Post by Char on Oct 26, 2008 14:02:06 GMT -6
THE WORLD’S FRIENDS AND THE FRIENDS OF GOD
JAMES 4:4... THE FRIENDSHIP OF THE WORLD IS ENMITY WITH GOD.
The question sounds harsh on the ears, and wounds the feeling of many who hear it. And yet it comes from that same blessed one who tells us, GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD, ETC.
It must be love, the perfect love in its free outflowing, the love which seeks and works out the whole good of its object, Divine love itself, which appeals to our own conscience; KNOW YE NOT THAT THE FRIENDSHIP OF THE WORLD IS ENMITY WITH GOD?
A question of this form must require an affirmative reply; and the next words supply it. But do our heart and conscience give that expected answer. First, what is this world, which a friend of God may not have? And we are equally sure it cannot be simply the social relationship in which we stand. The bonds of family life, the ties of friendship, the claims of human society, springing from His fatherly love, are redeemed in Jesus Christ, are sanctified by His spirit, and are constantly up held by His word and providence.
If in any sense these human relationships come under the language of the text, it must be in some faulty and perverse reference in which we have learned to reward them.
Now, this false view of things about us is noticed in the expressions used in this chapter. THE LUSTS THAT WAR IN YOUR MEMBERS, YE ASK AMISS, THAT YE MAY CONSUME IT UPON YOUR LUSTS.
And the strong, and, as we should say, the name used in this text, points to the same false view and false use of the objects and relationships by which we are surrounded. St John, in his first epistle, speaks in very similar language..(John 2:15-16).
I. THE LUST OF THE FLESH;
When our ruling motive in the use of these things is to gratify the appetites and passions of the body. Not to supply its necessities, not to keep it in health, and to fit it for its proper work. And not only bodily passions or desires..
When we remember how the flesh is opposed to the spirit in the New Testament, we see that the word includes in its very much at least of the evil which St. Paul ascribes to the soul–the strong active desires of our nature so far as they are corrupt.
II. AGAIN; THE WORLD IN US IS PARTLY...THE LUST OF THE EYE.
It may be asked why this one of the bodily senses is singled out for separate mention. And, if the answer is sought in our own self-questioning, the question is wisely asked, and will find its answer more and more constantly.
For who can estimate the power of the eye to receive pure and healthy impressions of truth and love, of gentleness and meekness, of self-denying simplicity, and of heaven-born purity.
III. ONCE MORE, THE WORLD IN US IS PARTLY...THE PRIDE OF LIFE...THE PRIDE OF THIS WORLD’S EXISTENCE.
This world-worship may assume an unselfish character. The process may be pushed forward for others, not for ourselves.
So St. John’s description is realised not only within us, but without us, in the outward world itself.
Are there not many objects around us, and many arrangements of things whose very purpose and almost only effect is to foster those sinful propensities; schemes carefully devised for this very end; some in a more refined manner; some more coarsely; the former only the falser for their apparent refinement.
But view these arrangements and fashions of things in their most refined outward form; shed over them the lustre which the most refined art can supply; give them the outline of beauty, the harmony of color and of sound, sweetness of melody, gracefulness and life of graceful movement, the charm of sympathy in pleasure, and the responsive enjoyment of friendship or of love.
IV. AND IS IT TO FEED ANY ONE OF THESE THREE, THE DESIRE OF THE FLESH, THE DESIRE OF THE EYE, AND THE PRIDE OF LIFE.
In James words, do you ask for them that you may consume them on your own desires? Then what have you done?
You have taken fragments of God’s beautiful world, elements of His beautiful order; you have misshaped and miss-combined them, though in forms beautifully false; you have expelled Him from the work of your own skill and taste; and you have made a world, the friendship if which is ruin to yourself and enmity with Him.
V. BUT WE MUST GO A STEP FURTHER IN TESTING THE TRUE AND THE FORBIDDEN USE OF HUMAN ART.
Let us take the case where the purpose is an intellectual gratification. When form and color and sound are results of pure and simple intellectual taste, and occasions of pure and simple intellectual enjoyment, is this a world of which we may be friends.
The question almost answers itself. If we make a world of art for ourselves, or a world of intelligent thought and speculation, or accept the creation of some other more accomplished than ourselves, is it really a new world? Or is it truly and honestly a part of God’s world or God’s order?
VI. WHERE IS HIS PLACE IN THIS WORLD?
He acknowledged or expelled? Nay, is He, after all, the centre and life of that world. Do all its parts and all its subordinate order point directly and tend to Him.
I do not ask if we are at every moment consciously realising His presence in it. But does it tend to bring us to Him, and to reveal Him to us?
This right tendency may be more or less direct or indirect. But it must exist, it must be an essential element , in true intellectual exercise.
But what of the more common enjoyment of natural beauty, enjoyment which is. Here, too, is the same distinction. Men speak of looking up from nature to nature’s God. It maybe a true expression; it may be only a mask.
The passive enjoyment of natural beauty is not looking up to God at all; it is personal gratification, perhaps of the body, perhaps of the soul.
This passive enjoyment, when rightly used and controlled and directed, may be the first step of a real ascent from nature to nature’s God.
But who and what is the God to whom we thus ascend? Is He infinite greatness, and skill immeasurable by us, action in ways so various and so beautiful that we are lost in the contemplation..
