God vs. Culture: Sexual Purity

God created man as sexual beings. Sex exists to provide procreation and unmatched intimacy. It is beautiful and expressive of a boundless love. Humans desire it and will overcome seemingly unsurmountable obstacles to pursue it. Limitations have been placed on sex within the pages of God's Word. These parameters stand in stark contrast to the world's view of sexual relations.

Satan uses the lure of sexual attraction against men in order to pull them from God. His success rate is incredible. Men will leave everything they love in shambles to pursue it. Like alcohol and drugs, sex is a path to destruction.

Today's culture is saturated with illicit sex. Seemingly, nothing escapes its stain. Sexual imagery permeates advertising, touching almost every product. Magazine racks in grocery stores scream cleavage and sex tips for young and old to see. Pornography is everywhere. Clothing is designed to make even the youngest girls into sexual fantasies. It pounds on the doors of kid's television, movies and mangas and fights to gain access. The "Shrek" movies are an example of its inroads into children's entertainment. Its tethers have reached into every aspect of our lives and we are far past the stage of pretending otherwise.

Cohabitation is replacing marriage as the preferred living arrangement. Rap promotes illicit sex obsessively. Therefore, fornication is being pushed upon children as the norm. Too often, parents and churches do nothing to counter this barrage of sin while their young people become involved in this lifestyle.

Scripture speaks often of sexual matters. A knowledge of Scripture's teaching on marriage and the place sex has within the bond, is indispensable to a happy marriage. The Song of Solomon expresses the beauty of love within marriage. Unfaithfulness to God is compared to the pain and betrayal involved in adultery (Ezekiel 23).

God created sex as a beautiful act to be enjoyed within the proper context (Proverbs 5:15-20). Sex should only exist within the marriage bond. "Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge" (Hebrews 13:4). Fornication refers to any illicit sexual activity. Adultery is when one of the participants in a marriage has sex with an individual outside of marriage. Both are sins and can destroy marriage (Matthew 19:9).

God knows the dangers in sexual activity. Diseases, heartache, self-hatred, suicides, broken marriages and unwanted pregnancies are the hazards of fornication, in a physical and emotional sense. To God, illicit sexual activity can send us to hell eternally (1 Corinthians 5:1-5, Romans 1:26-27,29).

In God's plan, spouses have a different tenor to their relationship than couples in the world. "The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does" (1 Corinthians 7:4). They are "not to deprive one another except with consent for a time" so as to protect against sexual unfaithfulness ( 1 Corinthians 5). Therefore, spouses do not have the right to utilize sexual blackmail in order to get their way. They have a responsibility to their spouse to help them remain pure.

Sex is a great gift of God within marriage. Outside of marriage, it is destructive. Sexual diseases run rampant today. Abstinence before marriage and sex only within marriage, would ostensibly end these diseases overnight. This is God's plan. But, since it conflicts with the hedonistic culture of our day, it is ridiculed and abandoned by the world. So sad that people seek to ruin a beautiful creation of God.

- By Richard Mansel