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The people of our nation have lost their sense of shame over shameful behavior. According to a recent report, even first and second graders are addressing their teachers by such foul names that school principals are taking the matter up with the parents. In some cases these children do not even know the meaning of the obscene words they are using, but are simply repeating what they hear at home. (A pox on those parents [and all others] who have no sense of shame about their filthy tongues and mouths.)
The matter is hardly limited to words, however. The entertainment industry has long shown that it will produce as much vulgarity, indecency, obscenity, and pornography as it can get by with to rake in more cash (including movies/television, music, books/magazines, and the Internet). The things that are now produced and boldly advertised were found only in back rooms and under counters hidden from view a couple of generations ago. Then one had to know where to go and hunt to find them; now one cannot avoid them. The American public that annually spends billions on these vehicles of moral turpitude is as much to blame for this sad condition as are the producers of such filth.
The foremost decay of shamelessness relates to matters of sexual desire and behavior. One way that the general public has had its sense of moral values pertaining to sex eroded is by the ever-increasing push of nudity and near-nudity. Some publicly parade with so little on that they are only a few threads shy of complete nakedness. Many who would be mortified for strangers to see them in their underwear think nothing of appearing publicly in less—as long as it’s call a “bikini” or some other sort of swimwear. The inconsistency is downright amusing, albeit shamefully sad. It is at least predictable that worldlings who know not God, but who live for the dollar, should so blatantly commercialize one of humankind’s most powerful instincts. The fashion designers and entertainment moguls promote exposed flesh, and men and women seem all too eager to buy/watch/wear their products shamelessly. Countless parents allow, if not eagerly push their youngsters (especially girls) into such provocative attire.
While I can understand Godless people who live only for the flesh being thus stampeded and brainwashed, I shall never understand how any of God’s people can either participate in or defend such, though many do. Some saints (men and women) profess to see nothing wrong with stripping down to the scantiest swimsuits and exposing themselves at public pools or beaches. Irresponsible congregations sponsor swim parties for teenage boys and girls. Some defend such practices, but only if the girls ware T-shirts, mind you. Still others wear (even to worship assemblies) transparent blouses, dresses with “spaghetti” straps, and skirts with mid-thigh hems—when they are standing. All such constitute disgraceful behavior and demonstrate woeful lack of spiritual depth in those supposedly bound for Heaven.
A major factor in the destruction of God’s people in the days of Jeremiah was their shamelessness: “Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush” (Jer. 6:15). Among the “works of the flesh” that will keep one out of Heaven is “lasciviousness”—shameless behavior relating to illicit sexual desire (Gal. 5:19–21). Paul described those who thus behave: “Whose god is the belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things” (Phi. 3:19). The passage also says, “whose end is perdition.” Young and old alike, as the people of God, let us keep ourselves free of the shameful things of the world (Rom. 12:1–2). May we never reach the point, as did apostate Judah, where nothing makes us blush.
[Note: I wrote this article for and it was published in The Lighthouse, weekly bulletin of Northpoint Church of Christ, Denton, TX, September 18, 2016, of which I was editor.]
Attribution: From The Scripturecache.com; Dub McClish, owner and administrator.
