A TALE OF TWO KINGDOMS by Peter MastersFROM SWORD & TROWEL 2002 No 4
One of the greatest of all the changes in evangelical Christian life over the
last few decades is in the attitude to worldliness. Slackness, even indifference, to
worldliness came in first among shallower churches, then more recently among some of
the best. Now, worldliness is regarded as an outdated and irrelevant concept which only
overscrupulous and rather narrow-minded people worry about. Yet once it was seen as
almost the number-one enemy of God’s people.
Even pastors often say, ‘I am progressive,’ meaning that they do not mind
worldliness. They make the duty of being in the world an excuse for
scrapping all inhibitions about what Christians should or should not do. Worldly
Christianity is in.
We read that one of the greatest Puritan scholars in the world is a keen
jazz enthusiast. We hear of a reformed seminary professor who goes around churches
simulating night-club jazz performances as a means of evangelism. We see the best-
selling books of a noted champion of Calvinism showing an alarming familiarity with
worldly movies.
Any sense of danger or wrong seems to have vanished, as ‘worldly’
activities are increasingly taken up by churches, whether in the tastes and pursuits of
members, or in the music and format of worship. Where have the faithful pastors gone?
What has happened to that sturdy breed of officers who once held churches close to the
Lord and His Word? So many congregations are going the way of the world that it is clear
our great need is not only revival, but some kind of preceding, winnowing process in our
churches. Do we imagine that the Holy Spirit of God would revive worldly
Christianity?
Believers everywhere need to hear once again the basic and vital teaching
of Christ, about two kingdoms so utterly different in character, rule and culture. These
are, of course, the kingdom of this world-order, and the kingdom of God. The first is
implacably hostile to the second, while the second struggles to rescue souls from the first,
but is never to merge with or befriend it.
Simply to look at our Lord’s use of the word ‘world’ should alarm us
about the errors and dangers of worldliness. In John 3.19 we read:
‘And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and
men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.’
It is clear that Christ does not merely refer to the planet when He speaks of
‘the world’. This is not a matter of geography. He uses ‘world’ to describe a society in
rebellion against God - a godless world-order. As the texts unfold we shall see a
tremendous chasm between Christ’s kingdom, and this world-order, or
between believers and worldlings. This is about a spiritual battle that runs throughout all
history.
Can we prove that in using the word ‘world’, the Lord referred to a culture
rather than to planet earth? The reality of this will become obvious and inescapable as we
look at the texts.
The ‘world’ is a society in which men love ‘darkness rather
than light’. This is a strong statement, telling us that this society decidedly and
wilfully prefers sin, championing it against light. It is the language of
conscious, calculated choice, involving intense opposition to light, and this is how we
must see the world. For our part (like Christ) we love the sinner while hating the sin, but
for its part, the world, as a system, is our sworn enemy. To relax caution is to smile
condescendingly at Christ’s words of warning.
Our term ‘worldliness’ is not just another word for sin, but it points to a
particular kind of sin, namely, to any activity or goal that clearly identifies with or
approves of the distinctively godless works of this world-system. This world is a society
dedicated to success and happiness without God. It feels free to abuse His laws. So many
of its recreations, entertainments, plans and schemes say: ‘We do not need God and we do
not want God.’
Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones once told a ministers’ fraternal that it was his great
burden to wake up Christians to the existence of the spiritual warfare. At the time, the
area of warfare in mind was the work of the devil in tempting individuals and attacking
their assurance. The war with the world did not then seem to be as pressing as the
individual’s battle with sin and doubt. But now it is of equal importance. Today we need
to reawaken Christians to a warfare in which they are in danger of being dragged back
into this world-system, offensive as it is to God, and opposed as it is to the Gospel.
Another reference by Christ to the gulf between His spiritual kingdom and
this world-order, is seen in John 8.23:
‘And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye
are of this world; I am not of this world.’
In physical terms, of course, Christ was of this world, for He
was born into it and as a man grew up in it. But He did not belong to it in terms of a
spiritual home, kinship and allegiance, and nor do we as believers, for our citizenship is
above. (It is obvious that Christ refers here to the ‘world’ as a moral system, not as the
globe.)
Many Christians and churches today seem to have abandoned their
distinctive citizenship and allegiance, crossing constantly between the two kingdoms
almost daily. Have we no remaining sense of Christ’s separation of Himself from the
world? Is He no example to us any more?
Equally serious is the status of the world taught by Christ in John
12.31:
‘Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world
be cast out.’
Once again it is obvious that the Lord is not concerned with the world as a
geographical sphere, but with its godless order and culture, directed by Satan. It will come
under condemnation at the last day, and this is spoken of as an accomplished act once
Calvary is past.
