The Greek term for fornication is “porneia” and according to Thayer
is “properly of illicit sexual intercourse in general.” Included in 
the letter of the apostles and elders of the Jerusalem church was that
the Gentile Christians should keep themselves from fornication 
(Acts 15:20,29; 21:25). Thayer also says  marriages “within prohibited
degrees and the like are to be rejected.”  Fornication is also used
metamorphically of the worship of idols in Revelation 14:8; 17:2,4; 18:3.
Another term used often in the Bible is “Adultery” which is the Greek 
“Moicheia” which means “to have unlawful intercourse with another’s
wife”. It likewise metamorphically is used of idolatrous practices on
the part of God’s people who are spiritually speaking married to God.
There are a number of ways that fornication can be committed all of 
which are condemned in the Bible. 

  1. Sex between unmarried people is fornication. The people who today 
just move in with one another and start living together as if they were
husbands and wives are in fornication. In John 4 the Lord identified
the woman at the well as being in this situation by saying, “Thou hast
had five husbands: and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband” 
(John 4:18).  The wrongness of this relationship is shown in Hebrews 
13:4: “Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled: but 
whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.” In Revelation 21:8 it is 
stated that “whoremongers” among other sinners “shall have their part 
in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second 
death.” God wants people to marry before they engage in sex. He wants
them to vow to forsake all others, cleave to one another, and take on
obligations of being true to one another physically, emotionally, 
materially, and in all other facets of life. Yes, it is honorable to 
be married. It is also dishonorable to be “live-ins” without marriage.
There may be many excuses people make for their “live-in” situations 
but it doesn’t change things before God.

  2. Homosexual relations are also fornication. In Jude 7 we read, 
“Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner,
giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh,
are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire."
These cities were notorious for Gay activities and Sodomy. God was so
displeased that he rained fire and brimstone down upon them. Likewise
in Romans 1:26-28 it is stated that such activity causes God to give 
up these kinds of  people. They sometimes argue that God made them
gays, but this is just not so. God would not make anyone like this and
then give them up. They have developed this sinful fornicating 
activity within themselves, along with the help of the devil, and are
condemned before God. 

  3. Certain marriages are nothing more than relationships of 
fornication or adultery. God gave only one scriptural cause for divorce
and that is “fornication “ which would be sexual intercourse of one’s 
husband or wife with another person (Mat. 19:9). If one puts away 
husband or wife for any other cause they would cause them to commit
adultery (Mat. 19:9). If one puts away his mate without the scriptural
cause of fornication and then marries another he also commits adultery
which is the same as fornication (Mat. 19:9). The plea of 
incompatibility or being mean to one another is not a scriptural reason
for divorce and it certainly does not give a right for remarriage to 
another. The laws of the land are not the laws of God. It is God that
we have to give an account for in judgment and not men. People need to 
clear themselves of any wrong relationships while they live here if 
they expect to go to heaven. Remember that otherwise it will be the
lake of fire and brimstone (Rev. 21:8). 

  4. Not considering themselves to be live-ins but having sex on 
occasion with one another is still fornication or adultery. Such are 
still condemned before God. “Flee fornication. Every sin that a man 
doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth
against his own body." (I Cor. 6:18). 

  5. Then there is the spiritual side of making images or idols and 
worshipping them instead of God. This is spiritual fornication. In 
religion today many who call themselves of the “Christian Religion” 
are worshipping images and so are wrong before God. “Little children,
keep yourselves from idols” (I John 5:21). 

  To avoid fornication let every man have his own wife and every woman
  her own husband (I Cor. 7:2).

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