One of the least discussed topics in the life of a Christian, or among Christians in general, I believe, is that of sexual sin. It’s been far too little discussed whenever we come to the imposing matter of details, such as sexual acts with one’s own gender, dressing in clothing of the opposite gender (Deuteronomy 22:5), self abuse that has caused damage to our bodies, or the variety of pornography and sexually explicit literature that any one of us may have dabbled in and eventually become mired in. Particularly when it falls under the category of perversion. No one wants to be viewed as a “pervert,” especially not the likes of one who’s professed to be a believer. This fear of discussion may be exacerbated by a church society’s tendency to look with abhorrence upon the person who has become trammeled in the persistent and insidious sin characterized by sexual perversion, thereby dissuading an otherwise eager family member from soliciting the help he or she so desperately needs.
Now, while it may be accurately said that all sin is a perversion of the things created by the Creator, or defined as the pith of disobedience, there is an almost distinct classification of sexual sin in general, and one of sexual perversion in particular. For example, there is the sin of fornication wherein a man derives premature sexual pleasure from a woman to whom he’s not bound himself in the marital covenant, and the sin of fornication wherein a man derives sexual pleasure not only from one to whom he’s not married, but one who is also a man. The former is sexual immorality, while the latter is a perversion of the human sexuality the Creator established since he formed man from the dirt several thousand years ago, then created the man’s mate from the man’s own body. (Romans 1:26-27, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, 1 Timothy 1:9-11, Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13) And whatever the sexual sin, it is all equally a perversion of the marital covenant, whether currently married or not, since we’ve violated what God has set apart for one particular person. In other words, our virginity doesn’t really belong to us, it belongs to God, and then to the one we’ll marry.
I propose that another perversion of the Creator’s design is the convolution of the roles he set for both the male and female of the human he created. This would involve such things as BDSM, gender reversal, and so on. Although God formed man from the dirt, and formed a “‘helper suitable for him” from the substance of his own rib, and assigned the one to govern and the other to assist, this dominance was curtailed by God. (Genesis 2:18, Genesis 2:21-22, Genesis 3:16) The submission was similarly curtailed, as the woman’s submission to her husband was intended as her act of worship and submission to the Creator while she occupies her corporeal form. The man’s dominance is an act of obedience to the Creator while he occupies his own corporeal form, in that it is incumbent upon him to assume the responsibility and culpability inherent in his role. BDSM takes the dominant and submissive roles to an extreme that was never intended by God, while gender reversal tips it downside up.
The so called gender role reversal injects a corrupted polarity into the Creator’s design. He intended that the male carry the mantle of leadership responsibility while trodding the earth, since “it was the woman who was deceived.” (1 Timothy 2:14) Now, this will in nowise nullify the prescription of individual responsibility for her, nor will it encumber the man with undue responsibility. What I mean is this, that if the woman rejects her submission to the man in whose charge she has been placed, she is not merely rejecting her husband, her rejection is ultimately directed toward the Creator, and the responsibility is hers. Of course, if her husband’s leadership is not aligned with the holy directives of God, then she is not bound to it, for she cannot render obedience to sinful commands as well as righteous. The command is to submit as to the Lord. The Creator would never order us to sin, and so the wife is not bound to obey an order to sin. (Ephesians 5:22)
If the husband’s leadership is rejected, but he is operating within the parameters of righteousness, then he is not liable for her rejection. It is only when the woman renders proper obeisance to her husband that he will be held to account by the Creator for his mismanagement of his household, and she will be held in great esteem for suffering under the rule of a dimwit. And if the husband fails to take up the responsibility he’s tasked with, he also confers disregard upon the Creator. So, the roles were established by God, and the individual responsibility of each is not nullified if a person remains unmarried, or if the married person sees fit to neglect the duties placed on him or her by the Creator. Consequently, gender role reversal is a perversion of what God has established for men and women during our time in mortal bodies.
This perversion is most especially practiced in the form of cuckolding. A man attempts to abdicate the responsibility given him, and his wife gives her body to another. Or the wife is strong willed, and the husband too weak willed to manage his household as God has given him to do. He’ll not do a thing to correct the vile circumstances the wicked wife has contrived, and will often encourage her to maintain the vile circumstances. People claim this is good for their marriage, to adulterate the sanctity of what the Creator has created, but it isn’t really a marriage if the covenant is so easily violated. Or there is a wife who encourages her husband to adulterate their marriage with other women, and the man indulges in this behavior and so degrades both himself and his wife, as well as the women they’ve engaged for this iniquity. Including the husbands of those women, or their future husbands.
