Safe Sex

God has given boundaries not to where they become one flesh. Now I want to talk to you about the way for a happy marriage and for safe sex. God's plan for sex exists in the bounds of holy matrimony, to become one flesh. 1 Corinthians 7 gives a clear biblical emphasis on safe sex. If you have your Bible, turn there now. We'll begin in verse 1 as Adrian Rogers offers more on the sanctity of safe sex.

I want you to look with me in 1 Corinthians 7 verse 1. Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and every woman have her own husband. I call that the sanctity of safe sex.

God has set some definite boundaries for the physical act of marriage. And without these boundaries, a nation, a city, a family cannot exist. Can you imagine what it would be like trying to play a football game without any rules, without any boundaries?

Full back gets the ball and he goes up through the stands with it. A lot of folks would get hurt. Now God has given some boundaries, not to harm us, but to help us, to protect us. Inside these boundaries, sex is a wonderful gift of God. Now God's plan in sex is to bring a man and a woman in the sanctity of marital love to a sense of oneness where they become one flesh. That's what we call the sanctity of safe sex. I want you to notice the selflessness of safe sex.

Look on, if you will, in verses 3 and 4. Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence, and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power, that word power means authority of her own body, but the husband. And likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. Now, what is the selflessness of safe sex? It is the giving of oneself.

The key word here is the word render. Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence. And likewise also the wife render to the husband. Lust is always marked by getting. Love, real love, is always marked by giving.

And God uses this word render, which literally means to give. And notice it is the husband who's mentioned first because the husband is to be the initiator. Verse 3, let the husband give to the wife her due.

That kind, loving, sexual embrace that is due to her. And God made the husband to be the initiator. He made the wife to be the responder. And if the husband wants his wife to respond in love, he is to render to her that intimacy.

Now, many times we husbands are so hard headed, so stupid, we don't know how to show that love, that benevolence to our wife. There is a selflessness in safe sex, but I want you to notice not only the sanctity of it and the selflessness of it, but I want you to notice the security of it. Notice in verse 5, Be fraudy not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and come together again. Now he's talking about sexually. Come together again that Satan tempts you not for your incontinency.

That means because of your lack of self-control. Now friend, the way to have a secure home is to see that God has one plan and one plan only for a husband and a wife, for a man and a woman to come together sexually. It is in the bonds of holy matrimony. God says it is to be a selfless thing, a giving thing. He calls it benevolence. And God says if we'll do this, there'll be a security.

But if we don't do this, we leave ourselves wide open to an attack by the devil. An unloving home is an insecure home. An unloving home, a home that does not have a proper sexual attitude, is a home that is open to an attack by the enemy. How we need to understand, dear friend, there is the security of safe sex. The Bible teaches that we should earnestly try to satisfy the need of our partner. Now, I want to move on, and I want to talk not only about safe sex or the way of happiness for the married life, but I want to talk to you a little bit more about the way of helpfulness for the single life.

It's very interesting. You say, Pastor, I'm not married, and you said this is only for those who are married. What about me? What about the single life? See what God's word has to say about the single life. First of all, I want to say this about the single life.

It is a good life, a good life. Look in verse 1 again. Now concerning the things wherever you wrote unto me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. It doesn't say it's best. It just says it's good.

It's okay. You don't have to be married, and you're not losing some super happiness if you stay single. There is a bona fide single life, and it's time we learn that. It's good for a man not to touch a woman. And I think some of us who are married need to stop looking down our noses at people who have settled for the single status.

I'll tell you, there are a lot of things worse than not being married, and number one is being married to the wrong person. Now listen, it is a good life, verse 1, but it is a gifted life, verse 6. Paul says, I speak this by permission and not of commandment, for I would that all men were even as myself. Paul, when he wrote this, was unmarried. He had been married, I believe, but he was now unmarried.

I think he was a widower. I speak this by permission, not of commandment, for I would that all men were even as myself, but every man hath his proper gift of God. One after this manner, and another after that manner. That is, some people are gifted to be single. There are definite advantages to being single. Now when Paul says, I write this by permission, what he's literally saying is, I'm writing in a way of concession.

I'm giving you permission. You don't have to get married. Paul is not beating the drum for the single life. He's just simply saying, if you don't want to get married, that's alright. He is saying that you're not going to be, however, more spiritual if you stay single. But what Paul is saying is that there are some people who are called and some people who are spiritually gifted to serve God as single people. When you get married, folks, you take on a load of obligation. A person, for example, might be called of God in an emergency to serve God as a missionary in a particular mission field where it calls for a single person.

