Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - In the World, Not of It | Historical Books | Isaiah 48:12-22

Episode Date: December 18, 2025

How should Christians engage with culture? What does it mean to be in the world, but not of it? What are you living for? In today's episode, Patrick shares how Isaiah 48:12-22 encourages us to flee from Babylon and live for God alone. Read the Bible with us in 2026! This year, we’re exploring the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Isaiah 48:12-22

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. How do we engage with the culture around us? I know some of you grew up in Christian families where the norm was kind of fleeing away from the culture. You lived in a Christian subculture of church events and Christian music and Christian TV shows and Christian everything. Others of you grew up in a very different environment. Maybe your family didn't look any.

different from the culture around you at all. You rarely talked about God. You rarely went to church. And you and your parents, you lived for all the same things everyone else did, despite calling yourselves Christians. Or maybe you didn't grow up around church at all. And you're just trying to figure out what it means to follow Jesus in a world that sometimes seems so opposed to him. I think of a friend of mine who grew up like that. And when he became a Christian in college, he thought that it meant he needed to flee away from everything in the world. And so he literally burned all of his rock and roll albums and all of his non-Christian books. And he thought that with that bonfire, he'd somehow become more pure.

Of course, there is one big problem to this approach. No one can ever escape the world. No one can ever escape culture. Even if you try to live in a bubble where everything is labeled with the adjective Christian, You'll quickly discover that the music, the books, the shows, and everything in between have all been influenced by the world around them. You are influenced by the world around you. And I think we ought to ask whether this is the right goal at all. After all, it was Jesus who prayed this over his disciples in John 17.

Let's pick up in verse 14. I have given them his disciples, that's you and me. I have given them your word. And the world has hated them, for they are not. of the world any more than I am of the world. But my prayer is not that you would take them out of the world, but that you would protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world even as I am not of it. So Jesus called us to do two things that kind of seem contradictory. He called us to be in the world, but not to be of the world. Now here's the deal. We'll all be tempted to emphasize one side over the

other. Some of us have an evangelistic calling or an artistic calling or an entrepreneurial calling that puts us very much so in the world. And if that's you, then you have to be reminded by Jesus not to become like the world. You must not become a chameleon Christian who's constantly blending into your environment. Others of us feel a calling to spiritual disciplines, to teaching or to ministry. And so we emphasize that we must not be of the world. But over time, we end up living in a holy huddle. We don't have any non-Christian friends. We live our whole lives in a Christian subculture, and we think that's what will make us pure. But again, that's a myth. You can't and you won't be perfected in this life. And Jesus has called you to be in the world. So if you're not in the world,

you're being disobedient. Of course, the Bible will speak about both sides of this tension. And it doesn't always do it at the same time. Sometimes it will emphasize being in the world. it will emphasize not being of the world. But that doesn't mean that we resolve the tension and pretend that the other side doesn't exist. A great example of this comes from Isaiah 48. It's one of my favorite passages to study when I think about Jesus' calling to not be of the world. That's what it's focused on. And you have to understand that this question of how to be not of the world, that was pressing for Isaiah's audience. They were in a culture where everyone with wealth, power, and prestige, worshipped Babylonian idols. They lived for Babylonian values.

In other words, they were a lot like us. I mean, don't you feel the temptation to become a chameleon in the West? To value wealth, prosperity, material possessions, consumption, and physical appearance above all else? Like many people in America and Europe do you, don't you sometimes think that you'll be more happy if you can just buy a new car? get a bigger house lose a few pounds get a raise go on a vacation or have more stuff and yet we know the truth it was jesus who said that happiness does not consist in an abundance of possessions it was jesus who commanded us not to worry about our possessions and what we will wear but nonetheless though those things captivate us in the exiles living in babylon they were no different they saw the power and

prestige and wealth of their Babylonian neighbors, and I have no doubt that they believed that they'd be happy if they just had the same things. But in this passage, God wants to give them and us a different perspective. Let's read a few parts together. Verse 12. Listen to me, Jacob, Israel, whom I have called. I am he. I am the first and I am the last. My hand laid the foundations of the earth. and my right hand spread out the heavens. When I summon them, they all stand together. Come together all of you and listen. Which of the idols has foretold these things?

So let's pause here and try to understand the first perspective shift God wants to give us. And it's this. The idols of our culture are deaf, dumb, mute, and powerless. He is the one who has spoken creation into existence. He is the one who declares things. and then they come to pass. But all of the stuff that we think will make us happy, they are deaf, they are dumb, they are mute,

they are powerless to affect anything in the world. Why? Because they are just stuff. They are not persons. They have no agency. They are impotent. It is only God who acts. It is only God who satisfies.

So he's telling the people, don't look to these things that the Babylonians look to, to fill them up. Don't look to them to fill you. you up because you know the truth about them. They're powerless. The passage continues. The Lord's chosen ally. Okay, quick pause. Isaiah is talking about the Persians who would one day conquer the Babylonians. So let's pick up again. The Lord's chosen ally, the Persians, will carry out his purpose against Babylon. His arm will be against the Babylonians. I, even I have spoken. Yes, I have called him.

I will bring him and he will succeed in his mission. So Isaiah is saying that the Babylonians, even though they are the greatest world power at the time, their time is short. A day will come when they will fall. And so that's the second point that he wants us to get. If the exiles live for Babylon's values and they live for Babylon's idols, they will have made a foolish error. Why?

Because Babylon will not last. It will one day turn to dust. All the power and power. prestige that seem so powerful and prestigious, it will disappear. And isn't the same true of us? We cannot carry our wealth into death. All the things we buy are destined for a dumpster. And even if you care for your body like a temple, you will one day grow old. You'll know sickness and weakness and wrinkles. So if you live for these things, you're living for a dumpster and a graveyard because that's where all these things land. So don't make a foolish error. Don't live for stuff.

Don't live for your body. Don't live for clothes. Live for the one thing that lasts. God. Isaiah concludes with this advice to the exiles. He says, leave Babylon. Flee from the Babylonians. Announce this with shouts of joy and proclaim it. Send it out to the ends of the earth. Say, the Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob. They did not thirst when he led them through deserts. He made water flow for them from the rock. He split the rock and water gushed out. Isaiah is telling the people to flee Babylon, to not be of Babylon, to not be of the world. Why? Because they have been rescued and redeemed by their Savior, a Savior who can bring water into the desert, who can make water flow from the rocks. We worship the same Savior who has rescued

us from the world, from death, from the devil, and he leads us on an exodus, a freedom journey, out of sin, out of death, out of the way of this world, into a future world, where all will be resurrected, all will be renewed, and the scars of sin will be gone. So what do we need to do today? Well, we need to do what he told the exiles to do. We need to flee from Babylon. There is a calling on our life to flee from culture. It's not the only calling. We have to remain in the world. And yet, flee from Babylon is a command. And it's a command to run away from Babylon's values and idols. You can't leave the country.

You can't leave the world, but you can set aside its values. You can set aside its idols. It's a command to say, I will not be of the world, even though I am in the world. Jesus wants your heart, and he wants all of it, and he wants it fully so that he can fully fill it. So flee the idols and values of this culture. Don't live for stuff destined for junkyards. Flee Babylon, flee your idols, and run into his forgiving, gracious, and transformative arms.