MONSTERPROOF --
MONSTERS SERIES, PART 3

1 Corinthians 6:9-20 (NASB)
David Bruce Linn, Pastor-Teacher
9 April 2006
All Rights Reserved, www.breakfree.org

Several years ago a pretty blonde teacher in Tampa, Florida, decided to seduce a fourteen-year -old middle school boy. Having once been a fourteen-year-old boy myself, I understand that this may not have been very hard to do. Using whatever means to convince him, she had sex with him in a moving sport utility vehicle while his cousin drove them around. Later she had sex with him in her classroom, and finally managed to have sex with him in her house.

In every state in the Union this is statutory rape. No child may consent to having sex with an adult. The actions of the State of Florida in response to these crimes should concern every American. Because Debra Lafave committed these acts in two counties, there were charges in two courts. The first court case concluded with a plea deal where she was required to register as a sex offender, forfeit her teaching license, and occasionally wear an electronic monitoring device.

For the charges pending in the next county Assistant State Attorney Richard Ridgway proposed another plea agreement which would have resulted in no prison time at all. The judge rejected it as simply wrong, and so the representative of the people of the State of Florida dropped the charges altogether. Instead of the possible jail time of almost seventeen years for the combined charges of lewd and lascivious battery, Debra Lafave is virtually a free woman. Lafave's attorney held a press conference announcing the decision and the newspaper published a photo of the smiling perpetrator and her attorney, with her parents and fiancee standing behind her in support.

The reason the state attorney gave for dropping the charges was that he was trying to spare the now sixteen-year-old boy. Never mind that state attorneys almost always plead with female rape victims to undertake the sufferings of trial for the good of the people. Never mind that any male offender would have been thrown in jail without a qualm. Never mind that the admitted sexual predator is free to traumatize others. Make no mistake, the boy she preyed upon is seriously traumatized. That's why the state attorney wanted to keep him from having to testify.

It seems to me that a fertility goddess of old stalks the land, and the State of Florida has given the key to the city to an idol variously named Ashtoreth, Astarte, and many other names. This monster which has destroyed individuals, families, and communities for thousands of years has just been given a free pass in the State of Florida as long as the heinous crimes are committed by women. Recently there have been televised sting operations where male internet predators come to a house thinking they are going to have sex with a boy. Those criminals are routinely sent to jail. But when the same crime is committed by a pretty blond teacher lady, the definition of the good of society changes. Florida has just said to the world that it is not really against female sexual predators. Judges and prosecutors in other states have said the same on the record. And all the worshipers of Astarte said: "Amen!"

People in the West may no longer carve lurid statues of this goddess, but our worship of her in the abstract has very concrete behaviors which have been practiced for ages of time. First, women have always been the priestesses of the fertility goddess. You can see that society now openly protects them in this role. Secondly, the reason their priesthood is protected is that they control access to the primary act of Astarte worship, which is the performance of sex outside marriage, including perverse acts such as sex with children. If women would not do this and men would stop seeking it Astarte would have no worshipers. Thirdly, the slaughter of the children who result from this fornication is the high sacrament of fertility goddess worship. In ancient times the practice was infanticide, and in the present it is abortion. Archaeologists in Israel have uncovered the ruins of a temple of Ashtoreth, and beneath the floor they discovered the tiny bones of hundreds of infants who had been slain and thrust through a hole--out of sight, out of mind. The impenetrable barrier of privacy laws does the same today for our millions of abortions.

An ancient monster stalks the land and seeks to consume us, our children, and our communities. And Ashtoreth is not the only one! There are monsters with every possible face seeking to lure us to disaster. How can we keep from getting eaten alive? Fortunately for believers in Jesus Christ, the very power of God is mobilized to make us monsterproof. The monsters want us to belong to them, but through sanctification in Christ we become set apart for God. The Apostle John wrote to us: "We know that no one who is born of God sins; but He who was born of God [Jesus Christ] keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. Little children, guard yourselves from idols" (1 John 5:18-21). The believer in Jesus Christ who is on guard against idols cannot be touched.

As we look in the word of God we see that the church in Corinth in particular was in grave danger from many monsters which stalked the pagan world in their time. It seems that many of those monsters never left us, and some of the rest are coming back to life. A passage from Paul's first letter to Corinth reveals that in order to become monsterproof we must activate our spirit, train our mind, and resolve our will.

1. MONSTERPROOFING BY ACTIVATING OUR SPIRIT

Paul begins by listing the monsters which seek to destroy us: "Or 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 effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). All of these items are sins for which God holds each one of us responsible. No one can say: "God, I did some of these as a way of life but it's not my fault because they are all monsters trying to consume me!"

