April 24, 2019

Lovely by Gary Rose




Lately the news on television has been depressing. There seems to be no end to the controversy in Washington. The endless effort to impeach our president, the flood of illegal aliens, the push by the Democratic party towards Socialism (which ultimately leads to Communism) and the effort by many to take away our second amendment right to bear arms is becoming harder and harder to even hear. So, sometimes I don’t even watch the evening news.

And, as I sat down to write today’s blog, I said to myself: Gary, focus on something positive, something worthwhile. The answer came to me in the form of a picture that I happened upon this morning and a verse from Paul’s letter to the Philippians. The Bible says...


Philippians 4 ( World English Bible )
Phi 4:8, Finally, brothers, whatever things are true, whatever things are honorable, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report; if there is any virtue, and if there is any praise, think about these things. (emphasis added)


In a world filled with ungodly things, Paul instructs us to think on worthwhile things. Personally, I intend to focus on things like this lovely picture today, just to break the cycle of endless turmoil. I will watch the evening news tomorrow.

PS. Loveliness is just one of the things worth considering; so, take another look at this verse and think about them all – one by one.

Bible Reading April 24, 25 by Gary Rose


Bible Reading  April 24, 25

World  English  Bible


Apr. 24
Deuteronomy 3, 4

Deu 3:1 Then we turned, and went up the way to Bashan: and Og the king of Bashan came out against us, he and all his people, to battle at Edrei.
Deu 3:2 Yahweh said to me, Don't fear him; for I have delivered him, and all his people, and his land, into your hand; and you shall do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.
Deu 3:3 So Yahweh our God delivered into our hand Og also, the king of Bashan, and all his people: and we struck him until none was left to him remaining.
Deu 3:4 We took all his cities at that time; there was not a city which we didn't take from them; sixty cities, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.
Deu 3:5 All these were cities fortified with high walls, gates, and bars; besides the unwalled towns a great many.
Deu 3:6 We utterly destroyed them, as we did to Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying every inhabited city, with the women and the little ones.
Deu 3:7 But all the livestock, and the spoil of the cities, we took for a prey to ourselves.
Deu 3:8 We took the land at that time out of the hand of the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, from the valley of the Arnon to Mount Hermon;
Deu 3:9 (which Hermon the Sidonians call Sirion, and the Amorites call it Senir;)
Deu 3:10 all the cities of the plain, and all Gilead, and all Bashan, to Salecah and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan.
Deu 3:11 (For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of the Rephaim; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; isn't it in Rabbah of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was its length, and four cubits its breadth, after the cubit of a man.)
Deu 3:12 This land we took in possession at that time: from Aroer, which is by the valley of the Arnon, and half the hill country of Gilead, and its cities, gave I to the Reubenites and to the Gadites:
Deu 3:13 and the rest of Gilead, and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og, gave I to the half-tribe of Manasseh; all the region of Argob, even all Bashan. (The same is called the land of Rephaim.
Deu 3:14 Jair the son of Manasseh took all the region of Argob, to the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites, and called them, even Bashan, after his own name, Havvoth Jair, to this day.)
Deu 3:15 I gave Gilead to Machir.
Deu 3:16 To the Reubenites and to the Gadites I gave from Gilead even to the valley of the Arnon, the middle of the valley, and the border of it, even to the river Jabbok, which is the border of the children of Ammon;
Deu 3:17 the Arabah also, and the Jordan and the border of it, from Chinnereth even to the sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, under the slopes of Pisgah eastward.
Deu 3:18 I commanded you at that time, saying, Yahweh your God has given you this land to possess it: you shall pass over armed before your brothers the children of Israel, all the men of valor.
Deu 3:19 But your wives, and your little ones, and your livestock, (I know that you have much livestock), shall abide in your cities which I have given you,
Deu 3:20 until Yahweh gives rest to your brothers, as to you, and they also possess the land which Yahweh your God gives them beyond the Jordan: then you shall return every man to his possession, which I have given you.
Deu 3:21 I commanded Joshua at that time, saying, Your eyes have seen all that Yahweh your God has done to these two kings: so shall Yahweh do to all the kingdoms where you go over.
Deu 3:22 You shall not fear them; for Yahweh your God, he it is who fights for you.
Deu 3:23 I begged Yahweh at that time, saying,
Deu 3:24 Lord Yahweh, you have begun to show your servant your greatness, and your strong hand: for what god is there in heaven or in earth, that can do according to your works, and according to your mighty acts?
Deu 3:25 Please let me go over and see the good land that is beyond the Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon.
Deu 3:26 But Yahweh was angry with me for your sakes, and didn't listen to me; and Yahweh said to me, Let it suffice you; speak no more to me of this matter.
Deu 3:27 Go up to the top of Pisgah, and lift up your eyes westward, and northward, and southward, and eastward, and see with your eyes: for you shall not go over this Jordan.
Deu 3:28 But commission Joshua, and encourage him, and strengthen him; for he shall go over before this people, and he shall cause them to inherit the land which you shall see.
Deu 3:29 So we abode in the valley over against Beth Peor.

