Will You Come Out of Trouble?
Dr. Dennis Corle
Dr. Corle is the Editor and Publisher of Revival Fires
“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, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passeth away and the lusts thereof but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.” (I John 2:15-17)
What God says about the world. By the way, when He says, “Love not the world...” He’s not talking about the planet, or the human race. The word “world” in scripture is not talking about a place; it is talking about a philosophy, a way of life. Proof? In Genesis 1:1 we read, “In the beginning God created the heaven and...” the world, right? No, He created the heaven and the earth. Earth is a place, the world is a philosophy of life governed by Satan. I’ll give you some verses to prove that in these opening comments.
But the world is not referring to a place. Rather, it’s a philosophy based upon the temporal, not the eternal, the physical, not the spiritual. It’s all about what gratifies the flesh, not what glorifies God. Not the unseen, but the seen.
Second Corinthians 4:18 says, “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” We are supposed to be serving the invisible God. We see Him with the eye of faith, through the lens of the Scriptures He is described, and we can have contact and communion with God in that manner. But the world is a philosophy.
In Ephesians 2 is more evidence. “And you hath he quickened...” or made alive “...who were dead in trespasses in sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:” When you were dead spiritually -- pre-salvation -- you just floated down stream with the flow of society, like any dead fish. Now that you’ve been quickened or made alive, you’re supposed to swim against the current, and not be swept along by the current with the rest of the world.
We are warned about the ‘course of this world.’ A water course has defined banks, and those banks dictate when the water turns and which direction it goes. The Bible says there is a course of the world, and it causes people to do things because they are just going with the flow.
This thing called ‘the world’ is going to come to a screeching halt one day. The human race is not going to come to a screeching halt; the planet won’t either. But in Matthew 24:3, a passage a lot of people can’t figure out, the key to that passage is verse 3, where the disciples asked Jesus three questions, and He answered the questions in the order they were asked, not in the order the events will take place. This passage in Matthew 24 is not chronological; it is the answer to the three questions in the same order they were asked. Jesus told them in verse 2 that the time will come when one stone of the Temple will not be upon the other. They asked, “When shall these things be?” That’s going to happen during the tribulation.
Second question. “What shall be the sign of thy coming?” There is no sign for the Rapture. But a little later in that chapter it says where the eagles gather on the carcasses. He’s talking about Revelation 19, the battle of Armageddon and the feast of the birds that are feasting on kings and great men. Then He answers the third question, “and the end of the world.”
The Rapture is going to end this world as we know it. It’s not the end of the Earth, the place. It’s the end of worldliness and carnality, the end of living for the flesh and the temporal, the end of hedonism and pleasure seeking. When the Rapture takes place, it’s the end of what we were talking about in 1 John 2:16, where people are living for the gratification of their flesh. Immediately after the Rapture things begin to deteriorate, and the people left behind are just in survival mode, trying to stay alive for one more day. They are no longer living for carnal pleasures and gratification of the flesh; they are in survival mode. So, He talks about the end of the world.
In Mark 8:36, He says, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul. Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” If a man could gain the whole world, all the wealth, all the fame of the world, all the power of the world, all the prestige of the world: so what if he gains all of that and loses his own soul? Such a worldly man lives for the temporal, for the things of this life, and does not prepare for the certainty of death. There is nothing you could gain from this ungodly world that is worth the price of losing your soul.
So, He tells us in II Corinthians 4:3-4, “But if our Gospel be hid, it’s hid to them that are lost; In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” Don’t forget Ephesians 2:2, where He says that in times past ye walked according to the course of this world. When you did that you were under the authority of the prince of the power of the air, the god of this world’s system. Satan is not the God of the planet, but he is certainly the god or the force behind the evil, behind the flow of society that pulls us away from God, and away from truth. He instigates and empowers that.
You were under the authority of the prince of the power of the air; you were a child of disobedience. When I’m living worldly, I’m a child of disobedience. I have put myself under the authority of the god of this world, and I’m being manipulated or controlled by him, by Satan. “You mean you’re not saved?” I didn’t say that. I said you’re being controlled, and you have now submitted yourself to the authority of the god of this world instead of the God of eternity, and creation, and salvation.
In James 4:4 we read, “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.” He said when I’m yoked up with the world and have a bond with the world then I’m unequally yoked, and I am at enmity, conflict, war with God. I’m in an adversarial position. I’m going against God when I go with the flow of society.
Remember what we are told in Galatians 1:4, about Christ who redeemed us? “Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father.” It’s the will of God that I be delivered -- not just from hell when I die, but from this present evil world. He had more in mind than just a fire escape from hell when He died on Calvary. It not only had to do with my final destiny, but it also had to do with my present walk, my journey on my way to that destiny.
Second Peter 1:4 says we have been made partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. He said that we now have the capacity to live in victory; we don’t have to succumb to the lusts of the flesh, but we had no choice when we were lost, because we were dead spiritually. We did not have the indwelling of the Spirit of God; we had not yet been made new creatures in Christ. We were subservient to our father, the devil. According to John 8:48, he was the authority and he’s still going to try to influence us, but I now have the divine nature so I have a choice. I have been purchased with blood. I now am a new creature in Christ; so I now have the capacity to overcome that temptation and lust that seeks to govern me.
Romans 12 is a great passage that deals with consecration, though it does not use the word. It says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” He said, “Be not conformed to this world.” Conformity is to take on the outward appearance. It’s for them to press their image on us, or pressure us into their mold. It’s for us to blend in and become part of the flow of society that is moving away from God.
Honestly, a lot of Christians are secret disciples. They are seen through a camouflage, the fact that they are a born again people. They are conformed to the world like Daniel’s friends. When those young people were carried away to Babylon, 9,996 compromised. Only four took a stand. 9,996 is the majority, isn’t it? By the time it was finished, they all owed their lives to those four young men who stayed close to their God, and stayed separate to their God, and did not allow themselves to be swallowed up into the Babylonian culture.
You and I need to be careful not to be swallowed up into the culture of this pagan, godless world that’s based on nothing but the visible and the temporal and the things that gratify the flesh. The things that are sensual. All of them are not wrong. I smell and taste food and that’s a sense of the body. They are physical temporal things also.
But here’s the problem. Luke 8:14 talks about the pleasures of this life. A lot of the time, the pleasures of this life, they choke the word. A vacation is not wrong. But I know people that go play every weekend and skip church. All of a sudden what wasn’t wrong is now wrong, because of your priority on it above obedience to God. You put it in the premium spot and God, according to Colossians 1, is supposed to have the preeminence in everything. We get so wrapped up in money and success and recreation and relaxation that it becomes our idol and we allow it to come before the Lord and serving Him.
When success is the most important thing to us, I’m convinced it is an idol. Most business owners, they struggle and sacrifice when they are starting out, but they were in church regularly and begging the Lord to bless their business and their family and depending on the Lord to help them make it. Then all of a sudden they succeeded and the money is coming in and business is booming, and they are no longer struggling. You would think that would cause them to be thankful to God and want to please Him and live for Him and invite the blessing of God to continue in their life and family.