Scripture is clear that no monster, no external influence, can seduce us unless it connects with a temptation within our own hearts (James 1:14). But that does not mean that the monsters are not dangerous! Fornicators are on the hunt for other fornicators, adulterers seek other adulterers, thieves form alliances, drunkards put drinks in the hands of others, homosexuals succeed when they seduce others into homosexuality, and swindlers generate schemes with others as well. Furthermore, when idolatry is involved, there are demonic spirits seeking to steal, kill, and destroy through these avenues. We are being attacked all the time from within and without. Ashtoreth stalks the land, and what chance is there that Debra Lafave will not succumb to the monster again and traumatize another boy? Little to none.

The next verse, one of the sweetest verses in the Bible, explains how any person, young or old, can become monsterproof: "Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God" (1 Corinthians 6:11). There is so much wonder in this verse that we will not be able to unpack it all. The blanket statement is that every person who is justified by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is also washed from the defilement of these monsters and set apart for God. We are made holy in God's sight, and no being in the universe can take that away from us.

Theologians call the status of having been washed from our sins and set apart for God "positional sanctification." Notice that the list of evils does not describe the sins but a list of people identified with those sins. Before we believe in Christ our sins are our identities: fornicator, adulterer, swindler. That is who we are! The monsters own us. We are powerless to resist them. After we believe in Christ we receive positional sanctification by which we are made totally clean in God's sight. We become clothed with Christ, and when God looks at us he sees the righteousness of his dear Son. The tenses of the Greek verbs in this verse indicate that we were being those evil people in an ongoing way, but in a once-for-all completed sense we become permanently washed, permanently sanctified, and permanently justified. It does not mean that there is no faithfulness required of us, but it does mean that our new status as free of the monsters and set apart for God is not teetering on a knife edge ready to drop us right back into the monsters' hungry mouths!

At the moment you receive Christ you activate your human spirit. The human spirit is described as dead in the word of God (Eph. 2:1). This does not mean that people without Christ are not spiritual beings. The spirit of a person is that part of him or her which responds to God, and in those who have not met God the spirit responds to everything except the one true God. That is why we see the flourishing of so-called spirituality in the West. As a culture we have stopped denying that we have a spirit, but we want to explore it without facing the God for which it was made. In the Biblical sense, the spiritually dead may be very spiritually minded, but when God calls they do not answer.

It is also the human spiritual nature which gives us control over the soulish nature which operates our bodies. The soulish dimension just wants satisfaction by eating, having sex, sleeping, and such physical enjoyments. These are not wrong, but without an activated spiritual nature to control the soulish part of us it will drive us into gluttony, sexual immorality, laziness, and all the sins on Paul's list. If your spiritual nature is dead to God you have very little control over the soul and its constant demands.

Once you believe in Christ your human spirit is regenerated, given life, and begins to respond to God the way it was designed. This is the only hope we have of becoming monsterproof. Every other restraint on the temptations which reside in the human heart is destined to fail, leaving us vulnerable to the attacks of the monsters. Activating our human spirit gives us control over the desires of these bodies. Positional sanctification means that no matter how bloodied we become in battle with the monsters, God wins, makes us into saints, and takes us home without fail.

2. MONSTERPROOFING BY TRAINING OUR MIND

But that is not the whole story. Battles with the monsters must be fought. We have no choice. They will not be over until we go to be with our Lord in heaven. A key aspect of our battles with the world, the flesh, and the devil is what sports people call the mental game. It involves harnessing the power of the mind to achieve success. Dr. Neil Anderson calls this aspect of spiritual battle "truth encounter." The mind, which becomes active toward God when we believe in Christ, must be trained with the content of truth. This is different than merely knowing about spiritual things through the word of God. There are millions of people who have some awareness of the truth of the Bible but whose minds are not regulated by those truths. And if the mind is not regulated, the desires of the physical body will not be either.

Paul's instruction to the Corinthians began with positional sanctification and then moves into instruction about the training of the mind for a lifestyle which is set apart for God: "All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything" (1 Corinthians 6:12). It was for freedom that Christ set us free, so we must fight for it. But we must learn the difference between freedom and license, because license is actually just another kind of bondage.

