” in matters such as “Work, Money, Human Life, Character, and today we look at a lesson dealing with the importance of “Sexual Purity.”

The Life Question is, How will following God’s guidelines for sexual and moral purity impact my life and relationships.

The Biblical Truth is that living a life of moral purity brings fulfillment to the individual and brings delight to the Lord.

The Life Impact is designed to help us develop a right perspective regarding things that matter by understanding the importance of sexual purity for single people ands married people alike and committing ourselves to life within God’s guidelines of moral and sexual purity.

Increasing numbers of couples are living together without marriage. Marriage and he family are under assault form efforts to refine society’s bedrock institutions. In such a time, even Christians sometimes wonder if sexual purity before marriage and faithfulness after marriage are worth cultivating and maintaining. The Bible, however, strongly affirms that following God’s design for sex pleases the Lord and brings spiritual strength and fulfillment to the individual.

I want to begin by sharing a report from one of our missionaries. He tells the following story. “When young Monica sings, her voice captures your attention; and for a moment you forget she is dying of AIDS.

International Mission Board worker Ed Miller said: “It makes you feel angry when someone so innocent is suffering from the consequences of someone else’s involvement in sexual promiscuity. It hurts to see someone you love going through that.”

He told of a time he visited the family. He noted as the disease was running it’s course, Monica stood out from her cousins, Grace and Mercy, with her frail frame and sores on her skin. The other girls radiated health and energy while Monica could only smile softly.

Monica had grandparents who cared for her, and she was grateful.

However, children at the Chande Baptist Orphanage in Kitwe, Zambia, aren’t as fortunate.

“We are thankful to have the Lord in our hearts, and we know He is the only hope,” Miller said. “Presenting that hope makes the difference---that makes it bearable.”

Our society has been described as sexually liberated, but many would agree it is sex saturated. Movies typically offer an obligatory sex scene, and a number of them center in sexual activity.

Ditto for books and scads of television programs. “Sex sells” is a marketing mantra, and advertisements for virtually anything often feature scantily clad males and/or females.

In recent years, pop idols and fashion gurus have convinced women that less cloth and more skin are daringly stylish.

A growing number of men and women have chosen to live together without bothering to marry. The drive to legitimatize homosexual unions, the trend to justify and accept pornography, and the growing practice of intentionally having children outside of marriage illustrate a wholesale indifference to biblical standards. Modesty is lying in state awaiting burial.

Has all this openness about sex and casting off moral restraints resulted in increased joy ands fulfillment? No! The pleasures of sins are fleeting, and their consequences deadening. Sexual sins disrupt God’s design for sex and deprive people of the satisfaction and joy He intended His gift of Sex to bring them.

Lets let this lesson encourage us to take a fresh look at the wisdom of sexual purity. Perhaps we need to make a fresh commitment to follow God’s teaching concerning the place of sex in human life and do all we can to pass that on to family and friends.

Lets read now how it all started.

1. PLEASE READ GENESIS 2: 18, 21-25.

This Scripture is an excellent beginning point for understanding the reason God created us as sexual beings. The summary account of creation in Genesis 1:26-28 makes plain the Lord chose to make us male or female for the purpose of reproduction. In Gen. 2 Moses told why God created Eve. The first reason mentioned for creating humans male and female is companionship. God observed it was not good for the man to be alone. The God who created mankind is both personal in his relationship to mankind and sovereign in His relationship to all creation.

In every act of creation to that point, God said that everything was good. Yet, man being alone in the garden was not good. There was no one like him: no companion and no helper. By himself he could not fulfill God’s commands to “Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it.” He needed another like him to meet relational, emotional, and physical needs of his life.

Keep in mind that Jesus did not teach that everyone is to marry (see Matt. 19:12). The notion that one cannot have a complete and fully satisfying life apart from marriage is just plain wrong. Jesus was the most complete and fulfilled person who every walked on earth, and He was single. Nevertheless, God’s creating humans as male and female shows that He intended most people to marry. Because of Adam’s loneliness, the Lord determined to make for him a helper who was like him. This helper would be a person made in God’s image just as Adam was, a person with who he could relate. This relationship, therefore, was not only to be physical but also emotional, intellectual, and spiritual.

She would be equal to him in the sense of being of the same kind and on the same level spiritually and morally as he was.

