It's good for a man to have a wife, and for a woman to have a husband. Sexual drives are strong, but marriage is strong enough to contain them and provide for a balanced and fulfilling sexual life in a world of sexual disorder.
~ 1 Corinthians 7:1-2 (MSG)

Hmmm. “… In a world of sexual disorder.” Strange how the Apostle Paul made that observation nineteen centuries ago, and it can still be applied today. Amazing. What else does the Scripture say?

Illicit & Casual

Honor marriage, and guard the sacredness of sexual intimacy between wife and husband. God draws a firm line against casual and illicit sex. ~ Hebrews 13:4 (MSG)

Now, according to the dictionary, “illicit” means, “Not sanctioned by custom or law.” Which would put prostitution, anal sex, sex with juveniles, and orgies – any or all in this list – under the category of “illicit sex.” In fact, if we look at the Hebrew law that many of the Apostle Paul’s readers followed, illicit sex included sex with family members, sodomy, sex during the woman’s menstrual cycle, and sex with a person of the same gender. OK. What about “casual sex”? According to the same dictionary, “casual” means, “Showing little interest or concern; nonchalant; permissive; not close or intimate.” What does that sound like? Probably sex with a “friend,” sex with one barely known, or sex with a person you’re not committed to. That’s the kind of sex the Bible says “God draws a firm line against.”

Check this out:

God honored the Master's [Jesus’] body by raising it from the grave. He'll treat yours with the same resurrection power. Until that time, remember that your bodies are created with the same dignity as the Master's body. You wouldn't take the Master's body off to a whorehouse, would you? I should hope not.

There's more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact. As written in Scripture, "The two become one." Since we want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us more lonely than ever - the kind of sex that can never "become one."

There is a sense in which sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin we violate the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies that were made for God-given and God-modeled love, for "becoming one" with another. Or didn't you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don't you see that you can't live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.

~1 Corinthians 6:14-20 (MSG)

The Natural

My goodness. If that doesn’t make the issue of extra-marital sex clear to you, I don’t know what will. Now, a few months ago, I heard someone say that sex is “natural.” That is definitely true, but this “someone” was talking about sex outside of a proclaimed commitment of marriage. In that case, a lot of things are “natural.” It’s “natural” for me to slap you silly if you get on my last nerve. It’s “natural” for me to carry out anything that comes to mind, good or bad, because of how I “felt” at the time. It’s “natural” for a homosexual to feebly obey thoughts of sleeping with a person of the same sex instead of examining the source of the sensual thought. It’s “natural” for you to want revenge on someone who did you dirty. But God didn’t challenge us to be “natural.” He asks us to, through divine association with Him, live a supernatural life, a spiritually obedient and conscious life.

The fact that something is written in Scripture simply isn’t enough for some people. They don’t believe that the Holy Bible is the fully-inspired and perfect Word of God; they prefer to pick and choose what they wish to believe from it and what they wish not to believe; they fail to realize that their lives should be lived in tandem with their Creator’s will, not with the whims of their ever-changing never-satisfied fleshly desires; and, worse yet, they are arrogant about their ignorance.

Unwanted Children

Having sex will eventually result in conceiving an unwanted child. “I’ll get rid of it, then.” Hmmm. Have (or encourage someone else to have) an abortion, and you’ll never forget what you did to that innocent baby for the rest of your life. (Just because of your lack of willingness to control your libido) “I can protect myself; this ain’t the stone age!” OK. Use “protection,” and you still have a chance of the egg being fertilized because, among other reasons, sperm are so small they can swim through holes in condoms. If you don’t believe your “protection” will ever get a hole, talk to someone who had a baby when they used a condom. Now back to your unwanted, unexpected child. They cost over $700 a month. “Whuh???” That’s $700 out of your own pocket, and that’s only if you use no-name baby products. Yeah. What else can result from a situation where a child is born to unmarried, uncommitted parents? The baby grows up the offspring of a cowardly, absentee dad, and misses out on half of the raising he/she was supposed to receive. Then there’s the baby-mama-drama, and the “that’s just my baby daddy” retorts.

