Impart a Biblical View of Human Sexuality

The Exhortation: Imparting a Biblical View of Human Sexuality

0:01 How not to foul up the training of your children. This is cassette number 39 in a series given by Pastor Albert N. Martin in the adult Sunday school class of the Trinity Baptist Church on December 29, 1991. This fifth and final of the miscellaneous exhortations is as follows.

0:24 Do not fail to impart to your children a biblical view of human sexuality. And I labored long over the wording of the heading, and though I'm not altogether satisfied with what I'm presenting, a moment of truth comes when one must put something down on paper as the hours draw near to teach, and this is the best I've been able to do. Do not fail to impart to your children a biblical view of human sexuality. Now in opening up this very critical and crucially important subject, let me first.

Defining 'Human Sexuality' and 'Biblical View'

1:01 First of all, explain the meaning of the key words in the exhortation. Why did I settle upon these words as opposed to many others? Well, the concern is first of all with human sexuality. This is why I did not use the term sex education, because for the most part those words are restricted to the biological, physiological distinctions and functions of the primary sexual organs of men and women.

1:31 of men and women. of men and women. of men and women. And our responsibility goes far beyond that which can be learned in a biology or physiology or anatomy book.

1:44 Rather, the concern is that we impart to our children a concept of masculinity and femininity, which though it includes the distinctions of primary sexual organs and their functions in marriage, is not a concept of masculinity. It goes far beyond that which is encompassed by an anatomy chart. The scripture confronts us in Genesis chapter 1 with God's creative activity, and from the very beginning, maleness and femaleness are part and parcel of human existence.

2:25 And God said, let us make man after our image, after our likeness, and God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female, created he them. So there is no such thing as innocuous, neutered personhood. A person who says, well, I don't want to be thought of as a man or a woman, just a person, is trying to conceive of himself or herself, and wants others to conceive of him in a way that can only be done by rejecting the very biblical doctrine of creation.

3:08 So we are concerned with human sexuality, imparting to our children a biblical view of something that goes far beyond identifying and properly naming and understanding the functions of the primary sexual organs in males and females. We are concerned with the broader biblical concept of maleness and femaleness. We are concerned with human sexuality in that broader sense. And further, our concern is with human sexuality.

3:41 One of the greatest curses that has come as the inevitable fruit of the heresy of God denying evolutionary views of the origin of man is that by observing the sexual activities of animals, we can learn something about what is right and wrong and normal and abnormal, in human sexuality. And that is an assumption in the entire intellectual world in our day as it touches upon sexuality. But we are concerned with human sexuality, that is, with the sexuality of creatures that are not just on the highest end of the scale of God's creatures,

4:25 but are of a totally, radically different kind from all of the other creatures. The chimpanzee. "... from man than you and I are removed from a worm."

4:44 A totally different level of existence. Only man was made in the image of God. And rather than it being a sign of advanced understanding that men would learn something from the patterns of animals according to 2 Peter 2, 9 to 12, when men descend to the level of the beasts, it is an indication of their declension and their depravity, and their apology to men. apostasy from God. For in 2 Peter 2, 9 to 12, it speaks of people who act as mere brute beasts.

5:22 And when people descend to the level of animals, moving by nothing but instincts, smells, and urges, they have become animals and have degraded themselves in the image bearers of God. So I'm concerned to capture in the very exhortation that we are dealing with human sexuality. And thirdly, in these words, I'm concerned that we have as our goal imparting a biblical view of human sexuality. Not a view that reflects either our personal hang-ups, our personal deviations, our personal misconceptions, our cultural or our traditional

6:07 absorbed perspectives, but a view that has been hammered out upon the anvil of the word of God. So that what we impart to our children is indeed a biblical view of human sexuality, which is only to say in different words, God's own interpretation of our sexuality and God's limitations and proscriptions with respect to the functions of human sexuality. The God who made us and designed us sexual beings has himself told us how we are to function

6:46 as sexual beings. And therefore it is the biblical view that we must be concerned to impart. And man left to himself with regard to the mystery of his sexuality and the expressions of it in the more limited sense of his sexual activity either goes to the extreme of asceticism on the one hand, or hedonism on the other hand. And in asceticism man tries to batter down the expressions of his sexuality. He will either view his sexuality as essentially evil in its

7:22 manifestation of sexual urges and appetites and activities, and therefore to attain the higher life a man must, a woman must beat down these expressions of sexuality. And throughout the history of the world on the one hand, On the one hand, man has abused his identity as a sexual being, reflecting the image of God, by the errors of asceticism, or he's gone clean through the median point into hedonism.

