Growing up where I lived I had limited access to friends. Bayou George, Florida was out in the middle of nowhere and friends were a valuable commodity. But friends, at times, can “dare” you to do certain things that go against your conscience. Some folk might have the idea that growing up in the country would afford a young boy with wholesome friends, such as the boys who regularly attended Sunday School and sang in the youth choir on Sunday evening. For what kind of things could boys who lived in the boondocks do that could cause one to stray off the path? What kind of pressures to do wrong lurk in the country? For certain, boys in the country spend most of their free time exploring the forest, fishing in the creeks and rivers, running barefoot, and on occasion “borrowing” an apple from the neighbor’s apple tree. However, goodness rarely resides in boys for long periods of time, especially unregenerate ones. This was the case among my friends, and some might even say that of myself.

There were five of us who lived within a 2-mile radius of each other. The Barnes brothers: Larry, Kit, and Jamie lived about ½ mile down the road from me, (at one point the closet neighbors we had), and then there was Tim, who lived about a mile and some feet from my house. We five regularly did things together.

On one occasion we were all playing in a ditch near Tim’s house after it had rained. This ditch was near a low marshy area which always had an abundance of frogs. For some reason boys like frogs. As the Barnes brothers and I were ankle-deep in the water searching for frogs, we were startled by the sound of a loud bang. As we looked up, we saw Tim standing by a broken cinder-block. He turned to us and motioned us to come to him, saying “Hurry, you gotta see this!” As we approached Tim, there beside the cinder- block was a dead frog. We didn’t think much of it until Tim told us that he had put a firecracker in the frog’s mouth, thus the result of what we saw. I remember having an uncomfortable eerie feeling with what I was seeing. And then, it became even more uncomfortable as Tim wanted us to do the same thing! Tim had broken the code! “Never kill nothin that doesn’t need killin”.  He was visibly upset at what he had done, and he wanted us to do the same thing so that he wouldn’t feel bad for what he had done. At first he pleaded, with tears, that we should do what he did. We all kind of looked around at each other, not knowing what to say, but we were not going to do what he did! He approached each one of us individually in an attempt to sway us to either say what he did was OK, or do the same deed, “break the code”, so that he would not feel bad about what he had done. We still refused and told Tim that what he did was wrong and we were not going to do what he asked. Tim then became visibly angry at us because we wouldn’t condone what he had done. Tim was bigger than all of us, he could have whipped us all right there, it was a little scary. We left Tim, standing by the cinder block and that dead frog, as he yelled angrily that we were not his friends anymore. Friends turned to foes, for a little while at least.

So why share a horrible story like this? What, if any, application or insight does that story carry? Well, the way I look at it, we are living in that same kind of culture even today, yet much worse. People today are not needlessly killing frogs with firecrackers, they are killing babies, they are killing marriage, they are killing gender lines, and killing each other.

The culture in which we live says, “If you don’t do what we do, or at least condone what we do, you are our enemy.” The culture and the people in it, are dealing with guilty consciences brought on by their sin. Instead of confessing and repenting, they desire others to condone their sinful acts. Why? In their minds, they believe if other people will just accept their sin, then they can feel good about it. But the reason they will never feel good about it is because they have “broken the code”. Not the code of a bunch of backwoods country boys, but they have broken God’s code- God’s Law, and they do it willingly.

Paul wrote about these people in the first chapter of his letter to the Romans.

“And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.  They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” (Romans 1:28-32)

Well, the story for the believer doesn’t end there.  As Christians, how should we think and respond in regard to being ridiculed, slandered, even persecuted for standing for the truth of God’s Word? Peter, in 1 Peter 4:1, tells us that we are to arm ourselves. Not with weapons of physical warfare, but with the same mindset that Christ had concerning suffering for righteousness.

“Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin.” (1 Peter 4:1)

We are not to condone their unrighteousness, even though we will suffer for standing against it.

“For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.  With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you.” (1 Peter 4:3-4)

Are you armed for the battle against the culture, not in weapons of war, but with the mind of Christ?

Will you stand for Christ or be assimilated into the culture?