We come tonight to our fourth in a series of these studies based upon the first psalm. And I'm sure those of you who are here mornings as well as evenings realize that there's more than one way to approach a passage of scripture in studying its implication, its meaning. And in the mornings we're sticking more strictly to what would be called, perhaps in technical sense, expository preaching in that Though we may look at other passages, the basic sphere of our reference is the portion that's before us, whether it's verse 2 or verse 14 of the second chapter of Thessalonians, whereas in these studies in Psalm 1, we're really roaming the whole range of divine revelation on certain subjects that are related in a very direct sense to the first psalm, but may not actually be there in the text itself. And I'm convinced that both methods are perfectly legitimate. And I hope for the sake of variety, both in my own discipline of preaching and for your discipline of hearing and study, that you are finding them both to your profit. I'm sure that by nature some of you perhaps like the Sunday evening method more and others of you like the Sunday morning method more, and that's good you come both times so you don't get in a rut as well as so that the preacher doesn't get in a rut. Now for the folk who just come Sunday evenings, I just have to suggest you'll have to play hooky once in a while wherever you go Sunday morning. So you'll realize there is another way to handle a passage of scripture than the way I handle the first psalm here Sunday evening. The theme of this first psalm is, at least we are calling it this, for it's obviously the central thought, the way of blessedness. And this word blessedness is a very difficult word to describe. It brings together the thoughts of fulfillment, of satisfaction, of tranquility, of true happiness. Not giddiness, not fickleness, not the frothy kind of sentimental joy, but true, abiding, deep happiness is probably the closest we can come, in the English language, to describing what the psalmist meant when he said, blessed, or, oh, the blessedness of the man. And then he describes the way of blessedness and the blessedness of that man who walks in that way. And the way he does this is in the form of a contrast. He not only describes the blessed man in the way of blessedness, but he describes the man who is not blessed, who though he may be seeking blessedness, he seeks it not in the way that God has appointed. He is called in this psalm the wicked or the ungodly man, and he is set in direct contrast to the godly man who is the man finding true blessedness. Now what we are doing at present is seeking to enlarge upon the thought suggested in the first verse, that the way of blessedness is first of all a negative thing. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly. And if you and I would know the way of blessedness, we must know this negative aspect. We must refuse to have our lives shaped by the advice and the counsel of ungodly men, of those who look at life without reference to God, to His glory, to His will, and to His purpose for His creatures. Now, if we are to shun the counsel of ungodliness, we must know where it comes from. And I have suggested that one of the great means, the great channels through which the counsel of ungodliness comes to us in this generation are the mass media of communication, the radio, the TV, magazines, the moving picture, and things of that nature. And they come with their fourfold counsel as to the way of blessedness. They are continually giving their propaganda of blessedness, telling us that blessedness comes in the way of materialism, that is, the doctrine that says things will make you blessed. They come with their message that blessedness is to be found in the way of sensualism, which we'll be touching and enlarging on tonight, the way of moral relativism. If you want to be blessed, learn to break off every yoke of moral absolutism. and learn to fully express your freedom. And then in the way of what I've called anti-God intellectualism. If you want to be blessed, then as a man grow up and use your head and solve all your problems and don't lean upon this crutch of religion and of God. Now, the blessed man will not walk in this council, for he's described in the third second verse as a man who delights in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night, and the man who delights in the law of God sees an entirely different approach to this whole subject of blessedness, and refuses to walk in the council of ungodliness that comes through these mass media. Last Lord's Day evening, or two Lord's Day evenings ago, we dealt with this whole theory or philosophy of materialism that comes to us through the mass media, and how the blessed men will refuse to swallow that lie. Knowing that blessedness can never come through things, he learns the lesson, and I hope you won't forget it, of receiving things from God as God is pleased to give them, receiving them in thankfulness, but never clinging to them as the source of his blessedness, so that with Job he can say, the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh. Blessed be the name of the Lord. I want us to enlarge more fully on this second aspect of the Council of Ungodliness that is continually bombarding the people of God via the mass media of communication, namely the philosophy of sensualism. Now this is what the Council of Ungodliness says to us through the mass media about this business of sensualism. Would you be blessed? Would you know true happiness? Would you know real fulfillment in life? Here's the way to have it. Saturate your senses with that which will give them pleasure. Your five senses, you know what they are. That of sight, of smell, of touch, of taste, and hearing. Your bodily appetites for rest, for luxurious living, of sex, of ease. All of these bodily, physical appetites. These things that come to us by way of the senses. The philosophy. The gospel, we may really call it a gospel, for it's heralded as a good news. Would you really want to know the way of blessedness? Here's the way to find it. Just fulfill every sensual itch as fast as you can and as fully as you can. That's the philosophy in a nutshell. Have no unfulfilled sensual desire. This philosophy looks upon any restraint of passion, Anything that would lead to hardship, anything that might possibly lead to anything other than luxurious living, as the very plague of plagues itself. Above all things, we must seek the full and complete gratification of all of our senses, and we must do it immediately and completely. It