People are having sex all over the place. They aren’t just talking about it. They aren’t just pretending to have it. They are actually doing it. A February 2012 article in Relevant Magazine reported that 80% of unmarried Christian evangelicals between ages 18-29 have already had sex….as in, lost their virginity.

So is waiting for marriage old fashioned? It abstinence to be thrown out as one of those “legalistic” teachings? Have old people like me (I’m 32) lost touch with the real world. No, no and no. Abstinence is still God’s call for us. The problem is, young people have been taught to ask the wrong question, and when you ask the wrong question you almost always get the wrong answer.

The question we’ve taught young people to ask is, “Why is premarital sex wrong?” This question leads to answers like, “The Bible says so!” (picture a fat and angry Pastor beating his Bible as he says it). To which young people say, “Really, where?” Then the fat, angry Pastor says, “……everywhere.”

That’s just it. There isn’t a proof text that says, “Don’t have sex before you get married.” Sure there is Hebrews 13:4, “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.” but that could just as easily be condemning adultery, not sex between two unmarried, but committed young adults.

The other problem is that this question gives us such a negative view of sex. It’s wrong, it’s bad, it’s dirty, don’t go there. Which is sort of like telling a toddler not to cross the fence – all he can think about is what’s on the other side of the fence.

We’ve told entire generations of young people “the Bible says so” and “it’s bad” and “you’ll get a disease.” It hasn’t worked.

What is the right question? I’m glad you asked. It’s, “Why is premarital sex destructive?” The question itself reveals that it isn’t God’s best for me to be sexually active before marriage. Implicit in the question is that God has a design for sex that is good – after all, He created it.

Sex is the sign and seal of the covenant of marriage. We see this throughout scripture including from the very beginning where Adam and Eve and joined to one another, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and they will become one flesh.” You have come to know her, love her, and now are committing yourself to her. That love and commitment are then sealed through the act of sex. In this proper setting sex is a fully personal and intimate act. It is physical. It is emotional. It is spiritual. It is for a lifetime. Proverbs 5 gives us a picture of the satisfaction sex can bring within marriage,

“Drink water from your own cistern,
running water from your own well.
Should your springs overflow in the streets,
your streams of water in the public squares?
Let them be yours alone,
never to be shared with strangers.
May your fountain be blessed,
and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.
A loving doe, a graceful deer—
may her breasts satisfy you always,
may you ever be intoxicated with her love.”

I don’t suggest you call your wife a cistern, but you get the point.

From the same chapter of Proverbs we get a warning about seeking after the “adulterous woman,” which is easily understood as sex outside of marriage and other sexually immoral acts.

“For the lips of the adulterous woman drip honey,
and her speech is smoother than oil;
but in the end she is bitter as gall,
sharp as a double-edged sword.
Her feet go down to death;
her steps lead straight to the grave.”

Take sex out of the covenant of marriage and it becomes destructive because you are asking sex to become less than it is capable of being. That is precisely what the cultural messages about sex have done.

“It’s just a physical act between two consenting adults; it doesn’t mean anything.” If that were true she wouldn’t cry when you don’t call the next day. And you wouldn’t feel guilty.

“If I have sex with him he’ll stay with me.” When she says this she is asking sex to produce commitment. Sex cannot produce commitment, it can only express commitment that is already there. Asking sex to do something it can’t -not because it is less, but because it is more – will always lead down a road of destruction and disappointment. You did have sex with him, but instead of staying he went to capture the next girl who is skinnier…..and blonde.

Sex is God’s gift to us. It is not an enemy. It is not dirty. It’s beautiful, and it’s powerful. It is because of this power and beauty that it must remain in it’s God-given context – marriage.

Some of you aren’t buying it. Some of you are still trying to justify your sexual activity by saying that you have made your own covenant with your boyfriend or girlfriend. “We don’t need a piece of paper from the State to say that you are committed to each in marriage,” you say. All you need is love and a private covenant.

I’m not buying it. Biblically (and historically), covenants are always public. No covenant was ever made between two people in isolation. In the Old Testament covenants were made in the family or tribe. God may reveal the covenant to one person (Moses on the mountain), but the covenant was always experienced in community. This has carried through to today. At weddings the preacher stands up and says, “We have gathered before God and these witnesses….”

With a private covenant, one party can get out of the covenant with no accountability and leave the other person brokenhearted. I wonder how many private covenants have been made in the back seat of a car, only to be broken a few months later in the same seat.

For this reason, if you have made a covenant privately (a true covenant), then it should be no big deal for you to make that covenant publicly through marriage. If that scares you, you haven’t really made a covenant with her. So you need to stop begging her for sex. Ouch.

Is waiting for marriage old-fashioned? Not at all. It is God’s best for your life.