When I lived in Scotland, from time to time my family would buy a crate of live crabs and spend a day cooking them and preparing them for eating. There were two methods of cooking crabs. One involved dropping the crab into boiling water. This led to a lot of squealing (yes crabs do squeal!) but was quite quick. The other was slower but less painful for the crab, and certainly less noisy. The crabs were placed in a saucepan of cold water which was warmed slowly, putting the crabs to sleep before they started cooking.
Revolution comes about in the two same ways. Sometimes it comes quickly, perhaps even violently. Since the Norman Invasion this hasn’t been our experience in the UK, but Russia, China, the US, France and many other countries have first-hand experience of this. The change is dramatic, sudden and noticeable. And there’s a lot of pain and squealing!
But sometimes a revolution comes so quietly and gently, that we hardly notice. That’s the situation in the UK and much of the western world right now. There’s been a revolution, and we haven’t noticed. Or if we have, we’ve been too sleepy to care. But we must wake up and start noticing.
The warming of our cultural water happens as we read, watch or listen to people extolling revolutionary values in positive ways. And slowly, things which used to shock us become mainstream; things which used to be wrong become acceptable; things which the Bible condemns are championed. I’m not saying we should only read Christian books or listen to Christian music, but let’s be aware that what we listen to, watch and read can have an effect on the way we think and what we believe. We will be changed this year- will it be by God’s Word and His Spirit, or by the gently warming waters of our anti-Christian culture?