A Proud Generation

This generation is filled with itself. It’s proud. You can observe this pride even in the Church, and that’s very sad. It's very unfortunate because Christians are supposed to be humble. Aren't we?

Well, yes. God put the Church in the World not for us to conform to the World, but for us to be a transforming agent for the World. We should be light in the darkness, but many churches have become darkness instead of light. Jesus' words of warning, words he directed to believers, apply to those churches:

If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! (Matthew 6:23)

How hopeless it is for a World whose salt has lost its flavor, and whose light has turned to darkness! The Church’s sinfulness and false teachings have become rampant--and the unconverted will suffer most.

But we've put our finger on the source of this evil. We've identified the ground zero. The sinfulness and false teachings in the Church are due mainly to those among us who turn a blind eye to a trend, a trend which has pervaded the Church from its inception: the movement from bad to worse.

Many in the current generation of Christians ignore the Bible’s warnings that we will be deceived. They ignore the Church's drift into apostasy. Maybe you too hadn’t been aware of this, but Paul warned the Church of an apostasy. He warned us directly, saying:

… [in the Church] evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived (2 Timothy 3:13; NASB 1995).

The Terrible Trend

There are many other passages which promise a debilitating trend in the Church, most notably 2 Thessalonians 2:3 which says that Jesus will not return to Earth until the Apostasy has taken place. Have you read it? Will you heed it?

If you take these warnings to heart, you’ll never be disappointed again. You’ll understand why things are going from bad to worse, and not from good to better, in the Church. You’ll be able to deal with corruption and fraud in the Church without getting depressed or disappointed.

The trend of Church doctrine has always been downward. When you study Church history, you’ll notice that doctrine has been spiraling down for many centuries. You can read further about the final condition of the Church, the Apostasy, in our 1F posts #19 and #20. The final condition is corruption, unfortunately.

High Tech Idolatry

Deception has gotten exponentially worse in churches because so many among us think that technology has improved our condition. But technology has not improved our condition. The Church needs to recognize that technology is not our friend. It is our enemy.

Technology—in the form of TVs, cell phones, tablets, wi-fi, satellite data, the Internet, movies, and so on—has become the great idol of our generation. People feel like they can’t live without digital technology. They treat their electronic devices like they treat food and water, clothes and shelter. Worse off, they treat technology like something spiritual.

But our life does not come from technology. Rather, it's being sapped away by it! We have seven basic physical needs: air, water, safety, sleep, food, clothes, and shelter. Technology is not on that list.

Technology does not provide for the physical needs of a human being nor does it provide for our spiritual needs. On the Contrary, it tempts us. How so? It inclines us to materialism. It would even be fair to say that technology has transformed untold millions of Christians into idolaters.

Get this: Attributing spiritual value to a material object is idolatry. That's the definition of idolatry. And you've noticed the fixation, dependence, and love that many so-called Christians have towards their digital devices, have you not? If you have, then can't you identify it as idolatry?

That's what it is!

It’s extremely easy to worship a device that gives you a constant flow of images, but a dependance on images is idolatry. And idolatry is a grave sin. It's the second of the Ten Commandments.

You shall not make for yourself an image... You shall not bow down to them or worship them (Exodus 20:4-5).

The final words of 1 John are: ‘Dear children, keep yourselves from idols’ (1 John 5:21). Those words were prophetic. It's as if John knew what was coming--the times we live in now, the Digital Age!

A Warning, A Test

So, let’s take those words to heart. They come from the man who wrote the Book of Revelation, a man who knew and still knows exactly how the Last Times are going to unfold--John the beloved Apostle of Jesus Christ.

Akin to John the Apostle’s vision of the Last Times was the vision of Daniel the prophet. Now, Daniel had three concise, significant, and choice words about the End. He said this:

Knowledge will increase (Daniel 12:4).

If any material object (like a cell phone) has life-giving spiritual value for the person who holds it, it has become an idol. To test yourself (in case you want to be certain you know whether you have an idol or not), do this: Try to live without your material object for a week.

Go without it for seven days.

• Don’t use an app for a week.

• Don’t turn on the TV for seven days.

• Don’t scroll for a week.

  
  

If you can do this, then you are free from digital idolatry. If you cannot, then you have an idolatry problem. You are practicing a sin--and that’s serious!

Trust in Man

What else is wrong with digital technology? In addition to it being an idol, what is sinful about it? Well, often it tempts Christians to trust more in ourselves. The more we trust in human ingenuity, the less we trust in God’s wisdom.

Digital technology has its origins in physics and chemistry—two sciences which have built the industrial World we live in. Mankind uses these two sciences for commercial and industrial development, and our development has been so successful that human beings have felt proud and even invincible.

In this generation, there's a general sense that we can do anything.

We are children of the Digital Age, but ours is not the first age in which technology has brought us to think we can do anything. We're not the first generation to imagine that we do not need God.

