Sex And The City Of God

With the advent of television’s Sex and the City, and a host of shows like it, it should be apparent that our nation is in a moral free fall. The whole idea of who we are and how we should live has become so distorted that it has corrupted our vision of what God created us to be. Rather than being the highest form of intimacy between a man and wife who are committed to each other, it has been trivialized to the point of being a game that is played with any number of partners. It has been divorced from relationship, commitment and intimacy, and is merely a sport — and one which is not even taken seriously. In the last episode of Friends, Rachel suggests to Ross that, “Sleeping together is the perfect way to say goodbye.” Evidently it is the perfect answer to almost any situation. Jeremiah the prophet asks the question, “Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush” (Jeremiah 6:15). This moral crisis is affecting every area of American life — church, family and government. It affects how we relate to each other and how we see other people.

When I planned this sermon a few weeks ago, I decided that since I was using the title of the television show as a sort of cultural tag in the title of the sermon, perhaps I should watch an episode to see what it was like. I tried, I really did. Twice I began to watch, and I couldn’t get through it either time. Mostly because it was so unbelievably superficial and shallow, but also because of its raw crudeness. It is a reflection of the extreme narcissism of our day. Vacuous is a kind word for the content of much of what fills the television schedule, and it seems to be getting worse by the day. My concern is that even good people may be getting pulled into the deception with which our culture is routinely brainwashing us. We may be the most tempted people ever to live on the face of the earth. Certainly, temptation and opportunity have always been with us, but never has it been more available. Television, movies and the Internet are available to us at little or no cost, and pornographic material is abundant and private. The point is that we have to be on our guard more than ever before.

So what should our attitude toward sex be? Should we be afraid of it? Should we avoid the subject altogether? Should we act as though what is happening to our culture is nothing to be worry about? I want to address this today by giving the biblical view of human sexuality. I want to talk about God’s original plan, the nature of what he planned and the design for his plan. Let’s look at what the Bible has to say about this topic. First of all, we see that: The Bible presents sex as a gift of God. Christians through the years have often acted as though sex is of the devil. The topic of sex has often been taboo when the Bible is quite open about it. The Bible presents moral standards regarding the use of our sexuality, but it never treats it as something dirty or evil. In fact, the Bible dedicates an entire book to the subject. Read The Song of Solomon if you want to read explicit and beautiful language between two married lovers.

I am always amused when someone tells me that the sin the devil tempted Adam and Eve with in the garden was sexual. That would be impossible since God created Adam and Eve for each other and told them to “be fruitful and multiply.” Rather than forbidding them to come together, he said that they should be “one flesh.” The Bible says, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” (Genesis 2:24-25). They were not ashamed because they knew their Creator made them male and female, and it would have been unthinkable to be ashamed of God’s good and natural design for them. This is the way it was from the beginning. We were created as sexual creatures, and this is not only God’s plan, but his good and perfect gift.

C.S. Lewis in his book, The Screwtape Letters, tells the fictional story of Uncle Screwtape, a chief demon in Hell, and his nephew named Wormwood. Screwtape is training Wormwood on how to win over those who are devoted to the enemy — the enemy being God. He tells Wormwood that when demons are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy, normal, and satisfying form, they are in the Enemy’s [God’s] territory. He says to him, “We’ve won many a soul through pleasure. All the same it is His invention, not ours! He made the pleasures. All our research so far has not enabled us to produce one.” That is an important and wonderful truth. God created sexual pleasure. It is his gift. The evil one cannot create pleasure, he can only decline, distort and degrade this gift.