Too Worldly
November 18, 2009
By Ken Horn
Christians, as a whole, are too worldly.
With our entertainment choices we frequently tolerate
profanity, innuendo, even sacrilege; we help make celebrities of people who
hate what Jesus loves; we spend huge amounts of time enjoying entertainment
that mocks, directly or indirectly, our Christianity.
As a pastor I saw a number of examples similar to this
real-life experience: For fear of losing their son by being too strict, parents
let his room be his castle. It quickly became polluted with the worst that
society had to offer. Allowed to close his door and fill his room with anything
he chose, he became part of the world his parents hoped to save him from.
Tolerant because they feared losing him, that very tolerance became the avenue
by which he was lost to a world of drugs and sin.
With today’s computers, iPods, video games and more, the
danger of kids going to hell in their bedrooms is far greater than ever before.
Don’t write this off as legalism.
This is not a “holiness” message or a “fundamentalist”
tirade. It is the Bible, pure and simple. “Come out from among them and be
separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean” (2 Corinthians 6:17,
NKJV). The meaning of this has not changed.
Christians need to understand the culture in order to
effectively minister, true. But too many have embraced that culture and made it
far more a part of their lives than the teachings of God’s Word.
For Christian parents, “tolerance” is generally not a
positive quality.
Moms, dads, you won’t save your kids by being easy on them
(Proverbs 22:6). It is far more common for a child who has reacted against
discipline to return to the Lord, than it is for one who has been allowed to
have his or her way.
Evangelicals have tended to be somewhat legalistic. But
legalism is not today’s greatest danger for the church.
It is my opinion that the church and the children of church
families would benefit greatly from a good, solid dose of intolerance against
sin and worldliness.
Understand the world, yes. Love the world, no.
Live legalistically, no. Live biblically, yes.
Let’s get the world out of the church.
— Ken Horn is editor of the Pentecostal Evangel and
blogs at Snapshots (khorn.agblogger.org).
