Ephesians

Reason Number 2: Even talk about sexual immorality is pointless and wasteful.

Paul goes on to give us another reason for the incompatibility of sexual immorality and Christianity: “Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving” (Ephesians 5:4). When the apostle says “out of place,” he means inappropriate, wasteful, and pointless. In other words, the apostle is asking us: What is to be gained by such talk? What good does it do anyone to be exposed to jokes, films, magazines, or computer material of a sexually perverse nature?

Answer: Nothing is to be gained. It is pointless and wasteful. It’s a dead-end street. You never learn the true nature of sex by studying its perversions or distortions. You only learn the true nature of sex from God’s revelation. There we see what sex was intended to be from the One who created it.

Like a river, the sex drive is designed to be channeled and kept within bounds. When it breaks over its boundaries and overflows its banks, the sex drive becomes a flood that inundates the whole landscape. Soon, we are all hip-deep in a slurry of vile talk, smutty jokes, pornography, and scandals.

Eventually, those who immerse themselves in illicit sexual material find that normal sexual relations lose their attraction. They find that it gradually takes increasingly more obscene, perverse, and evil stimulation to achieve the previous level of sexual excitement. Like a drug addict, the sex addict descends into ever more vile and degrading practices the longer he practices his habit.