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[0:00] Thanks for that, Luke. That was a section out of the Song of Songs. That was chapter 2. And that's where I'm going to be heading tonight because tonight I have the great pleasure of, no pun intended, of talking about sex, a Christian biblical perspective on sex.

[0:17] And we're going to see tonight that the Bible in the Song of Songs is very frank without being crass. So it's very explicit, perhaps not in our translation, but when we look behind to the original Hebrew text, it's very explicit and very frank.

[0:34] So here's the thing. This is a disclaimer so that I won't get any nasty emails or phone calls tomorrow. If you feel that you're especially sensitive to these things, these matters, if you have little kids and, you know, like Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy, you want to keep this revelation from them for a little longer, you are free to leave.

[0:56] I won't be offended. If you're interested, you're free to come and go as you please. Maybe stick around and see where I'm going with it. My attempt is not to be controversial for the sake of it or to stir the boat, but just to be true to the text, just like I would with any other passage in the Scriptures.

[1:14] So what I'm going to talk about, firstly, is I'm going to explain to you God's design for sex, which is designed to be enjoyed freely and liberally in the context of marriage between one man and one woman, covenant of marriage.

[1:34] And we're going to talk about the two major sins, sinful attitudes to sex, as I see it, that being the extreme, hyper-conservative, Christian, prudish, Ned Flanders view, and then that has really plagued the church since its inception, and then the kind of default position today, which is the secular view, very liberal view on sexuality that's come out of the sexual revolution of the 60s.

[2:02] And so after we've looked at those two extremes, I want to insert the biblical Christian view on marriage as revealed to us from Song of Songs.

[2:14] We're just going to go through, do a little highlight reel of Song of Songs to see that actually God's intention for marriage, God's intention for a man and a wife, is to enjoy sex free and frequently and the sheer liberal nature of God's attitude towards sex might shock you.

[2:38] I hope it does. I hope the married people will go home straight after the service. I don't even want to see you. Stick around for a coffee. You can go and apply this liberally. And single people, engaged people, everyone else, you can stick around and kind of just look forward to that.

[2:58] Yeah, yeah, I'll leave it there. What I'll do is, obviously we need to pray about this. I need to pray. And so why don't we do that and we'll get stuck into the task at hand.

[3:10] Dear Lord, we do thank you for sex. We thank you that you designed it, that you designed our bodies to enjoy sex and pleasure and the intimacy of a covenant relationship.

[3:24] I pray that you would be with us tonight, that you would reveal to us some wonderful things from your word, your word to us. I pray that I'd be faithful to the scriptures and I pray, Lord, that you would change marriages as a result of this sermon, that you would encourage single people to think about marriage as a great incentive, that sex would be a great incentive for them.

[3:54] Lord, I just pray that you would guard your word tonight. for those of us who have come into this room without being sexually pure, those of us who have been sexually abused, those of us who feel guilty and ashamed, I pray that you would come to them and comfort them.

[4:20] I pray that this community would be one where sexuality is celebrated and those who have been damaged by the misuse of sex would be healed and welcomed.

[4:35] I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. So we're going to start at Genesis, the book of beginnings, the book where everything finds its origination, including sex, and we're going to see in Genesis that God created man in his own image and likeness.

[4:54] So in the creation of the earth, he first created the earth and everything in it and then he created a man named Adam. And Adam was with the animals and he was with God, but he didn't have a suitable helper and companion to be with him.

[5:09] So God said to the man that it is not good for him to be alone. And this is true again today. There are some exceptions, as we saw in the sermon on singleness, that some people have a gift from God where they can remain single throughout their life.

[5:23] But for the most part, statistically 93% of us are going to get married and the Bible is very pro-marriage. And God says to the man, it's not good for him to be alone. So he creates a woman named Eve and she is presented to Adam.

[5:40] And this is the prototypical kind of archetypal marriage where God the Father brings in the bride. She comes down the aisle, so to speak, and she comes to the man and he sings her a beautiful love song.