But that’s not usually how it works. Many times the born again person with a business who has struggled and sacrificed and prayed to get it going, now that the thing has grown, they don’t have time to come to church because their business demands all their time and attention. “We need to go relax and have fun every Sunday because we worked so hard all week; that means we have to go play all weekend. I am making it pretty good without begging God for His blessing on my business and my family now. I have too much money, so I have to go spend some of it.” You better watch out! Lots of people who invest their lives in a business to support their family, once the business begins to prosper, they end up losing their family and their business, and losing God’s blessing on their lives.
Mark her down, when it’s all said and done, prosperity has destroyed as many or more Christians as adversity has. It does it in a different fashion, but worldliness is a big problem. Unscriptural priorities and values are a huge problem. In John 8:29, Jesus told the disciples that, because ye are in the world, but not of the world, the world hates you. But if the world hates you, it hated Me first. The problem is not you, the problem is Christ.
But He said that the world hates you; the planet doesn’t hate me. It’s not the whole human race. Who is it that hates guys like Charlie Kirk? It’s the world. It’s the powers and principalities of this world that is ruled by Satan. It’s the people gone away from God, and they are offended that somebody would dare to tell them they’re wrong and the Bible is right. Take a Bible and tell them, “What you’re doing is sin.”
When they do, the devil’s crowd responds like they did with Stephen. They couldn’t argue with him. The Bible says that they couldn’t resist the wisdom and spirit by which he spake. What did they do? They killed him. They can’t defeat his arguments, so they silence his voice. That was a mistake in Stephen’s day, and that was just a mistake on their end in our nation, too. The Bible tells us about the children of Israel when they were in bondage in Egypt, that the more they afflicted them, the more they increased.
Prosperity has never been the friend of Christianity. Adversity has done far more to escalate Christianity than prosperity ever will. When people are prosperous, they get comfortable, they get apathetic, they get distracted. When there is hardship they get on their face and get in this Book and get to the house of God. It makes a difference.
Our text tells us very clearly that the world is speaking of those who put the temporal -- their philosophy of life, their values -- the temporal above the eternal. The values of the seen above the unseen. The world values the carnal above the spiritual. It goes with the flow of society and just rolls over with them. It’s all about the gratification of the flesh, not the glorification of God. It is self-serving, not God serving. That’s the world.
THE WORLD IS A THIEF TO STEAL YOUR AFFECTION FROM GOD.
God said in verse 15, “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.” Do you realize how strong that statement is? God said you can’t be in love with the world and love Me. It’s not possible. God and the world’s system are diametrically opposed. I’m going in the opposite direction. I’m a holy God, and the world is an unholy place.
You have to be willing to go against the flow, separate from the world, come out from among them and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you. That communion with God is the result of separation unto Him.
The very first thing He tells us in verse 15 is that the world is a thief to steal your affection from God. Love not the world, neither the things in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
In Matthew 22:35-36, the scribes and Pharisees were hypocritically questioning Jesus, trying to draw Him into a dispute and asked this question, “What is the great commandment?” In verse 37 and 38, Jesus answered. “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” Does that sound clear? How much does He mean when He says ‘all?’ If the Lord has all of my heart, soul and mind, then how much do I give somebody else? How much does the world get? Truth is, I’m supposed to love Him with a spiritual love, all my heart. And I’m supposed to love Him with an emotional love, all my soul. I’m supposed to love him with an intellectual love, with all my mind. I’m supposed to love him with all my strength, we see in Mark 12:30. That has to do with my actions and works, acts of obedience.
John 14:15 says, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” First John 5:3, “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.” He’s not talking about grudging duty here; He’s talking to us about glad-hearted obedience. I don’t HAVE too; I actually GET too. That’s the mindset and attitude of the obedient heart. It is a heart that aims to please, and God wants me to love Him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength.
That doesn’t do anything for all these carnal things. Now I understand that you have to eat to live, and you have to go get a job and work to support your family and pay your bills. It’s not wrong to take a day and go somewhere for rest and relaxation or visiting with relatives, just not the Lord’s Day.
We go to work all week, so why don’t we take a day off of work? “Oh, I couldn’t miss work! We have to have the money.” But you don’t need God, right? Oh, but they think that they are so close to God when they disobey. They have convinced themselves that God agrees with them on skipping church all the time.
In John 21, Jesus has been taken away from the disciples. Peter got discouraged and said, “I go a fishing.” He wasn’t talking about wetting a line for some R&R. He was quitting the ministry and going back to his fishing business. The others said, “We also go with thee.”
Listen to me friend, and listen close. If you have a strong personality, you are dangerous! You had better be very careful. Peter was the most outspoken of the disciples, the strongest personality of the 12. But John was the most devoted believer, the closest inner circle disciple and the one who leaned upon His breast. John recognized Him first and said, “It is the Lord.” They had fished all night and caught nothing, and the next morning when Jesus was waiting on the shore with fish cooked, guess who was onboard the ship with Peter? Yes, it was John. I would hate to have the distinction that I messed up the best Christian I knew, just because I had a strong personality and the ability to influence people. But that’s what happened. The strongest personality influenced the best Christian away from following the Lord and doing right, and it can still happen.
The Bible tells us when Jesus asked, “Children, have ye any meat?” John says, “Peter, it’s the Lord.” Peter put his fishing coat on, because he was naked. Have you ever noticed that when people start backsliding, they start peeling their clothes off? Showing more flesh and more flesh and more flesh.
But the Bible tells us that Jesus asked Peter three times, “Lovest thou me more than these?” I love the Lord, preacher. Yep, Peter said he loved the Lord, too. But Jesus said, “Lovest thou me MORE than these?” He wasn’t talking about these other people, these disciples. He was talking about, “Do you love me more than these fish? Lovest thou me more than these boats? Lovest thou me more than these waters? Lovest thou me more than this occupation. Lovest thou me more than this reputation and identity? Lovest thou me more than these?” Well, those are the things that Peter left the ministry to go back to. So apparently there was more affection for that than for the work of God.
People need to be honest with themselves and stop kidding yourself and telling yourself how much you love Jesus while you live in constant disobedience. There’s a LOVE problem there. You’re in love with something other than Him. Something has stolen your affection away from God. I didn’t say that you don’t love Jesus at all, just that there is something else that you love more.
In II Timothy 3:4, scripture mentions people who are “lovers of pleasures MORE than lovers of God.” You are familiar with this passage. Verse 1 says, “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof:...”
Having a form of godliness... You walk on the beach and pick up a seashell, you have picked up a form of sea life, but the living creature is gone. All you have is the shell, or the form. In these last days, all that will be left of many people’s Christianity is the form or the shell. No substance, no life. They claim they love God, but they love pleasure more. “Oh, I love God some...” But there are other things that take preeminence to His will.
Hebrews 10:25 says, “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together ,as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” If you can’t see the day approaching, I’ll get you a seeing eye dog! Truth is, I believe we’re on the cusp of the coming of Christ. I’m anticipating His return at any moment. Things are already in place. There’s nothing that has to happen prophetically, and the whole anti-Christ system exists. The mindset of so many people is globalist. That is the anti-Christ’s kingdom. They are under the influence of the devil. This is not political, it is spiritual. It is preparation for the anti-Christ. Certainly, politics enters the arena, but it’s not just about one side or the other. It’s about Satan preparing people for the devil, and pretending to be the real Christ. But he tells us that they are lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.
