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Understand God's design for a blessed life, and about the deep impact on our spirit and soul of sexual sin. Learn how to break bondages, minister deliverance, and rebuild damaged lives.
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.
The third thing he tells us to do, is not to sexually manipulate a brother or sister; and in doing so, defraud them in the relationship. This is a major area of teaching itself – How to conduct relationships, without sexually manipulating someone.
The last thing He says is that: this call to holiness is something God has ordained, not man. So, if we resist this teaching of holiness and purity, we’re resisting God. We’ll look at some insights as we go on this journey. The man we’re looking at, in the story in Luke 4, was in bondage to sexual sin, and needed to be set free; and for that man, deliverance was the key to freedom. After he’d been set free, he still needed to walk in holiness, and he still needed to manage his appetite, and he still needed to conduct his relationships differently.
Now, let’s have a look at God’s design. We need to see how God designed us. Genesis 2:18 – “And the LORD God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” Then, going down a bit further to verse 24, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
You notice that the only thing God said was not good was loneliness. In other words, man is created for relationships. We are created with the ability to be intimate; and a need for intimacy - intimacy with God; and intimacy with another person. God has given us the ability to be able to express intimacy in a physical way. Not only that, he has given us the ability to bond.
In other words, when two people are involved sexually, they bond together. In the act of sexual intimacy, there is a chemical released in the brain that causes a bonding, or connecting between one person and the other. As well as that, there’s also an attachment, or a soul-tie formed. Remember, it’s the issue of loneliness that’s resolved by intimacy - intimacy with God; and intimacy with another person. So, God has made us to be able to bond; and sexual intercourse is a key to that bonding taking place. “The two shall be joined, and become one flesh.” So, when people are sexually intimate, there is a bonding together, and the two become one.
Now, let’s have a look in Matthew 19. So, God has given us several abilities – the ability to be intimate, to express that intimacy, to bond with someone else, and the ability to create. We can create things with our mind; we can create things with our body. Two of the great aspects of our sexuality are: the ability to be intimate and bond; and the ability to create another life. Clearly, that requires responsibility. The world tends to exploit all of this, of course.
Let’s have a look in Matthew 19:4 – “And He answered and said to them: Have you not read, that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female’”? So you notice God’s design - male and female. Not male and male; not female and female; but male and female. Verse 5-6: “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” So then, they are no longer two, but one flesh.”
You notice that God is talking about His original design. When two people become intimate with one another, intimacy means you become vulnerable. You open a part of your life to others, that’s not normally seen. You can’t be intimate with everyone, it’s not appropriate; it’s damaging to you. So intimacy is developed, it’s a process of building trust, and disclosing ourselves. Intimacy is very important to God. He made us for intimacy. He designed us for very close connections. So, the ability to be intimate makes us vulnerable.
If you open your heart to someone, you reveal something of yourself to them, and now you’ve become vulnerable; they can hurt you. They could reject you, they could betray you. There’s the dilemma: I want to be close; but if I get close, you might hurt me. So, that’s the dilemma. If you hurt me, it’ll make an impact on my life, and make it difficult for me to be intimate again. You see the dilemma of intimacy - all intimacy makes you vulnerable.
Therefore, God’s design is for there to be some protection around being intimate. When two people are sexually intimate, it involves body, soul, and spirit. God’s design is that we live from our spirit; and that the life of our spirit flows from soul and body, and touches other people - that’s God’s design. Now, the world reduces sexual relationship to something quite physical. From God’s point of view, it starts from the inside and goes out - heart to heart connection, sharing your life; and then physical. The world turns it around, and places the emphasis on the physical; and neglects to tell you of the potential damage that could be caused to your soul and your spirit.
For a person to have a physical sexual relationship, but no intimacy, no opening their heart in love to another person, just totally reduces that physical act to something no more than a physical act. So, intimacy without a commitment opens the door for injury - intimacy without commitment and trust. It makes sense: you just don’t get intimate with every person, because you become vulnerable to that person.
So, God has designed us, so that when two people become sexually intimate, you have sexual intercourse, firstly, something happens in their body. With the act of sexual intercourse, chemicals are released in the brain that bring immense pleasure, and cause a feel of bonding. When people are intimate with one another, they see and hear and experience things and their soul bonds together.
When people are intimate with one another, their spirit can flow and touch the other person. Just think about God’s design. It’s for a flow from your spirit to touch the spirit, soul, and body of the other person. So if you ignore all of that, you reduce intimacy to something little more than a physical act; and this actually, totally perverts God’s design, which is for intimacy – spirit, soul, and body.
