¶ Sex in the Church
What's going on ? We are live with the youth podcast . My name is Josh Forsberg . I'm here with my good friend .
Juan Rios Jr .
Juan Rios Jr . You can't go wrong with that . What's going on , man ? How we feeling .
Man , I'm doing great . We're real excited about this next episode .
Next episode We got we . The first two episodes were chill , Yeah , easy . I mean they weren't easy . But there's good content , good questions , good stuff . This is a little bit , a little outside the box , a little outside the box , but we're not afraid to talk about real questions . Oh , in this youth podcast .
It's gonna make me want to sing though .
It's gonna make you want to sing . What do you want to sing ? You have to sing it later , but so today , in episode three , we're gonna for the next 30-ish minutes . Under 30 ish minutes 25 30 .
Oh , episode three , three letters . Hey , there you go .
See , we're gonna talk about Just sex in the church . I think this is it . This is a huge topic , this is a huge , i think , problem in our generation and , honestly , it's probably very looked down upon . Conversation in the church right churches .
Don't talk about it , kids don't want to talk about it .
Don't want to talk about it .
anytime they hear it , They're like you know that's gross , but yet they do it . Shut it because we know it , yet They do .
You hear it , we know you see it , we know you're looking for it , and so we're gonna talk about sex . We had a lot of questions , a lot , a lot of questions , and so , if you don't know , for the last few podcasts we've been basically just taking questions from our youth group And we've been answering them .
So , we had a ton of questions about just sex in the church , and so we're gonna hit those today .
That's before marriage sex before marriage .
Just , do I have sex before marriage ? Why can't I ? if I can't , why is that a problem biblically ? And so we're just gonna kind of get into , and that's the first question We're gonna ask is why is premarital sex look down upon ? So why do we look down upon sex before we're married ? You want to . You want to start with that . I've been a little bit .
Let's dive in .
So sex is designed by God for a man and a woman , yeah , to be able to come together , yep , become intimate with one another . Yeah , and reproduce . Kids , yeah and to to grow and build their family . Yeah , i think that's the . The key thing is , like God , created to be a good thing , mm-hmm .
In between a husband and a wife in marriage , in a marriage relationship together .
I mean not before .
It's not like , hey , go and have sex with whomever And then see who your spouse is right , you know . It's like no God designed that one person , for that one person to come together and make three , four , five , six , seven , yep , you know , and that's really the basis , yes , so like , why ? why do we say , like , well , you should wait till marriage ?
Well , because the Bible says you should . Yeah , and and not only that , like , if you call yourself a Christian Right you're my Christian brother , right Yeah . I mean and , and you know , like Miranda's my Christian sister , yep , all right , my wife is my wife , mm-hmm .
So , like you , if I call myself your brother in Christ and we're not married , why would I want to have sex with you ? It kind of gross if you look at it that way .
It is gross if you look at that way . Oh wait a minute .
That's kind of really gross , and it is . That's how it looks upon God when we have sex outside of marriage . That's really good It looks really gross because it's like that's your sister . It's not who I created to be your wife .
Right , that's not who I've asked you to be with . Yeah , that's not who I've made you .
So why don't you trust me ?
Right .
And why don't you let me put that person in your life so that that void could be filled up in full instead of for a season ? And then , all of a sudden , well , this isn't working out , well , i'm just going to go to somebody else , and then it just keeps repeating . That's just not how it's supposed to be .
And I think , and the way you said it was brilliant because it is in the Bible . It said that in one of the things I thought about . scriptually it says a man will leave his mother and his father and go marry a woman . He will leave his parents and he will go and marry and be with And they'll become one .
They'll become one And they will be one together , Yep , And I think what you said there is one out there , And I think people are asking that question too is like how do I know who is for me , How do I find that ?
And we can get into that in another episode , But I think here we're talking about premarital sex And I think one of the things I think is I never had sex before marriage And I'm glad I didn't And here's why I'm glad I didn't is because it's such a beautiful thing now when me and Miranda got married . It's a thing between us and only us .
We've only shared with each other .
It's the only thing we've shared with each other And here's what I've seen , or here's what I know about having sex with multiple other people is is you are attaching yourself to that person emotionally , spiritually , because , if we think about this and we're going to get really into the depths of it , adam and Eve were created not with clothes on .
