 all things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. Food's for the stomach and the stomach for foods, but God will destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body and God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Now as we get into our study I need to remind you of some of the things that Paul has been stating and one of the things that is going to help us as we get into this passage before us, one of the things that will help us to understand what Paul is saying is we need to remember something he's already said. Paul has already said that the unrighteous, the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. He wanted to be very clear about that and that's why in verse 9 he made it very clear by saying do not be deceived, do not yield to any arguments that state differently. Now scripture has much to say concerning our need to be on guard against spiritual deception. You can go throughout the New Testament and find warning after warning. As a matter of fact, spiritual deception is the premier sign that we're living in the last days. When the Lord Jesus Christ was asked concerning the signs of his coming and how are they going to know when he's about to return, the first thing Jesus said is be careful that you're not deceived and so deception, spiritual deception is a sign that you're in the last days and so the New Testament especially says quite a number of things related to spiritual deception and the need for us to be on guard. In Ephesians, for example, in chapter 5 verses 3 through 6, Paul said, but among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality or of any kind of impurity or of greed because these are improper for God's holy people nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking which are out of place but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure no immoral, impure or greedy person, such a man as an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words for because of such things God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient. Over and over again we have warnings given to us in Scripture concerning the fact that there will be those who attempt to deceive us to make light of sin and to broaden it in such a way in terms of our abilities to do a lot of things that it diminishes the holiness of God and actually begins to undermine the grace of God we need to have protection from deception and the source of our protection is God's word. James in chapter 1 verse 22 of his book said do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves he says do what it says and so the way that we're protected is by hearing the word of God and actually doing it. Charles Spurgeon once said I remember a story of one who remarked to a minister what a wonderful thing it was to see so many people weeping no said he I will tell you something more amazing still that so many will forget all they wept about when they get outside the door and that's true during many powerful messages we might be pierced by the spirit with conviction in our hearts and it can cause us to sometimes tear up because behold I'm that person that's being spoken of today and I feel terrible about it and I can actually weep in the sanctuary but Spurgeon was right when he said the real problem is is that we forget once we're outside the door what we were weeping about so it's not enough for me to hear the word it's to hear the word and to obey now Paul was speaking here in this passage and he had stated that some of the Corinthians had been committing various sins we looked at some of those sins last time we were together now he is stating that no one's going to inherit the kingdom of God in that continuing condition again in verse 9 he said the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God now that's one of the reasons why God sent Jesus to planet earth in order that he might redeem us first p. 318 says for Christ died for sins once for all the righteous for the unrighteous to bring you to God he was put to death in the body but made alive by the spirit he had come to bring us to a relationship with his father and so the one who would argue that you can continue to sin doesn't understand grace and that's what Paul is going to deal with here in verses 12 through 20 he's going to be dealing with that reality now he's been dealing with the subject of fornication but he begins by presenting a general rule and after establishing a general rule he deals specifically with this particular sin now in verse 12 he says all things are lawful to me but all things are not helpful all things are lawful for me but I will not be brought under the power of any now it's commonly believed that that was a common saying during his day it was something that the people would be familiar with and so he's speaking about all things being lawful to him this is something by the way he's going to repeat in chapter 10 verse 23 all things are lawful he's saying but not all things are helpful all things are lawful is another way of saying that all things are allowed what he's saying is christian liberty he's speaking of christian liberty not what a person can do but what a person may do all things may be lawful but not all things are helpful now one of the things i want to speak about and i want to lay a foundation by looking at this is what the purpose of grace is i mean over the years i've come to realize that sometimes we have a misunderstanding of god's grace god's grace the word grace means unmarried in favor the greek word is carous and so there are some who've named their children carous because they love the name grace and and it's a beautiful word and it's a beautiful concept unmarried in favor undeserved favor from god we receive something from god that we do not in any way earn for ourselves he he gives it to us freely and he gives it to us without any merit on our on our part god's grace and and god's grace is saturating the life of the believer as a matter of fact like the birds of the air use the air to fly and like the fish and you know are in the ocean because that's their environment and all well we as christians our environment is god's grace god has given us his grace we're saved by the grace of god ephesians chapter two verses four and five says because of his great love for us god who is rich in mercy made us alive with christ even when we were dead in transgressions it is by grace that you have been saved so we have been saved through god's grace we also serve the lord by his grace romans 5 17 says if by