Chapter 1

Sex: Dear God, care to comment?

“Sex is not the Problem; lust is”
-Joshua Harris-

“Sex is great!” I heard those words from author Greg Speck one hot
afternoon on a Wednesday in high school. I attended a boy’s only board-
ing school in Nairobi that was full of men who had testosterone levels so
high that they could sniff a female in a mini skirt a mile away. I wasn’t sure
that inviting Greg was the best thing as far as the boys’ excitement about
sex was concerned. His words were followed by a thunderous applause
of 800 men in the school dining hall. A standing ovation occurred in the
rear of the crowd followed by a resounding, “Yes!” I was wrong. Greg was
the right person to speak. He taught a lot on that day that I found to be
true, including his opening remark; sex is great!

While in Campus, I lived in a hostel, five minutes from school. One hot
Saturday afternoon in the hostels, one of my neighbours- an attractive
dark skinned woman- clothed in nothing but a towel came to my room. It
was quiet at the hostel. For some reason, we happened to be the only ones
around the hostel. She was standing across me pinching the two ends of
her very small white towel that enveloped her body. She wanted to use my
shower.

I had a huge problem with the amount of skin that was before me. The
towel looked like it would drop anytime. It spelled out her curvy frame
in a very luscious way and my body trembled with burning sexual desire.
My hormones were doing the Macarena and my body was trying to deny
it. I was trying to act calm. It didn’t help that the girl was good look-
ing. She simply smiled and it got my engines revving! Why was she here
again? She explained that her shower was broken and that she needed my
help in fixing it. If not, she wanted to use my personal shower.

All my impulses wanted to grab that girl and play out all the sexual fanta
sies I had in my mind. I began to question my motives. What if the girl
1
 Lust and the City
knew my desire for her? What if she put aside the shower business and
consented to my desires? It was just the two of us in the hostel and nobody
knew. Was desiring something so natural a bad thing? Is the desire to have
sex the biggest enemy to our purity? To cut the story short, the girl show-
ered at my place as I took a very long walk to cool off.

Before I came to Christ, I held the idea that the Bible was totally against
sex. Greg Speck and many other teachers of the Word of God demysti-
fied this for me. I held the belief that being sexually attracted to a girl was
sinful. I believed Jesus didn’t want me to have sexual feelings. So I asked
myself, “Why did God give me these urges?” If I saw an attractive girl and
I got sexually attracted, I repented.

I laugh at myself now because in ignorance, I misunderstood God’s view

of sex. There was nothing wrong with my biological impulses, but there
was a problem if I pursued those impulses to derive satisfaction and grati-
fication outside of God’s plan for my sexuality. It’s called lust. Lust is the
consuming power that seeks sexual gratification outside the confines of
God’s will called a marital covenant. It’s a mouthful, I know, but read it
again, carefully.

Lust is a power
Beloved, lust is sin. It is a corruption of the beauty of sexuality. When
many hear the word sin, their default thinking may be a mere thought,
word or act. Beloved, sin is not just an act. Sin is not a mere word or
thought. Sin is a power. The acts, words and thoughts are manifestations
of the power of lust.

When men and women are caught in lust, it is not a mere will against
God’s decree. It is being controlled by a power. That power is sin. When
two people commit adultery, they sinned long before they got physical.
They gave themselves over to the power of sin long before it manifested
into the act. The fight against lust is not a fight against flesh and blood. It’s
a fight against a power that debases the human being’s sexuality. Paul put
it perfectly in Ephesians 6:12:

2
 Sex: Dear God, care to comment?
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, gainst
the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiri-
tual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

Lust is the consuming power that seeks

sexual gratification outside the
confines of God’s will called a marital covenant.

Therefore, lust is sin’s power at work against God’s good plan for sexual-
ity. Lust is the consuming power that seeks sexual gratification outside
the confines of God’s will called a marital covenant. This power can over-
whelm the Christian and render him or her depressed. I know that be-
cause I have been held captive by the power of lust in masturbation. I
also know that there is hope because Christ pulled me out of that rut and
rescued me when I was at my lowest. There is hope, Beloved.

