Greg,
In reply to:
[color:"blue"]Please note that I responded to Paul privately since it seemed a little off topic (though not entirely irrelevant).

Although I will not reveal the specific details of your private response to my questions, I must respond publicly--since others are reading these interchanges. Your message, as well as your postings, is very troubling, because while you claim to acknowledge that we need cleansing from the evils of the heart, you seem to hold self--which is the same wicked heart the Word indicts--in very high regard, as though the Holy Spirit were under obligation to preserve all that He finds there, rather than putting it all to death. You are in effect re-writing the indictment--the references to sexual immorality in particular--to accomodate your own violations of it. You are quite happy to bolster your case by claiming a host of co-defendants: [color:blue]"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 those who practice them." (Romans 1:32)

Beware the leaven of the Pharisees, Greg, for they loved to find ways to justify their inner wickedness by [color:red]redefining God's law, claiming that only violations of explicitly stated cases deserved judgment. You do the same by claiming that since a particular act is not delineated as sin in Scripture, performance of the act is thereby justifiable. By this logic, legions of perverted acts, never delineated, are permissible. Take pornography. The Scripture says: "whoever looks at a woman...", but the Pharisee responds "Oh for goodness' sake! I am not looking at a woman! These are just pixels on a screen, dots on a page! Show me where those are forbidden! Who does it harm, anyway?" They are looking at the God's Holy Law foolishly, externally, with unrepentant, unbelieving hearts:
foolishly, because they make their own self the arbiter of God's Law,
externally, denying that the word of God judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart,
unrepentant, refusing to be taught or corrected,
unbelieving, justifying their own sin rather than believing that God both commands, and equips unto, holiness.

[color:blue]"Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral." (Hebrews 13:4)


In Christ,
Paul S