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This week, we continue talking about sex.
There are two things in life that will take mastery over you like few things will. The first one is food. It’s tough for so many of us to control what we eat and keep our bodies in shape. But think of it this way: The Bible spends a verse-and-a-half talking about food and six-and-a-half verses talking about sex.
In other words, if you think food is tough, compared to sex it’s a piece of cake.
So, first off, let’s look at 1 Corinthians 6:18:
Every other sin that a man or a woman commits is outside the body, but the immoral person sins against their own body. It’s the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit.
You see, you’ve been bought with the life of Christ, therefore you should “glorify” your body, not sin against it. The Bible lays it out plainly: sexual sin is different from other sins.
But wait, pastors are always saying, “All sins are the same – it’s all saying ‘NO’ to God. They all come with the same consequences: Heaven or Hell, long-term.” This is all true, but the short-term consequences for sins vary.
Understand this: Christians will never be punished by God. But we will be disciplined according to the depth of each of our calling, how long we’ve known the Lord, and the kind of sin we commit.
And the biggie is sexual sin.
Why? I don’t know for sure. But, I do know that we are made in God’s image. He makes choices, we make choices; He has a personality, we have a personality; He has a sense of humor, most of us have a sense of humor; God creates, so do we. In fact, only men and women (not even angels) have the ability like God to create another human soul. That’s amazing. Maybe that’s why sex is such a biggie.
You see, if you’re not married and still a virgin, don’t save yourself for your future mate. That’s not a good enough reason. Your wedding night will probably be a disaster. The pressure and hype will be something that neither you nor your new spouse could live up to. However, if you save yourself for God – because it’s God who wants to bless you – then your whole paradigm and priorities shift.
And there are some very good reasons to remain a virgin until getting married:
- You’ll always take comparisons into your marriage. You’ll have “mind-scars” and inappropriate memories that will flash into your mind at the most inopportune moments. And if you couldn’t be trusted before marriage, how can you expect to be trusted after marriage? So, you take mistrust into your relationship.
- You need to understand why God gave us sex in the first place – it was to bond us with our mate in such a deep and powerful way that we would have the mechanism in place that would get us through those difficult times that life inevitably throws our way. But if you’ve been promiscuous along the way, you lost the meaning of the bonding. It just became a physical act of pleasure, or a sedative to help you fall to sleep at night.
- Or, if you have been raped or sexually abused, one of two things may have happened: Sex may have lost its intended meaning and you begin thinking that “love” is only expressed through sexual intercourse, or you’re afraid to participate in it the way that God intended due to the psychological, emotional, or physical scars that you now have.
So, there are a lot of real good reasons for God to want you to remain sexually pure other than Him just wanting to prevent you from having fun.
But know this: GOD’S FORGIVENESS IS BOTTOMLESS!
However, there are consequences for sin. So, even though you are forgiven, you still must endure the consequences for your actions. That’s just the way life is.
Luke 17 says this:
26 “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. 27 People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.
28 “It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. 29 But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.
In both the cases of Noah and Lot, the gross immorality typified by rampant homosexuality were the tipping points before God ended things with destruction. And He’s going to do the same thing again and once again save one family – His Church.
You see, your sexuality is a lot like a steam engine locomotive with one wheel driving the entire vehicle. You see, if you put a single penny under the wheel of a locomotive, the wheels won’t be able to bite and the train won’t go anywhere. But, move the penny two inches and the penny gets flattened by the chugging train.
Likewise, once the “penny” is removed from two unmarried people dating, there are only two things that will stop the runaway locomotive that is their sexuality – a policeman’s flashlight or the parents coming home. Anyone who has been there knows that nothing makes any sense in the backseat of a car.
Once the “penny” is removed, nothing makes any sense. You’ll risk the relationship with your wife, you’ll destroy your ministry, you’ll give your kids a reason to go and do what you’ve just done… you’ve got to keep the penny tucked under the wheel.
So, let’s see what the Bible has to say about seduction. In 2 Samuel 13, we learn that David’s daughter Tamar was a beautiful virgin. Her half-brother Amnon was so filled with fantasies about her that it made him physically sick. Then we pick up the story in verse five:
5 “Go to bed and pretend to be ill,” Jonadab said. “When your father comes to see you, say to him, ‘I would like my sister Tamar to come and give me something to eat. Let her prepare the food in my sight so I may watch her and then eat it from her hand.’”
6 So Amnon lay down and pretended to be ill. When the king came to see him, Amnon said to him, “I would like my sister Tamar to come and make some special bread in my sight, so I may eat from her hand.”
7 David sent word to Tamar at the palace: “Go to the house of your brother Amnon and prepare some food for him.” 8 So Tamar went to the house of her brother Amnon, who was lying down. She took some dough, kneaded it, made the bread in his sight and baked it. 9 Then she took the pan and served him the bread, but he refused to eat.
