Amen. Okay, so we're in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, and we're going to look down at the end
of the chapter again. 1 Corinthians 6 and from verse 15, and I know Jack's literally
just read that, but we're just going to look at those last few verses again. It says from
verse 15, Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the
members of Christ and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. What know ye not
that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? For two sayeth he should be one flesh.
But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is
without the body, but he that comitteth fornication sinneth against his own body.
What know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of
God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body
and in your spirit, which are God's. He said in verse 18, Flee fornication, which is the title of
my sermon today, Flee fornication. I'm going to pray then we're going to get going with the
message. Father, thank you for your word, thank you for just how clear you make it about sins
such as this in your word, Lord, contrary to what our world seems to be living like now.
Your word doesn't change, Lord, and I pray that you just fill me with your spirit now, please,
Lord, and help me to just preach this message, which I've been thinking about this week,
just clearly and accurately and boldly, Lord, and just in a way that people that really need to
hear this will just really take this home, Lord, will really remember this message, Lord,
remember this real main point to the message, which is to flee fornication. Help me to get this
across clearly, accurately, Lord. Jesus' name, pray. Amen. Okay, so this is one of those topics
it does need regularly preached on, especially in this day and age, doesn't it? Okay, the last time
that I preached a whole sermon on it was around 80 months ago. It was a series called Sins That
Get You Kicked Out Of Church, if you remember that series. It was a pretty rough series. Well,
not for everyone, maybe for some, but. And I preached a sermon, Sins That Get You Kicked Out
Of Church, fornication. We went into it in depth, and that was 18 months ago, and it's a serious
sin, okay, obviously it gets you kicked out of church, but before we go into all of that, it's
important that we do define what this sin is. We need to define fornication. So turn to Matthew
chapter 19, because there has been an attempt to reclassify fornication. Keep a finger, obviously,
in 1 Corinthians 6. We'll be coming back there. Maybe put something in there, because we're going
to be flicking about a little bit at the beginning here. There's been an attempt to reclassify
fornication as an umbrella term for all sexual sin, including adultery, but that's just not the
case, okay. That's not how the Word of God teaches it. This is propped up by false Bible perversions
and false teachers. Why? Because it can then be used to justify all sorts of divorces as biblical,
okay. That's the goal, is to be able to say, well, look, fornication is just an umbrella term for
everything. Jesus Christ said, well, except for fornication, now we can just justify it for
anything we like amongst those, you know, those things that it tries to umbrella, but that's
not what the Word of God says, because Jesus Christ said here in Matthew 19, 9, and I say unto you,
whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another,
committeth adultery, and whoso mareth her which put away doth commit adultery. So therefore, look,
defining fornication is important, because it's a justification for divorce, it says.
Now, if it did mean anything in the category of sexual sin, there would therefore
then be a lot of biblical divorces, wouldn't there? There'd be a lot of people that would go, okay, well,
this is a justified biblical divorce, because we got a verse here and we got another verse as well.
We've got two verses or three saying something similar. However, fornication is simply, just to
make it clear, I'm going to show it to you from the Bible, it's those physical acts outside of
marriage, okay? It's outside of marriage, not within marriage. This is unmarried people, okay, and both
are unmarried for it to be fornication, because in Scripture the words fornication adultery are used
separately, and I'm going to show you that as we go through it quickly here. Matthew 19, we're going
to look at it from verse one, though. It says, and it came to pass when Jesus had finished these sayings,
he departed from Galilee and came into the coast of Judea beyond Jordan, and great multitudes followed
him and he healed them there. The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him and saying unto him,
is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? So, putting away is divorcing, okay?
You don't have to end up in Matthew 5 and verse 32, Jesus said, but I say unto you that whosoever shall
put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery, and whosoever
shall marry her that is divorced, committed adultery. So, putting away and divorced is used
interchangeably, okay? There are two terms that are used interchangeably, but this cause of fornication
is justification, as Jesus says here shortly, and we're going to look at that. They're basically
asking if it's okay to divorce for any cause, for any reason, that's what they're saying, okay? So, is
it just okay to just, not even a no-fault divorce, just any reason, you know, any cause at all?
And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read that he which made them at the beginning
made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall
cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh. Wherefore they are no more twain but one
flesh, what therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. So, he's saying that marriage
is God joining a man and woman together, don't then unjoin yourselves. Don't unjoin a married couple,
don't ever get in the way of a married couple, but also don't unjoin yourself if you are a married
couple, okay? That's what he's saying. They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of
divorcemen and to put her away? He saith unto them, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts,
suffered you to put away your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. So, the law of Moses
allowed them to divorce because of the hardness of their hearts. We might say now because they are
heartless, that's maybe how we'd say it, because of them being heartless, but there was a reason.
Keep a finger here and turn to Deuteronomy 24. If you've already got a finger in 1 Corinthians 6,
use another finger. Turn to Deuteronomy 24 to see what this divorce clause was for, okay? Deuteronomy
24, and we're just going to look at verse 1. Deuteronomy 24 1 says this, When a man hath taken a wife
and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some
uncleanness in her, then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send
her out of his house. He has found some uncleanness. Isn't talking about her washing habits, okay? That's
not what he's talking about. It's sexual uncleanness. Basically, she's not pure, and for me the reason
that it doesn't say that he's discovered that she's not a virgin is because it's any type of
uncleanness in that category, basically, okay? If she's unclean in that category, and again, look,
he's not saying he has to divorce her, but this is where he has the ability to do so.
Basically, she has had some form of previous physical relationship that he wasn't aware of,
okay? And that would be grounds. Because of just the bitterness that that would cause the
problems and everything else, there is grounds for that because you would find it odd to maybe
get over that if he thought he was marrying a virgin. Which is exactly what Jesus reaffirms in
Matthew 19-9, where it says in Matthew 19 and verse 9, And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away
his wife, except it be for fornication. Jesus Christ doesn't change. He didn't suddenly change it all.
It's the same thing. And shall marry another, committeth adultery, and whoso mary with her which
is put away, doth commit adultery. It's clearly separate to adultery because they're committing
adultery if they divorce and remarry for any other reason, okay? Now go back to 1 Corinthians in
chapter 5 with that in mind. 1 Corinthians 6-9 separates the two sins as well. It says,
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived,
neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves in
mankind. They're all separate sins and we're not going to go into effeminate, abuse of themselves
and mankind. He didn't say sodomites, okay? But anyway, we're not going to go into that for
this sermon. But they're separate sins. Hence the neither and the nor. They're separate sins. Neither
fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers. They're not the same thing. And I say that because people
all over the place trying to say it's the same thing. It's not the same thing. Now the issue for
many is that in 1 Corinthians 5, the fornication is described as between this guy and his father's
wife, his stepmother. So you'll get people to go, see, see, it's adultery. So they'll go, look, it
includes adultery, this woman was married. But was she married when the fornication took place?
