In this sermon, the preacher discusses the topic of sexual immorality and its consequences. He starts by referencing the story of Reuben in Genesis 35, who committed immorality and faced judgment later on. The preacher emphasizes that those who lack control in this area of their lives are as unstable as water and will not know success. He mentions that surveys have shown a high percentage of university girls believing it is reasonable to have sex before marriage. The preacher argues that it is important to have answers and reasons for not believing in this way of living, based on what Jesus taught and what the Bible says. He warns about the effects of such sin and the lifetime of tears and heartache it can bring. The preacher also mentions the importance of not allowing such sins to be named among believers, as stated in 2 Timothy 2. He highlights the moral deluge our culture is facing and the severity of the situation. However, he also offers a message of hope, stating that the power of the Holy Spirit can give strength even to the weakest individuals. The sermon includes references to other stories in the Old Testament, such as the sin of David in 2 Samuel 11, to emphasize the importance of avoiding sexual immorality.

I'm mainly going to trace some thoughts or through some verses in the Bible. So I hope you all have your Bibles. I'm interested in seeing what the Bible has to say. Aren't you interested seeing what the Bible has to say about sex, about marriage, about all these hush-hush subjects? And I think you need to realize that if you think all these things are hush-hush and we shouldn't talk about them, I think you're completely wrong, because the Bible speaks loud and clear. Many times the critics and those against the Christian faith say that we are maintaining a Victorian ethic. The fact of the matter is, I don't believe that the true Christian position is a Victorian ethic. I believe it's a Biblical ethic, and it's not like it was a hundred years ago, where no one would ever talk about it, and yet all kinds of vile things were happening, just as today, not quite to the degree today. Do not think that all this promiscuity and immorality is new. It was going on before Noah and his ark. Such immoral atrocities were taking place in the days of Noah and Sodom and Gomorrah, and even in the Corinthian church. Imagine, the Spirit of God has allowed it to be recorded in Scripture that men were having sex affairs with their mothers. That's recorded by the Holy Spirit in the Book of Corinthians. Some feel that probably was their second mother or stepmother, but it's recorded in the Book of Corinthians, and the author, the Apostle Paul, says these things aren't even named among the heathens, much less in the Church of God. So the Bible speaks, and because the Bible speaks, I must speak. Though I don't want to, and though I know some people will misunderstand, I must speak. You know, there's a lot of statistics being released. I don't know if many of us realize just what a moral deluge our culture is caught up in, and what a severe situation we are facing. Let me just give you a few of the facts, just to give you a little idea of what we're up against. In speaking about premarital pregnancy, that which years ago was considered a great sin, that which of course the Bible condemns as part or as the reaping of an immoral relationship, statistics show that now in England, one out of three brides are already pregnant at the wedding. One out of three in England, one out of two in Denmark, two out of five in Sweden, and yet God says this sin is worthy of judgment. In America, teenage marriage is the big thing. Statistics show 40% of all teenage marriages end in a divorce within five years. I think these are some figures that may be good for us to realize. The statistics aren't much better in some other countries. The divorce rate for those who marry before 18 is two to four times higher than those who marry later on in life. Last year, in the United States, 300,000 women had babies but no husbands. 300,000! Went on to report that in the same year, though it wouldn't be the same, of course it wouldn't be the same, there were 300,000 cases of abortion in the United States. Incredible. Of course, as you know, some European countries, starting with England, have now legalized abortion. And you've read just what this is doing in the United States. I was reading in another book that one out of three marriages in the United States ends in divorce, approximately, but in Los Angeles and Hollywood, the kingdom of the romance world, one out of every two marriages ends in a divorce court. Now I can give you all kinds of statistics, some of them very gruesome, but I'm not here to do that. But I think that you and I must realize, as naive as you may want to be, I don't know why anybody wants to remain naive in this crazy world, that we are living in a culture that is approaching a situation similar to Sodom and Gomorrah. And there's some things I'm even afraid to say, because the book of Ephesians says just don't talk about some of these things that are being done today. And I don't want to dwell on that, I just don't want to. I want to go to the Word and I want to see the Lord Jesus' solution. But the Bible is no silent book when it comes to all these things. And I think it is wise for us to know what the Scripture says. The Bible says that we are not ignorant of Satan's devices. And it's this one thing that Satan seems to be using to discourage and to destroy more people. And I've got a lot of indication and proof that this is true. Some of you will face the biggest battle in your Christian life in this area of morals and purity. And now, during this month, most people will live a fairly clean and moral life serving Christ. But when you go back and get into this Sodom and Gomorrah society, where you're expected to yield and where you'll be considered old-fashioned, if you don't do this and if you don't do that, surveys have shown that 80% of university girls felt it was sensible, logical, and reasonable to have sex before marriage. 