Works Of The Flesh:  Fornication

    The works of the flesh will prevent eternal souls from inheriting eternal glory.  To ignore the Bible teaching on these evil works is to ignore salvation and the precious hope that the children of God have in heaven.

    The second work of the flesh enumerated in Galatians 5:19-21 is fornication.  The number of people in our society and world who commit this sin is staggering.  In our times of low morals and irreverence toward God and His Word, fornication takes precedence in the lives of so many.  Our times remind me of Jeremiah's day.  "Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith the LORD" (Jeremiah 6:15).  You'd think that people would be ashamed of living as fornicators, but to the contrary, most care not, neither do they blush.  It is so easy to get accustomed to sin.  Even preachers sometimes fail to rebuke fornication and the other works of the flesh.

    Fornication is defined as "illicit sexual intercourse in general" (Thayer, p. 532).  The sin includes beastiality and homosexuality.  It is a perversion of God's plan for the intimate relationship between a lawful husband and wife.  Fifty years ago, fornication was shocking to most. Today however, it is accepted by much of our twisted, lost, and perverted society. James told the brethren, in reference to the Gentiles, "But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood" (Acts 15:20). James was inspired by the Holy Ghost. We read in a letter sent from Jerusalem to Antioch, Syria and Cilicia, "For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things; that ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well" (Acts 15:28-29).

Fornication was popular among the Gentiles in the first century. In Corinth, there was a temple with a thousand prostitutes. The sin was practiced as part of their "religion." We read in I 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." Again, we read in I 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." Paul told the saints in Ephesus: "But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints" (Ephesians 5:3). And in like manner to the Christians in Colosse, he commanded: "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: In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them" (Colossians 3:5-7).

Surely, hell will be filled with fornicators. We read in Hebrews 13:4, "Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge." May God help us to stand against all the works of the flesh. Let us remain pure!