covers the area of food. I was shocked one day by the admission On WOR in the mornings, the McCann's are on. And by the way, WOR is the most listened to station in this whole area from 5 in the morning to 11 o'clock at night. And there was an announcement being made to encourage people to listen to the McCann's. And the essence of the announcement was this. I wish I could have put it on a tape recorder, but this is the substance of it. Listen to the McCann's whose whole end in life is to help you to learn how to titillate your taste buds. And that was the announcement to try to get people to listen to the McCanns because they come with the latest suggestions in the realm of the culinary arts and fine eating and food and all the rest. And imagine living, having as your goal in life, to help people to titillate their taste buds a little more effectively. Now that's the philosophy of sensualism, that says the way of blessedness is coming to you if you get in the way of all kinds of exotic foods and varieties so that there is no boredom on your taste buds, so that they will never have to roll over and say, ho-hum, same old thing again. Why? You will find the way of blessedness. That's the philosophy. And then, of course, the philosophy that comes through the Playboy magazine, that comes not just through Playboy, but it's in McCall's, it's in the Ladies Home Journal. Someone subscribed to my wife and it was her father. One of the ladies' home journal recalls her something for a year. As I looked through that magazine, I could see the philosophy of sensualism oozing out of every advertisement, almost out of every single article in there. Occasionally a good article dealing with a home life or family life, but the overriding philosophy is that of sensualism. If you as a woman are to find real fulfillment, how are you going to find it? In making yourself as beautiful as you can be to your eyes and the eyes of others. making yourself smell as nice as you can smell to yourself and to others, and then in learning how to handle your sexual appetites in a way that will make you a femme fatale not only to your husband, but to all the other men. That's the whole philosophy, beloved, that is screaming at us. Radio, TV, and all the rest, I don't want to enlarge upon it. If you have any kind of sensitivity to your generation, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Now, what lies at the root of this philosophy of sensualism? The scripture says, blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly. And that counsel is screaming at us, saying, if you'd be blessed, here's how to be blessed. To put it very bluntly and very clearly, you must scratch every sensual itch immediately and completely. That's it. That's it. Now, where does that philosophy come from? Well, ultimately, of course, it comes from man's depraved heart. Romans chapter 1, a description of what man is as a fallen creature. 1 John 2.15, all that is in the world and ever has been in the world is a fallen world. The lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh. That's sensualism. The lust of the eyes, that's materialism. I've got to have things. The lust of the flesh, I must enjoy things. It's as old as man. But listen, even 15 years ago, a magazine like Playboy couldn't have been put on the newsstands and sold above the count. 15 years ago it couldn't be done. 15 years ago, the movies that you can see on any street corner in even nice towns like Verona and Cedar Grove and Caldwell. You'd have to see in some, what's called the underground movie world, even 15 years ago. So though it's been a problem that's always been with man, there's been a tremendous acceleration coming through the mass media, on the television. Even unconverted people are concerned that the things that they would wait to show till two or three in the morning to the so-called adult, mature audiences have been pushed up to twelve o'clock, eleven o'clock, ten o'clock, until now at the prime family hours of nine and ten o'clock. There's raw, open, un-Paris. perversion and wickedness of every form of sensualism being spawned upon the living room audience of the American home. Now, what lies at the root of this? I'll tell you what lies at the root of it. As with so many of the other curses of our generation, this is another one of the tentacles of the terrible, God-dishonoring lie of evolution. Oh, you say, Pastor, you're on a kick. Everything that's wrong, you say, all right, listen to me now, don't turn me off. As long as the rank and file of men and women at least have some consciousness that they are something qualitatively different from the animal. In other words, they may not know they are creatures made in the image of God, but at least they know this much, whatever a dog is, I am not. Not simply because I have two legs and he four, but I am qualitatively different. It's not that he has intelligence and I have more. No, no, I am something different. As long as a man views himself as something different and in some remote way a creature of God, he will instinctively place work upon the soul, upon the relationship of the inner life to God, upon non-material values. spiritual values, to use the common term. But if you can convince a generation that there is basically no difference between the human being and the ape and the dog and the cow, that it's only a matter of degrees of intelligence and degrees of development, why it's obvious in the realm of the beast world and animal kingdom, that all that matters is instinct and sense. Animals live for the world of now. If they're hungry, they want to eat. If they itch, they're going to scratch. If they're scared, they'll shiver or bark or squeal or whatever it is, if it's a cat or whatever it else is. Their whole life is governed by the world of now. There is no eternity, there is no world beyond the grave, there is no God above, so that their whole world in a very real sense is bounded by their senses. So animals are sensual creatures. They live by animal instinct. And so when the evolutionary lie was spawned a hundred years ago and lapped up, we have reared two-and-a-half, three-and-a-half generations of people who, for the most part, believing the lie that man is no different from the beast qualitatively, there can only be one result. He's going to act and think and be and wrong as a beast, so that the whole circle of his instinct will be what? This whole circle of his interest will be instinct, passion, physical desire, sensual appetite, and everything will be made subservient to that. When you read Romans chapter 1 and you see it being relived