1 Thessalonians. If you're not familiar, that's in the New Testament. Everybody has their Bibles in chapel, right? You wouldn't sit like right in front of me in chapel. Who sold your Bible? Somebody? This guy needs another Bible. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. A couple of weeks ago, we had the opportunity to talk to you about the high calling of separation. This morning, I'd like to continue that and looking at the aspect of the high calling of separation and look specifically at this area of purity. Let's have a word of prayer. I'm going to ask the Lord to help me because I certainly need His help this morning. And then we'll get into this. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. Let's pray. Father, we're thankful this morning that we can open the Word of God, and that contrary to what society may tell us, God's Word has the truth. And of this we can be confident and know exactly what you would desire in this area of separation, specifically this morning, this area of purity. Lord, it will be hard for some people to listen to this message, and I pray that they would not see me but they would see Your truth and that they'd understand the biblical principles that come from God's Word. I pray that somehow, in some way, that there would be desire in each heart to obey You and to please You more than doing any other thing. And Father, we ask all these things in the precious name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen. When I went to college, I left Ocala, Florida and drove 1,300 miles pretty much straight north up to Wisconsin. Anybody ever been to Wisconsin? It seems like at every exit it says cheese and fireworks. I mean, that's pretty much, they have that and they have the Green Bay Packers and pretty much other than that, they don't really have much up there. Cornfields, some cows. My wife would always get upset when she'd see those commercials that say happy cows come from California. Oh man, it's like she'd say, The only thing we have in Wisconsin is cows, and California, they have so much to offer, and they want to steal our cows from us as well. And so that's kind of the claim to fame in Wisconsin. Another thing that happens in Wisconsin a lot is it snows. Anybody never seen snow? Never in your whole life? On TV? Never seen snow. Wow, that's maybe not amazing since we live in Florida, but that is quite a few people that have never seen snow before. I'll tell you what, in Wisconsin, it snows. If you ever go to Maranatha Baptist Bible College, you will get your fair share of snow. In fact, you'll probably go, you'll get enough of it that you'll never want to see it again. That's kind of where, pretty much where I'm at. I wouldn't mind going once a year, maybe go snowboarding or something like that, but that would pretty much be about it. The first time that I saw it snow in Wisconsin, I went outside and the snow was, I don't know if you could even say that it was falling because, you know, when you think of snow falling, you think of it going, you know, like this. When I walked outside, it was like the snow was slapping me upside the face. Because instead of falling, it was going from left to right. And I don't ever think. I mean, you could watch one flurry, and it just kept going. I don't know that it ever really hit the ground. I went out to my car to get in my car, and everything was frozen on my car. A nice sheet of ice all around my car. And then on the left side of my car, and I'm not exaggerating, was at least three inches of snow stuck to the left side of my car, not the top. Not the right side, but the left side because the snow is just blowing like this. It's incredible. I remember the second year that I was there, it snowed 18 inches in two days. And the bummer about that is when you're a little kid and you go to school and it snows, you don't have to go to school. But when you're in college and it snows, you just have to walk through the snow to the main building to get to all your classes. And so that's kind of a bummer about the whole you don't get any snow days. As much as you maybe don't like the cold, don't like to put on the gloves, don't like to put on the boots and the hat and all that stuff and get out in there, it is a lot of fun. It is beautiful. I remember one night, as it began to snow that 18 inches, it probably snowed 3 or 4 or 5 inches in a matter of just a few hours. It was a full moon out in some of the skies. We went out and we started playing football in the snow. We were just tackling everything. It was awesome because it was like getting tackled on the bed. It was just soft and you could run, you could hit somebody. It didn't even hurt at all. That snow would fall and fall and fall. It was just incredible how the moon would light it up and it would just reflect. It was almost like it was daylight outside. Just amazing to see the pure white snow. I remember looking out on the football field one time after it snowed, and some guys went out there and built 26 snowmen out on the football field. And they just were all over the football field. Just an incredible, beautiful sight. When I think of snow that has freshly fallen, I can't help but think of this idea of purity. And just the pure, white, perfect, innocent snow that has just fallen on the ground, it really is. Now, I'd be careful where you do this, but you really could just pick some of it up and kind of eat it. OK? Now they warn you not to eat snow that has different colors in it, OK? Because you don't know maybe how it got there. You know, the snow is great in November. The snow is great in December. The problem with it in Wisconsin is the snow that falls in November is still there in March and sometimes in April. And it looks beautiful when it first falls in its purity. Do you know what happens? They begin to plow the parking lots and they begin to scrape the sidewalks