Lies Young Women Believe Teen Track—Sexuality

Dannah Gresh: I was reading through the Bible one year a few years ago, and I came to Genesis 4:1. I had made a commitment that year that I was going to read through the Bible that year, and it was, I think, March, and I was on Genesis 4. (laughter) As you can tell, I was moving along at a very slow pace.

I came to Genesis 4:19 (NIV), and it says, “Adam lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain.”

I had been teaching on the subject of sexuality for several years, and I really needed God to give me a fresh dose of His Truth. I had just prayed a week or so earlier, “Lord, if there’s more to this gift of sexuality than what I am teaching, can You show me? Can You just reveal it to me? I want to teach Your heart’s desire on this issue, and I need some new passion. I’ve been talking about this for a long time, Lord, and I just need to know if there’s anything that can give me the passion to talk about this for the long haul.”

I came to Genesis 4:1, and it says, “Adam lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain.” I thought, “He’s so was not just lying there.” (laughter) That is such a bad interpretation of Scripture.

Again, I went to my Hebrew dictionary, and in there I found that the word lay in the Hebrew language was actually the word ya-dá—like ya-da, ya-da, ya-da. This word that our society had come to understand as “blah, blah, blah, boring, boring, boring,” it turns out it’s not so boring after all. (laughter)

I want you to write down the definition of this word. I think it points us to the heart of God concerning covenant sexuality. The word ya-dá means “to know; to be known; to be deeply respected.” In that word, I don’t see one hint of the physical. The word surpasses the physical connection that God desires for us to have, and it moves to this spiritual and emotional component of being known, somebody that looks at you and truly sees you, sees all of you.

Isn’t it interesting that when God ordained that this word would be used and written in His Word, it included respect. That’s something the culture has thrown out the window in terms of sexuality. There’s no respect anymore. There are friends with “benefits.” You have a desire, call a friend. “Hey, you want to meet?” What kind of intimacy and respect is in that? None.

In fact, God uses another word in the Scriptures. As I was reading through the Bible that year, I found that when He was speaking about a pure and holy marriage bed, He used this word ya-dá. In fact, it’s used 888 times in the Old Testament. That is a lot of ya-dá, don’t you think? (Laughter)

When God is referring to sexual sin or sex outside of the context of a one-man/one-woman marriage relationship, He doesn’t use the word ya-dá. Instead, He uses a word sakab. Do you know what it means? To exchange body fluids. Ewww!

Girls, I want you to look at me, and I want you to hear my heart on this. All sex is not the same. God has created something high and holy and magnificent that unites one man and one woman in a union that’s emotional, that is an intimate knowing, and that is filled with respect. The world is throwing at you every single day counterfeits that are a mere exchange of body fluid.

Will you be part of an army of young men and young women across this nation that reclaims God’s gift of sexuality and its definition? That’s what I’m asking you today. Do you know what that means? That means dying to your desires.

I want to share with you just three quick things about what God says about sex as a covenant relationship. As a covenant relationship, God says that sex is an unbreakable bond. Several times throughout Scripture God talks about sex being a covenant. We know that a covenant is a relationship that cannot be changed.

When Abraham and Sarah went into covenant with God, they actually changed their names to be permanently identified with God. Abraham changed his name from what?—Abram to Abraham. Do you know that Bible scholars believe that he was taking the “H” in God’s name—Yahweh—and placing inside of Abraham’s name so that forever and ever he would be identified as the god of Yahweh. God was intertwined into the identity of Abraham.

From that point on, we see that others call God the God of who?—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They identify themselves. In covenant relationship, we become identified, and you can’t break a covenant relationship no matter how you try.

Did you know that your brain was created to be in a permanent relationship with a guy? When a young woman is sexually active with a guy, there’s a part of her brain, called the deep limbic system, that becomes glued to that guy. There are two chemicals that wash across your brain at that moment. There’s a chemical called oxytocin, and there’s a chemical called dopamine.

Dopamine is a craving chemical. Now, it’s a values-neutral chemical. We get dopamine when we work out. We want to work out again because our body realizes that felt good. But you can also get dopamine when you use cocaine. So it’s a values-neutral chemical. It doesn’t know what’s good or what’s bad. It only knows that you need to crave something because that something felt good to your body.

