Sexual Purity In An X-Rated Culture Series

INTRODUCTION

We live in interesting times. Last fall, on November 6, 2012, voters in Washington State approved two controversial issues, same-sex marriage and personal marijuana use. It’s interesting that the Bible says in Leviticus 20:13, “If a man lies with a man; they shall be stoned.” When Moses wrote that 3,500 years, who knew it would make sense in 2013?

We sent out a notice this week to parents of young children announcing my topic. Of course, I won’t be using graphic language or saying anything I wouldn’t say to my own grandchildren, it is a topic that can lead to questions from children. Moms and dads, here’s a parenting tip: teach your children about sex before their hormones hit. If you don’t teach them, someone else will.

Today, I’m joining several thousand pastors around America to speak clearly about sexual morality and the definition of marriage. The reason pastors are speaking on this subject is because the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule this week on whether or not to overturn, DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act passed in 1996, the federal law that defines marriage as a union between one woman and one man.

So there is speculation that this week, America may have a new definition of marriage. For several thousand years the definition of marriage in Western Civilization has been “the lifelong union of a man and woman as husband and wife.” The Supreme Court could redefine marriage as “a combination of any two consenting adults.”

So, before the Supreme Court of the United States rules, I want to remind you that they are not the Supreme Court of the universe. There is a Supreme Judge of humanity, and He is the Lord God. He hasn’t changed His definition of marriage.

I planned this series from 1 Thessalonians about 11 months ago, and “it just so happens” that the very next text in our study deals with sexual purity. What a coincidence. So, let’s see what God’s Word says about Sexual Purity in an X-Rated Culture.

1 Thessalonians 4:1-8. “Finally, brothers, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.”

We’re living in an x-rated culture. When I was a kid, Playboy magazines were kept under the counter at the local Piggly Wiggly. Today, we live in a sex-saturated world where any kind of sexual act can be seen with a couple of clicks of your mouse. Our nation’s sexual morality can be summarized as “As long as it’s consensual, you can have sex as many different ways as you want; with as many different partners as you want; and at any time you want.” All the boundaries have been removed.

If you choose to live a life of sexual purity, you will be considered an oddball. And when you embrace the truth about Biblical marriage and sex, you will be called worse names.

As I thought about this message, I realized that what I’m going to tell you is so foreign to what you are exposed to in books, movies, TV shows, and music, that I’m going to sound like someone from another planet—or maybe from an alternate reality.

Then I realized our situation is like the movie “The Matrix.” In the Matrix the world is run by computers that have everyone fooled into thinking their existence is real. People are kept asleep by malicious computers. But Morpheus leads a small group of people who have awakened and escaped from that dream world. They enlist Neo, but he’s skeptical. Morpheus holds out his hands offering a red pill or a blue pill. He says, “I’m trying to free your mind, Neo, but only you can walk through the door.” If Neo takes the blue pill, he’ll wake up and continue his life of blissful ignorance, like everyone else. If he takes the red pill he will awaken to truth and reality.