That’s why the Bible uses this word: it uses the word ‘know’. Adam ‘knew’ his wife. They translate the word ‘know’, so it’s the word ‘yada’ – to be intimate. There was a flow from one person to the other. When a person has a relationship with someone, and they’re not married, they use the word: ‘he lay with her’. If it’s between a husband and wife: ‘he knew his wife’; but for something else: ‘he lay with her’, for example, when Dinah got raped: ‘he lay with her’. The Bible uses totally different language. Sexual intercourse is about intimacy, and the flow from the spirit and the heart of a person to another.
You can see then, why, to protect our intimacy, our capacity to be intimate, God put in place covenant. God is a covenant God. When God enters relationship with you, it is covenantal - He makes a covenant with you. A covenant is a binding agreement. In a covenant there are agreements: I will not hurt you. So God enters into a relationship called ‘covenant’.
In marriage, God designed marriage to be a covenant relationship. One person committed to the other, not to harm them, but to be faithful to them. God’s plan for marriage, man and woman, husband and wife, is that it be a covenant relationship; and it reflect what the relationship between Christ and the church is like. Covenant is a commitment of lifelong faithfulness, to protect intimacy.
Whenever in the Bible a covenant was made, there were always: words spoken; and there was blood shed; and promises made. God has designed the woman, so that in the first act of sexual intercourse, blood is shed. There’s no real reason for this, except its God’s design; and it’s God revealing again to us, that sexual intimacy is a covenantal issue. When a husband and wife have intercourse, it should be for the first time, and there’s a shedding of blood.
So it’s normal for example, for a wedding service, the couple may speak words to one another and form covenant. They exchange rings as a sign of covenant; people witness the covenant being made; there’s a celebration of covenant; but the marriage is not complete until the first act of sexual intercourse, and in that, the shedding of blood. What the parents used to do, was they would keep the sheets where the blood was shed - these were the tokens of the woman’s virginity. This was very highly valued in the Hebrew culture – that the woman kept herself for the husband, and the man entered into covenant with her.
So, when a man has sexual intimacy with a woman, and does not make a covenant with her, he is taking advantage of her. He is using her to meet his needs, but he is not offering her covenant, commitment, and security. This is devastating to women. God has set this in place - it’s His divine design. So God has also wired into us, that the man would conquer or pursue to conquer; and that women would desire security and commitment - that was the design.
So Jesus pursues us, offers us covenant, and we are secure in our relationship with Him. In the marriage, the man pursues the woman, offers her covenant, and then is faithful to her in the whole season of their relationship.
You understand then, that the whole act of sexual intercourse is in the context of marriage covenant. Everything about the whole wedding service, and the area of sexual intimacy, is to do with God’s design for marriage covenant. You can understand why we’ve just read in 1 Thessalonians 4 not to defraud the other person. That means to manipulate someone, and get something from them. When you defraud someone, you take something they wouldn’t have given you, except you put one over them. So men defraud women – leading them on, and drawing them into sexual intimacy, and then abandoning them. Women seeking to be secure, or have a relationship, can give in to this, and then feel defrauded.
You can see by what I’ve shared already, how far everyone’s moved away from God’s design; how we need to return to God’s design. If you create something, you know how it works. A designer who makes a microwave, they have a manual on how to make it work right. They say: don’t put any metal into this thing. “I don’t care; I don’t follow the manual you know. I do this my own way”. So you put a cup in with some metal stuff on it, and all sorts of things go off inside the microwave. “Whoa! What’s wrong with that?” We just didn’t follow the makers design.
We need to come back to God’s design, and embrace how God intended sexual intimacy to work. However, understand that man, opposed to God, will have his own ideas. Remember, the definition of sin means: to fall short of what God intended for our good. So, sexual sin – people fall short of what God intended. Do they enjoy it? Of course they do - God made it to be enjoyable; but there is a hidden destruction, because the wages of sin is always death.
We’ll find that the Bible warns about sexual sin; and we want to understand the damage caused by sexual sin. You understand, if God’s purpose is intimacy; and if we’re intimate we become vulnerable; it’s not surprising that damage takes place if we have sexual relationships outside marriage.
Let’s have a look at some warnings on this area. You have to remember this: that God is not against sex. God thought it up. We recognise God as the creator; He’s given us the ability to create a life; and He thought up exactly how it would work. He designed us for this; and He built in that this is going to be good. You’ll feel good, and you’ll like it. He built this into us - and then just in case we just don’t want to go that way, He puts a desire for this in us. Don’t go praying that God would take it all away - He gave it to you for a purpose.
We’ll just have a read in 1 Corinthians 6:13-20 – “Now the body is not for sexual sit, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.” What it’s basically saying, is that God does not want you to be involved in sexual sin; He wants you to honour Him. So, clearly, right at the beginning - keeping ourselves pure, honours God.
Just think again about His design. He’s designed us to reveal what He’s like; and He doesn’t go around having sex with people with no commitment. His relationships are covenantal - they are permanent.
