Sexual Purity

SEXUAL PURITY

We really live in a confused and confusing world! We have so many conflicting messages coming at us that it is difficult to know what to think or believe. This is especially true for people who do not have exposure to regular and direct Biblical teaching on life itself. Have you been to the movies lately or watched any television? Read any of the popular fictional books or magazines? It seems that we are a society that is submerged in the seamier side of life. Christians are not isolated nor insulated from such influence. Even in the business world, it is difficult to carry on a conversation without sexual connotations creeping into the conversation. Business relationships with other companies are referred to in terms of dating, dancing, opening the kimono, going to bed, etc. We see and hear all of this and we should wonder, "What is happening to Christian America?" It almost seems as if the greatest Christian nation on earth is trying to outdo the pagan world in depravity. I think that this is evidence that we have and are continuing to drift (maybe run) away from God and have slipped into a secular society where righteousness and sexual purity is of questionable value. Living in such surroundings can have significant influence on Christians.

We all have a need for food and get a great deal of satisfaction from eating, however, unless we control that appetite in a disciplined fashion, we may wind up weighing 500 pounds. In a similar way, we need to recognize that we are sexual beings and that part of our nature should be given proper attention to meet the needs in a controlled and disciplined way. What works best, and we believe is in line with God’s will for meeting these needs, is a monogamous marriage relationship. This is what the Bible teaches. In one of the discussions that Jesus had with the religious leaders of His day, the subject of divorce came up. The Pharisees were trying to get Him to say something that conflicted with the law of Moses. The answer that Jesus gave addressed what God had intended as a framework for sexual expression.

"Haven’t you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator ’made them male and female,’ and said, ’For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’ ? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." Matthew 19:4-6

God’s plan since the Creation (at the beginning) was that our sexuality should find its expression in a male-female relationship of a husband and wife. The implication here is that God has not sanctioned sexual expression that is not male-female AND He has not sanctioned even this expression outside of marriage. The importance of the marriage relationship can be seen in its comparison to the parent-child relationship. It is difficult for us to imagine a stronger, more caring, un-conditional love and acceptance relationship than that of a parent-child relationship. However, Jesus said that the marriage relationship takes priority over even the parent-to-child relationship.

The expression "what God hath joined together" may be speaking of the intent and type of relationship and strength of unity in the relationship. God’s design for us was the male-female sexuality, He intended for that relationship to take priority over all others, and He intended for it to be unifying in that we are to build on each other’s strengths and make up for each other’s weaknesses.

The result of the proper expression of our sexuality has a very practical outcome: it produces more people and places them in an environment where they can grow and be properly nourished. This is in line with God’s plan that we populate the earth. Improper expression of a our sexuality can also result in producing people (babies); however, this can also produce a problem of how to care for these babies that are not brought into a family setting - that are not born to a husband and wife. The world’s way of dealing with this problem is to eliminate the baby before it is born. We are all familiar with what has been called the American Holocaust where our society has sacrificed over 30 million unborn children to the god of "irresponsible free-dom". We recoil in horror at the story of how Pharaoh ordered the killing of children in Egypt, of the people of Canaan practicing child sacrifice to the pagan god Molech and how Herod the Great ordered the killing of the children in Bethlehem and yet we passively yawn at the news of 30 million deaths since 1973 just because it was done in a doctor’s office and was perpetrated against an unborn child. Obviously, we are not adequately seeing the seriousness of the problem.