So you get a big blast of dopamine when you’re sexually active with your husband one day. It makes you addictive to him in marriage. Can you see how that’s a good thing? You’re addicted to your husband. You want more of your husband. You want to be near him; you want to touch him; you want to smell him. That’s weird. That’s just weird. (Laughter) What I said there . . . just weird . . . smelling him. You want to smell his perfume; you want to smell his cologne.

Never mind, let’s back up. (Laughter) Let’s move on to oxytocin. Oxytocin is a chemical you get that creates glue. You get it when you have sex with your husband and, get this, you get it when you breastfeed your baby. Two really critical places in your life. God says, “This is a relationship so powerful I want her glued to this person.” Then He gives you this great brain wash of oxytocin to glue you to someone.

Why is the suicide rate among sexually active girls 12 times higher than their virgin peers? Why is depression one of the most common side effects of sexual activity among teenage girls? Because they have been glued to somebody that has trashed them, who was just in it for the exchange of body fluids, who never meant to know them and respect them.

God crafted your bodies, girls, to be in a one-man/one-woman, a lifetime, monogamous relationship, and that’s why it hurts so much when we make sex, God’s gift, a counterfeit.

The next thing I want you to know about it is that it is always sealed in blood. Every covenant throughout Scripture is sealed in blood. How is the gift of sexuality sealed in blood? Well, there is a small tissue within a woman that the very first time she has sex with her husband, that tissue, called the hymen is stretched or torn, and there’s an issue of blood.

Now, I’ve been called by some of the leading OB/GYN’s in the United States who are studying this tissue. They’re like, “We can’t understand this tissue. We don’t know why this tissue is there. It doesn’t seem to have a use, a purpose.” They’re puzzled by it.

Now I could be wrong here, but throughout all of Scripture, every covenant is sealed in blood. There’s animal blood, animal sacrifice in the Old Testament. In the covenant of circumcision, there is blood sacrifice. In the great covenant of the cross, there is a huge sacrifice of the blood of Jesus Christ. And I believe that the gift of sexuality and the gift of marriage is such a high and holy gift that God was placing that tissue in that woman as a symbol as the sealing of the covenant.

In Old Testament days, the Jewish bride and groom took this so seriously that the very first gift they gave to that young bride and that young groom on their wedding day were white wedding linens. They were expected, as a young bride and groom, to go and to consummate the marriage privately and then to bring out the next day on those white sheets blood evidence that the covenant had been sealed. Are you not thankful you are a woman of the new millennium? (Laughter)

But see, there wasn’t any discomfort with that blood because it was a beautiful thing. Why was it a beautiful thing? Because they lived in a covenant society that understood that the blood was the seal, the blood was the promise, the blood was the guarantee. Every covenant is sealed in blood.

The last thing I want you to know about every covenant is that every covenant is an if/then agreement. Every covenant is an if/then agreement.

If Old Testament characters participate in blood animal sacrifice, then their sins are forgiven.

If Abraham and his descendents participated in the circumcision, then they were identified as God’s family.

If you and I embrace the blood of Jesus Christ, then we can know eternal life and abundant life on this earth.

I believe the if/then agreement in the gift of sexuality is three-fold. The book of Ephesians says, “If there’s not a hint of sexual sin in you . . .” That’s the standard. Ephesians 5:3 says, “Let there not be a hint of sexual sin in God’s people for this is improper for God’s holy people.”

Girls, do you hint at sexual sin when you post a picture of a guy without a shirt in your bedroom so you can look at his six-pack every day? I think so because God crafted your eyes to look upon your husband’s six-pack one day, or tire . . . whatever he might have. (Laughter) And, just so you know, that can change over time. You can start with a six-pack, but it doesn’t end that way.

Do you hint at sexual sin when you pull out that mini-skirt or that low-cut shirt? I think so because God created the eyes of guys to look upon the deepest secrets of one woman’s beauty, not all of your beauty. That’s the “if.” It’s a high standard.

