WESTMINSTER SHORTER CATECHISM Q & A (Reading: Eph.5:1-21; Lev.18:1-30; 1 Cor.6:12-20) You Are God s Possession!

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1 WESTMINSTER SHORTER CATECHISM Q & A (Reading: Eph.5:1-21; Lev.18:1-30; 1 Cor.6:12-20) You Are God s Possession! If you honestly believe you should live by God s Word then this commandment puts you at complete odds with our society. In fact, holding to these words makes us rebels in our modern world. It is the preaching about what this seventh commandment truly means that imprisoned a minister in Sweden for several months. And putting it into practice has brought quite a few Christians the loss of their livelihoods within the so-called civilised western world. Now, we are shocked when we hear of these things happening. But that is not just a recent phenomenon. For while it is recent in the sense that it has only been within the last few years that holding to scripture on this has made us guilty of breaking the law of the land, it is something which has its roots way back. You see, idolatry and immorality go naturally together. Nations ignorant of the true God don t care for anything God has declared about marriage. You would have seen that in the nations around the Israelites when Yahweh gave these commandments through Moses. Leviticus 18 verse 3 clearly pointed to their evil practices. And you would have seen it also the so-called great peoples of Greece and Rome. They were the slaves of the most depraved practices. They openly practiced the most perverted and destructive sexual deviances. It was no doubt those wicked behaviours Paul also had in mind in his letters to the churches in places influenced by those cultures. But how much don t we see that now in our day and age? This is the era in which we are told education is empowering and liberating us and, yet, what a dark age it is out there! You only need to pick up a daily newspaper and read what you would only read in the most lurid magazines of fifty years ago! Television news is openly pornographic! It s no surprise that a teaching such as we will hear this morning is so foreign to many ears. In fact, it s a teaching you won t hear in many churches nowadays. So many today are only saying what perceived to be positive and reaffirming. Well, that is a twisted gospel. In fact, it is no gospel at all. Because if you are going to set before the people the true God as the one object of worship you must also set before them a standard of personal and family purity which sets them apart from all others. When the Lord God declares in Leviticus 19 verse 2 to his people, Be holy, because I, the LORD your God, am holy, it is a command that echoes out throughout the scriptures! Purity Promotes The Highest Good Of Life In this way we come to the first aspect to the text this morning. Here we see, from Answer 70, that Purity Promotes The Highest Good Of Life. Now, Answer 70 simply restates the seventh commandment. It is clear from these words what this commandment is primarily about. For the foundation of this commandment is the sanctity of marriage. So what is the very best thing for you personally, for the health of your society, for the well-being of this nation, and for the life of the Church, depends on this.

2 As we saw how vital the right regard for the life of the family is in the sixth commandment so the divine law now places a fence around the institution of marriage itself. It s no surprise the death penalty was also applied to offences against this commandment. Leviticus 20 verse 10 is crystal clear, If a man commits adultery with another man s wife with the wife of his neighbour both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death. To get an idea of how important this commandment is you need to go right back to the creation account itself. You see, the marriage of a man and a woman in a committed lifelong relationship is the way God made us to be. In Genesis 2 verse 18, the Lord God said, It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. So God created Eve and brought her to Adam. Then he said in Genesis 2 verse 24, For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. And how good it was is confirmed by noting there in verse 25, The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. Because it s within marriage where the sex desire must be. And when it is there it is the most liberating thing! What this commandment condemns is anything outside of that. This means any sexual relations outside the God-ordained state of marriage. The Lord hates all of that! Now, we may not be comfortable talking about these things. The ways in which something God gave us as a gift has become perverted and corrupted by sinful men makes us sick to the stomach. And it must make us feel revulsion what is happening out there is absolutely disgusting! Yet we must talk about these things because the Bible does. Leviticus 18 has quite a list of them. And you ll find right throughout the Bible similar descriptions about this. Especially in the New Testament where it enforces the same by even more solemn sanctions and higher reasons. Paul s letters spell out the nature of this sin, as we heard in Ephesians 5 and 1 st Corinthians 6. And Romans 1 really gets to grips with the sin against this commandment so much promoted by the celebrities and media of our age! In amongst this world s vast and powerful promotion of breaking this commandment whether by easy divorce, those living together, multiple and same sex relationships the seventh commandment sets God s standard for God s people. In the same way as it was a vivid distinctive in the time this commandment was first given, so believers obeying this commandment now will stand out. And how much doesn t living the right way shine out the gospel? Chastity Comes Out Of Inward Grace In this way we come to the second aspect. Here we note from Answer 71, Chastity Comes Out Of Inward Grace. Here the Catechism positively approaches this commandment. This is what we re exhorted to do. As we look at what we are to do in this Answer the key word is chastity. Now, that s an old word isn t it? But it is a beautiful word. Because chastity comes from a Latin word meaning clean or pure. So we re looking out for whatever looks after our purity in this and our neighbour s purity in this. And that can only come out what we are in the Lord.

