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1 Corinthians 7:1,7 -Celibacy- Pastor Rick Beaudry 2024-05-05
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Would you please stand with me as we read God's holy word, together? Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife and let every woman have her own husband. Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence and likewise also the wife under the husband. The wife has not power over her own body but the husband and likewise also the husband has not power over his own body but the wife. Defraud ye not one another except it be with consent for a time that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. But I speak this by permission and not of commandment for I would that all men were even as I myself, but every man has his proper gift of God, one after this man, another after that. Father, thank you for your holy word and Lord as we get into your word this morning, we ask that you would be our teacher, that you'd open these scriptures to our understanding that we would live lives of purity, lives that glorify you, that reflect the beautiful relationship that we have with you, Lord. And we just ask that you would undergird and strengthen us. We need your help in these last days, Lord. Days much like the days where Paul's addressing the city of Corinth, and we pray that we wouldn't be in the extreme of living out a fornicating kind of a lifestyle as the Corinthians were, nor go to the other extreme of just total abstinence, but Lord, that we would discover and live out, the life that you've laid out for us in your word, whether we're called to be single or whether we're called to be married, Lord, that we'd live lives of purity. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Would you please be seated? In Hebrews chapter four verse 15, speaking of Jesus, the writer, I believe it's Paul says, we have not a high priest which cannot be, touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like we as we are, yet without sin. So Jesus successfully lived a life of celibacy. Lot of the heretics and crazy people and stuff try to say that he had sex and that was so and so of Mary Magdalene, that. It's all bogus. It's all lies. It's all to defame him. He is fully God, fully man. He had the appetites that we have for food and different drives and different things, and so, he was tempted in all points like we are and yet without sin. So he succeeded, to live a life of celibacy as did the apostle Paul and as did Jeremiah. Many feel that Jeremiah and Paul that, their celibacy was to be like a grace or a mercy toward any any woman that would even think to marry them. So Jeremiah was gonna live a life that was gonna be very difficult for forty years and, very, very difficult. And so, it was kind of a a mercy that he wasn't married, that a wife would have to go through that. And, the apostle Paul, many commentators feel according to acts chapter 26 verse 10 that he was once married as Saul of Tarsus, a member of the Sanhedrin, and he was given consent or a vote toward those that were being, stoned like Stephen was or any others that were being apprehended and all. So vote for what? A vote within the Sanhedrin. So he was an officer within the Sanhedrin, and, in that regard, you'd one of the qualifications that you have to be married. So when Saul of Tarsus came to Christ, his wife could continue to, you know, been married to him and all, just as Peter's wife and others that were married. But in effect, she decided, the family decided to have what they would call a funeral, a mock funeral, and they'd have nothing to do with Saul of Tarsus ever again. They'd just erase them from their memories. So he became the apostle Paul, and he dedicated his life, completely unto Jesus, and he lived a life of celibacy. Whereas men like Abraham, Moses, David, Peter, and many others enjoyed the sexual union of marriage. Celibacy is not for everyone. The Corinthian church was bouncing from one extreme of fornicating. It was a common term if you lived a very licentious lifestyle, you were said to have been living like a Corinthian. You know, you lived like those people in Las Vegas or wherever, you know, San Francisco. You're like those people in San Francisco. But in any event, it would be like a Corinthian. So Paul addressed it last week. We saw that, and he's trying to help them understand the importance of of purity and that of exercising of sex within marriage only. And now they're have they have a letter they've sent to him asking about what about celibacy, you know, what what if we were to choose to live lives of asceticism, you know, denying our flesh and just live this life like a like a priest or a nun or some of the ascetics. They would go up on poles and they'd stay up there for year after year after year trying to convey to people how spiritual they were denying the flesh and all, which is not true. So celibacy is not for everyone, and so it's we'll see here that, this abstinence, complete abstinence, can't be handled by everybody. God hasn't given each person that gift. So Paul seeks to educate. Number one, celibacy is good. It's not a bad thing to be celibate. It's not a bad today we would say, it's not a bad thing to be a single person. In the church, there's an enormous amount of pressure upon single people. And, single people, all of a sudden, you know, you're watching Fiddler on the Roof and everybody starts singing matchmaker, matchmaker, you know, and they start running around trying to find somebody suitable for, you know, for you to be married to, like your life is somehow incomplete if you're not married. But, that's not the case. Many many people are totally complete being single and they live lives of purity unto Jesus and, they don't care if people mock them about being a 40 year old virgin or whatever. It doesn't matter because they have the freedom, the liberty of following Jesus with everything they've got, and, and they don't pine away or or live lives of incompleteness or loneliness or or any of the things that, we assume or we impose upon them, they're very, very, centered and complete in who they are. Why? Because God's given them a gift. God's gifted them in that way. And so now concerning things whereof you wrote unto me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. So being single is good as long as you remain celibate. If you're single and you can't remain celibate, then you got a problem. You don't have the gift and, you just don't have it. So it's better to be married than to burn, to burn with passion, to burn in hell. Right? Because fornicators enter not the kingdom of God. So be careful about that. You should be able to gauge that and be able to understand that no, it's it's it's not gonna work. So the pornography, that's so prevalent in our our culture today was very prevalent in their time and all. And so whether it be, whatever it is, promiscuity, however you live it out, outside of marriage, it's a sin and gonna be condemned and gonna be judged and, it's already judged, it's already upon you. So knock it off. Repent, get back right with the Lord, look at the instructions within his word. He hasn't changed his mind about a thing. God doesn't change. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. You're not the exception to the rule. One time I met a young couple and his his girlfriend was a pastor's daughter and, a prominent pastor's daughter in California. And, he says to me that, they were dating, and all of a sudden, she got pregnant, and they never had sex. And I thought the immaculate conception, wow. I wonder how many young people messing around come home without one. Hey, we didn't have sex. She's just pregnant. Don't know how that happened, you know. And wow, you know. May and they were serious though. Really serious. I'm like, come on, man. You know. Alright. We'll start a religion around you. Okay. So no sex outside of marriage. The virgin is to be revered, not mocked. Virtue is to be praised and not ridiculed. The so called sexual revolution, that has become America's obsession to the point of even within the church. I was embarrassed, very embarrassed, maybe ten years ago when the churches began to hold seminars and, a guy in Seattle over there was just horrible, the things that he would do, with the young people who were inflamed with, you know, with immorality. And he he misconstrued that somehow they don't understand what they're doing, and that he took it upon himself to be a sexpert, and he was gonna teach everybody, and him and his wife wrote a book and put $250,000 to get it as New York Times bestseller, you know, up top and all that. So all different kinds of various sexual activities and stuff, and it made me sick to my stomach, made me want to throw up. But the hard part was to watch the young people sucked into it and all the little innuendos and all these things, and I thought, well, maybe it's just an isolated thing there. Cause sex does sell. If you wanna sell something, you just bring out, you know, images of women or men or whatever, and and people are attracted to that, and they think, I better drink that beer because look how beautiful that girl is. And if I drink that beer, then I'll get a girl that beautiful, you know, and I'll smoke that cigarette and get a guy like that, the Marlboro man, know, that's the kind of guy I want, you know. And and and so they use sexuality to try and sell things. Now, we we don't sell things in the church. We preach Christ and him crucified for the mission of sin. We don't need to put sex on the side to get people to come here. One guy put a big, tents up on top his church in Texas and did a sex seminar. Now what bothered me is when I saw the Calvary Chapel guys given into it, it greatly greatly bothered me because I thought that doesn't belong here. It doesn't belong. When we come to the scriptures that speak concerning sex, you know, we'll, we'll, you know, teach as best we can, but we shouldn't pride ourselves or parade ourselves as being these sexperts and coming up with all these different little nuances of sexual activity that the bible doesn't address. And, you know, as I said last week, you know, golly, just even the animals don't do the thing that men and women are doing today, you know. Even the animals have greater sense than what people are parading around as sexual union. It's it's a shame. It's just an absolute shame to be a human being today and to then for it to invade church and the church act like, hey, can get more people here. And, you know, it's just they make fun of their grandparents' church, and all these young people thought it was rock star stuff, and and very few of them, you know, are willing to get married and actually, you know, be a man or be a woman, you know, live a life of marriage and what it means to be married. But on the outside, playing around with pornography and all of the sorts of toys and, you know, oh, you don't you don't even need to go into it. It's just it's a shame to even be mentioned. And it it was it was taking the church by storm, and it just greatly greatly greatly grieved me. And, I couldn't believe how stupid people are to think that's Christianity and, has no place. So sex sells, we understand that. So to be a sexpert, to provide sex seminars for the seekers, I didn't need no sex seminar when I became came to Christ. I didn't need anybody to take me in a back room and explain it to me. You know? I didn't I didn't need a pre class before I got married either. I didn't need it. You know? It's one of the most basic things that come to you, you know? Unbelievable. So but these guys gotta these guys think these kids are, you know, warped. They don't understand, you know, how it works and stuff. And so, oh, you might hurt your wife and so I need to teach you how how to do this abomination to your wife and we'll Christianize it. No. It's an abomination. It it goes against the design. So fornication, adultery, sexual perversion is decimating the church today and our young people are sexually active as those in the world. And we're losing the battle for what? For purity. The salt has lost its savor. It's good for nothing but to be trodden in the foot of men. Most of the churches today, the divorce rate, the adultery rate, the fornication rate is just as high or even higher than that of the world. Just as many pastors and men, women, I always leave out the women, but people educate me and say, no, women are really involved in this too. But women heavily involved in pornography and such. And that that struck me as strange, but, apparently times have changed a lot and apparently I'm very naive. I need to I need to take a sex seminar. Anybody know where I can get to one, you know? I just don't get it. I don't get it, man. It is good for a man not to touch a woman. So celibacy is good, but is it better than marriage? No. It's not better than marriage. Many priests, many nuns, they fall from trying to force themselves into a box that they weren't designed for, that of celibacy. It may be good, but it's not for everyone. In Genesis two eighteen, God said, it is not good that man should be alone. I'll make him a help meet for him. And so in chapter two there, the Lord began from the dust of the ground to bring forth all the different, animals and Adam began to name them. And God had brought forth Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils, breathed life into him. And so he's gonna be the first federal head. He's gonna be in charge, as a as this federal head upon the planet. And he's and God's saying it's not good for him to be alone. None of the animals were a suitable helpmate for him. So God caused Adam to go to sleep, and then he took a rib out from him, then he closed up the incision. And from the rib, he brought forth Eve, and, and so we have the woman. And the two come together as one, and that's what we have as marriage. Two coming together as one, that union of the oneness, body, soul, spirit. And that's God's design for the emphasis upon procreation, but also a spiritual significance