I'd like to speak to you tonight
from 1 John chapter 2 and verses 15 through 17 from an entirely
different angle, yet it is all interwoven and meshed together. The title of this message is,
When Love is Wrong. And in 1 John chapter 2, I want
to read the passage, verses 15 through 17, and I think that
you'll understand why My heart has been directed to this text
just to come alongside and support what we've been hearing on Sundays. Just a footnote, I think I've
listened to Dr. MacArthur preach more this year
than any year of my life as so much has been going on in the
world and just wanting to hear the exposition of the Word, how
grateful I am. how strange it is in some ways
to be able to stand in this pulpit that I have looked at this pulpit
through live streams so much this year. But 1 John chapter
2, I want to begin reading in verse 15. This will be our text
that we will consider as we will be thinking about being separated
from the world and being set apart from a love for the world,
which is an essential part of the pursuit of holiness. And
so the Apostle John writes, beginning in verse 15, do not love the
world, simple enough, nor the things in the world. If anyone
loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For
all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust
of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the
Father, but it's from the world. The world is passing away, and
also its lusts, but the one who does the will of God lives forever. In these verses, we very clearly
see that there is a love that God hates. As believers, we are
to love what God loves. Our heart needs to be in alignment
with God. And we are to love what God loves,
and the reciprocal of that is we must hate what God hates. As Christians, we must love God.
We must love Jesus Christ. We must love the Bible. We must
love the truth. And we must love people. And at the same time, as believers,
we must also hate what God hates and reject what God rejects.
And so, therefore, we must hate sin in all of its forms and reject
unrighteousness. And according to this text, we
must not love the world, nor the things that are in the world.
What we discover in this passage is that our hearts Holiness begins
with our hearts. It must be brought into unity
with God's heart. For many churches and places,
when they think of the pursuit of holiness, it is more the external
behavior and the way they conduct themselves, and that is an essential
part of holiness, that we walk in obedience to the Lord. But
all true godliness and all true holiness It begins in the heart. It begins in the mind. The battle
for the Christian life is the battle for the Christian mind.
It begins with our affections. It begins with where our love
is. And Christianity is first and
foremost a religion of the heart. That's what Jesus came to establish
and to preach. And that comes out in the Sermon
on the Mount, after the Pharisees had externalized religion, as
they had separated themselves from the defilement of sinners
and had come up with their own code of ethics. And Jesus came
in the Sermon on the Mount and drilled deeply into the heart. He said, blessed are the poor
in spirit. For theirs is the kingdom of
heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they
shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger
and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied."
And Jesus went on to say, blessed are the pure in heart. And so
the focus of true religion, it always begins with where our
heart is. And Jesus was asked, what is
the greatest commandment? And he said, it is to love the
Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul
and with all of your mind and with all of your strength. First
Samuel tells us that man looks on the outward appearance. But
God looks upon the heart. And Solomon tells us in Proverbs
4, verse 23, watch over your heart with all diligence for
from it flow the springs of life. That really is the focus here
that John is making just in different words and with different metaphors
and different perspective. But nevertheless, he's prioritizing
our heart. the real you on the inside. He is prioritizing your innermost
being, your soul. And we see here one of the distinguishing
marks of a true believer who has an obsession for sanctification. To quote Dr. MacArthur, he is
marked as one who does not love the world. And he does not love
the things in the world. And he understands the entanglement
of the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the boastful
pride of life is a hindrance and a hurdle to running the race
to pursue godliness and holiness. And so I think it would be of
great help to our walk with the Lord tonight for us to review
this very familiar passage. In many ways, there'll be nothing
that I can say that you do not already know, but it is good
for us to be reminded of the essentials and the basics and
this obsession for sanctification. So as we walk through this passage
tonight, there's several headings that I want to set before you
that will help be almost like footsteps through this text. And the first thing that I want
you to note is the command. That's how verse 15 begins. It
begins really with an emphatic command of prohibition. It's put in the negative, and
it has a certain shock value by the fact that it's put in
the negative. It begins by saying, do not love
the world. Such love is strictly forbidden. It's off limits. This is put
in the imperative, which tells us this is not a suggestion that
has come from the Apostle Paul. on how to give us some helpful
hints in living the Christian life. This is not an option that's
being laid out for us that we can either choose to follow or
not choose to follow. No, this is actually a command
in which we either obey or disobey. And He is saying, do not set
your heart on this world. Now, the word world When John
uses the word world in the gospel of John in his three epistles,
as well as the book of Revelation, he uses the word world, kosmos,
ten different ways. And you can never go into a passage
that John writes and automatically assume that it always just means
all the people in the world. That would be a very naive approach
to the Word of God. And so, we need to discern what
is the meaning of world here, if we're told not to love the
world. Sometimes the word world is used for the entire universe.
