“Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,
‘I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
Therefore go out from their midst,
and be separate from them, says the Lord,
and touch no unclean thing;
then I will welcome you,
and I will be a father to you,
and you shall be sons and daughters to me,
says the Lord Almighty.’
Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.” [1]
Roman culture had become thoroughly degraded in the days in which the New Testament was being written. Many Christians living in this twenty-first century suppose that no society was ever as degenerate as this present western society in which we live. That common supposition isn’t at all evident to me, especially when I read the history of that ancient empire. To be certain, contemporary culture is following a dark path which approximates that of Roman culture. I must believe that the final terminus of our present culture will not differ significantly from Roman culture of that ancient day. It is possible there will always be a nation bearing the name Canada in my lifetime and in the lifetime of my children, or even in the lifetime of my grandchildren; but it is reasonable to question what the character of that nation will be in that future day.
Our present culture is self-destructing, and we who name the Name of Christ bear a major responsibility for this situation. Jesus appointed His followers to be salt and light, and I fear we are failing miserably in fulfilling the Master’s will. Jesus said of us who follow Him and who serve Him, “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” [MATTHEW 5:13-16].
Almost one year ago I preached several messages that reflected a similar approach to the review of culture. [2] Truthfully, I am astonished at the transformation witnessed in North American society in the year since those messages were delivered. I believe I am witnessing events that may presage the coming of the Master. I’m not saying that Messiah will return immediately, though we always live in anticipation of His imminent return; I am saying that what we are witnessing does appear to be outlined by the warning Jesus gave His disciples immediately before His passion.
The psychoanalyst Theodor Reik is credited with the statement, “There are recurring cycles, ups and downs but the course of events is essentially the same, with small variations. It has been said that history repeats itself. This is perhaps not quite correct; it merely rhymes.” [3]
You will recall Jesus saying, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven. But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake. This will be your opportunity to bear witness. Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer, for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. You will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But not a hair of your head will perish” [LUKE 21:10-18].
OUR PRESENT CULTURE — Our present western culture is self-destructing. I find it breathtaking to realise how quickly the culture in which I grew up has been transformed. The transformation of western culture, even during the past two decades, makes one dizzy just thinking about the changes. I am certain that the seed for the present bitter harvest society is now reaping (and make no mistake, society is reaping a bitter harvest) will be found in the culture in which I grew up and in which many of you came to adult years. Looking back, I’m certain that the genesis for the present degradation of western society lies in the loss of spiritual vitality among the churches that still dot the land, a loss that was evident more than five decades past. And the downward trend of western morals has only accelerated since those halcyon days of my youth.
Perhaps you watched news reports of the congressional hearing as the heads of Ivy League schools provided testimony before the US House of Representatives. These paragons of modern morality were unable to say whether attacking Jewish students violated the codes of conduct for Harvard University, for the University of Pennsylvania, or for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is not clear to me that the mayors of our great cities in Canada would have fared any better. And as for the presidents of our vaunted institutes of higher education, they would do no better than these three women.
I could never have believed that the western world would tolerate antisemitism, even embracing such, in such a brief time after the Second World War. We witnessed the Holocaust, and almost the entire world united in declaring, “Never Again.” Since October 7, 2023, large numbers of the intelligentsia and students of the West have loudly and vigorously declared, “Again!”
A loathsome and brutal evil was revealed as terrorists calling themselves Hamas—an acronym for its official name, the Islamic Resistance Movement—has proved itself to consist of serpents doing the despicable bidding of the vile Iranian viper who bears the title Ayatollah. These reprehensible creatures attacked a nation with which they had a ceasefire. Instigated by Tehran, these detestable insects slaughtered innocent men and women, making no distinction between babies and grandmothers. In one instance, they even cut a child out of the mother’s womb and placed that baby in an oven where the child was baked alive before the eyes of the dying mother.
