The hedonistic sirens’ song plays beautifully in the ears of America’s youth, and the lure of the appeal is so attractive to the eyes of the majority. As with the Greek mythology of Homer’s Adventures of Odysseus, the sirens tempt our young men to fall prey to the fleshly trap: “Come, come, drink of the fountain of sweet pleasures and know what it is to be a man. You don’t know the thrills you’re missing so come now, hurry and drink of the fountain…” (of death).
Satan has done his work so well of polluting the subject of human sexuality that many of us find it hard to even bring up the topic to discuss it with our children at home or our young people when we meet together as a body of believers. Someone has rightly observed this is a subject that needs to be reclaimed by God’s people. God is the giver of human sexuality. Rather than allowing our children to learn from their eager friends or humanistic teachers at school, we need to teach them what God says, along with the boundaries he has given us.
God commands his children to “flee fornication” (1 Corinthians 6:18) and “youthful lusts” (1 Timothy 2:22) and “fleshly lusts, which war against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11). The living God says that those who commit fornication are going so far as to even sin against their own body [thus distinguishing itself from other forms of sin as this one brings greater self-injury to the ones who are guilty (1 Corinthians 6:18)]. “The body is not for fornication, but for the Lord” (vs. 13).
The mariners used rope to tie Odysseus to the mast, and put beeswax in their own ears to prevent them from hearing and giving heed to the sirens’ beckoning call. Our young people need far more than rope and beeswax to keep us from the peril of fornication: we need God and his mighty power working within us (Psalm 119:11). The sanctity of our relationship with God must be so important that we refuse to allow a moment of reckless folly to come between us and his Holy Spirit of love.