They were naked , so that was normal .
They were so naked that they didn't even realize they were naked Exactly , it was normal , like right now it's closed .
If I see you walking around with clothes on , cool , if I see a naked person walking the street , we're like what Call 911 . They're not like we're freaking out , but back then , adam and Eve , that's how they were supposed to be . But now we're doing .
What we're doing is when we're having sex with somebody who's not our wife , who's not our husband , we are now seeing them in this most emotional , raw state that no one else is supposed to see them except for their wife . And so now we're attaching ourselves to that person in such a special way .
Whether you're doing a one night stand , whether it's a boyfriend from high school , girlfriend from high school , it doesn't matter You're attaching yourself to this person . Now what you're doing is oh , we break up , i'm not going to see that person anymore . Ok , so now I'm going to go find somebody else .
So now I find somebody else and now I'm going to do the same thing with them . Now you've just attached yourself to that person .
Not only that , though . Imagine having to stand before God to explain what you took of someone that's not yours .
Yeah , that's good .
Yeah , because that's what you're doing is you're taking a part of somebody You are because emotionally you're attaching yourself together .
And what happens ?
you've talked about this You talked about the sticky The sticky .
What is it ? I don't remember what you called it .
You say it Sexist sticky , sexist sticky .
It's true , because when you take two pieces of duct tape , what's the illustration ? You say it because you're not going to do it justice . Sure sure .
So if you take two pieces of duct tape , OK , and you go out and you tell kids like , hey , go out there and see how much dirt you can pick up , with it . And they go out there and pick up rocks , dirt grass , whatever . They try to get it as dirty as possible because they want to win You know what I mean . It's like OK , cool , you won .
Who could get it the dirtiest ? Now go back outside and see who could get it the cleanest . And no matter what they try to do , they still can't get it to the point of where it was . Only God can do that .
You don't know what I'm saying . I want to point that out . Only God can do that for you .
You can do so much If you've had sex and you want to recommit yourself to yourself and to God . It's never too late .
You can't do that .
So if you , but if you grab two clean pieces of tape that God brought together , let no , man be able to tear it apart you can't take it apart without damaging it . So if you keep yourself pure and clean as long as you can , what better gift can you give your spouse on your wedding day ? That's beautiful .
What better gift can you receive ?
But we've made it so today , Society's made it so normal , so even weird , to not have sex Like I don't get it And . I've heard some crazy stuff , right . I've heard like well , if you can't get pregnant , technically it's not sex , right , and I'm like it's excuses that anybody's going to try to find .
If you think of someone in a sexual way , you're sexually sending , The Bible says you might as well go to sleep with them because you're still lost in after them . So it's like in the simple thought of immoral sexual fantasy about somebody is the same as if you want to did it . Yeah , it's true , And God's eyes Right .
And that's just , and I think that's the generation we're living in , because that's one of the things I want to talk about too , because I think this affects it is pornography . Like , let's get into that , because I think premarital sex is kind of caused by pornography . because what happens and this is not just for men I don't want to speak for women .
Women deal with the same thing . But I think what happens is we see what we see in pornography , in websites and all that fun stuff not fun stuff , but all that stuff And then we're like Pam , i want to go .
and now do said stuff Because that's satisfying , that's satisfying me , but it's not satisfying me enough now .
So now I want to go and do it , i'm going to go feel it , and so that's where all this premarital sex now comes is because we're addicted to this behind the scenes And now we're like well , i want to go experiment in the world and see how it actually feels , but then that's just damaging yourself even more because again you're attaching yourself to somebody who
is not of you and who you should not be with .
Well , let's take that a little bit deeper though , josh .
Let's go .
¶ Pornography and Premarital Sex Pressure
You talked about pornography . OK , not only are you watching something that's horrible for you , but you're supporting and encouraging somebody else a producer to put those other people through those things so that he can make a buck . So you're supporting it and supporting that you're buying into it in a couple ways .
So if you're a guy or girl , i don't care who you are , next time I pray that you don't . But if you do catch yourself looking at pornography again , i want you to think about this What if that was my sister ? What if that was my mom ? What if that was my cousin ? What if that was my brother ?
