We live in an age that is well supplied with impersonators, pitch men and con artists. I once heard of a farmer whose horses kept slobbering over everything. He saw an advertisement in a farm magazine offering a cure for this for a fee of $20. He scraped together the money and wrote in, asking for the secret. In return he received a very thin envelope containing a single sheet of paper, on which were written the words, “Teach your horses to spit.” We laugh at that kind of simple-minded deceit, but deceit is no laughing matter when it involves matters of the utmost importance.

Paul writes to the Colossian church, “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.” Now please understand, philosophy, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. In a sense, we are all philosophers. The way that the word “philosophy” is used by Paul, in this verse, means “the way that you understand God, the world and the meaning of life.” Your philosophy is the body of principles by which you live and conduct your human activities. Our philosophy of life reflects in our values and informs our actions. Paul’s concern is that the Colossians lived by the right philosophy, not one that was opposed to the truth that God had already revealed to them. It is a message that we need to hear today. We need to be careful that we avoid buying into the philosophy of our age – secularism. Secularism is the belief that you can find ultimate truth, ultimate fulfillment, that you can find the meaning of life apart from God or God’s word, because God either doesn’t exist or is unimportant. This thought expresses itself in a variety of ways.

Secularism shows itself in the evolutionary theory that presents itself as fact, that all of this came about by chance, that man is getting better and better and that morality is a matter of human choice and the mindset of the society. Secularism shows itself in the relativism of the age — truth is not absolute. Secularism has shown itself in the way we have deified Science that isn’t, propagated a new religion – the New Age — a strange mixture of science and Eastern mysticism with a liberal splash of the occult that’s not new, and bought into the strange new mathematics of pluralism. Hindu = Buddhist = Moonie = New Ager = Jehovah’s Witness = Mormon = Christian, because, after all, “we are all going the same place.” Perhaps the place that Secularism is demonstrated more than anywhere else is in the self-centered Hedonism of our age. “It’s all about me.” “I need to live life to please me.” “If it feels good do it.” “If you’re not with the one you love, love the one you’re with.” “It’s your thing, do what you wanna do.” Anyone who speaks against “your thing,” is to be ignored, even made fun of. Parents, teachers, preachers, have no right to speak against “your thing.” After all, our highest calling is to please ourselves.

Secularism opens the door for all sorts of principles and ideas that men in rebellion against God desperately want to believe are true. They are made up by men, inventions of a fallen mind opposed to the Lord Jesus Christ, denying His power, presence and purpose in our lives, and the future account we must give to God of our lives.

It’s a pretty big wager to live as if God doesn’t exist or isn’t worth listening to. If you choose to make that bet, you better hope you are right. Because if you’re not, that’s a bet you just can’t cover.

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