This world is always trying to drag me down it seems, but this world will end, and true Christians will surpass this world. A friend of mine had the same frustration for the world as many Christians do. I wrote him a letter about that subject. Here are some quotes from it: Now, the world: my Christian friends here at home and I get fed up with the world and its darkness. Skye, you can expect to rebuke the world. Christians are not of this world. Skye, don't get frustrated with life, though. Your life is special and important to God's kingdom. Christians need to let their light so shine before men so that this dying world can see. "The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness won't overcome it"(John 1:5). You said, "pour it on," so I shall. I looked up many verses relating to the world. These verses will show how God speaks of the world through the Word. I will leave it up to you to look them up. I will, however, put a comment or sowith some: VERSE PARAPHRASE OR PERSONAL COMMENT ----- ------------------------------ Romans 12:1-2 Don't conform to the world, but be transformed through Christ. James 4:4 A friend of the world is God's enemy. James 1:27 The world is a pollution. 1 John 2:15-17 Do not love the world. John 15:18-19 The world hates disciples. John 8:23 or 18:36 The Kingdom of God (to which Christians belong) is not of this world. 1 Corinthians 3:19-20 Worldly wisdom is "lame." 2 Corinthians 10:3-4 Christians don't fight battles the worldly way. Isaiah 13:11 & God "takes out" the wicked Zephaniah 1:18 world. Matthew 16:26, Mark 8:36 The gain of the world is destruction. Matthew 7:13-14 Most of the world will enter gates to destruction. 1 John 5:3-5 As believers in Jesus Christ, we will overcome the world! Skye, a couple years ago, I was part of this world and I had no peace --just a void. We must take our eyes off of the world and look to Jesus. We can offer the seed to those of this world, but they will have to make the choice of accepting it to produce crop (like Mark 4 says). The world can be depressing, but we can rely on Jesus because He is supreme. The letter continues, but that is what God instructed me to write about the world. Sometimes, I still conform to the world in my imperfection, but I must fight it. We must fight. It is an all out battle. We don't need to seek out evil, but to stand our ground when temptation comes. The world seems to get worse as the days pass and as the New Age sets the standard. The New Age standard is an immoral pseudostandard as far as I am concerned. The Christian groups DeGarmo & Key and One Bad Pig make statements about the worldly way: The condor sleeps safe in the wild. We can't save an unborn child. That's life in the new age. Can't stop drugs, can't stop AIDS. Can't undo the mess we've made. That's life in the new age. And children around the world will starve While we sit in a seminar. That's life in the new age. Mom reads her astrology. The kids are raised by MTV. That's life in the new age. God is self, self is God, And I can see why your so odd. That's life in the new age... Could this be the end we're seeing, Racing toward that final page? If it is, we'll soon be leaving. So pack up your bags, get ready to go Out of the the world, out of the new age. --D&K (Album: The Pledge, Song: Life in the New Age) Gossip now has got your ears. Drive a wedge that lasts for years. Charge card better than a check. Now in debt up to your neck. In the dark you park your car. Soon your hands are roaming far. You know how to drink and drive. Will the kid you hit survive? ... Got a little mad and cussed. Soon your witness will go bust. It won't hurt to sip some Mich. Six pack later feeling sick. Nurse a little bitterness. Make a neighbor eat your fist. Tell a joke about some gay. Keep a lost soul from the Way. ... Be real cool, hang with the guys. Tease the fat girl till she cries. Can't hold on to any cash. Spend the tithe of God on trash. No big deal to smoke some pot. Keep it up, your mind will rot. D&D is just a game. Learn to speak a demon's name. --One Bad Pig (Album: I Scream Sunday, Song: Bird Nest) Before I go into some general thought of the New Age, I thought I would confront some issues at the center of the stage. 1. AIDS This is a sad story. Many innocent people, good people die from this epidemic. One person noted that AIDS stems back to an immoral act--homosexuality. In other words, the innocent AIDS victims die due to someone else's immoral ways. The origin of this epidemic was immoral activity. What can we do about AIDS? Simply WAKE UP WORLD! Don't have sex unless your married. If you're a homosexual, fight it, and don't have sex at all! 2. ABORTION Why would anyone want to kill a being capable of possessing a soul? A fetus is a small human being! Abortion is murder. Again....stop having sex...stop confusing love with lust. If an accident does occur......dilate and curretage, and if you wait....adoption. WAKE UP WORLD! 3. HOMOSEXUALITY The Bible is clearly against this immorality. See below what I say under New Age thoughts in reference to sex and marriage. Also, read the following: Genesis 19, Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, Judges 19, Romans 1:18-32, 1 Corinthians 6:9, Ephesians 5:22-33. Below are some general statements that I have about some basic New Age thought: 1. Reincarnation. People who believe this false theory "can" live immorally and not worry about it because they "can" make up for it in the next life. This is blatant compromise. Reincarnation is a blatant lie! 2. Each person is a god. This is by far the lamest of New Age theories. The New Age is the Dead Age. No human is perfect. Only Jesus was perfect. We have no power; therefore, we cannot do anything to purge away sins. We are sinners, and we are imperfect. If we were to be in charge of anything, our flesh if not our entire selves would drive us to ruin in the end. THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 3. There is more than one way to achieve the goal. This is by far the biggest compromise of all. This means that everyone has found his or her OWN way. This is just like number the last one. This is all wired around self. There is only one way. There is no sort of, maybe, perhaps, or probably about it! It is either YES or NO...HEAVEN OR HELL. There is only one good choice and only one way. The good choice is of course Heaven, and Jesus Christ is the only way to get there. 4. Marriage isn't necessary to have sex. Just live with each other. This is a major contributor to the breakdown in the unit of society--the family. Ephesians 5 sums up the ideal marriage. In that chapter, the scripture reads that a MAN and his WIFE will become one. MAN...WIFE means marriage, and the becoming of one is sex. Sex only in marriage is right. Man..wife also shows the immorality of homosexuality. Man is male and wife is female. Homosexuality has no purpose except to satisfy lust. Homosexual intercouse feeds epidemics, it doesn't reproduce! HEY WORLD.....WAKE UP! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I will say it again: The New Age is the Dead Age. New Age thought is centered much around the above theories. They are all compromises and self-centered. Compromise and you conform to the world. Conform to the world and you melt with the world. Self-centeredness conforms to the world. Psalms 46:6 says, "His (The Lord's) voice resounds, the earth melts." 1 John 2:15-17 says that the world and all its desires will pass away. To conclude, I will quote a verse from Ephesians 5: "Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you"(Verse 14). WAKE UP WORLD! Beacon Deacon