(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Okay, so we're not doing a strange doctrine this afternoon. I was kind of just going through my most recent sermons. We've been going through the book of Revelation and going through marriage, Song of Solomon. I've been doing strange doctrines. I just feel like I've not preached against sin for a long time. And like we're an independent fundamental Baptist Church. If IFB Church is known for anything, it's to preach against sin. So I hope you don't mind that I just get into some. Like, cause look, we sin every day. We sin all the time. We're sinners, aren't we? You know, I am, I am comfortable in my sinful nature. Okay, what I mean by that? I'm not saying that I'm comfortable in committing sins, but I'm comfortable in knowing the weaknesses that I have and that God is not expecting me just perfect living and complete holy living without any sin in my life. I can barely function like with, cause you know, Bible says the thought of foolishness. How many times, you think of foolish things all the time. I mean, I wake up sometimes with a dream that may be foolish. The Bible says the thought of foolishness is sin. And so I'm comfortable in the sense of knowing who I am, that I'm saved by God's grace and God expects holy living and things like that. But I, at the same time, while I'm comfortable in knowing that I have a sinful flesh, I am definitely not comfortable in sinning though. And I don't want you to ever get to a point that you're comfortable in committing sin. And so when you look at Galatians five, look at verse number 19. It says, now the works of the flesh are manifest. The title of the sermon is the works of the flesh. And then it continues, which are these? Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness. So today we're going to be focusing on the sins that we see listed here in verse number 19. And then when I continue this series, we're gonna look at verse number 20. Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variants, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies. And then the third sermon in this series is going to be verse number 21. Envians, murders, drunkenness, revelings and such like, of the which I tell you before, now this is important, as I have also told you in time past that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Now, some people look at verse number 21 and they get blown away by that, okay? So look, let's make clear of what the Bible's saying. That those that commit these sins, so let's say, look, one of the ones that we probably all do, verse number 21, envians. I'm sure we've all envied in life. We've looked at what others had and said, boy, I wish that was me. Something along those lines, right? Okay, so if you've done that in your life, and then it says here, of the which I tell you at the end of verse number 21, of the which I tell you before, as I have told you in the past, they that do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. And you're like, pastor, but I've envied him alive. Is the Bible saying then I'm not going to inherit the kingdom of God? Does the Bible say I'm done, I'm finished? You know, some people will take these passages and say, see, you can't be saved if you commit these sins. And so in order for you to be saved, they'll say, it's not faithful on Christ, but you must turn from these sins. And so if you're someone who was a drunkard, you need to turn from drunkenness. If you're someone that has hatred, you must turn from hatred. If you're someone that has heresies and who doesn't have heresies? Some false beliefs, you got to turn from those beliefs. And if you're someone that has envy, you've got to turn from envy. And you've got to turn from all of these sins in order for you to be saved. Otherwise you will not inherit the kingdom of God. And all of a sudden you've got another doctrine. You've got another gospel. You've got another way of salvation. You've got a workspace gospel. You've got a gospel of keeping God's law in order for you to be saved. And people get sidetracked and they get confused. And let me help you understand, before I get into those sins, let me help you understand what that is teaching. It is a hundred percent true that those which commit these things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. That's a hundred percent true. Okay, but how do we understand that? We'll look at verse number one again, Galatians five, verse number one. Let's start there. Okay, keep everything in context. Stand fast therefore in the liberty where with Christ have made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. So let's start, just starting there verse number one. Is this written to save people? Absolutely, okay. It's written to people that are already saved where Christ has made us free. Then we're given the instruction, don't be entangled again with the yoke of bondage because these sins, these wicked things cause bondage in our lives. It strips away the liberty that God has given us in our abundant Christian life, walking by faith. Now let's understand another truth. This is written to believers. And of course, once you're saved, you're always saved. Once you're born again, you can't be born out of God's family. So what is the teaching? Well, before we got to verse number 19, look at verse number 16, Galatians five, 16. This I say then to believers, of course, walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. And so we learn a truth which you need to understand this truth in order for you to understand the Bible. To the moment that you're saved, you've got a dual nature, the flesh and the spirits, okay? That which is born of flesh is flesh. That which is born of spirit is spirit, says the Lord Jesus Christ in John chapter three. And of course, all of us have been born in flesh. We've all been born from a mother. We've all been born from humanity. And so we all have in that flesh, a sinful nature. But the moment you trust Christ as your savior, you're now born again, you're born in the spirits. You have a new nature within you, a new creature, the new man, okay? That nature is of a divine nature, born of God. That nature never sins, never sins. So when you and I sin and we think of thoughts of foolishness, for example, it wasn't the new man that thought these things, it was the flesh that thought these things. When you and I, we envy or have hatred, you know, an unrighteous hatred. It's not the new man that has committed those sins. It's the flesh that has committed those sins. And so once you understand the dual nature, it continues in verse number 17, for the flesh lusts up against the spirits and the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary, the one to another, so that you cannot do the things that you would. You know, we all want to just serve the Lord faithfully, but you don't serve him faithfully all the time because the flesh gets in the way. And this is why the moment you're saved, you will constantly have this battle