In July 2008, One of my favorite bloggers Mark Altrogge (Pastor and Song writer) posted an entry on his blog about “the prayer of a pimply-faced 14 year old”. Nine years later that prayer was answered and David Altrogge married Sarah (read the entry it is a great entry). The thing that struck me most is the last line of this blog entry “If you’d like to see a video of the first kiss visit Evidences of Grace” (which is another blog). How cute, right?
I ventured over to the other blog and something else caught my eye about these two “Sarah and David had never kissed each other or anyone else for that fact before today. Their very first kiss was today at the altar. How incredible.”
How incredible, indeed. Here are two people who lived out God’s commands. This summer I had the honor to be at a wedding of two people who are very dear to me, who lived out their lives in obedience too.
There is a beauty in their obedience. There was a God glorifying beauty in the first kiss between husband and wife. The first kiss between my two friends is something that I will remember for a long time because the results of their obedience ended up in something so God Glorifying.
Why am I talking about this, you wonder? What does this have to do with anything? What do I know about marriage?
I know nothing about marriage and am finding out that I know even less about love.
What I do know about is the results of sin. I don’t know who reads my blog, not sure if anyone does. But if you are someone at the cross roads between obedience and living for yourself or if you are questioning God’s commands about purity, here are some things to think about.
I didn’t go down the road of obedience, I went down the road of living for myself. My first kiss was to a girl some 25 years ago and I have been with others too, who either despise me or hopefully just have forgotten about me.
Five years ago God claimed me as His own. God calls us to purity and holiness. The battle rages within me as much as I want to be pure and holy, the false promises of the world keep trying to tempt me. The seduction of the pleasure of sinful sex is extremely powerful
Though it is possible that I will get married and it will be a beautiful God glorifying marriage. I will always have the echo of my past memories in my head trying to destroy what marriage is suppose to be and trying to make it into the image the world portrays.
Albert Mohler, in 2004 gave a talk about “The Seduction of Pornography and the Integrity of Christian Marriage” (available in a manuscript and audio form) to the male students of Boyce College. I am stealing the quote from the infamous Justin Taylor. See the contrast between one who believes and lives by the worlds lies or lives by the command for sexual purity:
Two Pictures: Purified vs Pornified
I encourage young guys in particular to read it and listen to it.
Here is an excerpt, where he talks about two pictures of male sexuality:
The first picture is of a man who has set himself toward a commitment to sexual purity, and is living in sexual integrity with his wife. In order to fulfill his wife’s rightful expectations and to maximize their mutual pleasure in the marriage bed, he is careful to live, to talk, to lead, and to love in such a way that his wife finds her fulfillment in giving herself to him in love. The sex act then becomes a fulfillment of their entire relationship, not an isolated physical act that is merely incidental to their love for each other. Neither uses sex as means of manipulation, neither is inordinately focused merely on self-centered personal pleasure, and both give themselves to each other in unapologetic and unhindered sexual passion. In this picture, there is no shame. Before God, this man can be confident that he is fulfilling his responsibilities both as a male and as a man. He is directing his sexuality, his sex drive, and his physical embodiment toward the one-flesh relationship that is the perfect paradigm of God’s intention in creation.
Mohler then asks us to consider the picture of another man:
This man lives alone, or at least in a context other than holy marriage. Directed inwardly rather than outwardly, his sex drive has become an engine for lust and self-gratification. Pornography is the essence of his sexual interest and arousal. Rather than taking satisfaction in his wife, he looks at dirty pictures in order to be rewarded with sexual arousal that comes without responsibility, expectation, or demand. Arrayed before him are a seemingly endless variety of naked women, sexual images of explicit carnality, and a cornucopia of perversions intended to seduce the imagination and corrupt the soul.
This man need not be concerned with his physical appearance, his personal hygiene, or his moral character in the eyes of a wife. Without this structure an accountability, he is free to take his sexual pleasure without regard for his unshaved face, his slothfulness, his halitosis, his body odor, and his physical appearance. He faces no requirement of personal respect, and no eyes gaze upon him in order to evaluate the seriousness and worthiness of his sexual desire. Instead, his eyes roam across the images of unblinking faces, leering at women who make no demands upon him, who never speak back, and who can never say no. There is no exchange of respect, no exchange of love, and nothing more than the using of women as sex objects for his individual and inverted sexual pleasure.
By logical consequence, he achieves sexual gratification at the expense of women who have been used and abused as commodified sex objects. He may imagine a sex act as he fulfills his physical pleasure, but he almost certainly does not imagine what it would mean to be responsible for this woman as husband and accountable to her as mate. He can sit in his soiled underwear, belching the remnants of last night’s pizza, and engage in a pattern of one-handed sexual satisfaction while he “surfs the net” and forfeits his soul.
Here’s the point:
These two pictures of male sexuality are deliberately intended to drive home the point that every man must decide who he will be, whom he will serve, and how he will love. In the end, a man’s decision about pornography is a decision about his soul, a decision about his marriage, a decision about his wife, and a decision about God.
Pornography is a slander against the goodness of God’s creation and a corruption of this good gift God has given his creatures out of his own self-giving love. To abuse this gift is to weaken, not only the institution of marriage, but the fabric of civilization itself. To choose lust over love is to debase humanity and to worship the false god Priapus in the most brazen form of modern idolatry.
You can read it and listen to it online.
If you are struggling with sexual sin or any sin. Find a trusted Christian brother and bring the issue out into the light and through God’s mercy and grace, and your discipline you can become the man God wants you to be.
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