We’re fools, we meaning we humans. We see the destruction that flows from our foolish choices, and seek out any solution besides stopping with the foolish choices. The Bible says that sexual behavior is only for a married husband and wife. While the Bible says it, it isn’t a rule made strictly for those who believe in the Bible. It goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden, which means marriage is a gift for everyone and its rules apply to everyone.
What happens when we don’t obey God on this issue? In the United States, the failure to keep our pants on has led to 50 million babies being slaughtered in their mothers’ wombs. It lead to at least 350,000 gay men dying of AIDS from 1987 to 1998. It has led to three out of every ten children in the country living without both a mother and a father. It has led to the destructive fruit of those fatherless homes as every social evil, drug use, low academic scores, criminal conduct, alcoholism, promiscuity, truancy, homelessness, depression, suicide correlates to homes without a father present.
It’s all too easy to lose sight of the actual destruction while we look at statistics. Almost every one of these children began their lives wherein both parents took off their pants when they should not have. So we construct after school programs, welfare programs, free contraceptive programs, provide counseling, build prisons, hire police, everything except agree that we need to keep our pants on. In fact, we purposefully exclude the message of “keep your pants on” from students in the government’s schools. Drag queens and illustrated sex guides are fine. Abstinence is out of bounds.
Worse still, we’re fools in the church. Given the widespread practice of both adultery and fornication, the marketing gurus have persuaded the church to steer clear of the issue. Paul said of the church and fornication, “Let it not be named once among you” (Ephesians 5:3). The church in our day says, “Let the sin not be named among you as a sin, because such drives people away.”
Thirty years ago I learned of an evangelical church, one of the biggest in my city, that had members in good standing who were living together. I’m confident that many other churches had members guilty of fornication, but not that openly flaunted it. Today I’d be surprised to find any evangelical church of any size in any city that didn’t have members in good standing that were shacking up. This isn’t the fault of gay marriage or Disney or drag shows for kids. This is the fault of timid hirelings and either straying sheep or goats being goats.
My wish is that every one of us that’s ever been guilty of sexual sin of any kind would be in church, but in a church that upholds God’s law, calls His people to repentance and celebrates the grace that forgives. Better still, I wish that such sins would not be named once among us.
There is no pathway to peace and well-being in our spirits, our churches, our communities that leaves room for sin without repentance, that leaves room for taking our pants off with anyone other than our true spouse.