“Having Sex With Me Will Prove Your Love”

“If you really love me, you will prove it by having sex with me.” How many young people, especially girls, have been drawn into premarital sex by the false assumption that illicit sex is proof of true love? Nowhere in the Scriptures do we find someone demonstrating love by manipulating and causing another person to sin. Sex without marriage can never demonstrate the love of God. People who fall for “proving their love” with sex are buying into a lie with their bodies and emotions. They are squandering something priceless on a cheap product. Christian teenagers who think sex is a way to show love have lost sight of God. Acts of love do good and draw others to God. Premarital sex does not fit that description.

But what about non-Christians--people who don’t measure right and wrong by God’s standards? If a non-Christian girl believes that the most loving thing she can do is give somebody something he wants, she is caught. If he wants sex, she can give him that but what if he wants something else? Does she, out of love, do whatever he wants? Of course not! Such a question is ridiculous. But, without an absolute standard like the Bible as a foundation, the answers become very foggy and uncertain—opening the door wide open to abuse and manipulation.

Giving

Sex is not a chip to be bartered with. You don’t buy it in the market. When it becomes something to be obtained by making strategic moves, sex becomes an end in itself.

A manipulative boy does not want sex with this particular girl, he just wants sex. When he indicates that she owes it to him if she wants to keep the relationship, he shows that he is out to take, not give. He’s not seeking to cement a lifelong commitment of love and sharing and looking out for the other person’s best interests; he wants to make it with anyone who will say yes. A girl who offers herself at such a price doesn’t feel she is of great value, which is tragic in light of so much that God says to the contrary.

Giving To Get

In a sense, we prostitute ourselves when we allow others to manipulate us. We give them what they want in order to get what we want. A girl manipulated into sex by a boy because “she owes it to him” is selling her body for whatever she wants out of the relationship, be it security, popularity or some semblance of love. God is grieved when we thus destroy the dignity He has given us.

The cause of this mentality of “giving something in order to get something” is insecurity. If a boy feels he must have sex with a girl, regardless of how he gets her to say yes, he is showing insecurity. He has made sex a requirement for feeling right about himself or for feeling good about her. Likewise, a girl who gives in to his manipulation in order not to lose him does not have a self-image grounded in the Word of God. She values the relationship more than her own importance, and she acts out her insecurities.

“I Owe It To Him”

If a girl thinks she owes a boy sex (it is rarely the other way around), it is because he wants her to think that. Otherwise, she would know by his words and actions that he cares for her regardless of how she responds. He either cares for her and acts in a loving and respectful way, or he is concerned about himself and acts in a manipulative way.

It all comes back to the dignity of each person and how our world view influences our actions. To treat people with dignity is to show them God’s love by our actions. The Christian world view is not compatible with manipulation; manipulation indicates people are there to be used, not loved. God’s love longs to give, not get.

It’s Not Too Late

Despite the pain that sex may have brought to almost-married couples, there is good news. God heals. I have counseled a number of couples who were involved sexually, and I have seen great things happen when they gave control of the relationship back to God. Even though they may have felt they couldn’t go back to a non-physical relationship, they knew they had to choose between putting off gratification for the moment and losing each other. Engagements turn from being a time of insecurity and distrust to a time of purification. It can be done.

When trust is rebuilt in such a close relationship, it causes the individual partners to trust themselves again. Whereas the sexual activity had caused each to feel insecure and to have a poor self-image, stopping the activity brought about a new sense of self-control, responsibility and dignity. As they each experienced a new, healthy self-image, they were able to view one another as one worthy of dignity and respect.

When Sex Breaks Down

God established sex for the marriage relationship. As a couple builds toward the point of officially sealing their commitment in front of God, friends, and family, they find more and more opportunities to strengthen that commitment. The engagement period should be a wonderful time of supporting, loving and honoring one another.

Sex before marriage doesn’t build up, it breaks down. It doesn’t show love, it shows selfishness and self-centeredness. It doesn’t honor, it uses. In one sense, a rush for sex before marriage embodies everything an engagement shouldn’t be.

