1155. Fornication and Fleshly Lusts

Fornication and Fleshly Lusts

"Neither let as commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand" (1Co_10:8).

Keep in mind that we have been studying, one by one, the carnalities that God warns us against. Each time the record begins, "Neither let us * * as did they."

Fornication is the great sin of the church. "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?" (Jam_4:4). Fornication is spiritual adultery.

When Balaam could not curse Israel he advised Balak to mix and mingle with the Israelites in the marriage bond. Therein Israel sinned and reaped a harvest of sorrow.

God pity the Christian, who, in his carnality, has failed to hear the call of God to come out and be separate from sinners.

Alas, that sometimes it seems difficult to distinguish between the church and the world–whether it is a worldly church or a churchly world.

This form of carnality is marked by mixing and mingling with sinners. It is expressed in Peter's warming at the enemies' fire.

Worldly society feeds the carnal appetite. The card party, the theater, the dance, the worldly resort allure the carnal church-member. The pleasures, the plans and the power of the world hold him captive. When a church has sold itself to and is dominated by the worldly crowd it is guilty of spiritual fornication. It begins to preach upon the greatness of man; it glories in human achievement; it dotes on fine music, aesthetic culture, and social coteries; in worship it settles down to cold formalism and stiff prayers; in service it leans upon men, money and machinery. God save us from this mark of carnality.

Let us hear the Word of God that calls us to separation from the world:

"Go not in the way of evil men."

"The man who walketh not in counsel of the ungodly."

The man who "standeth not in the way of sinners."

The man who sitteth not "in the seat of the scornful."

"Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness."

"Not to keep company with such an one, not to eat."

Into this realm of carnality a Christian may stumble, but he whose whole life is worldly; he who loves the world and the things of the world has never been saved; "the love of the Father is not in him."

The Christian should daily die to the world; he should crucify the flesh with the affections and the lusts thereof.

Let our young people take this to heart and with one big determined "no" to fleshly lusts and world-mixing, let them dedicate themselves to God, and go outside the camp, bearing His reproach.

Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR