Regarding Sexual Purity, God Wants Complete Obedience, Not A Partial Sacrifice

One of the most common topics and themes when it comes to sexual purity is the sin of fornication. Fornication is when 2 people that are not married to each other have sex with each other. This would include sex before marriage, sex with someone other than one’s spouse while married, which is also called adultery, and sex while single after a marriage ended due to divorce or death.

The Bible is very clear and plain about fornication. We are to avoid it completely, flee from it, not even engage in it once. Some people make excuses for fornication and feel if it is with a fiancée, or only happens with a small number of people, or not very often, it is okay. There are people that feel while young, people need to "sow their wild oats," and get all that "player" stuff out their system. Some people wrongly believe and/or advise people that we should practice having sex with casual partners before the wedding night with the spouse we love in order to avoid a disastrous, clumsy, and/or painful marriage consummation on the honeymoon.

THE devil is A LIAR!!! THOSE LIES ARE FROM THE PIT OF HELL!!!

There is no excuse for fornication. God gives us natural instincts to know what to do during sex when married. And there are so many bad consequences from fornication, especially ungodly soul ties.

Let’s look at 2 passages of scripture about fornication to back up what I said above.

1 Corinthians 6:18-20 King James Version (KJV)

18 Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.

19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?

20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

Ephesians 5:3 King James Version (KJV)

3 But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;

So we see what the scriptures say that God requires. He wants our obedience regarding this and other things that He instructs us about. However there is a very common problem going on among people, both saved and unsaved, where people are not giving God their complete obedience in this area.

God requires us to keep our virginity until marriage. If anyone has fallen and committed fornication, God wants them to stop, and be delivered and set free. But people are often trying to find ways to keep their vaginal virginity and still get their sexual needs and those of their significant other met.

Many people are being deceived by the devil and deceiving themselves and others by thinking that they are still pure if they are keeping vaginal virginity by not engaging in vaginal intercourse, yet engaging in other sexual acts. These "alternative" sex acts include: anal intercourse, oral intercourse, digital penetration, dry humping with or without clothes, and various things that are a part of foreplay. That would be any type of contact where a person is touching intimate parts of the other person in a way that is causing arousal and/or climax. Some people wrongly believe that as long as there is no vaginal penetration, or they stop just short of that, they are not having sex, and therefore not fornicating.

But that is deception. These are all still sex acts. Therefore it is all a part of fornication. So anyone engaging in them outside of marriage is not maintaining purity, even if vaginal virginity is maintained. Think about the particular acts that include the words "sex" or "intercourse." If it is a form of sexual intercourse, like anal intercourse or oral intercourse, it is fornication, and therefore a sin.

People think they are pleasing God when they make the partial sacrifice to avoid vaginal intercourse, and/or a few other sexual acts while not married. But God is not deceived by or pleased with this partial sacrifice. He requires a complete sacrifice, meaning that we must abstain from all sexual intercourse, activity, and contact outside of marriage. Some people who cheat on their spouses actually try to convince themselves and others that they were not having sex or cheating because of the type of sexual contact or intercourse that occurred. Again that is deception.

We are required to present our bodies as a living sacrifice according to Romans 12:1. God wants complete obedience with regards to keeping virginity until marriage and purity before and during marriage.

Before I give the next scripture I want to clarify 2 points. First I am not being so rigid to go as far as saying that you cannot even show affection before marriage. Affection is okay if it is not causing arousal or sexual climax. The things I’m saying God says to avoid are activities that are clearly sexual in nature, and the only purpose and result is sexual pleasure. Also people get confused when told to be pure in their marriage. That doesn’t mean no sex in marriage. If God meant that, how would we reproduce and become physically one with our spouses? Sex is a beautiful thing created for marriage and only for marriage. When married, God wants us to have lots of it. When God tells us to keep the marriage bed pure based on Hebrews 13:4, He means don’t engage in sexual contact with anyone outside of the marriage.

Now I’m going to go to an Old Testament scripture passage that shows just how God feels about partial obedience. This story is not about sex. But because it is about partial obedience, we can see how God feels when people only partially obey Him. There are many points in the story that can be applied to those who do not completely obey the commands to not engage in fornication, and try to do other sexual things while keeping vaginal virginity.

1 Samuel 15:1-26 Amplified Bible (AMP)

1 Samuel told Saul, The Lord sent me to anoint you king over His people Israel. Now listen and heed the words of the Lord. 2 Thus says the Lord of hosts, I have considered and will punish what Amalek did to Israel, how he set himself against him in the way when [Israel] came out of Egypt. 3 Now go and smite Amalek and utterly destroy all they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and donkey. 4 So Saul assembled the men and numbered them at Telaim—200,000 men on foot and 10,000 men of Judah. 5 And Saul came to the city of Amalek and laid wait in the valley. 6 Saul warned the Kenites, Go, depart, get down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them; for you showed kindness to all the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt. So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites. 7 Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah as far as Shur, which is east of Egypt. 8 And he took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, though he utterly destroyed all the rest of the people with the sword. 9 Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, oxen, fatlings, lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them; but all that was undesirable or worthless they destroyed utterly. 10 Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying, 11 I regret making Saul king, for he has turned back from following Me and has not performed My commands. And Samuel was grieved and angry [with Saul], and he cried to the Lord all night. 12 When Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning, he was told, Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up for himself a monument or trophy [of his victory] and passed on and went down to Gilgal. 13 And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, Blessed are you of the Lord. I have performed what the Lord ordered. 14 And Samuel said, What then means this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? 15 Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, but the rest we have utterly destroyed. 16 Then Samuel said to Saul, Stop! I will tell you what the Lord said to me tonight. Saul said to him, Say on. 17 Samuel said, When you were small in your own sight, were you not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the Lord anointed you king over Israel? 18 And the Lord sent you on a mission and said, Go, utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites; and fight against them until they are consumed

