Illustration results for 1 corinthians 6

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MONOGAMY SYNDROME

Where at one time, having sexual relations outside marriage was considered liberating, current studies show that it damages one's ability to trust, affecting future relationship, one's respect for self, affecting every decision and diminishing the value of right decisions, and one's respect for health.

Liberating? At what cost.

Drs. Freda Bush and Joe McIlhaney released a study at Harvard University that shows that exposure to immorality and participation in sexual acts during childhood years actually changes the brain, interrupting the normal production and usage of dopamine, vasopressin and oxytocin in the brain for the remainder of the life.

These chemicals, when released properly, create the "monogamy syndrome", in that moment bonding the person to another. If this occurs outside of marriage, that moment of bonding never fully takes place, even after marriage.1
According to the study, listen, "But that bonding, which acts like adhesive tape or Velcro, is weakened when people tear away at its power by breaking off with a sexual partner and moving on from one to another to another. So when it does finally come time to bond permanently with a spouse, the ability to bond is damaged.

The brain actually gets molded to not accept that deep emotional level that's so important for marriage. When they do marry, they're more likely to have a divorce than people who were virgins when they got married."

Others studies, reported by American Journal of Preventive Medicine, physical and emotional changes in unmarried people who have sex, as well as in married people who have sex outside marriage.

This is not to discount the spiritual changes in these people.

The Bible is relevant concerning the building blocks of a strong, supportive, fulfilling family life, although some have misrepresented what it is teaching through the years. One of those building blocks is entering into the most important human relationship of choice with the ability to commit fully, and much further than you have ever committed to another in your life. Purity before marriage is now seen as a crucial part of that. This is something many will miss out on because the deemed the Bible irrelevant to themselves.

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THE INDESCRIBABLE GIFT--COMMUNION MEDITATION

A few years ago, on "Good Morning, America," Joan Lunden featured some extraordinary gifts you might want to include on your Christmas gift list.

One of them was a Jaguar automobile, the Jaguar 220. If you care to order one of these, go to your Jaguar dealer and put down your $80,000 deposit. Then when the automobile is delivered, you are expected to pay the balance of $507,000. The Jaguar 220 is a $587,000 automobile, and they only make 250 of them a year.

Joan Lunden mentioned that if you were to purchase such an automobile, you might also be interested in a new car wax that promises to give it the ultimate shine. It retails for $3,400 for an 8 ounce can. I guess if you can afford a $587,000 automobile, why not spend $3,400 for car wax?

A third item she mentioned was a $300,000 gold and silver toilet seat inlaid with precious stones. Of course, there were cheaper gifts for those who have everything: an $18,000 frisbee, a $10,000 yoyo, a $12,000 mousetrap, and even a $27,000 pair of sunglasses.

And for the proud grandparent who is wondering what to buy the new grandbaby, how about a $28,000 pacifier?

Such gifts stagger our imagination, don’t they? But they are not indescribable. Only God can give gifts beyond description, and priceless besides. His greatest was the gift of Christ Jesus. At communion, we remember our most precious gift-- the forgiveness that came through the sacrifice of Jesus. "Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!"

SOURCE: Melvin Newland, edited by SermonCentral Staff. Citation: 2 Corinthians 9:15.

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According to the Puritans, “all professions are spiritual to the Christian, not because of the nature of the work but because of the presence of God. …When a Christian – the temple of the Holy Spirit – walks into an office at IBM, IBM becomes a spiritual place.”

Tim Downs, Finding Common Ground (Chicago: Moody Press, 1999), 170

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Can you fathom this? The God of the universe, who holds all things together by the word of His power, who fills all things and is bigger than the universe; bigger than time, literally lives in you. Calls you His dwelling place. What a magnificent creation you are! What high and wonderful privilege we have been given, to house the Holy ...

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A year or so ago Time Magazine published a review of the movie, “The Birdcage.” The review said that while the movie is based on the plot of Robin Williams & Nathan Lane playing a homosexual couple, & Gene Hackman playing a conservative politician who messes up their gay lifestyle, that the movie is a “warm, humorous, family film.”

Now wait a minute, folks. The world’s thinking has become so skewed that it can take a perverted script & interpret it as a “warm, humorous, family film.” You see, if you walk in the ways of the world long enough, you get all twisted around & begin to think that sin is normal, & what used to be evil is good, & what used to be good is evil.

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PRAYER WORKS

The researchers at Columbia University conducted a study with 199 women at an in vitro fertilization clinic in Korea. Unknown to the patients and their doctors, groups of strangers from the US, Canada, and Australia were asked to pray for their success in getting pregnant.
Pictures of patients in the test group were sent to the people praying, and when the women began hormone treatment, prayer continued for the next three weeks. No one knew which group was which until the three weeks were up.

The patients in the study were all undergoing in vitro fertilization, an assisted reproduction technique in which a man’s sperm, and a woman’s eggs are combined in a laboratory dish where fertilization occurs. The resulting embryo is then transferred to the uterus to develop naturally. According to the latest statistics from the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, the success rate of in vitro fertilization averages 22.8 percent live births per egg retrieval.