In a side note, the precursor of Christ, John the Baptizer, spoke against Herod regarding the king’s possession of Herodias, wife of the king’s brother. He said it was “not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” And so Herod was angered by this, possibly a result of conviction on his soul, and ordered that John be incarcerated. The adulteress wife of Philip, was also angered by John’s reminder of her sin, and connived with her daughter to have John’s head decollated. (Matthew 14:3-11, Mark 6:17-28) A man is not to possess the wife of another, nor is he to deliver his own wife to another man.
The characteristics of these gender roles have been clearly delineated in Scripture wherever commands are given that men are not to assume the attire of women, or that they’re to abstain from homosexuality, or to be strong and courageous. (Deuteronomy 22:5, Romans 1:26-27, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, 1 Timothy 1:9-11, Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, Deuteronomy 31:6-8, Joshua 1:9, Isaiah 41:10, 1 Corinthians 16:13, Psalm 27:14, Psalm 31:24) Women are likewise told that it is unnatural to engage in sexual relations with other women, but they are to be clothed in righteousness as befitting a wife of noble character. (Proverbs 31:10-31, Proverbs 12:4, Proverbs 11:16, Titus 2:3-5, 1 Peter 3:1-6) We are all born into sin because of the disobedience of the first man, Adam, but we are not without choice in these matters. While desires of all kinds assault our senses, there is no mandate to capitulate to them. No one is “born that way,” except in the sense that we have inherited the sinful nature from Adam.
Sexual sin is one of the most powerful enticements any one of us may be slapped with. It is so pleasurable. And it is the memory of prior experience that clouds our minds and consciences to the sunlight of what is good. It is the memory of prior experience that quells the memory of the aftermath of that sin. The act is repeated, as well as the remorse, until the act has become habitual, until it is an addiction. It is at this point that a Christian is trampled into a pathetic morsel appetible to the maw of sin, for we know, intimately, the abject thing we will become after consummating our sinful desire, yet we tumble into it straightway regardless of the voice of reason that attempts to counsel us. We disregard the voice of the Counselor, the Holy Spirit deposited in us to remind us of all things and lead us into all truth. (John 16:13) This makes us feel even more pathetic and filthy, reinforcing the cycle so that our weakened state makes it easier for the monster crouching at the door to step inside and manipulate us. Eventually, it retains the key to the door, or just leaves the door unlocked. Or ajar. Now other monsters can get in and make the house ramshackle. (Matthew 12:45, Luke 11:26)
Some Christians have been stuck in one of these despicable cycles for many years, perhaps even a lifetime. It is crucially important for Christians to be available to our brothers and sisters, to remain uncluttered by prejudice, propensity, and undue criticism, and to assist those incarcerated family members until they have been freed from the impetus of habit. Yes, we’ve all been freed from the power of sin and death (Romans 8:1-4), never again to be condemned, but we are certainly capable of tying the ligatures around our own lives when we form and reinforce habitual behaviors. (Romans 6:12-13, Romans 6:16, Hebrews 12:1, Galatians 5:1) Be sure your sin will find you out. (Numbers 32:23) There are consequences in this life. Not all consequences are eternal.
The primary peril of sexual sin, especially of the kind known as pornography, is that it often requires an ever increasing amount to induce a pleasurable sexual rush for the person who partakes of it. It’s much like a physical addiction to illicit substances, such as amphetamines, cocaine, heroin, and opiates. The addicted person is put upon to consume greater quantities of the stuff to effect the same pleasure, and then graduate to combinations of the various stuffs, and continue on until the intake of nutriments and water lose their bodily significance to the wretch. In some cases, the addicted person will die. Sometimes unknown, unclaimed by family or friends, and the corrupted body is disposed of, usually in a respectful manner, but without the usual ceremony of love and remembrance practiced over it by family and friends.
Sexual sin, especially pornography, can entice a person to acts of immense self degradation, acts which can leave indelible marks on the body. Or on the mind and the heart. Sometimes it can drive a person to such extremes as the commission of murder. There’s a long list of persons who’ve been overwhelmed by the insidiousness of sexual addiction, persons for whom the rush of pornography or self abasement were dulled through repetition and time, and who’ve subsequently made innocent people suffer during the rampage of their insatiable addiction. It’s a piteous affair all over. Fortunately, it’s a relatively rare condition, as only few have progressed that far into their sexual addictions.
Unfortunately, there is an abundance of others whose addiction has germinated divorce, ruined family relationships, ended friendships, damaged bodies because of self afflicted debauchery, and has mutilated the mental and emotional capacity for a satisfying sexual intimacy and the potential for an indivisible marriage. Those who claim pornography and other sexually iniquitous occupations are tools that can be utilized to enhance the sexual bliss of marriage or a sexual partnership, are either lying or deceived. Or they’ve become so inured to sexual sin that their consciences and sensitivity to detrimental things has become dulled, or seared, and they have become depraved, as the Scripture put it. (1 Timothy 4:1-2, Romans 1:21-32) They reject exhortation and correction, deny the effects of sin, and graduate their indulgence to ever higher levels in an attempt to elude the voices of their souls, voices that plead to be reunited with their Creator. Eat, drink, and be merry! (Luke 12:19) Otherwise, we’ll be required to face our souls.