The power of lust is not overcome by the power of will. The only power
strong enough to counter lust and to keep us in check not to get caught
again is the power of the cross of Christ. I am encouraged that my saviour
overcame lust.The word says about Christ in Hebrews 4:15:
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our
weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we
are--yet was without sin.” (emphasis my own)

Wow! Jesus was tempted in every way like us. That means even sexually,
Beloved. Despite Jesus being tempted sexually, he did not sin. He achieved
that power over sin and then activated it on the cross for you and I to con-
quer and for His Supremacy over all creation. And that power now lives
in everyone who gives their life to Him. You too can overcome because
greater is the one in you than the one in the world (1 John 4:4).

Our God is so into sex!

I discovered God was pro-sex through many books written by seasoned
men and women of God. In fact, I found that the Bible itself was replete
with positive sexual references. If you look at Proverbs 5:19b, the Bible

3
 Lust and the City
says concerning a man’s wife: may her breasts satisfy you always. If that
isn’t sexy, I don’t know what is. There are actually references in the Bible
that if read aloud would make you blush! Some people shy away from
this and claim that the breasts talked about in Proverbs 5 are symbolic.
There is nothing symbolic about it, Beloved. God is telling us what Greg
affirmed on that Wednesday in my high school; sex is great!

If you read The Songs of Solomon, you would go pink at the erotic refer-
ences mentioned. In fact the famous Spanish poet, Luis de Leon, faced
incarceration in 1572 when he translated Songs of Solomon from Latin
to Spanish for his cousin, Isabel, a nun. It was said that his translation of
such erotic content was heretical and for that he was thrown into prison.
We know Luis de Leon was not heretical. Every erotic reference in Songs
of Solomon was inspired by God’s Spirit. It is then manifested in its beauty
in His context and will, which we shall come to see. The Bible celebrates
sex! The Bible begins with two naked people in a garden commanded by
God to have sex and take care of the creation. Sex is God’s invention! It’s
His joy and it’s His delight for a man and woman in His will to enjoy the
entire sexual package (kissing, fondling, touching, caressing, intercourse
etc.) What is God’s plan for your sexual drive?

God created sexuality for humanity to delight in it!

Proverbs 5:18-9 May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the
wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer—may her breasts satisfy
you always, may you ever be captivated by her love.

Sexuality in God’s will is devoid of shame.

Genesis 2:25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no
shame.

Sexuality is to be expressed within a marital covenant.

1 Corinthians 7:8-9 Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good
for them to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control
themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with
passion.

4
 Sex: Dear God, care to comment?
Sexual expression is between a man and a woman.
Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he
created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said
to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.

Leviticus 18:22 Do not practice homosexuality; it is a detestable sin.

(NLT)

Sexual expression is between one man and one woman.

1 Corinthians 7:2b ...each man should have his own wife, and each woman
her own husband.

We read that list of God’s requirements, and we realise that there’s a prob-
lem because we all have, in some degree, clearly violated those stands that
God has placed. Men and women violate these stands because they have
given themselves over to the power of lust. Men no longer use sex for
delight but rather for hurt and selfish reasons e.g. rape. Thousands each
day are expressing their sexual drives outside God’s marital covenant. Ho-
mosexuality has violated God’s plan for sexual expression between a man
and a woman. Disease is testament that sex between one man and one
woman is not observed. The results are evident: sexually and psychologi-
cally injured children, self-condemnation, prostitution, infidelity, father-
less homes, addictions such as masturbation and pornography, disease
and corruption of the family unit as God desires. At the heart of all this is
a broken humanity that is hurt and seeking redemption.

Is sex the problem? No, sex is not the problem; lust is. Lust is the consum-
ing power that seeks sexual gratification outside the confines of God’s will
called a marital covenant.

What is a covenant?
A covenant is a relationship characterized by a commitment between God
and humanity. It is based on a conviction and an agreement that surpasses
feelings, fears, failures, insecurities, threats, weaknesses, riches, poverty,
sadness, health and basically anything that threatens a relationship. When
God created Eve, He presented her to Adam as a wife for a covenant re-

5
 Lust and the City
lationship. The covenant relationship is marriage. The covenants include
a commitment by God to the humans and by the humans to God. In our
cultures today, these vows are done prior to the marriage. When you make
your wedding vows, you commit to God. In marriage covenants, the rela-
tionships are permanent unless broken by death.

