(This is Part One of the conclusion to the teaching series we began a few weeks ago. God willing, we will conclude the series with Part Two.)

We ended our last post saying:

“What about the things that the word of God not only approves but also urges the young man to pursue and embrace, so that he may take great pleasure in his God-given sexual nature in a wholesome manner?”

When reading and studying the Bible carefully, it is impossible to miss the heart of God or His message to a young man regarding what he should pursue and embrace to fully enjoy his sexual nature.

Let’s take a step back and revisit what we discussed in our very first post. This universe has a Creator, who is the Owner of all life and the entire universe, both seen and unseen. After creating the universe, God chose one of the planets to be inhabited by the man He created in His own image and likeness (Genesis 1–2).

Then Adam and Eve sinned against God. While Adam knowingly and willingly rejected God’s word, Eve was deceived by the cunning serpent into eating the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3).

What made Adam willingly reject God and His word, despite knowing what God said about the forbidden fruit? I believe the fundamental truth Adam rejected, even before rejecting God and His word to his own detriment, was the fact that God is good.

God declared His own name to Moses in this way:

“And the Lord passed by before him [Moses], and proclaimed [His name], The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.” Exodus 34:6-7 KJV

Do you see it?

God is “abundant in goodness and truth.” By choosing to eat the forbidden fruit and by his actions—stretching out his hand to take the fruit his wife offered and eating it—Adam essentially declared, “It is not You, God, who knows what is good for me, but I do!”

Does that sound familiar? It should, because we all say this to God countless times and will continue to do so in the future whenever we sin against His word. While God’s word says, “This is good for you,” we respond, “No, not that, but this one—the one I choose—is good for me.”

This is the fallen nature of Adam that we have all inherited from the moment of our conception. As David said,

“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.” Psalm 51:5 ESV

David is not saying that his mother gave birth to him out of wedlock. Instead, he is acknowledging that he is a sinner because he was born to sinful parents. This pattern continues back through the generations to Adam and Eve.

In our carnal nature, we all tend to believe that God is not good and that God’s words are not true. It is astounding how much this sin, known as ‘the original sin,’ possesses such deceiving power and influence, even among those of us who profess to follow Jesus Christ.

This dark world, our flesh, and the devil work together with one goal: to convince us that God is not good to us and that His word is not the truth. The young man is not immune to this deception. From his conception, he absorbs this false belief and enters life encouraged to continue holding on to it, believing it will lead to a “happily ever after.”

The ironic thing is this: No one has ever been able to prove that faulty belief to be true. No human being can experience joy, happiness, peace, rest, or pleasure (including sexual pleasure) by believing that God is not good and that God’s words are not true. Rejecting this God, who abounds in goodness and truth, is equivalent to rejecting life itself.

God is the Author of this universe and life. There is no other! It is God who created humans and everything else for His glory. When God is glorified through His creations, everything He created, including us, will be honored and live in shalom—in peace, joy, rest, and pleasure. However, one crucial thing to remember is this: God is glorified only according to His words, as prescribed in His Word, not according to how His creatures wish to glorify Him. This is key!

For example, Jesus said,

“And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” John 14:13 NKJV, and

“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.” John 15:8 NKJV

God created Adam, gave him the task of tending the Garden of Eden, and commanded him not to eat the forbidden fruit, saying, “for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17b ESV).

Then, for God’s eternal purpose, Adam’s life needed some adjustment. God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18 ESV).

This “helper” will complete God’s eternal goal, which, as Paul describes, is “that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him – – – according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory” (Ephesians 1:10-12 NKJV).

This is a glorious truth of our Sovereign LORD!

For God to “gather together in one all things in Christ,” Adam needed a “helper fit for him.” So, as we read in Genesis 2, God fashioned Eve from the rib He took from Adam and brought her to him to see what he would name her. Adam said,

“This is now bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.” Genesis 2:23 NKJV

Right after this, the word of God says, “Therefore”—but why “therefore”? Because the woman was actually taken out of the man and needed to be reunited with him. Once Eve was taken from Adam, he felt a strong desire to reunite with “his rib,” and because Eve was taken from Adam, she felt a strong desire to return to where she originated. This mutual urge, which John Piper calls “the urge to merge,” led them to become sexual beings with sexual desires. This God-created desire in both of them laid the foundation for the institution of marriage, an intimate relationship between one man and one woman.

God established this institution right after He fashioned Eve because, in the fullness of time, God desires to have this kind of intimate relationship with His people, to be one with those He redeems and purchases with the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. Until that time comes, this institution of marriage serves as an emblem of the ultimate marriage in heaven—the marriage between Christ and the Church.

Therefore, the word of God guides a young man in Proverbs 1 to 9 so he can represent Jesus both as a single man and as a married man. As he strives toward this goal, God honors him by bestowing joy, peace, rest, happiness, and pleasure (including sexual pleasure), all of which come only from God—not from this dark world, another human body, or money and possessions. These blessings from God are not the entirety of His gifts; they are merely a foretaste of what awaits to God’s people in heaven.

That is why the word of God says, “rejoice in hope” (Romans 12:12). This joy-producing hope too can only be found in God and by abiding in His word.

So, the sage says to the young man,

“Drink water from your own cistern,
And running water from your own well.
Should your fountains be dispersed abroad,
Streams of water in the streets?
Let them be only your own,
And not for strangers with you.
Let your fountain be blessed,
And rejoice with the wife of your youth.
As a loving deer and a graceful doe,
Let her breasts satisfy you at all times;
And always be enraptured with her love.
For why should you, my son, be enraptured by an immoral woman,
And be embraced in the arms of a seductress?” Proverbs 5:15-20 NKJV . . . Contd. ///