‘Fight the good fight’ (1 Tim.

6:12)

… the men of Israel were gathered, and encamped in the Valley

of Elah, and drew up in line of battle against the Philistines. And
the Philistines stood on the mountain on the one side, and Israel
stood on the mountain on the other side, with a valley between
them. (1 Sam. 17:2-3)

Because you’re reading this book I presume you want to fight against sexual
temptations. Sexual sin, like all types of sin, is drawn up in front of us (and all
around us, for that matter!) in battle array. Perhaps it might seem like a battle
that’s too long or difficult for us to win. That’s how the battle seemed to the
people in the passage quoted above. Goliath was a massive, ugly, and offensive
opponent, armed to the teeth with weapons and pride. This can be what sin is
like. And it can seem too hard to fight against. But, with God on our side, this
battle can be won. With God on our side we can say the following to sin:

"You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come
against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of
Israel, whom you have defied. This day the LORD will hand you over to
me, and I'll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the
carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of
the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All
those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the
LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD's, and he will give all of you into
our hands." (1 Sam. 17:45-47)

The battle can be won because our commander, the Powerful One of the armies of
Israel, is the Lord Almighty Himself.

In a battle, the soldiers have to know what the plan of the commanders is, and
what they are fighting for. If they don’t know the plan of the commander then
they can't follow out the plan. And if they don’t know what they are fighting for
then they will have no motivation to fight. In Neh. 4 God’s people are surrounded
by vicious enemies who wanted to destroy them. Understandably, the Israelites
were frightened. But Nehemiah, the commander of the people, encouraged the
Israelites in their fight by reminding them what they were fighting for; in Neh.
4:14 he says: -

"Don't be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and

awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons and your
daughters, your wives and your homes."

Here the people knew what they were fighting for. The people had a purpose in
their battle, so they were motivated to fight.

Likewise, for us in our battle against sexual sin it is helpful to know our
Commander’s will, and what we are fighting for. In the fight against sin
sometimes it is useful enough to know what God’s will is concerning a topic (like
what God’s will is concerning stealing, or lying, etc.): when we see things God’s
way we can often be stronger against the temptations that make us want to do
things our way. If we do not know God’s will then how can we even begin to fight
for it, hold fast to it and benefit from it? As the apostle Paul says, ‘if the trumpet
does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle?’ (1 Cor. 14:8). We
cannot fight the battle if we do not know what the battle is about. With this in
mind, in this chapter we hope to get some clarity on the topic of sexual

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relationships so we know what we are fighting for and against, and so that we
can get ready for the battle against temptations.

In this chapter we are going to see that the World has corrupted God’s direction
on sexual relationships. We are going to see how the World presents its twisted
corruption as truth. And we are also going to see God’s original plan for sex, too.
This will help us know where to stand, and in itself it might help us in our resolve
to stick with God’s way.

There’s a rather unpleasant term used today to describe how paedophiles try to
develop a relationship with children for the purpose of engaging in sexual
activities with them. The term is “grooming.” When the paedophile grooms the
child they try to convince the child that the relationship between them is normal.
According to an encyclopaedia, “grooming” ‘may include illegal acts, such as
showing pornography to the child, by which the groomer may seek to … persuade
the child that sexual activity is normal and healthy among friends, or among
strangers, or between adults and children.’ When a paedophile grooms a child
they try to get the child to think that something terrible and harmful and
disgusting is in fact normal and good and fine. It’s such a corruption of how
things should be.

This horrible process is exactly what the World has done, or is doing, to us and to
the young people in our community. This is sick. The World tries to convince us
that horrible things are in fact normal and lovely. This is nothing new – the
World’s been trying to do it for centuries! Back in Isaiah’s day, God said the
following: -

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for
light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for
bitter! (Isa. 5:20)

The World has always been trying to pretend that crooked things are actually
normal and alright. Unfortunately for me, even though this is something that has
been happening for centuries, it’s only something that I am just coming to
realise. Perhaps this is the same for you, too.