Does it say that in 1 Corinthians 5? 1 Corinthians 5 says, It is reported commonly that there is
fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles,
that one should have his father's wife. Now some say that maybe the father is dead, but would she
then still be described as his father's wife? Probably would be described as his father's widow.
For me the fornication took place before she married his father. That's what I see there.
This is in verse 2. And ye have puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that have done this deed
might be taken away from among you. It's a past deed. It's not ongoing. It happened previously.
He's done this deed. It happened in the past, probably before his father then married her.
That's what I see. That's what I believe that is. And that just goes in line with everything else in
the Bible then, doesn't it? Which is why in 1 Corinthians 7 and verses 1 to 2, and you're in
1 Corinthians so you can flick there if you want, but we will be coming back there later, it says,
Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman.
Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own
husband. So to avoid fornication, basically, get married. That's what it's saying, get married to
avoid fornication. And that's because fornication isn't adultery. How would it avoid fornication
if you're then capable of still committing fornication if you're married? You're not,
okay? For me, I think it's pretty clear, okay? And with that in mind, hopefully you now understand
why I'm preaching on it today, because fornication is absolutely everywhere, okay? It is everywhere
you look, more than ever. I'm going to give you a couple of stats. The Office of National
Statistics here says that there were 85,770 marriages in total in England and Wales in 2020,
a decrease of 61% from 219,850 in 2019, the lowest number of marriages on record since
they began in 1838. Now, you might know that there's obviously an extra piece of the puzzle
there. There was the Covid thing, and I think getting married with face masks on wasn't probably
so kind of a sought after, and social distancing weddings were pretty tough to organize
and everything else. So there was obviously that as well, okay? However, it was already
a record low in 2019 at 219,850, and this is kind of where we've got to with stats so far,
and for whatever reason we don't have a 2021, 2022 that I could find easily on that. But it's
just dropping and dropping and dropping, and then you had Covid and it just plummeted to 85,770.
Let me tell you what that, by the way, meant. That that difference of what is approximately
135,000 odd marriages just meant probably 135,000 odd just more living in fornication is the reality
and the truth of it, okay? During that year, and whether or not they got married afterwards,
who knows? But here's another report for you from the University of Manchester. It says in 2021,
more babies, okay? This is the first time ever more babies, 51%, were born to unmarried mothers
in England and Wales and to those in a marriage or civil partnership even for the first time since
records began in 1845. First time ever we now have more babies being born to those who are unmarried,
and that is a huge change, okay? That's a huge change over the years. For centuries, this is still the
report. It says, for centuries, illegitimacy, in inverted commas, and unmarried parenthood has been
associated with stigma, shame, and disadvantage. Yeah, too right, yeah, for good reason. The civil
registration of births only began in 1845, but we have parish register data that goes back to the
16th century. Although it fluctuated the illegitimacy ratio, the proportion of births marked as to
unmarried parents in parish registers never passed seven percent for the total from the 16th century
until the 1960s. Never passed seven percent until the 60s, as being reported. Now, don't get me wrong,
there were obviously people covered it up a lot. There was, you know, they'd do name changes in all
these different ways, but it never passed seven percent, and that's also reflection on social attitudes
as well towards it, right? But since then, however, the proportion has climbed steadily since the 60s.
I wonder what happened in the 60s. Can't work it out, you know? Now, these are tangible stats, okay?
They're stats that you can, you know, there's not really, it's hard to find, you know, a way that
that could be slanted or anything else. They're not based on questionnaires, and we're talking
solely about births outside of marriage here, okay? But when it comes to just straight fornication,
for stats you're then relying on questionnaires, okay? So that's what you then have to rely on when
it comes to just, without the births, without anything else like that. And I'm not going to,
I'm not going to go through the stats, and they're not always, you know, the most appropriate things
for a church. But basically, I'm going to give you a summary, which isn't surprising, I'm sure,
to anyone sitting here, is that well over 80 percent of adults have fornicated by 30 years old
in this nation. Well over 80 percent have committed fornication by the time that they're 30 years old,
and those stats were back at the beginning of this century, by the way. And with a rapidly declining
amount of adults thinking that it's at all wrong. So in the same way, I think it was basically
around 80 percent of adults think that there's nothing wrong with it at all either.
And if you're a married person here, switching off already, maybe you are, maybe sitting here going
well, you know, we're out of the firing line on this one, so this will be an easier sermon,
then I'm going to tell you something, okay? If you have kids, this is a serious problem facing them,
okay? You need to listen to this sermon, and you need to pay attention, you need to take heed to this,
because this is a serious problem facing our kids as they grow up in this nation, in many nations
around the world, obviously. Because unlike Hollywood, unlike the whores and whoremongers of popular
music, unlike the liberal compromises of so-called Christianity around this nation, God said in 1st
Corinthians 6.18 to flee fornication. He said flee fornication, okay? That means, you know what that
means? That means leg it. It means run the other way. It means get away from it, get as far away
from it as you can, escape it. And I'll tell you why, because it's a wicked sin. It's wicked. It's a
wicked sin. The Bible's very clear about that. Fornication is wicked. It destroys lives. It does.
It destroys lives. Fornication ruins people's lives. Think about, for example, just the
filth of it all. It's disgusting, really, isn't it? It's disgusting. How much the world tries
to glamorise it and make it a cool thing, a normal thing, a part of just life. It's disgusting.
Fornicating with just some, whether they're a stranger or you've known them a while or not,
it's disgusting. Think about the disease. Think about the amounts of disease that arrive going
around because of fornication. It is vile. It's disgusting. Think about the mental scarring
from fornication. Believe me, there's a lot of mental scarring from fornication. There are people
that cannot get over past fornication that will still have basically mental scarring, women
especially, because it's not a normal thing, okay? It should be between a loving man and a
woman not. It shouldn't be the way it is now with just random strains of people that don't
give a damn about each other and all of that. I mean, you can imagine, right? We don't really need
to go into it. It's disgusting, really, okay? The unwanted children. Think about the amount of kids
that are born through fornication that aren't wanted. And they grow up knowing they're not
wanted by their father or often by their mother as well. Often it's, you know, they just haven't
gone as far as the rest of them and gone and murdered them while they're in the womb. And a
lot of the time it's, you know, you've got unwanted pregnancies, broken families, and just the mess that
a lot of that that's caused by it, let alone the fact that for God's children it will
pull you out of the spiritual things of God. Fornication will ruin your spiritual life. It does.
