The world is awash in sex.  We’re inundated with sexual images all around us.  In all of world history there has never been such a preoccupation.  We’re all affected by this flood, and too many church members are being swept up in it.  We’re all vulnerable, and must be constantly on guard, or we’ll be caught in the net and be found inheriting a lesser kingdom in the Day of Judgment.

The Brethren tell us that gender was a premortal condition.  (See “The Family – A Proclamation to the World,” 1995).  We have always been male or female.  We have already existed for an eternity of time in our male or female condition.  What’s new in our experience is the act of procreation.  Procreation is a power that was bestowed upon us as a part of mortality.  We have been added upon and been given additional powers and responsibilities from those we possessed in our premortal existence.

All of humankind is struggling with how to deal with this new power.  It’s a great blessing.  It’s also a great responsibility.  It is a test, which if passed, will open the way for the bestowal of additional powers in the ongoing process of our being added upon.  It is a key, which if turned properly, will open the doors for us to receive the added-upon powers of being able to create and resurrect and have eternal increase.

Satan is having a field day with the issue of sex.  He and his premortal followers have been denied the ability to ever experience this added-upon power.  They’re jealous of our added-upon status of having bodies and procreative powers.  They know how we’re struggling to learn, adjust to our new situation, and use our new powers.

Satan has a major drive underway to confuse us, sidetrack us, and prevent us from qualifying for the next steps in progression toward Godhood and the possession of all powers.  His time is limited.  He only has this short span of mortality to get us under his power and influence or else his chance is lost.  He places all sorts of perversions before us, hoping to entice us.  It doesn’t matter which perversion we choose—they all result in multiple-choice misery.  If he is successful in confusing us, then his power over us will extend beyond the grave where we’ll have to struggle for a very long time until we’re finally able to break free from his grasp.

Procreation is a God-given power.  He has blessed his children with it, and desires that they use it in the manner He has decreed.  It is only to be used between a man and wife within the bounds of marriage.  There it becomes a sacred thing, and can be used freely.  Its purpose is to bond the man and his wife, make their relationship permanent, and to bring children to that stable union.

Anything else becomes confusion.  Those who abandon themselves to confused ways of thinking and acting will lose their powers and attendant blessings.  It stands to reason that if we don’t properly use our God-given powers and blessings, then they’ll be taken away.

The ability to procreate can be taken away.  We didn’t experience it in our long pre-earth existence.  Procreation can’t happen without a physical body.  When we die we lose our physical bodies.  We also lose our ability to procreate.  This is surely one reason that Doctrine and Covenants states that we’ll look upon the separation of our spirits and bodies as “a bondage.”  (D&C 45:17 and 138:50).  We’ll long for the promised reunification of spirit and body.

That reunification takes place in the Resurrection.  There are differences in the ways that we’ll be resurrected.  Some will be resurrected with celestial bodies, some with terrestrial bodies, and some with telestial bodies.  The bodies will all be the same ones we possessed in mortality, and will look just the same.  The differences will be in the amount of glory with which each is imbued, and the powers that are bestowed upon each individual.

Those resurrected with celestial bodies will have procreative powers restored.  They will have the power to beget spirit children, create worlds, and people them with their children.

Those resurrected with non-celestial bodies will live “separately and singly” in their saved condition.  (D&C 132:17)  The ability to procreate will in some way be taken from them.  Perhaps it will be from a simple loss of hormones and desire.

Procreation is a power.  Satan wants us to abuse it and lose it.  God wants us to righteously use it and channel that power into a furtherance of His purposes.  It is designed to bring us to a fullness of joy.  Its proper use will open the way to eternal life and the bestowal of all additional powers and blessings that God desires to give us.