ENCHANTING
BUT DEADLY

Topics: Appearances; Beauty; Materialism; New Age; Occult; Spiritual Perception; Temptation; Worldliness

References: James 4:4; 2 Peter 1:3–4; 1 John 2:15–17

For years, workers and visitors flocked to the sight of silvery dust flakes that floated to the floor in a mill where steel strips rolled over pads in a tall cooling tower. In his book The Heat: Steelworkers’ Lives and Legends, steelworker Joe Gutierrez tells how beautifully “the snow danced in August.”

Then people discovered the dust was asbestos. “Everybody breathed it,” wrote Gutierrez. He now suffers from the slow, choking grip of asbestosis, as do many plant workers.

“Who am I? I’m everybody. Can’t walk too far now. I get tired real fast, and it hurts when I breathe sometimes. And to think we used to fight over that job,” he says.

How many things in our culture resemble the silver flakes in that steel mill? They’re enchanting but deadly.

—Lee Eclov, “Deceptive Appeal,” PreachingToday.com