and they begin to throw dirty snow on top of fresh snow or whatever the case is. I remember knowing that there was 18 inches of snow on the ground and after a few weeks, the sun would come up every day, it would kind of melt. and then the sun would go down and it would freeze. The sun would come up and it would freeze. The sun would come up and it would melt. The sun would go down and it would freeze. After a few days of this, and I never knew this, I lived in Missouri and saw snow a little bit, but it was snow. It would be there for two days and it would melt. That's how it works in Missouri, but in Wisconsin it's there for four or five months. One day I watched this guy as he stepped out from the main building. I was looking out my window in my dorm and I saw him stepping on the snow and he's walking across. The snow, and I was like, what in the world? I thought you would sink down in that stuff. I mean, I didn't even get off the sidewalk. I just kind of looked at it. I thought, wow, it was completely just block solid. It was like a block of ice. And he's just walking right on top of this 18 inches of snow, not sinking down in it at all. Incredible. The fun part was, a lot of times, these guys that would come from Florida, or these guys would come from the South, and they didn't know any better just to stay on the sidewalks, they would try to do the same thing. And they would kind of start to walk across, and they'd almost get to the dorm, you know, and all of a sudden they'd go, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop. You know, and they would just, they would slap, and you would hear probably 10 or 12 people just kind of laughing through the dorms there. They're looking out their windows, their windows are open, and you could just hear someone hit the ice, you know, and just kind of start laughing. And that was fun, too. You know, at the end of January, February, they would have these huge piles of snow on the corners of the parking lots, where just time after time they would pile up the snow. And they just scrape it all up and pile it in there. And what was so beautiful at the beginning, what was so beautiful in the purest sense of the word, towards the end of the winter, just a big old hunk of black stuff. You didn't know if it was dirt. You didn't know if it was coal. You didn't know exactly what it was. but the snow had long since lost its purity and it was kind of used, it was abused, it was scraped up, it was kind of tossed to the side. As I think of that picture, there's a lot of fun things we could say about the snow, a lot of different things we could think about, but it does symbolize for us a great truth and a great picture for us to ask and to think on these things about purity this morning. When it comes to the area of sensuality or it comes to the areas of sexual things, we'll just be a little blunt this morning. Are you pure? Would you compare yourself to snow that has just freshly fallen or would you compare yourself to kind of that dirty snow that's been used and everything's been tossed into it, it's kind of been abused and kind of pushed to the side? It's dirty. It's really the snow that you wouldn't want anything to do with. You wouldn't want to scoop it up and eat it. You wouldn't even want to scoop it up and make a snowball out of it, really, because it's gross to even touch. This morning, there are two types of people in this room, and it's either those that are pure or those that are impure. I want to look at some truths that we can find in God's Word in 1 Thessalonians 4 that will help us understand this subject a little more. First of all, number one, the duty of the Christian. 1 Thessalonians 4 says, Furthermore, then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk, and to please God so you would abound more and more." Paul says to the church at Thessalonica, he says, hey, as we have taught you and as you have learned and as you have received the truth that we've taught you from God's Word, and we've showed you how to walk, we've showed you how to please God, we're just encouraging you to keep doing it. Abound more and more and more and continue on. Understand this morning that the duty of the Christian is very simply, in verse 1, to please God. It's to please God. Teenagers, this morning, you don't have to please your neighbor. You don't have to please your friend. You don't have to please the guys on the team. You don't have to please your boyfriend. You don't have to please your girlfriend. The only thing you have to do is please God. You say, well, what about my mom and dad? Yes, because when you please God and obey the fifth commandment, you'll take care of mom and dad. The only thing you have to do this morning is to please God with your life. The hard thing is that some of you really haven't even thought about God until you got here to chapel this morning and someone said His name. You see, because we as Christians need to start waking up every morning and understanding there's a God in heaven who holds us accountable for our life and what we do with it. And it's our obligation, it's our opportunity, it's our great privilege to answer the high calling of separation and to be pure and to please God with our life. Are you doing it? Are you pleasing God with your life? Some of us yesterday messed up big time. Because instead of trying to please God, we try to please our friends. Instead of trying to please God, we wanted to stay cool. And whenever you do that, and compromise the truth of God's Word, and compromise what God wants you to do, you are failing in your duty as a Christian. Understand that God loved you so much that He sent His Son to die on the cross for you. He paid such a high price for your purity. He paid such a high price so that you could live separately from this world and separately from sin. And sometimes we just spit in the face