Sexual Immorality and the Wrath of God

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God’s View of Modern Morality

But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.  Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.  For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.  Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.  Therefore do not associate with them; for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.  Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.  Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.  For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret.  But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light.  Therefore it says,

“Awake, O sleeper,

and arise from the dead,

and Christ will shine on you.”

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.  Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.[1]

The Twentieth Century has been referred to as the Sexual Century.  I make no claim to qualify as an expert, having lived through but one half of that century, but I do know that during the brief years of my life I have witnessed a change of tidal proportions in the prevailing attitude toward sexual morality.  What is acceptable within society today would have been shocking not so very many years past.  Taboos have fallen with amazing rapidity and the landscape is forever altered.

Our television went on the blink when we lived in New York City.  Aeroplanes landing at LaGuardia Airport caused the picture to roll.  I sold it to one of my professors at the Einstein College of Medicine for twenty-five dollars in December of 1969.  Lynda and I agreed that we would purchase another television when we got to Texas.

Somehow, other priorities shoved television from our family radar.  Years passed, and children were born, and one day we realised that our children had grown to adulthood without benefit of television.  When we moved to Jasper in April of 1998, a friend in Burnaby gave Lynda a television.  For the first time in twenty-nine years, we again had the familiar one-eyed monster which defines the modern home.  For nearly three decades we had been sheltered.  I thought I knew something of the mores of the world about us, but I quickly discovered that I actually knew nothing at all.

Christians are not prudes.  We Christians are not particularly Victorian in our attitude toward sex.  We know that sex is not sinful, but instead we view sex as a gift from God.  As God’s gift, we recognise sex as good.  It is not so much that we have a distaste for sex, but we abhor vulgarity.  Our view of sex is not warped, neither are we ashamed of sex or afraid of it.  Instead, we hold a high and holy view of sex, maintaining it to be God’s good gift.  We do not, however, wish to cheapen sex, but instead we recognise sex as a divine gift.  All God’s gifts—including sex—are subjects for thanksgiving, rather than joking.  To reduce God’s gifts to jokes is to degrade them.  To thank God for them is the way to preserve their value as the blessings of a loving Creator.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to maintain a proper attitude toward sex and sexuality in a world which has lost its way.  The prevailing standard of our present world appears to be “If it feels good, do it!”  Restraint is depreciated and even ridiculed as harmful.  Self is firmly established at the centre of all activity.  What brings personal happiness is considered the summum bonum for human existence.

The response of the churches has proved disappointing.  Led by media superstars, Christians mount one noisy, ineffectual crusade after another, seeking to vote in a new morality or endeavouring to impose some new ethic on society.  Instead of mounting noisy crusades to change the morals and ethics of those who inhabit this fallen world, I am convinced that we who are Christians need to remember our own standards.  Pastors need to teach a biblical standard and the churches of Christ, His holy bride, need to hold their members to that standard.

Some Practises have no Place even being Debated among the Saints of God — Sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.  Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.

We think that ours is a dreadful age unlike any other age in history.  Perhaps we need to recall that premarital and other immoral sex, insolent speech and sexual humour were as common in ancient pagan society as they are today.  Paul did not water down God’s standards to accommodate the culture; instead, he warned that those who engaged in this lifestyle would not be among God’s people in the world to come.

What is meant by the practises named—sexual immorality, impurity, covetousness [porneiva de; kai; ajkaqarsiva pa`sa h] pleonexiva]?  It will prove helpful for us to know precisely what is improper for Christians to practise or even debate.

Sexual immorality [porneiva] is a broad term referring to sexual intercourse outside of marriage.  A former United States President was unable to define sexual immorality, but most rational people understand that anything which stimulates an individual sexually would fall under this definition.  In older translations of the Bible, porneiva was translated fornication, a word which has lost whatever impact on society that it once had.

