WORKS OF IMMORALITY

TEXT--- Galatians 5:2-21

After reproving the Galatians for heeding appeals to receive circumcision, Paul warns them against the wiles of the flesh.

1. They needed to displace "flesh" with "Spirit," because these two principles are "contrary."
   
   1. The Spirit must prevail in their lives.
      
   2. This will release them from the Law (of Moses). 5:16-18
      
2. Though we are triune creatures (body, soul, and spirit. 1 Thessalonians 5:23), we have to contend with another force, the "flesh."
   
   1. There are natural and spiritual aspects to the SOUL (Gk. psuce PSUCHE, meaning "sense of life, whether natural (Romans 16:4, or spiritual (Revelation 6:9-10).
      
   2. The spirit (Gk. pneuma, PNEUMA, derived from the root meaning, "breath.") can be either saved or condemned.
      
      1. The spirit may be in the "prison" of condemnation, and therefore in need of the message of salvation. 1 Peter 3:18-20
         
      2. But, though the spirit may be delivered to Satan, it may be saved by this discipline. 1 Corinthians 5:3-4

(NOTE: In the New Testament, personality, mind, and will are attributed to both the soul and the spirit, indicating that they can be separated only by a discerning power. Hebrews 4:12)

1. There are also natural and spiritual aspects of the body (Gk. soma, SOMA, whether mortal (Romans 8:10), or immortal (1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 44).
   
   1. The natural body is sinful (Romans 6:6), mortal (6:12, 8:11), and doomed to death (7:24).
      
   2. But the body can be redeemed (Romans 8:23), transformed (Philippians 3:21), presented to God as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1), and used to glorify God (1 Corinthians 6:20; Philippians 1:20).
      
1. The enemy of man's body, soul and spirit is "flesh" (Gk. sarx, SARX), which is always presented as a threat.
   
   1. Flesh is of the lower order.
      
      1. EXAMPLE: The contrast of circumcision of the flesh against that of the heart. Romans 2:28-29
         
      2. EXAMPLE: The contrast of human existence to that of spiritual exis-tence. Romans 8:9, 12
         
   2. To live after the "flesh" is death (Romans 8:13), enmity against God (Romans 8:7), and "sowing" to it brings "corruption" (Galatians 6:8).
      

LESSON--- "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are...."

1. FORNICATION (Gk. porneia, PORNEIA, meaning illicit sexual intercourse of any kind. (Jude 7 applies the word to the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah.)
   
   1. When Christianity first confronted this problem, the world was drowning in sexual excesses and perversions. (The evidence for this does not come only from Christian sources, but from Pagan writers disgusted with it.)
      
      1. Most prominent Greeks practiced it. Demosthenes said, "We keep mistresses for pleasure, concubines for the day-to-day needs of the body, and wives in order to produce children..."
         
      2. Romans transformed Greek libertinism into a coarse imitation of hellenistic sophistication.
         
         1. Seneca, a 1st Century Roman Stoic Philosopher, said that Roman women were married to be divorced, and were divorced to be married.
            
            1. He also said the innocence is not rare, but non-existent.
               
            2. He observed that "chastity is simply a proof of ugliness."
               
         2. Juvenal, A Roman Satirist, paints the picture of the Roman woman passing the altar of modesty with a cynical smile.
            
         3. Even "good" Emperors supplied governors with a concubine, along with other "supplies."
            
         4. Messalina, wife of Emperor Claudius, "slipped out of the royal palace at night to serve in a public brothel (and to hold contests with prostitutes to see who could serve the most customers in a night)."
            
   2. Roman society in the highest places was rampant with unnatural vice.
      
      1. Emperor Caligula lived in habitual incest with his sister, and Emperor Nero lusted continually after his own mother. (Seutonius)
         
      2. The Romans also imitated the Greeks in the practice of Homosexuality.
         
         1. Lucian, a 2nd Century Greek writer, said, "It is better not to need marriage, but to follow Plato and Socrates and to be content with the love of boys."
            
         2. Gibbon, the great 19th Century English Historian, writes, "Of the first fifteen Emperors, Claudius was the only one whose taste in love was entirely correct." (This is to be accepted only in regard to the practice of homosexuality, because Claudius, though heterosexual, constantly kept mistresses.)
            
