Let's just see what God's Word has to say once again. Now, I told you I wasn't going to bring you an extra sheet from last week, and I didn't, so I hope you didn't throw them away. And I wanted to finish up just very quickly the last part of that chapter, and the main reason is because it gets covered really well in the next chapter. So in the book of 1 Corinthians 6, we were finishing that up, and we actually finished up reading and talking about that wondrous and blessed verse Chapter 6, verse 1. It had listed some just despicable types of activities and habits that people have and sins that just were dragging the people down during those days. And it mentions them there. It says that neither fornicators or idolaters or adulterers or homosexuals or sodomites nor thieves or covetous or drunkards or revilers or extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. And we spent some time talking about that past tense word were and how God comes into somebody's life and how through the blood of Jesus that they are saved. We love that verse. We talked about that the sins are in the past. We talked about the sins were included in the price that the Lord paid. And we talked about the sins were not our practice anymore because we're sanctified. And the sins are not on our permanent record anymore because we've been justified. And so he is writing to some people that are in a city, and we've talked about this city quite a lot, one of the most wicked of all cities in all of the Old Testament or New Testament that we can read about or any kind of records that are held about the city of Corinth. It was a very wicked place. And of course some of those sins were in the history and in the past life of those that had come to know the Lord. Now they were dealing with some of the problems. of the past lives of those people. In fact, you know, the Bible says that we are crucified with Christ and nevertheless we live and Christ lives through us. And when we are crucified with Christ, the Bible says in Romans 6 that the old man or the natural man or the bestial man is dead. But the only problem is he doesn't like to stay dead and he doesn't like to think he's dead and Satan doesn't like to stay defeated. He keeps raising his head up. to fight against us and those verses there in this book is really an address by the Apostle Paul to the people of Corinth who were saved out of horrible lives. He turned on the light of the gospel in one of the darkest cities in the world and Satan was not happy about it and so he was trying to spur the life of the old lives of those people to come and show up again. And we were talking about some things and the last thing that we mentioned there was we weren't supposed to forget about the resurrection. And that was verses number 12 through the end of the chapter. It says, all things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. And then he quotes a saying of the people of that day and age, food is for the stomach and the stomach is for foods but God will destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. I'm going to mention a little bit of this in the study tonight but basically The philosophy of the people that were living in Corinth is that appetites rule. Whatever your appetite is and whatever you're hungry for, that's what you go for because that's your natural inclination. In other words, whatever you want, that's what you should be trying to get. Whatever you feel like doing, that is exactly the direction that you should be trying to go. And so they had the saying that the food was for the belly and the belly was for the food, you know? I mean, in other words, if you're hungry for something, go get it because that's why you're here. stomach so that you can eat, you have a mouth so that you can chew, and the idea is that why worry about all of these sins that you're talking about? They're not really sins. The body was made for sexual activity, so therefore fulfill it any way you want to, whenever you want to, at any time you want to. Does that sound familiar? Does it sound like anything you hear today? Well, that's pretty much the philosophy of the world in which we live among those that don't know the Lord. He says, such were some of you. Now, drop down there to verse number 14. God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power. So we can't forget that the Lord is going to raise us again. He rises from the dead. We're going to be judged for the things we allow. We're going to be judged for the appetites that we do not curb. One of the arguments that you hear all the time from the community of people that are mentioned in this passage of scripture. And folks, I didn't write the Bible. I'm just reading black ink on white paper when it talks about some people were homosexuals and some people were sodomites. One of the arguments you'll hear today is that a person who is, quote unquote, is and was born, they say, a homosexual or a sodomite, they're just living out what they are. And if that's what they are, then for them to go ahead and live out that lifestyle is only natural because that's what they are. And so it says here in verse 14 that God raised up, as He raised up the Lord, He will also raise us up. And so those people are going to find out that the court of public opinion doesn't make any difference. There is an enormous effort in the world today, the new tolerance would like the court of public opinion to give blanket approval to any and every wish and desire that people have. Do what you want. Act like you want. Eat what you want. Go where you want. Drink what you want. And practice any lifestyle you want because you're it. You're the ultimate measure. You are God, basically. It's just like the Satan through the serpent told Eve in the Garden of Eden. You're it. You're God. Do what you want. You're the final measure. Therefore, you don't have to worry about anything. Well, men are deluded. People are deluded to think that they're not going to have to answer. In fact, Christians have to answer for the deeds done in the body. But even far greater is those that reject Christ. They have to answer for what they have done. Don't forget the resurrection. And then don't forget about the divine presence in our life. Very important. It says there, In verse number 15, do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not. Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For the two, he says, shall become one flesh. But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with the Lord, with him. Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body. But he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. And we spent a lot of time talking about this a few weeks ago in reference to something that was back in one of the first two chapters. So I won't delve into that again except to add the part that in the context here, it says that we're not supposed to forget about the divine presence in our life. Jesus is participating. What he says to them is, don't you know that your body, both as an individual and as a church, is the temple of the Holy Spirit of God. It's both applications. My body as an individual body is where Jesus lives. the Holy Spirit lives. And then also this body of believers that's being built up in the faith is also supposed to be the dwelling place of God. It's where He comes and He joins together with us when we worship, when we pray, and so on. And so the point is we need to remember the divine presence both individually and corporately. And we need to ask ourselves a question in verse 15. We need to ask ourselves this question, what am I making Jesus do? And verse 16 through 17, who am I uniting Jesus with? A lot of times we forget that. There are people who take all kinds of liberties with their life and they do all kinds of things with their life thinking it doesn't matter, it's all about me, what I do with my life is not important. I heard one of the saddest stories I think I've ever heard today about a certain church and members of that church that, well, I can't even hardly tell the story, but just despicable things that a wife and a husband are doing, putting displays on the Internet so that people can look at it and they're making money on it and they're just, you know, they think it's just okay. Well, they're fine, upstanding, quote-unquote, church members, been going to church for years. In fact, one of them graduated from Bible college and they're posting nudity, their own nudity on the Internet and making money at it and thinking, well, it's just a money-making thing. I mean, it doesn't make any difference. And besides, God knows that we're sinners and He's going to forgive us. Well, that's the sin of presumption. To presume upon the grace of God. Hebrews says very clearly. that if, after we come to the knowledge of the truth, we sin anyway against what God has told us as His revealed truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sin. In other words, if we look God right in the face, we look at the Word of God and we say, okay, I know that that is absolutely wrong, but I'm just going to count on forgiveness. It's a whole lot easier to ask forgiveness than to seek permission, some people say. Well, God's never going to give us permission to be promiscuous. That's just not going to happen. Well, this passage of scripture says we have to remember we're making Jesus do things. We are uniting Jesus with people and so on. And so we have to remember that. And so then finally, verses 19 through 20, we shouldn't forget about the divine purchase. There's a divine presence in our life. That's the presence of Jesus or the Holy Spirit. And then verses 19 and 20 says, Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. You say, Well, that's great. I mean, I individually, I'm doing that. I'm supposed to be doing it. The only problem is, The context of what is being written here is being written to the whole church body. It's not being written only to an individual. He's writing to the church of Corinth, and he's saying that your body, your body of believers, is a dwelling place of God. It is the body of God, the work of God. It is intended to do His work. And if you have these kinds of things going on in your midst, don't you know that you are the temple of the Holy Spirit? Don't you know that what's going on in your midst is not permissible? And so we apply it personally, we apply it corporately. I think you're going to see some of this emphasized again. Jump to chapter 7 if you would. If you have your scripture sheet or your listening guide, as John Honeycutt calls it, you take that out and I want you to write a few things down as we go through this. And so what we have here is we've studied so far that Paul is talking to this church at Corinth. And the first four chapters in the book, on the simple outline you have at the top there, is that there were divisions in the church. There were people saying that they were divided over personalities, they were divided over spiritual gifts, they were divided over favorite preachers, they were divided over all kinds of things. There was division, there was sectarianism, there was weakness. They hadn't grown. And so chapters 1 to 4 talk about division. And then chapters 5 and 6, he does a little bit of church discipline. There was a man that was there in the church in chapter 5 that was living in incest with his own mother or stepmother. He dealt with it. Chapter 6, he goes on and deals with the issues that we were just talking about there. Now chapter 7, takes a little bit of a turn. In chapters 1 through 6, he deals with the things that Chloe had written him about. Chapter 7 through the end of the book, he deals with things that others had written with simple questions. It's probably, if you look at the end of the book, chapter 16, If you look all the way to the end of the book there in verse number, let's see, 17, it says, I am glad about the coming of Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaus for what was lacking on your part they supplied so they refreshed my spirit and yours therefore acknowledge such men. These men evidently brought more questions from the church to the Apostle Paul. And you say, well, why would they have questions? Well, we've covered a cultural, we have looked at the cultural degradation that existed in the city of Corinth. It was a very wicked place. At the time of the writing, their tolerant society, the