It's the Number One issue in a man's life. It can be a tremendous blessing if he handles it wisely; a curse if he foolishly misuses it. It manifests itself in sex, but...
Rather, it's whether a man sees how God has revealed His heart of love for him and for others. If we don't understand this, then the world will see nothing different about us—they won't see anything different between worldly love and Christ's love. We can't miss this guys. How we treat women matters, because it shows (or conceals) Christ's love to the entire world.
The idea that premarital sex or even living together is unwise and wrong is not just traditional or old-fashioned. Although it is widely disregarded now, it is not legalistic or unnecessarily strict, nor is it just passé. Its reason lies at the very core of marriage itself: to demonstrate
definition of love. We see several marriages and other covenantal unions in scripture. In the case of marriage, the time leading up to the wedding, during the wedding, and after the wedding (i.e., the marriage) has deep significance. For godly Jews, their religion (as well as biblical Christianity) and their culture (but
ours!) does not allow for premarital sex; thus Joseph's fearful reaction to Mary becoming pregnant. The
. To "Honor your father and mother" does not just address proper relationship with one's parents, but because our parents' authority should represent God's authority, this fifth commandment is also a call to honor God as Father—the One Who has created us and provides for us and seeks to guide our lives in wise and righteous choices which reflect
Those who disagree with what I have to say will be quick to say I am being legalistic, but that is most certainly not true. At the center of this issue is God's heart itself, not simply a law such as "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery." Revealing the law is one way He showed us His heart—and His heart is for our protection. His law also shows us our actions toward others with are inconsistent with, as I have said before and will say again,
Christ's type of love. That being said, Christ's type of love could not be perfectly demonstrated through the law, but required (and still requires) a person willing to yield to His Spirit, for only those who are new creations, born-again from above, and who now, by nature, rely on His strength, love, and life can properly discern and act upon Christ's love. Those who take matters into their own hands and their own moral justifications will miss out on the process of God supplying life and strength to them to accomplish His love toward them and others.
Something I hear from many people who justify their premarital intimacy is that God is "OK" with it. Let's consider Joseph and Mary again. They stayed together after Mary was found pregnant. God was definitely OK with that. Perhaps Joseph even loved her. But to put it as delicately as I can, neither Mary nor Joseph sinned. It is for that reason that their situation was entirely different. God knew that Joseph was a righteous and honorable man and that they both would do the honorable thing and take a certain course of action regarding Jesus' sinless birth from a virgin mother. But this is not a call or an example for couples to stay together because of their "love."
Those who have engaged in a physical relationship that the Bible calls a
blood covenant have formed not only a physical bond, but a spiritual one as well. It is our Father's heart that the two individuals not be wounded, but since the two have indeed formed a spiritual bond, being wounded is exactly what has happened and happens more and more everyday to those who ignore the significance and importance of a
godly design and a
godly commitment to a marriage—even during the time before the marriage takes place. Those who find themselves in such a situation and who desire to marry should do the honorable thing and follow clear scriptural principle—either honor the
blood covenant and marry legally in the presence of a legal representative of the community along with friends and family, or separate until the arrangements can be made for a proper wedding celebration. Otherwise, if you have had sex, but marriage with the other person not an option, do the honorable thing and don't have sex again until you are married.
Sex outside of marriage is equivalent to thievery—a man stealing from something that doesn't belong to him. Looking at again Joseph's actions, we see that his desire was to keep himself and
especially Mary from shame, showing himself to be a man who honored his father and mother, his friends, and his wife-to-be.
Joseph was a protector. So should you be. From now on.
Since Christ is central to this discussion, let it also be said that He is also the One Who defines marriage itself—both marriage and its parameters. God does not consider a sexual union between those who share the same gender or a union involving more than two persons a marriage. Those are examples of
perversion. But so is premarital sex, because it is a
distortion of godly love and the result of selfishness and a darkened, sinful desire. It is sad and grievous to the heart of our Father that such distortions and misrepresentations exist and damage those He loves.
Going back to the cultural example of Jesus' day (founded on scripture): As was the custom, the husband-to-be would have prepared the home before the marriage. Neither the man nor the woman would have engaged in sex. The blood covenant of sex was only entered into
after marriage.
The phase of preparation before marriage is an important step for every man.
After many years of discipling young people, I know that most do not understand that anticipation is not something to be eliminated or avoided. We live in a "microwave" culture and those who remove this stage of anticipation for whatever reason, even for mere convenience's sake, are missing a major life-lesson.