I should note that some Christians act as if sexual sins were the worst sort of sins.  This is an incorrect assumption.  Sexual sins are less destructive than are sins of the spirit, but among the sins of the flesh, sexual sin is terribly destructive.  Paul is right to place this particular category of sins first in his catalogue because it is so harmful both to the individual and to society.  Scripture condemns sexual sin most severely.  Thus, despite the tenor of the times, sex outside of marriage is wrong, both because it offends the holiness of God and because it is destructive to the individual.

Paul also speaks of impurity.  In fact, he writes condemning all impurity [ajkaqarsiva pa`sa].  The word which is translated impurity, embraces the sexual sin referred to before it [porneiva], but it probably goes well beyond that word to embrace a host of particularly defiling practises.  The Greeks, among whom the Ephesians lived, were notorious for both the practises of prostitution and homosexuality—practises which were rampant throughout the societies of that day.

You perhaps recall the uproar in Ephesus as result of Paul’s ministry in that city [see Acts 19:21-41].  The uproar resulted from a perceived attack against the goddess Artemis of the EphesiansArtemis of the Ephesians was the goddess of fertility; and sexual orgies were regularly associated with her worship.[2]  Solon allowed the introduction of prostitutes into Athens and then the building of brothels.  With the profits of prostitution, the Temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, was built.  In Corinth, each young woman was expected to give a year as a sacred prostitute in the temple of Aphrodite.  The Greeks saw nothing wrong with building a temple with the proceeds of prostitution.

Men, also, willingly served as male prostitutes.  Prostitution was part of the culture of ancient Greece, much as prostitution is becoming a part of Canadian culture.  Already, voices in the legal community as well as leaders among police chiefs are openly advocating legalised prostitution in our nation.  Likewise, homosexuality was commonplace in Greek society.  Among Christians, however, such practises are not even to be hinted at, as they are an offence to Holy God.  Guard yourself against any act or thought unworthy of Him who is All-pure.

Covetousness [pleonexiva], or greed, is the third great sin that Paul warns against.  Perhaps you think covetousness is out-of-place, situated next to sexual immorality and impurity, but these sins are simply different expressions of the same basic weakness of fallen nature.  Each is an expression of an uncontrolled appetite.[3]  The sexually immoral and the greedy each desire to satisfy the appetite by taking what does not belong to them.  The desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes [1 John 2:16] would describe these two sins.  In fact, the Apostle says there must not eve be a hint of these sins among us.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes of covetousness, “This means, of course, avarice, love of money, love of money as money; love of money partly for itself and partly because of what it can do for us, the things we can buy with money, the things we can procure with money, the things we can do if we have money—in fact, the love of all that money can do and achieve—that is what Paul is condemning under the word covetousness.”[4]

In our society, we have almost unconsciously adopted the view that greed is good.  Credit is readily available to almost anyone.  We watch television and reflexively absorb the concept that we can have it all … now!  We can have it for just a few easy payments.  Christians need to consider the view of the Master.  Jesus cautioned us about the impossibility of loving God and money.  You cannot serve God and money [Matthew 6:24].  This is precisely the reason for the apostolic warning that anyone who is found to be sexually immoral, impure or covetous is an idolater [Ephesians 5:5].

The concept conveyed by use of this word, covetousness, may well be that of sensual indulgence at the cost of others.  Modern entertainment has almost convinced us that there are no consequences to gratifying our base desires.  We have almost convinced ourselves that if we want another person, we can have them.  Youth debate whether to go to bed with an individual after just one date.  Adults take it for granted that sex is part of the dating scene.  All this flows in part from the prevalent thought that we can have whatever we want.  Thus, we reduce fellow humans to a mere piece of meat with no higher purpose than to gratify immediate desires.  No woman wants to be a piece of meat.  Instead, she wants to be appreciated for herself and loved for who she is.  Likewise, no man wants to be a piece of meat.  Instead, he wants to be appreciated for who he is.

