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Hope Channel

Inverse, 3rd Quarter 2021: Sexuality

Justin Kim

Israel Ramos

Jonathan Walter

Callie Williams

01 Counter-Cultural

Sebastien Braxton

Sikhu Daco

02 Naked

03 One of Two Gifts

04 Incredible Sex

05 Marital Sexuality: Oneness

06 Marital Sexuality: Twoness

07 Marital Sexuality: Sameness of Nature

08 Marital Sexuality: Difference

09 Interconnectedness

10 Pre-Marital Sexuality

11 When Things Go Wrong

12 Beyond Sexuality

13 Purity

How is the number 2 better than 1 or 3 on this episode of Inverse?

Coming to you from Silver Spring, Maryland, welcome to Inverse, a Bible-based conversation on life principles, contemporary issues, and thought-provoking perspectives.

Now here's your host, Justin Kim, with Inverse.

Hey everyone, my name is Justin Kim, and you're watching Inverse, and in the studio with me is Siku Israel and Jonathan.

We are in a study of the topic of biblical sexuality and we want to encourage you that if you have minors in the area in the listening vicinity, we want to warn that we are looking at a sensitive topic and that just be mindful of the topic nature, the sensitivity of it.

We're going to go into Ecclesiastes chapter 2.

We're going to have a word of prayer and we'll talk about the topics that I mentioned at the top of the show in the opener about the the abstract number 2 and why that is found in Scripture and not the number 1 or number or more than 2.

So let's go to pray and Jonathan, can you pray for us?

Heavenly Father, we would just wanna invite you again into this Bible study that you will help us understand more about your love for us and the love that humans can experience with each other.

Lord, I pray that you will give us insight and that you will bless this study in Jesus' name.

Okay, we've covered so many things from week to week in Israel.

For those of our viewers who are, who are maybe for the first time watching, What have we hit?

What are some things that you remember and resonate with up to this point?

We've been discussing the topic of sexuality from the perspective of the Bible.

And what we've talked about from the very beginning of our time together was the fact that we are culturally conditioned to live by certain scripts and these things form, not just how we view other cultures, but even how we view this very sensitive topic of sexuality.

And so we talked about our need to have the Bible as the center of our understanding.

This is how we evaluate this topic of sexuality and this is what centers us.

This is what helps us define what real sexuality should look like from the perspective of Scripture.

We talked about how the Bible talks to us in very open and poetic terms about this very beautiful topic, really, the topic of oneness between a man and a woman within the marriage context, and how this is actually a foretaste of what the relationship that God wants to have with us, how His relationship with us is not just some kind of a cognitive contract, but it is God is in fact madly in love with this creation.

That's why His love for us is even stronger than death.

And so that's kind of where we've led up from our previous.

Each episode has been really profound for me.

I mean, we're really, this is kind of a weird topic and a little bit edgy, but at the same time, we're talking about very, very deep spiritual principles and very biblical principles and challenging.

The other thing is that this is really acknowledging God as the creator of sexuality.

So if you don't believe that God is the creator, if you don't believe in God at all, then this doesn't really apply.

This is not a judgment on all the other practices out there, but if you acknowledge that the existence of God and his lordship over your personal life, then there are instructions on to how engage in this, in sexuality.

So let's go to Ecclesiastes chapter 2 verse 1 through 11 and that's our verse for this week's study.

You can go to inversebible.org and download our Bible study guides where we look at comprehensively different topics all throughout scripture.

This quarter we're looking at biblical sexuality.

So Siku, if you can read Ecclesiastes 2, verse 1 through 11, please.

I said in my heart, come now, I will test you with mirth.

I said of laughter, madness, and of mirth, what does it accomplish?

I searched in my heart how to gratify my flesh with wine while guiding my heart with wisdom, and how to lay hold on folly till I might see what was good for the sons of men to do under heaven all the days of their lives.

I built myself houses and planted myself vineyards.

I made myself gardens and orchards and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them.

I made myself water pools from which to water the growing trees of the grove.

I acquired male and female servants and had servants born in my house.

Yes, I had greater possessions of herds and flocks than all who were in Jerusalem before me.

