Over the Line
Ever was there a time when it would be more appropriate to carve on the very walls of the sanctuary, and for every Christian to grave “on the palms of his hands,” this Divine admonition: “Be not conformed to this world.” “Whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world, is the enemy of God.”
No snare is so subtle, constant, and perilous to the follower of Christ as conformity to the world. Nothing sooner saps his spirituality; nothing hinders a revival in the Church more eflfectually. Conformity implies resemblance. And when a professed Christian begins to look like a worldling and live like a worldling, how dwelleth the love of Christ in him? For there is a complete and irreconcilable antagonism between what the Bible calls “the world” and the service of Christ.
The chief end of a Christian’s life is to glorify God. Is this the chief end of life with the people of the world? Ask any one of them, and He will answer, “No! I live to enjoy myself in promoting my interests, in gratifying my tastes, and in taking my comfort I want to get all I can, and to get the most out of it.” He “looks only at those things which are seen and temporal” God is ignoied exv!lid,Safe ^oival is ignored, eternity is forgotten. The pleasures most relished are the pleasures of sin, for God is not in any one of them. The worldling commonly delights most in what a consistent Christian finds to be forbidden fruit on forbidden ground. That forbidden fruit % poison to the Christian.
Bear in mind that every pure pleasure which an unconverted heart can enjoy, such as the joys of home and of friendship, the love of letters or art, the sight of beauty, or the delight of relieving sorrow — all these the Christian can have and enjoy likewise. They are not sinful, and the child of God can partake of them with a clear conscience. But just where a Bible-conscience tells him to stop the license of the world begins. The Word of God draws a dividing line. Over that line lies the path of self-indulgence. Over that line lies self-pampering, frivolity, slavery to fashion. Over that line God is ignored and often defied! Christ is wounded there and crucified afresh. Over that line the follower of Jesus has no business to go. It was over such a “stile” that Bunyan’s pilgrim looked wistfully, for the path was soft and skirted with flowers; but when he stepped over, he soon found himself in the dungeons of Giant Despair.
Over the line which separates pure piety from the world, the Christian, if he goes at all, must go as a participant in the pleasures of the world, or as a protestant against them. If he goes to partake, he oflfends Christ; if he goes to protest, he offends his ill-chosen associates. Christian I if ‘^ow ex ^.lk^ -^y convivial party, a ball room assembly, a theatre, or a gaming company, do you go as a partaker in the sport, or to make your protest against such amusements? If you go for the first object, you oflfend vour Lord; if for the second, you oflfend your complny. They do not want you there. We are quite sure that no bevy of merry-makers would be the happier over their cups, or their cards, or their cotillons, if all the elders and deacons of our Church were to come in suddenly among them. Brethren, “the world “don’t want you in their giddy and godless pleasures, unless you are willing to go all lengths with them. And if you walk one mile with them over the line, they will “compel you to go with them iwainy If your conscience yields the “coat,” they will soon rob you of your “cloak also.”
Vanity Fair would have welcomed Christian and Faithful to their jovial town if the pilgrims had only been willing to doflf their Puritan dress and “take a hand” with them in all their revelries. But because the godly men refused to be conformed to the fashions and follies of Vanity Fair, one of them was soon sent to the prison and the other to the stake.
Where does the dividing line run between true religion and the world? We answer, that it runs just where God’s Word puts it; and a conscience which is enlightened by the Word and by prayer does not commonly fail to discover it. Where God is honoured is the right side j where God is dishonoured, or even Ignored, is the wrong side. ‘WVvei Qwdst ^ould be likely to go if He were on earth, is the right side; but where a Christian would be ashamed to have his Master find him, there he ought never to find himself. Wherever a Christian can go, and conscientiously ask God’s blessing on what he is doing, there let that Christian go. He is not likely to wander over the line while walking by this rule. And when a church-member can enter a play-house, or go into a dancingroom, and honestly ask God’s blessing on the amusements, and come away a better Christian for it, then let him go — but not before. When a Christian invokes the Divine blessing on the bottle which he puts to his neighbour’s lips, he had better look sharply whether there is not a “serpent” and a “stinging adder” in the sparkling liquor.
Without going into further illustrations, we come to this fundamental principle, that whatever of work or of recreation a Christian engages in to promote the health of his body or soul, and in which he can glorify Christ, lies on the safe side of the dividing line. The moment he crosses it to become the “friend of the world,” he becomes the “enemy of God.”
But should not every good man be a friend of the world “? Was not the divine Jesus a friend of the world when He so loved it that He gave Himself for its redemption? Did not Paul love the world when he endured hardship, humiliations, and martyrdom to lead sinners to the cross? Ah! yes — very true; but what the Redeemer and His apostle were after was not sinners’ sins, but sinners’ zouU^ hsA. ^^’^ ^qn!^ to save the world, not by conformity to it, but by transforming it to a higher and holier idea of life. * Nor is it by going over to the world that we can save the worldling. If we are to impress the world, we must live above the world j if .we would save sinners, we must, in the same sense that Jesus was, be “separate from sinners.” The moment we go over the line to “curry favour” with the votaries of sin, we never reach them, and only run the risk of ruining ourselves. Would to God that, in trying to draw the world into conformity to Christ, we did not allow the world to drag us down into conformity with itself!