DECEMBER 5 "HAVE YOU EVER SOLD OR BOUGHT SEX?"

Selling sex for money is as old as the bible itself. I wonder who the first woman was who thought, “I need money, why don’t I sell sex”. As old as this practice is, it’s amazing that we are still not comfortable with the idea. Nobody is proudly and anxiously bringing his prostitute girlfriend home for the Holidays. “Mom, Dad, I want you to meet my new girlfriend, she’s a very successful prostitute in our downtown area and I love her and thought it was time you meet her”, how well would that go off in front of the family at Christmas? Most women have never technically sold sex for money and most men have never technically paid a prostitute for sex. I have seen talk shows where a woman was presenting herself as a “dignified woman”. She explains about her role in prostitution and how it is a means of paying her way through University, where of course she’s studying to be a Doctor or Lawyer. The talk show’s agenda is to present this woman as a normal, moral person who is just being resourceful with what she has. She’s beautiful, nice body, why not make some money off of it. Our text today mentions this prostitute comes up with the idea of selling sex in order to pay for her food and clothes. Regardless of why she is doing it, even if it’s to feed her children, she is still described as a lewd, base and very immoral woman. What if a woman gives a man sex, for free, in exchange to keep him. She says, “I want him and I know if I give him sex he will keep coming back to me, even if it’s only for that”, is that still considered “prostituting yourself?”. There’s all sorts of “legalized” prostitution that takes place every day where no money is exchanged, but the idea remains the same. The man knows it’s his affluence, power & prestige that gets him the sex (for free) and the woman knows that what gets her, into his life, is the sex she supposedly is not selling, at least not on paper. If the love of money is the root of all evil, where does sex come in to play? Sex and money are a ruthless combination. It’s interesting that in Heaven there will be neither sex nor money. As a woman, if I obey God, live by his commands then my needs will be met; and if I obey God, live by his laws than my needs will be met too and I will not have to pay for sex. When we rebel and step outside His will and His commands; then all the rules change and we sink to our lowest point as human beings. There is not only sex trafficking in our society today but we have sunk even lower to human trafficking, there is no limit to how low we can sink when we abandon God, which is the whole premise of our scripture today. Imagine a society where prostitution is legalized?! God sees this as one of the lewdest, lowest and most immoral thing a woman can do, is sell her body for sex. It’s a violation against her own self, and she doesn’t even realize it, or maybe she does but can’t resist the money which makes it that much more base & immoral. Unfortunately, for those of us who took Economics 101, it’s the law of supply & demand, isn’t it! A product will vanish off the market once the demand diminishes, however the opposite is also true, a product will increase in it’s availability/supply as demand increases. As our society continues to degrade more and more the law of Economics is ever so perpetuated in the case of Prostitution. If we were to ask who has ever sold sex, made an agreement to go to a hotel and exchange sex for money, many women would say, “not I”. If we were to ask men, “who here has ever contracted a woman for sex, for this I will pay you “x” amount of dollars, let’s meet”, most men would say, “not I”. If we change the question a little, then we get a whole lot more people saying, “guilty as charged”. As a woman, the question would be, “how many of you women have ever used sex to get something you wanted from a man” the answer would be many saying “I have”. If we asked the men, “how many of you have ever used your influence, your power, your wealth, to get you sex, quite a plethora of men would have to respond “ I have”. The standard from God is, sex is not to be used as a bartering tool! Who was the fist woman to think of sex as something to barter with? Who was the first man to think of sex as something he could pay for and get it on demand? Whoever they were and whenever it was, doesn’t matter, because had they not thought of it, surely our generation would have. Our text covers the issue of bartering sex for a need and God is clear to tell us, “no excuse!” Whether you sell or buy sex because you are lonely, scared, hungry, insecure, broke, whatever the reason, God says, “it’s not a valid one” sex was not given to man as a gift to be bartered and the fact that we would even think of such a thing, the fact that we would not only think about such a thing, but participate in, to one degree or another, this indeed shows us that we are sinners in need of a Savior.