I truly believe those who break the Law of Chastity do not understand what it is exactly and why it is so important. My goal in this blog is to help others understand those things more fully so they can keep their lives happy and free from disappointment and heartache that always comes with the breaking of this commandment.
I will quote quite frequently from Elder Holland's talk he gave at BYU. I encourage everyone to read the talk fully because I had a really hard time not just copy and pasting the whole thing it's so good!
If you think Mormons are the only ones who live the Law of Chastity-check out this video..
This blog is VERY LONG I know! But I'm calling it a reference blog. If you have questions about the law of chastity..this has the what's and the why's in basic form.
There is so much more to be said about it. Feel free to skim, read specific parts or refer it to others who have questions. Good luck to those who read it start to finish! : )
So let's start out with exactly..
what is The Law of Chastity?
In the Strength of Youth Pamphelt it states under Sexual Purity:
Physical intimacy between husband and wife is beautiful and sacred. It is ordained of God for the creation of children and for the expression of love between husband and wife.
God has commanded that sexual intimacy be reserved for marriage.
The Lord’s standard regarding sexual purity is clear and unchanging.
- Do not have any sexual relations before marriage, and be completely faithful to your spouse after marriage.
- Do not allow the media, your peers, or others to persuade you that sexual intimacy before marriage is acceptable. It is not. In God’s sight, sexual sins are extremely serious.
- Never do anything that could lead to sexual transgression.
- Treat others with respect, not as objects used to satisfy lustful and selfish desires.
- Before marriage, do not participate in passionate kissing, lie on top of another person, or touch the private, sacred parts of another person’s body, with or without clothing.
- Do not do anything else that arouses sexual feelings.
- Do not arouse those emotions in your own body.
- Do not participate in discussions or any media that arouse sexual feelings.
- Do not participate in any type of pornography.
- Homosexual and lesbian behavior is a serious sin. If you find yourself struggling with same-gender attraction or you are being persuaded to participate in inappropriate behavior, seek counsel from your parents and bishop. They will help you.
- Victims of sexual abuse are not guilty of sin and do not need to repent. If you have been a victim of abuse, know that you are innocent and that God loves you. Talk to your parents or another trusted adult, and seek your bishop’s counsel immediately.
-For the Strength of Youth Pamphlet
Ok so those are the what's..if you have any further questions talk to your Bishop or you can read further in the Law of Chastity section of the For the Strength of Youth Pamphlet.
Generally I would say we know what most of the 'what's' are with the Law of Chastity..
but the why's are sometimes not as often talked about.
Elder Holland begins his talk by saying:
Elder Holland begins his talk by saying:
"My topic is that of human intimacy, a topic as sacred as any I know and more sacred than anything I have ever addressed from this podium. If I am not careful and you are not supportive, this subject can slide quickly from the sacred into the merely sensational, and I would be devastated if that happened. It would be better not to address the topic at all than to damage it with casualness or carelessness. Indeed, it is against such casualness and carelessness that I wish to speak. So I ask for your faith and your prayers and your respect."
Please do the same for me in this blog.
Please do the same for me in this blog.
So we all know the obvious consequences of breaking the law of chastity. His statistics he uses are years old but still frightening.
In America 3,000 adolescents become pregnant each day. A million a year. Four out of five are unmarried. More than half get abortions. "Babies having babies."[Babies] killing [babies]. ["What's Gone Wrong with Teen Sex," People,13 April 1987, p. 111]
That same national poll indicated nearly 60 percent of high school students in "mainstream" America had lost their virginity, and 80 percent of college students had. The Wall Street Journal (hardly in a class with the National Enquirer) recently wrote,
AIDS [appears to be reaching] plague[like] proportions. Even now it is claiming innocent victims: newborn babies and recipients of blood transfusions. It is only a matter of time before it becomes widespread among heterosexuals. . . .
AIDS should remind us that ours is a hostile world. . . . The more we pass ourselves around, the larger the likelihood of our picking something up. . . .
Whether on clinical or moral grounds, it seems clear that promiscuity has its price. [Wall Street Journal, 21 May 1987, p. 28]
So these are some good reasons why not to break the law of chastity.
