This World is Not Our Friend

Surely one who is only a mere professor of faith in Christ may live at ease with this world. He may love the world and be loved by the world. He is not offended by their temptations to depart from Christ and His church. And the world is not offended by his gospel or his Christ.

But this is not so with us who are true possessors of faith in Jesus Christ. We cannot live in peace with this world for they are an enemy of our Lord and our soul. (John 15:18-21) We cannot be at peace with this world even because we have been given a new heart that is “created after God in true holiness” and this world “lieth in wickedness”. (Ephesians 4:24; 1John 5:19) This world hates and is offended by our Lord Jesus Christ and the gospel of the free and Sovereign Grace of God. (Romans 9:33; Galatians 5:11) The world is content to believe in the anti-Christ of free will works religion. For their Christ died for all men but saved none of them except that man exercise his free will or do some work of obedience to the law. But our gospel is an offence to this world because it declares that God is Sovereign in the salvation of men. (Jonah 2:9) Our Gospel declares that before the world began the Father chose, elected and decreed to save a people. The Father gave them to Jesus Christ in a covenant of Grace to be their Savior. The Son of God was made flesh to obtain righteousness and redemption for all those the Father gave Him. (Ephesians 1:3-6) And we know that He was successful in his work. Jesus did redeem all this elect people and provide for them the righteousness of God. God the Holy Spirit is sent to quicken them from the dead and give them faith in Christ. (Isaiah 42:4) Therefore we are sure that all those the Father chose, and the Son redeemed the Holy Spirit of God shall call by our gospel and everyone of them shall come to Christ. (John 6:37-40)

Believer let us not be deceived by the pretend affection of this lost world. Let us not be allured by their baits and temptations by which they seek to separate us from our Lord Jesus Christ. Remember what our Lord told us about this world. “I pray not for the world but for those thou hast given me; for they are thine.” “I have given them (the elect, true believers in Christ) thy word and the world hath hateth them because they are not of the world. Believer in Christ we are dead to this world and the world is dead to us. This world will never be a friend of grace. It will never be a friend of Christ and therefore anyone who is a friend to the world is an enemy of Christ. (James 4:4)
Therefore Jesus said “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”(Luke 14:26)

Are you a friend of this world or are you a Servant of Christ? May God call out His people to Himself and keep us from this enemy and its temptations.

– Fred Evans