Christian Ethics pt.5	  Sexual Issues 	 
    
There are some ethical issues that are clearly seen even by the world.  Virtually everyone everywhere, for example, believes it’s wrong to lie, or murder, or rape, or commit adultery.  
    And there are other ethical issues that the world is completely blind to.  They can see why hatred is wrong, but they for the life of them can’t understand what’s wrong with pride.  (They high self-esteem is a virtue).
    One area where our culture is the most clueless is in the area of sexual ethics.
    They can see why adultery is wrong, but they have a really tough time understanding what could be wrong with fornication (sex between singles).
    The reason for that is their sense of right and wrong is based not on the holiness of God, but on the pleasure of man.
    Things like murder, rape, stealing, slander, adultery, etc. are wrong, because they cause people pain.  And for most people, that is the standard of right and wrong.
    It’s a selfish, man-centered ethic.  They don’t want suffering to be inflicted upon themselves, and so they are willing to avoid inflicting it on others.
    But when it comes to sexual ethics, they tend to be blind to the ethical issues at hand.
    Most people agree that adultery is wrong, but not because they see it as a sexual evil.  They think it’s wrong, because it’s a relational evil (it’s a mean thing to do to your spouse).  
    So even in the debauched sludge that drains out of Hollywood, adultery is seen as evil.  But you don’t have to watch much TV to see that it doesn’t seem to have even occurred to them that fornication could be wrong.
    Columnist Abigail Van Buren, who wrote "Dear Abby," said "The best rule a limitation is: anything that goes on between consenting adults is okay as long as its agreeable with both parties and harms no one."
    In adultery someone gets hurt.  But they figure if two people who are in love sleep together without a ring on their finger, and they are both happy about it – no one seems to be getting hurt, so what could be so wrong about it?
    
