Charles Spurgeon said these words as he preached on April 18, 1875 during a sermon on Joshua 24:15:
“The great guide of the world is fashion and its god is respectability–two phantoms at which brave men laugh! How many of you look around on society to know what to do? You watch the general current and then float upon it! You study the popular breeze and shift your sails to suit it. True men do not so! You ask, “Is it fashionable? If it is fashionable, it must be done.” Fashion is the law of multitudes, but it is nothing more than the common consent of fools.”
On the wall in my kitchen we have these words written, “As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (the end of Joshua 24:15).
It’s a nice little saying that most people have in their homes somewhere. But how often are we taken captive by it? How often do you set the path of your family and your household fully on serving the LORD? Charles Spurgeon suggested that our tendency was to “look around at society to know what do” and to “study the popular breeze and shift our sails to suit it.” Let me remind you that he said this in 1875. If pop culture, fashion, and worldly standards were tempting back then, how much more are they tempting to us today?
The things of the world can seem so firm and stunning to us at times when scripture fades into an abstract thought. We cannot let ourselves be guided by the winds of the world. We must set our sails on the winds of the Holy Spirit and the will of God. But, how do we do that?
How do you keep the world from being more desirable than serving the LORD? How do you keep from setting your heart on what is “fashionable”?
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