Testimonies on Sexual Behavior, Adultery, and Divorce

Chapter 21—A Hospital Worker

Frivolous, Unwise Attention to Women—Angels of God are watching the development of character. Angels of God are weighing moral worth. If you bestow your attentions upon those who have no need, you are doing the recipients harm, and you will receive condemnation rather than reward. Remember that, when by your trifling conversation you descend to the level of frivolous characters, you are encouraging them in the path that leads to perdition. Your unwise attentions may prove the ruin of their souls. You degrade their conceptions of what constitutes Christian life and character. You confuse their ideas, and make impressions that can never be effaced. TSB 145.2

The harm thus done to souls that need to be strengthened, refined, ennobled, is often a sin unto death. They cannot associate these men with the sacred positions they occupy. The ministers, the officers of the church, are all regarded as no better than themselves. Then where is their example? TSB 145.3

God's Pure Standard—God calls upon all who claim to be Christians to elevate the standard of righteousness, and to purify themselves even as He is pure.... TSB 146.1

The question is, Shall we be Bible Christians? Will we disregard the plainest instruction given us in the Word of Life, and erect a false standard whereby to measure our character? Is this a safe thing for us to do? When you yield to the temptations of the enemy, and do the very opposite of that which God has instructed you to do, and then excuse yourselves, saying that you meant no harm, that you have done no moral wrong, what can be your standard of piety and holiness? Christ has given us the signs whereby we may distinguish the genuine Christian; no one need be deceived by the pretentious claims of the hypocrite. TSB 146.2

No Excuse for Flirting—There is no excuse for indulging a love-sick sentimentalism; no excuse for this trifling, flirting of married men with young girls, or married men with widows. Let men professing godliness heed the apostle's admonition, “Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak evil against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation” [1 Peter 2:11, 12]. TSB 146.3

Will you, then, disregard the plainest directions given in the Word of God in regard to your words, your deportment, and your character? Will you excuse levity, and even licentious acts, as though you had done no moral wrong? Will you pass all this off by saying it was thoughtlessness on your part? Is it not the duty of Christians to think soberly? If Jesus is enthroned in the heart, will the thoughts be running riot? ... TSB 146.4

Example of the Antediluvians—We have the history of the antediluvians and of the [inhabitants of the] cities of the plains, whose course of conduct degenerated from lightness and frivolity to debasing sins which called forth the wrath of God in a most dreadful destruction, in order to rid the earth of the curse of their contaminating influence. Inclination and passion bore sway over reason. Self was their god, and the knowledge of the Most High was nearly obliterated through a selfish indulgence of corrupt passions.—Letter 6a, 1890. TSB 147.1