Like it's really wrong , like it's literally a twisted idea of I want to go see what this does or feels like . I could only imagine what it feels like to get shot . I don't want to get shot . I'm not going to go out and be like , hey , shoot me because I want to feel what it feels like . Everybody's always talking about it . No , i'm good .
But I still do wonder , like man , if something was to go through this vest , what would it feel like ? I could imagine what it would feel like , but I don't want to go out and try it .
I actually feel it , yeah , but what happens , though , is that the reason we have that void to be able to try to go to pornography for fulfillment is because we don't have that intimacy with God . So we try to fill it with whatever we can .
So we always think it's always going to be in a relationship with another person or in a relationship with a thing like a car or a boat or a kayak . You know what I mean . Whatever Like no , that void in your heart is the Holy Spirit . That void in you is the Holy Spirit .
It's not that I didn't have a dad growing up , it's that I didn't have Christ in my life . And even now , when I go through depression or anything else like that that I might go through and I tend to get distant from God , i know I am Like , i feel I am . My friends see it and know that I am . They're like dude , you all right , you look like crap .
I'm like no , no , i'm doing fine . They're like OK . And then two days later I'm like hey , josh man , pray for me , man , because I'm really going through one . You know I would much rather a friend call me out and be like dude , what are you doing ?
Right .
Like to me , that's a real friend . If you're trying to keep me from going to hell forever , like you're my guy .
You know what I mean . You're my guy .
If you care enough about me to be like you should have talked to your wife like that .
You know what I mean .
Yo , god's going to ask you why you're talking to your wife like that . You know what I mean . It's like I would much rather have friends like that than friends that are like hey , i know this girl named . Yeah , if you want , i could hook you up And you could , no , no , like . get behind me Satan . like not today . Right .
You know what I mean , and I think let's kind of talk about that . And then there's another segment I want to talk about based on that . But when it comes to premarital sex and when it comes to pornography , it's always pressure . I always find that it's always pressure .
Because you have to live up to .
Yes , because one . It's this world that we're living in . Pornography is everywhere Sure Movies billboards . It's everywhere . And pornography is not just naked people . It could be guys in their shorts and girls are lusting after the body of the chest and the muscles , whatever . For guys it could be oh , there's a swimsuit model over there , or whatever it is .
It doesn't have to be just that , but there's this pressure in that regard . This is everywhere . But then on the sex aspect of it , in school it's just normalized now , like , if you think about it , i don't know about when you were in high school , but even when I was in high school it wasn't really like crazy .
Yeah , you knew that you had to wear a condom if you were going to have sex . But that was it . It wasn't a matter of like , yeah .
But today I feel like so many students are just aware of it Like pressured 2 and 1 half . And I think the age of which you are being open to it is getting lower and lower , and lower Fourth grade right now .
Man , is that what it is ? Fourth grade ? I was going to say like sixth grade , but fourth grade .
So fourth graders I don't know how old you are in fourth grade , You've got to be eight or nine , maybe seven Seven-year-olds are being exposed Not just to sex but just pornography .
One of the things that I've kind of just seen and I'm not going to dive into this is just my tiktok says for some reason just predators And predators are going after like 12-year-olds , Which we're not going to get into . It's sad , But it shows who's being exposed to this And so it shows the world .
But I want to talk about schools , because students are being exposed to this at school , Because there's probably students and probably friends who are watching this . Friends are saying it's OK , Who cares ?
Who cares It's ?
what everybody's doing right now , And so pressure is the new thing . But how do we ?
and you were kind of saying accountability in people And we talked about that a little bit in the last episode But one of the things I found with accountability is it's somebody that can hold you to a higher standard , And that higher standard is I know what God has for you and I want to hold you
¶ Navigating Relationships and Self-Control
to that .
Right , and so what I know is for us .
I know that God has . If I wasn't married , you would hold me to the standard of head and say , hey , bro , god's got that person for you , yeah , yeah . But I am married now , but you would hold me to that standard And for our job as youth leaders .
We want to hold students to the higher standard And it's not that we don't want you to do this , it's that we want you to wait to do it Right .
We want you to wait so you can enjoy it So you can enjoy all of it Exactly , and I'm just a part of it .
And so one of the things I want to talk about because I think this plays a huge role in it is our mind , it is our soul and is our heart , because when we attach ourselves to somebody , that's not us right ? you talked about going with the tape . You can't clean it off all the way , and what I pictured is there's that little residue .
