Jim Van Gelderen: Welcome to the podcast. This is Jim Van Gelderen. Well, today I want to introduce an introduction.

I know that sounds kind of strange, but recently I was preaching and I preached a message on the co-infections of moral impurity. And in the message I gave an introduction to the subject matter. And I’d like to present that today, because we’re going to do a series of co-infections, things that literally come alongside of this particular sin issue, which is quite prevalent in the culture in which we live.

And there’s no doubt about it, that when this sin exists in your life, when you deal with that sin, there’s still other issues that are carried along by the issues of lustful thinking and living and viewing and things of that nature. And so I’m going to let the introduction, I preach this message. So in a certain sense, I’m not podcasting, I’m preaching and it’ll be in that format.

And this is the introduction. It’ll be followed by three other podcasts where we’ll deal with three co-infections that come alongside of moral impurity. And even if you deal with the moral impurity, the co-infection has to be dealt with as well.

So I hope this will be a help to you. We’ll introduce I’ve introduced the introduction. I hope it’ll bless you and encourage you, and that you’ll be back to listen to the other podcasts that will follow.

Well, I’d like to start here with something that’s a little unusual. Honestly, I know I’ve been here before, so I feel like I can probably go this direction with you. It’s a little unusual, the message, but it won’t be long.

It’s more to get you thinking. I’ve kind of been on a journey for a few years, dealing with all kinds of issues, and particularly working with young people for thirty six years. You see common problems that they have.

And I would tell you over the years that I’ve worked with young people, the number one problem by far is the issue of bitterness. That’s the number one problem. And then in the arena of bitterness, the number one problem causing the bitterness or provoking the bitterness would be an angry father.

Now, there are other issues, but that seems to be the big one. I’m just giving you circumstantial. This is anecdotal.

It is not scientific. Okay. But thirty six years of anecdotal evidence.

Uh, so I’ve kind of been on a journey and I noticed that one. Then our number two major problem would be moral impurity, some aspect of moral impurity, and all kinds of things, of course, come under that umbrella. Uh, and that has been the number two problem in thirty six years of ministry.

Now, I don’t think anybody out here is shocked by what I just said. Now, the thing that I began to realize over the years, and I’ve noticed this for several years, is that they go together. Hebrews twelve puts them together.

Bitterness opens the door to moral impurity. So they kind of go together. I’m not saying every bitter person has moral impurity, though.

I think a lot of them do. So I’ve kind of been on a journey and been studying some of this, reading things, listening to things that are obviously Christian perspective. And in doing so, I have particularly, I have noticed that one of the that moral impurity issues are on the rise in our country.

I don’t think that shocks anybody in this room either. The accessibility of it and the availability of things has certainly caused there to be far more, more failure, particularly in viewing things that are inappropriate among Christians. I wouldn’t think that’d be a shock to anybody in the room that we’re facing a battle that we didn’t face.

When I started in the ministry thirty six years ago, certainly there were, uh, some folks that got into that and of course, had to go down to usually to a store walk in hope nobody saw them and they had to purchase the materials. ET cetera. ET cetera.

And that’s the way it used to be. But we all know now that you can access things right here and in the privacy of your own room, which means that a lot of Christians have fallen for Satan’s bait and they find themselves they think it’s innocent. But I will tell you, I would fear certain parts of the internet more than I fear a gun in my face if I were you.

And I’ll be honest with you, I’d rather have somebody run.