Rebuking Worldliness — Billy Strachan

Worldliness as Selfishness and Spiritual Adultery

So there is a will of God, and one doesn't have to live worldly, one doesn't have to be over-occupied in making sure you get out of this what you want to get out of this, nor put God into a framework and a limitation of saying, here's what you're going to do and be for us.

That's no use at all, it just leads to praying out of the will of God, it leads to trampling over everybody else to get what you want, and I want what I want is the main root of the problem. Utter selfishness is worldliness.

And we read in verse 4 that it's what is known as spiritual adultery. Spiritual adultery. You adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

Now, don't get that out of balance. That doesn't mean become an aesthetic, it doesn't mean shave off your hair, get rid of your clothes, put on a saffron robe, sit on the top of a mountain and keep out of touch with life or reality or other people, it's not talking about that at all.

You have to be in the world, but not of it. In it, but not of it. And Jesus said you can't serve God in mammon. You can't serve God in the God of this world. But he also said, but make friends of the mammon of unrighteousness.

We have to use this system, but what is important is that you keep your mandate in mind, that everything from a chair to a piece of clothing to a microphone to an airplane to a book to a cassette, anything that you come in touch with, you're going to use that thing of the world as a means of fulfilling your mandate to make Christ known and to get him known in this world.

And that these things are your friends. If you don't have them, it doesn't bother you. If you've got them, enjoy them. Paul says, I have had to learn to be abounding and also to be abased. And I've got it, I've got it.

If I don't have it, I don't have it, and I don't cry. Because there's only one thing I'm living for anyway, and that is to preach the Word of God. I really get amused standing in line at airports when the flight goes wrong.

You should see the behavior of people. They about sassinate the man behind the desk. And they stand there raging and rampaging like little babies because their routine has been upset. I remember coming off a flight at Fresno and I just went straight, I never went to the left where the luggage comes off because I'd seen my luggage being offloaded again in San Francisco.

So I knew it wasn't there. And so I just went straight down the terminal to the agent and I said, you better deal with me first before the crowd comes and starts to assassinate you. I said, lots of the luggage was offset, so I'm not going to look there for mine.

I saw mine coming off. I said, so I just want to give you the name and address that you can get in touch with me when it comes in. And he says, thank you, sir. And I just turned around, boy, you could see the steam on its way.

And the guy looked at me and he says, thanks for the warning. And boy, I could hear them as I was on my way out the door to go away home. I could hear them yelling and screaming and, oh, I've been this, that and the other thing and you're a rotten old lair liner, oh, it was great.

Family, Simplicity, and Freedom from Materialism

That's the world. To them, it's so important. And never hold on to the things of the world that tightly that you want the best of both. You see, I've tried to train my kids to get ready for the world's economic collapse.

I've tried to teach them to do without a lot of things. Because I know that when the world's economy collapses and the word of God says it's going to, there are kids who are so wrapped up in the materialistic things of this world that to suddenly find there's no wage next week and there's no clothes next week and they haven't got a car or a television set, they're going to go out and shoot themselves.

Because they're going to say, how on earth could you survive without things? Whereas I grew up in a world, I grew up always wearing the clothes that were cut down. I grew up in a home where you came in from school as a boy and your clothes came off and I mean all of your clothes went on a hanger and were hung up in the room to keep them clean for tomorrow and you played around the room with nothing on.

Because you didn't have two suits, you didn't have other clothes, ran two miles to the school gate in bare feet, put on your shoes and socks, went into school, came out, took them off to run home, because it saved buying more shoes for the big long walk.

And you had to walk, there were no buses and cars supplied to take the children. And when my kids went to high school in Lancaster, I remember them saying, other kids get driven. I said, I'm not driving you.

You take the service bus from the village, the government pays your fare, you get to town and you walk to school, but that's a mile, great for you. And you know they don't regret it today, they're a lot healthier than the rest of them.

They were just dumped at the gate and sat all their life. And I've had to train them, don't be afraid of nothing, you can survive on nothing so that when the world collapses, I'm back home. When economy collapses, I'll feel at home, because I've lived in nothing.