Sexual sin dominates the apostolic list of dishonourable practises.  In part, this is because he is turning consideration from self-sacrificial love to its opposite—self-indulgent sensuality.  We are witnessing a contrast between behaviour that imitates God and that which is opposed to godliness.  That is a difference between walking in love and living in lust.  Underscore in your mind the unwritten corollary, that one who surrenders to sexual immorality, to all impurity, to covetousness, has broken from God.  Such individuals have returned to the wicked and loose living which marks this fallen world.

I am compelled by the Word of God to take careful note of one injunction.  The sins under scrutiny are not even to be named among the saints of God.  Obviously, Paul does not mean that they may not be listed and warned against, for he has done precisely that in this list.  However, these subjects are not to be debated.  They are not to become the subject of Christian discussion.

I still recall my horror when lesbianism and sodomy first  “came out of the closet.”  I had no idea they were stored there!  When God’s people began to debate these behaviours, I knew the battle for common decency was lost.  A subject has already attained legitimacy when it is debated—no one debates if the moon is cheese!  Christians are to view with horror certain practises, and especially the sins listed here are to be abhorred.  They are to be shunned, so that they receive no legitimacy through discussion.

I beg your indulgence concerning the proscription of filthiness and foolish talk and crude joking.  It is my intention, God willing, to address these particular aspects of unrighteousness in a future message.  Today, we have all we can handle focusing on the sins which are usually associated with sexual immorality.

Our Practises Invite Either Commendation or Condemnation — For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.  Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. 

This is a dark statement which the Apostle makes beginning with the fifth verse.  It may be taken as a certainty that persistent sinners are excluded from God’s kingdom.  What does such a statement say of the condition of the churches of our Lord in this day?  It almost appears that church leaders have become apologists for sexual immorality!  When professed church leaders ordain sexually immoral people to holy orders, “restore” sexual predators to the pulpit after brief secular “counselling,” and treat immoral behaviour casually as though it were something insignificant, how can we, as the professed people of God, any longer claim the blessings of Holy God?  Even the pagans recognise and expect a higher standard of professed Christians.

The language in the fifth verse is intriguing.  Paul utilises two verbs in juxtaposition, each conveying the thought of knowing, [tou`to ga;r i[ste ginwvskonte"].  The first verb [i[ste] is the second person, plural, perfect, active, imperative of oi\da.  The verb implies an intuitive knowledge.  The second verb [ginwvskonte"] is the present, active, participle, masculine, plural nominative of ginwvskw.  The verb suggests a knowledge which is learned through study.

A. T. Robertson asks why ginwvskonte" should be added.  His answer is, “Probably, ‘[you] know recognising by your own experience.’”[5]  Having come out of lives of sin, Christians know from experience what is right and what is wrong!

The way in which you live reveals who you are.  By that, I do not mean to imply that sinless perfection is required to demonstrate that you are a child of God, but I do mean that consistent choices express character.  Character is a statement of who you are.  The Word of God is quite clear on this point.

Little children, let no one deceive you.  Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous.  Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.  The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.  No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.  By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God [1 John 3:7-10].

Listen to Jesus on this point.  From within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.  All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person [Mark 7:21-23].

Choices have consequences.  Drive this thought home, underscoring it in your mind.  The concept is difficult to believe in our contemporary society.  We live in the Age of the Victim.  People choose to smoke, and when they are dying of lung cancer, they blame the tobacco company for making cigarettes.  They could not help themselves—they were victims.  People drink at a party and then foolishly attempt to drive home.  When they crash their automobile with the result that they are permanently paralysed, they sue the host for providing them with alcohol or they sue the bartender for serving them the liquor.  An individual overeats and grows obese.  It is not his fault.  He can sue McDonalds or Burger King or Kentucky Fried Chicken for not making their food healthy and fat free!  No one need take responsibility for their choices any longer!

I am waiting for the inevitable suit lodged against some minister because he performed a wedding and the couple failed to remain married!  Or perhaps it will be a suit against the pastor because he baptised some dear soul and now they are disgruntled with the church and wish to retract their profession.  In this environment, it is high time that we again realised that choices have consequences.  Your choice of how you live and of who you live for will determine whether you will spend eternity enjoying the rewards of a godly life or whether you will spend eternity separated from the love of God.