of God by not living to please Him. We want to please someone else. We want to please ourself. We want to do what feels good, feels right to me. And we could care less about pleasing God. I don't think that's everyone in this room, but I'm just asking the question this morning. Certainly, by the time you woke up until now, if it's in your scope of thinking, that you want to live for God and please God, there would have been a couple things in your mind that said, hey, I need to do this. It's pleasing to God. I need to pray and ask God for help in my day. It's pleasing to God. I need to be careful what I watch on the television when I eat my cereal this morning because I want to please God. I need to be careful how I respond to my teacher first hour when I didn't do my homework last night because I want to please God. That thought ought always to be in our mind. That thought ought to always come to our mind many, many times a day. Please, God. It's the duty of the Christian. And if we're not doing it, we're failing in a huge way. The duty of the Christian to please God. Secondly, may you notice the desire of Christ. The Bible says in v. 2, For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord. Because you know what we've said. You know what we've taught. What we've told you to do, the commands we've given you from Scripture, verse 3, for this is the will of God. For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you should abstain from fornication. The Bible says that this is the will of God. This is your sanctification. This is how you're set apart. The word sanctification being set apart for a specific purpose. This is how you're going to be set apart and be pure so that God can use you and you can enjoy all the things that God wants you to do. In the matter of purity, what do you think God's will is? May I picture it for you like this? There will come a day when you will find a girl, you will find a man whom you love with all your heart and you'll want to marry. You'll get engaged and you'll set the date. You'll buy the dress. You'll rent the tux. You'll come to the church. And young man, you'll stand down here at this altar here and your ride will be in the back. And as you stand here on your wedding day, God's desire, God's will is that you have all aspects of your purity intact. That's God's will. Do you see that? I don't want to be off in left field somewhere where you don't understand. But don't you think that's what God's will is for you, young man? That you stand here because marriage is honorable above all. And we stand here with all aspects of my purity intact. We're going to look at a little bit more of what those aspects are. Young lady, understand that when that back door opens, And you grab your dad's arm. And he begins to walk you down the aisle. God's will for you is that all your purity and all aspects is intact. It's together. Like the fresh fallen snow. That leads me to this question. How in the world is that even possible for the Christian to do when we live in this world? How is that even possible? We can't even go to Winn-Dixie and buy some ice cream or buy some dog food or buy some diapers and get in the register in the line to check out of the register without our purity being attacked by this world. Without our purity being assaulted by the things of the devil and what we see in the magazines. How is that possible that you're going to be able to stand on your wedding day with all aspects of your purity intact when you really can't even go to the mall And keep your mind pure because there's so much temptation. There's so much filth. There's so many things you've got to churn your eyes on. The way that people dress and the way that people act, it's a constant assault on the purity of Christians day in and day out. We can't churn on the TV for more than 45 seconds without there being some type of sexual innuendo, some type of bed scene, some type of suggestive humor. And the world is in a constant attack against your purity. Do you agree with me this morning? Alright, good. Glad you're with me. That's what the world's doing. The problem comes in, guys, is sometimes we don't even care. We say, hey, we'll just go to work. Hey, we'll do what they're doing. Hey, man, it's no big deal. It's a huge deal. God's will is that you have all aspects of your purity intact when you get married. And by the way, when you get married, you don't lose your purity. Because when you get married, it's right. Marriage is honor above all. The bed undefiled. but a whoremonger's indulgence, God will judge. You don't lose anything when you save yourself for one woman or one man and you keep it that way for a lifetime. You gain a great deal by doing it God's way. Understand this morning that the desire of God is that you always have every aspect of your purity intact. How do we do this when the world is assaulting against us? Everybody look at me. Keep your eyes on me. A lot of people that aren't really paying attention, I don't know if it's because you're guilty or tired or what the case is, but look at me when I preach, please. How are we going to do this? You're going to do it by answering the high calling of separation. You'll do it no other way. By answering the high calling of purity. I'm not saying this morning that it's easy, because it's not. I'm not saying this morning that there's going to be a great crowd of people that are going to answer that call with you, because they won't. Not even in this room. but it is a high call that God has empowered us and God has enabled us to do by the saving grace and blood of Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit and by the truth of God's Word, we can live in such a way that we can answer the call of purity and we can stand before everybody that is in the audience that day when we get married. A lady can put a white dress on and it actually