Randy Alcorn - The Purity Principle: Gods Safeguards for Lifes Dangerous Trails

NONFICTION
The Goodness of God
If God is Good
90 Days of Gods Goodness
Heaven
50 Days of Heaven
TouchPoints: Heaven
In Light of Eternity
Managing Gods Money
Money, Possessions, and Eternity
The Law of Rewards
ProLife Answers to ProChoice Arguments
Sexual Temptation: Guardrails for the Road to Purity
The Grace and Truth Paradox
The Purity Principle
The Treasure Principle
Why ProLife?
We Shall See God

FICTION
Courageous
The Chasm
Deadline
Dominion
Deception
Edge of Eternity
Lord Foulgrins Letters
The Ishbane Conspiracy (with Karina Alcorn and Angela Alcorn)
Safely Home

CHILDRENS BOOKS
Heaven for Kids
Tell Me About Heaven
Wait Until Then

THE PURITY PRINCIPLE
published by Multnomah Books

2003 by Eternal Perspective Ministries

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from:
The Holy Bible, New International Version
1973, 1984 by International Bible Society,
used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House
Other Scripture quotations are from:
The New Testament in Modern English, Revised Edition (Phillips)
1958, 1960, 1972 by J. B. Phillips
New American Standard Bible (NASB) 1960, 1977, 1995
by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
The Holy Bible, King James Version (KJV)

Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint
of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.

M ULTNOMAH and its mountain colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Alcorn, Randy C.

The purity principle / by Randy Alcorn.

p. cm.

eISBN: 978-0-307-56436-8

1. SexReligious aspectsChristianity. 2. Chastity. 3. Sexual abstinenceReligious aspectsChristianity. I. Title.

BT708.A435 2003
241.66dc21

2003005461

v3.1_r1

To my brothers and sisters who are now
overcomers for Jesus, having turned away from
lesser and fraudulent pleasures to joyfully
embrace pleasures both greater and true.

In thy presence is fulness of joy;
at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.
P SALM 16:11, KJV

I want to recognize the vital assistance of my editor and friend, Larry Libby, who took what Id written and helped select and distill it to fit on these pages. Larry also came up with the Jonah 2:8 application, which Id never thought of before in relation to sexual purity. Special thanks also to SL, NR, HT, and NK for their valuable input on the manuscript.

Eric stormed into my office and flopped into a chair. Im really mad at God.

Having grown up in a strong church family, hed met and married a Christian girl. Now he was the picture of misery.

Okay so why are you mad at God?

Because, he said, last week I committed adultery.

Long pause. Finally I said, I can see why God would be mad at you. But why are you mad at God?

Eric explained that for several months hed felt a strong, mutual attraction with a woman at his office. Hed prayed earnestly that God would keep him from immorality.

Did you ask your wife to pray for you? I said. Did you stay away from the woman?

Well no. We went out for lunch almost every day.

Slowly I started pushing a big book across my desk. Eric watched, uncomprehending, as the book inched closer and closer to the edge. I prayed aloud, O Lord, please keep this book from falling!

I kept pushing and praying. God didnt suspend the law of gravity. The book went right over the edge, smacking the floor.

Im mad at God, I said to Eric. I asked Him to keep my book from falling but He let me down!

THE C HOICES T HAT R UIN U S

To this day, I can still hear the sound of that book hitting the floor. It was a picture of Erics life. Young, gifted, and blessed with a wife and little girl, Eric brimmed with potential.

His story didnt end that day. Eventually he became a sexual predator, molesting his own daughter. Hes been in prison for years now, repentant but suffering the consequences of inching his life toward the edge until gravity took over.

How many of us Christians hope God will guard us from calamity and misery, while every day we make small, seemingly inconsequential immoral choices that inch us toward bigger immoralities? (A survey taken at a Promise Keepers gathering of 1,500 Christian men revealed that half of them had viewed pornography the previous week.)

Tiffany and Kyle also grew up in the church. When the youth pastor warned against premarital sex, they had trouble taking him seriously. Their movies, television, and music focused on sex. One night after youth group, Tiffany gave in to Kyle. It was painful, nauseating nothing like in the movies. Afterward she felt horrible. Kyle was mad at her because she wasnt supposed to let it happen.