city of Corinth was characterized by tolerating fornication, adultery, homosexuality, pedophilia, polygamy, cohabitation, and concubinage, which would be having concubines. It was certainly anything goes in societies. Marriages rarely lasted or were even expected to last. Divorce was rampant. Some cases of people have been recorded that have been married as many as 20 times at the time of the writing of the book of Corinth. Of course, that sounds all too familiar. I don't suppose I know anyone that's been married 20 times, but it's all too common in the day in which we live. Personal freedom was at its zenith and the Roman army was still strong enough so that no one could challenge them or challenge the degradation of their corrupt society. Now, in the midst of that corrupt moral cesspool, Paul planted a church. The church had become a light to the city of Corinth. As we saw in chapter 6 verse 11, the people of Corinth were saved out of a mess. And remember verse 9 and 10 talked about the horrible things that they had been saved out of. We emphasized that last week. And so they were saved out of the mess and they were trying to get their footing at living the Christian life. And so what to do about relationships was a very big issue. Now, you have to remember, divorce was commonplace. It was rampant. There were four kinds of marriages that went on there. One was the permission to dwell together of slaves. A man and a wife could, or a man and a woman, though they never had anything formal, could live together and live in a tent together as slaves, but the slave owner at his whim could separate them, sell them, take their children and sell them. So that was the very lowest level type marriage. Then there was another marriage where it was official, it was among the more poverty stricken, but they didn't have any sort of big ceremony. And then there were two more levels, the highest level being very similar to the kinds of marriages we have today. The marriages that go on in the United States of America, the Western culture, they take our form. I mean, the ring on the left finger, the bouquet of flowers, the marching down the aisle, a man standing up with a man and a woman standing up with a woman, all of that came from the highest level of Roman society way back in the first century. And that's where that came from. So there are four levels of marriages. And all of these levels of marriages would have been represented in the church because we have letters written to people who were living at all of these levels. For instance, Philemon was written about Onesimus who would have been a slave. He would have been living at the lowest level where he married and so on. So we know that all of these levels were were being practiced during that time. Now, here's what we have to understand. What to do about relationships was huge because the church was only a reflection of the society around it and was trying to become different. Now, you have to take it a little bit easy on Corinth. You know, we read the book of Corinth, we say, man, that is a wicked bunch of people. Look what they were putting up with in their church. They had incest in their church and they were putting up with it. And they had fighting over spiritual gifts. And they had, I mean, they were doing all this terrible stuff. We have to remember some things. First of all, before we get too critical of Corinth, we have to remember they were not Jews that had grown up reading and studying the Old Testament. These weren't Jews. These were Gentiles, mostly. But they were very pagan Gentiles. Next, they didn't have any New Testaments. It wasn't written yet. What little parts were written, Paul was writing at the very time. You see, they didn't have copies of it. Even if the Gospels existed, they didn't have copies of it. And then not only that, but they lived in a culture where very few people even had a copy of the Old Testament law. Maybe there were two or three in the whole city of Corinth at the time that this church was being founded. And so they lived in a culture that accepted every sort of lifestyle imaginable, but it is all that they knew. They didn't know anything different. When they became more and more wicked and more and more evil and more and more degraded in their lifestyle, they were only doing what came naturally. And you know the natural person without the influence of the Holy Spirit. That's why when we talk about Christians being salt and Christians being light in the world, we're the great deterrent to the degradation slide in society because we continually are a voice for righteousness, a voice for right, a voice for good, a voice for compassion, for mercy and all of those things. You take the salt out, you take the light out and what you get is current. Well, that's what Corinth was. And so what happens is in the darkness of that culture, a church shows up, a preacher shows up, he preaches the gospel, people begin to get saved. But I want you to know that they didn't grow up into a thriving, enormously sound church in a day, a week, a month, a year, two years, five years. It took a while for them to sort through all of these things, especially considering they didn't all have a copy of the Old Testament, nobody had a copy of the New Testament, and Paul was the only real authority they knew anything about. And so you have to understand where they were coming from. Now, do you know that the world around us today thinks that we, just like those people of Corinth probably thought those new Christians were nuts? You know, what do you mean you don't want to go down to the prostitute temple? Let's go down to Aphrodite. No, I don't do that anymore. Why not? They thought it was crazy. Do you know the world today thinks we're out of step? And we do have Bibles, and we do have churches, and we do have 200 years of history of preaching and teaching the Word of God. Well, I'm going to tell you what, when Jesus said, woe unto Bethsaida and Chorazin, when he said, woe unto them, because if the great works that have been done unto them would have been done in Sodom, that Sodom would have repented and sacked cloth and ashes, I've got to say the same thing to us. Woe unto the United