Sexlessness is a Sin!!!

Hello married people. Long post alert but please try to read it through.

I stumbled into a playful conversation with a couple in church on Sunday who said they were considering leaving a Christian couples group due to our perceived 'vulgarity' especially in the area of sex and bedroom references. 😳😅

Of course, while I could tell they meant it playfully, I couldn't shake the feeling that many who silently observe in the group carry the same impression and would probably whisper in private conversations that "are you sure these people are born again?"

To be honest, I personally cringed at times we have had to make some of these references but we have increasingly found that it is absolutely necessary, especially when we consider the pressing condition of many married relationships. 

In 75%+ Christian marriages we have had to counsel and in reports reaching us from other counsellors in our church and many more from outside we have discovered that there is an epidemic of unhealthy marriage relationships.

I daresay to you, many marriages are in desperate but silent states of disrepair, simply waiting for a catastrophic collision with the devil's well timed bombardment for divorce to occur. Or how do you explain a 40 year old marriage still ending up in divorce? 

It is interesting the statistic that you can google that states that Protestant Christians have the highest rate of divorce at 51%. That refers to our religious grouping. Hindus have the lowest rate at 5%. (Note that Hindus practice Abrahamic-style arranged marriages. Christians practice Hollywood-style falling in love.)🥹

One would think that with the knowledge and grace that Jesus bought for the faith-based Christian, we would use this liberty we now have, to advance the kingdom rather than advance sin. 

Let me take this home quickly. Before we got married, many of us, even as Christians, struggled with the instruction of "no-sex- before-marriage".

Strangely, we find the opposite after marriage. Now, we literally have to beg married people to stay consistent in their holy matrimonial duties to one another. 

Recently, I was speaking to a female leader in the church who said to me that she had not slept with her husband for over 1 year at the time and she didn't understand why he wasn't interested in joining her in being active in church anymore. 

To make matters worse, her excuse was along the lines of tiredness and children stress and it had nothing to do with any medical or spiritual challenge. 😠

I have come here, not to mince words with us anymore. I came to say it loud and clear. "It is a SIN not to do everything you can, to meet your spouse's conjugal needs in your marriage.

God's second commandment to man after the first "be fruitful and multiply..." (which even has sexual undertones) was, " therefore...leave your father and mother and become one flesh with your spouse." Not one spirit, one flesh. 

I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ that God has asked me to preach and I will not be ashamed to say it anymore. Sex is the number one 'physical' responsibility of anyone who chooses to get into a marriage. If you don't agree with me check your bible. 

God commanded us to have sex in marriage. So I repeat to you if you do not have regular and frequent sex with your spouse, you are a big sinner and your prayers on God's table is in the pending file. 

Let me quote a scripture to prove it. I have many but let me use just one. 

Matthew 5:23-24 says, "Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar (of God) , and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift". 

In the context of marriage, if your wife is unhappy with you in the area of your matrimonial duties and you think you are doing well spiritually, you have failed. If your husband is groaning in the spirit on your matrimonial bed from extended sexual fasting... and you don't answer him, you are the Chief Pharisee among the brood of vipers Jesus was talking about. 

I repeat, there is no amount of prayer that can wash you clean of the sin you are committing. Don't bother with any prayer of sacrifice, instead, become a living sacrifice for your spouse. 

People give all sorts of excuses for not having sex in marriage. Children, busy-iness, stress, Iyamtayad, no money, unattractiveness, he doesn't help me, he doesn't woo me, she is too grouchy, she doesn't dress well etc. Errr... All you are doing is helping the devil destroy your own marriage. 

Remember my words! You are helping the devil attack your home. 

Let me ask you, will you let your husband wear 'anko' with your neighbor's wife, or can they go to the gym with your landlady. Will you let your housekeeper feed your husband when he is ill,🤔 or your friend go on vacation with your wife? 

Truth is, there are no legitimate reasons for any of these seemingly awkward things to happen. But if you agree, then what excuse will be good enough to justify them ending up having sex with anyone of these people I have mentioned?!! 

If you won't let any of these things happen why are you leaving your spouse vulnerable to outsiders? Did Paul not say if you burn go and marry? Does that not tell us that one of the primary reasons for marriage is sex? 

Do you realize that sex is the only activity that is exclusive to you and your spouse? That's the one activity you don't want anybody else to do for you. Your father and mother cannot do it for you. Your sister or brother cannot help you with it. God forbid. So how come this most important activity is not a priority in your marriage? 

Do you think God intended for you to be a spectator in your own stadium, or you think keeping the commandment of the marriage bed holy meant kept the bedsheet well spread??? 💁🏽‍♂️

You, these born again children of God. Wake up and stop sleeping, the devil is sowing wicked oats in people's marriage garden while they slept. 

Many marriages are destroyed long before the devil showed up with other problems. Many were not keeping night and day watch over their gardens. The moment you start keeping extended periods without sex in marriage, you are asking the devil to open a monitoring file, waiting for the opportunity to arrange a visit to that unused bed in your room for conflict gymnastics. I am sure you get the point. 

Did I hear someone say, I trust my husband jare, Forget, my wife is the junior sister of holy Mary. Sex doesn't matter to him/her. Continue ! in Patience Jonathan's voice. 

Many Christians are pretending inside their own homes and marriages. They refuse to tell themselves the truth. They are making every kind of excuse to not do the one thing that will heal many of the issues they are struggling with. Sex is the oil God put in the engine of your marriage, if that oil dries up your engine will knock. 

You can't ask your car to go on a long journey and you don't put oil in it. Your pistons will fight themselves till they break. 

Check this, you can't fight and make love at the same time. If you focus on making love enough, you won't have time to fight, and vice versa. 

Sadly, many holy people are always fighting instead of making love. That's why so many are ending up divorced and many more are struggling not to end up there. 

I daresay to you, your sexual frequency is a good thermometer of your marriage love/intimacy quotient. True intimacy in marriage often leads to great emotionally and psychologically restoring sex. Your degree of intimacy is measured by how frequently you desire to enter a physical, emotional and psychological bond with a person you love. 

God's call on you to pray, fast, praise, dwell, abide and bond with him is a spiritual example of the nature of intimacy he wants you to have with your spouse. He demands the same desire to be towards your spouse. How can you claim to love a God you don't see, when His representative in your home is suffering from loneliness and deprivation. 

I will close with this scripture. Jesus' 2 key commandments. Matt 22:37 Love the Lord with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind, (how?) and love your neighbor as yourself. 

Who is your first neighbor, who do you wake up and see first everyday? Who is the first person you should show this love, that God demands of you to? It is our Spouse! 

Let me tell you, if your spouse does not feel your love, you do not love or know God. 

If you say you have love and you actually love your spouse, ask yourself, how often do we have wholly, patient and intimate sex with each other. If it is less than 2ce a week, know that your marriage needs a reboot. 

So before you go and look for money, before you give them food, before you clean the house because of them, before you take care of their children, before you go to work for them, start by giving the regular, loving, intimate, soul-binding sex and then see how in everything you will experience the principle of one will chase a 1,000, 2 well bound couple as one, will chase 10,000.

I know it is counter intuitive to think about sex first as priority in a marriage, but if done correctly it's as powerful as a quiet and intimate time in the presence of God.

Think about it, if marriage is consummated by sex. Then this activity is a blood covenant of your union. It is a holy communion, so you should do it regularly in remembrance of...if you get it... You get it.😃 

Oya, before you go this morning... Even if you don't have time to shake body... A good long kiss before you leave, can be the promise of heaven on earth activities in the evening.

God bless you all, have a great day and an even greater marriage.

- Tolu LordTanner