WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT SEX?

By Ada Brownell

During the hippie era evangelist Billy Graham visited a college campus and asked students what they would like to talk about.

“Let’s talk about sex!” yelled one uncouth student.

“Sure,” said the evangelist with a smile. “That’s how we all got here, isn’t it?”

Then he explained sex is a wonderful thing between two married people, and marriage is endorsed by God.

God invented sex.

In Genesis 1, the first book of the Bible, we’re told, “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness ... So God created man in his own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

“Then he blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it’” (Genesis 1:26 and 27).

How can you look at the anatomy of the male and female bodies without knowing God designed it? Reproduction is among the most awesome evidence of a Creator.

God believes in romance

If you don’t believe God supports romance, study the Song of Solomon.

How Isaac and Jacob found their wives are examples of real love that lasts, and the stories of their love are written in the Bible.

Abraham arranged the marriage for his son, Isaac, and a servant actually picked her out in the story related in Genesis 24 (NLT). But the servant asked God to show him the right girl out of the dozens of women who came to a well to draw water.

“Help me to accomplish the purpose of my journey,” the servant prayed.  “See, here I am, standing beside this spring, and the young women of the village are coming to draw water.... I will ask one of them for a drink.  If she says, `Yes, certainly and I will water your camels, too!’ -- Let her be the one you have appointed as Isaac’s wife.  By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master.”

As he was still praying, a young woman named Rebekah arrived with a water jug on her shoulder.... Now Rebekah was very beautiful and she was a virgin.... She went down to the spring, filled her jug, and came up again. Running over to her, the servant asked, “Please give me a drink.”

“Certainly, Sir,” she said, and she quickly lowered the jug for him to drink. When he had finished, she said, “I’ll draw water for your camels, too, until they have had enough!”

So she quickly emptied the jug into the watering trough and ran down to the well again.  She kept carrying water to the camels until they finished drinking.

The servant watched her in silence, wondering whether she was the one the Lord intended him to meet. Then at last, when the camels finished drinking, he gave her a gold ring for her nose and two large gold bracelets for her wrists.

They were acquainted; the servant stayed with her family and told them about how his prayer was answered.

 So the father gave Rebekah to the servant, but only after Rebekah agreed to go.

Isaac was taking a walk out in the fields meditating, when he looked up and saw the servant coming home, he ran out to greet them.

When Rebekah saw him coming, she dismounted, covered her face with a veil, and went to meet him.

Rebekah became Isaac’s wife and he loved her very much, the Bible says. She was a special comfort to him because his mother had just died.

In Old Testament times, most marriages were arranged.

 Jacob met Rachel at a well and was so smitten with her he kissed her. Perhaps it was on the cheek, who knows?

Jacob stayed with Rachel’s father, Laban, a month, working for him like a ranch hand. Finally, Laban asked what Jacob expected to be paid, and Jacob told Laban he was in love with Rachel and he agreed to work seven years for her.

Finally there was a wedding feast, and after the ceremony, Jacob discovered the veiled bride was Rachel’s older sister, Leah.

He protested, and Laban said he couldn’t give the younger daughter before the older daughter was married.

Jacob worked another seven years to get Rachel.

There is a reason arranged marriages work: falling in love is an act of the will.

Sex is expected  part of  marriage.

Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge (Hebrews 13:4).

Marriage is expected to last until death parts the couple.

From Matthew 14:1-6 “He answered, ‘Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.’”

The powerful bond of intimacy

“Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman. But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control” (1 Corinthians 7: 1-5 ESV).

A COMMAND TO LOVE

“Wives submit yourselves to your own husbands, as unto the Lord” (Ephesians 5:22).

“Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it” (Ephesians 5:25).

WHAT ARE THE SHALT NOTS OF SEX?

1.  You shalt not commit adultery.  From the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 and verse 14.  Counselors today define adultery as any kind of sexual sin.

2. Walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. (Galatians 5:16-25). Specific sins are listed.

3. Jesus sums it all up in the last book of the Bible. “Behold I come quickly and my reward is with me to give every man according as his work shall be. I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Blessed are they that do his commandments that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter into the gates of the city (Heaven).

“For without are dogs, and sorcerers, whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.

“I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.

“To the spirit and the bride say, ‘Come,’ and let him that heareth say, “Come. And let him that is thirsty come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Revelation 22:12-27).

“I will give unto him that is thirsty of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my child.

But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers and idolaters, all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death” (Revelation 22: 6-8).

Notice, God allows us to choose.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.”