The Alternative

Dr. Tony Evans: Of all the sins you sin, this sin is in a unique class by itself, because every other sin comes to you. This sin comes from you.

Guest (Male): Dr. Tony Evans says the answer to sexual sin doesn't start with what you do, but whose you are.

Dr. Tony Evans: As long as you own you, you will battle with you about you. But once you stop owning you, God can take over management.

Guest (Male): This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. The world works overtime to sell us its broken version of sexuality, making it harder than ever to know what's true. Today, Dr. Evans turns to God's word for a kingdom perspective on healthy sexuality. Let's listen.

Dr. Tony Evans: One of the battles that rages in our world today is the self-destruction that is occurring because of an errant view of sexuality. Sexuality is a sensitive discussion to have, but yet it is one the Bible does not shy from talking about. Rather than being a special, uniquely applicable area of life, it has become common ground for selling products, for seeing on television and computers. It's kind of been cheapened like fast food. Drive-through pleasure. Sometime it's like a 24-hour open stop and go. Stop, get what you want, and leave. The consequences have been devastating, whether it's teenage pregnancy or increased abortions or single parents too numerous to number.

Whether it's the increase of diseases or broken hearts and relationships, this issue of sex and sexuality is bringing about all levels of self-destruction. And now our whole society has changed the standard, dumbing down decency. Churches are full of people struggling in one way or another in this area. And yet when God wants to talk about it, he talks about it quite bluntly, unapologetically, for the benefit of pulpit to pew and pew to pulpit. For us to understand his view of this and to help his people to understand it too. That 's why when we look at 1 Corinthians 6, we read these words.

Verse 9, or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, or homosexuals, nor thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. They talked about a number of things, but a large part of what he talks about has to do with sexuality. And that's the one thing he's going to spend his time talking about as opposed to all the other areas he describes, the area of sex and sexuality. He says these kind of people do not inherit the kingdom of God.

He's talking about people who are defined by this lifestyle. There's nobody perfect. Everyone sins, even though sin, whether one or million times, is wrong. But he's talking about that which characterizes the lives of these people. Please notice what he says. He doesn't say these people will not have entered the kingdom of God. He says these people will not inherit the kingdom of God. There's a big difference. You see these Corinthian Christians are already saved. They already on their way to heaven. How do I know that? Because of verse 11. Such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God.

He says this is what you used to be. But you've been washed, that is cleansed by the blood. You've been justified, you've been declared righteous. You've been sanctified. You've been spiritually set apart as a unique, one-of-a-kind person. He says that's who you are. So even though they were saved, their position wasn't agreeing with their practice. In other words, they were on their way to heaven, but they were still functioning as earthlings in this particular area. So it is possible to have a position of salvation and a position of sanctification, yet be practicing the very opposite to the position, operating different than your position calls for.

Now a casual reading of the book of Corinthians will let you see these Christians had a whole bunch of problems and a whole bunch of areas. One of the dominant ones was in the area of sexuality. To give you the backdrop of this, there's this big hill in Corinth called the Acrocorinthus. On the Acrocorinthus was a temple, the temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. In the temple was a place where you could worship. On one side of the temple was a place where you could eat. They would sacrifice. Then they would take the meat after the blood was drained, and they would cook it and serve it so you could eat, so you could worship, you could eat.

But on the other side of the temple was a brothel with over 1,000 prostitutes. They were shifting over to operating the way they used to operate before they were saved. So Paul knew he had to address this problem of sexuality in the church from a kingdom perspective. He says I want you to know that those who operate this way, define this way, he says I want you to know that they are jeopardizing their inheritance. They're already saved. You're already washed, justified, and sanctified. He wants to bring some clarity to this because they're living in a second world where like our world today, sex was available at bargain basement prices.

Like marking down something that's couture and now making it cheap, available at no cost or low cost. Other than salvation, be worried about anything that's free. So he wants to deal with this problem head on. He doesn't want to skip it or dump it down. He clarifies it in verse 13. Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. Here's how they were operating. They were saying I'm hungry.

I'm hungry. I haven't eaten in a number of hours. I need something to eat. And so food is for the body. In other words, I've got this hunger. God's provided food. God's given me a stomach, a container for the food. So since God has provided food and God has provided the stomach and the stomach is for food and the food is for the stomach, when the stomach wants the food, let me go get the food so I can satisfy the hunger that's in the stomach because of its craving for food. Sounds logical. But they took it one step further.

They were saying when the body craves for sexual gratification, God has given us vehicles for which that is to be satisfied. So what they did was they treated sex like food. And he wants them to understand, first of all, sex came from heaven, not Hollywood. He says verse 13, the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. When God created the issue of sex, he created it for the purpose of his covenant. And he used a very interesting word. It says Adam knew Eve, and she got pregnant.

