LOVE NOT THE WORLD.
If you value your success in the Christian life, keep a wide gulf
between you and this world. By the expression _the world_ I mean its
amusements, its revelry, its praise, its fashions, its society, its
spirit. The present-day amusements or entertainments offered by secret
orders and sects and by others are very destructive to spiritual life.
Unless you are willing to walk alone with Jesus and let the blessedness
of his companionship suffice for you, you had as well quit the race now.
Mingle with worldly people, only to tell them of God's love.
To love and enjoy the society of the world is to have a heart destitute
of grace. Therefore keep away from the world. Beware of it. It is a
bitter foe to grace. It is an enemy to God; and if you befriend it, you
make yourself an enemy to God. "Whosoever is a friend to the world is an
enemy to God," so says the Bible. To be a friend to the world is to help
it along in any sense--to encourage its spirit; to add to its pleasures,
to its levity, its fashion, its foolishness; or to abet it in any way.
You go into the world, only for the purpose of saving people from the
world, and thus you are the world's enemy; and so you must continue to
be, or miss heaven.
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