On fornication and adultery

Why should one take fornication and adultery seriously and be

careful to avoid them? My first answer is that you should

avoid them because they are wrong. Grossly wrong. Period.

They are wrong because God says so. God’s commandment is that

we must refrain from them. So refrain from them.

To engage in them is to go against God. You

cannot be faithful to God and commit these sins. If you think

you can you are only deceiving yourself. Christianity and

illicit sex simply don’t mix. You can’t have both. And it is

very interesting to note that almost all major religions of the

world are in agreement with Christianity on this point. Almost

all regard fornication and adultery as wrong — grossly wrong.

However, in addition to the fact that it is just wrong, one can

give other reasons why you should not engage in fornication and

adultery. Let us list some:

1. You run a high risk of getting one of the many sexually

transmitted diseases that are out there (including AIDS). Thus

engaging in them puts your health at risk. And health is

important. Very important. Bad health is like a pebble in

your shoe as you walk through life, something you have to live

with. A wise man is concerned about preserving his health.

2. If you are married you wrong your spouse (by being

unfaithful to him); if the other person is married you wrong

the spouse of the other person.

3. If a child results from your actions it will be

illegitimate. By producing an illegitimate child you have

wronged that child.

4. If, as many people do, you produce a child you are not able

to support, you have wronged society — for society must then

support the child.

5. Adultery is cheating. You can’t be an adulterer and be an

honest person. If you are an adulterer you are also a liar

and a cheat.

6. If you are married you risk destroying your marriage and

causing great emotional upheaval in both your life and your

spouses’ life. If you have children your actions threaten

great upheaval in their world and deep emotional problems for

them, deeply wronging them. Your actions threaten your entire

family.

Having said these things now, it is important to be honest and

recognize that fornication and adultery are indeed the

Achilles’ heel of mankind. We all have those forces and

desires within us pulling us in that direction. We are all

vulnerable. We are all tempted. For all of us there is this

conflict between flesh and spirit, between desire and

conscience. And if allowed to go too far fleshly passion can

become so strong as to overpower all else (reason, conscience,

whatever). The sexual urges, needs, desires and forces within

us are very powerful. They are indeed difficult to cope with.

Now let us make one final observation. Of all sins none does

so much hurt and harm to others as the sexual sins (adultery,

fornication, sexual perversion, etc.). Hurt in the form of

personal anguish, suffering, anger and hatred; hurt in the form

of messed up lives; hurt in the form of financial distress.

Furthermore, no other sin does so much damage to a society as a

whole. The costs of the sexual sins are very great to a

society. Many of the problems of our society have at least

part of their root in sexual sin. For example many cases of

broken homes, marital discord, spouse abuse, child abuse, and

juvenile delinquency have their root in sexual sin. Sexual sin

produces large numbers of divorces and remarriages, thereby

producing children being raised by stepparents, children who

often end up angry (stepparents often do not have the patience

and love of the true parent). Angry children often become

delinquent. The illegitimate children arising out sexual sin

(teenage fornication, for example) are far more likely to be

juvenile delinquents and to follow a path of crime than are

legitimate children living with both of their parents, thus

providing a big component to our crime problem. All these

problems have not only emotional costs but dollar costs

associated with them: the costs in tax dollars to support large

numbers of unwed mothers with their hordes of illegitimate

children, lawyer fees for divorce cases or juvenile delinquency

problems, court costs, costs of maintaining people in prison,

etc..

So with all the damage that sexual sin causes for individuals

and the society what is our society’s attitude toward it? We

romanticize it, glamorize it and wink at it. And we call those

who condemn it Old Fashioned, Victorian or prude. Instead of

hating it as we ought to, it is OK. Liberal religion and

philosophy, Hollywood, TV, and famous individuals have

weakened Gods viewpoint on the matter.

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