Word of Salvation – Vol. 13 No.26 – June 1967
Loving The World
Sermon by Rev. T. E. Tyson on 1John 2:15-17
Scripture Reading: James 4
Psalter Hymnal: 41:1,2; 67:8,9,11; 245 1,2; 228:1,3,4; 328; 491
Beloved Congregation.
What is it to be ‘worldly? Is it not to love the world, and the things in the world? In his first Epistle the Apostle John has gone to great pains to make clear to his readers and to us that the true believer must ‘walk in the light’. And he doesn’t mean that we ought to separate ourselves utterly from the world. For the world itself is not our trouble, neither the things that are in the world. For both came from the hand of the Creator perfect. No, our trouble is that without light we walk in darkness. And it is fellowship with God through the cleansing blood of the Lord Jesus Christ which constitutes walking in the light. Thus, the man who walks in the light may be in the world, but not of the world. His heart has been re-made and his love re-directed.
When we come to our text, vss.15-17 of chapter 2, we find John emphasizing one more aspect of this same glorious theme of walking in fellowship with God through the light of the gospel of grace.
For here, in these verses, John exhorts the true children of God not to love the world and worldly desires. And he not only shows us that the love of the world and worldly desires are to be shunned by the believer, but he gives us some powerful reasons as well. Let us consider, then, these two points:
1. THE LOVE OF THE WORLD TO BE SHUNNED.
Notice that John says plainly that there are two things that are not to be loved by the children of the Heavenly Father. They are the world itself, and the things of the world.
What does he mean by not loving the world itself? Well, the word ‘world’ in the Bible has a number of connotations. For instance, by this word ‘world’ is sometimes meant (1) the world as created by God. “God made the world and all things therein,” stated Paul to the Athenian gathering of philosophers. Now, can we not love this world, since we know that “God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good?” Well, the answer surely is: No! To love the world for its own sake is to become a materialist, is it not? Rather, should we love the Creator, and say with the Psalmist, “O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.” Yet, though this is true, perhaps it is not what the Apostle primarily means when he advises, ‘Love not the world!’ Again, (2) the wicked people in the world are sometimes referred to simply as ‘the world’. This was Jesus meaning when He explained, “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.” It is quite clear, furthermore, that we are not to love association with the wicked. Of course, like our Saviour, we will not separate ourselves entirely from them. But we will not love to be with them for what they can give us. In this sense, again we are to shun the love of the ‘world! But even so, we have not exhausted all meanings of this word ‘world’. And probably here we come closest to John’s meaning, when we note that the world can also be understood as (3) the fashion and the customs of the world, and the things that the world can give us. Paul exhorted the Romans, “and be not conformed to this world.” And James wrote, “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.”
Putting all this together, then, brings us to this conclusion. Loving the world means to oppose all that God purposes through redemption. It means to put the creation above the Creator, to covet more the fellowship of worldly people than that of the saints. But most of all it means to love conformity to the world’s sinful ways rather than the way of Christ, to want most what the world gives us. And the true children of God must not so love the world!
But John has a second message. We are not to love world, yes. But, as well, we are not to love the things of the world. What does the Apostle mean by that? Well, he certainly does not mean that we are to accept the dictum of the philosophers of his day, commonly called Gnostics. They taught that material things were evil in themselves, and ought to be shunned in favour of the realm of the spirit. Thus, they handed down certain prohibitions: Touch not… taste not… handle not.” This, however, is certainly not what John means by not loving the things of the world. For he knows, as we, that “there is nothing evil in itself.” Sin is found in man’s heart, and comes out in evil thoughts, words, and deeds. But the things of the world in themselves are not evil.
Rather, John tells us what he means in verse 16: “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” The things of the world are these lusts, then: of the flesh, of the eyes, and the pride of life. Surely John must be giving us here something of a summary of sin – and this becomes especially apparent when we compare his three-fold description with both the events of Eve in the Garden, and that of Christ in the wilderness. See the extraordinary parallel with our text: Eve saw that the tree, forbidden by God, was “good for food;” Christ was tempted to change stones into bread, after He had fasted for 40 days and nights! What else is this than Eve succumbing to the lust of the flesh, and Christ resisting it? Again, John speaks of the lust of the eyes. And Eve saw that the fruit of the tree was “pleasant to the eyes.” Our Lord was showed the kingdoms of the world by Satan, and asked to bow down before him, in order to receive them. And lastly, we remember that Eve listened to the Tempter, who said that the tree was “to be desired to make one wise.” And our Precious Saviour steadfastly resisted the temptation of the same sort. For He would not cast himself down from the pinnacle of the temple, thereby priding himself with supernatural intervention.
These are the things of the world that we are not to love. Now, let us take a closer look at each one, in order.
(1) The lust of the flesh. This is the sinful gratifying and satisfying of our bodies. It is seen in all the forms of intemperance: gluttony, and drunkenness being only two examples. The sin here is not in the nature, so much as in the measure. Lot was so drunk that he defiled his daughters, and Noah, that he could not cover his nakedness. But, are we also prone sometimes to indulge ourselves wrongly in even such a blessed gift of God as sleep? Maybe we sleep in the wrong places! Remember Eutychus, who once fell asleep in Church, and fell out of a window to his death! Again, the sin of the lust of the flesh comes out in all sinful indulgence, such as fornication and adultery. But also, in those pleasures and pastimes in which we over-indulge ourselves, although they be not evil in themselves. A game of chess is good. So is a warm bed. Some even enjoy watching rugby! But when we ‘go overboard’ in any of these things, we are like the man warned by the Proverb: “he that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man!”
