Paul reminds Titus of the peculiar national sins of Crete. He is not saying that every man in Crete is a liar, but he is saying it is a peculiar national tendency of the people in Crete to lie, to be angry, and to be gluttonous. Therefore, Paul says, rebuke these particular sins sharply. Zero in on them with your preaching. Avoid no opportunity to put your finger on these sins and warn them against them. Use great zeal in hammering away on these truths that have to do with honesty, temperance, temperance with the temper, and in eating. Now, America has its peculiar sinful tendencies also, and every nation has peculiar sinful tendencies. And when they are found, it is right and important that constant warning be given to the people of God who live in that nation, so that they flee from those sins, so that they be sound in the faith, as the Apostle tells us. Rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith. And the United States of America has its peculiar sinful tendencies. And one of these particular sins of America which needs constant warning, is a disregard for God's seventh commandment, thou shalt not commit adultery. The United States is absolutely ingenious in inventing every form of sexual immorality. And it's particularly a sin that attacks young people, and that's why, young people, I've said I'm going to speak most particularly to you this evening. Remember the Apostle Paul said to Timothy, flee youthful lust that war against the soul. And the temptations to sexual immorality come in particular to young people, to war against your soul. Your mind, young people, is being bombarded, as you've been told before, but you must remember it and hear it often. Your mind is being bombarded with the sins of uncleanness until you grow weary of resisting them. It is scarcely possible to watch a TV series and do so consistently without the suggestions of immorality coming to your mind. It is constantly in the popular music of our day. It is constantly being suggested to you by the news media, by our educational systems, by our public schools, by the popular opinions of the day, that sexual immorality is normal. And the only safe course for you is repetition of the warning that you must flee these lusts and think soberly about the truth. And you need to hear this truth over and over and over again if in any way there is a hope of it counterbalancing the falsehood that's a din upon your ears. So let's begin going back to Genesis this evening once again, to Genesis chapter 2. Looking first of all at verses 18 to 20, passages that we looked at with regard to marriage in the weeks that are past, but passages that have other implications than the ones that we drew from them. Verse 18 of Genesis 2, at the very beginning, the Lord God said, when Adam was in the Garden of Eden, everything was in a perfect state. Sin had not yet come. The Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him in help suited for him. And out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them. And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all the cattle and to the fowl of the air and to every beast of the field. But for Adam, there was not found and help suited for him. One of the points with which I would like to begin is that sexual desires are good and wholesome. You'll notice in chapter 1 in verse 31, God saw everything that he had made and behold it was very good. And Adam was one of the things that he had made and Adam was incomplete without the woman. As God made Adam, he had physical urges or biological needs, among which were sexual impulses or sexual appetites. Part of Adam's incompleteness was the lack of a sexual partner. As all of the animals were brought to Adam, there was a male and a female of each kind. And yet Adam was all alone. There was no female of the human race as yet. And Adam had a longing for a mate that was good, and pure and not evil in any way. He was created with this aspect of his personality, with this sexual desire within. And that's why the Bible throughout, from Old Testament to New, tells us, and now I quote from Hebrews 13 in verse 4, that marriage is honorable in all, and the marriage bed is undefiled. When you think of a man and a woman in sexual union, if they are husband and wife, that is pure and there is nothing whatsoever wrong with it. But as we say that, it is at the same time very important not to make the mistake, hear me young people, do not make the mistake of thinking that Adam's sexual urges were isolated from the rest of his human personality. And don't ever let anyone suggest to you that your sexual appetites are something that you can isolate and separate from the rest of your human personality. Adam's sexual need was joined with and directly related to other needs. Mental needs, emotional needs, psychological needs, spiritual needs that could only be met by having a woman who was a companion to him. In verse 18, when we read God saying it is not good that the man should be alone, it is not just talking about the body of Adam and his sex drive. It is talking about Adam in his complete personality and makeup as a man. The help that was needed for him, that phrase is used in verse 18, and again in verse 20, God was looking, and Adam was looking for someone who was a help suited for him. That help was not merely the requirement of biological release to certain physical impulses. Man is much more complex than that. Adam needed a companion to be a mental, social, emotional, spiritual, and physical help to him. and physical satisfaction is directly related to social and emotional satisfaction which he needed. Man's need for woman is a very complex thing of which