Title: 13
Author: Joe G
Last saved by: Auth User
Company: GDC

Clanking Chains		06-10-05.CC02-661 /

Negative Emotion: Desire + Passion = Pleasure; Abstinence: God’s PSD to Sanctify Sex; Doctrinal Rationale for Right Man-Right Woman

3.	A negative emotion is expressed by the soul when a vector associates an idea, sound, sight, or a combination of these with the lust patterns of the sinful nature: (1) Observing pornography may elicit emotions associated with sexual perversions.  (2) These may lead to a passion to fulfill these desires.
	™piqum…a \epithumia\: desire  +  p£qoj \pathos\: passion  =  ¹don» \hēdonē\: pleasure
4.	In this way bad emotions and the sinful nature combine to promote the sins of fornication or adultery.  This is an evil attack upon the soul in an effort to bring to fulfillment a lust for pleasure.
5.	The doctrine of right man-right woman isolates passions and desires toward one person, known or unknown.  In this way emotions associated with passions are sanctified by means of the doctrine of abstinence.
6.	In this way doctrine restrains the lust pattern out of respect for the will of God and the sanctity of the female “vessel.”
7.	Abstinence is the doctrine that elicits resistance to evil emotions and promotes sanctified emotions.
8.	Prior to marriage passions are sanctified by abstinence and desires are managed by imagination.
9.	After marriage, both passions and desires are sanctified by the union of right man with right woman and the sexual experience has both divine approval and soul approval.
10.	All emotions that are elicited by the soul rapport of a married couple are sanctified and legitimate and allow passions and desires to be freely expressed without restraint.
Hebrews 13:4 -	Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.
Paul is warning the believers in the Thessalonian church to restrain themselves from the temptations that are casually accepted in the city by participants who are unbelievers and thus do not know God.
If you don’t know God you don’t know his mandates and have no desire to restrain your evil passions and desires.  Only salvation, the filling of the Holy Spirit, and the presence of doctrine in the soul can enable a believer to consistently execute the problem solving device of abstinence.
However, these assets are neutralized if the believer’s volition vetoes the warnings that doctrine provides and capitulates in favor of the insatiable strivings of the sinful nature’s lust patterns.
Here then is a paraphrased translation of Paul’s appeal for sexual rectitude in Thessalonica:
1 Thessalonians 4:1 -	Finally then, fellow believers, we make a special request of you and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you have received from us instruction about how you ought to walk [ behavior in compliance with wheel-tracks of righteousness ] and to please God (just as you must behave), that you excel still more.
v. 2 -		For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus [ these believers had learned the doctrine but were weak in its application ].
v. 3 -		For this principle is the will of God, your sanctification of your passions and desires: that you abstain from sexual immorality prior to marriage;
v. 4 -		so that each of you know how to possess his own body prior to marriage so that by doing so you will know how to possess the vessel of your wife in marriage where your passions and desires function in sanctification and honor,
v. 5 -		not in evil emotions associated with the passions and desires of the lust patterns, like the Gentiles [ unbelievers ] who do not know God.
If order is to be restored to the souls of present and future generations of this country, then this passage must be fulfilled by a significant number of believers who are under the age of twenty.
The biblical solution to unwanted pregnancies, unwed mothers, sexually transmitted diseases, damaged souls, rampant jealousy, high divorce rates, aborted fetuses, single-parent households, and abandoned children is the function of abstinence among unmarried Christians.
Thessalonica and Corinth were cities that were dominated by a libertine attitude toward unbridled sexual perversions yet it was in these places that Paul founded churches.  His recommendation to their members was not to accept this behavior as “what young people are going to do so we just have to accept it.”
Paul did not recommend some human viewpoint set of solutions such as birth-control pills, condoms, abortions, welfare, and sex ed.
Paul’s solution was abstinence with an emphasis on the doctrine of right man-right woman.  The circumstances involving sexual deviancies in the United States are not as pronounced as they were in Thessalonica and Corinth.  Consequently, the problem-solving device recommended by Scripture is abstinence which is applied through the faith-rest drill and empowered by the Holy Spirit.
The doctrinal rationale recalls principles that define the right man-right woman concept: (1) you have a right person, (2) God will reveal that person to you in His perfect timing, (3) your passions and desires are sanctified by restraint before marriage and indulgence after marriage, (4) your physiology is perfectly designed for your right person, (5) this person is provided for your enjoyment, rapport, and happiness until death parts you, and (6) patience in the light of these principles maximizes the marital relationship both physically and soulishly throughout the time of the union.
Finally, when the husband and wife maintain positive volition to the Word of God then they become a corporate testimony that illustrates the relationship between Christ and His church.  Since the two become one, then there are joint escrow blessings for the couple that fulfills the joint testimony.
It is personal rectitude that defines the successful application of these principles.  
Webster, Noah.  An American Dictionary of the English Language.  (New York: S. Converse, 1828).  Facsimile of the first edition.  (San Francisco: Foundation for American Christian Education, 1995), 2:52:
Rectitude.  In morality, rightness of principle or practice; uprightness of mind; exact conformity to truth, or to the rules prescribed for moral conduct, either by divine or human laws.  Rectitude of mind is the disposition to act in conformity to any known standard of right, truth or justice.  Rectitude of conduct is the actual conformity to such standard.  Perfect rectitude belongs only to the Supreme Being.  The more nearly the rectitude of men approaches to the standard of the divine law, the more exalted and dignified is their character.  Want of rectitude is not only sinful, but debasing.

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