2005-02-28 - The Dangers of Premarital Sexual Involvement

Marriage & Sexuality, Part 1

Genesis 2:24, 25, "For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed."

I want to take a moment and thank all who responded to the devotionals last week on forgiveness. Many of your responses were thought provoking and I am sorry I have not been able to respond to them all. I was going to continue with the topic, but I have changed my mind. I am going to write on a tough topic today which I have to lecture on, on Monday morning. I thought trying to put this topic in a devotional, practical manner might help me in my thoughts for my lecture. The class I teach is titled: "Marriage and Sexuality." It is in the theology department, and it is an upper level class. The lecture topic for Monday is on the dangers of premarital sexual involvement. It will be an awkward morning because there are only two guys in my class and every woman in my class is currently involved in a pre-marital sexual relationship. So I am about to lecture (for 2 1/2 hours) on how God hates the sin of fornication to a bunch of fornicators. You don't want to be in my shoes.

There is a practical side to this topic and I know many who read these devotionals are young. I want to tell you, and I wish I could look you in the eye, that there are consequences to premarital sexual involvement. These consequences can be both physical and emotional. The physical consequences can range from sexually transmitted diseases to pregnancy. The emotional consequences can last for the rest of your life. They range from guilt, loss of self-respect, or self-esteem, regret, fear, depression, and a host of other things. There is a reason why God, in His wisdom, established marriage as the place for sexual involvement and His wisdom is born out in the comments of many who have gone against His truth.

One girl told a high school nurse, "I see some of my friends buying home pregnancy tests, and they are so worried and so distracted every month, afraid that they might be pregnant. It's a relief to me to be a virgin." Do you see the wisdom here? This is antithetical to what the world tells us, and we are bombarded by it's lies every day. But God's truth is true truth, and we need to remember that Satan is the father of lies and everything that is contrary to God's truth.

Regret is also a huge issue. This is not limited to girls. Guys have regret also. One guy was asked what he most regretted about high school. He responded that he regretted that he had destroyed a girls life by the way he treated her. Breakups after sexual involvement are usually harder on girls than guys, but for guys, you don't want it on your conscience that you are the result of your ex-girlfriends deep emotional struggles. Sex that is not bound by love is full of regret and the love that binds two people to commitment is through marriage. Don't get fooled into thinking that sex will "save the relationship," or that sex is the right of being in a relationship. Sex is to be done in the context of marriage. See what a college student had to say, "I first had intercourse with my girlfriend when we were 15. I'd been going with her for almost a year, and I loved her very much ... then one night she asked if we could go all the way. A few days later we broke up." Sex can kill a relationship.

There are so many things we could hit on here, but I really want to make this practical. Let us not think we are wiser than God in this area, or any area. Our goal as Christians is to think God's thoughts after Him. We are to seek to be godly men and woman and this includes our sexuality. The world tells us differently, but the truth is that when we don't follow the Lord's will we hurt ourselves and the effects can hurt for a long time. God is gracious, and sexual pasts/sins are forgiven in those who come to Christ and rest in His atonement. Many of us need to remember this. Sin is forgiven in Christ. This does not give us freedom to sin, but rather gives us hope when we know we have sinned.

Thank you for sticking through me with this difficult topic.

Soli Deo Gloria,
T-

tim@cfdevotionals.org
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