They raped women and little girls with such violence that some of these women suffered broken pelvises. The contemptible creatures known as Hamas even paraded some or these unfortunate women naked through the streets of Gaza—and the Gazan people cheered, giving approval to this evil. Despicable and detestable as these acts were, more evil still are the multiplied university professors in the United States and Canada who approve of this wickedness, and the thousands of vacuous students who now call for Israel to be destroyed. These wicked acts demonstrate the effectiveness of the indoctrination of those attending the institutions of higher education in our culture today.
You see, the colleges and universities were surrendered to darkness over a generation ago. Today, our secondary and primary schools are being given over to educational unions committed to indoctrinating evil rather than instructing in truth. We delivered our youth into the world system to be schooled in all the wisdom of the world, and we are astonished to see them now reflecting the indoctrination with which they have been inundated throughout their formative years. The churches in which they spent a few hours as children told them Bible stories without teaching them to embrace the Risen Lord of Glory. Children learned Bible stories without application to stand firm in the Faith before we delivered them into the hands of communists, atheists, and agnostics, all the while telling them that they were receiving the finest education the world had ever witnessed. Why are we surprised at their lack of moral clarity, the absence of the ability to reason, displayed by those arising to take control of the levers of power today?
There is a sickness in our present culture, a sickness that few could have believed possible in years past. This wickedness did not suddenly spring up after lying dormant for years in the swamps and marshes of the land. This evil is the natural consequence of gross failure on the part of the churches of our land. We Christians quit holding our members accountable for wickedness. Having ceased to hold our own accountable, we were no longer able to serve as salt to halt the decay of society or as light to expose evil and to exalt good. Our churches ceased preaching righteousness and ceased insisting that the members live holy and righteous lives. Christians allowed our houses of worship to become social centres that specialised in entertaining those seated in the pews. Worse still, we preachers have been trained to be ever so careful to avoid saying anything that would make those present in our services feel ill at ease. We Christians ceased functioning as salt and light, and the rot continually grew worse and in the growing darkness we no longer smelled the fetid stench of our dying world.
We may not want to hear that our present culture is a cesspool of wickedness, but how else are we to describe the culture in which we are immersed? We use fornication and lasciviousness as forms of entertainment and wonder why there is such an epidemic of infidelity within the marriages of the land. We applaud the use of the sharp retort and the cutting putdown, and then we question why there is so little courtesy demonstrated throughout our great cities. We approve of blasphemy in language and in actions, and we are surprised when there is scant regard today for righteousness.
After describing the culture in which he then lived, the Apostle to the Gentiles looked out on the city of Corinth and reflected what he saw to the Christians who were then living in Rome. As he drew his description to a climax, he wrote, “Since [people] did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless” [ROMANS 1:28-31].
And he reserves the most heinous aspect of that society for his final summary statement as he writes, “Although they fully know God’s just sentence—that those who practice such things deserve to die—they not only do them, but even applaud others who practice them” [ROMANS 1:32 CSB]. Paul could well have been writing of this present culture, except we may have slid farther down the rapidly declining slope into wickedness than had that ancient Roman culture. We not only embrace those evils which he so vividly described, but we instruct our children in these evils from their earliest days in the modern education system! Moreover, we censure the father or the mother who objects to their children being indoctrinated in such vile evil!
I recall how horrified I was at what was available in juvenile fiction almost forty years ago. We didn’t have a television in our home during the years our children were growing up. Our children had an advantage that is not available to many children today. We encouraged our children to read, though we had to limit them to no more than forty books checked out of the library each week. Since they were home schooled, they had many opportunities to read, and they were encouraged to do so.
The rule we made was that they could check out no more than ten works of fiction at a time, the other reading material including works of science, technology, history, philosophy, and so forth. I personally reviewed the books our children brought home to ensure that they met our admittedly strict standards. I was deeply disturbed when on one occasion Susan had checked out some works of juvenile fiction that prominently featured crass language and descriptions of salacious behaviour.