This world-order is, says the Lord, under the princely direction of Satan.
How can we, as believers, borrow its distinctive culture? We must surely see the immense
gulf between the two ‘monarchies’, one a kingdom of holiness, under Christ, and the
other a kingdom of sin, under Satan. This is the language of the Lord.
Later, the Lord speaks of the two kingdoms in relation to the work of the
Holy Spirit, these words being recorded in John 14.16-17:
‘And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter,
that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world
cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him;
for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.’
Yet again, it is clear that ‘the world’ is not the planet, but all people other
than believers. This world-order cannot recognise the operation of the Holy Spirit,
because it strenuously defends its own atheism, agnosticism, and false religions. The
world will never acknowledge in any way the work of the Spirit. If a person is converted
and changed, the world prefers to think it is just a phase, or that the convert is deluded.
All the fabric of life in this world-order is a snub to the Spirit, and all its prescriptions for
success ignore Him.
It is staggering to think that we who have the power and blessing of the
Holy Spirit, which the world cannot receive, should feel the need to bolster our worship,
outreach and personal happiness with the culture of a world which rejects the Spirit.
Furthermore, as believers we have the peace of God which passes all
understanding, something unknown to the kingdom of this world, as we learn in
John 14.27:
‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world
giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.’
Yet many believers today are saying that they could not live life without
this world’s respect, honours, pleasures and enjoyments. How offensive this must be to
the Christ of immeasurable satisfaction and peace!
In John 14.30, the Lord separated again between Himself and
Satan, the ruler of this world-order:
‘Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world
cometh, and hath nothing in me.’
It is quite jarring to take in the full sense of the phrase, ‘the
prince of this world’. Satan, the vicious enemy of human souls, and the bitter enemy of
Christ, is the architect and the commander of this world-system. He shapes and fashions
its thinking and its recreations. How can we betray Christ and indulge in his destructive
dainties? Satan orchestrates atheism and immorality. He nurtures human self-sufficiency,
steers the entertainment industry to pervert and pollute souls, and corrupts so many
secular pleasures. Is Christian worldliness anything less than defection and treason?
One of the Lord’s strongest statements about the incompatibility of the two
kingdoms appears in John 15.19:
‘If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye
are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world
hateth you.’
The world will always be deeply suspicious of Christians
who are true and loyal to Christ, because they are so different. They have
been taken out of the world, and have nothing in common with its values. For their part,
Christians have great sympathy and feeling for the lost state of worldlings, and they care
about their souls, but they are virtually a different race.
When the world gives prime television time to ‘Gospel’ rock, enjoying
and applauding its performers, it does so because ‘Christians’ have made themselves
indistinguishable from worldlings, and have renounced their cause. There is therefore no
further basis for suspicion, and the world can accept and love them.
Why do many traditional churches and believers run after the charismatics
in their headlong rush to imitate the world’s culture? Why do they behave as though the
Lord never said all these things about the two opposite kingdoms?
We hear of individual believers who have accepted the idea that social
drinking is in order, and follow it to avoid scorn - which their Saviour said was part of
the Christian stand. To avoid disapproval they go to the pub with work colleagues, laugh
at the same things, and in other ways accommodate themselves to worldly attitudes. They
cannot bear to be different, or to be derided, and so they fudge the distinction between the
church and the world.
The Lord, in John 16.8, speaks of how worldlings will require
a deep, threefold conviction if they are to be saved:
‘And when he is come [the Holy Spirit], he will reprove the world of
sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.’
Our calling is to be so different that by life and lip we can show lost souls
the condemned nature of godless culture. How can worldly Christians who have adopted
that culture be used by God to give light to the lost?
To be judged as a culture
In His great prayer for His people the Saviour distinguishes emphatically between
the world and believers, saying in John 17.9 -
‘I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou
hast given me; for they are thine.’
We are taught elsewhere to pray for all men, but not at all for this
world-system, because it is already under the condemnation of God. It is so offensive to
Him, that as a culture and society it is to be judged.
In John 17.14-16 the Lord goes further, praying -
‘I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because
they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou
shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the
evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.’
We saw not long ago on television news broadcasts the way in which
anthrax scares were dealt with in the USA, health workers being clad in totally enclosing
protective suits. Morally and culturally that is how we must live and work in this world.
We have a mission to as many people as we can reach, but we must never be of the world.
This is a fundamental of the faith - never to forget the great chasm between the two
kingdoms.
In the parable of the sower there is a principle that applies for all time.
This quotation is from Matthew 13.22:
‘He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the
word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word,
and he becometh unfruitful.’
