This is a very sensitive subject in that the nature of it is prolific and has all kinds of spiritual and natural tension. In Genesis, the very beginning of life as we know it (and Life that we do not even understand), God began a process of reproduction, of fruitfulness. Read the first chapter of Genesis. From Himself, He spoke and released from Himself life. Life much bigger than we know or understand it. Yet the very building blocks of the life we do understand. Space, time, earth. Without trying to be more understanding than I am, or making the creation to be God, I suggest that God Himself is being fruitful and multiplying. Do not be misled, a child will never be the father of itself. But God is the Father of all. That first act, initiated by God alone, produced the fruit we know as creation. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth (Genesis 1:1). God establishes this concept of fruitfulness, of reproduction, from the very beginning. One thing predicated by another and replicating, reproducing its own. One thing produced becoming a foundation and building block for the next. The original couple, Adam and Eve were told to be fruitful and multiply. At face value, the idea was to populate the earth. That concept was first introduced in Genesis 1:22 in regards to the beasts of creation and was extended and applied to Adam and Eve in the 28th verse with the additional responsibility to have dominion over all that came before them.
Now the tension....we have been talking in terms of the creation and replication of the natural. All well and good, but God is not natural, He is spiritual (Gen 1:2). Supernatural. He brought forth the natural out of the spiritual. Without the Spirit of God, there would be no light, no life. God brings something tangible out of the intangible, what the natural would call “nothing”. But obviously (not really understanding what I am saying here), that nothing is in fact something, because something does not come from nothing! That something is God. But God is not a thing..... I talk in circles, but hold on. I am trying to get a grip on it just like you. God is love (1John 4:8). That is the something. It is not tangible, but it is evident. Love is the something that exists before all things. God is love and love is God. The love of God spoke, expelled from Himself, spewing if you will, as a fountain, sound and light. Glorious and wonderful! Reverberating and shining with a great noise and brilliance! That sound spoke of The Light. A grand announcement that shakes eternity! And in that light, a shining that shines without dissipation, infinitely. Life. Life not as we know it, but before. That light and life is The Christ. In Whom all things were made, and without Him, no thing was made (John 1:3). The Light of all things and The Light of man (John 1:4). The Seed of God. Of God Himself. Without dispersion or dilution, fully God. Before anything had life, because Life was in The Light. Without The Light, there is no time. No day or night. No sun no stars. Nothing seen. All darkness. Nothing heard. Silence. Lifelessness. But! Great News! Let there be light! (Genesis 1:3). Time begins. Life begins. Fruits of The Light. And it was good and it was the end of the first day.
That is the glory.....but there is a less glorious scenario that has played out. Humankind was empowered to continue that first fruitfulness. However, rather than relying on the supernatural covering and relation with God, they turned away from fruitfulness of the love of God. The image bearers of God, a fruit of God Himself, looked to the beasts and the natural explanation of things to develop fruitfulness on their own. This has taken humankind and the whole of creation down a very dark and painful path. Without the covering and relation with God, they have separated themselves from the very power of creation and supernatural fruitfulness and are left with the never-ending conflict between human and nature, natural and spiritual, one kind of creation against another. Division as opposed to the unity they had with the God of all creation before choosing to strike out on their own. Having all things in and with God, humanity in effect, rejected God and chose to take what God had done for their own purpose. A more blunt way to say it is, they perverted the purpose and design of God in an attempt to make it their own.
Now I am really going off the boards. I am still talking about fruitfulness, but am going down a dark path that is rarely addressed. Masturbation. Don’t freak out! Hang with me a minute and please hear me out. This is a development of humanity that is a perversion of the original design of fruitfulness. It takes the process of fruitfulness (reproduction and replication), separates it (from a partner) and and repurposes it for the attainment of personal pleasure. It looks just like the same thing that happened when humanity separated itself from God and His divine purpose to satisfy some personal yearning it thought it could find without God.
But it gets worse…. If the command was “be fruitful and multiply”, and it was good, then the subverting of that command by going thru the motions that would bring forth seed simply for pleasure, would be “not good”, even wickedness, rebelling against the commandment and the commander. Totally stripping both the fruitfulness and the multiplication directed by the command. The pleasure is in and a benefit of the commandment. But humanity, choosing personal pleasure over obedience, Takes the pleasure inherent in the commandment, changing the focus from the commandment (and its intent) to the pleasure (as its intent) while fulfilling it, thereby perverts the pleasure and denies the commandment.
