that we have been taught are inspired truth. Few of us have ever taken time to check these with biblical principles to see whether they’re really worldly. Many of us often mistake our prejudices for our convictions. It's a very easy thing to do. We must remember that not what we’ve been taught or what our fathers believed or the way we were reared are the standard of Christian behavior, but that the Word of God is. Always! If what we are taught is not in accordance with the principles de clared in the Bible, then we’d better revise our stand ards and our thinking in accordance with those prin ciples. If we will follow it out we’ll discover that it’ll make some great changes in our lives. The result of this habit of drawing up lists of things which are worldly and making an index of that which is right and which is wrong in the Christian life has been that today nine out of ten Christians have mental lists of “ do’s” and ‘don’ts.” By check ing this list, they blithely determine if they’re world ly or spiritual. They call these lists Christian stand ards! Yet if they were so very important, it’s strange that they’re not mentioned in the Scriptures them selves. Now I don’t want to ridicule certain Christian standards at all. There are necessities along that line, and those standards once arrived at in each individual life must be carefully adhered to. I am not saying that there are no such things as standards but I am saying the method by which we determine those standards must be in accordance with the Word of God and not simply by our upbringing. Now, then, since all the things that are on your particular list (and on mine) are being done by the unsaved worldly people around about us, then there comes a tendency for us, either consciously or un consciously, to avoid temptation by avoiding worldly people. There is a tendency to withdraw, to seek our own crowd, to create our own little separate world which is a world that is as complete as we can make it with recreation and education and all that we need from the cradle to the grave. We create our own smug little airtight circle in which we live and which we’ve set up to run in competition to the worldly world outside of that life. Now the ultimate result of that kind of thinking produced the monasteries that appeared in the Middle
Se Christians, in the light of these passages and because of them, have through the centuries drawn up lists of things they considered worldly. The trou ble was that their ideas differed very widely along this score. Whenever they had any trouble with some tempta tion, some particular type of recreation or some type of work where trouble occurred, they learned a les son from it or thought they did and wrote that thing down as worldly. So there came into being a great many different lists of worldly things, because of the different situations. As a result of this, you have today certain folks in the South called the “ Hook-and-Eye Baptists.” They got that name because they believe that but tons are worldly, and that the proper way to fasten your clothing is with a hook and eye. So the button- wearing folks are worldly in their estimation and the hook-and-eye people are spiritual. You find standards differing widely in Christian circles about other things. Drinking of beer among professing Christians is very normal in places like Germany, and Christians over there think nothing at all about having a glass of beer with their meals. No one there thinks they're not spiritual because of it. But in this country it's quite a different matter. In this country among Christians beer-drinking is almost always considered a worldly thing. I’ve been in parts of this country where people regarded with horror mixed bathing, when boys and girls went swimming together. Yet in most places, here in the West "at least, mixed bathing is not frowned upon at all. We consider it quite a normal, natural thing. There are places in this world today where lip stick is called “ devil’s grease" because it’s thought the devil is behind the lipstick business. I’ve met people who thought that drinking coffee was a ter ribly worldly thing. Now I’ve mentioned things that some of us would laugh at as being considered worldly. I haven't men tioned any of the things that are on our lists. The point I want you to see is that these people are just as disturbed about these things as you are about the things on your list. The result is that these ideas have been passed on from generation to gen eration. We all have a tendency to think that the things
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