Teen Talk 1, Lesson 3

When a fellow and a girl are attracted to each other and begin spending time together, the excitement builds. They discover how pleasurable it is to touch and caress each other. This stirs their passions. Before long they are drawn toward sexual intercourse, and they begin to think, "If we really love each other, what's wrong with having sex?"

There are many reasons why you should not engage in sex before marriage. They add up to one thing: What you gain by sex before marriage is not worth what you lose by it.

A girl makes a tragic mistake when she tries to gain love or hold on to it by giving sex. Real love may lead to engagement, marriage, and sex, but sex does not lead to real love. Instead, it often destroys your chances of knowing real love.

A nineteen-year-old girl had kept herself pure all through high school and the first year of college. She was going steady with a boy whom she liked very much. On the night before he left for summer vacation, she gave in to him. She thought, "Why shouldn't I? He loves me, and I love him."

What happened? During the summer, she heard little from her "lover." When he returned that fall, he dropped the bombshell. "You're not the girl I had hoped you were," he told her. "Our last night together was a nightmare. You made me ashamed of myself. I could never marry you after that. I would always wonder if there had been others. This has been the greatest disappointment of my life."'

One of the wrong ideas concerning sex is that it is just a physical thrill to be enjoyed with whomever you choose. This makes sex cheap and meaningless, and it disregards certain facts about how we are made.

Sex is not just a physical act. In sexual intercourse, you and the other person become one. It is such an intimate experience that a part of you remains forever with the other person and a part of that person remains with you. When you do get married, you will find that you can never give your mate 100% of yourself. Why? Because you have given part of yourself away to others. To take this lightly is not only foolish but it is plain ignorance of how God made us.

The Bible says that a young person should learn to possess his body with honor and not follow the ways of those who are immoral. A young person's purity is his or her priceless possession. Unfortunately many do not realize this until it is too late.

Sometimes a girl is love-hungry, and she mistakes a boy's sex desire for the love she is looking for, and she gives in to him. All too often, the boy does not really love her or respect her as a person. He wants sex and she is available, so he uses her to get what he wants. After awhile, he gets tired of her. She is like bargain-table goods-"Slightly soiled. Greatly reduced in price. "

She has nowhere to go in her search for love but to another boy who is looking for sex. She becomes cheap in her own eyes and in the eyes of others.

God has given you a conscience and you've got to live with it. A 42-year-old woman wrote,

When I was young, I fell into sins that have marred my life. My secret sins were committed in my teenage years. I have cried and cried in remorse...If only God would give me peace and take away the awful guilt out of my life.

You may get a few moments of "thrilling pleasure" out of sex before marriage, but is it worth this price?

Do young people find sex as exciting and heavenly as they thought it would be? The answer is No!

A study of premarital sex relations was made in a large clinic for unwed mothers. The question was asked of the unwed mothers, "Did you find the sex experience pleasurable, disappointing, or unpleasant?"

Fifty percent said it was "disappointing," thirty percent described it as "unpleasant or revolting," and only twenty percent said it was " pleasurable. "

Under the right circumstances, sex can be an exciting and thrilling experience, as God intended it to be. But outside of marriage it is likely to be disappointing. A sixteen-year-old pregnant girl said, "Everything you read in books about love is a bunch of lies. It isn't tender; it isn't sweet and enduring. It is cruel and it hurts. Movie writers in this country ought to be jailed for writing all that junk about moonlight and roses. What's more, all those fade-outs they do in the movies and stories where people are supposed to be loving and everything is so romantic and the next morning everyone is so happy...it isn't like that at all. It hurts; it hurts terribly when you are not used to it. Moreover you feel awful the next day when your boyfriend won't even look at you."

Engaging in sex before marriage can expose you to venereal diseases. The "easy" girl, who is by no means a prostitute, can be the source of any one of several such diseases. Likewise, fellows can be "carriers." Venereal diseases can cause serious infections, blindness, and even death. They can be transmitted to your children with the same devastating effects. There is no known cure for some of these diseases.

