Courtship Etiquette!

And I had to think of, for some of us fathers, I had to think of my father-in-law and something had happened. I don't know, it was probably 20 years ago. My father-in-law, I didn't, I mean, I got to know him pretty well.

My wife knows him really well, her father, but my father-in-law was a difficult man to get to know. He's a very quiet man. And I know the children had some struggles with that.

He's very quiet and didn't say much. And in some ways, I think, I don't want to speak negative of him, but he seemed to have maybe pride in his heart. He had a certain doctrine that he elevated highly and maybe his pride brought him to that place.

But he, it was just an amazing feeling what happened, but his children were just seemingly, it's very difficult for them to get through to him, to them. And there was just this wall that was there. You could sense it.

It was just, it was real. And I began to court my wife. And so I began to see this, the children and how they responded to dad and there was something there.

And so one Thanksgiving, no, it wasn't Thanksgiving. It was a 50th wedding anniversary, wasn't it? Yeah. 50th wedding anniversary.

I think we were celebrating for them and all the family had come to one of the homes of the children and we were all in the basement. They had the chair set up. They were doing a program.

The grandchildren got up, you know, and did their songs and everybody was having a special thing for grandpa or for dad. And I was sitting there on the second row and most of the brothers were in the front, in front of me. And, and with all this happening, dad stood up, my father-in-law, and it's like, whoa, what's going to happen here? Very quiet, man.

Hardly ever talked. And he stood up in front of all his family. He basically said, I've not been a good father.

And he started to acknowledge his failure. And you know what happened? I saw these boys, 50-year-old men, as soon as he broke, they just broke. It was like there was something holding them back.

And as soon as he said, I have sinned, those kids just collapsed. It was like they were waiting for that all their life. And I just, I mean, I wasn't in the family.

I wasn't involved. I just sat there and watched all these grown men just weep. How did that happen? Just because a father said, I've not been perfect.

I've failed. And I've made mistakes. And I learned a lesson there.

I don't want to be like that. And maybe some of the children here, they know what that's like. We have to present a perfect aura of who we are as a family.

And me as a dad, I have to present that perfect aura. So everybody thinks that we're a good family, right? But the children know. The children know.

And it's better for dad and mom just to be honest with who they are. Well, that's not the message today, although it probably would make for a good one. And I don't want to jump off the subject here, but I'll do some explaining of how I got to this message here this morning.

A brother, Elson, a couple of months ago asked me if I would just sometimes share my thoughts on the subject of relationships between unmarrieds and singles and courtship and how to deal with some of those things. And I had taught on it in the past, especially when we went up through First Corinthians. And I thought, well, I'll just take 15 minutes in a praise time or something to get up and share and give you some of my thoughts.

And I tried that over the last two months. It just never seemed to work. And then last week, Brother Cleet and I were talking on Saturday, and he said, I got a real short message.

And why don't you just jump in and have another message? We'll have two messages. And I sat there prepared to share some of these things. And the whole flow of the sermon was totally contrary to what I was going to share.

And it was right in line with what he was going to share. So I looked over to him Sunday, and I said, so he shared. We finished a little early.

And I thought, I'm going to share this in the brother's meeting, just to let the brothers know here where I see the Bible teaches on the subject. And so, as you know, those were at the brother's meeting. It was a pretty heavy brother's meeting.

Never worked out. Time went on. So this morning, guess what? Friday night, Brother David, who was going to preach here this morning, called me up and he said, you know, Brother Jerry, I just don't think I'm ready to preach Sunday.

Can you take the message? I said, well, there's a good spot for me right here. So this is not just for single people here this morning. I think we'll all learn some lessons from it.

But I'd like to share about some etiquette, proper etiquette here. We're going to talk about a number of different things. And so turn, if you would, to First Corinthians, chapter seven.

I think this is good, especially for you people. It's the same principle for us. But I want to clear my heart here and just let you know what I see in the Bible.

There's not a lot in the Bible on this subject. And so I can't go to a passage and give you some details. And generally, when the Bible is general, I like to be general.

When the Bible is specific, I like to be specific. So I'm going to try to draw as much as I can out of this passage here. And I'd like you to follow along with me and just kind of learn as we go down through this.

Maybe I'll even ask you a few questions here. First Corinthians, chapter seven, verse one, this whole chapter is dealing with marriage and single people and the whole nine yards regarding relationships and how to interact. And I want to start here in verse number one of First Corinthians, chapter seven, says this.