Anticipation contributes positively to marriage. By seeking to remove anticipation and delay, one indulges in illegitimate pleasure and robs him- or herself of certain greater aspects of the first sexual union, which was to be accompanied by the celebration and support of all of their loved ones. There is, however, something much greater and much more important.
Is it not clear? It is during the phase of anticipation through which God enters into the marriage and begins to pour the
foundation of His power for the husband and the wife to be faithful and trustworthy to one another. The willingness to
endure anticipation is part of what proves to one's spouse that their marriage partner will be faithful; for, when times of doubt arise (and they will), one will have tangible evidence that their spouse will rely on God's power for their
deepest needs during the
worst of situations.
If a man didn't cheat with his fiancée before they were married, his wife can be even more confident that he won't cheat on her after they're married. Why would a man who desires to honor God, parents, friends, and future wife decide that this step is unnecessary? Premarital sex and cohabitation erode future marital security, no matter how good the intentions of the yet-to-be-married couple may be.
In Jesus' culture, when the time came for the marriage ceremony, the couple would be united before God and friends and family to celebrate their union. It was only after this time, when they had made a covenant with each other before all present, that the sexual union would take place. Our culture is so focused on the
wedding as the pinnacle of marriage, and that is why most couples place so much importance on the wedding
day. But, the wedding day is not what unites family and friends: it is the sexual union that is at the center here, for that and that alone is what forms the sexual, social, intellectual, emotional, and physical covenant between husband and wife in the presence of God and family and friends.
There is a reason why the pastor says "You may now kiss your bride." The communion bread and the wine, the wedding cake and the champagne, the exchange of names, the blood shed during the first intercourse…it all represents the lives of those entering into covenant, and it all includes the community. It is the covenant that is celebrated between the wedding couple with the encouragement and support of loved ones…not the ceremony itself. In other words, the wedding day and its rituals are far less important than the blood covenant itself. Our culture has this entirely backwards and has diminished the significance of the covenant, forgetting the meaning behind the ritual—only for the sake of celebrating a day and its rituals. So much effort and concern is put into a day, when reality and statistics show, not to mention the example set forth by God Himself, that the foundation of the marriage has been neglected and the marriage will most likely end in disaster.
Our culture has a wrong definition of commitment. When I hear someone say that they're committed, that they love each other, and there's nothing wrong with having sex while unmarried, I know that they have been influenced by our culture and they have bought into our culture's definition and example of commitment. Culture's definition and example can usually be seen through every "love" relationship on the big screen. Boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in "love", boy and girl overcome personal differences and misunderstandings, boy and girl decide to stay together whether or not parents, friends, or community agrees. When it fails—and real life, not the movies, tells us it will, boy finds a new girl and girl finds a new boy. Rinse and repeat.
When I hear someone say that they're committed--it usually means that they've paired off and decided to rely solely on their devotion to each other. "Love will keep us together." No, that's Hollywood. That's a fairy tale. It's not real life. Their "commitment" fails, because what is almost always missing is a mutual relationship with God--especially hearing and obeying the leading of the Holy Spirit in regard to how Christ would love that person and include family and friends in the commitment. To say that you're committed to someone when you've never stood in the presence of God, family, and friends is in reality no commitment at all. The sacrifice for the other person's best, which is based on Christ's love and His example, is the real demonstration and fruit of commitment. A man who has been influenced by culture thinks it's enough to privately commit to her. A man who has been influenced by culture thinks that it's enough to declare a commitment publicly to her on his wedding day. A man who has been influenced by culture believes that his feelings of love for her are sufficient to declare "undying" commitment. A man who has been influenced by culture never goes through the phase of anticipation where he has to rely on God's strength and character and not his own. A man who has become a product of his culture defines his own rules on sex, and always does so in his favor. Christ's type of love and commitment is so much greater, and this man's is so much lower.
Whatever one's belief may be, premarital sex and cohabitation do not follow clear scriptural teaching and example on how a man and a woman are to join together as one. One may say, "We've proven our love and commitment to faithfulness to each other", but it was not done on God's terms, in the manner He has prescribed, or on the proving grounds He has ordained. Couples who say they're committed have usually defined those testing areas on their own, effectively removing God from the equation by ignoring His wisdom altogether. The Bible uses a word for this exclusion of God, refusing His instruction. The word is fornication, which has a severely negative connotation in our culture; it's a word we don't hear anymore, but scripture speaks very loudly concerning this word and it's not only against His law, but more importantly, it does not demonstrate Christ's type of love, commitment, and faithfulness to us. Sex outside marriage is a perversion of God's intended blessing for us. Moreover, it is one of the results of the flesh. The flesh reigns whenever man believes He knows better than, can do better than, and thus, ignores God...or creates his own god. The flesh perverts the love of God and crafts it for its own selfish purposes, but the end result is always the same: someone is dishonored and someone gets hurt.