Deu 4:1 Now, Israel, listen to the statutes and to the ordinances, which I teach you, to do them; that you may live, and go in and possess the land which Yahweh, the God of your fathers, gives you.
Deu 4:2 You shall not add to the word which I command you, neither shall you diminish from it, that you may keep the commandments of Yahweh your God which I command you.
Deu 4:3 Your eyes have seen what Yahweh did because of Baal Peor; for all the men who followed Baal Peor, Yahweh your God has destroyed them from the midst of you.
Deu 4:4 But you who did cling to Yahweh your God are all alive this day.
Deu 4:5 Behold, I have taught you statutes and ordinances, even as Yahweh my God commanded me, that you should do so in the midst of the land where you go in to possess it.
Deu 4:6 Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.
Deu 4:7 For what great nation is there, that has a god so near to them, as Yahweh our God is whenever we call on him?
Deu 4:8 What great nation is there, that has statutes and ordinances so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?
Deu 4:9 Only take heed to yourself, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes saw, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your children and your children's children;
Deu 4:10 the day that you stood before Yahweh your God in Horeb, when Yahweh said to me, Assemble me the people, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.
Deu 4:11 You came near and stood under the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire to the heart of the sky, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness.
Deu 4:12 Yahweh spoke to you out of the midst of the fire: you heard the voice of words, but you saw no form; only you heard a voice.
Deu 4:13 He declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even the ten commandments; and he wrote them on two tables of stone.
Deu 4:14 Yahweh commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances, that you might do them in the land where you go over to possess it.
Deu 4:15 Take therefore good heed to yourselves; for you saw no manner of form on the day that Yahweh spoke to you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire.
Deu 4:16 Lest you corrupt yourselves, and make yourself an engraved image in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female,
Deu 4:17 the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky,
Deu 4:18 the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth;
Deu 4:19 and lest you lift up your eyes to the sky, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the army of the sky, you are drawn away and worship them, and serve them, which Yahweh your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole sky.
Deu 4:20 But Yahweh has taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be to him a people of inheritance, as at this day.
Deu 4:21 Furthermore Yahweh was angry with me for your sakes, and swore that I should not go over the Jordan, and that I should not go in to that good land, which Yahweh your God gives you for an inheritance:
Deu 4:22 but I must die in this land, I must not go over the Jordan; but you shall go over, and possess that good land.
Deu 4:23 Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of Yahweh your God, which he made with you, and make you an engraved image in the form of anything which Yahweh your God has forbidden you.
Deu 4:24 For Yahweh your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God.
Deu 4:25 When you shall father children, and children's children, and you shall have been long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make an engraved image in the form of anything, and shall do that which is evil in the sight of Yahweh your God, to provoke him to anger;
Deu 4:26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that you shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto you go over the Jordan to possess it; you shall not prolong your days on it, but shall utterly be destroyed.
Deu 4:27 Yahweh will scatter you among the peoples, and you shall be left few in number among the nations, where Yahweh shall lead you away.
Deu 4:28 There you shall serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
Deu 4:29 But from there you shall seek Yahweh your God, and you shall find him, when you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.
Deu 4:30 When you are in oppression, and all these things are come on you, in the latter days you shall return to Yahweh your God, and listen to his voice:
Deu 4:31 for Yahweh your God is a merciful God; he will not fail you, neither destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which he swore to them.
Deu 4:32 For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and from the one end of the sky to the other, whether there has been any such thing as this great thing is, or has been heard like it?
Deu 4:33 Did ever a people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and live?
Deu 4:34 Or has God tried to go and take him a nation from the midst ofanother nation, by trials, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that Yahweh your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
Deu 4:35 It was shown to you so that you might know that Yahweh is God. There is no one else besides him.
Deu 4:36 Out of heaven he made you to hear his voice, that he might instruct you: and on earth he made you to see his great fire; and you heard his words out of the midst of the fire.
Deu 4:37 Because he loved your fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, and brought you out with his presence, with his great power, out of Egypt;
Deu 4:38 to drive out nations from before you greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as at this day.
Deu 4:39 Know therefore this day, and lay it to your heart, that Yahweh he is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is none else.
Deu 4:40 You shall keep his statutes, and his commandments, which I command you this day, that it may go well with you, and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land, which Yahweh your God gives you, forever.
Deu 4:41 Then Moses set apart three cities beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise;
Deu 4:42 that the manslayer might flee there, who kills his neighbor unawares, and didn't hate him in time past; and that fleeing to one of these cities he might live:
Deu 4:43 namely, Bezer in the wilderness, in the plain country, for the Reubenites; and Ramoth in Gilead, for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan, for the Manassites.
Deu 4:44 This is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel:
Deu 4:45 these are the testimonies, and the statutes, and the ordinances, which Moses spoke to the children of Israel, when they came forth out of Egypt,
Deu 4:46 beyond the Jordan, in the valley over against Beth Peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel struck, when they came forth out of Egypt.
Deu 4:47 They took his land in possession, and the land of Og king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites, who were beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise;
Deu 4:48 from Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, even to Mount Sion (the same is Hermon),
Deu 4:49 and all the Arabah beyond the Jordan eastward, even to the sea of the Arabah, under the slopes of Pisgah.

