Footloose: The Problem With Dancing

Introduction

It’s good to be together tonight, folks, especially as we wrap up our weekend and think about beginning a new week where we have to go out into the world and face a situation where most folks around us aren’t convicted as we are to follow Jesus, and it’s good to have a chance like this to renew our energy and to stir our zeal and to prepare for that week. And I hope our thoughts tonight will serve to help us do that. It was back this summer sometime, I don’t remember exactly when, that I found myself around the house one Saturday morning without anything to do for a little while. And I don’t know how it is, but your house, but that’s kind of strange at my house.

Saturday’s usually a pretty stilled day. But I think Heidi was out of town. That was that stretch where it seemed like she was gone forever, and we had this morning where I think I was waiting to go do something else, but it wasn’t time yet, and I just had time on my hands. So I started out and I turned on television. And I want you to know there’s not a lot on worth watching at 10 o’clock on Saturday morning, unless you’re into cartoons or fishing shows, because that’s about it. But I sat down and started flipping through the channels, and this movie caught my attention for a moment. The title of the movie was Foot Loose. Some of y’all have heard of that. Around my age, maybe.

Now I want to tell you going in. I never saw this movie at the theater. And I haven’t ever watched it all the way through, actually. I’ve caught bits and pieces of it that morning and a couple other times. So please don’t take this as a recommendation. I don’t know if it’s a movie fit to watch or not. I just know what I saw. Anyway. But it kind of caught my attention, and so I sat there for the little bit of time I had and and kind of watched a little of it. The movie is set in a small American town where authorities have outlawed dancing. And the plot of the movie involved this young teenage boy who moves to the town from the big city, and he’s really into dancing.

And so the whole plot is how he fights against the system and fights against the powers that be to bring dancing back to this town. And of course, this is a Hollywood production, so this rebellious teenager is the hero of the story, as they would have us to think. But what caught my attention was the character who played his antagonist.

And of course, being Hollywood, they attached to this preacher the worst stereotypes that you can imagine. He was arrogant and loud and holier than thou and hypocritical and ignorant. And if some of you are saying to yourself, sounds like he got it pretty close to being right, you shouldn’t be thinking that. But don’t worry about this preacher too much because by the end of the movie, he comes around, and this rebellious teenage boy wins him over, and he winds up thinking maybe dancing isn’t so bad either. In fact, I think at the end of the movie, he and his wife actually wind up dancing together at one of the dances. Well, I think the point was obvious. Hollywood was trying to say to us that anyone who has a problem with dancing surely must be cut from the same cloth as this old preacher.

Kind of closed-minded, ignorant, out of touch, extremist. And I suspect that the producers of this movie aren’t the only folks that feel that way. After all, dancing is a fixture of our culture, isn’t it? It’s just expected that especially during the growing up years, we’re going to go to dances, right? And teenage years are going to be high school dances, the homecoming dance. When I was growing up, they had the Fadie Hawkins dance with the girl where the girls invited the guys, and the guys always loved that because it took all the pressure on them. And of course, nobody can really live life completely unless they go to the dance at the time of their senior problem. And even after high school, when people get into those young adult years, it is popular to go out to the clubs and socialize and dance and drink and things of that nature.

That’s a common activity. So for somebody to come along, like the preacher in this movie, and to suggest that maybe that’s not such a good idea, people kind of look at that and say, well, he needs to get up to date. And that’s a little old fashioned.

I think there is a certain pressure that comes with that kind of thinking. That comes with this reality. When a practice is so widely accepted, and those who object to it are viewed as out of step or strange. We begin to feel comfortable or uncomfortable not conforming. There’s a lot of pressure to go along if it’s what everyone else is doing. And no one else has a problem with it. Or if not, go along with it at least to be a little more quiet in our opposition. And I think that’s what’s happened to us as brethren. A generation ago, it wasn’t anything. To hear gospel preachers regularly around prong time every year get up and deliver a pretty scathing lesson about dancing.

