Mortifying your Members - Part 1: Fornication.
Colossians 3:5-9
King James Version
5 - Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
6 - For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:
7 - In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them.
8 - But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.
9 - Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How many of us have things we struggle with in our Christian walk? I know I still have issues with some things, and this message is for you as well as I. Let’s face it. We all slip up. The bible tells us in Romans that all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God. The passage here, clearly a lot defines the issues that we must work on in our flesh. The first listed is Fornication.
What is fornication? Biblically? As a Bible scholar and an ex-fornicator myself, I can tell you that it’s more than just having sex outside of marriage. It is any sexually motivated act and/or thought. The Hebrew word for fornication has been translated as,
harlot, whoring, to commit whoredom, commit fornication, whore, whorish, and variations of the word harlot. In the Greek it has been represented as variations of the word fornication and variations of the word whoremonger. Interestingly, the Greek word translated as fornication is pornos.
Pornography
That word sounds familiar, doesn’t it? We all are familiar with the topic. We have seen the X-Rated material in the airport magazine racks, in the internet, and even in the bookstores. It’s Not just pictures in one of those magazines or on one of those sites either. Advertising now features scantily clad and/or suggestive pictures to entice you. How about that “fine” celebrity that you drool over because he looks good? Ever watched a Hip-Hop, Rap, Pop, or R&B music video? To their credit, not every one of them is bad, but the bulk of them seem to feature beautiful women, dancing provocatively, or scantily clad, or simulating sexual acts, or being suggestive, or any combination of the previous. The Bible records Jesus as saying in Matthew 5:28
“But I can guarantee that whoever looks with lust at a woman has already committed adultery in his heart.” (GOD’S WORD®)
God is not partial to gender however, this same scripture can be interpreted to apply to women also.
Masturbation
Masturbation, when sexually motivated, is also a sin. Masturbating due to Pornographic images or imaginations or due to a sexual desire for a member of the opposite or same sex is wrong, because it was sexually motivated and fueled by lust. James 1:14 -15 says
“We are tempted by our own desires that drag us off and trap us. Our desires make us sin, and when sin is finished with us, it leaves us dead. ” (English Standard Version)
Masturbation then becomes a cycle. We lust, and it arouses us, we masturbate to relieve the sexual tension, we create a sexual desire within us, we lust again, and the process starts over.
Leviticus refers to masturbation (with ejaculation) as unclean.
“And if any man’s semen goes out from him, then he shall bathe all his flesh in water, and be unclean until the evening. “
(Leviticus 15:16, Literal Translation of the Holy Bible)
“These are the things you men must do if you become unclean because of an infected penis or if you have a flow of semen”
(Leviticus 15:32, Contemporary English Version)
The Bible tells us to “touch not the unclean thing. So we must not masturbate because ejaculation (on its own) is unclean in God’s sight.
The Bible also says
“Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is helpful. Everything is permissible for me, but I will not allow anything to control me.”
(1 Corinthians 6:12, International Standard Version)
That means, when you become addicted to masturbation, which is scientifically and from my own experience possible, you are sinning because addictions have control over us. and when our addictions have control over us, it is impossible for God to have control over us, for “no man can serve two masters”
Sex Before Marriage
“Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. ” (1 Corinthians 6:13, 18, KJV)
These scripture indicates, that the natural use of the body was not to masturbate or for any other type of sexual sin. It shows us that every other sin that a man does is against others or against God, but sexual immorality is a sin against one’s nature. It clearly says, “the body is not for fornication”
Do you not see that your bodies are part of the body of Christ? how then may I take what is a part of the body of Christ and make it a part of the body of a loose woman? such a thing may not be. Or do you not see that he who is joined to a loose woman is one body with her? for God has said, The two of them will become one flesh.
(1 Corinthians 6:15-16, BBE)
When you have sex before marriage, whether it be with a prostitute, a friend, your girlfriend, your fiance, even if you are in love and/or planning to get married, you are not married yet, therefore it is wrong. As a Christian, you are a part of God’s body. You are a “limb of God.” When you fornicate you detach your limb from the body of Christ and fuse it with the body of the person you have had sex with. Also, because it is human nature to seek God (”something higher than themselves”) we fulfill our nature by becoming a part of his body. When we break from His body, we violate our nature (”sin against our own body”). The only way the sexual act cannot result in a violation of one’s nature is when one is married to another who is also a “Limb of God.”
