Concerning Carnal Sins (Part 3 ) - ( St. Gregory Palamas )

The descendants of Esau were spurned [by God] because he was a fornicator and a defilement
(Rom. 9:13). Rehoboam lost the greater part
of the kingdom because his father Solomon was a womanizer more than anyone else (3 Kg. 11:1). If Solomon died without losing any part of the
kingdom, this was due to David, who cleansed the sin he had committed with streams of tears and with other works of repentance (3 Kg. 11:10-11).
The Apostle again commands us, my brothers, to flee from fornication (1 Co. 6:18). If Sampson had fled from it, he would not have fallen into the hands of Delilah (Jdg. 16:4-21). 
If the Jews who were being led by Moses, their
commander and lawgiver, had avoided it, they would not have offered sacrifices to Baalpeor
(Num. 25:1-3). If Solomon had evaded it, he would not have become estranged from the Lord, Who had rendered him a wise king (3 Kg. 11:7-8).
 
Do you see how the passion of fornication pushes a person even to impiety? If it wasn't for this passion, the beauty of Susanna would not have
fooled and defeated the elders in Babylon
(Dan. 8). If Holofernes, this wretched fellow, hadn't first allowed Judith’s sandal to allure his eye and previously permitted her beauty to captivate his soul (Jdt. 16:9), he wouldn't have ended up dead with his head cut off (Jdt. 13:8). This is why Job states: “I have made a covenant with my eyes, and I will not look upon a virgin”
(Job 31:1). How much more should this apply to an immodest woman, whether she be single or married.
Doesn’t the Law of Moses itself order for the bride who is found not to be a virgin to be stoned to death (Dt. 22:20-21)?
Doesn’t it also order for the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself through fornication, to be burnt with fire1(Lev. 21:9)?
It is written:
“There shall be no harlot from the daughters of Israel, and there shall be no fornicator from the sons of Israel” (Dt. 23:17). Furthermore, the scriptures state that the Jewish people
“desecrated themselves through fornication”
with the daughters of Moab (Num. 25:1), and as a consequence twenty three thousand men were killed by the sword in one day.
This is why the great Apostle Paul announces to
us, “Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand”(1 Cor. 10:8). Such are the
penalties of fornication prior to the Mosaic Law,
during the time of the Law, 1 St. Gregory Palamas
is not suggesting that the Law of Moses be implemented; for with the coming of Christ, the shadow of the Law came to an end and has been replaced by the Gospel of Grace. Rather, he wants to make known to us how serious the sin of fornication is in the eyes of God. and which the Law prescribes.
Either preserve God-pleasing chastity, beloved brothers, or God-given matrimony ... Avoid the honey that drips from the lips of fornication, because it has the custom of smearing lustful
death, which is the separation from God.
As the Prophet David says, “
Thou hast destroyed everyone who fornicates from Thee” (Ps. 72:27).
If anyone has fallen into any of fornication’s filth, may he return and distance himself from it, and may he cleanse himself with repentance. For thus saith the Lord: “Shall he who falls not arise? He who turns away, shall he not return?” (Jer. 8:4).
Thus, it is necessary for the person whose body has become a temple of God through the Holy Spirit, and within whom the Spirit of God dwells (1 Co. 6:19), to hasten toward the acquisition of purity and chastity, and away from fornication and every impurity, so that we may delight eternally with the incorrupt Bridegroom [Christ] in the heavenly and immaculate bridal chambers. Amen.


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