Chapter One: Adapting to the Culture of An Unsaved World!

Jude 1:4  I say this because some ungodly people have wormed their way into our churches, saying that God’s marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives. NLT

When we look at the world around us, we must notice that most of their ideas and morality are foreign to the Word of God. Yes, there is good in the world. That comes from the innate conscience that God has embedded in each person when they were created. He gave them some abilities to discern good and evil, to choose right and to dislike wrong.

However, man was born with a sinful heart and that heart (or soul) is prone to do wrong and that is very evident in our society. With some people, it begins at an early age. With others it may take much longer and with others, they keep it tamed throughout most of their life and try to do good. But God says that the heart of man is deceitful and desperately wicked.

This world is ruled by Satan. If you are new to the faith and do not know this, it is NT Theology 101. God is ultimately over all, but for now, Satan is the “prince of the power of the air” and runs to and fro throughout the earth seeking whom he may devour. He prowls about like a lion trying to deceive. He has his hordes of multiple millions of demons (fallen angels that were kicked out of heaven), infiltrating our homes and churches and causing chaos in this world, possessing many and causing many to be in distress.

Satan hates God and Satan is the god of this world and the culture of this world is ruled by Satan. So, when a Christian adapts to the culture of this world, he is walking in dangerous territory spiritually. Much of it seems innocent, but it is a slow decline and most people do not know they are sliding downward until they hit the bottom.

Also, when the Christians take the Church and begin adapting it to the world, the church begins to lose its power. When God is not in complete control of the church and as the church grabs more and more of the world’s culture, the church becomes an instrument of the world instead of a holy and righteous, separated and sanctified body for the glory of its founder the Lord of Lords and King of Kings.

There are some clues to this decline into apostasy that I would like to present.

CLUE ONE: Rock And Roll Music

Rock and Roll music came in the late 1950’s, mainly with Elvis Presley and others. I clearly remember those days because I was a teenager, having graduated from High School in June of 1960.

Before that time, I listened to show tunes and love songs on my AM only car radio. I was one of the fortunate kids since my dad was in the car business, I had a car to drive to school since age 14 and there were not any others in my Jr High school then who had their own car. In fact, in high school, there were very few who owned a car and drove to school.

But I had a nice custom rod to drive and loved music. I was in Madrigals at our large high school of about 2,300 kids and was in a quartet at church as well as choir and did solo work. Music was my life. And I disliked rock and roll when it came on the radio in my car and displaced the beautiful music I had been used to, I would turn it off. Pat Boone, The Fontaine Sisters, Julius LaRosa, The Four Lads, The Four Freshman and many many others donned my radio frequency. To me, rock and roll just was not very good music. It was not classy but seemed like cheap music with too much beat and terrible singers that had no quality in their voices, with the exception of Elvis and a few others.

Rock and roll music comes with the terrible connotation or derivation from sexual immorality. It was called rock and roll because it illustrated what a car does when two people are in the back seat having sex. Its beat and loud drums, loud guitars and fast rhythms originated from an immoral undertone. Why do we want to bring that into the church?

At church, when missionaries would show films of their work in Africa, you would see the men and women dancing to beating drums and sensual music (music? so called). The witch doctor was there and most of the time the dancing and drums were trying to conjure up some demonic activity. Demon possession was very common throughout the tribes and villages of Africa at that time. Now, dancing and music seems to resemble much of that culture which was inspired from the pits of Hell.

Bringing such music into the church established by Jesus Christ, that is to be holy and pure, seems like it is an insult. Do we think that such hard drums and loud guitars played in fast rhythms will get the people excited about a holy God? Do we have to gen-up emotions and feelings to get people excited about their Savior or is it just pandering to our fleshly appetites to conjure up some sort of false spiritual emotion that looks spiritual.

Rock and roll music is out of place in the church of Jesus Christ.

Now, much of the new music used in our churches today is not rock and roll. There is much that is good and that I personally enjoy. However, there is much that is pathetic. Much of which is theologically flawed, too repetitious, on the spiritual level of a kindergartner, and for the most part, just plain offensive.