I know you can survive on having each other, and just enjoying each other. And I'll tell you, I have been to even poor homes today, and there's a closeness and oneness between family members that you don't get in the big house, where everybody's got their own wing, and they never see each other.

I even had a staff member that I tried to encourage to move out to town with his family. And he says, oh well man, we could only afford a smaller house, and if we moved out the kids wouldn't have a bedroom each.

I said, great, then they'll get to meet each other, that's marvellous. And I've had people say to me, Billy, how come your family have pulled through as a preacher that travels five and a half months a year, you've got kids that don't seem to have gone bananas, and most preachers' kids are bananas.

How come? I said, oh it was quite simple, we didn't have the money to buy them toys, so we let them play with their mother and father instead. That's the riches that we shared with them. Our persons. Not quantity time, quality time.

And it's paid off. It's paid off. And one has to get used to the idea that things are going to go. Things, you're not always going to have them. If you can get them, use them. If the microphone dies, I'll have to shout.

But that won't worry me. C .H. Spurgeon used to speak in the Metropolitan Tabernacle with no amplification systems, they weren't in existence, and that man could speak to thousands and be heard clearly at the very back row.

But mind you, in those days we knew how to use our voices, we knew how to use our throats, and if you sat in the front row and listened to C .H. Spurgeon reading a psalm, he would be reading it like this, Bless the Lord, O my soul.

You practically fell asleep in the front row. But you know, the fellow in the back row, what he heard was, Bless the Lord, O my soul, because the sound wave had straightened out by then. And so he didn't speak quick at the front, so by the end it was, They knew, they knew how to talk in those days.

Nowadays, you get Christians, and the minute they begin to speak for Christ, you know, even in a prayer meeting, you march into the hall and say, I see thee, come down here my God, and then you say, let's pray.

Oh God, I'll try to hear you. Somehow or other there's this holy hush, and I can't speak. You ask me to give a testimony, oh, I can't speak. Oh, I'm not a speaker. That's a load of rubbish. When you people want to use your voices, which is usually at bedtime, you usually use them.

But the rest of the day you seem to be able to hustle out, have no amplification. Well, if some of you heard your own voice properly, it would frighten you to death. Because you've got volume, you could use it.

But you're thankful if you can get the aid. You don't have to shout then, it's great. But if you've got it, use it. But if there comes a time when you lose all of that, it won't bother me. It wouldn't bother me.

I'd love nothing better than to preach in my, yes, saffron robe. Yes, it just doesn't bother me. Absolutely. I've been in jungle situations where it just doesn't bother me. And if you have materialism, enjoy it.

If you don't, enjoy it. There's more happinesses in life than things. And I actually dealt with a couple recently where the girl said she wouldn't marry him. Why? How could you live with a man that couldn't provide a car?

My goodness me. What on earth is she after? And he can't give us a house more than one room. I said, that's great, at least you'll get to know each other in one room. Give you two rooms, you're liable to get a pout because you can't get something.

You can go in the next room, shut the door and stay there a week. That's great. Oh, hey, I've been to homes that are so separate one from another. It's like a hotel where people sleep between doing their own things, but they never meet as a family.

They've never met each other. Never talked to each other. Don't know each other. And I'm not having that. Not at all. So in our family, we've learned to see that there are deeper, greater things in life than just things.

The Divided Heart and the Parable of the Sower

Don't commit spiritual adultery by wanting to be so super spiritual, have all the favor with God, be used by God, blessed by God. But you want everything the world's got as well. You got to make your mind up.

And don't forget that in the parable of the sower, one of the soils that came to nothing was the soil that couldn't make its mind up between the cares and pleasures and riches of this world. They wanted that.

Jesus Christ plus that. Sorry. That has to be a price. We all know what we would like. I know what I would like. Oh, boy, there's many a time I've just driven along in the car and thought, oh, if I could stop being a Christian for a day.

Oh, what I'd love to do. Still haven't got it. Because there's more important things in life than that. Don't be like that. If you start wanting the best of both worlds, you're committing adultery. And yet the word of God tells us, seek ye first the kingdom of God and he'll chuck the rest at you.

