October 28: North Carolina State - It was my second day at NCSU and I don't quite remember how it came up, but I was making a few Bible-centered comments about sex. Heather and a couple of her friends were listening and couldn't conceal their smiles. Evidently, I appeared to be terribly old-fashioned and out of touch to suggest that, in our day and age, it is still wrong to have premarital sex. Although there are plenty of young people who still hold to a standard of abstaining until marriage, there are plenty of others like Heather and her friends who may not know anyone who still believes this way. So, to them, I was a Neanderthal who they gawked at as if was an ancient museum specimen. Except I was a real, living (and they would soon find out, thinking) Neanderthal!
Some young people have sex simply for the physical feeling. Some do it for a sense of conquest over their partner. Some are addicted to sex as the next step after addiction to pornography, masturbation, etc. However, there are many students who would only have sex with someone they feel they truly love. I think Heather would fit into this latter category (although I suspect her friends might not have).
Heather kept grinning at my comments until she could contain herself no longer. "What's wrong with premarital sex?" she asked. I don't think she was prepared for where the next 30 - 40 minutes of discussion would take her.
She acknowledged right up front - without any shame at all - that she sleeps with her boyfriend. After all, they love one another and are too young to be married. She went on to contend that the Bible is a good book and that she believes in God and Jesus, but it was written at a time "when people got married at age 15" and, since that is not practical in our time and since we now have birth-control, its moral restrictions are no longer relevant. She did have a point - if that is all sex is about. But, of course, it is about much more.
First we looked at exactly what the Bible actually says about when sex is appropriate and when it is not. God created sex and blessed it when, in Genesis 1, He created male and female and told them to be fruitful and multiply. There would only be one way for Adam and Eve to obey that commandment and God would never command anything evil, sinful or dirty. But He put some restrictions on what would be "good sex" and what would be "bad sex." "Good sex" is between a man and his wife, "bad sex" would be anything else. "Let marriage be held in honor by all and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for fornicators and adulterers God will judge" (Hebrews 13:4). A fornicator is someone who has sex before marriage and is, therefore, not holding marriage in honor. An adulterer is someone who defiles their marriage bed by bringing someone into it who is not his or her spouse. Let's be clear: God, in the Bible, strictly forbids any and all sexual involvement with anyone other than your spouse.
So here's Heather with her objection to what she considers an unreasonable and outdated teaching in the Bible. I pointed out that she did not appear to be the kind of girl who would just "do it" with anyone. She dressed modestly and had a pleasant smile and bright eyes - not the type of countenance you see on a girl with no standards (especially girls who pose in sexually suggestive ads or in pornography whose eyes look distant and who never smile - girls who look as if they long ago lost their soul). She seemed to genuinely believe that it is OK to have sex without being married as long as they genuinely loved one another. Now it was my turn to ask questions.
"How can you tell if he genuinely loves you if he is unwilling to give you a ring and a date to be married?" She didn't have much of an answer?
"How do you know your love will endure if it is primarily a feeling and not a stated, public commitment before God and others?" Again, not much of an answer.
"How would you feel if, after having sex with him, he broke up with you?" Her answer, "I would be devastated." I pointed out that she was taking a terrible risk to become so vulnerable to a fellow based on her feelings and not based on the stated commitment of marriage. Heather's confidence in her position and thinking my position was ridiculously out of date seemed to be evaporating.
But my goal on campus is not simply to get people to live a "moral life." My goal is to get them into a relationship with Jesus. Unfortunately, sexual immorality is a major stumbling block that prevents a whole lot of students from coming to Jesus in a genuine way. My reasoning with Heather was designed to bring her under conviction for her sin and to combat the devil's lie that we can disregard the commands of God without doing serious damage to our soul.
But Heather still had a point: in a sex-saturated world in which people are getting married later and later, how can a young person stay sexually pure? "It's awfully hard to do it without Jesus Christ as your Lord to guide and strengthen you," I said. "Religion" can provide you with a moral compass, but only the Holy Spirit who enters us when we turn to Jesus can give us the strength to actually LIVE it out when tempted. Interestingly, other Christian girls began to speak up and share how Christ strengthens them to live a morally pure life. One girl, who has been dating the same fellow for a year and a half, even pointed out that its not as difficult as most people make it out to be!
But there is a still deeper reason to live in sexual purity. The relationship between a husband and wife is meant to be a living demonstration of the love Jesus has for His bride - the church. Believe it or not, Jesus loves those He has saved with the same commitment and emotional intensity that a groom would have for his bride. In fact, the cross of Jesus is, without doubt, the greatest act of love the world has ever known - an act of selfless commitment to another than hurt and required a high price to be paid. This is real love -not the type of sensual love we seek in sexual immorality but the selfless commitment that is to be expressed in the covenant of marriage.
I trust all of this connected with Heather and her friends. Her body language told me it did. She is now faced with some major decisions that, because of past decisions, will be very hard to make. When we have been following the devil's lie, God's truth always puts us in positions that require us to make tough decisions. Perhaps He is doing the same with you right now.