Matthew 10:37 says, “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” We are not commanded to hate our family, just to love God more. Do you know how many people are out of church today because of family? Someone in the family got offended at truth, and the whole family is out of church tonight. I’m supposed to love God AND to love my family, but I better love God and better obey God first. If I let my family control me, I won’t help them, I will destroy them in the process and also destroy myself. Lovers of God more than lovers of family. In John 12:43, Jesus is talking about the Scribes and Pharisees, these religious leaders. “For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.” Oh, they love God some, they just love some other things more than they love the Lord.
Colossians 3:2, tells us, “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.” Stop and think about that for a moment. We have things called thermometers, and if you take a thermometer and put it in a deep freeze, it drops to the temperature it’s exposed to. If you take the same thermometer and put it in an oven it rises to the temperature it is exposed to. It is completely controlled by the environment it’s exposed to. Then we have something we call thermostats. You set the thermostat, and it dictates the atmosphere and infuses the atmosphere with what it is set on. The environment is controlled by what it is set on.
I’m supposed to set my affection on things above, and not allow my affection to be stolen away by all the shiny objects that Satan dangles in front of me. There are many of those in this world. The Bible tells us about Demas in Philemon 1:24, Paul says Demas is my fellow servant. He is laboring shoulder to shoulder with the great apostle Paul. But in II Timothy 4:10, Paul says, “For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry.” Demas hath forsaken me. Here’s a guy that was serving shoulder to shoulder with Paul, but he was looking at the world. Like Lot’s wife coming out of Sodom, but looking over her shoulder with affection. Demas is actually serving God with Paul, but his eyes are on the world.
How do you know? You don’t fall in love with what you’re not looking at. If you didn’t see it, you definitely didn’t fall in love with it. The Bible tells us although he was doing all the RIGHT stuff, he was looking at all the wrong stuff. In Hebrews 12:2, the Bible says, “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith;...” Have you ever noticed that if you don’t look where you’re going, you end up going where you’re looking? Start gawking at a herd of deer on the side of the road, and eventually you’re driving off the road.
I’m supposed to be focused intentionally, setting my affection. Maybe we need to turn our eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of his glory and grace. He’s supposed to have my affection, my attention. Don’t let the world steal your affection for God. I’m supposed to love Him with all my soul, heart, mind, and strength. If I love the world and the things of the world, it’s not even possible.
“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, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passeth away and the lusts thereof but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.” Verse16 mentions everything that’s in the world, it ignites my carnal nature. It gratifies, it enflames and gets my carnal nature stirred up. It’s the lust of the flesh, for the world appeals to my flesh. It appeals to my eyes with all of its shiny objects.
It appeals to elevating me in self-gratification: pride. The root of all sin is pride. The first sin was a result of pride. Lucifer, the son of the morning, his heart was lifted in pride, and he said, “I will…” You just exercise your will against God’s will, and its sin. What the devil told Eve, If you’ll eat the fruit, you’ll be wise like God, and you won’t need Him anymore. You’ll be as gods knowing good and evil.”
Self-elevation, pride, independence from God, lack of accountability. Do you know what atheists want? They want to burn the candle at both ends, blow the smoke in the face of God, and face no consequence. I hate to tell them they can live in Lala Land, Fantasyland if they like, but they WILL give account because the Bible tells us in Philippians 2:10, “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
You can either bow the knee now and trust Jesus Christ, or you can do it later at the judgment. But you’re going to bow the knee. If you bow your knee at the Great White Throne Judgment you are already condemned to hell forever; it won’t change anything, but you will bow the knee. If I were you, I would bow tonight, if it hasn’t been settled.
The world is a corrupt set of values that ignites my carnal nature. Galatians 5:17, “For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that you cannot do the things that ye would.” Undoubtedly you have heard this little poem. “Two natures struggle in my breast, The one is foul, the other blessed. The new I love, the old I hate; The one I feed will dominate.” Undoubtedly, we do too much feeding of the flesh and then try to lead a spiritual life.
You can’t feed the flesh and be spiritual. The flesh has to be crucified. In I Corinthians 15:31, Paul said, “...I die daily.” He wasn’t talking about physical death; he had to crucify that carnal flesh daily so that he could live in victory. The flesh lusts against the Spirit. It wants nothing but the temporal, the visible, the physical, the sensual, the things of this life, the pleasures of this life, it has NO Spiritual desire. The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.
Paul says, in Romans 7, “For I know that in me, (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing; for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
We read in Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Now we have the capacity to walk after Spirit instead of the flesh. We have that capacity, but it is not automatic. Just like salvation, Christ died for everybody, but everybody is not saved. It’s for ‘whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ Everybody who is saved has the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. They have the capacity to live in victory over the flesh. You don’t have to live a worldly life. You can actually live in victory if you choose too.
Romans 8:4, “That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” The carnal mind cannot please God. They that are in the flesh cannot please God because the carnal mind is enmity against God.
Then we see something about the world being at enmity against God. Well, the world inflames my carnal nature. My carnal nature gravitates to the world and worldliness. If I don’t do something about that old fallen nature, I’m going to do what the book of Philemon tells us Demas did. I’ll be doing all the right stuff, while I’m looking at all the wrong stuff. It draws me away from God, and it’s just a matter of time until I go where I’m looking.
So, then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. They that are in the flesh are living worldly lives. They are living for the gratification of the flesh. They are living for the visible, the physical, the temporal, the sensual desires, the right ones and wrong ones. Some of the pleasures of this life are not sinful in nature, but they will choke the word. You get so wrapped up in the temporal that it chokes the life out of you spiritually. You don’t have time for God, or the things of God.
Worldliness reveals itself in music, in attire, in one’s associations, and entertainment. All those things are revelations of the fact that they are worldly. Their philosophy dictates those things. It puts those things ahead of spiritual things. Their philosophy is so much deeper than what they wear. They are going with the flow or the course of this world that are under the authority of the prince of the power of the air. They are practicing disobedience to God because you can’t do what the world does and be in tune with God. It’s not possible.
There’s the lust of the flesh, and then there’s the lust of the eyes. Hell and destruction are never full, so the eyes of man are never satisfied. You know, once you start looking at stuff, you can’t see enough of it. Ecclesiastes 1:8 says the eye is not satisfied with seeing. You look and then you want to see more. You see more, and you want to see still more. BUT, if you look long enough, the eye is not satisfied with seeing, it wants to touch. Then it wants to partake of it sooner or later. You think Demas wasn’t looking a long time before he left? Finally, it was just more than he could handle, so he went ahead and left. He was looking for a long time, and it got a grip on him.
In Psalms 101:3, David said, “I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.” He said, “The last time I looked at something forbidden, it got a hold of me and wouldn’t let go.” It was a disaster to him personally, to his family, to the kingdom. It’s always your eyes that start the problem. It really is. Lamentations 3:51, “Mine eye affecteth mine heart...” Every single time, my eye affecteth my heart.
The Bible tells us that Eve first saw that the fruit was pleasant to the eye. I’m sure that the serpent must have taken a bite to convince her it was good for food, because she believed it was good for food. It was pleasant to the eye, and a tree desired to make one wise. So, I’ll be wise like God and I won’t need to be under God because I’ll be able to think for myself. The very thing that made a devil out of Lucifer is what he convinced her would make her free. The very thing that made a devil out of him is what he tries to convince you will set you free.
