PT-3 "Sins of Perverted Love" (Col. 3:5b)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/21/2017 10:15 PM

My Worship Time                                                               Focus:  PT-3 “Sins of Perverted Love”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Colossians 3:5b

            Message of the verse:  “immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.”

            We have gone over these words from the Greek language in our last Spiritual Diaries on this subject and so today we will look at the beginning of our SD on how Paul links sexual immorality, covetousness, and idolatry in Ephesians 3:3-5 “3 But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints; 4 and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. 5 For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.”

            Perhaps of all the things that happened to the human race once sin entered into it was the perversion of the sexual experience that the Lord had originally made for mankind when He first created them.  We find these sinful sexual experiences in the Old Testament as well as what we have seen in the New Testament.  What we find is that sexual sin associates with idolatry.  There were sexual orgies that happened in the worship of idols.  Let us look at Numbers 25:1-3 as an example “1 While Israel remained at Shittim, the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab. 2 For they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. 3 So Israel joined themselves to Baal of Peor, and the LORD was angry against Israel.”

            John MacArthur writes “The antidote for covetousness is contentment.  A contented person will not desire to violate another person sexually, or covet anything that person owns.  A person who can say with Paul, ‘I have learned to be content in whatever circumstance I am’ (Phil. 4:11), is not likely to struggle with covetousness.  Contentment comes from trusting God.  The basis of that trust is our knowledge of Him and His purposes for His people as revealed in Scripture.”

            MacArthur quotes Puritan Jeremiah Burroughs who writes about contentment being the opposite of covetousness.  The covetousness persons worship himself, while the contented persons worships God.

“You worship God more by [contentment] than when you come to hear a sermon, or spend half an hour, or an hour in prayer, or when you come to receive a sacrament.  These are acts of God’s worship, but they are only external acts of worship, to hear and pray and receive sacraments.  But [contentment] is the soul’s worship, to subject itself thus to God…in active obedience we worship God by doing what pleases God, but by passive obedience we do as well worship God by being pleased with what God does.” 

4/21/2017 10:38 PM