Welcome to this weekend's In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley. Today, immorality is widely accepted and commonplace, but God's instructions for living have not changed. Our study of Colossians continues with hope for anyone who is battling the bondage of moral compromise. It is one thing to know what the Word of God teaches. It is something else to be able to apply that in your heart and in your life. And the Apostle Paul in Colossians chapter 3 begins a portion of this book in which he shows us how to apply all that he's been saying to us about who we are in Christ, who He is in us, all of our sufficiency in Him. Because in chapter 1, that's what he deals with, our sufficiency in Christ. In chapter 2, he tells us that man's regulations and rules, his philosophies, his asceticism, his mystical experiences, none of that is sufficient. What is sufficient is Jesus Christ. And then beginning in chapter 3 verse 5, he says this is where the rubber hits the road.
Now the big question is, does the Christian life really and truly work? So I want you to turn to chapter 3 and let's read beginning in verse 5, read 5, 6 and 7. And the title of this message is Dealing with Immorality. Because what Paul does in this chapter is he begins in this very practical part of dealing with a problem, the most prominent problem in the ancient days.
And I think most of us would agree a very prominent if not the most prominent one in our own day. So he says in verse 5, therefore, now whenever the Bible says therefore, what you have to ask is, for what reason is therefore there for? And the reason it's there is because what he's about to say is now on the basis of everything I've told you before, here's what to expect. Therefore, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and greed which amounts to idolatry. For it is on account of these things that the wrath of God will come.
And in them you also once walked when you were living in them. But now you also put them all aside, anger, wrath, malice, slander and abusive speech from your mouth. And then he goes on in that second list telling us put on, put off. What I want you to notice primarily is verse 5, therefore, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and greed which amounts to idolatry. Now immorality is not something that we face once in a while or frequently, but it is an issue that we have to deal with every day. And what he is listed here in chapter 3 beginning in verse 5 are sexual sins. So what I want to say to you in the beginning is I'm going to use the term immorality to cover all of the sexual sins that Paul mentions here because it's probably a little bit more tasteful term than the second one. So he says, therefore, on the basis of everything we've talked about, he says put to death those members of your body.
Now what does he mean by put to death? What is he referring to when he talks about the members of our body? We want to come to that, but first of all, I want us to look at this list. And I want you to follow me, if you will, and I want you to see several lists that Paul has in his epistles. And remember that he wrote these to Christians, not to non-Christians. Look, if you will, beginning in Romans chapter 1.
And you'll recall something very significant in all of these lists. Beginning in Romans chapter 1, when Paul reaches the 24th verse, he begins dealing with a problem of immorality. He says, therefore, God gave them over in the lust of their hearts the impurity that their bodies might be dishonored among them. Then he begins to talk about passion, immorality.
He deals with it. And then he comes to the latter part of that chapter and says that those who practice such things will incur the wrath of God. Look, if you will, in Galatians chapter 5 and verse 19, the familiar passage that deals with the works of the flesh. He says in verse 19, now the deeds of the flesh are evident which are beginning, immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry. And if you'll notice these lists also, idolatry is usually found where immorality is found. I want you to look at one of the passages of Scripture not because it is a list but because it is a very significant passage. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, notice, if you will, what he says in verse 2. For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.
What are they? For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that is your holy walk. That is that you abstain from sexual immorality. That each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification honor, not in lustful passion like the Gentiles who do not know God.
And that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you. Now it's interesting that in all of these epistles that Paul writes that he has list after list of sins. And these sins begin with the sin of immorality because that was a major problem in the church in the day in which Paul wrote.
Nothing's changed. It is a major problem in our society and it is still a major problem in the church today. And so Paul says as you look at these, I want you to notice he mentions five sins in this fifth verse. He says immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and greed which amounts to idolatry. I want you to see something else about this list and that is where he begins. He begins with the outward manifestation of it, that is the act of immorality.
