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Transcript 400C
What is "Friendship with the World"?
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Good evening, Mr. Camping. Would you speak a bit about what is meant by friendship with the world? And I'll take my answer on the air
HC: All right. Fine.
The Bible declares that friendship with the world is enmity against Christ, or words to that effect. What is the world?
Let's look at this a little bit objectively. Let's try to get some kind of a perspective. God created this universe to be altogether loyal to Him. And He put as head, or ruler, over this universe, mankind. He gave everything into subjection to mankind.
Now mankind rebelled against God, beginning with Adam and Eve. And so they were cursed. They surrendered their will to Satan actually, who became the prince of this world. And the whole world under mankind was likewise cursed. So the world is really in rebellion against God, therefore.
Now intruding upon this world is the grace of God, the redemption that Christ has provided through His shed blood. So here we find, here and there, an individual who becomes born again, who has been ransomed from his sin and who is now a child of God.
At this point we begin to see that we have two kingdoms in existence. We have the Kingdom of Christ, represented by those who are born again believers, and we have the kingdom of this world, or the kingdom of Satan, which is made up of everyone else. Of course it is the preponderant kingdom. It is the larger of the two, by all odds, since there are only a remnant chosen by grace who actually become saved.
The kingdom of this world, that is, the unsaved, their desires and hopes and aspirations are focused on self, that is, on their own selves, and upon this world, upon the things that this earth can produce, because it is in this earth that they find their security, they find their hope, they find their confidence. The more money they have, the more buildings they own, the lands that they give their names to, these are finally what is important.
They also wish to satisfy their own sinful lusts, because they are only interested in themselves, so personal pleasure becomes a very dominant theme in their life. And sometimes this pleasure can take on very sinful overtones.
Now the believer is an alien here, in a real sense. The believer is a stranger, a pilgrim. The Bible speaks in Hebrews 11 of Abraham, that he walked as a stranger and as a pilgrim in this world. There is no abiding city here. His eye was on the Heavenly City, the city of which he had become a citizen when he became saved, the same city that we belong to when we are saved. As we read in Philippians 3, our commonwealth, our citizenship, is in Heaven.
This world is someplace we have to live in, after we're saved. But we are to have desires and goals and aspirations that are altogether different from the unsaved. Our goal, our focal point, that we pitch our wagon to, is Heaven, and the Lord Jesus Christ He is our King. He is the one whom we serve. And we recognize that the task that God has given us on this earth is to be His ambassador, to represent Christ on this earth in offering the Gospel to others. We really are stewards of the wherewithal God gives us, with the responsibility and the privilege of making all that God has given us as available as possible to share this precious Gospel with others. That's our role.
Therefore we do not want to be sidetracked. We don't want to get all excited about the things that money will buy. We don't want to pursue riches. We don't want; to pursue pleasure. I often think of those who really work overtime to try to become a great skier, or a great baseball player, or a great this or a great that. Now this is fine for the world, because that is their only goal. At least that's some kind of a goal.
But for the Christian that kind of a goal doesn't satisfy at all. This is not the goal for the believer, to exhaust himself in the pursuit of something that the world is concerned about. The goal of the Christian is to exhaust himself to live to the glory of God, to be as obedient as possible to the will of God, to the Word of God, to be as available as possible, in our time and our energy, in our finances, and whatever, that the Gospel might be sent forth. This is the goal of the believer. And anything less than this is friendship with the world.
A lot of times we simplify this whole question by simply thinking that friendship with the world has to do with friendship with that which is sinful. No, it's more complex than that. It's far wider than that. Actually, if our attitudes in life are such that we find a chief concern in our life to have the things that the world has, to pursue the same goals that the unsaved pursue, then we are engaging in friendship with the world rather than in friendship with Christ. As friends of Christ, as those who are ambassadors of Christ, our goals are heavenly. They're focused on the Lord Jesus Christ.
There's an old cliche which I might remark upon in this connection, which says that he was so heavenly-minded that he was no earthly good. Now that's a nonsensical cliche. There is no such thing as being so heavenly minded. That is the goal of every believer, that we would be exceedingly heavenly minded, because that is where the Lord Jesus Christ is. Christ is our Lord. Christ is our Savior. In Him we live and move and have our being. We are in Him, and He indwells us. Christ lives in us because we have become a child of God, and we have become born again. This immutable, this unchangeable, this ever constant relationship that exists between the believer and Christ, must be there if we are truly born again. And therefore our goal always ought to be Christ. This is friendship with God, you see. This is fellowship with Him.
Now to put feet under this whole discussion, we have to say therefore that if we are really a lover of God, and we are not a lover of the world, then we're going to be spending a lot of time in the Word of God, because it is the revelation of God's will for our life. We're going to spend a lot of time in prayer, because we've learned to trust implicitly in God, and through prayer we can also bring our praise to Him. We're going to spend a lot of time thinking about our life, How can I use it more effectively and more efficiently for the service of the Lord? We're not going to be content with the status quo. We're going to be thinking, "God has given me a good business,"
"God has given me a good medical practice," "God has given me this or that or the other thing." How can I use these means to the highest possible degree to praise God?" And this will be on the mind and on the heart of the child of God, who is not interested in living in this world.
And as we pray for wisdom concerning these things, as we live more and more with these thoughts in view, we're also going to find that as we make decisions, regarding where we're going for our vacation, or how we're going to spend some money, or whatever, where we're going to live, or what profession or business or occupation we're going to be in, we're going to be seeking God's will more and more and more. This is the life of the child of God who does not want to be a friend to the world.
On the other side of the coin, those who are friends with the world will think, first of all, of their own personal pleasure and comfort. They will think first of all of security in the things that money will buy. They will think first of all of doing the very same things that the world does. And many of these things in themselves are not sinful. But when they are carried out with the motivation that the world carries them out, they become sinful, because they're not being carried out to God's glory.