Your Body Is the Temple of the Holy Spirit — 1 Corinthians 6:19

Hello, and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. It's good to have everybody back again, and those of you in the studio can be turning to 1 Corinthians chapter 6. We'll pick right up where we left off in our last program, and again for those of you joining us on television, we're just tickled to death to hear from you. My, we love to get the mail, and I think I mentioned it once before, please if you write, don't apologize if you can't afford a financial offering, that's not what we're most interested in. We just love to hear from you, and to know who you are and where you are. Of course we have nobody underwriting us, and I'm not going to put down people sending offerings because it takes a lot of money to stay on the air, but we're never going to ask for any, never have. Like I've always said, if it gets to the place where we have to beg for money, then I'm gone. I'm out of here, because I will not do it. So far the Lord has been gracious, but we do love to hear from you. And the reason I say that is because so many write, and say that they just wish they could send something, and they hate to write without it. No, we don't mind that, you write anyway. We just love to hear from you, and of course always remember that the programs are available on video and the little books, and we'll get them out to you if you'll just give us your name and address and which ones you want. So much for announcements, and we're going to get right back into I Corinthians chapter 6 where we left off at the end of the last program, where Paul has just been almost crying at the question, don't you know that you have no right as a believer, as a child of God, as a member of the Body of Christ, to be unioned with a harlot. Now that doesn't necessarily limit it to a professional prostitute. But any time that we go outside of God's bounds for sexuality, it becomes the same thing. Then in verse 17 where we stopped in our last program, he said, "...he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit." Now again I always have to clarify that when Paul teaches that Christ is the groom, and the bride, and there is that marriage relationship, for goodness sakes I trust that most people understand that that is merely a positional thing. It certainly is not a sexual thing, because that's going to all pass off the scene. But come back to Romans chapter 7 where Paul uses that marriage relationship analogy more than once. And even as he does with the Corinthians, he also says to the Romans in chapter 7, verse 4. Romans 7. Verse 4. Romans 7. Verse 4. Romans 7. Romans 7. Verse 4. Verse 4. By the work of the cross we are now under grace, and not under the law. So we are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another. To whom? To him who is raised from the dead. So what's the concept? That as soon as we become a child of God, we are literally unioned with Christ, just like a husband and wife in the marriage relationship. And this is all through Paul's writings. Let's look at another one, Ephesians chapter 5, and dropping all the way down to verse 22. This is a series of verses we've used periodically over the last few years. But here again, the marriage relationship is likened to our relationship spiritually with Christ. Get that? Ephesians 5 and verse 22. Look at that analogy..... "...for the husband is the head of the wife like a slave master over his slaves." What we find here, is again a comparison that's established by the Abrahamites of the church. is the head of the Church. My, what a comparison! And then I always have to remind people, in order for Christ to become the head of you and I as members of the Body, what did He have to do? He had to die! He had to die for us, He had to suffer for us. Praise God of course the power of the resurrection overcame that death, but nevertheless He suffered and died for us as members of the Body. Now what does it tell a husband he should be ready to do? The same thing. We should be ready to die for our wives if necessary. Read on. Ephesians 2. For even as Christ is the head of the Church, he is the Savior of the Body, therefore is the Church subject unto Christ. Now here's where I always make a statement, it may alarm some, but I know I'm scriptural because you can't find anywhere that Paul refers to the Lord as the King of the Church. It's just not scripturally right to refer to Him as our King, and I know most people do. He is not our King, He's the Head of the Body. A King rules over His subjects, and we're not Christ's subjects. We're joint heirs with Him. See we're in a whole different position than the servant of a King. Now granted He's going to still come and be King of Kings and Lord of Lords, but we're going to be ruling and reigning not under Him, but with Him. See what a difference that makes? Coming back then to Ephesians, verse 25. Ephesians 2. That's a command. How? As Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it. Now of course when Paul uses that term, Church, he's not talking about that building on the corner. He's not talking about some denomination who says they're the only ones that are going to be in heaven, and there are some of those. But he's talking about that universal compilation of believers who have been brought into the Body of Christ by a work of the Holy Spirit, and that Body of Christ is in union with Him, and is joint heirs with Him as well. So again he makes that statement that Christ loved the Church so much that He gave Himself for it. Now let's come back again to I Corinthians chapter 6. We are now in union with Christ, then we are to be just as careful about our fidelity to Him as the husband or the wife should be to each other. This is the whole moral principle of biblical teaching, and here it is in II Corinthians I Corinthians 6. Ephesians 6. "...and every sin that a man doeth is without, or outside, the body. But he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body." Now what's Paul trying to scream at these Corinthians? Well I don't care what your past lifestyle has been, I don't care if you did take all this immoral activity for granted. Now as a child of God, you are on totally different territory, you are now a totally different person, and when you begin to involve yourself with immoral activity, you are literally adulterating your position with Christ. Plain enough? I hope so, because this is exactly what the picture is. If a believer is going to commit sexual immorality, he is adulterating his position with the one to whom he has been brought into union. This