There is a horrid example in the Bible of the effects the World has on us when it
“grooms” us and makes us think that its putrid ways are actually normal. In Gen.
19 Lot and his daughters have escaped from the destruction of Sodom. Sodom
had been so evil that God had destroyed it completely. But Sodom had had a
terrible, terrible lasting effect on Lot’s daughters. In Gen. 19:30-38 Lot’s
daughters make their father drunk and then have sex with him. Even though their
father was a righteous man (2 Peter 2:7), his two daughters had been severely
affected by the World; they thought that having children – and, therefore, sex –
was something that everyone in the World did: in v31 they say: -

‘… there is no man around here to lie with us, as is the custom all over
the earth.’

They thought that it was normal to have sex just to get what you wanted (here
they wanted sex to have children; most often, though, people want sex just to
get pleasure). The World – i.e. their time in Sodom – had made Lot’s daughters
think that this was what the ‘custom all over the World’ was, and that this
‘custom’ was find and acceptable. The World had “groomed” them into thinking
that having sex with anyone was fine as long as they got what they wanted. We
can be (and have been!) influenced by the World in this way.

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How the World presents sex to us is so utterly vile. And it presents it to us as if it
is normal. The World, like Sodom, has corrupted how God first made things. The
Lord Jesus said the following thing about how the World had corrupted God’s
ways: -

‘… it was not this way from the beginning.’ (Mat. 19:8)

Originally – in ‘the beginning’ - God made sexual relationships lovely and

beautiful and special, and the World turns it into sickness.

The World promotes casual sex, homosexuality, and even adultery, along with
many other perversions. But, as the Lord Jesus says, it was not this way from the
beginning. The ways of the World now are not God’s ways. What are God’s ways,
then? What are we, God’s people, fighting for? What was it like in the beginning?
The Lord Jesus gives us the answer in Mat. 19:4-6 when he quotes from Gen.
1:27 & 2:24: -

"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made
them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his
father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one
flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one. …

Here we are told how God intended things. Here we see the beauty that the
Creator established. This is how God made things in the beginning, in Eden,
before man could get his wicked hands on God’s ways and corrupt them.

Just so we know that part of what the Lord Jesus is talk about here is sex, take
note of the phrase ‘the two will become one flesh’. In the Bible this phrase talks
about two people becoming one loving unit in all their lives, but this unity also
includes sex. For example, in 1 Cor. 6:13-17 the apostle Paul forbids sexual
promiscuity (i.e. “sleeping around”) and he quotes ‘the two will become one flesh’
from Mat. 19:6 and Gen. 2:24 in relation to sex. So in Mat. 19 the Lord Jesus is
talking about sex at least in part (and it is sex between a husband and wife, one
man and one woman who are married, not between anybody else: this is how
God intended sexual relationships from the beginning).

Back in Mat. 19:4-6, then, we can see a few things about sex and relationships as
God intended them to be. In the next paragraph we are going to see the positive
things this passage teaches us about sex and relationships, and then, in brackets
afterwards, we are going to see the negative things that these positive things
exclude.

 In Mat. 19:4-6 we see that from the beginning God intended a sexual
relationship to be between a male and a female – it says, He made them
‘male and female’. (This excludes same-sex/gay/homosexual
relationships).

 We also see that sexual relationships are to be between a man and a

woman when they are married, when they have left their father and
mother and been united to their spouse: notice how it says the man leaves
his parents to be united with his wife: he’s not uniting with just any
person, but with his wife – a marriage is involved here. (This, therefore,
excludes sexual relationships outside of marriage, whether adultery or sex
before marriage).

 We can also see that the husband and wife become ‘one flesh’ – not two
or three, etc., but one: this shows sexual relationships are between only a

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 husband and a wife; no one else is involved (this, therefore, also excludes
adultery, or any other sexual relationships that include more people than
the husband and wife).

This is how God first established sexual relationships.

‘But why did God establish things this way?’ you might ask. Why didn’t He make
things differently? Why didn’t He say we could have sex with as many people as
we like? Is He just spoiling our fun??