“Send everyone out of here,” Amnon said. So everyone left him. 10 Then Amnon said to Tamar, “Bring the food here into my bedroom so I may eat from your hand.” And Tamar took the bread she had prepared and brought it to her brother Amnon in his bedroom.
You see, if Amnon would have just said to his sister, “Hey come to my room, I want to have sex with you, she wouldn’t have come anywhere near him. But because she enjoyed feeling needed, she gave in a little… then a little more. And before she knew it, she was in a dangerous position that she never intended on being in.
11 But when she took it to him to eat, he grabbed her and said, “Come to bed with me, my sister.”
12 “No, my brother!” she said to him. “Don’t force me! Such a thing should not be done in Israel! Don’t do this wicked thing. 13 What about me? Where could I get rid of my disgrace? And what about you? You would be like one of the wicked fools in Israel. Please speak to the king; he will not keep me from being married to you.” 14 But he refused to listen to her, and since he was stronger than she, he raped her.
15 Then Amnon hated her with intense hatred. In fact, he hated her more than he had loved her. Amnon said to her, “Get up and get out!”
16 “No!” she said to him. “Sending me away would be a greater wrong than what you have already done to me.”
But he refused to listen to her. 17 He called his personal servant and said, “Get this woman out of my sight and bolt the door after her.” 18 So his servant put her out and bolted the door after her. She was wearing an ornate[a] robe, for this was the kind of garment the virgin daughters of the king wore.19 Tamar put ashes on her head and tore the ornate robe she was wearing. She put her hands on her head and went away, weeping aloud as she went.
20 Her brother Absalom said to her, “Has that Amnon, your brother, been with you? Be quiet for now, my sister; he is your brother. Don’t take this thing to heart.” And Tamar lived in her brother Absalom’s house, a desolate woman.
21 When King David heard all this, he was furious. 22 And Absalom never said a word to Amnon, either good or bad; he hated Amnon because he had disgraced his sister Tamar.
Okay, so this story happened thousands of years ago. Want something more recent? Consider Scott, the starting quarterback for his high school football team. He was a good, wholesome kid and three upperclassmen linemen asked him to go out with them – what an honor. While in the car, one of the guys broke out a six-pack of beer and passed it around. Scott had never had a beer, and if the guys were to have called him and said, “Scott come out with us and drink a bunch of beers” he never would have gone in the first place. But he’s there in the car and didn’t want to look like a wimp in front of his linemen, so he took a swig. A few more swigs turned into a few more and he started to get a little buzzed, then a little sleepy. To combat the sleepiness, one of the guys broke out a few red pills. Scott had never taken uppers before, and if the guys were to have called him up earlier and said, “Hey, Scott, come out with us tonight. We’ll get drunk and do drugs” he would have turned them down flat. But he’s in the car and already buzzing from the beer, so he didn’t have to think about it much before he swallowed the pill. Then the guy next to him pulls out a joint and lights up. Scott had never smoked pot before, and he definitely hadn’t planned on it this night, but after the beer and the uppers, it didn’t take much convincing before he took a hit.
The next thing you know, the carousing was taken to another level and the guys drove up to Lover’s Peak, where they found a car with the windows all steamed up. A couple of the guys got out, bounced the car and freaked out the couple inside. When the boy got out, the football players punched him. Knocked him unconscious, actually. Then, in their inebriated state, dragged the girl out, put a bag over her head, and raped her.
Now, if at the beginning of the night the guys were to call Scott and ask their quarterback if he’d like to come out with them, get drunk, get high, knock a guy unconscious and rape his girlfriend, there’s no way he’d go anywhere near that kind of trouble. But, he had already compromised so many times that night and his mind wasn’t sober at all, so he went along with it and raped the girl.
This is a true story.
And it doesn’t end there.
When he was done, he looked at the girl as she lay there whimpering. She looked up at him and as their eyes met, Scott suddenly was struck with the realization that he had just raped his sister.
It’s tragic. It’s violent. It’s true.
Now, if Scott went before his Heavenly Father and with a truly repentant heart begged for forgiveness. God would forgive him just like He did for David, for the thief on the cross, for you and for me. God’s forgiveness is bottomless!
But what would you guess the breakfast table was like for Scott’s family from then on? God’s forgiveness doesn’t fix the consequences of our sin.
But if you’re married today, and you had premarital sex, and “divorce” is not a part of your vocabulary, then here is a tip for you even though you may have started out rough and against God’s plan, but want to get back on track:
Go home and look into each other’s eyes and say, “I am so sorry that I led you into sin.”
Then the other spouse will say, “I am so sorry that I went into sin with you.”
“Will you forgive me?”
“Yes.”
“Will you forgive me?”
“Yes.”
Then together, with repentant hearts, confess your sins to God, and watch the bitterness disappear from your relationship.