(2) Then there is the lust of the eyes. Would this not be covetousness, in the first place? As Ahab, who looked at Naboth’s vineyard, and lusted. Of such a person, again, the Proverb promises a vexing end: “Yet is there no end of all his labour; neither is his eye satisfied with riches.”
(3) And in the last place, John mentions the pride of life. This is the craving to be great in ourselves and for ourselves. This is the man spoken of by the same Apostle in Revelation 3:17, who says, “I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing.” The self-seeking man, who in the words of the Psalmist, “seeks not God in all his ways, who seeks not God’s glory, but his own.” Like the men of Babel, they seek to make themselves a name. All have the pride of life, furthermore, who will not be corrected, and who just cannot stand criticism, even when it is deserved and just.
Now, these are the things of the world. And the very point John wishes to make is just this: the child of God doesn’t love them. And he shouldn’t love them. Now, of course, we shouldn’t do them that’s one thing! But John probes even deeper: we shouldn’t love to do them! Do you know what John is talking about? Do you understand what it is to love your own lusts?
That means to hang on to them. To want them. And to be unwilling to give them up. Remember Herod, who loved his Herodias and took part with her against John the Baptist who reproved his lusts? He loved the things of this world, especially the lust of the flesh. Do you know the man who is angry with the preacher rather than with his sin – this is the man who loves the things of the world. He loves his own pride, and hangs on to it at all costs.
And what John means when he speaks of not loving the things of the world is just this: He knows that we do lust, that we do fall into sins. What he wants to know is: And how do you feel about that, my child? Is it so, that you love to do those sins? Oh, can’t you see that if you don’t want to give them up, that you cannot have the love of God in you? “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.” That’s John’s first point. But with that, he also gives us the reasons, and that leads us to the second point:
2. THE REASONS WHY WE SHOULD NOT LOVE THE WORLD.
They are three:
(1) The first reason why we should love the world is found in the second part of verse 15: “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” That is, the love of the world and love of the Father cannot co-exist. There can be only one love in our life! That is why the Bible likens love for God to love of a wife for her husband, and calls love of the world adultery! It is not the having of the world that is wrong, for the saints will inherit it, the Bible says. It is the loving of it that is wrong. And loving the world, John argues, keeps our hearts from loving the Father. Take Abraham, for instance. He was rich in this world’s goods. Yet he had not the love of the world. You see, it is not the lordship of the world, but the friendship of the world, which is enmity to God. And the reason for all this is just that the love which we owe to God ought to be so great that it cannot be divided among others. And it works both ways: the love of the world will itself exhaust the love of God! The love of the world also asks, Thou shalt love me with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” The two loves, for the Father, and for the world, may struggle for a time within a man, but they cannot co-exist forever. That man will undoubtedly go the one way or the other. He will come more and more to love either the world, or God.
But not both, “Ye cannot serve God and mammon,” warns Scripture. Jacob tried to do it, and he failed. It was only by the grace of God that he did serve God wholeheartedly at the end, after the love of the world lost out to the love of the Father. Judas tried to love both, and he learned at last where he truly loved best and it wasn’t the love of the Father! That is the first reason why we should not love the world, because if we do, the love of the Father is not in us!
(2) The second reason is set forth in verse 16 of our text: “For all that is in the world… is not of the Father, but is of the world.” That clearly means that the lusts of the world don’t come from the Father. These things do not spring from God, for He abhors them, and punishes them. “Therefore hearken unto me,” he says via one of Job’s counsellors, “far be it from God that he should do wickedness; and from the Almighty that he should commit iniquity… Yea, surely God will not do wickedly.” God is not the author of evil: sin surely does not come from Him. The world comes from Him, but lust comes from the world, says John. And that is another powerful reason why we should not love these lusts of the world.
(3) And the third reason is simply this: the world and its lusts won’t last forever! Verse 17: “And the world passes away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” I am told that this verse was placed on D.L. Moody’s tombstone. It should be placed on every believer’s soul! The world itself will pass away. Peter said, “The heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” But even before that, John’s words have a ring similar to that of the old preacher, who sighed, “vanity of vanities, all is vanity… one generation passeth away, and another generation cometh.” What good is it, runs John’s argument, to go about lusting for the world, and loving it, when it is so transitory. The very things that seem so stable, the things that are seen – yes, the mountains themselves – will all pass away, at the coming of the day of the Lord:
Of what use, then, that we strained, and fought, and lusted, to gain the world? “Yea,” asks the Bible, “and what shall it profit a man if he gain the world, and lose his own soul?”
But there is more. Not only the world itself passes away, but even the lusts of the world pass away, says the Apostle!
The lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life, which are the sum of all the ways of the sons of men, pass away. All their lives are spent in pleasure or profit or credit and all these pass away. “The desire of the wicked shall perish,” says the Psalmist. Like a dog chasing his tail, the man who loves the world never achieves fulfilment. What objects he does attain to, he is disappointed in. He pursues pleasure, but finds sorrow. With great care he erects a spidery web, only to have it whisked away with one swipe of the broom! Even his natural bodily desires at last desert him, and he comes down to his grave as he entered life: unfilled, unadorned, and poor. Ammon had a strong lust for his sister Tamar… but when he had fulfilled it he hated her more than he loved her. “The world passes away, and the lust thereof.” When a bee has sucked something from one flower, it goes to another. We are soon weary of lusts. They are in no way able to satisfy the desires of our hearts.
In contrast to such a sorry one, we see the child of God, who does His will. Such an one “abideth forever,” – has eternal life. Will not pass away! May the Holy Spirit use this strong appeal of His Holy Word, together with His own powerful arguments to wean us away from any love of the world, and love of the lusts of this world, which would in any way replace the love of the Father!
Amen.