At 16 years old, Ashely had her whole life ahead of her…until a head-on collision snuffed her life out. The car she was driving swerved to the other lane hitting a pick-up truck. Subsequent investigation showed that she was probably texting seconds before the accident happened.

For all its modern day gadgets and technology, our world can be a dangerous place to live in, as Ashely found out too late. But I am more concerned with a more subtle and far more deadly danger—the spiritual kind. This world has damned innumerable souls to hell often with the victims totally unaware what hit them.

The schemes of the world assume various forms. To some, the world presents pleasures galore. Many are addicted to sexual immorality, drugs, and alcohol. Others to more respectable pleasures such as sports, food, and computer games. The latter is one the world’s most successful schemes to entrap young men and women. The naïve gamer imbibes values which many times are hostile to Christianity. The world can also win people through the promise of riches. Since the Phoenicians invented money, it has ensnared legions of unsuspecting souls. Witness the proliferation of books and magazines on how to get rich (their titles do not hide their contents—“Money”, “Fortune”, etc).

Please don’t misunderstand me. There are many things in the world that are good and to be received with thanksgiving. Of course, we should be careful for even in legitimate things, we can be tempted to be gluttonous in their use.

Our main concern here are the things of the world the lures us away from our Lord and Saviour. It is the world in the sense of a value system opposed to the rule of God. It is the world that seeks to supplant the place of God in the throne of our lives.

Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? (James 4:4).