Apr. 25
Deuteronomy 5, 6

Deu 5:1 Moses called to all Israel, and said to them, Hear, Israel, the statutes and the ordinances which I speak in your ears this day, that you may learn them, and observe to do them.
Deu 5:2 Yahweh our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.
Deu 5:3 Yahweh didn't make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.
Deu 5:4 Yahweh spoke with you face to face on the mountain out of the midst of the fire,
Deu 5:5 (I stood between Yahweh and you at that time, to show you the word of Yahweh: for you were afraid because of the fire, and didn't go up onto the mountain;) saying,
Deu 5:6 "I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
Deu 5:7 You shall have no other gods before me.
Deu 5:8 "You shall not make an engraved image for yourself, nor any likenessof anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
Deu 5:9 you shall not bow down yourself to them, nor serve them; for I, Yahweh, your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me;
Deu 5:10 and showing loving kindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Deu 5:11 "You shall not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain: for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
Deu 5:12 "Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as Yahweh your God commanded you.
Deu 5:13 You shall labor six days, and do all your work;
Deu 5:14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to Yahweh your God, in which you shall not do any work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your livestock, nor your stranger who is within your gates; that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.
Deu 5:15 You shall remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and Yahweh your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm: therefore Yahweh your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.
Deu 5:16 "Honor your father and your mother, as Yahweh your God commanded you; that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you, in the land which Yahweh your God gives you.
Deu 5:17 "You shall not murder.
Deu 5:18 "Neither shall you commit adultery.
Deu 5:19 "Neither shall you steal.
Deu 5:20 "Neither shall you give false testimony against your neighbor.
Deu 5:21 "Neither shall you covet your neighbor's wife; neither shall you desire your neighbor's house, his field, or his male servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's."
Deu 5:22 These words Yahweh spoke to all your assembly on the mountain out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice: and he added no more. He wrote them on two tables of stone, and gave them to me.
Deu 5:23 It happened, when you heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, that you came near to me, even all the heads of your tribes, and your elders;
Deu 5:24 and you said, Behold, Yahweh our God has shown us his glory and his greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire: we have seen this day that God does speak with man, and he lives.
Deu 5:25 Now therefore why should we die? for this great fire will consume us: if we hear the voice of Yahweh our God any more, then we shall die.
Deu 5:26 For who is there of all flesh, that has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived?
Deu 5:27 Go near, and hear all that Yahweh our God shall say: and tell us all that Yahweh our God shall tell you; and we will hear it, and do it.
Deu 5:28 Yahweh heard the voice of your words, when you spoke to me; and Yahweh said to me, I have heard the voice of the words of this people, which they have spoken to you: they have well said all that they have spoken.
Deu 5:29 Oh that there were such a heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children forever!
Deu 5:30 Go tell them, Return to your tents.
Deu 5:31 But as for you, stand here by me, and I will tell you all the commandment, and the statutes, and the ordinances, which you shall teach them, that they may do them in the land which I give them to possess it.
Deu 5:32 You shall observe to do therefore as Yahweh your God has commanded you: you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.
Deu 5:33 You shall walk in all the way which Yahweh your God has commanded you, that you may live, and that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which you shall possess.

Deu 6:1 Now this is the commandment, the statutes, and the ordinances, which Yahweh your God commanded to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you go over to possess it;
Deu 6:2 that you might fear Yahweh your God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, you, and your son, and your son's son, all the days of your life; and that your days may be prolonged.
Deu 6:3 Hear therefore, Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with you, and that you may increase mightily, as Yahweh, the God of your fathers, has promised to you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.
Deu 6:4 Hear, Israel: Yahweh is our God; Yahweh is one:
Deu 6:5 and you shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.
Deu 6:6 These words, which I command you this day, shall be on your heart;
Deu 6:7 and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.
Deu 6:8 You shall bind them for a sign on your hand, and they shall be for symbols between your eyes.
Deu 6:9 You shall write them on the door posts of your house, and on your gates.
Deu 6:10 It shall be, when Yahweh your God shall bring you into the land which he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you, great and goodly cities, which you didn't build,
Deu 6:11 and houses full of all good things, which you didn't fill, and cisterns dug out, which you didn't dig, vineyards and olive trees, which you didn't plant, and you shall eat and be full;
Deu 6:12 then beware lest you forget Yahweh, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
Deu 6:13 You shall fear Yahweh your God; and you shall serve him, and shall swear by his name.
Deu 6:14 You shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the peoples who are around you;
Deu 6:15 for Yahweh your God in the midst of you is a jealous God; lest the anger of Yahweh your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth.
Deu 6:16 You shall not tempt Yahweh your God, as you tempted him in Massah.
Deu 6:17 You shall diligently keep the commandments of Yahweh your God, and his testimonies, and his statutes, which he has commanded you.
Deu 6:18 You shall do that which is right and good in the sight of Yahweh; that it may be well with you, and that you may go in and possess the good land which Yahweh swore to your fathers,
Deu 6:19 to thrust out all your enemies from before you, as Yahweh has spoken.
Deu 6:20 When your son asks you in time to come, saying, What mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and the ordinances, which Yahweh our God has commanded you?
Deu 6:21 then you shall tell your son, We were Pharaoh's bondservants in Egypt: and Yahweh brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand;
Deu 6:22 and Yahweh showed great and awesome signs and wonders on Egypt, on Pharaoh, and on all his house, before our eyes;
Deu 6:23 and he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in, to give us the land which he swore to our fathers.
Deu 6:24 Yahweh commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear Yahweh our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as at this day.
Deu 6:25 It shall be righteousness to us, if we observe to do all this commandment before Yahweh our God, as he has commanded us.