Paraphrased. If he's first, you may get wealth. And don't ever jump to the conclusion it's wrong to be rich. The church of Jesus Christ would never have gotten where it is today if it hadn't been for those that were committed to creating wealth for God's work.

It doesn't say that money is the root of evil. It says the love of it is. And there are some of you, the highest will of God for your life, you're here this morning and you don't know it, but you're going to leave this Bible school and the greatest will of God for your life, he's going to put you in high power business and make you a money earner.

And there are men in this world that I know that are to this day still giving 75 of their annual profit and income to the Lord's work because they've got enough. And yet they don't answer to the beggars.

I know one man that owns five Holiday Inns, all the Wiener King hot dogs stands in the state of Tennessee. And yet he knows perfectly well if a begging letter comes into his office, his secretary has to burn that, he doesn't want to see it.

And yet all his money is put past in a special account for the Lord accruing interest and raising in value. And he waits till God moves him. And boy, he didn't have spanked my hand for refusing to recognize that ministry.

Giving, Receiving, and the Blessing of Generosity

Because one day he decided to take me out and dress me. And I choked. I said, oh, it's not necessary. And he spun right round on me and said, what's your gift? I said, well, I suppose it's teaching the word.

He said, yeah, it is. And do you know that this week I give up every one of my activities to come and sit in that church every night to let you exercise your gift to my benefit? Would you mind putting your pride in your pocket and let me exercise my gift for yours?

And my gift is giving. And it says in the word of God, it's more blessed to give than to receive. But striking, I never get that extra blessing for giving unless I get somebody like you that's prepared to put your pride in your pocket and receive it.

And a good giver can't function unless they've got good receivers. And pride's a killer. And I've had to learn just to put my pride in my pocket and let him take care of me. Nearly all the clothes I wear come from him.

And it's great. My family never has to budget for clothes. Every time I go over there, every two or three years, they say, come on, it's time we got you that. And he just takes me out and dresses me from skin to surface again.

But that's God's way of doing it. And that man's been blessed to the Lord. And yet nobody knows it's going on. And the very first time he did it, he made sure that I didn't get the bag of clothing until I was gone on the plane so that nobody locally could know I got them locally.

And to this day, nobody knows who he is or who's doing the providing. And yet you come into this country and people come to me in church and they look at me and they say, hmm, must be doing quite well out of evangelism.

They'll use any excuse not to give. That's worldly. But I tell you, some of you, you seem to think missionaries, that's the best. Being a pastor, that's service. For some of you, God's going to send you back and give you brains to make money.

And he's just going to look for an attitude of life that says, God, it's yours. I've got enough. Anything you need, just tell me and I'll give you it. And God's going to use you to keep his work going.

And that's all it'll be for. And if you've got it, enjoy it. If you haven't, forget it. You don't need a lot. And we always think we know best. I remember typing, here as a bachelor, typing for what I wanted to use it for.

I'm putting this money by, Lord, it's yours for that. And one day a guy in the staff room was, what's the matter with you? I said, you don't look like that normally, what's the matter? Oh, it's just I got a letter today that if I get back home, there's a job waiting for me.

I said, well, go back home? It's not as easy as that. I said, oh, you've got a financial problem? He said, well, you are. I said, what do you mean? You know, he specified the exact amount I had in that tin.

So I sat up against him, sir, tough, locked out the room. The Lord's saying, what do you mean, tough? Do you know whether there's an amount like that? Yes, I know whether there's an amount like that. I said, Lord, I was keeping that for you for this.

In other words, it's not mine at all. I was under the impression if it was mine, it was mine, I could do what I like with it. I gave him a look under his pillow. Went up the hill, had a good cry, kicked a three.

Because I couldn't get what I wanted to do with it. And that fellow the next morning came in his staff room, praising the Lord. God had given him exactly the amount he needed. And off he went. I've never seen him since.

I went back to the office, picked up my mail, went and opened it. I'd written in three letters that morning, I got four times as much back. So that I could do twice as this thing. I learnt my lesson. It's his, no strings attached.

The Holy Spirit, Grace, and Resisting Worldliness

He can have it. Yes, don't become a friend of the world. But there's no need for it. Because now you will find he outlines very carefully all the resources at your disposal that will help you to overcome that attitude.

