Why should one take fornication and adultery seriously and be careful to avoid them?
My first answer is that you should avoid them because they are wrong. Grossly wrong. Period. They are wrong because God says so. God's commandment is that we must refrain from them. So refrain from them. The Bible teaches that they are gross sins and those who engage in them will go to hell. To engage in them is to go against God. You cannot be faithful to God and commit these sins. If you think you can you are only deceiving yourself. Christianity and illicit sex simply don't mix. You can't have both. And it is very interesting to note that almost all major religions of the world are in agreement with Christianity on this point. Almost all regard fornication and adultery as wrong --- grossly wrong. However, in addition to the fact that it is just wrong, one can give other reasons why you should not engage in fornication and adultery. Let us list some:
1. You run a high risk of getting one of the many sexually transmitted diseases that are out there (including AIDS). Thus engaging in them puts your health at risk. And health is important. Very important. Bad health is like a pebble in your shoe as you walk through life, something you have to live with. A wise man is concerned about preserving his health.
2. If you are married you wrong your spouse (by being unfaithful to him); if the other person is married you wrong the spouse of the other person.
3. If a child results from your actions it will be illegitimate. By producing an illegitimate child you have wronged that child.
4. If, as many people do, you produce a child you are not able to support, you have wronged society --- for society must then support the child.
5. Adultery is cheating. You can't be an adulterer and be an honest person. If you are an adulterer you are also a liar and a cheat.
6. If you are married you risk destroying your marriage and causing great emotional upheaval in both your life and your spouses' life. If you have children your actions threaten great upheaval in their world and deep emotional problems for them, deeply wronging them. Your actions threaten your entire family.
Having said these things now, it is important to be honest and recognize that fornication and adultery are indeed the Achilles' heel of mankind. We all have those forces and desires within us pulling us in that direction. We are all vulnerable. We are all tempted. For all of us there is this conflict between flesh and spirit, between desire and conscience. And if allowed to go too far fleshly passion can become so strong as to overpower all else (reason, conscience, whatever). The sexual urges, needs, desires and forces within us are very powerful. They are indeed difficult to cope with.
Now let us make one final observation. Of all sins none does so much hurt and harm to others as the sexual sins (adultery, fornication, sexual perversion, etc.). Hurt in the form of personal anguish, suffering, anger and hatred; hurt in the form of messed up lives; hurt in the form of financial distress. Furthermore, no other sin does so much damage to a society as a whole.
The costs of the sexual sins are very great to a society. Many of the problems of our society have at least part of their root in sexual sin. For example many cases of broken homes, marital discord, spouse abuse, child abuse, and juvenile delinquency have their root in sexual sin. Sexual sin produces large numbers of divorces and remarriages, thereby producing children being raised by stepparents, children who often end up angry (stepparents often do not have the patience and love of the true parent). Angry children often become delinquent. The illegitimate children arising out sexual sin (teenage fornication, for example) are far more likely to be juvenile delinquents and to follow a path of crime than are legitimate children living with both of their parents, thus providing a big component to our crime problem. All these problems have not only emotional costs but dollar costs associated with them: the costs in tax dollars to support large numbers of unwed mothers with their hordes of illegitimate children, lawyer fees for divorce cases or juvenile delinquency problems, court costs, costs of maintaining people in prison, etc..
So with all the damage that sexual sin causes for individuals and the society what is our society's attitude toward it? We romanticize it, glamorize it and wink at it. And we call those who condemn it Old Fashioned, Victorian or prude. Instead of hating it as we ought to, it is OK. Liberal religion and philosophy, Hollywood, TV, Alvis Presley, Hugh Hefner, and many others can all be thanked for this.
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