The Act of Marriage: The Beauty of Sexual Love (3 page)

Some people have the strange idea that anything spiritually acceptable to God cannot be enjoyable. In recent years we have found great success in counseling married couples to pray together regularly. The book
How to Be Happy Though Married
³
describes a particular method of conversational prayer that we have found most helpful, and we frequently suggest this procedure because of its variety and practicality. Through the years many couples have tried it and reported remarkable results.

One emotional, outgoing young wife who exclaimed that it had changed their relationship also confided, “The main reason I was reluctant to pray with my husband before going to bed was that I feared it would hinder lovemaking. But to my amazement, I found we were so emotionally close after prayer that it set the stage for loving.” Her experience is not rare; in fact, we have found no reason why a couple cannot pray before or after a spirited time of loving. However, most couples find themselves so relaxed afterward that all they want to do is sleep—the sleep of contentment.

A Ravishing Lover

At the risk of shocking some people, we would point out that the Bible doesn’t mince any words on the subject. The Song of Songs is notoriously frank in this respect (consider 2:3–17 and 4:1–7).

The book of Proverbs warns against taking up with the “strange woman” (a prostitute) but by contrast challenges a husband: “may you
rejoice
in the wife of your youth.” How? By letting “her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love” (Prov. 5:18–19). It is obvious that this ravishing lovemaking experience should make a man rejoice, conferring on him ecstatic pleasure. The context plainly signifies an experience intended for mutual enjoyment. This passage also indicates that such lovemaking was not designed solely for the propagation of the race, but also for sheer enjoyment by the partners. If we understand it correctly, and we think we do, it isn’t to be a hurried or endured experience. Modern experts tell us that “foreplay” before entrance is essential to a mutually satisfying experience. We find no fault with that; we would, however, point out that Solomon made the same suggestion three thousand years ago!

All Bible passages should be studied in the light of their purpose in order to avoid wresting or twisting their meaning. The above concept is strong enough as we have presented it, but it becomes even more powerful when we understand its setting. The inspired words of Proverbs 1–9 record the instructions of Solomon, the world’s wisest man, to his son, teaching him to handle the tremendous sex drive within himself and to avoid being tempted by its improper use. Solomon wanted his son to enjoy a lifetime of the legitimate use of that drive by confining it to the act of marriage. Since this entire passage concerns wisdom, it is obvious that enjoyable, satisfying married love is the course of wisdom. Extramarital love is presented as the way of folly, offering short-term pleasure by bringing “destruction” (heartache, guilt, sorrow) in the end.

We would be remiss if we failed to point out Proverbs 5:21: “For a man’s ways are in full view of the L
ORD,
and he examines all his paths.” This text includes lovemaking: God sees the intimacy practiced by married partners and approves it. His judgment is reserved only for those who violate His plan and desecrate themselves by engaging in sex outside of marriage.

“Caressing” in the Old Testament

It may be hard for us to think of Old Testament saints as being good lovers, but they were. In fact, one may never hear a sermon on Isaac’s relation with his wife, Rebekah, recorded in Genesis 26:6–11. This man, who made it into God’s “Who’s Who” of faith in Hebrews 11, was observed by King Abimelech “caressing” his wife. We are not told how far his advances went, but he obviously was sufficiently intimate to make the king conclude that she was Isaac’s wife, not his sister, as he had at first falsely declared. Isaac erred, not in engaging in foreplay with his wife, but in not restricting it to the privacy of their bedroom. The fact that he was caught, however, suggests that it was common and permissible in their day for husbands and wives to “caress.” God planned it that way.

Further insight into God’s approval of the act of marriage appears in the commandments and ordinances of God to Moses for the children of Israel. He instructed that a man was to be exempt from military service and all business responsibilities for one year after his marriage (Deut. 24:5) so that these two people could get to “know” each other at a time when their sex drives were strongest and under circumstances that would provide ample opportunity for experimentation and enjoyment. Admittedly, this provision was also given to make it possible for a young man to “propagate” before he faced the risk of death on the battlefield. Contraceptives were not used at that time, and since the couple had so much time to be with each other, it is easy to see why children usually came early in the marriage.

Another verse displays how thoroughly God understands the sexual drive He created in human beings—1 Corinthians 7:9: “It is better to marry than to burn with passion.” Why? Because there is one legitimate, God-ordained method for releasing the natural pressure He has created in human beings—the act of marriage. It is God’s primary method for release of the sex drive. He intended that husband and wife be totally dependent on each other for sexual satisfaction.

The New Testament on Lovemaking

The Bible is the best manual ever written on human behavior. It covers all kinds of interpersonal relationships, including sexual love. Some examples have already been given, but one of the most outstanding passages follows. This is probably the clearest passage on the subject in the Bible:

But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 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. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. (1 Corinthians 7:2–5)

These concepts will be explained more fully later in this book, but here we will merely delineate the four central principles taught in this passage concerning lovemaking.

1. Both husband and wife have sexual needs and drives that should be fulfilled in marriage.

2. When a person marries, he forfeits control of his body to his partner.

3. Both partners are forbidden to refuse the meeting of their mate’s sexual needs.

4. The act of marriage is approved by God.

A young mother of three came to ask me to recommend a psychiatrist to her. When I inquired why she needed one, she hesitatingly explained that her husband felt she must be harboring some deep-rooted psychological problem about sex. She had never experienced an orgasm, could not relax during lovemaking, and felt guilty about it all. When asked when she first had these guilt feelings, she admitted to heavy petting before marriage that violated her Christian principles and the warning of her parents. She finally conceded, “Our whole four-year courtship seemed to be a continuous scene of Tom trying to seduce me and my fighting him off. I made too many compromises and am honestly amazed that we didn’t go the whole route before our wedding. After we were married, it just seemed to be more of the same. Why did God include this sex business in marriage anyway?”

