When Herbert W. Armstrong wrote about America’s moral collapse during the 1960s, he primarily faulted those who should have been upholding biblical standards in conduct and decency—the clergymen and theologians. But instead of teaching the laws of sex and marriage, many of these pastors joined the rebellious youth revolt. Traditional Christianity actually helped give many sins widespread acceptance by changing public attitudes about sexuality, using innocent-sounding catch phrases like “the new morality.”

In 1964, notice what Mr. Armstrong and his editorial staff wrote in the aptly titled God Speaks Out on the New Morality: “The ministers ‘of the gospel’ were inoculated with the evolutionary serum in their pre-seminary college years. The seminary professors were themselves the victims of anti-God German rationalism absorbed in their student days. More and more, theological institutions were sending into pulpits young ministers addicted to modernism. And they were becoming increasingly ‘broad-minded’ in their attitude toward sex and marriage” (emphasis mine throughout).

These were the leading voices in society that should have been speaking out about promiscuous sex! Instead, popular denominations ended up watering down their teachings to avoid offending parishioners and in hopes of attracting new converts.

Today, what you do outside the pew is nobody’s business—certainly not your pastor’s. And what pastors preach from the pulpit, in most cases, is a far cry from what the Bible actually says.

A few years ago, I wrote about how far one church was willing to go in order to attract younger crowds for Sunday services. The church pastor had surveyed the area and found that potential churchgoers were fed up with how boring religion had become. So he designed an entertaining, multimedia-filled experience that had all of the trendiness of a local coffee shop and the popular appeal of a loud rock concert.

It’s Christianity without the religion, to quote the catch phrase of another modernist preacher. And judging by a number of recent surveys, it’s fast becoming Christianity without the Christians.

Last week, in the Washington Times,columnist Janice Shaw Crouse said church attendance in the United States doesn’t even keep up with America’s birth rate. Seventy percent of young people drop out of church before the age of 22—80 percent by the time they turn 30. The percentage of young people claiming “no religion” has almost doubled over the last two decades—even though most of those surveyed came from “religious” homes. Overall, Crouse wrote, the rate of those dropping out of church is about five or six times higher than what is the historical norm.

The obvious irony here is that even as traditional Christian denominations have sought to attract young people by lowering standards of morality, by watering down the truth of God and by adding big sounds and bright lights to the service, young people are leaving churches in droves!

Crouse says we will pay a “tremendous price” if we don’t teach our young people the real thing. If, by the “real thing,” she means getting back to what the Bible actually says, we couldn’t agree more.

Jesus Christ overcame this world, as it says in John 16:33. He then commanded His followers—true Christians—to also come out of this sin-sick society (1 John 2:15; Revelation 18:4).

This charge is especially serious and sobering for those who claim responsibility for leading God’s flock out of sin. But instead of leading people out of this world, many religious leaders have themselves been overcome by the world.

God says in Leviticus 5:1 that if we bear witness to the sins of others and we don’t do something—we don’t sound the alarm—then we are guilty of that same sin!

This is why Mr. Armstrong stood up and cried out when so many others caved in under the intense pressure of worldliness and a society turned upside down. As he wrote in The Missing Dimension in Sex, “Since it is a basic truism that a solid family structure is the foundational bulwark of any stable and permanent society, this fact means only one thing—civilization as we know it is on the way down—and out—unless that great ‘Unseen Strong Hand From Someplace’ soon intervenes and saves today’s sick society.”

That is the message this dying world needs. That is the message God charges His true ministers to deliver.

Notice one of the final admonitions Paul gave to his trusted assistant—the evangelist Timothy. “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine” (2 Timothy 4:1-2).

Above all, Paul said, preach the Word—the truth of God (see John 17:17). Keep at it, he said, whether it’s in season or out. Don’t let the popular trends of our modern society dilute the purity of God’s truth. And if society drifts farther from God, use God’s Word to reprove, to rebuke and to exhort.

This message may not win a popularity contest, particularly in these latter days, when God says the masses will not endure sound doctrine and will turn away from what the Bible plainly says (2 Timothy 4:3-4). It may not attract millions of followers. But as Mr. Armstrong learned way back at the start of his ministry in the 1930s, if it is God’s message—His work—it will be blessed. It will grow. And it will have a profound impact on this world.

If, however, it is the work of shallow, “broad-minded” men who preach smooth things only to attract followers, it will eventually come to nothing (Acts 5:38-39).