Edwin Louis Cole - The sacredness of sex

DEDICATION

To the new generation of young men and women who desire to bring back to this world what a previous generation threw away. This book is dedicated to them, for God's glory.

CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

"I believe God has called me to speak with a prophetic voice to the men of this generation. He has commissioned me with a ministry 'majoring in men,' to bring them to an identification with Christ, and impress them with the reality that manhood and Christlikeness are synonymous, declaring the Word of God as the standard by which we live. It is a ministry declaring a standard for manhood. For that purpose, to that end, and for God's glory, my life is given to fulfill His calling and to bring men to the manhood of Christlikeness."

Edwin Louis Cole

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to acknowledge the efforts of my daughter Joann in preparing the manuscript and writing this book. I want to thank her for all she did to make this book possible.

INTRODUCTION

In this day and age, when sex has been degraded to "adult" humor and virginity is regarded by some as cheap merchandise, this book teaches why sex is sacred to God and virginity is a glory to His Kingdom.

The power of this revelation is gripping the hearts of men and women and raising up a new generation which is bringing back to the Church, and to the world, what a previous generation threw away.

Much of the Church has left the teaching about sex to a godless society that knows nothing about God's covenants. When the Church does talk about sex, so often we simply say, "Don't do it," concerning premarital and promiscuous sex. Attempts are made to point out the harm in such kinds of sex.

The Church often misses entirely the real message and fundamental truth of the sacredness of the marriage covenant and sex itself.

There are many books about sexuality in regard to Christians. And there are books about the technical, biological, emotional, moral, psychological, and purely pleasurable aspects of sex. But in order to grasp completely what God has provided through the sexuality of man, and to enjoy fully what He has created for us, we must learn God's perspective of sexuality, according to His Word, and understand why He created it as He did.

God creates everything good.

Man corrupts and contaminates it by his sinful, selfish nature. Sex was made for loving and giving, but when contaminated by man, it becomes an object of lusting and getting.

I submit to you that God made sex good.

Understanding this will enable you to attain to a higher degree of holiness and rise to a new level of faith. Therefore, it is imperative that you read these chapters carefully.

This book is written primarily for men. God has called me to a ministry majoring in men, and has revealed His Word to accomplish that ministry. But, women also need this revelation. And the young in particular need it.

In a day when children are birthing children, and vast numbers of our young people, even in the Church, are engaging in sexual intercourse at the earliest ages, the sacredness of sex must be taught and imprinted on the minds of our young. We cannot leave it to a godless, humanistic society.

In the Old Testament, young people were called, held accountable, and made responsible in their preteen years. Therefore, if you are a young person reading this, I don't speak to you as a child, but as a man or woman, capable of accepting responsibility for your own actions, and for truth itself.

Learn these truths let them permeate your heart and mind. Prayerfully ask God to reveal them to you with their full force and impact, that you would never question the glory of your virginity, the sacredness of sex, or the covenant relationship of marriage.

Whether you are a man or woman, single or married, this could well be the most unusual book about sex you have ever read. I trust it will have a lasting, life-changing impact as well.

SEX IS THE SIGN OF A COVENANT

Sex is more than an act of marriage or a pleasurable experience. Sex is the sign of the covenant of marriage.

Sex is a divinely ordained, holy sign of a blood covenant, which is modeled after the covenant God gave to man through the shedding of the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ.

Sex is sacred to God.

Yes, God made sex good.

There is no reason to blush at the word, make excuses for your own sexuality, cover your ignorance by degrading sex to bawdy jokes and tawdry liaisons, or cause it to become cheap merchandise.

Sexual intercourse was created by God to be good, used for man's good, to be pleasurable, the sign of a covenant, and to be the most intimate act between a man and a woman.

Virginity is the state of men and women before engaging in sexual intercourse. Virginity was designed so there could be a fulfillment of the covenant when the man and woman join together in marriage.

There is no shame in being a virgin, but rather there is an intrinsic, built-in dignity and glory given to a human at birth. When that state of virginity is taken to a marriage bed, after two people have committed themselves to the holy covenant of marriage, that union brings glory to God.

People today imagine that if they haven't lost their virginity early in life, then they are wasting, or have wasted, years that could be spent on sexual pleasure. Virginity is a waste only if given outside of marriage, but never a waste when given in the act of consummating the marriage! Giving God the best you have is never a waste.

Giving God what is left over from your best is a waste.

Remember the Biblical story about Jesus and the woman with the alabaster box:

Matthew, chapter 26, tells the story of a woman who broke a box of costly ointment on Jesus' feet.1 Some people in the room grumbled, saying it was a waste. But using the ointment on Jesus wasn't a waste.

A waste is taking your life, filling it with cheap sex, spending it on the devil, then coming to God to give Him the dregs.

A waste is squandering what God gave for glory, lowering yourself in your own eyes, estranging yourself from the Kingdom, then coming and asking Him to remake you into what He originally created you to be.

Losing your virginity at an early age is a waste. It's a waste of what God meant for His great glory and your great fulfillment . Only if you hold your virginity until the day of marriage are you able to enter the covenant exactly as God designed it.

Virginity is very precious, because once you lose it, it is gone. Physical virginity may never be regained, but, as we will learn, the spirit and glory of virginity can be restored to you.

This is a serious issue with God. It is to be taken seriously by man. It is serious to society.

There is glory in virginity.

Sex is sacred.

Sex is the sign of the God-given covenant of marriage.

CREATION

In order for you to grasp what God intended by creating a virginal state in man, you must understand how God created man in relationship to Himself. That requires some foundational understanding of scripture, starting with Creation.

In the first chapter of Genesis we read, "So God created man in His own image, in the image and likeness of God He created him; male and female He created them."1

God created man in His image. God, in Himself, has both the masculine and feminine characteristics which we see in men and women today. God has the ability to be tender; He also has the ability to be tough.

When God created Adam, He placed into him both the masculine and the feminine characteristics which He possessed, that which is in God Himself, because Adam was created in God's image.

But when Adam was alone, he was lonely.

Being alone can be a blessing, being lonely never is.