If you’ve never read Richard Baxter, you are missing out on clear, concise and biblical logic. In his great work “Against Sinful Desire and Discontent” he defines “worldliness” as “sinful love.” Baxter exposes wordliness, or sinful love, as:
“When you desire that which is forbidden you. Or that which will do you no good, upon a misconceit that it is better or more needful than it is. Or when you desire it too eagerly, and must needs have it, or else you will be impatient or discontented, and cannot quietly be ruled and disposed of by God, but are murmuring at his providence and your lot. Or when you desire it too hastily, and cannot stay God’s time. Or else too greedily as to the measure, being not content with God’s allowance, but must needs have more than he thinks fit for you. Or specially when your desires are perverse, preferring lesser things before greater; desiring bodily and transitory things more than the mercies for your souls which will be everlasting. When you desire any thing ultimately and merely for the flesh, without referring it to God, it is a sin. Even your daily bread, and all your comforts, must be desired but as provender for your horse, that he may the better go his journey, even as provision for your bodies, to fit them to the better and more cheerful service of your souls and God. Much more when your desires are for wicked ends, (as to serve your lust, or pride, or covetousness, or revenge,) they are wicked desires. And when they are injurious to others.”
Jonathan Edwards would call this misdirected religious affection or simply idolatry as worldliness is the exaltation of man and self-worship.
Understand at this point I have already written a number of paragraphs that should appear in this space, but I deleted them for I am in turmoil over what I could say here. I wrote about the worse church split I have ever seen or heard of, or I wrote of the horrendous fights that take place amongst the brethren. What I keep coming back to is the blurred line between godliness and worldliness. I recently participated in a concentrated study activity involving pastors, missionaries and lay-people from all over the world and have been saddened by the blatant lack of regard for rules, regulations and standards. Here are so-called “professionals in ministry” who converge for a time of education and rejuvenation, yet because of one or more who chose to live according to their own rules bring frustration, jealousy, gossip, even theft among the brethren. I think part of the problem is the other blurred line between education and revival. Brothers, education is NOT revival. When the one replaces the other, then worldliness has crept in.
I can’t help but think of Chuck Smith (of Calvary Chapel fame) who
relates the following experience:
“Recently I attended a pastor's conference and was amazed at what slobs the pastors were. They would take their coffee cups and cokes into the room where we had our meetings. Now, I had no problem with that, but when we were dismissed, they just left their coke cans and coffee cups on the floor. So I found myself going around picking up the coffee cups and coke cans, and cleaning the auditorium. I know what happens when someone comes and kicks over a coffee cup on the carpet. I didn't want to leave a bad witness of our Calvary Chapel ministers at that camp facility. So many people see the ministry as an opportunity to be served rather than to serve others. To think, "Well, someone should pick up after me because I am the minister," is not only a contradiction in terms, it's also an unbiblical attitude.”
James 4 gives us the answer as to why there is conflict in the church, between churches, outside the church, in families, in the workplace, even among nations! And he not only identifies the source of the conflict, but also tells how to deal with conflict! James is not intolerant because he is in a bad mood but because here are Christians acting like unbelievers! And they are not just fighting—they are under the influence of raging sin-pattern behavior. Look at the commandments being broken: lust, coveting, murder, adultery, even having another god in being friends with the world. If unity is to be found in Christ, these things must be repented of and put away! Paul even wrote to the Corinthians that he wanted to see them, but knew they did not want to be visited the way they were: “perhaps there will be strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, disturbances; I am afraid that when I come again my God may humiliate me before you, and I may mourn over many of those who have sinned in the past and not repented of the impurity, immorality and sensuality which they have practiced.”
[i]Notice James uses the term “adulterers and adulteresses.” These are carefully chosen words that imply they have also taken the name of the Lord in vain. An illustration of marriage would be fitting: when a man and woman are married, one public sign of their unity is that she takes his name as hers and gives up her own. She, in effect, becomes his ambassador, doing everything she does in his name and all he represents. The way these people are acting are as if they are carrying on a relationship with the world though they are saved from it. The words denote one carrying on an affair! They are being spiritually unfaithful, “outwardly associated with the church, but holding a deep affection for the evil world system.”