God wants you to share all of your desire, all of your passion with one man, and if you do that, first you make babies with great celebration. In Genesis 1:28 it says, “Be fruitful and multiply.” God gives us this great gift of babies. You just heard a wonderful testimony from Keith and Kristyn Getty about her desire to be a mom, and, girls, it is my heart that you would allow God to direct your desire back towards motherhood. That’s something this society doesn’t value anymore. It is a great joy to have babies.

The very first time that I had my first baby, I was nine months pregnant and my husband went for a hair cut. I’m standing there and looking very uncomfortable when my husband walks in the door. I said, “Honey, it’s time.” He said, “Time for what?” I said, “Time for the baby, you idiot.” (Laughter)

He was so full of joy. He ran through our little duplex, and he bounced on every sheet until there wasn’t a blanket or a pillow left on a bed, and he ran into the baby’s nursery. He grabbed the teddy bears out of the crib, and he’s spiking them on the floor like they’re footballs, doing little NFL victory dances in the nursery. (Laughter) Every moment of that baby’s life was a celebration.

Can we make babies outside of marriage? Yes, but doesn’t this gift deserve to be unmarred and undistracted by bad timing? Don’t you want to celebrate it? Wait.

Proverbs 5:18-19 says, “Rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer—may her breasts satisfy you always, may you be ever captivated by her love.”

God is unashamed about celebrating pleasure in the Scripture. He gives us an entire book, the Song of Solomon, because He just wants us to know that this is not just about the knowing and the respect and the intimacy and the connection. He does want it to be fun, too.

The world will tell you that you’re missing the party if you wait, but here’s the fact: Women who wait to have sex until they’re married and they have one sexual partner their whole life, especially religiously active women (this is a secular study, I’m citing here, girls) religiously active women who have waited and have had one sexual partner report the highest level of sexual satisfaction in the United States of America. Really?! To which U.S.A. Today ran an article entitled “Revenge of the Church Lady.” (Laughter)

He’s not asking you to wait so you’ll miss the party. Abstinence is not about not having sex. It’s about waiting to have it right.

Finally, in Ephesians, in that same chapter where we hear God wants us not to have a hit of sexual sin in our lives, He tells us why. Because Ephesians 5:31-32, two of my most treasured verses in the Bible, what I’ve built my life mission around, says this: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” It’s clearly talking about a one-man/one-woman physical relationship.

And the next verse, Paul writes: “This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.” What?! “You’re talking about the physical relationship between a husband and wife in one verse, and then the next verse you say, ‘Hey! I’m really talking about Christ and the church’?”

Remember I told you that word ya-dá was used 888 times in the Old Testament, right? It’s used in many passages to describe the one-man/one-woman relationship, but it’s used more often in verses like this: “Be still and know . . . ya-dá . . .that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).

It was no mistake that God chose the word that He would use to describe the most intimate relationship on this earth is also the word that He describes the intimacy He desires to have with you and me.

When God looks down on this earth and tries to communicate His desire for us, His passion for us, His heart for us, to mankind, He looks down, and He said, “They’re never going to understand it. There is not language to put to this desire that I have. So let me give them a picture of that love.” Then He looks down upon a pure and holy marriage bed, and He says, “This moment of innocence and passion and love and complete giving of one another, this is the picture that I desire for them to see so that they might understand My love for them.”

Girls, if a marriage relationship, a pure and holy marriage relationship has the potential to be a picture of Christ and the church, how motivated do you think Satan is to see that picture destroyed in your life? He is motivated. How motivated are you to protect it?

I charge you today to protect the picture of Christ and the church by living such a pure and holy life that you are blameless before God and before man. And this is what I’m really challenging you to: I saw this on a tee-shirt. I’m not sure where it originates, but the key to ya-dá kind of love is really not boy craziness. You know what the key is? Write this down: A girl has to get so lost in God that a guy has to seek Him to find her.

Father God, I pray that You would seal in us today a passion to protect the picture of Your love for us by living pure and blameless lives. And, God, let us just get lost in our desire for You so that every earthly desire pales in comparison. In Jesus’ name we ask these things, amen.

All Scripture is taken from the New International Version.