Godlessness

By William R. Cunningham
January 14, 2007

Introduction

There is a systematic effort to remove God from our lives.  This is evident in our schools, our workplaces, government, and even social life.  There were court battles won and lost over the removal of displays of the Ten Commandments from government owned properties.  Some hold that such displays are purely religious in nature and are unconstitutional because it violates the separation of church and state.  Others hold that some of these displays are merely historical in nature as they honor the history of the American legal system.

Now we have a society that is becoming more and more lascivious and this is what I would like to discuss with you.  Recently the host of a radio show and his guest along with many listeners were discussing how it is acceptable to basically be lascivious even in a marriage relationship.  To them it is totally acceptable for a husband to have sex with another woman or another man’s wife as long as they are both in agreement.  It is totally acceptable to have sex with anyone you want even though you are not married to them.

Our society is becoming increasingly lascivious because we are becoming increasingly godless.  The more we take God out of the picture then the more we will follow the broad way to destruction as Jesus mentioned in Matthew 7:13-14).  I would like to take a few moments to discuss with you the lascivious nature of our society and how we need to forsake our godless ways and turn to God and his ways.

Lasciviousness

The word lascivious means to be self-abandoned or unprincipled.  It is to disregard sexual restraints.  Lascivious is to be lewd, more lustful, or licentious (unrestrained).  A person who is lascivious will have no moral boundaries and will do just about anything to appease or please the flesh.  This is the state that we are moving towards each year, namely a state of no moral boundaries or restraints.

What is more interesting is that the lascivious lifestyle typically applies to sex and sexuality.  There is no problem of saying that someone should not steal from someone else and we have no arguments as to whether or not there are conditions where stealing another person’s car is acceptable.  However, we do have a problem saying that fornication is unacceptable and that it is prohibited by God.  Of course if we take God out of the picture then we no longer have the moral constraint regarding fornication to inhibit us from fornicating.  This is why it is imperative that our society remove God from the picture so to speak so that we don’t have the moral code hanging over us making us feel guilty.

Fornication

Now we could argue that fornication is wrong because it is against God’s moral code.  However, it is evident that the world does not care about God or his moral code.  In any case let’s determine what God’s moral code is in regards to fornication and sexual immorality.  The Bible teaches us to refrain from fornication.  Consider the following scripture passages.

• Matthew 15:19 (NKJV) -- {19} For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.
• Acts 15:20 (NKJV) -- {20} but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood.
• Acts 21:25 (NKJV) -- {25} But concerning the Gentiles who believe, we have written and decided that they should observe no such thing, except that they should keep themselves from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality.”
• 1 Corinthians 6:9 (NKJV) -- {9} Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites,
• 1 Corinthians 6:18 (NKJV) -- {18} Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.
• 1 Corinthians 7:2 (NKJV) -- {2} Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.
• 1 Corinthians 10:8 (NKJV) -- {8} Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell;
• Galatians 5:19 (NKJV) -- {19} Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness,
• Ephesians 5:3 (NKJV) -- {3} But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints;
• 1 Thessalonians 4:3 (NKJV) -- {3} For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality;

All of these give us one clear message and that is that the sexual act of fornication is against God’s Way.  God prohibits his people from committing fornication.

So why is our society working so hard to do away with the sexual inhibitions?  Why is our society trying to condone fornication?  The answer is quite simple, which I already alluded to.  We are trying our best to get rid of God so that we can live life the way we want to live and that typically means lasciviously.

The human nature wants pleasure.  That is why there are drugs that you can use to escape reality.  We want to satisfy our lusts.  That is why we want to condone fornication, pre-marital sex, spouse swapping, and other debauch activities.

The Jezebel Effect

Jezebel was the wife of Ahab, King of Israel.  She was a tyrant queen and was the force behind the throne.  She corrupted Ahab and then the entire nation with her pagan worship.  Ahab gave into her and allowed pagan worship to spread throughout Israel.

She first convinced Ahab to be tolerant of her religion since Israel was strictly monotheistic and worshipped the one true God.  Ahab allowed her to continue in her pagan worship, which soon spread to contaminate even the Israelite worship of God.  She later promoted an intolerance for the true worship of God and began persecuting the prophets of God killing many of them.  Her methodology was simply to get rid of the worship of God and replace it with Baal worship.

The worship of Baal included many lascivious activities such as sensual dances and prostitution (both male and female).  These licentious components of Baal worship were subtly attractive to the Hebrews who were bound to a rigorous moral code.

The result of Jezebel’s influence, or the Jezebel effect was to remove God from the life of the Israelites.  We see this same methodology active today.