You may be sure of this…  Many reasons are given in the New Testament why Christians should abstain from immorality.  As one example, I invite you to recall the Trinitarian theology of the human body as created by God, belonging to Christ and indwelt by the Holy Spirit.  This theology is developed in 1 Corinthians 6:12-20.

“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful.  “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be enslaved by anything.  “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other.  The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.  And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.  Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?  Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?  Never!  Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her?  For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.”  But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.  Flee from sexual immorality.  Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.  Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?  You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.  So glorify God in your body.

There is the intrinsic inappropriateness of unholy practises in the holy people of God.  Simply stated, sexual licence is simply not fitting among the saints.  Now, we can add to these reasons for avoiding immorality, fear of judgement.  Most immoral people get away with their immorality on earth, but you must not deceive yourself.  The immoral will not escape detection, conviction and eternal sentence.  There is no uncertainty.  Those who are sexually immoral, impure or greedy, have no part in the Kingdom of God.

Stott notes a significant point in the apostolic statement.  Note that the immoral have no inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and God.  “Note in passing the remarkable bracketing of Christ and God in this expression.  Since the definite article is not repeated, the kingdom is said to belong to him who is both ‘Christ’ and ‘God.’  And this divine kingdom is a righteous kingdom, from which all unrighteousness will be excluded.”[6]

The wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.  The unsaved, the lost have only a fearful expectation of judgement, and a fury of fire [cf. Hebrews 10:27].  Paul’s admonition is, do not associate with them [Ephesians 5:7].  This is an unfortunate translation.  The word [summevtocoi] refers to participation, not just association.  We must bring to the wicked the Good News of freedom in Christ.  We must live in the world, but we must be careful not to be identified with this world.  If we share in the practises of this fallen world, as Lot was warned in Sodom, we run the risk of sharing in its doom [see Genesis 19:15].

John Stott has penned an insightful paragraph which provides excellent material for contemplation.  Listen carefully to Dr. Stott’s words.  “It would be easy for Christians to speed-read a paragraph like this, without pausing for reflection, on the assumption that it applies to unbelievers, not to us.  Has not Paul assured us in the earlier part of his letter of our heavenly inheritance, taught us that the Holy Spirit within us, is God’s guarantee, even foretaste and first instalment, of it ‘until we acquire possession of it,’ and prayed that our eyes might be opened to see ‘the riches of the glory of the inheritance’ which will one day be ours?  Yes, indeed he has.  At the same time he also addresses to us this warning about the danger of forfeiting our inheritance in God’s kingdom.  How can we reconcile these things?  Only by recalling that assurance of salvation is neither a synonym nor an excuse for presumption.  And if we should fall into a life of greedy immorality, we would be supplying clear evidence that we are after all idolaters, not worshippers of God, disobedient people instead of obedient, and so that heirs not of heaven but of hell.  The Apostle gives us a solemn warning; we shall be wise to heed it.”[7]

We must not insist upon total separatism (like that of the Essenes), or even the partial separatism that Judaism’s food and Sabbath laws imposed on Diaspora Jews.  Nevertheless, there is a separation from evil which is mandated though neglected in our world today.  “Many in Greco-Roman society would have branded Christians as antisocial for refusing to take part in immoral conversation and, even more, in the pervasive civic religious cults which were regarded as a mark of local loyalty.”[8]

In the same way, I would anticipate that many sharing this service today would be branded as antisocial by colleagues and even by family members for failing to participate in or approve of the immoral language which characterises much of society.  If not that, then surely our conscientious refusal to condone immorality as entertainment or as an alternative lifestyle would earn us the hatred of many individuals.  That we are not hated by the world speaks ill of our character.  It does seem that I recall the Master saying, Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets [Luke 6:26].