80%! And this is the kind of culture you're going to face. Will you have any answers? Or will you just say, oh, well, my grandma says we're not allowed to do that. Will you have any answers? Will you have any sensible reasons why we don't believe in this way of living? Will you know what Jesus taught? What the Old Testament says? What the effects of such sin will be? The Bible says, whatsoever a man sows, and that includes a girl, she shall reap. And I've seen it. My wife and I have seen it. And for 5 or 10 or 15 minutes, a so-called pleasure, a lifetime of tears, heartache, and a lot of other things. And so we believe this is something worth spending an hour together speaking about. The Bible's very, very clear. And I think one of the best verses is found in 2 Timothy chapter 2. I hope you'll write these references down and study them. 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 22. Paul speaking to Timothy, a young man, with all the problems of manhood. And I hope that when you go from this meeting today, you'll have that great desire to do as Paul told Timothy, to flee youthful lusts. They will come upon us in various ways. And God tells us to flee them. Then another great verse is in Hebrews. Book of Hebrews. I'll find it for you. Chapter 13, I believe. Verse 4. Marriage is utterance in all. The bed undefiled. But whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. Now this is very clear. It's two categories. One is sex within marriage. They use the old-fashioned expression, the bed is undefiled. Modern term, sex. Speaking of the marriage bed. Very clear. And this was here in the 19th century, the 18th century, the 17th century. It's been written there as clear as it could be from early Christian days. It's only been certain cultures that have pushed all this down under the table. But God says marriage is honorable. Marriage is beautiful. I had a high Anglican priest, hardly an evangelical. Greg had a Roman Catholic priest say the same thing to him. He told me, it's better for me, speaking about himself, to fall into sin with a woman every once in a while than to get married like you and just sin all your life. And it was the early teaching of the church and is held by many today, the Roman church, that marriage is basically a lower state and even sinful. Just something that has to happen because of the fall. And so it's better, you know, you fall into sin with a prostitute every fourth week, like of course a high percentage of all these people do, that are sworn unto celibacy and all that business. You can't imagine the books that are written, even by Roman Catholics. Why do you think there's no swinging away from this celibacy concept? Which I'm not saying is wrong if it's a voluntary thing, purely voluntarily, by a man led of God, because we have that within the Protestants, an evangelical belief. But just incredible what we have in South America. Hundreds of thousands of children are born every year by priests and nuns. Hundreds of thousands. They have whole cemeteries in South America where they just buried all the children of priests and nuns and all their immorality. So what the Bible talks about in the Corinthian church has not stopped, and it's existing to this day. And this is because this false idea that marriage is, you know, a bit sinful for the weak, for the undedicated, completely contrary to Scripture. Marriage is honorable, and the bed, sex, is undefiled. For every one Christian girl, I think the picture is changing now, but I think some years back, that was having trouble because she perhaps didn't know how to control herself in the area of sex. There's another Christian girl with the other end of a pendulum, and basically a twisted view about sex, so that when she finally was married, all kinds of difficulties came in. And that twisted view is the idea that sex is dirty. Some of you have been taught since you were little, in the indirect method, that sex is dirty. And when a child first mentions the subject, the mother, oh, you know, he must not speak about that, Johnny. Or the first time he happens to touch his private little sex organ, oh, slap his hand. And oh my, from the very smallest child, this idea is built into us, something is wrong with sex. Something is wrong with sex. And many young girls who have been reared in the church are brainwashed into this, and they're in for difficulty, they're in for difficulty. And I just, oh, I just yearn to have God's people with a balanced, healthy view of sex, and of its place in His plans, not just for creating more children. But the book of Ephesians, and let's look at that now, makes a comparison with Jesus Christ and the church, Ephesians chapter 5. Every time I speak on this message, it always comes out different, because there's so much material in the Bible, without even going to other sources. Ephesians 5, it speaks about the husband and the wife, the wife submitting to her husband, verse 22, the husband loving his wife, verse 29. As Christ loved the church, what a blow that is for us men. Boy, if anything will keep us humble, it's that verse, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of the water by the word. That He may present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. And He goes on to say, verse 32, this is a great mystery, the sin of marriage, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. What a comparison, the husband and the wife uniting in the holy bond of matrimony, being compared with Jesus Christ and the church. Is there anything more pure, more beautiful? This is why I so yearn, my wife and I so yearn, to see girls keeping their bodies pure and clean for that right man at that right time. This is why we covet for the Lord those who would walk in purity and according to His word. May God show us the beautifulness of all of this truth. There