It just pulls people away. It distracts them, drags them away. Really, it pulls them into idols and
we're going to look at that in a bit as well. In 1 Corinthians 6, God said through the Apostle Paul
that it's a unique kind of sin. He said in verse 15,
Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ
and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. So this is a teaching that the local church is the
body of Christ, okay? I think everyone hopefully is aware of that, okay? We're the body of Christ
as a local church here. We're all different members, body parts of that body with Christ ahead.
And when we're joined in physical union, we become one flesh. It says in verse 16,
Know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body, for two sayeth he should be one flesh?
So basically, when you commit fornication, you're joining that person to the body of Christ.
You're joining that harlot, and perhaps, and obviously this is probably more of a thing for
women as well, you're joining that hall monger to the body of Christ.
It said what? In verse 19, this is Paul speaking, Know ye not that your body is the temple of the
Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God and ye are not your own? For ye are balked with
a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God's. The price is the
Lord Jesus Christ's precious blood. It cost his death, both physical and spiritual, didn't it?
And obviously, Huna preached about that last week. We should glorify God both physically and
spiritually, and fornication, sins against him in both areas, physically and spiritually, because
you're joining a harlot unto the church. It's a wicked sin, right? Turn to 1 Thessalonians 4.
The title is Flee Fornication, but for some, perhaps that's easier said than done.
Okay, so I want to give you some practical ways to flee fornication, but a lot of this could easily
be applied to adultery and a variety of unassociated sins as well. You could just
apply this to sin in general, okay? So again, like I said, don't switch off. If you're not a single
person here or you don't have kids, don't just switch off. Are your kids already grown up or
anything else? Okay, you can apply this in many areas. Fornication, though, seems to be particularly
tempting for many, especially when it's just all around you. It's in our faces everywhere, okay?
Everywhere you look, everywhere you see, there's just fornication. It's just
people living in fornication, people promoting fornication, people encouraging fornication in
one way or another. 1 Thessalonians 4 says this in verse 3,
For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from
fornication. Abstain is to refrain from indulgence. It's to resist temptation. It suggests a very real
temptation, doesn't it? And I said this before, I preached just briefly on this verse several weeks
back, but for example, just to give you an example, there's no command to abstain from murder.
It's like, I've just got to resist that murder, because most people aren't just kind of,
you know, daily, weekly, monthly, just thinking about killing people, okay? So we're not told to
abstain from murder, to abstain from kidnap or men stealing or something. You've just got to
abstain from it, okay? Don't get tempted to kidnap someone and, like, lock them in your basement or
something, okay? It's not, that's not, you know, that's not a command we'll see. And in 1 Peter 2.11,
he uses that word again, you have to turn it away, he says, Dearly beloved, I beseech
you, strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lust, which war against the soul. Because fornication
is a very real, regular temptation for many. That's just the reality of it, okay? So it's not necessarily
a presumptuous or planned out sin. It's not that people are just like, right, this, you know, I'm
just choosing to go and do this. It's a temptation. It can be something that they find it hard to resist.
However, you can choose to put yourself in those positions. You can choose to not take heed, to not
guard against fornication. He said in verse three, where you are, for this is the will of God, even
your sanctification, that you should abstain from fornication, that every one of you
should know how to possess his rest in sanctification and honor,
not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God. He's saying that you
should learn how to avoid it. Learn how to flee fornication. Learn what you need to do.
Learn what you individually need to do. And today I'm going to give you some ways that you can choose
to hark to, or you can choose to reject. So then it becomes, now it's starting to become presumptuous.
If you know what you need to do, you know that you need to avoid certain places, avoid certain
triggers, avoid things like that, and you continue to do that, you're now choosing to continue in that sin
basically. Okay, that's what you've got to understand because there are ways, there are ways to
give yourself the best chance possible to not be tempted by this sin. Because here's the thing,
kids, especially as you're growing up here, you can choose to be different. You can choose to be unique.
You can choose to be the rebel and the rebel isn't running around fornicating because it seems
everyone else is doing that. You can be the different one or you could just be like the rest of them
and ruin your lives with fornication. Turn to Numbers 25. The title is Flee Fornication and point
number one today. All that was by way of introduction. Point number one is Flee Fornication
by Remembering the Chastisement. Okay, Flee Fornication by Remembering the Chastisement.
And this is Christianity 101 really, okay. One of our motivations should be avoiding the whooping
that comes from God. That's just why there's chastisement in life from God. It's not
because he's just kind of just likes whooping us and punishing us. It's for our own good, okay, and
it's not that, oh well, we just kind of just keep getting chastised. The idea is that we avoid
chastisement. We should read the Bible, see the example, see God warning us, see God warning that
he chastises us and say I don't want to be chastised by God because it's scary. I don't want
to get a whooping. I don't want to get one of the many ways that God chastises us. That's the goal of
it. And in Numbers 25 there's a story whose main purpose of, it's not necessarily the events, the
main purpose, but of it being, you know, given to us in the Old Testament and this event being
laid out as what happened according to the New Testament commentary is for admonition. It's in
samples to warn us. In 1 Corinthians 10a, your turn to Numbers 25, referring to this story says
neither, referring to this event we're about to read, neither let us commit fornication
as some of them committed and fell in one day three and twenty thousand. And it goes on to say
this was written for our own good. Okay, so let's see what that story is. Basically God killed
23,000 of his people in one day, 24,000 total, due to ultimately fornication. It said in Numbers 25
in verse 1, in Israel abode and shit him and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters
of Moab, this is fornication, okay, and they called the people unto the sacrifices of their
gods and the people did eat and bowed down to their gods. So it starts with fornication. Next
you're bowing down to the idols of the world and the way you could apply that now is it
starts with fornication and next thing you know you've got some some child of God bowing down to
just the riches of wealth because that will entice more women, you know, the more money he has the
more these like these harlots will be impressed by them in one way or another, the more they can
spend on them, the more they can, you know, look flash and everything else to get these women.
Or maybe it starts with fornication then they're bowing down to the body idol
and trying to be like, and it could be male or female, trying to be that so desired sexually
basically, you know, it becomes an idol in many people's lives. Or the stupid car, you know,
just like many people do that, it's like starts with fornication, next thing you know they're just
desperate to drive the most stupid car they can't afford because then they're going to impress the
opposite gender and drive around in a convertible and, you know, look really cool and they, you know,
they could barely like rub two pennies together after paying for it every month, you know.
