By Dave Breese

Quite obviously, the world and the Christian are two different things. This earth and heaven are two different places. Obviously also, the Christian is called upon to live in a culture that is essentially alien. The Bible says, “the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up” (II Peter 3:10). The world will pass!

Knowing this, we are frequently pressed to ask ourselves the questions, “How shall we live in a world that is so unstable? How do we relate to a world that is quickly passing?” This writer has often been asked the question, “How do you handle living in a world like this when you know that one day, poof, it will be gone?” My answer is what I call, “The 25% solution.” Frequently I have been saved from false conclusions, regret, or great mistakes by invoking that principle, the 25% solution.

What does this mean? In order to handle living in this world, I have divided the world up into four quarters. My response, therefore, to the activities of earth falls in one of these quarters. Deciding on one of the proper 25% sections controls our attitude.

The way it works out is this. First of all, the world should be 25% respected. There’s no doubt that the world builds fine buildings, creates dependable highways, produces fast-flying airplanes, does research on life-saving medicines and a thousand other beneficial things. The world’s organization and its human accomplishments have turned into a dependable resource for Christians. By taking advantage of the good things of the world, we have been able to widely communicate, travel to the ends of the earth, lift a voice and present a picture to the masses that has resulted in a great penetration for the Gospel. Every time we drive down a superhighway, we ought to say, “Thank God for the intrepid people who built this thing because otherwise I would be jogging along a rugged pathway.” The world then ought to be 25% respected, its reliable products and services used to the glory of God.

Christians do well to learn this. We ought, now and then, to say a hearty “Thank you” to government, to industry, to medicine, to high technology and other of the departments of this world’s efforts. Unknowingly, they produce tremendous Christian opportunity. Many a Buddhist in Japan has made a quality tape recorder that has been used to transmit the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Many an atheist has worked on fine aircraft that have been used to transport missionaries. The world should be 25% respected.

Secondly, the world should be 25% rejected. Unfortunately, when the world moves from technology to ideology, it begins to subvert the human soul. The philosophies of our world include evolution, materialism, humanism, secularism and a dozen other false notions. These absurd views are being taught to millions of young people across this and other lands with deplorable and sometimes disastrous results. The world, when it becomes ideological, becomes the enemy.

Looking at the world this way, we must agree that we need to oppose its philosophies.

Fortunately, the area of the philosophical is something where the Christian excels. We alone represent the foundational truth on which legitimate arguments can be built. The world becomes very pitiful when its representatives take the debate platform—we have met many of them—in attempts to justify its secular assertions. In our time, the world is intellectually, ideologically, philosophically poverty-stricken and getting worse with every day that passes. It is deteriorating so fast that finally, all the rules are in the process of disappearing. Hedonism—the call to pleasure—is the final view of our world. “If it feels good, do it!” is what is believed by most people. The Christian can oppose, and very successfully, the world’s argument. Believe me, there is nothing there.

The world should be 25% ridiculed. Indeed, the only proper response to some of the gross, humorous absurdities that are now perpetuated by the world is ridicule. The Christian is certainly permitted, and should be encouraged, to laugh out loud at the pronouncements and practices of many in public positions today. Washington, D.C. is the classic example, for from it come pronouncements by political leaders that must have originated in an asylum somewhere.

In many hearings in Congress, for instance, these unctuous political leaders demonstrate to the onlooking nation the absurdity of their deliberations. Many hearings pretend to be a quest for the truth, but they are simply a charade. In most of these cases, the fix is in and a bewildered world looks on the deliberations and asks, “And when did these people graduate from high school?”

The only answer to such pronouncements is ridicule.

In this regard, one is reminded of the hilarious occasion in which Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal at Mt. Carmel. The Scripture says, “Elijah mocked them, and said, ‘Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked’” (I Kings 18:27). Here we have one of the most pitiful, but one of the most hilarious scenes in the Bible. The posture of the prophets of Baal was so ridiculous that Elijah had no course except to mock them. Today the prophets of Baal fill the world.

Who can doubt that the enemies of the truth of the Gospel in our day have some well-deserved ridicule that should be coming in their direction? Despite the admonition of some unctuous religious leaders in our time, we insist that political jokes have their place. What else is to be said about even some politicians posturing in our time?

Finally, the world should be 25% dismissed as reprobate. Speaking about some of the things of his time and our time, the Apostle Paul says, “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient” (Rom. 1:26-28).

In this passage of Scripture, we have the word that God has given up some people to reprobation. A reprobate is one who has a mind which can no longer distinguish between good and evil, a mind which is morally undiscerning.

Is this not a perfect description of the participants in the homosexual revolution of our time? Is not a so-called medical doctor who performs abortions every day simply a reprobate?

About them, the Bible says, “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.” We should have nothing to do with the degenerates of our time. They do not deserve an intelligent answer to their corrupt and leacherous questions. Reprobation is irreversible and it is, therefore, that on which we should not waste our time or our breath. Pay them no respect.

Because we must live in a problematic world, we suggest the 25% solution as a way to retain one’s sanity in times like these. Soon, of course, we will move to the 100% solution when Jesus Christ comes for His own.