STDs and the Gospel

At our student breakaway this weekend I am working on a series of messages from 1 Corinthians 6-7 on relationships. In preparation for our discussion of purity and the body, I went online to do some research regarding the judgment of God upon sexual immorality found in his Word,

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. (Romans 1:26-27)

Flee from sexual immorality! Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. (1 Corinthians 6:18)

First, consider some statistics on Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) in our country:

· 19 million new infections occur each year
· An estimated 8.9-9.1 million occur among young people ages 15-24
· The economic toll of STDs in the U.S. is estimated at $13 billion annually
· An estimated 20 million people in the U.S. have Human Papillomavirus (HPV) infections that can be transmitted to others
· There are 30 distinct types of HPV that affect the genital area (HPV accounts for 80 percent of cervical cancers)
· The Center for Disease Control boldly states that STDs taken their largest toll on women (one study concludes that fully 14% of female college students became infected with HPV each year)
· 30-40% of pre-term births (pre-term birth is the leading cause of infant death in the U.S. apart from abortion, which is the leading cause of death overall in America) are due to STDs
· 45 million – more than 1 in 5 – Americans are infected with genital herpes

Second, consider these statements from the CDC on homosexuality and STDs in America:

Researchers estimate that men who have sex with men (MSM) still account for 42 percent of new HIV infections annually in the United States and for 60 percent of all new HIV infections among men. Several recent studies have pointed to high and increasing levels of other STDs among MSM.

One 26-city study, the Gonococcal Isolate Surveillance Project, reported that from 1994 to 1999, the proportion of gonorrhea cases among MSM more than doubled from six to 13 percent. An STD clinic in Washington, D.C., serving a large number of gay and bisexual men reported that gonorrhea cases increased 93 percent from 1993 to 1996, with 82 percent of these cases among MSM.

In King County, Washington – which includes the city of Seattle – researchers reported marked increases in both gonorrhea and syphilis cases among MSM. Most notably, while the county had no cases of early syphilis in 1996, 88 cases were reported between 1998 and the first half of 1999, 85 percent of which were in gay and bisexual men. These men reported having multiple partners and frequently engaging in unprotected anal intercourse.

A few observations:

1. The media and Hollywood are directly culpable for this epidemic that is chiefly destroying the bodies, sexual purity, minds, and hearts of our children. Sex is constantly paraded before and marketed to teens at every turn. Our little ones are sexualized and robbed or their innocence at the earliest of ages. We are a media saturated culture, and our media is an unashamedly sex saturated enterprise.
2. Parents are directly culpable for this epidemic in our own negligence and woeful absence from our children’s lives. Parents are directly culpable for this epidemic in our children in our abandonment of marriage and the bond of commitment that gives children an arena for healthy growth, discovery of human sexuality, and the testing of the boundaries of sexual expression.
3. Our churches are culpable in this epidemic due to their anemic approach to dealing with these issues of sexual purity and almost entirely unprophetic voice of the pulpit in a dying culture. The increasing invasion of secularism and its presuppositions and commitments into our individual lives, our church life, and our morality as a community is doing irreparable harm, and is evidenced in the statistics.
4. As a culture, in our abandonment of all moral absolutes and our unrestrained pursuit of total human autonomy, especially in this area of sexuality and relationships, we are eroding marriages, healthy sexuality, family health, and human interaction.
5. In the curse of the Fall, women are warned of multiplied pain in childbirth (Gen.3:16). Sex is for procreation and marital intimacy. We find that in our sinful pursuit of sex as an expression of power, independence, and for pleasure alone- women, as those who bear children, bear the great toll of these transgressions. In our culture where men are so culpable in pursuing their lust and their own selfish designs, women suffer. Women suffer the most in marriage filled with sexual perversion. Women suffer the most in divorce. Women suffer in a culture of pornography, which is, among other things, an industry that capitalizes on the degridation of women. Where are the feminists on this issue? They are silent, because it is their reckless cry for autonomy that is partially, perhaps greatly, part of this current suffering.
6. Our affirmation of homosexuality as a legitimate and healthy form of sexual expression, even as a lifestyle, is destructive, unbiblical, and unnatural. The abandonment of the lessons of ‘nature’ and the revealed will of God on these issues bring destruction upon our own bodies, our marriages, our families, our communities, and our nation. And justly so.

