" IN HIS CARE THE LORD OUR GOD WARNS US AGAINST UNCHASTITY ."

Scripture Reading:
Gen 2:18-25
Eph 5:22-33
Matthew 5:27-32

Singing:  (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter)
Psalm 9:1,5
Psalm 139:13
Psalm 119:2,3
Psalm 16:3,4
Psalm 128:1,2,3

Beloved Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ!

Lord’s Day 41 uses very negative terminology, words like ‘cursed’ and ‘detest’ and ‘shameful sins’. Are we to get the impression that the Catechism, or the Bible for that matter, is negative on sexuality?

Let it be clear right away: the Bible is not at all negative on sexuality. I read in Gen 1 that God made man "male and female" (1:27) –so that includes sexuality- and that God said of His entire creation that "it was very good" (vs 31). That includes sexuality. Paul writes to Timothy that in the course of the New Testament dispensation there will arise those who "heed to deceiving spirits and the doctrines of demons," and one of their false teachings will be that people may not marry – as if there is something wrong with sexuality. But Paul opposes that categorically, and states that "every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving" (1 Tim 4:1ff). One can think also of the Song of Solomon, where the bride and groom each describe each other’s bodies with great admiration – words put on their lips by none less than the Holy Spirit Himself. No, congregation, the Bible is not at all negative towards sexuality, but praises God for this wonderful gift.

Why, then, does the Catechism use such negative language in its explanation of the seventh commandment? Why words like ‘cursed’ and ‘detest’ and strong condemnation of "all unchaste acts, gestures, words, thoughts, desires, and whatever may entice us to unchastity"? The reason for that, brothers and sisters, is this: the Catechism is acutely aware of the weaknesses and sinfulness that continues to beset God’s people. So the Catechism takes, if you will, on the function of a guard dog; the Catechism wants to warn God’s people of particular dangers in relation to sexuality and marriage, dangers that lie so close at hand. And enemy Number One is here unchastity. The Catechism recognizes that sexuality is a wonderful gift from God, and so wants to protect it.

I summarize the sermon with this theme:

The word ‘unchastity’ is not one we tend to use in daily conversation. What, then, is meant by the term? A working definition would go something like this: unchastity is improper or unholy thoughts, words or actions in relation to sexuality.

Actually, congregation, unchastity is a form of greed. Greed: one wants more and more, but not for the benefit of the other; one wants more and more for the benefit of the self. The term ‘unchastity’ captures the notion that one is busy with sexuality for the sake of the self, satisfying one’s own desires. The person engaged in unchastity does not concern himself with the other; this person is busy with himself even at the expense of the other, using the other for the sake of self. It’s this self-centeredness that God hates, for it’s the exact opposite of what Christ has done for unworthy sinners.

To be clear, then, we need to realize that unchastity is not just a sin that can occur before marriage or outside of marriage; unchastity can occur also in marriage. It is against the revealed will of God that unmarried persons behave together as if they are married. I refer here to Gen 2:24. The passage has three verbs: "a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." The order of these verbs is important. By the ordinance of God the man who lives in the parental home shall leave that home in order to be joined to his wife; first comes leaving and then comes joining – marriage. And only then comes the third verb, the one relating to sexuality, becoming one flesh. The ‘becoming one flesh’ is not first in the row, as if the Lord would give sexual activity a place before one leaves the parental home and before one marries. No, the Holy Spirit puts the ‘becoming one flesh’ last in the row, and that’s because sexuality has a place in marriage and in marriage alone. So today’s pattern of young people being sexually active before marriage flies in the face of the Lord’s word. God calls this ‘unchastity’, a behavior He has cursed (cf Lev 18).

God has also cursed sexually activity outside of marriage. That is: one is married, but is sexually active outside of marriage. That text from Gen 2:24 puts the ‘becoming one flesh’ within the confines of marriage, that is, one has sexual relations with the spouse. In fact, in the laws God gave to Israel He commanded that adultery was to be punished with death (Lev 20:10). In the New Testament we read that fornicators and adulterers have no place in the kingdom of heaven (1 Cor 6:9). That’s equally true for sexual activity with persons of the same gender. Today’s world may consider homosexual activity acceptable, and the Anglican Church may even ordain homosexual clergy, but the Lord is emphatic that He considers homosexuality sin – just as He does adultery and fornication (cf Lev 18:13; 1 Cor 6:9). It is unchastity.