States of America, because of the blessing that we've had. We have the Word of God. We've had the preaching of the Word of God like no other nation in the history of the world. And yet, we seem to be leading the world in many of these same areas that Corinth was. The world around us thinks we're out of step. They think we're crazy. They think if we try to abstain from any appetite or any impulse, they think there's something wrong with us. And we saw that at the end of chapter 6, meat is for the stomach and the stomach is for meat. The amorality of this world is the norm. We are the abnormal according to them. And I wish that we would finally come to grips with that. A person who loves light more than darkness, a person who loves right more than wrong, a person who loves compassion and mercy more than hate is the abnormal person today for the society in which we're living, not the norm. Normal people in the world that we're living in, sadly, I hate to report it, are amoral. What does that mean? There is no morality. There's no such thing. They're amoral. They don't care. It's every man for himself. It's what you think. And whenever we come along and we have any kinds of standards, any kinds of Beliefs, any kind of convictions, if we abstain from any indulgence, if we abstain from giving in to every impulse, well, we're just constricting our natural self. We ought to just live it up, do what everybody else is doing. We are abnormal. Take your Bible and flip over to 1 Peter chapter 4, and I want you to just underline some things there. 1 Peter chapter 4 that have to do with this. Now, Peter is writing here pretty much about the same thing, and here's what he says. Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind. For he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lust of men, but for the will of God. Basically, what he's saying there, Christ suffered for us in the flesh, he died for us, and because he did, we should no longer live unto sin. We shouldn't give ourselves into it. Look at verse 3. "...For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking, parties, and abominable idolatries. In regard to these, they think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation." And they speak evil. abuse. If you see those verses right there, what it's saying there is saying that the normal world, everybody around those Christians there, they were living in all of these evil practices. And whenever they would come in contact with these new believers, these people that had decided, it's not good for me to be a drunk. It's not good for me to be on dope. It's not good for me to run out on my wife. It's not right. It doesn't please me, my wife, my family, or my God. And I'm going to go a different direction. You know what they think? They think it's very, very strange. that we don't get, they think it's strange that we don't follow the thought, meat for the belly and belly for me. That my belly was made for food and food was made for my belly and if I'm hungry, eat it because that's what it's there for and that's what my belly is for. The same thing applies to every impulse. If I want, if I get it in my mind that there's a beautiful woman out there and I want to go take her, well then I ought to just do that. That is exactly, they're saying that's the impulse. That's the appetite. And the world thinks it's strange when we would say anything different. There is a chief or the highest ranking general in the army that made a statement this week. How many of you heard the statement he made this week? I wanted to shout from the rooftop. I wanted to say, man, somebody's got some gumption. I cannot believe he said what he said. He said, my training and my upbringing have taught me that the homosexual lifestyle is immoral, period. And I said, Now, what did the world around him think? They're crucifying the guy. I mean, they are... I mean, everybody... You know what? They think it's what? They think it's strange. How dare you in this tolerant society stand up... But here's what I want you to know. I want you to know that there are thousands, maybe millions of people around the world that heard that high-ranking general stand up and say that, and they're saying, well, you know, maybe he's right. Even though they may be saying he's wrong, you know what? That's salt. It slows down the decaying process. Is he a believer? I don't have any idea. I'm not lifting him up as some sort of believer, but he had something in his background that made him believe it was immoral. And I don't know many non-Christians that even talk about the word immoral. Do you? So it's an interesting thing. People think you're really strange if you don't hit the bar, yield to the affair, follow your feelings and appetites, and in general, do what makes sense at the moment to make you experience the greatest pleasure possible. Do you know that that's pretty much the rule of thumb for the world in which we live? What you really should do with your time, talent, and treasure, what you really should do with all of your efforts and all of your fun, is you should seek the greatest pleasure possible at the moment? Well, that's to Corinthianize. To Corinthianize is to seek the greatest possible pleasure available at the moment. Christians are not supposed to do that. We almost live in a Corinth. We don't have any excuses. They did. We have Bibles, churches, experience, and history to warn us. In addition to the news that arrived by way of Chloe's letter, evidently these questions arrived, and they arrived to Paul, and so it's no surprise that the first questions had to do with what to do about all of these relationships. Now, there is no way I'm going to teach this passage of Scripture without offending somebody tonight. It's impossible. So let's make a deal, all right? The deal we're going to make is I'm not going to read anything tonight that's not on the pages of the Bible. Can we agree to that? All right, number two, I'm not going to personally come and stand on anybody's toes and smack you in the side of the head with the Bible. Can we agree with that? All right, number three, I'm not going to apologize for what this says. Now, here's what we're going to do. Let's read and see what it says, chapter 7, verse 1. Now, concerning the things of which you wrote to me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. All right, that's it. Let's go home. Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does, and likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body. But the wife does do not deprive one another except with consent for a time that you may give yourself to fasting and prayer and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. But I say this as a concession." Hello? Is somebody calling me or something? Where's all that yelling coming from? Tim, go find out who's up there. Tell them we're teaching the Bible in here. They need to be quiet. But I say this as a concession, not as a commandment. For I wish that all men were even as I myself, but each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that. But I say to the unmarried and to the widows, it is good for them if they remain even as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord, a wife is not to depart from her husband. But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife." Let me stop right there, get your little sheets out, and let me give you some good information here. They had a series of questions. The first question that they come up with is, should we marry or not? You say, well, what kind of a question is that, should we marry or not? Well, it's real simple. Marriage was in such a horrible shape. They all knew, maybe they had all practiced this polygamy, if you will, or this bigamy or this wife swapping that they were living with. Maybe they'd all just traded off with one another and they'd just pretty much given up on the institution of marriage. They probably just decided, well, It's just such a terrible thing in my past, what I've learned in my history and the life that I lived before. I think I'm just going to give up on it. Some of the young people perhaps that are coming along have seen all of these things happening and the terrible events that are going on. And so they just never, you know, they just said, well, let's just throw this away. Let's throw it on the ash heap of history. Let's just think that it's an institution that doesn't work anymore. And so they were talking about, Should we really ever get married should we marry or not? Well first I want you to understand what the Bible says about Marriage and write some things down. You say what about marriage in general before we actually look at the teaching of this passage What does the Bible teach about marriage? Well, first of all Here's what marriage is all about first marriage is for procreation. Would you write that down? PROCREATION What's procreation? Well, it's fulfilling the commandment of Genesis chapter 1 and verse 28. God commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful and to multiply. God intends for mankind to reproduce itself. And he told Adam and Eve that. And then after he destroyed the world, he told those that came out of the ark with Noah and his family, his sons and their families, he said, I want you to go out and replenish the earth. Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth. And so marriage is partly and primarily for procreation. There's another reason. Number two, that's Genesis 128, number two, marriage is also for shock of all shocks, for pleasure. Marriage is for pleasure. In fact, the intimacy of marriage, and we're all adults in here tonight, the intimacy part of marriage, likewise, is for pleasure. Proverbs speaks of a man being exhilarated always with the wife of his youth. And that's Proverbs 5, 18 to 19. Solomon centers around the physical attractions and pleasures of marital love. Sarah, whenever she was told, now get this, I want you to pay attention to this. When Sarah was told, she even laughed at God and laughed at the angel over this thing. When she was told, you're going to have a child in your old age, do you remember the question that Sarah asked? You know, she laughed, and the question that she asked, shall I and my master, my Lord, have pleasure at such an age in life? Shall we have pleasure? And so there's a second reason there. It's very important. Marriage is also for pleasure. And then the third reason, write this down. You've got it there. Marriage is a partnership. Marriage is a partnership. Woman was created for man to be a helper suitable for him. If you like the King James Version, the old King James, she is to be his help meet. which means she's to meet all of his needs. And it's quite interesting to me that a woman was not created and then given a helper because she doesn't need much help, but men really need help. I'm here to tell you that that's the way it is. God made man first and said, uh-oh, he's not done. I've got to give him a completer. I said, that fellow's not going to make it. Look at all those banana peels laying everywhere. He's got to have some help. And so he gave him a completer. Not subservient, not doormat, not somebody to just be stomped on, stamped on and run over. Co-regents, I believe with all of my heart that Adam and Eve were co-regents over the creation of God. I believe that they served God together over the creation that He gave them. And I'm here to tell you that regardless of what you read and what evangelical magazine you read, I'm here to tell you right here and right now that the submission issue of a wife to a husband was not the result of a fall. It started before the fall ever came. God put man in the world and man was given a helper to help him in his work. That's probably the most unpopular statement that I could possibly make in the day and age in which we live. But I'm here to tell you that that is exactly what the Word of God says. He put Adam in the garden. He said, Adam, I want you to do this, that, and the other, and here is your helper. Help him do his work. And together, they as a team were able to do it. So that's what it was about. Marriage is a partnership. It's a friendship between husband and wife. One of the key ingredients of a good marriage is that understanding of partnership. And then marriage is a picture of the church. It's a picture of the church. Husbands are to have authority over and to