Did your parents ever say that to you? Am I the only one, who heard that explanation for why I couldn’t do something that “everybody else” was doing? “Times change, people don’t” was the reason I couldn’t dress a certain way; the reason I couldn’t go certain places in the company of certain people at certain times of the day (or night as the case may have been). It didn’t matter that times had changed, along with social expectations. People, I was assured, had not changed. What was disapproved loudly in my parent’s generation was still disapproved, just more quietly or behind closed doors. And we certainly don’t want to be the subject of conversations behind closed doors.
Actually, as I matured, I began to see my parents’ point of view. Wrong is wrong and right is right, when our standard is the Word of God. He never changes and neither do His standards. I began to accept that what average people considered to be right and wrong probably had not changed all that much in the 20 or so years I had been alive.
Now? I’m not so sure. Back in my teenage years, there seemed to be consensus regarding morality. There was plenty of immorality around (when hasn’t there been?) but it was still seen as immorality. People still talked about it in hushed tones or as if they were shocked at the choices of the neighbors’ kids or embarrassed by the choices of their own. Today? There’s no shame in living a lifestyle that is opposed to the moral code God laid out in His Word. It’s kind of expected, even in the church. Almost as if certain things can’t be helped; as if one hasn’t really grown up unless they’ve lived out of wedlock with a “significant other”, or survived (more than a few ) “wasted” weekends, use filthy language or “hook up” every now and then. Everybody’s doing it, right? Nobody thinks anything about that these days.
Well, if you really believe God, you know the answer to this. What God thinks is what trully matters. Obedience is key to honoring Him, to loving Him, to following Him. But here’s the question: have people changed all that much? We’ve always been sinners in need of a savior. We’ve always been the possessors of hearts that are desperately wicked. But I believe there has been a change, particularly recently. The apostle Paul wrote to the Romans that rejecting God has led to a downward spiral:
And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful . . . Romans 1:28-31 (NASB)
We surely cannot deny what we see going on around us. But the change I have seen is not just in the variety of sinful lifestyles, nor even the depth or prevalence of depravity. The change I have seen is in the seemingly hopeless acceptance of such things. People have always been sinners. But God has always been a deliverer. God has always been a redeemer. God has always been a Savior. Sadly, even His people have become so immersed in this crooked and perverse generation that we have forgotten a critical fact, which is that we don’t have to live in the bondage to sin. In his first letter to the Corinthian church, Paul gives a long list of those who are excluded from inheriting the kingdom of God. In other words they are not heirs of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). But in chapter 6 verse 11, he also gives the encouragement that we don’t have to live in sin anymore. He says:
And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.
Paul himself was washed, sanctified, justified and CHANGED! Times do change, and people do, too! The good news is that while times may not change for the better, the person who sets himself to seek after God with his whole heart will not only change, he will be transformed for the better.
And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified; but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God. 1 Corinthians 6:11 (NASB)