Love Not the World

If you value your success in the Christian life, keep a wide gulf between you and this world. By the expression the world I mean its amusements, its revelry, its praise, its fashions, its society, its spirit. The present-day amusements or entertainments offered by secret orders and sects and by others are very destructive to spiritual life. Unless you are willing to walk alone with Jesus and let the blessedness of His companionship suffice for you, you had as well quit the race now. Mingle with worldly people, only to tell them of God’s love.

To love and enjoy the society of the world is to have a heart destitute of grace. Therefore keep away from the world. Beware of it. It is a bitter foe to grace. It is an enemy to God; and if you befriend it, you make yourself an enemy to God. “Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God,”* (James 4:4) so says the Bible. To be a friend to the world is to help it along in any sense—to encourage its spirit; to add to its pleasures, to its levity, its fashion, its foolishness; or to abet it in any way. You go into the world, only for the purpose of saving people from the world, and thus you are the world’s enemy; and so you must continue to be, or miss heaven.