before our eyes, when men do not want to retain God in their thinking, they exchange the truth of God for a lie, and what will be the result? You read it in Romans 1.25, they will worship and serve the thing created rather than the Creator. Now, our text says that the man who is blessed refuses to walk in the council of ungodliness that tells him that the way of blessedness and happiness is that way of scratching every sensual itch immediately and completely. Now, why does he refuse to walk in that council? Why does he refuse to buy that life? Well, you see, the man who meditates in the law of God day and night will have his thought patterns shaped and molded by Holy Scripture. And anyone who reads Holy Scripture will find certain great principles emerging as touching his sensual appetites. When he opens up his Bible in Genesis and when he closes it in the book of the Revelation, though he may not remember any specific verse to quote from memory, he will have absorbed something of the mood and climate of the Bible with respect to sensual appetite. And what will that attitude be? May I suggest it will be characterized by three aspects of understanding. Number one, the man who meditates in the law of God day and night, that blessed man, We'll recognize in the first place that sensual pleasure was never meant to bring blessing or to be the basis of blessing. We turn again to Genesis chapter 1. We want to do something similar tonight with the matter of our sensual nature or our sensual appetites as we did with regard to things. In the first place, you notice that God was the author of man's senses. He created Adam and Eve with an eyeball that is a marvelous and intricate instrument. It has capacity for light, for distinguishing of color. It can take in the whole spectrum of color. God made them with that eyeball that could register all those colors and their relationship to each other. Then he placed them in a garden in which there was the full display of all the beauty that the eye could drink in. There's the God who created the eye, one of the senses, who created the garden that was beautiful to look upon. It doesn't say as much, but from what we know of plant life, God made Adam and Eve with olfactory nerves, that's your smellers. And he made those olfactory nerves so that they could be sensitive to different smells. And then he placed them in a garden that was replete with all forms of vegetation that no doubt had a beauty of smell that has never been equaled because even the most beautiful flowers that you smell in a florist shop now, remember, these are smells in a cursed world, in a cursed earth. There was no sin there. He made everything pleasant to the touch. When Adam would reach out to touch a rose, he never had to fear that he would prick his finger on a thorn. Thorns are the result of a curse, according to Genesis 3. Everything was pleasant to the touch. Everything was satisfying to his taste. God says, I've given you all the herbs of the field, good for food, tremendous variety. You talk about exotic herbs. You talk about the gourmet section. Well, Adam's garden was nothing but one big gourmet section. Had it all, every kind of exotic herb and food. Delightful to his taste. And who could begin to imagine the beauty that there must have been, with no curse of God on the creation. For Paul says in Romans 8, the whole creation groans now. And even in the sounds of the animals, there's something of the groaning of a cursed creation. Can you imagine what it was like in a creation where there was no curse? where all the birds sang in harmony and the animals making their noises native to their own being and own constitution would all be one harmonious great peon of praise to God. Now God put Adam and Eve in the midst of all of that with all of those senses able to appreciate all of the things answering to their senses and then he brought the woman to the man and he was delighted with her He commanded them to be fruitful and multiply, indicating that all the joy they would know in their union with each other, in the fulfillment of their full sexuality, was pleasing to God and delightful to Him. God arranged it so they'd be able to rest at night, and when Adam would put his head on his pillow of gathered grass or something, he would delight in his rest and wake the next morning grateful for it. But God made clear to Adam that the blessedness he knew was not rooted in his relationship to the world of sense, but in relationship to himself. So what did he do? He made the very test of man's abiding in blessedness to focus around the area of his sensual appetites. He put a tree of knowledge of good and evil that had fruit upon it, that according to the record of Scripture was what? was good to look upon, pleasant to the eyes, and it really made your mouth water. It was food that would gratify the senses. Right? Isn't that what the record in Genesis says? But God was saying in essence, I've given you all the trees of the garden, and of those trees you may freely eat. You may gratify all of your sensual appetites legitimately. You may eat of them freely. You don't need to go on just a pear diet or a grapefruit diet, Adam. You can have the whole spectrum, in season and out of season. It's there for you to have, Adam. But, notice, verses 16 and 17 of chapter 2, though you may eat of every tree, Fully satisfy your sensual appreciation of food, of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. Adam, your blessedness will be maintained as long as you recognize the root of blessedness is your relationship not to the world of sense, but to me, but to me. And the moment you, in your mind, forget that, and seek to maintain blessedness and increase blessedness by having more sensual delight, you'll die. Blessedness will cease. And the sad account follows in Genesis 3, that after Adam's sin, you don't find he and Eve saying, oh well, we've lost our blessedness in our relationship to God, let's go smell a few flowers and we'll get it back again. that they lost to a ruptured relationship to God, nothing in the realm of their senses could retain. You don't find Adam putting his arm around Eve and saying, oh well, we've lost our blessedness and relationship to our God, but if we make up the lack by our love to each other, all will be well. No, no indication of this. No indication. They went out and said, well, let's sit on the hillside and listen to the chirping of the birds. Though there's an aching void left because we've lost blessedness through rebelling against God, we can fill it with the chirping of birds. No. They ran and they hid