inside of you. Like, I don't want to fight with my brothers and sisters and the Lord because I have enough fighting going on right here. Like, I'm in enough battles, you know, when my flesh says, do this, my spirit says, no, don't do that. My spirit says, hey, let's serve the Lord. My flesh goes, hey, just serve yourself. There's enough of a battle happening within me. But I want you to understand the dual nature, the spirit and the flesh. And so if we understand it's the flesh that sins, it's the flesh, right? What did it say in verse number, sorry, verse number 19? Now the works of the flesh are manifest. What are we talking about? The flesh, the sinful part of man, okay? And so when it says, so that at the end of verse number 21, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Are we talking about the sinful flesh or we're talking about the born against spirit? They will not inherit the kingdom of God. It's the sinful flesh. The sinful flesh will not inherit the kingdom of God. The Bible says, in fact, can you turn there quickly? Keep your finger there and come with me to 1 Corinthians 15. Come with me to 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Corinthians 15. Because the moment you die, if you were to die today, right now, your body's not going to heaven, okay? But your soul and spirit will depart and be with the Lord. But your body's just going to rot in a grave, isn't it? Okay? But, praise God, our salvation's full, not just soul and spirit, but God promised us the salvation of our bodies even. And so when we get to 1 Corinthians 15, verse number 50, do this. 1 Corinthians 15, verse number 50. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. So what does not inherit the kingdom of God? Flesh and blood, this sin nature. We can't go to heaven in this sin nature, okay? It says there, neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Our bodies are corrupted. We can't inherit that which is incorrupted in heaven with corrupted bodies. That's why it continues in verse number 51. Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed. That one day we're not gonna have to deal with this flesh and blood body that we have, right? That we're going to be changed. We're gonna be given glorified bodies and that new resurrected body, yes, it will inherit the kingdom of God because that new resurrected body is without sin and will not have the envience and the murders and the hatred and all the things that we saw that they listed in the works of the flesh. So first of all, that's just a bit of an introduction because I don't want you reading this and go, man, I've committed some of these things. That's it, I'm done for. No, Jesus has paid for all of your sins. Your sinful flesh is done for, but that's fine. I'm fine with that. This sinful flesh has sicknesses, gets tired, gets sunburned. I'm looking forward to the new resurrected body where I'm not gonna have to deal with all of these consequences. Like in the new resurrected body, when we're standing for the glory of God, which is brighter than the glory of the sun, we're not all gonna get sunburned, okay? Our body's gonna be perfect, able to receive that which is incorruptible. All right, so let's go back to Galatians 5, verse number 19. Galatians 5, 19. And now I hope that's answered any questions if it's caused any confusion. But Galatians 5, 19. So, brethren, we have the battle between the flesh and the spirit. And don't think just because you're saved, you will automatically walk in the spirit. Otherwise it wouldn't make sense, verse number 16. This I say then, walk in the spirit. Like if it's automatic, why would we need a commandment to walk in the spirit? It's telling us walk in the spirit because we don't always walk in the spirit. In fact, I believe your default programming when you wake up in the morning is in the flesh. I really believe that. Like you wake up, all right, I'm back in the flesh. And you gotta change that default setting. You gotta go to your phone settings, go to settings, change, no default, walk in the spirit. And probably you have to do that several times in the day. Walk in the spirit, what's going on? Why is it defaulting back to the old man, the flesh? So the works of the flesh. Like Galatians 5, 19, let's read it again. Now the works of the flesh are manifest. And look, this is, you might think, look, which of these adultery? Look, I don't believe that I'll ever commit adultery. Like I love my wife, I'm happy in my marriage. I can't even, it's not even something I even wanna think about, okay? But the moment you start thinking like that, you're going to fail, okay? Because the works of the flesh are manifest. We all have flesh. Like we all have the ability, the capability to fall in these sins. This is why we're commanded, walk in the spirits. You know, walk in the new man. And like the way I do that, I just simply pray to God, God, just put me in the new man. Lord, please just crucify my flesh. Help me be in your spirits. Let me walk in your paths. And I ask the Lord, I ask that every time I get up to preach, I say that to the Lord. You know, I don't want it to be a man preaching, Lord, I hope it's you that can use me as a channel of blessing. But we see here, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lascivitousness, so these are the four that we're going to be focusing on today. And let's start with that, let's just do it in order. Let's start with adultery, okay? So if you can, come with me to Leviticus chapter 20, please, come with me to Leviticus chapter 20, verse number 10. Leviticus chapter 20 and verse number 10. First of all, when it comes to adultery, you know, adultery means essentially sleeping with another person after you're married, cheating on your husband or cheating on your wife. And I don't know, it's such a horrible thing. It's such a wicked thing. Like when I think about all the kinds of sins that might happen in my life, or, you know, the dangers that are out there in life. Like, I don't know if you agree with me, but I'd rather be murdered by my wife than for her to commit adultery on me. I'm just serious. Like that would just break my heart. That'll just destroy me, I think, as a person if adultery. And I wouldn't want the same thing for my wife. Like, you know, and I think it's so important that our marriages and, well, the Song of Solomon is so important that, you know, we can laugh about it. It's kind of funny, it's poetic, it's, but it's serious that we get our marriages right, you know, in the eyes of the Lord. And you know what, if you just find companionship and love and, you know, even if there might be a temptation or something, but if your love rings true and you just want to protect your spouse no matter what, and you know she belongs to you and I belong to her, you know, that's gonna keep you from being able to fall into such a wicked sin like adultery. You know, adultery is one of the 10 commandments, isn't it, that shall not commit adultery. You know, it's something