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Is the World Growing Better?

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Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 20, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 41.

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Is the World Growing Better?

THIS is a question frequently, sincerely, honestly asked. And the reply often is, Surely it is greatly improved.
“Who is it mourns for the days that are gone, When a noble could do as he liked with his own?” And all the rest of Mackay’s poem is dragged into service as proof.
“But it is true, isn’t it?”—Yes, the times have altered in many respects for the better. There are many better laws; and better conditions in many ways prevail. The old-time slavery does not exist, and men are not executed for sheep-stealing. But this does not answer the question. No mere outward observations will answer it. The light which men have, the instruction and advantages of the times, must receive consideration; and, after all, to Christians, the Bible must be the determining factor.
In the light of the Bible, is the world better?—No; for the world has ever been at enmity with God. Says an apostle, “Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?” James 4:4. Now if friendship with the world (not meaning a friend to worldlings, but sympathy and union with world-principles, aims, motives) is enmity with God, certainly the world is not His friend. Therefore the injunction: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, 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 pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.” 1 John 2: 15-17.
That is the sum of the animus, the motive, of the world—“the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the vainglory of life.” What will please the desires of the flesh, the superficial, the sensuous, the artificial, the merely pleasing, is of the world. It is that which contains its own corruption, its inevitable decay and destruction, within itself. It looks to the present, to the pleasing, to the sensuous, with little regard for the beyond, unless that future promises a larger return, a greater profit to selfishness. All this is foreign to Christianity in its very essence. Out of it have grown by a natural development, if such a thing can be in that which is essentially abnormal, all the evil deeds of the ages. These are set forth in “the works of the flesh” in Gal. 5: 19-21; Mark 7: 21-23; Rom. 1: 29-31; 2 Tim. 3: 1-5.
It is the spirit of the world, it is the lusts of the world, which have led to the cruel, baleful fruits of unrestrained tyranny in the past; to the judicial torture; to the enslavement of men; to all the brutality and vice of the ages.
There is no conversion of this world. God has never promised to convert it. There is no intimation of such teaching in His Word. It is the WORLD ever. To His disciples, Jesus says, “If ye were of the world, the world would love its own; but because ye are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.” John 15:19. Jesus prays for His disciples: “I pray not that Thou shouldest take them from the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” John 17: 15, 16. And again He declares to a worldly governor, “My kingdom is not of this world.” John 18: 36.
The manifestations of the worldly spirit have been much more evident in some ages than others, in some countries than others, in some districts of the same countries than others. There are various reasons for this, the chief of which has been the influence of the true religion and light from God, often perverted and filtered through great moral darkness. The people of the world to-day pride themselves on the improved laws and methods and conditions prevalent in modern civilization, contrasting them with the darker past; but they forget that all of the better things have come through the indirect influence of the Bible in remolding the lives of men. The infidel often boasts of his superior standard and moral conduct, forgetting that it has all come about through the influence of Christianity. If the old regime of worldly idolatry had persisted, his wife and daughter might have been devotees of the licentious worship of Baal or Bacchus, while he might be offering his eldest son as a sacrifice on the altar of Moloch. The better manners of the world to-day are owing to the influence of Bible teaching; and wherein they are at all better is not a result of self-development, but an unconscious imbibing and restraint of the religion of the Bible.

Ever the Same

But the world is the world still. It has higher standards, but it is no nearer the standard now than it was to its standards three hundred years or three thousand years agone. Take it the last fifty or one hundred years, for instance. Are men more honest now than then? Can their word be depended on now better than then? Their garments, perhaps, were rougher, their manners more uncouth, their words less refined and polished; but are their hearts now kinder? Are they more virtuous? Are their homes more hospitable? Are their daughters purer? Are government officials cleaner? Is the probity of business men more marked? Is there less shoddy in goods, less adulteration in food? Is life safer now? A thousand questions might be asked. These are sufficient. Answered in the light of the Word and the awful, serious facts before us, it is putting it mildly to say that the world is no better.
The great, serious fact facing every soul to-day is not that the WORLD is worse or better: for in the words of Holy Writ, “The world passeth away.” Of itself it is ever essentially the same. The sad fact is that the world is in the church, by the consent of the church; and that God’s arraignment of the world lies against the church, because the church is the friend of the world. Do you want the evidence? Read, then, the two indictments of Holy Writ; the one on the left a description of the heathen world in the days of the apostle Paul; the one on the right Paul’s prophetic description of the religious world to-day:
HEATHEN WORLD NOMINAL CHRISTIAN
“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful.” Rom. 1:28-31. “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such turn away.” 2 Tim. 3:1-5.
What is the essential difference in these indictments?—There is none save that one was spoken of the heathen world in the first century, the other of the professed Christian church in THE LAST DAYS; for the eighteen different sins are among those who have a FORM of godliness which HAS power, but they DENY the power in their worldly lives. We all know that these sins are prevalent. We know that they are fostered and some of them defended.
And it is this which makes the times perilous. Moral standards are debased. Moral barriers are thrown down. The world is justified in its rejection and enmity of God. The worldling can not respect a religionist who has a lower standard of morals than himself.
The great, sad answer to the question is that the world is no better, and that the church and the world are arm in arm.
And yet to these—backslidden Christians and pleasure-loving, gain-seeking worldlings—there is hope for each and all. Christ died to save you from the evil principles which will destroy. He invites each of you to leave the world, and find in Him cleansing and peace and strength and everlasting life. We know the Master; we know He will not disappoint you.