THE WORKS OF THE FLESH: FORNICATION

From the book, THE WORKS OF THE FLESH: Understanding and Defeating the Works of the Devil.

Available in e-book and paperback formats on Amazon.

In this series we began an exploration of the works of the flesh as listed in Galatians 4 with the first work of the flesh: "Adultery."

Adultery is sexual relations by married people with someone other than one’s spouse. We saw that adultery has become a very common and destructive sin. It contributes yearly to millions of divorces and to a great number of shattered families.

We saw that Satan tries very hard to get married Christians to commit adultery and that, on some occasions, he has succeeded.

We looked at how Satan operates. We saw that the steps to adultery are gradual and that unless they are dealt with early enough, resisting the actual adultery will become very hard or next to impossible.

We also saw that adultery can be mental; that it can be simply lust; that adultery can be emotional as well, whereby a married person has an emotional adulterous relationship with another person which doesn’t necessarily lead to physical adultery. We then covered some principles that can help us fight adultery.

In this section, we will deal with the next work of the flesh: “Fornication.”

The Greek word used by Paul for fornication is “Porneia.” It is the word we get the word pornographic from. It is a generic term meaning “sexual immorality” in general. It goes above and beyond adultery. It refers to various types of sexual immorality, including sexual relations outside of marriage such as homosexuality, incest, pornography, perverted forms of sex, etc.

F. Wilbur Gingrich defines “Porneia” as "unchastity, prostitution, fornication, of every kind of unlawful sexual intercourse."[iv]

John Groves defines “Porneia” as "fornication, adultery, incest, whoredom, all kinds of lewdness."[v]

The word “Porneia,” therefore, includes fornication, adultery, incest, all kinds of lewdness, and every kind of unlawful sexual intercourse.

God forbad sexual immorality from the start. Unlike the other Gods of the past, who in many cases were themselves sexually immoral, the true God demanded sexual purity. He, the maker of the human body and the human mind, knew the tragic consequences of sexual sins. Thus, in His Holy Law, God specifically mentioned which sexual sins His Holy people should evade.

As we well know, Adultery was included in the Ten Commandments. Some people would say, “Why hasn’t God included the other sexual sins in the Ten Commandments? Was it because they are not as serious?” The answer is: He has. They are indirectly included in the last Commandment. “Thou shalt not lust.” Before sexual sins take place, one must lust. By forbidding lust He forbad all the other sexual sins as well. Nonetheless, lest there be any misunderstanding, He specifically mentioned the other sexual sins in the Book of the Law.

Let’s look, first of all, at God’s attitude towards pre-marital sex, as stated in the book of the law.

If a man takes a wife and, after sleeping with her, dislikes her ¹⁴ and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, “I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,” ¹⁵ then the young woman’s father and mother shall bring to the town elders at the gate proof that she was a virgin. ¹⁶ Her father will say to the elders, “I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he dislikes her. ¹⁷ Now he has slandered her and said, ‘I did not find your daughter to be a virgin.’ But here is the proof of my daughter’s virginity.” Then her parents shall display the cloth before the elders of the town, ¹⁸ and the elders shall take the man and punish him. ¹⁹ They shall fine him a hundred shekels^[a] of silver and give them to the young woman’s father, because this man has given an Israelite virgin a bad name. She shall continue to be his wife; he must not divorce her as long as he lives.

²⁰ If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the young woman’s virginity can be found, ²¹ she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done an outrageous thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you.

²² If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.

²³ If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, ²⁴ you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the young woman because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you.(Deuteronomy 22:13-24).

WHY GOD FORBIDS SEXUAL IMMORALITY

God forbids pre-marital sex because it is harmful physically, psychologically, and socially.

Physically, because it is the medium through which horrendous sexually transmitted diseases find their way into the human body.

Psychologically, because it is the sure way to lower one’s self-esteem. It leads to a damaging sense of guilt, and worse of all, it weakens the person’s character turning the person into an untrustworthy human being. In fact, the person who is immoral before marriage, unless converted, has a great probability of being immoral after marriage as well.

It also leads to diminished respect from the husband r wife, and from others who might find out. The word usually spreads quickly that the person is easy and the person rarely knows what rumors are being spread.

Many years ago a friend bragged to me about the fact that his girl friend allowed him to commit fornication. Years later, I saw him again and I asked him what happened to his relationship with that girl. He told me he had to leave her, because he found out she was playing behind his back with someone else.

