Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God; for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.

—1 Thessalonians 4:1–8

Straight to the point and without wiggle room, Paul lays it out regarding sex and the Christian. Only in marriage between a man and a woman and only with your spouse is it permissible. All other sexual activity is uncleanness and carries with it forewarned judgment.

I have often considered the various commandments of God and the impact on our world if just one of them were obeyed by everyone. Could you imagine the lives spared throughout the centuries if the first commandment, to have no other gods but Jehovah, had been obeyed? So many wars would have never been fought, and millions of lives would have been spared if the first commandment had been obeyed.

Imagine our world today if God’s commands regarding sex were obeyed. There would be no AIDS, no STDs, and no broken marriages because of adultery. Abortion would be curbed, and teen pregnancy would end, to say nothing of the billions of dollars in medical costs that would be saved and used for research or treatment of other unavoidable health problems. (By the way, AIDS was originally called GRIDS, Gay Related Immune Deficiency Syndrome, so yes, it is an STD.)

But greater than all the benefits that our world would enjoy if just this one command of God were heeded, the real issue for the Christian is that sexual immorality is not pleasing to God; in other words, it is sin. There seems to be a movement today to defraud people in this area through silence on the issue and out-and-out promotion of sexually immoral lifestyles that God has forbidden. Paul says those who reject God’s definition and parameters for sexual activity haven’t rejected man, but God.

Don’t let anyone fool you through fraud. Only God can define safe sex, for He created the human sex drive and alone has the right to define its boundaries. If you are a Christian, your body belongs to the Lord, and your mission is to walk in a manner that pleases God—even sexually!

Excerpt from “Body Builders” now available on Amazon.

BARRY STAGNER