the physical is only one component and that physical component can never be disentangled from a man's mind and a man's emotions. When you try to compartmentalize a human being you will run into failure and serious problems. If you think, well, I can spend an hour in church and everything will be spiritual in that hour, you're going to be sadly disappointed. You'll sit there and listen to the sermon, and you'll grow weary after about 40 minutes, and you'll grow weary because your body is tired, and your body is going to affect your spiritual exercises in the church, and you cannot rip the soul out of the body of a man until there is death. And if you think, I will give myself to an hour of mental activity, and only mental activity, and I'll study for an hour, you'll find that the body will affect it. If you think that your emotions can be purely ministered to by listening to music for an hour, your emotions cannot be taken away from your mind, and though you may listen to music that is designed to stir the soul, you will find that your mind, thinking about other things, will interrupt. the wholesome effect upon the emotions. Or if you think that as a human being you can seek only a biological release to a sexual urge, you are sadly mistaken, because that body cannot be separated from the mind, nor can it be separated from the emotions, nor can it be separated from the soul. When you seek to separate man into compartments and say, I'll only deal with the soul or only with the body, You're in dangerous ground, and you will fail. Your sexual desires are intricately related to your psychological and emotional needs. And many have toyed with their bodies, accepting the world's childish view that it's only a physical desire. And if God gave us the desire, we ought to satisfy the desire, and it's simply a physical thing. And men have played around with their sex organs only to wake up with a perverted mind, or with emotions that are absolutely drained and ruined, or a lopsided and miserable personality. The scripture constantly warns you that abuse of sexual potential is one of the surest ways to land your soul in hell. You cannot separate your soul from your body and even its sexual urges. Proverbs 7.27 tells us of a harlot that her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death. And the man that thinks he can go to a harlot, only exposing his body to certain physical needs, is dangerously mistaken and likely to see his soul landed in hell. Sexual needs are directly tied to mental and emotional needs. And it's childishness in many a marriage that has failed to recognize this. These emotional and mental needs in a man differ from the emotional and mental needs in a woman. I hope there are married people who found that out. The emotional and the mental needs connected with sex are different in the woman and the man. And the failure to recognize that interferes with sexual harmony in marriage and satisfaction. Husbands who fail to understand that a wife's mind and emotions work differently with respect to her body than his own is going to sadly ruin his marriage. And a wife can equally cause disharmony in the home by failing to recognize that a man's mind and emotions do not work in connection with his body in the same way that hers do. But the important point is to see that you cannot treat sex like a biological set of facts, as if it's a section in a course in biology. You studied how you cut the worm apart, now let's study the body of a man. The body of a man is related to his mind and emotions and soul, and it always is. We'll develop this further as we go along. Notice now verse 22. Well, let's look at verse 21 also. The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and Adam slept. And God took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh and stead thereof. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man made he a woman and brought her unto the man. God gave woman to the man. So marriage is pure in every aspect, including its sexual aspect. But you will notice, and I would imagine that there have been few generations in which it's been necessary to say this, but it is necessary and you know it. God did not make another man for Adam. And God did not make both a woman and a man and set them before Adam to see what his sexual preference would be. God made a woman for the man. And the only natural outlet for sexual desires is with a member of the opposite sex. Homosexuality is against nature and against the creation of God. And the scripture makes it plain in Old Testament and New. It is an unthinkable perversion of God's created order, unthinkable in most minds and in most generations, but flaunted in the United States of America today. So let's look again at some of the texts in the New Testament, just two of them. Turn to Romans, chapter one, and see what God's opinion of homosexuality is. In Romans, chapter one, God is telling how the nations of the world became perverts and wicked and vile, even though he told them plainly what righteousness was and revealed himself to them. In Romans 1, verses 26 and 27, for this cause God gave them up to vile affections, vile affections. Now, what are the vile affections? Well, even their women did change the natural use, that is, the use of their bodies, into that which is against nature and Likewise also the men leaving the natural use of the woman Burned in their lust one toward another men with men Working that which is not suitable and receiving in themselves recompense of their error, which was fitting That's God's opinion of homosexuality just one other verse in the New Testament 1st Corinthians chapter 6 verse For as Paul wrote to Corinth, the Greek world at that time was much like America in our day. There was a great deal of homosexuality even defended publicly and defended by the philosophers as just a matter of sexual preference on the part of an individual. And as Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, you will notice in chapter 6 and verse 9, do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Do not be deceived. Who's not going to get into the kingdom of God? Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, and now the words that have to do with homosexuality, nor the effeminate, nor the abusers of themselves with mankind. Those who practice sexual acts with those of their own sex. The wrath of God and the disgust of God against the sin of homosexuality is forever recorded in his dealings with the sodomites, and that's where the term sodomy came from, from the town of Sodom, that God destroyed in his anger and his wrath. There is nothing gay about the scene of homosexuality. It is gruesome, not gay. It destroys the personality, it fights against God's creation, it is against nature, it is vile in terms that are almost inexpressible. And if you value your soul, and if you value your sanity, and if you value even a normal life on the face of this earth, Then you will treat any physical approaches of someone in the same sex as absolutely contemptible and you will repel them and you will flee from them as endangering your soul and evil in the sight of God. God gave a woman to the man and not another man. And secondly, you will have to see in this verse 22 that God gave the woman to the man in marriage and young people If you've been tuned out, I pray you would listen to me now. God gave the woman to the man in marriage. Adam said, as the woman was given to him, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of the man. Therefore shall a man leave father and mother and cleave unto his wife and the two will be henceforth one flesh. Then you'll even notice in verse 25, they were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed. Their nakedness, their physical familiarity, and the sexual union suggested in this passage was only, only in the context of marriage. The only legitimate fulfillment of sexual desires is in marriage. In 1 Corinthians 7, when the Apostle Paul considered the temptation to sexual sins that the Corinthians were facing, there was only one fulfillment of sexual desire that he even considered as being legitimate, and that was marriage. And he said it's better to marry than to burn with lust, and he urged anyone that had lustful desires to find a wife, to find a husband. In light of temptations, he urged husbands and wives to give yourselves to one another physically, and under the commandment of the Lord, forbade them to withhold their bodies from one another. But there is no other possibility considered legitimate. Only two possibilities for a Christian, either marriage or total abstinence. Sexual intercourse in marriage is honorable, And it is beautiful and it is wonderful because that sexual act itself expresses all the high ideals and beauty of marriage. We've read this great statement of Adam understanding what his union with the woman meant. For the man's sexual union reflects to the woman all of his marital love to her. He cares for her. He loves her. He's not simply trying to use her body for his own ends. They are one. One, not just sexually, but you will notice, verse 24, they shall be one flesh. Verse 23, she is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She is my own body. She will be treated as an integral part of my life. She will share in all that I am an heir to in this world. He will be faithfully devoted to her care. Verse 24, I'll even leave my father and mother for her, and I will cleave to her with faithfulness, and we shall be one, one man with one woman in fidelity till life parts them. For the woman, the sexual act, the yielding of her body, is a symbol of faithful submission to her husband in everything. It's a symbol of her ministering to her husband, not just physically, but spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and doing everything she can to support his career and calling from God. When the woman is not cared for by the man, And when the man does not share with the woman his wife, and when there is not even normal communication between husband and wife, the wife feels cheated in sexual relations. And when the wife does not really love her husband and is not faithful in ministering to him and being subject to him, even in the sexual union, the husband feels cheated. You see, the mind and the emotions and the entire personality is tied up with the sexual union. And God gave marriage as a package deal expressing everything. And young people, let's try to apply it a little more practically, all these things that I've been saying. Why do we have to wait? Some young people say, why do we have to wait until we're married? For sexual intimacy. Well, you're old enough. You're old enough as young teenagers. for sexual relationships. The reason you have to wait until marriage is because the sex act, without commitment to one another, without exclusive devotion to one another, makes a cheap prostitute of a woman and a mere toy out of the man's body. Because the sex act, without the pledge of commitment and faithfulness that a husband makes to a wife and a wife makes to a husband will ruin you. It will ruin your mind and it will ruin you from the joys even of sexual union. Cheap experimentation on the biological level robs the feelings, makes some people forever sterile in the emotions, exploits the personality and warps the mind. And if