I believe, as a philosopher once said,
That same national poll indicated nearly 60 percent of high school students in "mainstream" America had lost their virginity, and 80 percent of college students had. The Wall Street Journal (hardly in a class with the National Enquirer) recently wrote,
AIDS [appears to be reaching] plague[like] proportions. Even now it is claiming innocent victims: newborn babies and recipients of blood transfusions. It is only a matter of time before it becomes widespread among heterosexuals. . . .
AIDS should remind us that ours is a hostile world. . . . The more we pass ourselves around, the larger the likelihood of our picking something up. . . .
Whether on clinical or moral grounds, it seems clear that promiscuity has its price. [Wall Street Journal, 21 May 1987, p. 28]
So these are some good reasons why not to break the law of chastity.
I believe, as a philosopher once said,
tell me sufficiently why a thing should be done, and I will move heaven and earth to do it.
I will tell you the reasons why I (and Elder Holland) think keeping the Law of Chastity will highly benefit you in your lifetime. "Why be morally clean?" First is the doctrine behind it.
First:You are not your own.
Your body is not your body. You are bought with a price.
The purchase price for our fullness of joy--body and spirit eternally united--is the pure and innocent blood of the Savior of this world.
We cannot then say in ignorance or defiance,
"Well, it's my life," or worse yet, "It's my body." It is not.
"Ye are not your own," Paul said.
"Ye are bought with a price."
We have been taught to look upon these bodies of ours as gifts from God.
We regard [the body] as the sign of our royal birthright.
Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord...
Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. . . .
Flee fornication. . . . He that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. . . .
. . . Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's. [1 Corinthians 6:13-20 ]
Our bodies are a gift from God. What you do with it is your choice but there are consequences in doing against God's will.
Meaning..there will be consequences for our actions if we misuse our gifts, our bodies, from God.
God cares most about life-that means the way we come into this world and the way we leave it.
"It is LDS doctrine that sexual transgression is second only to murder in the Lord's list of life's most serious sins."
The purchase price for our fullness of joy--body and spirit eternally united--is the pure and innocent blood of the Savior of this world.
We cannot then say in ignorance or defiance,
"Well, it's my life," or worse yet, "It's my body." It is not.
"Ye are not your own," Paul said.
"Ye are bought with a price."
We have been taught to look upon these bodies of ours as gifts from God.
We regard [the body] as the sign of our royal birthright.
Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord...
Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. . . .
Flee fornication. . . . He that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. . . .
. . . Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's. [1 Corinthians 6:13-20 ]
Our bodies are a gift from God. What you do with it is your choice but there are consequences in doing against God's will.
Meaning..there will be consequences for our actions if we misuse our gifts, our bodies, from God.
God cares most about life-that means the way we come into this world and the way we leave it.
"It is LDS doctrine that sexual transgression is second only to murder in the Lord's list of life's most serious sins."
"As for the taking of life, we are generally quite responsible. Most people, it seems to me, readily sense the sanctity of life and as a rule do not run up to friends, put a loaded revolver to their heads, and cavalierly pull the trigger. Furthermore, when there is a click of the hammer rather than an explosion of lead, and a possible tragedy seems to have been averted, no one in such a circumstance would be so stupid as to sigh,
"Oh, good. I didn't go all the way." "
So some people think that it really isn't that damaging. They're in love (or lust I would think) usually and do not understand what they are physically and spiritually doing to their soul.
So what does this have to do with a soul? The soul has two parts-The Body and The Spirit.
The body and the soul are interlinked.
In answer to the question,
"Why does God care so much about sexual transgression?" it is partly because of the precious gift offered by and through his Only Begotten Son to redeem the souls--bodies and spirits--we too often share and abuse in cheap and tawdry ways.
He would not have suffered and died for you if it was 'not a big deal'.
"Second, may I suggest that human intimacy, that sacred, physical union ordained of God for a married couple, deals with a symbol that demands special sanctity."
When we get married we make a symbol of complete union of our hearts, hopes, lives, love, family, future..everything.
"The Prophet Joseph Smith once said we perhaps ought to render such a sacred bond as "welding"--that those united in matrimony and eternal families are "welded" together, inseparable if you will, to withstand the temptations of the adversary and the afflictions of mortality."
When you are married it is waaaaayyyy more than just legally binding. It is not just done to get tax cuts or to have a pretty wedding. It is binding in the eyes of God. It is very significant. It is not something to be taken lightly.
