The Profound Consequences of Unsanctioned Sex
Ask your congregation to go back in their minds to the last time they scratched their ear. Ask, "Can you picture it? Can you feel it? How about the last time you brushed a crumb off your laps?" Ask, "How did that make you feel? Where were you? What were you eating? How about the last time you took a sip of water? What was the occasion for needing a drink? How did it taste. Seriously, take a moment to ponder and place yourself back in those moments. Tough, right?"
Then ask, "How about this: When, if ever, did you engage in a sexual act with someone other than your spouse? Whoa … a different reaction, huh?! Memories just came flooding back to you. Where were you, whom were you with and why? How did you feel in the moment?"
Why is that? Why are our sexual memories—specifically our sinful sexual memories—so vivid and lingering?
Darren Ether, Assistant Pastor at Waterloo Pentecostal Assembly in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, has some keen insights:
“[Sex] brings a husband and a wife together in not just a physical way but also in an emotional and spiritual bonding. Sex is far more than just physical. That’s why you remember it. If you drink a glass of water at the wrong time you don’t remember it in three minutes, much less three years. But you never forget sex in a wrong circumstance. Even 20, 40 years later you can still go back to that thought. Why? Because it’s more than just a physical event. There is an emotional and spiritual bonding that takes place and leaves a part of you in that situation. It’s very profound in its consequences.”
"Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral" (Hebrews 13:4).
Gunmen Open Fire on Mother's Day Parade
Just weeks after the Boston Marathon bombing rocked the nation, nineteen people, including two children were shot during a New Orleans Mother's Day parade (5/12/13). While some were seriously injured, thankfully none were killed.
In an effort to assuage undue concern, the FBI was quick to declare that this "incident" was "strictly street violence," not terrorism--as if this should make us feel better.
There was a time when street violence--perpetrated by our own citizens within our own borders--was a big deal. Now it seems to pale in comparison to the violence of "terror" from without.
Violence of any type is troubling. But shouldn't the violence that happens on America's streets be even more concerning to us than any visited on us from abroad? After all, home grown violence speaks of our own moral and social decline. This is the violence of which the Scriptures warn which will be indicative of the latter days.
"But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God …" (2 Timothy 3:1-4).
A Tale of Two Chickens
A story is told of a woman who entered a butcher shop and asked for a chicken. The Butcher only had one left, so he brought it out and placed it on the scale; it weighed two pounds. The woman said, “I was hoping for one a little bigger.” The butcher returned to the freezer, pretending to get another, but brought the same chicken back and placed it on the scale, pushing down a little with his thumb so that it weighed three pounds. The woman said, “Perfect, I’ll take them both!”
Lies are a trap we set for ourselves. We are not always so quickly ensnared as this dishonest butcher, but that doesn't mean we've gotten away with anything. Eventually we all have to fork over the other chicken and admit our fraud.