7:51 And today we live, of course, in a sexually hedonistic age that would give the impression to the rising generation that the end of all life is to go to the outer reaches of the high static experiences of sexual titillation and the enjoyment of one's sexual expressions. We must be concerned that we impart neither a kind of hedonism merely sprinkled with some biblical phrases borrowed here and there, to justify it, or, and this is filtered even into the Christian church, and books are being cranked out by Christian publishing houses that reflect the hedonism of our day,

8:36 in which one would get the impression that the highest goal of life is to attain the ultimate of sexual pleasure. Well, when I say, do not fail to impart to your children a biblical view of human sexuality, this is what I'm talking about. That's why I chose...

Parental Duty and Privilege: Scriptural Basis

8:54 Those specific words. All right? Having laid out what I mean by the use of the words, secondly, I want to establish from the scriptures that the education of our children in a distinctively biblical view of human sexuality is primarily a parental duty and privilege. It is primarily a parental duty and privilege.

9:20 And as I said last week, you'll forgive me if I stick closely to my notes. The more brief I have to be, the more I must stick to my notes. And I do want to get through this material and not allow myself the luxury of taking off and preaching under these various headings. Now, the church is responsible to teach the whole counsel of God.

9:40 I think we all believe that, and I hope we're committed to it. In Acts 20, 26, Paul said, I take you to record I'm pure from the blood of all men, for I have not shunned to declare unto you the whole counsel of God. We are told in Matthew 4, 4, Jesus quoting from Deuteronomy, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Furthermore, 2 Timothy 3, 16 tells us that all scripture is not only inspired of God, but is profitable.

10:14 Profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, instruction in righteousness. And therefore, in the regular consecutive reading of the Word of God, we are told that we are not only inspired of God, but we are also inspired of God. In our regular consecutive preaching through large sections of scripture, books, or major subjects, we do not shrink from matters of sexual issues when they are naturally introduced into the assembly of God's people by the contact that we naturally have with the Word of God. And our basis for that is firmly rooted not only in the text, that I've quoted, but in the example that we have from the Old Covenant community.

10:59 In Deuteronomy 31, 9-13, God gave this clear direction to his ancient people. Moses wrote this law and delivered it unto the priests, the sons of Levi, that bear the ark of the covenant of Jehovah, and to all the elders of Israel. Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the set time of the year of release, in the Feast of Tabernacles, when all Israel is come to appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing.

11:41 Assemble the people, the men, the women, and the little ones, and thy sojourner that is within thy gates, that they may hear, so little ones who are old enough to hear, and that they may learn and fear Jehovah your God, and observe to do all the words of this law, and that their children who have not known may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God as long as you live in the land whither you go in to possess it. So every seven years, the book of the law was to be read in the hearing of the entire congregation, the only possible exception being the aged and infirm,

12:25 who could not go to the place of God's special dwelling, and perhaps little infants in arms. But all others, including young children, were to hear the whole of the book of the law. Will you turn back a couple of chapters with me, please, to chapter 27, and this is what some little kids would hear read.

12:46 Chapter 27, and look at verses 20 through 23. Among the many things that were in the book of the law, little children would hear this. Cursed be he that lieth with his father's wife, because he has uncovered his father's skirt, and the people shall say, Amen. Cursed be he that lieth with any manner of beast, and all the people shall say, Amen.

13:14 Cursed be he that lieth with his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother, and all the people shall say, Amen. And little kids would go home to their tents with their daddies and mummies and say, When the elders read, The book of the law, mummy, what did it mean when it said, Cursed be he that lieth with any manner of beast? Mum and dad would have to explain to their children in due course, appropriate to their level of understanding and inquiry, the law of God that forbade the sithiality.

13:50 Now you see, I read this so that the fastidiousness that shrinks from any word of God being read in the hearing of the gathered people of God may wither. Before the sheer weight of the biblical evidence that we must never be more fastidious than God. We must never. And when I say that the education of our children in a distinctively biblical view of human sexuality is primarily a parental duty and privilege, I do not say that because I believe in any way that any facet of God's word is not appropriate to be read and even expounded in the presence of God's people.

14:32 He said that past history validates it when preaching through 1 Thessalonians and we came to chapter 4 verses 1 to 8 dealing with fornication, we didn't skip over it. When we come to 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and 7 in our consecutive reading, we don't mumble in our beards and mustaches and slip over it. No, we're prepared to let God's word speak. And when we want to illustrate the resistance to sexual temptation, we take the example, Joseph with Potiphar's wife.

