Worldliness — Vance Havner

The World in Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer

If you turn to John 17, I don't think I've ever heard anybody ever use that chapter to talk about words. But John says more about the world than anybody else in the Bible, and you'll be amazed, if you go through the Gospels and the Epistles, how many times he uses the word world.

And in this chapter, he gives us, of course, the high priestly prayer of our Lord. This really is the Lord's Prayer, the one we call the Lord's Prayer. The Lord's Prayer is His, only in the sense that He gave it to us, He didn't have to pray it.

It's for Himself. But He prayed this one, in the first five verses, He didn't pray it for Himself. In verses 6 to 19, for His disciples. And in the rest of the chapter, for all believers. But since we're disciples too, we'll read the middle portion.

I want you to notice how many times the word world occurs. I have manifested Thy name unto the men which Thou gavest Me out of the world. Thine they are, and Thine shall be. And I am glorified in them, and now I am the more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to Thee.

Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me to thank of Thee one as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in My name. Those that Thou gavest Me, I have kept, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled.

And now come I to Thee, and these things I speak in the world, that they might have My joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them Thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through Thy truth, Thy word is truth.

As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sake I sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Now, we have two extremes today on this business of separation.

We have some people who are such separators that they become super-separators and get to where they can't endure their own company after a while. Then we have others who, to use the scripture, fear the Lord and serve their own gods.

I wouldn't have thought you could do that if I had read it in the Bible. But I suppose that means people who go through devotions of worship on Sunday morning and then live to serve their own gods all week.

They can't claim to be the Lord's sheep, but they're more of the devil's goats. Worldly Christians, they're called, which is a misnomer to begin with. Billy Sunday used to say, you might as well talk about a heavenly devil than to talk about a worldly Christian.

The Bible says the prince of the world is the enemy of God. That's a pretty strong statement. Somebody asked me some time ago, how can a Christian be God's enemy? Well, I didn't write it. There it is.

I am convinced that a large percentage of people that we call worldly Christians are not Christians, for one thing. A sheep may fall into the mud, but a sheep's not in love with the mud. Jesus said, My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me.

It's a mark of a sheep to follow Jehovah. It's a mark of a Christian to follow the Savior. We need to brush up on our Bible so obviously. The Bible compares you and me to different animals. And just between us, some of the comparisons are not very complimentary.

The Bible says, for instance, don't be like a mule. The trouble with a mule is, a mule is often backward about going farther. We haven't got any Christians like that. Then Peter says, speaking of false teachers, that the dog is returned to his vomit again, and the saddle that was washed to wash me in the mire.

Now, that is indeligent. There isn't anything you can do about it, maybe there is. But it's very expressive. And it's a perfect description of false teachers who return to their own ways. We're not to judge people, of course.

The Lord knows those that are His. But let every one in the name of the name of Christ depart from iniquity. That's the best evidence that you ought not to be. When I see a bird that looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, and has wet feet like a duck, has a drum of water like a duck, and prefers the comedy of ducks, it's hard for me to resist the conclusion it must be a duck.

And when I see a church member who'd rather be in the theater than God's house, watching the filth of Sodom and Gomorrah in the living room than communing with the Lord, I'm driven to certain conclusions.

Christian Associations Reveal Spiritual Allegiance

Birds of a feather flock together. Where you feel at home is where you belong. Of all your crowds, you're most at home with. That's your crowd. The Bible says we know we fashion death and life because we love the brethren.

I suppose you don't love the brethren. Well, that's not your crowd. I read that Peter and John being let go went unto their own company. Where did you go when you were let go? I hate to track down a lot of church members when they get a couple hundred miles away from home.

When Peter got out of jail, he headed for a prayer meeting. You naturally gravitate to whatever attracts you most, and eventually you show up where at heart you belong. Now, why does the Bible say that God so loved the world and then that we're not to love it?

Well, of course, the world God so loved, the world of lost souls, we ought to love lost souls. Indeed, a great English preacher says that if we'd love this world the way God loves it, we wouldn't love it the way we shouldn't love it.

That's about the best way to put it, then, I know. You just get people to love this world like God loves it, and they won't love it the wrong way. But when the Bible says love is not the world, it means this present age and center, which, politically and economically and socially and religiously even, is under the devil, the God of this age, the prince of the power of the air, the prince of this world.

The whole world lies in wickedness. Galatians 3, 4 says, Our Lord came to deliver us from this present evil world, not to make us at home in it. Ephesians 2, verse 2, says that before we were saved, we walked according to the course of this world.

Well, that indicates that after we were saved, we ought to walk some other way. Now, I want you to notice four things that Jesus said in these verses that I read to you. And if you've had any trouble about where you belong in this world, this ought to get you forever located.