What about homosexuality?  What makes that wrong?
    If two people of the same sex love each other, and are committed to each other for life, and they want to express that love physically, what is so evil about that?
    What’s so evil about looking at an erotic image on a piece of glossy paper?  
    Many times Christians struggle with these same questions.  They say, “I’m willing to live by these standards, but I still don’t understand what it is about them that is so bad.”
    In some cases that’s because they have been affected by the world’s thinking that the thing that makes a wrong thing wrong is whether it causes suffering.
    The Definition of Evil
    In order for us to understand what makes wrong things wrong, we need to understand the definition of wrong.  
    What is wrong?  Or better – what is evil?
    We can start by saying what evil is not.  Evil is not an entity or substance that was created.  Evil is not a thing.
    In order for any thing to come into existence, it would have to be created by God.  And God only creates good.
    So evil can’t be a thing.
    So what is evil?  Philosophers say it is privation.  What that means is absence or lacking -- when something is not there.
    Evil is no substance -- it's like our word "lack."
    The reason I'm not seven feet tall as because my lack about 12 inches.
    If you ask, "What is that lack?  What is it made out of?  What is its source?  What does it look like?  What does it smell like?"  -- all those are meaningless questions.
    That lacking isn't anything.  It's just a word we use to describe something that doesn't exist.
    Those 12 inches don't exist they were created by anything, they don't have a source.  Nobody made them.  They don't have any properties.
    If you have a jar that's empty, that emptiness is not some substance.  It's not a thing.  It's just not there.
    If there are a whole bunch of people not in place, we say those people are absent.  That absence is not a thing.  It's just a word we use to describe what's not there.
    So when people aren't there we call it absence.  When stuff isn't there we call it emptiness…
    And when good isn't there we call it evil.
    People ask, "who created evil?"  But evil is not a thing or substance that was created.  You've never put a handful of evil in your pocket or bumped your head on evil or stepped in any evil.
    If you take a car, and remove all the evil, badness from the car, what you have?  A perfect car!
    But if you remove all the goodness from a car, what you have?  Nothing!
    Evil is just a word we use to describe the lack of good.  So all evil is, is messed up good.
    Evil is just a word we use to describe the messed-upness of a good thing.
    So another word for evil is messed-upness.  The philosophers call it privation, because they don't sound like dorks making up dumb sounding words like messed -- upness.  But I don't care if I sound like a dork I just want to be understood.  And most people don't know what privation means.
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So, that has huge ramifications for ethics.  Evil is not whatever causes suffering.  Evil is whatever differs from God's intention.
    If I rearrange our living room the definition of the wrong place for the couch is anyplace Tracy doesn't want it, since the only purpose of the arrangement is to get the things where Tracy wants them.
    The definition of evil is anything that isn't as God intended.
    So what's so evil about premarital sex or homosexuality?  Simple.  They differ from what God intended for sex.
    God's intention for sex is the pleasurable uniting of a man and a woman in marriage.  Anything outside of that is evil -it's the couch the wrong place.  It's not what God wants.
    Note: you can make a strong argument that fornication does indeed harm people and causes great suffering, but that is not what makes it sin.
    On top of that there's a unique kind of contamination that goes along with sexual sin.
1 Cor.6:18 says flee from sexual immorality.  All other sins a man commits are outside of his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. 
    In what way is sexual sin unique?  In what way are all other sins outside the body, but sexual sin is against the body?  
    That is a difficult question, because there are plenty of other sins that harm your body (drunkenness, suicide, etc.)
    The answer is in verse 13.  The body was not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord and the Lord for the body.  
    God used to dwell in the Temple in Old Testament times.  Now He dwells in the Christian’s body.  Your body is the sacred place devoted only to God.  If you are a Christian your body is devoted only to Him and it is not to be defiled.  Sexual sin defiles the holy dwelling place of God in a way that no other sin does.  
    Notice verse 15 - Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ Himself?  Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute?  Never.  Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body?  For it is said that the two will become one flesh.  But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with Him in Spirit.”  
    You are one with the Lord.  So when you sleep with someone you are not married to and become one flesh with that person, you drag Christ into that impurity!
    It’s an almost unthinkable thought.  When we commit adultery we involve Christ in our sin in a way that’s not true of any other kind of sin. 
    Verse 19 – do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God?  You are not your own.  You are bought with a price.  Therefore honor God with your body.  
    Your body does not belong to you as a Christian.  Christ purchased it with His blood.  It belongs to Him.  He bought it, fair and square (besides the fact that He created it to begin with).  
    So it is not for you to give it away.  And if you give it away to someone in adultery, or in sexual sin, you are robbing God of something that is rightfully His.  His very temple!  
What constitutes sexual sin?
    We all understand the ending point of sexual sin -- intercourse with someone other than your spouse.
    The question is what is the beginning point?  At what point is the sin start?
    Jesus gave his insight into that in Mt.5:28.
But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman in order to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
    The beginning point of the sin is lust in the heart.  The ending point is intercourse.  And everything in between is sin.
    Jesus’ point is that anything that would be sin to act out, is sinful to think about.
    That's not to say lust in the heart is exactly the same in every way as physically committing adultery.  The physical act is a more serious sin. Just like a murderer is more serious than anger.
 
Jesus’ point is simply that it's the same category of sin.  Hatred is a sin that is the same variety of sin as murder.  And a lust is the sin that is the same variety of sin as adultery.
    Lust is the fostering or cultivation of a desire for any kind of sexual pleasure with someone who may not legitimately provide that pleasure. 
    It is immoral for man to mentally use any woman sexually who does not rightfully belong to him.
    Entertaining desires like that in your mind is dishonoring to God and forbidden by Scripture.
    And all the participants are guilty, including the woman who sets the temptation before a man, either intentionally or through carelessness.
    In Mt.18:7 Jesus said "Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come!
    In v.6 He said, if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. 
    You would be way better off dead than to be the instrument by which someone is drawn into sin.
    And since the beginning point of the sin is in the mind, anything that entices the mind towards sin is sin area
    