you don't believe it, I say again, it's impossible. But time and again I have wished that I could have young people sitting with me in the office. When as a pastor I have to deal with people whose minds and whose lives are warped, and they are warped because they have had sexual intimacy outside of marriage. And there's no other explanation for what's happened to them. and they live as one who limps along all the lifetime and has a heavy burden upon their back of a warped personality because they thought they could toy with the body and take no note of the mind and the emotions and commitment that is expressed in that sexual union. It degrades the sex act to an immature toy of two selfish people who do not respect one another and are not committed to one another. to enter into sexual intercourse outside of marriage. There can be nothing of mutual trust and commitment involved when the man and the woman are not devoted to one another in marriage. Now, I tell you, young people, there are times when you begin to yearn. You begin to yearn for romantic things. And when you look around in the world today, the only thing that's pictured by Hollywood as romantic Almost the only thing is immoral. You see some of the beautiful love stories. The young man who lives with a young woman out of wedlock. And sometimes, because of the dreamy way it's built up, you say, oh, that was a beautiful story. It was not a beautiful story! It was a story of love! that two young people would violate the principles of God's Word and violate their own bodies and ruin their own minds and emotions by that kind of a life out of wedlock. And there's something wrong. Those who call themselves Christians can live through those stories about two young people who live with one another, roam with one another, because it's so beautiful the way they kiss, and it's so wonderful the way they look at each other, and the way they talk about love, but they are not committed to one another. And it is not love, it is lust, and it is the convenience of selfishness, and it is the essence of wrong. How you can watch these stories and think it's beautiful, I don't know. Some young people say, well, maybe we can get into these things because we plan to get married. I tell you once again, until you actually declare before the world what Adam declared, you have no right to the body of the young woman. Until you can say before all the world, she is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh, and I am going to take care of her, and I am going to cleave to her with faithfulness until death do us part. And I'm going to love her, and we're going to live under the same roof, and we're going to share the same life together, heirs of one life. Until you can say that, you've got no right to use her body. And until that knot is tied, any sexual intercourse is less than it was meant to be, and cheap and evil in the sight of God. Can I remind you the text we read in 1 Corinthians 6, 9? That no fornicator shall enter the kingdom of God. It is defiling and defacing to one of the most basic things in God's creation. To get involved in sexual intercourse outside of marriage. That sounds absolutely radical in our day, doesn't it? That just is not according to the opinion of the times. But it is God's word. Let me tell you, young people, you cannot get married to one another in a car some night and say, well, we promised before God that we'd be faithful to one another, and then enter into your sexual union and go your separate ways, she to her house and you to your house. You cannot possibly express commitment and love intended in that kind of an arrangement until you are living together openly before the world. Well, What if we take up housekeeping together? What's the use of a ceremony? We've seen lots of older people. They go through the ceremony and in a few years they're divorced and they despise the whole thing. What difference does it make whether we have a ceremony? Why go through the problem of a wedding? Why don't we just have a common law marriage and start living together? Why not? Because the world in which you are living is acting like the wild beast of the field. and they are playing musical beds on every college campus in our country. Because the hosts of couples who are experimenting with sex are exploiting one another and are not devoted to one another and most of the arrangements never end up in a common law marriage. And if you love him or if you love her, you'd better declare to all the world that this is a pure relationship and that your sincere intention and that your vow before God is to be faithful, one flesh together to the end of your days. If you love him at all, if you love her at all, you'll care about her reputation and not make her into the slut that sleeps with anyone. Why is it necessary to go through a wedding ceremony? is necessary because God instituted not only marriage, but he instituted the state to regulate society. And marriages have great implications for society. And the government under which you live, which God has appointed, has a right to say who may be married and under what circumstances, because they are going to have to live with the results of all sexual union. If you don't think so, sometime you inquire into how many of the economic plights of our country are directly tied to fornication and adultery. Find out how much violence in our country is tied to fornication and adultery. Find out how much mental illness. Find out how many poor souls who never will fit in anywhere are limping around and leaning on society and leaning on government because of wrong sexual relationships. People don't talk about it. The