The Church as God’s Called-Out People

He says in verse 6, I have manifested thy name unto the man which thou gavest me out of the world. The church is the out-called one. The word for church in the New Testament means that. The out-called one.

God's not saving civilization today. Civilization isn't going to be saved. Civilization's a goner. God never started out to save civilization. God's saving people out of civilization. He's taking out a people for his name.

And our home is with him. Our new position, our citizenship, is in heaven. Our position with Christ in the heavens. My kingdom is all of this world, he said. And when you were saved, you were taken out of this world.

An experience that puts you in position with him. You ought to be in condition with him, too. In standing with him, you ought to be with him in state, too. The Bible says we're pilgrims and strangers.

Exiles and aliens, one of the new translations puts it. Old Matthew Henry said, This world is our passage and not our portion. I like that. This world is not your rest. Here have we no continuing city.

The next time this world offers you some of its attractions, tell them, no such thing. I'm a stranger here. Good way to answer it. It's just passing through. I don't believe it. I got to an old place in Memphis that you can't meet me some time ago.

They're pretty hard to find now. But I located one. When I got there, they were singing one of those old songs. It isn't very high-brow music. It's got a lot of truth in it. I feel like traveling on.

Well, they must have, because they sang about ten verses. Then they all sat down. An old lady got up and started over. They all got up and started smoking. I said, this crowd's going someplace tonight.

Well, you ought to feel like traveling on, because you were made for a better world. A dog is happy in this world, because this is the only world a dog will ever have. But you were made for a better world.

You can't make yourself at home here and save your life. You can buy that split-level house and put that swimming pool in the backyard, buy a boat and everything else, but you can't make yourself at home in this world because you're a transient.

You're not a permanent. And Jesus says we've been saved out of it. Now, in verse 11, he makes a further comment along this line. And now I'm no more in the world, but these are in the world. I thought I just got through saying we've been saved out of it.

Remaining in the World Without Belonging to It

We have, but we have to live in it, have it, and pray in its doors, and go to its schools, and mix with its people, and we should. We're the soul of the earth, and we can't affect them if we're not rubbed into the putrefaction of modern society.

Now, the old mystics back in the Middle Ages tried to make sense of it. Oh, here I am escaping the world. They hid in holes, caves, which you don't make yourself. Oh, you're hiding in a hole. There's more than a hole.

There may be holes. Paul says we're not to accompany with fornicators, yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world. Or with the covenants, or extortions, or dry dollars. This is English and English.

Go out of the world. You have to mix with its people. I think some of these old mystics were really mistaken. And our Lord says in verse 15, and that ought to help us still further in this getting oriented in this world, I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.

Now, that's a good prayer to pray for your children. Lord, don't take them out. Take them through. I think my old daddy must have prayed that prayer for me. I used to hear him in the middle of the night praying.

I don't know when he slept sometimes. I think he was saying, don't take them out. Take them through. And you can. And you will. Now, Jesus was not a mystic. He was not a recluse. He wasn't a hermit. Out were across the crowded weddings of men.

You found my Lord. He went to the weddings. He was a friend of publicans and sinners. He was criticized as a Pharisee. The only people who ever gave Jesus any trouble down there, his ministers, were people who went to church, read the Bible, prayed in public for all the time, lived clean moral lives, and struggled with husbandry.

That's the only time he gave him trouble. He got along all right with the publicans and sinners. But he was criticized as a Pharisee. They were separated from sinners, but not from sin. There's a lot of difference.

Now, he associated with the world, but he never had fellowship with it. So that brings us to the third comment. And this is so important that he said it twice. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

Verse 14, verse 16. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. When the boat's in the water, that's one thing, but when the water's in the pool, that's something else. We're not to be conformed to this world, but we're to be more than just non-conformed.

That is no, that that verse in Romans says. The fact is, it's always a mistake to take a text that starts with the word, A. Now, a preacher ought never to take a complete text, any verse in the Bible, that starts with A, because that's inadequate.

So I haven't said all that that he needs to say in that passage. I've heard sermons, oh, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Well, that's fine, but it starts with A. And what goes before it is, he continues, my word's energy, my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

See, you're not getting the whole dose if you start with the second verse. Same thing here. And be not conformed to this world. What's the verse just before it? I beseech you, that you present your body as a living sacrifice, and so on.

And, and you see, it makes sense. And you get all the connection. For to keep ourselves unspotted from the world, or to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, and now here's John again.

Loving the World Versus Doing God’s Will

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Three times in that verse. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world.

Why is that? And the world, and I said, that's the way, and the lust thereof, that he could do as the will of God abides forever. That's the verse on Moody's tombstone up in Massachusetts. But look how much world here, and how much the way living letters puts this.

For all these worldly things, these evil desires, the craze for sex, the ambition to buy everything that appeals to you, and the pride that comes from wealth and importance, these are not from God. They are from this evil world itself, and this world is fading away, and these evil forbidden things will go with it, but whoever keeps doing the will of God will remain forever.