is what Paul is bringing out so clearly, that the believer has no business involving himself in extramarital relationships. The family and the marriage relationship is holy, it's sanctified, and God has ordained it that way. That's why I quit goose hunting long, long time ago when I found out and read that they are monogamous. In other words, a goose only has one mate for life, and if you shoot its mate, it goes through the rest of its life alone, and I just couldn't be a part of that anymore. But if wild geese can be monogamous, then why in the world can't intelligent human beings? Well he's going to deal with that of course in the next chapter. Now then, finishing verse 18. "...he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body." In other words, how can I put it? I used to tell my young people, and I had a huge young people's class years ago, and they were all in their teens, and I used to use the illustration of fire. Fire under control is one of the greatest things that God has given mankind. It warms our home, and there's nothing nicer than a good glowing fireplace or a wood heater on a cold winter blustery day. In that fireplace or heater, that fire is gorgeous. Into a steel mill, how much steel would we ever produce without fire? None. And in so much of our everyday life, fire under control is an absolute necessity. It is a blessing of God. But turn fire loose in a wildfire situation, and what have you got? Devastation, and tragedy, and destruction, and you name it. My what can fire do when it's wild? That's what sex is for the human race. Under the controls that God mandated, it's just as glorious as that fire in the fireplace. But you turn it loose as the world has done today, and what does it become? It's a tragedy, ruined lives, ruined families, ruined marriages, all because of misappropriating this gift from God that we call sex. So this is what He's saying. If you're going to abuse this blessing, it's going to pay its dues, and we're seeing it all around us. Now Paul says, "...don't you know that your body is the temple, or the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit which is in you, and that is there because of an act of God? And you are not your own, because you are bought with a price." Turn to I Peter chapter 1, verse 18 and 19. I know some people think I don't know anything but Paul, but here's one from Peter. I Peter chapter 1, verse 18, and we'll also use verse 19. "...forasmuch as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold, and from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers." Now remember Peter is a Jew writing to Jews, and so he's talking about all the traditions of Judaism and the Old Testament economy. Now he says, "...you weren't purchased with that, but you were purchased with the precious blood of Christ, as a lamb without blemish, and without spot, who was verily ordained before the foundation of the world, and it was manifest in these last times for you." So what was the price of our redemption? The blood of Christ. You don't hear that much anymore do you? I had a fellow call the other day, and he said, I'm amazed you're still on television. Well so am I, but you see you don't hear this anymore. We have been bought with the blood of Christ, and you can't bypass that. You can't go around it, or over it, or under it. It's one of the basic tenets of Scripture, and how many times haven't I used it? And on your way back to Corinthians, stop at Hebrews chapter 8, because I don't want anybody to think that I've dreamed this up. But Hebrews chapter 8, verse 22, and almost all of the books of the Old Testament, and all things are by law herds with blood. Now that goes back of course to the Old Testament sacrifices, but the last half of the verse now is where we are. And without the shedding of blood is no remission. There is no forgiveness of sin without the shed blood of Christ. Now when we were back in the Old Testament, I made comment that the word atonement was a misnomer. Those animal sacrifices never brought about atonement, even though it was called the Day of Atonement. They couldn't. It took the blood of Christ to fulfill the atoning work. And so we are now atoned, and we're redeemed. Now back to I Corinthians chapter 6, verse 20. And we're bought with a price, the blood of Christ. Verse 20, reading on now, verse 24. Well you know what I always say, don't you? What's it there for? Well it's there for to show us that now since we're bought with a price, the blood of Christ, glorify God in your body. In other words, in this body of flesh in which we live, and move, and work, and play, everything we do should redound to the glory of God. And what's Paul driving at? If you're going to be hobnobbing with the prostitutes, or with the immoral, and you're having no fidelity with your spouse, then you do not glorify God in your body. It's bringing reproach upon you. Now all of that of course is an introduction to chapter 7. And like I said, here's a chapter I wish I could just skim over, because I'm not a marriage counselor, and no stretch of the imagination. But here Paul is dealing with the nitty gritty of the marriage relationship, and the reason he is, as I pointed out in all the earlier chapters of Corinthians, is what prompted this letter to be written in the first place. What does it say in chapter 7, verse 1. Now concerning the things that you wrote unto me, so what prompted the letter of Corinthians? A letter of questions. A whole batch of questions that were plaguing these Corinthian believers just recently out of paganism. And I said in the last program, remember they didn't have Sunday school when they were kids, they didn't go through catechism, or anything like that. But they were as ignorant as ignorant could be, and so here they are now as believers congregating in a small church. Now they're not a huge mega church, and so they had questions. They didn't have the Bible, they had some of the Old Testament of course, but they didn't have anything of the New Testament, and so they have a whole bunch of questions that they must have written to the apostle Paul, and so this is what prompts the letter. He's answering them one by one. Now concerning the things that you wrote unto me, here's another question. Is it right for men and women to marry? Now you say, what in the world? How could they come up with something like that? Well you have to again realize the situation. You know I've always taught from day one, that when you read a portion of Scripture, the first thing you determine is who wrote it, and to whom was it written, and the third