By ARTHUR S. MAXWELL MANY Times Over the Past 50 Years I Have

March 14, 1968 Vol. 145 No. 11 REVIEW AND HERALD • GENERAL CHURCH PAPER OF THE SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS By ARTHUR S. MAXWELL Editor, Signs of the Times "The hour has come, the hour is striking, and striking at you, the hour and the end!" (Eze. 7:5, 6).* ANY times over the past 50 years I have stood on Capitoline Hill M in Rome looking down at the ruins of the ancient Forum, conjuring up the glories of the Roman Empire of which only these ruins remain. I have stood in the majestic temple of Karnak in Upper Egypt, marveling at the riches and talents of the ancient civilization that once erected this mighty building. I have stood on the Acropolis in Athens, viewing the ruins of the magnificent edi- fices erected during the golden age of Greece. All over the world you will find relics of the past such as these—the pyramids of Egypt, the columns of Baalbek, the Aztec monuments in Mexico, the Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the Zimbabwe Temple in Rhodesia—all of which tell of long- faded glories and of the end that came to cities, countries, empires, and civiliza- tions in the long ago. No matter how great and powerful (To page 6) [Sermon preached at Mountain View, California„Janu- ary 13, 1968. (Based on the new Book of the Year, This Is the End!)] *From The Bible: A New Translation by James Moffatt. PHOTO BY PETE TURNER, COURTESY OF Copyright by James Moffatt 1954. Used by permission of LEDERLE LABORATORIES, A, DIVISION Harper & Row, Publishers, Incorporated. OF AMERICAN CYANAMID COMPANY. THE ellIE FOR PURIM H. A. ROBERTS PHOTOS What's Wrong but guilt feelings may bring women to a doctor, a pastor, or to a mental breakdown and hospitalization. Sex is talked about so freely at present that even mere children are amaz- ingly well informed about anatomical facts, and most adolescents believe this is the whole story, blissfully ig- norant of what constitutes a mature understanding. Young people of high school and college age who see adults HE voice crying in our mod- amount of maternal suffering. De- seemingly doing as they please and ern world "What's wrong with voted to their progeny, many of these getting what they want, equate free- T premarital sex?" sounds women will make every sacrifice to dom with absence of restraint. They strangely familiar. It is an echo of a try to give their babies a normal life. often are led to seek no higher con- similar question raised millenniums Some, ridden with guilt, to get the trol for themselves than their feelings. ago: "What's wrong with the fruit of child a home, will make unhappy But feelings are temperamental, the tree of knowledge of good and marriages, one, two, or more times, changing from minute to minute, evil? It is very pleasant. It will make spreading their misery through many variable according to circumstances. one wise. It will help one 'attain to a families. Then there are those who Action on this basis is not freedom more exalted sphere of existence, to shift the responsibility to parents, to nor a "new freedom." It is the old enter a broader field of knowledge.' " welfare, to aid to dependent children, slavery to passions, leading to destruc- These same virtues are extolled for so the child will live first in one, tion of all that makes life here worth premarital sex, and incidentally, both then in another, and then in still an- while and life hereafter possible. carry the sting of the serpent. other foster home. I have cared for Yes, sting is the proper word, for many such children. Mature Relationships someone always gets hurt whenever Even when premarital sex does not As men mature they develop the there is sex outside of marriage. For result in conception, someone gets capacity to give. Maturity in sexual example, in the white population of hurt. For example, in those couples relationships is present when the giv- America there are four illegitimate who indulge and soon marry, even ing of satisfaction is much more im- births out of every 100 births and in though neither party has been pro- portant than receiving it. Whenever the nonwhite population there are miscuous, circumstances arise that sex behavior fails in giving and is in- 26.3 per 100. Think of the suffering suggest doubts about the fidelity of terested only in getting satisfaction, it of these children, first as babies, later the one spouse to the other. The lacks maturity and is a manifestation as confused adolescents, as they grow memory of the previous behavior in- of self-indulgence. Sex behavior out- up without proper, adequate family creases the lack of trust and confi- side of marriage always has the qual- relationships. The situation is bad dence and leads to quarreling, in- ity of self-indulgence. On the part of enough when finances are adequate crimination, and too often to divorce, the braggart who tells of his con- and worse when they are not. with its attendant disruptions of the quests of unsuspecting and not-so-in- This is not the whole story. It is family and quota of disturbed chil- nocent girls, it has the quality also of only one phase. There is a tremendous dren. Perhaps it doesn't go this far, self-aggrandizement. There is much 2 REVIEW AND HERALD, March 14, 1968 perience is necessary and desirable is part of "sales talk" of men who are trying to seduce women. It is contra- dicted by every study ever made. When pressured by the group to give up her virginity, one girl answered, "I can make that choice any time I want to. You no longer have a choice, only to live by the consequences of your actions." Some girls choose premarital sex as a way of showing the world they are free of their parents or of their reli- By HARLAND P. KAHLER, M.D. gion, not realizing that someone is go- ing to get hurt. Free love is advocated as a desirable way of life, but sexual intercourse without commitment is promiscuity. Sexual intercourse in these circumstances is not the real sharing that human nature seeks, the complete surrender of each to the other, the merging of both in a relationship that is bigger than either one of them. A real neurosis may be the result of these experiments, which may make successful adult adjustment to sexuality impossible without long With Premarital Sex? psychological re-education. (See Paul Popenoe, Are Virgins Out of Date? The American Institute of Family Relations, Publication 28.) written today on "sex freedom," "fun hurt is future, so no action can be Another area that needs attention morality," and pornographic litera- based on such a supposition. It's to- is "permissiveness with affection" that ture is flooding the markets. But all tally impossible to base a sound, true some advocate; but it raises more of this is leading many to slavery. conclusion on such an "if" premise. questions. How much permissiveness? When sex is motivated by any con- Some of the advocates of premari- How much affection? The distinction sideration other than a giving to an- tal relations answered the following depends on knowledge and percep- other, a form of caring, it becomes question with an "if." "If you were tion of adult motivation and emo- manipulative. For example, sex can the father of a teen-age daughter who tional reaction toward which the be motivated by the anxiety of loneli- asked permission to engage with her teen-ager is striving. This comes with ness, by the wish to conquer or to be lover in premarital intercourse, maturity and is not easily taught, so conquered, by vanity, or by the wish would you say for her to go ahead?" permissiveness becomes sexual ex- to hurt or even destroy. When it is They said, "If it would make her ploitation. In short, heavy petting motivated by any of these rather than happy, I would." Their answer shows leads to sexual exploitation. Extra- by true love, the sexual act becomes the argument to be fallacious, since marital sex as advocated by a num- manipulative and this can happen no one can certainly predict such hap- ber of writers arguing for "varietism" either inside or outside a marriage re- piness. The action is to be now—the is also specious, though made to ap- lationship. Premarital sex usually happiness, if ever, in the uncertain pear desirable; in a society where in- falls into manipulative behavior and future. Many, both men and women, fidelity prevails, children are deprived is engaged in only for the immediate who have fallen into the trap of pre- and hurt and marriage is insecure. pleasure, ulterior design, or physical marital sexual experimentation find It is from the standpoint of health satisfaction of one or both of the the happiness they thought would —emotional health, physical health, partners. come with marriage to be an empty spiritual health—that I submit the hoax. I think of a couple I counseled desirable ideal is premarital chastity. An Empty Hoax who had been married 22 years and It makes for self-esteem and respect. Even if one were to lay aside the whose children were grown. Quarrel- Continence is possible and is not det- traditional religious emphasis, the ing and nagging ultimately brought rimental to the mental or physical threat of venereal disease, and the divorce because the relationship after health of either the male or the fe- statistics quoted above, he would still marriage was not as it had been pre- male.

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