I don’t ever want to make sex sound bad. I think I felt like that growing up. It wasn’t talked about and the only thing that really got through to me was, “sex is bad… until you’re married.” The truth is that sex is a beautiful creation by God. It is a wonderful gift, that in the context of marriage, glorifies Him. I think it’s amazing that God uses the same word (yā·ḏa‘) in the Bible for sex and for knowing Him. Seriously!
Genesis 4:1 says, “Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.” In 1 Samuel 3:7 it says, “Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, and the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him.” Samuel was a prophet in training. He was training to know God intimately, to be able to hear God’s word for the people. God could have chosen any other word to use in these contexts, but he chose the same one. I will go more into this further in future posts, but let’s get back to 1989 and me being ten-years-old... I remember in the fifth grade my teacher walked in right when I was copying an obscene gesture that I had seen other kids do. My teacher was furious and took me outside the room. He questioned me repeatedly where I had seen the gesture and if I knew what it meant. The only thing I could muster to reply was, “It’s really bad.” I felt completely humiliated. My face got red-hot from embarrassment and I just wanted to get away from him. At just 10-years-old, there was already so much shame attached to the concept of sex. Of course, I already knew about sex in a very perverted way because kids talked about it. Friends would tease each other about sex. There was no honor in it, no respect. Sex education wasn’t until 8th grade, but we already knew so much. We were only children and everything we knew about sex was what other kids talked about. It was very twisted and very harmful. I can’t imagine having a smartphone at age 10! Just a side note to parents: Please don’t give your kids unsupervised electronic devices! It’s really sex education 101. It’s not smart, you’re putting your kids in a dangerous place. They are not protected and you can literally damage them for life. I know this sounds harsh, but it is truth. On to the story... I thought that sex was “really bad.” I didn’t understand the beauty of God’s creation and intention. I didn’t understand that God intended “knowing” one’s wife to be an amazing thing far beyond a physical act. I could give you a bunch of stats that you may or may not believe on porn use. However, I’ll just give you a few. According to a survey by the Barna Group in 2016, 76% of CHRISTIAN men ages 18-24 actively seek out porn. What is heartbreaking to me, is that for most people, that’s not a surprise. Women aren’t left out. 87% of christian women have looked at porn, and 33% of christian women under 25 look at porn at least once a month. OK, let me give you one more statistic. Only 7% of pastors say their churches have something to help people struggling with pornography. Have we, as the church in America, just accepted this as normal? When Paul said in Galatians 5:13, “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love,” was freedom truly an option? Well, we do have free will. Our choices are always life vs. death or freedom vs. slavery. When they are written in black and white, isn’t it obvious what the right choice is? We are going to come back to this truth and discuss it in depth, but for now, you are called to be free! Your brothers and sisters are called to be free, your parents and children are called to be free. God has called us all to be free, so why is the majority of the church trapped in slavery with this issue? I’d love to hear your comments.
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