Those who insist on becoming familiar with each other’s bodies for the sake of the wedding night are not only denying themselves the thrill of discovery on that night, the first night in which they can do what only a husband and wife may do, they also disregard a basic knowledge of anatomy. In the words of Tim Downs, a Christian cartoonist and speaker, “Rest assured the plumbing works.” There is no need to try it out in advance.

Make-It-Up-As-You-Go Morality

A Christian who understands God’s system of values does not have to grope around to find right and wrong. God’s standards are unchanging. They apply to any society and to any person at any time in history. There is no guesswork. But those who do not accept the definitions of right and wrong as set forth in the Bible have to find some other way of determining their values. They have to approach a situation and set a course of action based on something. If they listen to the relativistic thinking of our society, they will look to themselves for answers. They will say, “The right thing to do in this situation is to do what makes me feel good or is to my advantage.”

This is situational ethics, a make-it-up-as-you-go morality that has no basis in anything. It allows a young person to justify premarital sex by saying, “It won’t hurt anyone,” when he really means, “I think I can get out of this without being hurt, so it must be all right.” Such ethics fly in the face of the righteous standards God has given us in his Word.

No One Will Get Hurt

Teenagers today have been duped into believing that premarital sex is OK because it doesn’t hurt anybody. They assume they can do whatever they want with their bodies, and if that means sex, it’s all right. They further argue that sex is a lot better than being involved in drugs or alcohol. And they insist that, with proper care, they can avoid pregnancy and disease.

When teenagers try to rationalize sex by claiming that it doesn’t hurt anyone, two main elements are at work. First, these people willfully turn a blind eye to the pain that premarital sex has already caused in countless lives around them. Second, they give in to relativistic thinking and rely on situational ethics to guide them rather than an absolute standard of right and wrong.

It doesn’t take a sociological genius to know how seriously people are hurt by premarital sex. All you have to do is read a newspaper. Our society is hurting terribly from unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, abortion and so on. All a teenager has to do is look around the classroom to see broken relationships and emotional wreckage caused by premarital sex. Teenagers who think they will be spared this pain are lying to themselves. They are being willfully ignorant. They think the rules don’t apply to them.

What Future?

A majority of today’s young people view the future with apprehension. As a result, they have lost hope in their own future. Instead of viewing the future optimistically as a time of opportunity, many young people view it with pessimism and fear. And their fears have changed drastically in recent years. Several years ago the New York Times reported on an eye-opening study conducted by Nadine Brozan. She found that the five greatest fears of a primary school child were loud noises, dark rooms, high places, dangerous animals and strangers. More recently, the average primary child’s greatest fears are losing a parent through divorce and becoming a victim of burglary, mugging, rape or cancer. Life’s fears and uncertainties are unsettling to our children and youth.

This uncertainty in our society leaves our young people with diminished hopes for the future. A sixteen-year-old in Oakland, California said, “I feel like I’m preparing for nothing.” Another student said, “I think I’m going to grow up, and there won’t be anything to live for.” With such bleak hopes for the future, most young people are easily influenced to make decisions on short-term pleasure rather than long-term consequences. Why should a teenager who believes he or she lives in a “doomsday world” follow the Christian advice to wait for sex until marriage? They have been taught that with one push of a button the world can be blown apart. Tomorrow they may be gone, so “Why not?”

Isolated and Alone

We are an isolated society. In some areas—like California, for example—homeowners are isolated from their neighbors by cinder-block walls, chain-link fences, and other barriers. Even when neighbors don’t erect fences, the isolation can be just as real. For example, how many of your neighbors do you know personally? These days, particularly in new communities, most people rarely become acquainted with their next-door neighbors.

As each family faces the various crises of life, they often do so alone. Their neighbors never know their joys or sorrows. A friend of mine once told me a sad story. He learned from a newspaper article that the sixteen-year-old son of a family living across the street had been killed in a car accident. Prior to reading the tragic news story, he didn’t even know the name of the family or that they had a teenage son.

When I was a boy in Michigan, everyone in our neighborhood knew everyone else for miles around. Of course, our entire county had fewer residents than the high-density housing developments of today. Not only did people know each other from living in the same area so long, but many of us were related. Within the radius of a few miles I had uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandparents. When any crisis arose, we supported each other.