15:08 When we want to show the tragedy of adultery, we take 2 Samuel 11 and show David's horrible sin with Bathsheba. When we want to show the wickedness of rape and of incest, we show from the passage where Amnon lusts after his half-sister Tamar until he conquers her and then he despises and hates her. And we are unashamed to say this is the word of God. However, however, the great, the great burden of this responsibility does not rest upon the church, nor does it rest upon the school if we are in a collected school situation, whether public or private, Christian or non-Christian.

Four Biblical Lines of Evidence for Parental Responsibility

15:50 But this is primarily a parental duty and privilege. And I rest that down upon four very clear lines of biblical evidence. And I'll run over them quickly. Number one, the principle of Deuteronomy 6, 6 to 9.

16:06 We've considered that passage many times in the course of this study. That God says to parents, you shall speak of them when you walk in the way. You shall speak of them to your children. When you rise up and when you lie down and you shall place my words upon the doorpost of your house.

16:25 Here is the responsibility of parents, their children in all the words of God. Then there is secondly the principle of imitation. Philippians 4, 9. Paul could say, the things you have both seen and heard and learned in me do and the God of peace shall be with you.

16:47 Let me check that reference. I'm not sure if that's the...

16:50 Yes, it is the right reference. 480 is whatsoever things are lovely. It is the right reference. There's the whole principle of imitation where you have the children in the climate of your home so that they may, as it were, absorb the vibrations that you send out, with regard to your own sexuality and the opportunity to instruct them verbally.

17:13 And then thirdly, there is the reality of the intimacy between parent and child that makes it discreet to go into far more details in the context of parental intimacy than would be appropriate and judicious in the mixed assembly of God's people. While we are unembarrassed to read anything that's in the scriptures, we are not...

17:37 We are not going to turn the pulpit into a biology lecture room or an anatomical lecture room, nor are we going to turn it into a lecture room on practical means to avoid the sin of masturbation. But woe be unto the parent that does not impart these things to his child. In that intimacy of the parent-child relationship, there is a framework where it is not indiscreet to address these things in specific, specific ways. And then there is, of course, the implication of Ephesians 6.4.

18:13 Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but nurture them. And if we're nurturing the whole child, what is that nurture if it omits the instruction by verbal communication, by reinforcement with the rod where necessary of the dimensions of their sexuality? No little part of what they are as children is involved. Or is bound up in their sexuality.

18:40 And therefore Ephesians 6.4, by direct implication, lays this duty upon us as parents. So the clear principles of Deuteronomy 6, the principle of imitation, the reality of the natural intimacy of the parent-child relationship, the implications of Ephesians 6.4, I trust convince your conscience that the education of our children in a distinctively biblical view, the view of human sexuality is primarily a parental duty and privilege.

How to Impart Education: Implicit and Explicit Methods

19:13 And it must not be pushed off on the church. It must not be expected of the school. And we must not part it in a valueless contact with the world. Now then, having explained the meaning of my words in the exhortation, having tried to set out the fact that it's a parental duty and privilege, thirdly, the question, how is this education of our children in a distinctively biblical view of human sexuality to be administered or imparted?

19:47 How are we to do it? Well, let me suggest that the answer to that question falls into two categories. There is the implicit or absorbed education of personal example, and then secondly, there is the explicit or formal education by verbal instruction. So those are the two categories.

20:08 In answer to the question, how are we to educate our children concerning a distinctively biblical view of human sexuality, I answer in two basic ways. By the implicit or absorbed education of personal example, and by the explicit or formal education of verbal instruction. Now let me try to open those things up for a few moments each. Now under that first heading, I'm attempting to describe that education imparted by your own perspectives, attitudes, and actions as a Christian couple. Just as your children absorb your practical working

Implicit Education: Personal Example and Prerequisites

20:50 theology concerning the dignity and nobility of work, the sanctity of the Lord's day, the necessity of good manners and proper social decorum or the absence of the same, courtesy, attitudes to money and things. Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, you are teaching your children all the time by your perspectives as they come to light in your specific actions. And your children are absorbing those perspectives. Now if they are biblical, whether they embrace them from the heart and obey them is quite another thing. For the carnal mind is enmity against God.