I am convinced that, in some cases, or sometimes in a partial way, Christians who’ve been desensitized by a sexual addiction, or who’ve been emotionally impoverished by a sexual addiction, find ways to justify, perhaps even ways to normalize, their habitual immorality or perversion. I think this is why we see some churches adopting the world’s claim that homosexuality is something one is born with, a matter of genetics in which one has no choice but to act upon. I think that, if such were the case, we’d be required to absolve the murderer, the thief, the abuser, the rapist, the pedophile, the liar, and so on, of all wrongdoing, since their acts are a matter of birth and genetics, and they haven’t the power of choice to deter them from that course. But that would be absurd, wouldn’t it? No one would take such a stance, because those things are obviously not a matter of birth and genetics. We all have desires of some sort, whether for violence, for thievery, for sexual perversion, or for any other ungodly act. But we’ve all got the power to choose whether we will commit the act, or refrain from committing the act. Even when childhood abuse is taken into account by a court hearing the case of a criminal, the perpetrator is inevitably held to account for the criminal act, even though the punishment may be mitigated to some degree after consideration of that childhood abuse. Because, ultimately, it is acknowledged that all such acts are a choice.
These churches will find it impossible to evade the fact that Scripture condemns sexual perversion, particularly homosexual perversion, while simultaneously acknowledging the veracity of Scripture as the word of the Creator. If the Scripture is valid, then homosexuality is an abomination. If homosexuality is a natural course of genetics within the human body and is nothing shameful to be ashamed of and can be practiced with impunity, then Scripture must be vacuous. They cannot both be true. Either the Holy Bible is true and the homosexual perversion is abominable, or homosexuality is neither sin nor perversion and the Holy Bible is false. The same is applicable to all of the Scripture. It’s either true, or it isn’t. No one can use Scripture to justify or condone sinful acts, since Scripture is so very explicit in condemning sinful acts. It isn’t “open to interpretation.” (2 Peter 1:19-21) If it were, it wouldn’t be truth, it would be opinion. Or philosophy.
A sinner is a person who is infected with sin, whose habitude is characterized by immoral action, immoral thought, and whose infection has reached a feverish degree that has seared the conscience. A sinner is a practitioner of sin, one who indulges in sin and urges others into an equal, or greater, indulgence. Conversely, a person who has been adopted into the family of the Creator, a coinheritor with Christ, is not infected with sin. The sin has been put to death. So the popular saying, “I am merely a sinner saved by grace,” is an inaccurate one, since the sinner was killed, in spiritual terms, and a new creation was birthed through grace. The new creation was birthed, in spiritual terms, and is a permanent member of the Creator’s family, a coheir with Christ, just as a legitimate son. (John 8:35) We must still reside within a body that bears the hereditary taint of sin, which is the physical consequence of the first man’s sin that has been passed from his body to ours because of genetics and spiritual inheritance, but our selves are not infected. This status is very much distinct from the former status, when we weren’t born a second time as legitimate sons.
The potential to sin is inherited in the flesh. That potential is the knowledge of good and evil. We maintain our innocence until we gain an emotional and mental cognizance of good and evil, at which point our sin becomes willful. The knowledge of good and evil is what was received by our progenitors in the Garden of Eden to reward their disobedience, and is then inherited by our flesh, our corporeal form. The flesh is called the sinful nature because sin is inherited through the flesh, passed on from the first man to all of his progeny. It is passed on through each proceeding male, because the male inherits the same culpability of the first man, who made a conscious decision to sin, whereas the woman was deceived into sin. This is why Jesus could be borne by a human woman, fulfilling the necessity of human reception of the penalty for sin, and be simultaneously perfect and sinless through the merit of the one who sired him, who was the Creator. When we are born a second time, into spiritual perfection, our former selves are put to death and are no longer subject to the law of sin and death. Our new selves are sinless, born of the Holy Spirit, who is God, and so we are qualified through Christ, who is God, to inherit eternal life. (2 Corinthians 5:17, 1 Peter 1:23, 1 Peter 1:3-5, Romans 6:4-11, John 1:12-13, 1 John 3:9-10, 1 John 5:18, Galatians 2:20)
“Uh huh. Then, are so called Christians unaffected by sin? Have those characters obtained perfection, since they’re no longer sinners?”
