Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Applies to men and women

Physical intimacy is for marriage and only marriage.

Physical intimacy is discussed in the Bible in very positive ways.

Song of Songs

Start by discussing marriage, then the duties required, and finals the sins forbidden.

Marriage Union

Marriage is a one flesh union of a man and woman.

one flesh - Gen. 2:24 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

Marriage symbolizes a union - the couple are united to each other.

Complimentary relationship.

They fit together and help one another.

The purpose of marriage:

Marriage exists to teach us about union with Christ.

That is also why there is no marriage in heaven.

When we have the reality we do not return to the shadow.

Covenantal union: Mal.

2:14-15

Symbolizes God’s covenants with man.

Kevin Deyoung writes,

This means that marriage—by nature, design, and aim—is a covenant between two persons whose one-flesh commitment is the type of union that produces offspring.

The sign and seal of the Covenant is sexual consummation: publically symbolized by a kiss.

Children are important, but that is not the primary reason for sex or marriage.

Creation mandate: be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

J.I. Packer writes,

Children are born from their relationship, but this is secondary; what is basic is the enriching of the couple’s relationship itself through their repeated “knowing” of each other as persons who belong to each other exclusively and without reserve.

So the place for sex is the place of lifelong, mutual fidelity—i.e., marriage, where sexual experience grows richer as the couple experiences more and more of each other’s loving faithfulness in the total relationship.

Physical intimacy is for building and nurturing a covenantal union and relationship.

Adultery works against this purpose.

Physical intimacy outside of marriage is breaking the covenant and a sin against God

We often think foremost of the spouse.

Joseph - sin against God in Genesis 39:9 “He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except you, because you are his wife.

How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?””

It blasphemes the union with Christ it was made to represent.

Principle of Purity and Fidelity

God is calling us to be pure and faithful.

Marriage is a relationship of lifelong mutual fidelity.

Hebrews 13:4 “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.”

Duties required WLC 138

“The duties required in the seventh commandment are, chastity in body, mind, affections, words, and behavior; and the preservation of chastity in ourselves and others; watchfulness over our eyes and all the senses; temperance, keeping of chaste company, modesty in apparel; marriage by those that have not the gift of abstinence, conjugal love, and cohabitation; diligent labor in our callings; shunning all occasions of uncleanness, and resisting temptations thereunto.”

A heart issue

5. Delight in your spouse - Should be included in WLC

Prov.

5:18-20 “Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe.

Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love.

Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?”

Positively we are commanded to delight in our spouse.

Hebrews 13:4 “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.”

Sins Forbidden

By seeing the purpose and dignity of marriage and physical intimacy we understand the sin of adultery.

Tearing apart of a single flesh.

Mt. 19:6 “So they are no longer two but one flesh.

What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Death for adultery

Lev.

20:10 “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.”

interfering with other marriages

Matter of the heart.

Kevin DeYoung writes,

Noticing that someone of the opposite sex is pretty or handsome is not a sin.

The sin is when this noticing becomes … desire, coveting, lingering, and lust.

Lust applies to all, not just those who are married.

Lust has been normalized in our culture.

The goodness of the sexual union has been warped.

Lust, Contempt, Consuming, and Selfishness.

Lust often begins with the devaluing of another person for self-gratification

We see them as something for us to use.

Stealing - consuming that which is not ours.

Desiring to have what God has forbidden.

Casual sex is using and abusing the other partner - for what you get out of it.

Jen Wilkin writes,

Lust itself is an act of contempt, reducing someone to a source of sexual gratification and nothing more.

If the sixth command prohibited regarding our neighbor as expendable, the seventh prohibits regarding our neighbor as consumable.

We do not consume those we love; we treasure and protect them as image bearers

It cheapens the beauty of marriage and physical intimacy as God created them.

It ends up devaluing the spouse and the marriage union

And ultimately the God who these things represent.

Adultery includes any deviation from God’s design.

Pornography, Masturbation, Homosexuality

Application

Examine your heart

Adultery does not begin in the bed, but in the heart.

What about the lust factor in our lives?

That’s where the sin is committed and where its influence must be dealt with and cut off.

Iain D. Campbell

Receive the gospel

All of us have broken this commandment

Jesus perfectly kept the law and is our righteousness.

Hebrews 4:15 “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”

His holiness transformed sinners and prostitutes.

Go to God with this temptation.

Nurture purity in your heart.

Matt.

6:22 “The eye is the lamp of the body.

So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light,”

Glorify God with all our being, including our bodies

1 Cor.

6:19-20 “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?

You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.

So glorify God in your body.”

Celibacy if not married - Jesus