21:32 It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. But nonetheless, we are responsible. Under God to create a climate by our own embracing of a biblical, distinctively biblical

21:49 view of our own sexuality that there will be a framework of absorption that by degrees will lead our children to a distinctively biblical view. Now if this aspect of our teaching

22:05 is indeed to be biblical, what are the prerequisites? The prerequisites are that we are free from material immorality. Moreover, we have a natural responsibility to understand this. We just Well, I would say there are two. Number one, we ourselves must have a scriptural understanding and unreserved acceptance of our own sexuality. We must have a scriptural understanding and unreserved acceptance of our own sexuality.

22:26 Are you thinking biblically about maleness and femaleness? Are you comfortable with the biblical teaching on the sanctity of the sexual act? Are you determined to keep yourself from the world's cheapening, tawdry view of sex and sexual practices? Do you have a scriptural understanding of your own human sexuality? I would suggest, if you're not sure of the answer to that question,

22:58 that you get tape number four in the premarital counseling tapes and listen to it. It's the tape that deals with the subject of the sexual relationship in marriage. And in it, I have tried to set forth, in brief, a biblical theology of human sexuality by which you may assess your own perspectives. I would highly recommend the two books by Betty Elliott, The Mark of a Man and Let Me Be a Woman, where she deals with the matter of explicit...

23:28 ...explicit sexual perspectives within the broader context of the sexuality of male and female.

23:36 Let me be a woman. Let me be what I am as a woman in my sexual identity as a woman. And in that, she gives some very helpful practical counsel to her daughter as to what will be involved in being a good wife to her husband in the actual, more limited, sexual intimacy. And likewise, with her...

23:58 ...her book, Let the Mark of a Man, she's writing to a nephew of hers.

24:02 And in that intimate relationship of a nephew and his godly aunt, she is speaking of the identity of godly maleness. And she does address the specific issue of sexual experience within that more broad framework. And I highly recommend those books because unless we ourselves have a scriptural understanding and unreserved acceptance of our own sexuality, it's identity, it's limitations, it's legitimate expressions, it's out-of-bounds, out-of-limit prohibitions. There is no way we can create a climate in which our children will absorb a biblical perspective.

24:43 But then secondly, we must seek to manifest this scriptural understanding in appropriate ways before our children. We must seek to manifest this scriptural understanding in appropriate ways before our children. I pity the children who grow up in a home where mom and dad are not touchy. You know what I mean by touchy?

25:06 Where dad is never seen naturally put his arm around his wife.

25:11 Where mom is never seen to naturally walk by her husband and tussle his hair or put her arm on his shoulder. Where mom and dad can sit on the couch and don't naturally hold hands or put their arms around one another. And then the kids get old enough to realize mom and dad had to do something more than I ever see them do for me to get here. And they get the notion that sex is something only to be expressed in the intimacy of the bedroom.

25:37 That attraction, and warmth, and something less than indiscreet expressions of physical intimacy are certainly warranted in the ordinary interaction between a husband and a wife. See their dads ogling at the ads on the TV program rather than when something lecturist comes on an ad. intrudes itself into a program, immediately turns it off, turns it away. You're teaching that boy that it's all right to ogle so long as you don't touch.

26:13 This is what I'm talking about. Manifesting a scriptural understanding in appropriate ways before your children. When they ask a question of a sexual nature, you don't get red and stutter and stammer and say it's time to go to the grocery store. But you accept it in a very natural way. Why?

26:34 Because you're not uncomfortable with your sexuality. You're not embarrassed about it. You're not ashamed of it. You've embraced it, and therefore, when questions are raised that bring you into the orbit of interacting with your children, you're not any more nervous about that than if your daughter should ask you a question that had to do with why you're putting a cake together the way you are.

26:54 You have no reason to be embarrassed if you're putting the flour in at this point and the eggs at this point and the baking soda at that point. You don't get flustered and embarrassed. Why? You accept your role and function.

27:04 As a cooker of cakes. Well, when you accept your role and function in sexual identity, you're not going to stutter and stammer and get all red and wish the Lord would come before you have to answer the question. No, when you understand Hebrews 13, 4, marriage is honorable in all and the ped unbefiled, but whoremongers and adulterers or unclean, pornea, that is, those who are involved in sexual uncleanness, of any kind, and adulterers, God will judge. Well, that simple statement is the meat and taters of your understanding.

27:42 The positive marriage is honorable in all and the ped unbefiled. God is as pleased when a husband and wife are engaged in their sexual intimacy under his eyes when they're on their knees praying. If your heart doesn't say amen to that, you've got something wrong with your thinking. And that will come out some way or other in a distorted perspective in your children.

28:05 So that's... That's the prerequisite.

