We think of the churches today. We have idolatry, even in the churches of Jesus Christ. Maybe it is in individual lives: the idolatry of the world, all that music. It is designed by worldlings to promote sin and rebellion, and sexual liberty. It is pressed into service in the churches. The intoxicating crashing rhythms, the hypnotic beat, and everything that was designed by the world to be part of its own evil culture. Yet it is imported into the churches and trusted by them. ‘We can't win souls without this, without adapting, without helping ourselves to some of the sinful aspects of worldly culture.’ They trust that more than they trust in God. And individuals say, ‘Oh but I need this. It must be thumping in my ears to give me a lift, to give me a better mood, to hold me and sustain me.’ So I cling on to these things that are distinctively sinful and worldly pleasures, the very things that held me to the world and caused me to serve those things. It is modern idolatry. Just as the Israelites and then the people of Judah went to the idols of the Canaanites, so the Christian church today, or huge parts of it, is just given over to what, thirty or forty years ago, would have been regarded as unthinkable. It is amazing how things have changed. There was a time when it was universally agreed among the churches of Christ that there was a great gulf between the world and the church, and you must not adopt the sinful aspects of their entertainment culture, or the things that were specifically created to serve those ends. But that has been changed. Famous preachers do it; less famous preachers do it; churches everywhere do it, and they have never justified it. Isn’t that amazing? They have never said, ‘Well, for 1960 years’ – because it was then that it all started to change – ‘all the churches of Christ and all the teachers and the preachers were absolutely sure that the Bible said, no, to this. But now we say that all of church history was wrong.’ They have never argued it from the Scriptures; they have just done it. They have never justified it; they have just done it. What is seen everywhere now has never been scripturally argued, justified, presented at all. It is astonishing! And that is evidence enough that people have chased after idols without conscience and without consideration. It is one of the tragedies of our time.
But what about individual Christians? When you came to Christ – however long ago that was – did you throw away your records and your tapes, then your discs and so on? Did they all go? Did you get rid of them? Well you should have done. You should have put the world out of your life completely. You should have switched your recreational delights to the things that were not composed and written and created to serve the devil's agenda. There should be a great gap between us and the world.