Be fruitful and multiply… just don’t do it out of season!

Sex. It’s everywhere. And if you believe the media it seems that everybody’s doing it with everyone else and that everybody’s doing it but you. It’s worth questioning whether this is so. And even more important, it’s worth asking if this is what we were designed for.

First of all, the idea that “everybody else is doing it” wasn’t persuasive to my great grandparents when my grandparents tried to use that argument.  Second, I believe that men are meant to lead in the context of relationships, so how, exactly are you leading if you’re just following the crowd?

Powerful Stuff
Yes, the sex drive is powerful — that strong drive is a gift that will come into its own in the context of marriage.  Until you’re married, however, it is a gift that needs to be protected and regarded with all the respect and care one would afford a loaded firearm.  And just as you would with a loaded gun, you need to keep your sex drive under your control until it can be used properly.

The Bible has a great deal to say about about men and women and about our true nature, and it has very straightforward guidance regarding sex.  I’m aware that some people say Biblical teachings on sex just don’t work in the real world — that abstinence doesn’t work and that telling people to wait until they’re married is futile and unrealistic — but I have noticed that the ones who say this aren’t even trying to apply them.  Having decided what they want, they dismiss any evidence to the contrary.  We call that managing to a conclusion.  It’s part of the near-infinite capacity for human rationalization.

Another way to translate this is:  “The Bible can’t possibly be right because it doesn’t conform to what I want to do, or what I see others doing.  Besides, doesn’t God want us to be happy?”  Not exactly, no.

So why not consider a different approach to sex?

What Does The Owner Say?
 God Himself* is the inventor of sex, and His intentions and expectations are are clearly laid out in the pages of scripture.  Marriage is the only proper arena for the full enjoyment of the gift of sexual intimacy, and it is this lifelong covenant that makes sex moral. Anything else is theft.

So how can we be sure we understand these teachings correctly?
If God is real, and if God is capable of creating the cosmos and everything in it — including you — it is logical that He is able to communicate His will to His creatures in a form they can understand.  Further, it is also logical that if God communicated a set of standards for a particular behavior  — namely sex — then His prescription would provide the best results for individuals and for society alike.

Taking God’s existence and ability to communicate accurately as givens, we would then need to understand the moral attributes of God, His physical attributes, His heart and His character.  If God is love — and God presents Himself in the Bible as a loving Father —  then love would be His motivation, and love would permeate all his commands.  It is reasonable to conclude that God would not command anything that would harm those He loves.

Hurt vs. Harm
And here let’s distinguish between hurt and harm.  My telling you you’re out of line may hurt your feelings, but it will not harm you. Your shoving me out of the path of an onrushing truck may hurt me, but you would have saved me from greater harm.  Likewise, God’s commanding all of us to live chaste lives — to reserve the gift of sex for marriage — may make us uncomfortable, but it will not harm us.  Quite the opposite.

Nobody is promising that reserving sex until marriage is an easy thing to do.  As we’ve noted, temptation — especially sexual temptation — is everywhere.  And yet, God in His love and wisdom has told us something important about Himself through this amazing gift. The rational response to such love is to love God, to trust Him and to seek to follow His commands.

You can take the advice of a man who’s been married nearly 30 years: it’s worth waiting for. Be a leader and try something different — chastity.

So how about you? Are you committed to living a chaste life?  What’s the biggest challenge you’re facing? How are you and  your friends choosing to honor God with your lives?  Add your comments below.

*The question of God’s existence is stipulated for this blog post — if you don’t believe in God, it is my hope this will still be useful to you, but I realize that I cannot compel you to change your thinking — or anyone else’s — based on an appeal to authority.