The whole reason we need to be saved is worded in Isaiah 53:6, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his OWN way.” The devil doesn’t try to get me to join a witch coven, or the occult. He just says, “Do anything but that! Don’t serve God. Do your own thing.” Doesn’t that sound gratifying? If you don’t want to be a woman, just go ahead and be a man, even though you were genetically born a woman. Somebody needs to tell these people “You’re in fantasy land!” Your gender is not in your brain; it’s in your body type, and God dictated what your body type is before you were born. You have to get content with it. It won’t matter if you cut body parts off, get surgery, take medicines and hormones. You’re still what you were when you were born. The only thing is, you’re much more miserable. Check with these transitioned people who are trying to transition back. They aren’t getting much attention.
The Bible says Achan saw the wedge of silver and gold and the Babylonish garment. He coveted and took and hid it in the tent, after God said all the spoils were holy to the Lord. He paid for that sin and his family with him. Achan’s whole family was destroyed because of his decision.
Adam and Eve introduced sin into the world, and like Achan, it started with what she saw. The Bible tells us that when Abraham and Lot parted ways, Lot cast his eyes toward Sodom and pitched his tent towards Sodom. Before it was done, he lost everything a saved man could possibly lose. He lost it all. You can’t lose eternal life, and the Bible describes him as a just man whose righteous soul was vexed daily with the filthy conversation of the wicked. His whole family was destroyed as the result.
The pride of life. Pride is the root of all sin. Pride is self-elevation -- because I’m proud I decide that I’m entitled! The whole world should let me have my way. It’s not about anybody else, not about God, not about right and wrong. It’s all about me! Self-elevation entitlement is the issue that’s in question in this thing of pride.
We find that the world is a thief to steal your affection away from God. The world is a corrupt set of values to ignite your carnal nature, to enflame you and get you so riled up carnally that there’s nothing spiritual left. Then the world is a promise without fulfillment, and the world passeth away.
In Matthew 24:3 a question was asked about the end of the world, and Jesus answered it at the end of verses 24 and 25. Now remember, the end of the world is not the end of the planet. Instead it is when this world’s system and living for sin and flesh comes to a screeching halt. That will be when the Rapture takes place. The Rapture will end all this carnality and gratifying of the flesh and throw the whole world into survival mode.
Read Revelation 6 and forward. When Jesus comes in chapter 4, you have the Judgment Seat of Christ. Chapter 6 is happening simultaneously on the earth, and antichrist comes on the scene, and the whole thing begins to unravel. They are looking for a peacemaker, someone to bring peace, protect them and unite them. He comes on the scene as the false Christ. Common sense and logic tells you, the only thing that would cause world leaders to yield their powers to one man is if something catastrophic happens.
The Rapture is going to be a catastrophic event to the entire world. It’s the greatest day of our lives as born again Christians, but it’s a catastrophic event to all those who will be left behind. They are disconnected, they don’t know it’s the Rapture. They think we’ve been attacked from outer space or something. All these millions of people are missing with no explanation and everything’s in chaos. Everybody’s blaming everybody. Americans are missing, Chinese are missing, Russians are missing, and everybody is going to start pointing fingers and missiles at everybody else. It will be easy for the antichrist to come on the scene as the false Christ, and he is going to get them behind him.
The end of the world. Since the world and worldliness has an end, it can’t keep its promises. Why did Jesus have to rise from the dead? First Corinthians 15:17, “And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.” If Christ be not risen from the dead, “...we are of all men most miserable.” A dead man can’t save me. He can die for me. But if He does not rise and conquer death then He cannot guarantee me a resurrection. He has to be alive to save. He not only had to die as my Substitute; He also had to rise again.
The world passeth away. When the world passes away, then everything it promises passes away too. It’s a cloud without rain, a promise without fulfillment. We have guys that call themselves preachers today, that promote carnality, worldliness, and tell people they are going to set them free. Set them free from all these oppressive legalists. They are ‘Recovering Fundamentalists.’ They have to recover from the truth. If truth damaged you, you are a little too fragile to hang around me. You might bump into me and fall to pieces. These liberals try to make it sound like any restrictive principle is bad.
Understand that laws are governing principles. The only reason we have liberty in America is because we have the Constitution, and it is the law of the land, though some politicians would like to totally ignore it. The Constitution was not designed to grant liberty; it was designed to limit government so they would not intrude upon our God-given liberty.
Psalms 16:11 tells us there are pleasures at His right hand forevermore. I don’t have to have carnal pleasures. Hebrews 11:25 talks about the pleasures of sin for a season. I do not have to do those things. There is a pleasure that begins now and lasts forever. It is to be at God’s right hand. Have you ever heard someone say, “This person is my right-hand man.” I would like to be at God’s right hand. Available, close, yielded, easy access to me. Where I can be used and usable. That’s where God wants us to be.
These worldly preachers turn the grace of God into lasciviousness. They use liberty for an occasion to the flesh. They turn love into leniency. Hebrews 12:5 says, “And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.”
They promise what they cannot give, but you cannot give what you do not have. Second Peter 2:17, “These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever. For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.” They allure through the lusts of the flesh. He said they promise them something they cannot give, and that they are going to set them free. They allure through the lust of the flesh.
In other words, you can dress any way you want, you can listen to any music you want. You are under grace. That is the kind of statements they make.
Listen to me, friend. Grace is holy like the law is holy. Grace does not nullify the law. It gives me the power to fulfill the righteousness that is in the law if I walk in the Spirit. Second Peter 2:19, “While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.” When you live worldly, you are enslaved by the world. When you live for God, you are under the authority and administration of God. Thank God that that is not slavery. There’s liberty spiritually, but there is restriction, there is leadership, there are governing principles to it.
After they have escaped the pollutions of the world, now they are again drawn back into the pollutions of the world by some guy that calls himself a preacher. Shame on these guys. They are going to give account to God. Hear me and hear me well. The world is a thief to steal your affection from God. The world is a set of carnal values that enflames you and stirs your flesh. Worldliness feeds your flesh, gratifies it, ignites, enflames you to do the wrong stuff. The world is a promise without fulfillment. It promises everything God promises, but it is incapable of delivering because it passeth away. God does not pass away. The Book does not pass away. The Holy Spirit does not pass away. The souls of just men made perfect do not pass away.
So, God wants us to separate from the world. He wants us to understand what the world is. This is not just about how I dress or what I watch on TV. If your philosophy of life is right, and your values are right, then your convictions are right. Nobody has to shame you to get you to do the right thing when your convictions are right. You’re doing this to protect yourself, and to please your Heavenly Father. You’re doing this as insulation from the world. Not isolation, insulation.
God help us to be a separated people. Separated, not just from sin, but from the world. We’re supposed to lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us. I’m definitely supposed to separate from sin, but worldliness sometimes just has to do with all these weights I have collected that keep me from serving God. It has to do with my values putting temporal things ahead of eternal things. I justify stuff because there are no verses that say ‘thou shalt not do this!’ But there is a verse that says you should not do this on Sunday, because that’s the Lord’s Day, and we are commanded to assemble with the church.
