purity

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It’s hard to stop a train

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Scripturally, there can be no doubt–sex outside of marriage is sin.

“For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man…”
Matthew 15:19-20

“Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness…”
Galatians 5:19

“Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.”
Colossians 3:5

“You shall not commit adultery.”
Exodus 20:14

Most Christians (at least those who believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God) agree that premarital sex is wrong.

The difficulty comes in when we ask what that means. People start talking “technical virginity” and asking whether this is okay or that is okay.

They’re committed to not having sex before marriage, but they want to know how far is too far.

Helpful Christians give their opinions on where the lines should be drawn. “Keep your clothes on,” one person counsels. Joshua Harris famously decided not to kiss until his wedding day (after “Kissing Dating Goodbye”) sparking a whole slew of no-kiss-courtships.

But in some sense, all these rules are pretty arbitrary. Because, ultimately, except in the case of rape, sex doesn’t begin with intercourse. It doesn’t begin with undressing. It doesn’t even begin with that first kiss.

Physical intimacy between a man and a woman begins with the first touch–and from that first touch, it’s headed in one direction: towards sexual intercourse.

I believe that this is why the Bible says in I Corinthians 7:1 “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.”

I liken physical intimacy to a train, set in motion at the first touch and hurtling with ever increasing momentum towards its destination (intercourse). And, as a radio advertisement for heat pumps that’s been running in the greater Omaha area in the last several years reminds us: it’s hard to stop a train (Trane, in their advertisement).

So how are we to keep ourselves pure? Give us some rules. Tell us what to do.

I’ve wished I could just set myself and others some nice, clear, easy-to-follow rules that would make their relationships fool-proof against premarital sex and inappropriate physical intimacy.

I can’t.

But I can offer some basic words of counsel. First and foremost among them? Only start the train if you can take it to its destination.

If you’re fourteen years old (four years from even being legally able to marry), you have no business starting the train. Which means no touching. Period. No hand-holding, no hugs, no backrubs. Nothing. “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.”

If you’re friends with someone or you’re casually dating them, but aren’t really seriously considering them as a future spouse, you have no business starting the train. Which means no hand-holding (again), no cuddling, no good-night kissing. It means no nothing. “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.”

But what if you’re older and you’re seriously pursuing a relationship with marriage as the intended destination? You’re seriously dating or courting–maybe you’re even engaged. What should you do now?

Again, I don’t have rules for you to follow–but I do have some guidelines that might help you to establish boundaries in this area, and to follow the advice to “only start the train if you can take it to its destination.”

First, start slow. You don’t have to rush into physical intimacy. Even though you might want to, it’s better for you to hold off on physical intimacy. Physical intimacy should be the last level of intimacy that develops in a relationship. Take time to develop the other three levels of intimacy before you step into physical intimacy. Because the truth is that once you start the physical intimacy train, it’s going to want to consume the rest of your relationship. You’re going to want to keep on exploring that physical intimacy side–even at the expense of developing head- and heart-intimacy. So hold off on physical intimacy–and hold off on deepening that intimacy. Just hold hands for a while before moving to anything else. Savor the small bits of physical intimacy instead of pushing on–because the closer you get to that end destination, the harder it is to stop the train.

Second, set boundaries. Maybe you’re a bit confused by this. Didn’t I just tell you that I can’t give you rules to follow regarding physical intimacy? I did. But this isn’t about me giving you rules to follow. This is about you personally, and as a couple, prayerfully making decisions about how you are going to handle physical intimacy–and how you’re going to guard against inappropriate physical intimacy. As you set boundaries, you might want to think about what kind of touching is appropriate and what kind is not. Consider what kind of safeguards you can set up to avoid temptation for inappropriate physical intimacy. If you’re still in your teens or in your parents’ household, you might consider asking your parents to help you to set some of these boundaries. Even if you’re not in your teens or in your parents’ household, I encourage you to involve family and friends in keeping you accountable to maintain these physical boundaries.

Third, I encourage you to apply the brakes at the first warning signs. Even the slowest start and the best-laid boundaries are not guarantees that you won’t walk into sexual sin.

“Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”
I Corinthians 10:12-13

Even the best plans will not take you out of the way of temptation. We cannot become lax, thinking that our rules or ideals can protect us from sin. Rather, we must continually be listening to and obeying the Spirit of God. God will always provide a way of escape–but if we’re not listening to God or being obedient to His voice, we’ll pass right by the escape route on our way directly into sin.

I love how verse 12 speaks directly to this situation: “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” You think you’re in good shape, you’ve got it covered. You and your boyfriend/girlfriend agree that you aren’t going to have sex before marriage. You’ve set some boundaries (maybe even far from the line of intercourse). You have good intentions. You’re both serious about God. Watch out. Take heed lest you fall.

When the Holy Spirit issues that first alarm, hit the brakes and hit them fast. Don’t presume that you’re strong enough to handle the situation.

I was dating a godly man. He and I were both serious about seeking God’s glory with our lives and in our relationship. We’d set some boundaries. I really wasn’t worried about our physical relationship. He was an honorable man. He wasn’t going to take advantage of me. It was all good.