I took the books in question so I could bring them to the attention of the librarian, notifying her that perhaps she would wish to reclassify these books so that innocent youth would not be reading them. When I spoke with the librarian, she scoffed and explained to me that the author was one of Canada’s most celebrated authors of juvenile fiction. She went on to explain that I possibly suffered from an inadequate education to appreciate how great these particular novels actually were.
“Inadequate education!” I exploded. “Lady, I have a doctorate in biochemistry, read five languages and been to a Mexican goat roping. I taught English at the graduate level and have authored more than forty refereed journal articles!” I was reasonably certain that her arrogance would not cow me into agreement with her assessment.
She was momentarily silenced by the vigour with which I refuted her suggestion concerning my educational achievements. I continued by asking her if she had children, to which she defiantly acknowledged that she had a preteen daughter. I asked her if she permitted her child to read this literature, to which she responded that of course her daughter read these books, once more asserting that the books by this particular author constituted the best literature available in Canada.
Her apparent confidence in her position led me to say, “I am a reverend minister, and I have been compelled to deal with people such as yourself on multiple occasions. When you come to me whining that your daughter is pregnant and has secured an abortion without your knowledge and you question why the church didn’t do more, I’m going to ask if you read lips. And then I’ll say, ‘Blllllllllph!’”
Western culture did not just suddenly slip from righteousness to wickedness; the transition has been taking place for a long time. Throughout my ministry, now stretching over five decades, I have watched the steady deterioration of righteousness in western culture. Concessions on what seemed to be trivial matters at the time they were introduced set the course that would lead to the inevitable decline of the West. The churches began to emphasise personal fulfilment as the purpose of mankind; and God would function to assist us to achieve our personal goals. Thus, the Faith was reduced to a self-help program, sort of an ecclesiastical twelve-step program to better ourselves.
After this, we began to destroy the home, insisting that women needed to be just like men, working and providing just as did their men. This would mean that motherhood was devalued, and the worth of women would henceforth be calculated by how much they earned. Men had already been defined by the size of their purse rather than by the content of their character.
Commitment to one’s spouse was shaken as our culture insisted that men could not be expected to be chaste, and if men could not be chaste, why would women need to be chaste. Then we were told that we needed to teach our children at ever younger ages how to be unchaste. After all, children will explore their sexuality, so we must prepare them to explore “safely.” Therefore, rather than teaching self-control, we bought into the lie that we had to encourage “safe sex,” or our youth would self-destruct.
If our society was exploring their sexuality, then didn’t it make sense that they would find gratification wherever they could, whether through self-gratification, through sexual exploration with partners of the opposite sex, or even through exploring sexual gratification in same sex encounters? How dare anyone tell a person they couldn’t love whomever they wanted! Therefore, our culture became obsessed with the thought that sexual gratification was the greatest good, and we needed to yield to the idea that we must encourage sexual gratification as the greatest good.
I know we have heard what the Apostle wrote until we could recite his words by heart, but note the progression recorded as Paul reviews that ancient Roman culture. “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened” [ROMANS 1:18-22].
Cultural decline began when God was no longer acknowledged to be God. It was inevitable that God would give that culture what they imagined they wanted, and so we read, “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
“For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
“And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them” [ROMANS 1:24-32].
Ignore God, treat Him as though He is unreal, and you begin a downward descent which will move faster and faster as you embrace increasingly untenable positions in life. Inevitably, the mind set on excluding God as worthy of our finest thoughts and most devoted actions leads to exalting ourselves to the pinnacle of worth. When such exclusionary attitudes began to reign supreme within a culture and the majority choose to tolerate such attitudes, that culture is headed to the trash heap of history. In effect, the culture that excludes the knowledge of God becomes idolatrous, but the idolatry that is witnessed will be manifest through obsession with the natural function of their bodies. It is true that mankind is intent on worshipping something, and if the Living God is excluded as worthy of worship, people will worship themselves. They will focus on gratifying themselves, and righteousness will be rejected.