[5:53] He says, Bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman because she was taken from man. And so this is the first marriage. Eve comes to Adam, she's naked, which is a plus for him.

[6:07] This is kind of the, this is the ideal situation that a man wants to be in to have a wife that is naked. And most of us will work really hard to get there. He just started there. So it's a good, a good thing.

[6:18] And it's approved by God as being a good thing because he says, after he's created the man and the woman to be together, he said it was very good. And so we see that our physical bodies and creation is a good thing.

[6:34] That God created us physically and that that was good. So this is against a lot of thinking that has been influenced by Greek philosophy that somehow your soul is a good thing and your body is a dirty thing to be cast aside.

[6:49] That's not true. The body is a beautiful thing, a well-made thing. And there is no part of your body that is dirty or ungodly.

[7:01] It's certainly true as we'll see that sex can lead us into sin and it has, but we need to see that sex and our bodies were created by God very good.

[7:14] And so we see also that God created our bodies with senses, eyes to see and ears to hear and a sense of touch to touch things and feel things like heat and cold and to appreciate things, taste to appreciate food.

[7:31] And he also designed us for pleasure. So, we have a quote here on my computer because somehow I didn't print this, but anyway, ignore that.

[7:44] Stephen Arterburn, thanks, mate. Good man. Renee was actually designed as my helper, but you will do for now.

[7:56] Okay. Stephen Arterburn's a really good Christian author. He talks and writes a lot about sexual addiction and different forms of addiction and he talks about sexual pleasure in this very intense way.

[8:09] He says, sexual pleasure is one of the most intense human experiences. Physically speaking, when a man or a woman reaches sexual excitement, sexual climax, nerve endings release a chemical in the brain called opioid.

[8:24] Opioid means opium-like and is a good description of the power of the chemical. Apart from a heroin-induced experience, nothing is more pleasurable than sex.

[8:35] Thanks, mate. So they're the bodies that we were created with, bodies that are capable of feeling that level of intense pleasure in the act of sex.

[8:48] So we need to see that in the beginning, God created us and he created us in his image and he created us with the ability to feel pleasure.

[9:00] See, the great secret of sex is that it's good because the God who created it is good. Sex is good because the God who created it is good.

[9:12] We need to start there before we talk about anything else. Unfortunately, the Bible doesn't end at the end of chapter 2 in Genesis. A lot of people would like to think that the Bible is two chapters long and so we can still kind of run around naked and sleep with anyone we like.

[9:30] This is where we get nudist colonies and stuff like that. They didn't read the next slab of the Bible and particularly the next chapter. We look at chapter 3 and we see that the fall occurs.

[9:45] The fall of humanity. The great fracturing in the relationship between man and God. Between man and woman. And this happened when Eve listened to the temptations of Satan and sinned.

[10:00] Adam followed her and that didn't stand up for what God had told them. Didn't act to stop Satan in tempting them but followed Eve into that sin.

[10:12] And so immediately we have a fracturing of the relationship between man and God and between man and wife. And that's where we're at today. We still live under that curse that occurred because of human sin.

[10:26] We're going to look at today sexuality that is redeemed by God that is instructed by God that is blessed by God but that we're still at that place where we still bear the image of God as he made us but it's a fractured image.

[10:44] Out of this was born a lot of a lot of sexual sin. Sexual sin has been rampant from that time in Genesis 3 up until now.

[10:56] And so we have all kinds of sexual perversion as a result of that. The Bible speaks of homosexuality and sodomy and bestiality and adultery.

[11:09] The Bible has a junk drawer term called sexual immorality. God knew that we would just invent new ways of being sexually perverted so he said look that's sexual immorality and that's everything that's not sex between a man and a woman a man and a wife within the context of the marriage covenant.

[11:28] And so the Bible speaks frequently of sexual sin and we've seen the effects of that throughout church history and it's manifested itself in two main sinful ways as I said.