The following is the part of Elder Holland's talk that matters the most to me. It is bold and powerful and I encourage you to heed his plee.
"But such a total, virtually unbreakable union, such an unyielding commitment between a man and a woman, can only come with the proximity and permanence afforded in a marriage covenant, with the union of all that they possess--their very hearts and minds, all their days and all their dreams.
They work together, they cry together, they enjoy Brahms and Beethoven and breakfast together, they sacrifice and save and live together for all the abundance that such a totally intimate life provides such a couple."
"That commandment cannot be fulfilled, and that symbolism of "one flesh" cannot be preserved, if we hastily and guiltily and surreptitiously share intimacy in a darkened corner of a darkened hour, then just as hastily and guiltily and surreptitiously retreat to our separate worlds--
not to eat or live or cry or laugh together, not to do the laundry and the dishes and the homework, not to manage a budget and pay the bills and tend the children and plan together for the future. No, we cannot do that until we are truly one--united, bound, linked, tied, welded, sealed, married."
You must wait--
you must wait until you can give everything, and you cannot give everything until you are at least legally and, for Latter-day Saint purposes, eternally pronounced as one.
To give illicitly that which is not yours to give (remember--"you are not your own") and to give only part of that which cannot be followed with the gift of your whole heart and your whole life and your whole self is its own form of emotional Russian roulette.
If you persist in sharing part without the whole, in pursuing satisfaction devoid of symbolism, in giving parts and pieces and inflamed fragments only, you run the terrible risk of such spiritual, psychic damage that you may undermine both your physical intimacy and your wholehearted devotion to a truer, later love.
You may come to that moment of real love, of total union, only to discover to your horror that what you should have saved has been spent, and--mark my words--only God's grace can recover that piecemeal dissipation of your virtue.
If we relate to each other in fragments, at best we miss full relationships. At worst, we manipulate and exploit others for our gratification. Sexual fragmentation can be particularly harmful because it gives powerful physiological rewards which, though illusory, can temporarily persuade us to overlook the serious deficits in the overall relationship. Two people may marry for physical gratification and then discover that the illusion of union collapses under the weight of intellectual, social, and spiritual incompatibilities. . . .
Sexual fragmentation is particularly harmful because it is particularly deceptive. The intense human intimacy that should be enjoyed in and symbolized by sexual union is counterfeited by sensual episodes which suggest--
but cannot deliver--acceptance, understanding, and love. Such encounters mistake the end for the means as lonely, desperate people seek a common denominator which will permit the easiest, quickest gratification. [Victor L. Brown, Jr., Human Intimacy: Illusion and Reality (Salt Lake City, Utah: Parliament Publishers, 1981), pp. 5-6]
Our sexuality has been animalized, stripped of the intricacy of feeling with which human beings have endowed it, leaving us to contemplate only the act, and to fear our impotence in it. It is this animalization from which the sexual manuals cannot escape, even when they try to do so, because they are reflections of it. They might [as well] be textbooks for veterinarians. [Fairlie, Seven Deadly Sins, p. 182]
A caution to men:
In this matter of counterfeit intimacy and deceptive gratification, I express particular caution to the men who hear this message. I have heard all my life that it is the young woman who has to assume the responsibility for controlling the limits of intimacy in courtship because a young man cannot. What an unacceptable response to such a serious issue! What kind of man is he, what priesthood or power or strength or self-control does this man have that lets him develop in society, grow to the age of mature accountability, perhaps even pursue a university education and prepare to affect the future of colleagues and kingdoms and the course of the world, but yet does not have the mental capacity or the moral will to say, "I will not do that thing"?
No one man [or woman], however brilliant or well-informed, can come in one lifetime to such fullness of understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the customs or institutions of his society, for these are the wisdom of generations after centuries of experiment in the laboratory of history. A youth boiling with hormones will wonder why he should not give full freedom to his sexual desires; and if he is unchecked by custom, morals, or laws, he may ruin his life [or hers] before he matures sufficiently to understand that sex is a river of fire that must be banked and cooled by a hundred restraints if it is not to consume in chaos both the individual and the group. [Will and Ariel Durant, The Lessons of History (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968), pp. 35-36]
Indeed, most tragically, it is the young woman who is most often the victim, it is the young woman who most often suffers the greater pain, it is the young woman who most often feels used and abused and terribly unclean. And for that imposed uncleanliness a man will pay, as surely as the sun sets and rivers run to the sea.