The evidence that a culture has devolved to this debased state is an obsession with sexual gratification. Women, who serve as a brake on cultural debasement begin to act as men in pursuit of their own sexual gratification. People excuse the excess of the culture, even as they embrace the folly of the cultural degradation. Men, focused on their own gratification, cease thinking of sex as a means of bonding with their wives and think only of self-gratification; and this leads to approving of, and even embracing as a legitimate expression of love, homosexuality. God is surrendering that culture to its own desire.
The movement at this point may well be irreversible as that culture discovers the depth of degradation has permeated the whole of society. All the foul attitudes that are characteristic of a terminal condition begin to be witnessed. Though those living in that society hate the expression of debasement marking the culture, they are no longer capable of altering the downward descent. They cannot think with any degree of lucidity, and so they cannot halt the rot that saps their strength. Rather than holding evil doers accountable for their evil acts, they excuse them, trying to understand why they might act as they do and blaming their actions on the broader society. They accuse the righteous of being the cause of societal misery because they expose the wicked acts as evil. And all the while, they applaud those who act wickedly as bold, as brave for openly defying God.
OUR PERSONAL COURSE AS CHRISTIANS — “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,
‘I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
Therefore go out from their midst,
and be separate from them, says the Lord,
and touch no unclean thing;
then I will welcome you,
and I will be a father to you,
and you shall be sons and daughters to me,
says the Lord Almighty.’”
[2 CORINTHIANS 6:14-18]
We are given multiple commands in this portion of the Word, though they all can be unified under one simple command— “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.” The divine command anticipates that those who accept what is written in the Word are followers of Christ and not merely religious pretenders. Moreover, the command expects that we will be capable of recognising those who are unbelievers by whether they are willing to compromise truth and thus attempting to please God for the accolades of this dying world. Which is of greater worth in your estimate? Pleasing God by embracing the truth? Or receiving the praise of mere mortals who must themselves die?
We are not the first generation to struggle with how to respond to the evil of the day. This will be an ongoing challenge for Christians until the Master returns. Until He does come again, we are responsible to live in this world being careful not to allow ourselves to be soiled by the wickedness of the day. The half-brother of our Lord has revealed the wisdom of our God when he writes, “But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh” [JUDE 20-23]. We must seek and find that delicate balance between showing mercy and hating sin.
Writing the Christians in Corinth, you will remember how the Apostle admonished them. “I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. ‘Purge the evil person from among you’” [1 CORINTHIANS 5:9-13].
Though western culture is rapidly imploding, and though wickedness appears to metastasise in our world, individual Christians are still responsible before the Lord to walk as the godly people they are meant to be. And the churches in which the saints gather are to strive to be islands of righteousness in the midst of the dark sea of cultural degradation. We who profess to be God’s holy people must hold one another accountable. When the world seems to have lost all sense of moral direction, it will be those few churches that speak the truth in love and walk in holiness with the Risen Saviour that will serve as lights in the darkness and as salt slowing the decay.
PERSISTENT CLEANSING — “Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God” [2 CORINTHIANS 7:1]. What promises do we Christians have? What did the Spirit of Christ have in view when He delivered this statement through the Apostle? In the first place, the Lord has declared that we are the temple of the living God. While each twice-born individual is indwelt by the Spirit of God, the local assembly is a Temple of the Living God, and the Spirit of the True and Holy God lives in this local assembly. This congregation is not merely an organisation dedicated to promoting religion—we are the Temple of the Living God! God Himself dwells among us and in us! Whenever we meet, you know that God is present. The manner in which we conduct ourselves as we meet either glorifies the Name of our God, or it detracts from Him by focusing attention on ourselves. More importantly, as we function as the Church of the Risen Saviour throughout the week, God is with us, always working in us to glorify His Name.
