Pam Padgett ... teacher
Jude 1:3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of
the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and
exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
Much of what is said and done in the world is opposite to what God has
said, with the evil becoming more and more open and widespread, as we have been warned.... But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse,
deceiving, and being deceived. (2 Timothy 3:13)
As the evil becomes more widespread and openly accepted, we need to be
increasingly diligent to earnestly contend (fight), for the faith ...
that we
hold fast to, and continue believing, what God has said.
Two acts that are blatantly flaunted in the world today, and which
oppose what God has said, are fornication and homosexuality. These have
become so accepted in the world that to support them is
increasingly seen as "good", while those holding them to be wrong are
openly ridiculed. We have to endure a type of persecution
to uphold scripture about these.
Another danger we face is that often the
fornication, and sometimes even the homosexuality, are presented by those
who appear pleasant to us in some way or by
those we have something in common with. And they may be presented in "reasonable"
ways ... wiles of the devil trying to snare us and to steal truth from God from us.
Recently I printed out scriptures that deal with both fornication and
homosexuality. As we think on these scriptures, we are strengthen in truth
from God, helping us cling to and uphold what God has said ... one way to contend for
the faith ...
Fornication (voluntary sexual intercourse between people who are not married to each other)
1 Corinthians 5: 11 But now I have written unto you not to
keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous,
or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one
no not to eat. 12 For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do
not ye judge them that are within? 13 But them that are without God judgeth.
Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.
1 Corinthians 6: 9 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, 10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor
extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
1 Corinthians 6:18 Flee fornication. Every sin that a man
doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against
his own body. 19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy
Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 20 For ye
are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit,
which are God's.
1 Corinthians 10: 8 Neither let us commit fornication, as
some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.
Ephesians 5:3 But fornication, and all uncleanness, or
covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;
Colossians 3:5 Mortify therefore your
members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate
affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: 6 For which
things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:
Hebrews 12:15 Looking diligently lest any man fail of the
grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby
many be defiled; 16 Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau,
who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. 17 For ye know how that
afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he
found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.
Homosexuality
Leviticus 18:22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with
womankind: it is abomination.
Deuteronomy 23:17 There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel.
1 Kings 14:22 And Judah did evil in the sight of the LORD, and
they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they had committed,
above all that their fathers had done. 23 For they also built them high
places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every
green tree. 24 And there were also sodomites in the land: and they
did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD cast
out before the children of Israel.
1 Kings 15:11 And Asa did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD,
as did David his father. 12 And he took away the sodomites out of the
land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.
1 Kings 22:46 And the remnant of the sodomites, which remained in the days of his father Asa, he (Jehoshaphat) took out of the land.
2 Kings 23:7 And he (Josiah) brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove.
Romans 1: 24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness
through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between
themselves: 25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and
served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. 26
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did
change the natural use into that which is against nature: 27 And likewise also
the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward
another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in
themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
Jude 1:7 Even as
Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves
over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an
example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
Comments by Joan Boney
The following is a very important scripture dealing with fornication because it shows that sexual intercourse (even when it is with a prostitute) causes the two to become one flesh.
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 an harlot? God forbid. 16What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. 17But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. 18Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. 19What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 20For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. I Cor. 6