Now concerning the things whereof he wrote unto me. And so the church at Corinth had written Paul about some certain questions. Now concerning the things whereof he wrote unto me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman.

How many of you believe that? I knew I'd get some hands on that one. It is good. Think about that.

It is good for a man not to touch a woman. I'm a man. My wife is a woman.

Would you agree? Honey, we've been doing wrong for the past 23 years. It is good for a man not to touch a woman. You see, the context of this passage is very important because if I just pull verse one out and say it is good for a man not to touch a woman, then I would not be promoting marriage.

And as a matter of fact, if you go back in Paul's letter to Timothy, he talked about certain people who were teaching false doctrine and seducing spirits, teaching doctrines of devils, forbidding marriage. Marriage being a carnal institution. But I don't want to teach you any heresy today.

And so when the Bible says it's good for a man not to touch a woman, the context of that is important, amen? Because all of you husbands and wives have contact with each other. Verse number two gives us a little bit of the context. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife and let every woman have her own husband.

So the context here is this. He is talking about those who are not married, those who are single, those who are not in a marriage relationship. And even it's talking about, for example, myself here, perhaps, even though I'm married to my wife, I'm not to be touching another woman outside of that marriage contract.

And so context is important when we read the Bible. Paul said this way, study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Sometimes it takes work to rightly divide the truth.

The spirit of the word, the spirit of the law is not always on the surface. Sometimes you have to labor and you have to get underneath the surface to understand the spirit of what the Lord is trying to say. For example, we're going to be going back to John chapter six next week, and next week we're going to have the Lord's supper and feet washing.

And I'm going to teach on John six, eating his flesh and drinking his blood. But you know, if you would have heard the Lord say those words, who so eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life on the surface, you'd have been thinking he was teaching cannibalism. And as a matter of fact, some of his disciples went back and walked no more with him.

And he would later on in chapter six, go on and say how that the words I say unto you, they are spirit. And I'm not talking to you about the flesh. I'm talking to you about spirit.

The words I speak unto you, they are spirit, they are life. So it's important to understand the context of these words. So the context is those that are not married to each other.

It would include singles and married people not married to each other. Now let's go a step further a little bit deeper here. Can we say it is wrong for one who is a married person to touch another married person? Is that what the Bible is saying? I need some of the ladies out here in front and shake their hands.

Is that wrong for me to touch anyone outside of my wife or to have contact with anyone outside of my wife? I hug my mother. I'm not married to my mother. She's a woman.

We have one of our foster mothers that when we meet with her, she just hugs me. Melissa, can we say it is wrong for two single people to touch each other? You know, these are questions. And I'm trying to teach you here what the Scripture teaches.

And we're going to move right through here and go deeper and deeper to understand what the Lord is saying here. Is it wrong for two single people to touch each other? I'd like you to look with me to Luke chapter 7. Luke chapter 7, we're talking about proper relationships between people that are not married. And it's specifically, I think this was brought about and it was a request for me to share because of the idea of courtship and how young people are to respond to each other.

But here in Luke chapter 7, and there is a number of examples I could give and I'm not going to take the time to do all of them. But in Luke chapter 7, verse 36, it says, and one of the Pharisees desired him and he would eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee's house and sat down to eat.

And behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment and sooted his feet behind him, weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears and did wipe them with the hairs of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. Now, when the Pharisee, which had been in him, saw it, oh boy, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that touches him. And this word touch here is the same word in 1 Corinthians 7, for she is a sinner.

And Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And he said, Master, say on. There was a certain creditor, which had two debtors, the one owed 500 pence, the other 50.

When they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me, therefore, which of them will love him most. Simon answered and said, I suppose that he to whom he forgave most.

And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged. Now notice verse 44. And he turned to the woman and said unto Simon, See us this woman.

I entered into thine house and thou gavest me no water for my feet, but she has washed my feet with tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Look at verse 45. Thou gavest me no kiss, but this woman, since the time I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet.

Wow. Let me just say this single man, 30 years old, roughly and a single woman, probably a harlot. And Jesus says to the time I came into this house, she has not ceased to kiss my feet.

Now it could have been 10 minutes. It could have been a half an hour. But here you have this picture of this woman crying her tears, taking her hair and washing his feet and kissing his feet for a lengthy period of time.

