Category: Worldliness

It is apparent that we are living during a time of immorality and ungodliness. Worldliness has always held sway with the majority, but we are certainly in a cycle of excessiveness.

In Genesis 6:5-6 we are informed of an ungodly time, much like our own. “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.” That is not to say that there are only 8 righteous souls on the earth (the number spared in the flood). However, the evil nature of society is certainly similar to that of old.

The pagan society of Paul’s day was similar. Paul stated that “although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Romans 1:21). Their foolishness led them to all types of debauchery, and Paul maintained that those who practice such things are “worthy of death” (vs. 32).

This past week I typed in the word “scandal” into an internet search engine, and came up with a sampling of the pervasive ungodliness that exists in our world today.

• An NBA referee (Tim Donaghy) is being investigated by the FBI for both betting on and fixing NBA games in order to appease gangsters because of his gambling debts. The scandal is perhaps the most disturbing in decades in professional sports.
• Some British politicians are presently embroiled in a scandal involving unethical campaign financing schemes.
• A Catholic Cardinal in Los Angeles apologized last week to the hundreds of people affected by the sex scandal that has rocked the Catholic church. The church in L.A. is scheduled to pay $660,000,000 in reparations to victims.
• Louisiana Senator David Vitter spent last week in seclusion after a raid on a prostitution ring in Washington D.C. turned up his phone number. He has acknowledged what he calls “a serious sin.”
• In China a scandal surfaced last month after about 400 distraught parents posted a plea on the Internet about their children who had been sold into slavery in China’s northern Shanxi province and neighbouring Henan. It is estimated that over 1,000 people, many of them children, have been victimized by these crimes.

These are only representative of the literally hundreds of scandals that have been reported on in the news the past several weeks. They show a lack of integrity, conviction and morality that exists in the world today. Sex, gambling, corruption and man’s inhumanity to man are the norm rather than the exception. In fact, such are so common that it is probable most of the examples above are unfamiliar to most of the readers of this article.

In the face of such ungodliness, Christians are admonished by the Holy Spirit to, “become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that I [Paul] may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain” (Phil. 2:15-16).

AOTS Number 61

God does not want us to avoid worldliness because He doesn’t want us to enjoy life. He knows what is best for us, and what will make us happy. Worldliness is not it!

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HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong’s media regulator has rejected calls to reclassify the Bible as an indecent publication following more than 2,000 complaints about its sexual and violent content, including rape and incest.

“The Bible is a religious text which is part of civilization. It has been passed from generation to generation,” Hong Kong’s Television and Licensing Authority (TELA) said in a statement issued late Thursday.

It said it would not submit the Bible to the Obscene Articles Tribunal for classification.

The regulator received 2,041 complaints against the Bible this week, following an uproar over a sex column in a student magazine that was classified as “indecent” by authorities for asking if readers had ever fantasized about incest or bestiality.

A Web site launched soon afterwards campaigned to have the Bible similarly classified, citing passages with sexual and violent content it claimed went beyond that of the sex column.

But TELA said in its statement the Bible “had not violated standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable members of the community.”

Publications classified as indecent in Hong Kong can only be bought by people aged over 18 and must be sealed in a wrapper with a statutory warning notice.

Reuters, Friday, May 18, 2007

Analysis:

This is a typical attempt made by the ungodly to justify their lasciviousness and sin. The Bible has been called pornographic, violent and offensive. It is not. However, it records the lives and sins of those who are sometimes pornographic, violent and offensive.

The interesting thing to note is that while the Bible is plain in speech, it is never provocative, nor does it make prurient appeals and stoop to lurid speech or descriptions.

When sin is committed, sin is reported. When the sin is especially egregious and offensive, these things are noted while a righteous and appropriate tone is always present.

The “sex column” in the student magazine was intended to shock, and to appeal to the prurient nature of the young people who read it. Whether you agree with the censorship being practiced by the Hong Kong governmental agency, to claim the two are comparable is ridiculous, as rightly determined by the TELA statement.

Understand, the students did not really have an objection toward the Bible. They just wanted their truly objectionable material to be tolerated. This is the way of sinners. When they make objections, saying, “Well if this is so, then this is too…” (and doesn’t that sound familiar), their claims in no way justify their own actions. Put it this way, if indeed the Bible is pornographic… that doesn’t make their material acceptable! This is the logic of the devil and his minions.

Podcast Number 49

To be a friend with the World is to become an enemy of God. Christians should submit in humble obedience to God, and resist the devil. Only in doing this can we overcome the siren call of worldliness.

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Bill Crews’ lesson establishes the responsibility of Christians to be an influence for good in the midst of an ungodly world.

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Bill Crews’ sermon asks the question, Does God see what He should see when he looks down upon his creation? (cf. Genesis 1:31). More to the point, does God see what He should see when he looks at me?

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AOTS Number 16

Some people will turn to God only when desperate, only when they are forced to by circumstance. To think that such an attitude will be acceptable to God is to be mistaken!

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AOTS Number 11

A poem praising the virtues of past days where the Bible and God were respected, and there was less evil in the world.

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AOTS Number 6

The bevahior of some Christians sure seems strange, as they profess to be disciples of Christ, and yet their priorities lie elsewhere!

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A tent was the common dwelling for the nomadic people of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments. Psalm 118:15 speaks of the “tents of the righteous”, and establishes a picture that is very instructive to the child of God.

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In his epistle to the Philippians, the apostle Paul expressed his attitude toward his service to Christ. Simply put, he wasn’t about to “count his chickens before they hatched.” In his own words, “Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).

The reason for this single-minded approach in his service to the Lord is stated in the preceding verses, “that I may gain Christ, and be found in him” (vs. 8b-9a). Further, he longed for the result of such a fellowship with his Lord, “if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection of the dead” (vs. 11).

Continue reading ““I Press Toward the Goal”” →

Podcast Number 33

Our society is presently plagued by many problems: Violence, sexual immorality, disease. Those who seek the answers to the problems are often looking in the wrong place. The Bible has the answers to society’s problems, whether men wish to accept it or not!

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“I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. 10 Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. 11 But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner — not even to eat with such a person. 12 For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? 13 But those who are outside God judges. Therefore “put away from yourselves the evil person.”

1 Corinthians 5:9-13

In this context, the apostle Paul explains the difference between living in the world, and living “of” the world. It is obviously necessary for the Christian to interact with worldly people. Ungodliness is everywhere. When you go to the grocery store, the clerk might be an adulteress. Your child’s teacher might be guilty of covetousness, your banker might just be an extortioner, and the plumber may be a drunkard!

Continue reading “In the World, Not OF the World” →

Podcast Number 29

The Apostle Paul, in 2 Corinthians 7:1 admonishes Christians to purify themselves from filthiness,
and perfect holiness. This lesson describes and explains how this can be accomplished.

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There a number of passages that come to mind that bear on the subject of this short article:

“And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24).

“Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh. 19 For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. 20 For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God” (1 Peter 2:18-20).

“Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. 4 Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3-4).

In the news Saturday was a notice that the National Basketball Association’s Players Union has filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board concerning unfair “business practices” by the NBA.

Continue reading “In The News: NBA is Unfair!” →