Consulting the Manual

Dannah Gresh: Here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth with one reason you can trust God to tell you how to live.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: The one who made us best knows how life should function. I got in my car the other day and the engine light came on. I don't know anything about cars. I went to the man who sold me the car and said, "Do you know why that engine light is on." He didn't know any more about cars than I did, but he did something very smart—he pulled out the owner's manuel.

The people who made the car, they know how that car works. There were instructions there about what to do when the engine light comes on and why it might be on. The people who made that vehicle know how it runs. They know what is wrong with it when it is not running correctly. The One who made us, the One who made us with our emotions, our drives, our desires, our needs has given us an instruction manuel. It's the Word of God.

That's why it is so important to the Word when we come to areas like the one we are going to talk about in this session. Say, "Lord, You made me. You best know how I function. Your plan and Your will for my life must be better than what I figure out on my own."

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Singled Out for Him, for August 29, 2024. I’m Dannah Gresh.

What were you doing in 2001? Please don’t tell me that’s before you were born, because that would make me feel old! But yes, it’s possible you are younger than Revive Our Hearts. This program started in 2001, just a week and a day before the events of 9/11. 

That year, Nancy’s recording schedule was full! She still looks back at that time as one of the most difficult hurdles she had to overcome. 

One series she recorded in 2001 was the one we’re hearing yesterday and today. It’s for unmarried believers in Jesus. Keep in mind, Nancy herself was single at the time.

But even though she taught this more than two decades ago, and even though some things have changed since 2001, hearts haven’t changed.  And as women, we can turn to God’s Word for solid guidance twenty years ago, today, and forever.

Yesterday Nancy began explaining some of the choices that guided her when she was single. She’ll pick that up today with this choice.

Nancy: We are talking about the choice to be morally pure. I believe this is an area of the greatest potential failure and heartache and heartbreak, perhaps more than almost any other area we face as singles and also as married people.

But, let me say on the other hand, that the choice to pursue moral purity can be an area where we experience incredible joy and blessing and freedom. It doesn't need to be an area of failure. If we operate by the instruction manual, we can find that this can be an area of great freedom.

I don't know that if there is any area of our lives where the choices that we make have as significant consequences as the choices in this area.

Now in the area of moral purity, there are two aspects that we really want to consider. The Scripture says there's something we're supposed to put off and there's something we're supposed to put on. Both of them relate to this area of moral purity. Paul said to the Corinthians, in 1 Corinthians 6, "Flee sexual immorality." Run from it.

That's something we're supposed to put off. Don't be sexually immoral. In fact he says, "Don't even get near it. Don't play with it. Don't tolerate it. Don't think about it. Don't condone it. Run from it. Get away from it. That's the 'put off.'"

Now there's another aspect and that is the positive aspect of pursuing holiness, pursuing righteousness in the area of morals. Let me read a passage that puts both of these in perspective.

I'm looking at 1 Thessalonians 4, beginning in verse 3. And Paul says, "This is the will of God, your sanctification." You're being made holy, you're being conformed to the image of Christ, this is God's will for you‚that you should have a pure, Christ-like life.

Then he talks about the "put off" part, "that you should abstain from sexual immorality." Flee sexual immorality.

But then he says there's a positive part of this, something you should pursue, in 1 Thessalonians 4 and also: "that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel [or his own body] in sanctification and honor."

He's saying, "God didn't make your body for sexual immorality. God made your body for holiness and honor."

Not in passion of lust like those who do not know God; that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such. For God did not call us to uncleanness." (vv. 5, 7)

That's what we're supposed to put off. But He called us to holiness. That's what we're supposed to put on.

Therefore, he who rejects this does not reject man, but [he rejects] God who has given us His Holy Spirit." (v. 8)

Do you hear Paul saying, "This is a really serious matter? This matter of moral holiness, of moral purity, of sexual purity? If you reject God's teaching on this, you're not rejecting what some person said, you're rejecting the will of God for your life."

Let me say that if you embrace this, the holiness, the putting on of moral purity, you're embracing God's very best for your life.

