“Abhor What Is Wicked”

GOD’S people are living during wicked days, comparable to those of Noah, when “Jehovah saw that the badness of man was abundant in the earth and every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only bad all the time.” (Genesis 6:5; Matthew 24:37-39) These are the days spoken of prophetically at Revelation 12:12: “Woe for the earth . . . because the Devil has come down to you, having great anger, knowing he has a short period of time.” The Devil would like to bring into disarray everything that the Master Organizer, Jehovah God, has arranged for this earth. That includes the marriage arrangement. In view of Satan’s vicious attacks on morality and the family, it becomes necessary at times, in ‘putting up a hard fight for the faith,’ to state matters in clear, unmistakable language.​—Jude 3.

Satan’s world has sunk to shocking depths of depravity. This is the filthy, permissive world with which many of Jehovah’s people have to rub shoulders daily, just as God-fearing Lot had to contend with “the indulgence of the law-defying people in loose conduct” in ancient Sodom. (2 Peter 2:7) In these critical times, The Watchtower sees it as a responsibility to draw attention to the standards that true Christians should uphold in a vice-ridden society. In doing so, it becomes necessary to call attention to some of the immoral practices that to many have become a norm in the modern world. (Psalm 92:7) It seems best that these things be dealt with forthrightly, and that parents also tactfully talk them over with their children. (In this wicked world, it is far better that parents give mature, loving guidance on sexual matters, rather than leave their children to pick up information, which they will sooner or later do anyway, from sex-oriented youths at school.)

At Ephesians 5:3 we are told: “Let fornication and uncleanness of every sort or greediness not even be mentioned among you, just as it befits holy people.” We do not mention such things in the loose, jocular manner of Satan’s worldlings. But when the spiritual health of God’s people is threatened by the ungodly world about them, we feel compelled to use “great freeness of speech” in discussing the dangers around us. (2 Corinthians 3:12; 7:4; Ephesians 3:12) That is what the following article will do.​—Romans 12:9.