p. 466 | Worldly Disciples by Rev. E. A. Lawrence, D. D.

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Aug 7, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 30.

Worldly Disciples.

By Rev. E. A. Lawrence, D. D.

A WORLDLY Christian! How glaring the incongruity! How incompatible the elements which mingle in such a character! It is like a sick-well man, or a dead-live one, and is a real struggle between life and death. Is not the love of the world as clearly forbidden as lying? Does it not involve as real opposition to Christ as to steal or murder? "He that is a friend of the world is an enemy of God." Hence the frequent admonitions and cautions of the inspired writers concerning it. "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 eye, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but of the world."

The term world, as used in its relation to the Christian life, comprehends those maxims and fashions, objects and pleasures, which are inconsistent with the teachings and example of Christ. The spirit of the world, like the air we breathe, is everywhere around us. It is infected; it is miasmatic. All are born into it; all live in it, and are moulded by it. Worldly considerations so often and so easily prevail, that many professing Christians do not perceive the injury. A general debility is the consequence. No great sins mark their decline, but they have relaxed the strictness of their discipline, and the firmness and fervor of their adherence to the Christian cause. The motives to the higher Christian life are too feeble for the opposing power. The more elevated examples and the standard of this life have come to be so at variance with their ideas, that they are dismissed as impracticable, if not as offensive singularities. How often does the justification of this enfeebling conformity come from the lips of those whose Master says, "Ye are not of the world, even as I am not of the world."

Mr. Worldly-mind thinks "it does no good to be singular." "Conformity to the world," he says, "is a matter of construction, in which it is difficult to know where the right ends, and the wrong begins. It is a matter of degrees, too, in which something should be conceded by the few to the opinions of the many." It is by such sophisms that the adversary gains upon these worldly disciples, and Christ loses.

They seek for the latest fashions, and follow them at an expenditure of time and money which would be thought excessive were it an appropriation to the cause of benevolence. They indulge in festivities which are an open disparagement of the "joy unspeakable and full of glory" to which they professedly aspire. They resort to amusement from which the groveling derive their sensual enjoyment. Can the Christian character be unharmed by so much yielding to the world? Will the love of Christ long glow in a heart which gives such friendly entertainment to his greatest foe? "A Christian in the world," says John Newton, "is like a man who has had a long intimacy with one whom at length he finds out to have been the murderer of a kind father; the intimacy after this will surely be broken."

"The door at which those influences enter which countervail parental instruction and example, I am persuaded," writes Dr. Alexander, "is yielding to the ways of good society. By dress, books, and amusements, an atmosphere is formed which is not that of Christianity. More than ever do I feel that our families must stand in a kind but determined opposition to the fashions of the world, breasting the waves, like the Eddystone light-house. And I have found nothing yet which requires more courage and independence than to rise even a little, but decidedly, above the par of the religious world around us."

But what are the prevalent maxims and fashions of a community where the majority live unto themselves, that these should be the Christian's common law? The world has always outnumbered the church. But is that any reason for conforming to it? Is the evil of loving the world any less because so many love it? Is there any more safety in a wrong road because multitudes travel it? Custom may take away the singularity of worldliness, but can it remove its sinfulness? Refinement may make folly agreeable and fashionable, but can it refine away its intrinsic foolishness and incongruity with the Christian character?

Mrs. Pliable concludes that "it does no good to be singular. Besides, these peculiar people are often very repulsive to persons of taste. By such over-strictness many of the rich and cultivated are kept out of the church." But let me remind her that eminent piety has always been singular. The greatest benefactors of the race are those whom Christ has "redeemed from all iniquity, and purified unto himself as a peculiar people." He made the boldest encroachments on the venerated maxims and customs of the world, and was most thoroughly out of its fashions, reprehending them with unsparing rebuke. And this man, Mrs. Pliable, is your Master and Model, and mine. True, the world sought a cruel revenge for his boldness. But he conquered it by maintaining, not by surrendering, his singularity. And he has called you, Mr. Worldly-mind, out of the world, that you may overcome, not by conforming to, but by confronting it; not by compromises with its customs and indulgence in its amusements, but by unflinching resistance and denial, by prayer and unceasing labor, to win it back to Christ, its rightful Lord.

