Monday, April 14, 2003, the City Council of an affluent gated community in Southern California voted to repeal a 46 year-old ban on immorality. In effect, the repeal allows adultery within the city limits.

A resident of the city of 1,900, spotted the law while perusing the municipal code and mentioned it at a city council meeting. City Attorney Mike Jenkins says he wasn’t even aware of that particular law. He said, “Why this particular law has been dormant and allowed to remain on the books all these years is anyone’s guess.” Jenkins recommended removing the ordinance.

The statute was the second one adopted by the city when it incorporated in 1957. It prescribed a $250 fine and/or three months in jail for violators. Council members claimed they were not endorsing breaking the seventh commandment. They said they were simply doing away with an archaic, unenforceable law.

Before the meeting, Councilor James Black joked, “So this is a pro-adultery thing? Good for us!” The nearby city of Torrance still has an ordinance dating to 1924 banning unmarried men and women from living together or occupying the same hotel room within the city limits.

—http://worldnetdaily.com, Town repeals ban on immorality, April 16, 2003. Illustration by Jim L. Wilson and Jim Sandell.

1 Thessalonians 4:3 “ It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust, like the heathen, who do not know God.”

On the promotion tour for his book, My Life, former President Bill Clinton spoke about his affair with Monica Lewinsky with Dan Rather of the CBS Evening News. During the interview he said, “I think I did something for the worst possible reason—just because I could. I think that’s just about the most morally indefensible reason that anybody could have for doing anything.”

Could and should are two different things. Just because a person can do something doesn’t mean they should do it.

James 4:17 (NASB) “Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do, and does not do it, to him it is sin.”

British rock star Morrissey speaks another word regarding the rising acceptance of sexual immorality in our culture. “I see no difference between eating animals and pedophilia. They are both rape, violence, murder.”

Morrissey is not raising the status of animals with such a statement. He is lessening the value of our human children. Although he is not saying pedophilia is acceptable, to equate it with eating meat lessens its severity. --Jim L Wilson and Rodger Russell

1 Corinthians 6:18 (ESV) (18) Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

Ben Shapiro and Dennis Prager are both a part of the internet news media. They also share their Jewish faith. In addition, they share and communicate a common message. “Traditional values exist for a reason. We cannot invent our own values, and we do so at our own peril.” Their message is identical to the Christian message. “Read the Bible, because it reveals important and relevant truths.”

As our culture seems to be departing Biblical morality at a startling pace, it is important to Christians to speak to the culture with the voice of Biblical authority. —Jim L. Wilson and Rodger Russell.

Do not owe anyone anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, Do not commit adultery; do not murder; do not steal; do not covet; and any other commandment, are summed up by this commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Love, therefore, is the fulfillment of the law.

In the “Me-too” era, even cultural liberals are beginning to realize the problems inherent in the sexual revolution. Lisa Miller in NYMag.com said “For all its liberating upsides, the sexual revolution has an anything goes ethos which gave the elites and the circles orbiting them intellectual permission to downgrade sexual violence to a matter of taste. To people in his A-list social circle, Epstein’s fondness for underage girls was simply an expression, in Woody Allen’s chilling phrase, of “the heart wanting what it wants.”

Warnings about the unseen dangers of the sexual revolution have gone unheeded for years. Now the chickens have come home to roost. We are victims of our own vices. —Jim L. Wilson and Rodger Russell.

But if you don’t do this, you will certainly sin against the Lord; be sure your sin will catch up with you.

We are facing an ever-changing landscape in regard to people thinking they are really of another gender than the one ascribed to them by their body. Transgender advocates are pushing the decision on changing genders to an earlier and earlier age. Endocrinologist Michael Laidlaw discussed the growing practice of given puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to transgender children. He said, “These are really radical experiments on human bodies such as never has been done before in the history of humankind.”

People distressed about their gender are understandably having tough times. But children are too young to make life altering decisions regarding sex change and identifying with the opposite gender. But as Dr. Laidlaw point out, these experiments are radical. Too radical to be applying to children. —Jim L. Wilson and Rodger Russell.

Michael O’Brien is a Canadian Author and painter. He leaned toward atheism as a teenager and became a Catholic at age 21. In answer to an interview question about his novels concerning the development of totalitarian government he gave this answer. “Totalitarian systems have three things in common: the rejection of binding moral absolutes established by God, the minimizing of the absolute value of human life, and the elevation of the state to be the final arbiter of good and evil.” He said that his nation, Canada, is further along than the US but apart from a massive turning back to God there will be further degeneration.

Olasky, Marvin, “Out of Desolation, Fruitfulness,” World, November 7, 2020 p. 35

A whole nation cannot turn back to God from immorality. We must do it one person at a time. It is important for us, our families, and our civilization that each of us accept the moral absolutes we find in Scripture. —Jim L. Wilson and Rodger Russell

Finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable—if there is any moral excellence and if there is anything praiseworthy—dwell on these things.