A Snare for Teenagers

As we have already seen, God designed sexual intercourse to be the “glue” that binds a husband and wife together. However, again, because of a lack of sexual fulfilment in vast numbers of marriages, many young couples foolishly conclude that they should “test” each other before marriage, thinking that this will help them avoid a sexually troubled marriage.

By now the reader surely recognizes that the overwhelming majority of young people are having sex—fornicating—long before marriage. Gone are the days when people knew and understood why it was best to wait until marriage. Fornication is pandemic. So is lust in the name of so-called testing.

There is an unseen but critical aspect of premarital sex that almost none understand. The Bible states that this sin is unique among all others, producing a special kind of emotional and psychological “scarring” that is very difficult to leave behind. Here is how Paul put it: “Flee fornication. Every sin that a man does is without [outside] the body; but he that commits fornication sins against his own body” (I Cor. 6:18).

Fornication impacts both the body and the mind in a way that no other sin can, and it does this in two distinct ways:

First, those who engage in premarital sex will create memories of the kind of intimacy that should only bring one face to mind—his or her mate!

These are very hard to forget.

Second, those couples who fornicate but then go on to marry each other often find it impossible, and this can be conscious or unconscious, to separate previous guilt from the once illicit sexual relations that, after marriage, are no longer sin. They have forever intermingled—MIXED IN CONFUSION—something that God said is good (Gen. 1:27, 31) with something that was bad.

Once done, nothing can undo this.

Lust must be kept out of all relationships—and one must flee all forms of fornication! Teenagers and single adults must understand that if they do not “save” themselves for marriage, they are robbing—they are actually stealing from—their future mates! Also, again, they are sinning against their own bodies in ways not immediately evident.

In the past, both men and women wanted, and expected, to marry virgins. But today, people are actually surprised—even shocked—to have found someone who is still a virgin. They have come to expect to marry someone who may have had countless sex partners.

Yet, the Bible is very plain about sexual permissiveness, and God makes His laws and principles clear through many passages. Notice this one again from The Song of Solomon: “We have a little sister, and she has no breasts: what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for? If she be a wall, we will build upon her a palace of silver: and if she be a door, we will enclose her with boards of cedar” (Song 8:8-9).

Recall from the inset that teenage girls and young women must be taught to understand that they can be either: (1) a “door” (having multiple sex partners and demeaning themselves), or (2) a “wall” (chaste, pure in marriage). While these particular verses are not directed specifically to boys or young men, the overall principle certainly applies to them as well.

Every young person, and certainly every young adult, should eventually study The Song of Solomon, partly because it is an inspired book of the Bible and therefore reflects the mind of God, but more specifically because it is almost entirely about sex and marriage. This short book is a wonderful guide for how young people should prepare for sex and how young couples should approach sex in marriage. Just the language of this book, picturing Solomon before he fell into polygamy, makes it fascinating reading—for adults and teens.

Teach your children and teens to understand that marriage—and this includes sex in marriage—is wonderful, but that marriage is the ONLY PLACE in which sex belongs!

Teaching Children

Even the so-called “experts” in the world admit that children are not being taught the subject of sex correctly. But they do not know what is right. They are able to see the effects that arise from the kind of sex “education” that is primarily taught through the media and entertainment, and from peers. As a way of addressing these problems, these experts turn to their solution—sex education in schools. Besides the fact that they want to teach the wrong information to children in schools, it is already too late by school age to do this—and even then they are not addressing the CAUSES!

Educating children must begin long before they enter school. Sex education should not begin in sixth, seventh or eighth grade. Also, we saw that this type of education is strictly taught from the physical perspective—neglecting all the other purposes of sex, and rejecting the missing dimension—God’s revealed instruction.

Parents today rear children with television and other forms of entertainment virtually serving as a kind of babysitter or nanny. Many have come to feel that it is the teacher’s job to educate their children. Parents neglect to teach children fundamental principles of life that they should begin learning years before they even enter kindergarten!

Therefore, any parent reading this book must use it in two ways! First, and most obvious, this information is applicable to the marriage of the parent reading it. But, second, and of equal importance, the information here should be taught to one’s children. In the first year of human life, babies learn more by far than they will in each future year. Each year after, a child learns less and less in quantity. Parents must utilize these youngest years to begin the vital instruction of basic principles.

Similar to my dating book, Sex – Its Unknown Dimension is also a companion to Train Your Children God’s Way. While only briefly addressing the subject of sex, this latter volume serves as a foundation to what—and how—you can teach your children. These books should be read together to form the big picture of how to rear children by God’s methods.