A girl who had sexual relations with only one boyfriend thought she was safe. She was terribly shocked when her doctor told her she was infected. A "venereal tracer" revealed that the boy had had sex with only one other girl. But this girl had had sex with five other men, who in turn had been with nineteen women, some of them prostitutes. The girl who thought her relationship had been limited to one person had had contact, through him, with at least ninety-two persons.

Young people who experiment with sex outside of marriage should ask themselves: "What will we do if this results in pregnancy?"

One who visited a home for unwed mothers said, "You can never forget that look of despair on the faces of the girls who do not know what the future holds - girls who don't know if they will ever know real love or have a happy home."

It is not just the easy make-outs that get pregnant, but "nice girls" as well. Abortion may seem like an easy solution to the problem of an unwanted pregnancy, but it is not. It can leave you with terrible feelings of guilt which can haunt you the rest of your life. The following letter tells a familiar story:

In June of 1982, I found out I was pregnant. I was 18 years old and two months away from college. My boyfriend was a back-slidden Christian like me and we chose abortion because we didn't want to face our family and friends. We took the "easy" way out.

After my abortion I faced mental heartaches, shed many tears, and regretted the whole decision. To this day I still get on my knees and cry-asking the Lord for His loving kindness because I was so wrong!

I struggle a lot wondering if God will give me a second chance. He is such a loving God and I believe with all my heart that He is God, and yet I always carry a conscience full of guilt. I feel like God has abandoned me and I get so discouraged because of the nightmare of my past. Does God forgive me? I believe He does, yet I feel this sin was just too great.

We should make it clear here that no one needs to go through life carrying such a heavy load of guilt. Jesus Christ died for our sins. God forgives anyone who takes Him as their Saviour.

Sometimes a boy will say, "If you get pregnant, we can always get married. "

Maybe you can, but marriage is serious business. It means taking on a job you may not be prepared for. Marriage is not all moonlight, romance, and roses; it's daylight, diapers, and dishes! Consider this letter:

I am 17 and already my life is messed up. Ted and I went steady for six months and we began to do things we had no right to do. I became pregnant.

We both quit school and got married right away. My folks thought it would be best if we moved out of town, so we did. I hate my life and what I have done to Ted. The baby cries all the time and gets on Ted's nerves. He drinks too much and I can't blame him. We live in a dump and there is no money for sitters or movies or decent clothes. Ted never says anything, but I know he must hate me because I got him into this. I'm afraid he hates the baby, too. He never holds her or pays attention to her.

There are times when I think this is all a bad dream and I'll wake up at home in my own bed, and get dressed and go to school with the kids I liked so much. But I know too well that those days are over for me and I am stuck.

I'm not writing for advice. It's too late for that. I'm just writing in the hope you will print this letter for the benefit of other teenagers who think they know it all-like I did.

- Wrecked at 17

If you become involved with someone sexually before marriage, you may think that you have found real love when all you have is the thrill and excitement of sexual attraction. You go ahead and get married and then you discover that you married the wrong person. You find out too late that it was not real love but only sex that was the attraction.

Some people think that if they just make it to the marriage altar, everything will be fine. But this is not so. A happy and successful marriage is not easy to come by under the best of circumstances, but when you start out wrong, it is almost impossible to achieve.

Premarital sex greatly reduces your chances of a happy marriage. One reason is that those who play around with sex before marriage tend to do the same thing after marriage. They are never satisfied-always looking for a new thrill.

Sometimes couples engage in sex before marriage, then get married and seemingly get along well. But they have sown seeds of doubt and distrust which will bear bitter fruit later on.

A couple who had been married 20 years was counselling with Dr. Henry Brandt, trying to keep their marriage from falling apart.

The husband said, "My wife doesn't trust me."

"You don't trust me either," the wife shot back. "We've never trusted each other."

Why had they never trusted each other? Because they had sex before they were married. It resulted in 20 years of suspicion and distrust and finally wrecked their marriage.

Sex Before Marriage is Wrong

We have considered ten practical reasons why you should avoid sex before marriage. But there is one reason that is more important than all these ten reasons. It is this: Sex before marriage is wrong.

It is wrong because God says it is wrong. Nothing can change that. God has said in plain words that sex outside of marriage is sin. In the Bible it is called fornication, and it is one of the most damaging of all sins.

