Will Anyone Love Me?

After a meeting with a group of high school students in Orlando, Florida, I was approached by a big, husky, handsome young man whom I’ll call Jed who had joined the marines. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. “I got so lonely in the Marines,” Jed said, “that when I met this girl, I went to bed with her. I’m a Christian. I know Christ personally, and it’s the only time in my life I’ve done something like that. She gave me herpes.” Then Jed’s tears really began to flow. “Josh,” he said, “will anyone ever love me?”

My heart was broken for this young man. Jed will pay a heavy price for his moral failure. He will have to deal with his disease for the rest of his life. He may end up living a single, celibate lifestyle for fear of infecting a potential wife. He may miss out on the joys of being a father and grandfather. His one moment of weakness may lead to physical, emotional, and relational bankruptcy.

What if Jed had been one of your children or one of the young people in your church, youth group, or classroom? What would you have done or what would you have given to prevent him from paying the high cost of premarital sex? It may be too late for Jed, although God has forgiven him and can still use him. But it’s not too late for many of your young people. You can save them from the high cost of promiscuity by helping them wait for sex until marriage.

Not an Innocent Act

God said long ago that illicit sex carries potentially widespread and horrendous physical, social, political, economical, emotional, and moral implications. And yet, if you study history, you will find that it was not primarily religious groups like the Puritans who originated legislation to regulate the sexual activities of a given culture. It was often secular governments who had enough common sense to realize that casual sex is not an innocent private act but rather an act with appalling public consequences and costs.

The only certain way for our young people to avoid the high cost of sexually transmitted diseases and out-of-wedlock pregnancy is for a monogamous man to enter into a monogamous relationship with a monogamous woman. Monogamy is the only way to keep sex truly private. And it is the only sure way to eliminate the high cost of casual sex to those who practice it, their children, and society at large. Only in the context of a marriage commitment—“for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live”—can sex between two individuals even come close to being considered a private act.