That's what people do, okay, it starts with fornication. Verse 3 says,
And Israel joined himself unto Baal-peor and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.
So Baal-peor, Baelim, Beelzebub, okay, is just another form of the devil like all of these idols
are really, okay. What was God's response? And the Lord said unto Moses, Take all the heads of the
people and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, that the fierce anger of the Lord may be
turned away from Israel. And Moses said unto the judges of Israel, Slay ye everyone his men that
were joined unto Baal-peor. So is God going to physically slay you? Now he could, he could
physically slay you, but if you apply it to our spiritual lives you will be spiritually slayed.
Your spiritual life is going to be wrecked by fornication, okay. The wedge will grow between
you and God, the spiritual life will go downhill. It will be a constant battle just to maintain it.
Just be this battle where you're just kind of on one hand you're thinking about fornication,
the other hand you're trying to think about things of God and you're not going to maintain it.
It is just going to ruin your spiritual life if that's something that you're partaking in.
Let alone how a biblical church deals with it, by the way, and again you'd have to turn up at
1 Corinthians 5-11 says, but now I've written unto you not to keep company if any man that is
called a brother, that someone saved, be a fornicator or covetous or an idolater or a
railer or a drunken or extortioner with such a one no not to eat. So we're to kick out fornicators,
okay, and obviously I preached a whole series on these sins and things that result in them being
kicked out, but it's for the good, for the good of the whole church, it's for the rest of the church.
Because I think people get confused and don't get me wrong we want to see people restored,
there are sometimes people do something bad and get kicked out and we want to bring them
back in the church, but here's the thing is that that's ultimately not the goal. The goal
of kicking them out is for the protection of the church. That's number one, that's primary goal,
because a little leaven leavens the whole lump, because brother or sister so-and-so running around
in fornication is poison to the rest of the church. They start to okay it a little bit more
in their mind, that's what people do. They see it and the kids start to normalize it a little bit
more, no we kick them out. Now if they can get right and come back great, but you know what happens
when they get kicked out? If they're saved they're going to get a whooping, okay, they're going to get
a whooping from God outside of the church. So it's not like sort of, you know, well, you know, they
get kicked out when they just can't come to church, oh how terrible, I can't listen to him preach on
fornication for a couple of weeks, they can come back. You know, that's not what happens when you're
kicked out of a church, if you're saved you're going to get it from God, okay. Now here's the thing,
this relies, things like this relies on all of us to be responsible with this sort of stuff,
and it includes yourself. Look, if you're in this sin, you need to get right with God and
you need to remove yourself as well, and make sure you're right with God and you're genuinely
repentant before you attempt to come back into church, because otherwise you're just, you're
causing trouble for everyone, right, you're bringing it upon the rest of the church. I think
ultimately you probably bring some of God's chastisement and curse upon the church. A lot of
people are getting it here and I don't think it was just the ones that were committing it, it's
because a large collection of that church in the wilderness were committing fornication. It says in
in verse 6, and behold one of the children of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a
Midianitish woman in the sight of Moses. I mean this guy, and it turns out this guy's like a big
shot amongst them, you know, he comes from like, you know, good stock and he thinks he's a man,
and he brought unto his brethren a Midianitish woman in the sight of Moses, in the
sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping before the door of the
tabernacle of the congregation. And when Phinahas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest,
saw it, he rose up from among the congregation, took a javelin in his hand. Now this is a
proper response, right. And he went after the man of Israel into the tent and thrust both of them
through. The man of Israel and the woman threw a belly, so the plague was stayed from the children
of Israel, and those that died in the plague were twenty and four thousand. Phinahas did what he had
to do to protect everyone else, basically. He did what he had to do to protect the church in the
wilderness, you could say here, right. And for those of you out there that, you know, that are
wondering, well how do we apply that, let me apply that spiritually. If you know someone's
living in fornication in this church, you need to come and you need to make sure they get kicked out
of this church, you need to come and tell me. And that goes for anything on that list, because for
the good of the whole church. Okay, it's like, oh well they're my friend, I wouldn't want to say
anything. If someone's indulging in this sin, they need to be kicked out. That's how we spiritually
come with that javelin and thrust both of them through. And you know why she's thrust through
as well, because she's being joined, the person who's involved is being joined into that, basically
that body of Christ, through fornication. It's a wicked sin, like God, this, you know, he's not, oh
well he just killed 23,000 people. He obviously hates it, doesn't he. And if you're tempted,
the chastisement of God is scary. It really is, okay. If you're tempted by the sin, try and just
remember the chastisement of God. That should be a motivation to some degree. Turn to Ephesians
chapter 5, the title is Flee Fornication. Point number one, flee fornication by remembering the
chastisement. Point number two, flee fornication by avoiding everything associated. Avoid everything
associated with it. Flee it. You've got to flee it. Run away. Get the other, get away from it, get away
from fornication, anything that might pull you into fornication. Now this should be common sense.
For example, if I'm trying to, say I was trying to quit smoking, in case everyone's wondering, no I
don't smoke, okay. Say I was trying to quit smoking. Say I was a smoker and I was like, I need to give up
smoking, okay. What do many people do when they quit smoking? Shall I tell you what a lot of people do,
is they bin everything associated with smoking. They all get rid of, they don't keep the lighter
if they genuinely, you know somebody doesn't really want to quit smoking when they're still keeping
their lighter and they're still keeping a box of unopened cigarettes somewhere. That's someone who's
like, well I'm going to have a little break and then I'm going to try and cut down or something.
No, someone who really wants to quit will just get rid of it. You know, they'll just bin it. Bin the
cigarettes, bin the lighter, bin anything associated with smoking. And do you know what they also don't
want to be around? Smokers. They don't want to be around smokers. They don't want to be around,
you know, sort of people with open boxes of cigarettes just looking at them going, smoke me,
smoke me. They just, it's just common sense isn't it? It's like anything. You want to give up something,
you need to get away from it, get away from anything that might tempt you towards it, anything
associated with it. Well, Ephesians 5 says it like this, be ye therefore followers of God as
dear children and walk in love as Christ also loved us and has given himself for us an offering
and a sacrifice of God for sweet-smelling sober. But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness,
let it not be once named among you as become of saints. He said let it not be once named among you.
Talking to this church here, he's saying let it not be once named among you.
Yeah, and that should be how we see things, right? We should be looking at that
and going, yeah, let it not be once named among this church, fornication, yeah?