[11:40] First of all there is there's been so much sexual repression by Christians since the church began. so much repression so much of that Greek philosophy about soul and body and we've kind of said yes the soul is great the body is to be discarded.

[12:01] And so we see that in church history and I'll give you a few quotes a kind of survey of church history on that point in a sec. Then the other extreme is where we're living today every one of us particularly if you were born after the 60s you live in the context in the milieu of the sexual revolution a sexual free for all where everything and anything is permissible we'll get to that in a sec.

[12:24] First of all let's look at this prudish Ned Flanders type approach to sexuality attitude to sexuality the kind of attitude that we tell our youth group all the time maybe we don't mean to but we do that sex is dirty vile vulgar and wrong so save it for the one you love have you heard that?

[12:44] That's kind of how we talk about yeah sex is good but it's really bad until you get there so don't worry don't even think about it that's a wrong view of sexuality and we can see I'm going to have to go back to my computer thanks mate good man alright I'll just give you a quick survey of some of the things some of the attitudes to sex over the years so first we have Tertullian second century church father him and Ambrose from the fourth century were said to prefer extinction from the human race to continued sexual intercourse they would prefer the extinction of the human race to continued sexual intercourse they would prefer that there is no humans rather than humans who are having sex origin second century was so convinced of the evils of sexual pleasure that he took a knife and castrated himself like that'll fix it I mean Jesus said whatever causes your sin cut it off but I think this guy's taking it a little bit too literally oh man

[13:49] Gregory of Nyssa fourth century taught that Adam and Eve were created without sexual desire we kind of saw this in the drama and if the fall had not occurred the race would have reproduced itself by some harmless mode of vegetation so if there is no sin there's a kind of cabbage patch or a baby tree Christostom fourth century said that Adam and Eve could not have had sexual relations prior to the fall similar thinking sex couldn't have come into existence before the fall because it's so sinful Jerome also fourth century often threw himself into thorny brambles to overwhelm himself with pain when he became desirous towards a woman sexually sees a hot chick straight into the thorn bushes extinguish that remember that imagine that today like every billboard every bus that you pass imagine if I just handed out hammers at the end of tonight and you were to go to town on yourself every time you felt amorous it's not a bad idea

[14:59] Augustine fourth century was sexually active prior to his conversion and later decided that sex within marriage was not sinful though the lust and passion associated with it was so sex isn't sinful but any passion that you feel during that act is wrong it's like saying it's okay to swim as long as you don't get wet it doesn't work I'm sure the ladies the wives appreciated that take on things back in the day the view of the catholic church through the middle ages was that sexual love both in and out of marriage was evil by the 5th century priests were forbidden to marry so this is where you get the celibacy of the priesthood 5th century the church eventually began to limit the days on which sex was permissible and continued adding days until more than half the year was prohibited so you're in church and you get handed out calendars and there's just X's through more than half the days imagine that that's what they did

[16:03] Thomas Aquinas great catholic theologian of the 13th century taught that sex was only permissible for purposes of procreation so he heard this as well that's actually a popular view even today that sex is okay as long as you're having kids but we're going to look at Song of Songs the most sexually explicit book in the bible how many kids are mentioned in the Song of Songs none it's a celebration of sexual unity quite apart from kids now we want to here we really want to trumpet the cause of fatherhood and motherhood and we want to say that that's a beautiful thing and that getting married provides the right kind of structure to have kids within and we're all for kids but to say that sex is only cool if you are having kids clearly unbiblical and even our own hero Martin Luther said that intercourse is never without sin intercourse is never without sin but God excuses it by his grace because the estate of marriage is his work sexual intercourse is never without sin but God excuses it because he came up with the idea all very unbiblical views that have been prolific throughout church history and today you might have been brought up in a certain context where this kind of teaching was prevalent so what I want to do today is go to

