If there is one word that is bound to get people’s immediate attention it is the word “Sex”. That word is powerful and eye-catching.

A little boy came home from his first day at his new school with a question; “Mum! What is sex?” His mum was taken aback. She had not expected this question after only one day at school and wondered what they were teaching the children at this new school. After doing some quick thinking she decided that this was probably a good time to explain “the birds and the bees” to her young son. The explanation about mummies and daddies and babies took a bit of time and a lot of thinking. When she has finished her son held up his health card from school and, with a bewildered expression, said; “Boy mum, how are we going to fit all that in this little box here where it says, ‘SEX’?!”¹

Sex, of course, begins with something as simple as just marking down whether you are male or female. But it doesn’t stay that simple, especially living in our present society.

The Present Situation⤒🔗

There was a time when people hardly talked about sexual matters and all you saw on TV or the movies was a kiss. Those days have long gone. Now sexuality is out in the open; it is flaunted and exposed; it is used and abused; it is on display in movies and videos and on TV – especially in advertising. Beautiful women are used to sell everything from perfume to chainsaws, from shampoo to safety gear, from coffee to cars. We live in a society saturated with sex.

Not only are sexual matters openly displayed but sex is widely practiced without any restraint or boundaries. A quarter of young New Zealanders 15 years and younger are sexually active. That figure climbs to 45% for 15 to 17 year olds. By the time they are 20 the majority of young New Zealanders have experienced sex. Teenagers set themselves up for sexual immorality with a combination of parties, alcohol and drugs. But it isn’t just the party setting that encourages sexual promiscuity; 74% of girls said they lost their virginity at home around 4 pm, before their parents came home from work.

All this has serious life-changing consequences. A study published in 2003 showed that New Zealand has the third highest rate of teen pregnancies out of the 30 OECD countries. Rates of sexually transmitted diseases are going through the roof.

The Underlying Problem←⤒🔗

Underlying these disturbing statistics is a deeper problem: immoral relationships are indulged without any moral framework. Recently a principal of an intermediate school was quoted as saying; “Kids will experiment with all sorts of things and sex is just like cigarettes and other naughty things.” If a school principal can down-play the importance of the sexual relationship in a comment like this it is little wonder that young people themselves take it very casually.

Our society has lost its moral base. People have discarded the Bible as the basis for ethics. God and his laws are ignored. We are in a sea of relativism. There are no moral standards applied to the sexual relationship and there is no meaningful discussion as to what is right or wrong.

Nor are the law-makers of our country giving us any help in this area. As I write a select committee is considering the Civil Union Bill – a Bill that, if passed, would give all couples, regardless of their sexual orientation and relationship, the same legal standing before the law.

Nothing New Under the Sun←⤒🔗

The immorality of the 21st century has a long history. Twenty centuries ago, in the time of the early church, Greek and Roman culture was rife with immorality, especially because it was closely connected with pagan religion and ritual prostitution. Most people were tolerant of sexual promiscuity. Divorce and remarriage were common. In Rome the wealthy women identified the years by the names of their husbands. One writer noted one woman who had eight husbands in five years. (She would have been in good company with many of the so-called ‘stars’ of Hollywood today). Men in Greek society kept prostitutes for pleasure, mistresses for company and wives for having legitimate children and looking after their homes. Both men and women in that culture lived “in passionate lust” because they did “not know God” (1 Thess 4:5). They took God’s beautiful gift of sex and turned love into lust – an unrestrained feeling that masters a man and abuses a woman.

God’s Command←⤒🔗

One of God’s commands is that we should “avoid sexual immorality”. (1 Thess 4:3). In the Scriptures this refers to any kind of improper sexual relationship or expression including adultery, incest, homosexuality, prostitution and bestiality. These were practiced in the Greek and Roman culture and most of these are widespread in our day and age and in our society. The Lord’s command is clear: avoid all sexual immorality; stay away from it; give it a wide berth. Think of Joseph who ran out of the house when tempted by Potiphar’s wife. All of us, single and married, need to avoid temptation in this area. Don’t watch films that are full of affairs and adultery; these will weaken your attitude to these sins. They will de-sensitize your conscience regarding this evil. Those of us who are married and find ourselves attracted to another person need to deal ruthlessly with that temptation. Don’t give it any space. Keep away from that other person. No one should think they are beyond falling in this area.