that God really wants to highlight. And even though I feel like it's, you know, I don't, it's not something I want to do. I don't believe I'll ever do it. You know, there's part of me that says that to me. I also understand that most marriages in the world are, adultery is a common thing. It's sad. It's such a common thing in the world. And like I've seen it, I've seen it in the workplace. You know, I've seen people, you know, hook up in the workplace. I know they're married. So what are they doing? Like what's going on? Like, how can you commit your life? But you know, I spend all that money on a wedding and make these vows before God and man and just go and sleep with someone else. I told you what I have, brother. I've got, I don't care if big brother knows about it. You know, Google maps. My wife can track me and I can track her. Not that I don't trust her, not that she doesn't trust me, but that helps me be accountable. I better be where I said I'm going to be. Because look, the flesh, the flesh can do these things. I mean, there were great men in God in the Bible that committed adultery. I know of pastors that I've looked up to that have preached great things, you know, has changed my life in their preaching and they've committed adultery. Sorry, where did you turn to? Leviticus chapter 20, look at verse number 10. And the man that committed adultery with another man's wife, even he that committed adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. I read that to you because I want you to understand how serious it is in God's eyes. Death. Deserving of the death penalty. Like if our government feared the Lord, honored God, then they should introduce this as the law of our nation. You know, people mock you for saying that though. I've had people mock me. Say, well, I don't know what percentage of people commit adultery, I have no idea. Did I get that right then? No, I didn't write that down. I don't know what percentage. And they're like, well, are you just gonna, if you were the prime minister, if you were the king, if you were the dictator of Australia, you're just going to get all these adulteress and just shoot them all, put them to death. No, it's not how it works, okay? But I tell you what, if you introduce that as the law, from this time forward, adultery is the death penalty. All it's going to take is one, two, three, people being put to death because of adultery and I tell you, it'll clean up our nation just like that overnight. So obviously we're not gonna put adulteress that have done it in the past to death. We can't retrospectively apply those laws, but from this day forward, if we were to introduce that, but hey, we're not vigilantes. I'm not saying it's the church's job to do that. That's the government's job, okay? God's put government in place to penalize criminals and you need to understand adultery is criminal behavior. You've committed a crime against your spouse is what you've done. So even though Australia's full of adultery, full of all these things, fornication, uncleanness, less civiciousness, we need to understand how God sees this and I want you to understand, dear brother and sister, your flesh is capable of doing these things. You better be alert. Don't get too comfortable, okay? Don't think it can never happen. The people that I'm thinking about that it has happened, I would have said it will never happen to them. It happens. Can you come with me to First Corinthians? Oh no, sorry, Proverbs chapter six. Come with me to Proverbs chapter six and verse number 32. Proverbs chapter six and verse number 32. Proverbs chapter six and verse number 32. The Bible reads, but whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding. What is God saying there? If you commit adultery, you're stupid, is what God is saying. You lack wisdom, you lack understanding. You have no idea what you're doing. You don't understand the consequences that you're creating. You don't understand the damage you're creating. Not just in family, not just your spouse, your children. You know that we're all attached. We have our parents that will disappear. We have a church that will be disappointed. It damages society. Broken homes, broken relationships. It continues, he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul. You see that? You think, ah, just one moment of pleasure, one moment, just, look, you're going to destroy your life. That's God's promise to you. You commit adultery, your life is destroyed. I'm not saying you can't be used by God, but I'm saying you're never going to be living plan A that God had in store for you. It continues there in verse 33. A wound and dishonor shall he get, and his reproach shall not be wiped away. What is it saying? It causes wounds, dishonor. You destroy your reputation. You destroy your Godly testimony if you commit adultery. His reproach shall not be wiped away. Like God forgives us. We know we can go to the Lord God and he'll forgive us. We understand that, but your reputation in society will always be tainted as the one that cheated against their spouse. Someone that, you know, did not have sufficient love for their spouse and gave into one brief moment of temptation. You know, your reputation is destroyed. Pastors that have committed adultery, their reputations are destroyed. They're no longer in ministry. It continues in verse number 34, look at this. For jealousy, by the way, jealousy is a good attribute to have. Jealousy, being jealous, I'm jealous for my wife. Why? Because she belongs to me. Being jealous for the things that are rightly yours is righteous, it's biblical. God's name is jealous. You know, worship belongs to God. God is jealous when worship goes to a false God because it rightly belongs to him. Jealousy is not envy. Envy is design things that doesn't belong to you. Jealousy is a passion that you have, a protection for those things that do rightly belong to you. I'm jealous over my children. I don't want my children being tainted with the world. I'm jealous for my spouse. I don't want my wife hanging out with a whole bunch of guys all by herself or something like that, right? Catching up with some friend that she had in high school, some guy. I don't, and she doesn't want that in return. But look what happens. If you commit adultery with another man's wife, it says, for jealousy is the rage of a man. Therefore, he will not spare in the day of vengeance. It's saying that if you go and sleep with some other man's wife, her husband's not gonna spare. He's gonna be so angry. He's gonna have a fit of rage and you don't know what your end might be. Could be death, happens. What do they call it? A murder where it's like passion driven? What, crime of passions? That happens. You cheated on me. And in that fit of rage, what you would not normally do, that person murders either their spouse or the one that they slept with. That happens. I mean, that jealousy was right. Obviously the murder was wrong, but that jealousy you've encroached in something so