No, having sex with someone definitely does not define you as married in God’s eyes. And yes, statistics have proven that couples who engaged in premarital sex are much more likely to not stay committed in their marriage, and are 50% more likely to get a divorce later on in life than those who stayed abstinent.
That statistic may decrease slightly if you have ONLY had sex with your partner, and if your partner has ONLY ever had sex with you as well.
So why are people who have sex before marriage more likely to fail in a relationship later on in life? Again there are several answers to this question, which you were most likely unaware of. Every person’s brain has certain chemicals within them that trigger at certain times. One such chemical is Dopamine.
http://www.kci.org/meth_info/lori/Dopamine_Methamphetamines_and_You.htm
“When dopamine is released it provides feelings of enjoyment and reinforcement to motivate us to do, or continue doing, certain activities. Dopamine is released by naturally rewarding experiences such as food and sex. This pre-programmed reward system makes sure that people do eat, do desire to procreate, and basically survive. Without enough dopamine, people feel the opposite of enjoyment and motivation — they feel fatigued and depressed, and experience a lack of drive and motivation.”
“Brain chemicals, including Dopamine, are stored in cells…When something occurs like great sex, the brain pours out some dopamine from the dopamine barrels into in open space…THIS is the point where we feel good, when the Dopamine is parked in a receptor’s parking space…After long-term over-stimulation, the brain will shut down Dopamine receptors so that nothing can park there ever again.”
Basically, the more you use your Dopamine chemicals in the wrong way, the easier it is to wear it out until there is no more. So what exactly does that mean? Well, there are other chemicals in the brain as well that are sex-related, such as Phenylethylamine and Oxytocin.
http://trinaread.com/blog/2007/12/14/how-your-brain-chemicals-effect-your-sex-life/
“Oxytocin is released every time we hold hands or snuggle up close to someone. It bonds us with the people we love most, whether a lover, child, family member or friend.” These romantic chemicals in the brain are great and are what give love the drive it has. But the more you mistreat these chemicals, the less and less they become. It is known as the “Coolidge Effect.”
http://www.reuniting.info/science/coolidge_effect
There have been stories of men who have had dozens of sexual partners, but are never satisfied with any of them. After one night of sex, they get bored, or lose interest quickly, and move on to the next woman. So why do they keep on doing this without ever being satisfied? That’s all part of the Coolidge Effect as well. As a result of having such frequent sexual activity with different partners, the chemicals in their brain are reduced and they have a ‘sexual hangover.’ Your new partner will not satisfy you anymore than the previous one. Chemicals such as the Oxytocin and Dopamine act like a superglue. Once you share those intimate moments with someone, part of you is attached with that someone. It is the same with losing your virginity. The first person you have sex with, the chemicals in your brain go nuts, and you forever have some type of emotional bond with that person.
However, the more partners you have, the less and less those brain chemicals become. You do not receive the thrill or excitement that you once had. You lose interest quicker and you don’t know why. The more and more that you excite these chemicals without them being with the person you ultimately want to end up with one day and marry, the less and less these chemicals become, and the harder it is to finally become attached emotionally and sexually with that person. It doesn’t just apply to sex either. It applies to everything that arouses your mind sexually, from any type of sex to pornography. Studies have also shown that people who engage in pornography are more likely to have failed marriages. That is because of the chemical imbalances in their brain, and their inability to stay emotionally attached to that one person.
To get away from all of these scientific terms, I’ll put it in simple terms. Imagine that every time you have sex with someone or look at pornography, you have a piece of duct tape, and you stick that piece of duct tape onto that persons arm. As soon as you move onto another partner or porn, you rip that piece of tape up. That piece of tape will of course rip up hairs from that persons arm. You keep on using this same piece of tape over and over again, and every time, you stick it onto the next person’s arm, and again and again, you rip up that piece of tape taking more hair. Naturally, the tape will become less and less sticky the more you use it and rip it up with someone else’s arm hair, until eventually, there is no more stickiness to it all. That is what the chemicals in your brain do. The more and more you engage in sexual activity, the less and less the chemicals become, until there is no more, or there is so little, that it is hard to stick at all. The only way to have a perfectly healthy balance and happy balance of the chemicals in the brain is to only put that piece of tape on just one person, and not take it off of that person (aka: waiting until marriage). The only way to maintain the healthiest relationship possible is to stay abstinent, from sex, porn, and everything sexually impure, and save yourself for your future spouse.