of being this oneness that we don't share that oneness as we talked about last week. I got a piece of her, a piece of him. You you're one sold with each other and, you come together as virgins, until death do us part and God's gonna want you to be fruitful, to multiply, to multiply the planet, Adam and Eve, and, they're allowed to live for a pretty long period of time and and, and a lot of offspring and and children. And and the gene pool was incredibly pure at the time because they hadn't they hadn't, sinned as much or it hadn't it hadn't degraded to the degree it is now. And so in the very beginning, some would say the gene pool was a little bit pure at that time, and and so Adam and Eve sinned pretty quickly, but their kids learn how to sin. We all it comes to us. We all know how to sin. Cain slew Abel, and so we see sin very quickly within the garden. So celibacy is good, but celibacy is a gamble. You wanna gamble with celibacy in your marriage? You wanna withhold sex from your spouse because you're angry at him or her? You're gambling. You're going to destroy your marriage. There's men, there's women that I've heard of that withhold sex from their partner for ten years in vengeance for having heard that he cheated on her. And they continued to be married. What future does that marriage have? Could that guy thereafter continue to be celibate or would he be cheating on her, continuing to cheat on her, just doing a better job of it so she doesn't know about it? Getting sneakier. It's a gamble. He says, nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. So there's gonna be temptation out there. You're gonna be tempted. You're gonna have drives. You're gonna have appetites. You're gonna have a desire for intimacy. And God gave you that desire, God placed that there. But it's to be in the context of that fireplace. Right? You don't want it to spread out, so that fireplace being that of marriage. And so when you're at school, when you're at work, when you're in the community, when you're at church, wherever you go, there's gonna be men and women. And and you, if you are in a good marriage, that temptation to look abroad or look around or the grass greener on the other side, That's what, my, wife's father, told me. He was married for twenty five years, and then he divorced, Kathy's dad Kathy's mom. And basically, he said that he thought the grass was greener on the other side. So he began to date women, that were younger than his daughters at the time and going through a bunch of them and stuff like that. And and typically, you know, they do a lot of foolish things to these guys. They call it a midlife crisis, if if you will, whatever. King David went through it when he's about 50. And so, in any event, he told me, and the grass wasn't greener on the other side, But once you do something like that, what are you gonna do? And then his his new wife, he finally married one, she says, oh, that's not true, you know. And but in any event, we we, we've seen it happen. My mom married many times and, and so marriage is ordained of God and it is the norm for most of us. Socrates is quoted as saying, by all means, Mary, if you get a good wife, you will become very happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. Celibacy is tempting. Fornication is dangerous. Long engagements can be disastrous. And so you you've gotta you've gotta gauge these things. You gotta understand. That's why they had a lot of arranged marriages with the boy and the girl, the young man, young woman at a very early age, very young age. So we tend to think today that money is more important than anything. So let's let's get our college education first. Well, what happens in college? You came out of the youth group and maybe you were a virgin coming out of the youth group. That would be amazing if that even happened, if that can happen. Because youth groups are very, very sexually active, in case you didn't know that. If you're gonna put your kids and drop them off at a youth group and think that they're safe, you're mistaken. You better be all over it. You better be sure of what's happening. And you can't force, you can teach, you can model, you can protect, you can't force if they don't know how to say the word no, your kids, our kids, our grandkids, then, we can't watch them twenty four seven. We're in trouble. But we in the church should do everything we can to provide a safe environment that's has great visibility and supervision that does not allow, does not lower the standard to allow it to be commonplace for young people to hook up or are, they say the hardest ministry in the church today and has been for quite a while are the singles groups. The singles groups are nothing more than singles showing up to try and hook up. And, and so who's ever running that singles ministry better, remove those that are there for ulterior motives, get rid of them. They should be coming to the singles group to grow spiritually. And, and if that's the objective and it's a safe environment, that's how I would I would teach my, kids or anybody, how do you know if this person's the wrong person? They make a pass at you. If they make a pass at you on a so called Christian day, that's not the one God has for you. They're just trying to prey upon you, p r e y. So you run, you flee fornication, and you wait till God brings you somebody that's Christ like, that wants to put the spiritual things first. But we make the mistake of putting emphasis upon money and careers. By the time you're finished with college, how active have you been sexually as a Christian young man or woman? And then after that, now comes to time of marriage, still got that career there, and many are opting to not marry anymore. People don't wanna get married. It's bizarre. And then later on, they realized the flower of life is passing them, then they rush, you know, later in life to have hormonal shots and stuff to try and so they can get married, so they can have kids. Strange times we're living in. And, so Isaac, when, Abraham and Sarah, when she died in chapter 23, Abraham, she was about a 127 years old, and Abraham being a 100 and, ten ten years older than that, so a 137. And, her womb had been barren for a long time, for close to twenty five years, And then the Lord opened her womb and she's able to have a son, Isaac. Their tent was filled with laughter. And, Ishmael wasn't gonna work out from the standpoint of being the seed of promise. But, Isaac, when his mother died, Abraham bought a piece of real estate in the area of Hebron, the Cave Of Mephilah to bury his his beloved, Sarah in. And then what Abraham did is he sent his servant, Eliezer, to, go find a suitable bride for Isaac. So in chapter 22, we saw that Abraham was a type of God the father, where God told Abraham, take thy son, thy only son upon Mount Moriah to a mount that I'll show you and offer him as a burnt offering there. And, Abraham immediately in obedience began to put that together and, came to the base and and his son Isaac being a type of Christ says, father, we