A Sermon On:
PREPARED BY
KEN GEHRELS
PASTOR
CALVIN CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH
NEPEAN, ONTARIO
We live in the era of downsizing - government and corporate departments that are outdated are eliminated. Excess is trimmed away. Down to the essentials.
A year or so ago there was a university professor who asked his class to
do a downsizing exercise - on the 10 Commandments. "If you had to remove one"
he said, "which would it be?"
Know what they said?
Get rid of the 7th commandment.
Eliminate - "You shall not commit adultery."
(Laura Schlessinger The Ten Commandments p.209)
Adultery - One child said to her teacher, "I know what that
means. It means you cannot chop down adult trees."
Adultery - in it's most narrow sense it is the act of breaking the sacred
bonds of marriage by sexual infidelity. In a wider sense it means taking sexual intimacy
out of the setting and boundaries that God designed; pulling it outside of the confines of
marriage.
The university class said - get rid of restrictions on such activity. Let
whatever happens sexually just happen. Loosen sexual restraints.
They're not alone. Think, if you will, of the recent flap in the white house. And the
reaction of most Americans - "what he does is his own private business. It really
doesn't matter to me. It doesn't make a difference".
Or the TV series "Riverdale" which advertises itself
with a picture of a married man and woman, where she's holding hands with another man.
Below them is a caption, "He loves her.... but she's married to him."
There is a heart drawn around the illicit hand holding and the caption at the bottom says
"and that's only part of the fun on Riverdale." (Slessinger p.213)
Or the countless comedy shows and routines that make light of adultery. It
is, quite frankly, no big deal anymore for two people to engage in a sexual whatever
outside of marriage.
TV, videos, movies, magazines, novels, popular music -- the seductive lie
is fed to us again and again - "Loosen sexual restraints. Go ahead. It's ok.
You'll only gain."
Countering that is the Word of God - "Keep sex where it belongs.
Adultery is NOT ok. Flirt with it and you'll only lose."
Understand one thing, OK? The Bible does NOT say
this because it's uptight, afraid of, or down on sex. God isn't looking for humanity to
suppress it or avoid it or think of it as a nasty but necessary procreative chore.
Those who suggest such have never properly read the Bible.
Listen to what this poet says about her love life:
"My lover has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices.
to browse in the gardens, and to gather lilies.
I am my lover's and my lover is mine;
he browses among the lilies..."
She's not writing in some steamy book or magazine article.
It comes from the Word of God, the Song Of Songs 6.2,3. The whole
song celebrates in vivid, blunt, and colourful language a couple's full-orbed desire to be
joined in a mutual, exclusive way for life -
emotionally, socially, spiritually AND
physically.
Remember, sexuality was a powerful part of that created reality on which
God looked and said, "This is very good."
God made us to explore it in the proper settings, and to enjoy it.
In scripture's creation account we get the most important guideline on how
our sexuality is to function:
Genesis 2.18ff tells of God finding a partner for the first man, Adam. It
speaks of the creation of Eve from the rib of man, as his helper and equal partner. God
brings the man and woman together in the first marriage ceremony, joining them in
partnership. In that context of a marriage partnership, we are told "a man will
leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh."
(Gen 2.24)
Then scripture closes the account with the words "The man and his
wife were both naked, and they felt no shame." (Gen
2.25)
Understand it rightly - the Bible wasn't making a fashion statement. It
uses the lack of clothing as a symbol to show that there were no barriers between them. No
secrets. No walls. Nothing hidden. Completely together.
And in that union,
that life-long setting of security and sharing,
in that God-designed relationship of marriage,
their sexuality could blossom.
The Bible also speaks of sexual relations between man and woman in the
context of "knowing." We read that Adam "knew"
his wife and she conceived (Gen 4.1, see also Gen 24.16). To know
- to deeply understand each other, connected to each other in the sacred bond of lifelong
union -
that is the context for sexual relations.
Nowhere else.
Non-binding relationships which go all the way, physical relations that are
at the level of some recreational activity, are relations that are way out of God's
playing field.
Sexuality, God's way, is the final blessing and sealing of a deep, lifelong
relationship between man and woman.
It completes what has been joined socially, emotionally and spiritually.
It is the final step, a step blessed by God when in the right context.
I don't know if you caught the emphasis in the reading from 1 Corinthians
6. The basic point there is that our bodies are more than a mere chunk, maybe a very good
looking chunk, but a mere chunk of flesh. If that's all they were, then to join two bodies
is no big deal. Animals do it all the time.
But human sexuality is much deeper than that.
There's a spiritual dimension to it. Human beings are spirit beings
created-to-be-a-little-like-God beings. We who are gathered here are temple beings. We've
got the Holy Spirit of God dwelling inside. That makes our bodies very holy, sacred
places.
Treat your bodies like that, says the Bible.
Like very holy, sacred places;
Valuable places in which God's Spirit dwells.
Don't toss them around, expose them, or share them cheaply.
Getting involved sexually with someone goes a whole lot deeper
than skin.
Don't ever forget that.
Sex - it's something like fire, having great power. In the right place and
time, used the right way, it is constructive, pleasurable and wonderful. But beyond the
proper boundaries it can cut loose with an amazingly destructive force.
