WHAT IS WORLDLINESS?
WHAT IS WORLDLINESS?
God is the only true standard and fountain of supply. When, at the serpent’s suggestion, Eve was induced by another influence to turn from the influence and guidance of the word of God, then worldliness entered. The advantage or utility of present things influenced and directed her, outside and apart from God; that is, the world, be it even in its best things, supplanted God in her mind, so that as faith in God went out, the world came in. It is not the point whether the world was good or bad; but another guide or authority was accepted in lieu of the word of God. The only right one was abandoned, and therefore, whatever the other was in itself, it was not really right. Thus sin entered, and thus the world, in the hands of its prince, usurped and superseded God’s place and His claim on man. Man, going on naturally at a distance from God, consults no one but the world. The world is his oracle; he determines everything by the judgment of the world. Whereas the man of faith turns his eye to God, and seeks counsel and direction from Him; and then he overcomes the world. Worldliness is the manner, habit or act suggested or recommended by the world. It may be necessary and quite right in itself, but if I measure what is necessary by man’s judgment, or seek to supply it according to man’s estimate, it is worldly. As it is necessary, if I look to God, He will supply it according to His ideas of my need.
Adam and Eve, when they knew they were naked, sewed fig leaves together to make themselves aprons. They sought the measure which would satisfy the worldly mind, the mind apart from God. Their need was patent, but they attempted to supply it according to man’s ideas, and this was worldly. God knew their need, and when He supplied it, how greatly superior His supply was! God made coats of skin for them. Thus many contend that such and such things are necessary for us. Admit it. The question is whether I should be directed as to the mode and measure of meeting my need by a usurper - for such the world really is - or by Him whose love is as great as His power, and knows neither measure nor end.
The sensibilities proper to man may be classed under three heads - the necessary, the pleasant, and the wise. The necessary as a matter of fact cannot be dispensed with; there are some things essential to our existence, such as food and covering. The pleasant embraces the comforts and regularities of life; and the wise, information, and the means or skill for succeeding in any line here. All these were appealed to when the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was brought temptingly before Eve. The world was made for man’s use, and the things of it suit man. Hence even the “young men” in 1 John 2, who are powerful in grace and have overcome the wicked one, are told, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world”. The world addresses one naturally; all the good sensibilities are provided for there, and if man had gone on with God, he would have found that everything proper to his nature had been prepared for him in the world. Now the world lieth in the wicked one; and though made by God, and for man’s use originally, so that a man at once sees how suited it is to him, yet now the believer must not defer to it, nor love it. He has returned to God [p. 316] and is now in the relationship of a son to Him; and therefore he must, as the love of the Father is in him, refer to Him concerning all his wants here.
The believer, as he has faith, finds that he is not exposed to any privation, because the world is not his guide or source of supply, but his Father in heaven. Surely no one could suppose, were he to see the question clearly, that there would be less care and consideration for him from the Father than what he himself could find or appropriate from the world. “Every good gift and every perfect gift... cometh down from the Father of lights”, James 1: 17, and there is nothing which man naturally requires that He does not abundantly supply, unless it be denied for the sake of testimony, or in discipline; and surely, if anything were denied by the Father, I could not endeavour to obtain from the world what He has refused. The question is simply this: am I looking to the world or to the Father? He knows my frame and all that I require. He remembers that I am but dust; and He will withhold no good thing from them that walk uprightly. The first great point is whether I am looking to my Father or to the world. There can be no doubt in the believer that the Father cares more for him and can do more for him than the world; but the world is so ready to one’s hand, and because it is so suited to man’s requirements naturally, the temptation is to seek it, and to be guided by it. Man, estranged from God, is a ready prey to an order and system of things around him which at first was ordered by God, but now, in the hands of the adversary, suits and ministers to his independence; he can find what is necessary, pleasant, and wise, in the world, and remain at enmity with God. The heart of the believer is often unable to comprehend for a long time why he, blessed here through God’s grace, cannot utilise and appropriate the things of the world made by God to gratify his natural taste. It is only when the love of the Father clashes with this love of the world that the disciple begins to see the place the world holds;
[p. 317] and as things grow, he turns to his Father to supply him with the things he requires. The natural man clings to independence, the spiritual walks in faith; as I am natural, I turn to the world because it supports and promotes my independence, but as I am spiritual I walk in faith and turn to God for everything. When I look to the world and obtain from it, I must, as I have ability to appropriate it, represent it; according to my power I am its representative. I get all my desires answered there. I have no standard to judge anything by but the world; and hence the greater I am in mind and means, the more worldly I am. Indifferent people are the proudest, for they have a world of their own. The man of parts must be worldly, though he may choose his own line of worldliness; he has no other standard. The feebleness of a christian is that while owning and in a measure rejoicing that God is his standard and the source of everything to him, yet he is not decidedly clear of the world; he refuses the extremes of it, while he endeavours to retain as much of it as he can without open dishonour to the name of Christ. Hence we find believers in all varieties of separation from the world.
