Updated Verson of this essay at: http://www.drsenator.com/BibleQuotesOnSexualitya.html

Bible Quotes on Sex, Marriage, and Sexual Sin

It has become common in America for many people to engage in sexual affairs and/or pornography (both of these practices are referred to as "fornication" in the Bible) and/or practice homosexuality.  The general tone of the culture has moved toward accepting fornication and homosexuality as alternative lifestyles or relationship choices similar to traditional marriage.  The problem is that God defines right and wrong and His judgment of Truth prevails regardless of a person's beliefs.  The Bible teaches (reveals how God designed the universe) these lifestyles are wrong and sinful.  The Bible also teaches that there are negative consequences associated with deliberately disobeying God.  Those consequences will affect both the individual and the nation that refuses to follow God's loving instructions.  Here are scriptures that confirm the fundamental Biblical doctrine that God created sex as a sacred act of covenant between a man and a woman who have promised each other their sexual fidelity and lifelong companionship.  The God of love and mercy is a God of Law and Grace.  But there can be no Grace given without the Law defining the standard of righteousness. 

As Christians, we are under a new dispensation of the Mosaic Law.  The sexual sins are still serious in God's eyes, but we are to deal compassionately with the violators of His Law.  This new way of dealing with the violator of the sexual Law is illustrated in the New Testament by the story of how Jesus dealt with the woman caught in the act of adultery.  He said, "Whoever has not sinned should cast the first stone."  When no one came forward to stone her He said to her, "Woman, where are your accusers?  Has no one condemned you?"  She said, "No one Lord."  He then said, "Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more." 

We are to be likewise compassionate to those who are caught in the all-too-common snare of sexual sin.  But, just because this is a sin that has beset many of us does not mean that we should ignore or condone it.  Rather, we are to be compassionate to those who fall prey to this sin, and we are to help to lead the offender in the ways of purity and righteousness.  We are to support, love, and encourage him/her to resolve to sin no more. 

(Note: The following paragraphs are direct quotes from the Holy Bible.  The Chapter & verse reference for each scripture is located at the end of the document for ease in reading.)

Sometimes there is a way that seems to be right, but in the end it is the way to death.

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators (defined as sexually impure: root word of "porn"-ography), nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.

"'Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is a detestable abomination. "'Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion. "'Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways.  But you must keep my decrees, statutes, ordinances and my laws.  The native‑born and the aliens living among you must not do any of these detestable, abominable things, for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled.  And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you. "'Everyone who does any of these detestable things‑‑such persons must be cut off from their people.  Keep my requirements and do not follow any of the detestable customs that were practiced before you came and do not defile yourselves with them.  I am the LORD your God.'"

"'The man who commits adultery with another man's wife, he who commits adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress, shall surely be put to death.  If a man sleeps with his father's wife, he has dishonored his father. Both the man and the woman must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.  If a man sleeps with his daughter-in-law, both of them must be put to death. What they have done is a perversion; their blood will be on their own heads.  If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination and done what is detestable.  They must surely be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads. "'If a man has sexual relations with an animal, he must be put to death, and you must kill the animal. "'If a woman approaches an animal to have sexual relations with it, kill both the woman and the animal.  They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.'"

For we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully.  We also know that law is made not for the righteous but for lawless, lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, according to the  glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my trust.

For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.  Now the Spirit clearly and expressly says that in latter times some will depart from, renounce, or abandon the faith, giving attention to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron.  They forbid marriage and demand abstinence from meats...

Then the LORD said, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?  Then the LORD said, "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know."  And Abraham came near and said, "Would You also destroy the righteous with the wicked?  What if only ten (righteous) can be found there?" He answered, "For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it."  The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of Sodom.  When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them, and bowed down with his face to the ground.  "My lords," he said, "please turn aside to your servant's house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning." "No," they answered, "we will spend the night in the square."   But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate.  Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom‑‑both young and old ‑‑ surrounded the house.  They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them."  Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, "No, my friends. Don't do this wicked thing.  Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man.  Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them.  But don't do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof."  But they replied, "Stand back!" And they said, "This fellow came here as an alien, and he would play the judge! Now we will deal worse with you than with them." Then they pressed hard against the man Lot, and came near the door to break it down.  But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door.  Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door.  The two men said to Lot, "Do you have anyone else here‑‑sons‑in‑law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here,   because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the LORD against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it."  So Lot went out and spoke to his sons‑in‑law, who were pledged to marry his daughters. He said, "Hurry and get out of this place, because the LORD is about to destroy the city!" But his sons‑in‑law thought he was joking.  When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, "Get up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or else you will be consumed in the punishment of the city."  When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the LORD was merciful to them.   When they had brought them outside, they said, "Flee, escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, or else you will be consumed."  Hurry, escape there, for I can do nothing until you arrive there."  Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah‑‑from the LORD out of the heavens.  Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities‑‑and also the vegetation in the land.  Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the LORD.  He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.  So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.  Lot and his two daughters settled in the mountains.

As Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.  For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of deepest darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by their lawless deeds that he saw and heard)‑‑ then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment.

