God designed sexual intercourse as an enjoyable expression of love between a husband and wife to bind their relationship together. It was also designed so that children could be born into a loving and committed family. 

What, then, is sexual immorality? Sexual relationships outside marriage were forbidden by God. 

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh." But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.  

Sexual immorality is a temptation that is always before us. In movies and television, sex outside marriage is treated as a normal, even desirable, part of life. While marriage is often portrayed as confining and joyless. But God does not forbid sexual immorality just to make life more difficult. He knows its power to destroy us physically and spiritually. It has devastated countless lives and destroyed families. God wants to protect us from damaging our self and others. Address our loneliness and desires by putting God in the centre of our life. 

Control in sexual matters 

God requires us to use self-control in sexual matters. If you are not married that means abstaining from sexual relations. If you are married, this means staying faithful to their partner for life. 

Self-control does not mean just controlling what we do it also means controlling our thoughts. 

Jesus says that the desire to have sex with someone other than your spouse is mental adultery and thus sexual immorality. If the act is wrong then so is the intention. 

Sexual relations within marriage 

When God created men and women he had designed how sexual relations would work between the two of them. This is why God hates sexual immorality as it is men and women stepping outside God’s plan and making their own rules. 

The plan that God has for marriage is that a man and woman are totally committed to each other for their whole life. The emotional, spiritual and physical closeness that the couple experience is described as two becoming “one flesh”. Sexual intercourse has been designed by God as a way of the husband and wife binding their relationship together in an expression of love.  

God does not intend faithfulness in marriage to be boring, lifeless, pleasureless and dull. Real happiness comes when we decide to find pleasure in the relationship God has given or will give us and to commit our self to making it pleasurable for our spouse. 

Sexual intercourse was also designed as a way of children being born.  

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

It is important that parents remain faithful to each other and bringing up their children in a God-fearing environment. 

If parents truly love each other and are totally committed to each other, it is a secure family environment for children to grow up in. 

What about living together before marriage 

Some people test how their relationship will be by living together before they are married. This is completely foreign to Bible teachings.

God requires people to make a commitment for life before becoming one flesh. 

What happens if you ignore God’s design for sexual relations?  

There are people who think they know best and they can make their own decisions. However, the reality of the situation is that God is the creator of us all so - God always knows best. 

God has a loving relationship with us - he doesn’t want us to make mistakes and experience the problems that will arise from sexual immorality. These problems can affect the way we think (worry, regrets, etc) or can affect us physically. 

a.     An example of physically problems from sexual immorality would be being infected by sexually transmitted diseases such as  venereal disease, syphilis and AIDS. Another physical problem would be unwanted pregnancy. 

b.     Examples of sexual immorality changing the way we think would be loss of self-respect, shame and regret, loss of trust in a relationship, breakdown of marriage (and family), regret over loss of virginity – can’t be reversed, the hurt felt by the extended family and the children of the person. 

The Bible recognizes the importance of strong rules about sex. 

Sexually immoral acts are not innocent dabblings in forbidden pleasures, as is so often portrayed in the media, but powerful destroyers of relationships. They bring confusion and tear down the climate of respect, trust and credibility so essential for solid marriages and secure children. 

For these commands are a lamp, this teaching is a light, and the corrections of discipline are the way to life, keeping you from the immoral woman, from the smooth tongue of the wayward wife.

Do not lust in your heart after her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes, for the prostitute reduces you to a loaf of bread,        and the adulteress preys upon your very life. Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned? Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched? So is he who sleeps with another man's wife; no one who touches her will go unpunished.

Men do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy his hunger when he is starving. Yet if he is caught, he must pay sevenfold, though it costs him all the wealth of his house.

Sexual relations outside marriage always hurts someone. Some people argue that it is all right to break God’s law against sexual immorality if nobody gets hurt. In reality, somebody always gets hurt. Spouses are devastated. Children are scarred. Before you make a mistake ask God to help change your thoughts so that they are directed to something else more godly. 

Moving forward 

The Bible makes it clear as to what will happen to the sexually immoral. 

However, if those who have been involved in sexual immorality want to repent and start a new life then there is a way! This verse follows on from the two you just read.