Fred Stoeker says: “I finally made the connection between my sexual immorality and my distance from God. Having eliminated the visible adulteries and pornography, and having avoided physical adultery, I looked pure on the outside to everyone else. But to God, I had stopped short, and I’d ignored His voice repeatedly as He prodded me in these areas. I’d merely found a comfortable middle ground somewhere between paganism and obedience to God’s standard. God desired more for me.”
—adapted from Every Young Man’s Battle
He who troubles his own house shall inherit the wind, and the foolish shall be servant to the wise of heart.
PROVERBS 11:29, AMP
If the righteous will be rewarded in the earth,
How much more the wicked and the sinner!
PROVERBS 11:31, NASB
Adversity pursues sinners,
But the righteous will be rewarded with prosperity.
PROVERBS 13:21, NASB
And if it is with difficulty that the righteous is saved, what will become of the godless man and the sinner?
1 PETER 4:18, NASB
Will those who do evil never learn?…
Terror will grip them,
for God is with those who obey him.
PSALM 14:4–5, NLT
I show this unfailing love to many thousands by forgiving every kind of sin and rebellion. Even so I do not leave sin unpunished, but I punish the children for the sins of their parents to the third and fourth generations.
EXODUS 34:7, NLT
If also after these things you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.
LEVITICUS 26:18, NASB
Their future is eternal destruction. Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and all they think about is this life here on earth.
PHILIPPIANS 3:19, NLT
So God let them go ahead and do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies.… And the men, instead of having normal sexual relationships with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men and, as a result, suffered within themselves the penalty they so richly deserved.
ROMANS 1:24,27, NLT
One day Dinah, Leah’s daughter, went to visit some of the young women who lived in the area. But when the local prince, Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, saw her, he took her and raped her.… Word soon reached Jacob that his daughter had been defiled, but his sons were out in the fields herding cattle so he did nothing until they returned.… He [Shechem’s father] arrived just as Jacob’s sons were coming in from the fields. They were shocked and furious that their sister had been raped. Shechem had done a disgraceful thing against Jacob’s family, a thing that should never have been done.
But three days later … two of Dinah’s brothers, Simeon and Levi, took their swords, entered the town without opposition, and slaughtered every man there, including Hamor and Shechem. They rescued Dinah from Shechem’s house and returned to their camp. Then all of Jacob’s sons plundered the town because their sister had been defiled there. They seized all the flocks and herds and donkeys—everything they could lay their hands on, both inside the town and outside in the fields.
GENESIS 34:1–2,5,7,25–28, NLT
In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.
JUDE 7, NIV
Keep to a path far from her,
do not go near the door of her house,
lest you give your best strength to others
and your years to one who is cruel,
lest strangers feast on your wealth
and your toil enrich another man’s house.
At the end of your life you will groan,
when your flesh and body are spent.
You will say, “How I hated discipline!
How my heart spurned correction!
I would not obey my teachers
or listen to my instructors.
I have come to the brink of utter ruin
in the midst of the whole assembly.”
PROVERBS 5:8–14, NIV
Each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin … gives birth to death.
JAMES 1:14–15, NIV
When we call ourselves Christians but don’t act like it, Jesus forcefully objects. Luke 6:46 says, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (NIV).
—adapted from Every Young Man’s Battle
And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
MATTHEW 19:4–6, KJV
Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but yield yourselves to God as men who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness.
ROMANS 6:13, RSV
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
ROMANS 12:1–2, NIV
When I [Paul] wrote to you before, I told you not to associate with people who indulge in sexual sin.
1 CORINTHIANS 5:9, NLT
So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual sin, impurity, lust, and shameful desires.
COLOSSIANS 3:5, NLT
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two shall become one.” But he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Shun immorality. Every other sin which a man commits is outside the body; but the immoral man sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
1 CORINTHIANS 6:15–20, RSV
I was looking out the window of my house one day and saw a simpleminded young man who lacked common sense. He was crossing the street near the house of an immoral woman. He was strolling down the path by her house at twilight, as the day was fading, as the dark of night set in. The woman approached him, dressed seductively and sly of heart. She was the brash, rebellious type who never stays at home. She is often seen in the streets and markets, soliciting at every corner.
She threw her arms around him and kissed him, and with a brazen look she said, “I’ve offered my sacrifices and just finished my vows. It’s you I was looking for! I came out to find you, and here you are! My bed is spread with colored sheets of finest linen imported from Egypt. I’ve perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let’s drink our fill of love until morning. Let’s enjoy each other’s caresses, for my husband is not home. He’s away on a long trip. He has taken a wallet full of money with him, and he won’t return until later in the month.”
So she seduced him with her pretty speech. With her flattery she enticed him. He followed her at once, like an ox going to the slaughter or like a trapped stag, awaiting the arrow that would pierce its heart. He was like a bird flying into a snare, little knowing it would cost him his life.
PROVERBS 7:6–23, NLT