"LOVE NOT THE WORLD, NEITHER THE THINGS THAT ARE IN THE WORLD"

“LOVE NOT THE WORLD, NEITHER THE THINGS THAT ARE IN THE WORLD”

The world began when sin entered, when in the garden of Eden Satan induced the woman to surrender confidence in God’s word, to look instead at things visible, and to be influenced by them. The moment faith in God was given up, the world came in, in principle. The things here, as they suited man, and as they addressed man, ruled and governed him, instead of God and His word. It is always most important to trace things to their sources, because we thus see the nature and intention of them at their very beginning and in their simplest elements. There may be, and there will be, many additions afterwards, but the unmistakable nature of the main object will be expressed at its first appearance, at its birth. There is always an effort of the enemy to deceive and to represent the beginning of any new evil in a false and pretentious light, but this deception is more successful in the development of the evil than at its beginning. It is evident that every truth when first revealed, however elementary it be, always presents the features which distinctly mark it, and while it may develop to greater proportions, you will always require ^[p. 413] to return to its first enunciation in order to learn its elements.

The world, as I have said, began in the garden of Eden, when Eve, disregarding the word of God, saw that the forbidden fruit was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise. These are the elements of the world. “The lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world”. It will help us immensely to be able to distinguish easily between what is of the world and what is of God. The distinction is simply this; when what is visible influences and controls our feelings or actions, it is the world; and when it is things not seen, of which faith is the evidence, then we are in victory over the world. To either of these we must become subject. It must be with us either faith in God, or subjection to the world. If we are not kept by the power of God, dependent on Him, we become subject to the world; the things here affect and influence us, and we are ruled by them. In a word, it is either the evidence of things unseen, conveyed to us by the word of God, or the influences of things seen, as they affect us as men. Once we are clear as to the manner and principle of these two forces, we are able to judge ourselves accordingly.

When we examine Scripture we find that the testimony of every servant of God depended upon the way he refused the influence of visible things, and trusted to the word of God which was given to guide him. Cain, feeling the distance between man and God, essayed to remove it in a worldly way, and resorted to a presentation of visible things in their beauty. He brought of the fruits of the earth an offering unto God. There was no faith here; there was an appropriation of visible things according to the suggestion of his own mind. Abel, on the contrary, acts in faith; he takes into account the holiness of God, enters into His claim, and offers the firstlings of the flock, and of the fat ^[p. 414] thereof. It is a simple question, Is it the mind of God which influences me and controls my actions, or is it the order of things around me? for the latter is the world. Faith overcomes the world. The world, in its influence on me, is the rival of God’s word, and many a one who knows what faith is for the safety of his soul, is nevertheless not safe from the world.

There are two ways in which the world exerts an influence over a man; in one it appeals to him as a man in the flesh, and in the other it ministers to him by the things which suit him in the flesh. Now in order to set him free from the things, you must either remove the things altogether, and then you would have man pining for what he could not find, or you must remove the state in which he is; that is, he must be set above the man in the flesh, and then the things that would suit him in that state cannot reach him. Hence the one and only effectual way of delivering the saint from the world is by presenting to him a Person who entirely eclipses himself, and places him in the most elevated surroundings. Therefore it is said, “Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” It is not merely the faith which effects the deliverance, but the Person. The Saviour in whom by faith the soul has found deliverance is revealed to it in the dignity of His Person, as Paul says, “It pleased God ... to reveal his Son in me”. 1 John 5 shows how this is declared by His death; the blood, the water, and the Spirit, all by their testimony establishing the fact that God hath given us eternal life, life after a new and unprecedented order; and this life is in His Son, Hence we are superior to the world and the things that are in the world. We neither form a part of it, nor are we affected or influenced by the things that are in it. Thus we see that the power that overcomes the world is faith, and faith in Jesus the Son of God sets us free from man in the flesh, because we believe in a far greater One, who through death on our account, is our Saviour ^[p. 415] and life. He was put to death in the flesh but quickened in the Spirit. In the Old Testament saints we see the man of faith reaching to great victories, like a powerful horse going over fences; and of such “the world was not worthy”; but we do not see them superior to the things which affect them as men, they are not running in a race. Abram is diverted from the path of faith by a famine. Jacob, after returning to the land, and after that wonderful night of wrestling, when he learned the greatness of divine power, was drawn aside at Shalem. Joseph lost the mind of God as to his own children, when he thought of them in respect to their age, when the visible thing swayed him; Genesis 48: 17.