The answer to that last question is that, no, He is not spoiling our fun. Rather,
God is doing this for our benefit. He’s not spoiling our fun, He’s helping us out.
Mat. 19:4 also tells us about God’s “qualifications” in this matter; it gives us one
of the reasons why God can tell us what to do in our sex lives. Some people are
“experts” in something because they study it at university; Mat. 19:4 tells us that
God is THE Expert because He is the Creator of the world – the Creator of sex
even – and because of this He knows how things work best.

… at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' …

Imagine someone who designs a new car engine than runs so efficiently and is so
fast; this person knows exactly how to make the engine run at its optimum, with
the best oil and fuel. It purrs wonderfully, accelerates amazingly, and breaks
smoothly. And then someone else comes along (us!) and fills it with jam and
gravel! The engine is going to be under immense strain, and it’s incredible that it
hasn’t exploded yet! That’s exactly like the way we treat what God has created.
He, the Creator, knows best how the world works – He knows best how sex
works! – and we come along and abuse it.

Sexual relationships work best how God made them. Imagine, for example, how
different the world would be if everybody treated sex as God intended it to be
treated: for example, there would be less broken homes because families
wouldn’t be split by adultery; there would be less single parent families because
only married couples would have children; there would be less unwanted
pregnancies because nobody would get pregnant by “casual” sex; there would be
less disease because sexually transmitted diseases would be at a minimum (the
drop in the number of people killed by AIDS would itself be worth following God’s
ways for!). God really does know best. The benefits would be phenomenal if the
World followed God’s ways.

But these aren’t the only benefits gained from following God’s Word when it
comes to sex. There are incredible personal benefits, too. I’ve never had sex, but
I know this: Sex shared with the one person you love is incredible. Don’t just take
my word for it; listen to how God describes sex with your spouse (Song of
Solomon 7:1-2, 6-12): -

Husband:
How beautiful your sandaled feet,
O prince's daughter!
Your graceful legs are like jewels,
the work of a craftsman's hands.
Your navel is a rounded goblet
that never lacks blended wine.
Your waist is a mound of wheat
encircled by lilies.

[…]

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 How beautiful you are and how pleasing,
O love, with your delights!
Your stature is like that of the palm,
and your breasts like clusters of fruit.
I said, "I will climb the palm tree;
I will take hold of its fruit."
May your breasts be like the clusters of the vine,
the fragrance of your breath like apples,
and your mouth like the best wine.

Wife replies:
May the wine go straight to my lover,
flowing gently over lips and teeth.
I belong to my lover,
and his desire is for me.
Come, my lover, let us go to the countryside,
let us spend the night in the villages.
Let us go early to the vineyards
to see if the vines have budded,
if their blossoms have opened,
and if the pomegranates are in bloom-
there I will give you my love.

Although the language might sometimes sound odd to our ears, there’s no
mistake in the passage above that the husband and wife are wonderfully in love
with each other. You can see how much pleasure the husband has in just looking
at the wife he loves, let alone when the couple finally make love. Many parts of
the Song of Solomon tell us in this way how wonderfully exquisite sex is when it
is shared with the person you have given your life to in marriage. You cannot
experience this if you are not experiencing it with someone who you have given
your life to forever. You cannot experience this if you are not experiencing it with
the person whom you have also been bound to emotionally and spiritually. To
have sex with someone outside of a Godly marriage is a pale shadow of true sex
as God intended (and, remember, to have sex with someone outside of a
marriage at all is also a sin). The World’s idea of sex misses out on a unity and
oneness that sex inside a Godly marriage has where a husband and wife our
bound together emotionally, physically, and spiritually in love for the other.

That is how God first established marriage and sex in all its beauty. And the World
has corrupted it, grooming us to think that what it presents as sex is normal
when in fact it is rotten to the core. Sex is incredible inside of a Godly marriage.
Let’s not throw away such an amazing gift from God. If we are married, let’s keep
sex within our marriage. If we are not married, let’s save sex for marriage. This is
the wonderful thing we are fighting for. Let’s get excited about this. And let’s not
settle for anything less.