God acted to fulfill His declaration to make a helper for Adam. The process of how God caused a deep sleep to come over Adam is not given. The deep sleep was necessary so God could do the surgery on him and cause him no pain. As Adam slept, God took one of his ribs and then closed the flesh at that place. The implication seems to be that no scar remained and that Adam was as healthy as he had always been.

The rib came from man, God’s highest creation, who was created in the image of God. Matthew Henry’s famous statement has bee a favorite explanation as to why God used a rib: “That the woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam: not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.”

The verb “made” means “to build,” reminding us that God used material already existing in making Eve. God is pictured metaphorically as a builder. The material He used came from Adam. God “built’ a woman out of the rib…taken from the man who would correspond and complement him in every essential way.

After God finished making the woman, God brought her to the man. God gave Eve to Adam and gave Adam to Eve. This was the way earthly families began. The expression “marriages made in heaven” has validity according to this verse. The union of the first man and woman was planned by God, led by God, and accomplished by God. In a sense God performed the first wedding ceremony. The woman was the Lord’s gift to the first man. There is no justification for same-sex marriages.

The Hebrew word for helper refers to a helper in the sense of aiding or supporting, but it does not imply any kind of inferiority. The woman was no less a person than the man. Neither should we infer that single women today should be relegated to assistance roles in all of society’s man-woman relationships, such as business, government, or education. God intended for women to be partners with men in carrying out their God-given assignment.

Vs. 23 contains Adam’s poetic response when God brought Eve to him. The words at last suggest that after a long wait and search, Adam saw that Eve was like him. Vs. 24 is not a continued quotation from man but a divinely inspired instruction for succeeding generations. She would be a helper corresponding to him and he to her.

She was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. Though different sexes, they were alike in physical substance. Adam declared she would be called woman. The name means taken from man.

The fullest biblical elaboration of a husband’s leadership role in marriage is in Eph. 5: 22-33. His leadership is to be exercised with unselfish love. In summary, he is to meet his wife’s needs. She is to be the wife her husband needs. Husbands who interpret their role in terms of being boss and having their way are far off base.

The institution of marriage is announced in vs. 24 Marriage was instituted by God. He brought the woman to the man. In marriage, the man leaves his parents and bonds with or cleaves unto his wife. The marriage relationship takes precedence over other relationships, including the man’s relationship with his parents.

When he marries, his primary relationship is with his wife. He still honors, respects, and cares for parents (when they need help): but his first loyalty is to his wife. And the same is true of the woman. When she marries, her primary relationship is with her husband. This remains true even when the couple has children. Their role as parents should be founded on the strong marriage relationship. The family is the basic building block of human society, and marriage is the foundation of the family.

Both Jesus and Paul quoted genesis 2:24. Jesus emphasized it as showing the lasting nature of marriage. After quoting it in Matt. 19: 5, Jesus added in Matt. 19: 6 “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, man must not separate.” This verse teaches us there is not biblical justification for a couple living together without being married. One flesh signifies the closest of human relationships. It includes sexual union.

One flesh includes he sexual intimacy of marriage, which also is implied in the two being unashamed of their nakedness; but it means more than that. As Paul sated in Eph. 5: 28-29, being one flesh means spouses are committed to care as much for each other as for themselves. In working out that commitment, the partners grow in their trust and respect for each other. Blessed indeed are children born into a relationship characterized by unselfish love, commitment, respect, and trust.

Vs. 24 presents the moral ideal of one woman for one man in a monogamous relationship that is life-long. Some people believe that all sex is wrong or dirty or is the act that brought sin into the world.

Those people are right in believing that some expressions of sexual activity are wrong and dirty and sinful. But sex as such was not so in the beginning. Nor is it today between faithful Christian husbands and wives.

According to the Bible worldview, sexual relations are permissible only between a husband and his wife. All other forms----such as adultery, fornication, rape, incest, bestiality, pornography, sexually explicit movies and books and magazines, homosexuality, lesbianism, and sex in any other situation than between husband and his wife---are wrong.

Sex is the expression of pleasurable love and the cementing of the marriage bond. Sex is also for the procreation of mankind. When practiced as God instructed, sex is a great tool to meet our needs. When perverted into some other form, sex creates many problems and serious needs. God’s way is the perfect way.

