If we search the Word of God, we shall find that though sometimes the term “world” refers to the earth on which we live, yet it is more often used to denote a certain sphere or state of things here. Though the children of God are obliged to live in it as to their bodies, till death or the coming of the Lord takes them out of it, they no more belong to it, as our blessed Lord tells us, than He does Himself.
“They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17:1414I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. (John 17:14)). God tells us in Galatians 1:3-43Grace be to you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, 4Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father: (Galatians 1:3‑4), “Our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world.”
In 1 John 5:1919Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. (John 5:19), we are told that “the whole world lieth in wickedness” (literally, “in the wicked one”). Our Lord owns Satan as “the prince of this world” in John 14:3030Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me. (John 14:30), as also in John 12:3131Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. (John 12:31). And the Holy Spirit in 2 Corinthians 4:4 tells us that “the god of this world [blinds] the minds of them which believe not” the gospel, referring to Satan also. And again in Ephesians 2:1-31And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; 2Wherein 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: 3Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. (Ephesians 2:1‑3), those “dead in trespasses and sins [walk] according to the course of this world” — a course which is “according to the prince of the power of the air [Satan], the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience [unbelievers].”
Such is the state of this sphere of things called “the world” that the Spirit says through James that “the friendship of the world is enmity with God,” and he calls those believers who mix with it “adulterers and adulteresses.” The reason is that the motives that govern the walk and ways of the world — “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, are not of the Father, but of the world,” and they are all going to pass away. But through these things Satan rules over the children of this world. If the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ has shined into our hearts, is it not most important for us to be thoroughly separate from the world? How can (as we read in 2 Corinthians 6:14-16) righteousness and unrighteousness, light and darkness, Christ and Belial, the believer and the unbeliever, the temple of God and the temple of idols have fellowship — go along arm in arm — together? Today it is perhaps more difficult to draw the line between the world and the church, or the world and the family of God, because alas, in these last days, the world has gotten into the church and the church into the world.
Friendship with the world and loving the things of the world so deaden the souls of those who try to go on with it that the children of God go to sleep among the dead. They lose spiritual eyesight and power and perhaps have to be awakened by some humbling trial — the needed chastisement of the Father’s hand. They may have to look back on a lot of lost opportunities of serving the blessed Lord and helping souls around them, perhaps even to see how they have been a stumbling-block to others, when they might have been a help.
The world, like a beautiful Delilah, will seek to put us to sleep in its lap as she did Samson, the man separated to God in his day. And then, as with him, it will end in our spiritual eyes being put out and our strength taken away, if we do not learn to overcome the world.
The Young Christian (adapted)