means something and she can walk down the aisle and she can give a gift of purity to her husband and vice versa because they've answered the call. to purity. I believe with all my heart, I have a room full of teenagers this morning that say, Pastor, I would love to do that. Man, I would love to do that. But you've got a few years where you've got to hold on tight and get ready for the battle because the battle's coming. It's a battle. It won't happen by accident. But we consciously answer the call, and God helps us to do it. In this idea, the desire of Christ, in verse 2 and 3, we begin to see five things that I want to show you. There's five infinitive phrases or commandments that God gives to us. And very quickly, we're going to look at them. Number one, abstain from fornication. Verse 3, the second part, it says, that this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication. Abstain. Do not partake in. Don't be involved with. I'm abstaining from meat this week. I'm not eating any meat. Not really, but that's just to help you understand. I'm abstaining from that. I'm not going to abstain from fornication. Fornication, we get it from the Greek. It comes from the Greek word pornea, which we get the English word pornography. The Greek word pornea and the Greek word graphe, which means to write, or we use the word graphics. is to write out or to picture out those sensual things that are not appropriate. The idea is of sexual immorality of any kind. The Bible says that we have to abstain from that sexual immorality of any kind. St. Pashaloma is just one time. One time is too many. One too many. Any type of sexual immorality. We say, you know, we don't go all the way. We just, you know, we just, when no one's looking, you know, we kiss some and we do, yeah. Is that sexual? And the answer is yes. Is it immorality? And the answer is yes. Because it's not with your husband. It's not with your wife. It's not according to God's plan. It's not pure. Is it purity? No. sort of abstain from fornication. Number two, know how to possess your vessel. Know how to possess your vessel. Verse 4, the Bible says that every one of you, this is the will of God, that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor. The idea of to know how to possess his vessel. There are two schools of thought on here. The first one is to know how to acquire a wife in sanctification and honor. So I know how to acquire a husband in sanctification and honor. The second one is to keep your own body in self-control. Know how to possess my vessel, my body, and to keep it in control, and to wait for a time when I get married where things are right and pure before God. Now, I know some of you this morning think, well, I know how to possess a wife. I know how to catch a wife. I know how to seek after one of those. I've got these cool pick-up lines. And you guys use these lines like, hey, do you have a map? because I'm getting lost in your eyes. I've heard some of you guys use this. You know what? Your eyes are the same color as my Porsche. Any of these guys ever use one of those on you, ladies? You've heard them before, haven't you? I think I need to call heaven because they lost one of their angels. I know how to pick up a lady. Here's one I heard him use yesterday. He said, is your name Gillette? Because you're the best a man could get. And I saw him and he said, I know how to do that. I know how to pick up ladies. That's not what the Bible is talking about. But to know how to possess... Alright, you can tell all the pickup lines later, right? Let me finish preaching and then you can get to it. Sorry to distract you. We know how to possess our vessel, our body, in sanctification and honor. The idea is that I'm going to know how to conduct myself and conduct my life in a way that's going to aid in the process of sanctification, in sanctification, the process of becoming holy, the process of continuing to be more like Christ, to be more pure each and every day of my life. Here's the question. The relationship that you're in right now, and I understand you're not a boyfriend, you're not a girlfriend, we're just friends, we're just hanging out, we just know each other, we just spend 40 hours a day on the phone together, but we're not dating. Okay, the relationship that you're in, The relationship in which you may or may not be physical, because that doesn't necessarily disqualify it from being pure or impure. But the relationship that you're in, does it help you possess your vessel, your body, your life, your mind in sanctification? Does it aid in the process of being more like Christ? I hope and I pray that by you knowing me, and by me having the opportunity to invest some of God's truth into your life, I hope that Pastor Lowman is a help to the process of sanctification in your life. I hope that by coming to Ocala Christian Academy, that this school is a process, is a help in the process of you becoming more like Christ. You're more like Christ because you know me. That's my hope, that's my prayer. You're more like Jesus Christ because you come to a school like Ocala Christian Academy, because you go to a church like Central Baptist Church. But the question is, the relationship that you're in, does it help you become more like Christ? Does it help you possess your vessel in sanctification? If it doesn't, my friend, you are out of the will of God. If your relationship with a person of the opposite sex pulls you away from obeying Scripture, pulls you away from being holy, pulls you away from being God, you are living in open rebellion sin before God. And if you didn't know it before, you know it now. In sanctification. Secondly, it's in honor. The Bible says that we know how to possess our vessel in honor. That is, in a way that would honor God. In a way that would honor the Scripture. in a way that would honor your parents. Look, you may have