God help us not to be a worldly people, but a godly people, separated unto God, and serving Him from our hearts.
What God says about the world. By the way, when He says, “Love not the world...” He’s not talking about the planet, or the human race. The word “world” in scripture is not talking about a place; it is talking about a philosophy, a way of life. Proof? In Genesis 1:1 we read, “In the beginning God created the heaven and...” the world, right? No, He created the heaven and the earth. Earth is a place, the world is a philosophy of life governed by Satan. I’ll give you some verses to prove that in these opening comments.
But the world is not referring to a place. Rather, it’s a philosophy based upon the temporal, not the eternal, the physical, not the spiritual. It’s all about what gratifies the flesh, not what glorifies God. Not the unseen, but the seen.
Second Corinthians 4:18 says, “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” We are supposed to be serving the invisible God. We see Him with the eye of faith, through the lens of the Scriptures He is described, and we can have contact and communion with God in that manner. But the world is a philosophy.
In Ephesians 2 is more evidence. “And you hath he quickened...” or made alive “...who were dead in trespasses in sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:” When you were dead spiritually -- pre-salvation -- you just floated down stream with the flow of society, like any dead fish. Now that you’ve been quickened or made alive, you’re supposed to swim against the current, and not be swept along by the current with the rest of the world.
We are warned about the ‘course of this world.’ A water course has defined banks, and those banks dictate when the water turns and which direction it goes. The Bible says there is a course of the world, and it causes people to do things because they are just going with the flow.
This thing called ‘the world’ is going to come to a screeching halt one day. The human race is not going to come to a screeching halt; the planet won’t either. But in Matthew 24:3, a passage a lot of people can’t figure out, the key to that passage is verse 3, where the disciples asked Jesus three questions, and He answered the questions in the order they were asked, not in the order the events will take place. This passage in Matthew 24 is not chronological; it is the answer to the three questions in the same order they were asked. Jesus told them in verse 2 that the time will come when one stone of the Temple will not be upon the other. They asked, “When shall these things be?” That’s going to happen during the tribulation.
Second question. “What shall be the sign of thy coming?” There is no sign for the Rapture. But a little later in that chapter it says where the eagles gather on the carcasses. He’s talking about Revelation 19, the battle of Armageddon and the feast of the birds that are feasting on kings and great men. Then He answers the third question, “and the end of the world.”
The Rapture is going to end this world as we know it. It’s not the end of the Earth, the place. It’s the end of worldliness and carnality, the end of living for the flesh and the temporal, the end of hedonism and pleasure seeking. When the Rapture takes place, it’s the end of what we were talking about in 1 John 2:16, where people are living for the gratification of their flesh. Immediately after the Rapture things begin to deteriorate, and the people left behind are just in survival mode, trying to stay alive for one more day. They are no longer living for carnal pleasures and gratification of the flesh; they are in survival mode. So, He talks about the end of the world.
In Mark 8:36, He says, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul. Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” If a man could gain the whole world, all the wealth, all the fame of the world, all the power of the world, all the prestige of the world: so what if he gains all of that and loses his own soul? Such a worldly man lives for the temporal, for the things of this life, and does not prepare for the certainty of death. There is nothing you could gain from this ungodly world that is worth the price of losing your soul.
So, He tells us in II Corinthians 4:3-4, “But if our Gospel be hid, it’s hid to them that are lost; In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” Don’t forget Ephesians 2:2, where He says that in times past ye walked according to the course of this world. When you did that you were under the authority of the prince of the power of the air, the god of this world’s system. Satan is not the God of the planet, but he is certainly the god or the force behind the evil, behind the flow of society that pulls us away from God, and away from truth. He instigates and empowers that.
You were under the authority of the prince of the power of the air; you were a child of disobedience. When I’m living worldly, I’m a child of disobedience. I have put myself under the authority of the god of this world, and I’m being manipulated or controlled by him, by Satan. “You mean you’re not saved?” I didn’t say that. I said you’re being controlled, and you have now submitted yourself to the authority of the god of this world instead of the God of eternity, and creation, and salvation.
In James 4:4 we read, “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.” He said when I’m yoked up with the world and have a bond with the world then I’m unequally yoked, and I am at enmity, conflict, war with God. I’m in an adversarial position. I’m going against God when I go with the flow of society.
Remember what we are told in Galatians 1:4, about Christ who redeemed us? “Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father.” It’s the will of God that I be delivered -- not just from hell when I die, but from this present evil world. He had more in mind than just a fire escape from hell when He died on Calvary. It not only had to do with my final destiny, but it also had to do with my present walk, my journey on my way to that destiny.
Second Peter 1:4 says we have been made partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. He said that we now have the capacity to live in victory; we don’t have to succumb to the lusts of the flesh, but we had no choice when we were lost, because we were dead spiritually. We did not have the indwelling of the Spirit of God; we had not yet been made new creatures in Christ. We were subservient to our father, the devil. According to John 8:48, he was the authority and he’s still going to try to influence us, but I now have the divine nature so I have a choice. I have been purchased with blood. I now am a new creature in Christ; so I now have the capacity to overcome that temptation and lust that seeks to govern me.
Romans 12 is a great passage that deals with consecration, though it does not use the word. It says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” He said, “Be not conformed to this world.” Conformity is to take on the outward appearance. It’s for them to press their image on us, or pressure us into their mold. It’s for us to blend in and become part of the flow of society that is moving away from God.
Honestly, a lot of Christians are secret disciples. They are seen through a camouflage, the fact that they are a born again people. They are conformed to the world like Daniel’s friends. When those young people were carried away to Babylon, 9,996 compromised. Only four took a stand. 9,996 is the majority, isn’t it? By the time it was finished, they all owed their lives to those four young men who stayed close to their God, and stayed separate to their God, and did not allow themselves to be swallowed up into the Babylonian culture.
You and I need to be careful not to be swallowed up into the culture of this pagan, godless world that’s based on nothing but the visible and the temporal and the things that gratify the flesh. The things that are sensual. All of them are not wrong. I smell and taste food and that’s a sense of the body. They are physical temporal things also.
But here’s the problem. Luke 8:14 talks about the pleasures of this life. A lot of the time, the pleasures of this life, they choke the word. A vacation is not wrong. But I know people that go play every weekend and skip church. All of a sudden what wasn’t wrong is now wrong, because of your priority on it above obedience to God. You put it in the premium spot and God, according to Colossians 1, is supposed to have the preeminence in everything. We get so wrapped up in money and success and recreation and relaxation that it becomes our idol and we allow it to come before the Lord and serving Him.
When success is the most important thing to us, I’m convinced it is an idol. Most business owners, they struggle and sacrifice when they are starting out, but they were in church regularly and begging the Lord to bless their business and their family and depending on the Lord to help them make it. Then all of a sudden they succeeded and the money is coming in and business is booming, and they are no longer struggling. You would think that would cause them to be thankful to God and want to please Him and live for Him and invite the blessing of God to continue in their life and family.
