As more see the current trends in our culture, George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984 have been selling well. What the Catholic apologist, Peter Kreeft, once said is quickly coming true: control language and you control thought; control thought and you control action; control action and you control the world. Sadly, many who profess to follow Christ are more influenced by the world than they are God.
I. Isaiah 5:18-23. Whether it is 1st Century paganism or 21st Century humanism, Christians have been persecuted for not following culture’s god, the state. Increasingly, those who stand for truth in a politically-correct world find themselves as labeled “intolerant” by the “tolerant” because their beliefs differ. The means of control and cancellation the state uses is language (James 3:1-12). Terms such as ‘love,’ ‘gender,’ ‘marriage,’ ‘life,’ and ‘equality’ are hijacked to punish the populace into conformity. The ramifications for Christian athletes, colleges, businesses, and churches are great.
II. Exodus 4:10-12. God reminds Moses that He made man’s mouth, and therefore controls the definitions of our language. All man can do is choose to follow his own will or God’s in regard to this (Hebrews 13:15). God alone defines love (1 John 4:7-12), gender (Genesis 1:27), marriage (Genesis 2:24), pre-born life (Jeremiah 1:5; Psalm 139:13-16), and equality. Like the culture, He defines it as sameness in regards to sin (Romans 3:23) and the need for salvation (Galatians 3:26-28), but we are each different according to His sovereignty (Hebrews 2:4) and our abilities (Matthew 25:15).
III. Romans 1:16-32. The culture wants the church to remain complacent and compromised, but we know that the righteous live by faith. We must wake up to the sin that we have so readily accepted in our lives and know the wrath that is coming because of it. We must recognize how the bad company we’ve kept has corrupted our morals (1 Corinthians 15:33) and ask who has influenced us more–God or the culture? Nearing the time of his death, Joshua asked the Israelites to choose God or the cultures of the land they had refused to eliminate from their lives (Joshua 24:14-15).
This same choice is before us. What will you choose?