Before the death of Christ, faith always proved itself in the way it carried the saint above the order and influence of things here; yet as man in the flesh was not set aside, there was not a call for the action of faith beyond the maintenance of the truth then revealed; there was not absolute and continual abnegation of the world, because there was no absolute and complete institution of a new order of creation in the Person of the Son of God. Now the measure of our separation from the world is no less than His; we are not of the world, even as He is not of the world. This is our definite and established position. We are not merely like the Old Testament saints, called to prove ourselves for God in overcoming special things; but we are called to overcome everything. To us it is said, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world”. We are in fellowship with the Holy Spirit, whose first and great testimony here is against the world, making evident its sin in not believing in Christ. There is now a new Man, the Son of God; and all believers in Him He is not ashamed to call His brethren. Everything connected with Him is only known by the Holy Spirit, and as He is in heaven, the power to act for Him and to please Him here is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit unites us to Him and sustains us through faith in connection with things ^[p. 416] unseen; so that we are not conformed to this world, but transformed by the renewing of our mind. Here then, we are pilgrims and strangers; pilgrims because we are going on to another place, and strangers because we do not belong to the place where we are. The Holy Spirit is the only power to separate us from the world, because He is the only power to preserve us from the flesh. If we walk in the Spirit we shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. It is a great thing for the saint to comprehend the entire newness and the order of the being of which he is, and in which he is sustained by union through the Holy Spirit with the heavenly Man. He moves in the sphere where the first man is, but his power of life, and his associations are with and in Christ, in an entirely new and as yet unseen sphere; and therefore all by faith.

But it will be contended that we are here on the earth, and that God has appointed that we should be here, after the old order, dependent for life and health on the things that are seen. I reply that we are not enjoined to retain any connection with this scene but such as Christ will enable us to fill better than ever they were filled by any mere man. He fully sustains according to God.

The saint on the earth can discharge the duties of his calling according to God, but then he must distinguish between what God has appointed and what the world inculcates. The domestic relations and duties are of God, and they are the very channels through which the grace of Christ flows. Hence I do not learn from the world how I am to act in them, I am taught of God, I have a new power; and as to the powers that be, I am simply subject to them. I can admire the works of God as I pass through the scene as a pilgrim, and not be worldly while I remember that they are the works of God, which on account of Adam’s fall have been made subject to vanity.

There are two things which especially exercise the ^[p. 417] saint; one is position in society, as it is called, and the other bodily care, food and clothes. When I am happily conscious of my union with Christ, believing that Jesus is the Son of God, I have a position which sets me far above any conventional one here, and the moment I seek or maintain any here, I do violence to my own spirit because I descend to an earthly position. The only true and happy place for a saint is to abide in his wondrous position in Christ, and then he is consciously above and independent of all earthly position. But when a saint takes advantage of this indifference to position in another to exalt himself, except in the familiarity of fellow-labourers, it is radicalism; he avails himself of his brother’s grace to prove his own lack of it. If I see that to maintain position is worldly, the question of bodily care is easily settled. The body is to be properly cared for, but to be kept in subjection; having food and raiment I am therewith to be content. I do not maintain position with regard to it. I do not look to the world to learn how my table is to be served, or what I should wear. I determine before God, irrespective of the world’s ways, what would be necessary and suitable. Thus I neither follow the fashion, nor am I eccentric, but all things are done decently and in order.