God's provision and protection II. Protection.

Last day I was sharing primarily about God's provision in the Judeo-Christian ideal of  one man one woman in life long monogamous relationship.  I do not believe that we have even begun to understand the potential for intimacy,  closeness of union of body,  mind,  soul and spirit inherent in the Biblical model of human sexuality. It does not seem to be well know that the Bible, in the  Song of Solomon, gives explicit, at times even raunchy  instructions  of how to get there and how to maintain this closeness.  I said in an earlier post that our society can be described as being inflamed by its pseudo, hyper sexuality.  Three times in Song of Solomon, we are told “not to stir up love” until the appropriate time.  Our society, as a society, does the exact opposite of this, and in doing so is, I believe,  playing with fire.

We are always playing with fire when we go against Scripture. The “no”s of scripture are there to protect and provide.  Take sexuality.  We are told  “Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body” (I Corinthians 6:18).  We should understand “body” here,  to  mean  the whole person, and “to sin against” as  'cause harm to'. The Devil came to kill steal and to destroy, and by and large,  all he has to do is to stir us up and tempt us to throw out the rules God gives us for our provision and protection.



Research in the Social Sciences  even from the earliest of studies,  confirms that  our first sexual experiences tend to cement themselves into our practices. More recent studies explain that sexual activity and even sexual fantasy,  significantly alters brain chemistry, that is it opens up neural pathways in the brain.   In the right context is has to do with bonding, with our  ability to form and keep long term relationships.  In the wrong context, it has to do with the formation of spiraling addictions.



In a faithful first time union, the created neural pathways act like  strong “glue” in a relationship,  helping the couple to bond, and to stay bonded.  This first time physical union was never meant to be severed, and its severing opens up  (and in some cases adds to echos of previous)  issues such as  rejection, abandonment and feelings of betrayal, along with their associated mental and emotional pain.  In the presence of multiple partners, where relationships have been severed over and over,  the bonding process itself becomes damaged, or else expresses itself as a need to constantly seek new partners.   From a behavioural point of view this latter scenario, can be described in terms of our developing appetites that later demand to be satisfied,  even long after we have ceased to want them.  To put it another way,  in the wrong context, sexual activity opens up  neural pathways in the brain that reinforce addictions in a very powerful way.  That sexual activity and sexual fantasies opens up  such neural pathways, helps to explain how one can become addicted to pornography, and such irrational practices  as cross dressing.   The strength of sexual addictions have lead some Psychologists to proclaim, for example, that pedophilia is incurable.  No one caught in the grip of sexual addictions,  be pornography or promiscuity in any of its forms, can doubt the truth about the difficulty of bringing these things under control.



All of this, and we have not even started to get into the health issues that surround our frantic obsession with sex.  Did you ever stop to ponder the fact that STD's (sexually transmitted diseases) would be stamped out in a single generation that practiced Biblical morality.  There were enough STD's around in my own rebellious youth, but with today's resistant strains in ever increasing pandemic proportions, you can die. That was never a fear in my day. 



One has to wonder, how far will we go in rationalizing our behaviour, how far down the proverbial slippery slope are we willing to go before we become willing to re-examine our views on what is right and wrong? I was disturbed to learn of the decriminalization of incest in certain European countries, and to read,  in journals endorsed by the American Psychological Society,  that “research has started to show that pedophilia can be positive for the child”, and even that “parents should welcome pedophiles into their home”.   Suppose, just suppose,  as it is being argued in this latter scenario, that in certain instances these 'man loves boy experiences',  are looked on as positive by the child. Let me ask, in the light of bonding inherent in early sexual experiences, what happens when the pedophile wants to move on?   The above research is of course, being contested.



Would it not make sense, in the light of all of this, to be willing to re-examine our sexual values and practices? Should we not consider what the tearing of sexual bonds does to our Psychological,  mental,  emotional and even physical health?   God calls is sin. It has been said that sin takes us further than we want to go, keeps us longer than we want to stay and costs us more than we want to pay. As I have said before,  Jesus puts it this way “He who sins is the slave of sin”. I have been there, done that and bought the t-shirt. Fortunately, there is a way out, a way back.  As I said last day, He is into the rescue and restoration business.   He came to restore ruined lives, to bring hope, joy,  peace,  love, to bring us into healing within the  community of the rescued,  and to  lift us out of the dung heap! “I am come”, He tells us, “that you might have life, and life in all its fullness” (John 10:10). Truly He is the way the truth and the life!