Participants: Shelley Quinn (Host), Dustin Hall and Robert Castellanos
Series Code: IAA
Program Code: IAA000300
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00:30 Hello, I'm Shelley Quinn.
00:32 And welcome again to Issues and Answers. 00:34 We have what I think is one of the most exciting programs 00:37 that we've done in a long time. 00:39 Today we're going to be talking about sexual purity 00:42 among young people, so I want you to stay tuned. 00:45 This is going to be very exciting. 00:47 Let me share a scripture with you before I 00:49 introduce our guests. 00:50 And this comes from Proverbs, Chapter 5, and excuse me, 00:54 Proverbs Chapter 4 and it's verses 25 through 27. 00:59 Here's what the Bible says: Let your eyes look right on 01:04 with fixed purpose, and let your gaze be straight before you. 01:08 Consider well the path of your feet, and let all your ways 01:12 be established and ordered aright. 01:14 Turn not aside to the right hand or to the left. 01:19 Remove your foot from evil. 01:22 Oh that sounds like good advice, but can we do it? 01:25 Yes, we can! 01:27 And here to talk about that, I have two very special guests. 01:31 We have Pastor Dustin Hall. 01:33 And Pastor Hall, may I call you Dustin? Yes, you may. 01:36 Well, it is wonderful to have you with us today. 01:38 And we also have Dr. Robert Castellanos. 01:43 Pastor Castellanos. Yanos! 01:45 Well, I was close: Castellanos. 01:48 And you are a family practitioner, is that correct? 01:51 Yes. 01:52 Well, now you gentlemen come from the, is it the 01:54 Central part of New York? Yes, Central New York. 01:57 Upstate in the Finger Lakes region of New York. 01:59 Okay, and this is Ithaca, near where Cornell University is? 02:03 Yes, Cornell University is located in Ithaca. Yes. 02:06 We're just so glad that you've come here. 02:08 And the occasion for them coming is a book that Pastor Hall has 02:13 written, and it has a rather shocking title. 02:16 I have to tell you, Dustin, I was reading this book today. 02:19 I was at the hospital to have a test, and I wanted to thumb 02:23 through this before we talked. 02:25 And this title is "The Gospel of Sex; Dating, Relating, 02:30 and Mating". 02:32 And there was some little lady sitting next to me. 02:33 I put the book down for a moment and she kind of looked over 02:36 and she looked so shocked, and I had to explain to her. 02:39 I said it's a strange title, but boy this is a wonderful book. 02:43 How'd you come up with this title? 02:45 Well, I wanted something that would strike 02:47 to the heart of young people. 02:49 I wanted something that would catch their eye. 02:50 And sometimes we're, we get stuffy, and we don't like to be 02:55 open about some of these things. 02:57 We don't need to be silly about sexual issues. 02:59 We need to be open and more honest, and just be 03:03 right up front with our young people 03:05 when we're addressing these issues. 03:06 And I thought with that title, and with, you know, 03:10 a young person walks by or sees it online and says, 03:13 "Hum, I want to know more about that. " 03:15 And gospel means good news, and there is good news about sex. 03:18 Now why did you; I have tell you also, Dustin, 03:21 that I'm thrilled to, when I met you, I'm thrilled to see that 03:25 you are a young man because I was so concerned that possibly 03:30 it was some "old codger" like myself who'd written this book. 03:32 and all the teens are going to be saying, What does it matter? 03:36 You know, "What does she know? 03:38 But why did you write this book? 03:40 Well, two years ago I was going into public school classrooms 03:44 and teaching Abstinence Until Marriage. 03:47 And as I was putting together the curriculum for that program 03:52 I was sitting back and I was thinking, 03:56 You know, in the church. 03:57 I grew up in a Christian home. 03:59 And I never once heard a teacher, preacher, an elder, 04:02 anyone say anything, or set any standard 04:05 on that topic in church. It's amazing! 04:08 And I thought, well if that's my experience, that probably 04:11 is the experience of many other young people as well. 04:13 And I got to thinking, I don't ever want a young person to be, 04:17 ever to be able to say, "No one ever told me this stuff. " 04:21 And so I began to present this in churches to youth groups. 04:26 And last April I was on 3ABN Today, and after the program 04:32 I got a flood of e-mails asking me, 04:34 "Do you have any written topics? 