What is the solution? Well, quite simply, it is the gospel. What is the solution offered by Paul in Romans 3-4 after the display of God’s glory and justice and the reality of man’s sin and depravity? It is the good news that we are ‘justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus’ (Romans 3:24). It it the good news presented in Romans 5:1, ‘since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ The good news of Romans 6:1, ‘how can we who died to sin still live in it’ and that through the work of Christ and the power of God, ‘we too might walk in newness of life’. The good news of 1 Corinthians 6:11, ‘such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.’ The good news that, ‘the body is for the Lord and the Lord for the body,’ and, ‘he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him’, and, ‘your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God.’ We uphold the consequence of sin, the destruction of our depravity, displayed in every corner of our culture, and offer the mercy of God in Christ as a deliverance from sin, and the power of God by His Spirit to be freed from sin’s captivity.

Are you living this good news? Are you proclaiming this good news? Are you filled with hope and joy in the good news even in the face of the darkest sins and their ensuing consequences and judgments?

“Repent and believe the good news!” - Jesus

Modesty, anyone? Please?

Well, I am not on campus all that often, but I have a board meeting that takes me down there at least monthly. I can also be found eating b'fast with some droopy eyed college student at Jim and Milts- or grabbing some study time at s'bux on Tennessee. Well, here's the deal - my meeting was down there on Pensacola, a one way street, so I inevitably get lost and disoriented and wind up driving around endlessly in circles with a dazed look on my face.

Adding to my disorientation is the reality that most of the young ladies on campus are wearing hardly any clothes.

Ok, now, I know you are falling over in your chair, reeling from the shock that this man of the cloth (he he, get it?) is aware of the profound lack of attire that seems to be epidemic on campus (and all over our community these days). And you are further shocked that I would admit such an awareness in a public forum. Look, I am not a lecherous perv, flustered at the mere sight of ankle flesh. Nor am I some prudish puritan who wants our young ladies going from class to class in a moo moo or a tater sack. But people, this was ridiculous. One young woman was walking along self consciously pulling her skirt (or half a dish towel, whatever you want to call it) down to keep from mooning all those waiting for the light to turn.

But, you're right, these are modern days and modern women. "And, Erik," you reply, "what do you expect? These aren't Christian women." I respond: is this the product of our three decades of feminist indoctrination? Thousands of young woman reduced to walk the campus with their bodies on display for frat boy joe- and some unsuspecting minister? Or, perhaps this is a bizarre Camille Pagliaesque feminine empowerment fantasy come true- the enslavement of the fleshly, lustful hoardes by scantily clad goddesses? Hmmm. Doubtful. But, whatever helps us sleep at night.

Now, most of you folks reading this are believers in Christ Jesus. And the deal is, as in so many things, the church is really not all that different than the culture. In a church family with a ton of college kids, I must admit that I have regularly been pretty embarassed by the almost non-existent skirts, skin tight cleavage bearing tops, etc. and so forth. And the same goes for our daughters in high school. Sometimes I truly have to wonder where Dad is when little Sally walks out the door practically in stripper garb.

Here's the deal- we are created in God's image, for His glory. Our bodies are to be treated with modesty, with special care, as we would with any gift of such worth. It is the work of the world, the flesh, and the devil to crassly objectify these bodies intended for good and glory, turning them into pieces of flesh for our own selfish desires, lustful designs, or perverse drive for adulation and attention. You are bought at a price, so glorify God with your body. You were bought at a price, do not become the slaves of men. (1 Cor. 6:20; 7:23) The apostle also says, "The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife." This means that the gift of sexual intimacy and the marital enjoyment of each other's body is threatened and weakened by "the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boastful pride of life" (1 John 2:16).

Sisters in Christ, when you parade your bodies for the sake of your own pride or the cravings of sinful men, you dishonor God who made you for Himself, not the vanity of the mirror, or the lustful gaze of men. You also cheapen the precious gift of your body to your husband alone for sexual joy in marriage.

Brothers, you bear a great burden in the destructive immodesty of the age with your lust for pornography and crass public objectification of women. So many of us are living without restraint and accountability in our relationships, and are badgering and objectifying our sisters in these relationships with unrealistic expectations of beauty and 'sexual' allure.

So, men turn your eyes away from that which is not yours. Turn your eyes toward your God, and his gift of marriage for the satisfaction of your sexual needs.

Women, adorn yourselves with "proper clothing, modestly and discreetly. . . by means of good works, as befits women making a claim to godliness."

Can I get an 'Amen'?!