deep and meaningful. It says in verse number 35, he will not regard any ransom. You're not gonna be able to appease him. You're not gonna be able to make peace. Neither will he rest content, though they'll give us many gifts. You can't fix adultery, is what the Bible was saying. You can't do enough to make up for that big mistake in life. It's a reproach. It's a horrible reputation that you're gonna have for the rest of your life. The guilt that you carry is gonna be there. Once again, don't forget, please, God forgives us for all of our sins. Even in our walk, as we walk with the Lord, even something like adultery, if you've committed adultery in the past, I'm not saying God's not forgiven you. But what I'm trying to say to you is that consequences continue. The consequences of our sins continue. And your reputation for being an adulterer, that's going to carry with you for the rest of your life. The next thing that was mentioned was fornication. Adultery, fornication. Come with me to 1 Corinthians chapter six. 1 Corinthians chapter six. 1 Corinthians chapter six, please. Fornication is sex before marriage, essentially. Adultery is with married people, of course. Fornication is with single people. And God does not put the death penalty on that because you've not made necessarily that vow one for another till death do us part. But it's still extremely wicked. Fornication is still extremely wicked. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter six, verse number 12. 1 Corinthians chapter six, verse number 12. The Bible says, all things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. Paul is saying, look, there are certain things that I can do that are lawful, but it brings me under that power. He goes, I don't want to be under the control of things that aren't even sinful. I'll give you an example. You know, sometimes we talk about sports and blah, blah, blah, and I'm fine with that, okay? And I like soccer and I like to watch soccer, okay? But if I'm like the pastor of the church and like 50% of the time I'm not at church and you're like, where's pastor Kevin? Oh, his football team's playing. So, you know, he's gotta be there watching the telly. He's gotta watch his team, no matter what. At that point, you can say, I'm under the power of my football team. Like I've got this addiction. It's not necessarily sinful, of course, but I've allowed it to become a power in my life. And Paul's saying, look, I didn't even allow, but obviously we should not allow sins to have power and control in our lives. But even things that are not simple, we shouldn't put ourselves under that power. Then he continues in verse number 13, meats for the belly and belly for the meats, but God shall destroy both it and them. Then he says this, now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. So meats, we gotta eat, we gotta sustain our bodies, of course. But you know what, the Bible says that even though we sustain our bodies with food and we interact with food pretty much every day, we need it, right? Something that we need, okay? That's kind of nothing like God's, like I said, it's all going to be wiped out. It's all going to be, God's gonna destroy obviously our fleshly bodies and all of that. But the reason God has given us a body is to serve our Lord, not to serve fornication, not to give our bodies over to all kinds of sexual perversions and give ourselves to this partner and that partner and that partner and try before you buy. Now look, if you're not married this afternoon, if you're not married, you need to say, hey, my body is for my Lord. It's for my Lord. Like you that are single, you've got more time, believe it or not, you've got a lot more time, you know, to serve the Lord, to prioritize his work, to seek his kingdom. We all ought to be seeking his kingdom, don't get me wrong. But you have a lot more time to either serve the Lord or chase your selfish desires. And look, fornication is, I mean, it's all coming out of that same umbrella, okay? You know, the physical need that people have. And again, please don't misunderstand, that physical need is not sinful, but it needs to be put in the right place, marriage. You know what, if you find someone, well, I don't have this, I don't know, maybe different pastors see things differently. But when it comes to marriage, especially for my children, I have just three simple things that I want someone that marries my children to have. I want them to be saved, obviously. They must be saved. Number two, they must love my child. And number three, especially for the men, not a bummer, not lazy, not some lazy gamer, okay? Someone that's willing to work hard and make sure that my daughters are looked after and provided for. That's all I have, okay? Now, some people might have greater expectations on who your children marry. It's just that I've seen in my life, I've seen in church life, that sometimes the people that you think are going to be the most spiritual and the most holy and the most righteous end up outside of church. And those that don't have a lot going for them, that growing up in a broken home, that don't have just, they just fly under the radar, they sometimes end up being the most spiritual people in the church. So I'm not looking so much for what size your bank accounts and have you gone to Bible college and how long have you been saved? I'm glad that you're saved. I'm glad you love my child. And for the men, you ought to be working a job and making sure you provide my daughters. And you know what? That's it, I'm happy. You know what? I don't want fornication in my family. You want to get married, get married. If you love each other, go ahead. If you have a look at verse number 18, same chapter. It says, flee fornication. Flee. Why is it saying that? Like there are some sins that you can overcome with your mental strength. Like you might have a temptation put in front of you. Like someone might be trying to lose weight and you get a chocolate mud cake in front of you. And you've got the mental ability to go, nah, I'm not doing that, fine. But you know what God is saying when it comes to fornication? You can't just stand there right in front of it and not give in. He says, you got to flee. He says, you got to remove yourself from that situation. You need to run from that situation. That's the only way to overcome fornication. It's not something that you can just stand there and go, I've got the strength to not do this. No, if that temptation gets presented before you, I don't care how embarrassing it is, young people, you run as hard as you can, screaming the other way. Oh, you have to scream, but. You run as hard as you can. Get yourself out of that, okay? Your body belongs to the Lord. Please don't destroy yourself with all kinds of sexual sins. It says flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth without the body. So every sin that a man doeth is without the body, but he that committed fornication sinneth against his own body. What? Know ye not