Handling Sex

How to follow Jesus without embarrassing ourselves: Handling Sex

By Rev. Andrew Chan

February 24, 2002

Grace International Baptist Church

Vancouver, BC

In our Ephesians series, we were told of how God through Jesus chose us to be special, specially loved and chosen to be included in His team, His kingdom.

Like Team Canada at the Salt Lake Olympics we are now chosen to represent Christ...

How do you follow Jesus and not embarrass yourself in the area of handling of sexual issues? It is everywhere, the misuse of sex. According to one poll in 1969, 68% of the people said that sex before marriage was morally unacceptable, morally wrong. And in May of 2001, the numbers as you may have guessed has slipped, to 38%. Conclusion: Our whole attitude about sexuality has changed in our culture, and it did not take very long for it to happen.

We see this certainly in younger generations. If you look at the younger people in that poll, it’s down to 30%. Only 30% of the younger people in the poll say that sex before marriage is morally unacceptable. We see this because of 15 - 19 year old males, 75 % of them say that they have had sexual intercourse. 50% of the females say that they have sexual intercourse.

There were 27.5 million U.S. visitors to adult-oriented pornographic Web sites in January 2002, says Christine Chan of Nielsen//NetRatings, the Internet audience measurement service. About 72% of visitors were men, 28% women, Chan says.

American consumers spent an estimated $220 million at such fee-based "adult" sites in 2001, according to Jupiter Media Metrix, a New York Internet research firm. That was up from $148 million in 1999. Jupiter is projecting $320 million by 2005.

Sex sells. See it in the commercials on want an attractive person in life get a car, get milk, get the right perfume, clothes, get the bud light and to those kind of ads, we should say, get a life! But sex sells or rather the misuse of sex sells, is that not right? Those businesses that are going bankrupt on the Internet, you haven’t seen many of them going bankrupt that have to do with illicit sex, have you? They’re the ones who are making it. An estimated 20 million Americans visit sex-related Web sites every month, and something like 200,000 Americans are compulsively addicted to Internet pornography. Not only that, but our attitudes about sexuality have changed drastically even in the last 30 or 40 years. Just this past week, we hear of a school teacher charged with possession and trafficking of child porno.

According to the Toronto Star story: Police arrested a nice-looking 35 year old David Lynch, at his work at Toronto’s Royal St. George’s College on Friday (Feb15, 2002) and seized three computers and other computer equipment from both the school and his home nearby. Lynch faces charges of possessing and importing child pornography. Police said the material seized included images and written material depicting both boys and girls as young as the age of one. The school, with annual fees of about $15,000, broke the news to parents this past Monday at school meetings. You think, you can be safe from sexual predators and deviancy when you enrol your kids in expensive classy well-heeled schools but no way, it is everywhere and with the help of the hi-tech and the Net, it’s spiralling out of control!

"There’s so much (child pornography) out there it’s staggering," said an authority in the field. There are as many as 200 such investigations that are ongoing in the city and Toronto Police Chief Julian Fantino said his force is overwhelmed and needs more resources to tackle the problem.

"The realities are the technical aspect of these investigations has indeed become very, very onerous," he said Tuesday. Calling child pornography pervasive, he said the force needs funding to develop a stand-alone unit of six officers dedicated to child pornography investigations with start-up costs of about $350,000. "It’s peanuts compared to the victimization of one child," Fantino said. "The Internet is out of control," Ellis said. "Trying to police something with no borders or restrictions offering virtual anonymity and vast amounts of storage and all for very cheap certainly provides the atmosphere for people to do what they want."

A current poll done in Canada.com website ask this question “do you enjoy sexually explicit material on television, in print or on the internet?” and the respondents reply with 81.84% yes and 18.16% no. Is this not a tremendous issue in our culture today?

A lighthouse keeper who worked on a rocky stretch of coastline and received his new supply of oil only once a month to keep the light burning. One night a woman from the village begged some oil to keep her family warm. Another time a father asked for some to use in his lamp. Another needed some to lubricate a wheel. The lighthouse keeper tried to please everyone and granted them all. He became popular guy. Toward the end of the month he noticed that the supply of oil was very low. Soon, it was all gone, and the beacon light went out. That night several ships were wrecked and lives were lost. When the authorities investigated, the man was very repentant. To his excuses and pleading their reply was, “You were given the oil for one purpose -–to keep that light burning!”