have the wood, father, we have the knife, we've got the fire, but where's the lamb? And and, Abraham said, God will provide himself a lamb for the sacrifice. Jesus said, Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad. Paul said that the gospel was before preached unto Abraham. So Abraham saw in the types that, Isaac as a type of Christ, and he lift the knife up, and when the knife was lifted up showing complete obedience, because it starts out saying chapter 22, God tested Abraham. Is God testing you? Is God testing you and asking you, will you be pure for me? Will you say no for me? Will you say yes for me? God often puts us in situations where we're being tested, and you wanna hold out for God's best. You don't wanna settle for any man or any woman or anything in the test that you're going through, you want God's best. You want confirmation. You wanna know that you know that you know that you are in fact in God's will. That doesn't mean your life's gonna turn out great all the time, but it means that you're gonna be in God's will. And God's will for you in marriage, you might find out later after the honeymoon, is a life of suffering. That doesn't sell, does it? Doesn't sell. Because he or she is supposed to make all my dreams come true, And then we face the reality of the difficulty of life, sicknesses, and prodigal kids, and just the tremendous pressures against marriage and such, and we find out, you know, it's a it's a walk of faith. It's not about us, it's about Jesus. It's about serving him. And so Abraham lifted the knife and then, angel from heaven told him, stop Abraham. And that there was a ram caught in the thicket. Excuse me. The devil's trying to choke me. I'm being tested. Alright, devil. I don't talk to the devil. So Abraham and Isaac came back from that endeavor, and Abraham passed the test. And then chapter 23, beloved Sarah died. Chapter 24 starts out where Where Abraham sent his son or his, servant Elijah, a type of the holy spirit. So Abraham, a type of the father, God the father. Isaac, a type of God the son. Elijah, a type of the holy spirit. Sends him not not wanting a woman from Canaanite of the Canaanites for Isaac. Isaac remained. And so Isaac being a type of Christ, now they're gonna go look for what? They're gonna look for the bride of Christ. So they venture away and they come to a well, and when they get to the well, there's a young lady there and Eliezer is praying saying, Lord, show me if this is the one, you know, that she'll, you know, get me some water. Well, she not only got him water, but went and watered all the camels, and Eliezer's got camels and men and gifts and gold and all sorts of things with him. And then, he said, well, per adventure, you know, it'd be okay if I stayed at your house tonight. And and while we've got fodder, we've got hay and all that and everything, a place for your animals and all, certainly you can come and what's your family? And she begins to explain that she's a, daughter of Bethuel, the son of Nahor. Well, Eliezer's like, score. This is it. Nahor is the brother of Abraham. And so he's just so excited, he begins to worship the Lord and all. So they get home there and finds out that Laban's there also. We'll learn more about Laban later another time, was a was a brother of of Rebecca. And so Rebecca, she like you and I as Christians, she doesn't even see the groom, but she believes in the groom. And she says that she's willing to leave with Eliezer to be joined together with with Isaac. And so Isaac sees them coming from afar, and he's looking out and he runs to the field and he sees her and her beauty is so great he begins to weep. And he doesn't say, hey, let's get married in two years or three years or four years or five years. He immediately takes her into his mother's tent and they join together, the two coming together as one in marriage. And so there's guys like Isaac aren't gonna waste any time. Hey, let's go to Vegas and get married, you know. I can't I can't wait for that formal wedding, you know, or let's go to the courthouse, whatever. But, there's others who wanna get married really quick and Kathy says, wow, Rick, we we let's let's how about nine months? How about next August? And I'm like, next August? Man, you know? Am I gonna make it that long? You know? So but you gotta you gotta you gotta be pure. You gotta do it in God's timing. Right? And everybody's watching you. Kathy and I, when we were in that engagement period, her, sister had a house in Balboa, and they wanted us to watch it. And so they let us stay there, and then they tricked us. They snuck in at night to see if we were sleeping together. But we were in different rooms of in the house. It's a big house. So, it confirmed how serious we were that we wanted to do it God's way. And, so that kind of stuff will happen, but it'll be a witness to others. They're watching. They're watching you during your engagement period of how serious are you with Jesus. That's what they wanna find out. They wanna know who your Jesus is. And if you love Jesus more than you love your spouse, you can be abstinent for a period of time. You can do it. You can make it. And I'm not saying you should set the engagement, you know, five years from now, but but but a reasonable amount of time. And then after that, even when you get old, if my wife dies and I'm, you know, I'm 137 years old, my name's Abraham, father of many, Should I remain single like the apostle Paul? Should I remain single like Jesus, you know, or or should I remarry? And so Abraham remarries, and he remarry a woman named Keturah. And so Abraham's like, hey, I don't like being alone. I'm an old guy. I'm prolific. I can still have kids. And boom, they shot out a bunch of kids, you know, a bunch of nations came forth of him. He's the father of many nations. So he took a wife, from Keturah, and, and then you have the account of in Genesis twenty nine twenty where Jacob had to run from Esau and Rebecca and Jacob lied to Isaac and, tried to steal the birthright and all the elders shall serve the younger. And and so you remember the story, they had to flee. So where did Jacob flee to? He fled to the house of Laban. And when he gets to the house of Laban, a very similar story, Rachel's watering the the sheep and Jacob sees her, and he just he starts weeping with her beauty and all. Her beauty just captivate him and all. And then he offered himself as a dowry. I'll work for seven years, for her hand in marriage, so that's a long time to wait. That's a big contrast there. But his love was so great, it says in in, says that he waited and it seemed like but a few days for the love that he had to her. But Jacob being a heel catcher, being a conniver, stealing the birthright from his brother Esau and all, he he wound up, meeting his match in the in the name of Laban, his father-in-law. And so Laban gave the switcheroo on the night of the wedding, and, he wound up sleeping with Leah, and her name, sore eyes, it hurt to look at her. And, so he got her first because the elder one in their