The care (or cares in other Gospels) of this world is defined by Luke as
riches and pleasures. A person’s preoccupation with this world’s possessions and
entertainments will choke the Gospel seed, and that person will not be saved.
What about people who are already saved, who fall back to the pursuit of
this world’s fame, fortune and frivolities, having divided hearts? Although they will not
lose their salvation, the Word will surely no longer speak to them. The Spirit will no
longer use them. We feel sorry for their Sunday School classes, because the teachers’
hearts are choked with the cares of this world, and their compromises have made them
unblessable.
The last words of Christ to be quoted here should be decisive. They appear
in Luke 16.13:
‘No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and
love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve
God and mammon.’
For ‘mammon’ we may easily read ‘this world’. It stands for anything that
rivals the kingdom of God in our heart. The statement is about service to rulers, and the
warning is that divided loyalty involves dislike and rebellion.
Texts such as these - and all directly from the lips of our Redeemer and
Lord - should surely drive us to study the nature of worldliness with great urgency and
seriousness.
The errors of worldliness are equally emphasised in the epistles, where the
Spirit reveals further aspects of its dangers. In Romans 12.1-2, Paul urges
believers to give themselves to the Lord as a living sacrifice, adding:
‘And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the
renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and
perfect, will of God.’
‘Conformed’ (in the original) refers to how impressionable we are to
external influences and pressures. The world can easily press its tastes and ways upon us,
just as the soaps shape society. ‘Transformed’ is from a Greek word that usually refers
to inner change. This is the only defence against vulnerability to the world.
In mind and heart we must be shaped by God’s Word, and then the outer person will not
be malleable and easily twisted to worldliness. The apostle, like the Lord Himself, talks
here about opposites: the possibilities of being conformed to the world, or transformed
and renewed by the Word. These cannot be blended as many attempt to do today.
In 1 Corinthians 3.18 Paul speaks of the methods we employ
in Christian work:
‘Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be
wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.’
In secular life we are to use the best methods we can devise for operating
businesses and professions, but when it comes to the church, God has laid down the
methods. Smart schemes and gimmicks that come from secular thinking have no place,
and anyone who does not understand the difference between secular business and Gospel
service is (according to Scripture) practising foolishness. He should become as if he were
a simple person and a fool, says Paul, laying aside his clever schemes fashioned to this
world’s standards, and then, by honouring God’s methods, he will be shown to have been
wise.
It seems that some Christian workers today cannot bring themselves to
trust the power of the Word of God, applied to hearts by the Holy Spirit. They think God
needs the help of entertainment borrowed from the enemy kingdom. The apostle Paul
warns about producing converts that turn out to be wood, hay and stubble - the result of
wrong methods (1 Corinthians 3.12).
In 2 Timothy 4.10, Paul refers to a member of his mission
who had deserted:
‘For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is
departed unto Thessalonica.’
What a tragic verse this is! A companion of Paul and Luke, who had
risked his life for the cause, had forsaken the Lord and did not want anything more to do
with the work. What ruined Demas? He became fond of this present world-order. He was
drawn as a moth to the light to Thessalonica, the richest city of Macedonia.
Was he a true Christian? We must assume so for the apostle to have
trusted him so much. How vulnerable we are to the subtle desirability of aspects of this
world and its culture! The tragedy of our day is that if Demas lived now, he would not be
obliged to leave either full-time service, or the church, if he wished to be a worldling. He
could serve both kingdoms at the same time.
Perhaps he could be one of those rich televangelists (with gold-plated bath
taps and every kind of earthly luxury). Few would turf him out of the ministry today. Few
would require him to ‘keep himself unspotted from the world’.
Our last three texts are so well-known we give them without comment, but
we wonder how some churches can dare to read them out publicly:
‘Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of
the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is
the enemy of God’ (James 4.4).
‘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 for ever’ (1 John 2.15-17).
‘And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my
people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities’
(Revelation 18.4-5).
Two Kingdoms
Worldliness is consorting with the enemy. It includes covetousness and
vainglory, where a person has an undue thirst for recognition, honour and possessions.
Worldliness is seen in extravagance and self-indulgence. It flourishes when believers are
chiefly devoted to the affairs of this life, and chiefly intent on the things of this life. It
occurs when the distinctive lifestyle of a world-system that is against God is adopted
(or adapted). It is seen in worldly-style parties, and the visiting of pubs.
The sin of worldliness on the part of a Christian may not encompass golf,
but it will certainly be found in the clubhouse. It is attached to immoral films and TV
programmes. It may not involve every movie, but it will definitely be
involved in the overwhelming majority.
Worldliness is in loving (and using) the style of music and song which is
the ‘badge’ of an anti-God, anti-morality culture. It is a sin committed wherever Christian
distinctiveness is surrendered. It is committed in any pursuit of activities or goals clearly
identified with this world’s aims.
