Sex 180 - Part 3 of 3

This transcript has been adapted from the attached audio. It may not be in its final form and may be updated.

LAND: I think one of the most practical and important points that you make in the book, is you talk about how we make two separate but equally disastrous mistakes in this culture. One is that we try to separate love and sex and think that sex is merely a casual thing that does not involve actually becoming part of the other person and then we also make the other mistake of equating sex and love, and both of those are disastrous, aren’t they?

INGRAM: They really are and you can see…I mean, if you came from another planet and watched just the top twenty movies, I don’t care what they are at any time, love and sex are equated to mean exactly the same thing. And so, imagine being eight years old and in the next five or eight or ten years, watching TV and movies and, if you watched how relationships are built, what they do on the screen, when, where, and why, you would think that love and sex are exactly the same thing; and they are not. Sex is a subset of this much bigger thing called love. In our English language, I think we get a little sidetracked because love can mean the deepest commitment, feeling, other centered, loyal commitment you could have for a human being and we call that love, and use the same word for pizza and you know, I love pizza, I love my wife. Well, in the Greek language it is a little more explicit. If our listeners would, think of kind of a equilateral triangle in their mind and write the word love in the middle of it. At the base of that triangle write agape love. God’s kind of unconditional, absolutely loyal love, totally not based on the response of the other, it is a giving love. And then on one side of that triangle write the word Eros, which we get our word erotic. That is sensual love, need-centered love, God given. It is fire that goes inside the fireplace of marriage. It is the passions and sex at its very best. And then on the other side of that triangle, phileo. That is friendship love. That is companionship. And so love really is much bigger than sex. God calls us to be co-heirs of the grace of God, fellow followers. He calls us to be best friends. I mean great friends and that is phileo love. And he calls us to be lovers. And when those three things are together, they make a cord of three that is not easily broken. But when you start saying that love and sex are the same thing and you try and make sex carry the weight of a whole relationship, it falls flat on its face.

LAND: Explain, Chip, if you would, how sex outside of God’s boundaries destroys a relationship.

INGRAM: Well, it is interesting the research that has been done, Richard. It is just, I mean, I have a time in the book where I kind of have this invisible person because I didn’t grow up in the church saying, “You know what, Ingram, give me a break. Defend some of these outrageous things you are saying, but you can’t use the Bible.” Okay, you know, what if I don’t believe the Bible. Come on, are you really telling me that sex before marriage could have any benefit and, I’ve got studies here from UCLA, the University of South Carolina, multiple different places, and so, I’ll give you some facts. Here is some data that even if you didn’t believe in the Bible. Number one, is when sexual intercourse enters a dating relationship, it almost always dictates the end of the relationship; a breakup is coming soon. Second, those people that are involved in sex before marriage have a lower satisfaction rate of sex in marriage. The hottest sex, according to the most recent thorough study, is people who have strong religious beliefs, who believe in one man/one woman for all time, they have a 31% higher satisfaction of sex in their marriage. Which is an astounding thought. Those who cohabitate, you know this whole idea that you need to test drive the car, those who cohabitate have a 50% higher chance of divorce and those who cohabitate, according to the research, also are setting themselves up for infidelity. In other words, if you want your partner to be faithful to you after you get married, don’t have sex before marriage. If you want to decrease your changes of divorce by 50%, don’t have sex before marriage. If you want to have a lot better sex in marriage, don’t have sex before marriage. If you want to have a loyal, loving commitment relationship that lasts, and I haven’t even touched on venereal disease, AIDS, sexually-transmitted diseases that you can carry in your body for up to ten years with no outward symptoms, but both receive and pass on. And so, you know, I want to say to people, I mean, forget that the jury is out. The jury is in. Psychologically, spiritually, medically, socially, and relationally, what God said about sex and relationships is the wisest, most logical, emotionally rewarding way to build a relationship. The data is in.

LAND: Well, that’s right. You look at it and you say, wow, it looks like God knew what he was talking about when he wrote the ownership manual on human beings.

INGRAM: And remembering, I guess I want people to hear, and I did with these kids, I guess I’m getting old when I call twenty-something people kids, that you know, as I was teaching I was sharing yesterday, I taught this material to this huge group of singles and what I wanted them to hear is that God is not a prude saying, “Now don’t do this.” He doesn’t have his arms crossed and a bony finger saying, “Don’t have any fun.” This is your Heavenly Father saying, “Don’t settle for second rate sex. Don’t go down that road. What I have for you is better and deeper and fulfilling, and I put all of these rules, if you want to call them that, in Scripture, because I wrote it. I know what’s best.” The marriage bed, Hebrews 13, it is Holy. When we do it God’s way, he wants us to not have less pleasure, He wants us to have more pleasure. And all these commands are because He cares about us so much. It was so interesting to see these young people respond by, “Wow, I’ve never thought about it like that.”

LAND: And, you know, that’s because, unfortunately, the culture doesn’t teach them this, and too often, the church doesn’t. I mean, I think the church has got a lot to answer for in this area, don’t you?