Also, the statistics when it comes to STD’s are absolutely incredible, and no one seems to know about them. No one seems to care that:
- 1 in 4 people have an STD
-There are currently 70,000,000 Americans right now who have an STD.
-More than 40,000,000 of those are incurable.
-Worldwide, 500,000,000 people get an STD every year.
-In the United States, 19,000,000 Americans get an STD every year.
-That comes out to 52,055 Americans that get an STD every day.
-That comes out to 2,169 Americans that get an STD every single hour.
– 63% of University women, who have ever had sex (or any form of sex) at any point in their lives, are currently infected with HPV. And there is no cure. It is killing more women than HIV and AIDS, and yet nobody talks about it, and most women won’t be aware that they are infected until up to 10 years after the sexual act.
For much more detail about all of these statistics and more, visit:
This is the sexual exposure chart. It shows how many people you are really exposed to, based on how many sexual partners you have had, IF the people you had sex with ONLY had sex with the same amount as you. If they had more partners before you than you had, than the number increases significantly. If you stay a virgin until marriage, you are only exposed to that one other person.
http://www.prabilene.com/exposure.html
2 partners, exposed to 3 other people, 3 partners, exposed to 7 people, 4 partners, exposed to 15 people, 5 partners, exposed to 31 people, 6 partners, exposed to 63 people, 7 partners, exposed to 127 people, 8 partners, exposed to 255 people, 9 partners, exposed to 511 people, 10 partners, exposed to 1023 people, 11 partners, exposed to 2047 people, 12 partners, exposed to 4095 people, and the list keeps on going.
But now, back to your very first point about marriage. I want to share a bit of an article with you, and then I’ll go into more of my own words:
Question: “Why is sexual purity so important?”
Answer: God gave man and woman the joy and pleasure of sexual relations within the bounds of marriage, and the Bible is clear about the importance of maintaining sexual purity within the boundaries of that union between man and wife (Ephesians 5:31). Humans are well aware of the pleasing effect of this gift from God but have expanded it well beyond marriage and into virtually any circumstance. The secular world’s philosophy of “if it feels good, do it” pervades cultures, especially in the West, to the point where sexual purity is seen as archaic and unnecessary.
Yet look at what God says about sexual purity. “You should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God.” “For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life” (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5, 7). This passage outlines God’s reasons for calling for sexual purity in the lives of His children.
1 Thessalonians 4:3–5, 7 (ESV)
3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, 5 not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God … 7 For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness.
First, we are “sanctified” and for that reason, we are to avoid sexual immorality. The Greek word translated “sanctified” means literally “purified, made holy, consecrated [unto God].” As Christians, we are to live a purified life because we have been made holy by the exchange of our sin for the righteousness of Christ on the cross and have been made completely new creations in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17-21).
2 Corinthians 5:17–21
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling3 the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Our old natures, with all their impurities, sexual and otherwise, have died and now the life we live, we live by faith in the One who died for us (Galatians 2:20).
Galatians 2:20 (ESV)
20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
To continue in sexual impurity (fornication) is to deny that and doing so is, in fact, a legitimate reason to question whether we have ever truly been born again. Sanctification, the process by which we become more and more Christlike, is an essential evidence of the reality of our salvation.
We also see in 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 the necessity of controlling our bodies. When we give in to sexual immorality, we give evidence that the Holy Spirit is not indwelling us because we do not possess one of the fruits of the Spirit—self-control. All believers display the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) to a greater or lesser degree depending on the length of time they have walked with God.
Galatians 5:22–23 (ESV)
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Uncontrolled “passionate lust” is a work of the flesh (Galatians 5:19), not of the Spirit.
Galatians 5:19 (ESV)
19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality,
So controlling our lusts and living sexually pure lives is essential to anyone who professes to know Christ. In doing so, we honor God with our bodies (1 Corinthians 6:18-20).
1 Corinthians 6:18–20
18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
We know God’s rules and discipline reflect His love for us. Following what He says can only help us during our time on earth. By maintaining sexual purity before marriage, we avoid past emotional entanglements that may negatively affect present relationships and marriages. Further by keeping the marriage bed pure (Hebrews 13:4), we can experience unreserved love for our mates, which is surpassed only by God’s enormous love for us.
