Welcome to the InTouch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Friday, February 24.

Today's message brings a biblical explanation of why any physical relationship outside of marriage is dangerous and destructive.

Let's wrap up the series with a warning against the landmine of sexual sin.

What is the truth about sexual sin? I want you to turn the first disillusioned chapter 4 in the order to read

of these first eight verses together. Finally then, brethren, the request and exotation you in the Lord Jesus,

he says that as you receive from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God, just as you actually do walk and you exhale still more,

for you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. Well, this is the will of God, your sanctification that is that you abstain from sexual immorality.

He says that each of you would know how to possess his own vessel, in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion like the Gentiles who do not know God,

and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter, because the Lord is the Avenger in all these things just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you.

For God is not called as for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification. So he who rejects this is not rejecting man, but the God who gives the Holy Spirit to him.

Now let's take a moment to look at this passage and then I want to move on. Look at this.

God saved you and me for the purpose of building an intimate relationship with us, giving of himself to us, giving of ourselves to him, learning who he is, receiving who he is,

and that's why he gave us the Holy Spirit to live on the inside of us so that you and I could receive the fullness of who God is in our life.

So sex which created by God, for pleasure, for procreation, that is for the right purposes, and so there's nothing wrong with sex the way God created for the purposes for which God created it.

It's when it gets out of sorts with the will of God, when it passes a certain line, when it steps over the boundary, when it's a transgression of the law of God, when it's rebellion against God,

when it falls into the area of lust, then the whole issue is something totally different. And so here's what he says.

So he who rejects this is not rejecting man, but the God who gives his Holy Spirit to you.

When you talk to one of your friends, for example, and they say, well, that's just what you believe, but I don't believe that.

You can say to them, according to the Word of God, you are rejecting God. Well, how do you know they'll give you all kind of arguments?

Don't worry about the arguments. You've got two verses of Scripture that make it crystal clear. When somebody says, well, but I have these needs, and God created me with these needs, and these needs have to be met.

And therefore it's not my fault, it's God's fault. Well, God's not going to do anything that makes it his fault.

While he's created this desire within our heart, he's created these needs within our life, he's created them, but also he has given within us the right and the power to choose wisely and to obey him.

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