It seems that, coming to Christ and then falling away, is a trend. It is almost a law, except where the persons involved take especial care to ensure that their anchor holds firmly.
So, don’t let’s be surprised when a fervent individual, a church or a whole generation, falls out of line and starts on a roadway that completely contradicts what they once stood for. I have borrowed the title of this message from an article written by Watchman Nee the famous Bible teacher who saw a similar trend in the Chinese Christian culture of his time.
Nee observed that several institutions founded by men and women with godly intents all over China soon shed their Christian motivation to wear a purely secular outlook. Sometimes it occurred in the lifetimes of the pioneers; in several other instances this became the trend when a succeeding generation took over.
He cited the example of Harvard University which was founded as a training college for Christian missionaries and workers but transmuted in later years into an international centre for preaching atheism! I saw this for myself while in Cambridge. Most of the older Colleges, like St. John’s, Queen’s, Pembroke, and King’s, had chapels as a part of their ground space, except for some of the few eventual ones, such as mine, Downing College. That oral history tells eloquently about how, and for what purposes, the institutions were established, which eventually witnessed a complete reversal.
To be sure, our spirits are like the open ground. Weeds grow on it and flourish once we don’t cultivate it and plant the right seeds therein. And the effort to water and nurture it must be continuous, otherwise, weeds have a way of fighting back to reassert themselves. Nature itself seems to work against useful plants by courting weeds and pests. That, I suspect, is one of the consequences of the Adamic Fall.
Godly people sometimes do not put in adequate amounts of time and effort to cultivate godly seeds in their children’s lives. Some wrongly assume that their children are God’s automatically, as though they are God’s grandchildren! A prime example is King Ahaz of the kingdom of Judah who was the son of the righteous King Uzziah. In spite of this heritage, Ahaz lived like someone who never had contact with God. This repeats itself in the case of King Manasseh of Judah whose father was the praying and God trusting King Hezekiah!
Where a Christian permits weeds and pests to take over, such quickly transforms and becomes a part and parcel of the fallen world system. You start thinking like them and taking delight in things they delight in, nursing desires that prove injurious both immediately and ultimately.
Paul writes that we should not be conformed to this world. Rather we should be transformed and have our minds renewed. By this, we will know or discern what represents God’s perfect will. We will no longer swot and labour to gather silver and gold only to waste them on things that are harmful.
The fruitful Christian will do well to know that there is someone out there in the world. The Bible assures however, that the One who lives in us is greater. The devil may indeed drive the world’s systems and excitements but the earth remains the Lord’s and everything in it. The hunter in the 91st Psalm goes all over the place setting baits over traps guaranteed to snare and snuff the very life out of those who are not wise.