that your body is a 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. Think about the price that you've been bought with. The shed blood of Jesus Christ. He is sacrificed, Jesus died for you. He paid for you, he bought your body. And you go, well, I'm just gonna use that body and commit fornication with it. No, it belongs to Jesus. Boy, like. I think about that, like think about what you're doing. You know, if I sometimes lend people my car, if people have car problems and they need to borrow a car, I lend them my car for whatever reason. All right, and look, I don't care if it gets scratched and you know, but if someone purposely just takes that car, even though it's already a beat up old car, okay, if someone takes that car and just ah, who cares? Let's just smash it into the wall. Who cares how many scratches and let's just damage this thing. Look, I'm gonna be offended by that. Like, I've done something good for you. Like, I've given you a nice gift. I've tried to be nice towards you. I've tried to be loving towards you. I mean, like if you have an accident, you have an accident, but I'm telling you, like, if someone's just purposely going out of their way to destroy something that is valuable to me, I'm trying to show them love and you destroy it, I'd be greatly offended. I'd be saying, you don't love me. You don't care about me. Well, that doesn't even come close to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the price that was paid by his blood. Your body belongs to Jesus if you're saved and you commit fornication, you're basically saying, I don't care what Jesus paid for my body. I'm going to destroy what belongs to God. I mean, think about what you're doing. Young people, please flee. If that temptation comes in your life, get yourself out of that situation. Come with me to chapter seven, first Corinthians chapter seven, first Corinthians chapter seven, verse number two. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife and let every woman have her own husband. That's the answer. Like the desire is not wrong. The physical intimacy is not wrong, but in the right place, getting married, having a husband, having a wife, drop down to verse number seven. For I would that all men were even as I myself, but every man have his proper gift of God, one after this manner and another after that. I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I. Paul says, look, there's value in being single. There's value in being unmarried. There's value in being a widow. And of course, he's talking about the fact that you can serve Christ with all that you've got. You know, that you're not being, you know, life is taken up by other responsibilities. He says, that's a good thing. Like he desires more people would have that. But then he says, every man has proper gifts, right? Because like he knows that the majority of people are gonna get married. That's why he says in verse number nine, but if they cannot contain, let them marry for it is better to marry than to burn. Okay, to burn in lust or to burn, you know, and fall to temptation, commit fornication. The Bible says let them marry. So adultery, fornication. You know, there's nothing, you know, I'll tell you this. You know, I loved my wife even before I met her. My mom would pray for my wife when I was a kid, when I was a teenager. I didn't know who my wife was gonna be. All right, but my mom would pray for my wife. You know, that means she was praying for Christina. All right, and I just knew, you know what, that woman that I find, I'm gonna love her. You know, I'm gonna keep myself for her. You know, that's the desire I had growing up. And you know, for me, that future wife was real, was a real person. And if I go and commit fornication, I'm going to cheat already on the future spouse that God has given me. That's how I thought about it. At least my mom taught me these things. I'm glad I had a Christian mom, a godly mom. I know we don't all have that background. We all have that experience. But how much better to keep yourself, that one person that God has for you in life? You know, you're not just committing fornication against the Lord or against yourself, your future spouse. Like there's baggage, you create baggage, you create these experiences that you're going to regret and then you're going to drag them into your marriage. That's what happens. Maybe bad experiences in the past, like women with bad boyfriends, you know, might marry a good godly man, but then because of all the baggage they've had, they take that and they apply it to their spouse. They think, well, they treated me badly. My spouse is going to treat me badly. And then it creates problems in the marriage. It's like, why are you, you know, why are you projecting the faults of others upon me who loves you? You know, who's committed myself to you? Fornication is harmful as well. The next thing that gets brought up in that list was uncleanness. Can you come with me to Leviticus chapter five? Leviticus chapter five and verse number one. Leviticus chapter five and verse number one. Uncleanness. Now in this list, like uncleanness is a very general term, but in this list, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, then lascivitousness. Lascivitousness means like lust, like excessive lust, like really like a strong word for it, okay? And so the fact that uncleanness is lumped in this mix, you know, obviously it's got to do with sexual sins as well. But just very quickly, Leviticus five, one, let's just have a look at how God uses the word uncleanness or unclean. Leviticus five, one. It says here, if a soul sin and hear the voice of swearing and is a witness, whether he have seen or know it, if he do not utter it, then he shall bear his iniquity. But verse number two is where we need to notice that. It says, or if a soul touch any unclean thing, whether it be a carcass of an unclean beast or a carcass of an unclean cattle, or the carcass of unclean creeping things, and if it be hidden from him, he also shall be unclean and guilty. So I want you to notice that God is using this word unclean referring to the carcasses of dead bodies. All right? So of course, when a body is dead, a dead creature, it doesn't take long for it to be full of maggots and probably disease and all that kind of stuff. And you know, if you touch a dead animal or something, it's a good idea to wash your hands because you don't know what is going on with that body, okay? So what I'm trying to explain to you that this word unclean has to do with filthiness, okay? Things that are filthy. It continues in verse number three, or if you touch the uncleanness of man, whatsoever uncleanness it be that a man shall be defiled withal, and it be hid from him when he knoweth of it, then he shall be guilty. So even the uncleanness of man, so you know, your feces and you know, your piss or whatever it is, any kind of bodily fluids that may contain, you know, bacteria or things like that, the Bible says that kind of stuff is unclean. Like