19 Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord, but swooped down upon the plunder and did evil in the Lord’s sight? 20 Saul said to Samuel, Yes, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord and have gone the way which the Lord sent me, and have brought Agag king of Amalek and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. 21 But the people took from the spoil sheep and oxen, the chief of the things to be utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal. 22 Samuel said, Has the Lord as great a delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams 23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as idolatry and teraphim (household good luck images). Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king. 24 And Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned; for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. 25 Now, I pray you, pardon my sin and go back with me, that I may worship the Lord. 26 And Samuel said to Saul, I will not return with you; for you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.

In this story, Saul felt that because he at least partially obeyed God, and then made a sacrifice, that he was doing okay. But like the old gospel song says "99 and a half won’t do." Regarding Amalek, Saul was told by God through Samuel to destroy everything and everybody. So God was not pleased when he kept one guy alive, and kept the best animals.

This is how God feels when people decide that they will avoid vaginal intercourse to preserve virginity and avoid pregnancy, but yet they engage in other forms of intercourse and sexual acts that are still fornication and sin. They are not living pure, and those ungodly soul ties are still being formed. God did not say flee certain sexual sins. He meant all of them.

In 15:12-13, Saul is trying to pat himself on the back and have a trophy and victory party for his partial obedience.

Now days that type of thing happens when people go around bragging that they are still virgins or kept virginity until marriage, and have engaged in all sorts of sexual behaviors that have made them impure. God is not impressed. I have heard at least one person make the statement that she was barely a virgin when she got married. Yet she was still proud that she made it to the wedding night having avoided a few things, but having done everything else.

In 15:14, the prophet of God, Samuel hears the animals that were not killed. God heard them too.

Even if people are fooling their peers, family, church family, etc. by engaging in sexual behaviors while keeping virginity and saying that they are pure, God sees and hears everything. He is omniscient which means all knowing, and omnipresent which means He is everywhere.

When confronted about his incomplete or partial obedience, Saul started pointing out what he did do, and tried to blame some of it on the other guys. Then he tried to make himself and the others look good by talking about a sacrifice they planned with some of the animals. See 15:15 and 15:20-21.

This sounds like people who will try to justify sexual sin by saying what they sacrificed because they stopped short of penetration, or they didn’t do certain types of intercourse, and that they still kept virginity.

But we can see in 15:22-23, a sacrifice means nothing to God when there is only partial obedience. Samuel even told Saul that in God’s eyes rebellion and being stubborn are just as bad as sins like witchcraft, idolatry, and good luck charms. From this we can see that God doesn’t rank sins or place them into categories of big versus little. We can also see that partial obedience is disobedience.

I do want to clarify something about 15:23. While it teaches that rebellion and stubbornness are as bad as witchcraft and idolatry, it does not say they are the same thing. People need to stop quoting this out of context and saying disobedient rebellious people are witches or idolaters, or working witchcraft.

In 15:24 Saul blamed his behavior on fearing people and listening to their voice.

Often times, people who engage in acts like fornication do so because of peer pressure, or because their significant other told them to do something sexual and threatened to break up with him/her. God gives us all a brain and free will. We can’t blame our sins on the influences of others.

Complete purity is not a popular lifestyle, and it will cause us to be persecuted, rejected, ridiculed, and ostracized by most people. It will cost us friends. Most people do not want to date, court, or fellowship with pure folks. However God wants us to sacrifice relationships with carnal people, and not try to please them, and completely obey Him.

As far as relationships, we have to pray for connections with like minded saints who embrace the purity lifestyle, and try to get friends that way. We also have to wait on God to be connected with our future spouse. That person won't mind courting a pure person, because that relationship will be God ordained.

In 15:25-26 we can see just how serious the consequences of sin can be. In this case Saul felt he could go back to business as usual. But Samuel wanted nothing to do with him, and God rejected him from being king.

I’m NOT saying that if someone falls into fornication in some fashion, that they can never amount to anything, or be anything great in ministry and the kingdom. God is a Deliverer. However, while God is able to save, deliver, cleanse, and set free, there often are problems and drama resulting from sexual sins.

So I want to close with this. If you are keeping your virginity until marriage, or have made a new commitment to second chance purity, God wants you to be "all in." Be fully committed. Don’t halfstep. Avoid all intercourse and all sexual contact before marriage. God requires complete obedience.

When you sacrifice sinful pleasures, abstain from all of it until marriage. God will be pleased. It will make your wedding night marriage consummation so much more special. Pre-marital sexual contact cheapens that special moment.

If you have messed up, and fornicated in some way, you can start over if you confess and ask God to forgive you. If you are not saved, and want to make a fresh start and give your life to Jesus, please see the information about the plan of salvation on the homepage of this website.