A person who shows character and resists temptation before marriage will tend to show character and resists temptation after marriage. A seducer before marriage will tend to be a seducer after marriage. One who chooses to have fun before marriage will tend to have a similar attitude after marriage.

Yet, it needs to be pointed out that a fornicator who realizes the seriousness of the sin and repents before God deeply and sorrowfully can become an outstanding Christian who will fiercely evade that kind of sin. The key is simply true, deep-felt repentance.

An example of this was a Christian woman whom I met about forty years ago, who had been a streetwalker and later repented and became an outstanding Christian. She had rejected her previous lifestyle and was committed totally to God and His ways.

Nonetheless, we have seen cases of people who committed fornication before marriage, who came in the church not totally repentant and, because they took their conversion lightly, they reverted to their former behavior. A person who had lax morals before conversion has to stay close to God, so as to prevent former sinful habits from re-occurring.

I also mentioned that fornication can also be harmful socially. Unwanted pregnancies tend to lead to one parent families. One parent families have to be supported by society, which increases the tax burden of honest hard-working people. One-parent families have greater difficulty controlling children. Because of low income, such families tend to live in poor areas where crime abounds. Also, because of limited parental control, and because of the evil that surrounds them, as the kids grow up, some will become criminals inflicting great harm on society. Other problems are the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, increased use of drugs, with the accompanying evils that follow such behaviors, etc.

The other sexual sin that God condemned in the Book of the Law is homosexuality:

“There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of  the sons of Israel” (Deuteronomy 23:17 KJV).

“You will not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.” (Lev. 18:22 KJV).

God from the start said "No!" to homosexuality, without exception. He did not say, “No, unless you have psychological problems.” He did not say, “No, unless you tend to be somewhat effeminate.” He did not say, “No, unless you have same sex attraction you cannot control.” He simply said “No!”

God said "No!" also to another abominable act which tends to become common in societies that become obsessed with sex: “Bestiality”.

 “…you shall not lie with any beast and defile yourself with it, neither shall any woman give herself to a beast to lie with it: it is perversion. (Leviticus 18:22-23).

Can bestiality be possible in our society? Would people among us stoop to this level? There are now web sites on the Internet dedicated to satisfying the distorted cravings of people who are into bestiality. Some of you may have already received invitations to visit such sites; rest assured, it will increase.

In the famed book, The Europeans, by Luigi Barzini, one reads that in one country in Europe bestiality had become quite common right before World War 2. The consequences on that nation were devastating.

The next sexual sin that was very common in ancient societies was incest. The number of incest cases in society today is scandalous and reeks in God’s nostrils, because it is unnatural, and because the long-term consequences on children are psychologically devastating.

God deals with the variations of this sin in depth, in Leviticus 20.

“‘If a man has sexual relations with his father’s wife, he has dishonored his father. Both the man and the woman are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

¹² “‘If a man has sexual relations with his daughter-in-law, both of them are to be put to death. What they have done is a perversion; their blood will be on their own heads.

¹³ “‘If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

¹⁴ “‘If a man marries both a woman and her mother, it is wicked. Both he and they must be burned in the fire, so that no wickedness will be among you.

¹⁵ “‘If a man has sexual relations with an animal, he is to be put to death, and you must kill the animal.

¹⁶ “‘If a woman approaches an animal to have sexual relations with it, kill both the woman and the animal. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

¹⁷ “‘If a man marries his sister, the daughter of either his father or his mother, and they have sexual relations, it is a disgrace. They are to be publicly removed from their people. He has dishonored his sister and will be held responsible.

¹⁸ “‘If a man has sexual relations with a woman during her monthly period, he has exposed the source of her flow, and she has also uncovered it. Both of them are to be cut off from their people.

¹⁹ “‘Do not have sexual relations with the sister of either your mother or your father, for that would dishonor a close relative; both of you would be held responsible.

²⁰ “‘If a man has sexual relations with his aunt, he has dishonored his uncle. They will be held responsible; they will die childless.

²¹ “‘If a man marries his brother’s wife, it is an act of impurity; he has dishonored his brother. They will be childless (Leviticus 20:11-21).

It is sobering to read in Leviticus 20 that God becomes particularly angry, when these sins abound in a society.

“You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my ordinances, and do them; that the land where I am bringing you to dwell may not vomit you out. ²³ And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation which I am casting out before you; for they did all these things, and therefore I abhorred them” (Leviticus 20:22-23).

