Now in the past few verses, Paul's
been dealing with some open errors of conduct there at the church
in Corinth. There's a man living in incest
with his father's wife. People were defrauding one another,
taking one another to court. And these behaviors ought not
be found in God's church, among God's family. You know, the fact
that every sin of every believer has been paid for by the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ does not give the child of God license
to sin. Now, we do still sin, but the
true believer hates his sin, repents of his sin, fights against
that sin. And someone who's never repented
of this kind of behavior, this behavior of a pattern of a life
of open sin and rebellion against God does not know God. Someone who just continues in
the same pattern of a life of sin that they always lived in
before the Lord converted them, or before they claimed He converted
them, doesn't know a thing about the grace of God in the heart.
And any profession that they've made of knowing Christ is a false
profession. Now that's so. Because where
there is grace in the heart, where God's grace is in the heart,
it shows in the conduct. Where God creates a new man,
there will be a new walk because there's a new master. Now that's
so, and that's what Paul is dealing with here in these verses. And
if there's not a new walk, he says there's a problem. Now look
here at verse 9 in our text, 1 Corinthians 6. Know ye not
that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be
not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers,
nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind. nor
thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners,
shall inherit the kingdom of God." Now we know, look over
Hebrews chapter 12, we know the unrighteous cannot enter heaven,
cannot enter the kingdom of God. That's an impossibility because
God's righteous and holy. Hebrews 12 verse 14, how much more shall the blood
of Christ I'm sorry, I got the wrong Hebrews 12, verse 14. Follow peace with all men and
holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. Without perfect
holiness and righteousness, no man shall see the Lord. But we
also know there's none righteous, no, not one. Well, then who will
enter the kingdom of God? If there's none righteous, no,
not one, but we've got to have a perfect righteousness to see
God. Who will see God? What's the righteous? Well, who
are the righteous? It's those who've been made righteous
in Christ through the imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Imputed righteousness is the
only way a sinner, like you and me, can ever be made righteous.
Through the righteousness of Christ, the righteousness of
another being given to us. He has made him to be sin for
us who knew no sin, that we might be made righteous, made the righteousness
of God. Now I'm going to say something
here that's going to shock some people. It won't shock you, but
it'll shock some people. Paul's not only talking about
imputed righteousness right here. He's talking about imparted righteousness. He's imparted righteousness that's
received in the new birth. Imparted righteousness is in
the new man. And that new man, has a brand
new walk. Look over at 2 Corinthians chapter
5. 2 Corinthians 5 verse 17. Therefore, if any man be in Christ,
he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold,
all things are become new. And if all things don't become
new, That's because there's no righteousness. That's because
there's been no new birth. Every single time that there
is imputed righteousness, there's imparted righteousness. There's
a changed life. And like I say, we still sin,
but that sin does not reign. There's a new master. And anyone
who continues walking in open sin shows no evidence of imputed
righteousness, because where God imputes righteousness, He
always imparts righteousness in the new birth. And Paul says,
now don't be deceived about this. You're not saved by your knowledge.
You're not saved by your works. You're saved by grace, by God's
free grace. And grace in the heart produces
a changed life. Grace in the heart produces new
desires, a new will, a new walk. It's a changed life. And don't
deceive yourself into thinking that you know God when you continue
and the same wickedness that you always lived in before you
claimed to be converted. And Paul lists common open sin
here. He talks about fornicators and
idolaters and adulterers and effeminate, abusers of themselves,
of mankind, homosexuality, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers,
extortioners. Now these are common open sins
and a believer does not continue walking in these things. It just
can't be. Now, does that mean that there's
no hope for someone who's ever been an idolater? Does that mean
that there's no hope for someone who's ever committed adultery
or fornication? Does that mean that there's no
hope for someone who ever took something that didn't belong
to them? You know, we're talking about being a thief. Does that
mean, well, you know, you stole an ink pen from work. Does that
mean that there's no hope? What about someone who coveted
something that didn't belong to them? Does that mean that
there's no hope for someone like that? Absolutely not. Now, that's not what he's saying
here. David, in one fell swoop, broke almost every one of these.
I mean, almost every one of them. Now, let's look over at Psalm
130. What was David's hope? What's our hope? Psalm 130, verse 3. If thou, Lord, shouldst mark
iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But here's our hope. But there is forgiveness with
thee, that thou mayest be feared, that thou mayest be worshipped.