All of this is because culture, a system set in place by fallen man, has become the accepted context wherein those with corrupted hearts and corrupted minds live. But here's the hope: it's not too late. A wise couple would choose to live separately until marriage and not engage in sexual activity; a person who has had casual sex would stop viewing something so sacred with such casualness. This is not some figment of my own imagination, nor is it theoretical, but can be found in both scripture and every source of experienced, wise counsel on the topic. Because I have this view, see it supported by scripture, and voice my beliefs, I am not setting myself up to be God, nor do I recognize that God would approve a couple's decision engage in premarital sex and/or live together. Neither have I relied mainly on the Law of God to defend and voice my stance. Sexual activity outside of marriage simply goes against scripture, kingdom culture, biblical precedent, and is an affront both to God's character and His demonstrated love toward us. It violates His heart and destroys ours.
To my knowledge, there is no wise marriage counselor, Christian or secular, who would recommend premarital sex or cohabitation. On the contrary, most, if not all of them, would recommend the opposite. Two people may say that their decision to live together is not a problem, but I am convinced, based both on the advice of multiple sources and the marriages I have seen fail, that if one is willing to overlook this first, primary step in marriage, then there will be more issues to appear in the future which could have been avoided. Yes, every couple will have problems, but this is a step that plants issues from the very beginning and will most likely create severe issues regarding trust and selflessness. In short: the experts say stop now and do the hard thing, because it is precisely that which will make your marriage stronger, but more than that: it may even mean the difference between success and failure. And no one ever gets married expecting to get divorced, but so many couples lay an initial foundation for their marriage which simply cannot last.
Build a building high enough on an incline and soon enough the building will topple over. And it won't be pretty. The foundation must be flat and square.
I know that a man and a woman may have strong feelings of commitment toward each other and feel secure that, based on those feelings, the decision to live together and create a sexual union together before marriage is right and approved by God because they "love" each other. I do not deny the strength of feelings toward earnest commitment. I do know that emotions make it seem impossible to backup, restart, or even separate, but this sacrifice is what Christ would do and how He has called men to live in relationship to women. Do the hard thing. Make the sacrifice and protect the heart of your heavenly Father's daughter and demonstrate to her Christ's type of love so she will never again give herself to another man who will abuse her body and spirit.
Christ and His type of love must be central in such a relationship; He must be the foundation. Why? Because the Bible does not simply say: "Husbands, love your wives." Rather, the Bible makes Christ essential to marriage by saying: "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loves the church", just as it says "Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord."
Lastly, just as Christ is essential to marriage, confirmed by scriptures, even our definition of love cannot be our own; it must come from the Lord. For this reason, we also read: "Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma." Christ's love involved a sacrifice: He forgave us and gave up His life for us (hence, the "therefore": forgiveness and sacrifice). But when a couple chooses to engage in sexual activity and/or live together before marriage, they are doing two primary things: 1.) removing any foundation for forgiveness throughout the marriage, because 2). someone who chooses to not sacrifice for another has chosen to not do what is in the best interest of the other, and that cannot act as a foundation of trust. In the case of marriage, the sacrificial act that honors the covenant, honors the other person, honors God, friends, and family, is a willing delay of gratification that can and will endure anticipation. This is Christ's love, and this is far above the type of love a couple declares for each other when Christ is not honored or involved in the preparation for marriage.
For this reason I have again and again stated that we must love as Christ has loved us; we must sacrifice our convenience for others as Christ did for us; we must understand commitment as He showed us His type of commitment; we must honor each other as He has honored us; we must defy culture's model of instant gratification and instead rely on God's power and faithfulness.
Above all, men, we must stand and defend the world's most lovely, yet most abused creature, Woman, even from ourselves. Will you choose to hear our Father's heart in this matter? Will you choose to feel with Him how His heart breaks when a woman is lied to? abused? treated as commodity? regarded with selfish love? denied true, godly commitment? robbed?
We have been called to live higher than this and it will require sacrifice. Will you choose to see her as a sister and co-heir? Are you willing to deny yourself, to understand your Father's love for you and for her?
I pray that you will be able to see past the methods and trickery that the world has taught us to use so we could escape these questions. Do the hard thing and see how God will reveal His heart to you, for you, and through you.
Christ is in you and He is not a Predator. Neither are you. You are a Protector, just as is Christ in you.
Grace=Peace,
Jeremy