the trespass of one man death reign through that one man how much more will those who receive christ's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man jesus christ we're saved by grace we serve god by grace and so we are saved by god's grace that we might serve god by his grace now being in the grace of god means that we are no longer under bondage that's why in glacians 5 1 he says it is for freedom that christ is set us free stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery so we're saved by the grace of god to serve god by the grace of god freed from the from the bondage of sin so that we might in freedom serve jesus christ but like many in the church today the Corinthians were perverting god's grace into permission to continue in sin and they confused liberty with license and began to be lax in their moral behavior there are three words that i like to use when i speak concerning this subject one is the word liberty the other is license there's another word i usually use i didn't include it in this study but i'll insert it here and that's legalism you have some people who are caught up with legalism i don't smoke and i don't chew and i don't date girls who do you know that kind of mentality it's not um so much what they are it's what they're not doing it's what they don't permit themselves to do so everything you know for them is wrong they'll come to a church and they'll say everything's wrong with that church i mean they have rock and roll guitars up there they have drums up there i can remember when i first got saved there were all kinds of people upset over maranatha music which is tame today but they were real upset with it because they said you're bringing in voodoo drums into the sanctuary of god they actually did that's a quote they said you're bringing in voodoo the beat it's it's a hypnotic thing and it's causing people to turn into zombies it was really an interesting thing i said to raw you shouldn't say that raw but he did voodoo and they were so upset they'd be so upset you know they'd look at us when we were you know saved and we had the long hair and so and we'll be seeing this later on as we study Corinthians they'll say is you know does not nature itself teach you that it's it's wrong it's a shame to have long hair and they go into this whole thing about why you're not supposed to have long hair it's like Jesus had a crew cut and a trimmed beard you know it made no sense to me at all then it still makes no sense now but it was legalism you can't do this you can't do that you can't do this and and the more you know stringent you are and the more restricted you are well the holier you are and then you have the other ones who were into license you can do anything you want god's grace is so incredible if you want to go out and get boozed up and sleep around that's fine because you know what it's it really doesn't matter it's just your body not your spirit and so there were those who would argue that you can still smoke pot you know it's a herb and didn't god make the herb for us to enjoy and I had people saying that we called it herb at that time though it's really it's also called weed but um and they would argue that they would say you can have that you can use that and there are still religious systems today that use marijuana as like a sacrament and so you had some on the one hand who said you can't do anything and then you had some on the other hand who said you can do anything and so you've got legalism on the one hand you have license on the other hand but what god has given to us is liberty liberty is freedom in christ all things are lawful to me is a state of one who has been set free we have liberty in Jesus christ but not all things build me up i'm not under the law any longer i'm free in christ i can go out and eat some pork chops and i won't go to hell i can i can do those things that the religious jew could not do because of the ritualism of his religious faith i have freedom in christ but do i use my freedom as a cloak to cover over unrighteousness do i in other words continue to do things that are immoral and wrong and all along say i'm doing it because i'm free in jesus christ what had happened is they had confused liberty with license and as a result of that began to be lax in their moral behavior in galatians 513 paul said it like this he said brethren you have been called to liberty only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh but by love serve one another in first peter 2 verse 16 the apostle writes live as free men but do not use your freedom as a cover up for evil live as servants of god roman 6 1 and 2 what shall we say then shall we go on sinning that grace may increase by no means we died to sin how can we live in it any longer nowhere does a bible teach us that once you're saved you can go out and continue to do everything you want stay in sin because that only reveals that we don't understand the grace of god and it only reveals that we don't understand the depth of our own depravity and sometimes people will use the grace of god to give them permission to continue in sin and it would seem apparent that paul has to deal with that in the Corinthian church he cannot legitimize sinful habits by cheapening the grace of god we need to remember that we've been saved and set free from that kind of life in roman's chapter 6 verses 15 through 17 paul said what then shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace by no means don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves you are slaves to the one whom you obey whether you are slaves to sin which leads to death or to obedience which leads to righteousness but thanks be to god that though you used to be slaves to sin you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted you see the Corinthians were saying all things are lawful for me one author said other religions prescribed rules which men must keep if they would be saved food laws were especially common the abstaining from all unlawful things was necessary part of attaining salvation not so with christianity the believer will avoid evil and unhelpful things but this does not earn his salvation salvation is all of grace it depends on what god is done in christ the believer is not hedged around with a multitude of restrictions in order to be saved in this very large sense all things are lawful for him you see every sin i commit as a christian is forgivable and that's because i'm not saved by my works or my own righteousness and though every sin is forgivable not all