Applying the scriptures: Need for moral standards of chastity

Posted by Valentine Belue on Sunday, August 11, 2024

"Many people throughout the Church and, generally speaking, throughout the world have now abandoned the anciently cherished Hebraic-Christian moral standard of chastity," said Elder Milton R. Hunter of the First Council of the Seventy in an April 1972 general conference address.

"Frequently, married people commit adultery and single people indulge their passions in acts of fornication. The results are unhappiness, the loss of love, breaking up of homes and destroying of family life, increase in the number of divorces, shame, loss of spirituality, apostasy, and eventually loss of eternal salvation."Elder Hunter spoke of the permissive society in which many people claim to accept a new morality, which in reality is to live contrary to the laws of chastity as proclaimed by God. "Enticements to illicit behavior are found everywhere," he said. "Day by day a flood of them is growing worse in novels, magazines, movies, TV, and advertising.

"Many religious leaders have ceased teaching that sin exists. Where are the Christian ministers who stir their audiences with sermons on chastity; who proclaim condemnations of adultery and of all manner of immoral acts? Some ministers and religious teachers have become converted to modern permissive thinking and even have become advocators of it. . . .

"The new permissiveness, or new morality, as it is often called, is nothing more than ancient immorality dressed in new clothing," Elder Hunter said.

". . . The Bible contains excellent examples of men who otherwise would have been great. But when they broke the law of chastity it broke them. For example, Samson, a man of powerful physical strength, with an uncontrollable lust for women, was betrayed by Delilah and finally committed suicide while in chains of bondage to the Philistines. God blessed Solomon with great wisdom; nevertheless, he debauched his life with numerous concubines.

"David, whom the Lord loved and who is regarded by many people as Israel's greatest king, spent the latter part of his life in brokenhearted sorrow over his sin against Uriah and his adultery with Bathsheba. His deep feelings were expressed in one of the most pitiful prayers in the holy scriptures:

" `Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness:

" `Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

" `For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.' " (Palms 51:1-3.)

Elder Hunter said that having an understanding of the plan of salvation and a thorough knowledge of the seriousness of the gross sins of adultery and murder which he had committed, King David in anguish cried out unto the Lord:

" `For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell.' (Psalm 16:10.)

"More than two thousand years after King David's death, . . . Jesus Christ spoke from heaven and informed us that because of David's sin against him in the case of Uriah and his wife, David `hath fallen from his exaltation' and his wives have been given to another. (D&C 132:39.)"

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