 The message that I've entitled tonight is called Restricted and you will see here in a moment why. First Thessalonians chapter four verses one through eight. We'll be looking at these first eight verses. I'm going to read verses one through eight and then we'll get into our Bible study tonight. It says, finally, then brethren, we urge you and exhort you in the Lord Jesus that you should have bound more and more just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God. For you know what commandments we gave you through our Lord Jesus Christ for this is the will of God, your sanctification. That you should abstain from sexual immorality. That each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor. Not in passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God. That no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter because the Lord is the Avenger of all such. As we also forewarned you and testified for God did not call us to uncleanness but holiness. Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man but God who has also given us his Holy Spirit. The motion picture Association of America issues ratings to movies here in the United States and they basically formed this association back in 1922. And when they formed this they basically took movies they reviewed movies and they gave them a rating and it has gone through some revisions. In fact back in 1984 they added PG-13 which today a lot of PG-13 movies really should be ours. But they've added the PG-13 back in 1984 and they rate movies based on the content. Now I wonder and imagine this just kind of go along here with me. If the MPAA reviewed your life and they issued a rating of your life what would that rating be? Would it be a PG-13 kind of life perhaps it's an NC-17 or maybe it's a G or maybe it's a rated R. Hey listen I've met Christians that I would rate them a PG-13 Christian and in fact the content that they actually use for those PG-13 movies it's because it has drinking, violence and language. And I've met a lot of Christians that have had issues with that. They drink, they have bad language and they're violent. And yet I've also met Christians that I would say that's a rated R. God right there you know what I'm saying? That person is really confused and you wonder sometimes do they even know what it means to be a Christian? Well as we're looking at this text here and I was thinking about this the rating here as I go into the rated R movies or actually the restriction there that basically says to us that if you're under 18 you are to stay away from that movie. You're not to see this movie because of the content that's in that movie that they've made the restriction a very strong restriction that they will not allow you to see this movie if you are under 18. Now that reminded me a little bit of tonight's study because in tonight's study there is a big restriction in Scripture. There's a very strong restriction that is given to us by God. And this is interesting because what we're going to see here tonight is that we're going to look at one restriction. Now hear me out here real quickly there are a lot of restrictions in Scripture. I'm only going to zone in or actually going to zoom in and one restriction and you're going to see here in a moment what I'm talking about. Now this is a restriction that I think the church should be aware of. It's something that every person in this room I would think understands where we're going to go here tonight but it's a restriction that we have to take seriously. And it's one of those messages that is very very tough to be honest with you. We're living in a very crazy culture and I think that this message tonight is very appropriate for our culture and where we're at and it's Christians being in the midst of this dark culture. We need to be reminded of a few things and what we see here is that as we're going to look at this restriction Paul is going to give us this huge restriction about sexual immorality specifically fornication. What is fornication? Sex outside of marriage. Any sexual sin. And Paul is going to really deal with this in a very strong way because the Christians in Thessalonica were very young born-again Christians, young born-again Christians. They were still young in their faith and if I were to rate their life they would be g-rated Christians. They were really strong Christians to be honest with you. They were above reproach. They were growing in some amazing ways that you're going to see here in a moment but Paul spent just a short amount of time with these young Christians and yet as he's writing from Corinth he's praising them for their spiritual growth and how they have actually moved forward and progressed in their walk with Christ. Let me give you an example. If you go with me to 1 Thessalonians 1 verse 3 this is where he begins by telling him in verse 3 he says this Remembering without seizing your work of faith, labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ and the sight of our God and Father. Knowing beloved brethren your election by God. Now go to verse 6 and 9. He says it again And you became followers of us and of the Lord having received the word in much affliction with joy of the Holy Spirit. So that you became