1. Promote tolerance to what was considered taboo or sin
2. Promote what was once taboo or sin to be the right way
3. Promote the once right way as being old-fashion or really wrong
4. Begin to remove the old way
5. Live by the new way and the new revelation

Does that sound familiar?  Remember what television shows used to be like twenty years ago?  Remember the types of songs that were played on the radio thirty years ago in comparison to what you hear today?  We are moving away from good morals to a lascivious lifestyle.  Soon it will be totally acceptable to have sex with whomever you want whenever you want and wherever you want.  Soon married couples would not be bound to sexual relationships with each other, but instead would be free to copulate with anyone they so pleased.  We are moving towards that because of what I call the Jezebel effect.

Sexual Morality

In Christianity, sexual morality could be summarized by stating that sexual intercourse is only between a husband and a wife (a man and a woman).  This in itself prohibits fornication and surely it forbids adultery.

The host of a radio show in addition to his guest and some of the listeners seem to think that the lascivious lifestyle is not only acceptable, but healthy as well.  They seem to think it is acceptable for a husband to have sexual relations with another woman and for the wife to have sexual relationships with another man.  They seem to believe that having sex in public is also healthy to a relationship.

Interestingly enough it is becoming more taboo to speak about a moral code than it is a lascivious one.  Lasciviousness is still not the norm in any way, but it is becoming less abnormal as time goes on.  Consider the case of homosexuality and our current culture of coming out of the closet so to speak.  There used to be a time when someone would not want people to know that he or she was a homosexual.  That was something that was kept secret.  However, now it is much less taboo to be identified as a homosexual.

That same progression of godliness to ungodliness is continuing in all aspects of our lives and I must say that a good portion is perpetuated by our government that seems to want to compare everything to a constitutional context, which in my opinion is not appropriate.  We are simply moving away from God and the things that were built upon certain godly characteristics or morality is absent now and therefore the constitution and other such standards are being re-evaluated or re-interpreted with a new moral disposition, namely a godless one.

We are getting more and more godless.  Our society wants to walk free down the broad way instead of within the confines of the narrow way.

Matthew 7:13-14 (NKJV) -- {13} “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. {14} Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.

The human race would love to pave the road as they go.  We would love to make up our own morality as we go or as the situation dictates.  Society does not want to follow God’s way because God’s way is too restrictive.  God demands something of us that is against our sinful fleshly nature.  In general, we would rather be animals than people.

Back To Animals

An animal is not bound by a moral code.  An animal is predominantly governed by instinct.  It does the things that it does because it is in a sense programmed to do so.  An animal isn’t thinking about what is nice, fair, or right.  It is just surviving and doing what its instincts tell it.  Humans on the other hand are driven more than by instincts or at least we should be.

Humans have a sense of right and wrong. Humans have a sense of fairness, justice, love, etc.  We don’t merely operate based on our instincts because if that were the case then we would surely be no better than the animals and therefore the crimes of the world would not be unjust or wrong.  If we were just animals then it would be perfectly acceptable for me to steal something from you as long as I can overpower you to get it.  However, we do have a sense of right and wrong, of justice, fairness and the like. 

Now what we have is that people would rather humans live more like animals than humans.  Lascivious people would rather we just let it all hang out so to speak and be free to do whatever the flesh desires.  Why not have sex with as many people as you want married or not?  Why not have sex with other people besides your spouse.  If your flesh wants it then why not do it?  We are trying our best to not be the humans that God created us to be.  I find that to be most interesting.

Enticements to be Animals

What do you see on television these days?  We see sex and sensuality being used increasingly to sell a product or to make a particular show more desirable to watch thus increasing ratings.  Hold food in front of an animal and he will go after it if he is hungry.  Hold a scantly dressed woman in front of a man and he will desire her or at the very least be sexually aroused.

The world around us is enticing us to fulfill the lusts of our flesh.  There is a massive appeal to the flesh even in the Christian community.  For example, the faith preachers may be thought of as great men and women of God, but they are really animal trainers teaching the animals how to do tricks and how to respond on command.  You are told that God will bless you if you give $100 so you give the money.  The blessing that they preach to you is not more love, more patience, and more desire for the Lord.  No!  The blessings that they preach are more things that the flesh desires.  Again even in church we are being trained to be animals by operating according to our flesh instead of the mind that God gave us.

We would rather live a life of lasciviousness instead of fighting against the flow to live according to God’s way.  It’s kind of like going on a diet to lose weight and become more healthy when you’d rather eat what you want to do and have the same results as eating healthy.

Dieting and Good Health Illustration

What do you do when you want to lose weight?  Well the answer to that question may seem simple, but we in an effort to do things our own way have made it very complicated.  In order to lose weight we need to burn more calories than we consume.  That makes sense and it is very simple.  If you eat more energy than your body consumes than the body will systematically convert that extra unused energy into fat in order to store that energy for later use.  Of course the problem here is that we will probably never use that energy, but instead consume and store more and more energy (calories) each day.