I don't know what some of you think about that. If you were there at the house, this is the son of God. This is the Lord Jesus.

And this is a sinful woman. She is a sinner. And there's other examples here in the Bible that I could give you.

Let me just read to you something that was happening on a regular basis with Jesus, his life and his ministry. In Mark chapter 3 it says, And he spake to his disciples that a small ship should wait on him because of a multitude, lest they should throng him. For he had healed many insomuch that they pressed upon him for to touch him, as many as had plagues.

And you remember the story of the woman who pressed through the crowd to touch the hem of his garment. There were people thronging him. If you'd have been around Jesus' ministry, you'd have seen people just thronging him and trying to touch him and getting healing from him for a man to touch a woman.

How do we understand that? What is the context? Did Jesus allow for sinful activity when this woman was kissing his feet? Now, I will say this, if we will say that that's a sinful activity, then we lost our Savior right there. Because as was read this morning, he's a lamb without spot and blemish. He is without sin.

So the Lord Jesus Christ never did anything that was displeasing to his father. He said, I did all those things that pleased him. And so if you think about this, is this an example that is a bad example? Is this a bad testimony? Isn't Jesus the example for us to follow? Doesn't Jesus say, follow me? I am the way.

Didn't the word become flesh and dwell amongst us? Isn't his life an example? Acts chapter 1 verse 1 says, the former treaties have I made oath the awfulest of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach. So Jesus always did what he taught. He wasn't one of these people that taught didn't do.

He did first and then he taught. Now, here's something I've learned going through the Bible all these years. And I say this, the Bible has no contradictions in it.

A lot of people talk about all the contradictions of the Bible. I've been teaching through the Bible for 15 years and I haven't found contradictions in the Bible. The Bible doesn't contradict if we understand it.

In its context, there is no contradiction. And so if we interpret the Bible correctly, we should not have inconsistencies and contradictions. Would you agree with that? I mean, if you're interpreting something and it's in Jesus' life is contradicting it, you better go back and study some more.

Because the Bible does not contradict. Jesus did not tell single people not to touch each other. And then he had a sinner single woman touch him and kiss his feet.

Does that make sense? So Jesus does not contradict. So we have to have to understand and understand what he's trying to say. A lot of times we train with a false conscience, training the conscience in what we want people to believe, not what the Bible teaches, what God wants them to believe.

Some of you experienced this. Some of you had a hard time when you got in that automobile. You grew up being taught that automobiles were wrong and you were trained with a false conscience.

So to get in that automobile kind of troubled your conscience or maybe putting on that dress for the first time that was yellow or blue or any other color than maybe what your conscience was trained in. And so we sometimes train people in a false conscience. Let me give you a great example of this.

I was out teaching at Ephrata at a Bible school. Some of you heard this story before. Some of you are new, haven't.

But I was there. And after each Bible school, they have a choir and the choir has a presentation. And it's usually with thousands of people there in the Ephrata building.

It's packed. It's hot. It's muggy.

There's not a lot of oxygen there. And so you have these maybe 200 youth standing up in front of all these people. And I'm supposed to get up and give a message about 20 minutes.

And they're supposed to stand the whole time. And then after the message, they're going to sing for about a half hour. So while they're out there standing, there's a girl, 20-year-old girl, and she's feeling faint.

And all of a sudden, she loses consciousness and goes, hmm. Now, there's two or three rows of boys behind her. You know what happened? The parting of the Red Sea.

And these boys just step aside, and this girl goes, boom, on the risers. And praise be to God, you know, she didn't snap her spinal cord. She'd have hit the riser on the back of her neck.

Now, why did that happen? Why would these boys let this girl go, boom? Because they've been trained a certain way in their mind. And their conscience has been trained. And so, praise God, this girl didn't break her neck or snap her vertebrae.

But these boys were trained not to touch another young lady. And they didn't. And this young lady nearly got hurt.

Let me ask you a question, a challenge for you. Are our young boys trained in such a way as if a girl were drowning in a lake, they would question in their conscience whether they should go in and help? You ever thought about that? How do we teach? Or are we teaching, and we're going to get to what the Bible teaches here in just a minute, but are we teaching our young people what we want them to know or what God wants them to know? So, how is our conscience trained? Is it trained biblically? So, let's go a little deeper. And here's really our lesson in 1 Corinthians.