Obviously not. We are still affected by sin, and still capitulate to sin on some occasion or another. The distinction between a sinner and a so called Christian is that one has a soul that is diseased by sin, while the other has a body that is diseased by sin, which attempts to infect the soul. For example, there are innumerable legions of microscopic critters tromping all over your skin and hair and apparel during every moment that your physical form is animated by your spirit. These little critters are ubiquitous, inhabiting even the harshest environments, yet most of us human types are generally unaffected by the things. This is because the cells that comprise our bodies are engaged in continual combat against the invasive critters, keeping us from illness. But when that army is compromised, then a breach is made and entered, and we are infected by a great variety of these perfidious critters and are put into a dilapidated physical state. Especially after the spirit of a person has departed the body it once inhabited. Then the voracious little critters can munch away the flesh until it’s gone, because there’s no defensive living cells to ward them off.
The believer is harassed by sin, but is reliant on the spiritual immunity in the new creation of the spiritual self. The spiritual immunity of the new creation is vastly superior to physical immunity, because it cannot be breached, unlike the physical system. When this new creation has left its deceased body, the body becomes fully pregnable by microscopic critters and is consumed. Even the bones will eventually disintegrate, though these parts are much more durable than all the fleshy pieces. This is the consequence of sin, the wages of sin, being death. But the new creation has eluded the effect of sin, abandoning the decaying flesh to reside in a spiritual, eternal, and incorruptible body, much better than the physical one, the one that was cursed by sin and called the sin nature.
The sinner’s soul, conversely, is infected by sin, and cannot elude that sin through the natural physical death because the spirit, or soul, or whatever nomenclature you wish to appoint to whatever inhabits a human body, is similarly infected. That person hasn’t been processed by grace and faith, hasn’t been “born a second time,” and so hasn’t become a new creation. That person is not a fellow inheritor of Christ’s inheritance, primarily because that person isn’t born into the Creator’s family, and so that person cannot receive admission into the kingdom of heaven. A familial citizenship is prerequisite for that. One who is a permanent member of the family. (John 8:34-36)
“Well, then. Are you claiming that one of these so called Christians can perpetrate sins with impunity? Have they obtained a license to sin?”
Not at all. But if the new creation succumbs to the daily pester of sin, that person need only be washed to resolve the thing. (John 13:3-10) The conscience of this person is not seared by the infection of sin, and so that healthy conscience admonishes the new creation whenever necessary. More accurately, it is sensitive to the admonishment of the Holy Spirit. The sin of the new creation is not inherent, it is incidental and treated with violent loathing after it’s been done. Even before it’s been done, and while it’s being done. The question logically follows, why is the sin committed after both conscience and Holy Spirit remind this believer of the folly about to be commenced? If the warning has knelled, if the wretch has been alarmed by what is ready to take place, why does the creation reach out and grasp the door, then pull it open to invite the crouching beast inside? (Genesis 4:7)
The answer to this question may appear trite. Maybe convenient. And it’s an altogether insufficient answer for the person who succumbs to the sin that daily pesters. The sin is done because the creation chooses it. Nearly everything is a choice in this corporeal framework known as the universe. Universe means “one word,” by the way, and demonstrates the sovereign power of the Creator. There are very few occurrences, or conditions, that we’ve not had any say in, or exerted our power of will in, discriminating between this option and that, judging which turn or process we’ll use to adjust our course and speed during life’s journey.
I think the matter of choice is the pith of at least some contention in the matter of sexual immorality in general, and in the matter of sexual perversion in particular. How can God foist judgement on me, since I was born this way? I didn’t choose to be this way, therefore I cannot be held to account for actions that are inseparable from my nature. So, the Bible must not have declared my condition to be mortally dangerous, or morally askew, or of any grievance to God, since my condition is not something I exerted my will to achieve. Additionally, those particular Scriptures ought to be categorized as outdated, applicable only to the age in which they were penned, since they were penned for some mysterious reason we haven’t yet fully grasped . . . something to do with a squabble in the church at that time, or society, or culture, or such.
Well, if that’s the case, then we shouldn’t stop at that. Let’s dispose of all the other Scriptures that curtail our pleasure. After all, it’s only natural to behave in all the ways proscribed by the Creator (proscribed, not prescribed), since we didn’t choose our condition or our desires. Why would God mingle a sinful nature in us before we were even conceived, and then pass blame on us when we act according to it? No, the Bible must be nothing more than a moral guide, not a collation of truth. But let’s not stop at that. If we can decide which parts of Scripture are applicable to our individual status, and which are not, then let’s dispose of Christianity itself. Why bother with any of it? If we reason together, we can see that we don’t really have any need for a savior from sin, if God isn’t going to condemn us for the way we were born.