28:07 Make sure that you yourself have a biblical understanding and have accepted from the heart of your own sexuality and seek to manifest that in appropriate ways before your children. And though they were of a Victorian, prudish generation in many ways, I'm so thankful God gave my mother and dad good sense about the practical sex education that comes when you're second oldest of a family of ten. I saw my mother's tummy get big many times. I was second oldest.

28:38 And one of the happiest memories I have is the first time she let me feel a baby kicking through her dress when one of them was doing his gymnastics in there and said, Son, feel this. And what a thrill it was to say, Is that an elbow? That a knee? What do you think it is, Mom?

28:53 And that was a precious memory. So that the whole process of reproduction and seeing a child looking half drunk with milk drooling out of his side of his mouth or her side of her mouth because there were four girls in a row, there at one point, and I wondered if I'd ever have another brother. And seeing a plump breast bringing satisfaction to a child helped to immunize me against this fixation of a playboy mentality with a woman's breast. I saw it as a blessed organ given by God to nourish a little one.

29:26 And my mother discreetly would nurse her children around the children, though outsiders, she would, as some of you mothers do, very discreetly throw a diaper over and modestly nurse. I saw her child in a way that was appropriate. Well, I say those things just to let you know that at this stage in my life, at age almost 58, looking back, those memories did indeed form part of the instruction in human sexuality. And I urge you, as parents before God, to make sure that in this indirect, absorbed educational dimension, that you do indeed impart a biblical view.

Explicit Education: Four Characteristics of Instruction

30:06 But then there is another thing. the explicit or formal education by verbal instruction. Now, in attempting to set out a framework for this aspect of our duty and privilege, I have four basic headings. This instruction should be, and then I've got four sub-headings, all right?

30:25 Number one, it should be clearly biblical. Take your kids to Genesis 1. Show them that sexuality is God's invention, not the devil's, nor the chance happening in the process of evolution. Take them to Genesis 2 and show the creation account ending with Adam and Eve in total nakedness, as husband and wife, and not ashamed.

30:51 I found that's the quickest way to flush out unbiblical perspectives on human sexuality with people. I take them to Genesis 2, and I say, I want you to look at that verse. They were both naked, and they were not ashamed. That's where the creation account ends.

31:06 God has brought the man to the woman, and he has said, this is now bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. I say, now, can you picture God looking down on Adam and Eve, as husband and wife, in total nakedness, and God smiling and saying, that's good? That's the way the creation account ends. And it says, God beheld all that he, and it was good, not tolerable, in order to propagate the Adamic race, but it was good.

31:35 What he had designed and created. And he smiled, and he said, that's good. Well, you must make your children familiar with those passages. Make them familiar with Proverbs 5, Proverbs 7, 1 Corinthians 7, 1 Thessalonians 4.

31:54 That's the positive instruction. But make them familiar with 1 Corinthians 6.

32:00 Whoremongers and adulterers, God is going to judge. Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor idolaters, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men. And you warn them. What to do?

32:13 And people want to play with their privates, whether playmates of the same sex or the opposite sex. And as they get older, you give them the warnings. You take them to 2 Samuel 11 and show them that a mature man of God, when he looks where he shouldn't look, at a time when he shouldn't be looking, can end up cutting himself off at the knees and go down to his grave, only a shadow of the man that he formerly was. And that's what happened to David.

32:39 Make your instruction clearly biblical, so that your kids, when they hear the Bible, is against sex. I heard it just the other day on a talk program on the radio, driving somewhere when I wasn't listening to a sermon, which I normally do, and the same old caricature that the biblical view that is anti-sex. What nonsense. Well, how are your kids going to be immunized against that, unless they've seen with their own eyes and heard with their own ears the full-org, wholesome, down-to-earth approach to human sexuality contained in the Bible?

33:13 So let it be clearly. Secondly, it should be generally occasional. It should be generally occasional. That is, it ought to be triggered by the thousand different circumstances that can't be put on the chart.

33:28 That's why everything in me rises up and wants to scream and holler and stomp and spit and everything else when I read the experts saying at age three children should be told this. At age five, what nonsense. Your children aren't little blocks of grammar. Or blocks of wood that can be programmed with a computer.

33:51 For example, if a child is two to three years old and another baby's coming along, he's old enough to start inquiring. We're going to have a baby? Yes. Oh, fine.

34:04 But then he begins to notice that mommy's dresses are getting tight. And then she starts wearing maternity clothes. And he begins to ask the question, is there any connection between we're going to have a baby and our mommy looking so fat? One of my nephews one time came in and saw his mother about eight months pregnant.