Hebrews 13:4 (ESV)
4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.
http://www.gotquestions.org/sexual-purity.html
Marriage is a holy act, and the marriage is consecrated on the wedding night when the ‘two become one flesh.’ When the man and woman have sex for the first time, their bodies are forever joined together, and they are one flesh. Notice above when I went into the scientific terms, that not only spiritually, but physically as well, your fleshes really do combine whenever you have sex with someone, and there is a chemical bond created.
Matthew 19:6 (ESV)
6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
What does the Bible say about marriage?
Ephesians 5:22–33
22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.1 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
God created marriage for our favor:
Proverbs 18:22 (ESV)
22 He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.
Sex is not a bad thing. Sex is a wonderful thing. God CREATED sex. He intended for man and woman to partake in sex. And God designed our bodies to be attracted to one another, He designed us to want to have sex, He designed our bodies and gave us the instruments and ways for which to have sex with each other. God purposely created sex to be very pleasurable to man and woman. And of course, sex is also the way we reproduce. The problem with it though, is that God created sex to be the most intimate sharing and connection between a HUSBAND and a WIFE. A marriage is consummated when the spouses have sex and the two bodies become one. Sex is the ultimate physical and emotional binding and attachment between two lovers in marriage. Sex used the wrong way is a sin, and not the way that God intended it to be used.
I bet many of you didn’t realize that there are vivid descriptions in the Bible about sex. What some would consider to be a very risqué and even pornographic interpretation. Read the Song of Songs, or Song of Solomon, as it is also called. King Solomon and his lover have absolutely no shame as they describe their enjoyment of each others physical bodies. It is a beautiful book and the passion that the two lovers describe is wonderful. Solomon openly expresses his love for his brides eyes, hair, teeth, mouth, tongue, neck, and breasts.
2 Your navel is a rounded goblet that never lacks blended wine. Your waist is a mound of wheat encircled by lilies.
I’ll just let you know, the navel to which Solomon is referring to, is not her belly button.
7 Your stature is like that of the palm, and your breasts like clusters of fruit.
8 I said, “I will climb the palm tree; I will take hold of its fruit.” May your breasts be like the clusters of the vine, the fragrance of your breath like apples,
Here Solomon is describing his lover as a tree, with her breasts being the fruit of that tree, and he describes himself climbing the tree and grabbing a hold of its ‘fruits.’
Genesis 1: 27-28 – “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number;”
Genesis 2:24 – “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.”
Proverbs 5:18-19 – “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 captivated by her love.”
Song of Songs 7:6 – “How beautiful you are and how pleasing, O love, with your delights!”
1 Corinthians 6:13 – “The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.”
God created sex and he created mankind to enjoy sex and to get pleasure from having sex. But sexual immorality is not what God intended.
But what if you’ve already had sex? Is there any hope for redemption? God views sin as sin. Some people struggle with sexual struggles, others will struggle with lying, stealing, you name it. Sin is sin. As everyone of us is a sinner, we are all condemned to Hell for rejecting God and his goodness. The wonderful news though is that God is a loving and forgiving God and desires us to be in Heaven with him. God forgives all sins and says he forgives and forgets. It will be as if it never happened. It is also important to realize that God never created Hell for mankind. Hell was created for the Lucifer and the fallen angels who turned against God, who are now Satan and the demons. It was NEVER God’s intention for man to be sent to Hell.
So if you have had sex before marriage and that guilt has been weighing down on you, don’t fret. No, you cannot retain your virginity once it has been lost, but you can obtain God’s forgiveness. As someone who has asked for God’s forgiveness, it is just important now to try our absolute best to stay away from that sin and not fall into that temptation again. Yes, we may slip and fall. I know I have in areas in my life. But I know that God is always there to pick me back up when I fall and forgive me of my sins. What makes God angry is when we know we are sinning, yet we continue to do it anyway. While remaining sexually pure may be difficult, it is the way that God has called for our lives. So if we have slipped and fell in this are in our lives, simply make a commitment to God to stay pure from this point forward. You can renew your purity with Christ. Abstain from sexual temptations as best you can until marriage. And once you are married, you are free to go absolutely wild with your temptations. God intended sex for marriage, and God wants you to enjoy yourselves and the body of your spouse.
If you want to know more about love and sex, check out:
http://sethdavidmiller.com/2009/08/21/what-is-love/
http://sethdavidmiller.com/2009/12/13/what-is-sex/
Sex is one of mankind’s greatest enemies, and one of mankind’s greatest blessings. Use it wisely.
