Lasciviousness

➡ Paul, the voiceover for a ministry called Your Daily Bread, discusses the concept of lasciviousness, a term used in the New Testament to describe a person who is dominated by sin and has no sense of decency or shame. This term is often associated with drunkenness, sexual sin, and uncontrollable lust. Paul explains that such behavior is not a result of one’s environment, but a series of personal choices that can lead to a destructive lifestyle. He emphasizes the importance of spiritual connection with Christ to avoid such a path.
➡ People’s choices and repeated actions shape their character and destiny, according to the researchers. Some individuals, driven by greed, turn unclean activities into a business. It’s important to stay strong, keep faith, and be a positive influence in the world. Remember, your actions and decisions define who you become.

Hello, my name is Paul, and I am the voiceover for a ministry provided to you by Jim Pugh at God Is Government called Your Daily Bread, taken from Christ’s teaching of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6.11. This is a daily devotion ministry focused not only on uplifting Scripture but Scripture that will grow your spiritual connection with Christ. We hope that you receive these devotions to uplift you, encourage you, but most importantly advance your knowledge base of the Holy Scriptures. Today’s focus discussion will be on lasciviousness. Now, I saw a restaurant in Hollywood, I went down there one day, and it’s called Filthy McNasty’s.

I thought, now that just about describes this whole section of town. Now, let me look at this word lasciviousness with you for a minute. It is probably the ugliest word in the New Testament. It’s a filthy, vile word, and it’s used very often. Here is the essence of acelgia. It is the person in whose soul dwells so much sin, under such total domination, that he doesn’t care what anybody says, he doesn’t care what anybody thinks, he doesn’t feel any shock, he has no sense of decency, and absolutely no sense of shame.

Now, this word rarely ever occurs alone. It usually occurs with other words. In fact, let me give you an idea about that. Three times acelgia is connected with drunkenness, in Galatians 5, L9, 1st Peter 4, 3, and Romans L3, 13. In those three passages, it is connected with drunkenness. It is connected with a particular word, comus. Comus originally was sort of a harmless word. It meant it referred to a band of friends who accompanied a victor in the games on his way home, sort of like his pals, his buddies. But as time went on, and they were going on their way home, they were laughing and cheering and celebrating the victory.

They began to drink, and they became ribbled, and they became carousing, and revelling, and wildness. And it degenerated into some kind of sheer self-indulgence in a public fashion. It literally means brawling in drunkenness. And the acelgia, the person who is lascivious, is one whose sheer self-indulgence knows no public restriction. He doesn’t restrain himself at all in regard to people. It’s connected with that kind of ribaled drunkenness. Secondly, four times this word is connected with adultery or lust and sexual sin. In Mark 7, 22, 2 Corinthians 12, 21, Galatians 5, 19, and 2 Peter 2, 18, it is connected with sex sin, and in each case it has reference to a person who has no more shame than an animal in gratifying his sexual desire.

That’s where acelgia fits. It is the kind of lasciviousness that knows only its fulfillment, even if it’s an animalistic thing. An acelgia person has no more conscience about immorality and about sexual gratification than a dog. That’s the word. So three times it’s connected with ribaled drunkenness. Four times it’s connected with a degenerate kind of sexual lust that knows no difference than an animal. And three times, here’s a third time it’s used. Three times it is used with pleonexia, and it’s used with that here. Pleonexia is the word greediness in this verse.

And three times it is used with such an uncontrollable lust that people don’t even know the bounds of it. It’s the kind of thing where, if you don’t give me what I want, I’ll rape you to get it. See? It’s that completely out of control greed. It’s not some nice little isolated inner attitude. It is an evil, vile lusting for that which is wrong, to the point where it’s public, to the point where it has no more decency than an animal does. And it has absolutely zero shame. And it’s so greedy, it just wants to get itself fulfilled in such a manner that it is never able to be satisfied.

It’s the madness of drunken sexual brawling indecency. That’s the way the Gentiles live. And you know where it all comes from? You say, well, not everybody’s gone that far. Yes, but nobody in human society has any resources to restrain themselves from going that far. It is only by the grace of God that falls on the just and the unjust in general in society, and the preserving influence of the Holy Spirit, with the preserving influence of the church in the world that keeps anybody from not ending up at the pits at that level.

