A podcast listener writes in to ask this, "Pastor John, my girlfriend who is no longer a virgin continues to desire sex and thinks it is natural despite the fact that it's premarital. She wants me to have sex with her. However, I'm a virgin who wants to remain pure until marriage.

My question is, if sex is so natural and normal, then why do we resist our humanity and restrain sex until marriage?" What would you say to this podcast listener, Pastor John? If she does not think it is a sin to have sex outside marriage, then you have a very ignorant and very foolish girl on your hands.

This is really basic to Christianity, and if she thinks sex outside marriage is holy, then she's not a worthy candidate for marriage. And the relationship you are in, it seems, is certainly more than casual if she's wanting sex, so my counsel is move out of this relationship quickly. Point her to the Bible, suggest that she study it and be in a good mentoring relationship with a godly woman, and see if she matures in the truth.

If she does think that it is sin, then you have a very selfish and even cruel girl on your hands because she not only is willing to sin herself and put her own soul at risk, but is trying to get you not only into bed, but into hell with her, and so put your soul at risk.

And in either of these two cases, whether she's foolish and ignorant on the one hand, or selfish and cruel on the other hand, she may well be motivated by the thought that getting you to have sex with her may be her way of holding on to you. Since from her perspective, as long as you have not had sex, you're not bound to her.

But saying all that is not what you asked. That's just what I felt when I read your question. It's not what you asked, even though I think it is what you should ask and what you need to hear. You asked, "If sex is so natural and normal, why do we resist our humanity and restrain it till marriage?" Now, I hope that question does not show a weakening of your conviction and courage.

And if you feel yourself weakening, please read Proverbs 7, which describes your situation exactly. It says, Proverbs 7, 21, "With much seductive speech, she persuades him. With her smooth talk, she compels him. All at once he follows her. As an ox goes to the slaughter, as a stag is caught fast and an arrow pierces its liver, as a bird rushes into a snare, he knows not that it will cost him his life." If you don't think it's that serious, go back and read the words of Jesus and ask, "Why did he talk this way?" in Matthew 5, 29.

If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out, throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. Why does Jesus talk about hell in relation to sexual temptation? Because giving in to the seductive woman or man is like an ox going to the slaughter and a bird flying into a trap.

It will cost him his life. Don't play with fire. Flee fire. Don't put your hand in it. Don't go to bed in fire. But here's the answer to your question. Okay, finally, I'm answering your question. We save sex for marriage precisely because it is natural and normal and beautiful, so that we can keep it that way, so that it does not become common and sordid and manipulative and diseased and cheap, but precious and personal and clean and sacred.

You don't put fences around weeds. You put fences around gardens. We don't put our dirty socks under lock and key in the hotel room. We put our rings and our wallet in the safe. Holding sex until marriage doesn't make it unnatural. It makes it priceless. Another reason we save sex till marriage is that marriage is a picture of the covenant between Christ and His church, and sex in that picture is the most exquisite pointer in the covenant relationship to the indescribable pleasures that await our full fellowship with Christ in the age to come in covenant with Jesus.

Sex outside marriage is a lie about Jesus and about His relationship to the church. It's a lie about where ultimate joy is to be found. And finally, Paul commands 1 Corinthians 6.18, "Flee from fornication." And then he gives this reason. Amazing. "Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person, the fornicator, sins against his own body." Now, I don't know all that that means, but it means at least there is a uniquely deep nature to this sin of fornication.

And I think any woman who thinks this experience of sexual union can be offered indiscriminately is kidding herself about the depth of injury she is doing to her own soul. That's why it's protected. Keep your virginity, and don't put your neck in the noose of this seduction. Deeply sobering.

Thank you, Pastor John. And for more on just how dangerous sexual sin is, see our recent episodes #431 and #426 in the Ask Pastor John Podcast Archive. You can find those episodes and over 450 others in our free app available in your app store. Well, I don't know about you, but my prayer life can always use a fresh motivation, and tomorrow we'll look at four very good reasons to pray.

I'm your host Tony Reinke. We'll see you tomorrow.