SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT.
Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world.—2 Tim. 4, 10.
Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world.—2 Tim. 4, 10.
There is nothing sadder, my beloved hearers, nothing more calculated to strike dread into the heart, than the punishment of a deserter in the army. The offender is led before his regiment, and after the rehearsal of his disgrace to his fellow-soldiers, his arms are pinioned, his eyes bandaged, and an open coffin stands ready to receive his lifeless body. The file of soldiers aim at the one fluttering heart, and the lightning-like death ends the dreadful scene.
And why is a deserter's doom made so awful? Simply because the crime of desertion is so great, its demoralizing effect which it would have on the army so fatal, that it must be punished in the most telling and fearful manner. History, both sacred and secular, has put no deeper brand of infamy than on deserters. Benedict Arnold stands forth as an instance of the one, Judas Iscariot as an instance of the other. American history holds up the one before us, bandaged, pinioned, shot through with the bullets of a nation's abhorrence and malediction, whilst the other, Judas, is a name detested as far as the Bible is read and to the day of doom.
In our text we read of another deserter. His name is Demas, and the Apostle Paul has set the mark of infamy upon him.
Who, we question, was this man Demas? And what was the nature of his offense? We know very little of his early career, but that little is most favorable. He had been an associate of St. Paul in the ranks of Christ's followers. Paul more than once makes honorable mention of his name. When he wrote his letter to the Church at Colossae, he coupled the name of Demas with that of St. Luke. He thus writes: "Luke, the belovedphysician, and Demas greet you," which shows that he must have been favorably known in the Church, and that his greetings must have been highly thought of, else would the apostle not have forwarded them through his own letter.
And one more fact do we know of him. He not only professed love toward Christ, but he had once suffered for his Christian profession. He most likely had worn the honorable mark of prison chains in the name and for the sake of Christ. In his letter to Philemon, St. Paul, remembering his companions in suffering, writes: "There salute thee Epaphras, my fellow-prisoner in Christ Jesus; Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas, and Lucas, my fellow-laborers." So the apostle once wrote from a Roman prison of Demas, and it was from the same prison that he afterwards sadly penned these painful words: "Demas hath forsaken me." And why? Did his health fail? Did he go to labor elsewhere? Paul tells us: "Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world." There we have the reason, and it is one that we shall more clearly regard in our instruction these moments.
On the previous Lord's day we considered the first great enemy of our soul, Satan. To-day we come to the second, the world, reserving the third, the flesh, God willing, for next Sunday. To deal practically and directly with the matter, let us ask the questions:I. What is worldliness, and how can I tell whether I am worldly or not?II. How can I overcome my worldliness?And may God's wisdom and blessing attend our meditation!
If we read our Bible carefully, my beloved, we shall be impressed, overwhelmed by the number of Scripture passages which refer to God's people and their relation to this world. These passages are found in the Old Testament and in the New, and they are plain-spoken, their own interpretation. In the Old Testament they are such as these: "Deliver my soul from men of the world, who have their portion in this life." "And ye shall be holy unto me, for I, the Lord, am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine."
In the New Testament we find the passages still more explicit and manifold. To begin with, there is nothing that Jesus teaches with greater frequency or with greater positiveness than this fact, that we are to be unworldly in our Christian life. "Ye are not of the world," He declares, "for I have chosen you out of the world." "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." "What shallit profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"
And as the Master, so His apostles. "Be not conformed," exhorts Paul, "to this world." "Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers." "Come out from among them, and be ye separate." James writes: "The friendship of the world is enmity with God. Whosoever will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." "True religion before God is to keep oneself unspotted from the world." And to finish our quotations with the words of St. John: "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any one love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." There is nothing uncertain about these statements. Their teaching is clear. They declare that there is a broad and ineffaceable line of demarcation between the people of God and the world. They are so far apart that no man can belong to both at the same time. To try to do so produces an absurd piety and a sham, is as foolish as trying to mix light and darkness, oil and water. They refuse to mix. It means either—or, one or the other. Either Christianity will have the sway, and it will conquer and eradicate the world, or the world will have the sway, and it will efface Christianity. The world proposes a compromise, it is true, but the compromise always means death; that is why it proposes it. How imperative, then, that we should analyze what worldliness is and plant an interrogation in our heart: Am I worldly?