That destructive force leads to the ruin of countless marriages each year;
the ruin of individuals' sense of wholeness and holiness; the ruin of the sense of deepest
intimacy possible between people.
It is because sexuality is such a strong force that the bible speaks so
strongly, and so surprisingly often - almost 90 times - on the matter. The Bible gives it
a big thumbs up, but also slaps up a big bold warning:
"Explosive contents. Handle with care."
Handle rightly - with care.
Tough to do, isn't it? Especially today. Sex has been cheapened, reduced to
some hormonal nightcap on a date between two people who may not have known each other
longer than 3 hours.
I mean, many people go into the dating scene expecting
that sex will be a big part of any relationship today - serious or otherwise. Any
consideration of God's plan for life-long commitment, for the security and devotion of
marriage, is out the window.
Sexuality in its most beautiful form, as the deep and total sharing of
life-long partners is destroyed.
How tragic.
How hurtful!
Yes - hurtful. And I'm talking something besides all the stuff of diseases
that are growing in epidemic proportions. I trust you're up to speed on that stuff. I hope
you are.
When I talk hurt this morning I'm talking hurtful in an inner spiritual
way. Our bible reading this morning of 1 Cor 6 says that when a couple has physical
relations they are joined in a very deep way. Never again will their relationship be the
same. They have exposed themselves; shared something that can never be reversed. Part of
themselves has been permanently given away.
And when people begin to give that part of themselves cheaply and casually,
their own value begins to cheapen. Like hands that hold a shovel and are rubbed and
chaffed every day, sexuality becomes calloused and loses its sensitivity and ability to
feel deeply, to reach the depths that God meant it to reach.
It is like reducing diamonds into rhinestones. The outer glitter still
seems good, but only from a distance, and only for a moment.
There is no depth, and it doesn't last.
You know what happens when you take a piece of tape and proceed to stick
and unstick it from a surface a number of times. What happens? It loses its holding power.
The stickiness is gone.
Sex is God's sticky glue for marriage; an intimate bonding between woman
and man. When we stick and unstick it to various people it loses its holding power and
cannot function as God planned it to function in marriage. And any future marriage bond
will be permanently weakened - crippled.
"You shall not commit adultery."
Hear God speak!
Men - when you sit around the lunch room table, don't let the cheap talk of
some guy's quick weekend thrill entice you away.
Women - don't be drawn in by the seductive lure of stories that romanticize
filling some undefined need in an adulterous affair.
Teens - when people get all bent out of shape and look at you weird because
you raise the possibility of "just say NO" as a way to avoid disease,
to keep your honour, and to conduct yourselves in the dating scene....
Don't waver!
If some guy or girl can't show enough respect for your virginity, and
threatens to drop you because you won't follow the crowd here's a plan -
Beat them to the punch and drop them!
You deserve better than that.
Those kind of cheap manipulations show they think more about satisfying
their own hormones than they do about your value as a person, your integrity, your
standards, your honour.
Stand tall!
Challenge the lie - a lie that shatters far too many lives!
But be aware that it won't be easy.
Our sexual urges are among the most powerful we have.
Hard to control.
And the first place where Satan will try to break us, to crack the
foundations of a pure, solid, wholesome, life-building existence.
Remember - his desire is to destroy us, to remove the good from life, to
make things as dark and miserable as possible, to inject harm and instability and
uncertainty, to make things insecure.
He's in the business of breaking apart what God wants built up.
I believe he's behind the little twist that has entered North American
courting ritual recently. The pattern used to be:
couple gets to know each other, grow close, become engaged, get married,
move in together and then engage in the ultimate God-given
sacred act of closeness.
Now the pattern is:
couple gets to know each other, grow closer and become sexually active,
move in together to test the waters, and then, maybe, become engaged and get married.
Fact is, if you DON'T follow that trend you're the exception.
What this new pattern has done is pull commitment
out of the core of the relationship. There is no covenant that says, "I'm with
you forever" - no true covenant made before God and society - and yet people
share the most intimate part of themselves.
And - I know, I know. People may say, "Well, we're going to get
married anyway."
Perhaps.
But perhaps not.
You're never sure till it happens, till you're at the altar making the
commitment, saying the words in the public and very official act.
Until then you can bail without any attachments.
And don't anybody go tell you the ceremony
doesn't matter. I've seen enough anxious brides & grooms who see how big the moment
is. When they're going to the altar, they know that what they're
about to do is HUGE.
I'll never forget one couple I married. They'd been living together and
were expecting their first child. Owned a farm together. You'd say that the marriage would
be a simple piece of paper for them. But the bride said to me some weeks after the
wedding, "Ken, on our wedding night it was different. Really. I felt so secure.
We were really, finally, together."
I thought - wow, she finally gets it.
"Till death do us part." - really, finally together.
That's God's plan.
Don't jump the gun, you that are considering getting married.
And if you're sexually active before marriage, let me challenge you to make
this morning a morning of new beginnings, a morning to pledge and begin a new purity with
your God and your partner. God will forgive. In His grace He can reset things. With our
Saviour there CAN be new beginnings. And a beautiful future!
If you who are married feel little excuses begin to form in the back of
your mind, lines like:
recognize those lines for the destructive time bombs they are.
with people that could potentially turn into partners.