Now when it comes to living as morally pure or chaste women, in order to live that way, I have to tell you that you have to go against the current . . . all the time. Our culture is moving in one direction, and it's not God's direction.

And let me say that even within our Christian sub-culture, you have to be willing to go against the tide, to go against the current in order to be morally pure.

Everywhere you turn, you will be bombarded with sensual, sexual advertising, entertainment. You're going to be encouraged to indulge your flesh. And you're going to be promised some incredible rewards and pleasure if you do.

Now, no one is going to tell you, in the world, the consequences you're going to reap if you do it the world's way. They're going to make it all look so good, even as Satan did with that piece of fruit that Eve bit into.

Let me tell you, if that piece of fruit had been crawling with worms that she could see, don't think she would have ever taken a bite of it. It looked good. It was pleasing to the eyes. But she did take a bite and found out that she had a mouth and a life full of worms from that point on.

I think of the woman who wrote me recently. She said she'd been married for twenty-three years. She said,

As a high school freshman, I was involved with a guy and allowed him to touch me intimately. A few years ago, I learned that I have a sexually-transmitted disease. This fact has held me in bondage for months. I don't know how to move forward in my walk with the Lord. I feel like a hypocrite; a woman with leprosy.

And she went on and on. Now there's a woman who's been married for decades.

As a result of a moment of pleasure as a ninth grade girl, now I'm reaping consequences and guilt and damage, in my emotions and in my marriage, that I never counted on when I was in that situation all those years ago.

Let me just share with you because I believe God takes this matter so seriously and because it's such a huge potential pitfall. I have made very few vows in my life. God says, "If you make a vow, don't make it lightly because God takes vows seriously."

But one of the very few vows that I've made before the Lord, and one that by God's grace I plan to keep is the vow to be morally pure, to walk in moral purity, to do whatever it takes to go against the tide, to go against the current.

And let me tell you this, "I don't take it for granted that I can do this apart from the Lord, because I can't."

I know that I am as vulnerable as any other person to fall in this area of my life. That's why I so often pray in different ways, "Lord, guard my heart. Guard my heart and show me how, on the front end of things, to make choices that are wise."

You know, moral purity starts in the heart. It doesn't start in the behavior. It starts in the heart. Jesus said, "Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God" (Matt. 5:8).

 

If you want to be intimate with God, if you want to have a close relationship with God, it starts with moral purity. And if you have a pure heart, you're going to be able to love others with the love of Christ, which is a love that's self-denying rather than self-seeking.

And then moral purity involves my thought life because ultimately what I think about is the way I'm going to live. That's what I'm going to act on. So if I want to live a morally pure life, I have to guard the input that comes into my mind.

That means I have to make some tough choices about what I read, about what I listen to, what I watch, the kind of conversation I listen to from others. I love that verse in Proverbs that says, "Walk straight ahead, don't look to the right, don't look to the left, just look straight ahead" (Prov. 4:27).

And there are many, many situations in life, when I get on my computer, on the internet, when I'm driving, that I think it's really important to develop an aversion to curiosity when it comes to things that are not holy and to say, "I don't want to experience it." I don't want to dabble with it. I don't want to get that input into my mind because it may take me some places in my desires and in my thought patterns and living patterns that are not pure.

If you want to have a morally pure life, then you need to fuel righteous desires and avoid fueling sensual desires. If you want to be morally pure, don't read romance novels and be careful about what other kinds of entertainment you allow to come in to your life.

And then part of this commitment is just to flee sexual immorality. And that means fleeing anything that could lead me to sexual sin. You see, sexual sin doesn't begin at the moment of sexual intercourse. Sexual sin begins long before that and that's why it's so critical that we guard our hearts and we guard our steps in every area of our lives that could lead us or others into sexual sin.

Let me touch on a couple of those areas. For example, this whole area of immodest clothing. I wish you could read some of the letters that I've received from men saying, "Don't women realize in our churches, our Christian women, what they are doing to us as men in the way that they are dressing?"

You see, we women aren't stimulated the way that men are with sight. We can just say that that's their problem, or we can say, "No, I'm going to make that my problem. I'm going to make that an issue because I love the men in the Body of Christ and I want to help them be morally pure so I'm going to be modest in what I wear."

