The New Testament is replete with warnings about fornication and its potential to not only hinder our relationship with Christ, but harm our soul. The Apostle Paul gave several somber admonitions regarding fornication, which the church today, must heed. This subject does not warrant mention in many pulpits today and is often belittled by society. However, God considers any form of sexual intercourse outside the marriage covenant as a serious transgression. Join Carl now as he shares the dangers of fornication to the spirit, soul and body and the importance of waiting on God for your mate…
Here is a complete transcript of the podcast (below)…
Today friend, we will discuss a topic that few people, let alone Pastors wish to talk about, yet it is rife in Christendom to say the least and that is fornication. No it’s not a four letter word, but it has been seemingly banned as a subject matter in many churches today or simply ‘swept under the rug’ as the proverbial 800 pound Gorilla in the room that no-one wants to address. Some people think Pastors who dare to touch this topic are prudish, set in their ways, or frankly not going with the times etc. but many people are unaware of the serious repercussions of any form of sexual intercourse outside of the marriage covenant. Not only are their physical consequences friend, but I believe we may damage our very own souls by engaging in that which is strictly forbidden in God’s Holy Word.
The Lexham Cultural Dictionary defines Fornication this way,”the practice of engaging in immoral sexual activity, but especially that which is outside the bounds of a marriage covenant.” Its general meaning however refers to every kind of illegal sexual intercourse, that is, any intercourse except between a husband and wife. In other words, any form of sexual immorality can be brought under the umbrella of the term, ‘fornication’ and the bible has much to say about it. If you’re a Christian listening to this broadcast, you shouldn’t be engaging in or practicing fornication..period, otherwise to put it mildly, you re leaving the door wide open for the devil to move in your life and giving him place to set up camp. Not only that, but when you make love to someone, you’re joining your very soul to that other person and if it isn’t sanctioned under the sanctity of the marriage covenant, then you leave yourself wide open to relentless spiritual attack. Lets read…1 Corinthians 6:16–19 it says, 16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” 17 But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit. 18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. 19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own.
Well, you might say this doesn’t apply to me Pastor, I’m not shacking up with a prostitute. Friend regardless, Paul expounded here upon the presence of Temple prostitutes that served in the local idolatrous and ungodly temple to Aphrodite, in which visiting sailors would frequent especially, in the town of Corinth, which has been described as the ‘Amsterdam of the Ancient world.’ Yet we’re missing the point here. When you have sex outside of marriage your soul is bound to that person because in the eyes of God you have become one flesh.
Now, In Romans 1:29 the Apostle Paul lists a whole host of terrible sins which are counted amongst those having a reprobate mind and fornication is listed among them. Jesus also listed a series of defiling sins including fornication along with adultery, in Mt 15:19 and Mk 7:21. To defile one’s self is a serious misdemeanor. To defile something is to corrupt its purity, to violate or debase it. Another definition is to ‘sully, dishonor or desecrate.’ Let me ask you this, would you go to your local church and vandalize the sanctuary? Would you go in there and tear it up with a jack hammer and spray paint? Well that’s what you’re doing to your own body when you don’t honor God’s temple by having sex outside of marriage. But who exactly are we dishonoring?
Well that would be God and the temple in which we live. Lets remind ourselves of 1 Corinthians 3:16–17 (KJV) . “16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? 17 If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.” God will allow its destruction if you allow it friend. This scripture falls in unison with (Heb. 13:4), where it says,”Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.” If you are young person listening to the sound of my voice then keep yourself pure friend, keep yourself for the one God has chosen for you and the sexual experience you will have when you get married, cannot be rivaled outside of it. All the world does, is choose to debase that which is sacred in the eyes of God and you must not friend. The truth is, God will judge those who do not honor the temple He gave them.
Friend we are living in a society that’s rejected God’s word on a grand scale and let’s consider these statistics. Of those in generation X and that includes me friend, only about 15% of us believe God’s word to be true, yet if we switch over to the Millennial’s, only a mere 4% of them believe God’s word to be true. This disregard for the Holy Scriptures is evident in the statistics of sex outside of marriage which provide the pitfalls of ignoring God’s commands concerning our sexual behavior. And let’s be clear by fornication, we mean, premarital sex, extra marital sex, adulterous behavior and engaging in homosexual activity. These all fall under the umbrella of fornication by the Bibles definition. If you’re a young person or even an older Christian for that matter listening to this broadcast, and you’re engaging in a sexual relationship outside of God’s marriage covenant, then shame on you friend. You’re not only shaming yourself but dishonoring the God that gave you breath to live in the first place. Having been in ministry for some years now, I will tell you unequivocally and without reservation that every Christian I have met who continues in fornication, struggles in their Christian walk immensely, because God won’t bless disobedience, but not only that, they leave an open door to the devil in their life who comes in to steal, kill and destroy at his discretion and there isn’t much if anything to stop him friend, because your disobedience grants Satan legal access into your everyday affairs.