love their wives as Christ has authority over and loves That's Ephesians 5, 23 to 32. You can read that. And then marriage is for one other reason. And that's what this issue comes up in this passage of Scripture very strongly. Marriage is for personal purity. for personal purity. It protects from sexual immorality by meeting the need for physical fulfillment, and it is done inside of a marriage. All right, so let's look at this passage. Now, concerning the things of which you wrote to me, it is good for a man not to touch woman now I could go into the what does it mean to touch and all of that several passages of scripture we could look at two in Genesis 1 and 1 in Exodus and We could talk about that but the word touch there is not just go over and touch the word really literally means to have relations or or intimacy with a woman. He says it's good. You say, well, why did he say it's good? Because he was answering questions. Remember, they wrote to him and he's answering these questions back and these guys had said to him, you know what? The best we can tell, the best thing to do is just abstain totally, just back off, say no to women forever. He said, well, it is good not to touch a woman. What is the subject? Write this down. Celibacy is the subject. And so the first thing I want to say to you is what about celibacy? Because it's not good to touch a woman. Celibacy can be good for the kingdom's sake or for expediency's sake. Now, I'm going to leave that alone until a little later in the book because it mentions that. A few weeks ago or two weeks ago, we had a mission conference. And at that mission conference, there was a single young woman that was here. And does anybody even remember her name? She was a missionary to India. What was her name? Carmen. Very good. Carmen Suarez. She was saved down in our church down in Peru. She grew in the Lord tremendously. Early on in her life as a Christian, she decided, I don't believe God wants me to be married. I believe that I'm supposed to stay single. And it wasn't because she couldn't have been. She just decided she was supposed to stay single. So she studied. She finished with a degree in journalism from El Pacifico University. And when she got done with that, she took The Bible Institute we had in the church, when she got done with that, she went to the Valladolid Seminary, and when she got done with that, she went and asked Pastor Tom four years ago, is there anything else for me to study? Can I get any more learning? And he says, nope, that's all we got. And she says, all right, that's all there is. I guess I'm ready. I believe God wants me to be a missionary, and I'm going to go to India, and I'm going to work in the city of Calcutta, and so on. And you know the rest of the story because she told it. And so she was available. It can be a good thing, celibacy. Not that she took a vow or anything, but it just worked out that way for her. Jesus talked about this whole idea when the Pharisees were asking him about divorce. The Pharisees had asked him what he thought about divorce. He answered them. that people should not just divorce for any reason. They should stay married unless fornication was proven. And then it was not a command to divorce, but a concession. Moses gave them a concession, not a command. And his own disciples then, after they heard him say that divorce is about more than just paperwork, his disciples said to him, they said, well, Lord, it'd be better that we never get married, that nobody ever marry. That would just be the best thing. Here's Jesus' answer, Matthew 19. His disciples said to him, if such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry. That's what the disciples said. But he said to them, all cannot accept this saying, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs, which means persons who are celibate, who were born thus from their mother's womb. There are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. Who is able to accept it? Let him accept it. So we learn two things. Write it down. Celibacy, number one, is a gift. It's a grace. It is something that God gives to a few people. You say, Pastor, should we be promoting celibacy as a church? Nope, we should be promoting marriage as a church. There was a very, very good reason that they were promoting celibacy at the time. You have to let the Bible explain the Bible. But even in times when there's no persecution, even in times when everything is great, it is not always best for every person to get married. And that is what he is saying, celibacy is a gift. And then the next one, celibacy, write it down, should never ever be coerced. Never be forced, never coerced. Again, I told you that I'm not here to offend anybody. I don't know what your background or tradition or what some of the people you may know or friends or family members you may have, but I'm going to read a passage of scripture that really slaps one certain denomination right straight in the chops, all right? And here it is, 1 Timothy chapter 4 verse 1. Listen to God's word. Now, the Spirit expressly says that in latter times, some will depart from the faith giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons. You say, what? I said deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons. They're going to speak lies and hypocrisy because they have their own conscience seared with a hot iron. And what is going to be part of their doctrine of demon and deceiving spirits? Well, they're going to forbid people marrying. Now just leave that alone right there. Won't say anything else. You just apply that any way you want to, to anybody you want to. But the Bible says right there that the thought that somehow being celibate is superior, better, or more spiritual than a person who's married, and that you're just far more spiritual if you never get married. He says right there that that's the doctrine of who? This is the same author, the very same author that wrote 1 Corinthians chapter 7. By the way, the Holy Spirit's the ultimate author. But the Apostle Paul wrote chapter 7, verse 1 of the book of 1 Corinthians, is good for a man not to touch a woman. And then he also wrote over here in 1 Timothy chapter 4, verse 1 to 3, he said, let me tell you what the doctrine of demons is. It's to tell people that they ought not marry, that there's something spiritual, there's something good about not getting married, and it makes you more holy than anybody else. It does not. Interesting, isn't it? All right, let's move right along. Now, let's look at the next thing. Celibacy is not superior. Look at verse 2. Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. God made them man and wife, and He said, let them be fruitful and multiply. And if God said that, if that's the way He did it, and He said that He would that people would be married like that, And if he said that, then certainly it cannot be something that's unspiritual. It should be pointed out, and this may come as a shock to you, but it should be pointed out that Paul was probably a widower or a divorced man. He said, wow, I never would have dreamed. Why, how could you dare say such a thing? Well, it's pretty simple because he was a member of the Sanhedrin. He said so himself. And as a member of the Sanhedrin, he could not have been a member of the Sanhedrin before he became a Christian had he not been married. It was a qualification. He had to be married. So it's possible that his wife, when he was widowed, his wife may have been killed before he ever came to court. We don't know. We can't even speculate. But it is very probable that either when he came to Christ, she left him, or that before he came to Christ, that she had suffered some sort of death, or it could be as simple as she got killed in the process whenever he began to serve the Lord. We don't know. But here's what we do know. We know that this verse says, all intimacy outside of marriage is forbidden. Intimacy outside of marriage is forbidden. Verse 2, nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, ladies and ladies, that was a radical thing. People today think it's strange if you say something like that. They say, well, come on now, you're just being very narrow. You're narrow-minded. Well, you think it's narrow for us to say it. Imagine saying that to Corinth. You know, the culture of the day is never the determiner of what's right and wrong. Did you know that? What is being accepted in the world and in Hollywood and on television and by the news media, the education establishment, never does establish right and wrong. Did you know the popular opinion never does establish what is right before God Almighty? In fact, popular opinion is usually the opposite of what God would really want us to do. You read this passage of Scripture right here and it says very clearly, he said, that fornication, intimacy outside of marriage, is absolutely wrong. It's sexual immorality. Now he said that to a city and to a people that that's the only thing they had ever known in their entire life. It doesn't matter what the current of thought of any time or culture, the Word of God and what is right does not change. I said something about absolutes this last Sunday, and if there is any absolute that we all ought to just thank God for, it is that the absolute truth of the Word of God never changes, and we can say that with absolute certainty. And that gives you the ability to drive a peg down in your life and say that you can always go back to it, and it's always in the right place. It's always where it's supposed to be, and you always have a point of reference. Do you know how important it is when you're building a home or anything to get the corners of the house and the foundation staked out and get those stakes driven down in the right place? I mean, you can't build anything. You cannot build anything. You can't pour the footings. You can't do anything if you don't have the right touchstone, the corners, the tent pegs driven down, as it were. And this is something that we need to understand. Folks, if we're going to be able to rear children, to help our grandchildren, if we're going to be able to be salt and light in society that we live in, then what we have to do is to be able to point to something that's unchangeable. Point to something. You know, when you're on the ocean and you're... if you're on the ocean of life and you're in a boat that's in a terrible storm, you are not looking for a raft floating by. You are not looking for seagulls that are floating by. You are not trying to find a point of reference in the skies. You are hoping to find some land, some rock, something that's stable that's standing there so that you can get a hold of something solid. And so it's very important for us as Christians to understand that The culture of any day never ever determines what is right and what is wrong, what is truth and what is error. The Word of God never changes and we can hold on to it. You can sink your roots down into it and believe it because it never ever changes. And we're not going to finish this. I didn't intend to, but let's go just a little bit further. I'm going to take about three minutes and then we'll be done. All right, here we go. Intimacy outside of marriage is forbidden and that the converse is true. Therefore, intimacy inside of marriage is very fulfilling. Intimacy inside of marriage shows something. It shows ownership. And this is very curious. You're going to see it here in this passage of scripture. He says, nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife and let each woman have her own husband. Look at verse four. