Page 88 - Fundamentals Ebook

Solomon’s word, “All is vanity in this world.” It has no value.
Abraham was a millionaire but he never owned anything except that
he bought a grave. That’s all this world has to offer. There is
nothing else. There’s victory over the things of this world.

Then there is James 4:4, “You adulteresses, do you not know that
friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore
whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy
of God.” This is the world’s ideas and the world’s methods. This
is humanism and the values of the world and what they think is
important.

Let me give you a summary and it’s in 1 John 2:15-17, “Do not love
the world, 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 is from the world. And the world is
passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of
God abides forever.”

I’m sure you are all familiar with that passage. “All that’s in the
world; the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.”
I don’t know how it is in France but in America, depending on where
you go, they have a different list. They say, “Don’t be worldly.
Don’t’ smoke and don’t drink and don’t gamble and don’t play
contact sports and don’t use dice.” Anyway, they all have their own
standard of holiness. But God includes more under the word
“world” than Christians do. God includes the lust of the flesh, the
lust of the eyes and the pride of life.

On one side you have the world. What is the opposite of the world?
Listen to 1 John 2:17, “And the world is passing away, and also its
lusts; but the one who does the will of God abides forever.” It’s an
amazing contrast. It’s either the world or the will of God. Every
time I don’t do the will of God, I’m worldly. It’s not just a list that
some people keep. It’s missing the will of God.