Look at verse five. Do you think that the scripture says for nothing the spirit that dwells in us lusts to envy? You have the Holy Spirit to counteract this attitude of worldliness. The Holy Spirit within you.

Secondly, he gives more grace. More grace! Yes, you know grace is more than you ever expected. Well, he's got more of more than you ever expected. God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourself therefore to God.

Another way to overcome worldliness is through submitting to God. Resist the devil. Resist him. It doesn't say fight him. Nowhere in the Bible are you asked to fight God. It just says resist him. After you've submitted yourself to God, don't resist him.

In order to submit to God or you'll lose. You submit to God. Then get from him what it takes to resist the devil. And remember that all that's in the world is the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life.

And the world's going to collapse. All of that is going to go. Resist the devil and he'll flee from you. That's the guarantee. Draw near to God, he will draw near to you. So in the midst of all of your desires for everything the world has, just turn to the Lord.

He's right there to draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you Christian sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded that want the best of both worlds. Be afflicted and mourn. Weep, let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness.

In other words, he's not saying be a long-faced Christian. He's talking about worldliness. And he wants you to be so genuinely concerned about it, you'd have a good cry about it. Rather than seek to go through the Bible.

You'd be amazed at the people who go through the Bible to see how much of the world you're allowed to enjoy. They don't go through the Bible saying, God show me what I must leave aside. Show me clearly every sin that I must set aside.

They're going through it to see, now what am I allowed to do? Is that mentioned there anywhere? Okay, I haven't seen that. Hey, it looks like I can go out and do that. Isn't that going to be... Oh. Oh, drat.

Oh, God, that verse is there. I'll have to figure out what was next on my list that I'd like to do. Oh, I hope there's nothing about that in here. So that I can get doing that. Oh. Oh, well. Hmm. Oh, hon.

Hmm. Yes. We are the biggest monkeys. You know, I've never had anybody walk into my office yet. In all of those years I've been here and sat down and said, how far away from sin can I stay? Most of them come in and sit down and say, how near can we go?

How far can we go and not upset God and lose our spirituality? Yes. Take it seriously. Take this whole business of worldliness, selfishness, getting what I want out of this seriously. It's a big help.

Humble yourself. Whatever you do, never ask God to humble you. Never do that. He will. That's one prayer he'll always answer. I'll tell you, I've seen people who've said, oh, God, humble me. And the next piece of counselling I've had to counsel showed that he did.

And they didn't like it. It's better just to come down. Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord. Not other people. Too much of the humility that's practised is practised in front of other people for their opinion that you're humble.

Sometimes there's something proud about being humble in that kind of a humility. It's done in front of people to gain their approval that they're humble. What a load of rubbish. But if you humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, he'll lift you up.

Humility, Judgment, and Dependence on God's Will

Another resource to help you. Speak not evil one of another, brethren. So often we have to do that to get what we want. He that speaks evil of his brother and judges his brother speaks evil of the law and judges the law.

But if you're a judge of the law, you're not a doer, but a law of the law, but a judge. Would you get it into your head that there's one lawgiver who is able to save and able to destroy? Who are you that judges another?

How's your sense of judgmentalism been since you got to school? Doing quite good? Go to now you that say, today or tomorrow we will go into such a city and continue there a year and buy and sell and get gain, whereas you know not what shall be in the morrow.

And you always laugh at me when I tell you you might be dead by tomorrow. You have no guarantees. One of the biggest things that will help you to overcome this worldliness that wrecks your Christian faith is to stop presuming that you can make big, settled, concrete plans for the next 60 years that God's got to endorse.

Keep everything open, allow God to make adjustments to the circumstances because he might be maneuvering you into something far more marvelous. And there are some things that happen to us in our life that there's just no other way in which God is going to be able to make the adjustment to get us where he wants us to be to make us the bigger blessing than to let us go through some of the messes we go through.

And we can all sit and be in full of pity, but why should I have to be like this? Oh, I've done it often enough. Just as if the Lord said, well, what alternative would you like to be? Maybe you had to choose sin because you're not going to get off scot-free.