custom gets married first, and then, he agreed to work another seven years for the hand of of Leah. So he got them both, and, then another six years, twenty twenty years for the cattle and all the other stuff. And so, Jacob, he had to work it out, didn't he? So for some waiting is no gamble. It's always worth the wait. It's always worth the wait when it's the right person. So marriage is where sexual intimacy is designed. God, designed it this way. Marriage is for procreation. Marriage is for pleasure. Marriage is partnership. Hopefully, your marital partner is your best friend. I know Kathy and I are best friends. She always tells me, Rick, I know you better than you know yourself. And and it's also a picture of the church is for purity. And so, your marriage is to be a place where an evangelical way where people are drawn to Jesus, where they're drawn intimacy, they're drawn to the oneness and the and the fellowship and the love that they see within your marriage. Marriage protects from sexual immorality by meeting the physical and emotional needs of intimacy. Notice marriage is monogamous, not polygamous. Marriage is heterosexual, not homosexual. So God allowed for, like Abraham and others, to have, more wives or like Jacob and all for a period of time, but it wasn't by design. It's not the best. It's not you're you're asking for a lot of problems as you saw within those families. So celibacy is good. Celibacy is a gamble. Celibacy is to be governed. Verse three. Let the husband render under the wife due benevolence and likewise also the wife under the husband. So celibacy is wrong for married couples. Except a mutual agreement and, if you have an agreement for a period of time. So we're mutually obligated. The emphasis is is upon giving, not that of getting, that of being sacrificial. So a desire to please your spouse. So all of the excuses, all of the no's, all of the headaches, all of the whatever, out the window. Gone. No excuse. You guys never heard that kind of stuff before, I know. I did go to some of those sex seminars. I heard them talk about this. The wife has not power over her own body, but the husband and likewise also the husband has not power over his own body, the wife. Power speaks of authority. Now it speaks of mutual submission that of giving. I don't believe any way shape or form of ever forcing anything. We don't force. We wait. We don't force. Defrauding not one the other except to be with consent for a time that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer and come together again. That Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. So the Greek tense is here, stop defrauding. Stop it. Stop defrauding your spouse. They went to the opposite extreme of asceticism or, you know, the celibacy. There's one exception. One exception that he lists. Fasting and prayer. Absence by mutual consent, then resume normal sexual activity within the marriage. What's normal? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Well, how long can you fast? How long can you go without food? Hey, I'm gonna fast. I I don't want any sex. I wanna be able to fast and pray. So, no sex till I'm done fasting and praying. How long do you fast for? Yeah. I know. Barely go a day. Barely go a day without food. Barely. I hear it all the time. Well, what's that mean then? You guys figure it out. He says that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. So what's that mean? You tell your spouse no, and you keep telling your spouse no. Your spouse is being tempted at work, being tempted at church, being tempted everywhere they go, tempted in their mind. In their mind, it's building up. And they keep asking and they keep getting turned down on. And, so what are they supposed to do? In a good relationship, the sexual union would be an insurance policy. It's an insurance policy to bring each person into that place of of completeness and satisfaction and enjoyment the way God designed it. And Christians don't wanna go outside that realm. They they want God's blessing on their marriage and their sexual union. But when this when one of the spouses decides, I'm gonna I'm gonna deny, I'm not into it anymore, whatever, and you don't have any communication anymore, you're kinda just living together, but no act, no intimacy. Then what happens is the computer, the phone, the pornography gets delved into. Pretty soon, there's, hookup things on the computer and on the phone and and different dating sites and different things that wind up happening. There's people at work, at the at Banger, at Keyport, at all the places you guys work. You see people hooking up all the time. People meeting at the gym, meeting wherever they go, they're meeting. And they don't care if you have a wedding ring on. Kathy taught me that. But, Kathy, I got a wedding ring on. Rick, they don't care about that. They just wanna hook up. Strange, isn't it? The world we live in. How you gonna resist? How you gonna say no? Pastor Chuck was getting on an elevator in Hawaii one time and a beautiful working woman came into the elevator and offered her services on the him and and he said, no, my wife takes real good care of me. You know? If you've got a wife that takes real good care of you, why would you give in to anything? You know? I mean, why? But if you're in a situation in a bad marriage due to a sexless marriage, now you're putting yourself out there and and I know that, hey, the honeymoon was great. First few years are great, and then things get off, you know, get off course. But there's some other considerations too, that is, as I said, you never force somebody. As we get older, there's health issues. You're not as surprised you once were. And there's there's just not as much energy. There's not as much ability and gotta pace yourself a little bit, I guess. And so we need to be sensitive to each other in the seasons of life we're in and the sicknesses we go through. And again, you don't force. And so a lot of times, our love is demonstrated in denying ourselves. We deny ourselves and we say, okay. Alright. Proverbs five fifteen says, drink waters out of your own cistern and running waters out of thy known well. Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad and rivers of waters in the streets. Let them be only thine, only thine known and not a strangers with thee. Let thy fountain be blessed and rejoice with the wife of your youth. Let her be as the loving hind in a pleasant row. Let her breasts satisfy thee all the times and be thou ravished always with her love. Proverbs five fifteen through 19. Now who wrote that Solomon? Solomon sees himself as a sexpert. He's got 700 wives, 300 concubines. Now how many of you guys can please your spouse? She's totally satisfied. How did this guy get 700 wives, 300 concubines where they're pleased with him? How did he even have a schedule that would allow him to see him, you know, at least once a year? I mean, this guy is a busy man. He thinks he's a ladies' man, 700 wives, 300 concubines. And are they satisfied? No. So they're fighting over each other. Who gets sully tonight? Who gets sully tonight? And everybody's just freaking out, you know. So it's not God's design. It's called polygamy. There's no peace in their home. No peace at all in those homes. The two becoming one. And so better chance of doing it God's way. At least you got a chance, guys. And but golly, I mean, we're talking. I think of Jacob with Rachel and Leah always fighting over him to try and get pregnant. And then, here, go into my handmaiden. Go into my handmaiden, you know. So now they got their servant girls going into her her husband going into them to bring forth these 12 tribes and such, know. So that guy's a busy guy. Everybody fighting over him. Celibacy is good, but celibacy is a gamble. Celibacy is governed. Fourthly, celibacy is a gift. Verse six. But I speak this by permission not of commandment. For I with it all men were even as I myself, but every man has his proper gift of God. One after this manner, another after that. It's funny when I ask you guys which of you satisfies your wife, nobody raised their hands. What's with you guys? You know? Isn't there a man among us? No. Just kidding. Eat chickens, man. Somebody reminded me the other day that I came in here a couple sermons ago and I said, how many of you are fornicators? You know, I opened the service that way and there no no hands went up, you know. Well, how many of you are liars then? No. Just kidding. So marriage is not required of everyone, but celibacy is a gift and not everyone has the gift. I definitely don't have the gift of celibacy. Not not and I'm not ashamed of that. I mean, there's a lot of guys just like me. And, so Paul lived a celibate lifestyle. He went from being married to becoming celibate, having been previously married based on what we believe was taking place acts 26 verse 10. So Paul now enjoyed the pleasure of serving Jesus without the responsibility of marriage. Knowing it was a gift that could not be forced on anyone. So Paul is free. He has no more ball and chain holding them back. He's free to serve the Lord. He's free to go for it. He's free to stay out as late as he wants, long as he wants, where he wants, eat what he wants, sleep what he wants. You know, he can he can take it the hard road. Kathy told me, Rick, if I'd have known that you were gonna become a pastor, I'd have never married you. It wasn't the life that she wanted, you know. And we have a much better than the apostle Paul did at the time he was traipsing around. But there are enormous, enormous sacrifices to go into the ministry, go out and plant a church. Jonathan Livingston in tackling Africa, he saw that his wife, her physical ability was such that she was getting very sickly as they were in Africa. So he sent her home to to England and the gossip in the church began to go around and he saw that, their reputations are, being destroyed. And so like, hey, they got a bad marriage. He sent her home, things like that. So he had to bring her back and when he brought her back, she got sick and died. So, that's that's what they mean is that it's not the malaria, mosquitoes, all the kind of stuff that can happen. Most most pastors of churches are pastoring churches under a 100 people, so it's a lifetime of poverty. Very few couples can can weather that for, you know, a lifetime. And so it's not always the the glamour shot that you see. And if a guy goes out there and he wants to be a missionary as a single person, then he's only has himself to to care for and to be responsible for. Now when you get in the mission field, don't mess around with the honeys that are there, the women that are there, you guys or women. That's happening like crazy too. People going on mission trips and you find out they're cheating on each other. I mean, it's everywhere. It's so prevalent. It's unbelievable. The divorces among Calvary Chapel pastors, the years that I've been in, they're just off the hook, off the charts. The amount of guys that have cheated on their wives, wives cheating on their husbands, and divorcing, destroying the ministry, and then the guys kinda bounce back. Almost all the guys bounce back in ministry again. It's very astonishing to me. I don't wanna ever go through that kind of pain that would be hurting the heart of the Lord or hurting the heart of Kathy or my kids, my grandkids, or the church congregation, that's a hard way to go. You bring a lot of pain upon those around you that you love. For what? For what? The grass isn't greener on the other side. In Matthew 19, Jesus was teaching on marriage and divorce and that of celibacy. And what happened was the religious leaders came to Jesus and they said, hey, is it okay if we divorce a woman for any cause or whatever? And there were two schools of thought. There was Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Shema, I think. And one of them was more conservative, the other one was like, hey, you can divorce your wife if she burns your toast, you know. When you marry this woman, this woman belongs to you and if she doesn't do absolutely what she's supposed to do and what you tell her to do, she needs to live with a sense of you can divorce her at any time. And that's why a smart father before he would give his daughter to a man to be married gets pre ahead of time. You get a dowry a dowry and that dowry is to take care of your daughter in the event her husband kicks her out. Because the men had all the rights, the women had no rights. So when they come to Jesus with this with this question, Jesus tightens it up and he says, you know, God's intention that there'd be no divorce. That's his intention. His intention is that two would come together and become one, male and female. In the beginning, God made them male and female. Okay? Real simple. Genesis one twenty seven. Didn't made them trans trans anything. Male, female. Alright? And and so the male and the female, the two come together and be one. And he says, but Moses, the hardness of your heart, provide a writing of divorcement because of one reason, that of fornication. Now, they didn't like that. His own disciples didn't like that. They thought, hey, it'd be better not even to be married than to be have such a tight, you know, legal relationship that the only way I can get rid of her is fornication, you know. And, so they're thinking that's that's too tight. That's too binding. But what Jesus said, it was because of the hardness of your heart. So we today, when people say, hey, well, I'm gonna get a divorce. And typically, lot of times when they say that they've already got their new spouse that they're already seeing. Right? They're already cheating. But they found out that their spouse was cheating or the person they're gonna marry. And so now it's justification for for the divorce. No. