Alzheimer’s Dementia is the subject of my current research. It is a disabling brain disease that destroys a person’s ability to think, reason, remember, or be socially appropriate. One cause is zinc deficiency. Zinc is an important mineral nutrient found in a healthy diet. Zinc ions are involved in neurotransmission (signal transmission from acetylcholine, catecholamine, serotonin, prostaglandin receptors). Zinc deficits are associated with Alzheimer's disease and depression.1,2,3 But where does the zinc go? How does a person loose zinc and become seriously deficient? What would cause my zinc losses to exceed my dietary intake? Believe it or not, it can be from too much sex.4 Zinc is a necessary component of healthy fertile seamen.5,6 In other words, don’t go crazy! And how much sex is too much? That is an important question to examine while you still have the mental faculties to do so. And how important, at this time in history, is it to ask that question?

The essence of all true faith is to do the right thing at the right time. Our present concern or focus is preparation for the judgment7 and the eminent second coming of our Lord to this earth.8 To this end, Amos calls us to, “Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.”9 In this special preparation we are counseled that we must have, “holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:”10 Titus warns us that this is not a time to be carried away with “divers lusts and pleasures,”11

We live in the awesome Day of Atonement, consequently also of the time of the investigative judgment of God, which is soon to finish its examination of those who have died and proceed to those of us who are still living on the earth. It may well have already have started on those still alive today. We should be well aware of this and “afflicting our souls.”12, with fasting and prayer.13

There is no question that God is the author of marriage, “Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled:”14 But in our day, it is not “business as usual”. Paul tells us of the value of sexual abstinence or sexual fasting, even in marriage, in the interest of afflicting our souls, “that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer;”15

The Old Testament also describes this “sexual fasting” in this same context of purification. When David asked the priest for holy bread from the tabernacle, the priest stated that there was a prerequisite, which was, “if the young men have kept themselves at least from women. And David answered the priest, and said unto him, Of a truth women have been kept from us about these three days, since I came out, and the vessels of the young men are holy,”16

God told Moses to warned Israel to abstinence or marital fasting in preparation to meet Him at Mount Sinai, in which He says, “Be ready against the third day: come not at your wives. And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled.”17

There were some things that Jesus felt we were not ready to hear, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.”18 But there were other things He freely shared.19 Jesus told us that this attitude of fasting and prayer should start in His day and extend to the second coming.20 “How could the children of the bridechamber fast when the bridegroom was yet with them? But when he should go back to Heaven, leaving his disciples to meet alone the unbelief and darkness of the world, then it would be fitting for the church to fast and mourn, until her absent Lord should return the second time.”21

Marriage excess is classed with the extravagant eating and drinking of people in these end-times. “But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”22 God is not pleased with those who backslide into intemperate eating and drinking, and marital self-indulgence when they need to be afflicting their

souls. He calls it iniquity and says, “Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die,”23 The prophet Joel, in calling us to this end time purification says of marriages and the bedroom, “let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet.”24 In other words, we are called to focus on the priorities, don’t get carried away with the cares of this life. Moderation and temperance are virtues.25 There is a time for everything, and everything is to be in its time, not to encroach on the time for other, possibly more important, considerations. When God calls for purification, there are responsibilities to care for, and distractions to be avoided. “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God:”26

Is not this the time in earth’s history when to be more like a Joseph27 might be more advantageous than to be like a Solomon28?

If you are not confident that you would be totally comfortable in God’s presence29 and that you need to spend some time in soul searching30 and you feel God is calling you to a closer walk with Him, I believe God is recommending that general moderation as well as periods of abstinence could be beneficial.

References

1 Gromova OA, Torshin IY, Pronin AV, Kilchevsky MA. Synergistic application of zinc and vitamin C to support memory, attention and the reduction of the risk of the neurological diseases. Zh Nevrol Psikhiatr Im S S Korsakova. 2017;117(7):112-119.
2 Szewczyk B. Zinc homeostasis and neurodegenerative disorders. Front Aging Neurosci. 2013 Jul 19;5:33.
3 Brewer GJ. Copper excess, zinc deficiency, and cognition loss in Alzheimer's disease. Biofactors. 2012 Mar-Apr;38(2):107-13.
4 Rogers C, Bernstein G, Nakamura R, Endahl G, Bhoopat T. Vaginal fluid zinc concentration as a marker for intercourse. J Forensic Sci. 1988 Jan;33(1):77-83.
5 Foresta C, Garolla A, Cosci I, Menegazzo M, Ferigo M, Gandin V, De Toni L. Role of zinc trafficking in male fertility: from germ to sperm. Hum Reprod. 2014 Jun;29(6):1134-45.
6 Björndahl L, Kvist U. A model for the importance of zinc in the dynamics of human sperm chromatin stabilization after ejaculation in relation to sperm DNA vulnerability. Syst Biol Reprod Med. 2011 Feb;57(1-2):86-92.
7 Revelation 14:7, King James Version of the Holy Bible.
8 Matthew 24:27,44, King James Version of the Holy Bible.
9 Amos 4:12, King James Version of the Holy Bible.
10 Hebrews 12:14, King James Version of the Holy Bible.
11 Titus 3:3, King James Version of the Holy Bible.
12 Leveticus 16:29-31, King James Version of the Holy Bible.
13 Ezra 8:21,23, King James Version of the Holy Bible.
14 Hebrews 13:4, King James Version of the Holy Bible.
15 1 Corinthians 7:4-5, King James Version of the Holy Bible.
16 1 Samuel 21:3-6, King James Version of the Holy Bible.
17 Exodus 19:9-16, King James Version of the Holy Bible.
18 John 16:12, King James Version of the Holy Bible.
19 Matthew 19:12, King James Version of the Holy Bible.
20 Matthew 9:15, King James Version of the Holy Bible.
21 White, E. G. (1877). The Spirit of Prophecy, vol. 2. Battle Creek, MI: Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association. P 192.
22 Matthew 24:37-39, King James Version of the Holy Bible.
23 Isaiah 22:12-14, King James Version of the Holy Bible.
24 Joel 2:15-18, King James Version of the Holy Bible.
25 White, E. G. (1871). Testimonies for the Church, vol. 2. Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Association. 472-480.
26 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5, King James Version of the Holy Bible.
27 Genesis 39:9, King James Version of the Holy Bible.
28 1 Kings 11:1-3, King James Version of the Holy Bible.
29 1 John 3:21; 1 John 4:17, King James Version of the Holy Bible.
30 Psalms 139:23,24, King James Version of the Holy Bible.