Let's go a little deeper to understand this passage in the context here, 1 Corinthians chapter 7. It says in verse 1, now concerning the things whereof you wrote unto me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. Now, I'd like to look at this word touch because words have meaning. And I believe the context, you'll see this in a minute, will show you the meaning of this very thing.

But the word touch here is a Greek word hapto, which means to fasten to or to kindle a fire, to fasten to or to kindle a fire. Now, if you go to your vines, and I like to study, I like to study words, but the Vines Expository Dictionary has seven Greek words that are translated into one English word. In other words, the Greek language probably has a broader way of describing.

And so, there are seven Greek words translated into one word to touch. One of those means to do this. For example, if I come over here to James and I just do this, I know, I touched him, but I touched him in a very slight way.

And one of the ways it's used in the Bible is in Luke 11, 46, Jesus said this, you bind heavy burdens upon men, yet ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers. That's the word, it's a different Greek word. And I can't even pronounce this Greek word.

Some of you are Greek students. And so, there's different words for the word translated to touch. And here, this word means to fasten to or to kindle a fire.

This is interesting because sometimes this Greek word is actually translated kindle a fire. Luke 22, verse 45 says this, then they took Jesus and led him and brought him into the high priest's house, and Peter followed afar off. And when they had kindled a fire, that's the same word, hapto, right there, in the midst of the hall and were sat down together, Peter sat down among them.

So, sometimes this word is translated to kindle a fire. Luke 8, 16, the word is used here again, no man when he hath lighted a candle, that word light is the same word hapto, which is translated to touch. In 1 Corinthians 7. Luke 15, 8, either what woman having 10 pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, does not light a candle, right, there's the word hapto again, light a candle and sweep the house and seek diligently until she find it.

The word here means to fasten to, and we'll see an example of that here in just a minute, or to kindle a fire. Now, we could say it this way in 1 Corinthians 7.1, it is not good for a man to kindle a fire with a woman. It is not good for a man to kindle or to stir up his passion with a woman.

Now, look down at verse number 9, what it says here. Well, let's look back to verse 8, 1 Corinthians 7, verse 8. I say, therefore, to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I, but if they cannot contain, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn. It's better to marry than to kindle a fire in your passion.

If you cannot be together, if you cannot have a proper relationship, if you are kindling a fire, if you are burning, if your passions are burning, it's better for you to go ahead and get married. The Bible says it's not good for a man to stir up or kindle a fire of passion with a woman. Now, when you take that interpretation of the Bible, all the Bible is consistent.

Everything you see Jesus doing, that woman who came and kissed his feet and washed his feet with her hair was not doing it for the motive of kindling a fire of passion. She was worshiping. When Mary Magdalene came to embrace him after his resurrection, and he said, touch me not, I have not yet ascended to my father.

When Mary came to embrace him, her heart was joy that he was alive. And you can go through many, many places. Jesus touched ladies all the time when he healed them.

So if you read 1 Corinthians 7 and say it's not good for a man to touch in any way a woman, then you've got problems. You've got contradictions all over the place. But if you will allow the Scriptures to be read as they ought to be, if you kindle a fire or stir up passions with a woman, it's not good for a man or woman to do that.

Let me just throw out some words of encouragement to the young people here, especially those who are in courtship. When two people are in love and they're in a courtship or a spousal, the potential for starting a fire is very real. Would you agree? The potential for fires are like lighting a match in a firecracker factory.

You just don't want to do that kind of stuff. So if you're in a courtship, if you're in a relationship with a young man or a young lady, you need to be very careful in that relationship not to kindle a fire, not to stir your passions in any way. Kind of like lighting or starting, you know, out in California when the ground is really dry and there's a lot of pine needles around and they go out and they have campfires and it doesn't take much for an ash to fly a little bit and start a major mess and burn half of the county down in California because of wildfire.

And so the passions, young people, listen, there's a spirit to the law here. God knows that you have passions and especially when you're in love with someone, you're in a courtship and you are together, you need to be very careful not to kindle a fire with the opposite sex. Now I'm going to speak straightforward here.

If I can, just let me have a little liberty. If you're a red-blooded female here and you're alive, I mean, I used to be a kid too. I did dating and the whole, my wife were in courtship.

We used to talk about, I'm going to use words here, maybe some of you are not familiar with, but in the Baptist circles, petting. We'll start right there. You don't rub your hands on the opposite sex.