And by the way, fornication is a form of covetousness because you're coveting something
that isn't yours to have, okay? It's off limits. You're coveting something that's not yours,
you're not married, it's not yours. When you're fornicating, you're coveting something
that's not yours. But he also said and all uncleanness, which here is lewdness or incontinence,
it's a lack of self-control in this area he's talking about here. Now this is all in context
here, he said, but fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, because it's the same stuff,
it's the same stuff. Let it not be once named among you as become of saints. Neither filthiness
nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient but rather giving of thanks. Now this
is all related, okay? Filthiness is impurity. Foolish talking is the smut, the filth, the one-track
mind. You haven't been around people like that, that's all they can talk about, you know?
Jesting isn't talking about telling jokes, okay? Just to make this clear, because I've heard some
bizarre stuff about this before. Ecclesiastes 3.4 says there's a time to weep and a time to laugh,
okay? A time to mourn and a time to dance. This isn't what it's talking about, okay? It's in the
same context. What's the context? It's fornication, all uncleanness or covetousness, filthiness,
foolish talking, nor jesting. It's jesting, and by the way, it's jesting that is not convenient,
not suitable. And he said, let it not be once named among you as become of saints, neither...
Like, this isn't talking about telling a joke, okay? Let it never be once named among any of you that
you tell a joke. Is that what Paul's... Paul's not saying that, okay? Paul's saying in this context,
he's talking about filthy jokes. That's what he's talking about, okay? It's jesting that is not
convenient, by the way. Jesting that is not convenient is jesting that is not suitable.
And I can think of some pretty rough and coarse jokes out there that just aren't some
suitable, they're not convenient. Not in what circles you're in, just not at all.
Not for a child of God, okay? The innuendo, you can imagine it, right? The filthy jokes,
the I would love to be with that person type covetous stuff that you'll hear, and not just
on the building site, you hear it in many circles, won't you? People that are just almost, it seems,
obsessive about this stuff. Basically, if you're serious about fleeing fornication,
then don't treat it like it's a bit of fun, it's a joke. No, because it's serious stuff, okay? It
really is, it's serious stuff. And he said, all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not be once
named among you, neither filthiness. So that should go without saying, okay? And I know this
isn't always a nice subject to talk about. That should go without saying porn. Pornography. That's
filthiness. That's uncleanness. That should not be once named among you. And let me tell you
something, that is a gateway drug. Believe me, it's covetousness, it's filthiness, and really,
ultimately, all it's doing is encouraging the thoughts of fornication. It's filth. Sometimes,
you know, you'll get these Christians out and go, well, is it a sin? What are you talking about?
Get that out of your life. Get it out of your life. Now, here's the problem with that.
Nowadays, that would include half of social media, wouldn't it? That would include probably over half
of social media, because that's all it is. Because the stuff that people have on their profile
pictures on whatever social media it is now is the stuff that 20, 30 years ago would have been
top shelf in a newsagent. It is, isn't it? And look, that means those old friends,
those old friends that for some reason you're still friends with on your social media for no
real reason, maybe it's because you just like having a large amount of friends who makes you
look popular. Maybe you've kind of got pulled into that one. Or maybe it's because you're
telling yourself, well, maybe I might get them saved in the future. Or maybe it's because they're
an ex-girlfriend. Or maybe it's just because you like their profile pictures, all the filth and
smirk they put up. You need to cut the people out. Because what you're doing, you're just looking at
stuff which is just putting that thought in your head. It's gateway stuff, isn't it? All these,
like, because half of these people, I mean, it's unbelievable, isn't it, what people think is
somehow some acceptable profile picture to show all and sundry. It's amazing. It's porn. It's
amateur porn stars who don't even get paid for it, who are just standing there trying to look filthy.
And you just need to get these people out of your life. You need to get, and again,
when I say out of your life, look, we want to go to people and preach them the Gospel,
but you need to flee fornication and not use that as an excuse to keep that temptation in your life.
And that would include as well a large amount of movies, because what's usually a movie got,
one, two, three, four, however many heroines and everything else, that are basically meant to
tempt you in that area a lot of the time and wearing very little in a just basically soft
porn to some degree. That would include a lot of series on TV as well, a lot of series on Netflix,
all that stuff. It's all stuff that is just going to tempt you and to keep that temptation going.
And for a lot of people, it's going to be a problem. You need to flee fornication.
You can't be looking at that stuff. You can't be around that stuff. He said to get rid of that
stuff. Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesty, which are not convenient, but rather
giving of thanks. That's appreciating God for what he does give you. You're told to flee fornication.
And look, this should go without saying, and just quickly, ladies, especially out there, you need to
make sure that you're not becoming a temptation for people, okay? If you're going out trying to
get sexual attention, you're part of the problem. And God forbid that it would be once named among
God's children that they're a problem, they're a temptation for fornication, okay, when they don't
need to be. And look, people who have filthy thoughts and everything else, that's just the
reality. Men, sadly, a lot more than women with that, but you don't want to be encouraging that,
yeah? Okay? Okay, we're told to flee fornication. Turn to Samuel 11, the title is
Flee Fornication. Flee fornication by remembering the chastisement. Flee fornication by avoiding
everything associated. Just avoid it. Get it out of your life, because it's serious business, okay?
Number three, flee fornication by keeping busy. Flee fornication by keeping busy. As tiring as life
can be, okay? And life can be tiring. It's a good thing to be busy. And now, for many with a family,
this shouldn't be a problem, okay? If you've got a family, keeping busy isn't really a problem in
life, because if you're not working, you generally, you've got your family as well. And then obviously,
if you're saved, you should be doing spiritual things as well. But here in 2 Samuel 11, it did
become a problem for King David. It says in 2 Samuel 11 and verse 1, it came to pass after the
year was expired, at the time when kings go forth to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants
with him, and all Israel. And they destroyed the children of Ammon and besieged Rabah, but David
tarried still at Jerusalem. So David the king should have been going forth to battle, but instead
he's hanging around at home. He should have been going forth to battle. He should have been doing,
you know, doing what he's meant to be doing, but instead he's hanging around. It says in verse 2,
it came to pass in an evening tide, that David arose from off his bed and walked upon the roof
of the king's house. From the roof he saw a woman washing herself, and the woman was very beautiful
to look upon. So there are a few things wrong here, okay? King David wandering around with
nothing to do. That was wrong, okay? There was a problem there straight away. But also,
Bathsheba washing herself in view of anyone. Whether it was just in view of the king's rooftop,
she could have been washing herself where she wasn't in view of people. When someone's washing
herself, they're not usually fully clothed, okay? That was wrong, right? She was
part of the problem. She wasn't, it wasn't. Just Bathsheba's fault, but she's part of the problem.