examples in all of Macedonia, Ikea, who believe from and he says from you the word of God has sounded forth not only in Macedonia and Ikea but also in every place. Your faith toward God has gone out so that we do not need to say anything. In other words these guys were like on top as they're growing and right away we see that they were setting an example to the rest of the Christians in Macedonia. They were great witnesses of the Gospel of Christ. They were living intentionally for Jesus Christ. Nobody was forcing them to be Christians. Nobody was telling them you need to do this. You need to do that. These guys were doing it because they were living intentionally and that's the way we should be living the Christian life to be honest with you. Listen, you should come to church not because somebody is nagging you to come to church. You're coming to church because you want to come to church, right? I mean, I don't have to sit here and say you got to read your Bible. Okay, well that guy said I got to read my Bible so I'm going to go read my Bible. No, you should read it because you want to read the Bible. That's the way the Christian life is to be lived. It's supposed to be lived intentionally. I tell young people, listen, if you really want to grow in your walk with Christ, begin to do it intentionally. Don't wait until somebody tells you five, six times to do this or do that. That's what we want. That's what we want to be Christians that are living intentionally for Jesus Christ. There's not much of that going on today. It's like you have to twist people's arm to go to church, to read the Bible, to live holy and whatever else. I mean, it's a crazy kind of society that we're in and Christians are getting duped into the flow of the culture. But what we see here though is that Paul is amazed at their growth and he knew this though that they still had room to grow and it didn't hurt to basically remind them or warn them about the immorality that they were surrounded with or by. In other words, just because you're growing as a Christian doesn't mean that nobody can come to you and say, hey, read your Bible more. You know, that's an encouragement. You shouldn't be like, well, I don't need, you don't need to tell me. But it's, hey listen, take the encouragement. And this is what Paul is doing. Paul is actually doing this for them. So what I want to do tonight, I'm going to kind of give you an outline of where I'm going to go tonight. I'm going to give you three requirements to develop moral purity. Three requirements or maybe three ways, whichever way you want to put it. And I'm going to give these three to you. How do you develop moral purity? Three ways. One, keep growing. Two, keep out. And three, keep it under control. These three are in the texture. And I'm going to develop each one here in a moment. But first, keep growing. Let's look at that. Verse one, Paul says this in verse one of chapter four. Finally, then brethren, we urge you and exhort you in the Lord that you should abound more and more, just as you receive from us how you ought to walk and please God. Urge and exhort. Man, Paul is using this strong word. Because what he's doing here, he's showing his true heart. Paul here is really encouraging these guys from his heart. Paul is not being nosy. He's not kind of like looking over their shoulder. What are you doing? Are you reading your Bible? You know what I mean? What Paul is doing, he's actually encouraging them from his heart. And it really stinks when people misinterpret encouragement as judging them. You know what I'm saying? When you go to somebody, hey bro, okay, I'm going to church. Don't judge me. What do you mean? What do you mean? I said, dude, I'm just encouraging you. Don't judge me. You're getting it mixed up, dude. I'm not judging you. I'm encouraging you. And there's a difference between those two, right? So it's okay for us to encourage each other to say, hey, keep it going. Keep it going. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Man, go, go, go. That's encouraging. It's not judging me. But people will take it the other way around. Why? Because they're convicted. You know, it's interesting. You know, it's funny because, you know, this happened twice already. I have a four-year-old little girl. I love her to death. And we were at one place. I forget where it was. It was by the beach, and we were just kind of hanging out. And she was singing a song, like a church song. You know, I think it was Jesus Loves Me, This I Know. And as she was singing this song, this lady with her daughter were right there. And as they heard my daughter sing the song, they turned to her and us and said, oh, and she looked at her daughter and said, remember that song, honey? And I was, how sad. Remember that song, honey? And it's like, you know, people don't get it sometimes. And it's like, you know, you're encouraging people. But sometimes people think that, you know, you're doing something else. But I've also had other situations where, you know, when people know that you're, you know, this is way back in my New York years when I was pastoring a church up in New York. I remember people would ask me, what do you do? And here's the question, or here's the answer. I'm