04:35 Do you have anything recorded on this topic? 04:37 And I had to say, "Well, no, I don't at this point. " 04:40 But I got so many e-mails I began to think, You know what? 04:43 Maybe I need to sit down and write a book. Amen! 04:45 And, by the grace of God, you know, I'd never tried to write 04:48 a book before, but by the grace of God, He gave me the words 04:50 and we got it all together, and there it is. 04:54 And, I mean, it's well written and it's easy to go through. 04:56 There's great solid advice in here, and really lets young 05:01 people know what God's standards are, but very practical 05:05 advice as to how we can live up to those standards. 05:08 Now, you know, it's interesting to me. 05:11 How about you, Robert? 05:12 When you grew up did you hear this message about sexual purity 05:15 and waiting until marriage? I didn't! You didn't? 05:18 I'm so shocked! That's all I ever heard! 05:20 My mother told me this, I mean from the time I was probably 05:25 nine years old on we talked about these things so openly. 05:28 And I heard it in church as well, but... 05:30 You know, I'm the school doctor for three school districts. 05:33 And over twenty years what we hear is the secular view of sex, 05:38 and sex education. 05:39 When I heard this; when I heard what Dustin does, 05:42 I was excited. Amen! 05:43 This is wonderful! 05:45 To actually bring something like this to our youth, 05:47 to our Christian youth, and to have them see that there is 05:51 a reason for sex, and a reason to hold off 05:54 until you're married. 05:55 And you use this word abstinence. 05:57 Now we didn't talk about that before. 05:59 I mean when I was younger it was just wait until you get 06:03 it was a special blessing, etc. 06:05 But what, when you say abstinence, 06:08 what is your definition of abstinence? 06:11 Well, you know, you play with what word to use. 06:14 You can say purity, you can say chastity, and the word that I 06:19 was using when I was in the secular classrooms in the public 06:22 schools was abstinence. 06:24 And so that just sort of transferred into the book. 06:26 And abstinence, the definition that I use, it would depend on 06:29 where you looked for the definition. 06:31 But the definition that I use is a personal decision to abstain 06:35 from all sexual activity until marriage regardless of the past. 06:39 So no matter what's happened in your past, 06:40 today can be the first day of the rest of your life. 06:43 Alright, I love that! 06:45 It's not just abstaining or not being actively involved in any 06:51 kind of sexual activity until you get married. 06:53 But you say regardless of your past. 06:56 And that means that, for example, Dustin I was just 07:01 talking with a young lady who came to me for some advice 07:04 and some encouragement. 07:05 And she's 13 years old and was becoming involved in certain 07:09 things, and I talked to her about how God can restore you. 07:13 And even if you're not a physical virgin you can become 07:16 a spiritual virgin again. Amen. 07:18 So talk to us about that past issue, because that's important. 07:22 Well, you know, when Jesus comes 07:24 He's going to restore our bodies. 07:25 He's going to give us glorified bodies. 07:27 And we can never do something again for the first time. 07:30 Amen! 07:32 And that's the experience with sex. 07:34 You know, if you've made a mistake in the past, 07:36 you can never have sex again for the first time, 07:39 but what you can do is say, Lord forgive me. 07:41 I want to move on and I want to make sure that I'm not 07:45 putting myself at risk for negative consequences: 07:49 emotional, spiritual, physical consequences. Amen! 07:52 Now I want to go forward with the plan that God, that You 07:54 have given in Your Word, and given to me. 07:56 You want me to be successful and you've empowered me to do so. 07:59 So I'm not going to make decisions that are outside 08:02 of Your will for my life. 08:04 And when you come to that point in your life, and you say 08:07 I want restoration; I want victory. 08:09 At that point you're spiritually pure again, completely pure. 08:14 God restores that purity to you. 08:16 Now He'll restore your body when Jesus comes. Yes! 08:19 But spiritually you are restored. 08:21 You are returned to God. 08:22 You're right back where you should be with Him. 08:24 And that's such a wonderful, wonderful message. 