Worldliness is seen in fear of the consequences of separation from the
world, and indifference to the jealousy of God. ‘The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to
envy,’ says James. The Holy Spirit of God yearns jealously for us - to protect us and
carry us forward in the walk of godliness and faith. Will we grieve Him away?
If there are two opposing kingdoms, which do we serve? It cannot be both.
To which do we really belong? Which do we love? For which would we die - or rather -
for which will we die, one day?
Strangers and pilgrims here below,
This earth, we know, is not our place;
We hasten through this vale of woe,
And, restless to behold Thy face,
Swift to our heavenly country move,
Our everlasting home above. We’ve no abiding city here,
But seek a city out of sight;
Thither our steady course we steer,
Aspiring to the plains of light,
Jerusalem, the saints’ abode,
Whose founder is the living God.
( Charles Wesley)
Defining Worldliness
A good understanding of worldliness would be helped by a thumbnail
definition. A number exist, but these were drafted years ago, before today’s audacious
penetration of worldliness into churches. For the new situation they tend to be vague and
unchallenging. James Ramsey’s definition, for example, fails to pinpoint the real nature
of worldliness. In noble language, it reads:
WORLDLINESS IS EVERYTHING FROM WHICH GOD IS EXCLUDED, NO
MATTER HOW LOVELY IN ITSELF.
The trouble with this, dare we say, is a double confusion. First, it does not
touch the character or nature of an activity, only the issue of
whether God is included. It implies (unintentionally) that to include God could sanctify
virtually anything, so you could have rock Gospel concerts, Christian night-clubs, almost
anything you like, as long as it is for God.
Secondly, the Ramsey definition could be understood to condemn anything
which does not directly involve the Lord. This would render most people’s daily jobs
worldly, together with many household gadgets and ornaments, and countless other ‘God-
neutral’ things. The definition sounds good on the surface, but really it is not well thought
out. Because it is unworkable, it helps to discredit the concept of worldliness.
A better wording would not brand as ‘worldly’ everything
from which God is excluded, but only things from which God is militantly
excluded (eg: things relating to an anti-God, anti-moral culture).
In the Bible, worldliness includes the error of borrowing from godless
culture for spiritual purposes, and this needs to be spelled out clearly in any definition.
The following wording would include these requirements:
WORLDLINESS IS FRIENDSHIP WITH, OR USE OF, ANYTHING FROM WHICH
GOD AND HIS STANDARDS ARE MILITANTLY EXCLUDED, NO MATTER HOW SKILFUL OR
ACCOMPLISHED.
This definition rules out the use (say) of musical forms which distinctively
belong to anti-Christian, anti-moral entertainment culture, but it enables Christians to
keep their employment in (say) a food factory, or motor plant, so long as God and His
standards are not militantly excluded.
Another well-known definition which spoils a true picture of worldliness
runs like this:
WORLDLINESS IS LOVE OF, TRUST IN, OR DESIRE FOR ANYTHING NOT
DIVINE.
Though well intended, it is obvious that this goes too far. By this
definition worldliness cannot possibly be avoided, and so cynics smile, the concept is
discredited, and no one takes it seriously any more.
Another definition that does not really help says that worldliness is -
ANY ACTIVITY THAT SEEKS NEITHER THE GLORY OF GOD NOR THE
EDIFICATION OF THE BELIEVER.
Spiritual as it sounds, this is another definition that would unintentionally
condone the use of worldly culture in worship so long as you could show you had added
something about God, and included instruction for believers. This too, if taken utterly
literally, would require believers to resign from countless wholesome occupations and
pursuits.
Such definitions only lead people to say, ‘Look, don’t let’s worry unless a
thing is obviously immoral. If it’s moral, it’s okay.’ So worldliness is not something to be
anxious about.
A useful working definition of worldliness would include mention of an
aspect of worldliness, namely, covetousness, emphasised by the Lord (and prominent in
the main article). The whole would read:
WORLDLINESS IS FRIENDSHIP WITH, OR USE OF, ANYTHING FROM WHICH
GOD AND HIS STANDARDS ARE MILITANTLY EXCLUDED, NO MATTER HOW SKILFUL
AND ACCOMPLISHED. IT IS ALSO GOING BEYOND MODESTY AND MODERATION IN
POSSESSIONS AND LUXURIES, OR IN CONCERN FOR APPEARANCE, TO GAIN HAPPINESS
OR APPROVAL.
This represents the constantly repeated standard of the Word of God,
enshrined in the ‘two kingdoms’ doctrine of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. (A longer
list of features of worldliness appears at the end of the main article.)
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