Sex

[Gerr]

Are there any principles of right and wrong that are higher or more developed than what the Creator gave? Are they not the universal principles of Stage 6? I don't obey God for fear of punishment, that's the farthest thing from my mind. I'm more concerned about doing the right thing, but if obeying these God-given principles is being stage 1 or 2 in moral development, I'm satisfied with it.

[JoeMo]

I can't speak for anyone else; but recreational (or "sport") sex never worked for me - as much as I wanted it to. When I was in college (in the late 1960's) in the "free love"movement, I met plenty of women who were interested in sex just for the intimacy and the release of an orgasm. Sex was the most fun you could have without laughing out loud! I sure couldn't complain about it in the middle of the act; but I always felt emotionally involved with the woman afterwards. It usually became a relationship involved in sexual satisfaction rather than emotional satisfaction. By the time I was in my mid-twenties, I quit having sport sex and got to know my girlfriends. I always got to know them as people first rather than as a sex machine.

At that time of my life, the morality of the act was the farthest thing from my mind. But based on the correlation between orgasm and emotion, I learned that it was wrong to use a woman for sex. Now, as a believer, I know why God warned against it. I think that God advised against it because of how it messes with people's minds (at least my mind).

Like I said - I can't speak for everyone.

[olger]

Thanks, Joe.

Blessings in Christ!

[M. T. Cross]

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The very word conjures up all kinds of torrid images! For instance: there’s pizza, plumbing fixtures, clothing, brown-sugar-water (Coca-Cola), soap, hamburgers, shavers, tires, cars, valve stems, Old Spice, Valio Fanny pudding and asparagus…(asparagus?). It’s true friends; sex was used to sell each of these items. And that’s just a partial list…

We live in a world that is saturated with sex—the wrong use of it especially. Sex is used extensively in marketing (as noted above), entertainment, literature, music, and culture in general. To quote Gallup & Robinson, “Sex sells.” And I believe it’s time that thinking people stopped buying.

Indeed. Sex sells.

Maybe because it is a beautiful thing and in a world where the media and religious upbringings seem to focus only on darkness, crime, violence and hatred we need something beautiful to focus on.

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But there is something else being sold to us, namely the lie that sex outside of marriage isn’t a big deal! Uh huh… From grandparents to teenagers, moral failure brings some of the sharpest regrets known to man (and woman). As believers, we need to do the utmost to protect young people from the consequences of moral failure and sexual abuse. So let’s dig in.

Most people I know have regrets based on the way they have treated people and the hurt that has caused them. Yes sometimes that involved sexually related actions. But more times than not it doesn't.

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I’m all about archaeology. Don’t get me wrong; I detest the idea of digging up yet another piece of broken pottery in 114° degree weather in a sun-scorched sand pit infested with camel dung and scorpions. But I like old words and every now and then I dig one up and dust it off so I can say “Just look at that beauty!” Here’s my latest artifact–fornication.

It’s a good word with a lot of Biblical authority. And it is nearly buried under the rubble of our modern sensibilities. Let me be blunt, we updated our vocabulary long ago with the more politically correct term “pre-marital sex.” In doing so, I believe that we ceded Biblical truth to the pop-culture sexual revolutionaries. Strongly implied in the term “pre-marital sex” is that the only problem is timing. This gives the false impression that the main difference between marital sex and pre-marital sex is simply when one chooses to engage in it! And as soon as they “get married”—problem solved, right? Nuh-uh.

Maybe its because the word fornication is from an archaic time when marriage and sexual outlooks were very unbalanced. Men could get away with sleeping around (mostly with prostitutes) but women where whores if they did. We have moved into a time where there is a bit more balance and we don't think so much like that. I think its a great growth.