[17:45] Song of Songs and show us that those views are incorrect they're unbiblical they're ungodly views but before we do that let's talk about the other extreme the sexual revolution that happened in the 60s 70s even 50s produced the kind of attitude towards sex that as one of our actors said it's about free love free love you can be very liberal with sex because it's just sex it's just a physical act nothing more than that a lot of this thinking came out of the research of a guy named Alfred Kinsey you might have heard of him Hollywood did a movie of him that made him look like kind of a misunderstood hero he wasn't Alfred Kinsey published the

[18:49] Kinsey report in the 50s after doing some really dodgy research it was at a time when science and scientific research was almost accepted blindly it's kind of the glory days of scientific research and so him and his perverted buddies and they really were perverts these scientists conducted research into sex in order to proliferate the idea that perverted sex acts bestiality pedophilia homosexuality were the norm they were normative and therefore should be accepted and so he came up with some statistics like this he said that 95% of men have committed a sex act that could land them in jail 95% he said that 40% of women had been unfaithful in their marriage and he said that 1 in 10 men is a homosexual he said the figure could even rise to 2 in 5 he said that 2 in 5 men have experienced a homosexual act the thing is the problem with his research is that he interviewed the large proportion of his interviewees were prostitutes inmates all manner of sexual perversion was represented in his data and he didn't disclose that information and it's really only been disclosed in the last decade but the damage has been done and so the thing is too the reason he wanted to do this was because he was a pervert himself so he actually died in the end from wounds that were probably inflicted by himself in a sadomasochistic way while he was having sex with other men so he was very invested in this his other researchers were paid to have sex with children and with animals to show that everyone is a sexual being even animals so his research indicated that children are sexual beings from birth so therefore you can have sex with a child as long as you're loving towards them that's a valid relationship and the same with animals and so out of that research has come all kinds of groups you can just google it groups that are pro bestiality groups that are pro pedophilia and they really believe that they're fighting for the good cause because of his data he said because my data shows that this is normative behaviour 1 in 10 people is homosexual you know 5% of people like having sex with animals this is normative behaviour therefore it should be accepted by the wider community what then happened was the

[21:45] Kinsey Institute was established and this was very the institute was very influential in getting sex education into public schools in the West and a big financial backer for the Kinsey Institute none other than Hugh Hefner of the Playboy Mansion why so that kids could be indoctrinated to grow up and buy his perverted products so this is the milieu that we've grown up in if you've grown up after the 60s you've grown up indoctrinated by this kind of thinking and you mightn't be as far down the line to say that pedophilia is okay or bestiality is okay but we've seen the cracks starting to appear see that the epistemological way of looking at this the kind of pattern that people follow is that all sexuality is okay all sexual persuasion is okay because it is your body it is your choice abortion pro pro abortion pro choice same with the pro the kind of political movement behind homosexuality being accepted was it's your body it's your choice all these people are feeling this way therefore we need to accept it you mightn't be pro bestiality now

[23:12] I wonder about your kids because the same rule holds true if you get enough people saying this is how I feel this is how I was made this is what I like to do you can't judge me for it then these are the things that happen this is the course that history follows you can't say to someone today that your sexual persuasion is wrong you can critique it maybe but you can't say it's wrong and get away with it because you'll be called bigoted and judgmental and this is the way things are going this is the other extreme sexuality today is like a river that has reached the ocean have you ever been to an estuary the river is wide and shallow and muddy and stinks that's where we're at back up the river upstream go to the Kimberley or the Grand Canyon Colorado River the boundaries are solid the gorge is high and the river is deep and pure and powerful that's God's design for sex strong boundaries the boundary the strong solid boundary of marital covenant between a man and a woman and the water is deep and pure and powerful so that's where we're at probably fall into one of two groups sexually repressed

