How Far Is Too Far Before Marriage?
00:00:00.000 | Pastor John, several listeners have emailed to ask this question, "How far is too far
00:00:09.860 | for an engaged couple to go sexually before marriage?"
00:00:13.100 | It's a really important question.
00:00:18.740 | Our culture is, of course, awash in sexual titillation.
00:00:25.140 | You can hardly open your internet without some advertisement on the side, awakening
00:00:32.060 | some sexual desire, or watch an advertisement between a TV program, or go to any movie almost
00:00:38.100 | without some kind of titillation.
00:00:39.740 | It's really amazing what we're having to deal with these days.
00:00:45.020 | When a young man and a young woman, or older man and older woman for that matter, begin
00:00:50.980 | to hang out together, what should they do physically is utterly crucial to ask.
00:00:58.020 | The Bible is our guide and our authority.
00:01:02.700 | It does not have a single sentence somewhere that says, "Okay, engaged couples.
00:01:07.500 | Okay, couples that are starting to date.
00:01:09.980 | Here's what you can and can't do."
00:01:12.340 | The way we have to approach it is by putting together truths from the Bible, which when
00:01:20.100 | they come together, lead to some conclusions.
00:01:22.900 | Let me try to put together a few of those.
00:01:25.340 | I'll see if I can be brief here.
00:01:27.740 | Number one, sex is good.
00:01:30.340 | I don't want to start with mainly, "Oh, bad, bad, bad.
00:01:34.620 | Watch out.
00:01:35.620 | Watch out."
00:01:36.620 | Sex is good.
00:01:39.500 | First Timothy 4.3, the days are coming when people are going to forbid to eat certain things
00:01:43.820 | and marry because marriage has got that ugly stuff called sex in it.
00:01:47.140 | Paul says, "No, the food and the sex are created to be received with thanksgiving because they're
00:01:52.060 | sanctified by the word of God and prayer," which surprisingly really says good sex is
00:01:56.820 | for Christians, because people who will give thanks for it.
00:02:01.300 | Husbands and wives, give your conjugal rights, 1 Corinthians 7.3.
00:02:05.660 | Only abstain from this sexual thing briefly, lest Satan tempt you, which means, by the
00:02:10.340 | way, that it's not just for having babies.
00:02:14.060 | It's got other deeper personal satisfaction reasons that God put it in our lives.
00:02:20.620 | Of course, the amazing text that all men love from Proverbs 5.19, "Rejoice in the wife of
00:02:27.620 | your youth and let her breasts fill you with delight."
00:02:30.420 | Clearly, sexual touching is a good thing, biblically.
00:02:36.940 | That's number one.
00:02:37.940 | Number two, sex is to be enjoyed only in marriage.
00:02:43.300 | 1 Corinthians 6.18, "Flee from pornia," that is, from fornication, from sexual immorality.
00:02:50.060 | There's a difference between pornia and moikia.
00:02:53.060 | Moikia is adultery and pornia is fornication.
00:02:56.660 | There is illicit sex in marriage called adultery and there's illicit sex before marriage called
00:03:01.900 | fornication.
00:03:02.900 | Don't go there.
00:03:04.700 | Flee from it, Paul says.
00:03:06.580 | 1 Corinthians 7.9, "If they can't exercise self-control, they should marry," because
00:03:12.020 | this phenomenon, this wonderful thing called sex, is designed to be satisfied in marriage.
00:03:20.500 | One of the reasons for that is that physical union, sexual intercourse, is meant to be
00:03:28.700 | the physical capstone of an emotional, spiritual union in lasting covenant.
00:03:37.300 | We're not animals.
00:03:39.740 | Sex has roots and branches penetrating in all of our being and it affects all of our
00:03:46.980 | being.
00:03:47.980 | We've tried to abstract sex from the covenantal, deep, personal, emotional, spiritual union
00:03:53.860 | of a man and a woman in our movies, in our literature, in our advertising, and it's wreaking
00:03:59.180 | havoc all over the world.
00:04:02.180 | Women in particular are more whole than men in this regard.
00:04:06.300 | Women are wired to want more plainly than men the holistic dimension of sexuality.
00:04:14.380 | You don't want to be treated like mere animals for men's animalistic satisfaction.
00:04:21.020 | They want a relationship.
00:04:22.380 | They want this thing to have personal dimensions and covenantal commitment dimensions.
00:04:27.620 | It's so sad to watch so many women in the media be drawn by the demands of men into
00:04:36.740 | a more animalistic way of treating sex than in this holistic, personal way.
00:04:44.220 | Marriage is where God means for that beautiful, whole commitment and covenantal, deep, personal,
00:04:51.540 | spiritual reality with a capstone of sexual intercourse to happen.
