Dealing With The Scourge Of Incest

This is from a sermon preached on the prayer line of the Believer's Evangelical Fellowship

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Tonight we face a serious family issue head-on, with prayers and the word of God.

Incest is defined as: “The crime of sexual intercourse or cohabitation between a man and woman or male or female who are related to each other within the degrees wherein marriage is prohibited by law.” Now you can add homosexual relationships between family members too. That’s what the world has come to.

Incest is one of the worst things that can envelop a family or individual. Because of the nature of it which is having sexual relations with your family member or close relative, it is usually a form of violent rape. Why? Because, usually, one of the partakers will resist it because of the abhorrent nature of the act.

So usually incest comes along with rape and violence. Family lines have been destroyed for eons because of this simple act of selfishness and lack of control. Nowadays you read of mothers making sex tapes with their own children, inbreeding with their own children and all what not. You see small children whose parents have left pornography carelessly around in the house and they watch it and the only person they can practice it with is their little sister or brother.

Unfortunately, victims of this callous crime are too traumatized to come forward for spiritual help, and so their lives are virtually destroyed. Parents, especially mothers have to be discerning and alert, to wrong trends in the house. A child walking with the wrong gait may have been assaulted. The trusted boyfriend who you live to take care of your child will take advantage of you because you are using him as a crutch and he knows you might turn a blind eye.

The drunkard husband or drug-using husband, the unusually close relationship, or pornography loving husband is a prime candidate. You need to be alert.

There are numerous examples of incest in the Bible. The most commonly thought-of examples are the sons/daughters of Adam and Eve (Genesis 4), Abraham marrying his half-sister Sarah (Genesis 20:12), Lot and his daughters (Genesis 19), Moses’ father Amram who married his aunt Jochebed (Exodus 6:20), and David’s son Amnon with his half-sister Tamar (2 Samuel 13). It is important to note, however, that in two of the above instances (Tamar and Lot) one of the parties involved was an unwilling participant in the incest.

It is important to distinguish between incestuous relationships prior to God commanding against them (Leviticus 18:6-18; New King James Version (NKJV)

6 ‘None of you shall approach anyone who is near of kin to him, to uncover his nakedness: I am the Lord. 7 The nakedness of your father or the nakedness of your mother you shall not uncover. She is your mother; you shall not uncover her nakedness. 8 The nakedness of your father’s wife you shall not uncover; it is your father’s nakedness. 9 The nakedness of your sister, the daughter of your father, or the daughter of your mother, whether born at home or elsewhere, their nakedness you shall not uncover. 10 The nakedness of your son’s daughter or your daughter’s daughter, their nakedness you shall not uncover; for theirs is your own nakedness. 11 The nakedness of your father’s wife’s daughter, begotten by your father—she is your sister—you shall not uncover her nakedness. 12 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s sister; she is near of kin to your father. 13 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister, for she is near of kin to your mother. 14 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s brother. You shall not approach his wife; she is your aunt. 15 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your daughter-in-law—she is your son’s wife—you shall not uncover her nakedness. 16 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother’s wife; it is your brother’s nakedness. 17 You shall not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, nor shall you take her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter, to uncover her nakedness. They are near of kin to her. It is wickedness. 18 Nor shall you take a woman as a rival to her sister, to uncover her nakedness while the other is alive.)

After God’s commands had been revealed, any case of incest became abominable. Until God commanded against it, it was not incest. It was just marrying a close relative.

We know that Adam and Eve had other sons and daughters in addition to Abel, Cain, and Seth (Gen. 5:4), and if there was only one original family, then the first marriages had to be between brothers and sisters. Such marriages, in the beginning, were not harmful. Incest is dangerous because inherited mutant genes that produce deformed, sickly, or moronic children are more likely to find expression in children if those genes are carried by both parents. Certainly, Adam and Eve, coming from the creative hand of God, had no such mutant genes. Therefore, marriages between brothers and sisters, or nieces and nephews in the first and second generations following Adam and Eve would not have been dangerous.