Mental Wounds & Scarred Hearts

The psychological issues associated with sex are numerous. People like to believe guys aren’t psychologically affected by having had sex with a woman who leaves them or with whom they’ve ended a relationship. If you believed that fiction, think again. Which gender is most likely to murder their sex partner if things don’t go right ... and then commit suicide? You guessed it. Which gender generally thinks it’s expected for them to cheat in a relationship, but then refuses to forgive or otherwise goes looney if their partner cheats? Right again. I remember when I broke up with the dude I dated back in college after a nearly two-year relationship. One of the first things he said was, “good thing we didn’t have sex,” as if it would have been that much worse on him. And for ladies? Have mercy. Some may act like they can “do what the men do,” but their activities only show that they are the most hurt inside. Many women can’t trust again once fidelity is broken (which screws the man they will eventually marry, who will probably be one of the nicest men in the world); many enter a cycle of failed relationship after failed relationship because they keep choosing the same guy who made them miserable, only in a different body. A lot of women just allow themselves to be tortured by bitterness for the remainder of their lives. All because they gave their bodies away to someone who was just out to play.

Diseases

What about sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)? You can get these whether you use “protection” or not! I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t touch a genital wart <click here to view pic>

(another permanent STD) with a twelve-foot pole. Gross! Besides being physically and aesthetically annoying, they look nasty. And herpes? <click here to view pic>

Please don’t be fooled by these television commercials that show great-looking people “getting on with life” after herpes. Though you’ll “live,” herpes will be with you for the rest of your natural life. Gonorrhea, syphilis, and chlamydia are painful in more ways than one. And you can catch cancer if too much goes wrong “down there.” <click here to view pic>

But more scary than all of the above is HIV and AIDS. These diseases are yet another reason to keep your body parts to yourself. Let’s take a brief look at some of the latest statistics. Scary.

AIDS Statistics

As of the end of 2003, 40 million people on planet Earth had HIV/AIDS. That’s the number “40” with six zeros. That’s five million more than each person who lives in the entire state of California. Almost the entire population of the East Coast too. This sickness is now a global epidemic. Not only that, but the largest-growing group of new HIV/AIDS cases by age and gender in the United States are females between the ages of 25 and 44. That’s bad news for “players” of both sexes. Now since it often takes up to ten years for a person to discover they have this illness, what does that say about the age people are when they first contract the disease? Exactly. And don’t think for a minute that those who don’t know they’re infected are consistently protecting themselves from re-infection or possibly infecting others.

Unlike those of us who grew up in the eighties, who lived through the initial shock of AIDS, many teens these days simply have no clue what can of worms they’re opening up when they choose to have sex. And many of them think that the way a person looks is a clear giveaway as to their AIDS status. In the District of Columbia, where I live, one in ten Black men has this sickness. One in ten. Part of the reason HIV cases are increasing among women so rapidly is because so many of them insist upon having sexual relations in spite of statistics. I’ll tell you this: I would gladly keep my legs closed until my days on Earth come to a conclusion … than to deal with the countless pills, bodily changes, fear of the common cold, doctor visits, side effects, and social isolation associated with AIDS every single day for the possible sixty plus years I have left.

Married Women At Risk!

A new statistic was just uncovered. I knew this was serious when I read it in the news and heard it on National Public Radio within two days. Another at-risk group for AIDS and HIV worldwide are married women. Yes. Among other concerns, husbands (who deserve to be pimp-slapped) are having sexual relations outside their marriages, and bringing the AIDS virus home to their wives. And in spite of all these statistics, someone is becoming a victim of this illness as you read these very words. Nevertheless, we still have some Heads-of-State in Africa who refuse to acknowledge that millions are dying of AIDS in their own countries. We still have promiscuous behavior by people both in and out of the Church. And we still have organizations such as The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice hosting conferences like the 'National Black Religious Summit on Sexuality: Breaking the Silence,” which promotes, among other things, tolerance of homosexuality and sex outside of marriage as a way of showing forth the “love of Christ.” What? These folks are more confused than an Amish housewife in Best Buy if they think that the way for the church to “break the silence” about sexual issues is to go against God’s own Word and sanction activities such as sex in what they term “committed relationships.”

Listen to the Word of God

The words written in the Holy Bible should be enough for each and every person on planet Earth to be obedient to the plan of God concerning sex. But the AIDS epidemic is yet another reason. If you call yourself a member of the Family of God, and you haven’t been obeying your Father in this respect, please start today. It is possible. Many of us can truthfully say we’ve gone a decade or more of thorough fulfillment in life without sex. Why? Because Father knows best. Don’t disobey the One who loves you infinitely more than anyone else can. Don’t spend your single days playing with fire only to learn five years into your marriage that you passed AIDS along to your spouse and child. And please stop opening the door for sin to bum rush you, making it more and more difficult for you to control your actions. Close that door on the enemy, and take that smug smirk off his face, once and for all.

-Eve the Zealot
Yuinon Local 202