Aim to Be Morally Pure
When the Hebrew prophet Daniel was taken captive to Babylon at about seventeen years of age, his Babylonian masters tried to change his culture, his language, and even his diet. He was given food that had been sacrificed to idols. But Daniel 1:8 says, "Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's delicacies."
That is one of my favorite verses in all the Bible. Daniel made a resolution to be obedient to God. What we're talking about isn't just behavior modification, but a resolve in the heart that is backed by the power of God's Word and His Spirit and that is reinforced by making right decisions. That will put some steel in a man's spiritual backbone.
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As a young man I resolved to be morally pure. This was a high priority for me, and I give all the glory to God that He enabled me to stay sexually pure even though I grew up with the sexual revolution of the 60s breaking out all around me. And over the years, God has strengthened that resolve.
There is a wonderful program for youth today called True Love Waits. It has helped hundreds of thousands of Christian teenagers stay true to God and come to the marriage altar with a clear conscience before Him and their families.
But let's not get the idea that sexual temptation and the need for purity is just a teen thing. A lot of single men think that once they get married and their sexual desires are being legitimately met, they will be free from temptation.
But nothing could be further from the truth. You and I have to renew our resolve each day to be faithful to our wives and to the Lord. And the good thing is that the more we choose the right, the more we build spiritual muscle and the stronger we become. We're not helpless in this battle.
Abandon All Bitterness in Your Life
Hebrews 12:15 speaks of a "root of bitterness" that leads to defilement. Then the writer adds in verse 16, "Lest there be any fornicator," which is related to the Greek word porneia, the word for sexual immorality of all kinds that yields our word pornography.
What does bitterness have to do with sexual sin? If I allow hurt, whether real or perceived, to turn into bitterness, I start thinking with that victim mentality again. "Poor me, I've been hurt, and I didn't deserve it. So I deserve a little pleasure to make up for this injustice."
A preacher once told me that he thought he deserved a little sexual pleasure because he had worked so hard and had been hurt by some in the church. Again, these are the kinds of rationalizations, or rational-lies-ations, that we begin to make when we allow bitterness in any form to eat at our souls.