00:04:58.180 | The third observation is that mental sex is meant for marriage.
00:05:04.740 | Jesus said everyone who looks upon a woman to desire her has already committed adultery
00:05:10.300 | with her in his heart, which means that doing sex in your mind, looking at a woman and cultivating
00:05:19.580 | through some fantasy a way that you get into bed with her or take off her clothes is not
00:05:25.260 | supposed to happen.
00:05:26.260 | You're supposed to gouge out your eye rather than let that happen because that's meant
00:05:31.860 | for marriage.
00:05:32.860 | You're supposed to have mental sex in marriage as well as physical sex in marriage.
00:05:39.660 | So those are the first three biblical observations.
00:05:42.460 | Here's an experience observation to put with those before we draw some conclusions.
00:05:49.740 | Sexual touching is designed by God and experienced by most healthy people as prelude to sexual
00:05:59.220 | intercourse.
00:06:00.220 | That's what it's for.
00:06:02.580 | It's extremely frustrating to start touching sexually and have to break it off as the passions
00:06:08.460 | become strong because those touchings and that passion is meant to take you all the
00:06:14.740 | way.
00:06:15.740 | God designed it that way.
00:06:16.740 | It's called foreplay for a reason.
00:06:20.900 | Here's some implications.
00:06:28.660 | Don't put yourself in a situation where there's an awakening of the desire to go
00:06:49.380 | further and further.
00:06:50.380 | So my principle would be avoid sexually awakening, touching and kissing.
00:07:00.420 | They are designed as foreplay, not play.
00:07:03.860 | I think to be specific, I think that would mean virtually universally touching breasts,
00:07:11.900 | touching genitals.
00:07:12.900 | It's in that category.
00:07:14.900 | I can't imagine any normal person saying, "Touching breasts and touching genitals is
00:07:22.540 | just not sexual for us.
00:07:24.860 | It's not going anywhere."
00:07:26.100 | That's just crazy.
00:07:27.980 | It was designed to go somewhere and it's a beautiful thing if you're in the situation
00:07:32.740 | of marriage where it can go somewhere.
00:07:35.940 | So when the symphony is for marriage, the part of the symphony called prelude is for
00:07:44.780 | marriage.
00:07:46.620 | I would just suggest very practically that men and women getting into a relationship
00:07:51.420 | that they think is going to be serious, that they talk about this with each other and that
00:07:58.100 | they decide for themselves how they're not going to tempt each other to have sexually
00:08:05.100 | awakening, touching and kissing.
00:08:08.860 | I would specifically tell you I would plead with men here, "Be strong here and set a
00:08:15.540 | pure and holy pattern.
00:08:18.500 | Don't make her be the one to bring it up or to put on the brakes.
00:08:22.900 | Lead her in purity.
00:08:24.660 | She'll love you for it and in due time, she will give herself to you in a more complete
00:08:30.620 | and beautiful and whole way because you've prized her enough not to use her in an unbiblical,
00:08:37.180 | sinful way."
00:08:39.020 | I would say to the women, "Don't entice a man to touch you thinking that this is the
00:08:45.060 | way to keep a man.
00:08:46.620 | He's not worth keeping if that's the way he's kept."
00:08:51.100 | Feel free to say to any man, "No, don't please.
00:08:55.180 | Don't take us there."
00:08:57.420 | You can discern what kind of a man you're dealing with by how sensitive he is to that
00:09:02.220 | dimension of purity.
00:09:05.300 | Blessed are the pure in heart.
00:09:07.420 | They will see God.
00:09:08.420 | That's what we want.
00:09:10.060 | We want to see God and we want to see him in our beautiful sexual relations in marriage.
00:09:18.260 | I think married couples who have been the purest also can have the sweetest and best
00:09:24.940 | experience of each other and experience of God in marriage.
00:09:31.100 | One last word.
00:09:32.100 | If a single person is listening to this saying, "Oh, very nice.
00:09:36.460 | I'm not married.
00:09:37.740 | There's nobody on the horizon.
00:09:39.260 | What am I supposed to do?"
00:09:40.260 | I just want to say one thing.
00:09:43.940 | Don't feel second class.
00:09:46.060 | Jesus Christ is the most complete human being who ever lived and he never had sex.
00:09:54.860 | Not to be married and not to have sex is not to be an incomplete human being.
00:10:01.100 | One can be the completest and most fruitful and whole human being like Jesus without having
00:10:08.860 | sex.
00:10:09.860 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast.
00:10:13.180 | Please email your questions to us at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.
00:10:17.660 | You can find thousands of other free resources from John Piper.
00:10:19.900 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:10:21.420 | Thanks for listening.
00:10:22.740 | [BLANK_AUDIO]