This is the fallacy, that a desire is something that mandates an action or a response. Would any of these so called Christians, who attempt to make sense of the supposition that God condones the very things that he has specifically and explicitly deemed abominations, claim the murders done by a murderer were excusable because the murderer had no choice but to act upon ungodly desires? What about theft? What about lying? What about incest? What about greed, envy, lust, false testimony? What about pedophilia? All of these desires are common to humanity, although not ubiquitous. Shall we pardon these acts and allow them in our communities, our schools, our families, our government, on the foundation of an argument that all the people committing these acts are born that way? We are all born into sin, true. But this is never a justification for the commission of sin, nor does the Creator dismiss our sin because of it. Why not? Because we all have a choice, a will to exert, in whether we will act upon these desires, or whether we will refrain.
Man has no power over the destiny of another, despite what any given church may claim. Church membership is not the source of salvation, and faith itself is not salvation. The Scripture is preeminently clear about both. The church institutions proclaiming that no one is accountable to God for homosexuality, or any other perversion of what the Creator created, cannot issue any sort of guarantee to their constituents for an eternal position in the kingdom of heaven when it directly contravenes the rules set down by the Owner of the universe on the pages of the Holy Scriptures. Simply put, it’s God’s heaven, his kingdom and his house, and he gets to decide who’s coming in. Neither can a priest of any sort forgive your sins, thereby coalescing your admission into heaven, for the same reason as before. The only exception is our high priest, Jesus, who is God himself. No man established the rules, thus no man can alter or abolish those rules. This is the bailiwick of the Creator. His alone. So if you’re relying on your church or priest to unlatch the gates and usher you into the kingdom that is the property of God, you’re in serious trouble. As the Scripture states, salvation belongs to our God. (Revelation 7:10, Psalm 3:8, Jonah 2:9) It does not belong to a church, or a priest.
Anyway, the point of that mini tirade against the perversion of what the Creator created was to predicate this : To be free from addiction, and, or, habitual sexual sin, we need to utilize the law of displacement.
“Eh? You’ve got what now?”
Good question, thank you. The law of displacement.
“You mean, Archimedes’ principle? Fluid displacement, that sort of thing? Or, are you talking about something like Wien’s law, about radiation wavelengths and temperatures?”
Well, I know about fluid displacement, because it’s such a commonly known principle. But, I don’t know much about the other displacement laws, other than a cursory scan of their general definitions.
“So, do you even know what you’re talking about?”
Sure, I do.
“Then explain it.”
Okay, I will. What I’m talking about is displacing one thing with something else.
“Then why didn’t you just say that, instead of citing something to do with physics and confusing everyone?”
Sorry. Anyway, I think the usual solution to sin of a sexual nature is to prepare for combat against it. There’s a Scriptural propeller for this activity. Submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Sin is crouching at the door. It means to have you, but you must master it. (James 4:7, Genesis 4:7) These are directives to engage actions that promote what is good and oppose what is ungodly, but I propose we too often set ourselves for battle while disregarding the correlative necessity of stratagem. There are many factors to be analyzed when surveying the battle field, and a proper discrimination of what each may prognosticate for the outcome of a skirmish is essential to the efficacy of combat. This is as true for spiritual combat as it is for actual combat.
We should be aware of all the tools available to us, including our fellow warriors in Christ, and have enough situational awareness and wisdom to conduct our action accordingly. We shouldn’t rely on combat alone. We ought never rely on pacifism. We should select peaceful resolutions where they can be discovered, but never pacifism. Pacifism is inaction, and it’s contrary to the action necessary to flee evil or resist it. I don’t believe the Bible teaches pacifism, and I’ll address that in another article.
So, instead of gearing for an invigorating spate of warfare, sometimes it’s better to displace the irritant than to contend with it. For example, I have many times been sat in front of my computer, working on one of my short stories or a novel, or this blog, when a thought of supple, pliant, soft, female appendages starts tickling the top of my brain, disturbing my attendance to the literature being concocted on my computer screen. Nearly every time that I’ve turned to face the abomination, I’ve faltered against my pledge to my Creator, since facing the horrid enticement allows it to fondle my mental eyeballs with its evil. Whenever I displace the thing by saturating myself in Scripture, my immediate environment is filled with Scripture and there’s no space left for the evil to occupy. Warfare must be engaged, at times, but this warfare ought to be tempered by wisdom, if we’re to secure the battlefield with minimum casualties.
Certainly, both warfare and peaceful action are warranted at their appointed times, but the trick is to recognize when the respective time has arrived. The Scripture exhorts us to “flee from sin.” (1 Corinthians 6:18) But it also exhorts us to “resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7) So which one is it, flee or resist? We’re to do both, each one at its appointed time. We need to be able to discern which tactic should be deployed in whatever situation, and have the wisdom to employ the proper tactic effectively. In order to accomplish it, we need a compatriot or two. Another part of our armory and arsenal, our fellow warriors.