For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor; Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God: For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.
(1 Thessalonians 4:3-5, 7 KJV)
When you have sex while unmarried, you dishonor your vessel. (Again, “sin against your body”). When you have sex outside of marriage, you become like a Godless person. You detach your limb. As Christians, we are to do the will of God. This scripture plainly shows that it is Gods will, and not only his will, but part of the process of our sanctification, that we not have sex before we are married. We are called to holiness. We must exercise our call because it is part of the will of God. Fornication is unholy and therefore outside of his will for us. When we go outside his will, it is then that we sin. Therefore we aught not have sex when unmarried.
Sex when married with someone you are not married to. (Adultery)
Exodus 20:14 - Thou shalt not commit adultery.
The obvious reference in this passage is that having sexual relations (that doesn’t not just mean intercourse, but
sexually motivated acts and/or thoughts) with some one other than the one that you are married to, is against God. Mathew Chapter 5 tell us that when you so much as look at a woman and imagine being with her, (like Chris Rock in I Think I Love My Wife) you have committed adultery.
I was sitting in church thinking about this portion of the message, and God spoke to my heart and I had to write it down. He said “adultery is not just about marriage. Adultery is whenever you break your commitment to something/someone to have/do/enjoy something/someone else.”
As I sat and pondered these words, I was drawn to Jeremiah Chapter 3.
They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man’s, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the LORD. (Jeremiah 3:1, KJV)
God asked a question. He said, “If you divorce your wife, and she remarries, would you take her back? And if you do, that would morally corrupt the land. And yet, you run after other things, and then got the nerve to come and try and be with me to?” The “church” of today is running after other things. Running after their own lusts. Gossiping on Saturday and shouting on Sunday.Having sex with prostitutes and strange women, and want to call themselves holy. Homosexual, and hiding it. The want to be able to do their own thing, and have God, too. Verse five says “Behold, thou hast spoken and done evil things as thou couldest. (Jeremiah 3:5 KJV)” He said you’re acting like whores. Money whores, sex whores, church whores. That’s the whore that hops from church to church, stay at a church as long as the preacher is acting right, or the preacher doesn’t say anything that hurts their lifestyle. So, when the preacher falls, they fall away, when the preacher stars convicting them of their lifestyle, they accuse the preacher of being judgmental. There are church whores. There are corrupt pastors and preachers, that put themselves higher than God. Members saying, “Ooo pastor preached, he tore the church up.” No, pastor didn’t tear the church up, God tore the church up. No, pastor didn’t preach. Pastor was only being used as the lips of God, God did it. Too many people put the preacher over the message. That why people get upset that the preacher sinned, and leave the church.
Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed: but ye feed not the flock. (Ezekiel 34:3 KJV)
Preachers that commit adultery with themselves, placing themselves above God. Preachers like those on the TV that preach Money and and are more Motivational Speakers than Preachers. Ones that take your money and Buy a Benz, a Cadillac, A Hummer a 1.2 million dollar home and yet the people they preach to are the ones tho have no spiritual substance. But you run down to MegaFest and you Run to World Changers Church and you Run to New Birth Missionary Baptist and you run after Creflo Dollar, TD Jakes, Benny Hinn, “Pastor” Mason Betha (Ma$e), Clarence McClendon and you are not being fed anything except hype and a good feeling. If you are guilty the word don’t convict you, SOMETHING IS WRONG!!!!
You cant Gossip and be holy, you can’t lie and be holy, you can’t steal and be holy, you can’t put people on a pedestal and revere them more than you revere God, and still claim to be holy. You have to separate yourselves. Divorce the world before God divorces you.
Therefore the showers have been withheld, and there hath been no latter rain; and thou hadst a whore’s forehead, thou refusedst to be ashamed. (Jeremiah 3:3, KJV)
You wonder why it looks like everyone around you is getting bless but you? You wonder why. Because instead of staying where God told you to be, you go where you feel comfortable. Because you whore and heap teachers unto yourselves, having itching ears. It’s because you lose sight of God and use him as a means to an end instead of letting him be the end to your means. Things need to change. You have to Get back to God and do your first works over. It’s time for a change. It’s time to give up your love affair with the world and get back to God.