The purpose for sex is that it provides the way for a man and a woman to make a total commitment to each other in responsible love. This happens in the one-flesh union of a husband and wife. This is the most intimate of human relationships. It calls for total love and trust. Betrayal of this trust is the worst kind of betrayal. Maintaining this trust brings fulfillment and joy. Out of this union, children are born with what should be the birthright of every child----a father and a mother who love each other.

Both the man and his wife were naked, but felt no shame. This period in the lives of Adam and Eve was before they sinned and were driven from the garden. Their physical condition of nakedness without any shame is a way of expressing their moral innocence. Adam and Eve’s bodies were beautiful to each other. Their sex drive was pure and free from evil thoughts and sinful experiences. They were happy in their garden home, blessed by their loving Creator, and now joined together in a loving and healthy marriage relationship. God’s designs in creation and in establishing marriage and the home were tailored to meet people’s most basic relational, emotional, and physical needs.

Adam and Eve had an unbroken fellowship with God and had an unmarred love relationship with each other. God instructed them on how to enjoy the best He had for them. God’s gift of sexual pleasure was given to enhance and enrich the bonding between husband and wife as well as procreation. Let us praise God for His good gifts and use those gifts according to His design.

God then warned them about what would happen if they disobeyed Him. Those same principles hold true today for those who know God through faith in Christ and who are seeking to fit into His purposes for their lives.

Both Jesus and Paul spoke words that apply to singles. Following Jesus’ words about marriage being a lifetime union that demands total faithfulness, the disciples said in light of this high demand for married people, perhaps it would be better not to marry.

Jesus said that some people were unable to marry and some chose not to marry, but in Matt 19:10-12 Jesus said that the single life required abstinence from sex.

After Paul’s discussion of the sin of sexual immorality, he wrote in 1 Cor. 7: 1-9 advising the single life, for which he had the gift of abstinence. In the same chapter he wrote that sexual relations were an essential part of marriage. Being single is not a more holy state than being married, and vice-versa: however, each has its own high demands----marriage demands total faithfulness, and singleness demands total abstinence. Marriage brings a wholeness to a husband and wife, but remaining single does not diminish a person. After all, both Jesus and Paul were single.

PLEASE TURN TO PROVERBS 5: 15.

2. PLEASE READ PROVERBS 5: 15-20.

All of Proverbs 5 is a father’s instruction to his son covering faithfulness to each other in the marriage bonds. Overall, the father was advocating the rewards of a happy and loving marriage where each mate is faithful to the other one.

Drink water in vs. 15 is a figure of speech referring to enjoying the sexual part of the marriage relationship. Your own cistern and your own well refer to one’s wife. These two clauses are synonymous in meaning. What is said to the son about his mate applies to also to the wife in a marriage relationship.

God’s design for human sexuality to be fully expressed only in marriage is good. So why are so many people miserable in their marriages? Most of us have friends or acquaintances that have been victims or perpetrators of marital unfaithfulness.
Though not all divorces are caused by sexual sins, in one way or another the bulk of them seem at least to be precipitated by them.

Is God’s design flawed? No, the design is fine. Our failure to appreciate and follow that design causes the problem. God meant for sex to be a means of blessing and enhancing a marriage relationship.

When people view sex as an end rather than a means, they tend to use sex in ways that God not fit God’s design. It becomes a means of gratifying lust at every opportunity, rather than expressing love to one’s spouse. Instead of being a blessing sex then becomes a corrosive, corrupting, and destructive curse.

Instead of drawing a couple together, it becomes a wedge between them and can damage and even destroy their relationship.

Several passages in Proverbs encourage readers to hold to God’s design for sex. Presented as a wise, godly father’s advice to his son, the book’s teachings are male oriented. The principles set forth, however, apply to men and women alike.

Prov. 5: 1-14, is a strong warning against the subtle temptations of illicit adulterous relationships. Vs. 15-23 are a call to strong marital faithfulness.

The main idea in vs. 15-20 is clear. We usually take for granted a ready and healthy source of water, but water was very precious to those who first read Proverbs. People in Bible times often provided water for their families by digging wells or devising cisterns to catch and hold rainwater. Ideally, each house had it own cistern. Therefore, the metaphor of drinking water from one’s own cistern or well was especially appropriate for a husband’s satisfying his sexual thirst with his own spouse.

The vs.16-17 seem to use springs and streams of water also as metaphors for a wife. If a husband seeks sexual satisfaction with others, his marriage partner might follow suit. She might seek comfort with strangers she encounters in the streets or the pubic squares.

