Expert: Pastor Don Carpenter - 6/17/2009

Question
if having fornication is bad then why did the prophets did it?

Answer
Hi Christine,

THank you for this interesting question.  The prophets were human, and therefore sinners.  THe only perfect example we have is Jesus... everyone else sins.

Romans 3:23
23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
The King James Version, (Cambridge: Cambridge) 1769.

Hebrews 4:15
15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
The King James Version, (Cambridge: Cambridge) 1769.

Paul spoke at length about his personal struggle with sin and the flesh.

Rom 7:14  For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.
Rom 7:15  For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.
Rom 7:16  If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good.
Rom 7:17  Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:18  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Rom 7:19  For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Rom 7:20  Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:21  I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
Rom 7:22  For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
Rom 7:23  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
Rom 7:24  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Rom 7:25  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

This does not concel out the fact that fornication is a terrible sin.

1Co 6:15  Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.
1Co 6:16  What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.
1Co 6:17  But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.
1Co 6:18  Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.
1Co 6:19  What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
1Co 6:20  For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

I hope that this helps you.

In Christ
Pastor Don