It's no longer really sticky anymore And it's a little residue , and what that is let's take that to our mind aspect real quick is that that is now we have their heart maybe attached to us . So now we break up .
We were once together , but now we break up , and now there's this distance , there's this damage , and anytime you go through a break up , there's less adhesive on there too . Yeah , exactly , and what happens is you are breaking off a part of you . So when you give yourself to somebody and you're in sex you ain't getting it back , you just lost it .
The first time you have sex , you lose your virginity . You are no longer a virgin , so you just lost that title .
So the next person , if you get married , the next person you got to tell them straight up like I'm not a virgin , but I've been with , i've been with somebody , and so now that's something you carry into your marriage Or that's something you carry into your next boyfriend or your next girlfriend , and so let's just talk about that , because I think we get into
our head And that creates , maybe , anxiety . It creates this depression of especially for men and women no one wants me , no one likes me . I can't stay with anybody . No one cares about me . So what are your thoughts ? just about the mind aspect of that .
So , in order not to feed your mind , you have to literally fight your mind , because if you're not feeding it , it's gonna want to get fed , and and if you don't feed it the right things , mm-hmm , it's gonna feed off of the wrong .
Yeah , I mean , you know and what I mean by that is this I came out of the adult entertainment business , you know , as a as a late teenager or whatever , and For me it was , you know , it was Women were like my , just my , my Achilles heel , like that was my downfall .
If anything was gonna make me feel was that and I had been so hurt before by , you know , my ex and everything else that was going on that like I just let myself get Immersed into , like having relationships that weren't meaningful , just to stay busy , right , and that's good .
When I , when I finally decided , when I got saved , and I finally decided , you know what , i'm gonna change this behavior , it came to the point where , even if I saw a young lady , you know Joggin , and I was driving past them , you know , maybe before these , before I got saved , and I mean I look around , i'd be like , okay , i see your job , dog in , you
know , i mean mm-hmm , where . Then I had to like , remind myself like man , that's somebody , sister , like that could be my daughter . You know , i mean like somebody else could be looking at her that way , mm-hmm . And instead of doing that , what I would do is that I would literally pray like God put a hedge of protection around They'll .
Let nobody be able to see her in a negative way . Let her get where she's going safely . You know , i mean , i caught myself praying yeah , more for women than I ever thought I ever could , or would you know ? I mean , i went from having a lot of meaningless Relationships So I got saved and then I went like three years without even dating .
Wow I mean like just overnight , like not even dating . I wasn't interested , i wasn't yeah and at the church I was , you know I was Good-looking back down I had . So you know .
Of course , you know all the single ladies are like oh , praise the Lord , the Lord sent them here , You know Lord's and I was like yeah , i'm not interested , dude , I'm not interested , i'm not interested . And then , uh , one day I met Amanda and I was like I'll never forget it .
Man , the Holy Spirit said this is your perfect counterweight , this is your wife . And I was like I rebuke you in the name of Jesus .
I'm like she's fixed .
She's six foot tall , blonde , like no , i was talking like five four , five , three , you know . Red hair like
¶ Overcoming Sexual Temptation and Redefining Relationships
not . What I ordered , lord , no and I'm Yeah , so it's crazy , but I had to feed my mind in a different way .
I had to feed my flesh in a different way , yeah , and it had to do it spiritually .
So , instead of looking at somebody or taking a second , look like oh wow , nice jeans , you know yeah . I had to really like , oh wow , lord , let nobody else see her that way . Like what let them see her ? for who ?
she is . I mean , it's almost like praying for them too , but what I've learned is praying for also for myself , to retrain my mind . Yeah , that's a retraining process . So , like you said , a predator instead of a predator .
I wanted to be a protector . Then , Yeah , that's good , i mean I literally , i went from a predator mentality to a protectors mentality . And , um , that's how I had to overcome that , that desire that lost . Yeah , like to look .
Yeah , i mean because that's what we're , i think , men I can't speak for one of the men . We're just created that way , i think , and I've never met a guy who who's really like I don't like never dealt with love I never dealt with life . That's not true .
I mean you , at some point we will , and we always will , because it's just in this world that we live in . And for me That's the same thing like I've had to retrain My brain because I've told our youth group but I struggled with pornography for a long time and I practiced that .
