Intimacy with God and Sex in Marriage

copyright 1990

by Karen C. Appleby

Introduction

The Lord showed me this revelation a year or so ago, and I have felt since then that we really need to give it to the body of Christ. We need to share it with the young people and teenagers because it says why they are to keep themselves pure.

It also tells them that the thing they are fighting is really the devil’s attempt to suck them all into the pool of perversion so that he can say he is winning.

It is my prayer that this teaching will clarify understanding for those who read it and bring them great freedom and blessing.

KCA

A Picture Of Jesus And The Church

Ephesians 5:22-32

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

Leave = to abandon, forsake.

Joined = to glue to, to adhere, cleave.

One = first, agree.

Mystery = a religious truth that man can know by revelation alone and cannot fully understand.

The first human institution God created was marriage and then the family. They are both extremely important to Him.

God created Eve from the man himself so that they would truly be one flesh and would be able to work together SIDE BY SIDE to do God’s perfect will.

God Institutes Marriage

Genesis 2:21-25

And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

Leave = loosen, relinquish, forsake, refuse.

Cleave = cling or adhere; abide, fast, follow close, be joined together.

One = united, first, alike, alone, altogether, together.

Naked = uncovered, exposed.

Ashamed = feeling shame, guilt, disgrace, inferior or unworthy.

This scripture lines up with the one we just looked at in Ephesians. We see that the marriage of Adam and Eve in Genesis and the marriage Paul speaks of in Ephesians are really an example of Jesus’ relationship to the church.

You may be saying, “But the church does not have sex with Jesus.” True, but it does have intimacy with Him. We are to leave all the worldliness in our past lives and cleave to Him. We become one with Him, and we are even naked, uncovered and exposed with Him.

He knows all about us. He knows our thoughts and our every move. If we really have learned who He is, we will stand naked before him without feeling any shame because He loves us so much, and He forgives and heals us.

Why He Wants Godly Marriage

Malachi 2:15 And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.

One = united, first.

Seed = posterity, children.

Heed = guard, protect.

None deal treacherously = do not offend or be unfaithful.

The Lord wants the marriage covenant to be strong and remain pure so that the couple will produce GODLY SEED. God wants children who will grow up to love Him and walk with Him all the days of their lives.

Look at our world today. The children are ravaged because of the ungodly lives of their parents. Satan attacked that which the Lord wanted from the adults, and now the children are being sacrificed to the gods of the nation--greed, perversion, self, etc.

Naturally since this godliness is the one thing the Lord wants from a marriage union, the devil is going to vigorously attack marriage from every angle. He will try to cause division oftentimes through a spirit of jealousy that carries the very substance of division with it.

Remember that Cain was jealous of Abel and therefore killed him. Joseph’s brothers were jealous of him and sold him to the Midianite traders. Anger and division cause one or both parties in a marriage to kill and sell the relationship. The people in the family who suffer the most are the innocent children.

What Place Has Sex?

Many people seem to think that Christians are against having a sexual relationship. Well, you know that it was God himself who created sex. He did it for a wonderful reason.

First however, let us discover some of the things the Lord says about sex.

The whole book of the Song of Solomon is a love letter from Solomon to his bride. It is all about sex and intimacy. This book is also about Jesus and His Bride.

1 Corinthians 7:1-3

Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.

Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband.

Paul says here that we can avoid fornication (sex outside marriage) by having our own husband or wife. That sure sounds as if God intended married men and women to have a sex relationship. He would never have given instructions on such things if He were not permitting it.

Husband render = give away, deliver, perform, requite, restore, reward, yield,

Due = obligation

Benevolence = kindness; euphemism for conjugal duty

Euphemism means a nice way to say. . .

Conjugal duty means the sexual rights of marriage.

The Sexual Responsibilities Of Marriage

1 Corinthians 7:4-5

The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.

Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.

The Lord even goes so far as to say that in this loving relationship (remember it is like Jesus and the church) the husband and wife, neither one, have the power (that means control) over their bodies. They give their bodies as a loving ministry to their mates.

Jesus did this for us. He gave Himself wholly and unreservedly to us so that we could have a good life with Him. We in turn give our bodies whole heartedly to Him. We are to take care of body, soul and spirit because we were bought with a price. When we really know and understand that He loves us, we have love, peace, and joy.

When we really know and understand that we love and have a mate who loves us, it brings us a form of love, peace and joy. It cannot replace what Jesus provides, but it does give us a picture of His relationship with the church.