I don't see anybody who could be in a courtship that would do that, that wouldn't kindle a fire of passion in their heart. You have to either be dead, kissing. How can that, how can you possibly do something like that without kindling a fire of passion? Can I get an amen for that one? Let's keep moving down the list here.

How about a hug? I don't know. When I was with my wife and we were, we didn't hug, but I know if I would embrace my wife, it would kindle a fire in me. How about sitting and putting your arms around the one that you're in courtship with? Now I know God's not into drawing lines.

His principle, and I want to share why it's so important that we keep his principle at the center of this thing, but I'm not into drawing lines, but I do know this and I want to teach all of you this, that if you're kindling a fire, that's where you cross the line, holding hands with each other. Now here's where you got to be careful because, you know, you don't want to draw lines. My wife and I were in courtship.

We're down in Tennessee. She wants to have some nice pictures. We're out stepping over these stones, you know, wet stones going out into this river to try to get some good pictures of the waterfall and the, you know, us, the both of us, and I've got a picture of her and the waterfall and so she's on these rocks, you know, and she's kind of slipping and I'm ahead of her and I turn around and I reach out to help her across some of these rocks, right? Well, she falls into the river.

God is interested in the spirit of the law, not the letter. The Bible says the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. Rubbing shoulders, you know, the principle in the Bible, and I don't want to go on past the Bible.

The Bible doesn't talk about any of these things. It does not command no petting, no kissing, no hugging, no arms around each other, no holding hands, no sitting close. It doesn't deal with all the details.

It does say this, do not kindle a fire with a woman and whatever it takes in you to kindle a fire with a woman, you better be careful because once those passions are stirred up, you have crossed the line. Good place for an amen there. Now, these are the things that I teach my children.

Some of you wonder, you know, what do you teach your children? This is what I teach my children. I tell them do not kindle a fire. Do not allow your passions to be stirred up with the opposite sex.

But I do want my son to know that if he's standing in a choir and a girl falls backwards, I don't want him to think twice about reaching out and grabbing her and helping her. Nor do I want him to think twice about saving her from drowning or giving a girl CPR if he has to to save her life. I don't want his conscience to be perplexed.

Why should I even do this? And so now if we teach the biblical principle, there'll be no problem with conscience. Teach our children, do not kindle a fire with a woman. Do not allow your passions to be stirred or with a man.

I teach my children that as we shared already this morning, we're not perfect. And Paul said it this way, I am pressing toward the mark. I have not yet attained, neither am I perfect, but I'm pressing toward the mark.

And we as a family are not perfect. And we are false. But it is our heart as a family to press toward the mark.

That being, not kindling a fire with a woman. Let me give you another example of it and it's very clear over here. Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 6. And all of you I think would interpret it very clearly here in the proper way.

2 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 17. Same word here, same Greek word. Verse 17.

Wherefore come out from among them and be you separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you. Now the unclean thing here is referring in context to the unbeliever. I have no fellowship with the unbeliever.

It says touch not the unclean thing. Now how many of you believe that we should never touch a lost soul? Never touch a lost person. Do you believe that? Not at all.

I shake hands, I rub up against lost people all the time. But it says don't touch them. Don't touch the unclean thing.

Now some people can say well there you go. I should never touch a lost person. Never touch them.

But the context or the word here is to fasten to or kindle a fire with. And we all understand this when we read the passage, but it's teaching us not to yoke up with or not to fasten to an unbeliever in any way. Look back to verse number 14.

Be not ye unequally yoked together, yoked in a yoke, fastened together with an unbeliever. What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? What communion hath light with darkness? What concord hath Christ with Belial? What agreement, verse 16, hath the temple of God with idols? So come out from among them and don't touch them. Don't fasten yourself to them.

Don't yoke up with them. Can I touch them? Yes, you can touch them. Like this.

Like I touched James. And many, many examples in the Bible of Jesus touching unbelievers with his fingers, his hands, blessing them. And the man that fell in the ditch, you know, on the way down to Jericho.

I think maybe some of the religious people didn't want to touch him. That's why they didn't want to touch. They don't touch the guy.

The Samaritan went down and touched him. So when the Bible says do not touch, it's not good for a man to touch a woman. It's not talking about just shaking a hand or rubbing someone's shoulder in passing.

It's talking about kindling a fire or attaching oneself to them in a yoke, in fellowship. And my encouragement to you is to be very careful with your passion and that you not stir your passion up in any way. For some of you, it may mean going over here, clear over here.