We talked about practicing .
I practiced that for so long that it became my mentality to now , if I see a girl walking on the street , to look a little longer like oh .
Right , you said , i guess myself .
But now , when I freed myself from that , I've changed . I've changed my perspective to almost just like . Any time I find myself in that moment , i'm like Lord , help me .
Yeah .
Lord , like don't allow me to get into that . And it's changed my perspective . I no longer really look , i don't watch pornography anymore . Like I really don't allow myself to get into that headspace because I know it's not healthy .
For me Your fulfillment in your life , exactly and my wife is now taking over that space and I don't know , and so I'm not saying watch Pornography until you get married . No , it's bad because , I'll say this is pornography . You feed it , the more hunger exactly , and pornography has affected my marriage .
I'll just be honest , i'm not gonna go into details , but well , no , but your mind thinks it could do the things that aren't real Exactly that's what pornography is .
It's a fantasy .
Yeah , it's a dream And I think if anybody's watching this that deals with pornography or you're having sex with other women or men , is that We've talked about this attachment thing , but it is messing with your mental health Absolutely , and mental health is such a huge problem in 2023 right now , and it's such a thing that no one takes care of .
But I think we need to take care of it And I think it stems . A big part of mental health is pornography and sexual encounters and desires . And I've found myself just rebuking it every day . It is not a one and done over with . It's an everyday because just the generation we're living in .
I think for guys we can get into this , but we don't have a female to talk about it , so we don't need to talk about that side of it . But for men it's like women are dressing more less clothes nowadays .
Let's just put it that way .
I mean , it's not necessarily a bad thing , it's less frowned upon .
It's less frowned upon Casual .
You think back like 100 years ago they wore dresses . But now it's not like that And I think I'm not speaking against that , i'm not saying it's a wrong thing But I think for men , in those regards we have such a visual . So we have to now fight for ourselves .
To be like yo I can't find myself in this space , because it's not healthy , because if I were to act upon whatever it is my mind might be thinking about , it's going to take me down a path that I don't want to be on . So it's just constantly and you will get to a place where it's not that big of a thing .
I think a lot of times maybe women I've had this conversation with my wife as they think we're constantly thinking about those things , but that's not true . You get to a place where . God frees you from it . And you could see a girl in short shorts and a bra or at the beach And you're like , oh , I'm not even fazed by it .
That's just what she's wearing .
We're at the beach , that's what everybody's wearing , like I'm chill , like , and that's for me kind of where I've gotten . But there's still those weak moments with the enemy . He knows that that used to be a trigger for me , so he's going to try to come in and be like yo . But look , and that's when .
I go oh yeah , you're right , i used to deal with that .
You know what ? Father God protect her instead . Yes , exactly , protect my mind . Take the thoughts away .
You know , I think a lot of times you give the devil a lot of credit .
Too much credit .
So like if he does remind me of something . I'm like oh wait , yeah , you're right , i must be doing that right Or hey , you're right .
He was mad at me at that . Father God thanks for forgiving me on that . Like I appreciate it . Good looking out , Exactly , You know . But I think just kind of what we're talking about is just freeing our mind from those things . And we're talking about premarital sex And we kind of covered that .
But I think it's just it's not necessarily you can't have sex because churches have said that And so having an intimate relationship with God is a spiritual experience .
Having a physical relationship with a woman is a physical experience . Okay . So if you're talking about a spiritual experience and a physical experience , let's say you have two pit bulls And you have one chained up over here and one chained up over there . Let's call this one flesh and let's call that one soul .
Okay , if you feed one dog more than the other , that other dog is going to be stronger . That's right . Yeah , that's good . So now you have to choose . do I want to feed my flesh by watching porn , or do I want to not feed my flesh , so it would become weaker , and feed my spiritual dog , so they could become stronger ?
Yeah .
And I mean , if analogies is my thing , and that's the only thing I can really see , but it puts in perspective , if you want to feed your flesh go on and feed your flesh , but your soul , your relationship , your interest in me with God will not and cannot grow in a healthy way If you're feeding your flesh over your soul .
You can't feed both We cannot , you can't feed both to the potential of it fully growing Of both from being healthy .
Right , because you don't have that much food .
You don't have that much time and energy to spare for both , And God doesn't want it to be that hard . That's why He says hey , you know what ?