He may want to be an itinerant person, to travel a lot. And God says for you, it's best that you stay single. But, if that is God's plan for you, God will give you the gift of celibacy. Now if God doesn't give you that gift, and if God doesn't give you that calling, you should assume that He wants you married. But if God gives you that gift, and God gives you that calling, then thank God for it.

But remember, it is a good life, it is a gifted life, but it must be a guarded life. Now look, if you will, in verses 8 and 9 of this same chapter. He says, I say therefore to the unmarried and the widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I.

It's good, it's fine. But now watch verse 9, every single person, you listen to this. But if they cannot contain, that is if they cannot control themselves sexually, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn.

Now he's not talking about burning in hell here, he's talking about burning with the fires of lust, to burn with desire. Now if you find these flames of passion in your heart, you find that desire, that hunger for a wife, that hunger for that physical relationship, you must not, you dare not come together sexually without being married. God says if you can't control yourself, marry! But there's absolutely no way under God's Son that you to be sexually active and please God without being married. Do you understand that?

Dear friend, we need to be so clear about this matter. The single life is a good life. It is a gifted life. It is to be a guarded life and therefore it will be a godly life. Look in chapter 7 and verse 32 again. But I would have you without carefulness, for he that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord. How he may please the Lord. Thank God for those who remain single that they can please the Lord. God gives them, calls them to this special life.

Now I want you to think not only therefore about the way of happiness for the married person and the way of helpfulness for the single person, but I want you to think of the way of holiness for every person married or single. Now let's back up before chapter 7 and look with me in chapter 6 again and see what the Apostle Paul is talking about. Look with me in 1 Corinthians 6 and verse 9. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?

Now if you are living in sexual immorality, I want you to listen to me right now. Know ye not, don't you know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, that means perverts, sodomites, effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. Now it doesn't mean if you've done any of these things that you can't go to heaven. But notice verse 11. And such were some of you, but ye are washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God.

Thank God for that. I don't care how terrible your sexual sin may have been. Thank God for a God who can cleanse you, wash you, justify you, and sanctify you in His sight.

But I'm going to tell you something. If immorality is your lifestyle, if you're practicing premarital promiscuity or postmarital infidelity and God doesn't lay the rod on you, I wouldn't give half a hallelujah for your hope of heaven. You're going to hell.

You say, oh, Brother Rogers, don't say that, friend. God says it. God says don't be deceived. How the devil has told this generation, I don't know how we get off with thinking we can just wave our hands in the face of God and say, God, I know you said thou shall not commit adultery, but I'm going to commit adultery anyway and I'm going to heaven.

Oh, God, I know you said flee fornication, but I'm going to practice fornication and I'm going to heaven. No, you're not. No, you're not. Be not deceived. God is not mocked.

Who are you? Who do you think you are that you're going to break the laws of God? You're not going to do it. You say, do you mean, Brother Rogers, if I'm saved and I've committed that sin, I lost my salvation?

No. Dear friend, a Christian can slip and fall into temptation and fall into sin. I'll tell you one thing. If he's saved, the Holy Spirit will tear him up on the inside. He'll repent. He'll get right with God. The Bible says that which is born of God does not habitually practice sin.

Now, friend, I'm telling you, there is the way of happiness for the married life. There is the way of helpfulness for the single life, and there must be the way of holiness for every life. It's what God says. Well, you say, why did God say that? Why is God so hung up on us living chaste and pure lives? I'll tell you why.

Because He loves you. When God says, thou shalt not, He's saying, don't hurt yourself. When God says, thou shalt, He's saying, help yourself to happiness.

Let me give you eight reasons for keeping yourself morally pure. Number one, immorality is psychologically harmful. It is psychologically harmful. Francis J. Braceland, who is the former president of the American Psychiatric Association said, premarital sex relations resulting from the so-called numerality have greatly increased the number of young people in mental hospitals.

You're not smarter than God. It is psychologically harmful. Second reason, immorality kills true love. When you commit immorality with any person, there is a basic loss of self-respect. The more permissiveness prevails in any society, the more women are looked on as objects to be used rather than people to be loved, and tenderness and real love disappear. Third reason, immorality, premarital sex, always endangers future marital happiness.