things are profitable not all things are to my advantage paul was saying i refuse to be brought under the power of any perceived liberty i've had a few letters in the past for members of our fellowship when i have said things related to just general life i mean how i can live to bring glory to god and how i can live to put myself in a position of being used by him and i've said things related to you know some general things and they're not even in my notes i just kind of like bring them out of yeah i'm over 21 have been for a long time yeah i can go to a club if i want i can drink and i can do all kinds of things if i want will i go to hell because i had a beer no will i go to hell because i do certain things no i'm saved by the grace of god i'm free in christ if i had a beer or i've had a wine or whatever yeah i'm not suddenly going to look around you know for jesus with a with a mallet and smash me and say oh you're going to hell now i'm not concerned with that marie might but not jesus well pastor you were speaking about uh this is not a in a direct quote but this is the thought of one letter you say that we should avoid drinking why what's wrong with it i enjoy beer once in a while i enjoy some wine once in a while are you saying that i by the grace of god cannot have a beer anybody who argues with me on that light is normally an individual who enjoys their freedoms and i begin to wonder of what use are they in the kingdom of god i begin to wonder if they're sharing their faith with people i begin to wonder if they care about the loss i begin to wonder what their love is for others because you have legalism you have liberty you have license but the most important word is love and and i restrict my behavior and the freedoms that i have based on the fact that i've been set free by jesus christ to love him and love others and i just want to be in the position where i can minister at any given time i just want to be able to do that that i can i can without any remorse begin to share a gospel with somebody and not be thinking well i'm speaking beyond what i'm living and so for me a long time ago i made the decision that i simply wanted to live a life that was right before god which gives me the freedom to speak with a clean conscience and gives me the ability to speak with conviction because i know that god works through these things it's that simple it's it's just loving people and restricting the things that may have you may have freedom to do restricting those things so that you always are free to be able to do at least this one thing and that is to share the love of christ with people to me that's very important maybe it's not to everybody else but to me it is i've shared this before some of you have heard this story i was in a pizza parlor with a friend of mine and i was about 24 years old or so at the time right in that area and he had been raised in a christian home and he was now discovering his freedoms and liberties so he said i understand that pizza tastes really good with beer i said yeah let's get some so i ordered a picture for us not just for myself there was a time when i'd gotten two pictures but this is a different time and so i ordered a picture and he pours a beer and i pour a beer and i've got the beer in front of me i took a drink from it put it down i'm not feeling real comfortable with this i'm thinking this probably isn't something i need to do i i got saved to get away from this what am i doing and i'm i'm going through that when this older gentleman comes walking in and we were in these picnic style tables and i was seated facing my friend so directly behind him on this other table this older man comes in and he sits down in such a way that he's facing me and as he's facing me i have this beer in front of me i have this picture in front of me and the spirit of the lord says to me and i'll never forget this and i've shared this before go and share my love with that man and i i said i can't i remember this very well like it was yesterday i can't and a voice in my heart spoke and said why not because i have beer in front of me and he sees it and it's undermining my credibility i can't and as god is my witness as i was seated there speaking to this inner voice if you will pray i saw two people walk in from the street one sat on this man's left hand the other sat on his right and one of them pulled out a pocket bible opened it up and began to share the gospel with this man right in front of me and the voice of the lord spoke to my heart and said if i cannot use you i will find somebody else to use i have never forgotten that that's a true story if i cannot use you i will find somebody else to use and that was one of those triggers in my life that changed the whole direction so my perceived freedoms who i wouldn't argue that it was necessarily a sin for me to have one beer and a couple pieces of pizza i'm not sitting here restricting your freedoms i'm simply saying that for love's sake i restrict my liberties for love's sake for other people i restrict what is possibly i'm free to do so i don't get into arguments with people when they come and say are you saying i can't go to the club you know i'm going to meet my significant person there i'm sure you will i'm sure you will i'm sure the virgin Mary shows up to dance every friday night i'm positive you're right about that liberty license legalism love i just want to walk in the freedom of jesus christ yes all things are lawful for me but all things are not helpful i may be free in christ but i'm not to be brought into the bondage of anything now paul knew that the Corinthians were aware of that that phrase of that that saying and so he's saying this to them he's saying i refuse to be brought under the power of any perceived liberty and i will not deceive myself into thinking that i can continue in sin and not be chastened by god in hebrew's chapter 12 verses six and seven we read the lord disciplines those he loves he punishes everyone he accepts as a son endure hardship as a as disciplined god is treating you as sons for what son is not disciplined by his father so the Corinthians were known those in Corinth were known for sexual license they were known for their immorality and paul is again dealing with sexual sin he's dealing with fornication because notice what he says in verse 13 this is a saying amongst the Corinthians foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods but god will destroy both it and them the body is not for sexual immorality but for the lord and the lord