Remember we saw how blood was shed for covenant between a husband and a wife? God forms covenant with us in the blood of Jesus Christ. We have communion - we celebrate we’re in covenant with God. When you have communion, this is what you’re celebrating.
You’re celebrating many things of course, but here’s the key of it – that I’m in a committed relationship with God. God has made covenant with me. I am His wife, and as evidence of that covenant, I will take this bread and take this cup, to remind me that in this covenant, it was Jesus’ own blood that purchased me. I am valuable to God. I am loved by Him. I belong to Him. I don’t belong to anyone else. I belong primarily to Him. That’s the core of communion. I am forgiven, because a Husband forgives me. I am loved, because my Husband loves me. See, it’s a marriage covenant.
We don’t tend to think about our relationship with God like that, but everything about His relationship is covenant; because He says: I am a covenant-keeping God. So breaking covenant, being unfaithful - is a terrible crime. From God’s eyes, if relationship means life, then breaking relationship is death. If covenant means: this is how God relates to us, then betraying covenant is a wicked sin – it violates the core of who God is. Let’s go on a little further...
It says in 1 Corinthians 6 verse 15: “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them members of a prostitute? Certainly not! Or do you not know, that he who is joined to a prostitute, is one body with her? For the two shall become one flesh.”
Notice what He’s saying here. He’s saying that, as a believer, the Spirit of God lives in me. I’m a part of Jesus’ representation in the Earth. I’m a part of the body of Christ – meaning I represent Him - He lives within me. So He said: why would I get involved with a prostitute, and be joined to a prostitute? Notice that when you’re involved sexually, it affirms again, that you become joined. He says: I’m joined to the Spirit of God; I don’t want to get involved in sexual sin - it’ll grieve the Spirit of God. Think about it, if you get involved in sexual sin, you’re taking the Holy Spirit where He doesn’t want to go.
Notice what it says in verse 18: “Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body; but he who commits sexual immorality, sins against his own body.” The word they use there for sexual sin is the word ‘Porneia’, which means: unlawful sexual relationships, or idolatry.
Now, look at this. It says: “...every sin you do, is just outside you”. If you lie, it’s outside you; you steal, it’s outside you; you break the laws, it’s outside you. Every sin is outside you; but there’s something about sexual sin that makes it different. This is why God warns about it. He says: he that commits sexual sin, sins against, or into, his own body.
When you sin sexually, there is something that enters into your body; because the two become joined, there is an entrance into you, of another person. There is a part of them that enters your life. This is why it’s saying that sin is so difficult - why it’s such a problem; because in every other sin, it’s just outside you; but in sexual sin, something happens inside you - you change on the inside.
For example, your brain chemistry will begin to respond, and there’ll be memory tracts put inside you. Sexual sin can build neuron pathways that become quite addictive - you build tracts in your mind. So, in a whole number of ways, sexual sin brings something into you. You need to be aware of this when you’re ministering to people.
It’s not just a sin outside to say “I’m sorry” for; it’s a change within them that’s taking place; and it will have ongoing effects on the person. You can’t walk away from it, because you’re carrying the impact of your sin inside you. So sexual sin is quite unique in its impact - something comes into us.
There’s a verse in Romans 1:27, it says “Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another; men with men, committing what is shameful; and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.” Notice something ‘inside’ the person changes. So, what He’s saying in both of these verses is simply that: sexual sin has an impact on you that no other sin has. Something changes inside you. The more you follow the path of sexual sin, the deeper the impact and changes on you.
Let’s have a look at some of the damage sexual sin causes. Many people won’t acknowledge it, but the more you become sensitive to your spirit, and what is happening in your life, the more you become aware of the presence and impact of sexual sin. Firstly, there is spiritual damage. The first thing is, it affects your relationship with God. You grieve the Holy Spirit.
In Ephesians 4:30, it talks about grieving the Holy Spirit; to cause Him pain and sorrow. Because God is a covenant God, if you are involved in sexual sin, then you grieve the Spirit of God, and it affects your relationship. Ephesians 4 and 5 are both connected, and it lists the things that grieve the Holy Spirit. So sexual sin grieves and dishonours what God has called us to be.
If we continue in the sin, we become desensitised in our conscience. One of the things that seem to happen, when you’re involved in sexual sin, is that there’s a guilt, and a shame, that comes around your life. Guilt – I’ve done something wrong. Shame – something’s wrong with me. For all the emphasis the world makes on sexual sin being okay, if anyone in a significant role is caught in sexual sin, they immediately experience shame and dishonour.
So the first spiritual impact is that our relationship with God is affected or wounded. God wants us to be confident and bold towards Him. You’ll find that when people are wrestling with sexual sin, they feel condemned, and unworthy to enter into the presence of God. We’ll come back to that later, in how to step back up again after you’ve sinned.
