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MORAL DEFILEMENT

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 29, 1901

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 78, No. 5.

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MORAL DEFILEMENT

By B. W. Marsh

B. W. MARSH (Cripple Creek, Colo.)
“Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery.” In the time that these words were spoken, the sayings of Jesus as spoken through Moses were memorized by the scribes and Pharisees. The seventh commandment, with the others, was known “by heart,” but was not known in the heart. They had heard that such a commandment had been given, but did not know its power as a living truth. The power to appreciate the true meaning of a pure life was limited, because the sense to understand the true heinousness of sin was dead. Therefore the hearing of the ear, or the seeing of the eye, could not convince of unrighteousness.
Simply the hearing of that which is said will never take one whit of sin from the human character. The Jews had heard all the commandments, and were familiar with all the sayings of the prophets, yet when the Son of man lived before them all the things which they had heard, they were filled with the madness of murder,and rested not until the sinless Christ was slain. They had witnessed the greatest miracles ever wrought; still they asked for a sign. But hear the words of our Saviour, “There shall no sign be given.”
The evidence that proves the truth is internal, not external. It is not the shaking of the earth, nor the awful midnight of sin, that enables us to know God; but it is the power that awakens the deadened sensibilities of a sin-spent life, giving us a holy horror of the sins which are without, that keeps us day and night with God, and in the peace that heaven gives.
Therefore unless the power of God, which is the Holy Ghost, quickens us to an understanding of the true meaning of the seventh commandment, we need never deceive ourselves into thinking that all the sin we can see without will awaken in us a consciousness of our own moral defilement. “Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? . . . He that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil.” Isa. 33:14, 15. Then our only hope of purity, and of dwelling in the presence of the Lord, who is a “consuming fire,” is in the power that can keep us from hearing or seeing the soul and body corrupting sins practiced by the lost.
It is not a question of how much this commandment, or any other commandment, covers. Law can grant no license, and privilege can give no consent. Purity is long enough and broad enough to cover all the ground, and angels record every act, whether performed at the brightest noonday or the blackest midnight, and know the thought and purpose of the heart.
Now let us read the remainder of that first text quoted from the Saviour: “But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” Let us put with this a few verses found in Matthew 15: “And He called the multitude, and said unto them, Hear and understand: not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man, but that which cometh out of the mouth, that defileth the man.” “But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies; these are the things which defile a man.”
From these sayings of the Lord, it is plainly evident that He dealt with the sins of the heart, whether hidden or revealed. He was above criticising the acts of men, because He knew that the foundation for every act is in the heart.
Therefore when the grossness of man’s nature asserts itself, whether in temple defilement, evil thoughts, or lustful looks, God has plainly said that the only way He has of reforming the individual is to purify the heart. The lustful thought, which is father to the lustful look and action, is sin. “And sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” Therefore the man or woman in whose heart is allowed to exist one taint of moral defilement is living in death, and in that condition can not come into life. “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.”