YOU SHOULD WAIT UNTIL MARRIAGE TEN REASONS WHY WE SHOULD WAIT: By Rev. Seth Mohenu

[Carleo]

People desperately need to be loved by someone who is important to
them. This is especially true of young people. Just knowing that a
person of the opposite sex finds you attractive generates a warm,
wonderful feeling.
When a boy and a girl are attracted to each other and begin spending
time together, the excitement builds. They discover how pleasurable it
is to touch and caress each other. This stirs their passions. Before
long they are drawn toward sexual intercourse, and they begin to
think, "If we really love each other, what's wrong with having sex?"
There are many reasons why you should not engage in sex before
marriage. They add up to one thing: What you gain by sex before
marriage is not worth what you lose by it.
What do you gain? A brief thrill. Perhaps some momentary pleasure. But
what you lose by sex before marriage can affect your entire life. Let
us see what you lose by it.
I. Sex before marriage can ruin your chances of knowing real love.
A girl makes a tragic mistake when she tries to gain love or hold on
to it by giving sex. Real love may lead to engagement, marriage, and
sex, but sex does not lead to real love. Instead, it often destroys
your chances of knowing real love.

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A nineteen-year-old girl had kept herself pure all through high school
and the first year of college. She was going steady with a boy whom
she liked very much. On the night before he left for summer vacation,
she gave in to him. She thought, "Why shouldn't I? He loves me, and I
love him."
What happened? During the summer, she heard little from her "lover."
When he returned that fall, he dropped the bombshell. "You're not the
girl I had hoped you were," he told her. "Our last night together was
a nightmare. You made me ashamed of myself. I could never marry you
after that. I would always wonder if there had been others. This has
been the greatest disappointment of my life. “
II. Sex before marriage will keep you from ever knowing God's best.
One of the wrong ideas concerning sex is that it is just a physical
thrill to be enjoyed with whomever you choose. This makes sex cheap
and meaningless, and it disregards certain facts about how we are
made.
Sex is not just a physical act. In sexual intercourse, you and the
other person become one. It is such an intimate experience that a part
of you remains forever with the other person and a part of that person
remains with you. When you do get married, you will find that you can
never give your mate 100% of yourself. Why? Because you have given
part of yourself away to others. To take this lightly is not only
foolish but it is plain ignorance of how God made us. You can't give
100% of yourself to your mate if you have had sex with others.


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III. Sex before marriage will hurt your self-esteem.
The Bible says that a young person should learn to possess his body
with honor and not follow the ways of those who are immoral. A young
person's purity is his or her priceless possession. Unfortunately many
do not realize this until it is too late.
Sometimes a girl is love-hungry, and she mistakes a boy's sex desire
for the love she is looking for, and she gives in to him. All too
often, the boy does not really love her or respect her as a person. He
wants sex and she is available, so he uses her to get what he wants.
After awhile, he gets tired of her. She is like bargain-table
goods-"Slightly soiled. Greatly reduced in price. "
She has nowhere to go in her search for love but to another boy who is
looking for sex. She becomes cheap in her own eyes and in the eyes of
others. A girl's purity is her priceless possession.
IV. Sex before marriage can leave you with life-long guilt.
God has given you a conscience and you've got to live with it. A 42
year-old woman wrote,
When I was young, I fell into sins that have marred my life. My secret
sins were committed in my teen-age years. I have cried and cried in
remorse...If only God would give me peace and take away the awful
guilt out of my life. You may get a few moments of "thrilling
pleasure" out of sex before marriage, but is it worth this price?


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V. Sex before marriage can be a big disappointment.
Do young people find sex as exciting and heavenly as they thought it
would be? The answer is No!
A study of premarital sex relations was made in a large clinic for
unwed mothers. The question was asked of the unwed mothers, "Did you
find the sex experience pleasurable, disappointing, or unpleasant?
Fifty percent said it was "disappointing," thirty percent described it
as "unpleasant or revolting," and only twenty percent said it was
"pleasurable."
Under the right circumstances, sex can be an exciting and thrilling
experience, as God intended it to be. But outside of marriage it is
likely to be disappointing. A sixteen-year-old pregnant girl said,
Everything you read in books about love is a bunch of lies. It isn't
tender; it isn't sweet and enduring. It is cruel and it hurts. Movie
writers in this country ought to be jailed for writing all that junk
about moonlight and roses. What's more, all those fade-outs they do in
the movies and stories where people are supposed to be loving and
everything is so romantic and the next morning everyone is so
happy.. .it isn't like that at all. It hurts; it hunts terribly when
you are not used to it. Moreover you feel awful the next day when your
boyfriend won't even look at you.
6. Sex before marriage is hazardous.
Engaging in sex before marriage can expose you to venereal diseases.
The "easy" girl, who is by no means a prostitute, can be the source of
anyone of several such diseases. Likewise, boys can be "carriers.”
Venereal diseases can cause serious infections, blindness, and even
death. They can be