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My wife and I have worked with hundreds of young people, and helped many of them resolve moral and abuse issues according to the Bible. It is so refreshing to go to a wedding and know that this young couple have confessed every moral violation to each other and invited Jesus to come in and purify their hearts. This allows them to emotionally give themselves to each other, and experience the oneness that God designed for their marriage. If they choose not to resolve hidden moral issues, they will experience a number of consequences in marriage and end with a sexually-tolerant form of lonesome gratification that longs for emotional intimacy. Just getting married doesn’t erase the accumulated consequences of moral failure. Rather, it will bring them to the surface!

I can’t believe that I got this far into the article without humbling myself. Um…I’ve done things that I’m not proud of. For most of my adolescent life, female anatomy was just a rumor that I hoped was true. During the three year equivalent of my “Anabaptist Rumspringa” I did various things that I wouldn’t do again. I resolved those things in Jesus long ago. If I hadn’t, I couldn’t mention it here—I would be trying to conceal them from the fortified bunker of a locked heart.

So sleep around all you want before marriage, but just make sure you confess to Jesus and your spouse to be? Really?

I may have always had a bit of a different view, but the only reason I ever listened to the whole sexual history of any woman that I was in a relationship with was because apparently it made them feel better to tell it. I could not have told you five minutes later what it was. See to me the only thing that matters is that you are truly with the person that you are currently in a relationship with. The past can't be changed and is pretty much irrelevant.

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That brings us back to language. How often do we urge teenagers to maintain purity, to be consistent with their values, and to avoid bad consequences to their health, their future marriages, or their walk with God? These consequences are definitely real, but why would it seem so awkward to say what the Scripture says quite straightforwardly—that fornicators will not inherit the kingdom of God? (1 Cor. 6:9–10). You don’t have to be a wild-eyed “hell-fire” revival preacher to admit that sexual immorality brings upon itself the wrath of God (Rev. 21:8). Yet because of stale political-correctness, we often retreat to the safety of terms like “pre-marital” and “struggling” or “addiction.”

Fornication, quite simply, isn’t merely “premarital sex.” It isn’t only a matter of impatience. It is not simply the marital act misfired at the wrong time. Fornication is both spiritually and typologically different from the marital act, and in fact a mockery of it!

You see, sexual union is not an arbitrary expression of the will of God (much less of random Darwinian processes). It is instead an icon of God’s purposes for the universe in the gospel of Christ. Paul’s classic text on the one-flesh union of marriage from Ephesians 5 makes no sense if it is presented as it is too often: as a set of tips for a healthier, “hotter” marriage. Instead, this passage is a revelation of the cosmic mystery of Christ.

Fornication pictures a different reality from that of the mystery of Christ. It presents instead a Jesus who uses the Church without joining her in sacred covenant to Himself. It is not just “naughtiness.” To use another word that modern-minded Christians find awkward and antiquated, it is blasphemy–a moral blasphemy with several unique consequences to it. Here are just a few of these consequences; and some of them may surprise you.

So what this seems to be saying is that sex outside of marriage is wrong, it is fornication and a mockery of marriage. But one should also not try to make their marital sex live any "hotter" either?

Thats either just poorly written or you are just confused yourself, because I have no idea what the point trying to be made there is.

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Role Reversal

If a dating couple gets involved sexually with each other, something strange happens in the relationship. From that point on, the girl becomes more aggressive and the guy becomes more passive. Guilt, shame and fear fill the relationship, and the girl becomes angry from pain and feels unprotected. The guy gives up his leadership as a man. From that point on, he stops caring about the girl emotionally and is interested only in how he can be alone with the girl. She feels unloved and begins trying to “protect” herself by becoming more aggressive—more manly. This sets up a wrong pattern that can be resolved only by the wonderful power of God through repentance and cleansing.

Why would that be different than a married couple?

I can honestly say that I have never ever seen this happen. But then I think the idea of the man being the leader is ridiculous anyway. Partnerships are where it should be.