But that’s not usually how it works. Many times the born again person with a business who has struggled and sacrificed and prayed to get it going, now that the thing has grown, they don’t have time to come to church because their business demands all their time and attention. “We need to go relax and have fun every Sunday because we worked so hard all week; that means we have to go play all weekend. I am making it pretty good without begging God for His blessing on my business and my family now. I have too much money, so I have to go spend some of it.” You better watch out! Lots of people who invest their lives in a business to support their family, once the business begins to prosper, they end up losing their family and their business, and losing God’s blessing on their lives.
Mark her down, when it’s all said and done, prosperity has destroyed as many or more Christians as adversity has. It does it in a different fashion, but worldliness is a big problem. Unscriptural priorities and values are a huge problem. In John 8:29, Jesus told the disciples that, because ye are in the world, but not of the world, the world hates you. But if the world hates you, it hated Me first. The problem is not you, the problem is Christ.
But He said that the world hates you; the planet doesn’t hate me. It’s not the whole human race. Who is it that hates guys like Charlie Kirk? It’s the world. It’s the powers and principalities of this world that is ruled by Satan. It’s the people gone away from God, and they are offended that somebody would dare to tell them they’re wrong and the Bible is right. Take a Bible and tell them, “What you’re doing is sin.”
When they do, the devil’s crowd responds like they did with Stephen. They couldn’t argue with him. The Bible says that they couldn’t resist the wisdom and spirit by which he spake. What did they do? They killed him. They can’t defeat his arguments, so they silence his voice. That was a mistake in Stephen’s day, and that was just a mistake on their end in our nation, too. The Bible tells us about the children of Israel when they were in bondage in Egypt, that the more they afflicted them, the more they increased.
Prosperity has never been the friend of Christianity. Adversity has done far more to escalate Christianity than prosperity ever will. When people are prosperous, they get comfortable, they get apathetic, they get distracted. When there is hardship they get on their face and get in this Book and get to the house of God. It makes a difference.
Our text tells us very clearly that the world is speaking of those who put the temporal -- their philosophy of life, their values -- the temporal above the eternal. The values of the seen above the unseen. The world values the carnal above the spiritual. It goes with the flow of society and just rolls over with them. It’s all about the gratification of the flesh, not the glorification of God. It is self-serving, not God serving. That’s the world.
THE WORLD IS A THIEF TO STEAL YOUR AFFECTION FROM GOD.
God said in verse 15, “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.” Do you realize how strong that statement is? God said you can’t be in love with the world and love Me. It’s not possible. God and the world’s system are diametrically opposed. I’m going in the opposite direction. I’m a holy God, and the world is an unholy place.
You have to be willing to go against the flow, separate from the world, come out from among them and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you. That communion with God is the result of separation unto Him.
The very first thing He tells us in verse 15 is that the world is a thief to steal your affection from God. Love not the world, neither the things in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
In Matthew 22:35-36, the scribes and Pharisees were hypocritically questioning Jesus, trying to draw Him into a dispute and asked this question, “What is the great commandment?” In verse 37 and 38, Jesus answered. “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” Does that sound clear? How much does He mean when He says ‘all?’ If the Lord has all of my heart, soul and mind, then how much do I give somebody else? How much does the world get? Truth is, I’m supposed to love Him with a spiritual love, all my heart. And I’m supposed to love Him with an emotional love, all my soul. I’m supposed to love him with an intellectual love, with all my mind. I’m supposed to love him with all my strength, we see in Mark 12:30. That has to do with my actions and works, acts of obedience.
John 14:15 says, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” First John 5:3, “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.” He’s not talking about grudging duty here; He’s talking to us about glad-hearted obedience. I don’t HAVE too; I actually GET too. That’s the mindset and attitude of the obedient heart. It is a heart that aims to please, and God wants me to love Him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength.
That doesn’t do anything for all these carnal things. Now I understand that you have to eat to live, and you have to go get a job and work to support your family and pay your bills. It’s not wrong to take a day and go somewhere for rest and relaxation or visiting with relatives, just not the Lord’s Day.
We go to work all week, so why don’t we take a day off of work? “Oh, I couldn’t miss work! We have to have the money.” But you don’t need God, right? Oh, but they think that they are so close to God when they disobey. They have convinced themselves that God agrees with them on skipping church all the time.
In John 21, Jesus has been taken away from the disciples. Peter got discouraged and said, “I go a fishing.” He wasn’t talking about wetting a line for some R&R. He was quitting the ministry and going back to his fishing business. The others said, “We also go with thee.”
Listen to me friend, and listen close. If you have a strong personality, you are dangerous! You had better be very careful. Peter was the most outspoken of the disciples, the strongest personality of the 12. But John was the most devoted believer, the closest inner circle disciple and the one who leaned upon His breast. John recognized Him first and said, “It is the Lord.” They had fished all night and caught nothing, and the next morning when Jesus was waiting on the shore with fish cooked, guess who was onboard the ship with Peter? Yes, it was John. I would hate to have the distinction that I messed up the best Christian I knew, just because I had a strong personality and the ability to influence people. But that’s what happened. The strongest personality influenced the best Christian away from following the Lord and doing right, and it can still happen.
The Bible tells us when Jesus asked, “Children, have ye any meat?” John says, “Peter, it’s the Lord.” Peter put his fishing coat on, because he was naked. Have you ever noticed that when people start backsliding, they start peeling their clothes off? Showing more flesh and more flesh and more flesh.
But the Bible tells us that Jesus asked Peter three times, “Lovest thou me more than these?” I love the Lord, preacher. Yep, Peter said he loved the Lord, too. But Jesus said, “Lovest thou me MORE than these?” He wasn’t talking about these other people, these disciples. He was talking about, “Do you love me more than these fish? Lovest thou me more than these boats? Lovest thou me more than these waters? Lovest thou me more than this occupation. Lovest thou me more than this reputation and identity? Lovest thou me more than these?” Well, those are the things that Peter left the ministry to go back to. So apparently there was more affection for that than for the work of God.
People need to be honest with themselves and stop kidding yourself and telling yourself how much you love Jesus while you live in constant disobedience. There’s a LOVE problem there. You’re in love with something other than Him. Something has stolen your affection away from God. I didn’t say that you don’t love Jesus at all, just that there is something else that you love more.
In II Timothy 3:4, scripture mentions people who are “lovers of pleasures MORE than lovers of God.” You are familiar with this passage. Verse 1 says, “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof:...”
Having a form of godliness... You walk on the beach and pick up a seashell, you have picked up a form of sea life, but the living creature is gone. All you have is the shell, or the form. In these last days, all that will be left of many people’s Christianity is the form or the shell. No substance, no life. They claim they love God, but they love pleasure more. “Oh, I love God some...” But there are other things that take preeminence to His will.
Hebrews 10:25 says, “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together ,as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” If you can’t see the day approaching, I’ll get you a seeing eye dog! Truth is, I believe we’re on the cusp of the coming of Christ. I’m anticipating His return at any moment. Things are already in place. There’s nothing that has to happen prophetically, and the whole anti-Christ system exists. The mindset of so many people is globalist. That is the anti-Christ’s kingdom. They are under the influence of the devil. This is not political, it is spiritual. It is preparation for the anti-Christ. Certainly, politics enters the arena, but it’s not just about one side or the other. It’s about Satan preparing people for the devil, and pretending to be the real Christ. But he tells us that they are lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.
