To forsake Christ for the world, is to leave a treasure for a trifle, eternity for a moment, reality for a shadow.
Of all that have tried the selfish experiment, let one come forth and say he has succeeded. He that has made gold his idol, has it satisfied him? He that has toiled in the field of ambition, has he been repaid? He that has ransacked every theater of sensual enjoyment, is he content? Can any answer in the affirmative? Not one!
You may have wealth. It cannot profit long. You may have health. Decay will cause its flower to fade. You may have strength. It soon will totter to the grave. You may have honors. A breath will blast them. You may have flattering friends. They are but as a summer brook. These boasted joys often now cover an aching heart, but they never gave a grain of solid peace; they never healed a wounded conscience; they never won approving looks from God; they never crushed the sting of sin.
If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
[Worldly] pleasure…is a goal never reached; it is always somewhere in the distance, urging one on to new and usually more sinful practices, never quite satisfying.
2 Peter and Jude, Zondervan, www.zondervan.com 1996, p. 135.
Society set free from God is its own worst enemy.
Revelation, Eerdmans, www.eerdmans.com, 1977, p. 274.
[James 4:3-5] pictures the church as the wife of God. God has made us for Himself and has given Himself to us for our enjoyment. Therefore it is adultery when we try to be “friends” with the world. If we seek from the world the pleasures we should seek in God, we are unfaithful to our marriage vows. And, what’s worse, when we go to our Heavenly Husband and actually pray for the resources with which to commit adultery with the world, it is a very wicked thing. It is as though we should ask our husband for money to hire male prostitutes to provide the pleasure we don’t find in Him!
Desiring God, 1996, p. 141, Used by Permission, www.DesiringGod.org. Get this book!
If you don’t feel strong desires for the manifestations of the glory of God. It is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Your soul is stuffed with small things and there’s no room for the great. God did not create you for this. There is an appetite for God. And it can be awakened.
A Hunger for God, Crossway, 1997, p. 23.
Wimpy worldviews make wimpy Christians. And wimpy Christians won’t survive the days ahead.
Secret Church 2012.
Delighting in worldly things – effectually prevents our delighting in God. Therefore it is often the case, that the Lord strips us of these things, or incapacitates us to enjoy them – in order to bring us back to delight in Himself.
The Believer’s Companion in Seasons of Affliction and Trouble, 1842.
Satan, “the ruler of this world” (Jn. 16:11) is the (John 8:44) “father of lies” who (2 Corinthians 11:14) “disguises himself as an angel of light.” Therefore, following the world is subtle. It feels right. It brings approval from others when we do and condemnation when we do not. Yet following the world – the philosophies, the agenda, the trending narratives – are often contrary to God (1 John 2:15) and considered to be spiritual adultery toward God (Jas. 4:4).
Walk in Wisdom – Part 1, Ephesians 5:15-17, June 7, 2020.
I counted dollars, while God counted crosses;
I counted gains, while God counted losses.
I counted my worth, my things gained in store;
And He sized me up by the scars that I bore.
I counted honors and sought degrees,
He counted the hours I spent on my knees.
I never knew until one day by the grave
How vain are the things that we spend life to save.
The problem with Christians is nobody wants to kill them anymore.
All the danger is when the world gets into the heart. The water is useful for the sailing of the ship; all the danger is when the water gets into the ship; so the fear is when the world gets into the heart.
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 313.