I also gathered for myself silver and gold and special treasures of kings and of provinces.

I acquired male and female singers, the delights of the sons of men, and musical instruments of all kinds.

So I became great and excelled more than all who were before me in Jerusalem.

Whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them.

I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor, and this was my reward from all my labor.

Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done, and on the labor in which I had toiled.

And indeed, all was vanity and grasping for the wind.

Okay, Jonathan, can you share with us what does this passage have to do with our topic?

Yes, So Solomon, the author of Ecclesiastes, he likes to go all in when he does something.

So for example, he says, I'm going to build houses and gardens and make something, you know, do what you can do with architecture.

And I'm going to do it full blown as much as possible because I want to experience life and all these things.

But then he's realizing all this is vanity.

And now he does the same thing here with pleasure.

He says, I'm going to just experience pleasure to the maximum of the way I can.

You know, we know he acquired a lot of wives and all these experiences.

And then he realizes in the end, even that was vanity.

So even the pursuit of selfishness to the extreme in that sense, or the selfish pursuit of pleasure did not bring him to that fulfillment that we talked about in the previous episode on, you know, on the book of Song of Solomon.

He's seeking pleasure And pleasure, of course, is a big aspect of sexuality, the topic we're discussing.

And so the question that we are trying to look at now is what value does pleasure have in the context of sexuality, and how do we relate to it?

What is wrong with pursuing pleasure only?

What is wrong with what people call it, hedonism, Sikhu?

I mean, there are theologians out there who'd say yeah You seek all the pleasure that you can is there a danger in that?

There is a danger in that because it is dangerous Well, I think okay I'll try my best here.

So, I think the danger here that Solomon portrays is the fact that his experience is ultimately, he's saying, this is going to be the experience of every individual.

And this is the crazy thing that Solomon, as Jonathan said, Solomon goes all in with the things that he can experience.

And his all in is going to be a lot bigger than my all in.

So we think to ourselves, for example, if I could just get 1 more car, if I could just get 1 more whatever it is, a bigger house, a nicer.

Solomon had the opportunity to buy a nicer house and then a nicer house and then a nicer house and then the nicest house and then redefine nicest and then rebuild that house and what did that lead you to Solomon he said after I did this unlimited amount of funding unlimited amount of wisdom and architecture and beauty, it led to nothing.

And then what about within the aspect of knowledge?

Well, I was the wisest man that ever lived.

I acquired knowledge and more knowledge and more knowledge, More knowledge than you can ever acquire.

And then he said, look, even with women, I had not just 1 woman, 2 women, 3 women, I had not just hundreds of women, I had thousands of them.

I mean, this you would think from the perspective of a teenager coming into puberty, like this is a dream come true, right?

Like any woman that you want, anytime you want it, I mean, this has to be the greatest thing ever given.

And then what did Solomon say is like, look, even after that, it's nothing.

Series

Inverse, 3rd Quarter 2021: Sexuality

06 Marital Sexuality: Twoness

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Alan & Nicole Parker: Love Me, Love Me Not

I Love Me, I Love Me Not: Summary and Question-and-answer Session

1h

Alan and Nicole Parker - Happily Ever After: Finding True Love, God's Way

Relationships Question and Answer

1h

Bold unto the Throne Seminars

Mental Health in Relation to Addiction

1h 7m

Lost & Found

51m

Plenary

Sabbath School Q&A Panel

57m

Biblically Correct: How to be Male in the 21st Century

3. Addicted to Purity in a Pornographic World, Part 1

1h

GYC 2011 Seminar: Healing from Sexual Brokenness

The Broken Image, Part 1

1h

Inverse, 3rd Quarter 2021: Sexuality

08 Marital Sexuality: Difference

27m

Bold unto the Throne Seminars

Holiness & Presence: The Effects of Media on your Relationships

52m

Alan Parker ~ Biblical Holiness: A Guide for Sinners

Sacred Intimacy: Sex and Spirituality

53m

Biblically Correct: How to be Male in the 21st Century

6. Review and Your Questions/Testimonies

1h 10m

Sound Doctrine