The Apostle Paul warned us; 'if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!'1 Corinthians 10:12

The Right Context←⤒🔗

All of this is not to oppose the sexual relationship itself. The sexual relationship is a gift of God to be enjoyed but it must be shared in the context of marriage. God intended it to be enjoyed in the context of the commitment, stability and security of marriage – of a relationship where a man and a woman have made public legal promises to each other.

C.S. Lewis has a good illustration of this where he compared sex to a fire. A fire works well in a woodburner or fireplace. It gives heat and light and makes the room cozy. But if it leaps out of the fireplace it causes much destruction and damage. So too with sex. God designed it to function within the fireplace of marriage where it will give intimacy, warmth and joy. Take it out of that context and it will be physically, emotionally and spiritually destructive.

God has also given us marriage to prevent immorality. Paul explained this to the church in Corinth when he told them that “since there is so much immorality each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband” (1 Cor 7:2). The sexual desire is strong. That is how God has made us. But God wills that the pleasures of the sexual relationship are to be enjoyed only with our spouse. This is why the Bible celebrates sexual love in marriage, as in the Song of Songs and these verses from the book of Proverbs:

May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer – may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love.Proverbs 5:18-19

A healthy and satisfying sexual relationship is an important part of marriage and will help us to avoid sexual immorality.

Honour One Another←⤒🔗

The Lord wants all Christians, single or married, young or old, to be holy in all our relationships. We must be different from the people of the world. Most of the young people in New Zealand will not be virgins when they marry; God wants us to be different – he wants us to be pure. Many married people will have an affair at some time in their marriage or they will separate and divorce; God wants us to be different – he wants us to be holy. People in the world will make coarse and rude jokes about the sexual relationship; God wants us to be different – he wants us to avoid “obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place.” Young men are to treat “older women as mothers and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity” (1 Tim 5:2). Those of us who are married must treat our spouse with purity, respect and honour.

Honouring one another also means we will wait with sex until marriage. A sexual relationship before marriage is against God’s commands and it dishonours the other person. You take away from that young woman the purity she should give to her husband on the day she marries. You also wrong her father by violating his daughter, and you wrong her future husband by taking a precious gift that belongs to him. Christian young people who are going together or who are engaged must make every effort to keep sex until their wedding day and so keep the marriage bed undefiled.

Too Late?←⤒🔗

Some of you may be thinking that you would have liked to be pure and holy and to keep sex within the bounds of marriage – but it is too late – you have already sinned against the Lord and against others in this area. Perhaps you sinned in ignorance because you did not know about God’s commands. Or perhaps you did know God’s commands and will but you rebelled anyway. Maybe you have already lost that purity that the Bible describes. Maybe you have already wronged another sexually.

These are sins and we should not make light of them. Yet you must also remember that if you repent of your sin God promises to forgive you and to cleanse you of all unrighteousness. If you truly repent God will forgive you and not hold that against you.

And all is not lost. You can make a new beginning. Think of Rahab who was a prostitute in Jericho. As Israel prepared to attack her city she feared the judgment of God and pleaded that they would spare her life. Later on, after Israel had taken the city, she married an Israelite named Salmon and she became an ancestor of David and of Jesus (Matt 1:5). We should take encouragement from this example and from the Lord’s promises of forgiveness.

We live in a society that flaunts sex and is inundated with sexuality. God’s laws are either unknown or ignored. In this context God commands us to avoid sexual immorality. If you are single he wants you to be pure and holy and to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. If you are married the Lord wants you to enjoy the fulfilment of the sexual relationship within the context of that relationship of husband and wife and to work together in his church and kingdom. In all we do the Lord wants us to be “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” (1 Pet 2:9).