What does the Bible say about worldliness?

Then he warns them: "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love 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 pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." These things belong to it. All the glory of this world is not of the Father at all. And the more we look into John, and indeed all through the New Testament scripture, we may see these two great systems brought out plainly. He does not say you do not love Christ. But there is one great system that belongs to the Father, and another that belongs to the world. Every thing belongs to God as a Creator; but morally all is departed from Him. It was the devil that made this world, looked at as a moral world. God made paradise; and man sinned and got out of it, and then made up this world. Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and builded a city, and called it after the name of his son. Then God sent His Son, and they would not have Him, and thus it was a judged world. God has put it fully to the test - without law, under law, and then by His Son; and then He says, It is all judged. But then He has a way of His own, the Father has, and you cannot have both. If you love the world, the love of the Father is not in you. You may be tempted by it, and have to overcome it; but if you love it, the love of the Father is not in you; because He has got a system of His own, and you are going to the other system. It is so all through. In the Gospel we get divine life in the Person of Christ, and in the Epistle this divine life in the persons of Christians. In John 8 you will see the same truth. "Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world." There is no middle path with God. If they are of this world, they are from beneath; and if they are not of this world, they are from above. He says, I am not of this world; I am from above: because He came from the Father. You are of the world, and therefore from beneath, because it is Satan's world. So here - if the love of the world is in you, the love of the Father cannot be. There is another divine system, where the love of the Father is displayed, and if you belong to that, you have to overcome the world. It is not of the Father; it does not belong to that system.

Such, then, is the character of the world as gathered from the writings of Paul. It is a thing to which we are not to be conformed; a thing from which Christ died to deliver us; a thing to which we are crucified, and which is crucified to us; a thing in the ways of which the godless walk; a thing by the minding of which those are characterised "whose end is destruction;" a thing from which our affections are to be transferred that they may be set on things above. In the apostle to whom it was given in special manner to develop the truth of the Church, this teaching is peculiarly striking, but it is not by Paul alone that the world is held out as unsuited for the Christian. "Ye adulterers and adulteresses," asks James, addressing himself to those who were holding commerce with the world, "know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world, is the enemy of God" (James 4:4). And yet, what are Christians doing, on all hands, but bidding for popularity, courting the applause of the multitude, seeking to be the friends of the world where their Master received nothing but a cross? "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world," writes the beloved disciple. "If any man love 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 pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world" (1 John 2:15-16). Alas! what a commentary on this Divine lesson to behold Christians rushing with all the eagerness of partisans into the strife of worldly factions, grasping at the riches and the pleasures, the splendours and the emoluments, the powers and the applause, of a sin-stricken, Satan-governed, death doomed world, from whose defilement they are told to keep themselves unspotted, and from whose friendship they are bidden to hold themselves aloof!

We may say therefore that 'the world' is that which is obtained by means of 'the things in the world' - the moral principles rooted in the sinful human heart. The issue is not whether we have pleasure, power or possessions but whether we love it (them) and whether we are governed by these means of getting it (them). If so, the love of the Father is not in us. We may well have been the recipients of God's love in His unspeakable gift, but it is not in us in a practical and experimental way-enjoyed in communion with Him.

Fellowship with the Father and the Son and love of the world are incompatible. The world is that system which has grown up on this earth without God, and "All that is 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." (1 John 2:16.) The world around each one of us will assume different colors according to our different tastes. That which we individually like the most, will, as a rule, be the world to us, and the world we shall least willingly give up. It is easy to give up things we do not care for, and to call ourselves unworldly and it is easy to see love of the world in other christians, and to be blind to our own love of it We may say, that anything which would not be happily carried on in the presence of God is of the world; and the word is, "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." (1 John 2:15.) A child, while disobedient, would not have the love of his parent in his heart; for if that love were in him, he would be doing his parent's will.

Thus wrote the apostle to the Corinthians, "I espoused you to one husband that I might present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." Here each individual is more in view; but the principle is the same, and the figure of departure quite intelligible. The world corrupts from simplicity as to Christ many who would turn from immoral ways at once. For it looks fair enough, and offers a variety of attractions suited to our nature. And the question is often raised, What is the harm of this? Is there any wrong in that? But this Epistle lays bare the character of the enticement. Are we seeking or accepting the world? Now friendship with the world is enmity with God. Did not the world crucify the Lord of glory? Is it Christian then to value its approbation, or to court its honour? Is it loyal to the Lord to walk in familiar ease with the system which shed His blood and put Him to the vilest ignominy? No one clears himself of that guilt save he who believing is washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of our Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. Those who profess the name without the power are sure to weary of separateness to Christ and to hanker after earthly things. But the word is plain: "Whosoever therefore shall be minded to be friend of the world is constituted enemy of God."