And King David not looking away, not recognizing the gateway to sin here, okay? He should have just
straight away not looked upon her, but instead he's looking upon her, isn't he? He saw a woman
wash herself, and the woman was very beautiful to look upon. And David sent and inquired after the
woman, and one said, Is not this Bathsheba the daughter of Eliim, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?
And David sent messages and took her, and she came in unto him, and he lay with her, for she was
purified from her uncleanness, and she returned unto her house. This was of course adultery, okay,
but the same principle stands. It started because he had too much time on his hands.
That's why it started. And the reality of it is that many singles do have too much time on her hands.
That's the reality of it. Now, not everyone, so in case you're sitting here going, Wait a second,
I'm going to have to give past the tavern of my weekly schedule at the end of this service,
in case he's wondering. But many do though, okay. And if you are, if you are a single that has a lot
of time on your hands, you need to get busy. You need to just get busy in life. Being busy is good.
Yeah, get busy instead of wandering around trying to avert your eyes. Yeah, get busy instead of
scrolling through your phone trying to avert your eyes. Or not. Because that's what a lot of it is,
isn't it? It's people just scrolling. They've got nothing else to do. Just scrolling through
whatever it is. And they're looking upon women half the time. For men especially here, being
something that's probably more of a temptation for men. Lamentations 3.27 says, It is good for a man
that he bear the yoke in his youth. You know it's good for you to bear the yoke. It's good for you
to be hard working in your youth. Get grafting. And if you're going, Well yeah, but only have a 40-hour
a week job, that leaves a lot of hours left in the week. Get learning. Get learning. Get, like, young
ladies as well. Get learning some skills. Get learning some skills too. Hang around just well,
just got nothing to do. Shouldn't have nothing to do. There's always stuff, always something
productive to do, isn't there? Find stuff to do. Learn stuff. Get busy. And do you know what that
leaves less time for? Your thoughts wandering towards this area or any other area of sin.
Because there's an old saying, isn't there, that the devil makes use of idle hands.
And isn't that real? That's so true. The devil makes use of idle hands. If you've got a problem
and this goes across to any sort of sin, get busy. Get busy in your life. And for those obviously
with families, get, you know, don't just, you know, and dads can do this. They go to work and then come
back and then it's like, right, that's me done. No, get busy with your kids then. If you're not working,
be busy with your kids. Busy with your family. Busy with your wives. They need attention as well.
But women get busy as well. Busy learning skills that might help for the future. If you're a single
lady, you want to get married in the future, learn things that might help to have a good household,
a productive household and everything else. There's so much we can do. There's so much we can learn.
If you're a single guy, learn some skills. Learn some stuff. And do you know what you also need to
be doing is putting some time into the things of God as well. Get busy for God whilst you have the
ability. Whilst you're single. Because do you know what single people generally have? Generally. Not
always, okay. Sometimes they don't. Obviously they don't have an help meet but they don't also have
an help meet that requires attention and requires time as well. And they don't also have children
that require a lot of time and an effort put into them as well. What they do have is a lot of time
that can be put towards the things of God. And something that, you know, I've talked about before
is often you'll find in churches the vast majority of the work often is done by the people that are
married with kids. How does that work? They shouldn't have the time. And then often the single people
and then what happens because they have all this time on their hands, they're not really doing much,
they end up getting pulled into sin. And when I say pulled in it's still their choice
because they should have got busy. They should have got busy and they could have been
doing so much for God, doing so much in other areas as well. And on that note about getting
busy for God, turn over to Galatians 5. The title is Flee Fornication. Point number one, Flee
Fornication by Remembering the Chastisement. Point number two, Flee Fornication by Avoiding
Everything Associated. Point number three, Flee Fornication by Keeping Busy. And point number four,
Flee Fornication by Keeping Spiritual. Flee Fornication by Keeping Spiritual. Guess what the
opposite of being spiritual is? It's being carnal. Yeah? Being carnal. And let me tell you when you're
least likely to be carnal. Let me give you some examples when you're least likely to be carnal.
When you're reading your Bible you're least likely to be carnal. When you're soul winning
you're least likely, I didn't say you're never likely, but you're least likely to be carnal.
When you're in church, when you're memorising scripture, when you're listening to preaching,
when you're listening to audio Bible, when you're around God's people. And here's an interesting
thing with that, the effects aren't just for that moment. So let me tell you the point, the times
when you're second least likely to be carnal. Just after, you know? So just after you've read your Bible
you're less likely than normal to be carnal. Just after you've been soul winning, just after you've
been at church, just after you've been doing the things of God in one way or another, you're just
that bit less likely to be carnal. It doesn't mean it's impossible, you're just less likely aren't you?
You don't usually just put down your Bible, you've read your Bible, you've put it down, time for some
carnality. You're just that little bit more spiritual, right? Hopefully you don't come out
of church and walk out of here and look for the nearest place to get involved with some sin or
other. Usually, and that's why midweek services are so important as well aren't they? Because it just
it just resets you in the middle of the week as well, because once a week can be hard for many,
to then the things of God just get further and further away as that week goes on.
Galatians 5 says this, this I say then, walk in the spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
So he said, he said you won't fulfill it if you walk in the spirit. For the flesh lusteth against
the spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other, so you
cannot do the things that you would, but if you be led of the spirit you are not under the law. Now
the works of the flesh are manifest which are these, adultery, fornication, notice they're separate by the
way, uncleanness, lasciviousness. Now lasciviousness is lustfulness, indulgence in animal desires.
He goes on, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings,
murders, drunkenness, revelings and such like, of the which I tell you before, as I've told you
in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. He's not saying that
all of these things are right, if you do any of these things you lose your salvation.
He's saying that all of these things are sins, stuff that shouldn't be once named among
you basically. This is all sinful stuff that shouldn't be how we behave. But the fruit of
the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance
against such, there is no law. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh of the affections
and loves. If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit. So it's not automatic, is it?
This is an exhortation to live right, because we have the ability to walk in the spirit though.
You have the ability to do it, but sadly many don't. If we live in the spirit, so if you're saved,
let us also walk in the spirit. Behave as you'd like you to, right? Walk in the spirit.