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Conflict

Within two weeks after a dating couple commits fornication (I wanted to use that word again), they will start fighting. Every time. Unless they Biblically resolve and forsake fornication—guilt, shame and fear causes them to begin blaming one another subconsciously. This leads them to push each other away emotionally, which leads to a loss of communication, which leads to a lack of respect for each other, which leads to… you guessed it—conflict. They will be fighting within two weeks and won’t understand why.

Again, never seen it happen. I have seen couples start fighting because they were not having sex though.

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Bad Education

Dating couples who commit fornication are teaching each other how to commit adultery. Really? Yes. Fornication and adultery are the same sin—in that they both exist outside of marriage. Sex prior to marriage becomes a mixture of sex & guilt, and after marriage, the only source for that is–adultery.

In order to recover the beauty and the exultation of marital intimacy, we need to speak honestly and bluntly of the ugliness of its counterfeits. In the process we learn not to be ashamed of the Biblical language of “fornication,” but instead to be ashamed of fornication itself.

Finally, let us not be afraid to talk about sex to young people, to explain why it is worth waiting for and the consequences of not waiting. I’ve already discussed a few of the consequences; let me throw a positive motivator out there. If you do wait, your sex life will be in the top 2%! Just thought you should know…

Two more.

Let us unmask the lie that sex outside of marriage is no big deal.

Let us not give people the impression that if they have fallen morally, it will follow them around like a huge black balloon forever tied to their unpardonable midsection. There is hope. Through repentance there is freedom, and through Jesus there is cleansing. God can restore unto you the years that the locusts have eaten (Joel 2:24).

Do you know people who struggle with guilt or lust? Do you know how to help them? Let’s get started.

I am going to agree that sex in a long term relationship is much better than it is in flings. Not always as exciting, but it is more intimate.

That said, the only reason that there is guilt and unhappiness related to any sex is because of the very thing you are trying to teach people.

Sex of course can be used in ugly destructive ways. So can food, religion and just about anything. We all have a choice to make in every action in our life, we can do things to hurt people, or we can do things to make life better. Honestly Ger, I see your essay as a way to cause more hurt and grief, and to load up guilt and self hatred. I have no doubt that is NOT your intent, but I see that as the end result.

[ClubV12]

Fear is good, currently it is stopping N. Korea from nuking Japan! :)

[olger]

Fear is good, currently it is stopping N. Korea from nuking Japan!

[Guest]

Originally Posted By: Gerry Cabalo

If you take away the clergy, the WORD still says - "Thou shalt not commit adultery."

Take the WORD away - anything goes, no boundaries.

This is one of my major problems with religion: many of those who subscribe to religious morality completely lose the ability to think for themselves. If they think God said it, it must be right, end of story. If God showed up tomorrow and told you that you were totally wrong about him and that he didn't care what you thought, said, or did with your life and that you'd end up in heaven either way, would you immediately start having sex with multiple women, other men, donkeys, children, etc?

If not, then why not? Anything goes, right?

Because we've been brainwashed, and we would feel guilty if we had sex with a donkey, right? At least according to your line of thinking. But after we learn to think for ourselves...

[fccool]

RLH,

The point being is that God supposedly saying something is a poor way of reasoning to take as a model for society's behavior. The obvious problem with that is that anyone can inject "God said so" for political and religious control and if you grew up in that environment you would avidly defend the status quo view.

I don't think we are against moral absolutes, but please don't rationalize it from the perspective of "God said so"... otherwise there's a long list of people who think they are the ones who God is speaking to.

If morality is objective, then it's objectively recognizable no matter who set the rules... be it nature or God. If evolution got us to not have sex with donkeys in order to survive as species... of itself has the bases for objective moral standard which would dictate against having sex with donkeys.

If tomorrow there's another Ellen White who claims to abide by the Bible and is in line with its beliefs, and then says that people should not have sex at all from now on... who's to say otherwise? What moral standard outside of pure belief and abdicating your own reason would one use to believe that such moral standard is viable?

I doubt you will grasp the concept, but it's worth a try.