I am addressing an issue of great importance: sexual purity. I believe that we have abandoned biblical standards of sexual behavior, to our great harm and detriment. Our Christian mind has been so invaded by the moral degradation of the world around us that we have become indoctrinated with pop culture rather than indoctrinated with God's truth.

 

Let me give you some examples of how Christians have lowered their standards. A single woman told me that she was depressed because the night before she had gone to bed with a Christian man and she knew his motives were strictly selfish. Her remorse was not over her sin, but rather because she felt he had taken advantage of her.

 

A listener wrote: "God has given me a very nice young man who . . .wants to marry me. But the one thing that frightens me is that our relationship has a lot of sexual drive. I have always wanted to save myself for my wedding night, but the excuse he gives is that he's going to marry me any way. Why not now?" The young man says he is a believer, but is more than willing to partake of sex before marriage, and has rationalized it to be okay.

 

A young woman who emphatically claimed to be a believer told me, without embarrassment or shame, that she's been living with her boyfriend for three years. Her concern was not over her sinful lifestyle but whether or not this guy is a believer.

 

I counseled a woman who was enduring the consequences of an illicit relationship with a man in her church congregation. They both sang in the choir. She was more concerned about the fact that he no longer wanted to date her and had moved on to someone else than she was that she had sinned against God.

 

These, unfortunately, are not isolated incidences. It is alarming to realize how many people who claim to be followers of Christ and believe in the Bible have allowed the world system to lead them to casual attitudes toward illegitimate sexual relationships. How about you? Do you even know what biblical standards of purity are? If you claim to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, you should be totally committed to sexual purity all your life. That means no kind of sexual relationship outside the boundaries of marriage.