But equally: unchastity can also occur within marriage, and that also provokes God’s displeasure. Where one is self-centered in marriage and so demands the other’s body for the sake of the self (possibly even at the expense of the other), one is guilty of unchastity. Even in marriage, says Paul to the Thessalonians, "each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God" (1 Thessalonians 4:3f).

"All unchastity is cursed by God," says the Catechism. The question presses itself upon us: why is it so? Unchastity lies so close to us; we all know ourselves addressed in some way. What is there about unchastity that God hates so much? To answer that critical question, we need to go back to the institution of marriage at creation.

On the sixth day of creation, the Lord God first called into being "the living creatures according to its kind: cattle and creeping things and beast of the earth, each according to its kind" (Gen 1:24). God spoke, and there were at least two horses, a stallion and a mare; at least two deer, a buck and a doe; at least two pigs, a boar and a sow. Two separate animals of each kind….

Then God decided to make man. How many He made? Says Gen 2:7: God made one man. He took clay from the ground, fashioned it into the shape of a man, and "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." This one single creature God put into the Garden He prepared for him, and told him "to tend and keep it" (Gen 2:15).

Then we read this remarkable word of God in vs 18: "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him." Yet God did not utter a word of command so that a woman came into existence, nor did God collect more clay from the ground to fashion a woman from it. Instead, the Lord first summoned all the animals He had made and caused them to file past Adam. There they came: two horses, a stallion and a mare; two pigs, a boar and a sow; two rabbits, a buck and a doe; two cows, a bull and a heifer. Animal by animal came by twos, a male and a female. Through that process the Lord alerted Adam to the fact that he was by himself, did not have "a helper comparable to him" (vs 20).

Yet even then, after God had made Adam aware of his aloneness, the Lord did not call a woman into existence with His word of command as He had with the animals, nor did He now collect dust of the earth as He had when He made Adam and shape it into a woman. Instead, the Lord God did something different, something unique. What He did? He "caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam." And while he slept the Lord took a rib from the man, and made from it a woman.

Do you see, brothers and sisters, how differently God went about creating a partner for man than He did for the animals? A stallion got his partner as a separate animal, made from a different lump of dust as the stallion himself was. But not so with man! God took the woman out of man (1 Cor 11:8). From the word go there is a unity between man and woman, between Adam and his wife, a unity inasmuch as she came from him. That’s also what Adam acknowledges when God brought the woman to him. He sings a song, and what does he say? No, he doesn’t burst forth into song as the bridegroom in the Song of Solomon to extol the beauty of her hair and her eyes and her lips and her belly. Nor does he sing a song about the wonderful characteristics of this woman –the kindness written in her eyes, the graciousness with which she carries herself, etc- as you find in the book of Proverbs (ch 31). Instead, what grabs Adam, the topic that comes to his lips, is the matter of her origin, the matter of their unity. Gen 2:23: "This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh," he says. He looks at her, and recognizes that she comes from him, that this woman is his rib transformed! So deep is the unity between the two!

What’s the implication? What consequence flows from God having created the woman not from dust (so that man and woman are two separate creatures), but formed the woman from Adam’s rib? The Holy Spirit draws out the consequence in vs 24. "Therefore," says the passage, "therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." That’s the consequence. That closest unity God has placed between man and woman prompts the next generation to leave the parental home and marry a wife – and then that new couple becomes one flesh. One time only did the Lord take a rib from a man, make a woman, and give that woman to the man. But the unity, the oneness, that obviously characterized Adam’s and Eve’s marriage was, by God’s ordinance, to characterize every marriage; by God’s ordinance the marrying couple became one flesh just as Eve was Adam’s real flesh.

In that unity sexuality has a place; it’s a symbol of that unity. That is why sexuality amongst people is so different from sexuality among animals. For animals, sexuality is a question of instinct, simply a bodily function pitched to reproduction. By God’s ordinance, amongst people it’s so much deeper, it’s an expression of the unity that God places between man and wife. This difference is something we need to be aware of, particularly in a society that embraces evolution and disregards what God says about how He created the world. If evolution were true, there is no principle reason against young people engaging in sexual activity, and no principle reason against married couples cheating on each other, and no principle reason against homosexuality. For we’re just animals anyway…, and so may follow our drives…. But you and I take Genesis seriously, believe that God made a woman out of Adam’s rib, and so God ordained unity, oneness, between man and wife. Sexuality gives expression to that oneness. That is why "all unchastity is cursed by God"! Those who engage in sexual activity before marriage or outside of marriage, those who engage in sexual activity to satisfy the self, in passion of lust, do not act consistently with God’s instruction in Genesis 2 and the manner He created the woman. To thumb your nose at God’s ordinance cannot receive God’s favor! Our thoughts and actions in relation to sexuality need to demonstrate that we believe God’s word in Genesis 1 & 2, that we take God seriously. By His ordinance, sexuality has a place in marriage, and in marriage alone – as display of the oneness God put between man and wife.

