A Disturbing and Frightening Trend

In a story entitled 'Teens have sex but don't have the facts', the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention has released a troubling study. This first federal study of its kind found that teenage girls are more sexually active than ever before and that a staggering 25% of teen girls have some form of STD.

Many experts are claiming that the main problem is a simple lack of knowledge by both teenage girls and boys. They site that teens are having sex, but just don't have the power of the necessary related facts which would help them make the right choices and cause the horrifying statistics to decline.

Once again, the secular mindset is missing the big picture - God's picture. The idea of teens not having the proper facts is right. But the primary facts being referred to are wrong ones! What every teen, not to mention many of their adult counterparts, is missing is the facts about how physical relationships are to be conducted as outlined in the Word of God.

In perhaps his greatest doctrinal thesis, the Apostle Paul related the result of getting involved in physical relationships that are clearly prohibited in the Scriptures. In verse 24 of chapter one of Romans he writes, "Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen." He repeats the warning in even stronger language in 1 Corinthians 6:18. "Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body." And in 1 Kings 11 the so-called wisest man who ever lived, King Solomon, is shown as possessing a serious lack of spiritual wisdom by allowing illicit relationships to disrupt his spiritual loyalties and anger his Creator.

The STD rate among America's teens is troubling, not to mention dangerous and sometimes deadly. But the epidemic has little to do with a lack of knowledge concerning good or faulty safety measures. The greater issue is not knowing, accepting, and appropriating the 'facts' as outlined by God. He alone created men and women and has ordered what is sexually right and what a pure marriage relationship should be.

On rare occasions the 'experts' casually throw out the concept of abstinence. Deep down inside most of them know full well that this alone guarantees safety from disease and other serious consequences. In some ways they are right and half the way home when suggesting this only true protective measure. But the other half is finding the will and ability to actually resist the temptations in a culture where the lure of sexual freedom is at a mind-boggling level.

The strength to properly deal with life's natural urges, until it is fully appropriate to act upon them, is found in the One who created them. And those in Jesus Christ, and empowered by His Holy Spirit, are uniquely equipped to do what right and also attest to the reality of Paul's comforting words in 1 Corinthians 10:13. "No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. "

The very best way to deal with any temptation, of any sort, and at any age, is to learn the facts of God's will and allow the Spirit to convert the knowledge about Him into a lifestyle that honors Him.

Those are the true facts and the ones that matter most!

Bill Breckenridge