08:26 And to know that, Hey, when Jesus comes we're going to 08:28 put off these bodies, and we're going to have glorified bodies, 08:31 and live with Him for eternity that way. 08:33 You know, it amazes me when we look at what's going on 08:36 in the secular world, and I mean there's such a downward trend, 08:39 and, you know, everything is being advertised with sex; 08:42 even ice cream. 08:44 I mean I saw a commercial the other night and I thought, 08:46 you know, I just happened to be flipping through the channels 08:48 to get the news and there was an ice cream commercial and they're 08:50 using sex. 08:52 So we see it's so prevalent among the secular society. 08:56 It amazes me to think that we're not preaching and teaching this 09:00 already in our churches. 09:02 Do you think that parents just, are we just burying our head 09:07 in the sand? 09:09 Do you think it is a problem among, I know I've met some 09:13 individuals in the church, young people, but do you think that 09:15 this is a problem that all young people face? 09:17 Well, 1 in 3 women, girls, get pregnant before the age of 20. 09:23 And notice I said 1 in 3 girls, I didn't say 1 in 3 09:26 non-Christian girls. Yes. 09:28 And I could come up with statistic after statistic saying 09:32 that this is not just a secular problem, this is also, 09:35 it's just a worldwide problem. 09:37 It's a worldwide problem because sex is a wonderful thing 09:41 that God has given us, for a husband a wife to share, 09:44 but Satan wants to pervert that. 09:46 And he's going to use that God given wonderful feeling 09:51 to tempt us to go away from God's plan. 09:55 And so he's going to work on Christians even harder, maybe, 09:58 than secular people; those that don't know the Lord. 10:01 And so, yes, it is a Christian problem. 10:03 And let me give you an example of why some people have that 10:07 mindset of it's not a Christian problem. 10:09 I think that it's that they're in denial. 10:11 I recently went to a school, a private school, 10:15 a Christian school, and I had been doing my week long talk 10:18 that I normally do. 10:20 It was about Wednesday, so I was about halfway through. 10:22 The principal pulled me aside and, you know, kind of in his 10:25 tone, you know, stuffy tone, a little bit, he said, 10:28 You know, we've found that the issues that you're talking about 10:32 our students don't really face until they're in college. 10:34 And it wasn't three hours later that kids were coming in. 10:39 They gave me an office there in case people wanted 10:41 to speak with me. 10:43 No less than ten kids came into that office and said, 10:47 You know, I've made a mistake in the past, 10:48 or I'm in this relationship and I don't know what to do. 10:51 So kids know that they're faced with these issues, 10:54 but many times adults don't want to admit, or they're in denial 10:58 about young people facing these issues. 11:01 One maybe because they don't know how to address them, 11:03 and two maybe because the adults have made a mistake 11:06 in the past, too, and they don't feel like they're qualified 11:09 to talk to young people about it. 11:12 But our young people are facing these issues and somebody has to 11:16 stand up and set a standard or the world is going to set 11:19 the standard for our Christian young people. 11:21 And so we as parents, we as leaders, we as elders of our 11:24 churches, we have got to start standing up and giving 11:27 young people a standard in which God wants them to live. 11:31 Okay, I want to come back to God's Word in just a moment 11:33 and the standard that God is setting, but I want to 11:37 bring you into this conversation doctor, and in this way. 11:40 You know, there's probably some young people watching us... 11:44 I hope so. 11:46 ...and what they're saying is 11:47 they've heard all of this before. 11:48 Why is it important that they should wait until they get 11:53 married from a, could you address that, just purely from 11:57 a physical sense, what are the consequences? 12:00 What are they risking if they are partaking 12:02 in these illicit activities? 12:05 Talk about putting your head in the sand; 12:07 parents put their heads in the sand. 12:09 They don't know what students are doing. 12:11 By the time they're in high school, 12th grade, 12:15 back in the 1990's it was 80% of our students were having sex. 12:20 Mercy! Now it's 61%. 