And we don’t do that anymore. And I think even when we do kind of venture off into that subject, how many of us kind of squirm a little bit and look around and hope there aren’t any visitors? Because we wouldn’t want them to get the idea that this is some kind of an extremist church. Maybe we don’t go along with it, but we would prefer that our opposition be a little more subdued. But I’ll tell you, it has been comforting in recent years, especially over the last couple of months, and doing some research on this subject, to discover that actually it isn’t just old preachers who are beginning to raise some serious questions about dancing. In fact, there are some new voices being heard on this issue that really surprised me.

Voices from school administrators, voices from teachers and chaperones at school dances, and yes, even from the typically liberal media, there have begun to be some questions raised, because modern dancing among teenagers has become so offensive in its form that even the liberal media is starting to wonder if this is such a good idea. Over about the past three or four years, there has been a new form of dancing popular among teenagers called freaking. Now, you know, there’s sometimes you just know from what they call something that it’s not a good idea. And the first time I heard them talk about a new style of dancing called freaking, for some reason my brain said, mmm, that’s probably not going to be something good, and it’s right, it’s not.

But I have to tell you tonight I I’m in a dilemma. I imagine folks that are my age and older probably have no clue at what’s going on in the junior high and high school dances in this country. I don’t frequent those, and I suspect most of you don’t either.

So I’m in a dilemma. And so understand that I’m going to try to be respectful of the occasion. But to inform you as well as what’s going about what’s going on. For lack of a better way of putting it, let me just say this: that freaking involves imitating various sex acts on the dance floor, including heterosexual and homosexual sex acts. Let me tell you what they’re writing about it in the news publications around the country. Catherine Gerwitz, who writes for Education Weekly, said of freaking that it looks like sex. But it’s dancing. Cindy Kranz, writing for the Cincinnati Inquirer, said many describe it as simulated sex with clothes on. Even one tenth grader at Forrestown Area High School said of freaking that it is imitating some sexual behavior.

Of course, schools have been really concerned about that. And have tried to intervene and put a stop to this fad that’s sweeping the country. Efforts have been made to enact new codes of conduct about how kids can and cannot behave. Some schools getting very explicit and spelling out their rule. Chaperones have been armed with flashlights and sent on them, sent out on the dance floor to police this activity. Some schools have even resorted to turning up the lights and arming their chaperones with cameras. You know what they’re doing? They’re taking pictures of the kids and sending them home to the parents. We just want your kids to know what they’re doing. I thought one DJ had a novel approach, the guy that plays the music of the dance.

He would keep an eye on the crowd, and whenever it looked like the dance was getting out of control, he would just stop the song and he would start playing the theme song to the children’s show Barney. And he said that always took a little energy out of the. Well, I thought that was novel. But the problem is that the room is dark. One dance chaperone was asked about this, and what he had seen going on at this high school dance, and he said, I didn’t see much of anything. It was too dark. And you have this mass of kids out there on the dance floor, so that even when there are rules being enforced, as soon as the chaperone’s back is turned, they go back to the old routine.

So you have the dark room and uh the pounding of this uh hip hop music and things of that nature, and folks, things are getting so out of control that they have said that at some junior high and high school dances, the clothing is coming off. You doubt me, read the article. And you know what it’s come to? In places like Los Angeles, California, Chicago, Illinois, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, high schools have said, no more dancing. I guess they didn’t watch the movie Footloose. They just said we can’t police it, it’s getting out of control, and the answer is just don’t have any more of these dances. Let’s be fair. Is this kind of thing happening at every dance? I don’t think so. But it’s happening with enough frequency in schools all around this country that it’s prompted numerous media reports across the country, and it is growing in its popularity so that it if it is if it is not at our schools now, it may well be soon.

I would submit to you folks that once we understand what’s really going on, that suddenly it doesn’t seem like such an extreme thing to ask the question, is this really the kind of thing our kids ought to be doing? And I want us to think about that tonight. I want our young people to have an opportunity in view of the evidence to weigh. Is this an activity I should be involved in? And for moms and dads to make informed choices about what we’re sending our kids off into. And in view of God’s word, is this the kind of thing that we want our kids to be involved in. Let’s start out tonight by talking a little bit about how we decide an issue like this. How do you determine what is right and wrong in a situation like this?