God’s design, of course, is for the intimacy of sexual relations with a wife to be limited to the husband alone and vice versa. Vs. 19 describes in sensuous terms the joys of marital faithfulness, leading to the question of vs. 20, which in effect says, Why would you ever dream of turning away from that?

Why indeed? We can think of several answers to that question. Our society is captivated by the idea we will be deprived of the full joys of sex if we don’t have multiple sexual partners. The Internet’s pornography and sexual chat rooms are anonymously available and inflame lustful fantasies. Many men and women work together, and married people are not immune to sexual attraction. Our culture offers motive, means and opportunities for infidelity.

How then can a married couple remain faithful to each other in today’s world? The answer is by committing themselves to acknowledge and live within the boundaries God has laid out. All of His boundaries are designed to benefit us. They protect us from attitudes and actions we inevitably regret, and preserve for us life’s best. A promiscuous lifestyle may appear fulfilling, but it is hollow.

Being devoted to one person is far more satisfying in every way. In sticking together through marriage’s ups and downs, learning to give and take and to practice forgiveness and forbearance, a couple gains insight into what maters most. They begin to see their own flaws and become more accepting and less critical of one another. Their love, respect, trust, and appreciation for each other grow. By staying in bounds with the Lord’s help, couples provide a stable and emotionally nurturing environment for their children. They grow old with the peace and joy of knowing they belong to someone who will be there for them, “until death do us part.”

Parents set limits for small children to protect them, not to deprive them. Our Heavenly Father has done the same for all His children. Some behaviors that seem so desirable in the short run prove terribly detrimental in the long run. Immediate satisfaction is like burning paper that soon turns to ashes. Let us trust our loving God and expect the boundaries he has provided for our good.

PLEASE OPEN YOUR BIBLE TO ROMANS 13: 11.

3. PLEASE READ ROMANS 13: 11-14.

To enforce the duties on which he has been dwelling the apostle Paul now appeals to the hope of the completed salvation, which Christians are to enjoy at the return of Christ. “And this do,” particularly this continual paying of the debt of love, “knowing as you do the season,” the definite period marked out by the Master as preceding His return, “that already is time for you to awake out of sleep.”

In vs. 12 Paul is speaking of the “night of this present age.” “Night” is the time of man’s depravity and Satan’s dominion, while “day” is the time of Christ’s return. At that point we will become like Him and be equipped with resurrection bodies. His return is nearer than it has ever been. We must wake up and not be found living lethargic, passive, indifferent Christian lives. We will meet Him sooner than we might think, whether at death or at His return. We do not want to be caught unprepared.

In Scripture, the terms light and darkness often are used as metaphors for good and evil. In the daylight, people guard their behavior because they can be seen. At night, no one can see, they are unrestrained. The armor of light is the protection that practiced righteousness provides.

Examples of deeds to be discarded are revelry that means wild parties, sexual orgies, brawls and riots. Lewdness and lust is sexual immorality. Strife and envy are closely associated iniquities since the former is often the result of the latter.

In vs. 14 the phrase “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ” summarizes sanctification, the continuing spiritual process in which those who have been saved by faith are transformed into His image and likeness. The image Paul uses to describe the process is taking off and putting on clothing, which is symbolic of thoughts and behavior.

The phrase, “no provision” has the basic meaning of no planning or forethought. Most sinful behavior results from wrong ideas and lustful desires we allow to linger in our minds.

Another example of walking in darkness is quarreling and jealousy. Quarreling stems from self-centeredness, the desire to be “number one,” the need to have it “my way.” Envy means wanting the benefits that belong to others. People consumed with jealousy never rejoice with those who rejoice. Instead they seek to undermine and supplant them. Our young people have a program called “True Love Waits” which is to promote abstinence. Many of our church youngsters have signed a promise to honor this program. Encourage them in this as you have opportunity. God’s Word demands that we wake up and get serious about living for the Lord and influencing others while there is time.

We who are in Christ must live consistently if we are to have any influence on others. We should so live that with gladness we may greet our returning Lord.

NEXT SUNDAY WE BEGIN A FOUR LESSON SERIES FROM JEREMIAH TITLED “SERVING ON PURPOSE.” USING SOME KEY EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH WE SHOULD BE LED TO LIVE GOD’S PURPOSE FOR OUR LIVES. A.V. DAUGHERTY altav@swbell.net http://www.theweeks.org/av/