The second aspect is: painful emotions. What kind of emotions? As you remember the relationship, and the relationship broke up, there’s usually grief – because there was high expectation in that relationship; there’s feelings of being rejected; there’s often bitterness; and sometimes people begin to hate men or women, or they’ll hate themselves. There’s often anger, and there’s often shame. Now isn’t that an amazing bunch of things inside you? People were looking for love, and got hurt.
So, what happens is: their soul is left with the damage. Grief – I feel angry; I feel rejected; and then the person begins to feel bitter and hateful against men, or against women, or often against themselves. A woman, who was seduced by a man, afterwards will walk away feeling: I just hate myself - how could I have let that happen. Of course, it’s all in secrecy from family, so there’s an immense shame that sits over the person’s life.
When you come to talk to a person, they’ll barely tell you what they did. They won’t tell you about all this mess that’s going on in their life. You just need to know: that’s the turmoil. There’s more - there’s confusion inside, because the person who’s had several relationships: they gave a part of their soul here, and it was hurt; now they give a part here, and that’s hurt; leave a part here, and that’s hurt. Now they’re scattered.
So when they finally get married, it’s hard to give themselves anymore - too much brokenness, too much pain; and because the person’s scattered, it’s hard to give themselves intentionally to one person. Sometimes they feel they’re still attached to the other person. Sometimes, if a spouse is spiritually sensitive, they can feel it. It’s like you’re not with me.
Remember we said that sexual intercourse is about intimacy, it’s about connection from within. When I’ve been teaching you about flowing in the spirit, remember I talked to you about the need for focus; that if your mind goes somewhere else, you disconnect, and there’s no flow from your spirit. So in sexual intimacy with your spouse, it’s important your mind does not disconnect; does not go remembering other relationships; does not go fantasising; but you connect with your spouse. So if you’ve got lots of images in there, your mind disconnects, goes all over. You understand why God warned about this? This is a problem for people; they don’t talk about it though.
So wounds and dishonour is caused; and not only that, but you find if a man for example, is involved in pornography, his whole brain chemistry changes. In other words, each time he’s involved in a pornographic experience, which means: fantasy, desire, and sometimes sexual masturbation. Every time that happens, there’s a tract formed in his mind.
There’s a thing about pornography – when people are involved with pornography, they’re not dealing with a real person and a real relationship; they’re looking at an image. In that image, they objectify the woman. The woman’s treated like an object for the man’s pleasure and control. When a man watches pornography, his whole brain begins to be trained, so if he sees a woman, he does not see the image of God, he does not see the person. He sees the body; he sees an object; and his mind is trained by the constant exposure to pornography. He sees her as an object, to be used to feel good.
So when a man is involved in watching pornography, images are formed in the soul, in the mind, brain chemistry begins to develop ruts, mental ruts. This deeply affects his ability to be intimate, because every time he sees a woman, he’s looking at her body, to scan her body parts, and treat her as an object of pleasure. This totally perverts the image of God, and turns this person into an object for him.
So he has all these fantasies about what a woman would be like and do, and this totally defiles his ability to enter into intimacy in marriage; makes him self-centred rather than loving. Spirits of perversion and prostitution enter his life and defile him. So, if a man has been involved in pornography, his wife would never feel loved by him. How could she? He won’t flow from his spirit to her, because his mind is defiled by a different kind of thinking. That whole process of the mind needs to be cleansed.
“Flee sexual sin”. There’s a good reason for it! It’s not because God says: “Oh, I hate sex. It’s so bad.” He said: “I love you, be careful. I’ve given you a gift that could destroy you.” See the difference? Church often won’t talk about it. Just: sex is bad. Even if people don’t say it, you get that message: “Don’t do it. You’ll be a bad person.” So all the shame is all over it; rather than God’s perspective – “I’ve given you this amazing, fantastic gift. It’s just unbelievable. It creates so much pleasure; and possibly creating a life. It’s a great gift. Please be careful. You’ll do a lot of harm if you misuse this gift.”
It’s almost certain in Genesis 5:6 that the group of watcher angels fell from their place God appointed them, because they wanted to be involved sexually with women. “Wow. Look at this gift God’s given to people. Man, this looks so good. We want a piece.” So they left what God appointed them to, and got involved with women. The Bible says: that’s when the nephilim and giants were born into the Earth. We won’t go into that, but you would understand there’s more to this whole issue than you’ve realised.