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transmitted to your children with the same devastating effects. There
is no known cure for some of these diseases.
A girl who had sexual relations with only one boyfriend thought she
was safe. She was terribly shocked when her doctor told her she was
infected. A "venereal tracer" revealed that the boy had had sex with
only one other girl. But this girl had had sex with five other men,
who in turn had been with nineteen women, some of them prostitutes.
The girl who thought her relationship had been limited to one person
had had contact, through him, with at least ninety-two persons.
7. Sex before marriage can shatter a girl's life.
Young people who experiment with sex outside of marriage should ask
themselves: "What will we do if this results in pregnancy?
One who visited a home for unwed mothers said, "You can never forget
that look of despair on the faces of the girls who do not know what
the future holds --- girls who don't know if they will ever know real
love or have a happy home."
It is not just the easy make-outs that get pregnant, but "nice girls"
as well. Abortion may seem like an easy solution to the problem of an
unwanted pregnancy, but it is not. It can leave you with terrible
feelings of guilt which can haunt you the rest of your life. The
following letter tells a familiar story:
In June of 1982, I found out I was pregnant. I was 18 years old and
two months away from college. My boyfriend was a back-slidden
Christian like me and we chose abortion because we didn't want to face
our family and friends. We took the "easy" way out.

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After my abortion I faced mental heartaches, shed many tears, and
regretted the whole decision. To this day I still get on my knees and
cry-asking the Lord for His lovingkindness because I was so wrong!
I struggle a lot wondering if God will give me a second chance. He is
such a loving God and I believe with all my heart that He is God, and
yet I always carry a conscience full of guilt. I feel like God has
abandoned me and I get so discouraged because of the nightmare of my
past. Does God forgive me? I believe He does, yet I feel this sin was
just too great.'
We should make it clear here that no one needs to go through life
carrying such a heavy load of guilt. Jesus Christ died for our sins.
God forgives anyone who takes Him as their Savior.
8. Sex before marriage can result in some BIG problems.
Sometimes a boy will say, "If you get pregnant, we can always get
married."
Maybe you can, but marriage is serious business. It means taking on a
job you may not be prepared for. Marriage is not all moonlight,
romance, and roses; it's daylight, diapers, and dishes! Consider this
letter:
I am 17 and already my life is messed up. Ted and I went steady for
six months and we began to do things we had no right to do. I became
pregnant.
We both quit school and got married right away. My folks thought it
would be best if we moved out of town, so we did. I hate my life and
what I have done to Ted. The baby cries all the time and gets on Ted's
nerves. He drinks too much and I can't blame him. We live "
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in a dump and there is no money for sitters or movies or decent
clothes. Ted never says anything, but I know he must hate me because I
got him into this. I'm afraid he hates the baby, too. He never holds
her or pays attention to her.
There are times when I think this is all a bad dream and I'll wake up
at home in my own bed, and get dressed and go to school with the kids
I liked so much. But I know too well that those days are over for me
and I am stuck.
I'm not writing for advice. It's too late for that. I'm just writing
in the hope you will print this letter for the benefit of other teen-
agers who think they know it all-like I did. Wrecked at 17' "I always
carry a conscience full of guilt."
9. Sex before marriage may fool you into marrying the wrong person.
If you become involved with someone sexually before marriage, you may
think that you have found real love when all you have is the thrill
and excitement of sexual attraction. You go ahead and get married and
then you discover that you married the wrong person. You find out too
late that it was not real love but only sex that was the attraction.
10. Sex before marriage can ruin your marriage.
Some people think that if they just make it to the marriage altar,
everything will be fine. But this is not so. A happy and successful
marriage is not easy to come by under the best of circumstances, but
when you start out wrong, it is almost impossible to achieve.

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Pre-marital sex greatly reduces your chances of a happy marriage. One
reason is that those who play around with sex before marriage tend to
do the same thing after marriage. They are never satisfied-always
looking for a new thrill.
Sometimes couples engage in sex before marriage, then get married and
seemingly get along well. But they have sown seeds of doubt and
distrust which will bear bitter fruit later on.
A couple who had been married 20 years was counseling with Dr. Henry
Brandt, trying to keep their marriage from falling apart.
The husband said, "My wife doesn't trust me."
"You don't trust me either," the wife shot back. "We've never trusted
each other."
Why had they never trusted each other? Because they had sex before
they were married. It resulted in 20 years of suspicion and distrust
and finally wrecked their marriage.