I could give you example after example, but that is not my desire in writing this book. That should be the worship leaders’ job and the pastors to scrutinize and make sure we are nourishing the flock with wholesome, theologically correct, Christ-honoring music that was not written by a twenty-something year old who knows nothing about the foundational doctrines of the Scriptures. I am shocked at you pastors who allow such doctrinally unsound music to be sung by your worship teams. What is your reasoning for allowing such music? Carnality? Pride? Losing touch with a holy God? Do you think that will bring in the crowds to increase your attendance or are you falling behind in your relationship with the Holy God. Perhaps repentance is in order for many pastors who are feeding such trash to their churches in hopes of looking up-to-date and cool.

Music is critical to the health of our churches and what passes for music in many of our churches today is, in my opinion, sad. Churches should put together better music services, but even with a highly paid staff, they seem to suffer. I will cover more on this issue in the next segment.

CLUE TWO: BAND LED SERVICES

When you sit in the pews or chairs of most modern churches, there are no hymn books, no pianos, and no organs, no choirs, no music directors, but there are some men, usually dressed in Levi’s, and casually dressed women up front with their microphones and instruments whaling away on some semi-loud rhythmic song with not much spiritual content. There are one to three huge screens hanging high up front with words on them so everybody can sing the songs in unison while following the bands leading.

The music we use in our churches to honor and worship our great and powerful, holy and righteous Lord Jesus Christ is somewhat suspect. Much of it is a disgrace to His holy Name! My heart is saddened by the lack of decorum we have for our precious Lord in seeking to worship and praise Him.

Now, I must say that I like much of the newer music and I must also tell you that I tire of some of the older hymns, just like many of you. For example, “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder” is one I find tiring. Also, “He Lives.” The words are good, but the melody needs a lot of updating. So, please do not misunderstand me. I have played guitar (not well) since I was 14 years old. There is nothing I love more than the sound of a lone guitar finger-picking out a beautiful tune.

What I think is disgraceful is the lack of politeness and honorable work with which we honor our King. The trite phrases we use in our music. The poor melody’s that have no real melody. The lack of sound Scriptural theology we use in our music. We do not sing parts anymore because most of the music written today has none written and no one has a music sheet with which to sing a part and the bands do not play enough of a full sound or score in music to follow it with a part. I know, I have tried to sing a bass with some of the music and it cannot be done. Sometimes I can sing an alto part or a tenor part which I do.

What would be preferable would be a small orchestra or regular band like a high school band. I have seen it done in some churches and it is beautiful. Instead we use a typical “dance band” style. I attended a church that ran 3,000 people that was band led. It had a huge platform with large side platforms that would accommodate an orchestra and a choir. I thought, how wonderful that would be. When I asked the Worship Leader about it (worship is not music, it is obedience- but that discussion will have to be at another time), he said that he could not get people to commit to doing all the services each time and each week.

That church had so much talent you could have had several orchestras and choirs, but Christians evidently do not want to give of their time and talent to provide an awesome worship experience to praise and honor the King. So, we hobble along with a 6- or 8-piece dance band playing guitars and drums. What a sad effort is given to honor our King!

Can you see any evidence for a downward drift in the New Testament Church? It is not just the preachers that seem to be drifting downward, it is also the people pulling churches down. When I grew up in our church of a few hundred, people played their instruments for the evening service and now we do not even have evening services because people do not want to be bothered and I think, perhaps, preachers do not want to preach them. My first pastorate I preached in a small church, running under one hundred people, in a rural community. I preached Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon at the rest home, Sunday evening service and Wednesday evening prayer meeting service. Three new messages a week because I used my Sunday morning message to preach at the rest home. Today, preachers preach one message a week in the average church and think they are doing well.

Churches need to get together and work hard to put on the best music program they can on Sunday mornings. We need to quit trying to attract the world into our services and begin encouraging believers who come to the services. That is why we gather! Right!?! The church is a gathering for believers, not sinners. We are to go out into the highways and hedges, the workplaces and neighbors and share Jesus. But the gathering on Sunday is for believers to worship their King and be encouraged and uplifted by a great message from God’s Word and sing songs and hymns together.

We need to grab all the talent we can get from our church and find someone who knows music well enough to lead a small orchestra, at least some horns and strings. It will grow. You generally will not be playing rock and roll in an orchestra, but the music will be fuller and richer with the instruments. Put the guitars and drums with the horns and make a joyful noise to the Lord. Honor Him with everything you can. Work hard for your King! Quit being lazy and put people to work. You have many people who quit playing when they left high school and need to be used again to play for the Lord. Get busy.