Can it get worse? Yes it can…. The biblical concept of fruitfulness and multiplication stands firm, but the outcome of it is founded in the commander of it. When God is the commander and obedience is the response, good fruitfulness and multiplication are the outcome (the will and intent of God). But when some other commander takes the reins, be it mankind or an entity other than God, the fruit and multiplication are still the outcome, but it is bad fruit in large numbers. You could even say poisonous fruit, suitable and ordained only for killing and making sick.
I’m not sure how much worse I could paint this picture….. I believe the final word is that masurbation is wickedness and a disobedience, even derailing and changing the destination and intent of the commandment. Where does that leave us? Me? Convicted. Guilty. In need of a Savior. Of mercy and grace. Does the temptor stop? Does the human desire remain? Husbands and wives, I implore you to work this out before God. There is covering in the marriage, but be careful not to use it as license to sin. Correct marriage and holiness before God is a whole nother conversation. Singles, PRAY! Make your requests known to God. He knows your frame. Be transparent between one another without making provision for sin. I have no carnal relief for that natural yearn except what can come supernaturally through the process of Christ Jesus. Let Holy Spirit dwell in you as a child of God in the redemptive and salvation work of Christ. Let your prayers be to God for His Heaven to be fulfilled and present on this earth in you. That your provision be only from His Hand and “not your own” ;)
1/8/23
Another focus.... in terms of witness, testimony and effect....masturbation has no good value. It is a physical process in an effort to bring forth a sense of carnal satisfaction and pleasure. It denies a Holy spiritual process. The satisfaction and pleasure are relegated to a temporary state rather than an eternal one. Its a witness of the flesh, not the spirit. It is private....so no witness or testimony. It’s messy.....like a spill, an accident, a mistake. No purpose. It’s hidden.....Got to be cleaned up, so it looks like it never happened. Not (normally) shared.....it’s anti-relational, alone, lonely, selfish. Useless, a waste, misuse and even perversion.....The value of the design is short-circuited and “tossed out” onto the ground without aim or intent to complete or achieve.
Another level......
To immerse oneself in the aspects and religion of God without the intent to share and bring forth “children” is spiritual masturbation, a perversion and wickedness.
Be fruitful and multiply.....
Matthew 28:19-20 (KJV) 19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, [even] unto the end of the world. Amen.
Romans 13:14 (KJV) But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to [fulfil] the lusts [thereof].
So here is another thought process....
This is rather racey, but please hear me out.
If you can, try to think of the process of evangelism and salvation a parallel to courtship and marriage. Intriguing?
In the world, we utilize conversation and physical contact to create space for relationship with hopes for long-lasting unity of lives. This union seeks to fulfill all kinds of needs: comfort, pleasure, security, provision, increased knowledge, ability, friendship, challenge and legacy. None of these things are wrong......however, God’s intent was never founded in the world. It was always intended and founded in the spirit. The intent was for the world to be a throne for the glory of God. Love. Pure and holy, no other motive. Just love. A word that we of this physical world cannot even accurately define much less understand and live out. So we turn to the world, define and work it out the best way we can.....without God.
We are born, learn all manner of knowledges and skills, date, have sex, marry, go to work, build little kingdoms, have and raise children, only to wear out, retire, get old, fade away and die. Leaving our children to repeat the same process.
But let’s look at this from a different vantage point. Say that we use the same format with different tools and possibly a different outcome?
Let’s use the Spirit of God that all things are founded on as our starting point and recolor the worldly process that we are living in with a whole new set of colors.
Let’s redefine:
We are born. Gifts. Not of the world, but of God. Babies. Not yet grown in body, mind or spirit. Treasures to be found, not monuments to be made. Not to parents, but to stewards.
Learning all manners of knowledge and skills by stewards charged to instill, model and display the glory of the love of God as the cocoon of transformation in anticipation of the great beauty that emerges from it. Knowledge of the Most High God and Creator of all things. Knowledge of the love that conquers every fear and vanquishes every foe. The love of God that sees before every existence, before every life and brings it into being. Forming and fashioning in the very image of God Himself. Male and female He made them. With the purpose of God in the mind and spirit, each one working out their salvation with fear and trembling.
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