12:22 Oh yes, it's wonderful... 12:24 Wait a minute, you said that 80% and it's gone down to 61%. 12:27 Okay. 12:28 But 61%! 12:30 We're happy, we're elated that it's only 61%. 12:33 Mercy, that's definitely shocking. 12:34 Now parents look at that and they see 6 kids out of the 12:37 10 kids in our room, 6 are having sex regularly. 12:41 That's shocking! 12:42 And what comes with sex? 12:45 Sexually transmitted diseases, infections, pregnancy, 12:50 life long damage to our psyche, how we feel, our morals, 12:56 our ideas of where marriage is going to go. 12:59 I told my son once, Just imagine somebody 13:03 could be having sex with your wife right now. 13:05 How do you feel about this if this were to happen to you? 13:09 And it was a shocking surprise to him. 13:12 When you said that, what you were saying to your son, 13:16 that he was obviously not married yet. 13:17 But you're saying the woman that you will marry, 13:19 the woman that will become your wife, 13:21 someone could be having sex with her right now. 13:24 Yes, exactly. 13:25 That's a good thing to ask him. 13:27 It was a shock to him and he thought about it and said, Wow, 13:28 that puts a whole new light on this. 13:30 That's a great way to say it. 13:33 If I can jump in here on this... Surely. 13:35 We look at life and we think, well, you know, 13:39 I have goals and dreams. 13:40 I have things that I want to accomplish in this life. 13:42 And some people may not know those goals and those dreams, 13:45 but most people have a picture of what they want their life 13:48 to look like in the future. 13:50 And every decision that we make can have a benefit or a negative 13:54 consequence for us reaching that goal or that dream. 13:57 You know, if I sit in my room and play Nintendo too long 14:00 and I want to get straight A's, you know probably that's going 14:04 to have a negative consequence to me getting straight A's. 14:06 If I want to win a marathon someday, I can't subsist on 14:09 donuts my whole life. Right. 14:11 So every decision that we make can either help us or hurt us 14:15 in reaching our goal and our dream. 14:17 And even relationships; getting ourselves involved in 14:20 relationships has a baring on our future. 14:22 When every time you're in a relationship 14:24 and that relationship ends, you bring baggage into 14:28 the rest of your life. 14:29 That's just the way it is. 14:31 Anytime you get emotionally attached to someone, 14:33 that emotional attachment effects you 14:36 the rest of your life. 14:37 Well, in the severing of that emotional attachment, 14:39 or of the actual relationship, there is an emotional scarring, 14:44 even if you're the one that's doing the breaking up. 14:47 It's really true. That's right. 14:49 So let me ask you this, when you think of what, when we use 14:54 the word abstinence, are we just talking about 14:57 don't go all the way, or are we talking about... 15:02 Let's be a little more specific. 15:04 We will be discreet, I promise you, but let's be a little more 15:08 specific as to what we're actually referring to. 15:11 According to what the Word of God says, because there are some 15:15 times when you bring this up around teens, 15:17 that there's like, they challenge you, show me in the 15:21 Bible where I cannot be partaking in this 15:24 type of activity. Absolutely. 15:26 Let me answer that first by saying many of those young 15:29 people that ask that, they don't actually believe that it's not 15:33 in the Bible. 15:34 They're just trying to come up with a reason to justify 15:36 what they're already doing. Does that make sense? 15:38 Yeah, it does. But we can look at the Word of God. 15:40 If we go to... 15:41 The best text that I like to use is Ephesians, Chapter 5. 15:43 And the reason that I like to use Ephesians, Chapter 5 15:48 is because of the issue that the church in Ephesus was facing 15:52 at this time. 15:53 Just to put it in a nutshell and be quick about it, 15:57 basically they were going to church and trying to find 16:00 someone to take home with them that was not their 16:02 husband nor their wife. 16:04 I mean these were the issues in the early church. 16:06 And so Paul, he's talking to us, and he begins in Verse 1. 16:11 He says, Be ye therefore followers of God, 16:13 as dear children;... 16:14 And he explains how to do that. 16:15 ...And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, 16:19 and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice 16:21 to God for a sweet-smelling savor. 