Sometimes the word world is used for this earth upon which we
live. Sometimes it's used for mankind
in general. Sometimes it's used for only
unbelievers, the realm of unbelievers. Here, it is used to refer to
the evil world system that is running this world in which we
live. There is an invisible evil world
system over which Satan presides with his perverted values and
his rampant sin and godless priorities that is anti-God, it is anti-Christ,
it is anti-truth, it is anti-family, it is anti-virtue, and that is
the reference here. Do not love this evil world system
that is adamantly opposed to God. Don't become ensnared in
this. This reference to the world here
in verse 15 refers to all the godless ideologies and philosophies
that influence and run this world in which we live. It refers to
secular humanism and worldly thinking and demonic lies that
are hostile to God and antithetical to the truth of God. It includes
all the various components of the world system. It includes
the world of the media. It includes the world of politics.
It includes the world of medicine. It includes the world of education. It includes every dimension of
this world. It includes the world of business. And there are standards, ungodly
standards. by which each of these component
parts of the evil world system are being energized and are being
run. Now, the Bible is very clear
that Satan is the god of this age. John chapter 16, verse 11,
Satan is the ruler of this world. The ultimate sovereign is God
in heaven, and He is the first cause of all that comes to pass,
yet He is not the author of sin, and there is secondary causality
that is directed and implemented by the world, the flesh, and
the devil. And Satan presides over this evil world system. And He is driving it, and He
is infusing it with the darkness of His administration. John 12,
31, He is the ruler of this world. John 14, 30, He is the ruler
of this world. And it would be naive of us as
believers to think we're just living in no man's land, that
we're just sitting on the fence and that there is not this evil
sway with an evil agenda that is in this world. But the fact
of the matter is, there is this invisible war that is going on. In 2 Corinthians 4 verse 4, the
Apostle Paul writes, the God of this world, that's a small
has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might
not see the light of the gospel. What extraordinary power has
been delegated to the God of this
world from the higher throne of God to blind the minds of
every single unbeliever in this world. such that they cannot
see the truth, they cannot see the light, and that they are
always drawn to the darkness because of total depravity. In
Ephesians 2 verse 2, Paul writes, you formally walked according
to the course of this world. And this was true even of the
elect before they were regenerated and before they came to faith
in Christ. We all entered this world a part
of the system. under the heavy hand of the ruler
of this world, and we were ensnared in his trap. In Ephesians 6,
verse 12, we read, Our struggle is not against flesh and blood,
but against the world forces of this darkness, that there
are powers behind earthly powers. that there are powers behind
government officials. There are powers behind the media. There are powers behind the medical
community. There are powers behind every
aspect in education, unions. There are evil demonic forces
that are guiding them against God and against the values of
God. And so much so that 1 John 5
verse 19 says, the whole world lies in the power of the evil
one. That is not a hyperbolic statement. That is a true statement that
the entire world lies in the grip of the evil one. Martin Lloyd-Jones, the great
expositor from The 20th century writes, the world must mean the
organization and the mind and the outlook of mankind as it
ignores God and does not recognize Him as God and as it lives in
independence of God. A life that is based upon this
world and this world only. In other words, no thought of
the world to come, no thought of God who has created this entire
world. It is simply atheistic at its
core. Lloyd-Jones goes on to say, the
world means the outlook. And here he's referring to what's
on the inside, the mindset, the worldview. It means the outlook
that has rebelled against God and turned its back upon God.
