These popular Scriptures highlight our dilemma
Next Part What makes worldliness so seductively
Proverbs 3:5,7 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; . . . Do not be wise in your own eyes . . .
Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. . . .”
Though we cannot escape the reality that God’s intellect must be mind-stunningly more powerful than our own, our quandary is that human thinking makes far more sense to us than God’s ways. As parental decisions often defy the logic of a little child, we can expect human error to seem more believable, more rational, and far more likely to be right than what God declares to be true. And as the Bible scholars who ordered the crucifixion of their Messiah could quote chapter and verse for the correctness of their decision, you can be sure that we will find supposed biblical authority for our errors.
From our most impressionable years, right through to today, our moral values, beliefs, and presumptions – things we unquestionably accept as true – have been strongly influenced by ungodly forces at work in whichever society we live. So we come to Christ with our consciences – our sense of right and wrong – having been programmed not by God but primarily by human and ungodly spiritual forces. We have mentioned, and will later confirm, that these anti-God spiritual powers are quite capable of working not just through the mass media and non-Christians, but through Bible teachers and devout Christians.
Worldliness is a blinding, controlling spiritual power. It is a brainwashing process more sinister and spiritually dangerous than just the pervasive influence of godless thought processes: it is exploited by evil spirits and ruled by Satan himself, as stated in all of the following Scriptures:
John 14:30 . . . the prince of this world is coming. . . .
1 Corinthians 2:12 . . . the spirit of the world . . .
2 Corinthians 4:4 The god of this age [or world] has blinded the minds of unbelievers . . .
1 John 5:19 . . . the whole world is under the control of the evil one.
So to recap: to be a victim of worldliness is to have one’s conception of truth directly or indirectly influenced by human opinion rather than by God. It often operates on a subconscious level and usually through demonic manipulation. For the influence to be worldly, all that matters is that the views differ from God’s views, regardless of whether the source is pagan, secular or seems highly Christian.
It would be a psychologically crippling force if what the Bible means by “the world” were merely the formidable combination of unregenerate human education, culture, mindsets and peer pressure, but more alarming still is the Bible’s revelation that it is surreptitiously empowered by supernaturally evil intelligences headed by Satan himself. This is taught not only in the above Scriptures but affirmed in additional, similar Scriptures.
John 12:31 . . . the prince of this world will be driven out.
Ephesians 6:12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world . . .
1 John 4:4 . . . the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
Revelation 12:9 . . . Satan, who leads the whole world astray. . . .
So it should not surprise that religious rules similar to what Colossians 2 calls worldly, are attributed in 1 Timothy 4:1, 3 not to human thinking but to demons who will deceive some people into leaving “the faith” (which does not necessarily mean they cease to call themselves Christians).
It would be wonderful if, the moment we become Christians, our minds became crystal clear, allowing us to see everything through God’s eyes, with all the negative effects of the past programming of our consciences and mindsets gone in a puff of smoke. We need merely consider the enormous changes in Christian morality in the last hundred years, however, to see that this is not the case. Consider, for example, attitudes towards keeping Sunday holy, divorce, sexuality, entertainment, and so on. Today’s average Christian thinks nothing of doing certain things that Christians in previous generations regarded as serious sins. Just because a moral standard is old does not make it more godly, but why the change, if most Christians’ sense of right and wrong comes from their unchanging God?
What is particularly disturbing is that each of us is largely unconscious of the malevolent brainwashing we are all subjected to. None of us is immune, and any Christian supposing he is beyond deception is a particularly easy target.
How can anyone avoid the blinding, spiritual poison that the Bible calls “the world”? God’s escape plan begins, says his Word, with something currently unpopular in Christian circles: daily dying to self.
Romans 12:1-2 . . . offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Emphasis mine) We all want to know God’s will but, teaches this Scripture, to arrive at that point of enlightenment we must travel through daily sacrificing ourselves, and – to paraphrase J. B. Phillips’ translation – not letting the world squeeze us into its mould, but letting God re-make us so that our whole attitude of mind is changed.
Notice that when telling us not to conform to the world, this Scripture makes no mention of behaviour. We cannot completely separate our mind from our behaviour but in this key passage the focus is entirely on the mind. Worldliness targets the mind, whereas in decades past, some churches seemed to act as if to rid oneself of worldliness it is enough to change outward behaviour. Just because we do not conform outwardly to worldly standards is no guarantee that our mind is no longer programmed by the anti-God forces that the Bible calls the world. What makes worldliness so sinister and able to delude us is that it infects our very minds – the only thing we can think with. Try telling me that’s not scary.
Note also that this directive to avoid mentally conforming to the world appears near the end of Romans, after all the salvation issues have been dealt with. It is targeted at Christians; proving that Christians can have worldly minds. Neither salvation nor outward behaviour guarantees that we are free from anti-God mind control. Here’s the truth of Romans 12 expressed in different words:
2 Corinthians 4:4 The god of this age [or world] has blinded the minds of unbelievers . . . Ephesians 4:22-24 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. (Emphasis mine)
Here again we see dying to self and an emphasis on the mind. Note also the importance of the mind in the following: Romans 8:5-6 Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace
1 Corinthians 2:6 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age [or world] or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.
1 Corinthians 3:19 . . . the wisdom of this world is foolishness . . .
Ephesians 4:17-19 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality . . .
Colossians 1:21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behaviour. (Emphasis mine)
Next Part What makes worldliness so seductively