There is forgiveness with God. Now, we're sinful, and in the
past we may have walked in these ways. We did walk in them. But
there is forgiveness under the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And when that blood's applied,
it leads to repentance. Look at verse 11 back in our
text, 1 Corinthians 6. It leads to repentance. And such
were some of you. But you're washed. You're sanctified. You're justified in the name
of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. Now, we're
all born sinners this way. We're all born with these desires
and lusts in our hearts. Not some, all of us. All of us
are born this way. Now some of us may have been
kept from showing it openly, or maybe we weren't caught, you
know, at it. But all these sinful desires are in the heart that
we're born with. But now, after the blood's been applied, now
you're saved from that. You've been made a child of God.
You've been washed in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. You've
been cleansed from every spot and every stain in the blood.
Scripture says you're holy, unblameable, and unapprovable in God's sight. Now, we're not holy in our sight.
We're not unblameable in our sight, but in the sight of God. Holy, unblameable, unapprovable.
You've been washed. And you've also been washed from
the controlling power of sin. You've been cleansed from that.
Paul says you're sanctified. Now every believer you know is
sanctified, made holy, set apart in God's election for God's holy
use. But that's not the sanctified
Paul's talking about here. He's talking about being sanctified
by the Holy Spirit in front of men. Sanctified by the Holy Spirit
who creates a new man. A new heart, a new nature, whatever
term you want to call it. It's a new man. And that new
man hates sin. He won't walk in it. He loves
righteousness. He's going to walk in righteousness.
When the blood of Christ is applied, there is a new walk. You're sanctified. And you're justified. Now we
know you're justified in the sight of God. Holy, unblameable,
unapprovable in His sight. Every single sin has been put
away. Every one of them in the blood of Christ. You're accepted
in the beloved. Paul's talking here about being
justified before men. You have a new will that delights
in the law of God after the inward man, and you walk in that. There's a Latin phrase I read
this week that says, how glorious a change does grace make. The
vilest of men are changed into saints. There's a change made
when the blood of Christ is applied. When you're washed in the blood
of Christ, You're changed. You were that, but no longer. You can't walk in it any longer
and be a child of God. Can't be done. Now, verse 12,
Paul says, all things are lawful unto me, but all things are not
expedient. All things are lawful for me,
but I'll not be brought under the power of any. Meats for the
belly and belly for meats. But God shall destroy both it
and them. Now the body is not for fornication,
but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God hath both
raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power. Now all things are lawful for
me. Now he, you know, Paul means all things are not expressly
forbidden in God's word. All things are lawful for me.
He's talking about the Old Testament laws and ceremonies. All those
things are done away with in Christ. He fulfilled them all.
He kept them all. They're all put away. So now
there's no foods that are forbidden to the believer. No foods are
uncommon or unclean. Now it may be lawful. It is lawful
for me to eat those things, but I won't do it if I offend my
weaker brother. I'm not going to be a slave to
my appetite for pork or for something to drink if it's going to offend
my weaker brother. My brother is more important
than my appetite for those things, even if I am free to partake
of them. But here's the problem. The Corinthians
were under the impression that since certain foods were no longer
forbidden by the law, that fornication wasn't forbidden anymore either.
They thought fornication, they equated it to pork or something
that was unclean. And Paul is telling them, no,
that's not so. And just like we won't be a slave to our appetite,
we're not going to be a slave to our sinful fleshly desires.
They're still there. You'll never get rid of them
until you put this body in the ground, but you're not going
to be a slave to it. You're not under the power of that anymore.
You're under grace. I'm not a slave to those things.
I'm a bondslave of the Lord Jesus Christ. And meat, all food that
God put on the earth, is made for the body, to nourish the
body. And our body is made to receive
that meat, to strengthen us and nourish us. But now fornication,
that's not made for the body. And your body's not made for
fornication either. That doesn't do the body any
good. Matter of fact, it can harm the body, can't it? Sexual
desires are made for marriage. And we'll look at this next week.
The husband and the wife are made for each other. Each one
of them, the husband's body made for the wife and the wife's body
made for the husband. That is made for marriage. But
the body isn't made for fornication. The body was created to serve
the Lord. When God made Adam, what did
he say? Let us make man in our image after our likeness. That
body was made in the likeness of God. It wasn't made for fornication. That wasn't made for these sinful
lusts of our heart. That body was made in the likeness
of God to serve the Lord, to glorify Him. And that same body,
this body right here, is the body that God's going to raise
from the grave. He's going to raise it in glorified
flesh, but it will be this body. When you look at me, you'll say,
there's Frank. Not like I used to tell him, but that's him.
