Adam is created to exercise dominion over every sphere of his life FOR the High King, including his sexual appetite. When Adam rebelled against God’s prohibition from eating the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, the moral disease of sin spread throughout his being, corrupting his heart. Theologians call this total depravity, meaning not that man is as evil as he can possibly be, but that the corrupting power of sin spread to every part of his being. In Paul’s letter to the Galatian believers he describes the fruit of the corrosive power of sin. Now the works of the sinful nature are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality… (Gal. 5:19). For the man who is committed to Christ’s mission for him in this fallen world, there is no alternative to fighting the battle for sexual self-control.
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who don’t know God (1Thess. 4:3-5).
The key to sexual purity is not behavior modification, but sanctification, i.e. heart transformation. If I could give men three simple steps to take next Thursday afternoon at 3:00 PM to be free of sexual lust forever—every Christian man I know would take them. But there are no such simple steps. Jesus taught us that behavior arises from the heart. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart (Luke 6:45). Jesus came to set our hearts free from slavery to sin i.e. to sanctify us. Theologian J.C. Ryle, writes, “Justification is an act of God as judge about a delinquent, absolving him from a sentence of death. Sanctification is an act of God…as a physician, in curing us of a mortal disease.” (Holiness). Justification is a one-time event; sanctification is a life-long process that at death is still incomplete. In this article and in the next one, we will look at our sexual appetite through the biblical lens of creation, fall, redemption.
CREATION
Genesis, the book of beginnings, gives us great insight into the purpose of God’s design of sexual desire and pleasure. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame (Gen 2:24-25). Marriage is the joining of two lives and two bodies. Notice that the sexual union described in the first sentence is linked with the intimacy described in the second sentence. Marriage is being naked, heart, body, and soul—exposed to each other—yet making a covenant with God to still love one another. Sexual union is the celebration of the loving intimacy for which God designed marriage.
God delights in the love-making of husband and wife. In the Song of Songs, it is as if God enters the bridal chamber, where the newlyweds lay entwined in each other's arms, and pronounces his benediction, Eat friends, drink, and be drunk with love. (5:1). In Proverbs 5:18-19 married couples are urged by God to be drunk with sexual love for each other. Paul commands the Corinthian married couples not to let anything but a special prayer time get in the way of regular, frequent sex and tells the one with the weaker sex drive to accommodate to the one with the stronger drive lest they deprive their mate.
God has hardwired men with a sexual appetite that is strong enough to overcome their natural independence and drive them into the loving arms of their wife, where their human need for intimacy and love is met. Unlike women, who are sexually attracted not to the body but to the whole person, men are sexually stimulated by the naked female body—no relationship necessary. That is why the porn available everywhere today is such a struggle. And God designed the male sex drive to be powerful!
For many men the sex drive feels like a volcano. Explosive and unpredictable, it continues to burn deep down in the groin, even when there is no reason for it. It may be dormant for a while, only grumbling occasionally. But it awakens sooner or later, and when it erupts it can lay waste to everything in its path including honor, reputation, families, virginity, fidelity, chastity, good intentions, life-long promises, and spiritual commitments. Archibald Hart, The Sexual Man
FALL
Four Ways Sin Has Polluted Our Sexual Nature
A. Fallen man takes nakedness outside the confines of marriage. Only doctors, morticians, and husbands have any business looking at a woman’s naked body. A woman has no business revealing her body in public. Our bodies are not dirty or shameful; they are private. Biblically, public nakedness was a great shame: In judgement upon God’s people, he says to them, Your nakedness shall be uncovered, and your disgrace shall be seen (Isaiah 47:3). The same judgement is articulated in Nahum. Behold, I am against you, declares the Lord of hosts, and will lift up your skirts over your face; and I will make nations look at your nakedness and kingdoms at your shame (Nahum 3:5).
B. Fallen man takes sex outside the confines of marriage. The Greek word, “porneia,” which is translated, “sexual immorality,” refers to sex with anyone other than one’s spouse of the opposite sex. Some rationalize that intimate touching, oral sex, anything short of intercourse--is permissible. But that is not God’s view. Sexual touching is part of the sexual intimacy reserved for marriage and is intended to awaken the desire for full intercourse, which is apparent in Ezekiel’s metaphorical description of Israel’s unfaithfulness. They became prostitutes in Egypt, engaging in prostitution from their youth. In that land their breasts were fondled and their virgin bosoms caressed. A key foundation for fighting sexual temptation when single is given in Song of Songs 2:7. Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field: Do not arouse or awaken love before its time. That principle is to stay out of situations as much as possible that stimulate your sex drive until marriage.
C. Our sinful nature also damages the sexual relationship within monogamous marriage. Christian couples often feel rejected, misunderstood, and sexually unsatisfied in their marriage. Few Christian couples are given any help working through their sexual misunderstandings and differences. Research reveals that 83% of women feel their husbands don’t even know the basic needs of a woman for oneness or how to provide emotional intimacy for them. The same percentage of Christian men—83%--say that their wives don’t understand their need for sexual intimacy. (Here is a link to a book for married couple to help them solve this intimacy misconnect.)
D. Fallen men want sexual pleasure without the hard work of emotional intimacy with a real woman. The sinful nature of both single and married men easily defaults to wanting the benefits of femininity—sexual pleasure, but without the risk and work of real involvement with a real woman. Married men who feel distant from their wives find self-sex easier than taking the risk of initiating love-making with their wives. The Internet and cable provide easy access to sexual pleasure without any emotional connection to a real woman required. Wives are designed to be sexually responsive to a real man, who takes the risk of pursuing and loving her, not just pursuing sex. The more a man uses impersonal porn for sexual release the more he trains himself into impersonal sex—the kind of sex that is unsatisfying to most women.
The struggle for sexual purity is a titanic battle for men. It is a myth that this fight gets easier when we get married. That is why becoming sexually pure is not a simple three-step prescription you can take and be pure forever. It is a tough, hard fight and we are going to lose many battles. Don’t let Satan keep you down in shame when you lose one. The issue is not so much that we win every battle as that we get back up and back into the fight. Next week we will look at practical strategies to overcome sexual lust in the power of our Redeemer, Jesus. In the meantime, the most important truth about managing our sex drive may be that because grace is rooted in God’s very being, he loves you and wants you no matter how dirty you feel because of your sexual sin.
For Further Study.
1. Look back to 1 Thess 4:3-5 (2nd paragraph), contrast the Christian and pagan approaches to sexual desire. Why would “not knowing God” lead to passionate lust?
2. What stood out to you about the four ways sin has corrupted our sexuality? Can you think of any other ways it has?
Resources
Much of this material is from my nine-chapter, fifty-six page book, Grace Transformed Sexuality: How Grace Changes a Man’s Heart and His Battle With Lust—Group Bible Study for Men and Young Men
Intimacy God’s Design for Marriage: Three Conversational Dates to Rediscover Intimacy in Your Marriage. This is a tool to help every Christian husband understand how to better meet the needs of his wife's feminine heart while at the same time helping him show his wife the biblical basis for his God-designed hunger for sexual intimacy.