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Why? Because of ownership. Very interesting. Intimacy inside of marriage shows ownership. And then the next one, intimacy inside of marriage is expected. It's expected. I want you to look at the words there, verse 3. Let the husband render to his wife the affection, circle the word, do her or give her her due. Now, this is not limited to the intimacy of marriage. There are many other ways. You know, the Bible says we're supposed to dwell with our, 1 Corinthians, we're supposed to dwell with our wives according to knowledge. In other words, we're supposed to learn about that person and understand how they work and how they tick and what's, you know, we don't want to be an offense in the converse and vice versa is true as well. We learn about each other. We give each other their due. We don't, a man is supposed to give his wife her due. A man who works outside the home earns the money. The wife works inside the home. Let's just say that is the case. That's not always the case. Just because the man's out earning the money and brings it home, that doesn't mean that she doesn't get her due. What I mean is, and what this passage means is, is that the man doesn't come home and say, well, I'm going to buy a bass boat and here you can buy yourself a new pair of tennis shoes. You understand? You know, we give her her due. And there's many ways to apply that. But in this passage of Scripture, it is specifically talked about the affection she is due. Now guys, that goes far more than quote unquote the act of marriage. It goes to the romance and everything that's involved. It is due. And you turn that around and it is also for the women to give Him His And let me just read that to you in verse 3 again. Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise, or in the same manner, also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Notice that there is a due and notice that the affection is exclusive. We're talking about that intimacy with your own husband, that intimacy with your own wife, And there's something that's hidden in here, something that is extremely not so hidden but blatant is that a man or woman is not ever to use intimacy as a tool of manipulation. I want you to just stop and think about what I just said. A wife or a husband is never, no not ever, supposed to use intimacy as a tool of manipulation. You say, well, why would that be? Well, because it's not your body, it's not her body. Do you understand that? There is a union in the flesh and in the spirit that we do not comprehend. The only way we comprehend it is when it is broken. We are supposed to not do those. If there is not a physical reason or a spiritual reason, then withholding yourself from the marriage partner is simply wrong, and it can lead to the situation of verse number 2. And if you look back at verse number 2, it says, nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, or more specifically, fornication let every man have his own let every woman have her own husband every husband his own wife and so it can lead to that and I want you to notice that withholding intimacy from your mate is deprivation Wow really you think God looks at it that way let me read this to you do not what's the third word verse 5 do not deprive one another except with consent. I read just a moment ago that withholding intimacy from your mate is deprivation. In the case of prayer and fasting, the decision should be mutual. Somebody might get real spiritual and say, well, I tell you what, I'm going into a period of prayer and fasting and we're just going to, I'm going to have to go sleep in the other bedroom for the next six weeks. In the case of prayer and fasting, the decisions should be mutual. Look and see what it says here. It says, "...do not deprive one another except for consent for a time that you may give yourself to fasting and prayer and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control." He said, well, I got all kinds of self-control. If you had all kinds of self-control, you probably wouldn't have been married in the first place. That's what it's talking about. Now, let me just read this. the withholding of intimate intimacy. Normal relations should not be long delayed even in a time of spiritual prayer and dedication because Satan knows our frame and he knows when and how to attack at least our minds. Remember what we learned on Sunday that adultery is not just something that happens in the bed, it's something that happens in our head before it ever happens in the bed. That's important to understand. You see that? And so I want you to know, you say, well, is that ever happened in the Bible? Absolutely. In the book of Exodus, when the children of Israel were to withdraw or they were to withdraw from intimacy with their wives and wives with their husbands for three days at Mount Sinai, when the law was going to be given, it was such a high and holy moment that God says, all right, I don't want you men to even come close to your wives for the next three days. I want you to wash your clothes and wash your tents and wash out. I just want, I want you guys to sit still and do nothing but fear me. That's what they did for three days. But even, now just watch this, even it was only for three days, even in the case of the giving of the law. You get the picture? So the point is, is that these things are very, very important. You say, you mean the Bible talks about this kind of stuff? I'm reading you black ink on white paper from 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 7 to 11. Yes, the Bible talks about that. You see, you can't get any more of it. Today, everybody thinks the sex revolution... You know, people today talk about sex as if they invented it. Who is the author of marriage? God. And He has not shunned to speak about the things that we need to know. You say, well, we live in a very terrible time. Listen, Corinth was a very, very terrible time too. It was dark. There's one thing that ought to encourage you tonight, and I'm going to stop with this. So what's that? It's that, man, we see what's going on in our nation and in our world, and we see what's happening, and we see the legislation that's coming down, and we see the new tolerance, and we see the permissiveness, and we see the promiscuity, and we see the, oh, we see all this stuff. And I'm telling you, we're just, it's all over its history. Well, it ought to encourage you that it was worse in the days of Corinth. And the Word of God and the preaching of the gospel and the correction of the church was more powerful than the darkness. You know that darkness is no match for the light. You could turn off every light in this church. You could go back there in that room and destroy the electrical installations into this building. Just completely blow them up and a candle would overcome the darkness in this room. You understand what I'm saying to you? It cannot be so evil and so dark that God is limited and His people are not limited because we are the light.