Better Than "Safe Sex!"

I just read a synopsis of the new “Real World” series in the Parents Television Council’s Weekly Wrap for June 17, 2005.

“Next week MTV will kick-off the 16th season of its long-running reality series, The Real World. This time the action takes place in Austin, TX. From hot tub threesomes, to night-cam sex romps, this youth-targeted series celebrates drunkenness and debauchery. This season's cast includes, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, a self-proclaimed "nymph" who in the first episode alone can be seen streaking through the house nude and kissing another woman to the delight of her male housemates. Teasers hint at housemate hook-ups, and one 23-year-old cast member losing her virginity.”

Sexual themes abound in daytime and prime time television programs such as “Sex in the City,” “One Tree Hill,” “The OC,” “What I Like About You,” and others. Add to the mix sexy commercials and magazine ads, sexually provocative lyrics in songs, sexually explicit movies, and the latest “pimps and hos” fashion trends, and it’s no wonder that today’s teens have a difficult time keeping their sexuality in check.

According to the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fact sheet titled "The Truth about Adolescent Sexuality"

• 45.6 percent of high school students (48.5 percent of males and 42.9 percent of females) reported having had sexual intercourse
• 33.4 percent of students reported they were currently sexually active (defined as having had sexual intercourse in the three months preceding the study)
  
• 6.6 percent of students reported initiating sexual intercourse before age 13
  
• 14.2 percent of students (17.2 percent of males and 11.4 percent of females) reported having had sexual intercourse with four or more partners

The good news, if there is any in these statistics, is that the percentage of students having sexual intercourse is down almost eight percent since 1995. Slight though it may be, the trend is downward and I hope to see it continue in that direction.

One thing that may well have contributed to this decline is teen sexual behavior is the renewed acceptance of abstinence as a viable alternative for young people. Many church youth groups are challenging their young people to take a vow of abstinence or to sign a commitment to remain sexually pure until marriage. I believe that this is definitely a step in the right direction.

Unfortunately, another contribution to this decline could be the blurring of the distinction between intercourse and other sexual activity by our former president and by the media.

The Alan Guttmacher Institute recently issued a special report titled, “Oral Sex Among Adolescents: Is It Sex or Is It Abstinence?” The reports title begs the question: Is anything other than intercourse really sex? Planned parenthood and our public schools seem to place virtually no prohibitions on any sexual activity for children, teens, or adults other than to use protection. In some circles, oral sex is virtually glorified as an acceptable alternative to intercourse. In others, it’s not considered sex at all.

I am a firm believer in abstinence before marriage not only for teenagers but for young adults as well. (And I’m talking about abstinence from ANY kind of physical intimacy; not just sexual intercourse!) True abstinence is the only true form of “safe sex.” One needs to go no further than the Bible to find the origin of this concept.

It is good for a man not to touch a woman.
(1 Corinthians 7:1b NASB)

This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. (Genesis 2:24 NLT)

Give honor to marriage, and remain faithful to one another in marriage. God will surely judge people who are immoral and those who commit adultery. (Hebrews 4:13 NLT)

In a world where we’re bombarded with sexual images and where television shows depict normal teenagers as sexually active and only geeks and losers refraining from sex, kids get the impression that “everybody’s doing it” and are pressured to join the crowd. Peer pressure is brutal and the consequences of not fitting in are devastating at best. Truth is, however, more than half of the young people in the U. S. are NOT having sex!

Campus Life magazine, in its September/October 2002 issue included an excellent article titled, “Everybody’s Not Doing It” by Stephanie Sheaffer. In this article, Ms. Sheaffer confesses,

“I'm glad I grew up in a family where my parents cared about what I saw and did. I'm glad my parents never let me watch PG-13 movies until I was 13. I'm glad my parents wouldn't let me go on a date with the boy I'd just met at a fast-food restaurant. I'm glad my parents told me it's not OK to have sex before I'm married. I'm glad my parents told me to keep certain things private. I know they love me because they give me standards to live by.

“They told me that some things are not to be shared with everyone. They taught me it's OK to blush. Some people may whisper about how I'm repressed and not experiencing life to the fullest. I disagree because, remember, I'm not the one who's pregnant. I don't have a sexually transmitted disease. I'm not concerned about birth control. I simply refuse to buy into the idea that sex is all that matters.”

Part of the payoff for being “sexually free,” according to Ms. Sheaffer, is the possibility of getting pregnant or contracting a sexually transmitted disease. The best way to NOT worry about pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases is to NOT have sex in any form! And while abstinence is a way to accomplish that, it may seem to some like a difficult discipline depriving them of normal pleasure.

I have an even better idea, however, for Christian teens to consider—one that involves more than just a person’s abstinence from sexual behavior. This is the concept of chastity. Chastity is the spiritual condition of purity that has to do with the body, the soul, and the spirit. The Bible has much to say about purity.

