Sanctified Sex Series

In the late 60’s, MGM produced a movie based on the true-life experiences of a widower with 10 children who marries a widow with 8 of her own. The movie is a comedy entitled Yours, Mine, and Ours. Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball are the co-stars, who play the parts of Frank and Helen Beardsley, challenged with the enormous task of blending their two families into one.

Helen's teenage daughter, Colleen, has a boyfriend who is pressuring her to have sex to prove her love for him. She resists, but he mocks her for being old fashioned. On the night that Helen goes into labor with their 19th baby, Colleen seeks advice from her stepfather on how to deal with her demanding boyfriend. Take a look (show Yours, Mine and Ours scene).

As the scene opens, Frank helps a very pregnant Helen get ready to go to the hospital. With small children running through their upstairs bedroom, there is quite a commotion. Colleen enters the room needing to talk.

She begins, "I know this is a terrible time to talk about it, but Larry said…"

Frank interrupts her. "I've got a message for Larry. You tell him this is what it's all about. This is the real happening."

He looks around the room, with its circus-like atmosphere and a pregnant woman needing to get to the hospital, and then continues as he escorts Helen down the stairs to the waiting car.

"If you want to know what love really is, take a look around you," Frank chides.

"What are you two talking about?" Helen demands weakly.

Frank continues, "Take a good look at your mother."

"Not now!" Helen protests.

"Yes, now!" Frank insists. "It's giving life that counts, and until you're ready for it, all the rest is just a big fraud. All the crazy haircuts in the world won't keep it turning. Life isn't a love-in. It's the dishes and the orthodontist and the show repairman and ground round instead of roast beef. And I'll tell you something else. It isn't going to bed with a man that proves you're in love with him. It's getting up in the morning and facing the drab, miserable, wonderful everyday world with him that counts."

By that time, the trio has reached the front porch and looks out on the crowded front lawn populated by the rest of the family. Frank helps Helen into the car. She whispers, "Thank you, Frank. I never quite knew how to explain it to her."

Frank responds, "If we don't get you to the hospital fast, the rest of it is going to be explained right here." (Yours, Mine, and Ours, MGM/United Artists, 1968, written by Bob Carroll, Jr., directed by Melville Shavelson, 01:22:00 to 01:23:00; www. PreachingToday.com)

There is a vast difference between sex and love, but our culture has equated the two. As we approach the Second Coming of Christ, our culture encourages what they call “sexual freedom”, but such “freedom” has only brought bondage.

The sexual revolution of the 60’s was supposed to bring us real enlightenment, freedom from our sexual hang-ups, and barrels of fun. Instead, we got an AID’s epidemic, dozens of sexually transmitted diseases, and millions of broken homes.

That’s not the way God designed sex, for when He created sex, He called it “VERY GOOD” in Genesis 1:31. Sex is not some “dirty little secret” of every married couple. It’s a beautiful creation of God. The pastor who performed our wedding ceremony called it, “God’s Wedding Gift!” The point is, “Don’t spoil the gift!” Don’t take what God created as good and beautiful and ruin it by taking it outside the context of marriage.

You say, “Phil, what’s the harm? A little fun on the side cannot be all that bad. Why should I care about sexual purity?” 11. Well, if you turn with me to 1 Thessalonians 4, 1 Thessalonians 4, we’ll find five good reasons to keep sex within the confines of marriage.

1 Thessalonians 4:1-3 Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality... (ESV)

God wants you to be holy (or sanctified) in all your behavior. That means He wants you to be set apart, different, special, not like most of the rest of the world, which has cheapened sex. Specifically, God wants you to abstain from sexual immorality. Literally, stay far away from sexual immorality – i.e., any kind of sex outside of marriage. Why? Well, first of all, because…