34:18 And he said to her, mommy, he says, your head got turned all the way around the wrong way. His little mind, nothing should be that big, but the backside. He said, mommy, who turned your head all the way around the wrong way? He was serious.

34:33 What a wonderful opportunity for her to naturally say no. My head didn't get turned all the way around. That's me and my head's the right way. But that's your little brother or your sister.

34:43 Now, it may not be necessary. Where a child is in comfort. To even introduce that to a kid at age three or two. You see, there are so many different variables.

34:52 I use. That is one illustration. The child. Some are content when they ask where the babies come from.

34:59 Mom, stop it. How does the baby get started? God has a way for the daddy to plant a seed. Fine.

35:05 Some kids, maybe years before they ask, how does the seed get planted? Now, when that question comes, now, you know, it's time to start sitting down with an anatomy chart and with the Bible and explaining those things. But you can't predict that one kid's going to ask it at three and another is going to ask it at five. So it should be okay.

35:23 You know, by those unpredictables, when a girl is begin beginning to sprout, that's the term I use. It's a euphemism I use when the girls begin to develop into young women and they begin to accumulate fat cells on their hips and they begin to develop breasts. Well, you know that they're coming into puberty. God is preparing them for motherhood.

35:45 Well, what a tragedy for any girl to have her first period, not to have had a mother sit down and explain to her the mystery and the wonder. I know someone in close relationship to me that when her first period came, she was so shocked and ashamed, she went and burned her pajamas. What a grievous thing, especially in a Christian home.

36:12 No, this is the occasion when a young man begins to voice the kids to crack. And you know that something's happening here in the Larenz. And he's going to go from being a boy soprano to a tenor or a baritone. And the signs are that they're not as easily discernible as they may be.

36:26 And a young woman, but he's going to move from being a boy to a man. What a horrible thing for him to have his first wet dream and not know what's happened to him. Because parents did not tell him that there were marvelous changes going on in his body, ordained by God, that he might someday be a father. And as his body is beginning to come into that capacity, certain things are going to happen.

36:50 And God is producing thousands upon thousands of little wiggly tailed sperm in his body. And show me. On an anatomy chart where it's being created. And that that is to be reserved until the time when he's brought into the joys and responsibilities of marriage.

37:08 But meanwhile, God has made a safety valve. Whereby all that sperm doesn't just keep accumulating and accumulating. And you explain those things. Occasioned by the son coming into puberty.

37:20 When the son or daughter starts dating. Now you've got to begin to instruct them more fully on how God has made them. That there's no...

37:28 Stop button. On sexual arousal. Once you start...

37:37 Many a kid ends up involved in heavy petting and fornication. Not because they set themselves to do it. But because they didn't have parents that explained to them. Once you start lighting the fires with hugging, kissing, fondling.

37:54 There's no stop. That's when you explain those things. And then when it's coming to the threshold of marriage. That's when a mother sits down with her daughter.

38:04 And goes into the nitty gritty. X-rated. But sanctified by the presence of God. The intimacy of what's involved in being deflowered.

38:14 If hopefully she's a virgin.

38:17 Of what's involved in being an adequate, responsive. 1 Corinthians 7. Wife to her husband. What a tragedy.

38:26 When I have to do this as a pastor. And my wife has to do it as a pastor's wife.

38:32 That's your privilege. As parents. It's your responsibility. To explain to a son.

38:39 How a woman is put together. In many ways. In which her whole sexuality differs. In response to a man's.

38:48 What's involved in dwelling with a wife. According to knowledge. This is what I mean. It should not only be clearly biblical.

38:54 But generally occasional. Occasioned by the specific circumstances. In the intimate tailor made relationship. Between a parent and his child.

39:05 Or her child. But then thirdly. It should be wisely proportionate. I've already hinted at this.

39:13 But I want to make it a definite heading. It should be wisely proportionate. No fixed age. No fixed circumstances.

39:19 No fixed pattern.

39:23 You proportion the amount of information. According to all variables. And you need to pray to God for wisdom. Yes we'd all like to have a manual.

39:31 That has it all laid out. I know. Because then we wouldn't have to live in the scriptures. In dependence upon the Holy Spirit.

39:39 And make sure we're keeping. The kind of ordinary close open communication. With our children. That'll make it easy and natural.

39:46 To talk about sexual things. And that is the great litmus test. With many parents. Of the weak bonds of general communication.

39:54 They have with their kids. When it comes to talk about the intimate issues of sexuality. They can't do it. Why?