[24:56] Ned Flanders sexually perverted child of the revolution I want to give us a biblical structure for godly sex let's go to Song of Songs Song of Songs is a little book in your bible but it's an amazing book and it's attributed to Solomon it's either written about him or written by him he was as you know King Solomon of the bible the bible says he wrote 3000 proverbs and over 1000 songs and this is said to be the song of songs just like Jesus is the lord of lords the greatest lord this is said to be the greatest song and I think it is the greatest love song of all time if you are married and you haven't read this with your wife you need to if not leave now then leave straight afterwards and go home and read this with her it's amazing it's an amazing song what I'm going to do is just stroll through the book and pick out some highlights

[26:07] I think they're highlights you might not again the bible is very frank without being crass and so that's my aim in going through this book let's start right at the beginning song of songs which is solomon's then verse two this is a great beginning to a book you think about the great beginnings in the bible genesis in the beginning was god john in the beginning was the word and the word was with god this is a great beginning as well she says and note this she does a lot of the initiation in this book right husband should be nodding we like that okay a lot of women are like well I don't want to rule over my husband you can do it in this area of life okay he won't mind she says let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth for your love or the better translation for your love making is better than wine yes yes that's what husbands want to hear your love making is better than wine wine might give you a buzz it might make you feel good for a time but compared to that that's nothing compared to your love making we're going to see this throughout that the translation in our modern bibles even in the most recent bible translations is often pretty modest where it should be quite explicit so I'm going to translate it for you and we're going to see some interesting things the song is a conversation or a dialogue or a series of love songs really between a man and his wife some of them are songs written on the way to the marriage ceremony where they're really anticipating the wedding night some of them are post wedding where they're just expressing their enjoyment of one another's body

[28:10] I'll translate for you we're just going to go through so verse 9 he says to her I compare you my love to a mare among pharaoh's chariots you're going to see that not all of this translates perfectly if you call your wife a mare or a horse she looks like a horse she might not get it straight away but you need to go a bit deeper than that and you need to see that that pharaoh's chariots were all pulled by stallions male horses only now I don't know if you've seen what happens when you get a bunch of stallions and a mare comes into the fold I grew up on a property and we used to keep stallions it's like a stud property and one day we introduced a mare it wasn't pretty but it was effective I mean they just they sit up and take notice and what he's saying is she's just said I'm not very attractive I'm not very pretty and he says no no no you're like a mare that walks through in the midst of stallions and everyone takes notice of you because of your beauty you're going to see throughout that this isn't really a book primarily it's not only about sex it's about romance so many of us guys so many of us husbands fail in this area we're not romantic enough we don't tell our wives how beautiful they are so you see constantly throughout this book he tells her how beautiful she is and she tells him how much of a study is and that's just the way

[29:46] God wants it to be so let's keep going verse 13 and this I just want to make a note about this she says my beloved is to me a bag of my that lies between my breasts I don't want to go into this too heavily but the vast majority of interpreters of this book of the Bible since early church history have interpreted not as a man and his wife speaking to one another and celebrating their sexuality but an allegorical book about Jesus and the church or about God and Israel so their interpretation of this I don't want to offend anyone if this is your view it might be but their interpretation of that verse is that Jesus is like the bag of myrrh and he sits between the two breasts which are the Old Testament and the New Testament now I don't know about you but when I read that I kind of just think about breasts it's obvious to me that that's the way that we should read the book the

[31:01] New Testament never speaks of song of songs in that way that it's about Christ and the church and I think the most simple reading is that this is a celebration of sex not so much a celebration of Christ and the church it's about a marriage that has been blessed by Jesus but really it's about a celebration of sex let's move on chapter 2 verse 3 she says as an apple tree among the trees of the wood so is my beloved among young men nice husbands do you want to hear that from your wife my husband stands out among all the other men he's like an apple tree among the trees of the wood apple trees were seen to have aphrodisiac qualities she's saying he's a stud compared to all those other guys he is a stud she speaks very affirmingly of him husbands respond well to this ladies take note now it gets very explicit she says with great delight