I come to our second point:

God, then, ordained oneness between husband and wife, a wonderful oneness that made the first marriage a bliss in every sense.

Yet there came the day when Eve answered the temptation of the devil and ate of the forbidden tree, and Adam did also. The Lord God came to this first couple in the garden and inquired about their circumstance. Adam’s reply illustrates how terribly the fall into sin destroyed the unity of marriage. "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate, " he said (Gen 3:12). We realize: here’s finger pointing, here’s blame. The unity of which Adam sang in Gen 2:24 when he received Eve is gone; these words speak of division, hostility. That, beloved, is the bitter effect of our fall into sin!

Yet that’s not all. For God says in 3:16 to the woman: "Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." "He shall rule over you": what do you think, does that reflect the oneness of Adam’s wedding song? We realize: No, these words do not reflect that oneness. One does not speak of ruling over one’s rib; a rib is so much part of you, so much one with you, that ‘ruling over’ does not come into the picture. But here, again, is the effect of the fall into sin. So much is the oneness broken that the man can get heavy-fisted in imposing his will on his wife. How many marriages over the years do not testify of the pain and suffering that we have brought on ourselves through our fall into sin…?

I need to clarify a point here. It is indeed so that when God ordained marriage, He gave to the man the position of leader and to the wife the position of helper. Both Adam and Eve were created in the image of God, both received abundance of talents; there is no difference on this point. But in their relation together the Lord was pleased to ordain an order, and that is that Adam received from God the obligation to lead his wife, and Eve received from God the duty to be helper to her husband. It’s an ordinance that remains valid for marriage today, a point to which I’ll came back shortly.

But with the fall into sin also this good hierarchy between man and woman was damaged, warped. For the man would use his God-give leadership role now to ‘rule over’ his wife, even impose himself upon her. We realize: this is a caricature of how God ordained it to be. Within that caricature the woman is vulnerable, can be used by her husband. And that’s true not just in marriage; it can be true before marriage too, or outside. The people of Israel were slaves in Egypt, and we may take it for granted that the Israelites –particularly the women- felt that vulnerability, and hurt because of it. Think only of how the Egyptians took Sarai from Abram for Pharaoh’s harem (cf Gen 12:14ff).

Here, now, is the gospel of God’s care! He delivered a people from Egypt, brought them to Mt Sinai, and told them there that He was their God; He established His covenant with Israel. In His care He also gave His people the seventh commandment, told them not to commit adultery. With that instruction God addressed the men and women amongst Israel, and addressed the boys and girls at the foot of the mountain also – all people who had the same hormones and the same struggles we have today. With this commandment not to commit adultery God took His people back to the ordinances of Paradise, of Genesis 2, and reminded Israel of how He created the woman and what consequences flow with respect to marriage. Break that unity somehow? Separate sexuality from that unity? Don’t, says God to His people, don’t do it! Live consistently with the principles of creation; only then is there a blessing for you in life!

But the people of Israel were as sinful as you and I. Time and time again the young people abused their bodies, gave in to their sexual drives, satisfied themselves for the sake of selves. Time and again the married of Israel imposed themselves on the spouse to satisfy the self. Always and again sin lay close at hand; there’s nothing new under the sun. That is why the Lord God gave up His only Son, and Jesus Christ went to the cross of Calvary to suffer the righteous judgment of God on sin against the seventh commandment. He did not consider sin against this commandment too vile, too distasteful for His death; no, He laid down His life also for fornicators, adulterers, homosexuals, pedophiles, etc. With His precious blood He washed all those sins away – so that even adulterers of whatever stripe –and we all are in some way (cf Mt 5:27ff)- may be righteous before God! How abundant, how awesome, is His mercy!!

This Savior who emptied Himself for the unworthy, who gave His blood for persons who sin against their own bodies and the bodies of their neighbors, has now given His Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit has made His home in the people for whom Christ has died. It’s a point we need to be very aware of, congregation: we do not only have hormones flowing through us, we also have the Holy Spirit living in us! That is the promise of God, signified to us in our baptism: "God the Holy Spirit assures us by this sacrament that He will dwell in us…." In the strength of this Holy Spirit we can begin to live according to the seventh commandment!