a pastor. Whoa. Where does this conversation go? I usually, actually, sometimes I just refrain from saying I'm a pastor because all of a sudden they just judge you. They look at you differently. And the first thing that comes out of their mouth when I say, when I said that up in New York, yeah, I'm a pastor. He goes, oh, well, I haven't gone to church in like 50 years. And they start confessing. You know, really? It's like, I'm not judging you. I'm just telling you what I do. Well, here, Paul is doing this. He's saying, hey, listen, guys, I encourage you. I urge you. I exhort you. You know, the Bible says in Hebrews 10, 24, let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works. If somebody has encouraged you tonight, hey, they're not judging you. They're just encouraging you. It's biblical. That's what we're supposed to do. You know, when Paul wrote this later, I said this earlier. He wrote this later from Corinth, where immorality was widespread. So I wonder if he was, you know, experiencing all of this stuff. And he's like, I got to write these Christians in Thessalonica. I got to remind these guys. I got to warn these guys. I know they're doing well. They're growing. But listen, guys, be very careful. Be very careful. And he begins to encourage them. Notice what he says. He wants them to abound more and more. In other words, keep growing. Don't stop. That's the message to you. Keep growing. Don't stop. Keep growing. See, the Christian life is a growing experience, isn't it? It's a growing experience. We should all be growing in our walk with Christ. We shouldn't really be at a standstill. If you are, you know what, listen, tonight hopefully that will change. But if you are, then there's some glitch there in your walk with Jesus. Something is hindering you, and only you and God know. But the Christian life is a continual growth, growing in the things of the Lord. And then Paul here is telling him to keep growing. You know, when it comes to the spiritual growth, you know, the Bible is very, very clear that as Christians, we should continue to grow. Listen to this. In Hebrews chapter 6, verses 1 and 2, basically tell us to go beyond the ABCs of the Christian faith. He says, therefore, let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death and the faith in God, instruction about baptism, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead and internal judgment. He says, go beyond that stuff. He says, grow. Hebrews 5, 12, listen to this. In fact, though by this time, you ought to be teachers. You need someone to teach you the elementary truth of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food. Anyone who lives on milk being still an infant is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. Guys, listen. You guys attend a church that gives you the word of God every single week. There's no reason, no reason why you shouldn't be growing. And you come here on Sunday morning, Wednesday night, Sunday night, Wednesday night. Listen, you're giving the meat. And that should cause you to grow. You should take that meat and take it home and be like, yes, I want more. And then in your own personal time, then you open up the Bible and then you add to the stuff that you've learned and you start doing your own study. Being Bible students, you don't have to go to seminary for that. But that's just the way it is and that's the way the Bible has laid it out for us as far as to just keep growing and the growth will come through the teaching of God's word by taking it in yourself, by hearing it as well. And then he says in verse one, he says this, that he's exhorting them that you should walk, notice this is just as you receive from us how you ought to walk and to please God. This was Paul's heart and set an example for them in how to live a life pleasing to God. That was his total heart is how can I, as a mature man, set an example to all the Christians that I'm witnessing to that I'm encouraging. I mean, throughout his epistles, Paul was always set in that example. Listen to this, Ephesians 4-1, as a prisoner for the Lord, then I urge you, here's another encouragement, to live a life worthy of the calling for which you have received. Ephesians 4-1. Paul exhorting them. And then he gets to places like Corinth. Those guys failed when it came to spiritual growth. These guys were like, they were like carnal. And he said this to them in 1 Corinthians 3, 1, 2, and 3, brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly, mere infants in Christ. I give you milk and not solid food for you were not ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. It's not sad. It's like you're still worldly. It's like you guys, I can't give you the meat. You know, people will leave church because they're going through the Bible. I can't stand this church. This church has just given us too much Bible stuff. I want to go somewhere that will tickle my ears. You know what I'm saying? I want to go somewhere that will just tell me stories and make me feel good. So I walk out and they're like, oh, this is great. But yet when you go through the scriptures and you get the meat of the Bible, man, you're going to get some solid stuff. Especially what we're going through here