3 You think about that. What we naturally are is sinful. If it weren t for the Lord s convicting work in our hearts we wouldn t know or want to know his way! Wasn t it the Lord who called the Israelites apart, and gave them this command? It s no surprise we are at odds with this world! It was only God s grace that has given us the rich Christian heritage we have. But that s not naturally of ourselves! In fact, what is naturally of ourselves is what is actually so unnatural! Dear friend, only the pure Spirit of God can help us to reach this holy grace. It s only when we are in the Lord that the sweet fountain of clean thoughts and feelings will sweeten the streams of speech and action. This is how we preserve our own and our neighbour s chastity in heart. It is this we hear of through David in Psalm 51. There he sings a song after he has fallen into the depths of adultery. There in verses 10 and 11 his prayer can only be, Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Don t cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. It is this the apostle Peter speaks of in chapter 1 of his first letter. There in verse 22 he talks about loving one another deeply, from the heart. Next there is the word speech. We must communicate in a wholesome way with each bother. Men must regard all women as their sisters. And women must regard all men as their brothers. Paul speaks to this in Ephesians 4 verse 29. There he says we are to speak what is helpful for building others up according to their needs. And then there is the word behaviour. This is what we do. When Peter wrote in his first letter to Christian wives in regards to their unbelieving husbands, he spoke of this way to win them over. In verse 2 of chapter 2 he declares that the purity and reverence of their lives would be a witness to them. And when we look at examples in Scripture how much doesn t Joseph stand out in this? Genesis 39 describes the time he was serving as the one in charge of Potiphar s household. But Potiphar s wife tried to seduce him. He refused. He replied to her of the trust his master had in him and how he was in charge of all Potiphar s things except her she was his wife. In verse 9 he says to her, How could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God? While she turned against him and he was thrown into prison for years because of her lie, how blessed didn t the Lord later make him? Those who honour me, I will honour, says the Lord in 2 nd Samuel 2 verse 30. And he does. It is to help preserve this chastity that the Lord has given us marriage. Because it may well be that one does not feel the urge to get married. Sure, they have the temptations that are common to all. But they are able to quench that desire. Perhaps they are young singles or older widows. In 1 st Corinthians 7:8 Paul says that if they can manage that way they should. He himself is an example of that. Yet, the apostle says straightaway in verse 9 there, but if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. And he is quick to add that because this is the case for the majority of us. So for most marriage is the Godgiven way of controlling sexual desire.

4 So, we have seen what God gives and how we are blessed in living with it. Next our text turns to the negative side of this commandment. And here we see just how far the damage goes when man goes against his Maker. Immorality Wrecks All Our Relationships Thus we come to the third aspect this morning. Here we see, from Answer 72, that, Immorality Wrecks All Our Relationships. Now, on its own, this commandment is prohibiting one particular sin. But no one sin is ever on its own. The saying is true, Break one command and you break them all! You see, as we know with any sin committed there is a process involved. A process that impacts our total being and impacts so many other beings! It s this which Answer 72 strikes at! Take the unchaste thoughts in the first place. The temptation to sin starts there. But it is not dismissed from there. Rather, the evil thought is allowed to stay there. And because it s kept there it stirs up sinful passions. Jesus spoke of this in Matthew 5. There in verses 27 and 28 he says, You have heard that it was said, Do not commit adultery. But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. That s where the sin starts. As James 1, verses 14 and 15, tell us, each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin So that s definitely the best place for it to stop! You must keep yourself right away from any tempting situation. Avoid any possible opening for sin! Then there are the unchaste words. Now, if impure thoughts are the way we ourselves are tempted, dirty words are the arrows of temptation to others. Everything that is foul, saucy, or off-colour, must be strongly avoided. Not only is it a waste of language but it also works evil in others. It tempts and seduces them. This is why we read in Ephesians 5:4 that there should be no obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking Proverbs 7 gives us a whole section on the immoral person who deliberately works this way to take you off the right way. And the Lord Jesus in Matthew 12 warns of the eternal consequences of this. In verse 36 there he declares, I tell you that men will have to give an account for every careless word they have spoken. Then we come to unchaste actions. And how much isn t covered by this? For what a list there is of those deeds which break this commandment! We read of a number of these in Leviticus 18. Deuteronomy 22 has even more. In Galatians 5 Paul speaks of them under the acts of the sinful nature. And all these sins are what happens when you give way to sensuality. So the temptation that you allowed to linger, the second glance, took root in you. Instead of replacing it with doing good, you hung on to the bad. You didn t stop looking, you didn t move away, you didn t switch it off. And in the process of going on with it you coveted and lied. What are you doing? Oh, just some work. But it s not just anything. It is something. You see, you weren t happy with the Lord s gifts to you you wanted what wasn t yours.

5 We may well be shocked when someone we thought was so upstanding and highly regards tumbles morally. But it didn t happen in a vacuum. And if he is a believer he has for some time been quenching the Spirit in his life. Doesn t that affect us all in the local church? There s his wife, his children, the one he sinned with or against. Then there s the position he had. Things aren t ever the same. Trusts are shattered. There are devastating hurts. While his sin may be forgiven how much hasn t he hurt God? To defile the body is to defile God s temple, as we heard in 1 st Corinthians 6:19. It is because the Holy Spirit lives in us that we have the power to obey this commandment. He helps us to live for God. Because we weren t saved to live for ourselves. Rather, we have been bought with the cost no less than the blood of Jesus Christ! And he s the God who continues to give us so many gifts through our faith in his Son. We only need to ask, and so look to him. But that s just it, isn t it? In a world so full of itself, a world so saturated with the wrong kind of sexuality, we are easily distracted. So, more than ever, we must overcome evil with good! And not only is that the right way to go it s also the blessed way to go.