that's how we get introduced to this idea of what is clean and unclean from the Bible. Come with me to Leviticus 11 now. Come with me to Leviticus 11 and verse number one. Like I said, it's a bit of a general term. Leviticus chapter 11, verse number one. God then speaks of unclean in terms of the kind of foods that we eat. Here in Leviticus 11, verse number one, and the Lord spake unto Moses and to Aaron, saying unto them, speak unto the children of Israel, saying, these are the beasts which ye shall eat among all the beasts that are on the earth. Whatsoever part of the hoof, and is cloven-footed, and cheweth the card among the beasts that shall ye eat. Nevertheless, these shall ye not eat of them that chew the card or of them that divide the hoof as the camel, because he cheweth the card but divideeth not the hoof, he is unclean unto you. Now I'm not going to go into all of that right now, okay? But the Bible also speaks about, you know, certain dietary requirements, certain dietary restrictions, if you will, that the Israelites were to have. There were certain animals that were clean, they were allowed to eat, and certain animals that were not allowed to eat because God called them unclean. And many times, a lot of these unclean animals are basically your scum eaters. They're the bottom dwellers. They don't eat very well, okay? Things like swine, usually, you know, pigs will just eat whatever garbage is put before them. You know, things like catfish or something like that, right, fish that don't have these scales, they're commonly the bottom feeders. And look, there's nothing wrong with eating these things today. I love my bacon, I love my ham, all that kind of stuff, right? But, you know, the idea there is that, you know, God is comparing what is unclean, it's essentially bottom feeding animals, that kind of idea, okay? Again, the idea of filthiness or bacteria, of course, you know, there's certain creatures that if you're going to cook them, you have to cook them really well to make sure you kill any microorganisms that might cause harm to your body, okay? Now, come with me to another passage. Actually, keep a finger there in Leviticus if you can. Keep a finger in Leviticus, we'll come back to it. Come with me to Romans chapter six. Come with me to Romans chapter six. Because we know in the Old Testament, we've seen it many times, I've preached it many times, it was pictures of a greater spiritual truth, okay? Now, in Romans chapter six, verse number 19, Romans chapter six, verse number 19, the Bible says, I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity in your flesh. Now, you understand what flesh now is like? That's part of your nature, okay? The infirmity in your flesh is your sin nature. It says, for as you have yielded your members, servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now yield your members, servants to righteousness unto holiness. For when you were servants of sin, you were free from righteousness. So you can see here that the word uncleanness, so unclean, has to do the sin that we have in our bodies, you see that? And so when God speaks of what is unclean, and unclean, unclean, you need to understand all of that was to teach us a greater spiritual truth, that we ourselves are clean. We have unclean, our sins, our iniquities, are unclean in the sight of the Lord. So again, I'm just trying to show you just a general term for the word unclean, okay? How God can use it in many different ways, but ultimately to show us sin versus righteous living. Now, I said, keep your finger there in Leviticus, come with me to Leviticus 13, one more reference with uncleanness. Leviticus 13, please. Because I don't want to remove it from the context that we found this word in when it comes to Galatians 5. Because like I said, it's housed within, you know, these sexual sins and lust and what have you. And I want you to notice, this is about leprosy here, in Leviticus 13, verse number 44. Leviticus 13, verse number 44. It says, he is a leprous man, he is unclean. So you can see that disease is also referred to as being unclean, you see that? A man who has leprosy, he is unclean. The priest shall pronounce him utterly unclean. His plague is in his head. And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip and shall cry unclean, unclean. So if you had leprosy, a very contagious disease, if someone were to see you with ripped clothes and a shorn head, they'd be like, oh, whoa, hold on, warning, why is he dressed like that? And then the one leprosy would say, unclean, unclean, why? For the safety of others, for the protection of others, that the disease will not continue to be spread throughout the community. And then verse number 46. All the days wherein the plague shall be in him, he shall be defiled, he is unclean, he shall dwell alone without the camp shall his habitation be. So he's not to live with others, he's not to spread the germs, the disease, he's to be outside of the camp or by himself, okay? So when I think about the context that we find this passage in, and we see that unclean can also refer to disease. You know, the biggest, one of the biggest issues with, you know, this Western world that we live in, you know, fornication and adultery are the diseases that get spread between partners. You know, STDs, you know, I mean, horrible diseases that people carry in their bodies. And you're spreading that to others. I mean, you know what, God's, if you've got an STD like that, that can cause major issues to somebody else, like what God described, you ought to be willing to go, I'm unclean, unclean, really? So you're not out there spreading these diseases, these sexually transmitted diseases to other people, especially people that you love, so-called love. I had to look it up, I had to look it up, back in 2019, 4 million Australians had STDs. 4 million, that's like 15% of the population. Like your chance, you going around committing fornication and adultery, your chance of picking up STDs are very high. And then passing that on to other people. You think that's the kind of life that God wants us to live? To one man, one wife, till death do us part. You want to be safe from STDs? Keep yourself a virgin till you get married and save that partner for the rest of your life. I mean, that'll cure STDs within a few generations. Uncleanness. And look, I don't know, maybe there are people in church that suffer from these things. You know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know your life. And I'm not trying to make you feel horrible, okay? As adults, we've all made mistakes, but our kids need to listen to this. We don't want our kids making the same mistakes that we may have made in our lives. You know, I don't like a sinner, like we're all sinners. Like, I'll just be honest with you. I'm honest with you. Like, I don't think that I'm better than anybody because I lived in a Christian home, grew up with the Bible and, you know, went to church my whole life. And, you know, I've