The Bible says,

"Flee fornication...he that commits fornication sins against his own body."
I Corinthians 6:18

God wants us to see that sex within marriage is holy and pure in His sight and has His blessing. But God will judge those who commit fornication and adultery. The Bible says, "Marriage is honorable in all, and the (marriage) bed undefiled: but whoremongers (fornicators) and adulterers God will judge." Hebrews 13:4

The Bible says that sex outside of marriage and all forms of abnormal or perverted sex are wrong. People often say, "Times have changed." It is true that times have changed, but God has not changed, nor has He changed His mind about these things. The Bible says, "Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind (homosexuals)...shall inherit the kingdom of God." I Corinthians 6:9,10

God Wants Us To Have the Best

Many young people do not understand why God tells us not to engage in sex before marriage. Some even think that God does not want us to enjoy sex, but this is not true at all.

The truth is that God gave commandments concerning sex, not to keep us from enjoying it, but in order that we might enjoy sex to the fullest and over the longest period of time.

To illustrate what we mean, let us think about trains. Some of the fastest trains in the world are in Japan. Some of these trains regularly run at 120 miles per hour and at times they hit 155 miles per hour!

How can these trains attain such speeds? The reason is that they run on tracks that are superbly designed and skilfully built. The tracks enable these trains to run at their maximum speed.

Suppose one of the trains were to say, "I'm tired of running on these old tracks. They are too restricting. I want to be free to go where I want to go and do what I want to do." So this train jumps the tracks and heads out across a rice paddy.

It is truly free now-no longer bound by those tracks. Yes, it is free all right, but it is not running at 120 miles an hour. In fact, it is not running at all. Instead, it is lying there in the mud. And that is where it will remain until a power greater than it picks it up, cleans it up, and puts it back on the tracks.

That is the way it is with sex. God has laid down some "tracks"- not to keep you from enjoying sex, but that you might enjoy it to the fullest and over the longest period of time. Satan offers you the thrill of "jumping the tracks," but you end up in the mud.

If it is God's plan for you to be married, He has just the right person in mind for you. When you walk down the aisle on your wedding day to seal your vows before a holy God, you will be glad that you kept yourself for that one.

Someone reading this may be saying, "I've already jumped the tracks. Is there any hope for me?"

Yes, there is hope for you! Jesus Christ can pick you up out of the mud of your sins and failures, clean you up, and put you back on the tracks.

On one occasion, some religious leaders brought to Jesus a woman who was guilty of adultery. They threw this woman at the feet of Jesus and said, "Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law, commanded that she should be stoned (put to death by throwing stones at her). But what do you say?"

These men did not care about this woman. They were simply using her as a means of getting Jesus into trouble. If Jesus said, "Do not stone her," He would be going against the law of Moses. If He said, "Put her to death," He would be in trouble with the Roman government.

Jesus did not answer them right away. He kneeled down and began writing in the sand. When these men continued to press Jesus for a decision, He stood up and said, "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first."

Those who heard Him were convicted by their consciences and left, one by one. Jesus forgave this woman of her sins and said to her, "Go and sin no more."'

Jesus wants to forgive you and make you clean in God's sight. He shed His precious blood on the cross that you might be forgiven of your sins. His blood can cleanse you from all your sins. The Bible says, "...the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from ALL SIN." I John 1:7

You do not need to be afraid to come to Jesus. He forgave the woman taken in the act of adultery. He is "the Friend of sinners," and He invites you to come to Him. Jesus said, "...him (anyone) that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out." John 6:37

Your part is to come to Him; His part is to take you in. He not only will forgive you for your sins, but He can deliver you from any sin that may be binding you. Jesus said, "If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed." John 8:36

If this is what you truly want, get alone with the Lord. Tell Him about your sins. Tell Him everything. He will not reject you. Thank Him for dying on the cross for your sins. Ask Him to make you clean through His precious blood which was shed for you.

Get a Bible or a New Testament and begin reading the Gospel of John. As you read it, underline the words "believe" and "believeth." Note especially the following verses:

Questions