Does any of this help you understand why human intimacy is such a serious matter?
Why it is so right and rewarding and stunningly beautiful when it is within marriage and approved of God (not just "good" but "very good," he declared to Adam and Eve), and so blasphemously wrong--like unto murder--when it is outside such a covenant?
It is my understanding that we park and pet and sleep over and sleep with at the peril of our very lives. Our penalty may not come on the precise day of our transgression, but it comes surely and certainly enough, and were it not for a merciful God and the treasured privilege of personal repentance, far too many would even now be feeling that hellish pain, which (like the passion we have been discussing) is also always described in the metaphor of fire.
Someday, somewhere, sometime the morally unclean will, until they repent, pray like the rich man, wishing Lazarus to "dip . . . his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame"
If some few of you are feeling the "scars that have come to you in places where you ought not have gone,"
If you have not been following it-start now. You can always stop. You can always turn back. No matter how far you've gone you can still be healed-but only through Christ. You cannot do it alone. But I know-I KNOW that this is a Commandment of God. I KNOW it will bless your life because it has blessed mine-abundantly. Living this commandment is a gift not a burden. If you don't believe me..if these statistics and deadly promises are not frightening enough..if you have not seen the awful affects on a friend or loved one then live it and see how it will benefit you. The way to know is by testing it out.
I know you will NEVER EVER REGRET living the Law of Chastity.
"Oh, good. I didn't go all the way." "
So some people think that it really isn't that damaging. They're in love (or lust I would think) usually and do not understand what they are physically and spiritually doing to their soul.
So what does this have to do with a soul? The soul has two parts-The Body and The Spirit.
The body and the soul are interlinked.
In answer to the question,
"Why does God care so much about sexual transgression?" it is partly because of the precious gift offered by and through his Only Begotten Son to redeem the souls--bodies and spirits--we too often share and abuse in cheap and tawdry ways.
He would not have suffered and died for you if it was 'not a big deal'.
"Second, may I suggest that human intimacy, that sacred, physical union ordained of God for a married couple, deals with a symbol that demands special sanctity."
When we get married we make a symbol of complete union of our hearts, hopes, lives, love, family, future..everything.
"The Prophet Joseph Smith once said we perhaps ought to render such a sacred bond as "welding"--that those united in matrimony and eternal families are "welded" together, inseparable if you will, to withstand the temptations of the adversary and the afflictions of mortality."
When you are married it is waaaaayyyy more than just legally binding. It is not just done to get tax cuts or to have a pretty wedding. It is binding in the eyes of God. It is very significant. It is not something to be taken lightly.
The following is the part of Elder Holland's talk that matters the most to me. It is bold and powerful and I encourage you to heed his plee.
"But such a total, virtually unbreakable union, such an unyielding commitment between a man and a woman, can only come with the proximity and permanence afforded in a marriage covenant, with the union of all that they possess--their very hearts and minds, all their days and all their dreams.
They work together, they cry together, they enjoy Brahms and Beethoven and breakfast together, they sacrifice and save and live together for all the abundance that such a totally intimate life provides such a couple."
"That commandment cannot be fulfilled, and that symbolism of "one flesh" cannot be preserved, if we hastily and guiltily and surreptitiously share intimacy in a darkened corner of a darkened hour, then just as hastily and guiltily and surreptitiously retreat to our separate worlds--
not to eat or live or cry or laugh together, not to do the laundry and the dishes and the homework, not to manage a budget and pay the bills and tend the children and plan together for the future. No, we cannot do that until we are truly one--united, bound, linked, tied, welded, sealed, married."
You must wait--
you must wait until you can give everything, and you cannot give everything until you are at least legally and, for Latter-day Saint purposes, eternally pronounced as one.
To give illicitly that which is not yours to give (remember--"you are not your own") and to give only part of that which cannot be followed with the gift of your whole heart and your whole life and your whole self is its own form of emotional Russian roulette.
If you persist in sharing part without the whole, in pursuing satisfaction devoid of symbolism, in giving parts and pieces and inflamed fragments only, you run the terrible risk of such spiritual, psychic damage that you may undermine both your physical intimacy and your wholehearted devotion to a truer, later love.