1. Three Standards That Should Not Be Used

And let me tell you that there are three standards or three criteria that should not be used in deciding whether or not dancing is a good idea. For example, let me say to you, first of all, that we can’t decide this based upon what our brethren have always believed. I think traditionally among conservative churches, there has been an attitude which said we ought not to let our kids dance. And I think that’s been that way for decades. As I said, used to be you’d hear sermons about it. But let me add, brethren, that the fact that our brethren have always opposed it and spoken against it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong. We just may have missed the point about that. But let me turn that over and say that the other side of the coin is true as well.

Just because it’s popularly accepted in our culture, just because everyone’s doing it, and a lot of people don’t have a problem with it, I didn’t make it right either. This is not an issue that’s to be decided based on whatever people think about it, whether they think it’s wrong or whether they think it’s right. What people think isn’t the point.

Let me add to you, secondly, that we don’t decide this issue based on what will be easier for our kids.

That this is the thing that’s been behind the compromise we’ve seen among our brethren on this issue. Parents are letting their kids go to the dances. And I don’t think that’s happening because the parents have said, you know, I’ve really I’ve taken my Bible and I’ve really researched this issue and thought through it carefully, and we have reached the biblical conviction in our family that dancing is a good idea. I don’t hear that. You know, the truth is, as parents, it is our heartfelt desire to spare our children any pain, isn’t it? We don’t ever want our kids to hurt, it just rips us up inside when they hurt. We’d rather have the pain, wouldn’t we? And sometimes we transfer that desire over into their moral choices.

We don’t want our kids to suffer the discomfort of being out of step with their peers. We don’t want them to suffer the fear of having to stand against the crowd, the pain of being rejected and perhaps ridiculed. And so we try and making moral choices to make decisions that will help them avoid the pain of being different. And brethren, when we do that, what we have done is we’ve taught our children how to be worldly, not godly. Think about it. Being a Christian is all about rejecting the path of culture and choosing to follow Jesus. It’s all about not doing what the crowd does and doing what the Lord does. You see. It’s about at times being forced to swim upstream against the current of the culture and to be ridiculed and made fun of, and to be isolated at times because you’re making different moral choices.

Brethren, when we provide try to protect our kids from those realities, we deprive them of the opportunity to grow spiritually, and we begin setting a pattern of compromise in their lives that may cost them their souls. If we’re trying to think about what will be easier for our kids, we may be teaching them not to be like their Lord. So let me say to you, thirdly, that this issue will not be decided only by a plain statement of Scripture. Some people think it’s real simple to solve this question. David, show me the passage in the Bible that says thou shalt not dance. If you’ll show me the passage that says thou shalt not dance, that will settle the issue for us, and that’s all there is to it.

If it doesn’t say that, don’t say there’s anything wrong with it. Let me tell you something about this Bible. There’s no Bible passage that says don’t smoke pot either. And I suspect that more than a few of us could think of some biblical reasons why that’s wrong. And we shouldn’t do it.

There’s no five Bible passage that says thou shalt not dance. In fact, there are some Bible passages that talk about dancing. Mary and the ladies of Israel dancing and celebrating after the death of the Egyptians in the Red Sea, David dancing before the Ark of God. Trust me, that wasn’t anything like freaking. But you’re not going to find a Bible passage that says thou shalt not dance. But you know reality, folks. Most of God’s instructions to us don’t come in that form. Most of God’s instructions to us don’t come in the form of a specific statement about a specific aspect of conduct. Sometimes God says it that way. Sometimes God says, for example, don’t commit adultery. Well, that’s a pretty specific statement about a specific act of conduct, isn’t it?

But that’s not typically how he works with us. Most of the time, what God gives us are principles that he expects us to take and put into our hearts and apply in our lives. God, for example, says, Love your neighbor. What do you mean, God? He says, Well, okay, you find every good thing that you can do in all your relationship with your neighbor, be sure you do what is in their best interest and never do anything to their harm. And that principle governs every individual act. Do you see that? And then God expects us to be bright enough to take that principle and to say, okay, here’s how that’s going to work out in dealing with my name. You see, God assumes our intelligence. And we know it’s wrong to smoke pot because there are all kinds of Bible passages that talk about that kind of drunken stupor, that’s stupor that’s created by smoking pot.