not committed some grievous sins that other people have committed. I don't think I'm like walking around some self-righteous. You know what? The Bible tells me I ought to view you better than myself. All of us as God's people ought to view each other better than ourselves. And I believe that. One of the things that gives me great fear preaching God's word is not just that I'm preaching God's word, it's that I'm preaching to the best people on the Sunshine Coast. I'm preaching to the children of God. I'm preaching to the priests and the kings. I'm preaching to those that are going to rule and reign with Jesus. Like, who am I to speak to such an important people yourselves? Like, that's how, honestly, that's how I feel about my church. Like, I love you guys. I value you guys. You guys are so important. Not for the growth of my church. You're God's people. You've got the shed blood of Jesus Christ on your life. And thank God that he forgives us for all our sins. All the sexual sins of the past. Like I said, there still can be consequences. You might be carrying STDs right now. Those are consequences of major mistakes in life. But you're still valuable. You can still be used by God. You can still do great things. You can still bring a generation that loves the Lord, that understands God's laws, understands God's ways and won't make the mistakes you've made. Okay. Can you come with me to Matthew chapter five? Matthew chapter five. Let's get to the next topic. Lasciviousness. Like I said, lasciviousness is just like excessive lust. It's essentially like a very strong word for that. And obviously, having been lascivious is going to cause you to be adulterous and fornicator, all that kind of stuff, of course. But there are other ways that we can sort of understand this. And, you know, even though I truly believe, and like, you know, I've made this commitment to my wife on my wedding day, my vows that I'm hers for the rest of my life till death do us part. You know, and we talk about things like, yeah, you know, I don't believe I'll ever commit adultery. I don't even, I can't even imagine such a wicked act in my life. But Jesus Christ always, in the New Testament, He always rises the bar even higher. Always. Even higher. And He says this in Matthew 5, 27. Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, thou shalt not commit adultery. Yep, great commandment. But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, have committed adultery with her already in his heart. You see, many of the commandments and instructions and laws that we see in the Bible is what we do in our body. Don't do this, do this. But when Christ comes, He goes, well, I mean, it's good that you're living a holy life, but what about your heart? What about your mind? What about that which is within you? And that's a higher level. Like we, I don't think we, like I've heard people teach, if we just kept all the laws of God, like you can't, you know, but hypothetically, if you just kept all of the commandments of God in the Old Testament, you'll be saved because you're perfect. It's a standard. But when Christ comes, the standard's even higher. Remember He says, you know, like murder. You say, well, I've never murdered anybody. What does Christ say? If you hate a brother without cause, you've committed murder. Like the standard's even higher. Like even if you could keep all God's commandments, it's not enough. Let's see if it's justness, you know, lust. You know, the Bible speaks of, I don't know if I have a reference here. I didn't take down the reference, but the Bible speaks of, so the three great enemies that we have in life, and I can't remember the reference, but it talks about the pride of life, the lust of the eyes. What's the other one, brethren? Lust of the flesh, the pride of life, and the lust of the eyes. Now, when we talk about adultery and fornication, it's obviously of the flesh, something that people are doing in the flesh. But what about the lusts of the eyes? Okay, what about looking at other people that are not your spouse and having a desire? Well, that's a very high standard. Okay, let's see if it's justness. This is something we need to get out of our lives. And we live in the most beautiful place in Australia with beautiful coastlines, beautiful beaches, but men, here, we have to be very careful with our eyes. The way that some of these women dress, walking around literally in their underwear at the shops. Look, we need to be aware of this. We need to be careful. Let's see if it's justness. A work of the flesh. Pornography. So easily accessible today on the computer. If you've got a phone, so easily accessible. Where I've accidentally, without purpose, clicked on a wrong link. What am I looking at? Where did this come from? When I was a teenager, you had to go to the news agency if you wanted to look at that kind of stuff. You had to go and purchase a magazine or something like that. Today, it is literally at our fingertips. Look, I like technology. I actually like it a lot. I like technology a lot, but it's very damaging. It can be very damaging. Parents, we can't stop our kids from using devices. It's the way of the world at the moment. I mean, praise God. We're preaching on livestream right now on YouTube and people can tune in and listen to it. There are good uses for these devices and things, but we need to just try to keep an eye on our children. The temptations are gonna be even greater for them than they were for us. And young people, please be careful what you look at. Please, if your parents give you time to go on a computer, give you time to go on a chat or whatever it is, please honor mom and dad and do what is right and use your computer, use your phone, in honor of your parents, knowing that God sees what you're looking at. Can you come with me to Jude chapter four? Not chapter four, verse number four. Jude, verse number four, please, Jude four. Jude, verse four. Jude, verse four. The Bible says, for there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old, ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible's warning us that there are people that are gonna creep into our church unawares. We're gonna think of them as brother so and so, sister so and so, okay? But they've already been ordained to this condemnation. They're already damned, reprobates. What are their goals? To turn the grace of our God into lasciviousness. My goal is to preach God's grace. That's my goal, that's our goal as a church. Like outside of this pulpit, our number one ministry is to win souls, to tell them about the grace of God, salvation. Some people see a church like ours and they want lasciviousness. They come for lustful reasons. Why? Church usually, it's easy to trust. You think, oh, this is our brother, this is our sister in the Lord. You know, this is our Christian family. And it's so easy to make the mistake of lowering your guard. And before you know it, there's some wicked pervert in our church taking advantage of people. It