16:23 So He tells us right there how to love each other. 16:26 Uh huh. 16:27 Through sacrifice and submission to one another. 16:29 And now he's going to tell us how not to love each other. 16:32 Oh, hang on. 16:33 I want to use that thought. Okay. 16:35 Through sacrifice and submission there are some young men 16:38 that will say to a young lady, If you really love me, 16:42 you will do this for me. That's right. 16:44 You will have sex with me. Sure. 16:45 And the woman is thinking, Ah, sacrifice and submission. 16:49 But Paul, we've got to read this in context, 16:51 because he's going to let us know that that's not the kind 16:54 of sacrifice and submission he's talking about. 16:56 First of all, let me tell you the answer that I give 16:58 to young ladies when they say, Well, my boyfriend said 17:00 that to me. 17:02 I usually tell them, I say, If your boyfriend is trying 17:05 to get you to do anything that you don't want to do, 17:07 he doesn't love you. He's being selfish. Amen! 17:09 Okay? 17:11 If you set a standard, and your boyfriend knows that standard, 17:13 and he's trying to pressure you to do something, 17:14 or your girlfriend, because girls can be very forward 17:18 these days. 17:19 If they're trying to pressure you into doing something 17:21 that you don't want to do, they don't love you. 17:22 They're just being selfish. 17:24 And so Verse 3, and right here we go, But fornication, 17:27 and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be 17:30 once named among you, as becometh saints; 17:32 Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, 17:35 which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks. 17:39 That word fornication there, it refers to any sexual activity 17:44 outside of marriage. 17:46 Actually, see my Bible, because I'm looking at an Amplified 17:49 right now says, But immorality, sexual vice, and all impurity 17:55 of lustful, rich, or wasteful living. 17:58 So it is talking about the sexual vices there. 18:01 And I like that word covetousness that he uses 18:04 there, too, because apparently what was happening was 18:07 people in the church of Ephesus in that day were looking around 18:11 and they were coveting each other for sexual issues, 18:15 you know, they're looking at each other and being attracted 18:17 and they're coveting each other. 18:18 I'm smiling because, not because of what we're saying right now, 18:21 but because you did such an excellent job in your book. 18:24 I really like the way that you likened the physical 18:30 covetousness to idolatry. 18:32 I mean I'd never really thought of it like that before. 18:34 And it put it into a whole new light for me. 18:37 Now the other thing I want to do, I'd like to back up, 18:40 and let's go back to where you were talking about goals 18:43 because Dustin, I think this is one thing I want to encourage 18:47 every parent to read this book and to listen to what 18:51 we're about to say right now. 18:53 Talking to your young teenagers about goals in life. 18:57 I never thought about how much a relationship that is usually 19:03 not going to last beyond high school, or maybe college, 19:06 how it robs you of the precious time to reach your goals. 19:10 Where did you come up with this idea? 19:13 Well, from my own personal experience. 19:16 I was a baseball player through high school and college, 19:19 and I, you know, I was good. 19:22 I was a pitcher. 19:23 And I had dreams of playing professional baseball someday. 19:26 But I had one major obstacle to that goal 19:28 and it was a girlfriend. 19:30 Okay. 19:31 And the time that I should have spent putting into the game, 19:35 and practicing, and working on my studies, and all the things 19:38 that I needed to do, I spent with her. 19:42 I spent time with her, I spent money on her, 19:44 I spent energy on her, and in trying to make this thing 19:49 work that wasn't meant to be. 19:50 She's not my wife this day; we broke up. 19:53 And so it's interesting from our experience. 19:56 She went to the college that we ended up at; 19:58 they didn't have her major. 20:00 They didn't have the major that she wanted. 20:03 But because she wanted to be with me, she went to the same 20:06 school as me. 20:07 And so she compromised what she wanted to do in life 20:11 for a relationship that wasn't meant to be in the first place. 