Now separating from this or that of the world does not preserve one from worldliness; as long as the world influences and suggests, there is worldliness. Mere alterations or limitations in our manner of life and appearance are not a cessation of worldliness. It is making a world of one’s own. The only true way is to keep the eye on God; and this is the practical difficulty. If worldliness consisted in the limitation of the world’s fashion and ways, then the poor would be unworldly; whereas a poor man with more parts may be more worldly in his small circumstances than a rich one with less calibre. If I am walking in faith, whatever my means, I determine everything by the simple question, Is this suited to the bride of a rejected Lord? And as I have a single eye and a real heart for Christ, this conviction is easily secured. A comfort may be necessary and ordered [p. 318] of the Lord for one, which would be worldly in another who seeks it for his own self-consideration or style. Sorrow is appointed of God; but it is worldly when there is a display of mourning to arrest the eye of the mass and obtain consideration. To rejoice in every good thing which God has given is right; but when there is a parade of it in order to elicit the admiration of the multitude, it is worldly.
When the heart has simple confidence in the Father’s care, there will be reference to Him in everything; even as our blessed Lord would not allow the claims of nature to influence Him without the word of God. A man of the world would do anything he could to provide food when he was hungry; but our Lord is simply dependent on God, and declares that “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God”. If I am happily dependent on God, I rest assured that everything I require will be provided; and I scan everything in the light in which it is to Him, and not as it is to the world. I think of my house, my dress, and my everything, as they are in His eye, as He would desire for me, and not as the world would dictate or supply.
A thing might be worldly to one man which would not be to another. Saul’s armour was worldly for David. His own means used in faith are adequate for the service of Christ. Again, on the other hand, a man of position and means often retains a great deal because he is used to it, which would not have attached to him were he simply following a rejected Lord and dependent on his Father’s care. There is however always this great gain for him, that as he surrenders he gains; while the man who is seeking to increase in worldly things is losing ground in a double way; he is losing sight of the Father’s love, and the present reward of surrendering for Christ’s sake in a world which rejected Him. If Abraham refuses to look out, or be worldly like Lot, God says to him, after Lot was separated from him, “Lift up now thine [p. 319] eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever”, Genesis 13: 14, 15. If the majority of the spies are worldly and forfeit the land, Caleb has faith in God, and gets the very place which frightened the ten spies. If Barnabas in his worldliness chooses Mark, and thus Paul loses the company and assistance of Barnabas, in the very next verse we read of Timothy, the one like-minded to himself, being given. The world seeks and delights in the abundance of things; but God satisfies the heart. “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst”. “Rejoice in the Lord alway” is the word from the prison; and as to circumstances, the same servant can say, “I have learnt in those circumstances in which I am to be satisfied in myself”. It is an immense thing when the heart is assured, according to John 16 and 17, that the world is overcome, and therefore not for us. The love of the Father is our rest and resource, and the more simply we refer to it, and abide under His care, the happier and really the better supplied we shall be. We may not have circumstances pleasing to the world, or as the world requires; but we shall have a “merry heart” which is “a continual feast”.