The enemy of your soul is going to manifest sin in your life in one way or another. Which way do you want it manifest in your life? Would you want to be known as a thief? Would you want to be known as a wife beater?

A child assaulter? An animal lover? What do you want to do? Murder? Create atom bombs? Gem warfare? Be jealous all your life? Hateful all your life? Resentful all your life? Bitter all your life? Mean all your life?

A gossip all your life? How do you want sin manifest in your life? Choose one. Oh, but I'd rather have none. Sorry. Sorry, dears. You're not going to be God just yet. From now to heaven, sin will always be there.

It will always be there. And you're not going to get eradicating it and having a perfectly easy trip through life. And like the rest of us, you're going to have to walk day by day. And stop making big concrete plans for how big a blessing you're going to be.

What you're going to do. Here is the attitude, verse 15. Because you don't know what will be in the morrow. For what's your life? It's even as a vapor that appears for a little time, vanishes away. For what you ought to say is, if the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that.

If the Lord wills, we'll do this or that. I mean, we know as a family what this is like right now. We're still sitting in our boxes. We're still waiting. The phone could ring today, could ring tomorrow to say, hey, they've signed the contract, you're moving.

They could phone today and say, hey, we're calling it off and we'd have to start unpacking. In fact, the family's got their mind made up, we are going to be unpacking and just staying where we are. Because we are not able to say it's ours.

And we're living a day at a time on our cardboard boxes. We had hoped to have you all down to our house this term. You're not coming to sit in cardboard boxes, you'd flatten what's in them. So you just have to wait.

All of these things, all our plans that you talk about in the summer, wouldn't it be good to be moved in? Wouldn't it be good to be able to have so many students a week come down and have coffee and be with us in a nice roomier lounge than we've got at the moment?

Wouldn't that be great? Oh yes, and I could make this and I could make that, but we've just had to commit it to the Lord and say, hey, it's up to you. You want that, that's fine. If you don't, you don't.

And you leave it at that. Yes, you'd be amazed at the way he can knock around the circumstances and change the plans in hours. So you have to learn to keep it in an open hand and say, what you want is what I want.

But now you're rejoicing your postings. All such rejoicing is evil. The minute you've got your mind made up that that is exactly what it's going to be, that's evil. Therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it's sin.

And whatsoever is not of faith is sin. And so you have to learn, if there's something at the moment you can do, go ahead and do it. Live today. Live today. Live today. And then he moves in in that fifth chapter.

James's Rebuke of Wealthy Christians

It's showing how to start conquering the trials of life. Boy, this is really scathing. Go to now you rich men. Weep and howl for your miseries that are going to come on you. Your riches are corrupted.

Your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered and the rest of them will be a witness against you. And you'll eat your flesh as it were fire because you've heaped treasure together for the last days.

An absolute utter condemnation is some of these rich early Christians for their attitude towards wealth and money. Why? Because you see, it was their God. And they made it by misusing Christians with the use of what's known as subtle spiritual blackmail.

Behold the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields which is of you kept back by fraud crieth. And the cries of them that have reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. You have lived in pleasure in the earth you've been wanton.

You have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and envied the just and the just takes it. He doesn't resist you. Yes, here were men, rich Christians that were misusing poorer Christians for their own greedy needs.

And of course if the Christians complain they're not very rejoicing Christians. I thought you were full of the Holy Spirit. I thought you were walking in the Lord. I thought your job was to give thanks and everything.

Therefore have I misused you? Don't complain to me, take your complaint to heaven. Because we can misuse each other and back off. And it's amazing the people that go around all day misusing each other.

The person that crosses the room and uses your toothpaste, you get a punch in the nose if you touch theirs. Because we're brothers in the Lord, I should be able to share everything you've got. What you've got is mine.

And what I've got is my own. Didn't you know that? Your stuff is common to me. But don't you go and mad off. We had a guy one year that went out here every weekend, dressed to the 90s. But everything he wore was what he took from everybody's drawers and came back and gave them it back.

Because well, if you gripe I'll say you're not a spirit filled Christian. And this business of greed and selfishness and worldliness and just using this sort of kiss off. I'm spiritual, you're spiritual and if you're all that spiritual I can do what I like to you and you won't complain.

