MARRIAGE AS INTENDED BY GOD
CHAPTER FIVE 5.0 INVENTED FOR OUR DELIGHT
Sex like every other man –related acts was greatly adulterated as the result of the fall of man. Notwithstanding, its restoration is also found in a God’s Redemption Plan for mankind.
It is a sad thing that many seasoned married Christians do not experience the divine joy derives from engaging in this unique art.
Because all phases of the biblical plan for marriage must be in operation before one can fully enjoy sexual union as God invented it, we need to have a clearer understanding of his plan. Unfortunately, most couples do not place emphasis on premarital counseling.
Knowing and understanding what God says about any phase of life leads to experiencing wholeness in that area: such is so necessary in the sexual realm, when negative attitude have virtually annihilate scores of marriages.
I have on numerous occasions seen married Christians who felt very uneasy only because “sex” was mentioned in their discussion. To them “sex” was altogether separated from their Christian life. They conceived sexual relations with their spouses as an unholy art; yet, they continue it with gross guilt feelings, which, of course blackmailed the experience for both they and their spouses. Their misconceptions of God’s view of sex resulted in a hurried physical act without tenderness of pleasure.
God has so much to say to all these through His word! As a Christian counselor, it is my privilege to authoritatively propagates a very significant gospel to the many sexually unfulfilled couples with wrong attitudes and faulty approaches to sex. The gospel, in summary, in this: You are commanded by God to enjoy sex within your marriage. He invented it for your delight; you are endowed with all it takes to learn to enjoy it, and husbands, you can develop an exciting, joyous marriage with “the wife of your youth”. If your marriage has been a center of strives, instead of a home of bliss all that can change. God has a perfect master blueprint for sex in marriage.
The best handbook every written on sex is contained in the Scripture. The ancient yet very essential counsel given by father to son, based upon the wisdom of God in Proverb 5:18-19, comes across just as clearly to the reader of today: “Let your fountain (your body parts which produce life) be blessed, and rejoice (or ecstatically delight) with the wife of your youth … Let her breasts satisfy you at all times, and be ravished (or filled) always with her love”
It may surprise many that the Bible speaks so openly, so joyously, of sex in marriage. Almost every book of the Bible has something to say about sex, and romantic poetic The Song of Solomon exquisitely depicts the love relationship in marriage. Genesis does not only reveal to us the origin of life, it also show us most unforgettably what God has always thought about married love.
The account of man’s creation by God as recorded in the first three chapter of Genesis point out that “God saw everything that He has made and, behold, it was very ”good.” Interestingly, the creation of everything was “good”, but not until He has created man and woman did God’s compliment of creation charged to “Behold, it was VERY GOOD: Adam’s compliment of the arrival of woman speaks volume: “Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh”. Since a part of Adam was used to made Eve, a man remain incomplete without his Eve.
God placed almost top priority on sexual union in marriage. We can see in the Genesis account that after God told man not to learn evil by experience (Genesis 2:17), His second teaching told man and woman how to relate in marriage. “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). God had firstly distinguished the woman from the man when He made Eve. But now He commands them to be joined together again as one flesh.
The unique situation God intended for our marital sex life is shown by the blissful words “they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:25). Adam and Eve could see each other as they really were with any iota of shame, guilt, or frustration.
The sex relationship God has designed for them brought the blessings of companionship, unity, and delight – and note that this was some time “before” the command to bear children was given (Genesis 3:16).
God’s plan for our delight has never changed as we can realize this even more as we consider how we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). When we discover they many intricate detains of our bodies which provide so many intense, wonderful physical sensations for husbands and wives to enjoy together, we can be firmly sure that He intended for us to experience full satisfaction in the marriage relationship.
Some have assumed that the act of sex became an unholy practice when sin entered into the world. However, this is ruled out when we see that God’s basic counsel on sex in the first chapter of Genesis was repeated by Jesus Christ to the religious leaders of His day: “But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leaves his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; and they two shall become one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder” (Mathew 19:5; Mark 10:6-9). Jesus reemphasized this to His disciples in the next two verses in Mark 10, and we find there command reinforced in Ephesians 5:31.
This, of course, explains why the marriage union is the only way man and woman truly enjoy the riches God has planned for them. Because the relationship is specifically designed to illustrate God’s unending love for His people, sexual intercourse must be experience in the context of a permanent, given commitment. Anything short of this divine standard is an adulteration of sex.
Many do feel uncomfortable about sex because they somehow equate the sexual desire of men with the sex drive of animals. They should remember that animals mate according to instinct with biological motivation. Unlike animals, man has intercourse as a whole person. He of all creatures is the only one who uses reason in choosing to have sexual relations. Husband and wife are the only creatures capable of gaining spiritual unity and a deeper knowledge of each through the sexual relationship.
Scripture suggests that just as we can know God, so we can know our husband or wife in a deeper, higher, more intimate way through the physical act of marriage. “Know” is the term used in the Bible to define our relationship to God; it also is the term used to designate the intimate union of husband and wife.
“Adam KNEW Eve” (Genesis 4:1). Mary speaking of her virginity, said, “How shall this be, seeing I KNOW not a man?” (Luke1:34). Mathew 1:25 says that Joseph “Knew her not” until after the birth of Christ. The sex relationship offers no more cherished pleasure than this “knowing” of the one you love. With the understanding that our marriage relationship portrays the truths of our relationship with God, we can become free as never before to express our love for our husbands or wives fully through the dynamic opportunity of the sex act.
God’s viewpoint come forth vigorously in 1 Corinthian 7:3-5, where the husband and wife are told they actually “defraud” one another when they refuse to give physical pleasure and satisfaction to their mate. The only activity, which is to break regular sexual relations, is prayer and fasting for some specific cause, and this is to be only by mutual consent for a very limited time.
Although sin did enter the human race in the Garden and brought with it the possibility of perversion of every good thing (including sex), God’s plan for His beloved creation has continue to operate through the provision of the Redeemer, Jesus Christ. By faith people can choose God’s way! It is true that our culture is saturated with sex distorted into lust, and desire has been twisted and deformed, until it appear as a beast running loose in the streets, destroying God- given boundaries. Nevertheless, our marriage bed is still a holy place in the sight of God (Hebrew 13:4). We need to be very vigilant as we treasure and share with our children there positive values God Himself teaches in Scripture concerning the love/sex relationship, always placing sex in marriage in an entirely different light from sex outside of marriage. Sex apart from marriage is spelt out as obviously wrong. Sex in marriage is wonderfully right. Let us never fort it!
Invented for our delight – yes, in the fullest meaning of the world. And even then, humanity is yet to coin a word, which can adequately convey what God has invented for us in the manifestation of sex.
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