Dear church family,
This week’s devotional is about the exhortation and warning that the apostle John issued to the first-century churches. In effect, John wrote to them with a similar warning to that which James issued to the churches when he urged them to consider, “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?” (James 4:4) The apostle John warned his “little children” about the dangers associated with friendship with or loving the world. He urged:
15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. (1 John 2:15-17)
The Puritan William Greenhill (1598-1671) in his sermon based on part of this passage (1 John 2:15), “Against Love of the World,” answered the following question, “Now what is it to love the world?”
- To love the world is to highly esteem the world, to have the world in a high account. (Luke 14:12-24)
- We love the world, when we have our thoughts much upon the world, what any persons love, that their thoughts are much upon. (Phil. 3:19)
- Men are said to love the world when their desires are after the world. What men and women love; they desire much; their desires are strong that way and run after those things. (Exod. 20:17)
- The love of the world is in this, in setting the heart upon the things of the world. (Psa. 62:10; Hos. 4:17; Col. 3:2)
- We are said to love the world, when we employ the chiefest, or most of our strength, in, and upon, and about the things of the world. (John 6:27; Rom. 13:14)
- We are said to love the world, as when we do watch all opportunities and occasions to get the things of the world; to buy cheap, and sell dear, to get great estates, and houses, and lands, and things of that nature. (Prov. 18:10-11) So then, we love the world when we watch [for] advantages, and hover over the things of the world, to get something to rest upon, and confide in, and trust in, and secure ourselves by.
- We love the world when we can endure great hardships for it and the things of it. That which we love, we will endure anything to accomplish it. So, when men can endure great difficulties, and run through great dangers, and venture upon anything to get the world, they do love the world. (Psal. 107:23-27)
- Men love the world when they savour much, or most, of the world. When they savour most of the world in their discourses, and the things of the world, they are of the world. He that is of the earth, is earthly: when men are of the earth, worldly, and love the world; they are earthly, and speak of the earth, and savour the things of the earth. (John 3:31)
- A man loves the world, when he does mourn and lament for the things of the world being taken from him. That which we love, we mourn when we lose it.
- Lastly, we are said to love the world, when they are resolved to be rich, and will have the world one way or other; they will have the world –by hook or by crook— (as we use to say) 1 Tim. 6:9, ‘They that will be rich,’ they are resolved to be rich, and to have the world whatsoever comes of it. These men love the world indeed.[1]
William Greenhill, in very typical Puritan fashion, has given us a handy set of tests, whereby we can judge whether we are loving the world or the Lord. Read over the list again slowly. Our hearts are very prone to pursue the “pleasures, profits, and honors” of this world rather than join in suffering with Christ or the self-denial he calls us to. In what ways has your life demonstrated these persistent tendencies to wander?
Have a blessed week and we will see some of you on Sunday.
In what service I can,
Pastor Dale