For some of you, it may mean here. I know a lot of us like to draw lines. We'd like to have a line that we know where the line is and everybody needs to follow that one line.

But the Bible doesn't draw that line. And the problem with teaching the Bible is you can't teach something. It's not there.

But I can teach what's there. Let me just share a little bit of caution. And I've talked about this subject before, but the caution for us as a church is to start reacting and building a fence.

And so we say, I'm afraid that something might happen and so let's build a fence or let's make some rule or some law to keep them far away. Now you can do that if you're a father because you're the head of the house. If you want to make laws and rules for your children in their courtships, you can do it.

You have every right to do it. You're the head of your home, but I'm not the head of the church. Jesus Christ is the head of the church.

And so I don't have the right to do that. And so I'm here to teach you his rules and his law. Don't react.

I didn't realize this before, but I was doing a little studying a few weeks ago for a message up in South Dakota. I preached there the origin of the Pharisaical movement and you know where it came from? It came out of a reaction. It came out of the Babylonian captivity.

The Israelites were put into the Babylonian captivity because of their violation of the Sabbath. And when they came out of captivity, there were people who said, never again. We are going to make sure that the Sabbath commandment is not violated ever again.

And so what they did is they began to make rules and laws outside of the Sabbath to keep people as far away from violating the Sabbath as they could. These regulations in Jesus' day. But I want to encourage us not to make the same mistake they did.

It teaches us not to kindle a fire, that we do the same thing and we say, in order to keep people from kindling a fire, we're going to build some fences around it. And people I've heard build fences like this. They have a, and you could do this for your family, it's fine, but I can't do this in the church.

You have a no-touch policy. And that's what many young people are being taught, a no-touch policy. And that's fine if your parents teach you that.

You need to abide by their rules and their regulations. Your father's the head of your home. But as a church, I am not to be building these fences.

I teach you to build those fences as a pastor of a church. Some people make the 12-inch rule or the 36-inch rule. You can't be within 12 inches, can't sit within 12 inches of each other.

And so that is to keep you from this, kindling a fire. I don't want you to kindle a fire in your courtship, so we're going to make this rule or that rule to keep you far away from kindling a fire. You know what happens when this occurs in many cases? All of a sudden, people start moving their attention away from this down to this.

And someone says to you, what is your position in the church on courtship? And you say, we have a no-touch policy and a 12-inch rule. They say, oh. In other words, you begin to teach what man has taught you, and you leave off what God's principle is.

And that's exactly what Jesus meant when he said, you lay aside the commandment of God that you may keep your own tradition. You simply start laying it aside. And pretty soon, you're teaching this and no longer this.

And then people wonder, why do you do that? I don't really know. We've forgotten the principle. We've forgotten the very spirit of the law.

And that's exactly what happened in Judaism. They forgot. Their attention was drawn to the rule, to the fence, and they started losing the whole spirit of the law.

Listen, the spirit of the law is do not kindle a fire. And if that is your conscience, everything in life will fit together perfectly. Well, I can help this girl right here.

She fell down. It's not kindling a fire. I can catch this girl when she faints because it's not kindling a fire.

I can do these things. If I notice that my passions are being stirred, I need to back off. And so pretty soon, we no longer teach the spirit of the law.

We begin to teach these things. And in a few generations, the spirit of the law is lost and the commandments of men are front and center. Here's something I think is interesting.

I like to think about this subject, but do you know, and I think Brother John read this verse here this morning. Let me repeat it to you. It says Philippians 2.13 says, for it's God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

Stop and think about that for a minute. It is God by the power of the Holy Spirit that works in you to do his good pleasure. Let me ask you, what is the spirit of God working in us to do with regards to this subject? Is he working in us this or is he working in us this? Yes, he is working.

The spirit of God is working in us not to kindle a fire. He is working in us to do his good pleasure. You start to come out here and here.

I say there's no grace for that. The spirit of God is not working in these areas. He is working here where he gave commandment in his word.

I think if we start focusing on the heads, we forget and lose grace because the grace of God was for this. God's spirit is working in us to do his will, his good pleasure. I never thought about it, but take a church on one side of town and they believe that you shouldn't have a beard.

And then you go to another church on the other side of town, they think you should have a beard. And then there's a church right downtown who thinks you should have a beard and no mustache. Now, let me ask you this.

