Worldliness or love of the world.
Key text: I John 2:15-16.
Rev. Martyn McGeown, Limerick Reformed fellowship.
“Love of the world is probably the number one reason for apostasy in the Christian church today. Remember Demas” (II Tim.4:10).
The world is the system, unified, organised and arranged in hostility against God. The world of fallen men and the created order under the power of Satan.
Our senses serve as vehicles by which the world entices us to sin using our lusts (burning inordinate desires). Each one of us has different predispositions to lust. The world says, “I will satisfy you.” The pride of life is wicked self-sufficiency, no need for God, live for yourself (indeed all sinful lusts are at heart self-indulgence, love of self).
Worldliness is, “an attitude of the heart in which it is fascinated, excited and bewitched by those things which gratify the sinful lusts, and a giving over of oneself to serve those things instead of God.”
Worldliness may be different for different people. It is not taking pleasure in the good gifts of this life (Eccles. 3:13, I Tim.4:4-5, 6:17). Love of the world and love of the Father are incompatible.
Symptoms of it: less time for God and his worship, worldly companionship, or join a false church. “The false church is the world with a religious mask.” On judgment day the world-ling will confess, “I loved the world rather than the creator.” Spiritual pleasures belong to God’s people forevermore.
Listen to message here: Recording