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Sex before marriage sows seeds of doubt and distrust.
Sex Before Marriage is Wrong
We have considered ten practical reasons why you should avoid sex
before marriage. But there is one reason that is more important than
all these ten reasons. It is this: Sex before marriage is wrong.
It is wrong because God says it is wrong. Nothing can change that. God
has said in plain words that sex outside of marriage is sin. In the
Bible it is called fornication, and it is one of the most damaging of
all sins. The Bible says, "Flee fornication...he that commits
fornication sins against his own body." I Corinthians 6: 18
God wants us to see that sex within marriage is holy and pure in His
sight and has His blessing. But God will judge those who commit
fornication and adultery.
The Bible says, "Marriage is honorable in all, and the (marriage) bed
undefiled: but whoremongers (fornicators) and adulterers God will
judge." Hebrews 13:4
The Bible says that sex outside of marriage and all forms of abnormal
or perverted sex are wrong. People often say, "Times have changed." It
is true that times have changed, but God has not changed, nor has He
changed His mind about these things.
The Bible says, "Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters,
nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind
(homosexuals)...shall not inherit the kingdom of God." I Corinthians
6:9,10

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God Wants Us To Have the Best
Many young people do not understand why God tells us not to engage in
sex before marriage. Some even think that God does not want us to
enjoy sex, but this is not true at all.
The truth is that God gave commandments concerning sex, not to keep us
from enjoying it, but in Order that we might enjoy sex to the fullest
and over the longest period of time.
To illustrate what we mean, let us think about trains. Some of the
fastest trains in the world are in Japan. Some of these trains
regularly run at 120 miles per hour and at times they hit 155 miles
per hour!
How can these trains attain such speeds? The reason is that they run
on tracks that are superbly designed and skillfully built. The tracks
enable these trains to run at their maximum speed.
Satan offers you the thrill of "jumping the tracks," but you end up in
the mud.
Suppose one of the trains were to say, "I'm tired of running on these
old tracks. They are too restricting. I want to be free to go where I
want to go and do what I want to do." So this train jumps the tracks
and heads out across a rice paddy.
It is truly free now-no longer bound by those tracks. Yes, it is free
all right, but it is not running at 120 miles an hour. In fact, it is
not running at all. Instead, it is lying there in the mud. And that is
where it will remain until a power greater than it picks it up, cleans
it up, and puts it back on the tracks.
That is the way it is with sex. God has laid down some "tracks"-not to
keep you from enjoying sex, but that you might enjoy it to the fullest
and over
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the longest period of time. Satan offers you the thrill of "jumping
the tracks," but you end up in the mud.
If it is God's plan for you to be married, He has just the right
person in mind for you. When you walk down the aisle on your wedding
day to seal your vows before a holy God, you will be glad that you
kept yourself for that one.
Some of you may be saying, "I've already jumped the tracks. Is there
any hope for me?"
Yes, there is hope for you! Jesus Christ can pick you up out of the
mud of your sins and failures, clean you up, and put you back on the
tracks.
On one occasion, some religious leaders brought to Jesus a woman who
was guilty of adultery. They threw this woman at the feet of Jesus and
said, "Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act.
Now Moses, in the law, commanded that she should be stoned (put to
death by throwing stones at her). But what do you say?"
These men did not care about this woman. They were simply using her as
a means of getting Jesus into trouble. If Jesus said, "Do not stone
her," He would be going against the law of Moses. If He said, "Put her
to death," He would be in trouble with the Roman government.
Jesus did not answer them right away. He kneeled down and began
writing in the sand. When these men continued to press Jesus for a
decision, He stood up and said, "He who is without sin among you, let
him throw a stone at her first."
Those who heard Him were convicted by their consciences and left, one
by one. Jesus forgave this woman of her sins and said to her, "Go and
sin no more."
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Jesus showed us that God loves sinners.
Jesus wants to forgive you and make you clean in God's sight. He shed
His precious blood on the cross that you might be forgiven of your
sins. His blood can cleanse you from all your sins. The Bible says,
"...the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from ALL SIN." I
John 1:7
You do not need to be afraid to come to Jesus. He forgave the woman
taken in the act of adultery. He is "the Friend of sinners," and He
invites you to come to Him. Jesus said, "...him (anyone) that comes to
Me, I will in no wise cast out." John 6:37
Your part is to come to Him; His part is to take you in. He not only
will forgive you for your sins, but He can deliver you from any sin
that may be binding you. Jesus said, "If the Son therefore shall make
you free, you shall be free indeed." John 8:36
If this is what you truly want, get alone with the Lord. Tell Him
about your sins. Tell Him everything. He will not reject you.
Thank Him for dying on the cross for your sins. Ask Him to make you
clean through His precious blood which was shed for you.
Get a Bible or a New Testament and begin reading the Gospel of John.
As you read it, underline the words "believe" and "believeth." Note
especially the following verses:
John 3:16-18; John 1:10-12; John 3:36; John 5:24; John 6:37; John
20:31.

By Rev. Seth Mohenu