You may come to that moment of real love, of total union, only to discover to your horror that what you should have saved has been spent, and--mark my words--only God's grace can recover that piecemeal dissipation of your virtue.
If we relate to each other in fragments, at best we miss full relationships. At worst, we manipulate and exploit others for our gratification. Sexual fragmentation can be particularly harmful because it gives powerful physiological rewards which, though illusory, can temporarily persuade us to overlook the serious deficits in the overall relationship. Two people may marry for physical gratification and then discover that the illusion of union collapses under the weight of intellectual, social, and spiritual incompatibilities. . . .
Sexual fragmentation is particularly harmful because it is particularly deceptive. The intense human intimacy that should be enjoyed in and symbolized by sexual union is counterfeited by sensual episodes which suggest--
but cannot deliver--acceptance, understanding, and love. Such encounters mistake the end for the means as lonely, desperate people seek a common denominator which will permit the easiest, quickest gratification. [Victor L. Brown, Jr., Human Intimacy: Illusion and Reality (Salt Lake City, Utah: Parliament Publishers, 1981), pp. 5-6]
Our sexuality has been animalized, stripped of the intricacy of feeling with which human beings have endowed it, leaving us to contemplate only the act, and to fear our impotence in it. It is this animalization from which the sexual manuals cannot escape, even when they try to do so, because they are reflections of it. They might [as well] be textbooks for veterinarians. [Fairlie, Seven Deadly Sins, p. 182]
A caution to men:
In this matter of counterfeit intimacy and deceptive gratification, I express particular caution to the men who hear this message. I have heard all my life that it is the young woman who has to assume the responsibility for controlling the limits of intimacy in courtship because a young man cannot. What an unacceptable response to such a serious issue! What kind of man is he, what priesthood or power or strength or self-control does this man have that lets him develop in society, grow to the age of mature accountability, perhaps even pursue a university education and prepare to affect the future of colleagues and kingdoms and the course of the world, but yet does not have the mental capacity or the moral will to say, "I will not do that thing"?
No one man [or woman], however brilliant or well-informed, can come in one lifetime to such fullness of understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the customs or institutions of his society, for these are the wisdom of generations after centuries of experiment in the laboratory of history. A youth boiling with hormones will wonder why he should not give full freedom to his sexual desires; and if he is unchecked by custom, morals, or laws, he may ruin his life [or hers] before he matures sufficiently to understand that sex is a river of fire that must be banked and cooled by a hundred restraints if it is not to consume in chaos both the individual and the group. [Will and Ariel Durant, The Lessons of History (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968), pp. 35-36]
Indeed, most tragically, it is the young woman who is most often the victim, it is the young woman who most often suffers the greater pain, it is the young woman who most often feels used and abused and terribly unclean. And for that imposed uncleanliness a man will pay, as surely as the sun sets and rivers run to the sea.
Does any of this help you understand why human intimacy is such a serious matter?
Why it is so right and rewarding and stunningly beautiful when it is within marriage and approved of God (not just "good" but "very good," he declared to Adam and Eve), and so blasphemously wrong--like unto murder--when it is outside such a covenant?
It is my understanding that we park and pet and sleep over and sleep with at the peril of our very lives. Our penalty may not come on the precise day of our transgression, but it comes surely and certainly enough, and were it not for a merciful God and the treasured privilege of personal repentance, far too many would even now be feeling that hellish pain, which (like the passion we have been discussing) is also always described in the metaphor of fire.
Someday, somewhere, sometime the morally unclean will, until they repent, pray like the rich man, wishing Lazarus to "dip . . . his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame"
If some few of you are feeling the "scars that have come to you in places where you ought not have gone,"
I wish to extend to you the special peace and promise available through the atoning sacrifice of
the Lord Jesus Christ.
If you have not been following it-start now. You can always stop. You can always turn back. No matter how far you've gone you can still be healed-but only through Christ. You cannot do it alone. But I know-I KNOW that this is a Commandment of God. I KNOW it will bless your life because it has blessed mine-abundantly. Living this commandment is a gift not a burden. If you don't believe me..if these statistics and deadly promises are not frightening enough..if you have not seen the awful affects on a friend or loved one then live it and see how it will benefit you. The way to know is by testing it out.
I know you will NEVER EVER REGRET living the Law of Chastity.
