Excessive sexual sin and nakedness is one of the marks of our Western culture and much of the world today. Everything is sensual. Everything must be sexy. We live in a sex-craved world, and nakedness jumps out at us from everywhere. It is becoming more and more difficult for men and women to keep themselves in a state of moral purity. The devil is endeavoring to get more and more people naked before Jesus comes. This applies both physically and spiritually (2 Cor. 5:3).
Sexual sin and neglecting the laws of purity in the body of Christ are one of the elements that can potentially bring weakness, sickness and even premature death to many in the church. It is one forgotten aspect of not discerning the Lord’s body (1 Cor. 11:29-31).
Those last statements sound so primitive in today’s contemporary church. There is a lack of ministry from our pulpits in this area because of the fear of forthcoming accusations of being unloving, judgmental, legalistic, and ministering guilt and condemnation. Frankly, we’ve lost our way in this regard. Correction, rebuke and reproof are clearly missing from our counsel in these new crooked days of false comfort and unscriptural mercy.
In days of old, it was rather common for correction to be made not only using the Scriptures but through the manifestation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. For instance, it was observed by one old timer that in praying for the sick, individuals who had been unfaithful in their marriage and had not repented, but who nevertheless sought healing, had been rebuked sternly by the Spirit of God. Back then they understood that only through deep repentance and cleansing through the precious blood of Christ could the gravity of such a sin be pardoned.
Today, as I said, we are considered condemning and judgmental if we minister in such a manner. Yet it is common for many to get in a healing line and seek deliverance, or submit prayer requests while living in gross immorality without any earnest desire for genuine repentance. Those who practice sexual sin, or any other sin for that matter, and profess Christ, are partaking of the body of the Lord unworthily; and in so doing, they are receiving a curse rather than a blessing.
“For he who eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this reason many are weak and unhealthy among you, and many die. If we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged” (1 Cor. 11:29-31).
I realize that sexual temptations are great and no one is exempt from them, and none should boast of their self-righteousness. I’m also aware that in seeking to turn someone from the error of their ways, we must do so in gentleness and humility (Gal. 6:1; 2 Tim. 2:25). But if there is to be victory in this area, it must begin with a reverent understanding and a scriptural estimation of the defiling and degrading nature of sexual sin and its terrible dangers. Before people obey God, they must be thoroughly awakened. Only then will they overcome counteracting forces.
Carefully read these words of one of America’s greatest evangelists, Charles G. Finney:
“Worldly desires, appetites and feelings prevent true Christianity—the human will is, in a sense, enslaved by fleshly and worldly desires. It is therefore necessary for God to awaken people to a counter-feeling that breaks the power of worldly desire and leaves the will free to obey God.”
That ideology, my friends, is clearly absent from the mainstream of contemporary Christianity, and it’s sorely needed.
As in modern-day America, sexual sin and nakedness were celebrated in the city of Corinth and infiltrated the church there. Thus Paul had to remind the Corinthian saints that their bodies were now the temples of God and not their own. Their bodies, as ours, are now members of Christ, so a sin against our bodies is a sin against Christ.
“Do you not know that your bodies are the parts of Christ? Shall I then take the parts of Christ and make them the parts of a harlot? God forbid! … What? Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God, and that you are not your own? You were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Cor. 6:15, 19-20).
Purity precedes power. It’s time to cleanse the temple of God from every form of sin and sexual immorality, beginning with our pulpits. Then, perhaps, we can recover our public testimony and stand with a new authority, sounding the alarm in this dark and desperate hour.
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