2. The Only Standard: What God Would Want

But I want to say to you folks as well that there are some Bible passages that have some things to say about the activities involved in dancing. And we need to give those consideration before we make a decision. In fact that really brings us to the next point that we need to make and that is the only standard that must be used in deciding this question is figuring out what God would want us to do. In fact, folks we need to appreciate that because we are disciples of Jesus because we are disciples of Jesus there are certain principles that underlie every decision we make certain principles that determine and influence every moral choice we’re confronted with. Let me give you four quickly before we move on and talk about this issue of dancing.

First of all, one of the moral principles that guides us is our love for Jesus. Isn’t that right? Our love for Jesus and our desire to be sure that everything we do pleases him. John 14 and verse 15 Jesus says if you love me, you’ll do whatever you want to do. Is that what a verse says if you love me you’ll keep my commandments. Love is not measured with Jesus in terms of warm fuzzy feelings. It’s measured in terms of conduct. So if you really love me you’ll listen to me and you’ll do what I want to say. And so for someone who’s really a disciple the motivator behind all of his moral choices is what does Jesus want me to do? How does God want me to behave?

What will please him? That’s the primary criteria. And let’s just add to that what we were making or the point we were making in the lesson this morning. That disciples of Jesus want to be like him. First Corinthians 11 and verse 1, Paul says, be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ. It is the desire of every true disciple to take his character and to mold it in the image of Jesus. And so the popular phrase, what would Jesus do? Isn’t just a catchphrase to be worn on a wrist around a band around the wrist. It is the creed of the Christian’s life. In every situation, he looks at a decision and he says, What would Jesus do here? How would he handle this?

And when we ascertain that, we find that is exactly the thing that we want to do. And then there’s something else I want us to notice. Turn over, if you will, in your Bibles to 1 Peter chapter 1. Another principle that influences a Christian’s behavior and his moral choices is his desire to be holy. In 1 Peter chapter 1 and verse 14, Peter says, As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts, which were yours and your ignorance. But like the holy one who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior, because it is written, you shall be holy, for I am holy. We’re called to be holy. See that? Like God is holy, we should be. That means that in our lives we want to be completely separated from sin.

It is this filth over here that we want to put away from ourselves and be totally dedicated to God and to his service. Let me tell you something, folks. Christians aren’t interested in drawing the line about what is sinful. So that they can go skating up right to the edge of that line and see how close they can get without ever crossing over. Listen, if that’s what we’re trying to do, we’re condemned because of our attitude, not our behavior. That’s not my interest. Listen, if I’m a disciple, my desire is to be holy. If that’s sin, I want to be over here. I want to be headed in that direction, trying to put it as far away from me as I possibly can. And so every moral choice should reflect.

Not an attitude that says, Well, what’s sin? So I can get as close as I can to the line without crossing. We say, what is sin so I can be sure that I don’t get anywhere close. And then fourthly, a fourth principle that governs our choices is the desire we have always in our conduct to reflect well on the master and his call. Matthew 5 and verse 13, Jesus said that disciples are to be the salt of the earth. Verse 14, a light to the world. Verse 16, let your light shall shine before men in such a way, the Lord says that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. I don’t want anyone ever to look at my behavior and because of what I’m doing have doubt about who I am.

I mean, even if it isn’t spelled out in the Bible as being sinful, if it’s something that causes other people to doubt me and to doubt my character, if it hinders my ability to be an ambassador for Jesus Christ and to represent the cause well, I don’t want any part of that. I want everything I do to say to other people, Jesus is my Lord, and I’m trying to serve him, and everything else needs to reflect on his cause. Well on his cause. Now, folks, those principles need to be behind every choice we make. We need to think about them when we try to decide about dancing. Is this what God would want me to do? If Jesus were in my shoes, is this what he would do?