It follows as night follows day. There is a loss of sensitivity. There is a loss of the true depth and beauty of love. Surveys have shown that those who were sexually pure when they went to the marriage altar have the highest opportunity and the most likelihood to have a happy marriage. Sex is so bad outside marriage because it's so good inside marriage. Reason number four, the most unstable people are those who practice what is called free love, which is a contradiction in terms because there is no such thing as free love.

Love takes commitment. The less education a person has, the more his tendency to be impure. The more education, the less tendency. Surveys have shown it is not the stable, growing, self-reliant personality that dabbles in free sex.

More often, it is the person who is insecure, who is anxious, and who is fearful. Number five, immorality is one of the greatest dangers to any society. It was the sin that led to the downfall of Greece and Rome and other societies.

Romans, when he wrote of the fall of the Roman Empire, listed that in his first of five reasons. Immorality is the enemy of the home, and the enemy of the home is the enemy of the nation. Number six, there's always the danger of conception. We hear people talk about illegitimate babies, illegitimate babies, illegitimate babies. My friend, there are no illegitimate children, but there are plenty of illegitimate parents. That little baby didn't ask to be born. And every baby has the right, an unborn child has a right to come to birth and maturity.

But they also have a right to be born into a home where husband and wife are committed one to another. Number seven, there's the danger of disease, and it's a very real danger. Our high-powered drugs are failing us, and it is not just AIDS that we're facing. All kinds of numbing, horrible, vile, filthy diseases are eating away.

We're seeing a modern epidemic. Be not deceived. God is not mocked. Whatever man sows, that shall he also reap.

Number eight, there is the clear, plain teaching of the Word of God, and so you don't need the other seven reasons. Just gut God's Word. God's Word says, Thou shalt not commit adultery. God's holy, inerrant, infallible Word says, Flee fornication. Hey folks, you're not smarter than God. You get an automobile, it has an instruction manual, it says, Put oil in the crankcase.

You say, Well, I'm going to put molasses in mine. Well, help yourself, and they'll tow you in. God knows more about this than you know, except by faith that God loves you, friend. God's laws are for your welfare. But I want to tell you, dear friend, not only are God's laws for your welfare, if you break God's laws, God's going to judge you.

Law without penalty is only advice, and God's not giving advice. Safe sex? Get married. Find a good wife. Love her.

Be loyal to her. I'm so glad I went to the marriage altar a virgin and married a virgin. I wouldn't take anything from my Christian home.

I'm not trying to put anybody under a guilt trip, because the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses, and God forgives. But I'm telling you, it's time that we parents and pastors and people held up a standard. This is right. This is what God says.

And it's good. There's a way of happiness for the married life. There's a way of helpfulness for the single life. There's to be the way of holiness for every life.

That, my friend, is safe sex. Well, aren't you glad that God has given us the standard for a happy and holy life in community with one another? At Love Worth Finding, one of our great honors is to come alongside you and pray with you and for you.

Maybe today's message has stirred up something in your heart that you're burdened with. If you can, go to our website, lwf.org slash radio, and scroll down to our prayer wall. You'll find the option to either submit a prayer request or pray for others right there. This resource is one of our favorite ways to keep the ministry and the community praying continually for one another's needs. We can't wait to hear from you today. Now, if you'd like a copy of this message in its entirety, you can call us at 1-877-LOVE-GOD and mention the title, Safe Sex. This message is also part of the insightful series, Super Glue for the Family. For that complete four-message collection, call 877-LOVE-GOD or go online to order at lwf.org slash radio. Or you can write us at Love Worth Finding, Box 38600, Memphis, Tennessee 38183. You may not know, you can also purchase our new Bible studies, much like this message, in our online store.

Again, go to lwf.org slash radio. We're so glad you've studied in God's Word with us today. Are you living a morally pure life?

No matter your relationship status, strive for holiness. And join us next time for more from Adrian Rogers right here on Love Worth Finding. Here's a note from our Facebook wall from a listener who listens daily to this program. She writes this, Love Worth Finding should remain on the air because Adrian Rogers has the unique ability to grab your attention right away and speak profound relevant truths in easy-to-understand language. His preaching is timeless. Well, at Love Worth Finding, our mission is to help Christians grow deeper in their faith through the timeless teaching of Pastor Rogers. That's why when you donate right now, we'd love to send you a copy of the powerful book, His Story. The goal of this book is to help you see Jesus in all of history and better understand the message of redemption in the Bible from start to finish. Request a copy of His Story when you call with a gift at 1-877-LOVEGOD or give online at lwf.org slash radio.