At first, it will be slow recruiting people, but it will grow over time. Had we been asking people to serve in an orchestra for 20 or so years, we would have an abundance of talent to fill the need. But so many churches began to follow the world and its allurement of rock and roll music and opted to put together a small band and have lost the essence of true worship. We have gone down the path leading to apostasy by following the culture of a world full of lost and dying sinful men. The church has been losing its purity in so doing and has been tainting herself with worldliness.

CLUE THREE: FEMINISM AND WRONGFUL LEADERSHIP

God created three institutions: The Home, The Government and The Church. They all fall under the same Biblical guidelines. Many will seek to take issue on this point, however, let me explain why I believe it to be so. God created the world and everything in it through the Lord Jesus Christ. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. He does not change. Do you think He has a different standard for the Home than for the Church? Do you think He has a different standard for the Home and Church than He does for Government? Of course not! His standards are unchangeable. If you look at His standards for these institutions, you will see they are all the same, just the positions of leadership change and duties are different, but His standards for the roles of men and women do not and did not change.

In the Old Testament, there were kings that led Israel, not queens. There were male priests in the Temple, not women priests. Leadership was always male. Adam was first formed than Eve to be his companion but taken out of the body of the man. It has been God’s way from the beginning.

I have no ax to grind. When I traveled across the country, or pastored a church, many times I thought my wife could do a better job than myself in teaching or preaching, but I knew it was my responsibility from God to do it. So, I did my job with joy.

In the Church. We have strayed far from the Scriptures and traditions passed down through the centuries. The Scripture is clear about the Church being led by men. That is not to say that women are not capable because they are and many surpass the men in skill by far who are available for the task, but God gave the admonition to men to lead the church.

Men are to be the preachers, elders, deacons, and women are not to be leaders over the male population of the church. Women are to teach other women and especially younger women on how to be godly, but our churches have traveled far from away from the Scriptural teachings given to the Church. I Corinthians 14:34-35; I Timothy 2:9-15; Titus 2:3-5.

I know I am treading on controversial ground, but just because the culture scoffs at what God says in His word does not mean we are not to obey it. And just because preachers are afraid to preach against the cultural social norms does not mean it does not apply to the church and is not right and correct.

Today, in our churches, we have so many who are afraid to speak the truth. I will cover this subject more in a later chapter. But let me continue the subject concerning our wonderful and lovely females that are such an integral part of our churches.

Years ago, when I was traveling and doing revival meetings, a man came up to me after the service to complain. In that day, we traveled with about twenty-five people around the country, singers, sound crew, secretaries, children’s workers, family teacher, youth worker, etc and many of the singers were young women in their twenties and attractive. Their clothes were modest, and they all wore the same outfits because we ordered them for the gals and guys.

But this man was complaining because he was taken with the beauty of one of the girls and it bothered him with lust. Obviously, we might assume that he had a spiritual issue. My point is this: Women in front and leading can cause some men to lust. You may say, “That’s their problem!” That is true but perhaps that is why God gave us these special instructions for the church. Women can influence men by the way they dress or the way they sway and move or dance to the rhythm of the music.

In the Old Testament, I believe they had all male choirs in the synagogue or temple. I think in our churches our choirs ought to wear robes to conceal women’s bodies because of the effect they can have on various men. You may scoff at that idea of modesty, but in our society that is filled with such immodesty, our godly women ought to, at least, think of modesty in the church.

Perhaps, we ought to opt for all male worship teams, or better yet, let’s be led by a male music leader and a choir wearing robes and using these newer music books that have many of the great hymns of the faith as well of many new songs that are wonderful to sing.

I am not stating that women ought not sing in the church but as I stated in an earlier section, I believe there ought to be women soloists, trios, instrumentalists, etc. Using their talents for the Lord is wonderful and I believe useful for His glory.

We must be careful to follow Scriptural teachings as best that we can. Men as well as women should dress modestly and appropriately before the church. That women are not to be in leadership roles over men in the church is very clear from God’s Word.

I also believe that women ought not to be secretaries in the churches. Many pastors throughout the years has fallen prey to the sin of lust, unfaithfulness, and adultery with their secretaries. There ought to be male secretaries in our churches so that there is no temptation available for one of the pastoral staff to become attracted to and thus fall into sinful living.

Sometimes, I think we Christians are the dumbest of all peoples because we let our guard down and put ourselves in compromising situations over and over again. It is just the grace of God that more men in the ministry have not fallen from grace in their churches. We only know about the ones that make the headlines in the newspapers as Satan spreads the shamefulness of Christian immorality to the whole world to embarrass the church and God’s people.