Why did God want the Canaanites wiped out? In large part because adultery, fornication, homosexuality, bestiality and incest abounded -- and He finally said “Enough!”

These kinds of perversions abounded in ancient lands and may have reached a climax in the societies Paul traveled through; in the Greek world in particular and in the Roman world somewhat less. Paul described this reality in the book of Romans.

 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

²⁴ Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. ²⁵ They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

²⁶ Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. ²⁷ In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

²⁸ Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. ²⁹ They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, ³⁰ slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; ³¹ they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. ³² Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them (Romans 1:21-32).

The New Testament reveals God’s views about sexual immorality clearly and they are perfectly similar to what he had forbidden in the Old Testament.

^“You say, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.” The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.” (1 Corinthians 6:13).

“But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.” (Ephesians 5: 3).

How can we make sure that we do not become sexually immoral? What follows are some principles which can be very effective in escaping the sexual immorality trap.

1. Know that to God sexual immorality of all kinds and forms is unacceptable and that like adultery God will severely consequence sexually immoral people who refuse to repent.

We must not indulge in immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. ⁹ We must not put the Lord to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents; ¹⁰ nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. ¹¹ Now these things happened to them as a warning, but they were written down for our instruction, upon whom the end of the ages has come (I Corinthians 10: 8-11 KJV).

Paul is saying, don’t take this lightly. The God who intervened drastically with Israel hasn’t changed. Beware!

Unfortunately, the Church at Corinth did take this warning lightly.

Have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves to you? We have been speaking in the sight of God as those in Christ; and everything we do, dear friends, is for your strengthening. ²⁰ For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there may be discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder. ²¹ I am afraid that when I come again my God will humble me before you, and I will be grieved over many who have sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual sin and debauchery in which they have indulged. (2 Corinthians 12:19-21).

This is II Corinthians. In the first epistle to the Corinthians, we read about the man who committed incest. In the second we find that he repented. We also find that there is a strong probability that sexual immorality in the church was still rampant and that several were unrepentant, and thus the consequences may have been or would have been drastic—thus the mourning. That is they might have died or might have been afflicted by a serious punishment. In the first epistle, Paul delivered the incestuous man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. That may have been the case with the others who were still unrepentant. That can be the case with any of us today who refuse to repent: being delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh is terrifying stuff.

2.     We must never forget that we have been called to holiness not to impurity.

“For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication” (I Thessalonians 4:3 KJV).

This is God’s aim for us. This is God’s goal for us. This is what He demands. He demands that we be holy even as He is holy. And to do so we must abstain from all forms of sexual immorality, mental or physical.

3. We must never forget that the Holy Spirit that dwells in us will not stay forever in an impure and unrepentant fornicator’s mind.

The Holy Spirit will not dwell in a rebellious, immoral mind. Immoral thoughts, desires and actions cannot dwell in the same location as the Holiest essence there is: the Holy Spirit.  

“It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife. ¹⁹What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? (I Corinthians 6:18-19 KJV).

Of course this does not mean that the Holy Spirit will leave because a person has been trapped by Satan. God will try to convict the person and will attempt to bring the person back to repentance. Yet a stubborn, self-willed mind who embraces sexual immorality and refuses to repent can commit the unpardonable sin from which there is no repentance.

4. Know that Satan’s attempts at getting us to become sexually immoral through his society will multiply, not diminish.

Society is sliding down very fast. Homosexuality would have never received any limelight 15-20 years ago. In one generation it has become not only acceptable, but in style. It is very difficult to turn TV any day of the week and not see any mention of homosexuals. Tributes are being paid to homosexuals and homosexuality, without hesitation or shame. The queen of England has recently made available her own palaces so that a famous English singer would be publicly united to his homosexual partner with great pomp and circumstance.

The unthinkable, homosexual marriages, have now become legal in several countries. A few years ago, the Supreme Court of Canada legalized the existence of locations where people can publicly get involved in orgies. The rationale used by the Court is that "it will not hurt society."

In our society, common-law living is now for many a requirement before marriage, in spite of the fact that undeniable research shows clearly that common-law relationships tend to be more violent than married relationships, and that they breakup more frequently than marriages, and that people who marry after living common law have a greater probability of breaking up than people who never lived common law.

Satan will try to influence our attitudes toward these sins by bringing to us seeming exceptions of homosexual couples who seem to get along; or common-law couples that appear to be happy.