[32:09] I sat in his shadow and his fruit was sweet to my taste what she says is this what I like to do my husband is such a stud I like to sit beneath him and his fruit is sweet to my taste a biblical warrant for marital oral sex here I will move on she says sustain me with raisins another aphrodisiac in the ancient world refresh me with apples for I am faint with love oh that his left hand were under my head and that his right hand embraced me another poor translation what she's saying is I just love it when his left hand is under my head and his right hand explores me stimulates me that's why you get an exclamation point at the end of that sentence she really enjoys it when they just lie down together and he stimulates her oral sex is biblical in the context of a marriage covenant massage and petting and manual stimulation is biblical in the context of a marriage covenant let's jump ahead to 4 verse 5 he says your two breasts are like two fawns twins of a gazelle that feed among the lilies he says your breasts are like two furry woodland animals might want to adjust it if you use that line but what he's getting at and you'll notice throughout this book is very subtle we're so used to the filthy media today of movies and sitcoms that we've lost the subtlety of romantic language and poetic language so what he's saying is this have you ever been to a zoo and seen a couple of small fawns of a gazelle they're small and cute and furry what do you want to do you want to pet them it's biblical

[34:42] I tell you what women always say I've got these breasts I don't know why he likes them they're annoying they're fatty they get in the way this is why it's biblical it's biblical I've got so many verses I could give you about breasts I know them all don't wives don't push your husband away just he goes on this is beautiful Wayne highlighted this last week the metaphor of her genitalia being like a garden locked she says a garden locked is he says a garden locked is my sister my bride a garden locked a fountain sealed in these days what you'd have is a private garden out the back of your house that would contain a fountain or a well and exotic fruits and scented herbs and flowers and the only person who would be allowed in through that walled garden was the master of the garden and so he says you're just like a walled garden and you're just for me you're just for me you're for nobody else he refers to a fountain sealed a very strong metaphor of her preparedness for sex and he goes on again strong metaphors here your channel is an orchard of pomegranates with all choicest fruits henna and nard nard and saffron fragrant plants calamus and cinnamon with all trees of frankincense myrrh and aloes with all chief spices a garden fountain a well of living water and flowing streams from lebanon she is definitely ready to be intimate with him and it shows in the well of living water a flowing stream and so she says to him she's definitely ready to be intimate with him she says awake oh north wind and come oh south wind blow on my garden and its fragrance may be wafted abroad let my beloved come into his garden literally in the

[37:04] Hebrew it is literally come into my garden it is explaining sexual intercourse and eat its choice fruits he says I come into my garden my sister my bride I gather my myrrh with my spice I eat my honeycomb with my honey I drink my wine with my milk eat friends drink and be drunk with love isn't that beautiful isn't that beautiful in the context of a marriage covenant between two people where they are safe to express themselves not a one night stand where you're embarrassed the next day when you wake up and realize that you've exposed yourself to someone but in the safety of a walled garden if you like the security of a marriage covenant where you know that you can express yourself and not be rejected she is very much the initiator and she says to him this is what