part is what are the circumstances. Well here we are, the apostle Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles, is writing to a congregation in the wicked city of Corinth, who have come out of abject, immoral, idolatrous background, and they're all hung up on this marriage relationship that now is Biblical compared to what it was in paganism. Now you want to remember that in paganism under idolatry, the marriage relationship didn't amount to that much. It was just a place to propagate the family, but so far as any moral integrity or fidelity of the marriage relationship, the pagans knew nothing of that. And so now they're going off the deep end. Is it right for us to marry? Now when Paul comes back and says in the last half of this verse, don't misinterpret this. When he says it's good for a man not to touch a woman, he's not saying that they shouldn't get involved and get married. But he is saying in the light of these verses in chapter 6, that as believers now, men as well as women have to be careful in their contact with people of the opposite sex in their everyday experiences. When he says it's good for a man not to touch a woman, if I understand the Greek at all, what he's talking about is that a man should not get physically involved with a woman to excite the sexual senses. He is certainly not bringing into vogue the taking away of shaking hands with women, and even in the early church they granted the holy kiss where they would embrace, much like our Middle Easterners still do. Of course that caused problems in the early church, and so that was finally pushed out the back door. But see all these things entered in, and so Paul is answering their question that it's not good for a man to touch a woman or embrace her, or get involved with her enough to excite the basic instincts of her or him, but he is not saying that they can't get married. Now a lot of people take that from this verse, that Paul is just anti-marriage. No he is not anti-marriage. In fact before we go any further, come back with me to Hebrews. We've already seen what God said back there in Genesis concerning the marriage relationship, and that they were to replenish the earth, and they were to have children, and they were to enjoy the marriage relationship. Now look at what Paul writes in Hebrews 13, and he's not going to utterly contradict this by his statement in I Corinthians chapter 7, so you have to put the two of them together. Hebrews 13, and we understand that marriage is honorable in all, and the marriage bed is undefiled. Now we've come away from Victorianism, which of course was the extreme in the other direction, and now we've come to the extreme opposite of Victorianism, and that was that sex was such a dirty word, it couldn't even be mentioned in public, and it was just almost taboo except for the purpose of child bearing. Well that certainly wasn't right, but now on the other hand we've gone too far the other way. Marriage then is honorable in all, and the marriage bed is undefiled, but the other side of the coin, but whoremongers are the immoral people, and the adulterers God will judge. God's not going to wink at it, and they're not going to get away with it, and they're going to face up with it some day. The great white throne is waiting for the lost, and they're going to come up before God with all this on their record. But now we come back to I Corinthians chapter 7 again. So Paul says it's good for a man not to get involved, and I'm sure he's referring to the sexual instincts, not to touch a woman, but nevertheless to avoid fornication or falling into the trap of immoral activity. Let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. Now we have to be careful. Is that the sole reason for getting married, that I'm not tempted to go out and be promiscuous? Of course not, but it does have that redeeming effect, that if I have my wife, and she has me, we're not tempted then to go out into the world and be promiscuous with those we have no business being with. And so this is what he's saying, to avoid that temptation, and remember again that here every night these thousand prostitutes were plying the streets of Corinth, and for a young man it was a constant temptation, and so Paul says rather than to be tempted with that, have your own wife. Now let's go on. Verse 3. I Corinthians 7. Let the husband render unto the wife, do what? Benevolence. We're living in a day where you see so much wife beating, and wife abuse. Well why? Well again it's because these people have not been taught plain simple Biblical principles, and that is that a husband is to treat his wife as something he would die for, and not as something that he can beat around the house. Not somebody that can just be his gopher. That was not God's intention of the marriage relationship. You know I have one letter, and I've never really thought of it before. Why did God condone slavery? Why did He ever permit it to happen? When you analyze the greatest period of time of human history, what percentage of the people educated enough to carry on and be an entrepreneur, and to carry on a profession or a business enough to make a good living? Not very many. The vast majority were totally illiterate, and were totally incapable of decision making. We saw that in Russia after 70 years of Communism. So under those kinds of circumstances, a benevolent master was the best thing those people could have. And I think most of you were when slavery was holding forth in the South. There were masters like that, and those slaves loved them. They had it better than they could have ever hoped to have it out there on their own. But you see, man has totally adulterated God's purposes, and instead of masters being benevolent, they became bestial, and they became less than merciful, and then slavery became awful. But as God first intended it, I don't think slavery would have been that bad. Now it's the same way here. The husband and wife relationship, if it's as God intended it, then it should be a happy situation 365 days of the year. There is absolutely no reason for husbands and wives to be on a constant battleground. I can say it from experience. We've been together 43 years, and I think our kids can tell us they have never heard us raise our voice at one another. And it's not because we're so perfect, it's because we know the Lord is in control of our home, and this is the way He wants it. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer -supported, and your gift is appreciated. Thank you, and be sure to tune in next time for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.