are, of course, many verses in the book of Corinthians, but I'd like to go back into the Old Testament and point out some verses that most people don't see. And if they do read them, they must pass over them very quickly. In the book of Genesis, chapter 35, these are the verses that I've never heard anybody preach on, never. Chapter 35 of the book of Genesis, the story of Reuben, verse 22. We read, And it came to pass, when Israel dwelt in that land, that Reuben went and lay, this is the word in the Old Testament that means have sex, and lay with Bilhah, his father's concubine, and Israel her. Now this was a terrible sin, and we see the judgment of God upon Reuben. If we turn over to 49, verse 3 and 4, here's the pronouncement on Reuben. Reuben, verse 3 and 4, chapter 49. Thou art my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power. But because Reuben was immoral, look at what God calls him, look, unstable as water, thou shalt not excel, because thou wentest up to thy father's bed, then defilest thou it, he went up to my couch. We see Reuben in chapter 35, committing immorality, we see 13 chapters later, the judgment, unstable as water. This is true of a man, it is true of a woman, who doesn't have control of this area of their life. They are as unstable as water, and they will not know success, they will not know reality. What a tremendous thing it is today to see the power of the Holy Spirit give strength even to the weakest. Now I'll talk about that a little later, I want to say it right from the beginning. There is all the hope in the world for the weakest, for the one who's had the most problems, for anybody. The message I have for you this afternoon is a great message of hope, no matter what your problem, no matter how unstable you may think you are, like Reuben, it's a message of hope. Let's look at a few more stories in the Old Testament. The sin of David, very, very important, not just for men, we often think, oh the sin of David, oh that's for the boys, but there was a woman involved, and a very important lesson about modesty. Second Samuel chapter 11, we have David's great sin, I won't take time to read it all. You know David's great sin wasn't that he was up on that roof, I mean wasn't that he was falling first of all into sin, really his first sin was that he was up on the roof instead of being out in the warfare, that's right. I'm convinced that there are young people in England who should be right here now, and that some of them this summer will fall into immorality. I'll have them come and tell me, and it's not because of that situation, it's because they disobeyed the Lord in not getting into the warfare, maybe here, maybe somewhere else. That's why I want to stay in the will of God, that's always the safest place to be, isn't it? Well when David decided not to go to war, and take it easy, and go up on the roof and look around, that was the end. Myself, I don't like to play around, if you know you're weak, well then don't go around on any roof, of course that's more to the boys, but you see the problem was there was a girl, and we have girls just like this out of them. They give very little, we don't have many thank the Lord, but they give very little thought where they're undressing. But you need to be a little careful where you're dressing and undressing, where you're going to take your suntan. I'm not against you taking a suntan, but you better make sure where you're going to get it. Anyway, this girl, Bathsheba, went up to the roof, and she didn't realize there was a roof next to her that was a little bit higher. And what happened? Came to pass an even tide that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king's house, and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself. Now maybe you'll consider me wrong, but I think she's guilty. I think she's partly to blame for this whole miserable story, and what it led to, which was adultery, murder, and the entire judgment in the house of David. One girl, out of place, not discreet, not modest, not wise, and all the ruin and the heartache. Of course this gives no excuse for David, and then I get to speak to the men an hour from now. No excuses, I don't care what they run into, because we have the power. Anyway, David called for this girl, and he committed immorality with her, verse four, and he lay with her. And then, of course, he was afraid, and Uriah came back. It's a fantastic story, the picture of the true disciple. Uriah comes back, and because he was engaged in warfare, though David very nicely arranged for Uriah to go and sleep with his wife, so that when the baby was born, there'd be no problem. I've had adulterous men, immoral men. You know what they've told me? When they go out for women, they look for married women. Men who are really wicked, they look for married women. And there's more immorality within marriage and among married people than among single people, without any question. There's plenty in both places. But don't think that some of your problems in this area are all going to solve when you get married. And even many married people who have been reared in a rather innocent environment, which is all well and good, have no concept of the tremendous immorality among married people. And so David arranged for Uriah to go in and sleep with his wife, so that everything would look fine. See, that's what happens when we commit sin, and we try to cover, and we get deeper, because Uriah wouldn't go in, even to his own life. He slept on the doorstep and went back to battle. And then you have the story of Nathan coming to David and saying to this great man of God, Thou art the man. Thou art the man. He was caught, trapped by his own sin, by his own lies. And you know what the next step was. How many know what was the fate of Uriah, the next thing that David did? How many know what David did? Only half of you. He murdered Uriah. He arranged for the murder of Uriah. And if you study case