“Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.”
— Hebrews 13:4
Let me say something that surprises people every time: God is not against sex. He invented it. In the beginning, when He saw that it was not good for man to be alone, He created woman, and everything that comes with that. The Scripture says the two became one flesh, and God looked at what He had made and called it very good. The physical intimacy of marriage was His idea, His gift, and His design from the very beginning. He is not embarrassed about it. He does not tolerate it reluctantly. He created it with intention and with joy.
What God is against is the misuse of His gift. Think of a fireplace. In the fireplace, fire is beautiful, warm and inviting, filling the home with light and comfort. Remove the fire from the fireplace and set it on the carpet, the walls, the furniture, and the most beautiful thing in the room becomes the most destructive. The fire has not changed. What changed is where it burns. God has given the fire of sexual intimacy to burn within the fireplace of the covenant of marriage between one man and one woman. Within those walls, it is a gift. Outside them, it is a disaster.
The Seventh Commandment, “you shall not commit adultery,” is God building a wall around the fireplace. Not to deprive you, but to protect you. And to protect the institution that He built to hold you. Marriage is the foundation of the family, and the family is the foundation of civilization. Every civilization that has treated sexual fidelity as negotiable has paid an enormous price. Ours is paying it now.
Here is what Jesus said about this commandment in the Sermon on the Mount: it goes deeper than the act. “Everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Jesus was not expanding the law arbitrarily. He was revealing where adultery always starts, in the sustained, indulged imagination. The act is just the final chapter of a story that began much earlier, in a glance that became a gaze.
God’s gift is worth protecting. Your marriage is worth fighting for. The covenant you made before God is worth honoring every single day. Not because it is easy, but because it is holy.
GOD GAVE YOU THE GIFT OF SEXUALITY. PROTECT IT BY KEEPING IT IN ITS PROPER PLACE.