However, I’ve noticed in the area of sexual sin: 1) the devil will push on you to do it; and 2) he’ll follow it up with an accusation of shame. So God has made provision for cleansing, we just need to know how to apply it.
Second thing, demonic defilement can occur. In other words, demonic spirits can transfer from one person to another, if the two have had sexual relationships. This is why: if two people have sexual intercourse, what does God say about it? The two become one. If two people have become one, then if I have demons in me, and I become joined to a person, then we’re one, so the demon has a right to go there too. Just as sexual disease can be transmitted, demonic spirits have a legal right to come into that person.
Now you understand how, in the Old Testament, one of the things that caused men of God to go off track was sexual sin; because it enabled demonic spirits to come into the person, and bring them into captivity.
For example, in Numbers 25, Balaam had tried to curse Israel; and God said: “No, they’re blessed”. He said: “What can I do? I know what to do: send in the women who’d been worshipping idols; get them to sleep with the men - and then it’s all over”. That’s exactly what they did. They sent women, who were worshipping idols, to come and sleep with the men and compromise their life.
You think about what happened to Samson. Judges 16 – It says: “there were people lying in wait for him to fall into sexual sin”; and then they took away his strength, then they brought him into bondage and captivity. In other words, sexual sin was the doorway for him to become spiritually captive. You think about King David - sexual sin led to other things like deception and murder.
So, when people are involved in sexual sin, in the Old Testament, there was a law that said: they had to be put to death; or in other words: a spirit of death can legally enter them.
So, you find demonic defilement can easily occur when people have been involved sexually. I had one girl, as I shared with you, who was struggling with occult oppression; and the doorway the spirit used was: she was involved sexually with someone involved in the occult.
Another aspect of spiritual damage is that ungodly soul ties are connected. They give demons the right to enter in. A soul tie is a bonding. So when two people become one, they’re bonded together. If they’re married, it’s a lawful tie; if they’re unmarried, it’s an ungodly tie - ungodly soul ties. So this bonding enables demonic spirits to enter the person’s life. You will find, when you start to break ungodly soul ties of sexual partners, that many times, the demons will manifest immediately.
So you can see the spiritual impact – relationship with God damaged, demonic spirits can enter, conscience is damaged, becomes vulnerable to condemnation, and demonic soul ties are formed. It’s quite a load of stuff isn’t it? But that’s not all.
Remember what I said, something comes into you. So, when God says: you be careful about this sin, because something would change inside you. Something would change, that’s not easy to change back again. So He said: that’s why you keep yourself pure. You will change. Something will happen inside you, and it’ll take some effort to get this damage fixed up.
Now let’s have a look at what happens in the soul. We’re talking about the soul of man. Proverbs 5, 6, and 7 talks quite a bit about sexual sin. Let’s have a look in Proverbs 5:3-5 for example. “For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil; but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, her steps lay hold of hell.”
Notice what it’s saying there – it’s talking about sexual sin. It says: it’s smoother than oil, lips dripping honey, sweet. What it’s saying is that it’s very sweet. When you start down the path of sexual sin - it’s very sweet; but you see, the end is bitter. Starts sweet; ends bitter. You’ll find that bitterness becomes a problem when people have been involved in sexual sin. Bitter men, bitter women; feeling used in the sexual relationship - expecting intimacy and love; and instead, being rejected and abandoned; so the end – bitterness. When you’re ministering to people, be aware there’ll be bitterness there.
Proverbs 5:5 – “Her feet go down to death, her steps lay hold of hell.” Notice death and hell are spiritual powers. Death causes people to be isolated. Hell torments people. So the two spirits are found very commonly connected to sexual sin: Death – which isolates and numbs; and Hell – which torments. Proverbs 5:22 – “His own iniquities entrap the wicked man, and he is caught in the cords of his sin.”
So that’s Proverbs 5. Let’s have a look at Proverbs 6:32-33 – “Whoever commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding (or heart); for he who does it, destroys his own soul. Wounds and dishonour he will get, and his reproach will not be wiped away.” Isn’t that amazing? The impact in the Bible is very clear. Talking specifically about adultery, and He said: you will get wounds and shame come into your life.
You think about now, public exposure of adultery, anywhere you’ve seen it in the media - it brings tremendous dishonour, and it brings tremendous pain. Everyone despises it. Even if no-one talks about it, when it comes out to the open, people are dishonoured and shamed and wounded.
Let’s have a look in Proverbs 7:25-27 – “Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways, do not stray into her paths; for she has cast down many wounded, and all who were slain by her were strong men. Her house is the way to hell, descending to the chambers of death.”
So, this passage again says of the issue of wounds; and refers again to death an