We know about it, we’ve heard about it, and some seem saddened by it. What’s going on with the growing number of Christians engaging in premarital sex? A whopping 70% of Americans cohabitate before marriage in the United States[1], and the stats on sexual relations before marriage are far more shocking. A study done in 2002 found that 77% of Americans had sex before the age of 20, and the percentages climbed up to 95% by age 44.[2]
This widespread and pervasive problem isn’t going away, and it’s affecting those among us who are caught up in this sin. Sin is by its nature, incredibly poisonous. God warns us against sin not for His benefit, but for ours. He knows that following a sinful path will always—without exception—result in great sadness, emptiness, and eventually, in our destruction. You might feel pretty good about yourself at first, but day by day, bit by bit, the damage will appear. And it will eventually become a greater problem than you could ever have imagined.
Sin separates us from God, and living openly in sin significantly damages our souls. It is a deadly serious matter for a Christian to live in open, unrepentant sin. The Bible sternly warns us about this and instructs us in how to respond to any Christian who refuse to turn from their sin.
Those living in open, unrepentant sin are commanded to be handed over to Satan so that they may be led to repentance.[3]It is crucial to understand that repentance involves more than just words. It’s not simply saying, “I’m sorry,” but planning to return to the sin immediately afterward. It is not saying “You’re right, this is evil, but I’m going to do it anyway for this or that reason.” Repentance means you regret what you’ve done, and you desire never to do it again. It requires a willingness to change your behavior, even if that means making a drastic lifestyle change. We remember that Jesus forgave the woman caught in adultery, but he simultaneously commanded her to “Go and sin no more.”[4] He didn’t accidentally combine these two things. He meant for you to combine them, too.
You can see some effects of living in sexual sin, such as higher divorce rates among those who initially engaged in premarital sex, as well as lower marital satisfaction and increased mental health issues like depression and anxiety.
Mark Gungor offers an interesting description of how premarital sex affects men in particular. He explains that men tend to imprint based on their early sexual experiences. If a man’s early sexual encounters involve lust, which is what sexual experiences are outside of marriage, they tend to imprint on the sex itself rather than on the person they are having sex with.
This is why many men get stuck in a cycle of constantly trying to recreate a lustful environment so they can feel sexually fulfilled as married men. They want to recreate the environment they initially imprinted on.
If a man’s first sexual experience occurs within the context of marriage, however, his imprint is completely different. In that case, he has undergone a significant process and has promised, in front of God and his friends, to be faithful to this particular woman. They celebrate this open commitment and establish a covenant together. If that man waits until his wedding night to have sex, now he is imprinting on the woman rather than on his lust. This creates a deep connection between the man and the woman. That’s why people who wait until marriage to have sex have a fraction of the divorce rate.[5]
Many pastors and parishioners are terrified that calling out this particular prevalent sin will be perceived as unloving and will push people out of the already shrinking church. Sober warnings against sexual sins won’t help anybody, is the argument, because people won’t listen anyway, and therefore doing so will only alienate people.
How do you know that? Can you see the future clearly? Are you God? God has not called you to control the future but to act in the present, speaking the truth in love and warning those caught in sin, regardless of the consequences. He wants you to follow the example of the apostles, who never turned a blind eye to such destructive behaviors within the church. God is responsible for how a person takes something, not you. He is responsible for making the seeds of truth sprout from the ground.
You, however, are responsible for speaking His Word. If you are a pastor, you have a duty to enforce church discipline, even if it means losing someone from your congregation. You must accept that loss in the hope that the individual will eventually repent. All of us share the responsibility of planting seeds—yes, even the seeds of hard truths we’d rather avoid.
People need to hear the truth from God’s Word, and His Word is living and active, so trust that Word to keep working in their hearts even if you don’t see the fruit of that work.
There are many verses throughout the Old and New Testaments that warn against the sin of premarital sex. In some translations, the phrase “sexuality immorality” is used instead of fornication. Unfortunately, this term can seem vague to some and might appear to give more wiggle room for what constitutes sexual immorality. Fornication, as accurately translated in the King James version, clearly explains what is meant: sexual acts outside of marriage between one man and one woman.
- 1 Corinthians 6:18:
“Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that commiteth fornication sinneth against his own body”.
- 1 Corinthians 6:9-10:
“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God”.
- 1 Corinthians 6:13:
“Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body”.
- 1 Corinthians 6:15-16:
“Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of a harlot? God forbid. What? Know ye not that he which is joined to a harlot is one body? For two, saith he, shall be one flesh”.
- 1 Thessalonians 4:3:
“For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication”.
- Ephesians 5:3
“But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints”.
- 1 Corinthians 10:8
“Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.”
- 1 Corinthians 7:2
“Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.”
- 2 Corinthians 12:21
“And lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed.”
- Acts 15:20
“But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.”
- Acts 21:25
“As touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written and concluded that they observe no such thing, save only that they keep themselves from things offered to idols, and from blood, and from strangled, and from fornication.”
- Colossians 3:5
“Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry”.
- Galatians 5:19
“Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness”.
- John 8:41
“Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God”.
- Jude 1:7
“Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.”
- Rev 9:21
“Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.”
- Romans 1:29
“Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers”.
Let us take God at His Word, considering fornication for what it is: a very grave sin indeed. And let us teach and admonish our Christian brothers and sisters to flee it at all costs.
[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5956907/
[2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1802108/
[3] 1 Corinthians 5:5
[4] John 8:11