3. Two Bible Principles About Sexual Purity

Is this what a person who is trying to be holy would do? Well, this enhanc enhance my influence for the kingdom? Now, thinking about those. Let’s talk a little bit about the problems with dancing. I think biblically, the major issue with dancing involves the conflict between dancing behaviors and Bible principles about sexual purity. And so I want us tonight to examine two basic Bible principles about sexual pure purity. The first principle is this. The Bible teaches that there is only one lawful relationship where sexual desires can be satisfied. Can we agree about that? Can we agree that it is only within the bonds of a marriage relationship that this level of intimacy is to be experienced? The scriptures are unmistakable on that point. In Proverbs chapter 5 and verse 15, Solomon would talk to his son about sexual purity.

He would say to him, drink water from your own cistern. And fresh water from your own well. Should your springs be dispersed abroad, streams of water in the street, let them be yours alone and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice with the wife of your youth. Sexual passions are to be dissatisfied or to be satisfied within the confines of the marriage relationship. Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 4, the Hebrew writer said that marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage that undefil is to be undefiled for fornicators and adulterers, God will judge. In Galatians 5 and 19, in Paul’s list of the work of the flesh, he would include sexual immorality first on the list. If you’ve got the old King James translation, he says, fornication and adultery, where sexual immorality is listed here.

As I said this morning, that’s preaching to the choir, isn’t it? We understand it. But if we grasp that principle that sex is limited to the confines of marriage, then the second principle won’t be difficult to understand. And that is we should not be engaged in behaviors that stir up sexual desires in relationships where they cannot be satisfied. To be specific, young men and young women ought not to be doing things together with each other, engaged in behaviors that stir up desires that are inappropriate. And again, on this point, the Bible is unmistakable. Jesus himself in Matthew 5 and verse 27, he says, You’ve heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks on a woman to lust for or to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Now, brethren, that’s an important passage for this reason. It tells us where sexual sin begins. It doesn’t begin with the act, it begins in the mind and the thought and the lust. He said, Christians aren’t to entertain thoughts like that, and to engage in behavior that stir up thoughts like that. And I think Paul makes the same point for us in Galatians 5 and verse 19. Remember when he gave us that list of the works of the flesh and began with sexual immorality. You know, we talk about fornication and adultery, but there are two other words that are used there that I don’t think get nearly the attention they deserve. For example, the next word in his list in Galatians 5 and 19 is the word impurity.

What does that word mean? Scholars tell us that impurity is actually a broad term that includes not only fornication and adultery, but that also includes the thoughts and the words and the actions that lead up to them. Think about it, folks, if God doesn’t agree with the end result, if he says the end result is sinful, he’s certainly not going to approve of all of the behaviors that get us there. There’s another word used. The word sensuality. And sensuality just describes someone who acts without self-control. This is the person caught up in the moments, caught up in the lust, so that the boundaries are gone, the restraint is thrown off, and they follow their passions to wherever it drives. Sensuality. Now listen. Can we agree about those principles?

4. Dancing Involves Behavior That Stirs Up Sexual Desires

Can we say tonight that sex is to be limited to the marriage relationship? And that Christians ought not to be engaged in behavior that’s stirring up those desires with someone they can’t be satisfied with. Listen, if we can agree about that, I would submit to you that solving the dancing issue is easy. What is the problem with dancing? It is simply this that dancing involves behavior that stirs up sexual desires. That’s the problem with it. Now, keep in mind that when we talk about dancing tonight, I’m not talking about what David did before the ark. I’m not talking about what Mary and many other ladies did at the Red Sea. And I realize that there may even be forms of dancing today that don’t involve behaviors that do this.

Back when I was in school, they were beginning to get into something called break dancing. I don’t know if they still do that today, but but guys would get out on the street and spin around on their backs and up on their heads, and while it looked stupid, I don’t know that it was necessarily sinful, at least not what I saw. I’m talking, folks, about the kind of dancing that goes on at the promise. And the kind of dancing that goes on at the homecoming dance. And the problem with that behavior is that it stirs up sexual desires. Certainly, that’s true of the current craze. This freaking business. Certainly no one would argue that simulating act sex acts on the dance floor would certainly be arousing to the participants.

