Sex Dynamics

Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's. (1Corinthians 6: 18 – 20)

Why is it that a married woman proudly parades her bulge whereas the unmarried will conceal it until it is like an open wound? Why do people hide when they are getting into brothels? Why is it shameful to buy contraceptives for unmarried people when the married are called into forums for the same? Why do people hide their clandestine lovers from family and friends yet proudly show off their spouse at every occasion?

Why is it that the easiest way to trap someone into marriage is getting (or getting them) pregnant?

Sex was not created for a purely biological function. When the Bible talks about sex making two one, it means that sex unites the totality of two people at all levels; physical, psychological, social, even spiritual. It goes without say that that dynamic determines our response to sex to a great extent. No counter education can reverse that inbuilt response to God’s creation.

Sex that seeks the gratification on one dimension is not only unfulfilling but also empty and addictive, if I may use the word, only because it seeks gratification from one or two dimensions. It thus sets in play a cycle of sin that will leave one craving and crying for more yet unable to access anything of worth. Let me explain.

Masturbation is a problem with many young people. Why is it so? The body is crying for gratification and the person responds by trying to offer that release in the only dimension possible, physical. It is like eating the skin of a fruit! It leaves a bad taste and makes the body crying for more, a more that becomes a vicious cycle as it results in eating more and more skin. A physical sexual release can never be compared to sex as sex is not only physical.

Remember this guy in the Bible God killed for using condoms? Tamar’s husband died and it became the responsibility of his brother to raise a son in his name before making her his wife if he chose. But he became like our generation. He chose to enjoy that freely available sex with no strings attached. He thus absconded his social and spiritual responsibilities even as he enjoyed that sex. We can easily conclude that he abused or even misused his brother’s widow for personal enjoyment. I suspect God killed him to free him from the prison he was slowly enclosing himself in addition to speaking to us of a half hearted way of enjoying God’s created functions.

Remember Amnon? He was sick to the point of losing weight, and I suspect many hours of sleep because he ‘loved’ his sister. Yet it was on a purely physical level. No wonder the Bible says that after he had enjoyed the sex he hated her more than he had earlier loved her. Why was that so? Sex without responsibility leaves a bad taste in the mouth, spiritually speaking.

Sex is wholistic. Leaving one aspect out offers no gratification, only a greater craving that many times you may not even understand what it is because you are not interested in pursuing it.

Hit and run, one night stand, come we stay are also as addictive as they are destructive and for the same reason. They are not much different from prostitution because only the physical dimension is pursued, though come we stay may want discreet company.

Avoiding or protecting from the consequences of sex is a clear indicator that you are on the wrong plane. The Bible talks of the two becoming one. Imagine being one with plastic, however thin and transparent, between them!

Remember in Eden they were both naked and not ashamed? Is it possible to be naked and sheathed? Can I be naked and protected from anything from my partner, for argument’s sake?

But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn. (1Corinthians 7:9)

Sex outside a covenantal marriage relationship is empty, shameful, unfulfilling, addictive and wasteful. Get married to enjoy sex the way God created and meant it. Do not pursue short cuts that have no capacity to offer any gratification or fulfillment. Stop eating only the skin, making do with useless roughage that does nothing to fill the stomach or build the body.

Get married if you want to have sex, and I am not talking about a bush wedding where there are no witnesses. Go to your parents and make your relationship official before you start enjoying the goods. Then look for a church that will allow you to get married with what you have as opposed to setting the gold standard before allowing you to get married. I believe many pastors are heading to hell because they have made a wedding the preserve of the rich due to the demands they make on people willing to have their weddings officiated in their churches. I am many times tempted to take a license from the government to officiate marriages because of the demands some pastors place on young people willing to get married in church. But God has not given me the order, so far.

But let us talk if your pastor insists on you meeting unattainable requirements before officiating your wedding. I believe there is something that can be done.

But avoid those short cuts at all costs. Enjoy sex the way God meant it to be enjoyed. Make the commitment before looking for the gratification.

As an aside let us look at this verse also.

And Moses went down from the mount unto the people, and sanctified the people; and they washed their clothes .And he said unto the people, Be ready against the third day: come not at your wives. (Exodus 19: 14, 15)

Why was sex forbidden before God’s visitation? See also 1 Samuel 21: 4, 5.

Sex, rightfully engaged, induces a state of rest that in turn induces sleep. This is the result of the merging of two persons at all levels, not only physical.

Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. (1Corinthians 7:5)  

Sex offers a spiritual release if the spiritual is part of the sex, and that is if the parties involved are in a covenantal marriage relationship. Otherwise there is no such release and no fulfillment for a level not yet reached. That is the reason a person can leave a harlot and go to a pulpit and experience no ‘fatigue’ that a married man would have if he did the same after having sex with his legally married wife. That is why a person can masturbate many times in a day yet give away no evidence of the same even as they minister. That is why musicians can have orgies before an event and have enough energy for the performance even in church.

But do not be deceived, these are captives of sin, a sin they must commit yet that offers no fulfillment or joy. I remember the times I was in those far of places where it appears as if God has stopped being involved in the affairs of men. You get shocked when you see the kind of depravity people who were generally sober get into once they get to a place nobody recognizes them.

I remember an incident that makes me laugh. A young man had come for a short term contract and was staying where I was working.

‘Do women here burn people (wanawake hapa wanachoma)?’, he asked

Of course they don’t, I replied. I had never heard of a single incident.

Only to realize years later that the minister in me had been ignorant of the real question as it was completely outside my frame of reference. The real question was, do women here have venereal diseases? I do not know whether he got burnt and what he thought of me if he did so.

Sex outside marriage, pre or post, burns. And the place it will burn most is the one that is defiled by sex outside its boundaries, the spiritual. And like a friend said many years ago, there is no condom for the heart (or spirit for that matter). Protecting yourself from the physical and social consequences of sex will never offer the same protection against the spiritual consequences of the same.

Do not allow yourself to be deceived. If you must have sex, get married, and get married right. It is no wonder that sex without consent is called defilement, and many people feel defiled after having that quickie, whether they allowed it or not. And many feel condemned when they are in that come we stay marriage. Yet nobody ever felt defiled any time they have sex with their husband or wife.

And if you are married, enjoy sex and do not deny your spouse that sex. Or do you not know that the quickest way to nullify a marriage is by proving the absence of sex in the marriage? The exception is when both of you are fasting as we saw earlier, and even then not every day.

If God allows I might one of these days talk about sex in the marriage context. But today I just wanted to challenge you to take God seriously in the area of sex