It's this body the Lord's going to raise from the grave. Just
like the Lord Jesus, he was himself. He raised and glorified flesh,
but it was him. And we'll be raised in the same
way, in the same manner that our Lord was raised from the
grave. And so then these bodies are not to be used for things
that are contrary to God's will, contrary to God's way. The Lord's
going to raise these vile bodies, no question about it, but the
believer has no desire to make this body as vile as it possibly
can be until I put it in the ground. I don't want to make
it vile by sinning against God. So verse 15, Paul goes on talking
about these bodies. He says, Know ye not that your
bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members
of Christ and make them the members of Enharlot? God forbid. What? Know ye not that he which
is joined to Enharlot is one body? For two, saith he, shall
be one flesh. But he that is joined unto the
Lord is one spirit." Now this is talking to believers only
now. Believers. You are the body of
Christ. You are. Look over 1 Corinthians
chapter 12. 1 Corinthians 12, verse 10, 12.
For as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members
of that one body being many are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all
baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether
we be bond or free, and have all been made to drink into one
Spirit. For the body is not one member,
but many. And he goes on talking about the body has different
parts. There's the foot, and there's the hand, and there's
the ear, and there's the eye. Now look down at verse 18. There's many members, but now
hath God set the members, every one of them, in the body, as
it hath pleased Him. This is the mystical body of
Christ, and every believer is part of this body. But this is
more than just your soul someday being part of the body of Christ.
Your body, right now is a member of the body of Christ. The visible
church, the visible body of Christ on earth is you. It's the believer
on earth. Now, if one part of the body
is doing something, the whole body is doing it. You know, if
I'm doing something with my hand, you don't say, look what Frank's
hand is doing. You say, look what Frank is doing. If one member
of the body is doing something, all of it's doing it. If one
part of the body is joined to someone, The whole body is joined
to that person. Well, if you're joined to a prostitute,
the whole body is joined to that prostitute because two should
be one flesh. Just the same as a husband and
a wife are one flesh. If you're joined to prostitution
or something, your whole body is joined to that. Now, if a part of the body of
Christ here on earth is joined to a prostitute, you've drugged
the rest of the body of Christ into that union. That's what
he's saying. Now, are we going to make the
body of the Lord Jesus Christ joined to prostitution or fornication? Paul says, God forbid. Are we
going to go back to verse 9? Are we going to make the body
of Christ joined to idolatry or fornication or adultery or
effeminate abusers of themselves of mankind? Are we going to make
the body of Christ joined to the theft or covetousness or
drunkenness or revilers or extortioners? God forbid! We're not going to
make the body of Christ join to that. If you're joined to
Christ, you can't be joined to a life of sin anymore. You can't
serve God and man. Just one master. Look back at
Romans chapter 6. Romans 6 verse 19. Now I speak after the manner
of men because of the infirmity of your flesh. For as you have
yielded your members, servants, to uncleanness and to iniquity
and to iniquity, even so now yield your members, servants,
to righteousness and to holiness. For when you were servants of
sin, you were free from righteousness, you were free from the interest
of righteousness. You had no interest in righteousness before
the Lord saved you. And what fruit had you then in
those things whereof you are now ashamed? For the end of those
things is death. But now, being made free from
sin, being made free from the controlling power of sin, from
the guilt of sin, from the punishment of sin, and become servants to
God. And you have your fruit unto
holiness and the end everlasting life. You yield your members,
the members of your body to righteousness and holiness serving the Lord. Now verse 18. He goes on, he
says, you flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is
without the body, but he that committed fornication sinneth
against his own body. Now flee fornication. I read this week one old writer
said other vices may be conquered by fight. This only by flight. You flee it. Don't even put yourself
in that situation. Just completely remove yourself
from ever being in that situation. You flee it. Flee immorality. Flee impurity. And not just in
deed. You flee it in thought. Flee
it in word. That's not something we talk
about. That's not something you talk about, you know, wanting
to do or, you know, enjoying. You flee those things. Now, most
sins involve the abuse of other things, things outside of our
body. We take them and abuse them. But sexual sins involve
a sin against our own body. It brings shame on our body.
It honestly debases the human body. And it can bring diseases
that last a lifetime or can even kill you. Sinning by these, you
know, it's not a mystery where sexually transmitted diseases
come from. People wonder, you know, they
didn't used to exist. What happened? Where'd they come
from? Where'd this germ, you know, get created? That's the
judgment of God. For us, against man, sinning
against our own body, when we do these things, all it does
is open the door for these things to come into our body. Janet
told me a long, long time ago, you got one body, God gave you
one body and a mind to take care of it. Now use it. Just use it. But in verse 19, here's what
really brings this matter to the heart of a believer. What,
he says, Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy
Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and you are not
your own? Don't you know, Paul says, that
your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost? Now that can't be
more plainly stated, can it? The Holy Ghost which is in you,
since the Holy Ghost lives in you, that makes your body the
temple of the Holy Ghost. Look back at 1 Corinthians 3.
Let's look at a couple of scriptures on this, and this is not something
that's very difficult to understand. Plainly stated in God's Word.