40:00 Because they have a very delicate. Inadequate framework of general communication. If you aren't talking about a lot of things in general. Frequently.

40:09 You're not going to talk. With ease. About these intimate things. Particularly.

Explicit Education: Technical Accuracy and Parental Prerequisites

40:15 But then fourthly. It should be technically or biologically accurate. It should be technically or biologically accurate. Now I'm not saying.

40:24 That in our ordinary conversation. We can't use euphemisms. You know what a euphemism is? That's a terminology.

40:30 That you know what it means. But it states it. In a way that's not so blunt and crass. And euphemisms are part of the expression.

40:38 Of social decorum. If someone visits the church. And has to relieve himself or herself biologically. They don't talk in biological terms.

40:49 They say where are the bathrooms? Now we know exactly what they're asking for and why. But it's socially discreet. To use the euphemism.

40:58 Where is the bathroom? They're not going to a room to take a bath.

41:03 The very term bathroom is a euphemism. For a place where there are toilets. To take care of the processes of bodily elimination. And we live in a day that thinks any euphemism.

41:15 Is an individual. Is an indication of prudery. That's nonsense. The absence of euphemism.

41:19 Is an indication of boorish animal-like insensitivity. The Bible is full of euphemisms. So I'm not saying we can't use euphemisms. In our ordinary interaction with our children.

41:33 The Bible is not prudish. But it contains euphemisms. But when we sit down to explain the specifics. In these various ways that I've outlined.

41:43 Then we should be sure that we are technically. And biologically. Accurate. Yes, we speak it to the kids.

41:50 And say that no one. You should never allow anyone to touch your private parts. And that's proper to use that. But they ought to know the proper biological.

41:58 Anatomical names for their private parts. So that in no way. When they are confronted with these things. Are they suddenly shaken.

42:06 That when mom and dad use these terms. Maybe they didn't get it to me straight.

42:11 And God have mercy. If your kids pick these things up in the gutter. And I guess I feel this very keenly. Because I could take you to this day.

42:20 Though it's been 43, 44 years. No more than that. 12 years old. So 12 from 58.

42:29 That's 42 years, right? No, 46 years. 46 years. I could take you to the spot in Stanford, Connecticut.

42:38 Where some kid told me. What my mom and dad had to do. To get me started in mommy's tummy. And I was ready to go home.

42:45 And mash my father in the face.

42:51 46 years later. I can relive the emotions. I have mercy. If your kids.

42:57 Subjected to that. Because you wouldn't get over your own hang-ups. Or you wouldn't establish intimacy with your kids. That makes it natural for you to tell them.

43:06 How babies get started. And tell them in a climate. Where your own relationship to your wife. And to your husband.

43:15 Is such. That it's a noble and precious thing. Where you're all oddly guarded from any lusting. God have mercy.

43:25 On the boy that can't look back. And say I had a dad. Who never had eyes for any woman. But mom.

43:31 I thank God I can say that of my father. And I thank God my father. When I was going away at age 14. To a summer camp.

43:38 He took me for a walk. He must have been queuing up his courage for weeks to do it. And he was warning me. About how homosexuals go after young boys.

43:48 And he had seen it in the Salvation Army. And I was going to work in the Salvation Army camp. And I'll never forget how shocked I was. When dad used the very language I'd heard in the streets.

43:58 And he warned me. I tell you if any man had ever. Come near me and touched my knee. Put his hand on my thigh.

44:05 I would have brought my knee up where he would remember. I thank God for my father. He set me aside and saying son. And he spoke to me.

44:15 And I blessed God for it. So I thank God for it. Are your sons going to rise up and do that? Well it stuck with my dad.

44:23 Because it was claimed there was only one woman in his eyes. And the thought that any man would ever approach him was repulsive.

44:32 God grant. That we shall do the same with our children. Now if we're going to do this. Give this explicit, occasional, proportionate, biologically accurate instruction.

Prerequisites for Explicit Instruction and Available Tools

44:43 What are the prerequisites in us? Well I've already hinted at the one. We must have good lines of communication. Previously established.

44:52 In an excellent article. Under the, in the title The Big Umbrella by Jay Adams. Which is a collection of various lectures and essays that he has given over the years. He has a chapter on parental sex education.

45:06 And he says. If you're going to teach your child about sex. You must be first on teaching terms with him. You must know the prerequisites for effective teaching.

45:15 You must be able to establish and maintain good communication with your child. You can't teach him about sex or any other subject for that matter. Without such communication. In speaking about sexual things.