themselves amidst all this tremendous opportunity for a full expression of sensual delight. The birds had not changed their chirping. The food and the herbs had not lost their deliciousness. Adam and Eve had not lost their capacity to be lost in love one to another on a physical level, on an emotional level. But having experienced a ruptured relationship to God, nothing in the world of sense could fulfill the aching void left by a vacated God. And Adam and Eve instinctively knew that the way of blessedness could not be found in those things. And the man who reads the word of God, sooner or later, though he may not put it out in those words, he comes to understand this. Sensual pleasure was never meant to bring blessedness. So when the mass media scream out their gospel, do you want to be blessed? Here's how to be blessed. Get into the world of sensual satisfaction. Gratify your appetites for exotic foods and for ease and leisure and rest. an uninhibited sexual expression. That's the way of blessedness. The man of God, the blessed man, that blessed fellow, that blessed girl says, no, I will not walk in your counsel, for my God has revealed in his word that sensual pleasure was never meant to be the basis of blessedness. The second thing the man who meditates in the law of God will understand is that sin enters and thrives when men think blessedness can be had. in sensual pleasure out of the will of God. The man who meditates in the law of God comes to understand that sin will enter and sin will thrive whenever a man or woman begins to believe that blessedness can be had in sensual objects out of the will of God. That's how sin entered the human race. It says, when Eve saw that it was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes, The other thing we'll leave for another aspect, but that was, those were two of the three aspects of the temptation. Good for food would gratify the sense appetite for food. Pleasant to the eyes, beautiful to look upon. It says she took and she gave to her husband. You see, the main appeal that Satan made to Eve was through the sensual. And this is precisely the way he's operated ever For when man sinned, though he lost his relationship to God, he did not lose his sensual appetites, nor his appreciation of those things that come through the senses. So the devil now has a tremendous lever by which to pry men in the direction of his own purposes. Because sin comes with an appeal to the sensual, and the sensual is very real to us. Bunyan captured this so beautifully in The House of the Interpreter, when Christian came and saw these two children, one called Passion and the other one called Patience, and there they were sitting, one pouting and the other one, if I remember, holding his bag, and he wanted to know what the meaning of this was. Passion seemed to be very much discontented, but Patience was very quiet. And so Christian said, what's the reason of the discontent of passion? And the interpreter answered, the governor of them would have him stay for his best things till the beginning of next year, but he will have all now. Now. Passion was the first fellow of the now generation. Gotta have everything now. And then as you read through the development of this, the interpreter said, these two are figures. Passion is the men of this world. Patience are the believers who are willing to wait for their portion in the world to come. And then the interpreter says in closing this section something that is tremendously helpful. Therefore passion had not so much reason to laugh at patience because he had his good things at first as patience will have to laugh at passion because he had his best things last. For first must give place to last. But I perceive it is not best to covet things that are now, but to wait for things to come. Interpreter, you say the truth, for the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal. Now here's the part. But though this be so, yet since things present and our fleshly appetite are such near neighbors one to another, you get it? Things present and our fleshly appetite are such near neighbors, And because things to come and carnal sense are such strangers one to another, therefore it is that the first of these so suddenly fall into friendship. That is, things present and passionate. You get the message? He's saying what makes men so susceptible to giving in to this philosophy of sensualism is that when the appeal comes, it's always in the now. Gratify the appetites now. When a man is hungry, the thought of gratifying his appetite for hunger is the most real thing in all the world. Heaven, hell, the world to come, those things aren't real. I've got an annoying stomach, you see. When someone's passion and appetite is inflamed for some sensual delight, all the person can think about, this cause, every other issue is, I must gratify this passion, this appetite. And so this becomes the basis of the reality and the seductiveness of temptation. Therefore, it's not surprising to read in Hebrews 11.25 that when Moses weighed the issues of the call of God upon his life, it is said that he chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a cease. And that's what makes sin seductive. There is the momentary pleasure. So the philosophy of sensualism that comes screaming at us through the mass media is such a subtle thing because it finds in us a response in the realm of immediate gratification. But the man who meditates in the law of God will realize it's sin that enters and sin that thrives seeking to get me to gratify sensual appetite out of the will of God. And then the third thing the man who meditates in the law of God will understand is that sensual indulgence without respect to the will of God incurs the judgment of God. That's what happened to Adam and Eve. Will they gratify their senses out of the will of God? Oh yes, that tree and its fruit is pleasant to look upon. It looks like it will taste good. But if we gratify these sensual appetites contrary to the will of the God who said thou shalt not, then there's only one thing, judgment. Judgment. And this is seen throughout the length of Scripture. Sodom and Gomorrah are an illustration of this principle. The Canaanites are an illustration of this principle. Even in the lives of the saints of God you see it. When a David would gratify his sensual appetite out of the will of God, judgment must come, the death of his child, the terrible shame that his own sons brought upon him when his son goes into David's concubines in a tent in the sight of all Israel. Judgment must follow. And so it is not surprising to find such strong statements as these in the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 6, 9, be not deceived. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor abusers of themselves with mankind. The great dominant sins listed there, for they were the dominant sins of Corinth, were sins of sensualism, gratifying sensual appetite with no reference to the will of God. And Paul says, only one thing can follow, the judgment of God. This is true in Galatians 5.19, the works of the flesh are manifest, adultery, fornication, uncleanness. Then he goes on to say, I tell you now as I told you before, that they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. You find it in Revelation 21.8, the fearful, the unbelieving, the whoremongers, the idolaters and the adulterers and liars and murderers shall have their parts. in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone. You see, it's everywhere. You cannot read the scripture. The man who meditates in the law of God day and night absorbs this concept. Sensual appetite, gratified, out of the will of God, must bring judgment. So when the mass media come, and they show me the torrid embrace of the illicit love affair, and there's something in my flesh that would respond to that, the man who meditates in the word of God says, yes, but you're not telling me the whole thing. The man and woman that embrace out of the revealed will of God will one day hug to their prisms the flames of hell. And the man who meditates on the law of God, he sees that. And when the mass media come seeking to convey their gospel of sensualism, and they show the pretty young woman sipping the soft whiskey, the soft whiskey, soft enough for a woman, The man who meditates on the Lord God sees beyond that, and he sees the form of that woman, her eyes uplifted in hell, crying out for a drop of water to cool that down. It's not a shot of Calvin, just a drop of water. You see, the man whose thought patterns are steeped in Holy Scripture, he will not buy the gospel of sensualism, for he knows that to gratify any of these appetites without respect to the will of God is to welcome the judgment of God. Well, if this is so then, that as he meditates in the law of God, he realizes sensual pleasure was never given to be the basis of blessedness, that it's sin that thrives and enters when I think it can bring the way of blessedness? And if I do, is to incur the judgment of God. How does a man find blessedness in a world filled with this philosophy when he himself has sensual appetites? What does he do? What do you do? How does blessedness come? Well, some would answer, If you're a Christian and you're concerned about the relationship of your soul to God, then the only answer is to treat your body like it was your mortal enemy and all of its sensual appetites and capacities, trample them underfoot and utterly disregard them. That's the doctrine of asceticism. It would say that it's beneath the dignity of a Christian to sit down at a good steak dinner and salivate as he sees that sizzling steak put on his plate, and to lick his chops when it's all done. They'd say that's beneath the dignity of a man of God. That's beneath the dignity of a woman of God. That's being like an animal. They would say it's beneath the dignity and beneath the calling of a true man or woman of God to actually look forward to, with legitimate longing, to the relationship of a husband and wife to each other. Sex might be an evil to be tolerated, to procreate a godly seed, sort of like going to the dentist. You've just got to tolerate it if you don't want your teeth to rot and fall out. But it's certainly not the best situation. It would be better to have teeth that never rotted. And so this is the philosophy that sex is looked upon and the union of a husband and wife as sort of a necessary evil but never to be looked upon as something for which a Christian couple can thank God and toward which they can look with truth. fully relish and delight. Now I would say at the very outset that if anyone has that concept, either in its full developed form or in its germ form, and many of us perhaps have it in the germ form more than we realize, that's an utter denial of the doctrine of creation and the doctrine of redemption. When God made man, he made him a sensual creature. He made him more than that, but he made him that. He didn't make him less than that. It was God who made Adam and Eve with an eyeball that could see all the colors and appreciate all of them. The devil didn't do it. It was God who made Adam and Eve with noses that had olfactory nerves that registered up in the brain that told them, that smells good, that don't smell so good. I don't know if there were skunks in the garden. But if there were, Adam would have known skunk is not roses. So God made man with his capacity to smell and appreciate the beautiful, and to be repulsed by that which is not so beautiful. It's God who made Adam and Eve with ears that could appreciate the whole range of sound. If you were buying tape recorders, you always want to look at that schematic that says 4,000 to 20,000, the range you see, the audio range, the full spectrum of sound. God made Adam that way. It was God who made them bisexual creatures. Eve the female, Adam the male, and brought them together and said, be fruitful and multiply, cleave to thy wife. It was God in creation who made man a sensual creature. He made him more than that, but he didn't make him less than that. So that the people who would say to the Christian, if you want to be blessed, then you've got to take all your sensual appetites and just treat them as sort of necessary evils or your enemies and trample them underfoot, is denying the doctrine of creation. And in the second place, he's denying the doctrine of redemption, that when the Lord purchased you by his blood, he purchased all of you, every bit of you. I want you to turn to 1 Corinthians 6 for a moment, for it's in the very context of what we would call a sensual appetite, that one of the most glorious treatments of redemption is given. It's in the context of Paul dealing with the problem of sexual immorality, 1 Corinthians chapter 6, that he says in verse 15, Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I take then the members of Christ and make them the members of Enharlot? God forbid! What, know ye not that he which is joined to Enharlot, that is, joined in sexual relationship, is one body? For two, saith he, shall be one flesh. Now notice, here's the interpretation of Genesis, that when it says the two shall be one flesh, it involves the physical union of the man and the woman. It involves more than that, but it does involve that much. But he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body, but he that committed fornication sinneth against his own body. Now he's going to give these Christians the highest reason why they should not commit fornication. And here it is. What? Know ye not that your body, a body that has sensual appetite and capacities, is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. For his by right of purchase is redeemed the whole person. Now how do you glorify God in your body? on the negative by avoiding illicit sensual expression. Flee fornication! Now some would say, all right, let's go to the next step and flee all expressions of sensual appetite. No, for he moves in the very next chapter to say, notice carefully, in verse 2 and 3, nevertheless to avoid fornication, Let every man have his own wife, and every woman have her own husband. Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence. That's just a fancy old English way of saying, let the husband give to the wife and meet her sexual needs, and likewise the wife unto the husband. And then he goes on to say in verse 5, don't withhold yourselves one for the other, except it be with consent for a season. How do you glorify God in your redeemed body? By acting like you don't have sensual appetite for food and sex and rest? No, but by recognizing that the God who made me has redeemed the whole me and I present the whole me to him to be used to his glory in the fulfillment of his will. The man who meditates in the law of God, the man who therefore is blessed Is the man who, in answer to the question, what shall I do then with my sensual appetites, realizes that the answer, deny them and trample them, is not of God? For it's a denial of the doctrine of creation and redemption. In fact, if you'll turn to 1 Timothy 4, anyone who seems to teach in the name of Christ that Christians ought to be ascetics and deny their sensual appetites to the spiritual, This passage says that such doctrines are spawned not by the Spirit of God, but by the spirit of demons. Notice. Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, 1 Timothy 4, 1, that in the latter kind some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron. Now, what is their doctrine? Notice. Forbidding to marry, that is, it's beneath the dignity of a Christian to be involved in a sexual relationship and commanding to abstain from meats. It's beneath his dignity to give vent to the sensual appetite for meat. You see, this is a doctrine of asceticism. Pretty well fits a well-known church, doesn't it? that says celibacy is a higher state than marriage, and that if you want to advance your piety, used to be every Friday, now it's just maybe during Lent and special holy days, you abstain from certain meats that makes you more holy, where that doctrine come from? It comes from demons. It can't come from God, for it would be denial of the God of creation who made us with these appetites, who made the world filled with the means to satisfy them, and the God who's redeemed us in Christ and redeemed the whole you and the whole me. Now anything that denies the God of creation and redemption can't come from that God. So it's got to come from another spirit, and Paul says it comes from the spirit, the foul spirit. It's the doctrine of demons. And beloved, I say this because I know how real this can be. I shall never forget the first time my good friend Mr. Riesinger took me out And he said, you got to get you one of those steaks there. He pointed down and I couldn't believe my eyes. I think it said something like $5.95 or $6.95. I've never eaten a $6.95 steak in my life. I felt kind of squeamish about it, you know, I just felt this can't be spiritual. I mean, let's face it, with the need on the mission field and people stuck. $5.95, well, he overrode my objections and he ordered the steak for me. But you know, my conscience rinsed with every bite. Oh, it was hard going back. You know, the Lord used that. I began to see something. Because I was brought up lean, one of ten children, a father who started working in Connecticut when I was born, shortly after I was born, and another little one two years later, two years later another one, just to count about it, every two years, started working at $18 a week, a mother who was convinced her responsibility was at home, so she stayed there, did her job of rearing her kids, There wasn't even a nickel to ask for. We didn't ask for nickels. There weren't any there. And I was brought up lean. And I'm grateful for it. And I went off to college lean. My wife will tell you, when I courted her for that year we were together in school, the most I ever bought for her was, you can get apples for seven cents at the school shop. I never had enough, I never had money to take her out to eat anywhere. And I used to eat my apple in a hurry and eat about half of hers. She likes to tell that story. And so we were brought up lean. They brought up lean. And you see, where that was the discipline of God for my life, without knowing it, I began to have an ascetic's view that to really sit down and enjoy a real good piece of meat, there's something a little beneath one's dignity. I felt unless I could feel the splinters of the cross in everything, somehow I wasn't in the way of holiness. If you're in the way of holiness, you've got to feel the splinters of the cross at every turn. And because of that, I found it difficult to sit down and really have a good laugh over something that was just plain human. Not old man or new man, but just plain human. Just something that was funny. I found it difficult to sit down and enjoy good classical music. I found it difficult to see the wholeness of life. So concerned I was about the spiritual, that anything that touched the sensual I felt was a little bit beneath my dignity. And I imagine there are some of you who may have this same problem. I would imagine in a group this size there are some of you men and women who perhaps have this problem with regard to your relationship to each other in the marriage bond. Oh, may I say to you, soak your soul with the biblical doctrine of creation and redemption until you see that the answer to the Christian in the midst of this mass media's gospel is not asceticism, nor is it On the other hand, to make these things your goal, no, you know that blessedness will never come in sensual pleasures if the face of God is clouded like Adam and Eve. You know, if God is vacated, no delight can come from smelling flowers and embracing one's wife. Well, what are you going to do