Friendship With The World
James 4:4, "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." In the Old Testament days, when God's people turned from Him and to a false religious system, it was called adultery. One instance of this is in Ezekiel 23:, two sinful women are made to represent Judah and Samaria, and are rebuked for their spiritual adultery. Jesus speaks of the Jews who had stared "running" with the world as an adulterous and sinful generation, Mark 8:38, "Whosever therefore shall be ashamed of me and my words, in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." The Jews were married to God, Jeremiah 3:14, and Christians are married to Christ, Romans 7:4.
Now, just as a wife is adulterous who bestows her affections on another man other than her husband, so the bride of Christ is guilty of the same sin when she starts "courting" the world. When we participate in the same sinful things the world engages in, we are forming a friendship with the world; on the other hand, if we stand for what is pure and right in the sight of God, the world will not "love" us, John 15:18, 19, "If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world loves his own: but because he are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." Since the days of Cain and Abel, ungodly men and women have hated those that are godly, which fact emphasized our Lord's saying, Luke 6:26, "Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets."
If the church does not maintain clearly the line between right and wrong, or between itself and world, how can any be converted from the world? What would we have to offer? The world could rightly say, I am as good as you are. Further, how can we ask and expect God to bless our efforts to grow strong ourselves, and then teach and edify others, if we are unfaithful to God by courting the world? The Bible plainly says, Love not the world!! Be a man and stand for what is right. Be strong enough to say "NO" to the advances of the world. Don't be God's enemy.
From Our Archives, 1974
By: Lavern Stewart