never touched that guy. You may have never touched that girl. But if you're involved in a relationship that you have to sneak around your parents, you have to deceive your parents, you have to do things when people aren't watching, you are in sin. You're living in sin. You're out of the will of God because you're supposed to possess your vessel in sanctification and honor. God's never going to lead you into His will. It's going to cause you to break the fifth commandment. Honor thy father and thy mother. It's important in this matter of purity that we possess our vessel in sanctification and honor. It goes on to say in v. 5, "...not in the lust of concupiscence." And that's a big word. It's hard for me to say. Let me explain to you what it means. There are two words here that we're looking at. The word lust and then concupiscence, I guess. The first word, lust, has the idea of a passive lust. We're overcome by lust. We do things that we never thought were possible. Perhaps even last night you did something when you're all by yourself, and afterwards you kind of thought the Holy Spirit got in your heart, got in your mind, and somewhere along the side you thought, man, I never thought I'd be involved. How did I get to this place? I never thought I would do this. Look at me. It wasn't last night, but it's been some time in your life, and you're living an impure life. The sad part is, I don't know if it's sad or not, but you may not even have someone else. another person in your life, a real person sitting next to you that you're involved with. It may just be all yourself. But you're involved in impure things. And we have this passive lust that just kind of sweeps us up and we don't even realize it. It's out of control. We don't know how to handle it. The Bible says the lust of concupiscence. The idea of concupiscence, and this is the last time I hope I say that word, is the idea of an active lust making a choice to enjoy a cheap thrill. You know, sometimes it's not even that we just get carried away and say, oh man, what happened? How did I end up over here? But it's the fact that we go home at night, and while no one's looking, we turn on the television, and we know what we're going to find on there. We know what we're looking for. We turn right to the channel, and we fill our minds with sexual garbage that is destroying our purity. We make an active choice. Passive lust comes from active lust. You want to know how people end up in a place where they say, man, how did I do that? How did I molest this kid? How did I end up in homosexuality? How did I end up with a child? I'm only 15 years old. How did I end up way over here? Because you can trace it all the way back to some active choices. When you wouldn't control your eyes. When you looked at whatever you felt like. When you wanted to please the guys instead of pleasing God. And this was a pathway that led to this. There was a man by the name of Larry Waters. He was an Air Force cadet. He wanted to fly, but because of his bad vision, he wasn't able to. He got out of the Air Force. Sitting around his house one day, he had this overwhelming urge that he was going to fly. So he went to the Army surplus store, and in 1982, he purchased 45 weather balloons. Weather balloons were roughly about four foot in diameter, nice size balloon, 45 of them. He purchased a large helium tank. He tied a rope to his Jeep, a rope to a lawn chair, and then he tied all the helium-filled weather balloons to his lawn chair. He got a BB gun and a six-pack, a little bit of food, and he put it on his lap, and he sat down in the chair. As he began to attach himself, he began to kind of lift up, and his thought was, you know what, I'm just going to cut this cord, and I imagine that I'm just going to float up 20, 30 feet in the air, enjoy being up in the air and flying for a little bit, then after a while I'll just begin to shoot the the balloons one by one and I'll just float nicely back to the ground what a plan listen I put this disclaimer on this don't try this at home okay bad idea here's what Larry did he got all that ready he's up and it kind of up in the air and he cut the cord he cut the rope that was attaching the lawn chair to the jeep and within minutes Larry in the area of Los Angeles, California, floated 11,000 feet above the ground. Can you imagine? The first sighting of Larry was by a United Airlines pilot as he flew by and he called down to air traffic control and he said, there's a guy in a lawn chair and he has a gun. Wasn't that scary? And they said, what? And sure enough, there he was on the blimp. And they found him. They went up. They took helicopters up there, searched out. And once they figured out that Larry was not a threat to national security, they lowered a rope from a helicopter down to him. And the wind from the helicopter kept pushing him away and pushing him down. So they had to go up much higher than he was and let a longer rope down so that he could grab onto it and attach it to his lawn chair. And they pulled him back. The problem was, as Larry was up there, he entered into international airspace, which is a crime. And so, as soon as he touched the ground, he was arrested. You say, Pastor Owen, why do you tell that story? Can I tell you this? That Larry was in total control until he made an active decision to cut the rope and to start flying. And once he did, he was totally out of control. He was left up to the mercies of the wind. He was left up to the mercies of however long those weather balloons would last. He may still be up there if it weren't for those helicopters that come and got him. And teenager, understand, you are in control. And by God's grace, you are pure until you make active decisions to seek out impurity. And don't think that you're in control. Don't think that you've got a handle on it. Because you don't. Listen, David didn't do it. Samson