And then he works backward from the manifestation to the motivation of it. He says immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and greed which is the source of it all which amounts to idolatry. Now what I would like for us to do is look at these five sins which Paul describes here and then let's see what God has provided for us to deliver us from them and then how it works actually in our daily life.
So let's begin with his list here in Colossians when he talks about first of all he says consider the members of your earthly body as dead, that is in essence he says put to death the members of your body and then he names these five sins. And the first one is the sin of immorality which in the Greek the word is porneia. It's where we get the idea of pornography. For example the word porneia is evil sex and grafe in the Greek is the word for writing or pictures and so when you have writing or pictures about evil sex you have pornei grafe, pornography.
That's where we get the whole word. It is the word that not only speaks of illicit sex relations outside of marriage but covers as you look at the shades of meaning in the word all of that which God has put together as disobedience and rebellion about him and toward him. It is sex outside of marriage. It is sex within marriage that is apart from your own partner and all the different forms of sexual indulgence which God has warned us against and so he refers and puts all of that together when he says therefore consider or put to death the members of your body and then he says to immorality.
He says in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 very clearly this is the will of God that you abstain from sexual immorality. Now here's the problem. Paul was writing to the Colossians who had begun even though they were saved who had begun to drift back into a lifestyle which God had delivered them from. Now the truth is you and I 25, 30 years ago we would never have, that is our whole society would not have tolerated what we tolerate today.
You know what the problem is? We're getting used to the dark. We are living in a darkened society and believers who are the light of the world are getting so used to the dark things that used to absolutely shock us and shame us no longer bother us and we say well you know that's just the way society is. I had a friend of mine who had been out in another city out west, a city that is known for its sensuality and its evil and he said the first day he was there he was absolutely shocked.
Everywhere he turned there was nudity everywhere. He said the thing that bothered him was after about 4 or 5 days it didn't bother him anymore. He said after a while I just began to ignore it and he said it dawned on me I began to adjust to a society that beforehand I would have looked upon with great shame. Do you suppose it's possible that we are adjusting to the dark? We are adjusting in America to the darkened, sensual, sexual, immoral society that is so prevalent the evidences are everywhere, everywhere you turn, outside the church, inside the church it's all there. And you see the problem is we as believers can get so used to the dark that after a while we think the dark is normal and natural. Do you think 25 or 30 years ago we would ever have tolerated what we tolerate in the area of immorality and defending what was not defended then, what was shameful, which was lewd, today we say well you know that's just the way life is. But I'm going to tell you my friend God hasn't changed his mind.
God doesn't get used to the dark and God does not intend that his lights walking here indwelt by the person of Jesus Christ become so adjusted to the dark that we participate in things of darkness. The second word he uses here if you'll notice is the word impurity. The word here means an unclean mind. That is we're talking about filthy speech and filthy thoughts.
A person who has an impure heart and if you'll notice that word is also in most of those lists. Impurity speaks of the condition of the heart, the condition of the mind. An impure mind is one that is dirty in its thinking.
I'll tell you how you can spot an impure mind. If you say something that you mean with all the sincerity of your heart in the purest way and somebody look at you and smile and say I know what you were thinking, they don't know what you were thinking but their mind is so full of impurity. Everything that they hear gets sifted through their grid system mainly of impurity so that what they do is they interpret all of life on the basis and from the basis of sensuality and moral impurity. That's the way they think. Their minds have been so darkened with it. Whatever you feed your mind on is what your mind becomes like. Now I want you parents to listen very carefully. You must be careful what you allow your children to feed upon in the area of television. If you just walk away and let them feast on anything they want to, their minds are going to be filled with immorality, moral impurity because there is so much of it there.
We say that we have a free society and everybody should be able to express their feelings, not necessarily. Likewise, when a person is saved early in life, they are saved from a lot of stuff. When a person is saved later in life, it is oftentimes more difficult for them to overcome immorality in their life because as Paul says in this passage, this is what you were used to. This was your lifestyle. This is the way you thought. This is the way you acted.
