3 – Freedom from sexual sin
We’re always learning. There are always things to learn. I encourage you to keep on a learning journey. The last couple of mornings we shared with you on generational iniquity and curses, and we shared on the area of the occult. Today we want to look at the whole area of freedom from sexual sin.
This is quite a big topic, that can’t really be handled simply. I want to just approach it on this particular day, from the point of view of just understanding, in ministering to people, what you’re going to be ministering to. We’ll just share some things I’ve learnt on the way that help.
This is becoming an increasingly significant issue that we have to deal with now. We’ve got to continue to be willing to learn and understand the problems people are facing. We’ll just start with a story out of the Bible, of a man tormented by unclean spirits; then I want to look at God’s design for us; and then I want to look at the impact of sexual sin; and then we’ll look at some ways of ministering to people.
Let’s read first of all, in Luke 4:33-34 – “Now in the synagogue there was a man who had a spirit of an unclean demon. And he cried out with a loud voice, saying: “Leave us alone! What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Did You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!” But Jesus rebuked him, saying: “Be quiet, and come out of him!” And when the demon had thrown him in their midst, it came out of him and did not hurt him.”
So the Bible says the man was in bondage to an unclean demon. All demons are unclean; but it’s quite possible that this man was in bondage to sexual sin. So, the story begins in the synagogue – a place where believers meet; and a believer has an issue with sexual sin. In some way he’d opened his life, and he was being tormented by spirits. So, he was tormented by spirits of lust and perversion. There was a torment going on in his life, day-by-day. So, what form would that torment be like?
1.) There would be constant memories and pictures in his mind of past sexual experiences. The demons would be keeping the memories alive, just keeping them in the front of his mind constantly.
2.) He would be having fantasies of future sexual experiences. His mind would constantly be thinking about possible future experiences; and there would be driving feelings or passions, lust, longing; and there would be repeated cycles of failure in his life.
So those would be some of the things that would be happening in him: memories of past sexual experiences; and fantasies of possible future experiences - driving feelings and longings of lust, and then cycles of failure. We would sin and ask for forgiveness, and then be alright for a while, and then back into the same problem.
So, this man, the driving force underneath it was demonic. We need to understand that demonic spirits cause energy inside people. For example, Ephesians 2:2 refers to demonic spirits, and it says that they ‘work in us’ – “You once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience”. So, demonic spirits work in people.
The word ‘work’ is the word where we get ‘energise’. Demonic spirits create energy, pressure inside people. Sin also creates energy in people. So, sin energises people. I think in Romans 5:7, it says: sin works in you. When a person has these kinds of problems, there is a strong energy, and pressure, and drive within the person. The presence of demonic spirits, and the presence of unresolved sin, tends to increase that pressure.
Our sexual drive is an appetite we must learn to manage. It’s something God gave to us. For example, you want to eat everyday. You want to have food. It’s an appetite inside the person’s life. So, sexual desire is an appetite, a longing that God has put within people; and it has to be managed. However, the presence of sin and demonic spirits creates a massive energy that drives this particular appetite, so we need to learn how to manage ourselves.
Have a look in 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8, and it says: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual sit; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honour, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one should take advantage of, and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of such, as we also forewarned you and testified. For God did not call us to uncleanness, but to holiness. Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.”
You notice, you never have to pray about sexual sin. The Bible says: this is the will of God – purity. In case we didn’t understand it, He says: “abstain from sexual sin”. Notice that He makes it very clear. It’s God’s will that we avoid, or restrain, or hold back from sexual sin; and two, we learn how to manage this appetite in our life; in contrast to unsaved people, who just look for opportunities to express it.