As Children of the Light, Let us Live in the Light — Therefore do not associate with them; for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.  Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.  Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.  For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret.  But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light.  Therefore it says,

“Awake, O sleeper,

and arise from the dead,

and Christ will shine on you.”

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.  Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 

Is it possible to remain pure whilst living in this fallen world?  God thinks so.  He commands us to live lives marked by purity.  This passage presents a theme which has run right through the latter part of the previous chapter and spilled over into this present chapter.  These verses constitute a stirring summons to unity and to purity of the church.  The theme integrates Christian experience (what we are), Christian theology (what we believe) and Christian ethics (how we behave).  They emphasise that being, thought and action cannot be separated.  What we are governs how we think, and how we think governs how we act, and what we believe colours both our thoughts and our actions.

We are God’s new society, a people who have put off the old life and put on the new.  That is what God has created us to be!  We need to recall this truth on a daily basis through daily renewal of our minds, remembering how we learned Christ, as the truth is in Jesus.  We need to think Christianly about our new standing and ourselves.  Beyond this, we must cultivate a new Christian life.  Holiness is not a condition into which we drift.  We have put away from ourselves all conduct that is incompatible with our new life in Christ, and we have put on a lifestyle compatible with this new life.

Recently, the noted Christian apologist Charles Colson, in a Breakpoint commentary, wrote of the genesis of contemporary sexual immorality, not only as an accepted norm, but as the expected right for all people.  I want to read a major portion of that commentary since it is germane to the intent of the message delivered this day.  Listen carefully as I read what Colson has provided as food for thought.

“It's one of history's great ironies that the man most associated with sexual liberation, Sigmund Freud, lived his own life in a way that Christians would do well to emulate.  …Freud was sexually chaste until his marriage at thirty and faithful to his wife thereafter.  He lived what C. S. Lewis summed up as the biblical ethic: ‘either marriage with total faithfulness to your partner or else total abstinence.’  But it's Freud's ideas, not his personal conduct, that shapes our culture.  And by examining his ideas we can see the direct line between Freud and our sexually charged culture today.

“Freud [equated] happiness with pleasure.  The specific pleasure Freud had in mind was the pleasure that comes from satisfying our sexual needs.  For Freud, what people call happiness is the result of a sudden satisfaction of those sexual needs that have been dammed up.

“Unhappiness is not only due to misfortune, such as illness, but also comes when sexual release occurs infrequently.

“Freud's emphasis on sexual pleasure naturally led to his ideas about what he considered another major source of unhappiness: ‘repression.’  By repression, Freud meant those cultural restrictions and prohibitions that limited the individual's pursuit of sexual pleasure and, by extension, happiness.

“We see Freud's ideas about sex, happiness, and repression all around us.  Our culture regards chastity as quaint and possibly even unhealthy.  If you object to the sexually explicit content in film, television, and advertising, you are often caricatured as ‘repressed’ and obsessed with sex yourself.  As philosopher Peter Kreeft, among others, has written, ours is a culture that has made sex the highest good of human existence.

“C. S. Lewis, on the other hand, pointed out key distinctions that were lost on Freud and his contemporary disciples—distinctions that are at the heart of the Christian ideas about sex and happiness.

“We need to distinguish, for example, between ‘repression’ and ‘suppression.’  While repression is subconscious, suppression is the conscious effort to control our desires and impulses.  It is healthy self-denial.  In Freud's time, as in our own, people confused the two and came to regard any attempt to limit human sexuality as ‘unhealthy.’

“Lewis regarded this as nonsense.  It was the ‘anything goes’ approach to sexuality that was unhealthy.  This approach, he said, leads to ‘disease, lies, jealousy . . . the reverse of health’—just the kinds of things we observe in our culture every day.

