Sex in the Wrong Place? Choose to Wait
“Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God's people.” (Eph 5:3)
“Promise me, O women of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and wild deer, not to awaken love until the time is right.” (Song of Songs 3:5 NLT)
You are warmly welcome. Next Sunday 14th May will be our Annual General Meeting (AGM) as a Chapel Congregation, in which we will share and review reports about the Chapel operations and strategy. Please plan to be a part. In the course of this week leading to the AGM, feel free to raise to us any matters you would like attended to in order to improve our worship and mission as a church family.
Today’s topic gives us a chance to encourage one another in the virtue of sexual purity. The seventh commandment directly forbids adultery, and while this may be considered more applicable to those in marriage, it actually applies to all, because it is about faithfulness. The single person must remain faithful to God and family as a single person, and the married person must remain faithful to the partner for life – thus remaining faithful to God and family before whom vows were made.
But why is sexual sin rampant? Before we attempt this question, remember that there is mercy and grace to those who repent and turn to God. If you have fallen into sexual sin, whether many got to know or it ended with just the two of you, repent and commit yourself to the purity that God demands. When you confess your sin to a leader or a fellowship and receive prayers and the absolution, it adds to your roots of commitment and accountability as you walk in the right direction.
Sex in the right place is the highest level of righteousness;
sex in the wrong place is the highest level of wickedness.
Sex in the right place is the joy of self-abandonment to the one
God-given partner, and the result of self-restraint from all others.
Sex in the wrong place is the pain of failure in self-restraint, and abandoning oneself to the lethal appetites and arms of the deceiver.
Sex in the right place is giving oneself away to the other in love;
sex in the wrong place is selfishly taking to oneself in lust.
Human beings have the capacity to reason and resist natural appetites that play against God’s will. It looks a juicy deal! But someone made terrible losses! It feels good, but later it feels terrible! Such is sex in the wrong place – the deceiver lures you into it with glossy promises, and after carrying you so high, lets you fall helplessly to bloody injuries! One verse that paints the deception of ‘sweet sin’ is the end of Amnon’s infatuation: “Then suddenly Amnon’s love turned to hate, and he hated her even more than he had loved her.” (2Sam 13:15). I don’t need more space to say one word to the wise: Flee sexual immorality. Choose to wait.