These seeming exceptions are not the rule. There are people who rob banks and don’t get caught and also seem to be happy. Does that make robbing banks right? There are people who say that they have been happier in their marriage ever since they have been having a secret affair. In fact, they say that they have become more loving toward their mates since their affair. Is, therefore, having affairs the right thing to do?

The classic rationalization to excuse sin has always been the exception to the rule. But exceptions do not make the rule.  God not human reasoning and rationalizations determines right from wrong as he alone knows the true immediate and long-term consequences to immoral actions.

Common-law living is not marriage. I have heard a church person who should have known better in the past say that it is. That is totally false. Man-Woman relationships are not experimental. They are supposed to be life-long commitments, through good times and bad times. Common-Law relationships are in most cases simply selfish experiments to see if the other person will fulfill one’s needs. They are not statements of love; they are essentially selfish and, thus, sinful.

People who live common law are considered by God to be living in sin, and if they come among truly converted Christians, they will be encouraged to marry before God and man, if they want to stay in the fellowship.

Satan will try to get us desensitized to sin through TV, our culture, our friends and family. Desensitization, which works very slowly, can totally transform our attitudes and we won’t even realize it.

Do we watch programs that have funny homosexuals in it? Do we understand that that is a psychological technique Satan uses to desensitize people to homosexuality, or any kind of sinful behavior? Associate homosexual characters to laughter and you will create a positive association in a person’s mind towards homosexuality. It is a well-known psychological fact. It is a well-known psychological law: The Law of Association. Satan knows that law better than anyone else and he has been using it ever-more successfully the past few decades.

Satan is marching along in his devious agenda and this world is welcoming his every move as “progress and enlightenment.” The results will be tragic.

5. Our attitude toward the degeneracy in society should be that of Lot.

 if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; ⁷ and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless ⁸ (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard) (II Peter 2:6-7).

Are we tormented when we see heinous sins bandied about on TV or in front of us? Have we forgotten how detestable they are in God’s sight?

Do we get entertainment, and do we think it is funny that men and women do indecent acts publicly?

Do we feel sick to our stomach when we see lewd acts on TV or at the movies, or has that reaction vanished? If we are not turned off and angered by these trends, Satan has succeeded in desensitizing us. Soon the evil that surrounds us will no longer be evil, and we’ll be in danger of being like the Corinthians who could have heinous sins among them and be unperturbed.

6. Know that for every second spent watching sensual images on TV, magazines, or on the Internet, are adding seeds into our minds that can grow into full-blown sin

The human mind is like a pot full of very fertile soil. Whatever we plant in it will grow. If we plant holy seeds, we will see grow holy thoughts and actions. These seeds can be planted visually, through images, or the printed word. How many seeds have we been planting lately? The seeds will grow into thoughts, and thoughts will transform us: “As a man thinketh so is he” (Proverbs 23:7 KJV). The thoughts we entertain determine who we are. And, finally, what we do.

What kind of thoughts have we been entertaining lately?

Is it possible to be at church looking saintly and Christian and still be filled with unclean thoughts? Let’s see what both Peter and Jude have to say about this subject.

But these people blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like unreasoning animals, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like animals they too will perish.

¹³ They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you. ¹⁴ With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed—an accursed brood! ¹⁵ They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Bezer, who loved the wages of wickedness. ¹⁶ But he was rebuked for his wrongdoing by a donkey—an animal without speech—who spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.

¹⁷ These people are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them (II Peter 2:12-17).

Jude essentially shares the same concerns.

Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. ⁴ For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.

⁵ Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord at one time delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. ⁶ And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. ⁷ In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

⁸ In the very same way, on the strength of their dreams these ungodly people pollute their own bodies, reject authority and heap abuse on celestial beings (Jude 1:3-8).

Yes, it is possible for anyone to appear saintly and yet be filled with lustful thoughts. Yes, we may have such people in Christian churches.

7.      Run for your life, before sexual immorality!

Paul makes this point abundantly clear:

“Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body” (I Corinthians 6:18).

How many times have ministers warned our young and old of the dangers of sexual immorality? “Beware!” we warn; but at times we’ve been ignored. How many times have young people laughed in their minds at these old foggies preaching from the pulpit who are out of touch with reality, who are no longer in or cool? How many have lived to regret it?

One young woman once in a church decided to experiment with pre-marital sex “once.” She did… and ended up with incurable herpes. Another one developed AIDS.