This is especially true of those who indulge their flesh in depraved lust, who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature, and who despise authority. Bold, willful and arrogant, they are not afraid to slander... But these men blaspheme and slander what they do not understand. They are like irrational, brute beasts, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and killed, and like beasts they too will perish.  They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done.  Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight... They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin.  They seduce and entice unsteady, unstable souls. They have hearts trained and expert in greed.  Accursed brood of children!  They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Beor, who loved the wages of wickedness... Blackest darkness is reserved for them.  For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error.  They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity‑‑for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.  

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men, who by their wickedness, suppress the truth.  What may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.  For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities‑‑his eternal power and divine nature‑‑have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.  For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God, or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened.  Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four‑footed animals or reptiles.  Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.  They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator‑‑who is forever praised. Amen.  For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions.  Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.  Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.  They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity.  They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God‑haters, insolent, haughty, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey and are rebellious toward their parents; foolish, senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.  Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of and even applaud, those who practice them.

But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.  What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?  God will judge those outside. "Expel the wicked man from among you."  If any of you has a dispute with another, dare he take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the saints?  Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases?  Do you not know that we will judge angels?...I say this to shame you.  Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers?  But instead, one brother goes to law against another‑‑and this in front of unbelievers!  In fact, to have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather be wronged?  Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers...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 homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.  And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel.  These are the words of the covenant that the LORD commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in the land of Moab.  Therefore diligently observe the words of this covenant, in order that you may succeed in everything that you do.  You stand assembled today, all of you, before the LORD your God, to enter into the covenant of the LORD your God, sworn by an oath, which the LORD your God is making with you today; in order that he may establish you today as his people, and that he may be your God, as he promised you and as he swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.  I am making this covenant, sworn by an oath, not only with you who stand here with us today before the LORD our God, but also with those who are not here with us today.  When such a person hears the words of this oath, he invokes a blessing on himself and therefore thinks, "I will be safe, even though I persist in going my own way." This will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry.  The LORD will never be willing to forgive him; his wrath and zeal will burn against that man. All the curses written in this book will fall upon him, and the LORD will blot out his name from under heaven.  Your children who follow you in later generations and foreigners who come from distant lands will see the calamities that have fallen on the land and the diseases with which the LORD has afflicted it.  The whole land will be a burning waste of salt and sulfur‑‑nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it. It will be like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in fierce anger.  All the nations will ask: "Why has the LORD done this to this land? Why this fierce, burning anger?"  And the answer will be: "It is because this people abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their fathers, the covenant he made with them when he brought them out of Egypt.  They went off and worshipped other gods and bowed down to them, gods they did not know, gods he had not given them.  Therefore the Lord's anger burned against this land, so that he brought on it all the curses written in this book.

Now Judah did evil in the sight of the LORD, and they provoked Him to jealousy with their sins which they committed, more than all that their fathers had done.  They also set up for themselves high places, sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree.  And there were also sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.

And Asa did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD, as did David his father.  And he took away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.  Jehoshaphat was thirty‑five years old when he became king,... And he walked in all the ways of his father Asa.  He did not turn aside from them, doing what was right in the eyes of the LORD... And the remnant of the sodomites, which remained in the days of his father Asa, he took out of the land.

Josiah was eight years old when he became king,...And he did what was right in the sight of the LORD, and walked in all the ways of his father David; he did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.  Then the king stood by a pillar and made a covenant before the LORD, to follow the LORD and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes, with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people took a stand for the covenant... And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove.

"The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart," that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.

If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. 

And Jesus said, "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.  If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.  And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.  It has been said, 'Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.  But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery."  Then they brought to Jesus a woman caught in adultery.  And Jesus said to her, "Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more." 

In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.  For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.  For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.  He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.  And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.  For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.  But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God."

God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.  For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.  For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time, The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.  But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.  Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God.  Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.  Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation.  But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

And Jesus said, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world.

Some Pharisees came to him (Jesus) to test him. They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?"  "Haven't you read," Jesus replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'?   So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."  "Why then," they asked, "did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?"  Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.  I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery."

Another thing you do: You flood the Lord's altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands.  You ask, "Why?" It is because the LORD is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.  Has not the LORD made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.  "I hate divorce," says the LORD God of Israel, "and I hate a man's covering himself with violence as well as with his garment," says the LORD Almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith.

Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.

Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.

References in order of appearance:  Proverbs 14:12 & 16:25, I Corinthians 6:9-10, Leviticus 18:22-30, Leviticus 20:10-16, I Timothy 1:8-11, II Timothy 4:3-4, I Timothy 4:1-3, Genesis chapters 18 & 19, Jude 1:7, II Peter 2:4-22, Romans 1:18-32, I Corinthians 5:11-6:11, Deuteronomy 23:17, and 29:1-27, I Kings 14:22-24, 15:11-12, 22:42-46, II Kings 22:1-7, Romans 10:8-10, II Chronicles 7:14, Matthew 5:27-32, John 8:3-11, John 3:3-21, II Corinthians 5:19, I Timothy 2:4, Romans 6:23, Matthew 5:17-19, I John 5:3-4. Matthew 19:3-9, Malachi 2:13-16, Hebrews 13:4, Proverbs 14:34

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