This was what you sought in life. That's why it's so very important that children be saved early in life. That's why it is difficult oftentimes for a person who loves God, wants to do the right thing, knows what is wrong, stepped out of the old lifestyle, but if they're not instructed in how to deal with immorality, before they know it, their thoughts are back over here and before too long, they are physically back over here doing what they would have sworn before God they would never have done.
Now I want you to listen very carefully. When a person rebels against God and insists on living an immoral life, there's a point out there in which they give themselves over to immorality. When they cross that line, when they cross that line and they give themselves over to it, meaning this, they know the dangers, they know the consequences, they know it's wrong, they know it's against the law of God, but they make a choice, I'm going to do it in a way, I'm willing to suffer the consequences, when they cross that line, God then withdraws all of his barriers and his hindrances and he turns them over to a life of immorality which will ultimately end in a life of destruction.
They will destroy their own bodies, they'll destroy the lives of the people, other people's marriages, their kids, you name it, destruction is the name of the game of immorality. Now here's the problem and I understand. The problem is that many folks would say, well, you know, I know that's right and I don't want to get involved in these things and I don't want to have this relationship and I don't want to participate in this and I want to get out of this, but I can't. I can't. Yes, you can. I don't know how that may be true. I can't.
Yes, you can. Don't know how that may be true. And that's why we're dealing with this particular passage right here. But I want you to see the danger, that there is a point out there when you willingly, knowingly, knowing the consequences choose to step across the line, then God just turns you over to it and my friend, you are in gross danger, danger far beyond what you and I would like to think about as believers. Now listen, he said not only immorality, but he uses a third word here. He says immorality, impurity and passion. Now the Greek word passion, pathos. You can have a passion for things in a godly way. But we're talking about here when we speak of passion, shameful attitudes toward immoral acts and all the rest that goes with that. It is a shameful kind of desire that leads to these kind of acts. It is a heated desire. A person who has this kind of passion according to the meaning of that word is a person who doesn't stop until they think they get their own particular needs or desires satisfied. The truth is, it never is satisfied. There is no commitment in this kind of passion.
There's no concern for the other person. It is only for the gratifying of that which pleases or satisfies them. A similar word that is close to it is the word, the two words here, he says evil desire, immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire. Now those two words sound rather similar and they are. The only difference is that evil desire is a smoldering kind of passion. The word he uses for passion here is a heated kind of ready to take advantage of an opportunity. But evil desire is likewise a form of passion, a craving for sexual satisfaction. Now here's the problem. You can no more satisfy, elicit, that is ungodly, unscriptural, sexual desires than you can fill a bucket full of water that has a three inch hole in the bottom of it.
You can keep pouring it in all you want to but it's going to keep draining out. God never intended for sex to satisfy outside of marriage. Now let me ask you a question. Why did God say one man, one woman? Why didn't he say many women, one man, many men for one woman? Why did he limit it down to one? I mean after all if you love somebody, you love that person, why can't you be married to one and have immoral relationships with many others after all you're married to one? Because God knows the nature of humanity. And he knows that there is absolutely no commitment whatsoever in an immoral life, an impure life, a passionate evil desirous life.
God limited us one to one because he knew that was the only way that the gift of sex would ever be fully satisfied and bring contentment and fulfillment. Any other activity of it, any other use of it will bring only a longing, passionate, thirsty, hungering, yearning that can never be satisfied and what it results in is taking advantage of somebody else which leads me to the next word. Notice he says and greed which amounts to idolatry. Now what in the world does greed have to do with immorality?
It has a great deal to do with it. And the word he uses here in the Greek is the word if you break it down it means to have and the other Greek word is more, to have more and more of that which is forbidden. That is covetousness or greed is a desire for having what God has forbidden and the truth is this is the root of it all. You see all kinds of immorality, whatever it may be, the root cause of it is covetousness, greed. The truth is that here is a person who wants to have a desire met and so the truth is they take advantage of the other person and sinning against Almighty God.
He says immorality, impurity, passion, evil desires, greed, he says these things put to death in your life. Thank you for listening to Dealing with Immorality. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