That young woman did not require a battery of psychological tests and years of counseling therapy. She simply needed to confess her premarital sins and then learn what the Bible teaches about marital love. Once her guilt had been removed, she quickly perceived that her mental picture of the act of marriage was entirely wrong. After studying the Bible and reading several books on the subject, with her pastor’s assurances that lovemaking is a beautiful part of God’s divine plan for married couples, she became a new wife. Her husband, who had always been a lukewarm Christian, met me between services one Sunday. “I don’t know what you’ve been telling my wife, but it has changed our marriage!” His spiritual growth since then has been exciting to watch—all because a wife caught the big picture that God planned lovemaking to be a mutually enjoyable experience.

Have you wondered why we are bombarded by sex exploitation on every hand today? Most best-selling books, top-draw movies, and magazines reek with sex, and no one will deny that sex is without question the most popular international sport. The “tell it like it is” craze has simply brought into the open what has been paramount in people’s minds since Adam and Eve.

Admittedly God never intended the cheap, perverted, publicly displayed sex we see today. This is the result of man’s depraved nature, destroying the good things God has imparted to man. God intended the act of marriage to be the most sublime experience two people could share on earth.

We believe that even though Spirit-filled Christians do not have an obsession with sex, do not corrupt their minds with warped distortions of it, and do not speak of it incessantly, they enjoy it more on a permanent lifetime basis than any other group of people. We have reached this conclusion not only from the hundreds of people whom we have counseled on these intimate subjects, the many letters and questions we have received during more than forty years in the ministry, and the more than eight hundred Family Life Seminars we have conducted, but also from the fact that mutual pleasure and enjoyment are God’s purpose in designing us as He did. He has made that clear in His Word.

Notes

1
. James Strong, “Dictionary of the Words in the Greek Testament” in
Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of Words in the Greek Testament
(New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1890), 42.

2
. Joseph Henry Thayer,
Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament,
rev. ed. (Marshalltown, Del.: National Foundation for Christian Education, 1899), 352.

3
. Tim LaHaye (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House, 1968).

Two

What Lovemaking Means to a Man

Viewing life through someone else’s eyes is a key to communication on any level. The failure of many wives to understand what lovemaking really means to a man often leads to an erroneous conclusion that stifles her natural ability to respond to his advances.

Susie began our counseling interview by grumbling, “Our problem is—Bill is a beast! All he ever thinks of is sex, sex, sex! Ever since I met him it seems I’ve been fighting him off. Maybe he’s oversexed!” What kind of man do you envision after hearing her description of Bill? Probably a copper-skinned giant with virility exuding from every pore of his body and elevator eyes that flirt with every pretty girl who comes along. Nothing could be further from the truth! Bill is a quiet, dependable, hardworking, affectionate family man in his late twenties who is still a little insecure. When I asked how often they made love, she replied, “Three or four times a week.” (We have discovered that wives usually report more frequent lovemaking experiences than their husbands, and a dissatisfied husband usually underestimates the frequency of their experiences. By averaging their reports, we gain a more accurate figure.) Actually Bill is not abnormal; in fact, our survey and others find that he is functioning well within the range of the average husband at his age.

Susie had three problems: she did not like sexual relations, she did not understand Bill’s needs, and she was more interested in herself than in her husband. When she confessed her sin of selfishness and learned what loving really meant to him, it changed their bedroom life. Today she enjoys lovemaking, and recently she dropped us a thank-you note for the time we had spent with her, concluding, “Would you believe the other night Bill said, ‘Honey, what’s come over you? For years I chased you around the bed, and now you’re chasing me!’” Doubtless, she did not have to chase him very far.

The act of marriage is vitally significant to the husband for at least five different reasons:

1.
It satisfies his sex drive.
It is usually agreed that the male in all species of living creatures has the stronger sex drive, and Homo sapiens is no exception. That does not suggest that women lack a strong sex drive, but as we will see in the next chapter, hers is sporadic whereas his is almost continual.

God designed man to be the aggressor, provider, and leader of his family. Somehow that is tied to his sex drive. The woman who resents her husband’s sex drive while enjoying his aggressive leadership had better face the fact that she cannot have one without the other.

To illustrate the physical cause of the male sex drive, let us introduce the scientific evidence that “each drop of [seminal] fluid is said to contain as many as 300 million sperm.”
¹
Since it is possible for a man to have two to five ejaculations a day, depending upon his age, it is obvious that his reproductive system manufactures a supply of semen and many millions of tiny sperm daily. If unreleased through coitus, this can be very frustrating to his mental and physical well-being. One writer has said, “A normal and healthy man has a semen build-up every 42 to 78 hours that produces a pressure that needs to be released.” A variety of conditions will determine the frequency of that pressure. For example, if psychological work or family problems weigh on his mind, he will not be as vitally conscious of that pressure as when he is relaxed. Studies have indicated that men from rural areas consistently desire coitus more frequently than do men from urban areas in the same age brackets. Researchers explain that this occurs because urbanites tend to undergo more psychological pressures than their rural counterparts. One other possibility, however, is that rural men of all ages tend to work harder physically and thus are probably in better physical condition than their urban counterparts, who may enjoy a more sedentary life.