The world means the typical kind of life that is being lived by
the average person today who has no thought of God, no time
for God, but thinks only of this world and this life only. It is the whole outlook upon
which life is lived by the world. It is exclusive of God. This is where we find ourselves.
This is the accurate diagnosis of the world in which we live.
He goes on to say, do not love the world. And he now becomes
a little bit more specific. And he says, nor the things in
the world. The things here can refer to
any pursuit, any possession, any profession, any person, any
pleasure that is more important to you than God or is in opposition
to God and His values. And that is why the book of 1
John, when you come to the very end of the last verse of the
last chapter of 1 John, chapter 5 verse 21, the whole book is
summarized, little children, guard yourselves from idols.
And that is a guard against worldliness and a guard against those things
that are in this world that would compete for our affection, our
loyalty, our allegiance first and foremost to God. An idol
is anything that you love more than God, fear more than God,
or serve more than God. And John is addressing this to
believers. And he says, guard your heart from idols. Now, let's be very clear. He
is not saying that you cannot have things in this world. What he is saying is things cannot
have you. He is not saying that you cannot
work in the workplace. He is just saying that cannot
be your God and that cannot consume you and be what is most important. As Christians, we may own things,
enjoy things, use things, share things, buy things. 1 Timothy
says, God has created all things for us. to richly enjoy. We just cannot love these things
with an intense passion that must be reserved exclusively
for God and for God alone. We must not become absorbed with
the things of this world. We are just strangers. We're
aliens. We're pilgrims. We're passing through. This is
not our home. Our home is in another place.
It's in another world, literally. And that's why the Ten Commandments
conclude with the Tenth Commandment. There is an order. There is an
intentional sequence to the moral law of God. And in Exodus 20,
verse 17, God says through Moses, you shall not covet your neighbor's
You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or
his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that
belongs to your neighbor. I mean, you cannot let your heart
become a hotbed of desire for that which you do not have, but
that you see that someone else has, you may not covet. So, though it is not directly
stated here. What is clearly implied, if we are not to love
this, then we must love this. If we are not to love the world
nor the things in the world, if we are not to love the system,
then we must love God and we must love Christ. And the greatest
defense to guarding our hearts from loving the world and the
things that are in the world and living for these things is
that we love God. And a greater love for God displaces
a love for the world. It's just like the more we fear
God, the less we fear man. And the more we love God, the
less we love this world. And so if we love God, There will be a decreasing love
for this world. But this is very important in
our pursuit of sanctification. James 4, verse 4 says, do you
not know? Which means this is basic level
Christianity. Whenever one of the biblical
writers begins a verse by saying, do you not know? That is a way
of saying, this is Christianity 101. Everyone knows this. Do you not know? Where have you
been? Do you not know that friendship
with the world is hostility towards God? Therefore, whoever wishes to
be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. So this
very clearly says that we become spiritual adulterers. if we allow
our heart to be lured to the world and to set our heart upon
the world. We are to be in the world, just
not of the world. And there's no remedy for just
removing ourselves from the world and to withdraw to a cul-de-sac
someplace. No, we are to go into the world. We are to carry the gospel into
the world. We are to invade the world. as
light would shine into the darkness. We are to go into the highways
and the byways and compel people to come to Christ and urge them
to come to Christ. We are to shout it from the housetops.
We're not to hide in a cave. We're not to be isolationists
and to withdraw from this world. This world is our mission field. But as we are in the world, we
cannot allow ourselves to be sucked up into the system. And so therefore, in essence,
we are to have our boat in the water, but no water in the boat.
