The inconvenient truth

The Lord our God is just and good. He is Holy. He therefore cannot stand the sight of sin Habakkuk1:13. The law is God's perfect standard of how we can please him. If it wasn't for the law we wouldn't be able to appreciate how sinful we really are Romans 7:7-12. And how we deserve the full wrath of God for our sins. When I was awakened to my sinful nature and how I could never measure up to God's perfect standard, the message of God's grace was music to my ears. I learnt that Jesus died to redeem me from captivity of sin, death and Satan. I believed this truth and I was born again. I became a new creation. I died to self and live to bring glory to God. My baptism was my public declaration of this truth. I am now free from bondage of sin and I am a slave to Christ 1 Corinthians 7:22. I am lead by the Holy Spirit. Even though I am saved, I am still sinful Romans 7:15-16. That is why I am so glad Jesus made me righteous with God Romans 7:25; 1 John 2:12. Romans 8:1 says therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. I find out what the will of God is by reading my bible which is God's word.

The sin I will focus on is in this post is sexual sin. Sexual sin as described in the bible includes adultery, fornication, beastiality and homosexuality 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; Leviticus 18

I'll start with the sin I am most familiar with fornication. Sex before marriage has become acceptable practice in our society. We accept children born out of wedlock. We tolerate people who date for years without committing. We call marriage outdated and choose to live together. We expect young people of a certain age to become sexually active. I realised that my conscience became seared which is why I never felt guilty about disobeying God like this 1 Timothy 4:2. I was exposing myself to messages that were reiterating my decision to disobey: government messages where I ignored abstain but listened to Be Faithful and Condomise. My environment also contributed - the tv, magazine, music, my company - all made me feel it was okay. Sex before marriage has it's consquences - heart-break, depression, over-investing in the wrong relationship because the sex is good, unwanted pregnancy, sex without strings which leads to strings and sickness - to name a few. To be honest with you, the Holy Spirit convicted me until I stopped. I am not taking credit for any of it because if it was by my choice I would still be engaging in fornication and not seeing anything wrong with it. The most powerful scriptures I've read about keeping my body pure is from 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies." I realised that I had the Holy Spirit living in me and couldn't defile my body any more. Sex is a gift from God for married people and if you don't have self-control it's best to get married 1 Corinthians 7:9.

Men cheat - I've heard this so many times. Our society expects a married men to commit adultery. You hear young women being warned about it months leading up to the wedding. He will cheat but "Kuyabekezelwa emshadweni". Some are perpetual cheaters but sometimes you find the one who will cheat on you once or twice! Then you are lucky. You listen to talk shows and hear adulterous women/men boasting about wrecking marriages - it's a sad reality. I read the bible and my understanding is that God loathes adultery. In the Old Testament he commands the Israelites to stone to death the adulter and adulteress Deuteronomy 2:22; Leviticus 20:10. God says that if you commit adultery you will not go to heaven that's how serious He is about it 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. God's word says adultery is not something you must expect when you get married. God hates adultery so much that it's the only time Jesus permits divorce Matthew 5:32; Mathew 19:9. I know that men and women can commit adultery  I focus on men mainly because our society still frowns on women who commit adultery more than they do with men. What the bible tells us to do to prevent adultery:

• Look to your wife/husband for sexual fulfillment. Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well. Proverbs 5:15;1 Corinthians 7:3-5 
• Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation, The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak Mark 14:38
• Be aware of seductive men & women. Proverbs 5:3 says "For the lips of the adulterous woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil"
• Flee from sexual immorality. You are not strong enough to overcome it so avoid any situation that will lead to temptation. Put the necessary precautions so that you are not lead into temptation. In Genesis 39:18 when the Potiphar's wife tried to seduce Joseph he "left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house" 1 Corinthians 6:18; Proverbs 5:8 
• Pray for Self-control. A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls (Proverbs 25:28). One of the fruits of the Holy Spirit is self control Galatians 5:22-23

Q&A taken from Pastor Mark Driscoll's FB update

Beastiality Leviticus 18:23; Deuteronomy 27:21, I recently read a story about a women who had and recorded her sexual encounter with a dog, thankfully this is frowned upon by society at large.

Homosexuality, like adultery and fornication, is a result of God giving us over to our shameful lusts Romans 1:26-27. I want to be clear that people who rape, are hateful or violence towards homosexual people are inhumane. Jesus pointed out that the two greatest commandments are Love for God and Love for fellow man. In Mark 12:29-31 He said "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'. Those who claim to be doing this in the name of God do not understand these two greatest commandments. If you love someone you do not hurt them rather you lead them to Jesus. 

The truth is that God hates sin. And he punishes those who sin against him. Yet because He loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son to save us. So that whomsoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life John 3:16. Jesus is the truth, the way and the life John 14:6. When we commit our lives to Jesus we are transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. We will sin but we thrive day by day to draw closer to God. So that by power of the Holy Spirit we may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way Colossians 1:10.

I was asking myself why I felt the need to write this and the answer is in John Piper's book Bloodlines. It goes like this "The debt I feel is not to any particular group. This is a debt to all sinners. The kind of happy debt awakened by the experience of God's grace in Christ. Paul said in Romans 1:14 "I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise and to the unwise" (KJV). What did he mean by that? He meant that, owing nothing in himself, Jesus has called him and forgiven him and accepted him and promises him everlasting joy in the presence of God...here he was - the "foremost" of sinner (1 Timothy 1:15) - overwhelmed with Jesus's redeeming love. The effect this had on Paul was to give him a joyful sense of indebtedness to all other sinners like himself."

My prayer is that you may know Jesus and experience God's loving grace at a personal level.

God bless

Additional resources

• When Mark Driscoll is asked whether Homosexuality is a sin he broadens the topic to sexual sin. This was the springboard for this write up:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSGIPqXhofE
• God is for us. Sex in marriage is safe emotionally and phyically http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_xTsqzlDEE
• It Happened a book by Pastor who cheated on his wife twice. He has some helpful hits on how to prevent it http://ithappenedbook.com/
• Jackie Hill is a born again Christian who used to be a lesbian. She is a christian poet and you can see more of her on http://jackieehill.com/.  http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/love-letter-to-a-lesbian

(image courtesy of google images; video courtesy of youtube)