Teach me your ways, O LORD, that I may live according to your truth! Grant me purity of heart, that I may honor you. (Psalm 86:11 NLT)

Fire tests the purity of silver and gold, but the LORD tests the heart. (Proverbs 17:3 NLT)

We have proved ourselves by our purity, our understanding, our patience, our kindness, our sincere love, and the power of the Holy Spirit.
(2 Corinthians 6:6 NLT)

Because we have these promises, dear friends, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that can defile our body or spirit. And let us work toward complete purity because we fear God. (2 Corinthians 7:1 NLT)

Don't let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers in what you teach, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity. (1 Timothy 4:12 NLT)

Treat the older women as you would your mother, and treat the younger women with all purity as your own sisters. (1 Timothy 5:2 NLT)

And I command you before God, who gives life to all, and before Christ Jesus, who gave a good testimony before Pontius Pilate, that you obey his commands with all purity. Then no one can find fault with you from now until our Lord Jesus Christ returns.
(1 Timothy 6:13-14 NLT)

God’s Word gives us good incentives to remain pure. No where in the Bible does God demand anything of us without also providing us with a benefit in return. Chastity is no exception. Its demand is preceded by sufficient motivation and power from God to make it not only possible, but profitable. (See 2 Peter 1:3) The payoff for being pure and chaste, besides being free from worry about pregnancy and STDs, is the ability to stand blameless before God and to receive His favor. Abstaining from sex is something you do, being chaste, however, is part of who you are.

Dr. Richard D. Dobbins, in an advice column for CBN.com, titled "Why Shoiuld I Save Sex for Marriage?" stated that,

"Certainly the greatest reward of confining sexual fantasies and practices to marriage is to have a conscience free from devastating sexual guilt, disappointment, and regret. I believe that more self-respect is sacrificed at the altar of sexual indulgence than in any other activity in modern America."

Chastity allows you to preserve the one thing that you have to offer that one special person who God brings into your life to be your help mate--yourself! You can only give yourself completely to one person one time. In God's grand scheme of things husband and wife were to save themselves for each other and then at the right moment, under the right circumstances, they were to give themselves totally to each other for all time with virtually no restrictions.

Young people who engage in sex before marriage cheat their potential life partner out of the one thing that would make their relationship unique and special. There is only one first time, and that should be experienced by two people who have committed to each other "'til death us do part." Young people who engage in sex with multiple partners before marriage give pieces of themselves to each person with whom they have sex, so that whomever they marry, at best, gets only leftovers. What kind of marriage could be built on that kind of a shaky foundation? It's no wonder half of all marriages today end up in divorce.

Lauren F. Winner writes in "Sex in the Body of Christ" (Christianity Today, May 2005):

“Sex is, in Paul's image, a joining of your body to someone else's. In baptism, you have become Christ's body, and it is Christ's body that must give you permission to join his body to another body. In the Christian grammar, we have no right to sex. The place where the church confers that privilege on you is the wedding; weddings grant us license to have sex with one person. Chastity, in other words, is a fact of gospel life. In the New Testament, sex beyond the boundaries of marriage—the boundaries of communally granted sanction of sex—is simply off limits. To have sex outside those bounds is to commit an offense against the body. Abstinence before marriage, and fidelity within marriage; any other kind of sex is embodied apostasy.”

Sex outside of marriage is clearly NOT a part of God’s plan for any believer’s life. It is the joining of Christ’s body to that of another without His permission or blessing. Within marriage, however, sex is a physical demonstration of the kind of intimacy God wants us to share with Him spiritually. The oneness between husband and wife during sexual intercourse represents the degree of spiritual oneness God wants us to have with Him.

Sex is not wrong when experienced in the context of marriage. It is to be celebrated by husbands and wives as a gift from God and an example of how very much He loves and wants to be intimate with us. Christians need not be ashamed of or embarrassed by the thought or mention of sex. God created and approved of it.

C. S. Lewis wrote in his Mere Christianity[1]:

“I know some muddle-headed Christians have talked as if Christianity thought that sex, or the body, or pleasure, were bad in themselves. But they were wrong. Christianity is almost the only one of the great religions which thoroughly approves of the body—which believes that matter is good, that God Himself once took on a human body, that some kind of body is going to be given to us even in Heaven and is going to be an essential part of our happiness, our beauty, and our energy. Christianity has glorified marriage more than any other religion: and nearly all the greatest love poetry in the world has been produced by Christians. If anyone says that sex, in itself, is bad, Christianity contradicts him at once.”

God never created anything for our good and then withheld it for no good reason. Sex is no exception. God created male and female, and He created sex as a means of pleasure as well as procreation. When we commit to indulge in sexual intimacy ONLY within the God-ordained confines of a marriage relationship, we are laying the groundwork for the most gratifying and fulfilling sexual experiences possible. Even secular statistics point out that the most fulfilling sexual experiences are had by married, religious couples. Chastity is not denying oneself of all sexual pleasure, but merely postponing it until the time and under the circumstance where it can be enjoyed the most.

For more excellent biblical teaching on chastity and abstinence, visit http://www.chastitycall.org/.

[1] Lewis, Clive Staples. Mere Christianity. Macmillan, Inc. 1952