Matthew 10:37 says, “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” We are not commanded to hate our family, just to love God more. Do you know how many people are out of church today because of family? Someone in the family got offended at truth, and the whole family is out of church tonight. I’m supposed to love God AND to love my family, but I better love God and better obey God first. If I let my family control me, I won’t help them, I will destroy them in the process and also destroy myself. Lovers of God more than lovers of family. In John 12:43, Jesus is talking about the Scribes and Pharisees, these religious leaders. “For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.” Oh, they love God some, they just love some other things more than they love the Lord.
Colossians 3:2, tells us, “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.” Stop and think about that for a moment. We have things called thermometers, and if you take a thermometer and put it in a deep freeze, it drops to the temperature it’s exposed to. If you take the same thermometer and put it in an oven it rises to the temperature it is exposed to. It is completely controlled by the environment it’s exposed to. Then we have something we call thermostats. You set the thermostat, and it dictates the atmosphere and infuses the atmosphere with what it is set on. The environment is controlled by what it is set on.
I’m supposed to set my affection on things above, and not allow my affection to be stolen away by all the shiny objects that Satan dangles in front of me. There are many of those in this world. The Bible tells us about Demas in Philemon 1:24, Paul says Demas is my fellow servant. He is laboring shoulder to shoulder with the great apostle Paul. But in II Timothy 4:10, Paul says, “For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry.” Demas hath forsaken me. Here’s a guy that was serving shoulder to shoulder with Paul, but he was looking at the world. Like Lot’s wife coming out of Sodom, but looking over her shoulder with affection. Demas is actually serving God with Paul, but his eyes are on the world.
How do you know? You don’t fall in love with what you’re not looking at. If you didn’t see it, you definitely didn’t fall in love with it. The Bible tells us although he was doing all the RIGHT stuff, he was looking at all the wrong stuff. In Hebrews 12:2, the Bible says, “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith;...” Have you ever noticed that if you don’t look where you’re going, you end up going where you’re looking? Start gawking at a herd of deer on the side of the road, and eventually you’re driving off the road.
I’m supposed to be focused intentionally, setting my affection. Maybe we need to turn our eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of his glory and grace. He’s supposed to have my affection, my attention. Don’t let the world steal your affection for God. I’m supposed to love Him with all my soul, heart, mind, and strength. If I love the world and the things of the world, it’s not even possible.
“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, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passeth away and the lusts thereof but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.” Verse16 mentions everything that’s in the world, it ignites my carnal nature. It gratifies, it enflames and gets my carnal nature stirred up. It’s the lust of the flesh, for the world appeals to my flesh. It appeals to my eyes with all of its shiny objects.
It appeals to elevating me in self-gratification: pride. The root of all sin is pride. The first sin was a result of pride. Lucifer, the son of the morning, his heart was lifted in pride, and he said, “I will…” You just exercise your will against God’s will, and its sin. What the devil told Eve, If you’ll eat the fruit, you’ll be wise like God, and you won’t need Him anymore. You’ll be as gods knowing good and evil.”
Self-elevation, pride, independence from God, lack of accountability. Do you know what atheists want? They want to burn the candle at both ends, blow the smoke in the face of God, and face no consequence. I hate to tell them they can live in Lala Land, Fantasyland if they like, but they WILL give account because the Bible tells us in Philippians 2:10, “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
You can either bow the knee now and trust Jesus Christ, or you can do it later at the judgment. But you’re going to bow the knee. If you bow your knee at the Great White Throne Judgment you are already condemned to hell forever; it won’t change anything, but you will bow the knee. If I were you, I would bow tonight, if it hasn’t been settled.
The world is a corrupt set of values that ignites my carnal nature. Galatians 5:17, “For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that you cannot do the things that ye would.” Undoubtedly you have heard this little poem. “Two natures struggle in my breast, The one is foul, the other blessed. The new I love, the old I hate; The one I feed will dominate.” Undoubtedly, we do too much feeding of the flesh and then try to lead a spiritual life.
You can’t feed the flesh and be spiritual. The flesh has to be crucified. In I Corinthians 15:31, Paul said, “...I die daily.” He wasn’t talking about physical death; he had to crucify that carnal flesh daily so that he could live in victory. The flesh lusts against the Spirit. It wants nothing but the temporal, the visible, the physical, the sensual, the things of this life, the pleasures of this life, it has NO Spiritual desire. The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.
Paul says, in Romans 7, “For I know that in me, (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing; for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
We read in Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Now we have the capacity to walk after Spirit instead of the flesh. We have that capacity, but it is not automatic. Just like salvation, Christ died for everybody, but everybody is not saved. It’s for ‘whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ Everybody who is saved has the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. They have the capacity to live in victory over the flesh. You don’t have to live a worldly life. You can actually live in victory if you choose too.
Romans 8:4, “That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” The carnal mind cannot please God. They that are in the flesh cannot please God because the carnal mind is enmity against God.
Then we see something about the world being at enmity against God. Well, the world inflames my carnal nature. My carnal nature gravitates to the world and worldliness. If I don’t do something about that old fallen nature, I’m going to do what the book of Philemon tells us Demas did. I’ll be doing all the right stuff, while I’m looking at all the wrong stuff. It draws me away from God, and it’s just a matter of time until I go where I’m looking.
So, then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. They that are in the flesh are living worldly lives. They are living for the gratification of the flesh. They are living for the visible, the physical, the temporal, the sensual desires, the right ones and wrong ones. Some of the pleasures of this life are not sinful in nature, but they will choke the word. You get so wrapped up in the temporal that it chokes the life out of you spiritually. You don’t have time for God, or the things of God.
Worldliness reveals itself in music, in attire, in one’s associations, and entertainment. All those things are revelations of the fact that they are worldly. Their philosophy dictates those things. It puts those things ahead of spiritual things. Their philosophy is so much deeper than what they wear. They are going with the flow or the course of this world that are under the authority of the prince of the power of the air. They are practicing disobedience to God because you can’t do what the world does and be in tune with God. It’s not possible.
There’s the lust of the flesh, and then there’s the lust of the eyes. Hell and destruction are never full, so the eyes of man are never satisfied. You know, once you start looking at stuff, you can’t see enough of it. Ecclesiastes 1:8 says the eye is not satisfied with seeing. You look and then you want to see more. You see more, and you want to see still more. BUT, if you look long enough, the eye is not satisfied with seeing, it wants to touch. Then it wants to partake of it sooner or later. You think Demas wasn’t looking a long time before he left? Finally, it was just more than he could handle, so he went ahead and left. He was looking for a long time, and it got a grip on him.
In Psalms 101:3, David said, “I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.” He said, “The last time I looked at something forbidden, it got a hold of me and wouldn’t let go.” It was a disaster to him personally, to his family, to the kingdom. It’s always your eyes that start the problem. It really is. Lamentations 3:51, “Mine eye affecteth mine heart...” Every single time, my eye affecteth my heart.
The Bible tells us that Eve first saw that the fruit was pleasant to the eye. I’m sure that the serpent must have taken a bite to convince her it was good for food, because she believed it was good for food. It was pleasant to the eye, and a tree desired to make one wise. So, I’ll be wise like God and I won’t need to be under God because I’ll be able to think for myself. The very thing that made a devil out of Lucifer is what he convinced her would make her free. The very thing that made a devil out of him is what he tries to convince you will set you free.