45:27 If you don't have good communication. You're going to find he's likely to become embarrassed. Clam up. Blow up.

45:32 Or simply refuse to talk to you. Perhaps some of you have already discovered. So our first question tonight must be. How can we establish good lines of communication?

45:43 Two-thirds of the article has to do not with explicit sexual education. But how to establish good communication with your kids that will make it possible. Secondly. You must have an accurate knowledge of human sexuality.

45:56 You must have an accurate knowledge of human sexuality. How can you impart what you don't know? How can you impart with conviction that which you don't believe? And that which you have not embraced.

46:07 For yourself. And so there must be an accurate knowledge of human sexuality. And thirdly. A readiness to use available tools.

46:15 There are some good books. I've mentioned several of them. There are some good tapes. Now not everything that has a Christian publisher's name on it is good in this area.

46:25 Some of it is semi. Some of it downright pornographic. We have reviewed books for the Trinity Christian Book Service. That no Christian book publishing house had any right.

46:37 Ever cranking out of its presence. Showing pictures of frontal nudity.

46:44 Absolutely inexcusable. I wish the little book soon as these babies were still in print. I'm agitating to see if we can get it back in print. It's the finest little primer I know.

46:55 When kids begin to ask the question. They're not satisfied to know that the baby comes from mommy's tummy. And God has a way that the daddy plants a seed. Margaret Clarkson.

47:05 A godly, biblically sound and theologically sound. Woman who taught Christian school for years. Her book Susie's Babies is an account of what she did with her fourth grade class. When she had their little hamster Susie bred and for 10 minutes a day.

47:21 She answered questions that the kids asked about reproduction. And it's a marvelous treatment of primer on human sexuality. Well, we've got about three minutes and you probably got about 30 questions. But maybe we have time to take one or two.

Addressing Special Cases and Concluding Prayer

47:36 All right. Anyone have a question you want to raise before? We close our time.

47:45 I could not have been that clear. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe in covering so much material. I've confused you.

47:50 I hope I haven't done that. Yes, Cynthia.

48:05 Yes.

48:13 No, I think I would just apply the same principle that you've got to give instruction. For those who aren't aware of it. The Lord is entrusted to Tom and Cynthia. Down syndrome child.

48:23 Who's very precious to many of us here in the assembly. Janine. And I think the basic principle is that the questions. Must be answered in terms of the level of her comprehension.

48:34 Although one of the difficulties with the children with mental retardation of any kind. Is that they come to physical maturation beyond the level of their intellectual maturation. And therefore the instruction in the guidelines. We must give to them must be tailor-made to their mental comprehension while taking into account their physical maturation.

48:55 And it presents a set of abnormalities that I think again. We just have to plead with. God to give us wisdom and and probably seek the counsel of Christian people who've had occasion to have to think through this and go down that path. And I can think of one family now that I would recommend and there may be others from whom you could probably get some help.

49:15 We'll have a daughter that they've lived with for many years in a similar situation. All right time for one more question. All right, then let's pray and ask the Lord to help us that we may take this exhortation to heart that we will not deprive. Our children of a biblically framed perspective on human sexuality.

49:40 Let's pray together our father. We acknowledge as we come to the conclusion of this class that we see all around us. The wrecks of humanity who have become such wreckage because they have either through willful ignorance or willful rejection of the teaching of your word destroyed themselves upon the rocks. On biblical perspective and practice with respect to their sexuality.

50:11 We see adultery and fornication and homosexuality and infidelity and lust and lechery and uncleanness abounding all around us. And oh Lord, you know that our tendency would be to draw back and just to throw a dark cloak over all of these things and seek to retreat from them. But we know that this is not.

50:35 The answer of your word, but that by your grace, we shall see the Holy Spirit through the word of God and the power of Christ enabling us to rescue sexuality from the horrible junk heap into which it has been thrown by men's sin and to see it sanctified and ennobled under the Lordship of Christ and by the influence of the Holy Spirit. We pray that you would help every person.

51:05 Every parent in this place to lay to heart the things that were spoken today and where they may have cut across previously held perspectives, give the Berean spirit that there may not be an out-of-hand rejection of a new perspective, but a searching of the scriptures to see if indeed these things are so. Our father, we pray that you would help us that as we seek to rear children in a filthy vile. Hedonistic flesh worshiping society, you would grant grace that our children may be preserved by the enablement of the Holy Spirit. Oh Lord, have mercy upon us and help us.

51:49 We pray as we commit ourselves and the concerns addressed today into your keeping and to your ongoing care through Jesus Christ.