Apparently the shortest route to relevance in church ministry right now is for the pastor to talk about sex in garishly explicit terms during the Sunday morning service. If he can shock parishioners with crude words and sophomoric humor, so much the better.

[. . .]

Sermons about sex have suddenly become a bigger fad in the evangelical world than the prayer of Jabez ever was.

[. . .]

I would be the last to suggest that preachers should totally avoid the topic of sex. Scripture has quite a lot to say about the subject [. . .]

But the language Scripture employs when dealing with the physical relationship between husband and wife is always careful—often plain, sometimes poetic, usually delicate, frequently muted by euphemisms, and never fully explicit.

[. . .]

That includes the Song of Solomon.

In fact, Solomon’s love-poem epitomizes the exact opposite approach. It is, of course, a lengthy poem about courtship and marital love. It is filled with euphemisms and word pictures. Its whole point is gently, subtly, and elegantly to express the emotional and physical intimacy of marital love—in language suitable for any audience.

But it has become popular in certain circles to employ extremely graphic descriptions of physical intimacy as a way of expounding on the euphemisms in Solomon’s poem. As this trend develops, each new speaker seems to find something more shocking in the metaphors than any of his predecessors ever imagined.

[. . .]

Such pronouncements are usually made amid raucous laughter, but evidently we are expected to take them seriously.

[. . .]

That approach is not exegesis; it is exploitation. It is contrary to the literary style of the book itself. It is spiritually tantamount to an act of rape. It tears the beautiful poetic dress off Song of Solomon, strips that portion of Scripture of its dignity, and holds it up to be laughed at and leered at in a carnal way.

I was watching a movie the other night, with my dad, and the main character was sitting in a lovely grove of tree, and it looked so beautiful, and I looked to my dad and asked him, “Dad, do you think they’ll be places like that in heaven?”

He replied, “Hmm, I think so.”

It worries me that he didn’t say with certainty, “YES!”

I remember picking peaches one time, and it was so beautiful in that grove of trees, eating fruit from the trees. I was enjoying myself so much, that I thought, “I hope heaven is like this.”

When I mentioned it to my grandma, she replied. “Like what?”

“Just like this, with the sun and the trees, and the birds singing.”

“Don’t be silly,” was her response.

I see what you and a few others have been saying wisewoman. But there is a great danger to that, even if you aren’t seeing it that way or intending it. Yes, the Great War has been won. But even you must know that it is not over yet. You have given me the impression (and I hope I am wrong on this) that we only need to worry about spiritual warfare when battle come.

• Studying the Scriptures,
  
  
• Opposing the false teachings of demons (1 Timothy 4:1),
  
  
• Seeking to become more like Christ,
  
  
• And sometimes, opposing demons directly and/or casting them out,
  
  
• All for the sake of working out our faith and seeking to let God work through us as part of His plan to save the lost.

How could a Demon just work its’ [sic] way into you, without your permission, if God, a much more powerful Being, can’t?

What do you mean “can’t”?