didn't do it. And you won't either. You make an active decision, and then lust and purity just becomes passive. And it's just another part of your life. It's like brushing your teeth, hopefully, each and every day. It's just something you do, and you don't even know how to get control of it anymore. You're out of control. I could take you to some people I know, and they're dear in my life this morning, and they live a life of homosexuality. And they say, Pastor Lowman, how'd they get there? And you could ask them how they get there. And it just started with one little thing. It didn't start in homosexuality, but it started with impurity. In the mind, the heart is so deceitfully wicked and above all things, to understand that you are capable of the worst impurity, even if you don't think you are. And it began with active choices to disregard the high calling of separation in the area of purity. Number three, do not go beyond, Fraud. We've looked also at abstaining from fornication, to know how to possess your vessel. Number three, don't go beyond. Don't fraud. Look at verse 6. The Bible says, "...that no man..." This is the will of God, "...that no man go beyond and to fraud his brother in any matter." The idea of go beyond, okay, is to cross over the line. You say, Pastor Owen, what's the line? I'm not here to set a standard or rule for you, say you can't give a girl a high five or anything like that. But I want you to understand, here's the line, very plainly in the Bible, and I hope we can all agree on this, it's purity. It's keeping yourself pure. It's by doing things and the Holy Spirit inside of you says, hey, that's good, that's right, that's the way to handle it, you're pure. When the Holy Spirit says, whoa, buddy, back up, that's impure. And I believe more of us know what the line is than want to admit perhaps. The Bible goes on to say, don't defraud. The idea of the word defraud is to have more, to steal. Don't take something that isn't yours. Look, that girl you're dating doesn't belong to you. Look, that guy you're dating does not belong to you. She has a husband. Although they may not know each other yet. She's going to marry someone one day and it may not be you. My wife liked someone else before she liked me. I'm so thankful that she was pure. You want to know why the reason is? It's because that man's been here to preach many times at this church. His name's Kevin Taylor. In college, they talked. In college, they went to ministry projects together. And after a little while, they realized It wasn't God's will. And in all aspects of the relationship, they were pure. Do you realize how incredibly awkward that would be? If they had done something physically, and then for me to have him here to preach, and for us to be really good friends. I talk to him once a week. There are zero issues. But I praise the Lord that there were two people in my life that answered the high call of purity. Hey, some of you want to be a preacher. It'd be incredibly awkward one day for you to mess around with some lady. You're traveling around the country and you show up to a church to preach and oh my goodness, there she is. That's weird. That's really uncomfortable. That may limit your testimony and limit your opportunity to serve God and be more effective for the Lord. If you understand who you're dating, they don't belong to you. They have a husband. They belong to their parents. They have a wife, ladies. And you need to help them stay pure. Do not defraud. Don't take something that doesn't belong to you. Understand that every time you do, you steal from yourself, you steal from that person, you steal from your mate, you steal from their mate, you steal from your parents, and you steal from God. Don't defraud. Don't take something that doesn't belong to you. If we want to be biblically pure, we must understand that it's important not to go beyond the line. Listen, the Bible says this in James chapter 4 and verse 4. The adulterers and adulteresses. Know ye not that friendship with the world is enmity with God. You are spiritually engaged to Christ. And one day there's going to be a marriage in heaven where we as saved people will be the bride of Christ. And God looks down in James chapter 4 and verse 4 and says, Hey, you're cheating on me. You adulterers and adulteresses. You need to get pure. In verse 8 it says this. He goes on to say, "...cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded." Let me ask you a question. These double-minded people who love God and love the world, they say they love God and say they're on the way to heaven, and they live like the world, and they live impure religiously. If they are spiritually going to get to be not double-minded, they're going to cleanse their hands, they're going to purify their hearts, and they're not going to be double-minded, what kind of mind will they have? Anybody? Single-minded. Got it? Because if they're double-minded, and God says, don't be double-minded, clean up, get pure, quit committing adultery, I want you to be single-minded. Biblical purity. Spiritual purity. And I believe we see the same thing as it relates to physical ideas as well. Purity is keeping everything for one person. Look guys, it's not how much you can do with your girlfriend. It's not how far you can go. It's how much can I save for my wife? How much can I save for my husband? How much of my purity can I keep? And that's really the answer. I want to keep it all. It's not how far can I go without really getting in trouble. How far can I go without really getting busted? How far can I go? How close to the line can I get? Don't cross the line. Don't defraud. Keep yourself pure for God. and your wife and your husband. There are three areas of purity. Number one, the singleness of body or physical purity. For I am pure for one. Understand that anything else is thievery. The Bible says