Beware of the Spiritual Rip Current!

“We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.” Hebrews 2:1

A young couple, friends of ours, who like us have moved recently to Vero Beach, Florida told Colleen and me a harrowing story the day after it occurred. They were still shaken as they told it. They have two sons, one 14 and the other 11-years-old. The younger son invited a friend of his to join them for a day at the beach. The waves were big, the water was rough, but it was calmer near the shore. The older son headed out to surf the waves further out and the younger son enjoyed bodysurfing the closer in waves, standing about waist deep in the emerald-green water.

Our friends, were relaxing on the beach talking, glancing at the three boys from time to time to make sure all was well. Suddenly they could only see two. Their son’s friend had disappeared. They looked up and down the beach and he was gone! Panic started to set in. He was completely gone and out of view. After what seemed like an eternity, they could see way out beyond the waves a surfer paddling towards the shore with a boy clinging to his board.

What happened was this young man had been enjoying the waist deep water while standing on a sandy shelf when suddenly he found himself stepping off into a ditch-like canal. He suddenly found himself in water over his head being rushed against his will out to sea. This is known as a “rip current.” One moment he had been happy go lucky playing in the waves, the next moment he was struggling for his life. Fortunately, this did not end in tragedy thanks to the heroic rescue effort of an alert surfer.

This sense of false security this young man had, not being aware of the hidden dangers that lurked beneath the surface of the water, reminds me of how many of us as Christians have viewed the spiritual condition that we are in and those whom we love. We have sought to raise our children in a local church, perhaps send them to Christian school and even Christian universities and we have been unaware of the strong unseen, but very real rip current that is wanting to take them “out to sea,” away from faith in Christ to their own destruction. The writer of Hebrews says, “We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.”

This warning of “drifting away” from faith in Jesus Christ for us and those whom we influence we have not taken seriously enough. Why not? We have focused upon decisions rather than making disciples as we were commanded to do. (Matthew 28:19-20). To “make disciples” is to teach believers how to walk in a Spirit-dependent, Bible-based obedience to Jesus Christ. To “make decisions” is to make much about of moment of time when a person first decides to follow Christ whether that is “praying the prayer” being baptized or having an emotional experience.  The rest we do beyond performing this beginning point initial step of obedience can begin to be seen by the convert as the equivalent of “earning extra credit” for an academic course.

I also believe that we have been deceived, me included, by the twisting of the doctrine of “eternal security.” We have tended to look at Christian conversion like a business contract where God makes an offer, we accept the offer, and the deal is done. We foolishly reason, “since God can’t lie and we fulfilled our part of the contract by believing, we are saved no matter what occurs after. He is obligated to save me now.” There is nothing wrong with doctrine of eternal security, in and of itself, but as C.S. Lewis would say, “Any truth stretched too far, becomes an untruth.” It needs to be held in tension with the rest of scripture. The scriptures that hold this doctrine in tension and balance are very many.

Those who call themselves Christians but who are not willing to become His disciples are like that boy caught unaware while standing in waist-deep water right near a dangerous “rip current” rushing below the surface. The security may be a felt security but is really a false security!  There are strong forces in our culture that will carry us away from Christ if we are not strongly anchored to Him. The Bible teaches this truth emphatically and we have all seen it happen tragically in our families and with those who used to claim to know Him.

So, what is the answer to those of us who want to avoid the rip current and protect ourselves, our families, and all those whom we seek to influence from this danger? There have always been spiritual rip currents that threaten a growing Christ-centered faith but today with “wokism” invading our culture it is more important than ever that we are not looking at the Bible through the grid of culture but the other way around! “Woke” ideology is being forced upon us at an accelerating rate by media, academia, a growing number of corporations, federal and state government, and now even by a growing number Christian universities and graduates who have now become pastors, teachers, and authors.

If we do NOT “pay close attention” to the word of God and develop a biblical worldview that is able to discern the lies that are coming at us today, we WILL “drift away.” What is at stake for us is nothing less that our own spiritual destination and the potential destruction threatening the souls we influence. The Apostle Paul writes warning to Timothy like this: “Pay close attention to your life and to your teaching. Persevere in these things, for by so doing your will save both yourself and those who hear you.” (I Timothy 4:15 Berean Standard Bible)