I think that's true. Now, what is world? Some preachers, when they preach on worldliness, they talk about card playing, dancing, smoking, thirty-four other things, and then that's it. Well, of course, those things are not the world.

But you haven't even scratched the surface that that's all you're going to say about worldliness. What is world? Jesus said that it was in the days of Noah and Lot, it'll be when I come back. How was it?

They were eating and drinking, marrying and giving and marrying, buying and selling, planting and building, and that's all that most folks are doing now. And when that's all you do, or when you do it to the neglect of God, that's worldliness, whether you smoke or play cards or dance or not.

You stand on any street corner or in any hotel lobby listening to people talk, what are they talking about? Ninety percent of the conversation is about eating and drinking, marrying and giving and marrying, buying and selling, planting and building.

It never fails. They'll do it every time. I know a farmer who raises his hog. That's all he does. That's all he lives for. Terrible thing to live for. And that's all he lives for. He's always selling more hogs, buying more land, raising more corn, feeding more hogs, buying more land, raising more corn, feeding more hogs.

I've heard of going to the dope, he's gone to the hog. I don't think he ever danced. I don't think he ever gambled. But he's just as worthy as some young blade on the dance floor or two in the morning.

Because that's all he lives for. And he doesn't have to be something vicious. Making a living is worthless if that's all you do. Anything, if it's all you do to the neglect is gone. That's the lust of the eyes and the pride of the eyes and the lust of the flesh in one form or another.

It may be religious, but righteousness has no fellowship with unrighteousness, light nor communion with darkness. He's a believer. No heart within infidel. Temple of God has no agreement with either. And Christ has no concord, which is the Latinish form of the word in the original, which means symphony, the musical term.

I've heard of the unfinished symphony. This is the impossible symphony. There's no harmony between Christ and people. You can't get any cues out of that. Candle Morgan says that Christian life is lived in the midst of gigantic forces opposed to Christ and God.

Christian Distinctiveness in a Pagan Culture

I tell you, we're in a pagan culture today that's no friend of Greta's to help us own to God. And even in evangelical circles, we are developing a new world in this. I'm not talking about Bonhoeffer and his getting the church out into the world.

I'm talking about plain old-fashioned world in this now, the kind we used to preach about. You can't serve two masters. Bill McDougall, that's the same as for me in California, I remember in a meeting.

He used to be with Fuller's old-fashioned revival of the quartet. He grew up in Hollywood and he was an old sinner till the Lord saved him. And I said, Bill, now give me the lowdown. I've been a preacher all my life.

What do you think? Do you think you can live in Hollywood, live for Hollywood, live for the Lord? He said, no. Live for God, live for God, live for the devil, live for the devil. You can't work both sides of the street.

Now, we've changed our view of mass today. Well, I do believe that there are those who think that a converted nightclub singer should go right back to singing in the nightclub. It's all right as long as she winds up saying, I'd rather have Jesus.

If this thing keeps up, I expect to meet a Christian pickpocket one of these days. I asked him, how do you do it? And he said, well, when I pick one pocket, I put a gospel tract in the other pocket. He said, that's ridiculous, no more so, than a lot of things I am hearing today.

Alexander MacLaren says the major of our discord with the world is the major of our accord with the saints. Now, Jesus said, I've given him thy word, and the world hateth him. One day, his brother said, John 7, said, why don't you go up to Jerusalem and preach?

You need some publicity to get out of backwoods and up there before the people. That sounds familiar. And Jesus said, the world cannot hate you, but me it hateth, because I testify it, that its deeds are evil.

Now, you turn, then, to John 15, 18, 19, if the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were the world, the world would love you no more. But because you're not of the world, but I've chosen you out of the world, therefore...

Now, this is what John has to say about the world. Now, they tell me today that a Christian can be popular in this world. That's a lie. You can be respected, you can be a success in the eyes of the world.

Billy Graham was a success. But, this, my Lord said, if the world hates you, it hated me first. Now, if you were the world, it would love you to propose that you're not of the world, but I have called you out of the world with the very things you have here in this chapel.

Therefore, the world thinks you're pretty good. No, the world hates you. This is not the modern teach, I grant you. Campbell Morgan says the world hates Christian people if they see Christ in them. The major in which the world agrees with us and says we're a fine type Christian, we're so brotherly, is the major in which we're unlike Jesus Christ.

You remember a year or so ago the QR that was created and one of the people said they were more popular than Jesus Christ. Well, I didn't get excited. Of course they're more popular than Jesus Christ, or they were.

When did Jesus Christ ever say anything about coming down here to be popular? He came down here to die and be crucified as a criminal outside the city gates. If you follow him, you won't be popular either.