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Jesus says because of the hardness of your heart. What's that mean? If I don't divorce her or she's saying if I don't divorce him, I'm gonna kill him. I'll murder him. So divorce is better than murder because of the hardness of your heart. Right? She'll find a way to put some poison in his food. She's gonna go away from that tyrant. She's gonna get away from that guy. Right? So to release you from that bond, he'll he'll allow the the divorce. But in our case, it's unrepentant fornication. Because for us, if our spouse commits an immoral sexual act, we bring that before the Lord. We talk about it, we pray about it, we ask God what to do. If you can't trust your spouse that they're gonna continue to live that way, you're gonna have to divorce him or her. But if you come together and they have a godly sorrow that leads to repentance, then we realize we were tricked by the devil. Remember when we talked about the devil? Lest the devil, you know, get you, the wiles and the the strategies of the wicked one, and then you sit down, you reassess what's happened, you see the ramifications, your children crying, everything's a mess at your home, and now you come back to the altar, you come back to square one, you say, you know, we've been drifting, we haven't been going to church, we haven't been reading our bible, we haven't taken Jesus serious for years, and, you know, honey, would you please forgive me? Would you give me another chance? That's the heart of God. God hates divorce. And so a husband that can humble himself that way, a wife that can humble herself that way, and then reestablish the trust necessary, and and so did the life of the spirit. So the life of the spirit and strengthen that marriage from within internally with the life of the spirit. They can rebound from sexual immorality and not have to go through, you know, it isn't like you have to divorce once you find out they're, you know, fornicating. So that's the one side of it. Now, what he's saying here is Jesus is saying, the disciples said, it's better not even to marry. They're thinking, you know, why even get married if the only way to get out of that marriage is is fornication? Better to be celibate. Jesus says in verse 11 of Matthew 19, it's it's but he said to them, all men cannot receive that saying save to whom it is given, to those gifted. Those gifted with the gift of celibacy the only ones gonna be able to pull that off. He says, verse 12, for there are some eunuchs which were so born from their mother's womb, so they have the gift. They're born that way. They have no desire for women. They are perfectly content single and, they love being single. They don't wanna get married. There's nothing weird about them. They have a better opportunity to serve the Lord. And there are some eunuchs which were made eunuchs of men. So if you're a king and you've got a harem of women around you like we saw in in in Jeremiah chapter 52 last week, Cheryl was asking, why the why the eunuchs? What's the point of the eunuchs? Well, if you've got a guy that's your bodyguard and he's your pool boy and he's doing all these things around your wife, your harem of women, they would take and neuter them. They'd fix them. So he couldn't be a threat to the harem. So some men are made eunuchs by men. Right? Oh, that's gotta hurt, know? And and there'd be eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. So you have those that like the apostle Paul that says, you know what, I'm I'm I'm gonna dedicate myself 100% to serving the Lord with the rest of my life. And I I enjoyed marriage previously, but now I wanna go for it serving the Lord. So some are some choose that way. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it. So it's not for anyone, it's only for those who are gifted in that way. So trying to be celibate without the gift brings moral and spiritual frustration. You ever felt frustrated in a marriage? Sexually frustrated because you don't have the gift of celibacy, that's why you're in a marriage? That's what he's saying. Don't don't withhold and cause the spouse to become frustrated because, if they don't have the gift, they might sin thereafter. So those gifted live in perfect contentment. Celibacy is good. It's a gamble. It's governed, and it's a gift. What is the goal? What is God's will for your life? Is God's will for your life celibacy? Does God want you to live together with this person you're in love with? Did God give you the green light, hey, we'll just live together? Do you see anywhere in the scriptures that the scripture teaches you that it's okay for two unmarried people to live together and engage in a sexual union? In the Christianize, we're gonna Christianize living together. Are you gonna live alone and play the field? See how many men, see how many women you can sleep with in in your twenties? You're gonna be a playboy, a playgirl? We're gonna grow up and get married. Marriage. Why marriage? Marriage is bondage, man. Marriage marriage is freedom, man. It's freedom. I'm free. I get to do it God's way. In first Thessalonians four verse three, for this is the will of God. You wanna know God's will? Been thinking about God's will? Oh, you know, but we're in love. We're in love. It's gotta be God's will because we're in love. And we can play around in the car. We can play house and and, and we can tell people, I don't know how she got pregnant. Another immaculate conception. I don't know how that works. He says this the will of God even your sanctification. Sanctification means being set apart under the Lord away from the world that you should abstain from fornication. There's God's will. He wants you to abstain from fornication. That every one of you should know, speaks of learning, how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor. So God's will is purity. That you possess your vessel and sanctification and honor before the world and as under the Lord. So where are you? Do you know how to possess your vessel? And no, I'm not gonna do a sex seminar. I'm not a sex expert. You get it already. You know already the holy spirit is teaching you already. Appetites, urges, desires, influences. Well pastor, I don't know how to overcome the urges, the appetite, appetites, the desires, the influence. I'm a single person. I don't have the gift of celibacy. I wanna get married. I can't find the person. What do I do? What do I do in the interim? I've been married, now I'm divorced. I'm lonely. What do I do? He says in Ephesians five eighteen, be not drunk with wine wherein is excess. You thought I'd tell you to drink more wine. No. He says, not drunk with wine wherein is excess. Don't come under the influence of the wine. In contrast, but be being filled with the holy spirit. We need the help of the holy spirit. We need the holy spirit to help us in our marriages. We need the holy spirit to help us to be single, to be celibate, to abstain, to engage, to have kids. We need the holy spirit's help. We need spirit filled singles. Spirit filled singles can do it. They can reach that place where God brings that person into their life and they have a beautiful wonderful wedding ceremony that everybody can see that glorifies and depicts who the Lord is. We can do it right. We can do it right. It's a matter of choice, isn't