then? Now, may I suggest three positive things tonight? I hope I can get through in the time allotted. The man who meditates in the law of God day and night He faces these sensual capacities as God's gift. 1 Timothy 4.4, I didn't read that verse purposely. The reason now Paul gives as to why a Christian can marry and enjoy a six dollar steak if he happens to have a friend who will buy one for him, is this, for every creature or every creation of God is good and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving. But Christian recognizes that his capacity to enjoy beautiful music and enjoy beautiful sights and beautiful smells, his capacity to appreciate food, his taste buds, his sexual appetites, he recognizes, these are God's gracious gifts to me, and I receive them as his gift. The scripture says, having food in Raman, let us be content. It doesn't say having food in raiment, let us be grudgingly thankful, but long for the day when we don't need food in raiment. No, it says let's be content. Let's enjoy the things God has given us, as 1 Timothy 6.17 says, who giveth us all things richly to enjoy. The Christian, the man who meditates in the law of God, the blessed man, who is to be kept in the one hand from the gospel of sensualism, trying to find blessedness in the appetites and senses As the man who recognizes these appetites and capacities are God's gift, I receive them with thanksgiving. That's why Paul speaks so frankly there in 1 Corinthians 7 of the marriage relationship. You read Proverbs 5.15, anything that's in the Word of God, I don't think anyone should be beyond preaching it. We ought not be more discreet than God is. It says, Rejoice in the wife of thy youth. Be ravished always with her love. Let her breast satisfy thee at all times. For why should thou embrace the bosom of a foreigner? That's good, wholesome, common sense. God has given you a wife. Be lavished with her love and delight in her love. That's the teaching of Scripture. Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed is undefiled. Hebrews 13, verse 4. The Song of Solomon, contrary to most of the commentators, is not primarily an allegory on Christ in the Church. It's a poem on the beauty of the love that exists between a husband and wife. and is to be read as such. And whatever other analogy may be there, the main purpose of the Song of Solomon, God has put in his holy word this love poem between the shepherd and his spouse in order that we might see the beauty of the human love that exists between a man and a woman. And the second thing the child of God will do, who begins to steep his mind in scripture is, will not only face these appetites as the gift of God, but by God's grace, he will subject them to God's laws. Now that's simple enough, isn't it? If God gave me this capacity for food, I'd better see if he says anything how it should be fulfilled. If God gave me this capacity for sight and hearing, God gave the capacity for sexual expression, and the God who gave it must have had a purpose. Therefore, by His grace, I will subject these things, receive them as from God, but subject them to the law of God." And God has spoken very clearly. One of the key words that come out of Scripture as we think of what His law is with regard to these things? The glory of God. Whether you eat or drink, that sensual activity, right? Eating, drinking. For whatsoever you do, do what? All to the glory of God. The end in view, you see, is entirely different. The gospel of sensualism that comes through the mass media has at its end the gratification of your sensual appetites, no reference to God. Whereas the philosophy of Scripture is the gratification of my sensual appetites, having been received in thanksgiving from God, they issue back in gratitude to God. So that I eat not just to titillate my taste buds according to the McCann's, but that having them titillated in the process, I may be strengthened to do the will of God. See? That I don't gratify sexual appetite simply to be gratified, that's animal, but that in this fulfillment God may be glorified in a union that is a beautiful picture of Christ. of his church. Isn't that how Paul uses it in Ephesians chapter 5? The next key word in this matter of subjecting them to God's law, the glory of God, the next key word is moderation. Let all things be done in moderation. God has given the capacity to eat and to enjoy food, but he condemns gluttony. That's the abuse of a good thing. The same passage that says in Hebrews 13 that marriage is honorable and the marriage bed undefiled goes on to say, but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge those who refuse to subject this appetite to the revealed will of God. The word temperance is a key word. Self-control. 1 Corinthians 6 and verse 12, the Apostle Paul deals with this when he says, Meats for the belly and belly for the meats, but I'll not be brought under bondage of any of them. I'll never let my sensual appetites master me, but I shall master them. I shall make them my servants and never become their slaves. See the difference? In one, they serve me to the glory of God. In the other, I serve them. to the dishonoring of God and to the destruction of my own soul. And then in the last place, the Christian, the man who meditates in the law of God, will not only face these sensual capacities as God's gift and receive them and thank God for them, and secondly, by God's grace, subject them to God's laws, but now listen carefully, he will regulate them by the fact of the presence of sin. You see, our sensual appetites in a disordered world can wreak havoc with us. Before sin entered, there was no danger that Adam and Eve would destroy themselves by their sensual appetites. But since sin has entered and has affected the whole person, the mind, the appetites, the affections, the will, therefore my sensual appetites can become a tremendous source of downfall. Therefore I will regulate their use. I will regulate their satisfaction by the fact of the presence of sin, first of all in myself. I recognize, as Paul did in 1 Corinthians 9.27, the necessity of buffeting my body and bringing it under, lest by giving too free a reign to my sensual appetites they take the bit in their mouth and run off and leave me behind. In this way you see gluttony and immorality and spiritual barrenness many times are tied together. You read about it in Jeremiah 5, 7, and 8. God says, I fed you to the full. Then he says, you went astray from me, and then you went nailing every man after his neighbor's wife. God uses a very crude illustration. He says you were like wild