Romans 12:2
Here are 5 ways Satan is using culture to attack the church.
Cultural Lie 1: Gender Roles Are Fluid
Satan is so pleased with all the confusion and double-talk happening in our societies right now when it comes to the roles of men and women. On one hand, unbelievers state that men and women are exactly the same. On the other hand, unbelievers are saying some men are born in women’s bodies and some women are born in men’s bodies. But if men and women are exactly the same, why would you need to change your body to match your gender anyways?
Culture isn’t willing to answer this question. Rather, they are just willing to silence anyone who is willing to ask this question. Satan is so pleased with this because Satan always works in the dark. He hates when people walk in the light. When Christians are unwilling to standup to lies that their culture is demanding them to accept, this is when Satan wins.
I’m not saying Christians should try to make a society in which everyone has to submit to Christian beliefs. I’m not saying that Christians should go out of their way to correct everyone who has a different opinion than ours. We should let people think what they want to think just like we want to be allowed to think what we want to think.
However, the problem occurs when our culture is forcing us to accept and agree with these unbiblical lies, such as the case with gender. If you don’t fly the flag, you are labeled as a homophobic hateful person. If you are a woman who actually wants to submit to her husband, you are ignored and treated like a brainwashed child. If you are man who wants to provide and protect for a woman, you are labeled as toxic. Many Christians are submitting to this tyranny and silently allowing their support to be added to the gender confused, unbiblical thought police who demand that we all agree with them.
If you believe men and women are exactly the same and that women and men are supposed to act the exact same way in relationships, you will be unhappy. Why? Because God’s design for relationships will always exist regardless if you submit to it or not (Ephesians 5:21-33). You can wear a dress as a man or you can buzz your hair and grow a beard as a woman, but God has made you a man or a woman and if you refuse to submit to his design, ultimately you are just hurting yourself and rejecting God.
Cultural Lie 2: More Education Is Always Better
Our churches have been replaced with universities. Pastors have been replaced with professors. The word of God has been replaced by the scientific method.
I’m not saying universities, professors, or science are bad things. I’m just stating that these things have taken too much importance in our modern minds. College has been marketed as the path to financial success and personal happiness. Yet, thousands and thousands of people go to college, get into debt, and come out more lost than when they entered it.
Education certainly has a place in a healthy society. But our current education is greatly corrupted. Much of it has become a scam. If you need to go to college to actually accomplish something God wants you to do, then go for it. But don’t fall for Satan’s lie that you always need college. Oftentimes it’s just a cesspool for sin. Satan can use college to trap you in debt, to trap you into worldly living, and to surround you with peers and teachers who lack any knowledge about true morality.
As Romans 12:2 states, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Cultural Lie 3: Sexual Ethics Are Personal Choices, Not a Fixed Reality
If you ever want to make a modern person mad, just tell them what the Bible says about sex and then tell them you actually believe the Bible.
The reason they get mad is because internally their own conscience is already convicting them (Romans 2:14-16). So anytime an outside force simply reinforces the internal convictions they already feel about their sexual sin, they become extra mad at that outside reminder of the shame they feel on the inside because of their godless, sexual perversions.
Our culture says that each person is the only one who gets to say what is right or wrong for them. While I agree that adults should be free to sin sexually if they so choose to, for even God lets people sin if they want to (Romans 1:24-28), as Christians we must not consent to never telling people the truth about what the Bible says in regard to sexual sin.
Premarital sex is a sin (Hebrews 13:4). Lust is a sin (Matthew 5:28). Pornography is a sin (1 Corinthians 6:18). Adultery is a sin (Exodus 20:14). Homosexuality is a sin (Romans 1:26-27). Any sexual experience outside of the covenant bond of marriage is a sin according to the Bible (1 Corinthians 7:1-9).
If you have come to believe anything besides what the Bible says about sex, you are going to experience pain and unhappiness. And this is exactly what Satan wants for you because this is the opposite of what God wants for you. As 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 states:
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God . . .”
Cultural Lie 4: Spiritual Beliefs Should Be Personal and Subjective, Not Corporate and Objective
Absolute truth is the only truth our modern society rejects. If you keep your beliefs between you and God, they are fine with you. But if you dare share your beliefs, even with people who ask you to share your beliefs, then you are opening yourself up to cancellation and attacks.
Satan wants us to fear people rather than God (Matthew 10:38). He wants us to deny Jesus before men so that Jesus will deny us before God (Matthew 10:33). Satan wants Christians to submit to the cultural pressure that everyone is right when it comes to religious beliefs.
While Christians should fight for everyone’s right to believe what they want to believe because we too need this freedom, we must not submit to the pressure to affirm unbiblical lies. As Galatians 1:10 states, “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.”
Joy will not come through cultural acceptance. Joy will come through following Jesus no matter what (Philippians 4:4)
Cultural Lie 5: You Are What Other People Say You Are
I believe mental health services have done a lot of good. I’m not denying that there truly are mental health diseases. However, labels are dangerous. When we accept a label the world wants to give us, we allow that label to control us and we lose the biblical principle of personal reasonability.
Oppression does occur in our world. Certain genders and races have often been mistreated in the past and this will continue to occur in the future because the human heart is evil without Jesus (Jeremiah 17:9, Ezekiel 36:26-27).
Some people are born into more favorable conditions. Some of our parents have more resources and some of our parents have less resources. Some of the schools we went to were underfunded and some of the schools we went to were overfunded.
None of these facts change the biblical principle that you are going to be held responsible for how you managed the life God gave you to manage (Matthew 25:14-30).
One of the reasons our culture has become so tyrannical about accepting others is because people idolize other people’s opinion of them. We’ve given each other too much power in each other’s lives. Gone are the days where it was noble and an admirable trait to be firm in your beliefs even when others didn’t agree. Culture now tells everyone the only way to be happy is to make everyone agree with you rather than developing the inner fortitude to be a secure person regardless of what others think.
“Fragile” is the word that comes to mind when thinking about our culture’s view on personal identities. Victims are placed at the front of the line and thus to get to the front of the line you must become a victim. People become famous for their issues. We now promote those who cry on camera. Thus, to stay relevant, they must always keep their issues and sometimes find new issues to keep the audience interested. Culture traps the lonely by celebrating their tears causes by their loneliness. If they get well and stop crying, they will lose the attention.
Victims do exist and we should try to help them. People do have disadvantages and we should seek to create opportunities for them. But to tell people that we are what people say we are is a lie from the pit of hell. Scripture says you should rejoice when hard things happen because it’s the hard things God will use to actually develop you:
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2-4)
If you need other people to make you happy, you will be one of the most miserable people on earth. This is what Satan wants for you.
Are you a Christian considering dating a “progressive Christian”? If so, you will want to read my article 5 Reasons You Should Never Date a Progressive Christian.