A Rapidly Changing World

Man the world has changed. Don’t get me wrong, intrinsically, change isn’t bad. As an alcoholic, when I stopped drinking nearly a decade ago, that was a change for the better. Sure my family benefitted and I benefitted, but ultimately, it was the removal of that sin in my life that allowed my faith to flourish. Sin is an impediment to our relationship with Jesus Christ. It separates us from Him.

Isaiah 59: 2, “Rather, your iniquities have been barriers between you and your God and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.”

With today’s amazing scientific advancement, I actually have every excuse in the world to continue in my alcoholism. You see, science is now proving that there is a genetic marker that makes people like me different. It means we were born this way. No fault of our own. In fact, a quick Google search will show you that many of our behaviors that the Scriptures deem “sin” are actually caused by our DNA. Again, we were born this way.

Now, we have discovered this through scientific advancement. In fact, an article published in Industrytap back in 2013[1], claims that knowledge is doubling every twelve months. And if that isn’t rapid enough for you, that number is soon to be every 12 hours. Truly unbelievable.

Strangely, however, we Christians have somehow known that sin was engrained into what we now call our DNA, for somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 years. The Psalmist writes in 51: 5, “Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.” In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul states in chapter 2, verse 3, “All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else.”

Far from being an antiquated collection of allegories and fables, the Holy Scriptures are affirmed by science. But without a solid foundational knowledge of the Scriptures, we can be swayed by non-believers into thinking just the opposite.

A great danger that we face is as our knowledge rapidly forces the world around us to change, without an anchor or buoy, we can actually begin to validate the commission of sin. Never in my lifetime has this been more apparent.

In the passage from Ephesians referred to earlier, Paul states that yes, we were of the world. Were. Past tense. You see, we can validate all sorts of behavior today. After all, love is love. But is it not possible that our Lord, the Creator of the Universe, could fully understand this dilemma? The God that inspired the Psalmist 3,000 years ago to know about genetic markers without knowing what to call them, could know exactly what He was doing and give us a way to overcome that sinful nature?

But overcoming that nature is hard and we don’t want to work at it. Thus we use all sorts of excuses to continue to sin, not realizing that the very sin we wallow in is the very thing that keeps us from the one thing that can conquer our sin, and the cycle continues.

Yes, the world is changing. At a pace accelerating daily. And if we don’t embrace our God, make spending time in prayer and in the Scriptures a priority, choosing to humble ourselves before Him, asking the Holy Spirit to come into our lives in a real and daily way, giving us the ability to conquer our flesh, how are we to know what He says?

I read a great quote by Protestant Pastor Greg Laurie the other day. He said, “Someone once asked me, ‘But what if we don’t agree with what the bible says?’ My response was, change your opinion, you are wrong, the bible is right.”

We are born sinful. The Scriptures called it 3,000 years ago. No matter what the world says, DNA is not an excuse to sin, it is an affirmation of why we sin. The only option you have is to place your trust in the One who has conquered the world.

Yes, the world is changing, but it is up to us to decide what that change will look like.

[1] http://www.industrytap.com/knowledge-doubling-every-12-months-soon-to-be-every-12-hours/3950