The mother who instructs her children in the things of God, praying for the children God has entrusted to her care, teaching them to be righteous looking to Christ for salvation, performs these sacred duties knowing that God is with her. The father who provides for His family and protects them from the wickedness of this present generation is doing God’s work, and the Lord is with Him to empower Him to do that work. As you speak with a neighbour or as you minister to a colleague, know that God is with you because you are a part of His Temple. This is not an inconsequential truth! That God is with you is an essential truth ensuring that you are equipped to do all that the Master has appointed you to do. The presence of the Living God with you is your guarantee that you will succeed in every task He has assigned.
This should be a great comfort to each of us as followers of the Christ. Whenever we speak with another, the Spirit of God is working through us. Can this be what Jesus had in mind when He spoke to the disciples of what they would do in the future. You will recall that Jesus promised, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it” [JOHN 14:12-14].
Because God is with you, He is always working to cleanse you from unrighteousness. He stands before the throne of the Father pleading for you as His child. The Spirit of Christ lives in you, and you know that the Living God yearns jealously over the Spirit Whom He has made to dwell in you [see JAMES 4:5]. Thus, you will find that though you sin, you cannot enjoy the sin that so often trips you up. You will repeatedly find yourself resorting to the Father asking for cleansing because as a twice born child of the Living God, you were made to enjoy God rather than the pleasures of sin.
This, then, is the truth with which we must encourage ourselves and with which we must hold ourselves accountable before our Lord: God walks among us. Of course, I am speaking of the followers of the Risen Lord, we who are redeemed. God is not among a people just because they choose to call themselves by the name, “Christian.” God is with those whom He loves for the sake of His Son, Jesus Who is the Christ.
The Son of God is always with His people as they gather to worship. He observes our heart, witnessing what motivates us. I am deeply impressed by John’s description of the Master of the churches as the Apostle of Love begins to write the words of the Apocalypse. As the Christ began to speak, John described the One speaking with him. “I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength” [REVELATION 1:12-16].
The august person whom John saw was not “the gentle Jesus, meek and mild.” This One Whom the Revelator saw was Aslan in all His unveiled glory! His hair was white as wool, indicating wisdom and revealing His eternal character. His eyes were like a flame of fire, showing that He searches out the hidden things of all who appear before Him. The sharp two-edge sword coming out of His mouth has power to separate soul and spirit, and the brilliance of His face demonstrates the purity of His Person. But it is essential to realise that He appeared while standing in the midst of the lampstands, showing that He stands in the midst of His churches. When we gather to worship, there is the Son of God, walking among His people and observing what we do as we gather. When we minister in the midst of this darkened world, there is the Risen Saviour watching over us and directing us in the work we are performing. It is the fulfillment of His promise, “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” [MATTHEW 28:20b].
Another truth with which we can encourage our hearts and with which we can hold ourselves accountable is that The Living God is our God, and we are His people. Of us who are Christians, us who follow the Risen Son of God, the Lord testifies, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” [1 PETER 2:9-10]. How comforting to be able to claim this as God’s own people.
I have often encouraged myself, and you who believe the Risen Lord or Glory should encourage yourselves, by recalling the promise which God has given through the ancient Prophet Malachi. God promises, and we who follow the Lord can claim this promise, “Those who feared the LORD spoke with one another. The LORD paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the LORD and esteemed his name. ‘They shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him’” [MALACHI 3:16-18].
Again, we who are known by the Risen Saviour know that God is our Father. Though for those who are yet to be saved, “Father” is just a word, perhaps a meaningless word at that, for us who are redeemed, knowing that God is our Father is a source of rich comfort. We know that we can come to our God at any time with confidence that He will receive us and give us what is best. This is the basis for the encouragement we receive when an unknown writer urges us who believe, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” [HEBREWS 4:16]. We followers of Christ have confidence that we will be received with mercy and grace, just as we are confident that we will be heard when we cry out for Him to supply what is lacking in our life.