tonight. We're going to get some solid stuff. I haven't even done. See, someone's leaving already. But anyways, do you know what I'm saying? But this stuff is like meat. That happens a lot to me when I teach. It's interesting. Anyways, so Paul is saying basically, these are the things that he's encouraging him with. Verse 2, he says this very clearly, for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus Christ. Once again, what do you mean commandments? It refers to the special rules for living. Paul taught them the scriptures very clearly. He taught them the scriptures and that is basically where we get the way to live for Christ's, the scriptures, the Bible. It's our manual for life, isn't it? It's our manual for life. If we want to know what we're supposed to do and how to please God, it's in this book from Genesis to Revelation. So where is Paul going with all of this? Okay, Paul, you're giving us some encouragement here and there. But where are you really going? Are you really nervous here, Paul? Well, here's where he's going. This just brings us to our second. Keep out. Keep out. Keep growing, second, keep out. What does he say? Notice in verse 3, for this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you should abstain from sexual immorality. That's where he's going. This is where Paul is going. He's telling us keep out. Keep out. This is where he says something really interesting that should really, like, make your ears perk up. This is the will of God. How many of you guys are always looking for God's will in your life? Raise your hand. Guess what? You found it here today. Here it is. Listen, there is the general will of God. The general will of God is throughout Scripture. And here is one right here. In fact, there's another area where you see the general will of God in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, where we see the will of God is for U.S. Christians to rejoice, to pray, and to give thanks. That is his will for your life. These three elements in the Christian life is for you to live with joy, to pray, and to give thanks. That's God's general will for your life. And here we see that this is God's general will for you here. In a moment you're going to see what he's referring to here. But when you see this, this is the will of God. You should stop, prepare your heart, because this is going to be something pretty interesting that's going to come up, because this is going to be God's plan for your life. Now, there is a specific will of God. You know, I experienced that many times in my personal life, where God calls you to a specific work. In 1998, I was here at Bible College, and God gave me a calling to go to New York and password church and plan. That was God's specific will for my life. I couldn't go to somebody and say, hey, this is your will too. This is God's will for your life too. I couldn't do that. And I fulfilled it for 10 years. This here is God's general will of God. This is something you find throughout Scripture. And here we come up to one here that we have to take close attention, pay close attention to. So what does he say in verse 3? He says, this is God's will, your sanctification. That's a big word, sanctification. You know the word just basically means set apart. That's what it means. Set apart. Set apart by God and for God. Every Christian, every person that enters into a relationship with Christ is automatically set apart from the world. They're set apart from the world by God and for God's use. All of you here who are born again here, God has set you apart and God is using you in some way. And it's cool to see that because this is exactly what the word means. Paul's life, you know, before he was in a Christian actually, you could actually see where his life was at in his BC years before Christ. Turn with me to Acts chapter 8. I want to show you, I want to read with you in Acts chapter 8, Paul's old life before he came to Christ. In Acts chapter 8 verses 1, 2 and 3 we see the description and how his life was characterized. It's not very encouraging but I just want you to see here real quickly. In Acts chapter 8 verses 1, 2 and 3 this is what it says about Paul. At that time it was Saul. Now Saul was consenting to his death, speaking of us, of Stephen here. At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem and they were all scattered throughout the region of Judea, Samaria, except the apostles. And it says, and devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him. And Saul, here it is, made havoc of the church, entering every house and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison. Can you imagine a guy coming to your house and saying, you're a Christian, yep, get out of here. Come on, you're going with me. He throws you into prison for that. That's what Paul was doing. Paul was doing, that was his BC years, his life before Christ. Now here's his life in Christ, his new life, his set-apart life, Philippians 1-21. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. There is the life set-apart. If you can say that in your heart, listen, you've been set-apart, but if you're still stuck on, for to me to live is me, then you have a problem. Because the set-apart life, the life that is being sanctified by the Holy Spirit is a life that says, for to me to live is Christ, to die is gain. And that's the set-apart life. Listen, God is not expecting perfection from you. But what God is expecting from you and me is for us to live in Christ. He's not expecting perfection, but he's expecting you to live in Christ. Because even Paul said this in Ephesians 4, he encouraged the Christians, listen, put off the old self and put on the new man. We have that choice to wake up in the morning and say, listen, I'm going to serve Jesus. I'm going to follow Christ. I'm making that an intentional desire in my heart. I'm going to do it. I'm going to put on Christ. And we see here that this is what's happening here with Paul. Paul is showing us his life before, now his life set-apart. So here he tells us basically that God's will is for you to be sanctified, to be set-apart, to live in Christ. That's his will for your life every single day, every moment, to be honest with you. It's to live in Christ. However, he adds a little more to it. Notice here's the restriction abstain from sexual immorality. Abstain from sexual immorality. The word abstain means to hold yourself apart from, to be distant, or to keep away from. To keep out is what he's saying. There are not many things that the Bible tells us to abstain. In fact, the word itself is used about seven to eight times throughout the entire Bible. And the usage of the word abstain throughout the Bible into seven to eight times, there's three times it's used in the book of Acts referring to temporary restrictions. Once it's used in Timothy referring to false doctrine. Once in 1 Peter, and the other two times are found in 1 Thessalonians to abstain. Whenever you see the word abstain in the Bible, we know two things for certain. One is God. And two, it's an absolute ban. It's a prohibition. And this is something that we have to take seriously. What is God telling me to stay away from? Well, here he's commanding believers to abstain from sexual morality. Period. End of story. You can't really debate that at all. The Christians will try. What do you mean? What does that mean? But listen, it's pretty black and white. Abstain from sexual immorality. Now, we live in a society where this stuff is rampant, isn't it? It's really crazy. Sexual immorality. I'm going to go through some things here to show you where we're at in our culture. And this is nothing new to you guys. But I'm just giving you some stats here to kind of give you an idea of where we as Christians are trying to live the Christian life. A Gallup poll survey many years ago released a survey in which they compared the beliefs and lifestyles of evangelical Christians with the public at large and the results were quite revealing. Basically that study showed that there is little difference in ethical behavior between those who go to church and those who don't go to church. That's pretty sad, isn't it? I mean, when I read things like that, I'm thinking of what Jesus said in Matthew 5, you're the light of the world. You're the salt of the earth, right? We see one time one man was interviewed after he committed adultery and he was interviewed and this is what he said about his encounter. He said this. He said, basically, oh, actually, you know what? I went ahead of myself. We'll get to that one. But here's another quote that I want to give you. Someone once said this about the church. The church has become so worldly and the world so churchy that it's hard to tell the difference. You know, you guys know that 80% of Americans say they're Christians, right? It's like, could you imagine that if that was true? We wouldn't have the issues that we have probably. So why did Paul have this in mind? Why is he going at this with the Christians in Thessalonica? Very simply, one is the culture at their time. The culture at their time, it openly celebrated sexual morality. The Greeks, they influenced the Romans big time. And in fact, the society in the New Testament was just as immoral as it is today. Did you know that the entire mindset there of the Greeks was very, very sexually saturated? In fact, the mindset of that society at the time was described in these words, we keep prostitutes for pleasure, we keep mistresses for the day-to-day deans of the body, we keep wives for the beginning of children and for the faithful guardianship of our homes. That was the mindset back then. You're like, whoa, crazy. Well, they had a temple called Aphrodite. It was the temple of love, the goddess of love that had a thousand prostitutes. And these prostitutes would come out of this temple to seduce young men for sex. I would compare that to today's, I guess, equivalent to today's private escorts. You know, where women are out there selling themselves to people. I was in Amsterdam many years ago and if you've ever been to Amsterdam, you know, that place is just, that place is gross, it's sick. Drugs are all over the place. I was actually asked, you know, when I was walking down the street, they would bring in drugs. You want to buy some drugs? And I'm like, no, you know. And yet, going through, and I wasn't really walking with the Lord, but I was still shocked at the things I saw walking through the red-like