Talk 7- The Manifesto Of The New Sexual Revolution

The question remains, how do we, in The City of God, live in a sexualized culture? From examples in the Old testament we have concluded that we have three options:
1. Jonah - avoidance
2. Esther - Accommodation
- Assimilation
3. Daniel - Separation
- Activist
From the last lesson, we concluded that Daniels example was the best one to follow. Daniel was totally immersed in a culture that was hostile to his Jewish faith. The Babylonian culture he lived in, tried to brainwash his faith out of him through education in a total immersion program. They even changed his Hebrew name to one after a Babylonian God. Him and his three Hebrew friends. If you have trouble remembering their names, just think of " my shack", " your shack" and a "bungalow". The Babylonians tried to totally change their thinking and their way of living. Daniel drew the line at eating the Kings Food, because he believed God's word and did not want to defile his body because he knew this would destroy his faith. This was the one thing he knew he must not do, in order to keep his faith in tact while living in this pagan culture. He could learn their culture, even be called a name after one of their god's, but he must not defile his body by eating food that had been dedicated to their Gods, which by the way were all sexual Gods. As we learned last week, our Kings Food is our cultures sexual ethics. We too, in our culture, must keep our bodies from being defiled in order to maintain our faith. Look at 1 Corinthians 6:18. " Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body." You see, sexual sin is much worse that other sins because of the total damage it does to our whole psyche. It has adverse effects on our whole being. Our sexuality is so closely related to our emotions, body, mind and spirit. Cameron Diaz said it really well in the movie Vanilla Sky. She was so engrossed with Tom Cruise she was stalking him, because she couldn't get over the fact that he didn't want her any more after their brief, but intense sexual love affair. She said to him " Your body makes a promise, even if you don't." Imagine that! Cameron Diaz saying what Paul the Apostle said In 1 Corinthians 6:18!

So what can we conclude from all this? How was Daniel able to stand up to the pressures of Babylonian culture?

1. Influence of the Believing Community

Daniel was around 9 or 10 years old in 622B.C. It was during this period after the reign of an evil king , that the Jewish temple was re-opened after being closed for 70 years. There would have been great revival of faith during this time. The Jews were once again on fire for God, and was this influence on young Daniel that shaped his religious convictions that carried him through the tough times during the exile.

2. Influence of Godly parents

Nothing is mentioned specifically about Daniels parents, but we know through familiarity with Jewish culture of that time that Hebrew parents gave their children names that meant something. Daniels name means " God is my judge". we can conclude therefore that God was very important to his parents and they wanted his name to reflect that fact. They must have raised him to be a God fearing young man.

Psalm 78: 4-7 " We will not hide them from their children; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done. He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our forefathers to teach their children, so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children. Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds but would keep his commands."

Pastor John invited us to a New Sexual Revolution. One that would honour God by honouring our bodies and keeping them pure according to his word in order to maintain our faith in our paganistic society. We must pass this down to future generations.

Next week Talk # 8 - The Manifesto Of The Sexual Revolution- Principal # 2 Love your Neighbour. Watch live at 6:30pm, www.livechurch.ca