Copyright © Jerald Finney
February 9, 2024

Contents:

1. Introduction
2.  Some Facts about Pride
3.  Examples of the Results of the Pride
4. Any Sex Outside of Marriage Is an Abomination to God. If not Repented of, It Results in the Degradation of the Individual, the Family, Religion, and the Nation, and Ultimately in God’s Judgement

• Examples of what God Says about Adultery
• Examples of what God says about Fornication
• Examples of what God says about Sodomy and Lesbianism
• Why God Says He Judged Sodom and Gomorrah

5. Conclusion

 1.  Introduction 

Choosing to engage in sex outside of marriage is a sin which is an abomination to God.

God, longsuffering as always, pleads with every person to repent, turn to him, and trust Christ to save them from the penalty of sin. God regenerates the new believer and lives in him. (2 Corinthians 5:17; Titus 3:5) After salvation, God begins the process of saving the sinner from the habit and dominion of sin (Romans 6:14; Philippians 1:19; 2:12, 13, 2 Thesallonians 2:13; Romans 8:2; Galatians 2:19, 20; 2 Corinthians 3:18). The end for the believer is to be like Christ (Romans 13:11; Hebrews 10:36; 1 Peter 1:5; 1 John 3:2)

The inevitable result of unrepentant sin, in spite of the longsuffering of God and His warnings, is God’s judgment.

 2.  Some Facts about Pride

• “Pride of heart is the attitude of a life that declares its ability to live without God.”
• Number one on God’s hate parade listed in Proverbs 16-19 is pride.
• “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate” (Proverbs 8:13).
• “… [T]he pride of life is not from the father” “1 John 2:16).
• The pride of life comes from the devil. Pride was the sin of Satan (“I will.”). See, Isaiah 14:12-17 for Satan’s eleven “I wills.”
• The pride of one’s heart deceives a person.

3. Examples of the Results of the Pride

• It causes one to “live lower than animals.”
• Pride leads to other sins. One’s “philosophy of life is going to gradually work its way down into your fingers, your feet, your eyes and all your senses.”
• Pride leads one to associate with others who are guided by pride.
• Sometimes pride leads one to commit adultery, fornication, sodomy or lesbianism or to declare that he/she is not of the sex God made him or her. These sins are also accompanied by many others such as:
  666 unrighteousness,
  666 wickedness,
  666 covetousness,
  666 maliciousness;
  666 envy,
  666 murder,
  666 debate against God,
  666 deceit,
  666 malignity;
  666 whispering,
  666 backbiting,
  666 hating God,
  666 despising those who are good,
  666 boasting,
  666 inventing evil things,
  666 being disobedient to parents,
  666 lacking understanding,
  666 breaking covenants,
  666 being unmerciful.
• God is longsuffering and pleads with mankind to repent, but the eventual result of unrepentant sin is God’s judgment.

4.  Any Sex Outside of Marriage Is an Abomination to God and, if not Repented of, Results in the Degradation of the Individual, the Family, Religion, and the Nation, and ultimately in God’s Judgement

Examples of what God says about adultery:

• Exodus 20:14: “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”
• Leviticus 20:10: And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.”
• Proverbs 6:32: “But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul.”
• Jeremiah 3:8: “And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.”
• Jeremiah 5:7: “How shall I pardon thee for this? thy children have forsaken me, and sworn by them that are no gods: when I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots’ houses.”
• Jeremiah 7:9: “Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not;”
• Jeremiah 23:14: “I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness: they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.”
• Jeremiah 23:14: ”I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness: they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.”
• Ezekiel 23:37: “That they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands, and with their idols have they committed adultery, and have also caused their sons, whom they bare unto me, to pass for them through the fire, to devour them.”
• Hosea 4:13-14: “They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks and poplars and elms, because the shadow thereof is good: therefore your daughters shall commit whoredom, and your spouses shall commit adultery. I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom, nor your spouses when they commit adultery: for themselves are separated with whores, and they sacrifice with harlots: therefore the people that doth not understand shall fall.”
• Matthew 5:27-28: “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”
• Galatians 5:19-21: “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”
• 2 Peter 2:13-1: “And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you; Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:”

Notice above, that adultery is linked to many other sins, including idolatry (worshiping and serving idols (gods) rather than the one and only God).

