Cultivating a Sexual Counterrevolution

By Luis Palau

"My husband is overseas," a woman told me. "He has been gone for nine months and will be gone for seven more. I’m lonely and need affection and love. I’m a Christian, but I realize that I am very weak. How can I overcome sexual temptation?"

How would you counsel this woman?

The desire for love and affection reaches deep into the soul. Loneliness also touches the human heart deeply. No one experiences it as acutely as someone who is separated from a spouse because of military service, work, divorce, disability, or death. Sexual desires seem to increase when one’s spouse is gone for some length of time.

The Bible speaks clearly concerning sex outside of marriage. But sometimes our sexual desires feel at odds with those Scriptures.

The sexual revolution boldly proclaimed that the biblical imperatives concerning sex only within marriage were outdated and invalid. Proponents of the sexual revolution said that if you were lonely and desired affection, you had a right to have those needs met through an illicit affair.

Maybe it is all right to commit immorality in certain circumstances, people rationalized. Trial marriage, group sex, spouse swapping, and other sexual experiments became increasingly popular in certain circles.

But some proponents now regret their efforts to promote the sexual revolution. One of them, George Leonard, admitted, "What I have learned is that there are no games without rules." People can try to break God’s moral laws, but they always will have to pay the consequences.

Leonard cited a Cosmopolitan survey in which 106,000 women confirmed that a revolution in sexual attitudes and behavior had taken place on both sides of the Atlantic. But how did the women feel about the revolution? Most were disappointed, even disillusioned, with "the emotional fruit the sex revolution has borne." The survey report openly suggested that "there might be a sexual counterrevolution under way."

The Bible clearly warns us not to be deceived, for God will not be mocked. "A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction" (Galatians 6:7-8).

The destructive harvest of our society’s sexual promiscuity - AIDS, herpes, and other venereal diseases; emotional scars; desertion; and spiritual shipwreck - has been a high price to pay for the momentary pleasures of sowing to the flesh.

Scripture says to resist the satanic sexual revolution by committing yourself to God (James 4:7). Confess your sins and draw near to Him. Persevere under temptation by remembering that, as long as we are pilgrims here on earth, God always will provide a way of escape (1 Corinthians 10:13).

Whatever your marital status, God understands your particular temptations and needs. Trust Him to supply "all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:19). No matter what everyone else may be doing, take God’s eternal Word to heart. In dependence upon God, start your own sexual counterrevolution today.