To drop out of society is the challenge for all Christians!
Drop-outs get a bad press. They are feckless, lazy, preoccupied with self, unhelpful, a drain on the material and intellectual capital of the nation. Or so it is claimed. So why encourage Christians to 'drop out'? Are we not supposed to be a light, an example of industrious activity, sharing and caring, law-abiding? Well, of course we are.
Some, however, wear the Christian designer label - but their lifestyle belies their claims. The label is but a facade, a cover-up for the underlying moral nakedness, an ersatz form of the true Christian faith - and barely distinguishable from 'the man in the street'. What they must do is seek forgiveness, repenting from the depths of their being, and claiming the divine mercy poured out through Jesus Christ.
But true Christians are the real drop-outs.
Babylon the Great
Just look at our world. The internet is a sewer flooding society with a deluge of foul images and pornographic advertising. It exposes the innocence of childhood to twisted and poisonous values. It fuels the most perverse desires of human nature. The internet, of course, is 'neutral'. The sewage flows through it from the vile depths of human nature.
Then there's disrespect for human life. The 'free' nations are guilty of heinous genocide: over fifty million live - and totally innocent - human beings selectively aborted in the past thirty years or so. Civilized?
Our leaders compete to see who will first reach rock bottom morality. Not merely the internet but the entertainment media, too, elevate filth in the name of a perverted concept of 'freedom of expression'. Laws are enacted to guarantee the rights of h**ls to 'perform' in public. And the public love to have it so!
Look also at our personal values. In the United Kingdom an estimated thirty billion pounds is annually lavished on satisfying the unrestrained desires of children. 'Freed from debt' by means of a plastic card, parents satisfy their children's every whim: designer clothes, electronic gismos, expensive parties. Everything, it seems, but time to care.
The 'pride of life' - vanity, covetousness, success at any price - is instilled in children as a way of life.
Effective discipline in the home is all but prohibited by a liberal governing elite. Self-restraint is no longer a priority as true values are jettisoned and replaced by 'gimme - and now'. Truly the unrestrained lusts of youth are coming to rule the nation.
Government ministers are blind to the destruction they inflict on the 'normal' family, instead beating the hollow drum of 'equality'. Divorce, adultery, fornication, h**lity is rampant - direct cause of the soaring increase in sexually transmitted diseases and infertility. Alcohol, tobacco, cannabis and other deadly toxins - all life-style choices - blight countless lives.
Daily, the media churn out the grotesque details of the latest muggings, today's crop of hideous murders, another round of rapes. Government ineptitude fails to curb the mayhem that is slowly strangling the nations.
In the world of commerce, lying, theft and corrupt dealing is a virtual norm. Greed rules.
Wrote the apostle Paul: "The love of money is a root of every evil". And that principle is a universal motivation.
So - why shouldn't a Christian 'drop out'!
Follow the Leader
Christians follow Jesus Christ. That's where our name comes from! And his way is not man's way.
Mankind, he said, should live by every Word of God. He did that. And so, too, should we. All we need know of that 'Word' is in the writings of the Old and New Testaments. They are not obsolete. National governments are delegated by God to protect and care for their citizens. The divinely-revealed principles apply as much today as two thousand years ago. Only when they are incorporated in society will our nations be freed from the spiritual squalor of the twenty-first century.
But what of Christians? Wrote the apostle Paul to the brethren in Corinth: "Do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived - neither fornicators nor idolaters [i.e., those who despise the first four Commandments] nor adulterers nor effeminate nor abusers of themselves with mankind nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God" (ch 6:9-10).
As followers of Jesus we are to flee this Babylonian society. "Come out of her my people" said Jesus. "Don't be a partaker of her sins".
To comment on this article or request more information, please contact James McBride by e-mail at the comment form below.
For PDF or mailed copy, see CGOM. Excerpt from New Horizons Issue 39, 7:3 May/June 2003. Edited by James McBride of the Churches of God, United Kingdom.
Go to Literature Index Page
This URL is www.abcog.org/nh/73a.htm