Examples of what God says about Fornication:

• 1 Corinthians 5:1: “It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife.”
• 1 Corinthians 6:13: “Meats for the belly, and the 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.”
• 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.”
• 1 Corinthians 7:2: “Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.”
• 1 Corinthians 10:8: “Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.” (See Numbers 25:1-9).
• 2 Corinthians 12:21:”And lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed.”
• Galatians 5:19-21: “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”
• Ephesians 5:3: “But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;”
• Colossians 3:5-6: “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:”
• 1 Thessalonians 4:3: “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:”
• 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.”
• See also, e.g., Revelation 2:14, 20-21; 14:8; 17:2-4; 18:3, 9; 19:2.

Examples of what God says about Sodomy and Lesbianism:

God instructed the Israelites to take the land he had given them because the land was defiled by abominations listed in Leviticus 18 (See, Leviticus 18:24, 28). Included in those abominations were all kinds of sexual sins.  For example, they had violated God’s law that man should not lie with mankind, as with womankind, because it is an abomination ((Leviticus 18:22). It is important to note that God was longsuffering, as always, with the inhabitants before judging them (See, Genesis 15:16). God continues to be longsuffering with nations, as the prophets of the Old Testament, and history, attest, but there comes a time when God judges unrepentant nations.

Romans 1:18-32:

• “18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
• “19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
• “20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
• “21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
• “22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
• “23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
• “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.
• “28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
• “29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
• “30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
• “31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
• “32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.”

Why God Judged Sodom and Gomorrah:

• Genesis 18 tells the story God’s destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
• Jude 1:5-7: “I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorha, 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.”
• 2 Peter 2:6-8: “And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)”
• Scriptures which mention Sodom and/or Gomorrah always link their story with God’s judgment. See, Genesis 10:19; 13:10-13; 14:2-22; 18:16-26; 19:1-28; Deuteronomy 29:23; 32:32; Isaiah 3:9-10; Jeremiah 23:14-59; 49:17-22; 50:40 (34-43); Lamentations 4:6 (1-23); Ezekiel 16:46-59; Amos 4:11 (6-13); Zephaniah 2:9 (4-15); Matthew 10:14-15; 11:23-24 (20-24); Mark 6:11-13; Luke 10:12-15; 17:28-32; 2 Peter 2:6-14; Jude

 5. Conclusion

“What consummate conceit of man, living apart from God, to think that he has evolved from an animal when he is living lower than an animal.”

“How many people today are attempting to run their lives as if they were God? They feel that they don’t need God, and they live without Him. The interesting thing is that when God made us He did not put a steering wheel on any of us. Why? Because He wants to guide our lives. He wants us to come to Him for salvation first, and then He wants to take charge of our lives. When you and I run our lives, we are in the place of God. We are in the driver’s seat. We are the ones who are the captains of our own little ships or our own little planes, and we are going through the water or the air just to suit ourselves. That is pride, and anyone who reaches that position, if he continues in it, is committing a sin which is fatal because it means he will go into a lost eternity.”

“Men and women walking through life with their heads down like animals (only man looks up, animals look down), there is only One who can lift them. Evolution has not lifted mankind one inch. Look at our world that has been schooled in this godless philosophy. The deadly poison of godless materialism and humanism will bring upon us the judgment of God! God says, ‘Though you be lifted up, little man, I’ll bring you down.’”

“But He also says, through the lips of His Son, our Saviour: ‘And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me’ (John 12:32). Which way are you going, my friend? Down the way of pride, pessimism, unbelief and rebellion, down, down, down? You who were made in the likeness of God can be restored. You will have to lay aside your pride and come in helplessness to this Saviour. He can lift you.”

Note. Those statements in quotes, unless otherwise indicated are from Dr. J. Vernon McGee’s Commentaries on the Books of Obadiah and Micah.