Complacency:
The Silent Killer
Complacency can be a problem for anyone at any stage of life. No one is immune. It’s something each person must confront within themselves. Zephaniah, who lived in the seventh century, struggled with it. Paul, Peter, and the writer of Hebrews all warned against it. Jesus warned about it in the first century. Complacency is spiritual death caused by a thousand compromises.
Listen to Zephaniah: “It shall come to pass at that time that I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and punish the men who are settled in complacency, who say in their heart, ‘The Lord will not do good, nor will He do evil” (Zechariah 1:12). In other words, God is no longer a major part of their thinking. He used to be front and center, but gradually he was pushed to the sidelines.
Complacency can slowly take hold of us, no matter if we’re 19 or 99. It’s like listening to the daily news—things seem to get worse every day. But we become so used to its influence that we start to accept it as normal. We’ve heard the same red alert prophetic warnings for years. Jesus warned that this same mindset will dominate just before He returns. “You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Matthew 24:44) ESV).
Just before they were taken into captivity, the people in Jerusalem remained completely unaware of the danger hiding in the shadows. Hundreds of thousands were suddenly killed, and the few survivors were marched off in chains to Babylon.
Today, God has fallen so far off the nation’s radar that He holds little practical significance for the country as a whole. Jesus warned us that this same complacent attitude would dominate society before His return to rapture His church, triggering the world’s greatest tribulation. Yet millions still do not listen; they lack spiritual ears to hear.
The prophet Zephaniah, like John the Baptist of his era, sounded the alarm to awaken his generation from their spiritual laziness. The unfortunate truth is that they did not wake up from their complacency until their city was besieged, but by then it was too late. You cannot reverse the tide. You cannot stop the dawn. Like prophecy, what is written is written; they realized too late that God is the main actor in history, not men. To be complacent and ignore Him as if He does not exist is an unpardonable sin; you reach a point in time where you cannot turn back. Over Niagara, everything goes.
“I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and punish the men who are settled in complacency, who say in their heart, ‘The Lord will not do good, nor will He do evil”
The prophet Amos issued the same warning about complacency to that generation. “Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria” (Amos 6:1.
And when we look at the New Testament, we find even more urgent warnings about complacency. In Luke 21:34, Jesus says, “But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap.” More than once, he warned about becoming so lukewarm in our faith that we turn into lifeless religious robots.
The same trumpet is sounding for us today—to stay awake and alert. Do not let the world shape you into its mold. Always remember that we are exiles, aliens, strangers, pilgrims, and sojourners passing through this world, not citizens of it. (c.f. Galatians 6:9; I Thessalonians 5:3-6; Ephesians 5:15-16; Hebrews 12:12-14; I Peter 5:8).
Let us heed Zephaniah’s warning that God will punish the complacent who drift into treating Him as irrelevant in their lives. Let us strive like the apostle Paul, who said, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” The sufferings of this life are not worth comparing to the glory that one day will be revealed in us (Philippians 1:21; Romans 8:18).
A complacent life is a wasted life.
In His great name!
Dr. Robert Bryant