Recap of 8/25/13:

1.  Proverbs 5 is a celebration of sex within marriage, as well as a warning against immorality.  Warren Wiersbe writes: “In a world that has commercialized sex and turned adultery into entertainment, this warning is desperately needed.  Few people believe that there are tragic consequences to sexual sin, but Solomon names some of them.”

2.  One author summarized Proverbs 5 this way:  “Sexual desires should be controlled and channeled in one’s marriage, not wasted in immoral activity” (vv. 15-17). And “A man should have his physical needs met by his own wife, not someone else’s” (vv. 18-20). 

3.  The warning of 1 Corinthians 7 is crucial.  The sexual relationship should not be a battleground; sex should not be used as a weapon.  Man and woman in marriage must be willing to meet each other’s sexual needs and must not withhold sex.  A man should not make his wife prey to another man by withholding affection (a leading cause of adultery for a woman) even as a woman should not make her husband prey to another woman by withholding sex (a leading cause of adultery for a man).

4.  Solomon makes the point in Ecclesiastes 9:9 that marriage is meant to be enjoyed.  It is one of God’s good gifts.  His advice is that in the light of life’s uncertainties we should enjoy life: food, wine, “fine clothing, pleasant lotions,” and enjoy our mate.

5.  Willard Harley teaches that a man must make romance and affection the atmosphere or environment of his marriage; and must learn to view sex as an event within that environment.  A marriage counselor has said that “The big thing most men don’t understand: If you hardly acknowledge your wife all day, she’s not going to want to get intimate with you at night.”

6.  In addition to procreation, prevention of immorality, and recreation and release, God designed sex to be the most intimate form of communication. H. Norman Wright says that: “In the plan of god, sex was intended to provide a means of totally revealing oneself to the beloved, of pouring one’s energies and deepest affection, hopes, and dreams into the loved one.  Sex provides a means of presenting one’s spouse with the gift of oneself and experiencing a like gift in return; a means of saying, ‘I love you.’ In short, sex becomes a mofe of communication, a means of ‘knowing’ each other.”  C. S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity: The inventor of the human machine was telling us that its tow halves, the male and the female, were made to be combined together in pairs, not simply on the sexual level, but totally combined. 

The monstrosity of sexual intercourse outside marriage is that those who indulge in it are trying to isolate one kind of union (the sexual) from all the other kinds of union which were intended to go along with it and make up the total union.”