The word to know meant to be intimate, yada. It was that word that spoke of in-depth intimacy to express the physical union of Adam and Eve. What's interesting is that that's the very same word used of our relationship with God. God speaks of us knowing him, and he uses the same word yada. So God wants the same relationship with you that a man has with a woman and vice versa when they are intimate in the context of marriage. He wants that same level of depth and intimacy with us. So he uses the same word for sexual intimacy to spiritual intimacy.

That's because when there is physical intimacy between a man and a woman, God wants you to experience him then. So in this area of sexuality, it was never to be separated from God, nor was it to be separated from the kingdom. But what Satan does is he always takes something that God makes good and messes with it. One of the things you have to know is that Satan and his demons are very interested in sex. The Bible says in Genesis chapter 6 verse 1 that the demonic angels came down, inhabited ungodly men who had relationships with women, producing a demonized race.

So God has to destroy the whole world with a flood. All because demons use sex to contaminate the world. So this is a big deal spiritually, not just hormonally or physically. It is a big deal because it has to do with how both groups, God and the devil, perpetuate their covenant and cause us to gain or lose our inheritance. But he goes deeper, verse 15. Do you not know, he wants to explain, that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Cuz those are the 1,000 prostitutes in the temple.

May it never be which means absolutely not. It's unthinkable. Now why? He says do you not know that your members belong to Christ? Okay, what is he saying? He's saying every time you have sex, Jesus is having it too. Every time you're physically intimate, Jesus is being physically intimate with you cuz he's attached to you. So the question on the floor is he having as much fun as you are? Is he comfortable, as comfortable as you are because you have brought him into the relationship? Because you are in union with Christ. So whatever you do, Christ does cuz you're attached to Christ.

So if he happy with the attachment you are making since he's attached to you while you're attached to somebody else,

Guest (Male): Dr. Evans will have more to say about the power of that attachment when he continues our message in just a moment. First though, I want to let you know that this is the final message in Tony's current series, The Kingdom Family. And that makes this your last chance to take advantage of a special double offer that includes all six full-length messages in this collection along with the One Family Under God paperback, a companion to the series that explores God's design for the family and the foundational issues that can strengthen or weaken the home. We're offering this entire bundle as our thank you gift when you make a contribution to support the alternative here on this station.

But this special offer ends today. So get the details and make your request at tonyevans.org or call our resource center at 1-800-800-3222 anytime of the day or night. Team members are standing by to help you. Again, that's 1-800-800-3222. I'll have that contact information for you again after part two of today's message and this.

Guest (Female): Life moves fast, and sometimes the most important thing you can do is slow down. You're invited to join Dr. Tony Evans and special guest Priscilla Shirer and Anthony Evans on a seven-day Caribbean cruise of rest and renewal beginning February 28th. Set sail from Fort Lauderdale to visit stunning destinations like Nassau, Grand Turk, Amber Cove, and even a private island in the Bahamas. But this journey is more than scenic beauty. It's a time to reconnect with God and with others. You'll experience life-changing teaching, uplifting worship, and moments of peace that are hard to come by in the middle of everyday life.

Whether it 's a quiet morning on deck or a shared moment of praise with fellow believers, every part of this cruise is designed to refresh your body and your soul. Make plans now to step away so you can step back renewed. Visit tonyevans.org for details and reservations. That's tonyevans.org.

Dr. Tony Evans: But if a mother of a pregnant woman has a drug problem, she has a drug problem, that baby could be born a drug addict. Not because the baby was trying to be a drug addict, but because the baby was partaking of its connection to the mother. And through the umbilical cord, there is a transfer of the drugs to the baby. So the baby becomes an unwilling participant in the activity of the mother by virtue of their attachment. God says by virtue of our attachment to Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ's attachment to us, he becomes a participant in whatever we choose to do or watch.

So if your issue is pornography, you just have to know as you watch pornography, you and Jesus are watching pornography because you are a joint participant. See he what he's saying is maybe you don't know this, or maybe you have forgotten this, or maybe you and I don't understand how close the tie is between Jesus and us and what we do. It is an inseparable tie because we are members of each other, he says. We are we are intimately connected. Or do you not know verse 16? It goes deeper. That the one who joins himself to a prostitute, cuz that was on the temple, is one with her.

And he says the two shall become one. But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with him. He says with sexual intimacy a joining occurs. Joining, and he uses marriage language. And the two shall become one flesh. Well that's marriage language. What he says is when you, church members, go to be with the prostitutes at the temple, don't you know you're marrying her without marrying her? In other words, it's an illegitimate covenant, but it is a covenantal act because that's what the sex is designed to do, establish or renew a covenant.

He says don't you understand that what you're doing is you're marrying without getting married? Because he says what you do is you establish a covenantal connection with sexual intercourse. And so he wants them to understand. He uses the word join, verse 16, join himself to a prostitute. And then he says again joins himself to the Lord. Join. That word is the same word and it means glue or cement. You become cemented. He says a cementing occurs through sexual intimacy with the prostitute in the flesh while you are, watch this, joined or cemented in spirit to the Lord.