Run from sexual immorality, run! Run for your life! For this world is full of attractive, seductive, smooth young men and women ready to share their viruses with you. Some knowingly some unknowingly.

Every time you fall into the trap you could be going to bed with millions of people, by simply getting involved with one. The one person may have been involved with another who was involved with five or six others, who were involved with several others, ad infinitum. That one time you could be welcoming into your body a virus which may have been passed along years back by a streetwalker in Brazil or Thailand or somewhere in Europe or Africa.

You might inherit a virus which mutated and found its way into someone hundreds or thousands of years ago, which go back to the beginning of times and which have reproduced countless  times and have reaped havoc in people’s bodies millions of times.

Run for your life, and don’t stop. And don’t be fooled by the “safe sex” nonsense. Viruses have a way of finding ways around barriers; barriers have a way of breaking and betraying, when one least expects it.

And certainly don’t deceive yourself into thinking that since it’s your life it should not be anyone else’s business. This is the rationalization that many have used over the years to excuse their sinful behavior with horrific consequences.

The following story is about a young man who had grown up in a Christian home and who decided, once a student in university, to enjoy a sensual life and have sex with women. This he did uncaring of consequences and of God’s warning.

The young man finally regained his senses, went back home, met a lovely church girl, got married and entered what seemed to be an idyllic life. His life was soon enriched with beautiful children.

A few years later he started showing worrisome symptoms. He went for a checkup and was told that he had AIDS. Not long after he died and left behind his wife and children. But that was not the end of the story.

Unfortunately, not long after, his wife tested positive for HIV. She too was infected and was working her way toward certain death, leaving children as orphans.

How many others had the man infected? How many have died? How many wives and children has Satan destroyed through that man and his irresponsibility?

Yes, our sins can affect others. It is not just our lives that we destroy; we can destroy others as well.

8. Accept the Love of your Father your Creator. Know that He loves you more than anyone else on earth and that is why He says, “Flee!”

God knows what’s out there. He knows what viruses will do to you physically. He knows what sexual immorality will do to you psychologically. He knows what sexual immorality will do to a society. He says to me and you, “flee!”

Yet people would rather hear the warning from the experts, rather than God’s Word. Here is the warning of some experts; perhaps the two greatest historians of our time: Will and Ariel Durant.

Will and Ariel Durant wrote a large collection of volumes on the history of humanity. They have studied history for most of their lives. Toward the end of their life they wrote a short, but very powerful book titled, Lessons from History.

In it, they list of 13 fundamental lessons they learned from their in-depth study of human history. One of the lessons deals with sexual immorality.

A youth boiling with hormones will wonder why he should not give full freedom to his sexual desires; and if he is unchecked by custom, morals, or laws, he may ruin his life before he matures sufficiently to understand that sex is a river of fire that must be banked and cooled by a hundred restrains if it is not to consume in chaos both the individual and the group.[vi]

God, our Father, knew this before Will and Ariel Durant did and gave us a gift that will protect us physically and mentally throughout your life.

Go to Him and seek His strength when it’s tough to resist. Beg His for wisdom to know when danger is coming, so as to evade it. Beg for the power of His Spirit when your flesh says “eat,” though the food is poisonous. Being your Father, He will honor your request and will give you the help you need.

This is how we can fulfill Paul’s injunction found in Colossians.

^“Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5).

Therefore, let’s fight and kill the self-destructive desires that dwell in our flesh. Let’s fight a valiant battle and let’s never give in!

In conclusion, fornication is a Work of the Flesh that Satan loves to use to bring havoc in our and other people’s lives. It is his diabolical weapon  that

he uses to destroy millions of lives yearly. God warns us to evade sexual immorality, with all our might. The benefits for doing so are peace of mind,

protection from horrible and agonizing diseases and harmony with our Creator,and, finally, if we stay faithful to God’s ways, eternal life.

Download the complete book on your computer or Kindle

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The next article will address, Uncleanness.

The Works of the Flesh:  Adultery, Fornication, Uncleanness, Lasciviousness, Idolatry, Witchcraft, Hatred, Variance, Emulations, Wrath, Strife, Seditions, Heresy, Envy, Murders, Drunkenness, Revelings.

The Fruits of the Spirit:

1. Love
2. Joy
3. Peace
4. Longsuffering
5. Kindness
6. Goodness
7. Faithfulness / Faith
8. Gentleness/ Meekness
9. Self-control

 © Copyright, Michael Caputo, 2009.