King James Version
5 - Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
6 - For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:
7 - In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them.
8 - But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.
9 - Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How many of us have things we struggle with in our Christian walk? I know I still have issues with some things, and this message is for you as well as I. Let’s face it. We all slip up. The bible tells us in Romans that all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God. The passage here, clearly a lot defines the issues that we must work on in our flesh. The first listed is Fornication.
What is fornication? Biblically? As a Bible scholar and an ex-fornicator myself, I can tell you that it’s more than just having sex outside of marriage. It is any sexually motivated act and/or thought. The Hebrew word for fornication has been translated as,
harlot, whoring, to commit whoredom, commit fornication, whore, whorish, and variations of the word harlot. In the Greek it has been represented as variations of the word fornication and variations of the word whoremonger. Interestingly, the Greek word translated as fornication is pornos.
Pornography
That word sounds familiar, doesn’t it? We all are familiar with the topic. We have seen the X-Rated material in the airport magazine racks, in the internet, and even in the bookstores. It’s Not just pictures in one of those magazines or on one of those sites either. Advertising now features scantily clad and/or suggestive pictures to entice you. How about that “fine” celebrity that you drool over because he looks good? Ever watched a Hip-Hop, Rap, Pop, or R&B music video? To their credit, not every one of them is bad, but the bulk of them seem to feature beautiful women, dancing provocatively, or scantily clad, or simulating sexual acts, or being suggestive, or any combination of the previous. The Bible records Jesus as saying in Matthew 5:28
“But I can guarantee that whoever looks with lust at a woman has already committed adultery in his heart.” (GOD’S WORD®)
God is not partial to gender however, this same scripture can be interpreted to apply to women also.
Masturbation
Masturbation, when sexually motivated, is also a sin. Masturbating due to Pornographic images or imaginations or due to a sexual desire for a member of the opposite or same sex is wrong, because it was sexually motivated and fueled by lust. James 1:14 -15 says
“We are tempted by our own desires that drag us off and trap us. Our desires make us sin, and when sin is finished with us, it leaves us dead. ” (English Standard Version)
Masturbation then becomes a cycle. We lust, and it arouses us, we masturbate to relieve the sexual tension, we create a sexual desire within us, we lust again, and the process starts over.
Leviticus refers to masturbation (with ejaculation) as unclean.
“And if any man’s semen goes out from him, then he shall bathe all his flesh in water, and be unclean until the evening. “
(Leviticus 15:16, Literal Translation of the Holy Bible)
“These are the things you men must do if you become unclean because of an infected penis or if you have a flow of semen”
(Leviticus 15:32, Contemporary English Version)
The Bible tells us to “touch not the unclean thing. So we must not masturbate because ejaculation (on its own) is unclean in God’s sight.
The Bible also says
“Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is helpful. Everything is permissible for me, but I will not allow anything to control me.”
(1 Corinthians 6:12, International Standard Version)
That means, when you become addicted to masturbation, which is scientifically and from my own experience possible, you are sinning because addictions have control over us. and when our addictions have control over us, it is impossible for God to have control over us, for “no man can serve two masters”
Sex Before Marriage
“Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. ” (1 Corinthians 6:13, 18, KJV)
These scripture indicates, that the natural use of the body was not to masturbate or for any other type of sexual sin. It shows us that every other sin that a man does is against others or against God, but sexual immorality is a sin against one’s nature. It clearly says, “the body is not for fornication”
Do you not see that your bodies are part of the body of Christ? how then may I take what is a part of the body of Christ and make it a part of the body of a loose woman? such a thing may not be. Or do you not see that he who is joined to a loose woman is one body with her? for God has said, The two of them will become one flesh.
(1 Corinthians 6:15-16, BBE)
When you have sex before marriage, whether it be with a prostitute, a friend, your girlfriend, your fiance, even if you are in love and/or planning to get married, you are not married yet, therefore it is wrong. As a Christian, you are a part of God’s body. You are a “limb of God.” When you fornicate you detach your limb from the body of Christ and fuse it with the body of the person you have had sex with. Also, because it is human nature to seek God (”something higher than themselves”) we fulfill our nature by becoming a part of his body. When we break from His body, we violate our nature (”sin against our own body”). The only way the sexual act cannot result in a violation of one’s nature is when one is married to another who is also a “Limb of God.”
