So the other day I was doing some thinking.

And I started going through some old notes from books I’ve read.

I found a lot of interesting stuff in there, and there are soem things I’d like to highlight.

So, I’m putting the purpose talk on pause for a bit.

Join me on this journey into Christian Literature.

Let’s unpack Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis.

I want to warm you up, so let’s start with this quote:

“Remember that, as I said, the right direction leads not only to peace but to knowledge. When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him.”

I’ll add another:

“A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right.”

We are talking good and bad. We are talking about the change in a person as they come to Christ.

I remember the first time I read this, and how true it felt. It was reassuring.

At the time I dealing with what I like to call, “New Christian guilt.” This is where, after being saved, you start to think about all the things you’ve done. You begin to realise all the mistakes you’ve made, all the people you’ve hurt, and all the sins you’ve committed.

You realise that you have been living your life the wrong way this whole time. You realise that you are so far from what the Bible presents as a good person. You soon realise that you fall short daily. But when I read this, it started to make sense.

The closer I get to understanding the image I was made in, and the standard that came with it, the more I began to realise all the how tainted I was.

The stronger my faith, the stronger the conviction.

They give an example in the book:

“You can understand the nature of drunkenness when you are sober, not when you are drunk. Good people know about both good and evil: bad people do not know about either.”

That last part always resonated with me.

Bad people do not know about either.

So many things before being saved, I thought was neutral. I didn’t see how they were negatively affecting me. I couldn’t discern properly between what was good for me and what was bad. I couldn’t discern between what was actually good and what was actually bad.

It was just about what felt good and felt bad.

Talking about feeling good and bad…

Let’s move onto the next topic: Christians and Sex.

Here’s the quote:

“The biological purpose of sex is children, just at the biological purpose of eating is to repair the body. Now if we eat whenever we feel inclined and just as much as we want, it is quite true most of us will eat too much: but not terrifically too much. One man may eat enough for two, but he dos not eat enough for ten.”

“The appetite goes a little beyond its biological purpose, but not enormously. But if a healthy young man indulged his sexual appetite whenever he felt inclined, and if each act produced a baby, then in ten years he might easily populate a small village. This appetite is ludicrous and preposterous excess of its function.”

It reminds me of the comparison Paul made in 1 Corinthians 6:13, which says:

“Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.”

In the earlier quote, we see how the appetite for food and for sex cannot be compared, and in the same way, how we indulge in food and sex should not be compared. See there is almost a natural limit on how much we can eat before our body forces us to chill.

But with Sex…

If we, especially the men out there, don’t stop ourselves, things will get long.

A house.

A couple houses.

A small village.

A man without control could populate a young town.

The consumption of food and sex is not to be compared…but let’s indulge ourselves, by comparing them further:

“You can get a large audience together for a strip-tease act – that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage. Now suppose you come to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let everyone see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food? And would not anyone had grown up in a different world think there was something equally queer about the state of the sex instinct among us?”

See this is tough. There is so much to unpack in this alone.

But I’ve got to add some more.

“One critic said that if he found a country in which such strip-tease acts with food were popular, he would conclude that the people of that country were starving.”

Okay.

Let’s really look at this food and sex comparison, and we can even include porn here. This critic would suggest that in a country where strip-tease acts with food were popular, you could assume that the people likely suffered from starvation.

But let’s apply that to sex.

Can we really say the popularity of strip-tease acts, and porn, stems not from sexual corruption but from sexual starvation?

Before we could even try to argue in favour of this, we would at the very least have to say that people are having less sex than usual, and it’s not by choice. But people don’t have to pay for sex, and I wouldn’t say there is a limited supply of those who are capable, so for there to be less sex than necessary, this would mean there is a limited amount of those who are willing to participate?

Can we really say that sexual abstinence is more common now, than in the days before strip teases and porn?

I’d say, surely not.

So what’s the reason?

I think it’s the opposite.

It’s the indulgence.

Appetites grow by indulgence.

Here’s a quote:

“Starving men may think much about food, but so do gluttons; the gorged, as well as the famished, like titillations.”

It’s not only the sexually deprived who run wild. It’s also those who are indulging in it at a crazy rate.

But here is where we  create some separation again between food and sex.

See, though it’s become more common recently, generally over time, you didn’t really see people pervert food. People don’t often eat things which they shouldn’t or do things with food which they shouldn’t. Generally, people eat food.

However, can we really say the same with sex.

“…perversions of the food appetite are rare. But perversions of the sex instinct are numerous, hard to cure, and frightful.”

I’m sure I don’t have to give examples.

Let’s begin wrapping up.

Society will tell you that sexual desires are like every other desire.

I hear it.

“It’s only natural.”

“It’s because we don’t talk enough about it.”

“Sex is an issue because we’ve kept mute about it for so long.”

Here’s the final quote for this part.

“If hushing up had been the cause of the trouble, ventilation would have set it right. But it has not.”

You see that. Serious words.

You know, this sex thing can really be unpacked you know.

Maybe I’ll do a second part.

Anyways, I’ll end with this:

People will say, “Sex is nothing to be ashamed of.”

And I’ve got to ask you this: What are they really saying?

There’s one interpretation that falls in line with Christianity, and there’s another way of looking at it which can take you down a dark path.

But we’ll explore the paths next week.

God Bless.