We are all aware of the times when it seems like all our body want is sex. The realization of the fact that the temptation to have sex with someone other than their spouses still comes raises a lot of questions among some married people. Certainly many of them came into marriage with a misguided understanding of sex drive and so expected that sexual relationship with their spouse will keep them immune to sexual temptations. Well, I hope they have learned their lessons without regrets.
Remember the incident that shocked the world in 2001, when a 23 year old man was caught raping a baby girl of 9 months old in South Africa.
In a workshop on ‘Handling Sexual Pressure’ a Christian young man shocked his peers by admitting that there are times he just feels like having sex and that sometimes it could be after prayers. He expressed surprise that at such times he fights the thought but wonders why it should be there at all. And he asked, ‘Why is it so?’ This question was a bombshell in view of the circumstances under which he asked it. On the other hand, during the same workshop, a certain lady unashamedly collaborated what our brother said earlier. She shared how she had to bring a discussion with a friend of hers to an abrupt end because, according to her, she was having a raging feeling, desiring that the young man would draw her close and hold her. Thank God she acted wisely, if not……..hmmm!
It was early in the morning and I had just finished praying when I heard a knock on my door. It was a young man I knew very well. He was in tears. On enquiry, he narrated how he committed fornication over the night and had to run to me for help. According to him it started from a discussion into the night and he was able to convince the lady to sleep over in the house where he had visited and discovered that his host had made a sudden trip. Since he knew where the house keys were kept he decided to sleep over there. He confessed that while they were inside, one thing led to another and they ended up on the bed of sin.
There is a University where males are not allowed into the female hostels and vice versa. However, there are several young people of both sexes from the host community who are allowed to hawk items inside these hostels. On a certain day ‘shock waves’ was sent round the campus when it was discovered that some of these small boys and girls were being abused sexually by the students. They do this by luring these innocent children into their rooms pretending to want to buy an item from them. While in their rooms they play on these children’s innocence and use them to satisfy their sexual urge. Students of both sexes were found to be involved in this.
These are true life stories pointing to a struggle that goes on within for us to have sex no matter the condition, who our partner may be or the method of securing a possible willing or unwilling partner. There are people, especially among the youths, who resort to masturbation, lesbianism, homosexuality or internet sex for getting sexual satisfaction. Today, just as we have female prostitutes, we also have young men who are contracted by some rich women/ladies for sexual satisfaction. We need not open the books on the ‘exploits’ of campus girls on this.
We are not only talking about singles but even many married people engage in shameful sexual activities and so bring more doubt in the minds of young people on the possibility of living without engaging in premarital sex.
There are struggles within! Though most people agree to the sinfulness of having sex with anyone other than their spouse, reality shows that few have learned to win in the struggle not to satisfy the urge for sex with the wrong person; anyone that is not your spouse.
Our flesh will continue to struggle with us for sexual satisfaction. Put rightly, we will continue to be tempted sexually. Sadly enough, many people are falling into the snare occasioned by a mix of ignorance on how to handle these temptations and the inherent disobedient bent of man. “We no longer feel surprised or shocked at the knowledge of another fall into sexual sin by even people considered to be servants of God.” It did not begin in our generation but how I wish it would not happen again.
King David’s Experience
“In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. One evening David got up from his bed and walked around the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “Isn’t this Bethseba, a daughter of Elaim and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” Then David sent message to get her. She came to him and he slept with her.” (2 Samuel 11:1-4, NIV).
It has been said that the eyes is the door while the ears is the window to the mind of man. In King David’s case it began with a look at a naked woman. Then the struggle began. Imagine how that single look ignited so much fire of lust and passion in the mind of King David such that no sense of restraint could overpower. The center of human activity, where every issue that happens in the physical must have taken place first, the mind, was already overpowered. So David was following after what happened in his mind. How many respected men and women have not gone this way before, if not physically but may be in the mind?
There is always a struggle between the fleshy desires and what we know to be right. Many people have not learned through understanding to overcome during these struggles. Knowing, understanding and learning how to handle these struggles is important, as we strive to live pure and sexually clean before the Lord. For most young people, the struggle is actually between obeying the word of God, staying out of sex before marriage and getting despised by their peers and going ahead to obey the word of God irrespective of the wrong opinion of their peers.
There was this young lady who got into the higher institution and got ‘some bad girls’ for roommates. She noticed that these girls were treating her like a no body and every attempt to make them relate to her failed. On a certain day they opened up to her, informing her that she falls below their standard and so cannot be part of them. She wanted to know what it was really that makes her different or below their standard. They asked her questions that showed their direction and values. It became obvious to her that her dressing, make-up level and the fact that she has no boy friend, not to talk of having sexual relationships, puts her at odds before them. On a certain day, this young lady came back to the room informing her mates that a young man approached her. They expressed surprise that anyone could really be interested in her and advised her not to miss the chance. So she started a relationship just to feel belonging. The young man started spending on her and so her dressing code changed. She was now like them, just the way they wanted her to be dressing. Later, her boyfriend started asking for sex and she once again came back to her ‘mentors’. As would be expected, they urged her on with a good lecture on how to calculate safe periods so as to avoid pregnancy. Unfortunately for her, they taught her the wrong thing and soon after she became pregnant.
They helped her arranged for an abortion. The painful thing was that the abortion was done by someone who had no business handling any health issue. Later, she tested positive to HIV. Now, it is not possible for her to say whether she was infected by her boy friend or during the abortion. There are many young people struggling to belong so as not to look like an out-of-date person. Many of the people in this category are our young brethren in the church.
The reality on ground points to the fact that many people are bowing to the demand of their flesh to satisfy themselves sexually with anyone they feel like it. It is a big struggle going on in the mind of many daily!
Few days ago I read about an Elder who has become so sexually immoral to the extent of sleeping with young girls in the church where he belonged. Or do we talk about the brother who was doing a follow-up on a young convert only for him to get sexually involved with her? A lady once told me, in painful tears, how she started having a strange urge for sex and so decided to lure a fellow student into her room and from that day he became her sex partner. She couldn’t believe her involvement in such thing and so cried out for help. Another had to leave the church where she was a committed member because the Pastor could not overcome his hunger for sex with her. So after a long time of having to bow to the threats and so succumb to him for regular sex, she had to run away and stopped attending any church at all until she opened up for help.
“Much as we hate to admit it, the evangelical landscape is littered with the carcasses of lives and ministries decimated by sexual sin…We cannot deny the reality of moral weakness among those who serve Christ. Both leaders and lay people have become acutely aware of the widespread moral crisis, the severe consequences of our sexual compromises and desperate need to shore up our sagging morality. ”
The truth remains that we have struggles within and we need to face it instead of buying what someone referred to as, ‘that stock Sunday garbage’ of keeping silent about these issues that face us. Look at the young people around you, what do you see?
In a youth program, a young man was heard asking his peers why he should avoid ‘something’ that is sweet and which makes him feel good. Many of his peers who were listening may buy into his opinion. Some have become so obsessed like the ‘...youth worker who was caught in a conference ground, peeping into the open bathroom where young girls were having heir bath’. Just like King David, a little looking at what we are not supposed to look at can inflame us with enough lust and passion for the real thing even when we know that it will result to serious problems and may be, expose us to shame.
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