OUR GREATEST DANGER — CULTURAL FORCES

“Our greatest danger comes not from cultural forces we oppose, but from those we embrace.”af

Most of us would not embrace such obviously denigrated values as abortion upon de-

mand, unbridled pornography and violence in the media, soft laws on drug use and drug

peddling, etc.

But is it possible that we, like the frog slowly boiling to death in the kettle, are unknowingly

and perhaps unwittingly being seduced to embrace cultural values that violate Biblical Chris-

tianity? For example:

• Our immobility for Christ that indebtedness and contractual entanglements have fos-

tered? (Romans 13:8; II Timothy 2:4; Proverbs 6:1-5)

• Our mediocre and callow approach to carefully analyzing, comprehending and applying

the word of God to our lives? (II Peter 3:16b; Ezra 7:10)

• Our insatiable quest for recognition and affirmation? (Matthew 23:5-10)

• Our relentless drive for material possessions and financial security? (I Timothy 6:7-10)

• Our abstruse judgmentalism of others? (Matthew 7:1-5)

• Our dalliance with sensuality through literature and the media? (II Timothy 2:22)

• Our resistance to living a life of sacrificial service to others? (John 15:12, 13)

The night before the Cross, Jesus prayed thus to the Father on behalf of His disciples: “My

prayer is not that You take them out of the world but that You protect them from the evil one. They are

not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth.” (John

17:15-17)

Jesus knew that only through the cleansing power of His word would the disciples survive

the Enemy’s seduction of worldly forces… a bewitchment that is blithely embraced today by

much of the Body of Christ.

And it is precisely because of its deadly seduction that the Christian community’s compro-

mising embrace of contemporary cultural values is infinitely more lethal than the more

obvious sins the world attempts to foist upon us.