Apr. 24, 25
Luke 14

Luk 14:1 It happened, when he went into the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees on a Sabbath to eat bread, that they were watching him.
Luk 14:2 Behold, a certain man who had dropsy was in front of him.
Luk 14:3 Jesus, answering, spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?"
Luk 14:4 But they were silent. He took him, and healed him, and let him go.
Luk 14:5 He answered them, "Which of you, if your son or an ox fell into a well, wouldn't immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?"
Luk 14:6 They couldn't answer him regarding these things.
Luk 14:7 He spoke a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the best seats, and said to them,
Luk 14:8 "When you are invited by anyone to a marriage feast, don't sit in the best seat, since perhaps someone more honorable than you might be invited by him,
Luk 14:9 and he who invited both of you would come and tell you, 'Make room for this person.' Then you would begin, with shame, to take the lowest place.
Luk 14:10 But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when he who invited you comes, he may tell you, 'Friend, move up higher.' Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you.
Luk 14:11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted."
Luk 14:12 He also said to the one who had invited him, "When you make a dinner or a supper, don't call your friends, nor your brothers, nor your kinsmen, nor rich neighbors, or perhaps they might also return the favor, and pay you back.
Luk 14:13 But when you make a feast, ask the poor, the maimed, the lame, or the blind;
Luk 14:14 and you will be blessed, because they don't have the resources to repay you. For you will be repaid in the resurrection of the righteous."
Luk 14:15 When one of those who sat at the table with him heard these things, he said to him, "Blessed is he who will feast in the Kingdom of God!"
Luk 14:16 But he said to him, "A certain man made a great supper, and he invited many people.
Luk 14:17 He sent out his servant at supper time to tell those who were invited, 'Come, for everything is ready now.'
Luk 14:18 They all as one began to make excuses. "The first said to him, 'I have bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please have me excused.'
Luk 14:19 "Another said, 'I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I must go try them out. Please have me excused.'
Luk 14:20 "Another said, 'I have married a wife, and therefore I can't come.'
Luk 14:21 "That servant came, and told his lord these things. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, 'Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor, maimed, blind, and lame.'
Luk 14:22 "The servant said, 'Lord, it is done as you commanded, and there is still room.'
Luk 14:23 "The lord said to the servant, 'Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.
Luk 14:24 For I tell you that none of those men who were invited will taste of my supper.' "
Luk 14:25 Now great multitudes were going with him. He turned and said to them,
Luk 14:26 "If anyone comes to me, and doesn't hate his own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he can't be my disciple.
Luk 14:27 Whoever doesn't bear his own cross, and come after me, can't be my disciple.
Luk 14:28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, doesn't first sit down and count the cost, to see if he has enough to complete it?
Luk 14:29 Or perhaps, when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, everyone who sees begins to mock him,
Luk 14:30 saying, 'This man began to build, and wasn't able to finish.'
Luk 14:31 Or what king, as he goes to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?
Luk 14:32 Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends an envoy, and asks for conditions of peace.
Luk 14:33 So therefore whoever of you who doesn't renounce all that he has, he can't be my disciple.
Luk 14:34 Salt is good, but if the salt becomes flat and tasteless, with what do you season it?
Luk 14:35 It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile. It is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

FORNICATION AND ADULTERY MORAL ISSUES WE FACE By Dub McClish


http://www.oldpaths.com/Archive/McClish/Henry/WardenJr/1938/FORNICATION-AND-ADULTERY.html

FORNICATION AND ADULTERY

MORAL ISSUES WE FACE

By Dub McClish

Introduction
In the beginning God created mankind, made them “male and female,” and commanded them to “be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth” (Gen. 1:27–28). God further inspired Moses to state His intent in this regard: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (2:24). Moses recorded the beginning of their fulfillment of God’s first command to them in simple andstraightforward terms: “And the man knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain” (4:1a; cf. v. 25). That Adam “knew” Eve is a reference to their sexual union, the means by which they began the perpetual process offruitfulness and multiplication of humankind God had ordered.
The foregoing statements make it evident that God created us with sexual instinct and appetite and with the ability to fulfill it. It is no less evident that He expected us to fulfill it. In fact, Adam and Eve could not have obeyed God’s command to reproduce and populate the earth apart from their acting upon this instinct and appetite. God made this instinct extremely strong, surpassed only by that of self-preservation, involving the desire/need for food and drink. In His infinite wisdom, He knew that the sexual appetite must be regulated and controlled for it to be a blessing rather than a curse. God thus ordained the fulfillment of the sexual instinct, but only within His own clearly stated benevolent limitations. Not only is sexual fulfillment therefore not innately sinful, evil, or shameful; when engaged in within God’s limitation for it, it is guiltless, pure, and honorable.

 

God’s Boundary for Sexual Fulfillment

The terms, fornication and adultery, which we will later define more specifically, describe sexual activity outside the boundary God ordained for it. This boundary must therefore be included in any discussion of these terms. Were there no such limitation, there would be no such thing as fornication and adultery, for “…where there is no law, neither is there transgression” (Rom. 4:15). God has issued a dictum on this matter, and, as will become clear, those who ignore, reject, and disobey it become thereby guilty of fornication and/or adultery and subject to the wrath of a holy and just God.
The only sphere of innocent sexual intercourse involves three elements:
1.             It must be between a man and a woman (Gen. 1:27–28; 2:24; Mat. 19:6–9; 1 Cor. 7:2; et al.)
2.             It must be between a man and a woman who are married to each other (1 Cor. 7:2)
3.             It must be between a man and a woman God authorizes to be married (Mat. 19:6)
Jesus stated that these limitations were God’s will in the first century, that they had been so “from the beginning” (Gen. 2:24), and, by implication, that they would always be so:
And he answered and said, Have ye not read, that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh? So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder (Mat. 19:4–6).
Jesus employed both fornication and adultery, in the same context:
And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and he that marrieth her when she is put away committeth adultery (v. 9).
In a companion statement in His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus had previously used these same two terms in discussing marriage and divorce:
But I say unto you, that every one that putteth away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, maketh her an adulteress: and whosoever shall marry her when she is put away committeth adultery (Mat. 5:32).
The two dozen or so loopholes that men have devised in an effort to evade New Testament teaching on marriage, divorce, and remarriage are largely traceable to attempts to justify relationships that involve fornication and/or adultery. Let us now explore the meaning of these terms.