He says therefore flee immorality. Verse 18. He says run from it. Uh I've I've only done skeet shooting once in my life, and every time I aimed it at the bird, I missed. That's cuz by the time the pellets got to it, it was gone cuz it's flying across real fast. So I had to I had to be instructed you got to get in front of this. In other words, if you going to hit it, you got to get in front of it. You can't just aim at it. What he is saying is I want you to get in front of this thing.

He says I want you to flee immorality. Now what is immorality? It is any sexual relationship that occurs outside of marriage. Not play with it, run from it. Why? Verse 18. Because every other sin that a man commits is outside of the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. He says of all the sins you sin, this sin is in a unique class by itself, because every other sin comes to you. This sin comes from you. Why? Because we are built as human beings as sexual beings. We we are built with hormones.

We we are built with the urge. So the sin is already built in, which is why it's the most natural sin, cuz you don't have to go buy it. It already belongs to you. He says every other sin is not like that. This one is born from you and to you and through you and comes out of you. Other things may invite it and call for it, but that's because it's already built in there. And because it is attached to the inner person, because it's built on the inside, is is attached to the soul and now he attaches it to the spirit.

And that's why it can breed so much pain. And then it comes with a zinger. He says in verse 19, or do you not know? He says let me help you out. I've already told you you're members of Christ. So whatever you do, Jesus is doing with you. But now he goes to the Holy Spirit and he says your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. A temple is a place of worship. So every time you have sex, you have church. He says every time you are physically intimate, it is a worship experience because he says your body is a church house, is a temple, it is a place of worship.

Because what sex was supposed to be with Christians is a worship experience. It is supposed to be literally a worship experience. And if something is a worship experience, that means God is in the middle of it. It is worship. God is supposed to be right smack dab in the middle of physical intimacy when it is done his way because your body is a church house. It's a temple. So the question is what are you doing in church? This is the question. What are you doing in church? Your body is the temple of God. Now that raises a question, doesn't it?

That cuz we're still human. So does God expect us to not be what he made us to be? I mean what what is How can I deal with this when I've got human reality and human needs, but he tells me I can't look at it like food? He makes a little simple statement here that uh changes everything. He ends verse 19 with and you are not your own, for you have been bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body. What he says is the problem is you still own you. As long as you own you, you will battle with you about you.

But once you stop owning you and God can take over ownership, he can then take over management. He says the problem is owning. I own me. This is my body. This is my passion. These are my eyes. This is these are my hands. I own me. When I give up ownership, he can now control management. But as long as I own it and then I must manage it, and this is a difficult one to manage. That is why it's the number one addiction because it's hard to manage cuz the problem is in me and in us.

Guest (Male): Dr. Evans will return in a moment with a closing thought about solving that problem when he wraps up this final message in his current series, The Kingdom Family. And in-depth look at God's original plan for the home and what it means to build our families according to his purposes. As I mentioned earlier, you can receive all six full-length messages in this collection on CD, USB flash drive, or digital download as our thank you gift when you make a contribution to support Tony's ministry. And through the end of today, we'll also include Dr. Evans One Family Under God paperback as a special bonus.

This companion to the series can help you understand the importance of family as God intended it and apply these biblical principles in your own home. Visit tonyevans.org to get the details and make your request today or let one of our team members help you when you call our resource center at 1-800-800-3222. That's 1-800-800-3222 or online at tonyevans.org. We all have goals we want to achieve. But Dr. Evans says our success ultimately depends on which goal comes first. Tomorrow he explains what it really means to seek God's kingdom first and how that priority can shape everything else we do.

Right now though, he's back with this final illustration for today.

Dr. Tony Evans: Uh when the is my day to take clothes to the cleaners and I take the dirty and pick up the clean, I go to the cleaners because it's dirty. The shirt's dirty, the suit's dirty, whatever whatever it is I'm taking, it's dirty. It's dirty and I need a professional to clean it up with the with the equipment and and and all the that's needed to steam it and and to do all the things to make it wearable again. So I I take it to the cleaners. When I pick it up, it's been cleaned, it's been ironed because I've taken it to somebody who specializes in collecting dirty things and making it wearable again.

Jesus has a cleaning service. And he says yeah, you shouldn't be dirty. It's bad to be dirty. You shouldn't been in the mud. You shouldn't be over there. But my service can take care of small stains. Or if you've been rolling in the mud, I got a service that can take care of your dirt. Let let let me explain something. A dirty diamond is still a diamond. It's just that it look good cuz it's been in the wrong stuff. So if you are a dirty Christian, that doesn't change the fact you're a Christian. It just means you got to get that thing cleaned up by coming to Jesus cleaners.

Repenting of sin and giving God the freedom to clean you up because the beautiful thing about it is when I take my clothes to the cleaners and they give it back to me, I don't remember my dirt. I'm so enthralled with how good it smells and how nice it looks that the that the cleaning overcomes the dirt that I started with. May God help us not to succumb to the culture, but to raise the standards because we represent a king and a kingdom and because we no longer belong to ourselves.