20:14 I did that myself! 20:15 I can identify with this. 20:17 The reality is people don't marry their high school 20:20 sweetheart's anymore. 20:21 So for young people, I don't even suggest that you date 20:25 in high school. 20:26 They often ask me, well, when is a relationship good for me? 20:30 And I say, When you are about to reach your goals here 20:35 on earth, and when you are at a place where you know who God 20:39 wants you to be. 20:40 And the illustration that I like to use is, the illustration 20:44 that I like to use is you're driving in a car towards your 20:47 goal towards your dream, and you're gong along at a nice 20:50 rate and you're driving along. 20:52 It feels good! 20:53 And then all of a sudden people start passing you, 20:55 and there's two people in these cars, and you start to think 20:57 well I'm kind of lonely. 20:59 I feel kind of lonely here. 21:00 And you start to look around, and you know you're looking 21:02 around while you're driving, and you think, huh! 21:04 And there's another road way off in the distance, 21:07 and you see somebody driving and you think, Oh he looks, 21:09 he looks kind of interesting. 21:10 He looks kind of interesting. 21:12 Or you look around on the road back and you look in your 21:14 rearview mirror and you see somebody going a lot slower 21:16 than you, but you think, Oh, she looks kind of attractive. 21:19 And what some people do is on their road toward their 21:22 destination, sometimes they veer off and they go to see 21:25 what that persons like, or they'll slow way down 21:28 so somebody else can catch up, or they'll stop and turn around 21:31 so that the person's that's going a lot slower than them 21:34 they can meet that person. 21:35 And relationships, many of them, especially sexual relationships, 21:41 cause speed bumps, or the Great Wall of China for us in reaching 21:45 our goal or our dream later in life. 21:47 Does that make sense? 21:48 It makes perfect sense. 21:50 But it makes perfect sense to me because I'm an adult. 21:51 Now let me ask you a question. 21:53 If I were 16 years old and listening to this program 21:57 right now and you were telling me don't date in high school, 22:00 well I'm thinking, All my friends are dating 22:02 in high school. Sure. 22:03 And you've got, ah, your hormones are beginning to 22:08 sing a song to you, and you're attracted to people 22:11 of the opposite sex. Right. 22:13 How are you going to convince, or you know, there's young 22:17 people so often think they're in love. 22:19 They get the butterflies and they think, Oh, he's so sweet, 22:23 or she's so nice, and she's so pretty. 22:25 What is the difference between infatuation of these young 22:31 people and real love? 22:33 Well, first of all we can't let the world set the standard 22:37 for the way that we live our lives. 22:38 Because if we look at the world we see a whole lot of failure. 22:41 But if we look to God and rely on Him we're victorious. 22:44 If we do things the way that God wants us to do them, 22:48 then we're successful. 22:50 If we do things the way that the world wants us 22:52 to do them, many times we fall. 22:54 And so it's so important. 22:55 You know, we believe a lie in this culture about what 22:58 true love is. 22:59 And you've heard those lyrics, "When the moon hits your eye 23:01 like a big pizza pie; that's amour. " Yeah! 23:04 "I'm hooked on a feeling, I'm high on believing 23:06 that you're in love with me. " 23:08 And we believe, because of movies, because of music, 23:11 because of all these things, that love is about butterflies 23:14 in your belly, and sweaty palms, and senseless sexual urges. 23:18 When people are feeling these things they truly believe that 23:20 they're in love, and they have those feelings. 23:22 No two people have ever loved each other like 23:24 we love each other, and no one's ever experienced this; 23:27 what we're experiencing. 23:28 But if we look at the Bible, at I Corinthians, that passage that 23:32 we're so familiar with, "love is patient, love is kind" we see 23:36 something very, very different. 23:37 God defines love in a much different way. 23:39 It's not a feeling. 23:41 It's something that is earned over time through service 23:45 and submission to one another. 23:46 And while you're infatuated, and while you're having these 23:49 wonderful feelings, you can't survey someone and say, 23:53 are they patient? Are they kind? 23:54 How do they treat their mother? 