Defining the Terms

Fornication

Our English word, fornication, derives from the Latin term, fornix or fornicis, meaning an archway or a “vaulted chamber.”A building of such description in ancient Rome was a venue for prostitutes and became a euphemism for whoredom or a brothel (Online Etymology). The Greek word rendered “fornication” in the King James and American Standard versions (1901) is porneia (and four cognates). Of the fifty-six times this word-family appears in the New Testament, porneia occurs most frequently (twenty-six times).
Bauer, Arndt, and Gingrich define porneia as “prostitution, unchastity, fornication, of every kind of unlawful sexual intercourse” (699). Kittel defines porneia in the New Testament as “all extra-marital and unnatural intercourse” (6:590). Thayer’s definition of porneia is “…illicit sexual intercourse in general” (532). Other Bible versions variously render this term as “sexual immorality” (NKJV), “unchastity” (RSV, TCNT), and “marital unfaithfulness” (NIV). Porneia is obviously a comprehensive term that embraces every sort of sexual union besides that which God has ordained within Scriptural marriage (i.e., sodomy, lesbianism, incest, bestiality, prostitution, adultery).

 

Adultery

Adultery in the English language traces back to the A.D. fourteenth century, when it was brought over from the Latin term, adulterare, meaning to corrupt (Dictionary.com). Adultery translates the Greek noun, moicheia.Kittel defines this word simply as “adultery, illicit intercourse” (4:730). While Thayer defines moicheia as “adultery,” he defines the cognate verb, moichao as “to have unlawful intercourse with another’s wife” (417). It is telling that Bauer, Arndt, and Gingrich do not define any of this family of Greek terms except by the words, adulteryadultereradulteresscommit adultery, and adulterous (527–28), omitting any description of that which constitutes adultery. Their doing so presumes that all English readers will be aware that these terms relate to physical sexual infidelity regarding one’s spouse. W.E. Vine defines the noun, moichos, as denoting one ”who has unlawful intercourse with the spouse of another” (14).
The latter day postulation that adultery refers only to “breaking the covenant” of marriage rather than to any sexual activity is merely a paltry, juvenile attempt to circumvent some of the most plain, literal, and explicit doctrine of the Son of God and His inspired writers regarding marriage, divorce, and remarriage. In spite of this fact, some brethren (e.g., the late John Edwards, Olan Hicks, Truman Scott [instructor at Sunset International Bible Institute], et al.), have touted and/or continue to tout this demonic error. Such preposterous theorizing is born of sheer convenience and flies in the face of history and scholarship, both ancient and modern.
Fornication, then, is a broad term that embraces every form of sexual prohibition and deviance, whatever one’s marital status, while adultery relates particularly to sexual congress of a married person with another person besides one’s own spouse, thus representing a betrayal of one’s marriage vows. While all adultery constitutes fornication, not all fornication is adultery. Fornication may relate to marriage, but adultery particularly does so. Both terms are also used sparingly in a metaphorical sense to describe unfaithfulness to the Christ (e.g., “fornication” [Rev. 2:14; 17:2; et al.]; “adultery” [Mat. 12:39; Jam. 4:4]).

 