“Lewis also drew an important distinction between romantic love, which he called ‘eros,’ and sexuality.  Sexual attraction is only a part of eros, the state we call ‘being in love.’  Throughout human history sexual attraction has often followed friendship and mutual affection.  It's only in modern times that sexuality, thanks to Freud, occupies the centre of human existence and is placed first.[9]

I would not dare recommend formulating a new moral code, but I do insist that each Christian is responsible to adhere to this biblical standard.  There are only three reasons for a church to impose discipline on its membership—theological error, divisiveness, or immorality.  Clearly, theological error threatens the health of a church and must be addressed quickly.  Division among the people of God threatens the continued viability of a congregation and must not be silently tolerated.  Factitious behaviour (or sectarianism) will shortly consume a church.  I must warn the people of God that immorality tolerated is just as dangerous to a congregation as are theological error and sectarianism.  Each sin, unconfronted, will destroy a church.

Let me summarise the concluding portions of the text.  Make every effort to find out what pleases God and then courageously do that.  Walk as though you are children of the light, as you actually are.  This means that you must guard your tongue so that you don’t fall into participating inappropriate language, or worse yet, approving of inappropriate behaviour.  Don’t permit yourself to be desensitised to sin through using immorality and filthy language as a means of entertainment.  Don’t even permit yourself to think about those things commonly discussed by inhabitants of this fallen world.  In fact, expose wickedness as the evil it really is.

Phillips has an excellent handle on this passage.  His translation reads as follows.  “As children copy their fathers you, as God’s children, are to copy him.  Live your lives in love—the same sort of love which Christ gives us and which he perfectly expressed when he gave himself up for us in sacrifice to God.  But as for sexual immorality in all its forms, and the itch to get your hands on what belongs to other people—don’t even talk about such things; they are no fit subjects for Christians to talk about.  The keynote of your conversation should not be nastiness or silliness or flippancy, but a sense of all that we owe to God.

“For of this much you can be quite certain: that neither the immoral nor the dirty-minded nor the covetous man (which latter is, in effect, worshipping a false god) has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.  Don’t let anyone fool you on this point, however plausible his argument.  It is these very things which bring down the wrath of God upon the disobedient.  Have nothing to do with men like that—once you were ‘darkness’ but now you are ‘light.’  Live then as children of the light.  The light produces in men quite the opposite of sins like these—everything that is wholesome and good and true.  Let your lives be living proofs of the things which please God.  Steer clear of the activities of darkness; let your lives show by contrast how dreary and futile these things are.  (You know the sort of things I mean—to detail their secret doings is really too shameful.)  For light is capable of ‘showing up’ everything for what it really is.  It is even possible (after all, it happened with you!) for light to turn the thing it shines upon into light also.

“Live life, then, with a due sense of responsibility, not as men who do not know the meaning and purpose of life but as those who do.  Make the best use of your time, despite all the difficulties of these days.  Don’t be vague but firmly grasp what you know to be the will of the Lord.”[10]

May God give us grace to live such godly lives that even the pagans about us will take notice and seek to learn of the light which shines brightly among us and within us.  Amen.

The language in the fifth verse is intriguing.  Paul utilises two verbs in juxtaposition, each conveying the thought of knowing, [tou`to ga;r i[ste ginwvskonte"].  The first verb [i[ste] is the second person, plural, perfect, active, imperative of oi\da.  The verb implies an intuitive knowledge.  The second verb [ginwvskonte"] is the present, active, participle, masculine, plural nominative of ginwvskw.  The verb suggests a knowledge which is learned through study.

A. T. Robertson asks why ginwvskonte" should be added.  His answer is, “Probably, ‘[you] know recognising by your own experience.’”[11]  Having come out of lives of sin, Christians know from experience what is right and what is wrong!