The whole reason we need to be saved is worded in Isaiah 53:6, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his OWN way.” The devil doesn’t try to get me to join a witch coven, or the occult. He just says, “Do anything but that! Don’t serve God. Do your own thing.” Doesn’t that sound gratifying? If you don’t want to be a woman, just go ahead and be a man, even though you were genetically born a woman. Somebody needs to tell these people “You’re in fantasy land!” Your gender is not in your brain; it’s in your body type, and God dictated what your body type is before you were born. You have to get content with it. It won’t matter if you cut body parts off, get surgery, take medicines and hormones. You’re still what you were when you were born. The only thing is, you’re much more miserable. Check with these transitioned people who are trying to transition back. They aren’t getting much attention.
The Bible says Achan saw the wedge of silver and gold and the Babylonish garment. He coveted and took and hid it in the tent, after God said all the spoils were holy to the Lord. He paid for that sin and his family with him. Achan’s whole family was destroyed because of his decision.
Adam and Eve introduced sin into the world, and like Achan, it started with what she saw. The Bible tells us that when Abraham and Lot parted ways, Lot cast his eyes toward Sodom and pitched his tent towards Sodom. Before it was done, he lost everything a saved man could possibly lose. He lost it all. You can’t lose eternal life, and the Bible describes him as a just man whose righteous soul was vexed daily with the filthy conversation of the wicked. His whole family was destroyed as the result.
The pride of life. Pride is the root of all sin. Pride is self-elevation -- because I’m proud I decide that I’m entitled! The whole world should let me have my way. It’s not about anybody else, not about God, not about right and wrong. It’s all about me! Self-elevation entitlement is the issue that’s in question in this thing of pride.
We find that the world is a thief to steal your affection away from God. The world is a corrupt set of values to ignite your carnal nature, to enflame you and get you so riled up carnally that there’s nothing spiritual left. Then the world is a promise without fulfillment, and the world passeth away.
In Matthew 24:3 a question was asked about the end of the world, and Jesus answered it at the end of verses 24 and 25. Now remember, the end of the world is not the end of the planet. Instead it is when this world’s system and living for sin and flesh comes to a screeching halt. That will be when the Rapture takes place. The Rapture will end all this carnality and gratifying of the flesh and throw the whole world into survival mode.
Read Revelation 6 and forward. When Jesus comes in chapter 4, you have the Judgment Seat of Christ. Chapter 6 is happening simultaneously on the earth, and antichrist comes on the scene, and the whole thing begins to unravel. They are looking for a peacemaker, someone to bring peace, protect them and unite them. He comes on the scene as the false Christ. Common sense and logic tells you, the only thing that would cause world leaders to yield their powers to one man is if something catastrophic happens.
The Rapture is going to be a catastrophic event to the entire world. It’s the greatest day of our lives as born again Christians, but it’s a catastrophic event to all those who will be left behind. They are disconnected, they don’t know it’s the Rapture. They think we’ve been attacked from outer space or something. All these millions of people are missing with no explanation and everything’s in chaos. Everybody’s blaming everybody. Americans are missing, Chinese are missing, Russians are missing, and everybody is going to start pointing fingers and missiles at everybody else. It will be easy for the antichrist to come on the scene as the false Christ, and he is going to get them behind him.
The end of the world. Since the world and worldliness has an end, it can’t keep its promises. Why did Jesus have to rise from the dead? First Corinthians 15:17, “And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.” If Christ be not risen from the dead, “...we are of all men most miserable.” A dead man can’t save me. He can die for me. But if He does not rise and conquer death then He cannot guarantee me a resurrection. He has to be alive to save. He not only had to die as my Substitute; He also had to rise again.
The world passeth away. When the world passes away, then everything it promises passes away too. It’s a cloud without rain, a promise without fulfillment. We have guys that call themselves preachers today, that promote carnality, worldliness, and tell people they are going to set them free. Set them free from all these oppressive legalists. They are ‘Recovering Fundamentalists.’ They have to recover from the truth. If truth damaged you, you are a little too fragile to hang around me. You might bump into me and fall to pieces. These liberals try to make it sound like any restrictive principle is bad.
Understand that laws are governing principles. The only reason we have liberty in America is because we have the Constitution, and it is the law of the land, though some politicians would like to totally ignore it. The Constitution was not designed to grant liberty; it was designed to limit government so they would not intrude upon our God-given liberty.
Psalms 16:11 tells us there are pleasures at His right hand forevermore. I don’t have to have carnal pleasures. Hebrews 11:25 talks about the pleasures of sin for a season. I do not have to do those things. There is a pleasure that begins now and lasts forever. It is to be at God’s right hand. Have you ever heard someone say, “This person is my right-hand man.” I would like to be at God’s right hand. Available, close, yielded, easy access to me. Where I can be used and usable. That’s where God wants us to be.
These worldly preachers turn the grace of God into lasciviousness. They use liberty for an occasion to the flesh. They turn love into leniency. Hebrews 12:5 says, “And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.”
They promise what they cannot give, but you cannot give what you do not have. Second Peter 2:17, “These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever. For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.” They allure through the lusts of the flesh. He said they promise them something they cannot give, and that they are going to set them free. They allure through the lust of the flesh.
In other words, you can dress any way you want, you can listen to any music you want. You are under grace. That is the kind of statements they make.
Listen to me, friend. Grace is holy like the law is holy. Grace does not nullify the law. It gives me the power to fulfill the righteousness that is in the law if I walk in the Spirit. Second Peter 2:19, “While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.” When you live worldly, you are enslaved by the world. When you live for God, you are under the authority and administration of God. Thank God that that is not slavery. There’s liberty spiritually, but there is restriction, there is leadership, there are governing principles to it.
After they have escaped the pollutions of the world, now they are again drawn back into the pollutions of the world by some guy that calls himself a preacher. Shame on these guys. They are going to give account to God. Hear me and hear me well. The world is a thief to steal your affection from God. The world is a set of carnal values that enflames you and stirs your flesh. Worldliness feeds your flesh, gratifies it, ignites, enflames you to do the wrong stuff. The world is a promise without fulfillment. It promises everything God promises, but it is incapable of delivering because it passeth away. God does not pass away. The Book does not pass away. The Holy Spirit does not pass away. The souls of just men made perfect do not pass away.
So, God wants us to separate from the world. He wants us to understand what the world is. This is not just about how I dress or what I watch on TV. If your philosophy of life is right, and your values are right, then your convictions are right. Nobody has to shame you to get you to do the right thing when your convictions are right. You’re doing this to protect yourself, and to please your Heavenly Father. You’re doing this as insulation from the world. Not isolation, insulation.
God help us to be a separated people. Separated, not just from sin, but from the world. We’re supposed to lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us. I’m definitely supposed to separate from sin, but worldliness sometimes just has to do with all these weights I have collected that keep me from serving God. It has to do with my values putting temporal things ahead of eternal things. I justify stuff because there are no verses that say ‘thou shalt not do this!’ But there is a verse that says you should not do this on Sunday, because that’s the Lord’s Day, and we are commanded to assemble with the church.
God help us not to be a worldly people, but a godly people, separated unto God, and serving Him from our hearts.