1 Corinthians 10:21 says, 21 Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and of the table of devils.” When you partake of fornication outside of God’s covenant, then you are fellowshipping with devils, because sex is a spiritual endeavor not just a physical act. It’s the spiritual binding of one person to another, yet if you or your partner is not faithful, you might find yourself bound to several other people also, other than the person you’re sleeping with. You know friend, King David repented of his indiscretion with Bathsheba but having observed the scriptures, His life was never really the same after that. Trouble came in from many fronts. Friend, fornication is not an alternative lifestyle; it is in direct rebellion to God’s word and it’s sin….plain and simple. Check out this scripture from the book of proverbs, (Prov. 5:3-5). “For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil; but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, and her steps lay hold of hell.”
Friend, fornication changes lives forever, not just yours but your entire family and even the families of others. Making a sober decision to have sex outside of marriage can lead to unwanted pregnancy, abortion, the onset of an incurable STD, losing the love of your life because of betrayal, cause divorce , having a child with birth defects, becoming infertile and even demonic oppression, just to name a few.
Then there are the physical consequences of the act itself. Consider in the US the rise of STD’s or sexually transmitted diseases within 15-24 yr olds, Stat’s show they have the highest risk of acquiring these diseases. These diseases of Chlamydia, Gonorrhea and syphilis, not to mention AIDS can all be deadly in some cases. Some of these diseases have become more progressively difficult to treat in recent years and in the case of syphilis, the disease can be transferred to the children of pregnant women. The health outcomes of syphilis alone include miscarriage, stillbirth, blindness or even stroke. Also approximately 100,000 to 150,000 women become infertile each year as a result of STDs. This is frankly shocking. Sex outside of marriage really is rolling the dice friend. Rolling the dice with your body, soul and spirit, none of which you own I might add, because you’ve been bought with a price.
Due to fornication, 68 million people (or 1 in 5) have a viral STD in the US, with nearly 19 million new cases each year, and rising. Percentage wise, some estimate that nearly half of people will contract an STD in their lifetime. Because of the prevalence of fornication within our society, 40 percent of babies are born out of wedlock each year in this country and that’s a 30 percent increase from just twenty years ago. Then we have abortion, which is merely man’s way of covering up his sin of unbridled or shameless lust.
Friend, these are the consequences of disobeying God’s word and being unfaithful to the person God has planned for you. I urge you to stay faithful to His word and God will preserve your purity. Also, we mustn’t forget that in the list of admonition’s that Paul gave as examples for us in his Corinthian Epistle, fornication was listed as one of the five sins that prevented Israel from entering into the Promised Land of Canaan. Yet because they fornicated without reservation, they were restrained from fulfilling God’s plan for their lives and some even died. Let’s read it now….”Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;….And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ… (v8) Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and twenty three thousand died in one day!”
Am I speaking to you as someone who might fall into this category friend? You might even be in love with this person and both be Christians, yet you have made a mockery of the marriage covenant and God himself; yet you feel his conviction right now….I understand friend, God is tugging at your heart and telling you it’s time to stop this behavior because you’re not only hurting yourself but the other person also, because you’re failing to demonstrate spiritual leadership by enabling their indiscretion also.
Friend, remember what the apostle Paul said explicitly concerning fornication, 1 Corinthians 6:18 18 “Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.” One definition of flee is “to run away often from danger or evil, to hurry toward a place of security.” Friend Paul tells us to ‘flee’ because you’re sinning against yourself and harming yourself if you continue with this unrestrained and immoral behavior. Your prayer life will also be hindered as your continue without repentance.
Friend if I were preaching this message in the 1950’s America, 80% of people would be slapping me on the back saying, ‘way to go Pastor,’ you warn those young people especially about the dangers of fornication. Yet today friend, our culture is rife with sexual exploitation and especially of young people and it’s simply not fair. In years past, a man had to drive perhaps even hundreds of miles to see explicit pornographic material and there was a sense of shame for making that long drive, to a dark and dingy den of despair. Yet today a teenager has the power to access literally thousands of unfiltered pornographic images with his smartphone or on his computer, with a few key strokes. Such is the danger for our young people and quite frankly it’s sickening and God is grieved friend. So bad has this free access to pornography become that North Carolina Republican, Walter Jones, is leading a crusade to stop federal employees from watching and downloading porn on government equipment while at work. “We are over $19 trillion in debt, and taxpayers are paying for federal employees to waste time at work surfing porn,” he said in a press release. “This is a well-documented, government-wide problem and it’s time to put a stop to it.”
Friend, these instances are disturbing to say the least and if you are a parent listening to this broadcast, please provide security software in your home that enables the filtering of pornographic material to prevent one of your children accidentally stumbling across these images, otherwise it could can lead them to a path of addiction or even destruction, if it’s access goes unchecked. Friend, our God is a forgiving God. You have heard this broadcast today, not to be condemned but to be given a chance to repent and be forgiven if you are currently practicing fornication. Please get right with the Lord this night and friend don’t delay any longer.
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It’s so difficult to find someone who understands how premarital sex reaches a woman deep within her soul. Men was sex with no commitment and can’t understand why we, as women cannot do this, at least not me. I am praying for God to send me a good Christian
man who will treasure what God wants for us. A pure relationship built on his principles. May He have mercy on my broken soul. Amen