government won't even talk about it. But it's true. And the Bible warns you. You toy with this area of sex, you end up in poverty. You end up ashamed. You end up a burned out hulk of a human being. You end up with spiritual depressions. Mourning the day that you heard the warning and would not heed the word of God. I hope you noticed yesterday, I hope you noticed when we have marriage ceremonies, you know, it's so beautiful to see the bride and the groom. I hope you noticed some of the wording, that when we pronounced Brad and Mindy husband and wife yesterday, we used the words, since Brad and Mindy have observed the laws of our state and have vowed their faithfulness to one another, they are pronounced husband and wife. It is necessary to go through a wedding ceremony before you are married. If you use your sex organs to express anything less than marital fidelity and love, you have cheapened God's intent, you have broken God's law, you have harmed your own personality, and you have exploited another. And I tell you, young people, this is why heavy petting outside of marriage is absolute foolishness. It is preparation for sin. It is self-inducement to sin. It's playing with fire. It's stirring up the body to intense desire for immediate satisfaction in the area of sex, which is forbidden unless you're married. But when you are united in marriage, the very same acts become hallowed, sanctified in the eyes of God, exactly what God intended, beautiful, wholesome, and helpful to one another. Young people, our wide open society is no help to you. And often I've thought, thinking of my own children, thinking of some of the young people in our church, I wish you lived in another age. I wish you didn't have to read in the newspaper the filth that's there every day. I wish you didn't have to hear of politicians who are supposed to be honorable men toying with the idea of legitimizing homosexuality of all things. I wish you didn't have to look at a TV set that parades before your eyes every form of sexual immorality. I wish that your eyes were not constantly bombarded and your ears with the popular music that you're hearing. It may be hard to believe, I'm not 40 yet, but when I was your age, teenagers, things were not nearly as bad as they are now. Not nearly. Our popular songs may have talked about the twinkle in her eye and kissing her good night and the feel of her tender touch, but we didn't talk about lying beside one another all night long to make me feel good through the night and forget everything else. And that's what they're talking about now. I wish you didn't have to live through that. May God give you the grace to hear the warning. It is the sin of America. Wherefore, rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith. And I don't know what will keep you if you're not a Christian. I don't know what will keep you from the destruction, the misery of this life and the destruction of the world to come, which is worn in the Bible against this sin, if you've not found Jesus Christ and believed on his name. In an age like this, in the temptation you're living in, there is no hope for you. The deck is stacked against you. You need the power of the blood of Jesus Christ to keep you from these sins. And one more reason I would urge you to pray to him this night, if you never have. Let's pray together. Our Lord and our God, we do despise the sins of our own nation, nor would we come to you and simply speak against the sins of others But we would confess to you, O God, that we have participated in these sins, supporting the industries that are pushing forward sexual immorality. And our own minds have thought lightly of these subjects, and our own minds, O God, have gotten caught up in even the trivial jokes of the day. Have mercy upon us and pardon us, for dealing so lightly with solemn and holy things in your world. And as we look at our nation and we see it so swiftly moving toward the condition of the sodomites, we know that you are still angry against sin like those of our nation. We know, oh God, that you hate and despise the wickedness that is so proliferating in our day. Oh, we pray that you would have mercy We pray that you would alarm the hearts of those who are caught up in sin and immorality. We pray that the word of your truth would call people to seek the grace that's in Jesus Christ. We pray that the righteousness of your people may turn back the tide and that your people may be holy and like rocks in the midst of our society. Oh Lord, may we as a whole people learn to rebuke these things sharply lest our own souls get caught up in them. May we learn to turn away in disgust. May we learn to register our protest in testimony every day against these awful sins that are destroying homes and society and nation and individual lives. But, oh God, especially these things of our nation have attacked your glory and your honor. And there has been the direct and brazen attack upon your repute as the God and maker of this world. Your wisdom is called in question. Your righteousness is laughed at with the disdain of calling it puritanical. And men will have their own ways. God have mercy on our nation. And grant unto us as a people that we may be sound in the faith. For we pray it in Christ's holy name. Amen. When you do think of the level of sin, God's destruction in other days, it's amazing that he saves anyone in the midst of such societies, but he does. Let's stand and sing together number 402, John Newton's hymn, Amazing Grace. Amazing grace that deals with even circumstances like these. To save the harlot, to save the whoremonger, to save the fornicator from his sin, not just from the consequences of it.