district. If you guys know where that is, that's just a, it's an open prostitution chamber. You know, it's alleys full of women in the actual windows prostituting themselves. And if you want them, you just go in there and they close their curtain and you do your thing. That was open. And it's still on today. And it's interesting that even in the Old Testament, or even in the times of the New Testament, there were things like that, a thousand prostitutes. They were called priestesses and they would actually have sex with men as part of their worship. That was part of their cult. That was kind of like the way they honored their gods by doing these things. It was very fascinating that they would actually do these things. Well, we see though that our society is no different than the times that they were living in. You know, sexual morality abounds in our society as well. Did you know that 94% of sexual encounters that you see on TV and films are outside of marriage? When you see movies, television shows, and this couple goes into bed and what not, most of the time they're not married. And basically, the message that we're getting from Hollywood is this. It's okay. Everyone is doing it. It's okay. So young people are going with that message and saying, hey, what's wrong with it? Okay, there's nothing wrong with that. But listen, we see here very clearly that this is something that Paul is saying according to God that you were supposed to abstain from these things. And not only that, but because we live in a sex-saturated society, we see that marriages today have crashed in so many ways. Not just non-Christians but also Christian marriages have crashed because of sexual morality. One out of nine marriages that get divorced are attributed to sexual morality. And that's a sad stat. A third of all Americans already have committed adultery. And here is the quote that I wanted to give you. A man who once committed adultery, he was interviewed and he said this about his encounter. A feeling like this only comes around once in a lifetime and you should seize it. That's the mentality of our society today. It's weird. And I know it's nothing new, but it's just the way it is. 60% of Americans say that there's nothing wrong with adultery. Isn't it crazy? There's a disturbing attraction to this stuff. And as Christians, we get caught up into this. And it's no wonder that websites like the Ashley Madison make it in our society today. You know that website that just came out recently? You guys probably know about this thing. Ashley Madison, this Canadian website. It was based out of Canada. The service used by the names came from the two popular names of females, Ashley Madison. And their slogan is this, life is short, have an affair. That's their slogan. But that changed, didn't it? July 15th, right? They hacked that website. And the hacker said, listen, if you do not shut down your website, we are going to expose every person that has gone on this website that is seeking an affair. And they didn't do anything about it. So the first set of names came out. CEOs, big-time people came out that they were part of this. Because according to this website, they covered you. Everything was all cover-up. And your wife would have known, nobody would know. You go in there, do your thing, and you know what, we'll cover it all up for you. That was the service you paid. Well, these hackers said, if you don't shut down, we're going to expose, we're going to show everybody's data. So they didn't listen. First set of names came out. Ashley Madison didn't do anything. August, another set of names came out. Now they're like, okay, this is serious. Now these guys really are getting us here. And the sad thing is, of course, a lot of CEOs, a lot of big-way names came out and all of that. And unfortunately, a pastor's name came out. A pastor in Mississippi, a Baptist pastor, a seminary professor, well-liked seminary professor came out. He was hit, of course, CNN, Fox. Everybody just totally threw him out. The pastor was one of the names in this online dating network. Well, the sad thing, the pastor could not handle the shame. If you've read the story, he committed suicide. 56 years old. Left a note that said, I cannot take the shame to face my family, my kids. It was sad that this man got caught up. We see things like this happen all the time, even among Christians. And we have to be very careful. No matter how strong you are, it can still happen to you. And we see here that in Christianity today, they pulled 1,000 church members, church members, church leaders, and found that 23% of that group had committed adultery and 45% acted inappropriately in a sexual way. What's happening here? It's sad, isn't it? You expect that from non-Christians, right? You really do. But why are Christians getting involved in this stuff? There's a serious attack going on. The guards are being put down. We don't take scripture serious when it says that the devil is out prowling around, wanting to devour people, waiting for that Christian that has got their guards down to say, I'm going to hit them hard now and crash their marriage. And this is what we see here that this is something that Paul is being serious about because there's a