Mankind in Sin

“[T]he man who is not a Christian is a man who is simply governed and controlled by the world, its mind, its outlook, its mentality.  I know of nothing which is more sad about man in sin than just that.  You see it in all your newspapers.  Is it not sad to see the way people are governed entirely by what other people think and say and do?  They are sorry for those of us who are Christian.  They say, ‘Fancy shutting themselves down to that one Book, those narrow miserable Christians!’  So speaks the so-called broad-minded man of the world.  How subtle the devil is to persuade people of that!  For their little life is entirely controlled by the organization of the world.  They think as the world thinks.  They take their opinions ready-made from their favorite newspaper.  Their very appearance is controlled by the world and its changing fashions.  They all conform; it must be done; they dare not disobey; they are afraid of the consequences.  That is tyranny, that is absolute control — clothing, hair style, everything, absolutely controlled.  The mind of the world!  There is no time to elaborate on the subtle, almost devilish influence that is displayed often in its fashions — sex rampant.  This is a sex-ridden age.  It comes out everywhere — photographs and pictures and placards suggesting it.  Most lives are controlled by it and governed by it, all their opinions, their language the way they spend their money, what they desire, where they go, where they spend their holidays; it is all controlled, governed completely.  Surely all this was never more evident in the world than it is today.  When people talk so glibly about their emancipation they are giving a very clear proof of the fact that they are governed and dominated and controlled by this world, the mind of the world, the age of propaganda, the age of advertising, the mass mind, the mass man, the mass individual, without knowing it.  Is it not tragic?  But that is man in sin.  He is spiritually dead, because he is controlled by this mind of the world.”

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, God’s Way of Reconciliation: An Exposition of Ephesians 2, p.21-22