Sexuality, Immorality, And Purity

SEXUALITY, IMMORALITY, AND PURITY

Heb. 13:4

http://gbcdecatur.org/sermons/Purity.html

Years ago there was a movie called, "My Best Friend's Wedding." Well, I attended my best friend's wedding, and there I married my best friend.

Today is a great day to say something that needs to be said:

God’s plan for sex includes 1 man and 1 woman, within the marriage relationship.

More than a billion dollars will be spent this year on sex-ed, most of it centering on what has become known as “safe sex”. There is no sex safer than sex within God’s plan!

The world’s version of safe sex is not based on morality at all. Their theme is: “Since you can’t be good, be careful”.

God’s version of safe sex is abstinence until marriage,

I Peter 2:11

Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul…

Yet Biblical morality is laughed at, belittled, called archaic, and old-fashioned.

Entertainment: Rarely in daytime TV will you see lovers who are married to each other. (evening sit coms as well) If it’s not pre-marital sex it’s extra-marital sex…

Advertising: Sex is the #1 seller of everything from beer to perfume to jeans, toothpaste, and breakfast cereal.

“appeal to mankind’s baser instincts”

In the ‘60’s, Hugh Hefner said, “sex is a normal function of the body, it is a desire that man shares w/ the animals, just like sleeping or eating, therefore it is not wrong to satisfy these normal desires”.

Society has swallowed that philosophy, hook, line, and sinker. “Just throw off all your inhibitions, and if it feels good, do it.”

As kids we were taught evolution in the classroom…and now we are acting like it. If you tell a teenager that they are an animal for long enough, he will eventually prove you right!

Josh McDowell was one of Christianity's foremost experts on teenagers.

His research showed that in evangelical church circles:

65% of teens have had some kind of sexual experience before the age of 18. 43% say they have actually gone all the way.

He asked them where they learned their values in this area, and 73% said, “from the movies.” The numbers have worsened since his day.

The good news is that of the 35% who had no experience, the vast majority said the reason was because of a commitment they have made to God.

I’m thankful for a handful of teens who have pledged that, from this day forward, I will abstain until marriage…I will live by God’s plan…/adults who recommit to purity/faithfulness.

A Senator in Washington once said, “Today’s teens are just hormone hurricanes, and you can’t stop a hurricane.”

I’m thankful for a power greater than a hurricane, He’s the Creator of the hurricane, He’s the One that kept my wife and myself pure for each other, He’s our powerful God!

We’ve allowed Sex to become a dirty word. What should be a beautiful picture of love, marriage, and home, it’s now associated w/ words like perversion/aids/prostitution/lesbianism/homosexuality.

Society is learning that there is a penalty for sexual immorality. But rather than coming back to God’s standards, and obeying God’s laws, society says, “Let’s see what we can do to alter the consequences of our actions.”

Let's find cures for STDs, since they are inevitable!

Unwanted pregnancy? Just do away w/ the consequences!

Don’t let anyone get in the way of you having a good time!

3 Words:

SEXUALITY/IMMORALITY/PURITY

1. Sexuality

Sex is not a dirty word.

Teenagers: your generation did not discover sex. God originated it for the benefit of all, within His guidelines.

Parents: Don’t make faces at me for using the word sex. Your kids are hearing lies about it every day and today they will hear the truth.

Older folks: Don’t look so holy at me for talking about God’s gift…you’re here because of it. (The has been only 1 virgin birth and you’re not it!)

Heb. 13:4 (on screen) “Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled.”

Listen carefully: When a man and a woman enter into a marriage contract, the seal of that covenant is their union physically. To give away your virginity before marriage is far more serious than you ever thought possible…as you give away the seal to your marriage contract.

Someday you will fall in love for real with someone and marry them, and you will wish with all your heart to give them the most wonderful gift you ever could, your purity, but I remind you today you can only give it away one time!

Married couples: Just as the physical union w/in marriage seals the covenant of marriage, so a union outside of your marriage w/ anyone else is what breaks the covenant.

Sex is not a physical act alone. There is a spiritual and emotional dimension to sex. If you leave them out, then you lower it to the level of animals.