Before I was a believer I decided for medical and social reasons not to drink alcohol. I self-regulated with no problem at all. When I became a believer, I followed that for a while until I learned that I could drink a small amount of alcohol without sinning. It was exhilarating to sense the freedom I had in Christ. About twice a month I would drink one beer, or one glass of wine. I could have been in danger of thinking, as some Christians have, that I could get inebriated at will because I am free in Christ. I never did that, and later I once again gave it up completely as a Christian. As I was becoming a pastor I decided that alcohol causes so much damage to so many people that it was not worth the danger. I do not want to cause a problem for even one person, so I do not drink at all. This is freedom also, the freedom to love others and feel no constraint in my personal life.

Paul does not use alcohol here as his test case of a bodily appetite, but food and sexuality: "Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them" (1 Corinthians 6:13). So the first training of the mind is to understand that we are free in Christ, but we are not free to simply indulge bodily appetites at will. Although Western culture has largely forgotten this, the downfall of the Roman Empire was accompanied by massive gluttonous feasts, which would often include deliberate vomiting to make room for more indulgence. The Romans had plenty of gods, but most Romans were dead to the one true God and had no power to curb bodily indulgences. The cutting application is that today we are all able to indulge in food in the same way as the Roman elite. The Christian view of food, which we were made to enjoy, is that it is a test of mastery. Who or what will rule over us? Will it be God, or our appetites?

The mind training for battling the monsters continues with our God-given sexual appetite: "Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body" (1 Corinthians 6:13). Paul wanted to contradict the prevailing concept in Corinth that the indulgence of appetites is normal. There are people writing books today proclaiming that monogamous marriage is abnormal, and random indulgence of our sexual appetites is the norm. That is what happens when the human spiritual nature is not activated toward the real God. On the contrary, our bodies are a divinely-created part of our beings given to us for his purposes.

Paul then begins a three-part argument for the dignity of the human body. First, he says: "Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power" (1 Corinthians 6:14). That means that even if we die before Christ returns for us and these earthly bodies totally disintegrate back to dirt, even to the collapse of our DNA patterns, God is going to resurrect us with our own bodies having been glorified for heaven. That means, of course, that the information in our DNA resides in the mind of God and is not required for resurrection! So it is inappropriate for us to see these bodies as disposable instruments of indulgence.

Have you ever seen a motorbike, bicycle, or all-terrain vehicle which has been used and abused by a young person for the indulgence of the body? When I worked as a bicycle mechanic parents would bring me muddy, rusty, bent bicycles which had been treated as worthless apart from the pleasure they could give. We must not treat our bodies this way. When our pleasures are killing us, then we are in bondage.

The body has dignity first because it will be resurrected by the God who made it. Secondly, it has dignity because the believer is joined to Christ himself: "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" (1 Corinthians 6:15-18). So when a Christian visits a prostitute, commits adultery, or fornicates he or she takes Jesus with him. If you are in Christ, wherever your body goes, Jesus Christ goes also.

Finally, the bodies of believers have dignity because the Holy Spirit dwells there: "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God?..." (1 Corinthians 6:19). When once the mind has been trained with these truths about the body, we can tell the truth to ourselves every time we are in danger of sinful indulgence.

3. MONSTERPROOFING BY RESOLVING OUR WILL

The final aspect of monsterproofing is that we must resolve our will in an act which theologians call the crisis of sanctification. It is the point where we understand who we were made to be in Christ and give ourselves totally over to God, as Paul wrote: "...You are not your own....For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body" (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Since you cannot get out of your body, that means that everything a believer does should be done to give God honor and glory.

Dr. A. B. Simpson, founder of the Alliance, made much of this crisis of sanctification. God is not withholding anything from us, but we withhold his power from ourselves when we refuse to give our lives over to Christ with nothing held back. Holding back makes us into carnal Christians who will make it to heaven but who are destined to be chewed up by the monsters on the way. The word of God says that the full measure of monsterproofing comes by activating our spirit in positional sanctification when we receive Christ, training our mind with the truth of God, and resolving our will to to follow Christ totally in a crisis of sanctification.

CONCLUSION

I have bad news about sexual predator Debra Lafave. None of us is really different from her. Ashtoreth sank her claws into Debra, but every one of us is vulnerable to the monsters without Christ. Have you become monsterproof by trusting Christ for salvation and being granted positional sanctification? Have your trained your mind to respond in spiritual battle? Have you faced your own inner appetites and fleshly desires which make you vulnerable to the monsters and said: "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord?" I urge you to take the pledge: "All for Jesus." And when you are in the middle of a fight to keep from giving in to one of the monsters, say out loud: "Not me! All for Jesus!" That's how you can be monsterproof.