Theological term
Prevention of Uncleanness
3 sermons · All terms
The Seventh Commandment, Part 3
Deuteronomy 5:18 forbids adultery, but the scope of the Seventh Commandment extends to every form of sexual disorder — from fornication and homosexuality to the surging contemporary phenomenon of transgenderism. Drawing on the Westminster Larger Catechism questions 138 and 139, this study moves from the commandment's prohibitions to its positive duties: the preservation of chastity, watchfulness over the senses, the practice of temperance, the pursuit of biblical marriage, diligence in one's calling, and the rejection of all occasions of uncleanness. The three uses of the law — civil, pedagogical, and normative — frame the closing application: the law exposes the corruption of the heart, drives the sinner to the imputed righteousness of Christ, and then regulates the redeemed life.
The Seventh Commandment
Deuteronomy 5:18, the seventh commandment, prohibits adultery and by extension the full range of sexual sins Scripture condemns throughout both Testaments. This sermon works through the basis of the commandment in God's threefold purposes for marriage, catalogs the specific sexual sins the commandment forbids — adultery, fornication, incest, rape, sodomy, bestiality, unlawful divorce, polygamy, prostitution, and pornography — and then treats the internal disposition of heart lust that Jesus expounds in Matthew 5. The sermon concludes with practical counsel drawn from Proverbs 5 and 6 on the three means of protection against sexual sin, and closes by applying the civil, pedagogical, and normative uses of the law to the contemporary church and culture.
Genesis 2:18-25
Genesis 2:18–25 narrates the provision of a wife for Adam as the divinely ordained solution to man's aloneness — the one instance in the creation account where God declares something 'not good.' The text establishes marriage as a pre-civil, pre-fall institution: one man and one woman, joined in an indissoluble one-flesh union, with the woman made neither to dominate nor to be dominated, but to be a comparable helper. The exposition draws out four implications for marriage today: its inherent goodness, its precise biblical definition against contemporary redefinition, its three purposes (companionship, procreation, and the prevention of uncleanness), and the creational distinction between male and female that undergirds both the home and the church. Hearers are called to prize their marriages as a reflection of Christ and the church, to approach marriage with sobriety and biblical discernment, and to stand firm against every cultural assault on God's design.