What I underestimated was the power of my own physical desire. We didn’t do anything inappropriate–I am not ashamed of anything we did. But, because of the nature of the relationship, even small touches awakened a depth of physical desire and I become startlingly aware of my own ability to fall. I realized that it wasn’t just a matter of whether I could trust him or whether we had good intentions–I couldn’t trust myself against the strength of my desire. We didn’t do anything inappropriate–but it wouldn’t have taken much for me to have been willing to do something inappropriate. The pace we had set, the boundaries we had established simply weren’t enough. I, at least, could have easily fallen. It was time to apply the brakes.

“Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” Listen to the voice of God and apply the brakes at His first warning.

It’s hard to stop a train once it’s started, so exercise wisdom and caution with when and how you start the train–and don’t be afraid to apply the brakes (or to jump out of the train) the moment you realize that the train’s headed to its destination too quickly.

Categories Love Month

Purity of Heart (Guest Post)

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And now for my favorite part of Love Month–where the guys go off to talk about lust–and the girls go off to talk about how to keep guys from lusting (modesty). But wait–I already talked about modesty (and why the goal SHOULDN’T be keeping guys from lusting)–

Instead, I’ve asked my mom to write up a little something about purity. My mother is a godly woman, full of wisdom (and with the gray hair to prove it!) I think you’ll learn much from her perspective on purity, sexual and otherwise.

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We often think of purity only in a sexual sense. This is an incomplete look at purity. Purity, like any other sin, is a matter of the heart. When Jesus spoke about the commands of the Old Testament, He made each one a matter of the heart even though the Jews had made them a matter of rules (i.e. Jesus called hating your brother murder.) Purity is no different. We’d like to reduce purity down to a bunch of rules – you can go this far, and still be okay. Col. 2:23 tells us that rules, even though they appear wise, have no value against fleshly indulgence.

“These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.”

Why is that? It is because, as James 1:14 tells us, sin is conceived of our own lust. It originates in a desire within our own flesh.

“But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.”

Rules only deal with the outside things. But a person can “obey all the rules”, and still not be pure because of the condition of the heart. Rebekah defined purity for us a few days ago.

Purity: the quality or state of being pure

Pure: unmixed with any other matter; free from dust, dirt, or taint; spotless, stainless; free from harshness or roughness and being in tune; free from what vitiates, weakens, or pollutes; containing nothing that does not properly belong; free from moral fault or guilt; marked by chastity;

Notice the phrase “containing NOTHING that does not properly belong.” Lusts and comparisons don’t belong in a pure relationship.

“But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.”
I Timothy 1:5 NASB

We know that, in general, apart from Christ, we are not pure yet He makes us pure by faith in Him. But let’s get practical and look at the part we all think of when we talk about purity – sex.

What about sexual purity?

Let me ask this: Is sex completely a physical thing, with no link to our emotions or our spirit? If your answer is yes, you’re an animal, which has no moral code, so this whole discussion is irrelevant. If your answer is “no, it’s not just physical,” then it makes sense that sexual purity would also not be just physical.

Anything that brings an element of wrongness to a monogamous marital relationship is a part of sexual impurity. If my only thought is my own pleasure, I bring selfishness into it, and I am not pure. You may say that’s a little extreme. But is it? Purity is not just an idea for singles (usually when we say purity we really mean abstinence). Purity is a cleanness of heart and motive in a relationship acted out in what we do and say.

We know the obvious things that bring impurity into a marriage bed – a literal other man or woman from an affair or premarital sex that we are comparing our marriage experience to. We hear a lot about pornography in relation to men’s sexual sins. But I think that women also have their form of pornography–but because it’s not pictures exploiting someone else, we don’t recognize it as such.

I’m speaking of romance novels. Some have explicit scenes that can give a physical image that brings an element of comparison, but I think the emotional pull of a storybook man is far more detrimental to a relationship with a husband. “My man doesn’t make me FEEL like that!”

Women have a God-given desire to be emotionally joined to a man, not just physically joined. We dream of having him understand us, and be tender toward us. We want him to be sensitive, yet masculine, etc. All these things can be rolled into one storybook man, where it’s easy for us to see it (usually because the book is written by a woman, so her men think and speak like women) and the woman doesn’t have to draw him out or even quit acting like a selfish jerk herself. I’m not saying men like that don’t exist. It just takes a lot more effort and self-sacrifice on our part to see it in a real man that also has faults.

In real life, we have to invest in a relationship in order to see the things we want come out of it. So this fiction may give a sense of dissatisfaction in our man, or may awaken feelings that shouldn’t be stirred yet. (Song of Solomon tells us not to arouse or awaken love until the appropriate time.) How can a woman be content in singleness if she constantly stirs this up? So even though the reader isn’t physically committing adultery or fornication, she is doing so emotionally, and she brings this baggage into her marital relationship. That’s impurity.