it? But we need the holy spirit's help because the flesh is strong and all the stimulation and all the things that are taking place seek to inflame our loss, seek to inflame us. We need the holy spirit's help. We need to be being filled with the holy spirit. Spirit filled spouses know how to possess their vessel and sanctification and honor. There's a lot of sexual immorality within marriage with pornography and cheating on one another, committing fornication even though they're married. So spirit filled spouses know how to possess their vessel and sanctification and honor. Exercising self control. Spouse sustained within the marriage, seeking to please God and their spouse. So it's not all give me, give me, give me. It's I wanna serve. I wanna give. I wanna love. And maybe when she says I'm tired or I got a headache or I'm sick or he says, oh, man, I worked all day. I'm too tired. I'm the way that you express love is you say, okay, honey. You don't demand your right. You say, okay. Alright. We don't force. We just don't force. So whether you therefore eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God. You can eat, you can drink, you can abstain, you can indulge, but whatever you're gonna do, do it all with the intention of glorifying the Lord. Do it all to the glory of God. For the celibate, it's what they don't do. They're abstaining from fornication. Their devotion to God and purity glorifies God. Whatsoever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Don't live like the world. Don't be conformed to the mores of the world, the styles of the world, the things of the world. You're better than that. We're better than that. And we're to be a spotless, unblemished bride when Jesus comes. And marriage is the safest place, for me to be. I'm safe in my marriage. God protects me from my stupidity. And within marriage, with the help of the Holy Spirit, with all our human frailty, I really believe it's our the best life that we can have now. Amen. The future? Kathy says she's not marrying me in the millennium, so I guess it's I guess it's I don't know. We're gonna be like the angels. They neither marry nor given in marriage, but I sure love her. And and there's constant constant constant adjustments in marriage. And that we can only have a good marriage with the help of the Holy Spirit. And the help of the Holy Spirit, we don't demand our rights. We surrender to God's will within the marriage. And he gives us the strength. Father, thank you. How humbling it is, Lord, to be a human being. How humbling it is to be a husband, a father. Lord, when we first tackled it, we thought, man, I got this. Get out of the way. Watch me. But lord, it it is so incredibly difficult, way beyond us, lord. You even go to the point of putting opposites together sometimes, lord, most times. And all of us are learning to die to self, to take our cross up daily and to follow Jesus. To not yield, to not give in to the demands of the flesh, to crucify the flesh, to mortify the deeds of the flesh, to flee fornication, to learn to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, and every imagination and high thing that exalts itself against you and bring it all into the captivity of the obedience of Christ. It's only your will that matters, Lord. What would you have me do? What would you have us do? Lord, thank you for the gifting that you give us, that you gift our marriages, you gift our singleness. Make us gifted parents, gifted grandparents. Bless, pour out blessings upon our our marriages, Lord, our sexual union. Pour out blessings upon our intimacy with you, Lord, and the reading of the word and prayer, and come to a greater knowledge of who you are, the two coming together as one spiritually. Help us to continue to grow no matter how much we've grown in the past, but to continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of you. I thank you, Lord, for Cathy. I thank you that you ordained before the foundation of the earth, that she's the one for me. And I pray for each person here, that they have that same sense of completeness, that same sense of being in your will. And for those who are praying and looking for spouses, Lord, I pray that you'd bring the appropriate spouse for each in your time and in your way. For those who are single and enjoying being single, Lord, bless them mightily. Pour out your holy spirit upon them. Continue to bless them, Lord. Cause their lives to epitomize purity. So bless, we pray in Jesus name. Anybody here this morning, you don't know Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior, you don't know him. Jesus wants you to know him. God the father wants you to know his son. God who had sundry times and in diverse manners in the past, spoke to the fathers through the prophets has in these last days spoken to us through his son. God is speaking to you. The Holy Spirit speaking to you, showing you Jesus. You're that bride. You're that Rebecca that's out there and the Eliezer's come and said, hey, come see my master. Come see Jesus. He wants to marry you, but I don't know him. Well, come by faith. Be willing to go. Be willing to leave everything you have right now to see Jesus, to be with Jesus, to have Jesus come into your heart and life. Jesus knocking on the door of your heart. Jesus wants you to be married to him. You're the bride of Christ. He doesn't want you to be alone for all eternity. He wants you to experience the oneness, the spiritual oneness, the communion, the intimacy of being a child of God, of being the bride of Christ. That's the way he's designed you. That's the way he's made you. There's a God shaped hole in your heart. There's no man. There's no woman. There's nobody that can fill that God shaped hole in your heart. Only Jesus can. Only Jesus can fill that place within your heart. Anyone here this morning, you want Christ. You want that sense of completeness, that peace within your heart. You want your sins forgiven. You're turning from your sins. You're crying out to God. God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Just lift your hand up. We wanna pray with you. Anyone here this morning? Father, thank you once again. All the self help books out there, all the books on relationships out there, we thank you that we have your book, and nothing's changed. We need to change, Lord. We need to die daily. And as we do, Lord, we find that you're living through us. All the things we didn't think we could do, Lord, you're doing through us. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. So Lord bless, pour out your spirit, bless our marriages, bless our homes, bless our community. Let us shine bright, Lord, as a bright, bright light in these last days. Ask in Jesus' name. Amen.
About This Podcast
Calvary Chapel Bremerton - Sunday Service
Listen to Rick Beaudry, Pastor of Calvary Chapel Bremerton, teach the Word of God cover to cover, chapter by chapter, and verse by verse. Be edified and built up in your faith with solid Bible teaching. New episodes on Mondays in the Pacific Standard Timezone.