Now there's a difference between dressing attractively and dressing to attract. We're not saying in this area that you don't dress attractively; but I think, as women, we have a sense about how what we wear is affecting others. If we don't have sense about it, we need to have a mature, godly woman in our lives to help us.

 

I find that women today need more help with specifics because we haven't been taught in these areas. It's so "in" to expose parts of the body that ought to be covered. 

So we're talking about outfits that are too low-cut, outfits that expose more of the legs, the thighs, the hips than should be exposed, things that are too short, things that are too tight, things that are too revealing. Am I being specific?

This is part of walking in moral purity and helping men to walk in moral purity, is that we guard ourselves as it relates even to this area of modest clothing.

"Flee sexual immorality." Run from it and pursue righteousness, moral purity and excellence with all your heart.

Dannah: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth will be right back. This is a classic message that Nancy delivered to single women back when she too was a single woman. Sadly, the issues facing women over twenty years ago when that was recorded haven’t gone away. When Nancy talked about sexual sin becoming mainstream, and immodesty, she could have been talking about our day. So we need this kind of practical advice, whether we’re single or married.

Nancy’s been sharing choices that guided her as a single woman before her marriage to Robert. Here’s another one of those choices.

Nancy: And that is this: I choose to serve and function in the body of Christ; to be a part of a community of faith; to cultivate relationships within the family of God.

If you're a daughter of God, He is your Father. That means we are sisters. That means we have brothers within that family. There are relationships within that family that are to be healthy and wholesome. When we put ourselves within that Body, within that community of faith; and we cultivate relationships there, there's a great deal of blessing and joy to be had.

Now, I make this choice, not for the motivation of being loved but for the motivation of loving; of loving others. I'm not going to get plugged-in to the Body of Christ so I can find some people to love me.

That's the natural tendency, but the right and pure motive for getting plugged into the family of God, the Body of Christ, is so that I can have greater opportunity to love others. The motive is not to be a taker but to be a giver; not to get blessed but to be a blessing to others.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians, in chapters 12 through 14 of 1 Corinthians, about this whole matter of the Body of Christ. And he said, "You're a part of a body, whether you realize it or not, whether you accept it and appreciate it or not, you're one part."

You're not the whole Body. And neither is the singles' group in your church the whole Body. We don't need just other singles. I think we need to be careful, as singles, that we don't develop all our relationships with other singles. We need relationships with the whole Body of Christ; with children; with elderly people; with married people.

We need relationships through all the Body of Christ. They are different parts; they have different gifts. And Paul says, "You need them, and they need you. We need to be working consciously and intentionally at becoming a part of each other's lives."

One of the things that has been a huge blessing to me in forty-three years of single life in ministry, with all of its ups and downs, has been learning to relate to families and looking for opportunities to get plugged-in to other people's families.

Now, this does several things: First of all, it has helped me to be more realistic in my notions about marriage and family because if you just hang around with other singles all the time, it's easy to fantasize about marriage and family and to think that it's all always wonderful.

And you get around other families, once you really get to know them, and you find out—as we know, intellectually, but you find out for real—it's not all always wonderful. You get around people with pride and issues and struggles and frustrations and you just see real life.

But getting around families has provided me with a great opportunity to love and to serve and to bless others; to be a part of a Body. As I bless others, as I give to those families, as I look for opportunities to minister to them and to meet their needs, I find that I get my needs met; not because that was what I was seeking but because when you bless others, you will get blessed.

Jesus said, "Give and it will be given unto you" (Luke 6:38). And you'll get more back than you ever dreamed of giving out. I think this is one of the biggest antidotes to loneliness. Now, I have to say that it's not a cure for loneliness because all people struggle with loneliness at times.

God made us with homesick hearts that will never be totally full and totally at home until we're in His presence in heaven. Single people get lonely. Married people get lonely.  Women get lonely. I suppose men get lonely in their own way, but I don't know how they express that. But this is common to the human condition here on earth. But I find that that loneliness is relieved a lot when I get plugged into other families.

