Purity of mind, conscience, and body is a tremendous personal asset. While this alone is not godliness, it is a Christian virtue and a blessing to mankind. The declining moral values of today are allowing men and women to accept and indulge in behavior that the Bible clearly defines as sin. This behavior has become an accepted way of life for many people. That which God calls sin is often no longer called sin. What will be the result?

Television, movies, and much literature are filled with violence, sex, and other immoral practices. This evil influence is brought into the home for entertainment. The minds of men, women, and children are filled with lustful thoughts and desires. It is sad that this evil environment is even found in the homes of some professing Christians today.

God’s Word tells us that “evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:13). “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection…despisers of those that are good…lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God” (2 Timothy 3:1-4).

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). Jesus told his disciples in words that we can understand and apply to our lives, “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications” (Matthew 15:19). “For as he [man or woman] thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7). Again Jesus says in the Holy Scriptures, “Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Matthew 5:28).