Let us not be desirous of vainglory, provoking one another, envying one another, which are
other examples of being carnal. So here's the thing, if you want to deny the flesh, you need to
get into the spirit, into the things of God. And Ephesians 5 19 gives us one way of doing that,
for example, where it says, speak to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. So there are ways we can be spiritual,
there are ways we can get in the spirit. One way is like sing some hymns, give some thanks to God
in music, in praise, and get in the things of God, get spiritual in your life,
and you're much less likely then to get into wicked sin. If you're three to five, you're soul winning,
your Bible reading's constant, your Bible memory, you're just doing the things of God,
you're so much less likely to just be partaking in wicked sin. It's going to be less on your mind,
isn't it? If you're busy in other areas then as well, even more so, your spare time is spent.
Look, you can have hobbies, you can do stuff, you know, you don't have to go like extremist style
on this, but ultimately you should be putting time into the things of God and putting time into
into things which are productive in your life. You leave less time for that, and then when you're
spiritual as well, and you're doing those things, your work is unto the Lord, and work becomes a
spiritual thing as well. You're thinking about God, God's at the center of your life, you're
praying to God a lot, you're praying three times a day at least, you're doing all these things,
it's so much less likely to be partaking in fornication. The title is Flee Fornication,
We Flee Fornication by Keeping Spiritual. Turn to 1 Corinthians 7 for the last one. The title is
Flee Fornication. Flee fornication by remembering the chastisement. Flee fornication by avoiding
everything associated with it. Flee fornication by keeping busy. Flee fornication by keeping
spiritual. And by the way, like I said again, if you don't have a problem with this, you can
apply this to any other sin. Remember the chastisement. Avoid everything associated with
that sin. Keep busy. Keep spiritual. And number five though, this one, you do have to apply to this,
and this is the last one, is flee fornication by getting married. Flee fornication by getting
married. Why didn't I say that first? Isn't that the easy answer? Well, because men, if you want
to marry a godly woman, okay, so any single men out there, we'll start with, you're not, you better
not be some fornicating shame on the name of Christ, basically. You better not be some porn
addict or a got it on the brain type of pervert. You want to marry a godly woman, you better not
be just some porn addict that that's all they can think about. You better not be some bum who does
the bare minimum work-wise and minimal for God. Yeah, you want to marry a godly woman. If you want
to lead a lady, you better be spiritual, right? You want to spiritually lead a lady, you best be
spiritual. If you're not spiritual, why are you thinking about leading some poor woman?
You say, well, who's going to know all of that? Some people think that. Well, who's going to really know,
you know? Firstly, okay, a young Christian lady's father will have some discernment, okay, just to
make it clear. So when we're talking about, like, you know, Christian women with Christian fathers
who care about this stuff, just for starters, okay, they are going to be discerning because they're a
leader. Like, generally in leadership, you get given some discernment, okay, and God wants his,
God wants a leader of a family to have some discernment, and if they're saved and they're in
the things of God, they'll have some discernment and they're going to see that pretty quickly.
You just kind of, you get people's measure pretty quickly, okay, and they should also have some
standards as well. And I'm going to put it this way, yeah, if me or one of the dads here had an adult
daughter, would we be marrying her off to the guy with the porn addiction? Anyone think we would just
be marrying our daughters off to, you know, we know that a guy's got this, like, heinous porn addiction,
but, you know, hey ho, sure it'll be a great marriage. Or marrying her off to the guy that,
you know, that's just a part-time worker. He just does a bit of part-time work because he, you know,
finds it a bit hard to get up in the morning and do much, you know, and hopefully he can avoid sin,
you know. Or to the once-a-month church member, do you think we'd be marrying our
daughter off to the guy that only comes once a month because life just gets in the way,
you know, and he's got more important things to do? Would we be marrying her off to a known
fornicator? Any of us dads here would be marrying our daughter off to a known fornicator?
Now, here's a question. Do you think that that young godly woman's
heavenly father thinks differently to us about that? Shall I tell you, he's a lot, he thinks a
lot stronger about it than we do. Do you think that God the father up there, with any of
those saved, and whether they just get saved by you or whether they've been saved for years,
and do you think that he's looking down on any of his daughters going,
yeah I don't care about that one, no, she can have the pervert.
She can have the guy that's just, you know, or he's just, he's gonna, because it doesn't
suddenly stop. It's like, oh right, got a wife, right, poor addiction's over now and everything
else. That's not how it works. But do you think that, and he sees everything. So I said, we as
dads might have a bit of discernment. God the father, his eyes are everywhere, behold the evil
and the good. He sees everything. So if you're looking for a wife, and same ladies, right,
you're looking for a husband, you need to be what, at least as much as you possibly can,
what God would want you to be, right. You want to be impressing the father, and the father's
watching you everywhere you go. The father's out there with binoculars on you. Every part,
every aspect of your life, her father is watching. You need to get right. You need to get right.
And here's the thing, yeah, it does go the other way. The father of a young man,
I ain't looking, if I had adult sons I wouldn't be looking for some fornicating Jezebel.
Oh no, she looks like she's a good laugh, here you go son. Oh don't worry, you know,
might be a bit of adultery in the future, but who cares, you know. Of course not. You'd be like,
what are you doing, steer clear of her. Look at her, look at the state of her boy. Some lazy,
spoiled princess type who can't lift a finger and looks like a worldly harlot. Oh yeah,
that's going to be great. What on earth? You'd be like, keep away from her boy,
and you're going to give your son advice on that. And same thing, what do you think our heavenly
father is thinking when he sees those sort of women around his sons? He cares about his sons,
doesn't he? Yeah, he loves his sons, he loves his daughters. So what's the answer? The answer is to
get those other areas right, and then look for a spouse. Get those other areas right. That's why
this is last on this list. Get all those other areas right, and then if that's what... Look,
not everyone needs a spouse, okay. You know, the Apostle Paul didn't need a wife, and he says that
people were able to do that as long as they're going to put that time into the things of God.
Because what happens when we're married, we have to put... just a quick heads up men there, if you're
not married or even if you are married, you need to put time into your wife, you know, because they
need your time, and that's less time for God, okay. But for most people out there, it's a rare
exception there are those that are able not to, and if they're able, then fine, you know. Not
looking around going, you know, because I think like in the world it sucks, hasn't got a girlfriend
or hasn't got... Yeah, good. You haven't got a girlfriend, good. Yeah, good. Firstly because you've
got more time for God, and secondly because you're less likely to fornicate, yeah. But on the same
hand, look, there are people there that may be in the future, they're able to just keep that going
and do the things of God, but it's so that you can serve God, not just so you can, well I can live an
even better bachelor life now, you know. But 1 Corinthians 7 says this, now concerning the things
wherever you wrote unto me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid
fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. So getting
married is a way of avoiding fornication, but it's not to then become an adulterer instead, okay.