The Corinthianized American Culture

When Paul walked into Corinth in about A.D. 51, he entered a city known throughout the civilized world for its moral corruption. A hint of this moral turpitude is evident in his statement in 1 Corinthians 6:9–11:
Or know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men, …And such were some of you….
This pagan metropolis was renowned for its temple to the goddess, Aphrodite, allegedly hosting a thousand or more temple prostitutes. From Paul’s description, it was obviously a center of sodomy, as well. Even in an amoral pagan world, Corinth was so distinguished for its debauchery and lewdness that men made a verb of its name. To “Corinthianize” meant to corrupt and debase.
Our great nation has become “Corinthianized” to a substantial degree over the past fifty years. To identify the principal source of this moral declension, we must go back to the 19th century English naturalist, Charles Darwin. His On the Origin of the Species (1859) gave base men an excuse to deny the existence of a Creator to Whom they must give account for their behavior, including their sexual conduct. Darwin’s theories created a new religion whose devotees have prostrated themselves before a new trinity of nature, accident, and vast eons. They could now replicate the “morals” of animals, since, after all, that is all we are—mere advanced apes. The adoption of Darwin’s God-dismissive theories by the immense majority of the scientific community in our nation meant that this God-denying doctrine would find its way into the university curricula and then into public school textbooks at every level. The influence of evolutionary theory on sexual mores has been undeniably powerful and widespread.
Numerous and extensive factors coalesced in the 1960s, causing drastic changes in attitudes toward sexual behavior and producing a well-named “sexual revolution.” Perhaps we may profit by noting some of the more specific factors of this phenomenon.
The influence of Alfred Charles Kinsey can hardly be overemphasized. This biologist “researcher” at Indiana University is credited with being the “father of sexology” (i.e., the study of human sexual behavior). He published his first book on the subject, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, in 1948, and followed it in 1953 with Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. Both books soared to the top of the best-seller lists. Only years later was it revealedthat he got some of his statistics on sexual responses of little boys from a serial pedophile, whose identity he shielded, allowing him to continue his wicked and criminal activity. He derived his data from more than mere interviews, however. According to Wikipedia:
Kinsey’s sex research went beyond theory and interview to include observation of and participation in sexual activity, including homosexual activity, with co-workers and others.… Kinsey filmed sexual acts which included co-workers in the attic of his home as part of his research…to ensure the film’s secrecy, which would have caused a scandal had it become public knowledge (Wikipedia).
Kinsey has been unmasked in recent years as not only a fraud in his “research,” but an obsessive pervert who hid behind an academic facade to live out his own sexual fantasies.
Nevertheless, the influence of his books was major in moving sexual activity from the marital bed to the anywhere with anyone anytime. He gave our countrymen an excuse (if not actual encouragement) to experiment with “guiltless” sex as mere recreation. Perhaps, more than any other one person, he prepared the way for the “sexual revolution.”
Decades before Kinsey’s degeneracy, however, theological modernism and liberalism had been churning out an ever-increasing number of faithless graduates from their sectarian seminaries. By the middle part of the century (post-World War II), the effects of these pulpiteers and professors began to take a major toll on the moral fiber of the nation. From its inception the vast majority of its citizens had accepted the Bible as God’s standard of moral behavior. As more and more churchgoers heard their “pastors” from Sunday to Sunday cast doubt on the Bible’s inspiration and infallibility, God’s Word became less and less influential on national behavior in general, and on morality in particular.
Every day of my public school years through 1953 began with a homeroom devotional period, including a Bible reading and prayer. These were outlawed by a Supreme Court ruling in 1962. Coincidentally (or perhaps, not), “values-neutral” “sexuality education” courses began finding their way into the public high schools in 1963, teaching the fundamentals of sexual performance, but allowing children to reach their own conclusions about sexual perimeters. The premise of these courses was that “teenagers are going to be sexually active anyway,” so the main concern of the curriculum was to instruct in “safe sex.” Even a dummy way down on the dummy scale can deduce that plugging in classes on sexual performance and unplugging prayer and Bible reading is a bad formula for strengthening and elevating moral standards in young people. The tipping point of the moral decline of our nation can undeniably be dated from the time of these events, and I suspect they were a prime cause of the decline as well.
Millions of young post-World War II parents listened more to the radical leftist pediatrician, Dr. Benjamin Spock, and his anti-discipline, instant-gratification advice for the rearing of children than they did to inspired wisdom. The pampered children of those indulgent and permissive parents reached their late teens in the mid-1960s. Many of these were ripe for the radical anti-establishment agenda of such hard-core rascals as Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, and Bill Ayers with their slogans of “If it feels good, do it,” and “Kill your parents.” Such influences produced the maelstrom of radical anti-war riots on dozens of college campuses and in many cities. (Ayers, mentioned above, close associate of President Obama in Chicago, was a notorious leader in such revolutionary activities.)
The general aim of these feckless punks was the fomenting of sufficient societal chaos and violence to overthrow former standards of civil democratic order, especially moral standards. In this same time frame, Hugh Hefner introduced his “playboy philosophy” and magazine, paving the way for public tolerance, if not glorification of pornography and its frequent offspring, fornication. While these civil and moral upheavals were occurring, social, theological, and political liberals were preaching their “gospel” of tolerance and non-judgmentalism regarding increasing sexual promiscuity.
Predictably, the entertainment industry began to relax notably its former standards (such as they were) in the 1960s. Scenes, words, and themes that formerly were not permitted on the big screen gradually began to appear, most of them involving sexual liberties. Lyrics in rock and roll songs picked up the same theme. Though they would seem mild compared with subsequent ones, they were risqué and shocking at the time. AM radio in those days still was mostly disc jockeys playing records between hourly news breaks. In the 1960s and 1970s, I called radio stations several times and shamed them for playing songs with very suggestive lyrics.
Television was bound to follow Hollywood. With but few exceptions, its programming since the mid-1970s has been characterized by ever-increasing levels of indecency, much of which has been specifically aimed at sexual stimulation and titillation. The Internet has made pornography and even arranging rendezvous for fornicators available at the mere click of a computer mouse. The relaxing of heterosexual moral standards has given opportunity for sodomites and lesbians to make great headway in their campaign to earn general acceptance for their abominations.
Atheists, Humanists, and Secularists, believing that physical life is all there is, are all in favor of the “free-love” attitude and are reveling in its acceptance. The odious American Civil Liberties Union has been a major force in defending the grossest forms of moral turpitude and in seeking to repress Biblical influence on every hand. The sexual permissiveness these and other factors have produced threatens to drown our nation in a flood of moral filth. America has been Corinthianized.

