Sex Is Not Just A Three Lettered Word

Why is sex so dangerous, and how can sex be everything God wants it to be for us. We are going to take a comprehensive look at what the Bible has to say about sex. It is really interesting today, though, because sex is such an incredibly important part of our culture. It is the driving force in our economy. Sex sells. Those businesses that are going bankrupt on the Internet, you haven’t seen many of them going bankrupt that have to do with 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.

The question is, is sex before marriage morally acceptable? How many people do you think said, "no", it is not morally acceptable? What percentage of people in 1969? Who has a guess? What is it, 80? What else, 70? It was 68% of the people even during the sexual revolution of the 60’s, it was 68% of the people said that sex before marriage was morally unacceptable, morally wrong. Now what percentage do you think it was in May of this year, 29, 20, 19? It’s a little better than you guys are expecting, but still shows a slip; it’s 38%. 38% of people in the survey said that sex before marriage is morally unacceptable. Our whole attitude about sexuality has changed in our culture. 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. This is a tremendous issue in our culture today.

Why have our views changed so much? What’s going on in our culture today? Well, I think what we have to do is go back to the source of this whole thing and that is that our culture has lost its moorings and particularly lost a sense of what the Bible teaches about these key issues and certainly about the whole area of sexuality. In other words, whatever the Bible has to say about sex, it’s not important for me today. We live in an enlightened world. We go by what we feel, we go by what science teaches and the stuff that’s in the Bible doesn’t really matter. That comes down to a really theological perspective. That is a philosophical, religious, theological choice that says, I know better how to understand reality than God does in the Bible. I don’t believe that that’s God word. I don’t believe that that’s Him speaking to man; therefore, I can trust myself, I can trust scientists, I can trust my teachers, but I don’t trust the Bible.

What’s happened is we’ve lost our moorings, and we’ve forgotten that really in a truer sense, theology, the study of God, the doctrine of God, the knowledge of God and how he’s made us is life. Theology is life. In other words, we can’t understand the world unless we understand God and how he’s made the world. We can’t just cut off our lives from the source and expect we can understand reality. That’s why we see the devastation that we see today in our world and, particularly, in whole area of sexuality.

This is going to be a very important series for us as men because there are few things in life that have the potential to bring as much joy as sex. Let’s face it, if sex wasn’t a lot of fun, it wouldn’t be such a big deal. Right? It wouldn’t be such a big deal. At the same time, few things in life have such potential to bring such pain and devastation as sex. You know men who, for a few moments of pleasure, have cratered their lives. What they had worked for, what they have cherished for five, ten, fifteen, twenty years, they have thrown it all away for a few moments of pleasure. That’s how powerful sexuality is.

This is going to be an important thing for us, not only from the standpoint from avoiding the pitfalls and the dangers, but also from being able to celebrate a gift that God has given to us in the context of marriage.

If you will turn in your Scriptures, if you brought your Bible today, to 1Corinthians: Chapter 6. You may be here and you’re not married today. Let me say that this series we are going to do still applies to you in a number of ways. First of all, you may be married one day. There may come a time when God brings someone into your life and you get married but, also hopefully, it’s going to reinforce your values and your views about sexuality and why it is so important to treat it as Holy and to save it for the context of marriage. You’re going to see it’s good to experience short-term frustration for long-term blessing. That’s a principle all through the Scriptures. It’s good to experience short-term frustration for long-term blessing.