That's not the idea. It's to avoid fornication, then it says, let the husband
render unto the wife through benevolence, and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife
hath not power of her own body but the husband, and likewise also the husband hath not power of
his own body but the wife. You say, well it's not so easy finding a safe person as a spouse,
and look, I can appreciate that, I'm sure that's not easy. But let me tell you the answer.
First, see points 1 to 4 above, okay. Get back to points 1 to 4 to be the sort of person that maybe
God would want to give you, give a spouse to, give a godly lady to. Get that right, maybe he's going
to bless you. But secondly, you do have to put some effort in. Like, finding a wife or
finding a husband both ways round requires effort. Proverbs 18 22 says, whoso findeth the wife findeth
a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord. Findeth is being active. He didn't say whoso is
found by a wife. Oh well, I've just, they're just not coming. I can't work it out. Look at me, I'm
such a catch, and where are the women? Where are the women at, right? So whoso findeth the wife findeth
a good thing. And you go, well how do I do that? Get out there, get soul winning. Get soul winning
firstly. Like, get busy, get meeting people, get, get, get, like, visiting churches, missions trips,
just get busy, get out, get busy, get finding people, get, get people saying, oh they're just hardly any
safe women. Get them, get some saved then. Get out soul winning. Spend your time soul winning. Get more
women saved. Now get them, save, disciple them. You might find someone that's a suitable wife.
Get doing stuff. Get out there. Get on missions trips. You go, oh well I can't afford it, well then
work more. Do longer hours. It's good that a man bear the yoke of his youth. You know, just get doing stuff.
And the more you do that, and the more you're serving God, and you're getting right in all those
other areas, you're not just spending your time just searching through TikTok. I wish I could marry
her. That would be a bad wife. Yeah, but honestly, you know, and it's like, get busy for God. Get doing
the stuff of, you know, that God wants you doing. Get busy in life. And I think you, you might find a wife then,
you know. So who's so fine with a wife? Fine with a good thing. Because this isn't blind date church.
Okay, if anyone's wondering, okay, I'm not Cilla Black. If anyone, some of you are looking at me blankly,
but the older fellas will know what I'm talking about, you know. She was like this, this big
scouser that you see, big scouse woman. Hey Cilla Black. And she'd like be telling you all about who
this guy is behind the thing, you know. But, and I think some people think that. You know, church,
this isn't blind date. This is the house of God. Now, don't get me wrong. Great. You can find someone
that's a suitable spouse in a church. Great. Nothing wrong with that. But the reality of it is, it's
pretty rare. It's pretty rare. The truth is, if you're at a point where you're like, no I'm
ticking all those boxes, I'm trying to live right, I think I'm an eligible bachelor, then get busy,
right. Get out there and find people. Don't just sit at church going, one day, you know, the woman
of my dreams is going to walk in and navigate all those other single men or vice versa, you know,
and it's all going to work out. It's just not really, that's not reality, you know. Get out of it.
Look, I've changed my mind a little bit on this as well, because ultimately I feel as well that
I think, you know, you could kind of think, well you've got to find someone that's already three
to thrive, been in church a year, doing this, doing that, because otherwise she's going to ruin your
spiritual walk. But you know what, there's an interesting thing, and I would agree with that
for a woman. So I'd agree with that for a young lady. I'd say, whatever you do, don't think you're
going to lead a man. You're not going to, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink,
yeah. And don't think that you're going to find some guy and turn him into this spiritual leader.
But the other way around, if you're a guy in church and you're three to thrive,
you're spiritual, you're doing things right and everything else, you do have the capabilities to
lead a saved woman. So I don't think you have to find someone that's, well they've got to have been
in church at least a year. And I used to kind of think, oh more like that, but I think that's
unlikely. And in reality it's unlikely for single women to be involved in church without being led
there. No, you do get them, but it's rarer, because in general they need leading to a proper
church. They're more likely to be down the front centre. They're more likely to not be in church
at all. They're more likely to be in the kind of, you know, just spiritual wilderness somewhere. So
you can find someone, get him saved, and you think, yeah get to know him and start to lead
him to the things of God. I think that's genuine, right? That's a good option for you.
But you've got to get busy. You're busy finding someone, you know, find a wife, rather than just
kind of wondering why they're not just landing on your doorstep, you know.
And how do you become eligible for marriage? Well, flee fornication. Flee fornication. You don't want
to marry a fornicator, okay? And especially, look, it's different. Look, I know there are many
people here, many of us have had past lives and problems and things and sins and everything else,
but as the generations are growing up and kids are growing up, you need to take this really seriously.
We, you know, we were talking to our kids a little bit about this before and just saying,
like, you've got to understand, growing up as a Christian, whatever mistakes your parents have
made and other people's parents have made and other people have made in their past,
it's different for you because you've grown up in a church. And the standard's, the bar's higher.
The bar's higher. And we don't want a load of kids growing up here thinking, well, you know,
those first generation Christians lived a life, who cares if I do? Because you're going to find
it hard to be able to find people that want to live with you then and want to marry you in the
future. You've got to take this seriously. You need to flee fornication. And in case, you know,
in case you're wondering, well, it keeps saying that a lot. It keeps saying that part of the
verse a lot. It's on the front of our boots. I'll tell you why, because I want this to drill
home into everyone's head. I want you to just think, whenever there's temptations, anything like that,
just think flee fornication. Flee fornication. Run the other way. Get away from it. It's serious
business, unlike what our wicked world teaches. How do you do that? Number one, flee fornication
by remembering the chastisement. Number two, flee fornication by avoiding everything associated.
Number three, flee fornication by keeping busy. Number four, flee fornication by keeping spiritual.
And number five, flee fornication by getting married. Flee fornication by getting married.
And on that, we're going to finish in a word of prayer.
Well, thank you for your word. Thank you for, well, the clear teaching, the instruction,
the guidance you give us as well, the practical ways that we can guard and defend against sin
like this, Lord, sin like, you know, what is serious sin? Sin that gets you kicked out of church,
sin that results in 23,000 being killed in one day, Lord, of your people there, the
Children of Israel there. And Lord, we pray that you just help us to just take it seriously, to
respect what a danger it is to resist the flesh, Lord, to abstain from it, and to use your word
and the things that I've shown people in your word today as ways to do that. Help us all to
just be a church where it's not once named among us. Help us to encourage others with that, to help
people with that, help people to just live right and to get right. Help us to just be a church
where, you know, we're on top of things like this and we don't have this sort of leaven just spreading
around our church. Lord, help us to get many people saved this afternoon, encourage others to get
involved in the work for you here. Jesus, stay in front of this. Amen.