when we sin with our body, it's a sin against our body. You are hurting yourself. You are hurting yourself. You talk to someone who is unfaithful and they even have medical studies that are done of people who are unfaithful and impure before marriage. They get married and there is not as much enjoyment, there's not as much pleasure, there's not as much fulfillment inside of that. Even after they kind of clean up their act and they're with one person for the rest of their life, there's not as much enjoyment as those who have kept themselves here as teenagers and they've married one person, and they've been a single-minded person. You know, the problem with dating in America today is that really it teaches us more about how to get divorced than it ever will teach us about how to stay married. Because we date someone, and when they come with a different hairdo, or when they come with clothes we don't like, or when they say something to me, boom, it's over. There's no commitment. There's no idea of single-mindedness. The truth is that some of us have dated four or five or six guys even in this room, and we've given things away that we can never get back. And that's not God's plan. That's not God's will. But it's singleness of body. Secondly, it's singleness of mind. That is mental purity. Do you know what the reality is of many of us? We click on a television and we watch bed scenes. Sit up please. Quit leaning. We click on websites. We have no business being. And it is even hard for our mind to get through an entire class period without thinking something perverted or immoral. And we have no singleness of mind. Our mind is on the girl on television. Our mind is on the girl they talk about on my music. My mind is on that picture I have on my computer. My mind is on that movie that I watch, that movie that I'm going to see, that movie that I saw last week. And we have given our mind to many different ladies. And hey, look, when you go to get married, And you try to focus on one person, and you've got all those pictures and all those things in your mind. You try to be single in mind, and I'll tell you, you're in for a battle. Because you've given it all away in your mind. Thirdly this morning, I'm sorry, I'm going to go back and let you listen to a few verses. The psalmist says, I will set no wicked thing. Before mine eyes, I hate the work of them that turn aside. I hate the work of those that put stuff out on the television, put stuff out on the TV, and put stuff out on the internet, and put stuff out in the mall, and put stuff out in the grocery stores that are going to cause young men's minds and young ladies' minds to be turned away from what is true. I hate the work of them that turn aside. Say, Pastor Lowell, when that's so mean, that's what God says. And I hate Hollywood. And I hate the television. And I hate wickedness. And that's what God says. But we as Christians, so many times, we love it. We live for it. We can't wait to get home from school so we can watch it again. We revel in impurity. And it's destroying your spiritual life. Job said, I made a covenant, a promise with my eyes. Why then, when I think upon a maid, Matthew tells me that whoso looks on a woman with a lust after her has committed adultery in his heart already. He said, Pastor, I never touched her. I just looked. It's sin. It's adultery. God says it. David said that he saw Bathsheba and he looked. He sinned with His eyes. He did not have singleness of His mind. 2 Peter 2, verse 14, "...having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin." You need to be careful. It's important, young person, what you watch. And if you want to be pure, if you want to answer the high calling of purity in your life, understand that you're going to have to guard yourself from watching anything you want on the television. You're going to have to guard yourself from listening to certain types of music. You're going to have to guard yourself from listening to certain types of jokes or telling certain types of... You're going to have to block some internet sites. on your Internet, on your computer at home. Understand, if you want to keep your mind pure, you're going to have to set up some standards. You're going to have to set up some safeguards so that you can have a singleness of mind, so that you can stand there on your wedding day and you can say, God, I've pleased You with my life. And to your wife or to your husband, you can say, I've kept my mind pure for You. What a gift that you could give. Thirdly, there's singleness of heart. This is emotional purity. The love Christ wants for us to have for Him is one focus saying, Christ, I love You. I want to please You with my life. And this is an example for us of what God wants for a husband and a wife. What He wants for a young person is He wants you to have a pleasing relationship. He wants you to have something that is pure. He wants you to have something that is holy. But the problem is that so many times we go around and we give a piece of our heart to Joe, and we give a piece of our heart to Billy Bob, and we give a piece of our heart to Frank, and we give a piece of our heart to Sammy, and we pass it all around and give it all up. By the time we get married, we really don't have anything left. Everybody has a little bit. with a singleness of heart, to live with an incredible purpose of keeping myself pure, answering the call. Look at v. 6, would you please? That no man go beyond the process in any matter, because the Lord is avenger of all such as we also have forewarned you and testified. There's a warning there. He says, don't defraud. Don't steal from that girl. Don't steal purity from that guy. Don't steal it from a future mate. Don't steal it from God. Don't steal it from the parents. Because if you do, and Paul says, hey, we have warned you. We've told you, listen, they lived in a wicked