Emphasis Preaching Journal

A beautiful, young university student from a home of means, went to her professor with her problem. He referred her to her pastor. With the open frankness of youth, she said that religion nauseated her, that she was quite above it. Furthermore, she declared that she felt quite at home at the fraternity parties, where liquor flowed freely, and in a dormitory room where she unabashedly declared many of the girls went to bed with any boy available.

She then, with mock nonchalance, said, "The only thing troubling me is that these things don't trouble me."

Then her pastor said, "Young lady, the worst kind of trouble is being troubled over the feeling that you are no longer troubled by what should trouble you. For if this be true, it means that something unspeakably precious in you has died! The reason God forbids adultery (and when the word was spoken she bowed her head on the desk) is that you were not created for such a life. You can never be at peace with it. It brings only heartache and self-reproach. And no superficial veneer of sophistication can soothe the deep anguish of your soul. Only in purity is there peace."

How is this peace provided? It is the result of reconciliation with God. When the barriers of estrangement, hostility and corrupt living go down, then the heart is at rest. "And you," wrote Paul, "he has now reconciled."
- Kirby