happens. Believe it or not, it happens. It happens in the best churches. It happens in the churches that preach grace in Christ Jesus alone. People come in and they try to take advantage. They come in, whatever, desiring, certain positions to take advantage of people. I hear stories all the time. It breaks my heart. I don't understand pastors, pastors of independent fundamental Baptist churches. You know, I heard one just a few weeks ago. He was sleeping around with how many women in his church in Sydney? It's like, what is wrong? I tell you what's wrong. He wasn't saved. He's damned, he's a reprobate. These people creep in. I'm not saying one person just makes one mistake. But when you've got a serial adultery in the church, this is why with women, I don't give one-on-one private counsel. Ladies, you want to talk to me, bring your husband. Young girls, you want to talk to me, bring your dad. These pastors, they love these positions. They want these opportunities, these wicked men, full of lust. You've got to be careful what church you belong to. Just because it says IFB, doesn't mean the guy behind the pulpit is some righteous, even saved guy. I hope I've been your pastor long enough for you to go, look, our pastor is decent. It's not perfect, but he's decent. You know, he's one of the better ones out there. I hope you've got that conclusion about you. But still, even then, be careful. Can you come with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 12? 2 Corinthians chapter 12, please. Be careful about who you trust. These are the works of the flesh. Your brother and sister in the Lord that you trust, they also have the flesh. This pastor has the flesh. Whoever I think might be my best church member has flesh. I don't know who's in my best, you're all my best church members. I'm just saying, whatever you think, man, this person at church, they're like the most amazing, perfect example of Jesus Christ. Praise God if they are, but they still have flesh. And if they allow the flesh to have its way, they can commit all these kinds of sins. So be careful about your own flesh. Be careful about the flesh of others. We all have this battle in us. 2 Corinthians chapter 12, verse number 19. Look, preaching through these sins, again, it's not what I want. I don't wanna have like a negative sermon. I don't even like thinking about these things so much. But it's needful. You know, it's in God's word so we can learn. It's in God's word so we understand what we're capable of in our flesh. You're not that great. Neither am I. It's all about Jesus, salvation is. The righteousness that we do have is the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Praise God for him. Like God has done so much for us, to save us and to see us in the light of Jesus. Wow, wow, it's amazing. But 2 Corinthians chapter 12, and I wanna end on this one. Because we would say Paul was utilized by God. I mean, Paul is one of the best Christians in the Bible. I mean, you know, he's remained single, he's out starting churches, he's winning souls, being sent out by his Antioch church. But then he started the Corinthian church and if you know, they were pretty messed up. There's a lot going on. Not only were they committing works of the flesh, not only was there fornication in the church, but that fornication was essentially being ignored. You know, it's been accepted. And you know, the main reason we need to be mindful about these kinds of sins in our life, like we saw earlier in chapter five, it says that a little leavened up the whole lump. If we're not careful and we allow fornication and we allow these sins to just be in the church and we're just fine with it, before you know it, it's going to creep into everybody. It's going to affect everybody. Young people are gonna say, well, if Pete can go and sleep with some girl, why can't I? Before you know it, it's tainted the entire church. So we need to preach sermons like this from time to time. Even if it's not an issue for anybody right now, we need to be made aware. Just when those temptations do come, oh man, yeah, that sermon, I've got to flee fornication. I've got to get myself out of here. I can't just stand here and think I'm gonna get by it. No, my pastor said I'm gonna give in to it unless I get myself physically out of this situation. So we need to hear these things. But Paul was concerned for the Corinthian church. He was away, he's writing this letter, right, he's not physically with them. He says in verse number 19, again, think ye that we excuse ourselves unto you. We speak before God in Christ, but we do all things dearly beloved for your edifying. Reverend, I don't know if you'd like, maybe you don't like the sermon today. I want you to know I have the same heart as Paul. I'm preaching this dearly beloved for your edifying, to build you up. To help you when these sins and these temptations enter your life. He says in verse number 20, for I fear lest when I come, I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall be found unto you such as you would not. Lest there be debates, envians, rafts, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults. He goes, I don't wanna come church. And I turn up and all of you are bickering and fighting and be full of wickedness. He's giving them time, look, get these things fixed in your life. Get these things fixed in the church, so that when I come, we can have good fellowship. Essentially it's what he's saying, verse number 21, and lest when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall be wail many which have sinned already and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed. Was the Corinthian church, did the Corinthian church have people that had committed fornication, struggling with lasciviousness, unclean? He goes, yeah. And some of you have also. Okay, but what is he saying? He says, look, get this fixed in your life. You gotta overcome these things in your life. It'll destroy you. It'll destroy your reputation. It'll destroy your family. Yeah, it can even destroy this church. But what is he saying? You've committed these things in the past, repent. Okay, and the instruction, we're gonna look at it now in 1 Corinthians 5. If people refuse to repent, if they just think, no, I'm gonna be at church, I don't care how wicked my life is, he says those people need to be put on the church. He's just planting, kicked out of the church. 1 Corinthians 5. So, look, I hope, I hope I'm just preaching this and nobody's, everyone's like, ah, it doesn't affect me. I wonder who pastor's speaking about. Don't worry, I'm speaking to you. Because you've got the flesh and so do I. The Lord's preaching to me as well. We have the flesh. If we're not careful, brethren, the devil knows. The devil sees weakness, puts some temptation, puts you in a situation and if you're not prepared, you're gonna easily fall. And so, brethren, the title for the sermon was The Works of the Flesh. We'll continue this in the next few weeks. Okay, let's pray.