Kids admit it. One young dancer said, of course, dancers get aroused, especially the guys. Ladies, think about that. And then this brilliant observation from one high school junior. He said, Well, freak dancing uh among 12 and 13-year-olds isn’t appropriate to me. Teens my age are racing with hormones and sexual energy, and this is a means to express those feelings. And I read that and I thought, well, this high school junior certainly isn’t one of the brighter bulbs in the chandelier. Do you get what he says here? He says, for the little kids for whom this really isn’t an issue, I think it’s inappropriate. Well, for the ones with the racing hormones, oh, they’re the ones that need to be out dancing that way. Well, it doesn’t say too much about our education system, the level of this young man’s intelligence.

Well, in fact, folks, I think what is happening at modern dancing, at school dance, is the epitome of sensuality. People are getting out there, they’re turning off the lights, the pounding music is playing, they’re getting in to these illicit behaviors, and restraint is getting thrown off, and things are just going too far.

I would hope that there wouldn’t even be a single Christian for whom there was a question about the current craze. But it’s not just freaking that’s the problem, folks. I would suggest to you that even the more traditional forms of dancing create some of the same problems. I know in just about every generation there has been some kind of a dance reserved for couples. We called it slow dancing when I was in high school. Maybe they still call it the same thing today. I don’t know. But I would suggest to you if you really pay attention that what goes on, even in the more traditional form of dancing, you have the same problem. While it may not be extreme, it does stir up inappropriate desires. If you doubt that, think about what happens when couples slow dance with each other.

Have you really stopped to think about that? I don’t mean to be crude tonight, but I don’t want to leave any doubt in your minds about this. What do couples do when they slow dance? Well, first of all, you’ve got to turn the lights out. Someone says, why you gotta turn the lights out? Create a mood. What mood? Just think about that for a minute. Couples dancing, slow dancing isn’t nearly as fun when they turn all those nice, bright, fluorescent lights on, is it? It would ruin the mood. What mood? Secondly, you got romantic music playing in the background. I doubt you’d see much slow couples dancing to God bless America or the Star Spangled Baroness. It’s not fitting with the mood. What mood? And then you have unmarried couples, teenage boys and girls, out on the dance floor in a full-body embrace.

That’s about the most careful way I know how to say that. They’re just wrapped up in each other, that’s what it is. And they’re going to sway back and forth against each other to this music.

Now, is there any person who can honestly say that you could take a young man and a young woman, 17, 8 years old, 18 years old, stick them out on the dance floor, have them do that with each other, keep their minds clean. If your teenage son tells you he can do that and never have an impure thought, take him to the doctor. Something’s wrong with it. That’s not the way God created human beings to function. Who are we kidding, folks? And even if we did have some means, we could argue that I can keep my mind pure. What about my partner? You know, another principle that guides the Christian’s conduct is that we always act in love toward other people, not warm, fuzzy feelings. Their best interest, never doing anything to their heart.

And even if we fooled ourselves and said, Well, I can keep my mind pure, we can’t control the mind of the other person. And if I’m sharing in them in provocative behavior, I’m sharing with them in that sin and demonstrating that I don’t really love them. It is interesting to me that everybody else in the world seems to understand that this is a problem. Extensive testimony could be cited. Dr. Reader Hollingsworth has said dancing is exciting and pleasurable recreation as it affords a partial satisfaction of the sex impulse. The medical community understands it. Mick Jagger, I was glad to know that teenagers still know who he is. Lead singer for The Rolling Stones said the long time ago in Rolling Stone magazine, long before freaking was popular, he said that all dancing is a replacement for sex.

And trust me, he wasn’t trying to give preachers good material to work with. He’s just speaking the truth. When I was growing up in high school, there was a popular group called The Little River Band that sang a song called Lady, and the chorus of the song said, Lady, you’re there on the dance floor making me want you somehow. What do you think that meant? Then there was this I came across a while back, back in the late 80s, a lady wrote in to Anne Landers complaining about her husband slow dancing with other women, and she made this observation. She said, I trust him. I just don’t think God meant for a man and a woman to rub their bodies together in a slow dance with anyone except their spouses.

