Do Not Love the World

1. We can’t love the world and love God at the same time.

“As a whole it is a realm that does not (or will not) recognize Christ and that despises people who follow Christ. It is shot through with the influence of dangerous deceivers like false prophets and the antichrist himself, the evil one who is in the world. ‘The world’ is conceived of as the stronghold of those who ignore the apostolic testimony. While ‘the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world,’ this saving work consists in equipping believers to ‘overcome the world,’ not benignly acquiesce to its ways. In the end, in a sense ‘the whole world is under the control of evil one.’ It is a sinister sphere indeed: it is an image ‘of life where God does not rule.’” —Robert Yarbough

“Worldliness is a love for this fallen world. It’s loving the values and pursuits of the world that stands opposed to God. More specifically, it is to gratify and exalt oneself to the exclusion of God. It rejects God’s rule and replaces it with our own.” —C.J. Mahaney

“Lust, in other words, means that instead of controlling our desires and using them as we ought to, we are controlled by them; they master us, and they control us. —Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“In the extreme, it would include ‘gluttonous in food, … slavish in pleasure, lustful and lax in morals, selfish in the use of possessions; regardless of all spiritual values; extravagant in the gratification of material desires.’” —David Allen

2. The world has nothing to offer us.

“Only God, his kingdom, and those who are rightly related to him will never fade throughout eternity.” —David Allen