A Word about Sexual Sins

A Word about Sexual Sins 

By Fred O. Blakely

Very much of today's society not only condones sexual sins; it actually glorifies them. Fornication among teenage boys and girls is euphemized as "sexual activity," and paraded in some circles as an acceptable norm. In case of the adults, it is dubbed "living-in," "trial marriage”, or the like. Adultery, which is the sin of sexual relation between a married person and someone other than the lawful spouse, is simply called "extramarital sex" and is increasingly practiced and "respectabilized".

Recently, on the news there has been brought to light a company that provides a service, via the Internet, enabling married persons to “cheat” on their spouses, only behind their backs.  This company made news headlines only because their database had been hacked, unveiling the confidential information of up to 32 million individuals who had used the “behind the scenes” dating site. According to one news report, there were only 3 Zip Codes in the United States that did not have records of persons who had patronized this company.  And those 3 Zip Codes encompassed areas either where there was no Internet, or had very low population levels.  The issues that were reported in the news pertained primarily to the consequences of the data breach, not to the gross impropriety and wickedness entailed in what this company is doing.

Whoredom, or harlotry, is more and more presented as something taken for granted, and is often toleratingly referred to as "the oldest profession" known to the race. Even sodomy, the ultra-degraded sex sin, is glossed as homosexuality, or “gay”, and depicted as an "alternate life-style", a life-style that is now demanding acceptance and equal rights.

But these attempts at softening the impact upon the conscience of the hard, ugly, and jarring reality of sin are wholly futile with those who know the truth of God's Word, and are determined to abide by it. Sin cannot be redefined, or reinterpreted as to its involvements and consequences by a pope.  Sin is not mitigated by majority practice, public approval, or by giving it new and more acceptable names. And certainly its direful consequences—which, if persisted in, is death—are in no degree whatever altered. Sin still separates from God, which separation in itself is spiritual death (Isa. 59:1-2), and its ultimate end is eternal death (Rom. 6:23: Rev. 21:8, 27), or everlasting exclusion from God's Presence and "the glory of His power" (II Th. 1:7-10).

 The Spirit by Paul plainly declares that "neither fornicators, nor idolators, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind [sodomites] . . . shall inherit the kingdom of God" (I Cor. 6:9-10). "Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge", the Apostle says in another place (Heb. 13:4). They shall "have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death (Rev. 21:8). 

Jude takes up the refrain in his very short, yet pungent epistle: "Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire" (v. 7). The "strange flesh" of reference is any "flesh" outside the divinely ordained husband and wife relationship.

For those in Christ, the body is "the temple of the Holy Spirit," and they are not their own, having been "bought with a price," even the precious blood of God's Son (I Cor. 3:19-20).

Thus, whoever commits fornication or adultery both "sinneth against his own body," and against God (vv. 15-18; cf. Gen. 39:8). This is because the body "is not for" such desecration, "but for the Lord" (v. 13). The commandment, then, is to "flee" both sins (v. 18). (The Greek word from which we get our word "fornication" as used here, denotes the practice of sexual immorality, irrespective of whether the involved persons are married or unmarried.)

In view of this unequivocal condemnation of fornication and adultery, it is incumbent upon the church to make it known to this wantonly wicked generation. "God is not mocked" by man's impudent defiance of His laws (Gal. 6:7-8), but will, as Solomon declared, "bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing" (Eccl. 12:14). And, as we have seen from Corinthians and Revelation, that judgment against fornicators and adulterers, unless they repent, forsake those sins, and are forgiven of them, will be eternal banishment from the Divine Presence. Today's profligates desperately need to have that grave reality drummed into their ears and hearts.