Worldliness

This is the fourth lesson in the series on Biblically understanding the causes of depression.
The first lesson entitled "Perfectionism" can be found here.
The second lesson entitled "Futility" can be found here.
The third lesson entitled "Idolatry" can be found here.

Where I grew up a trip to the city for a special event was something akin to a trip to Disneyland. The bright lights and the strange sights held a certain fascination for me. There was a special steakhouse where we would eat occasionally after a special event. I loved visiting this cosmopolitan environment. The rarity of the event was one of the reasons the trip to the city was so special.

Our lesson today about depression is going to be about someone who encountered worldliness in the city. In no way do I mean to imply that everyone who lives in a big city is worldly (meaning ungodly) and that small-town people are unworldly (meaning godly) individuals. The population of an area does not translate into godliness or ungodliness. Perhaps there is just more opportunity to get into trouble where larger groups of people congregate.

I have noticed that worldliness has a propensity to cause depression. I am not sure why this is so. Perhaps it is the feeling of being alone in a crowd that causes this. There is nothing worse than feeling like everyone else is enjoying each other’s company without you. Dolly Parton, a small-town girl if ever there was one, used to sing a song called “Two Doors Down.” It was about not being invited to a neighbor’s party and the loneliness that ensued. No offense, but the song isn’t one of my favorites even if I have experienced that “left out of the fun” feeling from time to time.

Lot was just such a person. When God called his Uncle Abraham and Aunt Sarah to come out from the idolaters of Ur, Lot packed up all of his belongings and moved with them. If only he had stayed close to them his life would not have taken the depressing turn that it did.

God blessed Abraham and Lot so much that their cattle could no longer graze the same fields. They had to separate their flocks in order to find good land. I have always wondered if this was God’s way of testing Lot to see if he had ceased to be an idolater much in the way He tested Abraham. If so, whereas Abraham passed his test, Lot failed his.

The next time we see Lot mentioned in scripture he is a city dweller and his livestock are not even mentioned. He was struck by the sights of the big city. Sadly, we are told of the progression that his life took until it found him and his family living within the city walls of Sodom.

How did this happen? Someway, somehow the inhabitants of Sodom convinced Lot and his family that they were missing out on life. The allurement was just too much for them and they were reeled in inch by inch. II Peter 2:7, 8 tells us that Lot was a righteous man who daily vexed his soul with the things that went on around him in Sodom and Gomorrah.

I often wonder about Lot. Did he think that no one would be harmed by his dalliance with worldliness? How wrong he was. It cost him his testimony, his wife, some of his children, and even his descendents. When the angels came to deliver him and his family from certain destruction Lot argued with them when they told him to flee into the hills. Even then, Lot did not believe that the judgment that was to come was as bad as the angels predicted. He took his two daughters and fled to Zoar, another city on the plain. He loathed leaving the worldliness to which he had grown accustomed. Only after two of the cities on the plain, Sodom and Gomorrah, were going up in smoke did he flee to the hills as the angels had originally told him to do.

The damage to Lot’s family was done. Lot himself was a believer who was either tempted by worldliness himself or was a weak father who could not stand firm when his children wanted to experience the kind of life that Sodom had to offer. He failed to tell them “no.” The “why” does not matter.

Did you ever feel tempted by sinful pleasure? Did you ever buy the lie that succumbing to the temptation wouldn’t hurt anyone but you? We have all been fed that lie and most of us have believed it at some time. Who hasn’t said the phrase, “I’m not hurting anyone but myself,” at least once? But life does not take place in a vacuum. Others are affected by the things we do, sometimes for generations.

One of my hobbies is doing family research or genealogy. To me, it is more than just putting names on paper. It is the stories of the individuals who make me “me.” I like to flesh out the details about their lives.

One story that breaks my heart is that of my paternal great-grandparents. My great-grandpa was the son of a minister. I have newspaper accounts of the revival meetings that his father preached in the counties surrounding their rural home. From what I can determine, my second great-grandfather was a godly man. But he had this son who became dissatisfied. At some point the son took his wife and young children and moved west. His father and mother sold everything they had, which included the land the father had inherited from his own father, and moved out west with their son. For the next ten years they can be documented as moving from territory to territory, place to place, as they gave birth to more children, farmed different lands, and ruined a marriage.

His generation's equivalent of Sodom snared my great-grandfather. He moved his family and his parents into a bustling railroad town. He spent their money on loose women and alcohol. My grandfather was just a boy when his parents’ marriage dissolved. They divorced soon after one of the federal censuses was taken. I found that abstract and the divorce decree that was granted just a few months later. I told my husband as we looked over our finds that we were looking at the remnants of the saddest tale I had ever encountered. It was a story of alcohol, adultery, abuse, and abandonment. Most of the children lived with their mother afterward. My grandfather, on the other hand, did not. He was sent to live with his father who decided to move back east with his parents and his young son in tow. Grandpa said that he remembered being sent by his own grandmother into a saloon to search his daddy’s pockets for all their money just to keep him from spending it all in the establishment. As far as grandpa ever knew, my great-grandfather never accepted the free offer of salvation. He never repented of what he did to his family. My grandfather never again saw his mother. She remarried and moved further west where she died a few years later.

My grandfather felt abandoned by his mother and abused by his father. He gave his life to Christ when he also was a young father who had planted a wild crop of his own for a few years. After his conversion he began to be concerned about his brothers and sisters. It became his mission in life to reach them with the gospel. But like Lot’s sons-in-law, my grandpa’s family thought he seemed like someone who mocked. My ancestors came from moral, godly stock, but someone was tempted by what the world had to offer and he took his family along for the ride. As far as I can determine, my grandfather was the only one that ever returned to the faith of his fathers.

Lot also had descendents that reaped what Lot had sown. The two daughters who escaped Sodom with him were so desensitized to the sexual immorality that was considered normal in Sodom that they didn’t give incest a second thought. Each found herself pregnant by her own father. The children that they bore began the nations of Moab and the Ammonites, two that tempted and plagued the Children of Israel (Abraham’s descendents through Isaac) for many years. God told the Children of Israel to destroy them. Nothing more is told us about Lot’s life after this incident with his daughters.

This is a matter that truly concerns me. There are many who live only for today and only for themselves. They give no thought to the future, either their own or others’. It is a sobering thought to me that the decisions I make can affect my family for many generations. If I am careless with the things of God my children might be even more careless. I don’t want to have that on my conscience. I do not want to be like Lot who was saved from eternal damnation but led his children straight to the brink of it by the worldly choices he made.

This is not a gamble with good odds. I can risk God's blessings upon my family just so that I can enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season? It doesn’t seem worth it.

How do we combat worldliness?

First, there are some things that are strictly forbidden by God. These are not “gray areas.” Search the scripture to find out what these forbidden things are. If you have been guilty of them, repent, and do it now! Get away from those things!

Second, ask God to help your new testimony of righteousness to be as well known as your testimony of sinfulness. It takes more effort to get out the good news. Wicked news seems to spread quickly.

Third, be aware that the choices you make today will affect others, including – or especially – your children and grandchildren. Is it any wonder that God talks about the sins of the fathers visiting the children for several generation?. It is purely selfishness to think you live just for yourself.

Fourth, find godly alternatives for any worldly pursuits and ungodly friends. Find like-minded individuals. Not all who call themselves “Christians” are proper friends either. Choose wisely. Remember that the boundaries that God set for us are for our protection. He is not some kind of cosmic-killjoy.

The best antidote for this cause of depression is to stop being in love with the world. It will vex your righteous soul and curse the generations to follow.