Is He untold goodness whose love to His creatures shine through every one of the natural beauties which we admire and love? And is this all. I fear our friendship of this world is enmity with God.
JAMES 4:4... THE FRIENDSHIP OF THE WORLD IS ENMITY WITH GOD.
The question sounds harsh on the ears, and wounds the feeling of many who hear it. And yet it comes from that same blessed one who tells us, GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD, ETC.
It must be love, the perfect love in its free outflowing, the love which seeks and works out the whole good of its object, Divine love itself, which appeals to our own conscience; KNOW YE NOT THAT THE FRIENDSHIP OF THE WORLD IS ENMITY WITH GOD?
A question of this form must require an affirmative reply; and the next words supply it. But do our heart and conscience give that expected answer. First, what is this world, which a friend of God may not have? And we are equally sure it cannot be simply the social relationship in which we stand. The bonds of family life, the ties of friendship, the claims of human society, springing from His fatherly love, are redeemed in Jesus Christ, are sanctified by His spirit, and are constantly up held by His word and providence.
If in any sense these human relationships come under the language of the text, it must be in some faulty and perverse reference in which we have learned to reward them.
Now, this false view of things about us is noticed in the expressions used in this chapter. THE LUSTS THAT WAR IN YOUR MEMBERS, YE ASK AMISS, THAT YE MAY CONSUME IT UPON YOUR LUSTS.
And the strong, and, as we should say, the name used in this text, points to the same false view and false use of the objects and relationships by which we are surrounded. St John, in his first epistle, speaks in very similar language..(John 2:15-16).
I. THE LUST OF THE FLESH;
When our ruling motive in the use of these things is to gratify the appetites and passions of the body. Not to supply its necessities, not to keep it in health, and to fit it for its proper work. And not only bodily passions or desires..
When we remember how the flesh is opposed to the spirit in the New Testament, we see that the word includes in its very much at least of the evil which St. Paul ascribes to the soul–the strong active desires of our nature so far as they are corrupt.
II. AGAIN; THE WORLD IN US IS PARTLY...THE LUST OF THE EYE.
It may be asked why this one of the bodily senses is singled out for separate mention. And, if the answer is sought in our own self-questioning, the question is wisely asked, and will find its answer more and more constantly.
For who can estimate the power of the eye to receive pure and healthy impressions of truth and love, of gentleness and meekness, of self-denying simplicity, and of heaven-born purity.
III. ONCE MORE, THE WORLD IN US IS PARTLY...THE PRIDE OF LIFE...THE PRIDE OF THIS WORLD’S EXISTENCE.
This world-worship may assume an unselfish character. The process may be pushed forward for others, not for ourselves.
So St. John’s description is realised not only within us, but without us, in the outward world itself.
Are there not many objects around us, and many arrangements of things whose very purpose and almost only effect is to foster those sinful propensities; schemes carefully devised for this very end; some in a more refined manner; some more coarsely; the former only the falser for their apparent refinement.
But view these arrangements and fashions of things in their most refined outward form; shed over them the lustre which the most refined art can supply; give them the outline of beauty, the harmony of color and of sound, sweetness of melody, gracefulness and life of graceful movement, the charm of sympathy in pleasure, and the responsive enjoyment of friendship or of love.
IV. AND IS IT TO FEED ANY ONE OF THESE THREE, THE DESIRE OF THE FLESH, THE DESIRE OF THE EYE, AND THE PRIDE OF LIFE.
In James words, do you ask for them that you may consume them on your own desires? Then what have you done?
You have taken fragments of God’s beautiful world, elements of His beautiful order; you have misshaped and miss-combined them, though in forms beautifully false; you have expelled Him from the work of your own skill and taste; and you have made a world, the friendship if which is ruin to yourself and enmity with Him.
V. BUT WE MUST GO A STEP FURTHER IN TESTING THE TRUE AND THE FORBIDDEN USE OF HUMAN ART.
Let us take the case where the purpose is an intellectual gratification. When form and color and sound are results of pure and simple intellectual taste, and occasions of pure and simple intellectual enjoyment, is this a world of which we may be friends.
The question almost answers itself. If we make a world of art for ourselves, or a world of intelligent thought and speculation, or accept the creation of some other more accomplished than ourselves, is it really a new world? Or is it truly and honestly a part of God’s world or God’s order?
VI. WHERE IS HIS PLACE IN THIS WORLD?
He acknowledged or expelled? Nay, is He, after all, the centre and life of that world. Do all its parts and all its subordinate order point directly and tend to Him.
I do not ask if we are at every moment consciously realising His presence in it. But does it tend to bring us to Him, and to reveal Him to us?
This right tendency may be more or less direct or indirect. But it must exist, it must be an essential element , in true intellectual exercise.
But what of the more common enjoyment of natural beauty, enjoyment which is. Here, too, is the same distinction. Men speak of looking up from nature to nature’s God. It maybe a true expression; it may be only a mask.
The passive enjoyment of natural beauty is not looking up to God at all; it is personal gratification, perhaps of the body, perhaps of the soul.
This passive enjoyment, when rightly used and controlled and directed, may be the first step of a real ascent from nature to nature’s God.
But who and what is the God to whom we thus ascend? Is He infinite greatness, and skill immeasurable by us, action in ways so various and so beautiful that we are lost in the contemplation..
Is He untold goodness whose love to His creatures shine through every one of the natural beauties which we admire and love? And is this all. I fear our friendship of this world is enmity with God.
