THERE ARE NO SECRET ROOMS! The slippery slide from idolatry to immorality.

How does the sin of idolatry relate to sexual immorality? It is highly possible that people in our world today have become so desensitized to sexual immorality, that the lines of a clear biblical definition have become blurred in the minds of those who believe they are following Christ, but who have attempted to compartmentalize their sin from their “spiritual life”.

As we’ve been looking at the book of Jeremiah, we’ve seen the many scripture references of sexual expression used as a metaphor for idolatry. In places like Ezekiel 16, God rebukes Judah for turning from God to have a love affair with idols. He calls her a harlot describing her idolatry as fornication, adultery, and whoredom. But the real issue was Judah’s heart problem. Ezekiel 14:3—“Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their hearts and have put right before their faces the stumbling block of their iniquity. Should I be consulted by them at all?” In verse 5, God says that the hearts of Judah had been estranged from Him through all their idols. The real focus of worship in idolatry is self. When one indulges in sexual immorality, that one is bowing at the altar of self-worship, pure and simple. Sexual immorality is the outward manifestation of a heart filled with idol worship. It’s a natural slide from idolatry to immorality. 

The emphasis in the first 4 verses of Exodus 20 is:

 I am the Lord your God (who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery).

 You shall have no other gods before Me.

 You shall not make for yourself an idol.

 You shall not worship them or serve them.

Humanly speaking, true worship of God is more than just difficult; it is impossible. What comes natural to us is anything we worship in our flesh. Fleshly worship is easy and popular. When man turns away from God, he must turn to something else because man is made for worship. Turning from God, he will turn to something he has made and idolize it as his god.

In the Bible there is no more serious charge than that of idolatry. The ultimate expression of unfaithfulness to God, it deserves the harshest punishment from God. When we think of ‘idolatry’, we tend to think of making a little statue to worship. But idolatry is matter of the heart. It is anything that man gives himself to wholeheartedly. For example, covetousness is idolatry because whatever a man covets he dedicates his time and energy to its pursuit. Idolatry is rampant in our nation. We are bombarded on every level with this vigorous pursuit of sin. Advertisers appeal to our flesh by assaulting us subliminally with messages like: “You need this. This will make your life better or easier. You are missing out in life if you don’t have this.” Advertising without an appeal to hedonistic pleasures would sell very little to our culture. ‘Is this functional’ has been replaced by, ‘Is this sexy’. The energy given to those things we desire is lusty and exhausting. 

God calls us to a standard of holy perfection—His standard is high because He is holy and cannot have communion with anything less than His own holiness. Man’s heart is depraved, which means it is more deceitful than all else and desperately sick. We cannot begin to understand the depths of our own depravity. Man cannot worship God in his own sinful condition because worshiping holy God in the flesh is to lower God’s standard to the lowest moral level. 

Dr. G. Campbell Morgan said this: “When God calls men, it is the call of the God of holiness, the God of purity, the God of love; and He demands that they rise to His height. He cannot accommodate Himself to the depravity of their nature. He will not consent to the things of desire within them that are of impurity and evil. He calls men up, and even higher, until they reach the height of perfect conformity to His holiness. God’s call to humanity is always first pure, and then peaceable; first holy, and then happy; first righteous, and then rejoicing.”

God forbids idolatry because it is a heart issue and because God said, “I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.” Consider any instance of adultery personally known to you, be it in your own life or someone close to you. We all know that sense of outrage, betrayal, and heartbreak when we see this portrayed for us in movies or books when the physical act of adultery has even been alluded to have taken place. What is godly jealousy rooted in? Love and holiness. God is just in jealously guarding those whom He has redeemed at great cost. 

Let us consider how idolatry and immorality are tied together. It will help us better understand this idea of spiritual adultery we see over and over again in the Old Testament, especially as we study the book of Jeremiah.

First, we see in Romans 1 that man intuitively knows there is a God. Suppressing this truth in unrighteousness, he does not honor God or give Him thanks; therefore, he is without excuse (guilty—without a defense). Refusing to honor God or give Him thanks, he becomes futile in his speculations, and his foolish heart is darkened. We see this jump from idolatry to immorality in Romans 1:22-26a—Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. (Idolatry) Therefore, God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them over to degrading passions. (Immorality)

The word for sexual immorality in the New Testament is porneia. Another way it is translated is idolatry. It means to surrender sexual purity speaking primarily of premarital sexual relations and involves any type of sexual expression outside the boundaries of a biblically defined marriage relationship between a man and a woman.

So why is this such an egregious sin? 1 Corinthians 6:15-20—Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH.” But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore, glorify God in your body.

Many in the church of America, just like the Corinthian church, rationalize their sexual activity. They cannot understand the direct link between idolatry and immorality. Paul says, ‘Do you not know?’ Before they were saved, their worship included sexual immorality in pagan temples with prostitutes. After God saved them, they didn’t believe that their sexual activities with prostitutes had any connection to their relationship with Jesus Christ. Maybe they did not know. But they did after Paul got their attention. 

One writer said that “those caught up in sexual immorality exhibit an uncanny ability to compartmentalize the various facets of life. They push lust into its own small, carefully guarded room mentally isolated from the other segments of their existence.” We hear excuses like, “It’s not wrong if we love each other.” “Things are different today. Things that were wrong in biblical times are no longer considered sinful.” “We don’t need a piece of paper; we’re married in God’s eyes.” “God understands.” In a biblical understanding of sex, there is no such thing as “casual sex”. First, there is only one distinction made in the Bible regarding sexual relations and that is between married and unmarried people. Within marriage, sex is blessed (Genesis 1:28); outside of marriage, sex is considered ‘fornication’ or ‘sexual immorality’ (1 Corinthians 7:2-5) Second, if greed, lust, stealing, etc. is still sin, then we shouldn’t think God has redefined sexual sin to mean anything other than what He has said it means just because the culture’s opinion has changed over time. Third, no one is ‘married in God’s eyes’ if they aren’t married. Lastly, to say that ‘God understands’ shows that someone who uses this rationalization for his sin does not know God. 1 John 2:3-4—By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” 

Every true believer is one with Christ, i.e., joined to Christ, and part of Christ’s body. (Ephesians 1:22-23; 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12:5) Those who call themselves Christians who commit acts of sexual sin join Christ to that prostitute. To connect sexually with anyone outside of marriage is to bring Christ into the act. That’s disgraceful! It would be like saying to the Lord, “Hey, Lord, I’m going to go commit sexual immorality. Let’s go!” No one who professes to follow Christ would be that bold. However, that is the reality of what takes place when anyone who is a believer participates in sex outside of marriage. Because God has ordained marriage, sexual intimacy between marriage partners is blessed by God. Within marriage, God views intercourse (the most intimate sharing human beings can experience) as that which involves the whole person, not just the body. There can be no closed off, boarded up secret room in the life of a believer.