How Far Can We Go?

You can only do something the first time, one time. A simple statement, but true. You only get one first time. Do you want your first intimate sexual experiences to be with the person you marry and will spend your life sleeping with? Or do you want to marry with the memories of other sexual experiences with other people?

Because sexual experience is sacred, the Lord has wisely prohibited it from any relationship except marriage. Sex is so powerful, involves so much of the total person, that it needs the strongest covenant to protect it from abuse. That covenant is marriage. In marriage it is safe; outside marriage it never is.

Physically, we could have sex from the age of eleven or twelve. But we don't marry until we are in our twenties, or even later. That means we have the capacity and the desire a long time before we will have the legitimate right to satisfy our sexual desire in the marriage relationship.

A Christian friend of mine is sure that the Lord made a mistake by giving us hormones so many years before we get married. He said that if he had done the designing he would have waited until humans were twenty-one before their hormones activated. On the very next day, he would require them to get married. Of course, he's joking when he says it, but I wonder if there might be a reason why God made us like this? One thing I know: having the capacity and the desire long before we get married gives us a great opportunity to develop self-control and discipline.

Other things in life are the same. We could do physical harm, using our strength to hurt other people. We don't say that physical strength is bad or that weakness is better. We learn to control our strength and use it in the right way at the right time. Our sexual ability is similar. Control it or it becomes harmful.

If you know that something will be dangerous you wisely put as much room between you and that danger as you can. Have you ever heard the term, daredevil? It's used to describe someone who takes fantastic risks and exposes himself to extraordinary dangers. The crowds applaud daredevils, and even pay big money to see them take their risks. Good showmanship, but a bad way to live your life.

Two drivers approach a dangerous curve. The first driver attacks the curve aggressively, straining his nerve and his car's stability and just makes it around with one rear wheel hanging over the edge. The second driver slows, moves as far away from the edge as he can, and carefully guides his car through the curve. Now I ask you, which is the wise driver? The daredevil, or the careful man? The daredevil thrills us, but the other driver is the better driver.

Why dare the devil? Why place yourself in sexual danger by getting too near the edge? Why put unnecessary strain on your emotions and your will – strain that can easily cause something inside you to snap? Your resistance gives way, and before you know it you are involved in experiences that you swore to yourself you would not have until you were married.

You must decide how you will act before the opportunity to act comes. That means establishing a code of conduct that you will not violate. It means staying in the light. It means setting limits that you will honour in your relationship. It means not overestimating your ability to stand up to sexual pressure when your resistance is weakened.

Why do so many drivers have accidents on sharp curves? They were going too fast; they overestimated their driving ability or their car's stability; they were intoxicated; there were slippery conditions; they weren't paying attention. Those are precisely the same dangers that lead people into sexual accidents. A couple go too fast. They overestimate their ability to resist. They get intoxicated with passionate feelings. They are on slippery ground. They aren't paying attention.

Remember, anything you do with anyone before marriage you cannot do for the first time with the person you will marry. It's worth the wait, so be careful.