This is the command. And just to make this very clear. If you would, turn back to Luke
chapter 12. It would be worth turning back. We'll be there
just for a couple of minutes. But in Luke chapter 12, Jesus
gives a very important parable that we need to hear at this
point that I think vividly illustrates what John is saying. The emptiness
and the bankruptcy of living for this world. So in Luke chapter 12 and verse
15, Jesus says, beware. And the word beware there means
keep your eyes open. Don't be naive. Beware and be
on your guard against every form of greed. And greed is covetousness
and desiring for that which you do not have, a lack of contentment
with where you are and with what you have. Greed is an inordinate
desire for more of what you do not have. It is grasping after. And it becomes the focus. It becomes the myopic vision
of your life. And Jesus explains why. He says,
for not even when one has an abundance, meaning more of the
things of this world, does his life consist of his possessions. Even if you had more and more
and more and more of this world, that's not your life. That's
not who you are. He says in verse 16, he told
them a parable. You know what a parable is. That's
an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. He told them a parable
saying, the land of a rich man was very productive. I mean, it generated an extraordinary
cash flow. This man was fabulously wealthy
and he owned much land and the land was very productive here. And so this man's pockets are
becoming fuller and fuller and deeper and deeper until his pockets
are just busting or bursting. Verse 17, and he began reasoning
to himself, saying, what shall I do since I have no place to
store my crops? Then he said, this is what I
will do, I will tear down my barns and build larger barns
and there I will store all my grain and my goods. Now what
I want you to note there in those two verses, verse 17 and 18,
is that six times we see the first person singular pronoun,
I. This man is suffering from an
eye disease. I, I, I. He worships the unholy trinity
of me, myself, and I. This man is obsessed with himself. This man could strut like a peacock
sitting down. And he is just in a self-absorbing
mode. That's his whole life. It's just
to get ahead in the world, to just have more of the world,
to just stack it up more and more. And the more he has, the
more he's elevating himself above others and the more he feels
good about himself. And so he builds larger barns
so that he can have more of the world. And again, there's nothing
wrong with having barns and there's nothing wrong with having a productive
harvest. What's wrong is this is what
he lives for. This is what his chief agenda
is. This is his reason for living. Verse 19, and I will say to my
soul, he's talking to himself. This is...he is the personification
of arrogance, probably because no one else will listen to him. Soul, that's what he calls himself.
Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come. Take your ease. Eat, drink, and
be merry. Just indulge yourself. Just pamper
yourself. And just continue to consume
the world. But God said to him, God said
to him, you fool. You mindless one. You fool because you have failed
to live for me. Because you have failed to live
for the world to come. Because you have failed to live
for the kingdom of God. You fool, this very night, your
soul is required of you. And now who will own what you
have prepared?" He never thought about that. All he thought about
was himself. All he thought about was now.
He never thought about after he's passed out of this world. And so Jesus now makes the summation
in verse 21 and He says, so is the man, so is the woman, so
is the teenager, so is the senior adult who stores up treasure
for himself and is not rich towards God. He is not rich in faith. He is not rich in grace. He is
spiritually bankrupt before God. Let us be reminded that we are
commanded by the Son of God not to love this world, not to live
for this world, not to long for this world. And let us be reminded
there are only two things going out of this world, the Word of
God and the souls of men, and how we must invest our life in
the Word of God in reaching souls for Christ. Well, if you would,
come back to 1 John. I've been so influenced by Dr.
MacArthur, I've just done 1 John 2, 15a. I want you to see the conflict.
That's at the end of verse 15, the conflict. There's a condition
and then there's a consequence. He says, if anyone loves the
world, again, such a person is very at home in the evil world
system and craves for more of the evil world system. If anyone
loves the world, if this is his chief passion, if this is his
greatest love, he says, the love of the Father is not in him. Because the two cannot coexist
in the same heart. One will displace the other.
And when He says the love of the Father is not in Him, it's
true, first of all, categorically, that the one who is genuinely
regenerated by the Spirit of God...and by the way, 1 John
has more to say about regeneration and the new birth than any other
book in the Bible. that the one who has been genuinely
born of God has had his heart of stone taken out that was cold
towards God and hardened towards God, and God has implanted a
heart of flesh that has a spiritual pulse and a heartbeat for God
and has a love for God. And so everyone who is a genuine
believer in Jesus Christ is someone who loves God. That's what Romans
8, 28 says. We heard that this morning. The
distinguishing mark of a true believer is you love God. And
so, this is true categorically, but it's also true in a relative
sense, meaning even we as believers can be ensnared by the world
system because we live in it. We rub shoulders with it. And
it is very alluring. And it can be very seductive.
And it can be very tempting. And if we love the world, There
will always be a decreasing love for the Father. No one can love
the world and love God at the same time with an increase. One
will displace the other. It's like James Montgomery Boyce
used to speak of the teeter-totter effect. Children on the playground
on a seesaw, when one end is up, the other end is down. When
the other end goes up, the other end goes down, but you can never
have both ends of the seesaw up at the same time. And applying
that to this text, it would be whenever there is an increasing
love for God in a believer, there is a decreasing love for this
world. But during certain seasons of
our life when we can be thrown off track temporarily and we
have an increasing love for the world, it will always result
in a decreasing love for God. That is why in Revelation 2 verse
4 when Jesus addressed the church at Ephesus, He said, but I have
this against you, you have left your first love. He was talking
to believers. And it doesn't just happen overnight.
It's like a slow leak in a tire. The air goes out over an extended
period of time until one morning you wake up and the tire is just
flat. And that's the way our hearts
can be towards God as we become preoccupied with the things of
the world. And as we live in the midst of
this evil world system, there could be a slow leak in our heart
and in our soul. And one morning we wake up and
find that we're just rather lukewarm and apathetic. and sluggish. And that is why the rest of the
verses in Revelation 2 gives the four steps to restore your
passion and to restore your love for God. So this is the conflict. It's a conflict within us as
believers. If anyone loves the world, the
love of the Father is not in him. They cannot coexist in the
same heart at the same time. Jesus put it this way in Matthew
6 and verse 24, no one can serve two masters. For either he will
hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one
and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. It's just totally, completely
incompatible and impossible. And we need to be reminded of
that. And so there is this conflict. And for us tonight, it should
serve as a reminder to us that we must have enlarged hearts
for God if we are going to survive in this polluted world system
in which we live that is becoming exponentially corrupt by the
minute. We must love God. Now I want you to note third
in verse 16, the corruption. The corruption. Because here's
the challenge that we face. Here's the problem. The world
is aggressively after us. The world is not passive. The
world is not neutral. The world is, as it were, an
army of evangelists after our soul. And so John writes in verse
16, for all that is in And again, he's referring to the world system
with its godless agenda, with its godless values, with its
godless standards. There are three big devices used
by the devil. And it begins with, he says,
the lust of the flesh. Do you see that? For all that
is in the world. And the first of the big three is the lust
of the flesh. This word lust is a very strong
word, epithemia. It is used in 1 Timothy 3, 1
of the elder or the overseer who feels called into ministry. There is such an overwhelming
force upon his heart that he is just compelled to step forward
and to serve in a capacity in spiritual leadership as an elder.
It's the very same word, though here it is used in a negative
way of strong desires for sin, cravings and longings for sin. And the flesh refers to the carnal
desires that are still in our bodily flesh, sinful appetites, wrong passions for sin, no longer
dominant in our life as it once was before conversion, but nevertheless
still present in our life. The lust of the flesh. And even
as Christians, we're told in Galatians 5, 16 that if we will
walk by the Spirit, we will not carry out the desires of the
flesh. So it is only in the power of
the Holy Spirit who lives within us are we enabled to mortify
and put to death the desires of the flesh in order to pursue
holiness. But then the second thing he
says, and the lust of the eyes. And the word and is very important
because this connects these inseparably together. And the lust of the
eyes is working in partnership with the lust of the flesh. It's
a team ministry thing. And this word lust, epithemia,
it's translated desires in Mark 4, and coveting in Romans 7,
and impulses in 2 Timothy 3, 6. And so, the point of entry
that inflames our flesh is our eyes. What you set your eyes
on, what you look at, is what is exciting your flesh. If you are looking at that which
is sinful and wrong, if you're looking at the world and there
is longing and coveting, it is the eyes that become the entry point. That's what happened with
Eve. In Genesis chapter 2 verse 6,
we read, when the woman saw It's the eyes. When the woman saw
that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to
the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she
took from it and ate it. Her eyes were the entrance ramp
