Lisa Barry: Over the years, Elisabeth Elliot has spoken to thousands of adults, teens and children, and has written many books. But one book that took the world by storm back in the 1980's was Passion and Purity. It's a high calling of abstinence before marriage that became a refreshing and rejuvenating battle cry for Christian teens all across the country.

Today, on Gateway To Joy, Elisabeth Elliot continues to visit with special guest, Bob Lepine about how to equip our children to take a stand for moral purity. It's all coming up next on this Thursday edition of Gateway To Joy.

Elisabeth Elliot: "You are loved with an everlasting love." That's what the Bible says, "and underneath are the everlasting arms." This is your friend Elisabeth Elliot, continuing my talk today with Bob Lepine on the subject of teenagers and what godly parents want from their teenagers and want for them.

And one of the things, Bob, that I like to say every time I have a chance at all, to these young people, whom I love...now I just, I look at their shining faces, you know they're so delightful looking and so clean very often. Some of them, pretty messy. But, I just want to take every one of them by the scruff of the neck and say, "Keep your hands off. Keep your clothes on. And stay out of bed." And they look at me and their jaws drop. "What did you say?"

"Keep your hands off. Keep your clothes on. And stay out of bed. Can you understand that?"

"Oh yeah, well, yeah, I guess that's pretty good. I ought to do that."

Well, if you haven't done that before now, if you've been messing around, playing around with your clothes off and who knows what else, what do you do? Get down on your knees and ask God to forgive you. And ask that person that you have wronged for forgiveness. Tell them--if you are man enough, or girl enough--just go right back to that person and say, "Look, we really blew it. It's my fault. I should have kept my clothes on, my hands off, and I should have stayed out of bed."

Bob Lepine: I remember when I first heard, I think it's the first time I'd ever heard about you, was right after Passion and Purity came out. And what I remember hearing was that somebody had written a book suggesting that people shouldn't kiss until they got married.

Now here you're saying, "Keep your hands off, your clothes on, and stay out of bed." But in Passion and Purity you were raising a pretty high bar, a pretty high standard. That's really what you said, isn't it, keep your lips to yourself?

Elisabeth Elliot: That's exactly what I said.

Bob Lepine: Do you say that to teenagers today?

Elisabeth Elliot: Yes, of course I do. I say, "Why do you feel that you absolutely can't keep your hands off each other? You have two hands, you can keep them off. Put them behind your back if you need to."

Bob Lepine: Hands off, okay, but what about kissing? Kissing's okay, isn't it?

Elisabeth Elliot: Kissing is squishy and messy and you don't want to do that unless you really are madly in love with the person who has already asked you to marry him. Why would you go around letting any Tom, Dick and Harry kiss you, paw you? You are one girl and only one. You have one body. What do you want to do with it? What would you like to be able to do when you get up in front of the marriage ceremony? Would you want to be able to say, "I have never kissed this man until today?"

Now, I'm not going to say it's wrong to kiss if you're engaged. I wouldn't say that it's necessarily wrong, but you need to be very, very circumspect. And keep your hands off where they shouldn't be. And ask God to give you the strength to wait. And every girl who has learned to wait and has been given that kind of instruction by her parents, the day will come when she will be so grateful.

Bob Lepine: You've never had anybody come back and say, "I really regret the fact that we didn't kiss more when we were dating," have you?

Elisabeth Elliot: Never have heard that, no.

Bob Lepine: But the opposite's true.

Elisabeth Elliot: Yes.

Bob Lepine: Plenty of people come back and say, "I wish we had done it differently."

Elisabeth Elliot: Yes

Bob Lepine: In fact, when I speak to adults and talk about this whole issue of dating, I ask the question, "How many of you would like your children's dating experience to be just what you went through when you were dating?" And there is a frightened look that comes on every face and very few hands go up.

And then I ask the question, "Well, what are going to do differently?" Most parents don't have a plan for what they are going to do differently. I mentioned yesterday that my daughter had read your book Passion and Purity and I was so glad she had because I could have said the same thing you would have said. And you know, I'm Dad. She'd let that one pass right over. But to hear it from someone else in the context of a great love story, I think it made an impression on her that will last.

And you've heard that over and over again. You've gotten letters on that throughout the years. God has used your call to purity in people's lives in a powerful way.

Elisabeth Elliot: Well, to God be the glory. I really would like to hear, maybe briefly, what have you been teaching your children?

Bob Lepine: Well, I remember when my oldest daughter, who is now 20 years old, I remember when she was two. I'd put her on my lap as a two-year-old and I would say to her, "Amy, some day a boy is going to want to take you on a date." Well, she's two, she doesn't know what date means; she's not sure what boy means at that age. But we would just rehearse this from the time she was little. "When he wants to take you on a date, who does he need to talk to first, honey?"

"To you, Daddy," she would say. "That's right."

We would just make that a part of the practice from the time the kids were little so that by the time they were twelve, they already knew what our standards were and what was in place. I find a lot of parents today waiting until something happens to try to put a standard in place, rather than establishing a standard long before you need it.

Don't you think that parents need to be more proactive?

Elisabeth Elliot: Oh, absolutely. And I think probably the men are the ones who are the most at fault there because they're not thinking about it at all. You know, How old's my little daughter? 11, 12, or gosh, is she 13 already? Is she 14? Well, maybe I need to have a little talk with her, but not until she's 16 because surely she not doing anything real bad now.

What would you say to that?

Bob Lepine: I would say, "You're a little late and you need to make up for some lost time." Don't you think?

