Once, in the days gone by, when Jesus and his apostles taught, the world was represented as very evil before God. Satan was the prince. The whole world lay in the wicked one. It loved its own, but it hated Christ and his followers. "If any man love the world," warned John, "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 vainglory of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof." (1 John 2:15-17.) Now what has happened? Has the world come around to the ways of Christ? Has the thorn bush begun to bear grapes, and the thistle figs? One might think so, to see the [31] lovemaking--lovemaking of the wrong sort--between the church and the world. Be not deceived. The world is still the world. And if a friendship has sprung up, it is the church that has compromised the principles of its Master.

      We are told that the world is not wholly bad, and that much good--things honorable and lovely and just and of good report--is found in the world; and would we be unjust? Far be it from us. But these things existed in a measure even in the days of Christ and the apostles, without in the least affecting their verdict. We prefer to go by that which the Holy Spirit has stated concerning the world. The facts are these: The world moves on the fleshly plane, and is not controlled by faith. That is the whole secret. They eat and drink, buy and sell, plant and build, marry and are given in marriage. The virtues and excellencies that favor these occupations, such as industry, frugality, thrift, patriotism, unselfishness, soberness, are highly esteemed and much practiced in the world, and the corresponding vices opposed. But not because these are sinful. The world raises a great wail over the sin of drunkenness, but it is because of its fearful results. A hundred worse sins, especially sins against God, go unnoticed, or are, perhaps, even encouraged. Lectures on morality are indeed welcomed. They are of the world, they speak of the world, and therefore the world heareth them. But with God sin is sin because it is sin. He does not go by results. Neither has the morality, the self-control, and the sacrifice of the world any religious value at all, because it is not of faith nor done as unto him. We must measure these things by God's standards. But yet let us not forget that "God [32] so loved the world;" and he sends us forth into the world to testify the gospel of the grace of God, "to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God."

[TAG 31-33]