You perhaps recall the uproar in Ephesus as result of Paul’s ministry in that city [see Acts 19:21-41].  The uproar resulted from a perceived attack against the goddess Artemis of the EphesiansArtemis of the Ephesians was the goddess of fertility; and sexual orgies were regularly associated with her worship.[12]  Solon allowed the introduction of prostitutes into Athens and then the building of brothels.  With the profits of prostitution, the Temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, was built.  In Corinth, each young woman was expected to give a year as a sacred prostitute in the temple of Aphrodite.  The Greeks saw nothing wrong with building a temple with the proceeds of prostitution.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes of covetousness, “This means, of course, avarice, love of money, love of money as money; love of money partly for itself and partly because of what it can do for us, the things we can buy with money, the things we can procure with money, the things we can do if we have money—in fact, the love of all that money can do and achieve—that is what Paul is condemning under the word covetousness.”[13]

Stott notes a significant point in the apostolic statement.  Note that the immoral have no inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and God.  “Note in passing the remarkable bracketing of Christ and God in this expression.  Since the definite article is not repeated, the kingdom is said to belong to him who is both ‘Christ’ and ‘God.’  And this divine kingdom is a righteous kingdom, from which all unrighteousness will be excluded.”[14]


John Stott has penned a concluding paragraph which provides excellent material for consideration.  Listen carefully to Dr. Stott’s words.  “It would be easy for Christians to speed-read a paragraph like this, without pausing for reflection, on the assumption that it applies to unbelievers, not to us.  Has not Paul assured us in the earlier part of his letter of our heavenly inheritance, taught us that the Holy Spirit within us, is God’s guarantee, even foretaste and first instalment, of it ‘until we acquire possession of it,’ and prayed that our eyes might be opened to see ‘the riches of the glory of the inheritance’ which will one day be ours?  Yes, indeed he has.  At the same time he also addresses to us this warning about the danger of forfeiting our inheritance in God’s kingdom.  How can we reconcile these things?  Only by recalling that assurance of salvation is neither a synonym nor an excuse for presumption.  And if we should fall into a life of greedy immorality, we would be supplying clear evidence that we are after all idolaters, not worshippers of God, disobedient people instead of obedient, and so that heirs not of heaven but of hell.  The Apostle gives us a solemn warning; we shall be wise to heed it.”[15]


Recently, Charles Colson, in a Breakpoint commentary, wrote of the genesis of society’s acceptance of immorality, not only as an accepted norm, but as the expected right for all people.  I want to note a major portion of that commentary, since it is germane to the message this day.  Listen carefully as I read what Colson has provided as food for thought.

“It's one of history's great ironies that the man most associated with sexual liberation, Sigmund Freud, lived his own life in a way that Christians would do well to emulate.  …Freud was sexually chaste until his marriage at thirty and faithful to his wife thereafter.  He lived what C. S. Lewis summed up as the biblical ethic: ‘either marriage with total faithfulness to your partner or else total abstinence.’  But it's Freud's ideas, not his personal conduct, that shapes our culture.  And by examining his ideas we can see the direct line between Freud and our sexually charged culture today.

“Freud [equated] happiness with pleasure.  The specific pleasure Freud had in mind was the pleasure that comes from satisfying our sexual needs.  For Freud, what people call happiness is the result of a sudden satisfaction of those sexual needs that have been dammed up.

“Unhappiness is not only due to misfortune, such as illness, but also comes when sexual release occurs infrequently.

“Freud's emphasis on sexual pleasure naturally led to his ideas about what he considered another major source of unhappiness: ‘repression.’  By repression, Freud meant those cultural restrictions and prohibitions that limited the individual's pursuit of sexual pleasure and, by extension, happiness.

“We see Freud's ideas about sex, happiness, and repression all around us.  Our culture regards chastity as quaint and possibly even unhealthy.  If you object to the sexually explicit content in film, television, and advertising, you are often caricatured as ‘repressed’ and obsessed with sex yourself.  As philosopher Peter Kreeft, among others, has written, ours is a culture that has made sex the highest good of human existence.

“C. S. Lewis, on the other hand, pointed out key distinctions that were lost on Freud and his contemporary disciples—distinctions that are at the heart of the Christian ideas about sex and happiness.

“We need to distinguish, for example, between ‘repression’ and ‘suppression.’  While repression is subconscious, suppression is the conscious effort to control our desires and impulses.  It is healthy self-denial.  In Freud's time, as in our own, people confused the two and came to regard any attempt to limit human sexuality as ‘unhealthy.’