for this to enter and stir up the heart. In 2 Samuel 11, 2,
David, we read, when evening came, David arose from his bed
and walked around on the roof of the king's house, and from
the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful
in appearance So David sent and inquired about the woman. It
was his eyes, the lust of the eyes. And Solomon said in Ecclesiastes
2 verse 10, all that my eyes desired, I did not refuse them. So he had uncontrolled eyes that
led to an uncontrolled lifestyle. It was his eyes. Jesus said in Matthew 18 verse
7, woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks. If your
eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it from you. It is better for you to enter
life with one eye than to have two eyes and be cast into the
fiery hell. Do whatever is necessary to control
your eyes. And when He says, pluck out your
eyes, He's not saying that in a literal way. It's a figurative
speech, hyperbolic. But what He is saying, you need
to do whatever is necessary to control your eyes, what you're
looking at, because what you're looking at is stirring up your
flesh. And Jesus said in Matthew 6 and
verse 22, the eye is the lamp of the body. So then if your
eye is clear, meaning pure and holy, your whole body will be
full of light. But, verse 23, if your eye is
bad, meaning your eye is entertaining that which you should not be
entertaining, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will
be full of darkness. It will come into you through
your eyes and infect your flesh and your whole body will be full
of darkness. If in the light that is in you
is darkness, how great is the darkness. So we must be careful
what we set before our eyes, the lust of the eyes. Whether it be things that in
and of themselves are amoral, they can become a preoccupation.
Or it may be things that are immoral, which only exasperates
the spread of the sin. And then it leads to the third It says at the end of verse 16,
in the boastful pride of life, what we see appeals to our flesh and ignites our pride. I've got
to have it, because if I have it, I raise my own self-importance,
my own self-significance. I'm able to raise myself above
others. The boastful pride of life, longing
for things that feed our ego. John is very straightforward. He said, this is not from the
Father. These fleshly desires and rampant
covetousness and swelling ego, He says, this is not from the
Father, it's from the world. The world that is ruled by Satan,
the world that appeals to our flesh, the world that is exasperated
by our eyes and inflates our pride, this is the battle within
us. So, John concludes with the contrast
in verse 17, and it's a stark contrast. John is very much a
black and white preacher. And in verse 17, John just flatly
says the world is passing away. The world is the Titanic that's
going down. Why would you be so preoccupied
with the world? He says the world is passing
away and passing away Translated elsewhere in the New Testament
of a traveler who's just passing through an area, someone in transit,
not a permanent resident, but someone who is like a nomad,
just on the move, but is here today and gone tomorrow. He said, that's the way the world
is. It's so temporal. It's so fleeting. It seems so
lasting and permanent, but it's passing away. In fact, it is
imploding from within. It is self-destructing. It's
not evolving, it's devolving. It is perishing. This world system
and the things in the world are are perishing and dying. It's all passing away. It's hedonism,
it's paganism, it's materialism, it's idolatry, it's godlessness. And then he adds, and also it's
lust. It's like spiraling down. It's
in a death spiral. So why would you want to attach
yourself to this which is on the slippery slope and is cascading
down at mock speed and will end up in total complete destruction? But note the sharp contrast,
but, but the one who does the will of God. We know who that is. That's a
believer. What is implied is, does the
will of God from the heart. He lives to obey God. He lives
to follow God. He lives to pursue God's agenda. The total opposite of the one
who is actually of the world in this perishing system, but
the one who does the will of God, he says, lives forever. Liz here is literally the word
for abide, to be at home with. And though it's not stated, what
is clearly is implied, this is the one that will live with God
forever. This is the one who will be in the presence of God
forever. This is the one when He leaves
this world and goes to the next world, He will graduate to glory.
And He will walk on streets of gold and He will drink from the
water from the river of life and eat from the tree of life.
He will live forever with God and the greatest of all blessings,
the beatific vision, He will actually see God in heaven. He says, it is this One who has
been regenerated by the Spirit of God, this is the only One
who will live forever. Now, let's be clear, everyone's
going to live forever somewhere, whether in heaven or in hell.