A Christian's power of good over the world is greatest when his spirit is in most pure and Christ-like antagonism to its spirit. Your faith and love and religious influence, worldly disciples, are inversely as you are ruled by its maxims and pleased with its applause. Your alliance owns it as a friend. But it is neither your friend nor Christ's. It deceives and defiles you. It defrauds and would destroy you, and yet you love it. You yield to its fascinations, in part because they are common, and in part because they delight you. Alas! this should have been your warning, for nothing is so common as sin. When you consider that the fashionable and the customary ways of the world are only the changeful hues of its self-same Christ-denying spirit; when you remember that conformity to them draws you into unholy alliance with that spirit against the kingdom and work of the Redeemer; that the Christian character can be formed, and the objects of the Christian life secured, only so far as the Christian doctrine is exemplified and worldly influences are resisted; and yet observe to what extent many in the church go in their conformity to the world, you will perceive how powerfully this cause operates to hinder the advancement of Christ's kingdom, through the defects in Christian character which it occasions by a worldly mind and too much pliability.

Glance at the circles of fashionable life, and see how many worldly disciples are eddying on its smooth or ruffled surface. How many are made giddy in its round of gayeties, or jealous by its competitions for the favor of the fashionable and the frivolous! Yet Mrs. Fashionable Christian studies to shine as a star in these circles, and gives much more of her time and thoughts to these than to Christ and his poor.

A glimpse of the business world discloses not a few of Christ's professed followers suffering from the same worldliness. Mr. Make-haste-to-be-rich affirms it as a Christian duty "not to be slothful in business;" that "if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." He thinks "a great deal of good can be done with money when one has earned it." So he takes the world's common law of trade as his rule,—to make the greatest profits and the fewest losses, to gain all one can, honestly if he can, but, any way, to gain, and keep what he gains.

"I cannot be strictly honest and make money," said a young man as he was commencing business. He made money, how honestly I cannot say. Many youthful disciples feel, with him, that they must yield to this commercial spirit, or fail of success. They begin by attenuating the law of Christ, which makes it as obligatory to do as well in a bargain for their neighbor as for themselves, and end by setting it wholly aside. The error lies in assuming that they must succeed. They ought to obey the law of Christ,—be diligent in business, and leave the measure of their prosperity to his providence. This would preserve their consistency as Christians, give full development to their character, and make them the light of the world.

Many a Christian in business seems as worldly as those who are not Christians. He is as eager after gain as they, and almost as unscrupulous in his means of securing it. The cause of Christ is apparently no dearer to him, and he does scarcely more for its advancement. The meetings for prayer on a week day draw him from business no more than them, and the Sabbath bears scarcely more testimony that he is interested in the welfare of sinners than are they.

Oh, "it is sad to see the work of the divine Spirit thus marred, and his consecrated temple thus deserted and in ruins! And the great evil is, not that worldliness induces a neglect of the outward means of grace, and therefore diminishes the supply; not that sacrifices of time and substance in the Redeemer's cause are more sparingly and more reluctantly made; but it is that it banishes the Spirit of God from the hearts of his people. It blots out the sunlight of Heaven, and leaves them to walk in darkness. It hangs a weight upon the wings of prayer, clogs the wheels of the gospel chariot, and retards an advancing Messiah.

This love of the world,—beware of it! In any of its forms it is the bane of the church, the perversion of the best things into the worst. It extinguishes the flames of love on the altar of the heart. It strips off the breastplate of righteousness, lets fall the shield of faith, and leaves the sword of the Spirit to rust in its scabbard. O world! world! in the heart of the Christian thou art his curse, his ruin; but, as his field of labor, thou art the arena of his spiritual struggles, the strengthener of his arm, and the monument of his final victory!