Now, I've heard single say and I've experienced this some, "Families just don't reach out. They don't include singles. They treat me like I'm something strange or weird. They don't seem to know how to incorporate us." I would say that is sometimes true. But I've found that it is usually not intentional; it is usually just overlooking on the part of married people.

Let me say to those of you who are married: "I would encourage you to be intentional about reaching out to those who are single. It's easier for you to add a place at your table than it is for the single person to have the whole family over to their place."

Now, singles, don't be afraid to do that. I'm telling you that I have learned creative ways to be hospitable in the most unbelievable circumstances. I lived in hotel rooms, traveling around the country for eight years, and I found ways to be hospitable in hotel rooms or in restaurants.

But don't be afraid as a single, if others don't reach out, to reach out to them. They probably just don't understand how meaningful that can be. And if they feel awkward about it, they will feel less so once you start to relax and include them in your life.

Get involved with their children. I have "adopted" children, and now grandchildren since my friends' children have had children in some cases. But I have adopted children and nieces and nephews of varying sorts all across the country. I got a precious package this past week from a bunch of little girls who live in Michigan. I've been in Arkansas for several months, and they had drawn pictures and baked me cookies and sent this care package to me. These are eight and nine and ten-year-old girls who I've invested in there lives. There are children I'd invested in years ago; going to their ball games; taking them out on dates; taking them shopping with me. I have sat through piano recitals and all sorts of things with kids who aren't my kids.

But in order to be an encouragement to those families, what has happened next is that as some of those kids become teenagers, they know they've got a friend. Some of those kids have opened up. When they've been going through stretching times in their relationship with their parents or with the Lord, they've opened up their hearts. And I've been able to be an encouragement and a blessing to many of those kids in a way that supplements the direction their parents are giving, sometimes when the kids are having a hard time hearing it from their own parents.

That's being part of the Body. Sometimes I have greater freedom financially than someone with six kids. I remember over twenty years ago some friends whose children were getting ready to start school. The parents were not sure about this matter of Christian education, that it would be a good thing for their family.

I believed so strongly then, as I do now, that this could be a great blessing. God gave me direction at that time to invest financially in helping those people put their children into Christian school during those early years. Those children have now graduated from college, and they are walking with the Lord. Those parents have come back and said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you for plugging into our lives and getting involved and giving of yourself at a time when you could have just kept it for yourself, but you plugged into a family."

There are elderly people who need someone to listen. I went the other day to visit an elderly couple in my neighborhood. They needed encouragement. They needed someone to listen to them, and I didn't really do anything except provide an ear. But I was plugging into other people's lives. And I came away feeling, I am so blessed. I was so encouraged.

"Give and it will be given unto you." As you choose to function and serve within the Body of Christ, to cultivate relationships within the Body of Christ, you'll find that not only are you giving, not only are you being blessed, but you're receiving. And you will be a recipient of blessings that God sends to you as a result.

Dannah: Again, that’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, talking about how important it is to develop relationships in the body of Christ, whether we’re married or single.

Nancy gave that message back when she was single. It’s the second of two parts of the series “Wise Choices in Singleness.” If you missed any of it, you can review anything that’s been on Revive Our Hearts through our app, wherever you listen to podcasts, or by visiting ReviveOurHearts.com.

Nancy expanded on these thoughts in a booklet she wrote called Singled Out for Him. In it, she lists ten different commitments singles need to make as a part of living out this season of their lives to the glory of God. 

And, as she often does, Nancy helps you make it personal by asking the kinds of questions that make you think about your own life. 

We’ll thank you for your donation of any amount to Revive Our Hearts by sending you a copy of Singled Out for Him, the booklet by Nancy. Just request it when you contact us with your donation at ReviveOurHearts.com, or when you call 1-800-569-5959. 

Tomorrow, we’ll hear from someone we here at Revive Our Hearts often refer to as “the grandmother of the True Woman Movement.” Sweet Susan Hunt will help us see how we need to not give up on our modeling careers. If that sounds like a provocative title, good! Be sure to tune in tomorrow for Revive Our Hearts.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the NKJV unless otherwise noted.

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