That runs completely counter to the way our world thinks.  Abigail Van Buren constantly told people that sexual fantasy is normal in harmless -- even beneficial.
    She said that the teaching of Christ on lust is one of the most damaging religious teachings ever perpetrated on the human race.
    Again, the world thinks that because they think right and wrong is determined by what causes suffering.  In other words, they think you can only sin against people.  They have no understanding of the concept of sitting against God. 
    But Joseph understood that.  When Potifire’s wife tried to seduce him, he said, How could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God? Gn.39:9
    After David sinned and with Bathsheba, he prayed a prayer of repentance in Psalm 51.  Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, (Ps 51:4)

Masturbation
    "What about masturbation?  Is it wrong to stimulate yourself?"
    The Bible never addresses this issue, even though it's a very common thing among men.
    One interesting observation is that, as common as it is, it's almost universally accompanied by guilt.  People who do it feel guilty.
    That's interesting, because there is a very, very little teaching on this topic.  It's not like pastors everywhere are grilling it into people's heads that this is wrong.  And yet, people feel guilty about it.
    The reason people feel guilty, I think, is the same reason why it's not addressed in Scripture.  And that is, the real issue is the thoughts that go along with it.
    The primary sex organ is the mind.  Sexual activity requires sexual thoughts.  And it is those thoughts that cause people to feel guilty, because, as Jesus made clear, those thoughts are sin.

Homosexuality
Homosexuality is wrong for the same reason fornication is wrong – it differs from what God intended.
    In fact, in Ro.1 homosexuality is set forth as one of the supreme examples of a sin against natural revelation.
    Even if you don’t have a Bible, it should be obvious from the way we are designed that God’s intention for sexual relations was that it is to be between a man and woman.
    Many homosexuals have argued that homosexual temptations are genetically wired into some people, and that justifies the behavior.
1.	    It’s not proven that homosexuality is genetic. 
2.	Even if it is, we are all genetically predisposed to sin, but that doesn’t excuse sin.
    If a married man finds himself in a circumstance where he is being tempted and seduced by some other woman, is that temptation genetic?  Of course it is.
    You can study rapists and find that they have more of certain hormones, but that doesn’t excuse rape.
    3.  Most importantly, that kind of thinking demonstrates an approach to ethics that is completely wrong.
    You don't determine what's right or wrong by how tempted you are or by what the flesh demands.
    Right and wrong is determined by God's desires and purposes.
Rape
    Amazingly, our society is becoming increasingly tolerant of rape.  As recently as the '50s men were executed for rape.  Now that's unheard of.
    And the world is becoming more and more confused on this issue.
    Our society wants to believe that almost all sex is good, and so the only thing that's wrong about rape is that it is an active violence.
    And so the sexual aspect of it is diminished.
    They say that rape is not even the sexual crime.  It doesn't have anything to do with the rapist’s sexual drive.  It's only an act of violence.
    I've always been suspicious of that idea, because, obviously, in order to have intercourse there has to be some degree of arousal.
    But there's scientific evidence that it's primarily a sexual issue is well.  At Johns Hopkins less than 5 percent of sex offenders on Depo-Provera, which decreases the male libido, become repeat offenders.  Without medical treatment, about 85 percent of sex offenders will repeat the offense.
    Rape is definitely primarily a sexual crime, and it's driven by pornography.  And that is obvious even from the most limited study of pornography.
    Magazines like Playboy promote violence against women just as much as they promote sexual activity.  If you read the book Softcore Plays Hardball by Judith Reisman, you'll see that the Playboy magazine is absolutely obsessed with promoting violence against women.
    Our society wants to make rape a non-sexual issue, so it can be installed of its responsibility and the guilt that it bears from its proliferation of pornography.
  
Review Questions:
1.	    What's wrong with the world's ethical standard of right and wrong being determined by what hurts people?
2.	If that standard is wrong, what's the right standard?
3.	Why is sex among consenting adults who are not married to each other so wrong?