Many marriages today are not exactly the best examples that inspire us
to walk down the aisle. However, that should never be the case for you. A
failed marriage is not the blueprint for all marriages. Yours will work. If
Christ is at the centre of it, it will more than work; it will thrive.

A failed marriage is not

the blueprint for all marriages.

After God has joined the man and woman in a covenant relationship, no
body is meant to break it. Jesus said in Matthew 19:5-6 “For this reason a
man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two
will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what
God has joined together, let man not separate.”(Emphasis my own)

Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate. Covenants
are not meant to break. It’s against God’s precious design. Covenants
are special things! Can you imagine, Adam and Eve, before the fall, all
alone in the garden for decades, just with each other enjoying all the
food, enjoyment, sexual fulfilment and the beauty of nature all around
them. Within covenants, God’s beauty is seen. Within them His power is
manifested. Within them, His gifts operate at their maximum potential.
Outside a covenant, God does not recognise the beauty, power and gift-
ing however awesome they appear. That is why no matter how good of a
person you are, all your good works and efforts to please God are null and
void if you’re not within the covenant with His son Jesus. All your great-
est good works outside of Christ’s covenant are called by God filthy rags
(Isaiah 64:6). God’s gifts operate at maximum within the covenant. You
don’t even need a Bible verse to prove that one. Many psychologists and
scientists are finding that married people have more satisfying and fulfill-

6
 Sex: Dear God, care to comment?
ing sexual intercourse. The scientists find it a mystery. God doesn’t. He
says His gifts function best within a covenant.

Sex outside a covenant

If a man and a woman have sex, and they haven’t gotten into a covenant
relationship, they seal themselves into a different kind of relationship. It’s
not a covenant relationship but rather a consumer relationship. God did
not officiate their relationship, so they sealed their relationship based on
their own agreement.

If the agreement is money, the consumer relationship is called prostitu-

tion. If the agreement is self-gratification, it’s called fornication. When the
agreement is with a person in a separate covenant it’s called adultery. Any
sexual activity outside the confines of marriage covenant results in a con-
sumer relationship. Together with a breach of many other godly agree-
ments that humans dishonour, sex outside a covenant is called sin.

In a covenant relationship, the focus is to give. In a consumer relationship,

the partners in the relationship focus on receiving. In the latter relation
ship, you’re forced to perform to be accepted. Many young unmarried
people engage in sexual activity because they claim to want to confirm
whether they are compatible for marriage. It will never work, Beloved,
because God’s gifts are truly compatible and efficient only within a cov-
enant. When we read studies that indicate co-habitation increases likeli-
hood of divorce, God’s command for sex in marriage is confirmed.

Sex is not a mere flesh-on-flesh experience

At this point, it is very easy to think that we can be the exception and not
the rule. When you are in love, you feel that your relationship is special
and not like the others. You may even believe that sex is special for you
and that none of those bad things will happen to you.

Beloved, forget the physical. There is a binding tie created when two peo-
ple become sexually involved. If the two people get sexually involved and
are not in a mutual covenant, they risk hurt when they leave each other
because every sexual encounter makes you one with that person. No force

7
 Lust and the City
in the cosmos guarantees that you will marry your boyfriend/girlfriend.
If that guarantee fades completely (as it does in many relationships), and
you had a sexual encounter with your significant other, you will break.
A sexual encounter is like sticking superglue between two glass bottles.
When you break the relationship, one or often both will get hurt terribly.

A sexual encounter is like sticking superglue

between two glass bottles. When you break
the relationship, one or often
both will get hurt terribly.

Paul the Apostle said that sex is not a mere flesh-on-flesh encounter be-
cause one who goes into a prostitute becomes one with her (1 Corinthians
6:16). God’s plan for your sexuality is in the marriage bed. You may have a
question. What’s the big deal about marriage? Especially when they’re not
working. Proceed to chapter two.