   3. "Against this sexual immorality Paul's face is set." --Barclay
      
      1. He is appalled that the Corinthians are not shocked at the case of a man having his father's wife (1 Corinthians 5)
         
      2. He is afraid of being humbled by finding some at Corinth who "repented not of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they co mmitted." 2 Corinthians 12:21
         
      3. He declares that sanctification depends on abstaining from fornication. 1 Thessalonians 4:3
         
      4. He clearly shows that it is a sin against one's own body, as well as against a neighbor. 1 Corinthians 6:18; Romans 13:8-10
         
      5. He says, "Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall bring to nought both it and them. But the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body:" 1 Corinthians 6:13
         
   4. You can't dignify fornication by calling it something else ("living together," or "doing what comes naturally," or "demonstrating love"). Remember: David "loved" Bathsheba, and was willing to marry her, to save her from the humiliation of being discovered as an adulterer, but he was still charged with the sin, and suffered many consequences. See Hebrews 13:4.

2. UNCLEANNESS (Gk. akayarsia, AKATHARSIA)
   
   1. Keys to the definition of this word are found in its use in the NT.
      
      1. It is connected with the "dishonoring of bodies" in Romans 1:24.
         
      2. It is a product of lasciviousness, in Ephesians 4:19.
         
      3. It is correlated with base motives, in 1 Thessalonians 2:3.
         
      4. It is not to be known among "saints." Ephesians 5:3
         
      5. It is one of the evils a Christian must "put to death." Colossians 3:5
         
      6. To refuse to forsake it is a rejection of God. 1 Thessalonians 4:7-8
         
   2. The word is found in the LXX (Greek version of the OT), and the translators of the ASV use "lewdness" as a synonym in Hosea 2:10.

3. LASCIVIOUSNESS (Gk. aselgeia, ASELGEIA)
   
   1. Lightfoot says, "PORNEIA indicates sin within...the area of sexual relationships. AKATHARSIA indicates a general defilement...tainting every sphere of life; ASELGEIA indicates a sin so reckless and to audacious that a man has ceased to care what God or man thinks of his actions...a mand does not become ASELGES (the adjective) until he shocks public decency." (This agrees with Paul's use of the word as a condition of those gone "past feeling." Ephesians 4:19)
      
   2. Paul always connects it with sexual sins. 1 Thessalonians 4:3, 7; Romans 13:13; 2 Corinthians 12:21; and here in Galatians 5:19.
      
      1. Translators use such words as "licentiousness, indecency, sensuality, wantonness, lustfulness, and filthiness."
         
      2. Josephus uses this word to record the public shock over a Roman soldier who committed an indecent act in the Temple area.
         
      3. Demosthenes uses it of a man, "Into whose company no sensible man would every take his daughter."

APPLICATION--

1. It is not enough simply to warn Christians against such works of the flesh.
   
   1. Any Christian wanting to end his life here in a condition to go to heaven, will need the warning of Galatians 5:21b.
      
   2. Christians need to "reprove" those in such sins, "rebuke" them, and "snatch them out of the fire," using all the tact, love and moral force they can muster (Jude 23).
      
      1. We often ignore such sins, like the Corinthians (Chapter 5).
         
      2. We sometimes decide, when we see a brother or sister in Christ involved in such sins, that it is hopeless to try to correct someone who should know better. (We forget that the man who offended the Corinthian church later repented.)
         
2. We cannot give up the effort, because the world is filled with filth of this sort.
   
   1. The Holy Spirit met the perversions of the Roman world "head-on" through the teaching of the Apostles.
      
   2. As we face this difficult task, we must remember that in Paul's day.....
      
      1. There was no body of public opinion to help Paul in his task.
         
      2. Gnostics treated the the body as hopelessly evil, and discouraged every effort toward improvement.
         
      3. Pagan religion was built on the cult of fertility, served by fornication and all sorts of perversion.
         
   3. We need God's help today, also, to keep pure ourselves, and to proclaim purity as a blessed was of life.

APPEAL--- Romans 13:11-14