The moral standards are being lowered each year in this and other English-Speaking countries- the very countries that took the lead in circulating the Word of God and spreading the gospel. Corruption has set in and is growing apace. This, however, need not cause alarm to the children of God for His Word has foretold that such conditions would come.
One brother, well-known among us, has said that the man of the world is governed by his lusts and popular opinion. General disapproval of a certain course or certain actions tends to restrain people; but when lewdness and immorality are accepted as the natural course, or the inevitable, then popular opinion has dropped and the general standard of conduct will go down correspondingly.
Every bit of information about the growing percentage of "unlawful deeds" that is talked privately or published openly increases the rate of decline in popular opinion. Deeds that would have been frowned at, and their doers ostracized, not many years ago, are now accepted and acknowledged without a shock or shudder.
Is God indifferent to all this? No! no! no! He has said that He will judge the doers of these things. The Old Testament gives the account of His governmental dealings with the world at the flood, of Sodom and Gomorrah, of the inhabitants of Canaan, and then of Israel when they followed in the ways of the heathen who before them had polluted the land. And it is common knowledge that the Roman Empire had lapsed into awful, sordid corruption before it fell. "God is not mocked," and men and nations shall reap the just consequences of their wickedness.
Further, God has told us that the moral conditions that prevailed before the flood and before the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah will again be general when the Son of man comes in judgment. (See Luke 17:26-30.)
Now, what about the true Christian's attitude toward all this? Is he to accept the lowered and lowering standards around him? Is he to allow in himself, or sanction or condone in others, the customs of moral laxity that are prevalent? Is he to follow a course that leads in that direction? Most surely not. He is called to "holiness," "purity," and "virtue." "Be ye holy; for I am holy" (1 Pet. 1:16).
Christians who are in close contact with the world are in danger. Defiling influences are to be found in the schools, colleges, factories, and offices—in fact, anywhere where the world is met. May we seek to walk with God and guard against any allowance of the first steps of conduct unbecoming for a saint (holy one) of God; for God's standards of holiness have not changed, nor will He accommodate them to the falling standards of popular opinion.
When the Epistles were first written, they were sent to Christians living in the days of the depraved Roman Empire. Was there any accommodation in them to the abysmal corruption of the time? Not in the least! Everywhere the testimony of God is the same:
"God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness." 1 Thess. 4:7.
"Present your bodies... holy... unto God." Rom. 12:1.
"The temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." 1 Cor. 3:17.
"What! know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?" 1 Cor. 6:19.
"And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God." Eph. 4:30.
"Who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling." 2 Tim. 1:9.
"He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation." 1 Pet. 1:15.
"Ye... are... a holy priesthood." 1 Pet. 2:15.
"What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness." 2 Pet. 3:11.
"But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith." Jude 20.
May we read the Holy Scriptures and have our thinking formed by them; then our standards will not drop with the precipitous decline about us.