If you have to have a new car every year in order to keep up with the style, that’s worldliness, pure and simple. If you need it in your business, you’re honest about it and you really need it, that’s another matter entirely. For this reason no one else can sit in judgment on you on this matter. But the Lord knows the heart, and if you have the car just because you’re trying to keep in style, you’re worldly! If you are hurt because people don't notice you, that’s worldliness! If a TV program conflicts with something that you know the Lord wants you to do, your attendance at church or prayer meeting or something else, that’s worldliness! You've chosen that, you see, in place of the Lord’s will. Now I’m not trying to make up new lists in this article. What I’m trying to do is to show you that everything can be worldly just as everything can be spiritual. This is a tremendously important point. Read what John says. “ All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh” (that includes eating and drink ing and sleeping and wearing clothes or anything else your body wants to do), “ all that is in the world, the lust of the eyes” (that includes the desire for anything that you want to buy or possess, whether it's good, bad or indifferent), ail “ the pride of life” (or the vainglory of life, the fighting for station and for promotion and for advancement and all the other things), “ all that is in the world, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” Now what does he mean by that? He means that everything is worldly, if your attitude is worldly. On the other hand, if your attitude is that of the Father, nothing is worldly. You see what he’s getting at? That’s why the Apostle Paul could say and did say, “ All things are lawful to me. But there are only three restrictions: I will not be brought under the power of any, all things are not profitable for me, and all things do not help other people.” Those are the only restrictions. Everything else is fine. Now you can’t make up lists. Each of you may have your own personal areas in which you feel, un der the guidance of God, you cannot enter. There are certain things you cannot do or do not want to do, not because you think the church will frown on it, but because you feel that’s not the Lord’s place for you personally. But that must be decided individually. What makes a thing worldly? Listen to John again, “ All that is in the world . . . is not of the Father. . . .’’ That’s the thing. You exclude the Father out of your
thinking and when you do that, you’re worldly no matter what you’re doing. You’ve done some act or taken some step or made some plan without the Father, without taking Him into consideration and seeking His guidance on it. That’s worldliness, no matter if it ’s a completely innocent thing in itself. So the making of lists only increases worldliness. It makes it worse because we let down our guard about the things that are off the list, and as a result we become saturated, we become steeped in worldly thinking, worldly acts and worldly deeds. Building walls does not shut it out, any more than building a wall or a fence around your backyard will keep the weeds out of your garden. In order to have the weeds out of your garden, you’ve got to cultivate it and plant it with good seed or it’ll produce weeds forever. Now the third great result of this type of think ing is a total or partial loss of the spirit of sacrifice in our lives. When we avoid worldly people because we’re trying to avoid worldliness, we also lose most of our opportunity to sacrifice for Christ’s sake. The result is, and I’ve seen it and you have too, that this process of withdrawing into our own little watertight Christian circle of affairs results in people who be come insensitive and unsympathetic, smug and com placent in their thoughts and in their lives. We can get all worked up over missionaries 10 or 12 thousand miles away, but people living right next door to us can be perishing in their spiritual agony and we do nothing. That’s worldliness. It results from this business of thinking we can live our own lives; that we can withdraw from the world and create our own little tight circles and live within them. We have changed the Lords’ words “ Go ye,” into “ Send ye," and we think if we're sending out people into the mission field, that’s the adequate answer to our own responsibility. But the Lord didn’t say that. He said, “ Go ye into all the world.” I don’t think He meant that only geographically. I think He meant that from the standpoint of going into all the ways of the world, into all the thinking of the world, into all the attitudes of the world, in order that you might understand and have some sympathy with the poor dying souls who live next door to you that are in the world and lost in the world. I think this is one of the most tragic things about our Christian lives. We become disobedient Chris tians, you see. We forget our own personal respon-
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