I think the pressures toward impure thoughts and actions from external things are greater than they were when I grew up. More things are openly explicit, and accepted by society as a whole. Opportunity for impurity may be greater. This means it requires more boldness to stand against impurity; but, because sin originates in the desires of our flesh, I would say the struggle is the same.

The victory is also the same. You have a conscience that is alive to God. Listen to His voice. He will show you what makes you sexually impure, if you will allow Him to. Respond to His voice with repentance and trust and He will lead you down a path of purity.

“For thus the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, has said, ‘In repentance and rest you shall be saved, In quietness and trust is your strength.'”
Isaiah 30:15 NASB

Categories Love Month

Absolute purity

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Four days ago, I opened my tap and learned a lesson in purity.

I’ve been drinking tap water from Lincoln’s Municipal Water supply for most of my life–and I consider it to be the best tasting water imaginable. It’s hard water, with lots of minerals–not so nice when it comes to cleaning, but fantastic when it comes to flavor.

But four days ago, I took a swig of water from the tap and almost retched. The water tasted… dirty. There isn’t any other way to describe it.

I almost dehydrated myself that first day, drinking only when I was about to faint.

The second day, I took my water bottle to campus and filled it with the tap there. Surely, it would be better. But it wasn’t. I got some water from the residence halls at lunch–it, too, tasted dirty. I asked others if they felt that the water tasted funny. I got mixed responses, but general consensus was that I was going crazy.

By Friday, I was almost completely dehydrated and I knew I had to do something about it. So I drank massive quantities of hot tea–the tea covering up the dirty flavor of the water.

Saturday morning, I got a call from one of lecturers I TA for. She said she didn’t know if I got the Lincoln Journal Star, but there was an article in the Saturday edition that explained my weird experience.

Lincoln started using a new well recently and that well had unusually high levels of “organic matter”. Apparently only those with super-sensitive taste buds have been able to detect the impurity in the water–but I happen to be one of them.

Purity: the quality or state of being pure

Pure: unmixed with any other matter; free from dust, dirt, or taint; spotless, stainless; free from harshness or roughness and being in tune; free from what vitiates, weakens, or pollutes; containing nothing that does not properly belong; free from moral fault or guilt; marked by chastity;

Maybe you’re living in Lincoln and haven’t noticed anything different in the water. But if you think my taste buds are sensitive, you should see God’s!

I won’t drink water that’s been tainted with “organic material.” God won’t abide in the presence of sin.

“Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD?
Or who may stand in His holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol,
Nor sworn deceitfully.
He shall receive blessing from the LORD,
And righteousness from the God of his salvation.”
Psalm 24:3-5

“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.”
I Corinthians 6:9-10

God can’t stand sin–and He’s not going to let anyone with sin enter into His presence. In the Beatitudes, Jesus says “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). What He doesn’t say–but what is made clear by the verses quoted above–is “Damned are the impure, for they shall be barred from the presence of God.”

Which pretty much damns everyone, because we’re all by nature impure.

And we can do nothing to make ourselves clean. The Bible says that all our righteousness is as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). We are impure. We can do nothing to to make ourselves pure. Impurity cannot abide in the presence of God. Therefore, we can not abide in the presence of God–and we can’t do anything to make ourselves able to abide in the presence of God.

Yet there is hope. God has made a way for the impure to become pure–a distillation process, if you will.

“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
I Corinthians 6:9-11

Through Christ, the impure can be made pure.

“For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”
Hebrews 9:13-14

But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
I John 1:7-9

Jesus Christ is in the business of cleansing and purifying the unclean.

There are three potential responses to an awareness that God cannot abide impurity.

The first response is to try our hardest to be pure. But, as I’ve already mentioned, we can do nothing to make ourselves pure. Any attempts to purify ourselves are only dead works–more of the very thing we must be saved from.

The second response is to recognize and accept Jesus’ cleansing work on the cross and its sufficiency–and to continue to sin however we like. After all, Christ has made the impure pure–and His work covers all our sins (past, present, and future)–so why not keep on walking in impurity? Romans 6:1-4 addresses the folly of this response:

“What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? – Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

The third, and appropriate, response is to recognize and accept Jesus’ cleansing work on the cross and its sufficiency–and to desire to walk in purity out of love for the One who has made us pure. This love compels us to ask not “how impure can I be and still be acceptable” but “how pure can I be?”

The Christian should be serious about purity because God is serious about purity.

As we begin to discuss the “practicalities” of male/female relationships, lust, and the like, we need to establish our goals.

Is our goal to keep the “organic matter” low enough that most people can’t taste it? Maybe our goal is to trick our own taste buds into accepting impurity by covering it up with something else (like my making tea out of impure water).

But in the letters to Timothy, Paul makes clear that our goal should be absolute purity.

“Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.”
I Timothy 5:1-2 (NIV)

The words “pure” or “purity” occur six times in the two epistles Paul wrote to Timothy–and each time, it was an injunction to Timothy to be pure, keep himself pure, or act in purity.

Resolve today to glorify God by living a life marked by absolute (complete, unquestioned) purity.