for the body and god both raised up the lord and will also raise us up by his power so there's this saying amongst the Corinthians and and basically when it says food for the belly and the belly for foods is simply saying we have natural appetites if you're hungry that's a natural appetite feed yourself if you're thirsty that's a natural drive drink so if i have a natural drive to eat and i have a natural drive to drink i also have a biological drive to uh to have a sexual intimacy so because it's just a natural drive why would it be wrong for me to to meet that drive's need so if i'm hungry i eat if i'm thirsty i drink if i have a desire to be intimate with someone just be intimate and that was the way they thought during that time they're saying sexual satisfaction is just a natural appetite satisfy it but it's been said that no other sin a person commits has more destructiveness than sexual sin it has broken more marriages shattered more homes and caused more heartache than alcohol and drugs combined it causes lying cheating stealing killing bitterness hatred slander gossip and unforgiveness sexual sin is particularly terrible because it's deceitful sexual sin is deceitful because it never delivers what it promises no matter how many movies you may see produced by hollywood it never delivers what it promises it's deceitful sexual sin is unstable because nothing binds us but lust and what happens when i lose sexual interest in that person and sexual sin is destructive because it always results in loss you will lose your family you will lose your friendships you lose self-respect you can lose your health and you can lose your possessions it's destructive we're not to be mastered by our desires god is given to us something through the holy spirit that gives us the ability to deal with these drives and that's called self-control in galatians 5 22 and 23 it says the fruit of the spirit is self-control against such things there is no law self-control i've said this before some of you have heard me say this in this age of hiv aids you go to a club you meet somebody we'll take it from a male perspective man goes to the club meets a young lady they get friendly he invites her to come home with him she comes home they're there in his front room they're talking to beginning to to get physically intimate all of the bells and whistles are beginning to go off in this person he doesn't care that he's a believer she's available to him he wants to be with her and so they begin to move towards intercourse but she says to him you just need to know something i am hiv positive and you can get aids if you have intercourse with me do you think he's going to say oh that's cool no problem i don't think so i think all of a sudden it's like a bucket of ice water just is poured on top of this guy and he says you know what time to get you out of here see the fear of aids kept him from doing something that the fear of god was intended to do he has a greater fear of aids than he has of god because his mind is thinking that god's grace is sufficient he's already made excuses in his mind all things are lawful to me i'm not going to go to hell i'll repent from this he's already messed around with this theology enough to give him permission to sin but when that woman says to him if you consummate this you will get hiv all of a sudden he cools down instantly and is he's not interested anymore so is that self-control yeah in a sense he made a decision not to do something he controlled himself but it wasn't because of his love for christ it wasn't because of his fear of god it was because of his fear of aids so he does have the ability to exercise self-control he just chooses not to he just says i don't want to what's the point of doing that until he realizes the consequence so god is given to us something that should keep us out of that situation and that's the spirit of god and the fruit of the spirit is self-control in romance chapter six verses 11 through 14 it says in the same way count yourselves dead to sin but alive to god in christ jesus therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires do not offer the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness but rather offer yourselves to god as those who have been brought from death to life and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness for sin shall not be your master because you're not under law but under grace god gives you the ability to say no to sin he gives us the power of the holy spirit to resist the the temptation it's just that sometimes we just choose not to you see in verses 13 and 14 stomach for food but god will destroy both it and them obviously the relationship of food in the digestive tract is temporary but the body well the body is to be used for the lord's glory ultimately we will we will wear these bodies glorified and capable of living in heaven through eternity and so food is temporary but god's work in us is permanent now he asks a question in verse 15 do you not know that your bodies are members of christ shall i then take the members of christ and make them members of a harlot certainly not do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her for the two he says shall become one flesh but he who is joined to the lord is one spirit with him flee sexual immorality every sin that a man does is outside the body but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body don't you know that your body is the temple of the spirit of god well that's a powerful thought when you think about it deeply you got saved the holy spirit convicted you of sin righteousness and judgment he heard the gospel message that declared that that you were lost that i was lost but that god loved us so much he sent his son jesus to retrieve us seeing that we were in the marketplace of sin sold and in bondage jesus christ came in order to redeem us to buy us back so he went into that marketplace and the cost of my redemption for him to purchase me out of slavery was his blood god loved the world so much that he gave his son so that jesus christ would voluntarily lay his life down for me and he did that and as he paid the cost of redemption with his blood and the message that i could be set free by simply receiving his grace came to my ears through the gospel and so i said god be merciful to me i'm a sinner forgive me when i did that i said jesus come into my life and make me new and the bible says you are now the temple of the spirit of god and the spirit of god dwells in you so it wasn't a work of