What that looks like in marriage? The Lord tells us in that powerful passage from Eph 5. "Wives," says the Lord, "submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord." There’s the principle of creation, that God gave the husband the role of leadership. "For," the apostle continues, "the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body." Note: the husband’s headship over the wife remains God’s ordinance in marriages today! So the husbands in our midst need to dare to be the head! But what does this headship look life? Listen to Paul in vs 23: "the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body." Note especially those last words: "He is the Savior of the body." How is He head? By making Himself the Savior! That is: by denying Himself, emptying Himself for the sake of the church! That’s the model husbands need to follow. Instead of ruling over their wives, heavy-fisted, they are to deny themselves for the good of the wife. Vs 25: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish." That’s the example husbands are to follow: "So husbands ought to love their own wives." You see: there is no place in marriage for selfishness, not in sexuality either. As Christ emptied Himself for His bride, "so husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies" – vs 28. With that statement the apostle reaches back to how God created the woman in Genesis 2 – not by a word of command, not from dust either, but from Adam’s rib, and so Paul adds (vs 28f): "he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh." You see, the wife is his own flesh! As Adam saw his own rib in Eve and sang out his excitement, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh" (Gen 2:23), so also the husband is to recognize that his wife is, by God’s ordinance, "one flesh" with him (Gen 2:24). That’s why the husband is to nourish and cherishes her, "just as the Lord does the church" (vs 29).

Selfishness in marriage? No, brothers and sisters, that may not exist among the people of God, simply because our Lord Jesus Christ, the Head of the church, displayed no selfishness when He set out to save His people. Unchastity is a form of greed, a wanting sexual satisfaction for the sake of self. Jesus Christ emptied Himself so that in principle the marriage structure of Genesis 2 is restored, and that in turn means that the Christian husband and his godly wife are one, one flesh – and they express that to each other in their sexuality. That is why sexuality has a place only within marriage. That is equally why God hates divorce. What God has joined together –He made husband and wife to be one flesh, she from his rib- man may not break asunder without provoking the judgment of holy God.

Our culture idolizes sexuality, and so confronts us with so many sexual stimulations. To keep ourselves chaste in thought, word and deed is not easy – and that’s true for adults as well as for youth. Yet keep ourselves holy we must, for God has cursed unchastity and His judgment lies ready upon it. How gracious He is, then, that He tells us the way forward! In His gracious care He gives us the seventh commandment. More, He tells us of His Son Jesus Christ, how He emptied Himself to wash away all our sins against this commandment. More still, He has given us His Holy Spirit – by whose power we can fight against unchastity and keep ourselves holy.

Yet how shall we fight? Prayer, of course, is so very, very important. Tell God, brothers and sisters, older and younger, tell God openly and honestly in the privacy of your room, what your struggles really are – be it with adulterous thoughts or pornography or homosexuality or whatever. Tell God, and tell Him how you fail, and seek His redeeming grace in Christ. Remember that our Lord Jesus Christ was tempted in every way as we are, and knows the pressures under which we live.

And: stay away from things and places that stimulate you sexually. You know where pornography is available, be it in the Newsagent or on the Internet or wherever – stay away. You know the Night Club can stimulate you to unchaste thoughts, or even deeds, and perchance the beach stimulates you too – stay away. Remember the word Jesus spoke in relation to adultery: "if your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell" (Mt 5:29). In our promiscuous society we may need to be hard on ourselves; so be it. Here I want to speak a word to the girls and mothers also: please watch how you dress. Clothing that exposes the torso or outlines the figure does things to the guys, draws out the unchaste desires that live in all of us. Husbands and fathers: you are the head in the family; on the point of clothing too the buck stops with you.

We all are our brothers’ keepers, and that means that we are not to make it unnecessarily difficult for others. As a communion of saints together, we all, older and younger, male and female, need to keep the instruction of Scripture in mind about sexuality: God has given this wonderful gift a place in marriage, there to express the oneness God places between man and wife.

Marriage, sexuality: yes, these are wonderful gifts from our gracious God. But the Bible is clear: these are not the greatest gifts at all. In the New Jerusalem there will be neither marriage nor sexuality, for we shall be as the angels (Mt 22:30). Yet that shall not be a loss. For the God who said in the beginning that it was not good for Adam to be alone knows that in the New Jerusalem nobody will be alone. For in the New Jerusalem there will be permanent and perfect communion with God and with each other, a oneness and a unity that will far outshine the oneness and unity of marriage today. Amen.