What, then, is worldliness? There are some who have no difficulty whatever in defining it. "Worldliness," why, that's easily explained; going to races, theaters, balls, playing euchre and dressing flashily—that's it. No doubt it is; but worldliness does not confine itself merely to theaters and balls, cards and dress. There are hundreds of people who have never been inside of a ballroom, rarely or never attended a theater, and yet they may be intensely worldly for all that. Worldliness implies something vastly more and deeper. It is something which affects not only the external acts of a person, but the heart; something which is determined by the spirit with which we do things, and not so much by the things with which we have to do. It is not the earth, the objects and the people that fill this earth, that we may not love, but the way in which we love these objects and people that constitute the world. "Worldliness," I answer, is a condition of the heart.
Let us look into this a little closer. It has to do with the inner spirit of the man or the woman. Demas' mistake was that he loved the world. Did not Paul love the world? Did he not love it when he renounced ease, gain, promotion, and station, and threw his whole soul into the holy effort of saving a poor lost world for Christ? Do we not read that God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son? And that only-begotten Son, did He not love the world when He gave His heart's blood to redeem it? Yes, they loved it and showed their love by lifting it out of its sinful and guilty condition. In the same way you and I may love the world that we may do it good, and so give more of our time, money, talents, and energy to win it back to God.
But that was not the love that brought Demas to fall, and against which we are warned. No, something quite different,—the world's ways, maxims, aims, ease, pleasures, and fascinations. Tradition tells us that Demas afterwards became a priest in a heathen temple. If so, it was no doubt because he found more gain in silver and gold than in the service of Christ. How do you regard the things of the world in your heart, and how do you regard the people of the world? That is what determines worldliness. If you love pleasure better than your prayers, any book better than your Bible, any house better than God's, any person better than your Savior, you are worldly. You are surrounded by people who do not fear God, who do not keep His commandments, who have no treasure in heaven, no plans or purposes which extend beyond the grave, minus faith, minus hope, minus all spiritual life,—what is your attitude toward such? Do you make your choice of friends from these professed worldly men and women? If so, you are worldly. I assure you some of our worst foes are our ungodly friends.
Then, you may reply, we cannot go into society at all, we must live secluded lives. The Bible does not say that. What it says is that, when we go into society, we ought to take our Christianity with us. Our Lord went into society, and wherever He went, they felt the sacredness which was about Him. You go into society, what is the result? Do you influence it, or are you influenced by it? What effect has it upon your religious life and professions? Does it secularize you and make you unfit for prayer? Does it silence your testimony of Christ, and cool down your interest and enthusiasm for the Church? Know,then, that it is making you worldly. A woman who cannot be recognized in society as a Christian by her modest dress and her pure ways, and the tone and topic of her conversation, is a worldling. The man who can do business, and not be known as a Christian by his business scruples and methods and spirit, is a worldling. If a worldling can truthfully say of you, "He is no better than I am," you are a worldling. If you live as a worldling, you are a worldling. That needs no argument. But, after all, be it noted that, however it manifests itself in manner, dress, social companionship, and conduct, worldliness primarily is a temper, spirit, and disposition of the heart. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." The world would have done Demas no harm if he had not loved it. It will do us no harm as long as we keep it out of our hearts. But here is where lurks the very danger,—it so easily, so silently, and very gradually insinuates itself into the heart. To use an illustration: In olden times the sailors, a race given to superstition, used to tell that somewhere in the Indian Ocean there was a magnetic rock that rose from the deep with power of attraction. Silently a ship was drawn towards this rock, nearer and nearer, and gradually one by one the bolts were drawn out of the vessel's side by the magnetic power. The end was that, when the doomed vessel had drawn so near that every bolt and clamp was unloosed, the whole fabric fell apart, and the crew and cargo would sink down into the waters.
