The New Testament shows us that God desires to write Himself into our being (2 Cor 3:2-3; Heb. 8:10; Rev. 3:11; See “Written, Not With Ink….” • 1). At the same time, the world also desires to write upon us, to claim us for itself. This will reach its climax during the Great Tribulation, when the False Prophet will cause all,

…both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, And that no one may be able to buy or sell except he who has the mark—the name of the Beast or the number of his name.
— Revelation 13:16-17

But aren’t we seeing a foretaste, even today, of the mark the worldly people will receive then? This is true even in a very literal sense, in the wearing of apparel with the logo of some sports team or clothing brand, or the name of a celebrity or politician, or with people having themselves marked with tattoos, being far more common than it ever has been in human history. I don’t mean to equate such things with the actual “mark of the beast,” but it does seem they are helping prepare mankind to accept that mark when the time for it finally comes. (Personally, I always try to avoid, as much as possible, wearing clothes with brand-names and logos on them; I don’t want to give the impression I belong to anyone or anything other than Christ Himself.)

But it is also true in more subtle ways, for Satan is always working to bring us under the authority of his world system, to cause us to express something of who He is, rather than something of who Christ is.

In the first part of the 20th century C.A. Coates, a Bible teacher among the Plymouth Brethren, wrote,

We cannot be too careful as to the influences which we allow to act upon us. We are affected by all that we hear and by all that we read—unconsciously it may be. The damage is done before we know it; like Ephraim, we have gray hairs and know it not [Hos. 7:9. Note: Spiritually, the “gray hair” here signifies both oldness and weakness before the Lord]….  
   I need not say that worldly literature of all kinds has the same effect. I am quite sure that a man cannot soak his mind in a newspaper every morning, and retain freshness for Christ….The mind—the thoughts—are turned to things here, and the affections soon follow in the same direction.
— “Affection for Christ,” pages 12-13, 15-16

And of course, he was speaking in a far simpler time, when the world in this regard came at us primarily in the form of the written word, and perhaps also the radio. Now, with movies, TV, the internet, smartphones, and more, it is almost impossible to escape the world’s constant bombardment of itself into our mind.

This does not mean we should live as hermits; we can’t escape being involved with the world as we live here. But, as Mr. Coates warns us above, we do need to be very exercised as to “the influences we allow to act upon us.”

To a large extent, the outcome of the battle for our mind (cf. 2 Cor. 10:4-5, 11:3) will be determined by how we deal with such influences. Thus, if we desire to be those who, practically speaking, are not of the world, but who are instead followers of Christ, then rather than being so occupied with the world’s messages to us, we should exercise ourselves to be sanctified in God’s truth day by day (John 17:16-17), so that the Lord, rather than the world, is the One writing upon us.

P.S.: For more along these lines, see the articles, “The City of the Book,” and “Of the World, or Of the Word?”

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—  16 July 2024 —