1 Corinthians 3, verse 16. Know ye not that ye are the temple
of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? Now if any
man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the
temple of God is holy, which temple you are. Look over Romans
8. Romans 8, verse 8. So then, they that are in the
flesh cannot please God, but ye are not in the flesh, but
in the Spirit. If so be that the Spirit of God
dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit
of Christ, he is none of his. How important is this matter
that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If he doesn't dwell in
you, you're none of his. That's what Scripture says. And
if Christ be in you, the body's dead because of sin, but the
spirit is life because of righteousness, because you are the temple of
God. Now, listen. This is in you. If you're a child
of God, this is in you. There's a perfect righteousness
in you. There's a nature in you that's
perfectly righteous, that cannot sin. That's in you. But let's
not be mistaken, that's not of you, is it? It's in you, but
it's not of you. How is it in you? Because God
put it there. You have it of God, of the creation
of God, of the gift of God putting it in you. And you have become
the temple of God. Now, the temple of God is set
apart for God's use. It's a building that's set apart
for God's use. That's not a building somewhere
over in Jerusalem. That's not, you know, the building
that Solomon created, built, or somebody's trying to recreate
today. The temple of God is your body. I have an example. Suppose there's a well-dressed,
nice elderly lady come up to you and said, I have an offer
for you. So I know you have this building
out there on Hurricane Road, but you only use that building
typically about two days a week. And I have a business that needs
a building to operate out of. I'll pay you well to build and
operate out of your building three or four days a week. Is
she willing to pay exorbitant rent to help you make the mortgage
payment? Then you find out this sweet
old lady runs a house of ill repute. If she wants to run that
out of this building, well, you would never, ever, ever agree. to do that. There's not a chance
you'd ever agree to rent this building to her for that purpose,
no matter how much she's willing to pay. Because you'd say, this
is the house of the Lord. This building is for worship
of the Lord. This is where we come worship.
You're the gospel preach. Nothing could be more contrary
to that than someone running a house of ill repute out of
this building. Well, you'd be right. You'd be exactly right.
But now listen. The exact same thing is true
of these bodies. The exact same thing. Before
you take this body somewhere, you remember that. Because this
body has been made as the temple of the Lord to worship Him for
His use. Not for these wicked things out
in the world. Just remember that before you
take this body somewhere. Because what you said is true
about this building is more true about this body. Because the
Lord's going to destroy this building someday. He's going
to burn it up. It'll be gone. But your body is going to be
raised. It's more true, this body, that
it's the temple of God. And the temple is where God dwells. Now, everywhere God dwells, there's
ownership. He owns it. He's king. Everywhere
God is, He's king. And we willingly give Him ownership
of our body. We are His. We're His by creation. We're His by election. He chose
us. We didn't choose Him. He chose us. We're His by covenant
of grace. We're His by purchase. We are
not our own. We belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. And we don't exist to satisfy
our own lusts, our own sinful desires and get our own way.
We live to please our to serve our master, the one that we belong
to. Your body is not your own. You might drive a hundred miles
an hour in your car down the road, just flying down the road
at unsafe speeds. But if you borrow somebody else's
car, you probably, I hope you wouldn't do that because it doesn't
belong to you. You want to return it the same
way that it was borrowed to you. Well, the same thing's true of
your body. This body is on loan from God. It belongs to Him.
He's taken possession of it and ownership of it. You're not your
own. So you be careful what you do
with it now. Because look at verse 20. You're not your own.
For ye are bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your
body and in your spirit, which are God's. You are bought with
a price. And what a price. You think of
the price that was paid to redeem our souls. I'm telling you, more
was paid than what we're worth. Because we were nothing. Much
more was paid than what we're worth. But the price paid was
exactly the price on our head. It's the exact price that was
on our head. And the Lord Jesus Christ paid
that debt with Himself. He gave His body He gave His
blood, He gave His soul to pay our sin debt. He paid that as
an offering to God for our sins that were against Him. How can
you not live a life to honor Him? How can you not have a desire
to honor the One who gave so much, who gave everything for
us? Look at Colossians chapter 3. And let the peace of God rule
in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body. And be ye thankful. Let the word
of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing
one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing
with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever you
do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving
thanks to God and the Father by Him. Whatever you do, do it
for His glory and His praise. And this is not just outwardly.
I'm not talking about, you know, just making an outward profession
and trying to clean up the outside of the cup or platter and leave
the inside defiled. Because look what he says here
at the end of verse 20. Glorify God in your body. and
in your spirit, which are God's. True worship, we know, comes
from the heart. It comes from the heart, from
the spirit. But the true believer must also glorify God, not just
in the spirit, but in body, because both are God's. Both of them
belong to Him, and since both of them belong to Him, be mighty
careful what you do with this body, alright?