In order to lose weight we must discipline ourselves to refrain from eating certain foods and begin eating others in controlled proportions.  We can no longer eat whatever we want because as soon as we do that we will begin to gain weight again.  Of course there are many diets that claim that you can eat the foods that you like or the foods that you want and you will still lose weight, but those diets simply do not work.

We need to put up boundaries for ourselves if we want to lose weight and get healthy.  We can’t do anything we want and live healthy.  I’d love to be able to eat chocolate cake, my momma’s monster cookies (really big chocolate chip cookies with really big chips and m&m’s in them), chocolate ice cream and all sorts of junk food and maintain good health.  However, that will never happen.  Yet we expect the same thing to work when it comes to life.

We think that we can live any way that we want and expect to live a good life and some even believe an acceptable life to God.  Many think that there are all kinds of “diets” that we can use to live a godly life.  Well there isn’t.  God has given us his way and we simply need to follow it.  God told us what is acceptable and what is not and we simply need to abide by them.

We simply want to live life our own way and on our own terms and neglect what God says.  We want to make our own rules.  However, that philosophy is totally ridiculous.  Imagine if one day I decide that red means go and green means stop simply because I want it that way today.  Of course sooner or later I will get stopped by a police officer because I ran a red light.  Imagine me telling the officer that I was right because I decided that red means go.  How many of you think that the officer would say something like, “Oh.  Excuse me.  I didn’t realize that red means go for you.  Sorry.  Have a nice day.”  No.  The officer’s response will be more like, “license and registration please.”

The Great Deception

We have been totally deceived by the tricks of the enemy.  We have rebelled against God because we believe Satan instead of God.  We have abandoned righteousness because we would rather satisfy the flesh.  We have been tricked out of living so that we would have pleasures and a facsimile of life.

I am convinced that many people that would rather live a lascivious lifestyle are lost.  They will never come to the truth because they would rather live in darkness instead of life.  Salvation is still available to them, but it is very doubtful that they would ever get on that ride.   Their flesh feels too good to them for them to deny it for the truth.

John mentioned this in his gospel.

John 3:19-21 (NKJV) -- {19} And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. {20} For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. {21} But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”

It’s OK as long as no one sees.  A twist on this is that it is OK as long as it is OK with everyone else.  Sinners would rather sin in the darkness and therefore would do all that is necessary to keep the lights out so to speak.  Of course now another deception is evident.  Instead of turning the lights out, I’ll just be sure that you agree with my morals and if enough of us agree then the set of morals that I have developed are acceptable.

That simply will not due in regards to the kingdom of God.  God has revealed his way and it is up to us to follow it.  God told us that such things as stealing, murdering, fornication, and adultery are forbidden.  We come along and change the rules with various interpretations of scripture or the like.  However, what God has forbidden is still forbidden.  We can’t arbitrarily change the rules.

The Light—The Truth

The only thing that we can do is to follow the truth.  We need to first acquire a relationship with Jesus Christ so that we will be able to stand against the temptations against the flesh.  It isn’t easy and we may fall from time to time.  However, the best thing that we can do is to persist in the pursuit for godliness.  Don’t give up your quest to live godly.  If you fall then get back up and continue on the way to godliness.  Don’t stop the pursuit and then decide that what is wrong is now right.

The truth is in the light.  If we are in the dark then I could tell you anything and you would believe it because you wouldn’t see what I have.  You wouldn’t see that I am deceiving you.  However, if I bring you light then you can clearly see the truth and know for yourself.

Stop condoning the sinful lifestyle.  Stop saying that fornication is acceptable.

The only thing we can do is to seek God and to seek godliness.  Godliness can only be obtained if we know God so this means that we have to acquire a relationship with Jesus Christ.  We have to be born again just as Jesus told Nicodemus (John 3:3).  Just because someone goes to church doesn’t mean that she is born again.  Just because a person stands in the pulpit preaching doesn’t mean that he or she is a Christian.  We need to be born again so that we would be able to stand against the schemes of the devil because we cannot do it on our own strength.  Our flesh is too powerful.  Think how difficult it is to do something seemingly simple as eat the right foods and stop eating the wrong foods so that you would lose weight.  That is an example of the power of the flesh.  We need Jesus to help us.

Living godly means that we need Jesus.  There is no other way.  We need to come to Jesus through salvation so that we would have the power within to stand against the tricks of Satan.  Don’t condone sin.  Instead fight it.  Submit yourself to God and resist the devil and he will flee from you (See James 4:7).

Don’t do as the world does because they are on a crash course to the bottomless pit (we call this hell).  The world doesn’t know God or his ways so the world cannot tell you or show you how to be godly.  Godliness can only come from God.  Living a godly life can only truly come as a result of living according to the indwelling Holy Spirit, which we receive when we are born again.  Amen.