Preservation Of Marriage Commanded Series

Actor Eli Wallach figured that his son who was

approaching his teens was sharp enough to grasp some basic

facts of life. So he called him in, and gave him the

time-honored story about the birds and the bees. When he

was all finished the boy said, "You know in a rudimentary

fashion, the process you've described isn't too dissimilar to

human reproduction."

Parents are often naive about the sex knowledge of their children.

They pretend that in a nation where teenage girls

get pregnant by the millions, and where sex promotion oozes

out of every pore of society, and where its rays flood every

realm of life with its omnipresent radiation, that they still

walk in the dark concerning the mechanics of sex. It is time

that we wake up to the fact that we have been living in the

midst of a sex revolution. Pitiram Sorokin, the great

Harvard sociologist, says of this revolution: "It is changes

the lives of men and women more radically than any other

revolution of our time."

This revolution is just as serious as political and economic

revolution, but it goes almost unnoticed because it is so

private. Sorokin writes, "Devoid of noisy public explosion,

its stormy scenes are confined to the privacy of the bedroom

and involves only individuals. Unmarked by dramatic

events on a large scale, it is free from civil war, class struggle,

and blood shed. It has no revolutionary army to fight its

enemies. It does not try to overthrow governments. It has

no great leader; no hero plans it, and no politician directs it.

Without plan or organization it is carried on by millions of

individuals, each acting on his own."

Time does not permit the examination of all the evidence

of the decay of the American culture. But let me give you

one example. During the early period of Greek and Roman

culture the figures of their deities and heroes, and especially

of women, were completely draped from head to foot. In the

decadent stages of their culture these same figures appeared

nude, designed to stimulate the sex drive. The same pattern

was followed in music, the stage, and literature, until sex

dominated the culture, and brought them to ruin. It is the

same old story over and over. Sex is a beautiful servant, but

a beastly master. Yet in spite of all the history of man's folly

and its consequences in relation to sex, the American people

are traveling that same road. It is true, "All men ever learn

from history is that men never learn from history."

The seventh commandment is not just relevant; it is

essential for the very survival for our culture. As important

as it is, however, the church has not given it an adequate

place in its teaching. D. L. Moody said, "I would to God I

could pass over this commandment, but I feel the time has

come to cry aloud and spare not." Most preachers feel like

Moody, but the difference is most do pass over it. I read 36

different preachers, scholars, and professors, on this

commandment. All but a handful beat around the bush and

just preached a gentle sermon on marriage and family life.

To deal with it realistically you must be frank almost to the

point of embarrassment.

There are those who feel you should not preach on the

seventh commandment at all for fear of giving people ideas.

These objectors know the power of sex, and know that a

sermon on adultery could tempt the listeners to the very act

that is condemned. I have read sermons describing David's

affair with Bathsheba, and wondered if the authors purpose

was to stir up jealously in the reader that he was not David,

rather than pity for David that he was a victim of

uncontrolled sex.

The objectors have a point, but it is dulled by the fact

that the Bible itself is not shy on the subject of sex. It is so

frank and specific in parts that it stimulates the same

emotions as a sex novel or seductive film. There is no point

in trying to pretend sex is an incidental and insignificant

part of life. It is a major and powerful force in the life of

every healthy human being. It is the area of the greatest

temptation to sin. R. H. Charles writes, "Other sins, such as

theft, arson, perjury, murder, make no appeal to the normal

healthy mind. You may read countless tales of such crimes

in the daily press and not be tempted in the lease to become

a theft, or incendiary, a perjurer, or a murderer, because in

healthy minds the desire to leading to such crimes are

absent, and the tales of such crimes create only abhorrence.

But it is otherwise in regard to the sins of the flesh. Every