Those in hell do not really live, they just merely exist. Here
to live forever means to live with God forever in the immediate
presence of God. And in a sense, it even begins
now in this life as we have God with us and God in us by His
Spirit and we know God. We walk with God. So the warning
is clear, and we all need warning in our Christian life. We all
need not only the positive assertion, but the negative denial. And
this text is a...it's a wake-up call. The warning is clear that this
world is perishing. It is a sinking ship. And we must abandon ship before
it's too late. This world is headed to the final
judgment. And all who are on board the
world will be submerged into the pit below. And there's only
one way to be saved. There's only one way to escape
the ultimate destruction of the world, and that is to repent
of your sin and to believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ, who is
the only Savior, who says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father but through me. And in true saving
faith, true saving faith, not just like...not everyone who
says to me, But true saving faith, there must be a decisive break
from the world. When I was in high school in
a part of a youth ministry, we used to sing a chorus, the world
behind me, the cross before me. The world behind me, the cross
before me, I will follow Jesus. And in order to follow Jesus,
you must have the world behind you. We're in the world, but
not of the world. And it necessitates abandoning
the world's values and utterly repudiating what the world lives
for. And for us to live now for the
higher standard that is set forth in the Word of God. So as we
come to the conclusion, I just want to ask you tonight, Where
is your heart? I know where your body is. Where
is your heart? Do you love God more than anyone
in this world? Do you love God more than anything
in this world? Does the world appear to you
to be increasingly empty and void? Does the world to come
seem to be more real and more valuable than the world in which
we live? Do you guard what you place before
your eyes? Do you put to death the desires
of your flesh? Do you mortify the pride of life
within you? Do you humble yourself beneath
the mighty hand of God? As we heard this morning, in
all humility, dying to self, dying to the world, dying to
the desires of the flesh that we might live for God. This is
absolutely non-negotiable. It's absolutely essential in
our pursuit of sanctification and holiness. As I conclude,
I want to say, as we have so many here tonight, what a wonderful
thing it is to see. It's very possible, if not probable,
that among us would be several, perhaps more, who have never
left the world, the world system. It may well be you're one of
those that is still caught up in the rat race and living for
this world. And for whatever reason, the
Lord has drawn you here tonight, and you're looking. I want you
to know that this world is perishing, that this world is on a collision
course with judgment, that this world will be subjected to eternal
condemnation. and that there is an offer being
extended to you this very moment from the high courts of heaven,
that if you would turn from the world and turn from yourself
and turn from your sinful desires and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ
who has come to bear the sins of many upon the cross, that
if you would turn to this Christ, this Jesus who is left heaven,
came into this world and who lived among us and kept all the
law of God perfectly that we have broken again and again,
that He might live in our place and then go to the cross and
die in our place and bear our sins. That if you would turn
to Him and if you would entrust yourself to Him, He would receive
you. He would take you in. You would become one of His,
and you would no longer be living for the bankruptcy and the emptiness
of this fleeting temporal world. You would live for a world that
is an eternal world, a world where God dwells and where Jesus
Christ is at His right hand and where all the saints and all
the ages are around the throne of God and where myriads and
myriads and tens of thousands of angels are filling the courts
of heaven. You could be a part of that scene
if you would but by faith commit your life to Jesus Christ. And
so tonight, I plead with you to make that decisive break from
the world and from a life pursuit of sin and to turn to the Lord
Jesus Christ. And Jesus says, Him who comes
unto Me, I will in no wise cast out. He is the friend of sinners. He's a physician who's come not
for those who are well, but for those who are sick. He's come
not for the righteous, but for the unrighteous. He's come for
someone just like you. You would receive a glad reception
from the Lord Jesus Christ if you would but humbly repent and
to turn to Christ and throw yourself upon His mercy. You would find
much mercy. much compassion, much forgiveness
from Him, and one day He would take you to another world to
live forever. May you do so tonight if you've
never committed your life to Christ. Let us pray. Father, thank You for this really
admonition from John that we need to hear. We understand it's
couched in a negative, do not love the world, but we need to
hear verses like this reintroduced to our hearts again. I pray that
they would penetrate into the innermost part of our soul and
that there would be a renewed commitment to live for the kingdom
of God and to live for you. May we be unstained from this
evil world that is becoming more polluted by the moment. May we be a chaste church, a
pure virgin church. In Christ's name, amen.