Covenant Relationship

God has always worked in covenant relationships. He made a covenant with Noah that He would never flood the whole earth again. To show Noah that He would keep it, He made a bow in the sky as a reminder of the covenant.

He made a covenant with Abraham about inheriting the Promised Land. This time God sealed the covenant with blood:

Genesis 17:10 This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.

Circumcision is the cutting away of the extra skin on the male penis. It is an illustration of cutting away the flesh from the heart so the person will not sin. It is the flesh we battle all the time in our lives. We call circumcision a prophetic drama.

A covenant is a formal agreement. With God a covenant is an agreement that He makes and we complete. We call the Old Testament covenant the law. In it blood of animals covered sin, but this kind of blood did not last.

Jesus came and gave His life to fulfill the new covenant. This covenant also had shed blood to cover sin, but this time the blood lasted forever.

When people were under the law in the Old Testament, the high priest had to enter the Holy of Holies once a year with blood and atone for the sins of the people of Israel.

Leviticus 16:15

Then shall he kill the goat of the sin offering, that is for the people, and bring his blood within the veil, and do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it upon the mercy seat, and before the mercy seat:

Leviticus 16:30

For on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the Lord.

Leviticus 16:34

And this shall be an everlasting statute unto you, to make an atonement for the children of Israel for all their sins once a year. And he did as the LORD commanded Moses.

The Veil And The Blood

This was a fearful and a dangerous thing to do. If the priest went before the mercy seat with any sin in his life, the holy God who dwelled behind that veil could have struck him dead.

The priest wore garments with bells on the hem, and there was a rope tied around one of his legs. Those who were outside held onto the rope and they pulled him out if they heard the bells stop ringing. No one else entered that area. No one wanted to because it was so unsafe.

Hebrews 10:16-20

This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.

Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;

When Jesus came He brought the New Covenant to replace the old. No longer do men have to go to the priest with their bulls and lambs to sacrifice. Now we have the blood of Jesus that washes away our sins.

Jesus became the perfect sacrifice with the perfect blood to take before the Mercy Seat. That is just what He does for us. When we confess our sins, He sits at the right hand of the Father and says, “That person is covered by my blood. I forgive him, Father.” Then the Father pronounces us forgiven.

Matthew 27:50-51 Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain [torn in two] from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;

The perfect sacrifice of Jesus destroyed the veil that stood between every day ordinary people and the presence of God. Now because of the death and resurrection of Jesus and the spilling of His blood, man would have access to the Holy of Holies at any time.

What does all this have to do with the intimacy and sex in marriage, you ask? It has everything to do with it.

A Lesson in Female Anatomy

God made the female with hidden sexual parts. At the opening of the vagina (the birth canal and the place where sexual intercourse takes place) is a thin but tough ring of skin called the Hymen.

This Hymen is like the veil. It covers a holy area that is off limits to others. The Holy of Holies also was off limits to everyone except the high priest, and then he could only enter once a year.

When the man and woman come together for the first time, the Hymen veil tears as the priest and prophet of the this new home makes entry. This does not hurt her because there are no nerves in the Hymen. There are blood vessels, however, and blood is shed the first time this happens. The marriage then becomes a blood covenant. Now the husband has free access into the most holy area.

This sexual act is the illustration of Jesus giving Himself once and for all for the church with His blood covenant. It is a prophetic drama of just what the intimacy with God really is.

Just for whom is this prophetic drama? Whenever the marriage act takes place in purity and love it shows the devil who has won. He hates that. That is why he has tried so hard to pervert sex and people. Satan has used sex more than any other thing to destroy Christians. He tries everything from marital unfaithfulness, premarital sex, to sexually abusing children to try to stamp out the good relationship with God. He even uses sex as the center of the Satanic Rites.

Friends, he will not win. Now that you know the reasoning behind his work, clean up your own life and begin to move in sexual purity. Let your sexuality illustrate the glory of God through Jesus Christ’s gift to the church. Become pure and intimate with your mate and intimate with God. This will bless Him greatly!

If you do not have a mate, purify your life and keep it that way so that you may glorify God when and if the time comes. It is never too late to be clean. That is the beauty of the blood of Jesus. It makes us as white as snow. So if you have already made big mistakes, or you have been violated in a sexual way, just ask the Lord to heal you and he will wash you whiter than snow.

Thank you, Lord, for the blood of Jesus that covers every part of our past lives.