So stands the magnetic rock of worldliness, enchantments, and fascinations. Its attraction is slow, silent, and yet powerfully it draws the soul that comes within its range. Under its spell, bolt after bolt of good resolutions, clamp after clamp of Christian duty are drawn out, until at length the whole structure of Christian profession falls together, a pitiable wreck. Attracted by the things of time and sense, the affections become chilled, the mind step by step full of the world.
O for the poor victims, thousands of them, equally as promising, that have foundered like this unfortunate Demas! We can see them floating everywhere on the surface of society, like spiritual driftwood, alas! see them in the church keeping up a little outward appearance and forms of religion, but generally found absent from their pew and taking little or no interest in matters of the Church.
And in what way, coming to the second consideration, maywe overcome this dangerous evil, worldliness? The Bible does not leave us without answer. As worldliness is a disposition of heart, it first aims at that. We are not to spend our time in saying this is worldly and that in formulating absolute and universal rules and binding church-members to them. It is not so much a matter of correct outward conduct as of correct inward principles. If the blood is in good condition, the complexion will be. If the heart is right, the conduct will be, and so the Apostle, getting at the root of the cause, says: "Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed," by the renewing of your minds. Christianity is a spiritual power. When the soul opens to it, the Holy Spirit resets and new-creates the spirit of the man, so that he looks away from earth to heaven, and from the things of this world to the things of God and eternity. Another bent is given to his feelings and his aims. He walks in the light of a new sun. He feels the presence of a new law drawing him in a different direction. He sees with other eyes, estimates things by another rule, and is moved by other principles. And as he yields to this new graft upon his nature, he instinctively realizes what is contrary to it. He does not need outward rules, it is plainly told him from within. The written Word is at hand to direct in many cases, and in questions of doubt the honest consultation of his own moral sense, the life of faith in the soul, will tell him where the line is to be drawn between him and the world.
And to mention one other way. If you would overcome worldliness, look after your associations. The Bible is full of admonitions and illustrations to that effect, but one perhaps stands out in boldest type, the story of Lot. He moved out of his simple patriarchal life into Sodom, the world center of his age, and the result you know. His family became hopelessly worldly, he himself without influence and power among men, and the end was destruction of his estate and judgment upon his unfortunate wife.
If not quite as disastrous, the result is always the same in character. Keep godly associations and connections, attend to the house of God. We need the fellowship of God's people to respiritualize and recharge our depressed Christian lives. It should be a place of strengthening to you. Make its people your special companions and confidants; have some from among its membership with whom you are on terms of intimacy and friendship.It is wonderful how much we are influenced by our environment and fellowship; let us, then, be careful to live with God and with God's people.
To conclude,—God help us by His grace and Holy Spirit so to live in this world as to live above it and look beyond it, diligently use the means He has given us for strength and fidelity, and preserve us from the deadly snare of that great enemy of our soul, the godless, Christless world. Nor, let us ever remember, can we successfully meet this enemy without looking for strength to that divine source upon which our eyes are centered at this season, the cross of our adorable Savior. He that kneels in devotion at the foot of the cross, that has the love of Him that suffered and died for us upon that cross spread abroad in his heart, cannot divide that heart with his rival, and enemy, and obtain force and power to combat against his assaults. Without Him we can do nothing. With Him we can prevail.
Grant that I Thy passion viewWith repentant grieving,Nor Thee crucify anewBy unholy living.How could I refuse to shunEvery sinful pleasure,Since for me God's only SonSuffered without measure?Amen.
Grant that I Thy passion viewWith repentant grieving,Nor Thee crucify anewBy unholy living.How could I refuse to shunEvery sinful pleasure,Since for me God's only SonSuffered without measure?
Amen.