 

Some Consequences of the Sexual Revolution

No one can fully predict all of the consequences this decline of decency will eventually yield. It has the potential to bring our nation literally into bondage. The observable results already are many and damaging.
Sex has been degraded, devalued, and dirtied. The Hebrews writer expressed the Divine will when he stated: “Let marriage be had in honor among all, and let the bed be undefiled” (Heb. 13:4a). This statement implies that to employ “the bed” (a literary figure for the sexual union) outside of marriage defiles it. Ungodly and undisciplined folk have dragged it out of the marital bedroom, the sphere of God’s honorable limitation for it.
They have reduced sex to the level of barnyard and alley cat behavior (with apologies to the animals in many ways). Rather than its being the God-ordained lovely and pure relationship between one woman and one man who become one flesh “as long as they both shall live,” to millions the sexual union has become merely another form of casual recreation with no more shame, mystery, or privacy attached to it than a game of “Trivial Pursuit” or “Monopoly.” It is something about which to make jokes and laugh.
The degradation of sex and the corresponding promotion of adultery and fornication by its illicit practice have dealt extensive damage to God-ordained marriage, home, and family. All of the foregoing elements of the sexual revolution have made it much easier (yea, given encouragement) for spouses to stray from their marital vows. “No-fault” divorce laws (that down-play the seriousness of adultery) began appearing in the early 1960s. These laws made it far more convenient for husbands and wives to go their separate ways when they found that “certain other” one they just must have. Divorce ceased to carry the shame that had been connected with it for so long. Non-marital and extra-marital sexual encounters have now become matters of little concern to the masses. It is common practice for a couple to “live together” openly, sometimes for years, and produce children before “going through the motions” of a marriage ceremony—if they even bother. They are even praised for being so “broadminded” and such is glorified by the entertainment industry. It is now all but impossible to get a divorce on the stated ground ofadultery, a symptom of society’s moral corruption.
Although unstated, fornication (including adultery) is the cause of thousands of divorces each year.
The widespread sin of fornication has caused sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) to reach alarming levels. According to one Website: “One in five people in the United States has an STD, two-thirds of which occur in people 25 years old or younger. One in four new STD infections occur in teenagers” (Livestrong). STDs are preventable diseases and are all but non-existent among those who remain chaste until marriage and those who are married and remain faithful to their wedding vows made to and with one spouse.
Can there be any doubt about the role the sexual revolution played in the shameful Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973 that made it “open season” on babies in the womb (and sometimes more out of the womb than in it)? Abortion is generally little more than a cruel and depraved means of birth control. It is the ultimate “safety net” for participants in “affairs” and “one night stands.” The abortion advocates and the industry they have spawned are all too happy to help such mothers-to-be to dispose of that which to them is but an unwanted, inconvenient “it.” Were it not for the prevalence of adultery and fornication, the abortion mills would go out of business overnight. Adultery and fornication have precipitated tens of millions of murders since 1973.

 

THE ULTIMATE CONSEQUENCE OF FORNICATION AND ADULTERY

I earlier quoted the first part of Hebrews 13:4, to which I now call attention again: “Let marriage be had in honor among all, and let the bed be undefiled.” Now let us notice the remainder of the verse: “For fornicators and adulterers God will judge.” This verse draws an unmistakable and indelible line between the Divinely ordained licit and the illicit fulfillment of the sexual appetite. It is licit and “undefiled” in marriages that God authorizes (Mat. 19:6). Such marriages are “honorable,” and the marriage bed pure within them. Just as clearly stated, fulfillment of the sexual instinct is illicit and “defiled,” constituting fornication and/or adultery, in all other circumstances—including state-sanctioned marriages that are not sanctioned by God. The word judge (Heb. 13:4) translates the Greek word, krinoThayer cites Hebrews 13:4 as one of many occurrences in which context indicates it is “…used specifically of the act of condemning and decreeing (or inflicting) penalty on one” (361). Those who continue in these sins will receive God’s just condemnation and penalty on the Last Day.
Truth be told, there are few acts of which men are capable that more frequently fall under Divine censure and prohibition. In both pre-Mosaical and Mosaical eras, doctrine concerning sexual unions outside the context of marriage or with one besides one’s spouse closely parallel that conveyed in the New Testament. The seventh commandment of Moses’ Law forbade adultery, and the tenth commandment forbade coveting the wife of one’s neighbor (Exo. 20:14, 17). Elsewhere, the Law forbade incest, homosexual acts, and bestiality with violators to be cut off from Israel (Lev. 18:6–23).
The Lord and the New Testament writers continue this theme of condemnation of both fornication and adultery. Besides the Lord’s aforementioned injunctions concerning overt sexual misconduct, He further expressed His attitude toward fornication in His letters to the churches, promising dire judgment upon them if they did not repent (Rev. 2:14, 20–21). Moreover, He struck at the true source of these sins—the lustful eye and heart (Mat. 5:28; 15:19; cf. Exo. 20:17)).
Paul refers to these sins more than any other New Testament writer. As earlier noted, Corinth was a hotbed of sexual perversion and liberty, and it found its way into the church. Paul ordered the Corinthian brethren to “have no company with” the fornicating brother in their midst lest the entire church be Corinthianized with his sin (1 Cor. 5:5–11). This action was also for the purpose of saving his spirit at the Last Day (v. 5). Paul listed ten sinful behaviors that will bar one from the heavenly kingdom, half of which are sexual sins, including fornication and adultery (6:9–10; cf. his even longer list in Gal. 5:19–21, which also closes with the declaration that practitioners of such “shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven”). Later in the same First Corinthians context he labeled fornication as a sin from which the Christian must flee (v. 18). He continued in chapter 7 by urging that each man and woman should have his or her own spouse in order to avoid fornication (v. 2). To the Ephesians he wrote plainly of God’s judgment upon fornicators:
For this ye know of a surety, that no fornicator, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no man deceive you with empty words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience (5:5–6).
Several additional passages with a similar emphasis flowed from his inspired pen (e.g., 1 Cor. 10:8; 2 Cor. 12:21; Col. 3:5; 1 The. 4:3).
A “great voice out of the throne” on high informed John that fornicators (among other reprobates) shall have their part “in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death” (Rev. 21:3–8). The “great voice” further told him that fornicators, along with assorted other impenitent sinners, would be shut outside the heavenly city (22:14–15).
Adulterers will suffer the same fate, for their sin is included in fornicators.
Unmistakably, the ultimate consequence of fornication and adultery, if unrepented of, is being cast into eternal Hell, the lake of fire, the second death, and being shut outside the splendor, glory, and joy of Heaven.

