Mark 8:34-38, “And when He had called the people unto Him with His disciples also, He said unto them, Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel’s, the same shall save it. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when He cometh in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

There once was a woman named Eve who lived in the Garden of Eden. When she saw that the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was pleasing to the eye and desirable for gaining wisdom, she ate some of its fruit. There once was a man named Lot. When he saw that the plain of the Jordan River Valley was well watered, like the garden of the Lord, he chose to pitch his tents towards Sodom. Lot had a wife. Angels came to warn her and her family that Sodom was about to be destroyed. As they pulled her out of the city, one of them said, “Flee for your lives and don’t look back,” but Lot’s wife looked back and became a pillar of salt. There once was a man called Achan. At Jericho, he took several items that were supposed to be left alone. In essence, he stole from God. There once was a man whom the Bible identifies as the Rich Fool. One year, his fields produced a bountiful crop, so he decided to tear down his barns and build bigger ones in which to store all his grain and goods. He said to himself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy now; eat, drink, and be merry.”

Eve, Lot, Lot’s wife, Achan, and the Rich Fool were all guilty of secularism, or humanism. Secularism means to live exclusively in terms of this present world. Secularism says this world is all there is. Secularism rejects the possibility that God is involved in any sense with the universe as its Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer, and Judge. The secular humanist continually says “No” to God in order to say “Yes” to self. This is one of the greatest temptations of life. We are prone to seek those things which will satisfy only the flesh. So often, people will exhaust their intellects, their energies, and all their powers in the accumulation of secular items, only to discover that they want more and more because all they have does not satisfy.