120 But the new man born of God, partaking of the divine nature, cannot find its delight in the world; it shuns that which would separate it from God. Where the flesh finds its happiness and its pleasures, the spiritual life finds none. James speaks of actual corruption; but he does not speak as though one part of the world were corrupt and another pure; on the contrary, it is defiled and corrupt in its principles, and in every way. He who is conformed to it is corrupt in his walk. The friendship of the world is enmity against God. Whoever will be the friend of the world is the enemy of God. We must keep ourselves pure from the world itself. We have, indeed, to pass through it, and to be in passing through it the epistle of Christ, undefiled by the world which surrounds us, as Christ was undefiled, in the midst of a world that would not receive Him.

Now a principle of great importance is found in this passage, "The friendship of the world is enmity with God; whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." Powerful testimony! which judges the walk and searches the heart. The world's true character has now been manifested, because it has rejected and crucified the Son of God. Man has been already tried without law, and under law, but after he had shewn himself to be wholly evil without law, and had broken the law when he had received it, then God Himself came in grace; He became man in order to bring the love of God home to the heart of man, having taken human nature. It was the final test of man's heart. He came not to impute sin to them, but to reconcile the world to Himself. But the world would not receive Him; and it has shewn that it is under the power of Satan and of darkness. It has seen and hated both Him and His Father.

Dependence on God was forgotten; will acted for itself; they did not ask of God, or if they asked, it was but with the desire to make God Himself the servant of their pleasures. God does not respond to such prayers. Sad state of man! God was forgotten, and still worse, the heart was the slave of pleasure, and under the yoke of its passions, far from peace and quietness: war within, and open sin without, afar from God in the world - this passing scene in which such desires find their sphere - or, at least, if God was known, He was forgotten by their rebellious hearts. Therefore the friendship of the world is enmity with God. Such a Christian, conformed to the world, forgets that he is purged from his old sins. He walks in forgetfulness of God, in the path of the unbeliever, and conscience retreats driven back by lust. When he asks of God he does not receive, because he asks, as a worldling might, to spend it on his pleasures.

Babylon means confusion — the cunning union of things Divine and worldly; the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, trafficking with the things of God. It has therefore both a religious and civil aspect. It is the old sin of Cain, who, with a false religion, murdered his righteous brother, deliberately went out from the presence of God, and obtained a place of ease, luxury, and influence in the earth. We do violence to truth to limit Babylon to Romanism. It abounds in Protestantism, and in every thing and place where the name of Christ is used to sanction worldliness; or where the truth of revelation is used for worldly advancement, instead of for the glory of God. This is unfaithfulness to Christ; it is referred to by the apostle James when he says, "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." (James 4:4.) This is very solemn and searching, and it behoves us to see well to it that we are spiritual, and not carnal, cleaving to the Lord Himself with full purpose of heart, instead of to this present evil world. Paul was very watchful on this point in his care over the saints. He says, "I am jealous over you with godly jealousy; for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." (2 Cor. 11:2-3.)

The first exhortation is to separation from evil, without which no true fellowship with God can be enjoyed. It is one of the most important exhortations in the Pauline epistles, and greatly needed in our days of laxity and worldliness among Christians. God calls His people to holiness. "But as He who hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy." He has separated us from the world which lieth in the wicked one and separated us in Christ to Himself. Believers are not of the world as He is not of the world (John 17:14). The cross of Christ makes us dead to the world and the world dead unto us (Galatians 6:14). Furthermore God's Word tells us not to love the world, neither the things that are in the world (1 John 2:15), and "that the friendship of the world is enmity with God; whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God" (James 4:4). And the world is that great system over which Satan domineers, built up and developed by him, to give the natural man a sphere of enjoyment. True faith not only joins the believer to the Lord, but also separates him in heart and practice from the world which crucified the Lord and still rejects Him.