There are some practices and some phrases of worldliness which are so clearly unscriptural and inconsistent with true Christian testimony that there is no question as to the right and wrong of them. They are clearly recognized as in violations of proper Christian conduct. But there are other things which are not so obviously contrary to the Bible concerning which many Christians young people, and other folks alike, are puzzled. Desiring to be true to the Lord and obedient to His Word, and yet wishing to avoid unreasonable extremes, they sometimes find it difficult to decide as to their participation in a particular thing.
The Bible has a lot to say about the world. It uses the word world in three different ways: 1) The world of lost men. “For God so loved the world…” (John 3:16); 2) The material world we live in. “For we brought nothing into this world…” (1 Timothy 6:7); 3) The third use – the one we are interested in – refers to the conditions and the influences around us that are opposed to the Lord Jesus Christ. For example, Jesus said, “If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you” (John 15:19).
Jesus is saying that believers are in the material world, but they do not belong to the system that controls it! In other words, there is an invisible “world” of evil that uses the material world and its activities to keep people from coming to Christ and obeying Him. It is that unseen system controlled by Satan that we refer to when we talk about the “world.” “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:” (Ephesians 2:2) “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Ephesians 6:12)
True Christians are recognized because they have no part in the activities of the Christ-opposing world around them. What a powerful testimony! “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.” (1 John 2:15) “…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.” (James 4:4) Take notice and you will find that in all places where man finds his worldly enjoyment, he shuts out Christ-lest He should come in and spoil his pleasures.
We realize that part of the problem today is that standards are drastically changing. Deed and acts that were once labelled “unbecoming” for a Christian or “worldly” are now accepted and acknowledged without shock or shudder. What is your attitude toward all this? Are you going to accept the lowered and lowering standards around you? May God help you to say, “Most surely not!”
May you seek to walk with the Lord Jesus Christ and to daily guard your conduct. His standards have not changed – nor should ours.
“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.” (Romans 12:1)
“Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.” (1 Corinthians 16:13)