Elisabeth Elliot: Most emphatically, yes.

Bob Lepine: Lots of teenagers are thinking, I can't wait until the magic age of 14 or 15 or 16 or whatever is common in my culture, then I can start to date.

What do you think about dating?

Elisabeth Elliot: I was not a popular girl. I had very, very few dates in my teen years. But as many of our listeners know, a man by the name of Jim Elliot fell for me in a way. And he was a year behind me in college. I was at Wheaton College and I was about to graduate when he asked me one day if I would take a walk with him. And we hadn't walked more than a couple of blocks when he stopped dead and said, "Wait a minute, let's go back and sit down in the park and talk." And I was thrilled because I was very interested in this man.

So we sat down in the grass, it was a beautiful May morning and we were facing each other--not touching in any way. And Jim said, "I'm not going to lay a finger on you because I have no rights over you whatsoever." But he said, "I do want to tell you that I love you." And he said, "I hope that maybe someday God will allow me to marry you." But he said, "I have no word from God that that will ever happen."

So, I mean, I was shattered because I was hoping of course that he was going to ask me to marry him. And I was very much in love with him. And of course, it was five and a half years before Jim got the green light from God. And throughout all that time I was in limbo in a way. There wasn't any way that I could know what was going to happen.

But he set that example and I have been able to tell that story over and over again. This man, what kind of an 18 year old man or 20 year old, I guess he was 20 years old by then, what kind of strength does it take for him to keep his hands off this girl that he loves. Well, it's possible and the Lord God will help you, therefore you must not be confounded (Isa. 50:7).

Bob Lepine: You said you didn't date much. Did you scare guys off?

Elisabeth Elliot: I was not popular and there were very few guys that ever wanted to date me in college. Jim told me later, he said, "I think the only reason that they didn't was because they were scared of you." I was a loner, I was a student and I never went to the football games or anything like that. I was always studying. And I wanted to get the highest possible grades that I could get. I was a Greek major, so that was tough. And I might have had three or four dates with guys that I wasn't particularly interested in.

Bob Lepine: And all of those guys kept their distance and treated you with respect?

Elisabeth Elliot: Oh, yes. I would say they definitely kept their distance. And several of them told me later that they were always trying to figure out what was going through my head. They would watch me in classes and I don't know why that was. And I went to Prairie Bible Institute and when I finished that year after college a man who became a missionary...and ten years later he came back and he said, "You know, I used to watch you at Prairie Bible Institute, thinking, What is going through that woman's head?"

Well, I guess it was my mother who taught me to keep my own counsel.

Bob Lepine: Let me ask you, girls going through high school and college, if they're not getting asked out on a lot of dates, they begin to wonder, There must be something wrong with me, why don't the boys like me, was that a part of your thinking?

Elisabeth Elliot: Yes. I didn't think anybody was particularly interested in me.

Bob Lepine: When that happens for girls, then they start to flirt and become a little more aggressive and start to see if they can't attract a little more attention. But you didn't do that.

Elisabeth Elliot: No. I think my mother was pretty clear on things like that, you know. She said, "Don't give them anything to work on. Keep your hands off. Keep your clothes on. And stay out of bed." And she rang the changes on those things.

Bob Lepine: Well, for parents again who are watching their daughters, or their sons for that matter, move through what is a challenging, hard, awkward period for young people, and all of a sudden there is some excitement in the eyes of a daughter or a son because they have attracted the attention of a young man or a young woman at school and they want to go to the movies or they want to go bowling or they just want to go over to a friend's house--if that's your 16-year-old, your 17-year-old daughter, what are you going to do?

Elisabeth Elliot: Well, I'm certainly going to investigate exactly where they're going and with whom.

Bob Lepine: Keep some boundaries in place.

Elisabeth Elliot: Yes. And we have not only the book Passion and Purity for these young people but a book called Quest for Love, also.

Lisa Barry: You can find those books and many others on our Web site at gatewaytojoy.org. And as we close for today, I want to thank again our special guest, Bob Lepine, who has so skillfully brought Elisabeth's history to the forefront.

And as a follow up to that I want to tell you how you can get a piece of Gateway To Joy memorabilia for yourself. Most of you know that Elisabeth has had a monthly publication called The Gatekeeper for many years. With the Gateway To Joy radio program concluding at the end of August, The Gatekeeper will be wrapping up production as well. But we would like to a make this last and final Gatekeeper available to you.

Now if you already have the Gatekeeper delivered to your home, you don't need to order this last issue because it will be sent to you automatically. But for the rest of you who don't get the publication but would like to take a little bit of Gateway To Joy history with you, just give us a call to request the final issue of The Gatekeeper. But call now, because supplies are limited.

Call toll free, 24 hours a day, 1-800-759-4JOY. We also have this series available on tape; it's called "Seeking God's Direction." Ask about it when you call 1-800-759-4569. Another option is to write us at:

Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, NE 68501. That's Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, NE 68501. Once again our Web address is gatewaytojoy.org. Gateway To Joy is a listener-supported production of Back to the Bible.

We'd like to thank you for your support of Gateway To Joy especially as we enter these days of transition. We would like to ask you to help us to finish strong as Gateway To Joy ends and then begin strong with Revive Our Hearts in September. It's your generosity that really makes the difference.

This is Lisa Barry, thanking you for listening today. And be sure to join us tomorrow for one last interview segment from Elisabeth Elliot and Bob Lepine. That's next time on Gateway To Joy.