In the home. The home is a very sacred place to God, and He gave us some strict commandments that should be kept responsibility. However, many of our Christian homes are far from following Scriptural mandates and have become part of this world’s culture of unholiness and a sham.

In my estimation, most Christian homes go to church on Sunday, if at all, and life in the context of world the other six and one-half days. It is about doing your duty for an hour and then doing what you like the rest of the week.

The weakest part of most homes are the dads. Many refuse to dedicate their lives in service to the Lord in their home. Instead, they let the women take the lead spiritually and they just follow. That is totally backwards from Scripture and a recipe for mediocrity.

Men are to be the leaders in the home. That is their role. They are to be the spiritual leaders. They are to take the lead and lead the family the way God leads them. Ephesians 5 gives us the outline for it among other passages but let me cite some verses:

Eph 5:22-26  For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord.  (23)  For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church.  (24)  As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.  (25)  For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her  (26)  to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word.

Could the implications be any clearer? Husband, you are the leader of your home. You are going to have to report to God some day as to your leadership in that home and you will be judged accordingly.

Wives, could your role be any clearer? How has that been working out in your own life? Are you following God’s Word or are you following the current culture of this world and taking upon yourself a role that is not given to you by God? You will be much happier and more blessed when you follow God because God set the standard, not someone else somewhere on earth. To be in a right relationship with your Lord, understand and follow what God has given you for your role in the home. Do not usurp your husband’s authority and overstep your boundaries. Encourage your husband to take his rightful place. If he does not, ask God what to do.

In Government. One of the three institutions created by God is the Government. In God’s Government in the Old Testament, male leadership was always present. Our country does not follow that any longer. There was a time when it did.

Should we have a woman as our leader, such as President or vice president. It does not fit with God’s Word. Some will say, “Well, this is our secular government, and it is different.” Is it now? What makes it different since God created the institution of Government? If you read Romans 13 you will find that all authority in government comes from God (vs. 1) and they are God’s servants. (vs. 4) and I do not think God has changed His will for His institution. Man may change it. People may like it. But is it the will of God for a woman to be placed in authority in Government? No. We should not have a female governor, legislator, senator, nor in any other leadership position.

I know this flies in the face of our worldly or should I say our Satanic culture, but I believe we have drifted down the wrong path especially among many of our Christian women. It has to be sourced in pride. What else could it be?

It is not a put-down for a woman to do God’s will and follow godly guidelines. It is called “Holy Living.” It is called – Being in the center of God’s will! It is putting Christ on the throne of your heart! It is a revolt from the culture of the world!

Why the difference, or is there a difference between the secular and the sacred to the Christian woman? In Genesis 3:16 we read; Then he said to the woman, “I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy and in pain you will give birth. And you will desire to control your husband and he will rule over you.” NLT.

Remember the Garden of Eden. Eve chose not to believe God but to believe a stranger. Her arrogance drove mankind into sin and death while she led her husband astray. If you will notice, God layed the blame on Adam as head of the family. Today, many woman, holding power over their husbands because of loving attraction and the desire to please their mates, arrogantly sway their husbands away from the Scriptures with a Satanic desire for feminism to be the leader and take charge and go away from the eternal principles of Scriptures.

Pastors are afraid to preach on the subject because they are cowards and because we are living in an age of apostasy. They allow women to take leadership positions over men and some to preach in the church pulpit. It is heretical and definitely not Biblical.

There is no difference for the Christian. God is no different. His eternal unchanging principles do not differentiate between when you are in a building you call church, in your home, or in society. He follows the same pattern for the church, the home and the government BECAUSE HE ESTABLISHED ALL THREE. NEVER, NEVER FORGET THAT OR YOU WILL FOREVER BE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF GOD’S WILL FOR YOUR LIFE.

The old revival preacher Dr. Bob Jones Sr. used to say something similar to this: “There is no difference between the secular and the sacred. To the Christian all ground is holy ground and every bush a burning bush.” (Quote is as close to what I can remember) In other words, by my understanding, the Biblical commands to the believer function throughout one’s movements in society as well as the church. Why would God want us to act and think differently outside of the church? The church is not the building that we meet in, it is composed of born-again people who make up the body and our function remains the same throughout our journeys in societal relationships, including government, home, and worshiping with the body of Christ. There is no difference!