[38:06] I like this is what I want you to do to me wives need to know that you need to tell your husbands what you like what you don't like how you want things to be done because we're idiots we don't know wives get frustrated because they think oh my husband just doesn't understand me of course he doesn't he's a man God created man and woman different we've lost this sense of the difference between the genders today another consequence of the sexual revolution so wives speak to your husbands wives to be you've got to know when you get married you need to be open and you need to be willing to share information about yourself about your needs and your preferences guys take note now you notice this guy is so good he all he he praises her speaks very affirmingly of her particularly in the natural areas that women are self conscious so let's see chapter seven he says how graceful are your feet in sandals he notices the details doesn't go straight for the breasts he knows that for ladies the shoes are important right even if that's all you're wearing how graceful are your feet in sandals oh queenly maiden your rounded thighs are like jewels the work of a master hand your navel is a rounded bowl that never lacks mixed wine that's a poor poor poor translation how many times have you seen a navel that is moist and red and wet there certainly is another part of the female anatomy that is and that's what he's speaking of he says your genitalia is like a rounded bowl that never lacks mixed wine your belly is a heap of wheat guys her belly is never a heap of anything there's got to be some kind of local context that we don't know there but it's like a heap of wheat encircled with lilies your two breasts are like two fawns twins of a gazelle your neck is like an ivory tower your eyes are pools in heshbon by the gate of bath rabim your nose is like a tower of lebanon he's not saying it's like a big nose he's saying it's very beautifully crafted very beautifully crafted like a tower of lebanon overlooking damascus your head crowns you like carmel your flowering locks are like purple flowing locks are like purple a king is held captive in the tresses how fair and pleasant you are loved one delectable maiden you are stately as a palm tree and your breasts like its clusters

[41:11] I say I will climb the palm tree take hold of its branches may your breasts be like clusters of the vine and the scent of your breath like apples and your kisses like the best wine that goes down smoothly gliding over lips and teeth forget Shakespeare that is brilliant he highlights the aspects of her that perhaps she'd be self conscious about and he praises them husbands need to know husbands to be need to know that we need to affirm our wives and speak affirmingly of them right throughout our marriage right throughout our time together whether she's 20 or 60 or 90 that's our standard of beauty our standard of beauty isn't supplied to us by morons in the media or playboy magazine or pornography or anything else standard of beauty for us is our wife in the garden

[42:28] Adam had Eve he didn't have a lineup to choose from that's what pornography and modern views on sexuality in the media give us today they kind of make us think well which one do I like best what kind of form of woman you know I like this size this and then I want a bit of that and I like you know I'm a big fan of this particular race over that one that's a perverted way of thinking your standard of beauty is your wife for the rest of your life if she's short then beautiful for you is short that's what beautiful for me is five foot flat and always will be isn't it true that women are always worried about these things like if she's really tall she's really worried about it and then she finds a guy that loves tall women he says that's what attracted me to you she says I'm gangly no you're tall I love that our standard for beauty is our wife or our wife to be they don't have to live up to any objective standard portrayed to them in the media

[43:43] I'll take one last highlight this is a great woman guys get this I think this woman is great she's got a lot of good ideas and what she says to him is interesting she wants to go outdoors she wants to try a new thing she says I am my beloved and his desire is for me come my beloved let us go forth into the fields and lodge in the villages let us go out early into the vineyards and see whether the vines have budded whether the great blossoms have opened and the pomegranates are in bloom there I will give you my love the mandrakes give forth fragrance and over our doors are all choice fruits new as well as old which I have laid up for you oh my beloved what she says is hubby we got to get out of the city we got to go on a bit of a retreat let's go out to that bed and breakfast place in

[44:48] Marysville get away and this is what I'm going to do to you and she lists it off that's a beautiful wife that's a godly wife that's a biblical wife right there now in saying that if you do get arrested for trying some new things out of doors we're not going to take a collection and post bail but it's something to think about it's biblical the point is the point I'm trying to make is the Bible's view of sexuality is very free very liberated it affirms women who are liberated and take the initiative it affirms an attitude towards sex which is uses it as a means by which to worship God 1 Corinthians says whether you eat or drink whatever you do do it to the glory of

[45:48] God this included within I need to press this because we're all perverted morons today within the right context and so I want to finish with a couple of points on that first of all if you're not married I want to stress this that God has put boundaries around sex a lot of the talk today especially when I was doing youth ministry people came up to me all the time and said how far can I go with my boyfriend for it's sinful how far can we go the Bible doesn't answer that question it says who can you go there with and it's your wife or your husband shouldn't be doing anything until you have the security of a marriage covenant and the blessing of God on that marriage there's a frequent refrain throughout this book and it's something we need to hear particularly you guys who aren't married yet it's all throughout but