disturbing attraction, like I said, to sexual morality. I call it a fatal attraction because it really messes you up. And unfortunately, that was fatal to that one pastor because he committed suicide because he couldn't take the shame. He just committed suicide and he left behind a wife and some kids. It's sad. Instead of just saying, you know what? I repent. Forgive me, God. Maybe he would lose his wife and whatnot but at least we still have a dad. But here we see that these things can actually throw people into that kind of stuff. The word sexual immorality, the phrase sexual immorality comes from the word pranaia where we get our word pornography. That's where we get it, from pornography. And it's a very broad word covering every kind of sexual activity in the circle of God's will. So what Paul is telling Christians is this, listen, this is what he's telling us, abstain from a pornographic lifestyle, that's what he's saying. Abstain from a pornographic lifestyle in the broadest sense of that word. How? Well, listen, purity comes from the heart. Purity comes from the heart. You have to make a covenant. We all know that sexual sin is wrong. We know that it's just not right to have sex outside of marriage to commit adultery. We know all that stuff is wrong. So the question is, why are Christians still falling into that sexual sin? You know why? It's because they do not know the meaning of biblical abstinence. What is biblical abstinence? Well, the word abstinence carries the idea of staying off the road that leads to sexual morality. Don't even take that road. Get off of it if you are on it. Get off of it. A good example of biblical abstinence is actually in Genesis 39 verses 1-15 where Joseph, remember Joseph, his boss's wife came on to him? Remember that? She wanted him big time, right? And what happened when she came on to him? He laughed, right? And this is what he said. Listen to this. Genesis 39-12 But he left his garment in her hand and fled and ran outside. I had to fled and ran. And Joseph bailed out. He didn't walk out. He didn't say, no, I'm not going to do it. No, stop it. Get away. He says, I'm out of here. And he left his garment. He didn't leave naked. A lot of people think, oh, he left naked. No, he didn't. What he left was his other garment. There were two garments that they would wear at the time. There was the outer garment and the inner garment. It was the outer garment. So he left in his underwear basically. And he just left. He fled. It's to leave it. Run. And that's what it says in 1 Corinthians 6-18. Flee. Sexual immorality, right? Flee. It doesn't say walk. Flee. Get away. Walk away. Turn around. You know, when I turned, this happened just a couple weeks ago. I went to a Dodger game. I'm a Dodger fan. Hallelujah. Anyways. Boo. Hey, come on. San Francisco. No way. Wait a minute. Anyways. Right. Sorry. I'm getting off track here. So I went to a Padres and Dodger game. And, you know, going into the downtown San Diego, you know, my wife and I were driving and all that. And then I turned into the street and it was the wrong way. And I'm like, why are they coming at me? What's wrong with those guys? And you see them one way. You know, the other way, I'm like, whoa, do a quick U-turn. That happens to me a lot. It happened to me in New York City. It happened to me in LA. San Diego, I'm going for it all. I'm going to listen to Chicago someday too. But what did I do? I didn't just say, oh, bummer, excuse me, excuse me. No, I turned around and I left. I went the other way. That's exactly what the Bible says. God says, you know what, listen, flee sexual morality. Get away from it. Proverbs 7, 25 through 27 says this, Do not let your heart turn to her ways or stray into her paths. Many are the victims she has brought down. Her slain are a mighty throng. Her house is a highway to the grave or highway to hell, really, leading down to the chambers of death. That adulterous woman, Solomon says, listen, don't even stray into her path. Don't even get on that road. He says, get away from it. Now, the path can be different to other people. It could be music. You may be listening to music that is very explicit, very sexual in nature. Hey, listen, get off that path. Maybe it's a movie. Maybe it's movies that you're watching. Movies that have a lot of sexual content. Listen, get off that path. Or perhaps they're romantic novels. Novels about romance that you're reading that is kind of messing up your mind. You don't get off that path. It could be anything. Anything that could lead you to those things. TV shows. Perhaps it's entertaining in pure thoughts. All that stuff, Paul says, keep out. So keep growing. Keep out, and the last one is here. This is it. Keep it under control. Listen to this, verse four and five. Paul says this. That each of you should know how to possess his own vessels in sanctification and honor. Not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God. That no one should take advantage and defraud his brother in this matter because of the Lord is the Avenger of all such as we also forewarned you and testified. Given the moral atmosphere of the day, there must have been an enormous pressure on those young Christians to lower their standards to conform