Pastor John, several listeners have emailed to ask this question, "How far is too far for an engaged couple to go sexually before marriage?" It's a really important question. Our culture is, of course, awash in sexual titillation. You can hardly open your internet without some advertisement on the side, awakening some sexual desire, or watch an advertisement between a TV program, or go to any movie almost without some kind of titillation.

It's really amazing what we're having to deal with these days. When a young man and a young woman, or older man and older woman for that matter, begin to hang out together, what should they do physically is utterly crucial to ask. The Bible is our guide and our authority.

It does not have a single sentence somewhere that says, "Okay, engaged couples. Okay, couples that are starting to date. Here's what you can and can't do." The way we have to approach it is by putting together truths from the Bible, which when they come together, lead to some conclusions.

Let me try to put together a few of those. I'll see if I can be brief here. Number one, sex is good. I don't want to start with mainly, "Oh, bad, bad, bad. Watch out. Watch out." Sex is good. First Timothy 4.3, the days are coming when people are going to forbid to eat certain things and marry because marriage has got that ugly stuff called sex in it.

Paul says, "No, the food and the sex are created to be received with thanksgiving because they're sanctified by the word of God and prayer," which surprisingly really says good sex is for Christians, because people who will give thanks for it. Husbands and wives, give your conjugal rights, 1 Corinthians 7.3.

Only abstain from this sexual thing briefly, lest Satan tempt you, which means, by the way, that it's not just for having babies. It's got other deeper personal satisfaction reasons that God put it in our lives. Of course, the amazing text that all men love from Proverbs 5.19, "Rejoice in the wife of your youth and let her breasts fill you with delight." Clearly, sexual touching is a good thing, biblically.

That's number one. Number two, sex is to be enjoyed only in marriage. 1 Corinthians 6.18, "Flee from pornia," that is, from fornication, from sexual immorality. There's a difference between pornia and moikia. Moikia is adultery and pornia is fornication. There is illicit sex in marriage called adultery and there's illicit sex before marriage called fornication.

Don't go there. Flee from it, Paul says. 1 Corinthians 7.9, "If they can't exercise self-control, they should marry," because this phenomenon, this wonderful thing called sex, is designed to be satisfied in marriage. One of the reasons for that is that physical union, sexual intercourse, is meant to be the physical capstone of an emotional, spiritual union in lasting covenant.

We're not animals. Sex has roots and branches penetrating in all of our being and it affects all of our being. We've tried to abstract sex from the covenantal, deep, personal, emotional, spiritual union of a man and a woman in our movies, in our literature, in our advertising, and it's wreaking havoc all over the world.

Women in particular are more whole than men in this regard. Women are wired to want more plainly than men the holistic dimension of sexuality. You don't want to be treated like mere animals for men's animalistic satisfaction. They want a relationship. They want this thing to have personal dimensions and covenantal commitment dimensions.

It's so sad to watch so many women in the media be drawn by the demands of men into a more animalistic way of treating sex than in this holistic, personal way. Marriage is where God means for that beautiful, whole commitment and covenantal, deep, personal, spiritual reality with a capstone of sexual intercourse to happen.

The third observation is that mental sex is meant for marriage. Jesus said everyone who looks upon a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart, which means that doing sex in your mind, looking at a woman and cultivating through some fantasy a way that you get into bed with her or take off her clothes is not supposed to happen.

You're supposed to gouge out your eye rather than let that happen because that's meant for marriage. You're supposed to have mental sex in marriage as well as physical sex in marriage. So those are the first three biblical observations. Here's an experience observation to put with those before we draw some conclusions.

Sexual touching is designed by God and experienced by most healthy people as prelude to sexual intercourse. That's what it's for. It's extremely frustrating to start touching sexually and have to break it off as the passions become strong because those touchings and that passion is meant to take you all the way.

God designed it that way. It's called foreplay for a reason. Here's some implications. Don't put yourself in a situation where there's an awakening of the desire to go further and further. So my principle would be avoid sexually awakening, touching and kissing. They are designed as foreplay, not play. I think to be specific, I think that would mean virtually universally touching breasts, touching genitals.

It's in that category. I can't imagine any normal person saying, "Touching breasts and touching genitals is just not sexual for us. It's not going anywhere." That's just crazy. It was designed to go somewhere and it's a beautiful thing if you're in the situation of marriage where it can go somewhere.

So when the symphony is for marriage, the part of the symphony called prelude is for marriage. I would just suggest very practically that men and women getting into a relationship that they think is going to be serious, that they talk about this with each other and that they decide for themselves how they're not going to tempt each other to have sexually awakening, touching and kissing.

I would specifically tell you I would plead with men here, "Be strong here and set a pure and holy pattern. Don't make her be the one to bring it up or to put on the brakes. Lead her in purity. She'll love you for it and in due time, she will give herself to you in a more complete and beautiful and whole way because you've prized her enough not to use her in an unbiblical, sinful way." I would say to the women, "Don't entice a man to touch you thinking that this is the way to keep a man.

He's not worth keeping if that's the way he's kept." Feel free to say to any man, "No, don't please. Don't take us there." You can discern what kind of a man you're dealing with by how sensitive he is to that dimension of purity. Blessed are the pure in heart.

They will see God. That's what we want. We want to see God and we want to see him in our beautiful sexual relations in marriage. I think married couples who have been the purest also can have the sweetest and best experience of each other and experience of God in marriage.

One last word. If a single person is listening to this saying, "Oh, very nice. I'm not married. There's nobody on the horizon. What am I supposed to do?" I just want to say one thing. Don't feel second class. Jesus Christ is the most complete human being who ever lived and he never had sex.

Not to be married and not to have sex is not to be an incomplete human being. One can be the completest and most fruitful and whole human being like Jesus without having sex. Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast. Please email your questions to us at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.

You can find thousands of other free resources from John Piper. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening.