God's plan for marriage

“Marriage should be honoured by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.” Hebrews 13:4
Here’s a principle reiterated over and over in God’s Word, with this verse being perhaps the clearest in the Bible, that is just as relevant today as it ever was. Yet in our western society, marriage is on the decline. If you were to take a survey of people on whether marriage is important, you’d be left with an overwhelming sense that peole don’t think it matters if you’re married or not, there’s nothing wrong with living together, that marriage is ‘old-fashioned’, and what’s the point in getting married because in five years’ time they’ll most likely be with another person anyway. If you were to ask them about sex, you’d find that most people don’t think anything of it; sure there are still some who wait ‘for the right person’, but it’s only a small subset of these who wait until after they are married. (Consider how people comment that getting married at 22 or 23 is 'too young', but someone who is still a virgin at 22 or 23 is seen as weird.) ‘Sex education’ in schools is becoming just that – expecting that kids are already engaging in it. People think nothing of having multiple sexual partners and some even boast about it.
But the Bible shows how we should think about these things. Marriage should be honoured by all – that means everybody, not just believers. Marriage is a binding covenant. And a marriage is different to a wedding – a wedding is one day, but marriage is the long-haul: for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. We also read that the marriage bed should be kept pure. There’s no other way of saying this: the Bible teaches that sex before marriage is wrong. Next we go on to read that God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. Any sexual activity that is not between a husband and his wife, is sin. God created sex: for procreation, for enjoyment, for a picture of unity. He also knew how addictive it is and therefore He placed it firmly within the boundaries of marriage. Sex is more than just a physical act. We read in Gen. 2:24 that the man and his wife became one flesh. When we join ourselves to another person in this way, we give away half of ourselves as the two become one. The more sexual partners you have, the more of yourself you are giving away. If you’ve been living like this, it’s not too late to change. It’s not too late to stop what you are doing and seek God’s forgiveness.