to the world around them. And that's exactly the pressure that we're experiencing in our world today. You know that pornography has come out of the closet. You know that, right? Before pornography was in the back of that video store, right, with a curtain. You couldn't go in. No one under 18. But it's come out of the closet now. You can get it on your device. Facebook, Instagram, you got it. It's there. It's right there in your room. You don't have to go into a store. So we see here that these things are things that we have to be very, very careful because of the way, the culture that we're living in. And Paul says here, keep your body under control. It's interesting because when God is not in control, the body is in control of you. If God is not controlling your body, listen, the body is going to control you. And it's sad because animals live by the appetite of their body. It's like whatever they want, they get. And it's interesting that we see here that we need to submit our bodies to God for His control, for Him to say, Lord, control my body. And Paul says, because Gentiles who do not know God, they do this. This is something that they do. This shouldn't be you. That's his point here. You should not live the Christian life like a person that doesn't know God. When men turn away from God, anything is possible. And he's telling us this in verse 6. He says, don't defraud your brother. And children and the fornicator defrauds his future wife and his future children. And this is what he says. And he says this, listen, don't worry, God is going to judge the sexual immoral person. That's what he says here. God is the avenger. So we can trust that God will punish sexual immorality. And no one will get away with this sin even if it's undiscovered. I remember when pastors said this and I always remind myself, and you probably will hear me say this a lot when I teach, don't care of your sin privately before God, then God will expose you publicly. And that happens a lot, right? Hey, listen, when I goof up, man, I'm on my knees. Lord, I'm sorry. Forgive me, please. I'm not going to kind of conceal it because there are times that God says, you know what, you don't want to deal with me privately, then you know what, we're going to go public. That's what happened with David, right? Nathan came to David. Hey, David, you know, there's this guy who has this lamb and whatnot in his family and he's like, oh, that man's going to die. He goes, no, you're the man. You're the one that did this. You took away that man's wife and you killed him. And what did he do? He did the proper repentance. God, to you and only you, have I sinned. He dealt with it right there. He didn't say, no, I didn't. What do you mean? She came on to me. You know what I'm saying? It was a woman. No, you did it. And we see here very clearly that what Paul is telling us here is that God will deal with it. You know, perhaps the saddest thing about lust is that it never satisfies. It never satisfies. Someone has said that lust is the craving for salt by a man dying of thirst. In other words, it promises everything and delivers nothing. It promises everything. There's a fantasy. It's a fantasy that it promises, but that it delivers nothing. It delivers pain. And in verse eight, he says, listen, if they reject you, man, they're rejecting God. They're rejecting God. So let me conclude here. It's very clear that being a Christian means living different in the world. They're different from the world. We're to live differently. God's will for you and for me is sanctification. Is sanctification. We've been set apart by God and for God's use. But I like this and I want to end with verse eight because there is hope there. He says this, but God who has also given us his Holy Spirit, we have the Holy Spirit within us. If you're born again Christian tonight, you have the Holy Spirit in you. And the cool thing about this is that when God commands you to abstain, he also will give you the power to obey. He will give you the power to obey if you yield to the Holy Spirit. Because there's a tug of war going on in your life every single day. The flesh wants to pull you into that way and the Spirit wants to pull you. But listen, once you yield to the Spirit, there's no tug of war. And when God gives you this, the Holy Spirit is to help us walk the Christian life. To help us obey him as he wants us to obey. We're not alone in this battle, guys. We're not alone. Your weakness is his strength. But you have to go to God. The Holy Spirit helps us grow in our walk with Jesus. He's the one that will help us keep ourselves away, keep out of these things, these sexual sin. And he's the one that will help us keep our bodies under control. The Holy Spirit has a huge job and sometimes we forget. And maybe tonight you're not struggling with this stuff. Maybe you just listen and you're like, yeah, that's cool. I have no problem with that. It's all right. But maybe you're struggling with spiritual growth. Maybe you're just not growing. Maybe it's something that you're dealing with tonight. Or maybe it's something else that you're dealing with tonight. But listen, God loves you and he wants to make things right with you. Or you to make things right with him.