Consequences

 Plato said, “The life which is unexamined is not worth living.”  Although Plato certainly was not a believer, was his statement about an unexamined life correct? Evidently he was correct for Paul wrote, “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you – unless, of course, you fail the test”? (2 Corinthians13:5). The problem with an unexamined life is that it will drift like a ship upon a current, and,  will ultimately produce unintended and unwanted results. If you have never considered what you believe and the basis on which you believe what you believe, you most likely are headed for disaster. What you believe will determine your world view and your world view will determine your actions and your actions have consequences. Too often we tend to look on appearances and think in the short term and subjectively.

Unless your beliefs are anchored solidly in the Word of God, and unless you are united through faith to the Lord Jesus Christ, your beliefs and worldview will be determined by the shifting drifting world in which we live.  Cultures and societies drift; they never remain stagnant; they shift with the moving currents and events which take place within the given society. For example, the American society we live in right now is a culture primarily ruled by the philosophies of pragmatism, pluralism and relativism. These philosophies say that what one person believes to be truth can contradict what another individual believes to be truth and both be the truth. In other words, there is no such thing as absolute truth – truth is what you believe it is.

This mindset results in “truth” being no more than what I like or enjoy. This evaluation of truth certainly is not derived from the Bible. There are some things that are right, – and some things that are wrong. There are things that are true, – and things that are false; I am not the standard who defines one from the other and neither are you. God is the Definer of truth and He has declared Truth in His Word.

How did our culture get into this state of man-centered unbiblical philosophies? It didn’t happen all at once. It came about bit by bit. Consider the speech, the dress, the art, the music of today.  Is Speech becoming more intelligent and decent?  Is Art becoming more beautiful and edifying?  Is Dress becoming more respectful and modest?  How about Music?   Francis Schaeffer wrote that those four things, — Speech, Art, Dress, and Music are the gauge of societal drift. And, sadly this drift is just as clearly seen inside America’s churches as in the world. What happened and why?  Did our churches cut anchor to drift;  was the anchor becoming a hindrance to congregational preferences.

What are we teaching our children and youth about the Word of God and its authority in how we live, how we dress, how we speak, how we worship?  It almost seems that some churches want to see how close to the “world” they can get without actually “crashing into the rocks”.  God’s Word warns against being friends with the world?  What does that mean?  Think about it.  Charles Spurgeon said: “The great guide of the world is fashion and its god is respectability–two phantoms at which brave men laugh! How many of you look around on society to know what to do; you watch the general current and then float upon it; you study the popular breeze and shift your sails to suit it. True men do not so! You ask–Is it fashionable? If it be fashionable, it must be done. Fashion is the law of multitudes, but it is nothing more than the common consent of fools.”

Let us make every effort to live and evaluate everything according to what pleases God; not whether it pleases us. Is this not a time for those who claim to follow Christ to examine themselves in light of what the Scripture says about dress, art, music, speech, worship, and doctrine?

We are drifting. Where will it end? There are consequences for what we believe and practice. Our world view does matter. Our actions are spurred by what we believe, and what we believe has consequences both short term and long term. The admonishment from the writer of Hebrews is, “… we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it” (Hebrews 2:1).

“We see things in their appearance;

God sees them in their consequences.”

John Newton (1725-1807)