Good morning and welcome to Friday’s podcast. My name is Alan and I have really enjoyed recording these podcasts for you. I hope that you have got as much from listening to them as I have writing them. Next week Helen is on podcast duty. Do listen in and hear what she has carefully crafted to help us in our walk with Jesus.

REFLECTION:

It has been quite a week of Bible passages. This hasn’t been a ‘light’ week. Monday and Tuesday we looked at two aspects of the ‘unholy trinity’: the world, the flesh, and the devil. Wednesday and Thursday have been a bit of a break whilst we have considered Peter’s mission and taken a brief look at the subject of judgment. Today I want to return and finish what we started. We will consider ‘the world’.

Today’s reading is 2 Peter 2:13-22, for now, I am going to read v17-19. Before I read it, let’s consider a little context. In yesterday’s reading, the start of chapter 2, Peter began quite a long description and warning against false prophets… today’s reading…

These people are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them.  For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error.  They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for “people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.”

Here, Peter is talking about people who are part of the community – who would consider themselves Christians – who are leading others astray: “by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh.” Today I want to widen that brief from a handful of interlopers to the western liberal capitalist society that we live in. In short, ‘the world’ of ‘the world the flesh and the devil’ notoriety!

That verse… verse 18 could sum up the system that we live in today:

“For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error.”

For our world to function we have to buy stuff. See what happens when we enter a period of lockdown: the shops shut, pubs close and the economy goes into recession. Jobs are lost and the whole system starts to wobble.

So we need to buy stuff!

So they mouth empty boastful words, by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh, they entice people…

Through the last century, with the growing understanding of psychology and the inner workings of the mind, advertising has changed from telling us about the attributes and qualities of an item you need… “buy our soap, it’s really soapy and cleans better than their soap” to tapping into our inner desires. We are sold deodorant on the basis of our attractiveness to the opposite sex. We are sold cars, not on how good the car is but how it makes us feel. In many ways it is style over substance.

And it is not only advertising that affects us. Remember Tuesday’s discussion about our sinful nature? Our normal way of life has shifted from one of self restraint to indulging our desires.

What was once taboo is now presented as the normal, as an acceptable way to live.

I remember watching the sitcom Friends… the first time around…! I remember the episode when the boys’ secret stash of porn was discovered. It was fun, it was a laugh… it was presented as normal, acceptable… and yet pornography has replaced money issues as the number 1 cause of marriage breakdown in our nation. It is a scourge on our society.

This is what the world does, it takes what is harmful and makes it acceptable. It shapes our thinking and slowly, subtly leads us away from Jesus, his way, the truth, and God’s abundant life.

John Mark Comer puts it like this: we are plagued by deceptive ideas that play to disordered desires that are normalised in a sinful society.

I’ll say that again.