If these are the rules and the standards and laws, do you think that the spirit of God is working in that church to have no beard and then working in this other church over here to have a beard and then working in the members in that church downtown to have a beard with no mustache? You say, well, that's absurd. It is absurd because once you start coming out here, then the spirit of God is not contradicting itself all over. God's spirit is working every generation with every people on this right here.

Do not kindle a fire with a woman. That's where God's grace is. And so when we direct people's attention to here and here, we start to cause them to get away from the grace of God.

That's why it's so dangerous. And after a while, a couple of generations, you'll find a group of people who have no grace at all. There's no grace in them.

And the Pharisees were very evil, wicked people on the inside because they had not the grace of God, because they had left off the principle and began focusing on the tradition and the commandment of men. I want you to look at one example of this in Luke chapter 13, and then I'll close here. Luke chapter 13, verse 11.

Here are some people that are ashamed of their interpretation of the Bible. The Lord exposes them. And I'd like to read it here.

Same spirit, same idea. And behold, verse 11, Luke 13, verse 11. Behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity 18 years and was bound together and could in no wise lift up herself.

And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him and said unto her, Woman, thou art loose from thine infirmity. And he laid his hands on her and immediately she was made straight and glorified God. And the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation.

There's a lot of people like that today because that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath day. Can you imagine a young man catching this girl that fell in the choir and someone being angry? You're touching her. That's a sin.

Well, these people were angry. The ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation because that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath day and said unto the people, These are there are six days in which men ought to work and then therefore come and be healed and not on the Sabbath day. The Lord then answered him and said, Thou hypocrite.

And now he exposes their hypocrisy. Does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall and lead him away to watering? Hey, you're inconsistent. Your interpretation has left you with hypocrisy.

Listen, if you're upset for me to help this woman who's been bound for, what, 18 years and she's crying out under her difficulty, and then you, when you hear your cows and your goats and your sheep cry out for water, you lead them to water to relieve them on the Sabbath? You're inconsistent. How can you criticize me for healing a woman then who is bowed down on the Sabbath? Verse 16, And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Sarah hath bound, lo, these 18 years be loose from this bond on the Sabbath day? And when he had said these things, all his adversaries were ashamed. And you know what happens? It brings shame, contradiction, hypocrisy.

The Bible says this, Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be what? Ashamed. Rightly dividing the word of truth. And we need to rightly divide the word of truth.

We need to understand the spirit of God's word and what he's trying to communicate. Now, young people, adults, when you read, it's not good for a man to touch a woman. It's obviously not talking about marriage.

It goes deeper than that. It's talking about those who are touching outside of marriage. But it goes deeper.

It's talking about kindling a fire. Do not touch or fasten to or kindle a fire with one of the opposite sex. So I know me, I know you.

We've been together for many years. A lot of us like to have a rule or a line or can we have something that we can look at a situation, say right, wrong. Those rules.

You can make them in your family. I can make them in my family because I'm ahead of my home. But as far as teaching you as a church.

This is the line right here, biblically. Young people do not kindle a fire with the opposite sex. And if that means holding a hand, sitting next to each other and rubbing a shoulder, putting your arm around someone, staring at someone eye to eye for a lengthy period of time, the spirit of God can direct and lead you.

Your conscience can direct and lead you. But my encouragement to you is this. God says, do not intermingle one with another in such a way as to kindle a fire with the opposite sex.

And I believe if you have that as your conviction. Everything in life will fit. And you'll read your Bible and you say, Jesus, here's a woman that's kissing your feet for a half an hour.

I understand why that is. She's worshiping you. But if I've been taught, I can't touch anyone.

Then you read that verse and you say, wait a minute, the Bible contradicts itself. How does this happen? So let's have a. Let's have purity. In our courtships and our spousals, let's have purity, by the way, this is not just for young people, married people.

Let's have purity in our relationships, one with another, and let's not allow any situations in our life where it stirs up passion. Once you sense that coming on, you back off. And here's why 1 Corinthians 7 2 says, nevertheless, to avoid fornication.

When you start a fire. You're heading down a road where you're going to commit something that you're going to regret doing and you're going to cause a lot of damage in the spirit of the law. Let's be led of the spirit of God and let God's word be consistent throughout.

All right, we're going to close with a word of prayer. Thank you for your attention. And then we'll have some announcements.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the word of the Lord. I pray for purity, Lord, in all of our hearts and especially amongst the young people.