Sex Outside

"How beautiful and pleasant you are, O loved one, with all your delights" (Song of Songs 7:6).

You could cross time, culture, and nations asking people what they find most alluring, and I guarantee that one of the top answers would be the opposite sex.  They delight, entice, confuse, and irritate, but no matter what, it is hard to get them off your mind.  Satan is perfectly aware of this fact, and he uses his influence to capture and enslave.  There are those who seek to make money by keeping lust inflamed through pornography, on the internet or otherwise.  This is the reason that sexual sin permeates society. 

As Christians, we are called to run from these things, "Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body" (1 Corinthians 6:18).  The Scripture reveals the difference between sexual sin and other sins as well as the seriousness of becoming involved in sexual sin.  It is something that contaminates the body as well as the spirit.  What I mean by this is that sexual intercourse is meant to be shared between no one but those who are married.  The reason for this is that sex forms a connection between two people the persists whether we want it to or not.  This connection is so real, so binding, and so lasting that Paul considers the act of sex akin to marriage, "Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute [or anyone else] is one with her in body?  For it is said, 'The two will become one flesh'" (1 Corinthians 6:16).  When you have sex with someone, you bind yourself to them.  When this connection is broken, it causes a lot of damage, spiritual and emotional, and part of that connection can never be broken.  This damage is not always realized at the moment of the broken relationship.  Many times it is not realized until years later, usually once a person gets married and engages in the appropriate sexual actions of a spouse.  The mind starts to remember the images, smells, and feelings of previous encounters, and this makes committing to sex with just your spouse difficult because you remember your sexual experiences with others.  It will bring distrust into your marriage.  It can cause your spouse to feel betrayed, undesired, or even unloved.

In order to avoid this pain, Christians are told very clearly in Scripture that sex outside of marriage is an abomination to God, "Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous" (Hebrews 13:4).  When one engages in any sexual action from caressing certain areas to sexual intercourse, they dishonor the person they are with, their future spouse, the future spouse of that person, God's institution of marriage, and the name of God Himself.  God will not hold such a person guiltless.

Some might argue that they are in love, and that should allow them to have sex before marriage.  One of my pastors said something once that I will never forget, "You cannot fall in love.  You can fall in infatuation."  It means that love is not a feeling.  It is not an uncontrollable emotion that makes resisting the advances of another impossible.  That feeling is lust and infatuation.  It is the youthful desire we are told to flee from, "Now flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart" (2 Timothy 2:22).  If love was that feeling, then how can God be telling us to flee from it and pursue it?  Consider the great love passage.  The first thing it says about love is, "Love is patient" (1 Corinthians 13:4).  It also says that, "It [love] does not insist on its own way" (1 Corinthians 13:5).  This does not sound like the uncontrollable passions of sex before marriage.  Love waits for the right time.  If it doesn't, it is not love.

This lust is a powerful thing, though.  Many do not understand it, and fewer still understand how it effects males and females differently.  For a long time I merely assumed that lust in males and lust in females worked essentially in the same way.  I was right and yet so very wrong. 

I am not even going to attempt to create a comprehensive study on that topic, but I will lay down a couple warnings:

Women, girls, and all females listen up.  You have no idea the level of stimulation that comes through a man's eyes.  Even if you are married, do not think that you fully grasp it because you don't.  You have not experienced how difficult a battle it truly is without living it 24/7.  It entangles and ensnares even those who hate it.  When you dress in an immodest way, you conjure lust within him.  I am not going to draw a standard and give you a list of clothes that you cannot wear.  The reason is twofold:  my standard is not the same as any other man's, and you should be listening to God about your choice in clothes.  Does that sound strange?  Listen to God about how you should dress.  It shouldn't.  God should be the guiding force in our lives.  Why should that not include dress?  However, if you are still having a difficult time dressing appropriately, consider the heart decision behind why you are picking out that particular piece of clothing.  Is it because you like the color or the style?  Is it because it shows off your figure?  Who are you trying to show your figure off to?  You desire to be desired, I know, but is it good to prey on the weakness of your brothers in order to satisfy this desire?  "I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases" (Songs of Songs 8:4).  Wait until you are married, and then seek this attention from your husband as it pleases God to do so.

Men, it is all too easy to think that we are off the hook in this area.  We are not.  We need to dress modestly as well.  Women may not fall as easily to sin because of visual stimulation as we do, but that does not mean that they do not.  It certainly does not mean that we can try to cause them to stumble.  So, keep your shirts on, literally.  God will not hold us any less guilty for that kind of immodesty.

Guys, do not lead people on.  This is for both men and women.  Even when sex is not part of a relationship, spiritual and emotional bonds can be made between people, and these bonds can be very painful when broken.  Unfortunately, this does happen.  We are told to guard our hearts for this very reason, "Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life" (Proverbs 4:23).  However, some lead people on.  They date for their own amusement, to satisfy their own desire or insecurities with no serious consideration to continue the relationship for the long haul.  How is that honoring your brother or sister!  How is that loving them!  What is the greatest commandment?  "And he said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the great and first commandment.  And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself'" (Matthew 22:37-39).  If you are dating someone, you should have a serious consideration of possibly marrying them later on.  This is not to say that you are ready to ask them or say yes, but you need to be able to see that possibility.  Think about them for a second.  Can you see yourself committing to this person for the rest of your life?  If the answer is no, you need to stop taking advantage of them and end the relationship.

The first sexual union was described like this, "Then the man said, 'This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.'  Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh" (Genesis 2:23-24).  C.S. Lewis said that the monstrosity of sexual intercourse outside of marriage is attempting to take one form of union apart from the others God intended it to go with.  Sex is the union of two people, body, mind, spirit.  To join like this without the marriage covenant will only cause pain and injury, sometimes so severe it can never fully heal.  God would save you from that pain.

Beyond that, Christians are called to a higher standard than that of the world.  If we live at the sexual standard of the world, we blaspheme the name of God before the world, and they will blaspheme His name because of us.  Do not think there will be no consequences!  God's wrath will be poured out on you in any number of ways, or He will simply abandon you to your sin.  It will distance you from God, and He will not hear you.  You will certainly not hear Him.  If that doesn't cause fear or that sick, empty feeling in your stomach, you should consider how far away from God you already are.  You know better than to fall to the world's standard, "For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God" (1 Thessalonians 4:2-4).  There should not even be a hint of sexual immorality among God's people, "But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints" (Ephesians 5:3).  Instead you should act in accordance with who God is and who He made you to be, "But as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, 'You shall be holy, for I am holy'" (1 Peter 1:15-16).