A cord of three strands is not easily broken. (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12) The Holy Bible consistently tells us to seek and secure the companionship of a fellow who will not only fight at our side, but will strive against the evils that we may be tempted to partake in. Someone to whom we may also give the same allegiance in battle and succor. Mutual accountability, and mutual trust and trustworthiness. A friend who remains closer than a brother, which is an apt description of a brother in arms. (Proverb 18:24) Jesus said the best love is one that compels a man to expend his life for his friends. He also said, “You are my friends, if you do what I command.” (John 15:13-14, John 14:15)
Of course, those of us who haven’t experienced the brotherhood forged during warfare have never had an occasion to literally lay down our lives for each other. Except for a rare occasion in a rare situation, such as rescuing someone from a fiery building. So what does laying down our lives mean to the bulk of us who’ve been deprived of a combat relationship? It means laying down other aspects of our lives for our friends. Whenever one of us is being lambasted by sexual temptation, we ought to be assured that a compatriot will sacrifice sleep, time, energy, resources, or whatever, to fight alongside and uphold the cause of a friend. And we’d do well to do likewise, because if we don’t, we’re likely to lose the struggle. We need to fight in concert, in a mutual allegiance. The third strand being the Holy Spirit, who is the spirit of Jesus Christ, who is the physical representation of the Father.
(There is much controversy in respect to the “Holy Trinity,” where it seems two general positions are taken upon the matter. One is commonly referred to as modalism, whereas the other is a traditional position that asserts the Deity is one unit consisting of three distinct persons. I’ll make known my personal opinion in a future article, as well as the Scriptural basis for my doctrinal stance.)
Anyway, it’s not good for man to be alone. (Genesis 2:18) I propose the Creator wasn’t strictly referring to man’s need for a helpmate suitable for him, someone to satisfy all the things he couldn’t, but was also referring to the need for a fellow fighter. Now, this role could be filled to some extent by his helpmate, and it ought to be filled as much as possible by his helpmate, but there are some things women are not equipped to do, just as there are some things men are not equipped to do, so that women find the same need for fellowship with other women. As iron sharpens iron. (Proverb 27:17) Sometimes, a man’s needs are as foreign to a woman as hers are to a man. But this isn’t detrimental, it’s by design. The Creator’s design. Our sexual needs are fulfilled by a spouse, as well as a hefty portion of our emotional needs, but there are needs beyond these that can only be bolstered by one of our own gender. These are needs that supersede emotions, feelings, or any physical desire. As iron sharpens iron.
A wife should understand that her husband’s fellow warriors can render services that she cannot, and a husband should understand the same about his wife. Neither should accept a sting of jealousy or hurt about it. Each ought to pray, instead, beseeching the Creator for an installment of wisdom and love in these fellow warriors. We’re all family, don’t you know. A husband and wife should encourage their spouse to pursue the fellowship of Godly compatriots, but should never detract from it by nagging. Don’t be pushy, but implement exhortation. Remember, the good of your spouse is the good of yourself. That’s the point of it. Not to exert control, or to manipulate, but to exhort your family in Christ.
I mentioned details in the beginning of this thing, but I rather meant such details to be discussed among yourselves – with your wife, with your husband, with your fellow warriors. I’ve got my own shameful past, quite hideous, and to let the shroud fall away from it completely might introduce a trauma to your minds. I don’t think the horrid details are to be shared before an auditorium of believers, just the special ones we’ve been yoked with. Be sure your sin will find you out doesn’t mean, in my opinion, that everyone is going to know precisely what you’ve done, that we’ll watch the course of every person’s life on a spiritual big screen before the throne of judgement, but rather, it means that conviction for sin is assured. And oftentimes, the consequences of sin in this life are inevitable. (Numbers 32:23, Luke 8:17, Luke 12:2, Ecclesiastes 12:14)
One of the potent dangers for the Christian snared by sexual sin is that of guilt. Shame can be a useful motivator, but it can also be debilitating. (1 Corinthians 6:1-8, 1 Corinthians 15:34, 2 Corinthians 7:9-11, Romans 6:21-22, Romans 11:13-14, Jeremiah 3:19-25, Ephesians 5:11-12) It can make us ineffective, weak, even lazy. It can mancipate us in a cycle that may become inveterate, and very difficult to break from. We are told that we are free from the law of sin and death, and we need to believe this. (Romans 8:1-15) This doesn’t mean that we are free to indulge in sin, but that we are free from its power. (Romans 6:1-2) This means we are not to adhere to our shame, but to listen to it as the deterrent from things that germinate shame in our consciences.