“Lewis regarded this as nonsense.  It was the ‘anything goes’ approach to sexuality that was unhealthy.  This approach, he said, leads to ‘disease, lies, jealousy . . . the reverse of health’—just the kinds of things we observe in our culture every day.

“Lewis also drew an important distinction between romantic love, which he called ‘eros,’ and sexuality.  Sexual attraction is only a part of eros, the state we call ‘being in love.’  Throughout human history sexual attraction has often followed friendship and mutual affection.  It's only in modern times that sexuality, thanks to Freud, occupies the centre of human existence and is placed first.[16]

Phillips has an excellent handle on this passage.  His translation reads as follows.  “As children copy their fathers you, as God’s children, are to copy him.  Live your lives in love—the same sort of love which Christ gives us and which he perfectly expressed when he gave himself up for us in sacrifice to God.  But as for sexual immorality in all its forms, and the itch to get your hands on what belongs to other people—don’t even talk about such things; they are no fit subjects for Christians to talk about.  The keynote of your conversation should not be nastiness or silliness or flippancy, but a sense of all that we owe to God.

“For of this much you can be quite certain: that neither the immoral nor the dirty-minded nor the covetous man (which latter is, in effect, worshipping a false god) has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.  Don’t let anyone fool you on this point, however plausible his argument.  It is these very things which bring down the wrath of God upon the disobedient.  Have nothing to do with men like that—once you were ‘darkness’ but now you are ‘light.’  Live then as children of the light.  The light produces in men quite the opposite of sins like these—everything that is wholesome and good and true.  Let your lives be living proofs of the things which please God.  Steer clear of the activities of darkness; let your lives show by contrast how dreary and futile these things are.  (You know the sort of things I mean—to detail their secret doings is really too shameful.)  For light is capable of ‘showing up’ everything for what it really is.  It is even possible (after all, it happened with you!) for light to turn the thing it shines upon into light also.

“Live life, then, with a due sense of responsibility, not as men who do not know the meaning and purpose of life but as those who do.  Make the best use of your time, despite all the difficulties of these days.  Don’t be vague but firmly grasp what you know to be the will of the Lord.”[17]


----

[1] Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.  Wheaton: Good News Publishers, 2001.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

[2] John R. W. Stott, The Message of Ephesians (InterVarsity, Wheaton, IL 1979) 192

[3] Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, Volume 2 (Victor Books, Wheaton, IL, 1989) 44

[4] D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Darkness and Light: An Exposition of Ephesians 4:17-5:17 (Baker, Grand Rapids, MI, 1982) 330

[5] A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament: The Epistles of Paul, Volume IV (Broadman, Nashville, TN, 1931) 542

[6] Stott, op. cit., 197

[7] Stott, op. cit., 198

[8] Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (InterVarsity, Wheaton, IL, 1993) 550

[9] Charles Colson, The Question of Love, Breakpoint Commentary 21 October, 2002 (http://www.breakpoint.org/Breakpoint/ChannelRoot/FeaturesGroup/BreakPointCommentaries/The Question of Love.htm)

[10] J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English (Macmillian Co., New York, NY, 1958, 1960)

[11] A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament: The Epistles of Paul, Volume IV (Broadman, Nashville, TN, 1931) 542

[12] John R. W. Stott, The Message of Ephesians (InterVarsity, Wheaton, IL 1979) 192

[13] D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Darkness and Light: An Exposition of Ephesians 4:17-5:17 (Baker, Grand Rapids, MI, 1982) 330

[14] Stott, op. cit., 197

[15] Stott, op. cit., 198

[16] Charles Colson, The Question of Love, Breakpoint Commentary 21 October, 2002 (http://www.breakpoint.org/Breakpoint/ChannelRoot/FeaturesGroup/BreakPointCommentaries/The Question of Love.htm)

[17] J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English (Macmillian Co., New York, NY, 1958, 1960)

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