histories of murder, you will discover in a high percentage of all the case histories of murder, there was a woman, or a man, and some adultery, or immorality. They worked together. These two big giant killers, murder and immorality, they worked together, side by side, equally condemned in Scripture. Yet praise be to God, equally forgivable, for Moses himself forgave the Ten Commandments, or brought them from God. He was a murderer. So I'm not saying these things to condemn you, or to get you to think I'm past sin. That's gone. I'm not interested in the past, unless it's never been confessed to the Lord, which is probably doubtful. I'm here interested in the future. And the Lord may have allowed that past failure, though you are responsible, to awaken you and to bring you into victory, to protect you from far, far greater battle in the days to come. And so we see the sin of David, the judgment of David, and of course if we read Psalm 51, praise God for that, we see the repentance of David. We see the full forgiveness of God coming upon him, so that he was restored to wonderful fellowship. And it said in the Word of God that David was a man after God's own heart. Isn't that grace? God's wonderful grace. A murderer, an adulterer, a liar, yet restored, forgiven, filled with the joy of God. Jesus was the same way. For when he found that woman taken in adultery, and they were ready to pick up stones and toss them at her and kill her, he said, He who is without sin among you, cast the first stone, and they dropped their stones, and Jesus turned on this so-called wicked woman, go and sin no more. He wasn't concerned about the past, that was forgiven, but he was concerned about the future, go and sin no more. Then we have another story about a man named Amnon. How many have ever heard of Amnon and Tamar? Makes some of our modern day novels look like they were written in the 19th century. Amnon and Tamar, and I think we'll find this in 2 Samuel 13. Now one thing you need to realize is that this sex drive is seemingly the most uncontrollable force in man. And I have known of men who seem to be perfectly normal and wonderful, and yet when they begin to get caught up by the lust of the flesh, they go completely out of their mind. And nothing will stop. And this is the case with this man Amnon. He fell in lust, not in love, he fell in lust with Tamar. Verse 1 tells who Tamar is. Came to pass after this that Absalom, the son of David, had a fair sister whose name was Tamar, and Amnon, the son of David, loved her. And so she was a relative. It says in verse 2, Amnon was sore vexed, another old-fashioned word. He was aroused, he was excited, his lust was moving, and he even fell sick. I tell you, it's really something when you see someone come down with psychosomatic sicknesses purely as a result of lust and love and the frustrations that come sometimes through all of that. And finally over in verse 14, he approached her and she tried to stop him, but it says, howbeit he would not hearken unto her voice, but being stronger than she, forced her and lay with her. Now in this case, the woman was forced. And you know, I have unfortunately had to deal with cases in my ministry in which I've faced similar situations. Not many, but it's one of the reasons we prefer girls, especially at night, to go out two by two. Because in these days, I want to tell you there are men loose that will do almost anything. But notice what happened to him. Notice the psychological effect. When he got what he wanted, what he was dreaming about, what he thought was the greatest thing in the world, what happened to him? Verse 15, then Amnon hated her exceedingly, so that the hatred wherewith he hated her was greater than the love wherewith he had loved her. And Amnon said unto her, arise and be gone. And later on we read, of course, that Amnon had to be killed over in the next chapter. But this is important. Listen, you'll get the same effect if perhaps the girl is consented. Up till that point, this boy will show love and you're everything in the world and he must have you and we must do this thing. And the words will just flow and the whole situation will be overwhelming. But then after it happens, many times a whole psychological twist comes over him and he'll hate you. He'll no longer respect you and the last thing you want to do is marry you. Isn't that a subtle trick of the devil? Do not listen to the lie that the only way that you're really going to be sure of compatibility in marriage is to have sex before marriage. That's the greatest way to produce a whole series of psychological and emotional disorders and perhaps even break what could be a God-given romance. And many a Christian young man and Christian young girl who would never think of having any immoral relationship with someone else the year before their wedding fall. Again and again I have faced this among Christians. You are no more allowed in God's plan to have marriage relationship one day before the wedding. You're no more licensed in scripture for this than to have it with a prostitute. That's what the Bible says. Sex is for within marriage, even in the Old Testament when they didn't have their kind of legal marriage like we do. Marriage was always consummated and annulled to everyone. Therefore there is no room for sex before marriage according to scripture. And when I hear about evangelicals, I heard of an evangelical minister in Sweden teaching there was nothing wrong with sex before marriage. It just makes me tremble because there's too many scriptures and because even apart from scripture the psychological effects of such activity is tremendous. It may not be as bad as with Ennon who God commanded to be stoned, but it's still a terrible thing in the sight of God. Then of course we have the story of Samson and Delilah. I haven't got time to go into that. Oh I tell you, have you ever wondered where a woman's power is? That's it. Power to take the strongest men.