beasts. That's what he says they did. But there was a relationship, you see, between gluttony, overindulgence of the appetite for food, with immorality, unlawful indulgence of the sexual appetite. So the child of God, like Paul, will recognize, I must keep my body under, I must discipline it, I must keep these appetites subservient to the will of God, and never forgetting the fact of sin that would betray me through my appetites. Therefore he's careful about the books he reads, the programs he watches upon TV. He will seek to flee youthful lusts. He will not seek to put sparks upon the tinderbox of his own remaining corruption. Beloved, I frankly as a Christian cannot understand the man or the woman who can promiscuously watch his TV, promiscuously read modern magazines. I can't understand it. Either I'm so desperately, terribly wicked, far more than these people, or they're just plainer living in a fool's paradise about the corruption of their own hearts. You can't put dry leaves by sparks and hope to come away without some fire. And so the man who's blessed, he doesn't try to act as though he doesn't have these aphrodites, that they are sinful. No, he receives them as the gift of God, but he never forgets. I'm in a sinful world with the remains of sin within, so he regulates them by the fact of sin in himself, secondly by the fact of sin in others. So he realizes that he can have an effect upon others, and Luke 17 says it's necessary in a sinful world that offenses come, but woe unto that man by whom they come. This is what makes a Christian woman careful about her dress. She just doesn't go to Vogue magazine. to see what the latest style is and slavishly adhere to the style because she knows behind those styles is the council of ungodliness with its philosophy of what? Sensualism! She recognizes, oh, if we were in a world that wasn't disordered by sin, I wouldn't have to worry. But because it is a sinful world and lust can be provoked so easily and so quickly, I must regulate my clothing, my conversation, what I say. how I talk, the glances of mine eye. You read the book of Proverbs, it speaks and speaks about those who wink with the eye. It talks about the woman who had the attire of an harlot, her clothing matched her occupation. Oh beloved, these appetites, these capacities, the appreciation of physical beauty. In a fallen world it's a dangerous thing. I'm sure it's perfectly right. As I appreciate a beautiful sunset to be able to appreciate a beautiful woman, the creation of God. But because I'm a fallen creature, the line between appreciation of beauty and lust is a line that I confess I don't know where it is at times. I must not give my own heart the benefit of the doubt. I must not in any way cast the voge in the preference of my lust and passions. You must be careful of your relationship to others and then in the world. will recognize the fact of sin in the world, sin at large, that the gospel must be preached. Therefore, there are certain times when I must forego a legitimate expression of sensual appetite and desire for the sake of lost sinners. Maybe I'd like one of those six-dollar sakes, but it might have to cut into some money that could legitimately go to the work of God. Nothing wrong with enjoying that six-dollar stake. But if it means I must cut off some supply that will take the gospel to someone else, then I must do as Paul did in 1 Corinthians 9. He says, don't we have a right to lead about a wife? Don't we have a right to live of the gospel? He says, absolutely, but we deny ourselves these rights. Why? That we might reach others. 1 Corinthians 7, he says, husband and wife are to render due benevolence in the sexual relationship. But, he says, if there comes a time when there's a particular need and they want to give themselves to concerted prayer, then they consent together to forego the legitimate relationship of the marriage bed. Why? Because they're in a sinful world that needs the application of the gospel with power. Therefore, it needs the prayers of God's people. Therefore, Legitimate appetite must be foregone in order that these ends of the proclamation of the gospel be realized. Now, when you find a man or woman, a fellow or girl, who has imbibed these concepts of Scripture, he's found a way of blessedness in this end. He can face himself as a true man. He realizes, I'm not an angel. Angels are made without sensual desires and appetites. But God didn't make me an angel. I'm a man, and I get hungry. When I smell something on the stove, I salivate. And when I see my wife, my heart skips a beat sometimes. Still yet after 12 years. Yeah. So what am I going to do? Well, don't try to be like an angel. If God wanted to make you an angel, he'd have made you one back when he made angels. But he didn't. He made you a man. Now accept your humanity. Accept your masculinity, your femininity. Accept the appetites and capacities. Face them as God's gifts. By His grace, subject them to His laws, and then regulate them continually, facing the fact of sin in yourself, in others, and in the world at large. And to that extent that you walk not in the counsel of ungodliness that says, since you have a sensual itch, scratch it. Since you have a sensual urge, fulfill it! All it brings is ruin, wreck and ruin. And oh, I trust that you, dear young people, again, especially my heart is concerned about you as I think of this, because I know there's no hope for you unless God is pleased to burn these things in your eyes. You're going to go down under. It's just too powerful a gospel coming with too many subtle evangelists with too great powers of persuasion. You're not going to stand. unless by the grace of God you meditate in the law of God day and night and your mind and heart become so marinated in these biblical concepts that you can stand in the midst of an age in which the gospel of sensualism is preached on every hand and you can find a way of blessing. May God grant that it should be so. And I trust if God has spoken in specific areas to your own heart, before you pillow your head tonight, do some definite business with God. If you've had an ascetic's view, tell the Lord you've sinned against Him as the God of creation and redemption. If you've had the view of the libertine that says whenever you've got an itch, scratch it immediately and completely, then confess it. Wherever our thinking must be adjusted, may God help us to adjust it, for to that extent we'll be more further into the way of blessings. Still Waters Revival Books is now located at PuritanDownloads.com. 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