23:56 How do they do these things? 23:57 And if you throw sex into that mix, now you've clouded up 24:00 your decision making all the more. Absolutely. 24:03 You know, I want to take advantage also, doctor, of your 24:06 knowledge in about 90 seconds, if you could tell me. 24:10 Yes, quickly. 24:12 What do you think? 24:13 Why should we wait until we get married? 24:15 I'll tell you; because things change. 24:16 As a young person in our days, we were thinking of one 24:20 boyfriend, one girlfriend. 24:22 Now it's one boyfriend, two girlfriends, three girlfriends, 24:25 four girlfriends, and all of the baggage they bring 24:27 into that relationship. 24:28 I had a patient who had a rash on his hip, just recently. 24:31 He'd been married for twenty years. 24:33 I did an analysis of his leg. I did some blood studies. 24:36 He had herpes. 24:37 And he didn't know for twenty years that he had herpes. 24:40 It came every year. 24:41 Now it's in his life. 24:43 It's in his marriage. 24:44 He got this when he was in high school. 24:47 What do we take from high school into our marriage? 24:51 With these relationships that don't... 24:53 There's friends with benefits. Yes. 24:58 Where, let's have friends, let's have sex, but no relationship. 25:02 That's what kids are into right now; friends with benefits. 25:05 Where does that put them emotionally? 25:08 Why is there a 50% divorce rate in Christian homes even? 25:13 You know, I was talking with a young person recently who was 25:20 talking about the feelings that they had, and I said these are 25:24 natural and they're good. 25:25 They just need to be contained, and they need to be purified, 25:29 and kept under wrap, if you will, for awhile. 25:33 But it's good that you're interested in the opposite sex. 25:35 And if you want to know, I mean, God obviously made sex 25:39 a beautiful thing. 25:41 Just read the Song of Solomon, or Song of Songs 25:42 it's called in some. 25:44 But what is, in your mind, the greatest benefit of waiting, 25:48 and what is the beauty of sex within marriage? 25:51 Well, it's sort of like opening a present. 25:55 Oh, that's nice. 25:57 Ah, you know, have you ever wanted something so bad that you 26:01 see the present. 26:02 You know it's there, and you ask for it ahead of time. 26:04 We've all done that! 26:05 And then when gift giving comes... 26:07 You didn't have permission really, but you peeked. 26:09 That's right! 26:11 When gift day comes, you know, and you've already received 26:13 that present; Christmas, your Birthday, whatever it might be, 26:16 you open that gift and you go, Wow, that's really nice! 26:18 And I appreciate it, but it just doesn't have the same luster. 26:22 Now if we wait for gift day, and we open that gift 26:27 when we're supposed to, and in the right context, 26:30 we have that joy at the point when we're supposed to. 26:34 Does that make sense? 26:35 That makes perfect sense. 26:37 So with sex, you know, if I give myself to someone else 26:42 before I'm married, my body, my mind, all of me. 26:44 I give that over to someone. 26:46 Someone else is opening that gift in my life, or I'm opening 26:51 that gift before gift day comes. 26:54 And so it's so important to know that if we save that special 26:58 present for that special day. 27:00 It's such a wonderful thing to know I'm not going to go into 27:04 my sexual relationship with emotional baggage, 27:06 with physical baggage, with all of these things. 27:08 You are free to enjoy sex in marriage without 27:12 any strings attached. 27:13 And it is truly an enjoyable, it's a gift from God, 27:17 if you will. 27:18 Well, we are so pleased that you joined us today. 27:21 Thank you, Pastor Dustin Hall, and thank you, 27:23 Dr. Robert Castellanos. 27:25 It was a joy having you both here. 27:27 And for those of you at home, please, this is a book called 27:31 The Gospel of Sex, Dating, Relating, and Mating. 27:35 It really is an excellent book. 27:36 And I just want to encourage you to call 3ABN and you can 27:39 find out how to get that book. 27:40 But now what I really want for you is that you would enjoy 27:45 "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of the Father, 27:48 and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit" for today and 27:52 throughout the rest of your life. 27:53 Thank you for joining us. |
Revised 2014-12-17