culture. They lived in a wicked... It was just as wicked as the United States of America is today. The city of Thessalonica. They had temples with prostitutes in it. You'd go in and commit religious acts with prostitutes. That was their religion of the day. And so Paul's telling his Christians, hey, we've got to be separate. We've got to be different. We've got to live for God. We've got to do these things. We've got to keep ourselves pure. Because if we don't, God is the avenger of all those who break this rule. You say, Pastor Lowell, what does that mean? I don't know. I don't want to find out. But you keep pushing the envelope, buddy, and you're going to find out. The Bible says that whoremongers and adulterers, God will judge. You say, Pastor Loma, how is that going to exactly happen? I don't know. And I don't want to find out. I don't want to be on the other end of that judgment of God. I want to keep my heart pure. I want to keep my mind pure. I want to keep my body pure. Singleness of heart. The warning that we have. Can you notice thirdly, Not only do we have the duty of the Christian, the desire of the Christian, but the divine call. God is calling us not to uncleanness, verse 7, but to holiness. He is calling us not to uncleanness. Listen here carefully, please. He is calling us to cleanness. Look, some of us live impurely, and you understand that that is not the call of God. That is not the will of God for your life. We looked at it last week. The Bible said, come out from among them and be a separate, and touch not the unclean things, saith the Lord, and I will receive you, and I'll be your Father, and I'll take care of you, and I'll bless you, and I'll give gifts to you in your life. 2 Corinthians 7, verse 1 says, Having therefore these precious promises, let us cleanse ourselves. Let's get pure because God's promise is so many great things. God's promise is something that outweighs the world completely. And that's what I want. Fourthly, may we notice the despised call in verse 8. He therefore that despises, despises not man, but God, who hath also given unto us His Holy Spirit. Hey, twice in the Bible, the Bible says, hey, if you despise this, if you hate it because you're hearing the truth of God's Word like this, You're not despising the man. Understand this morning that if you've got a problem because of what I'm saying, look, your problem is not with me, it's with God. And the Bible goes on to say twice in the Bible, the Bible gives us this context. And in both times, it has to do with this idea of sexual impurity or sexual purity. Why would that be? It's because when a preacher starts talking about your TV show, and about your music, and about your dating life, and about what you do with your body, it's in our flesh to say, hey man, back off! I'll do what I want to do. And my friend, you go ahead and do what you want to do, but you're not going to have to answer to me. You're not despising me. It's not my message. It's not my truth. I'm just telling you what the Bible says. You want to go ahead and live an impure life? That's fine. But remember that God is the avenger on all those that defraud other people. that live impure lives. You don't have to be upset at me. I walk in the cafeteria today. I'm not looking down at you. You don't have to be mad at me. I'm just telling you the truth. I am trying to be your friend. I'm trying to tell you something that Hollywood would never reveal. Something the devil would like to keep covered up. Number five, you say, Pastor Loma, how do we do it? How in the world can we do it? Look at verse 8, the end part. It says this, But God, who hath also given unto us His Holy Spirit. Understand there is not only a despised call, but there is also a dependence upon Christ, upon the Holy Spirit. Listen, young person, you can't live a pure life in this world without God's help. You can't live a pure life in this world without walking with God. I can think back to my senior year and two girls that were in my class, valedictorian, salutatorian. They were going to be. Until somewhere along in the middle of the year, they didn't show up to school the next day. You know why? Because they made an active choice to live impurely and seemingly had everything in the world going for them. But then all of a sudden, high school dropouts because of an impure life. Hey look, it's not all about getting a diploma. I'm not telling you to be pure because you can get a diploma. I'm not telling you to be pure because you don't want to end up with a baby. I'm telling you to be pure because God says that's the way you ought to do it. God says that's the best way. God says that's the way you please me. And that's what we need to do. But we don't have to do it alone. We have the help of the Holy Spirit. We have the help of God's Word. We have the help of godly people to encourage us and to influence us so that we can answer the high call of purity. You say, Pastor Loew, I'm here this morning, and I have to be real honest, I have blown it in my life. Well, I do. The Bible says, if you'll confess your sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. You see, You may not be able to gain back your virginity. You may not be able to gain back your innocence. But my friend, there's good news. If you will humble yourself before God, and you will admit to Him that it is wicked sin, that it's a sin against Almighty God. It's why Jesus died on the cross. The Bible says that He will cleanse you and make you pure again. You may not be able to gain back your virginity or your innocence, but you can gain back your purity. What a great hope for all those who are willing to humble themselves and confess or agree with God about the sin and change their life, repent and make a change in life to live and to answer the high calling of separation in the area of purity. Let's bow our head and close our eyes.