righteousness that i'd done it wasn't that my mom took me at the six months or so four months old and had me water baptized it wasn't that i went through religious rituals in certain classes and then just went through certain processes to become a member of the church it was that god's holy spirit convicted me i asked him for forgiveness then he entered into my life by faith and i now became his temple he now dwells within me god dwells within you he dwells in us he doesn't dwell in temples made by human hands he dwells in you he created you and he dwells in you so when you're a individual who's unmarried and you're sleeping around paul is saying don't you understand that you're the temple of god and you're dragging god into your sinful activity don't you understand that now that is a powerful thought that many people don't think about that's what he's saying here he says do you not know that your bodies are members of christ shall i then take the members of christ and make them members of a harlot certainly not do you not know that he was joined to a harlot is one body with her for the two he says shall become one flesh you're taking jesus who dwells within you and you're bringing him into the same relationship that your body is physically involved in and he says you're not understanding it it isn't something that is light it is something that is terribly wrong sexual immorality is wrong so what is his answer flee verse 18 flee sexual immorality the answer is habitually flee from it you have a man in the old testament by the name of joseph we know the story of joseph so i'll just highlight it by saying he was basically as a house slave for a man by the name of potifar potifar has a wife the bible tells us that that joseph was very handsome a very appealing young man very wise in a tremendous charisma and potifar's wife daily was looking at joseph and she was saying i want this young man and so she began to say to him i mean very boldly very openly come lie with me shall i sin against my master and my god by doing such a thing he has withheld nothing from my hand except for you there's no way that i'm going to dishonor god and there's no way i'm going to dishonor your husband by doing this evil thing and he refuses but daily she's pursuing him daily she's after him we know the story how that one day she finally grabs hold of him says come lie with me and he starts to pull away and he has a cloth on that he's wearing and she pulls it and it comes off of him and he flees from her area naked well her husband is informed is told look at what joseph has tried to do and that's when joseph ended up going through some tremendous hardship even though it was quite obvious that the woman was the one who was actually assaulting him but what did he do what he did is he fled he got out there i got out of there as fast as he could the average man wouldn't do that the average man probably would say you know what's the problem it's a big deal not joseph joseph had honor he had integrity he had a love of god he had a fear of god and that's what drove joseph to fleeing fornication we have to understand that in our in our day and i won't i won't belabor this because i'm speaking to people who know this very well in our day sexual sin is so common that it's celebrated it's just celebrated i mean we we have no sense of shame for the sinfulness of our behavior we just don't there was at one time in the united states a moral base where if somebody became pregnant outside of wedlock it was something they actually felt a shame for doing it was it was wrong it shamed your parents it shamed your friends it shamed your family it shamed everybody everybody and we even had what you called moral clauses in our laws we had what you called undesirable alien clauses so so if a foreign a person from a foreign country wanted to come in and they were looked at as being morally improper they would actually be refused from entering the united states i mean there were well-known actresses ingrid bergman being one who was refused entrance into the united states because he had an affair with somebody became pregnant by him she was an undesirable they wouldn't allow them in so our day has changed completely hasn't it we not only celebrate this we go on tv speaking about hey look at me like brad and jaleen you know we're engaged yeah and sin and now you're engaged together but we celebrate these things we we make it seem like isn't this a wonderful thing that's how it is and so many young people are growing up without biblical basis for their beliefs so they're accepting of all of this well paul was ministering in a time that was very similar to what we are living in today and he's saying flee fornication have nothing to do with it again in verse 19 he says do you not know that your body is the temple of the holy spirit who's in you whom you have from god and you are not your own you were bought at a price therefore glorify god in your body and in your spirit which are gods or which belongs to god you belong to god sex is the most intimate physical expression and sex is to be reserved for a committed marriage misuse of this particular gift that god gave to us destroys at the deepest level you need to remember that you carry in your body every relationship that you've ever had and it's something that remains with you your body is the temple of the spirit of god so paul is simply saying you are god's dwelling place god is giving you his spirit to strengthen you and to live holy lives in gratitude for your salvation flee fornication in gratitude for your salvation don't make excuses to continue in sin and thankfulness to god for what he has done live for jesus christ live for him live for him young men should treat the young women as sisters and the young women should treat the young men as brothers we should treat each other with respect and we should treat each other with love instead of taking from that woman that which belongs to her husband and instead of taking from that man that which belongs to his wife we ought to love christ enough and love one another enough to give us give ourselves and give each other the freedom to live with a clean conscience to be able to wake up in the morning and not regret what you did the night before to have the joy of knowing that you're walking in god's ordinances doing the right thing for his pleasure and then watching god bless your relationships so we have liberty we have license we have legalism but what we really walk in is love love for god and love for one another