Am I normal to feel jealous? I should say not. Trust me, folks. If you took the behavior that goes on in a slow dance on the dance floor, and you changed the scene and took away the music, if you moved from the dance floor to your living room and your husband came home and found you doing what couples do when they slow dance in your living room, you wouldn’t think that was appropriate.

So what changes on the dance? I remember watching an episode of the Cosby show. Years ago, back when that show was not in reruns, but original. And one of the episodes, Cliff, the Daddy, is going to teach Vanessa the daughter how to dance. And so he puts on some slow music, because it’s going to be a romantic dance. And he walks up to her and he holds out his arms to dance with her as folks of his generation dance. And in response to his invitation, she comes up, takes both arms, throws them around his neck, presses herself against him as teenagers dance today when they slow dance, and he freezes. And he said, Vanessa, don’t you ever put your body against some boy like that? You see, they even get it on the Cosby show.

Why don’t we? Several years ago, Heidi and I were having a study with a lady sitting in her kitchen. She had a very immoral teenage daughter, who was there in the kitchen kind of listening, sort of to what we were saying. And I don’t even know how it came up. I think she brought it up. She just jumped into the conversation and she says, I just I just want to know why you guys have this problem with dancing. That’s so dumb to me.

So Heidi and I kind of looked at each other. I said, Well, I just want to ask you a question. And I went through that list about what couples do when they slow dance. I said, When you’re out there on the dance floor and you’re in that dimly lit room with a romantic music playing, and your body pressed up against him, and I said, What’s going through your mind? And this worldly, immoral teenage girl blushed. She turned beat red, bowed her head, and wouldn’t answer. She just said, You know. And she did. The difference is that she was not a disciple. And to her, there were no problems having those kind of feelings and desire for someone she wasn’t married to. It seems, brethren, that the only ones who don’t get this are Christians who insist on doing things that they know they ought not to be doing.

Conclusion

Everybody else understands the problem. Let’s go back to the beginning. Knowing what we know, even about the more traditional forms of dancing, four questions I think we need to answer. Number one, can I honestly say that I know I’m pleasing God when I’m out there with my boyfriend or my girlfriend on that dance floor? Can I say with confidence, this is what God wants me to do, and I know that. Can we say that? Number two, can I say that I know if Jesus were in my shoes at this time and at this place in life, he’d be going to the dance, too? Can’t we?

Number three, can I honestly say that I believe dancing helps me to be holy? I think to go to a dance really shows that I’m setting myself apart from sin and really devoting myself and my conduct to God. And number four, can I honestly say that this will identify me as a Christian? When people see me out there and see me dancing, their thoughts are going to be, he must surely be a child of God. That’s how Christians dance. That’s how Christians behave. I know that. It doesn’t matter that the rest of the world thinks it’s okay. I do wonder over the course of the next generation, what else the world is going to think is okay. That’s not the measure, folks. It’s the measure of the word of God.

And what frightens me among God’s people today is less and less do we see moral choices being made with a hard foundation in the scriptures and what God wants, and more and more of our moral choices are springing from the fact of what will be easier, what’s more like the world, what will keep me in line with what everyone else is doing. And brethren, that’s not what a disciple is. We live in a sexually charged world where our kids have to deal with imagery and messages every day that say the wrong thing. Why add to the Lord? There are better options. I tell young people, don’t sit home and cry on your pillow and promise. Don’t sit home and watch the tube on the night of homecoming.

Go have a great time. If it’s your senior prompt, get dressed up in a tuxedo, go buy one of those big fancy dresses and get you some reservations at a great dinner theater or a great performance of some kind or a great restaurant and go out and have a great time. It’s not about needing to sit home and be pathetic. And I think moms and dads need to support that and help with it financially and encourage their kids to make right choices. Go into the dance. That’s not the right choice. It’s not just a higher choice.