Hebrews 12:12-17 (ESV)
Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, [13] and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. [14] Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. [15] See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no "root of bitterness" springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; [16] that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. [17] For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.
“that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears. “
Now here is some law. The writer here equates being sexually immoral as like selling your birthright for a single meal. Holiness is your birthright, it is yours by virtue of your birth by water and the Holy Spirit. There god made you Holy, there he sanctified you, made you innocent and righteous. “And such we some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Cor. 6:11)
Sexual immorality though is a heinous sin. If infects the soul like no other. Paul talks about it as sinning against your own body. Here it is equated as selling your birth right for a bowl of porridge. I see it. To quote Dr. Laura “was the orgasm worth it”? I wonder that. Pastors deal with this stuff with so many. We see the aftermath. Sinning against your own body, and the two become one. If you love yourself, you love your wife. It is odd. We see sexual immorality, the quest for personal satisfaction as selfishness a perverted self love. Loving our flesh, we sin against our body. Perverted love is not love. Loving of one’s self is to have a bit of pride in who you are, Man, and Woman. You are not a dog, not even when it comes to sex. Why sell your birthright for a bowl of porridge, for an orgasm.
This is one of those things I don’t think we take adequate stock of these days, not in society, and not in church. We degrade ourselves. Sexual immorality is rampant in society. I don’t know if I have gotten prudish as of late or not. But the abuse of our young girls in society has begun to get me. It is abuse. The rampant pornography all over the internet is bad enough. It is odd, but as a man these days you have to work not to see pornography. Growing up my friends and I used to go through great lengths to find it. I don’t know that you can just expect a teenage boy to see that this stuff is wrong. And even seeing it as wrong is no guarantee that they won’t be attracted to it. I think the Jews of the Old Testament were probably on to something marrying off their children young.
But we abuse our girls when they are convinced that they are supposed to be doing this stuff with the boys, that they are no different. Rather than trying to convince our boys that they shouldn’t be doing this stuff at all if they want to grow up to be men. It is abusive to the girls when they grow up singing “video Phone” “3” etc.
And the fall out is worse. Our society is screwed. The boys and girls don’t even know how to be intimate with each other anymore. They don’t know how to love. They know how to have sex, but they don’t know how to love. They don’t know how to stay connected. They use and abuse each other. Sometimes they try the marriage thing, but they don’t know how to do it. They don’t know how to stay together. They end up going from one abusive relationship to the next, and the girls that grow up in that. Well let’s just say most of them need a lot of love, and a lot of healing, a lot of help before they can even learn to be wives, and mothers. And all because we convince our children that they should sell their birthright for a bowl of porridge.
Thankfully though, unlike for Esau, there is repentance, there is also grace and the love of God. He loves you more than you love yourself. He doesn’t withhold it from you. In Christ there is forgiveness. Oh there will be fall out for the choices we make. But he will hold on to you through thick and thin. And in Him we can learn to truly love, even ourselves.
8 comments:
Great post, Bror.
I have personal experience here. In my younger days I was not much better than a dog in heat. Worse...because I should have known better.
But He does forgive and He does change us, slowly maybe...over time, and by His grace we are led to repentance.
I really feel terrible for the youth in this country today.
That about says it all doesn't it. Terrible for the youth. What a mess we make of God's great gifts.
For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother....
Really, what men do that these days? Most of us have left the nest long before we cleave to a wife. And yet at the same time we've still got them ragin' hormones he gifted to us. I wonder if our society has messed up the plan here. As is, why go out for porridge, when we should already be having prime rib at home?
I hear you Jonathan. Pretty messed up. It's almost as if our society gives a young man the choice between fornicating or developing a neurological disorder. Perhaps the girls too. Yet either way it is not going to be good for your mental health. Marriage, that is the answer, might clean up a lot of that teenage angst too.
The girls, too. They just end up with the much bigger problems.
Dr. J. Patrick, whom we have speak in Edmonton on occasion emphasizes that we need to speak very frankly with our young people in church at least once a year.
Brigitte,
I think that is true. I think this way of life we have set up is much harder on the girls than it is for the boys, also in that it gives them conflicting messages of who they should be and where to find self worth.
I agree with Brigette too.
There needs to be direct talk to young people within our reach.
What you do with your body affects your soul.
LPC
My confirmands get an earful more than once a year.
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