 

CONCLUSION

We live in an exceedingly wicked world, saturated with encouragement on every hand to fulfill one’s sexual desires in ways and in settings that a righteous God cannot tolerate indefinitely. The destructive influence these constant stimuli have had and continue to have on young people is a special source of concern to all who value moral purity.
What can we do about it? Paul and his first century companions in the Gospel faced a sex-saturated world, though admittedly without the instant accessibility modern technology (print, film, TV, Internet) affords today. However, the way they responded to these corrupting influences was to preach the Word “in season, out of season” by every means at their disposal (2 Tim. 4:2). The Gospel is still God’s power to save (Rom. 1:16). The more we preach (whether by newspaper articles, Websites, radio and television programs, correspondence courses, Internet schools [such as Truth Bible Institute]), the more potential impact we may have as a purifying influence in a putrid world.
Further, we can vote for candidates at every level who we know stand for moral decency, and we can challenge, by means of phone calls and letters, those who have been elected thus to stand. Many people still read letters to editors of local newspapers, in which we can voice the need for moral purity.
We need to continue to pray for our families that our children and grandchildren may remain pure, all the while doing our best to provide Biblical moral guidance and instruction for them. We need to pray for the church of the Lord, so many members of which have succumbed to the call of compromise relating to adultery and fornication. We need to pray that men and women in positions of authority may be awakened to the reality of the moral pigpen in which our nation now wallows, and may exert leadership in reversing it. We need to pray God that in His providence we may withstand the tsunami of sexual immorality and undo the grave damage it has done the past fifty years. If we are not able to do so, given the inspired history of God’s dealing with nations and their wickedness, I am made to wonder how much more longsuffering He has left for us.

 

WORKS CITED

Bauer, Walter, Ed. Arndt, William F., Gingrich, Wilbur F. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1957.
Dictionary.com. “Word Origin & History: Adultery.” http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/adultery.
Divorcereform.org. “Divorce Statistics.” http://www.divorcereform.org/03statab.html.
Gesenius, William, Ed. Brown, Francis, Driver, S.A., Briggs, Charles A. The New Brown, Driver, and Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament. Lafayette, IN: Assoc. Pub. and Authors: 1981.
Livestrong.com. “STD Information.” http://www.livestrong.com/article/13924-std-information/Kittel, Gerhard. Ed. Friedrich, Gerhard. Trans. Bromiley, Geoffrey W. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,1968.
Online Etymology Dictionary. “Fornication.” http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=fornication.
Studylight.org. “Zanah.” The Old Testament Hebrew Lexicon http://www.studylight.org/lex/heb/view.cgi?number=02181.
Thayer, Joseph Henry. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. New York, NY: American Book Co., 1889.
Unger, Merrill F. and White, William, Jr., eds. Nelson’s Expository Dictionary of the Old Testament. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Pub., 1980.
Vine, W.E. Ed. Unger, Merrill F and White, William, Jr. Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words. Nashville, TN: Nelson, 1996.
Wikipedia.org. “Alfred Kinsey.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Kinsey.

 

ENDNOTES

1         This family of words occurs forty-five times in the New Testament. The noun, porneia, rendered “fornication,” occurs twenty-six times (e.g., Mat. 5:31–32; 19:9; et al.). A handful of these occurrences are metaphorical, describing idolatry as “spiritual fornication” (Rev. 14:8; 17:2; et al.). The noun, pornos, variously rendered “fornicator” and “whoremonger,” occurs ten times, and is always used literally. The verb, porneuo, rendered “commit fornication,” occurs eight times (e.g., Mark 10:19; 1 Cor. 6:18; et al.). The verb, Ãªkporneuo, occurs one time (Jude 7). It is an intensified usage of porneuo, referring to one who becomes the servant or slave of fornication.
2         This word group is comprised of five forms that appear thirty-five times in the New TestamentThe noun, moicheia, rendered “adultery,” occurs four times (e.g., Mat. 15:19). Moichos, another noun form, appears four times,also, and is rendered “adulterer” (e.g., 1 Cor. 6:9; et al.). Moichalis, yet another noun, occurs seven times, and is variously translated “adulteress,” “adulterous,” and “adultery” (e.g., 2 Pet. 2:14; et al.). Jesus also used it metaphorically in reference to apostate Judaism (e.g., Mat. 12:39; 16:4; et al.). The verb, moichao, is rendered “commit(teth) adultery, and occurs six times (e.g., Mat. 5:32; 19:9; et al.). The most frequently appearing member of this word family is moicheuo, also translated “commit adultery,” occurring fourteen times (e.g., Mat. 19:18; Mark 10:19; et al.). One of these times it is used metaphorically (Rev. 2:22).
All Scripture quotations are from the ASV (1901) unless otherwise indicated.
[Note: I wrote this MS for and presented a digest of it orally at the Annual Bellview Lectures, hosted by the Bellview Church of Christ, Pensacola, FL, June 11–15, 2011. It was published in the book of the lectures, Moral Issues We Face, ed. Michael Hatcher (Pensacola, FL: Bellview Church of Christ).]

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(http://www.oldpaths.com)