For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor; Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God: For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.
(1 Thessalonians 4:3-5, 7 KJV)
When you have sex while unmarried, you dishonor your vessel. (Again, “sin against your body”). When you have sex outside of marriage, you become like a Godless person. You detach your limb. As Christians, we are to do the will of God. This scripture plainly shows that it is Gods will, and not only his will, but part of the process of our sanctification, that we not have sex before we are married. We are called to holiness. We must exercise our call because it is part of the will of God. Fornication is unholy and therefore outside of his will for us. When we go outside his will, it is then that we sin. Therefore we aught not have sex when unmarried.
Sex when married with someone you are not married to. (Adultery)
Exodus 20:14 - Thou shalt not commit adultery.
The obvious reference in this passage is that having sexual relations (that doesn’t not just mean intercourse, but
sexually motivated acts and/or thoughts) with some one other than the one that you are married to, is against God. Mathew Chapter 5 tell us that when you so much as look at a woman and imagine being with her, (like Chris Rock in I Think I Love My Wife) you have committed adultery.
I was sitting in church thinking about this portion of the message, and God spoke to my heart and I had to write it down. He said “adultery is not just about marriage. Adultery is whenever you break your commitment to something/someone to have/do/enjoy something/someone else.”
As I sat and pondered these words, I was drawn to Jeremiah Chapter 3.
They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man’s, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the LORD. (Jeremiah 3:1, KJV)
God asked a question. He said, “If you divorce your wife, and she remarries, would you take her back? And if you do, that would morally corrupt the land. And yet, you run after other things, and then got the nerve to come and try and be with me to?” The “church” of today is running after other things. Running after their own lusts. Gossiping on Saturday and shouting on Sunday.Having sex with prostitutes and strange women, and want to call themselves holy. Homosexual, and hiding it. The want to be able to do their own thing, and have God, too. Verse five says “Behold, thou hast spoken and done evil things as thou couldest. (Jeremiah 3:5 KJV)” He said you’re acting like whores. Money whores, sex whores, church whores. That’s the whore that hops from church to church, stay at a church as long as the preacher is acting right, or the preacher doesn’t say anything that hurts their lifestyle. So, when the preacher falls, they fall away, when the preacher stars convicting them of their lifestyle, they accuse the preacher of being judgmental. There are church whores. There are corrupt pastors and preachers, that put themselves higher than God. Members saying, “Ooo pastor preached, he tore the church up.” No, pastor didn’t tear the church up, God tore the church up. No, pastor didn’t preach. Pastor was only being used as the lips of God, God did it. Too many people put the preacher over the message. That why people get upset that the preacher sinned, and leave the church.
Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed: but ye feed not the flock. (Ezekiel 34:3 KJV)
Preachers that commit adultery with themselves, placing themselves above God. Preachers like those on the TV that preach Money and and are more Motivational Speakers than Preachers. Ones that take your money and Buy a Benz, a Cadillac, A Hummer a 1.2 million dollar home and yet the people they preach to are the ones tho have no spiritual substance. But you run down to MegaFest and you Run to World Changers Church and you Run to New Birth Missionary Baptist and you run after Creflo Dollar, TD Jakes, Benny Hinn, “Pastor” Mason Betha (Ma$e), Clarence McClendon and you are not being fed anything except hype and a good feeling. If you are guilty the word don’t convict you, SOMETHING IS WRONG!!!!
You cant Gossip and be holy, you can’t lie and be holy, you can’t steal and be holy, you can’t put people on a pedestal and revere them more than you revere God, and still claim to be holy. You have to separate yourselves. Divorce the world before God divorces you.
Therefore the showers have been withheld, and there hath been no latter rain; and thou hadst a whore’s forehead, thou refusedst to be ashamed. (Jeremiah 3:3, KJV)
You wonder why it looks like everyone around you is getting bless but you? You wonder why. Because instead of staying where God told you to be, you go where you feel comfortable. Because you whore and heap teachers unto yourselves, having itching ears. It’s because you lose sight of God and use him as a means to an end instead of letting him be the end to your means. Things need to change. You have to Get back to God and do your first works over. It’s time for a change. It’s time to give up your love affair with the world and get back to God.
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