Sexual Impurity is Immoral

By

Shelby G. Floyd

April 15, 2007

Many prominent people of our day are confusing the citizens of our country by calling things that are evil good and things that are good evil. This is nothing new, for seven centuries before Christ, Isaiah the prophet pronounced his woe upon those of his day who were doing the same thing. (Isaiah 5:20).

Homosexuality is Immoral

Recently, a high ranking politician in our government said of homosexuality, “I don’t think it is immoral.” Morality has to do with our relationship in motives and actions with our fellow citizens. No wonder there is so much confusion as to what is moral and immoral. It is time for some plain teaching on the abandonment of our society into sexual impurity.

Rome, like our county, was a world leader. It survived for many centuries and historians list the fall of Rome in 476 A.D. The early Christians and the apostles by their pure lives and the power of the gospel converted many of the Romans to Christ and they became members of the church. (Romans 1:16-17). Later Paul wrote the church at Rome a letter in which he proved that both Jew and Gentile were sinners and needed the salvation found in Jesus Christ.

God Gave Up the Gentiles to Sexual Impurity

In the first chapter of that letter Paul says that God gave up the Gentiles to uncleanness. The uncleanness they practiced was the result of their impure motives and lusts of their hearts:

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another (Romans 1:24 NIV).

When God gives up on a people, he no longer seeks to restrain them from evil and the consequences of their actions. God providentially cares for his creation, but there is a point when God abandons those who abandon him and his word.

Sexual impurity in Romans 1:24 translates from akatharsia and means in a moral sense, uncleanness, the impurity of lustful, luxurious, profligate living. It is used in the following passages and there can be no doubt that all acts of sexual uncleanness are immoral and condemned by God Almighty:

Romans 6:19

I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.

2 Corinthians 12:21

I am afraid that when I come again my God will humble me before you, and I will be grieved over many who have sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual sin and debauchery in which they have indulged.

Galatians 5:19

The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery;

Ephesians 4:19

Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.

Ephesians 5:3

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.

Colossians 3:5

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.

And finally, Paul unequivocally says that God did not call us to live the kind of life that has been described in this catalog of scriptures: “For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life” (1 Thessalonians 4:7). Let us then live a life that is above reproach—a life that honors our God and our own minds and bodies. Copyright © 2007 Shelby Floyd All Rights Reserved