You should never allow the shame of perversion to restrict the joy of the glory of God’s mercy. Our sin has been remedied. God himself said, “let us reason together.” (Isaiah 1:18) Never let the shame suppress the fulfillment of your purpose. Talk about it, and let others talk to you about their own shame, and let the result be one of remedy, rather than penalty. Let your speech be the balm of encouragement, rather than judgement.
Still and all, the perversion must be remedied. If these things are not, they will encumber the benefit we’ll otherwise have from the Holy Spirit, and there’ll be no profit to our eternal accounts. Our ultimate treasure, our abiding treasure, will be had in the kingdom of heaven, and this is stored up for us according to our works in this temporal physicality, while we’re incarnate. Many have misconstrued this principle to mean that our salvation is earned, since faith without works is dead, but this is far from a proper understanding of it. (James 2:17-18, James 2:26)
Salvation belongs to our God, and it has been made available to us free of any charge, so it cannot be earned and claimed as a matter of obligation against the Creator. It is a free gift. (Ephesians 2:8-10) What is earned is the treasure stored up for each of us in our eternal existence. Holy Scriptures refer to a reward given those who commit particular acts to the Creator, such as a simple glass of water handed to one of his disciples for the reason of being one of his disciples. (Mark 9:41, Matthew 10:42) God says this one will receive a reward. Our sin, and especially sexual sin, from what I understand of Scripture (if I understand correctly), impedes our effectiveness in our faithful works, and so barricades our rewards from us. It also saddens our Father in heaven, and grieves his Holy Spirit, which are worser consequences, I opine.
There’s the matter of emotion to contend with, as well. Emotion is potent. It’s a motor that propels many humans into action they’d otherwise not engage for themselves. Such as murder, in more severe cases. Murder can be driven by anger, greed, lust, a variety of iniquities on the spectrum. There is adultery, and fornication, both of which may be driven by feelings of love. But these emotions are not love, they are merely correlative feelings of love. In 2 Samuel 13:1, Amnon falls in love with his sister, Tamar. Notice in the following verse that Amnon thought it seemed unfeasible to do anything to her. Not for her, or to woo her. He was driven by feelings of love, not by love itself. And after he’d succumbed to those feelings, dismissing Tamar’s solution of marriage to avoid sin, he stole what did not belong to him. His feelings of love became inversely acerbic and hateful after he’d satiated the immediate desire. Several lives were affected because Amnon conflated his feelings with sincere love. (2 Samuel 13:1-19)
Love is a dedication of one’s self to something, or someone. Hence, the love of money – and the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Money is not the root of all evil, but the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. A man may have feelings of love for his neighbor’s wife, but those feelings of love do not justify the adulteration of the neighbor’s marriage. Love will always deter such activity, since love is mostly principle, rather than emotion. Emotion is unstable, it is unreliable, it cannot be used as a fundamental of decision making. When emotion is coupled with lust, the motor for iniquity is powerful.
Emotion can become a gateway to sexual trespass. This is, I think, the goal of temptations in general, to conduct a human being to the illicit tumbler of sexual pleasures, for this perversion is one of the most intense trespasses against the rule of the Creator. All other sin is outside a man’s body. (1 Corinthians 6:18-20) So, if a man is angered by, or against, his wife, he may feel more inclined toward seeking an emotional emollient from another source. This does not always lead to sexual emollient, but if the former is avoided, the second is certainly avoided, as well. In other words, if the man accedes himself to the superiority of principle, rather than emotion, he’ll not seek comfort from another woman. By implementing this evasion, he will keep himself invulnerable to the enticements of sexual sin, the adulteration of his marriage. The same applies to the wife. The two must value, and adhere themselves to, the principle of the covenant made before and with the Creator, in which they vowed to dedicate themselves to each other and so concluded those vows by becoming one flesh. To adulterate a marriage is to adulterate one’s own body, and how can one be attuned to the things of God when even the body is tainted with sin? When one’s own body is despised by it’s occupant?
Scripture describes our bodies in ways that ought to hammer some critical thinking into our braincases. God claims ownership of our corporeal being, in that not only did he create us, but he payed for us at the cost of his blood and his life. When a man becomes the husband of a woman, and she becomes his wife, the two become one flesh. This means the man no longer has exclusive liberty with his body, and the wife no longer has exclusive liberty with her body. (1 Corinthians 7:2-5) Their bodies now belong to each other, since they are one flesh, and their bodies also belong to God. So to perform an act of sexual iniquity is to sin against one’s own body, and also against the body of one’s spouse. It’s also sin against the body of Jesus, and against the church corporately, since we are the body of Christ.