Because that’s where it all goes. You start out with a self-centred mind, think your own thoughts. You cut yourself off from God, which means you’re ignorant. And in your ignorance, you’ve got no morality. And so you begin to live like an animal. And once you get into lust, lust is the most damning thing there is, because it knows no limits, and it has a decreasing sense of satisfaction. And that’s the way it is. Shameless, vile, violent, illicit, ambitious, greedy lust. This is the way the world is. In Romans 1.29, the word pleonexia, greediness, shows the sin of a godless world as they turn their backs on God to fill their desires.

In Luke 12.15, the word pleonexia, greediness, is the sin of a person who evaluates life only in material terms. He can’t ever get enough goodies. In 1 Thessalonians 2 and 4, it describes a person who uses his greediness to take advantage of other people. It’s the man who doesn’t care what the woman is like after he gets done raping her. He’ll do it anyway. In Colossians 3, pleonexia is identified with idolatry, because it is greediness to worship an idol rather than the true god. And in passage, after passage, after passage, it’s connected with sexual evil.

It’s the desire to have what is illicit, it’s the desire to have what is forbidden, and it’s the desire to have it so bad that you have no conscience, no decency, no sense of shock, and you’ll trample and destroy anything and anyone that gets in your way. This is a mindless lifestyle. You say, well, how do people get there? We’ve got them all in our society. There are lots of them, believe me, all over the place. And there’s nothing to restrain anybody who’s unregenerate from going that far, nothing within themselves, nothing.

And believe me, there are going to be more going to this limit than ever before. You read your Bible. Evil men shall grow. What? Worse and worse, as we get closer to the time of the Lord’s return, there are going to be more and more people like this, especially after the church is removed and the influence is taken away. And in Second Thessalonians, the one who hinders doesn’t hinder anymore. This thing is going to become an absolute inundation of human society, as if it isn’t already. You say, how do people get like that? Verse 19 says, have given themselves over.

They give themselves over to it. Listen, I told you last week, I’m going to say it again, and then I’m going to illustrate it. It is a matter of constant, willful choices. A choice made often enough becomes a habit, and a habit reaps a personality, and a personality reaps a character, and a character reaps a destiny. That’s exactly what happens. It’s a series of choices they have given themselves over. Sin is something you can’t blame on anybody but yourself. You make repeated wrong choices. A choice makes a habit, and a habit makes a personality, and a personality makes a character, and a character determines a destiny.

Policemen have told me, time and time again, you cannot predict what a criminal will do. Why? Because the normal capacity of the mind doesn’t work that way. In endeavouring to explain the criminal mind, which God would call a non-mind, a reprobate mind, the researchers say this, sociological explanations have been unsatisfactory. It isn’t sociological. Quoting them, the idea that a man becomes a criminal because he’s corrupted by his environment has proved to be too weak an explanation. Now listen to this. A shocking statement. We have indicated, quote, that criminals come from a broad spectrum of homes, both disadvantaged and privileged.

Within the same neighbourhood, some are violators, and most are not. Now listen. It is not the environment that turns a man into a criminal. It is a series of choices that he makes, starting at a very early age. Write on. Do you want to hear something interesting? They say in some cases, you can begin to detect it at the age of three. Choices, choices. Listen. The heart of a child is a rebel. You’d better get the rod and drive it out of him, because if you don’t, no question in my mind, Satan has selected out certain human beings in our society to begin early that thinking process that will bring them to the place of being the most reprobate of all society, to drag the whole of society to hell.

You’d better deal with it. They went on to say, perhaps most important, is that the material in this chapter has demonstrated that a criminal is not a victim of circumstances. He makes choices early in life, regardless of his socioeconomic status, race, parents, child-rearing practices. Changing the environment does not change the man. It’s a reprobate mind you’re dealing with. It’s so fascinating to me that down the pike some people come up with the things God’s been saying for centuries. The researchers said this. Eventually the criminal decides that everything is worthless. His thinking is illogical.

Well, the point of all of this, people, I’m just trying to show you, is that a man becomes what he is. A woman becomes what she is. By a series of processes of thinking, choices he makes. You say, well, how did that person ever get to be like, made a choice, and another choice to do the same thing again, and it became a habit, and it became a personality, and it became a character, and it’s a determined destiny. And at that point God says, let them go. A reprobate mind. And you know something else I thought interesting.

Last week I mentioned to you the word work. Here is the word ergassia, that’s sometimes used of a business. Isn’t it interesting how these people are so vile and so filthy that they make filth into a business? They make it into a business. They work uncleanness. They make a business out of uncleanness. And they’re greedy. They use it to get money. Thank you for joining us in this exploration of lasciviousness. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com.

Goodbye. And may your faith always lead the way. [tr:trw].