Keep it in your pants till you get married . He says don't have sex before marriage , because it's not what I intended it for , right , and it's so much better . I have a special gift for you and your wife that I want to give you on your wedding day .
That's really good And I think we're going to . we got a couple minutes left and I want to touch this real quick .
So one of our students , she wrote a very Before we do that , can I say something else ? Yeah , go for it , Just because it just popped into my head and I want to really just having sex with yourself is still having sex . So masturbation , touching , feeling , thinking like satisfying yourself is still not what God had in mind . That's good .
So that was a freebie . That was a bonus question . That was a freebie before we get into this .
Sorry , but we had a student who went through something in her life and so I'm going to read this real quick and just kind of real quick We're going to talk about for the next two minutes . but she said why did that man rape me ? Why did he hurt me when I was nine ? Why do I have my ? why do I hate myself for not telling ? because I was scared .
And so this is one of the girls in our youth group . She wrote her name , but we're going to keep that confidential because we don't want people to know . But just real quick , what are your thoughts about that ? Just with , because I'm sure there's a ton of other people who have gone through the same thing .
A lot , and we may even come back to this question later , and talk more about it in a deeper way . I think a couple of things pop into mind real quick . Is that for one you were nine years old , so you're not responsible for ?
somebody else's actions At nine . You shouldn't know it better , Yeah , so at nine .
I'm sorry that that happened to you at any age . I'm sorry that it would happen to you . But at nine years old you know there's nothing that we can do that would make the other person think that it's okay or it's invited or it's wanted . So that in itself , like I really hope that you could realize that and not take that guilt and shame upon yourself .
The pain is real because it really did happen . I mean you really are going through that And I would definitely say from experience , you have to get professional help And you have to talk about it . As far as why didn't you say something to anybody ? You might have not had a safe person to say it to .
Or the person might have convinced you .
Right , or you might have felt right , and they're scared . So , like , i think that now that God's reminding you of this , i think that now is a matter of time for you to look at it as far as , like , okay , now that I'm ready to process it well , i'm ready to stand up to it or deal with it . Now what's the next steps ?
And that's something that I would love to be able to help anybody through . There's a lot of hotlines you can call these days . There's also a lot of people you can talk to . I went through that experience as a child to like the age of three and six , as far as somebody less than me .
So I know what that feels like And I know what it's cost me to get out of it . The more I suppress it and the more I wait it to deal with it , the harder it's been to overcome .
But , yeah , i would say , if that ever happened to you or you know anybody that happened to you , i would definitely say speak up for them , Talk to them first and say , hey , listen , you know , i really feel like you need help .
I'm going to let counselors so and so know at school , or the principal or the teacher or whatever , and try to get them to help that they need , but definitely let them know that you're doing it because you could make the situation harder .
I'm going to say this just real quick before we end this one . But there's just a lot of people out there in the world . They are .
They fed the wrong dog too long . They fed the flesh way too long .
And I think we see it as just people go through stuff and then they hurt people , hurt people And that's a saying in church that we use all the time If you really hurt yourself , that's all you know .
You're going to hurt people , so you know , it's natural .
It's normal for you , yeah , and it's sad that that's what you had to go through . It's sad that that's what you had to deal with because that is not the story God has for you , and to end it on a light or no , god has so much more for you .
And if you've ever dealt , with anything like that .
God wants the best for you And for you to get there , you have to free yourself from what you went through yourself , and it's going to take time counseling , prayer , spending time with God , being at church , being around people who love you and care about you , that you can talk with it through , and so if you're dealing with something like that , man , we just
encourage you to find those people you can talk to . Don't suppress it . There's nothing worse that you can do than suppress what you're going through , and so we're just so glad , maybe , that you just listened to this , and we hope it encourages you . We don't know where this podcast is going .
Our testimonies come out of many tests and many monies . That is true , You know , And God will get glory out of it later on . I mean , it's hard to hear right now , But once you process it and you deal with it .
there's so many kids that I've been able to talk to now that I've gone through and they've gone through the same thing that I'm like Lord , if I had to go through that again . just reach this kid to let him know that it's going to be OK . It just feels so much better on this side .
It's good . Well , thank you for joining us for this episode three podcast Like share . share with your friends and we will see you next time .
Next time Bye .