Even as I speak of my Father, the lyrics of a song spring naturally to my mind.
I have a Maker
He formed my heart
Before even time began
My life was in His hands
He knows my name
He knows my every thought
He sees each tear that falls
And He hears me when I call
I have a Father
He calls me His own
He’ll never leave me
No matter where I go
He knows my name
He knows my every thought
He sees each tear that falls
And He hears me when I call [4]
God made me; He gave me my being. God does not make junk, and thus I know that I have purpose and worth. I am somebody because the Living God has invested Himself in me! God’s investment in my life ensures that I have great worth. Therefore, as one who belongs to Him, as one who knows Him as my Father, I am essential to the purposes of God. As a Christian, I am known by God and loved by Him. Amen.
There is yet at least one other truth that must be brought to the fore for the sake of this message, and it is that We who are twice born are sons of the Lord God Almighty! The reason God loves us is that we are His sons. And as sons of the Living God, we have an eternal inheritance. I have often sought to encourage God’s people by reminding them of a vital truth that may be overlooked in our modern world where we are constantly pounded with the world’s effort to segregate us on the several bases of race, gender, sexual preference, etc. Consequently, we who are redeemed often fall for this divisive effort born out of fallen mankind’s fertile, wrong-headed imagination.
Paul, writing the Galatians, informed us, “It is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed.’ So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith” [GALATIANS 3:7-9]. We are introduced to the concept that Christians are all “sons of Abraham.” The emphasis strikes at the idea that we must exalt one sex over the other, though it is not immediately apparent to many in this day.
Then, Paul strikes again at the divisive nature of contemporary thought when he writes, “Now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” [GALATIANS 3:25-29]. Again, the Apostle has struck another blow against race, social status, and sex with this affirmation.
At last, the emphasis is complete when Paul writes, “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God” [GALATIANS 4:4-7].
The emphasis throughout is on the inheritance that is ours as a twice-born people of the True and Living God. It is not that we enter eternity or even that in the Family of God we emphasise the criteria that segregate us in this life as having importance in our qualification as redeemed people or in receiving God’s eternal blessing. We are either saved, in which case we are sons of the Living God with the full inheritance as His child, or we are lost, and have no inheritance. You are either saved or you are lost; there is no in between.
So, when our culture is self-destructing, how should the child of God respond? First, seize the promise given by a gracious Father Who always seeks your welfare. Stop focusing on the chaos that characterises this dying world, but look to the Father, knowing that He always seeks what is best for you and that He will do what will glorify His Name. Looking to Him Who does all things well, let us then cleanse ourselves from all unrighteousness. Ruthlessly cast off every hindrance to godliness. As one writer states, “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” [HEBREWS 12:1-2].
Now is the time for each one who follows the Risen Lord of Glory to bring holiness to completion. I know that we live in a fallen world, and I know that we are ourselves often contaminated by the filth of this world, but that is all the more reason for us to refuse to permit the evil of this dying world to take control over our lives. Now is the time to live for the glory of Christ our Master. Amen.
[1] Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[2] Michael Stark, “The Death of a Culture,” sermon, The Death Of A Culture Sermon by Michael Stark, Isaiah 3:4-12 - SermonCentral.com, accessed 2 December 2023; Michael Stark, “Enough!”, sermon, The Death Of A Culture Sermon by Michael Stark, Isaiah 3:4-12 - SermonCentral.com, accessed 2 December 2023; Michael Stark, “It’s Too Late!”, sermon, It's Too Late! Sermon by Michael Stark, Isaiah 6:8-13 - SermonCentral.com, accessed 2 December 2023
[3] Theodor Reik, Curiosities of the Self: Illusions We Have About Ourselves, Essay 3: The Unreachables: The Repetition Compulsion in Jewish History (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York) 133
[4] Tommy Walker, “He Knows My Name,” ©1996 Doulos Publishing, admin. Music Services