INGRAM: Well, you know, I stand convicted in my early ministry, even what we are talking, how openly we are now, there are probably a lot of people who are going, “You know, I used to like that Richard Land guy. I can’t believe he was talking about sex, right on the air.” And yet, the fact of the matter is, is that by six or seven or eight years old, their kids have seen more sexually explicit material if they only have seen commercials, than most of them did in all of their childhood. And if we don’t communicate clearly, lovingly, a biblical worldview, they are not going to get it. So, if we need to take a few shots for that, great. Actually, what we did on this Richard, we took this book and I had a chance at a number of pastor’s conferences, and Baker Books was super gracious. I think 1500 to 2000 pastors I spoke to in about the last seven months and my deal was this, if you will give every pastor this book, I’ll give them a CD with my notes, all the Power Point, so they can read it. We gave them a great discount, and they would teach it to their church. Do it on a retreat, do it for your singles. Do it for high school. Do it for junior high. And we made nothing on it. We just gave it away. And we said, look, we’ve got to educate the next generation. And, Baker Books said, “We’ll give ours away if you’ll give yours away,” and we said, “We’ll do it.” We have got to tell the positive side of the story. You can’t watch all of those movies and have hormones and be fifteen-years-old, and hear from church all the time, “Wait. Just wait.”

LAND: That’s right.

INGRAM: I mean, we’ve got to tell them the what and the why, and what I want to say to them is, you don’t want that second-rate stuff. You want it God’s way.

LAND: Well, that’s right. And you know, you can’t put yourself in the sexually-charged situations. It is almost as if Americans, and even American Christians today, are seeing just how close to the flame they can dance without getting singed when it comes to sexual temptation. I know a friend of mine, his son was very upset because he said, “You can’t sit in front of the house and park in the backseat of the car, with a girl, you can’t do that.” And he said, “Well, don’t you trust me.” And he said, “Son, I wouldn’t trust myself in the backseat of a car with a woman for two hours in the dark. That’s just insane. That’s like playing Russian Roulette with six bullets in the cylinder. It’s just nuts.” Talk to us about how some of the things that God tells us about how we can maintain sexual purity.

INGRAM: I think you hit it, and one is that we need to realize Scripture is really clear. Certain things you stand firm and you fight and you resist, and you win: spiritual warfare. In the area of sexual immorality, there is just one command—flee. I Corinthians 6, Flee sexual immorality. So, it is not about becoming strong enough, it is about an understanding how God has made us and He says if you get into those situations, there is no way. It is not a matter of strength. It is a matter of wisdom. I think there are at least three things, for all of us, married or unmarried, to be sexually pure. Number one, is we need to develop convictions. By that, I mean not a belief system. Not just, “Oh yeah, I believe sex before marriage is wrong,” or, “I believe that as a man I shouldn’t be watching these kind of pictures or looking at those kind of magazines,” but I think in your heart of hearts, you’ve got to study some of the passages and you’ve got to develop some convictions that say, I believe on the basis of God’s character and His love for me. I do not want to put anything in my mind, I don’t want to arouse another person, I don’t want to be in any relationship where I would violate the Holy Covenant of God’s Word in the area of sexuality. Second, I found it real helpful to ponder the consequences. Everyone said don’t make people feel guilty. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. I’ve shared with people openly. I regularly sit down and think about what sexual failure would look like and lining up all four of my kids on the couch with their mom on the end in tears and explaining to them in a weak moment what I did, and what it means now, and the embarrassment for them, embarrassment for the cause of Christ, what it means now to our marriage, and I don’t know where that would go, if that occurred. All that I’ve preached for the last twenty-five years is now called into question, and I emotionally live out what would that be like, and I’ve lost my job. You know, people need to think through. I’m seventeen, okay, what would it really look like when this girl gets pregnant? What will it specifically look like when she realizes she got used by me? And then I think you have to come up with a game plan. And the key to that is pre-decisions. Just like what you said, I have a pre-decision. I will not be in a room with another woman alone, except my wife. You know what, it’s just real hard to get in trouble if you pre-decide that. I have pre-decided, if it has a R rating, I’m not going to see it.

LAND: Chip, you spent a good deal of time in the book discussing a connection between sex and worship. Could you take a few minutes to explain that.

INGRAM: You know what, I will because, as I just taught this to this kind of much younger generation, that was one of the things that captivated them. They said I’ve never ever looked at it like that, and there in Ephesians 5, he talks about…you know, one of the warning passages, he repeats, “don’t let any immorality be among you, for let you know this, that anyone who is involved in sexual immorality or impurity,” and then a little parenthesis, “who is an idolater, has no part in the kingdom of God, in Christ.” For the wrath of God, God protects his character and protects us by causing just consequences to occur to immoral behavior. God judges sin because if He didn’t, we would keep on doing it, we would be injured even more. So, He judges that and it is interesting, it is called an idolater. It is amazing when you read in the literature and even when you look at almost any false religion, or even back to the days of Corinth, you know, the temple of Aphrodite, what was it filled with? Male and female prostitutes. Sexuality and spirituality are really very closely tied and even some of the usages in the Bible; when Israel was in idolatry. Remember what God calls it? Spiritual adultery. When a person is involved in sexual immorality, ultimately the person they are worshipping instead of God, and the scripture says my body is a temple of God, I am to glorify God with my body. I have these rules and parameters around sexuality. I have a Holy of Holies, and that is to reserve for one person, one man/one woman, in marriage, committed under the reins of what God would say. When I take it out of that, I ultimately end up worshipping me. It is not love. It is not how do I give this person what they need the most. It is not caring. It is one round after another, and that is why, just like drug addiction, sexual addicts start at one level and they need more and more and more, and then it gets more and more and more perverse. And the person who is at the center of it is themselves. And they are literally worshipping themselves. Sexuality is, we offer our bodies to the Lord as a living sacrifice, or we offer our bodies to sensuality and the person we are worshipping is us. So, there is a huge spiritual component here. Ever other sin is outside the body. This sin God places in a special category because it is a sin that has long-term implications and I think really has to do with the core of worship.