[ii]I don’t know about you, but that makes me want to slam on the brakes and get a bearing on the direction I am going in life. With whom and what do I associate myself? Are my words and actions condoned by He whom I represent? Where are my feet going? What are my hands doing? Where are my eyes and ears? Are the things I enjoy and the things I hate the same as what God enjoys and hates?
If you know anything about the South, you may know it is covered with vines. Especially north-east Georgia--it’s being consumed by “mile-a-minute” vine, or kudzu. You can’t kill it. Anything it is able to cover gets consumed: trees are reduced to bare stumps in a mere summer. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it’s a beautiful lush, green carpet, but it feeds and feeds, leaving nothing in its wake. Think of how that applies to the things of God. When we open our arms to worldliness, we do one of two things: one, telling Him that what He has done is not good enough because we will inevitably turn and complain about all the trouble we’ve gotten ourselves into; and two, we are siding with the enemy, being embraced by the world only to be squeezed to death and our strength is lost.
If we still hold the lifestyle we followed before we became Christian, if we make no conscious effort to cut ourselves off from the world as we came to Christ, then we are not recognizing Him as Lord and our repentance was only superficial. We had no intention to convert to begin with. When you become a Christian, your desire to cut off from the world is seen in the very things we repent of: we are lying, thieving, blasphemous adulterers at heart and turning from sin and accepting Christ as Savior and Lord is where new life begins . . . a life that is not marked by the characteristics of James 4. But I get ahead of myself.
The Christian’s relationship with the world is summed up in 1 Jn 2:15-17: “
Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.”
[iii]Being a friend of the world is to be an enemy of God. Think about this: being a friend of the world is to embrace the life of an unbeliever. Look at what the Bible says about how God views the unsaved:
Eph. 2:3, “
Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”
Col. 1:21, “
And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds.”
Why on earth would one want to live as he once was? This should cause some serious searching of the heart to see whether we are truly in the faith!
Gen. 6:5, “
Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
Prov. 21:10, “
The soul of the wicked desires evil; his neighbor finds no favor in his eyes.”
Jer. 17:9, “
The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?”
Mk 7:21-23, “
For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.”
That last list sounded like James, doesn’t it? Conflict is the result of men speaking their heart. So again, why act like an unbeliever? Why talk like an unbeliever? Why treat each other in ways that smack of unbelief? I can’t figure it out, unless one is not saved to begin with . . .
I was walking through a certain store the other day and stayed near my boys while they checked out video games. When you get old like me you can’t help but think back to the “old days” when games were basically “Pong” and “Space Invaders” and Atari was all the rage. So here I am, walking around through these Nintendos and X-Boxes and hand-helds that display very convincing life-like graphics and I look down on a lower shelf and spy . . . an Atari. Yes, the old brown and black box, two-joystick game. Pong and Space Invaders. Brand Spanking New. And FOR SALE! I call my kids over and hold it up for them to see. Can you guess their reaction? “So what?” and they ran off quite irritated that I had bugged them from their games.
When we are saved, we get the X-box. So why on earth would we prefer the Atari? I know the answer as much as you do . . . we like nostalgia, even when it comes to sin. We act like unbelievers because that is what we are accustomed to . . . but that is no excuse. Look at what Jesus says about unbelievers:
“
You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44)
So, whose your daddy?
“Friendship with the world and friendship with God are mutually exclusive … . Christians have a nature so utterly distinct from the lovers of the world, the followers of Satan, that they should never entertain any of the ways or hold any of the loyalties that characterize unbelievers …. For believers to pursue worldly things goes against the grain of their new nature and they cannot be comfortable or satisfied until they renounce those things and return to their first love.”—John MacArthur
[iv]I think it's pretty clear.
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[i]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update, 2 Co 12:20. LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[ii]MacArthur, John Jr.
The MacArthur Study Bible. electronic ed., Jas 4:4. Nashville: Word Pub., 1997, c1997.
[iii]New American Standard Bible, Ibid.
[iv]MacArthur, John.
James : Guildelines for a Happy Christian Life. MacArthur Bible studies, Page 87. Nashville, TN: W Publishing Group, 2001.
