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As Ravi Zacharias puts it, "The mystery of wickedness is so subtle that even the most committed Christians can succumb, though at times we are not aware of all that we are doing."
Even with a focus on Christ, Christians often find themselves mindlessly following the popular patterns of the world, unwilling to see or accept the slow decaying of our value system.
Can a culture live any way it chooses without consequences? Shouldn't we understand the potential results of the options we now face as a culture? Ravi Zacharias asks these questions and provides some answers in this lesson.
About 700 years before Christ, God promised the Israelites, through the prophet Isaiah:
"Come now, let us reason together. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow."
But God also provided a warning.
"If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat of the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword."
(Isaiah 1:18-20)
Today we live in a society in many ways not unlike that of Isaiah's time. Then, corrupt leadership was influencing the nation to turn away from God. Today's leaders are so afraid of being unpopular that the only position they're willing to endorse is that God is irrelevant. Then, children were losing respect for their elders. Today, children are suing, stealing from, and murdering their parents. Then, crime was running rampant, especially moral crimes such as prostitution. Today, some communities are calling for the legalization of criminal activities such as prostitution. Then and now, God-fearing men and women were scorned and brushed off as fanatical joy-killers who are nothing but a nuisance.
It has been reported that in the 20th century more Christians have been martyred for their faith than in all the centuries before. More than 100,000 Christians every year are brutally murdered in hate crimes for merely loving God. In Indonesia and Sudan, churches are burned on a regular basis. In Iran, Pakistan and Libya, Christians are murdered on a daily basis. Why this hate?
Have you ever noticed how the name of Jesus causes attitudes to change anywhere in the world? You can talk about God and nobody gets offended. But the moment you mention Jesus people become hostile and even violent. What is it about that particular name? During my years as a staunch atheist, I always found this somewhat troubling. Though I quickly brushed off any such thoughts, I couldn't help but wonder if there was indeed some invisible spiritual element at work, as the Bible claims.
In North America our society is still relatively open to Christianity, but the winds are shifting. More and more stories of religious persecution are making the news.
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