Sex Is For Marriage Only Essay, Research Paper
This is a very interesting chapter. It talks about how some people have gotten so far out of God’s will that they are perishing. They are perishing for their lack of knowledge of God. They don’t know that’s why they are perishing, but the reason is simple: They are in disobedience to God’s commands and ignorant of God’s plans. One of those areas of disobedience in out society an area that is rampantly out of control – is the area of sexual relationships. Genesis 4:1 says:
And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.
“Knew” in this context means to have sexual intercourse. Rightly understood, sex is knowing a person at the deepest level possible, at the maximum level of intimacy. From God’s view- point, to have sexual intercourse with a person is to “know” that person in all dimensions. Sexual intercourse is intended by God to be an act that is enjoyed within the context of the commitment of marriage, and only within the context of marriage. In this one verse there are two very important principles:
Marriage is to be the ONLY context for sexual intimacy. Eve was Adam’s wife – not his girlfriend, his mistress, or a casual acquaintance. He was married to her.
Children are to be conceived ONLY within the sexual intimacy of marriage. When Adam and Eve had sex, they created a baby. Now certainly that doesn’t mean that the first time they had sex they created Cain. It means that the outcome of their sexual relationship was a child.
Those two statements of principle about marriage may seem obvious, but most of the world doesn’t live by these principles. You can hardly see a commercial or an advertisement today in which sex isn’t being used to sell a product. You can hardly see a movie which doesn’t have an impure sexual relationship, including a lot of the movies that supposedly are acceptable for children to see. Magazines, TV drama shows, TV situation comedies, talk shows, paperback novels, and music videos all tell the story – people in our culture are “knowing” too many people. in our society, sexual intercourse, is not limited to marriage. As a result millions of babies are being conceived each year outside the context of marriage.
The Bible standard is that men and women are to be virgins until they are married. Any time this doesn’t occur in the Bible, the incident is considered to be rape. Now it is not just women who are to be virgins, but men and women. There’s no double standard allowed – that men get to sow their wild oats and only women must keep themselves pure.
We are in great error when we wink and laugh about the sexual exploits of a young man, as if he has done something great. If a man brags about having so-called “casual sex” with a woman, he is under the judgment of God because he has brought shame to what God has ordained. In truth, he is operating outside God’s plan and the outcome is not only going to be damaging to him personally in his spirit, but to his future marriage, not just AIDS or sexually transmitted diseases, but emotional and spiritual damage – the inability to commit and to connect, the inability to experience true intimacy, the inability to give one’s self wholly to another person because part of them has already been given away.
In Deuteronomy 22:13-15,17-21 (NKJV), it is told how serious virginity was considered by God:
If any man takes a wife, and goes in to her, and detests her, and charges her with shameful conduct, and brings a bad name on her, and says, “I took this woman, and when I came to her I found she was not a virgin,” then the father and mother of the young woman shad take and bring out the evidence of the young woman’s virginity to the elders of the city at the gate.
And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city. Then the elders of that city shall take that man and punish him; and they shall fine him one hundred shekels of silver and give them to the father of the young woman, because he has brought a bad name on a virgin of Israel. And she shall be his wife; he cannot divorce her all his days.
But if the thing is true, and evidences of virginity are not found for the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done a disgraceful thing in Israel, to play the harlot in her father’s house. So you shall put away the evil from among you.
If a woman in the time of Moses was found not to be a virgin, she was stoned on the day after her wedding! The biggest fear many people today have about sexual promiscuity is whether they will get caught by someone or catch a fatal disease. The bigger fear should be the fear of God.
We need to understand that sex is directly related to forming a blood covenant with another person. From the Bible’s standpoint, a blood covenant is a very serious matter. When the hymen of a woman is penetrated for the first time, there is a shedding of blood. That shed blood is the “token” of her virginity – evidence to all the world that she was a virgin.
In Bible times, the family of the bride wanted to see the sheet of the bed after a marriage had been consummated. The blood. on the sheet was the evidence that their daughter had been a virgin at the time of her wedding. The shedding of that blood as it flows over the man’s penis is a sign before God that the man and the woman have entered into a sacred blood covenant relationship. I did not know this.
The Bible’s standard for sex is that it be a total-person experience. Sex is to be in the context of desiring to understand everything about a person. You can’t possibly understand everything about a person after spending two hours with them in the back seat of a car.
Sex is far more than a physical act. It is the creation of an emotional and spiritual bond. We tend to realize this most when a marriage is in trouble. If there’s a breakdown in the sexual relationship between a husband and wife, it is always after they have had an. intellectual and emotional breakdown in their marriage. They have stopped communicating, stopped caring, stopped -showing affection in little ways. Sexual problems rarely cause emotional and intellectual break- downs, but emotional and intellectual breakdowns in a relationship always cause problems in the sexual relationship. Many people simply do not understand that even though they may have disconnected physically ftom a person, they may still be connected soulishly (emotionally) and spiritually to that person. The only way they can truly be free from that entanglement is to experience forgiveness and cleansing from God for their sexual sin.
God has made His opinion about sexual relationships very clear to everyone. He gives people a choice to obey or to disobey, but He does not give us a choice to change His rules or to negotiate His standards. The Bible teaching on sexual sin couldn’t be stated any clearer than it is in I Corinthians 6:9,10:
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind … shall inherit the kingdom of God.
Fornicators are single people who have sexual intercourse outside the bonds of marriage. Adulterers are those who have sexual intercourse with a married person who is not their own spouse. If a married person has sex with a married person who is not their spouse or with a single person, they are an adulterer. If a single person has sex with a married person, they are an adulterer. Effeminate and abusers of themselves with mankind refers to homosexuals. They are having sex outside the bonds of marriage because the Bible has no provision for two people of the same sex to be married. Two people of the same sex cannot multiply physically or spiritually. They cannot reproduce in the physical, natural realm, which is an outward manifestation of their inability to produce the fruit of righteousness in the spirit realm.
One of the things to recognize facing the issue of sexual promiscuity and talking to children about sexual relationships is this: The devil is a liar about everything, but particularly when it comes to sex! And the devil specializes in half-truths. Some of those are:
The devil will say that sex is ALWAYS fun.
The devil will say that everyone is having sex so it must be all right for YOU to have sex.
The devil say you that since you are doing everything ELSE right, it is all right for you to sin in this one area.
The devil will say that sexual needs are just like any other needs, so God must expect satisfation of those needs.
The devil will say that God MADE a person with a strong sex drive or a homosexual orientation that is uncontrollable by their will.
These are all just false tales the devil tells to make a person convince themselves to engage in sexual sin. There are four practical things that can be done to remain pure before God:
1. Know your own limits and don’t tempt yourself by testing them. Know yourself well enough to know what you can and cannot see without burning up with lust. Don’t tempt yourself.
2. Arm yourself with the Word of God. God has made His Word available to us as a powerful sword against the temptations of the devil. (See Ephesians 6:17.) To properly use the Word of God against sexual temptation, however, you need to know the Word of Godand have it in your heart so that you can call on it when needed.
3. Choose to think about somethimg else.We each have the ability to govern what we will think about, what we will dwell on, and what we will fantasize about. If you are a single person, govern your thoughts about sex.
4. Ask God to help you stay pure. If you will make a commitment to God to stay pure sexually, God will help you to fulfill that commitment. It is not enough to know God s truth, but also act on it. Trust God to give you the courage you need to live a life of sexual purity.