Sexual Purity

Wayne Cordeiro

Sexual purity is often mentioned in the Scriptures and is an important aspect of our commitment to God. When we have emotional problems going on inside, like an emotional affair, it will steal our time and rob us of what God has for us.

Hebrews 13:4 states, Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.

Proverbs 22:11 He who loves purity of heart and whose speech is gracious, the king is his friend.

Proverbs 5:7—14 "Her feet go down to death, Her steps lay hold of Sheol. She does not ponder the path of life; Her ways are unstable, she does not know it. Now then, my sons, listen to me, and do not depart from the words of my mouth. Keep your way far from her, And do not go near the door of her house, Lest you give your vigor to others, And your years to the cruel one; Lest strangers be filled with your strength, And your hard-earned goods go to the house of an alien; And you groan at your latter end, When your flesh and your body are consumed; And you say, "How I have hated instruction! And my heart spurned reproof! "And I have not listened to the voice of my teachers, nor inclined my ear to my instructors! "I was almost in utter ruin In the midst of the assembly and congregation."

This passage talks about how the adulteress woman will steal your life from you. Your years will be eaten like the cankerworm.

In Matthew 26:41 it says, "Pray that you may not enter in to temptation."

James says it this way, "Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God;" for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death." James 1:13—15

So we have temptation and then sin—temptation gives way to sin and sin gives way to death. Did you know that if you are not praying, keeping your heart clean and checked at all times, you can move into an emotional affair with a man or a woman? When you are a bi-vocational pastor you are going to be under stress. Some of the ways people release stress can be through drugs, alcohol and sex. Those are all releases. You know you can't go into drugs—it's not good to be an addict and preaching. So we think, "okay I won't do that." You can't be an alcoholic and be in the pulpit. So you think, "I can't have an affair. It wouldn't be good if people saw me." So what do you do? You have the affair in your mind. It's a release. That's why pornography is such a huge issue—even among Christian men. We're looking for a release because of the stress. So, after a stressful time, the devil finds an opportune moment and sets you up to have an affair in your mind with another woman from your work place. You just end up thinking about her a lot because it gives you a sense of release from the reality of what you're struggling with.

Some people will go into this emotional affair where their heart is with another woman, yet they're still going home to their wife—but their heart is not at home. Their heart is off somewhere else with the other woman.

You can still go to church and do ministry but your heart is somewhere else. After you've struggled with it for six or eight months you finally pull yourself out and you ask yourself, "Hey, what am I doing." By this time you've already lost six or eight months because your heart wasn't involved in the ministry. The Lord doesn't look on the outer appearance. He looks at the heart. There was no heart in what you were doing because your heart was with the other woman. You might have maintained, but you didn't grow in any way. You flat-lined it. If you flat-line for too long your church will eventually shut down and you'll have to go and find something else to do because you lost your heart.

The way the devil steals your heart is by moving you into temptation. You've not entered all the way into sin. It's like there's an invisible membrane that you continually bump up against. You'll say, "Whoa, I got really close. I really wanted to with her and I was available but no, I've got to go this way. This is okay. I can just think about her. I can think about the possibilities. I like that. It gives me a good feeling." It's euphoria. Eight months later you pop out of it and you think, "Wow, where did the last eight months go?" You see how it stole years from you.

If you don't pray and watch your heart, saying, "Stop. I reject that thought. I can't do that. I've got to move away from that lady. I've got to do that physically, just like Joseph did, for a season, until I get my bearings back again. I can't afford to even entertain these thoughts." If you don't, you'll get sucked right in. "Ooh I like this."

Then all of a sudden you wake up, and you pull back in to reality, and you think, "What in the world was I doing—eight months have gone by—where did the time go." You return again to your family.

God convicts you; it might be during a service; it might be a in the midst of worship, but somehow, you've got to pop back. Do you understand what I'm saying? You've lost eight months. Sexual purity is extremely important.

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