Greed, Theft, and False Spirituality

I came down past the bread pantry one night. And in those days it was round the corner and it was locked. And I heard a screech, screech, screech and I thought rather a big mouse. And I looked at my watch and I thought I should be in bed by now.

So I'll investigate who thought this mouse is. I opened the bread pantry door and there was a student. Big heels of bread spreading butter and peanut butter and jelly on it. And I said good evening and he said hi.

And I said I didn't realise you had been a thief as a Christian. I'm not a thief. Oh I'm sorry I didn't realise you had written permission from the directors to have extra food. Can I see it? Well I don't have written permission.

Oh and didn't your mummy tell you that when you were a little boy that anything you take without permission is stealing? So how long have you been stealing as a Christian? Oh come off it, this is a Christian place.

I said yes I know, what's that got to do with it? Oh man you're not going to accuse me of being a thief and be as stingy and mean and unspiritual as did I. A guy, one piece of bread and some peanut butter jelly and butter are you?

I said well let's put it this way. There's four guys waiting around the corner for you to go so that they can come in and get theirs. Now supposing out of 189 students 30 of them decide we shouldn't complain about somebody getting one more piece of bread, jelly, peanut butter and butter.

You know that by tomorrow morning we've lost three loaves, two bottles of peanut butter and four bottles of jelly. Who pays for that? Were you going to come to the office tomorrow and with a smile on your face say hi Carolyn I just helped myself to extra food last night.

I just went in and took it from the kitchen and so I thought I'd love to pay for it. So here you are, were you going to come and pay for it? I mean this is a Christian place. Well what do you think we've got, a hen that lays golden eggs?

Have you had all the meals that the rest of us have had today? Yeah, so how long have you been stealing as a Christian? Put it up there, go to bed where you should be and we'll give you that for breakfast.

You can eat it in the morning as part of your breakfast. Oh and they hate it. You stand in the office dictating a letter and the door opens and a hand comes in, goes into a box and out comes a packet of 50 envelopes and it's just about to disappear out the door and you grab the hand.

And you're sure there's a body attached to it so you pull it in and bring it round the door and you don't look at the person, you look at the envelopes and you say hi. Become a secretary here have you?

No. Who sent you for those? Nobody. Why is your hand holding 50 of our envelopes? Well I'm writing home. Oh, 50 letters? Oh well, just one, I only want an envelope, an envelope, there's 50 there. Well I'll just take one.

You'll take none. Why should you even get one? All those shelves are full of envelopes. Surely in a Christian place like this you're not going to miss one envelope. Why don't we take 200 students that all feel once a week they're entitled to one envelope free.

200 envelopes a week for 30 weeks. Who's paying for that? And everybody seems to have this idea that everything that's yours is mine. And if I complain I'm not very spiritual. And so if you're going to be spiritual I can walk all over you and you shouldn't gripe.

You'd be amazed at the money we have to spend here on stolen food. People are under the impression that well in fellowship, it's real fellowship, we should be able to go and do what we like. Fellowship means I can go in the kitchen, use the pans, make popcorn, eat it, go away to bed and leave the dirty pans with burnt bottoms there for somebody else to clean.

That's fellowship. Don't complain. Don't complain. And if we use the electric irons and leave them on and they burn out and fuse up and burn holes in the table, quit griping. It's fellowship. Aren't you spiritual?

A load of rubbish. I even took a bunch of teenagers to the continent, preached to them for 14 days and I was standing on the deck of the ship as it approached the harbour and there they were all discovering how to get stuff past the customs without paying duty.

I couldn't believe it. And they seem to think that the game is we have a right to see how much we can get out of this without paying. No wonder James condemns these people that are misusing others to get exactly what they want.

That's all worldly. And do you know something? They're not going to get away with it. They will never get away with it. And even people here that seem to think that principal up there is old and stupid, he hasn't a clue what's going on around here, you're wrong.

I just happen to know how to be deaf and blind. But there's nothing you do that I don't know about. And some people seem to think I get away with it. He never clobbered me for doing this, for going here and being there and saying this or doing that.