We need to recognize love for what it is, and not ascribe the secular perception of love to the love that’s defined by the Creator. Feelings are mostly useless, if not guided by essential principle. If Jesus, tormented by feelings of stress and reluctance to subject himself to the even greater torment he knew he would endure on the cross, were to have made his decision under the ponderance of emotion, I am convinced we’d not have the guarantee of salvation from sin that we do have. Christ made his decision under the preponderance of love, the definition of the Creator that supersedes all emotive propellant. I believe this was the joy set before him. (Hebrews 12:2)
A man ought to discipline himself into a habitude of decision making that is outside any influence of emotion. That is to say, emotion shouldn’t be the primary factor of his decisions. Emotions are subjectively experienced, and so they may affect one man differently than another. Emotion is helpful, it is useful in many situations, and it is often very enjoyable. Emotion serves to enhance our experiences of physical pleasure, such as becoming one flesh with your wife, or interacting with your children, but it must never be the preeminent influence on our decisions. The main influence must always be principle. Essential, or fundamental, principle comes from the Creator. It is delineated in his word, the Holy Bible.
Of course, the consequences of sin remain unavoidable in this present physical life. “Be sure your sin will find you out.” Not that your sin will be publicly revealed, but that its result is guaranteed. (Numbers 32:23) The context of this verse is Moses addressing two tribes of Israel regarding their wish to remain on the present side of the Jordan River, and what would occur if they failed to give battle support to their brothers in conquering the land of Canaan. But the concept being expressed in this verse is accountability for disobeying God. Whether the consequence will entail something physical that will affect a person’s relationships or body on earth, or something spiritual that will affect a person’s spiritual life on earth, is determined by the Creator. But one effect of sin I suppose we can all agree on is the view that we present to outsiders. The Holy Bible adjures us to live such impeccable lives that even those who revile us will glorify God (1 Peter 2:11-12), and to avoid even a hint of immorality. (Ephesians 5:3) We are to “come out and be separate” from the world and its way of life. (2 Corinthians 6:17, Isaiah 52:11) Strive to be an ambassador of Christ. This is a struggle, it is hard labor, it is not easily done, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood. (Ephesians 6:12) But it can be done.
We cannot tolerate the intolerable, for once the church is infected with tolerance of sexual perversion, it becomes difficult to abscise the infected flesh. This is why God commanded the Israelite camps to “purge the sin from among you.” (1 Corinthians 5:13, Deuteronomy 13:5, 17:7, 19:19, 21:21, 22:21, 22:24, 24:7) The church was also instructed to apply disciplinary measures in order to keep these iniquitous infections in check. (Matthew 18:15-17, Titus 1:13-14, Titus 3:10-11, 1 Corinthians 5:11, 1 Corinthians 5:1-5, 2 Corinthians 2:5-8, Galatians 6:1-2, 1 Thessalonians 5:14, 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15, 1 Timothy 5:20, ) To allow ideas that overtly oppose the word of God to qualify for inclusion into church doctrine in the name of love is not at all loving, it is an affair of hatefulness toward the body of Jesus, which is the church, the body of believers, and of hatefulness toward the Creator. I propose it is hatefulness toward all of the Creator’s creation, since Holy Scripture describes all of creation groaning in response to the corruption foisted upon it by human beings. (Romans 8:22, Genesis 3:17, Jeremiah 12:4,11) The sin that Adam first introduced to the earth, after he’d introduced that perversion to his own flesh.
We need to acknowledge individual responsibility in these matters. We cannot press the church to concede acceptability of sin in its doctrine, and then think we’ll be absolved of our sin because we partake in the church. We need to purge the sin from our own selves. We need to beat our bodies into submission. (1 Corinthians 9:27) We need to supplicate the Maker of all things, pleading with him to abscise the infected flesh from our own hearts, and rededicate those hearts to the Creator, who is our Father. NEVER allow sexual perversion to pervert your faith. NEVER allow any church or its doctrine to corrupt your faith. (Matthew 24:13, Matthew 24:4, Mark 13:13, Revelation 3:11, Revelation 3:5, Luke 21:19, 1 John 4:1) Do NOT capitulate to sexual sin, to sexual immorality, to sexual perversion, to the things the Maker of heaven and earth has declared to be abomination. Fight the good fight. Be active!
I thought it good to finish up with a reiteration of the importance of persevering. When we commit an act of sexual immorality, and our conscience remains effective, we have an immediate sense of guilt and shame. Sometimes with an intensity that brings a feeling of illness. This is beneficial conviction, if it directs us back to Christ. But if we allow the guilt and shame to put roots in us, it is no longer beneficial, it becomes detriment to our soul. These feelings deter from other beneficial and necessary things, such as daily ingestion of Scripture. So, despite these feelings, trusting in God’s promise is indispensable. He payed the cost for our sin, and he will forgive. We need to forgive ourselves, too.