To the surprise of the researchers, the women who were prayed for ended up with a significantly higher pregnancy rate than those who were not prayed for. "About 50 percent got pregnant in the prayer group and about 26 percent in the non-prayer group," the lead author of the report, Dr. Roger A. Lobo, Columbia’s chairman of obstetrics and gynecology said on Good Morning America. The study appears in the current Journal of Reproductive Medicine.

SOURCE: Journal of Reproductive Medicine

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DIRTY LAUNDRY

I have to admit, I dislike washing the laundry, but I detest wearing filthy clothes even more. Okay, truth be told, I don’t usually have to wash the clothes. My wife does most of it, and she does it well. I’m thankful, though, she doesn’t toil in the same manner as our great-grandparents--with a washboard and bar of soap. All this brings up an interesting point: many of us fail to understand what it takes to clean dirty laundry. We toss our clothes in the tub, turn the dial, pour in some soap, and shut the lid. Presto – thirty minutes later or so, our clothes have been cleaned. We sure have it easy, don’t we?

Maybe that’s one reason we sin so much. I don’t know about you, but I think I’ve failed to appreciate Jesus and the ways he’s cleaned my dirty laundry. Imagine Jesus standing over a washboard, scrubbing the stink, filth, and stain from our lives. When I think of such things, I become saddened for the ways I’ve continued to soil my life.

How about you? Let me put a challenge. The next time we consider doing something sinful, let’s picture Jesus having to toil and scrub our filth over a washboard.

We live in a culture that is redefining what is sexually permissible. Earlier this year in the United Kingdom, Peter and Hazelmary Bull were found guilty of discrimination because they allowed only married couples to share a bed at their small hotel. A homosexual couple sued the Bulls because they would not allow them to stay in a room with a single bed. As cultural commentator Al Mohler pointed out, what makes this case particularly troubling is the nature of the judge's decision. Judge Andrew Rutherford ruled that the Bulls would have to sacrifice their Christian convictions if they intend to own and manage a hotel. The real bomb in the judge's ruling was in this statement: "Whatever may have been the position in past centuries, it is no longer the case that our laws must or should automatically reflect the Judeo-Christian position." This is a growing view all over the world.

The fact is that ...

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TRAMPLED BY SHOPPERS?

In November 2003, a sale on DVD players at a Florida Wal-Mart created a rush of shoppers that apparently resulted in one woman being trampled.

Patricia VanLester had her eye on a $29 DVD player, but when the siren blared at 6 a.m. announcing the start to the post-Thanksgiving sale, the 41-year-old was knocked to the ground by the frenzy of shoppers. "She got pushed down, and they walked over her like a herd of elephants," said VanLester’s sister. "I told them, ’Stop stepping on my sister! She’s on the ground!’"

Paramedics arrived and found the victim on top of a DVD player and surrounded by seemingly indifferent shoppers. VanLester was flown to a medical center for treatment.

Wal-Mart officials called to apologize and offered to put a DVD player on hold for VanLester. Spokesperson Karen Burk commented, "We are very disappointed this happened. We want her to come back as a shopper."

Later it was discovered that the injured woman had a history of similar claims. VanLester had collected thousands of dollars from several previous alleged incidents of injury.

("Woman Knocked Over by Trampling Shoppers," CNN.com (11-29-03); "Trampled Shopper Is Injury Prone," CBSnews.com (12-5-03). From a sermon by Terry Blankenship, The Woe Everyone Knows, 5/29/2012)

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Did you hear about the woman who accidentally glued herself to the floor this week in West Virginia? “Joyce Stewart sat in her robe at the head of her kitchen table as she drank her morning coffee while visiting with relatives. While seated, she lifted her heel up and applied a liquid bandage product to the back of her foot. She didn’t realize that the liquid had also dripped to the bottom of her foot before she relaxed her foot on the floor.

When her grandson came in and asked for pancakes she tried to get up and laughed when she discovered her foot was stuck. All of her relatives were laughing until they could not get her loose. She tried to free herself with a knife, until her foot started to bleed. Paramedics worked with Q-tips and baby oil for more than an hour to get Stewart’s foot free. She was thankful that it happened when company was over. She lives alone and couldn’t imagine the thought of being ‘glued to the floor for days.’

Stewart is expecting a full recovery, but it may take her pride a bit longer to heal. She said, ‘I was embarrassed…I was still in my robe.’ Representatives from 3M have extended an offer to pay for any medical expenses. Although the package states that the product runs easily and sets quickly, it doesn’t warn against gluing your body parts to the floor or anything else”
(Edited from Misty Higgins, The Journal, Martinsburg, WV. 7/21/2004, journal-news.net).

In our sue-happy culture, many immediately think that Joyce Stewart has excellent grounds for a lawsuit. Some would say this company should be held accountable for the products it produces. Job has the exact same mindset. Job has been stuck and his family and friends have been of no help in getting him free. So in our text today (Job 10-14) he again appeals to God. But this time he takes it a step further, he wants to take God to court.