[46:55] I'll take it from 27 she says I adieu you or I command you or I call on you daughters of Jerusalem by the gazelles or the wild does do not stir up or awaken love until it is ready she says don't go there until the time is right and she says that this is really interesting she says by the gazelles and the wild does another way of saying it is for the sake of sex don't have sex until you're married that is a really really important statement to make for the sake of sex don't have sex until you're married I just add in an analogy that Chris shared with me earlier this week he said I'll try and remember it this analogy about a guy whose son gets a Lego pirate ship and he's so excited to get it he rips open the box throws away the manual doesn't look at the box and puts it together and it's fun and it's enjoyable and he puts together a pretty good ship then he looks at the box and the manual and sees what the ship should look like and it's so much better than what he's put together the point is if you get involved sexually before you're married it's going to be fun sex is fun sex is enjoyable we've talked about that tonight but oh my goodness it's so weak and such a shadow of the reality that we find in marriage so she says for the sake of sex for the sake of the enjoyment that you're going to have with your husband or wife don't go there yet don't go there yet if you're married the bible is pro pro sex you're probably not having enough you're probably if you're thinking about it now you know work kids pressures of life has diverted your attention from it husbands you're not being romantic enough you're not leaving notes for your wife anymore you're not going out on a date night you're not investing in your relationship you're not going away like these guys do to a secluded place where you can be free to enjoy one another well 1

[49:32] Corinthians 7 3 to 5 Paul says the husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights that is he should have sex with her make love to her and likewise the wife to her husband for the wife does not have authority over her own body but the husband does likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body but the wife does do do not deprive one another except perhaps by agreement for a set time to devote yourselves to prayer and then come together again so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self control I wonder how many husbands are spending three hours a day at work downloading pornography because their wife always has a headache how many wives are unfulfilled because their husband is always too lazy to give a massage or to spend time with her explore her the divorce rate among

[50:37] Christians is the same if not higher than unbelievers and I wonder if it's the proliferation of the prudish attitude towards sex that has caused it to be that way that people aren't being fulfilled they're not obeying God in exploring each other and enjoying their sexuality and so they fall apart something to think about just to recap I know I've gone long we could do a 20 week 50 week 200 week series on this we really could just to recap God designed man and woman in his image and likeness to appreciate creation to appreciate the senses to appreciate pleasure and he created them in the context of a marriage covenant so that they could enjoy one another sexually not just for procreation but for pure pleasure and worship and within that context a man and a wife can enjoy themselves and be liberated and free and frequent because of the security they enjoy today we have the great two great extremes of

[51:53]  Christian prudish attitudes and for the most part secular filth when it comes to sex and so we have to align ourselves with this which is true and authoritative when it was written today and forever if you're married line yourself up with this book and you'll be well satisfied if you're not married line yourself up with this book and you won't have yourself torn apart by sexual sin when the bible says that they lay with one another they enjoyed one another and they became one flesh the word there the hebrew word is dode and the sort of flavor behind that word is it's talking about a mingling of souls they became one flesh and it was a mingling of souls that's what happens when you enjoy sexual relations with another person that's why it kills when you've had a sexual relationship and you break up because you leave parts of your soul behind in the mingling of souls it's also why it's such a beautiful thing to share in the context of marriage i'd like to pray for us now that god would change us to be more in line with his words so let's pray together dear lord i pray now for those of us who are single and not yet married that you would use our sex drive and our appreciation for pleasure to drive us on toward that great goal of marriage if that be your will i pray that the young man of this church would stand up and seek out a wife at the right time in the right context with the right woman according to your will i pray for the married couples here that as a result of reading song of songs they would rediscover a spark and a biblical concept of sexuality that they would be enjoying it both freely and frequently i pray for all of us lord that above all that everything we do with our bodies would be an act of worship toward you that we would use the bodies that you've given us in order to bring you glory i pray this in jesus name amen