Remember the Tower of Babel? God put a halt to the construction of the Tower of Babel because he knew that with that Tower, which was the cutting edge technology of the times, humans would turn further away from him, glorying in their own wisdom.

God resists the pride that comes from digital technology today for the same reason he resisted the tower-building technology of Babel almost 4,400 years ago! But to see this, you need to understand the context of the Tower of Babel.

Consider the command God gave to those who survived the Flood. This is what the Scriptures say in Genesis 9, verses 1 and 7:

God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the Earth…  be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the Earth and increase upon it’ (Genesis 9:1,7).

Disobedience

It’s one thing for God to speak, it’s quite another for people to obey.

You heard what God said, he said: ‘fill the Earth…  multiply on the Earth and increase upon it,’ but people did the opposite: They built a city with a very high tower for their own fame and glory. In other words, they rebelled against God. They built Babel, and they did it with the specific intent of disobeying God’s will.

They refused to ‘fill the Earth’ as God commanded them.

God commanded them to ‘multiply on the Earth and increase upon it’ which are a very positive things to do, but they interpreted them negatively. When they had a chance to repeat the order God gave them, they interpreted it as an oppressive command. They quoted God as saying ‘be scattered over the face of the whole Earth.’

That's how they quoted God! But he never said that.

There’s a big difference between filling, multiplying, and increasing (as God said), and being scattered. The first three have a very positive connotation, and the latter is negative. Some people can only negate good things and twist words of love. Their hearts are darkened and rebellious.

Well, the inhabitants of Babel were those kinds of people. And they got what they deserved. What they feared came to them: they were forcibly scattered.

The Story of Babel

Here’s how the Scriptures paint the scene:

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.

As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

They said to each other, ‘Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.’ They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.

Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole Earth.’

But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower the people were building.

The LORD said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.’

So the LORD scattered them from there over all the Earth, and they stopped building the city.

That is why it was called Babel—because there the LORD confused the language of the whole World.

From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole Earth (Genesis 11:1-9).

Blind and Weak

The modern Church has become blinded by our idols. We have put our faith in inanimate material objects. We love our cell phones, TVs, cars, airplanes, and computers. We think they will benefit us spiritually, but for the little benefit they offer, the positives are cancelled out.

We've gone too far with technology. We are playing with genetics through Assisted Reptoductive Technology and surrogates. We operate on people's bodies so that they enjoy the illusion of changing their gender--a lie. We put human beings into space, and imagine life on Mars--but we weren't created for Mars.

Digital devices and technological tools have some benefit, of course. They can make payments and communications more efficient. Granted. But they have captured our fancy and many people worship them--objects which cannot benefit us spiritually.

They cannot benefit our spirits. We are essentially spiritual beings, but digital devices cannot minister to our spirits. For example, no device or robot can enlighten us, baptize us, anoint us, provide forgiveness to us, facilitate fellowship to us, or save us from sin.

In fact, the inanimate material objects we adore so much make us weaker. You haven’t noticed how scrolling tempts you with evil thoughts?

You haven’t noticed how newsreels make you worry about the World--and distract you from the Kingdom?

You’ve never had a text message pop up when you’re on your Bible app, trying to follow a pastor's teaching, and then you become distracted? You rush to respond to the message, but lose track of the Bible passage.

Simplicity

We have this vague unreal notion that our digital technology makes us more advanced than any other people in history. But we’re not more advanced if we’re not more spiritual. We’re not more advanced if we’ve lost the simplicity that forms and shapes a person spiritual. If we need gadgets and devices, cars and airplanes, Wi-Fi and data to survive, then we have less, not more.

Have you heard the famous saying from Plato?

True wealth is not having more, but needing less.

Let’s strive for simplicity. Simplicity is when you can focus on the one thing that’s truly important. Simplicity brings happiness and relieves stress. The happiest people are not people who have the most, but those who are content with little.

Think of Mary the sister of Martha. Do you remember her? Of her Jesus said:

But only one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen the good part, which will not be taken from her (Luke 10:42).

Choose the Good Part

Do you have the good part? Have you chosen it over all else? It’s the only thing that is necessary—the sound doctrine found in the Word of God. That was the good part Jesus was sharing with Mary—his teachings.

We’re not closer to the ideal Christian Church. We’re further, In fact, today we stand 2000 years further from the ideal Christian Church. Modern industrial and digital technology was never a tool to bring us closer to our origins—the Church’s beginning. On the contrary, technology has been a snare to draw us away from God ever since the Tower of Babel.

Our origins are simple: the doctrine of the Apostles. Do you have those origins? Do you know the doctrine of the Apostles? You should love sound doctrine like a baby loves milk.

Peter in 1 Peter 2:2 calls sound doctrine the unadulterated milk of the Word of God. Drink it and be healthy!