I can still remember the strange look he gave me when I told him I have never slept with a girl as a teenager. He told me I was lying and that it was impossible for me not to have met a girl at my age.
Of course, there was no way I could proof it to him. I was helpless. All I could do was stammer as they made jest of me. They made me feel I was sick but thank God, I stood with my convictions.
People, especially the young, are giving up hope on the possibility of staying pure in our present world. The few who are striving to do so face intense battle of acceptance in a world that sees them as fools, naive, and ‘unwoke’. You risk being stigmatize and called names. People tend to think something is wrong with you if you aren't doing what everyone is doing.
Our music, movies and the media at large are highly sexualized. Almost every TV channel gives you sexual cues and triggers. There is that scantily dressed girl or completely nude lady out there. The media has completely overhauled our values, culture and convictions.
Taboos now trend. There is sex tape everywhere. It's now a norm to test run your mate before you marry. Virgins are scarce. An average youth does not expect to meet his or her mate as a virgin. Others grapple with addiction to pornography and masturbation. The married even expect that their mate might cheat on them.
One reason I hate to watch Nollywood movies is that they have quietly sanctioned premarital sex and extramarital affairs. Our films rarely teach fidelity. I believe it wasn't a coincidence but an intentional plan of the enemy to corrupt the youth.
I could not hide the disgust and displeasure that I felt when I read an interview in which a Nollywood star said while growing up she was taught in church never to have sex before marriage. Then a point came when she felt it wasn't wise for her to go into marriage without being sure she would be sexually satisfied by her partner.
This is why I am awestruck when Christian youths make film stars their role models. There is a way your value system is gradually crushed with every watch of ungodly films. You soon become tolerant to things that once make your conscience scream.
Data has it that our nation, Nigeria, consumes more internet pornography than the United States, which is two times bigger, and with greater internet penetration. According to Google Facts, pornography sites get more visitors globally each month than Netflix, Amazon and Twitter combined.
It seems to me that a spirit of lust, impurity and sexual immorality has been let loose on our generation. The war is daily and one is poised to ask like the Psalmist in Psalm 119:9, “How can a young person stay on the path of purity?” There is a serious doubt in the hearts of young people on the possibility of staying sexual pure when you look at the daily sexual aggression they receive from the media.
Two things caught my attention in the verse above regarding the issue purity.
- The focus on the young person
Why is the statement not generic? Why did God's word focus on the young person when it comes to purity?
Paul further lends credence to this when he wrote, “Flee all youthful lusts…(2 Timothy 2:22)” In other words, lust pursues the youth. The heart of an average youth burns with lust. In the book, The Porn Circuit, Covenant Eyes reports that by age 18, 90% of boys and 60% of girls are exposed to internet pornography. It also reports that the largest consumers of internet pornography are kids ages 12 to 17. This confirms how susceptible youths are to the snare of lust.
The reason is simple; the youthful age is characterized with great energy, emotion, exploration and exuberance. We become sexually aware in youth. Sex hormones are now produced and there is a high tendency to act according to the dictates of the feelings we have in our body.
There is no other stage of life when lust trails a man more than at youth. Most promiscuous adult began their promiscuity at youth. This, I believe, is the reason the scripture focuses on the youth. God wants the youth to stay free of sexual impurities. If you can stay free of lust as a youth, the rest of your life is relatively secure.
- Staying on the path of purity
The real deal is staying on the path of purity. Most of us try to stay away for a while but occasionally we are stuck in the gnaws of lust again. We become re-entangled in the habits and acts we once renounced. You cannot lay claim to sexual purity until you can stay pure for a considerable period. Most of us lack that staying power; that habit of self-discipline that keeps a man.
So, in a world that promotes whoredom, how can a young person stay on the path of purity? The same Psalm 119:9 gives us the answer, “By living according to your word.”
The word is the spiritual vaccine against the flames of lust that burns in the heart. We can live a pure life, if we are committed to the word. We can live immune to the attacks of lusts by the power of the word.
Why is this so?
- The word is fire (Jeremiah 20:9; 23:29). Lust has no place when the fire of the word burns in the heart. One will quench the other.
- The word is water (Ephesians 5:26). It can wash our heart and free us from every stain of lust. The washing of the feet of the apostles by the Lord is a prototype of what God wants us to do regularly. As we walk the earth, dust settles on our feet. In the same way, our hearts are constantly exposed to pollutants and we need to wash it regularly. The word is the solvent.
- The word is sword (Ephesians 6:17). It is even sharper than any two edged sword (Hebrews 4:12). It can cut and separate our soul from any outgrowth of sexual immorality.
- The word is Spirit (John 6:63). Through the Spirit we can mortify the seeds of the flesh including sexual lust (Romans 8:13). When we walk in the Spirit, we will not fulfill the desires of the flesh ( Galatians 5:16).
- The word is hammer (Jeremiah 23:29). It has the power to break the rocks of sexual immorality in the heart. It can crush every work of the enemy in our lives.
The Psalmist is a living example of the power and the potency of the word to keep us from all form of sin. In the 11th verse of Psalm 119, he said, “Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.” (NKJV)
The word is an effective antidote to sexual lust and all forms of sin. We fall because we do not take heed to the word.
May you receive grace to live a pure life in this corrupt world as you give yourself to the word in reading, meditation and doing.
Amen!