The Church’s Mission Is Spiritual Warfare and Witness

We're trying to compromise with this world in order to influence it. And that's like a woman marrying a man to reform him. Instead of the man being reformed, she's deformed. It doesn't work. So we're trying to compromise with this world.

So, let's get on with I want One is that The other is to build a youth program around the serious, strong spiritual challenge. The Church is not a recreational club, it's a spiritual armory, and we're in a war against the forces of evil.

With that, I agree. And then, finally, my Lord says in the eighteenth verse, as I was sending him into the world, even so have I also sent him into the world. Now, we're not to go around looking down our noses at everybody who doesn't dot all his I's and cross all his T's like we do.

We're not to be fascists. But, we are different from this world. And that's not easy today. I remember being down in Troy, Alabama a few years ago, along about commencement time, and the president of the senior class in high school got straightened out from the meeting.

He said, I don't know what it's done for other folks, but it was worth your coming here for what it's done for me. He wouldn't go to the junior-senior prom. Of course, they were on his neck. Two years later, I was in Florence, Alabama at a meeting, and a good-looking girl sang a solo one night.

She said she was from Troy, and I asked her, Do you know this boy? She said, Yes, he's my boyfriend, and he's getting ready now for pre-med, and he keeps talking about your meeting. He might line up for the Lord, but nobody knows what he might accomplish.

That's the crowd I'm after. I wouldn't give a dime a dozen for this crap that runs the damn church out and says I'll go and never go. I'd rather have one like that, and I get them all over the country.

I get a better response today from young people than I've ever had in my life. I had a better response from teenagers. I don't go around lambasting them. I think we've got plenty of good-looking, red-blooded young people who are trying to live for the Lord.

I speak plainly. I make it hard, because Jesus did. And the harder you make it, the better grade of disciples you get. And the worst thing in the church today is this cheap Christianity that we're beset with.

Costly Discipleship and Jesus as Lord

Cheap dedication, cheap salvation. They think Jesus is Savior, and they won't have Him as Lord, but you can't get saved by accepting Jesus as Savior if you will not confess Him as Lord. Nobody ever got saved by accepting Jesus as Savior, who willfully, unknowingly, and deliberately rejected Him as the Lord of their life.

We've got too many folks trying to get to heaven on half a case of religion, come in and say, if you stay out of the Lord, that's not anything you can do. But I find that when you lay it on the line, kids that mean business, of course, they're always some of the other crap.

There are a long-time preachers that try to have cheap and the product in order to get them to run down the aisle and shake hands with the preachers. I didn't when I was a boy. I'm not certain that the Lord didn't do it.

The other day I heard of a chap who was pretty good at track, and the coach said, now you just might set a set a record. You just might shake the world, but before you ever shake it, you're going to have to renounce it.

No late hours, no this, no that, if you're going to be the best runner. Paisley Fleming, the champion girl skater, all she lived for was skating. Cut out just about everything else. And I think of the way some of these acrobats and athletes, and I think of Van Cliburn, who came to my meeting, which is in Falls, Texas, played the opera tour, and I had a chat with him after the service.

I think he's a fine Christian young fellow. Anybody would like to play a piano like Van Cliburn, but very few people want to practice like that. When you think of the way this world is willing to go through all kinds of rigged discipline to win incorruptible crowns, and then the sloppy, slouchy, slovenly way that most church members are doing it.

I'm not surprised they're not making much of an end on the world. Why, but is there a preacher standing up and saying, I didn't do it hard, it's just I didn't show it. Oh, Jesus Christ. Going to Colston.

Challenging Young People to Pursue Holiness

I was out in New Mexico a few weeks ago, and I had a question and answer period after the service with the young people one night. Of course, they always asked the same questions. I could tell you in advance what they would be.

After they asked all of them, I said, now let me ask one. I said, I know you want Wisconsin. The thing I noticed in all of these question and answer periods is, it's always what's wrong with dancing, what's wrong with this, what's wrong with that.

What's wrong with gospel jazz, what's wrong with... And nobody ever asks, how much like the Lord can I be and how little like the world? They're all asking, how much like the world can I be and still be a Christian?

You're off on the wrong foot, and then you change that question. That's like asking, how near the precipice can I walk without going over? Why doesn't somebody say, how much like the world can I be and how little like the world?

The big idea they seem to be now is, I'm going to be this world again and still be a Christian. I'm going to look like it. I'm going to talk like it. I'm going to like what it likes as far as I can. I'll go just as far as you can go.

Now, psychologically and spiritually and spiritually and every other way, that's getting off on the wrong foot. Certainly, not like Jim Avery. Before he went to Ecuador, he took about an hour or so to a friend's television last night.

God convicted me and then he quoted the verse. Keep thine eyes from beholding evil. And then there followed a statement that sounds like one of the old mystics. And this was a young chap, a good looking young chap.

He said, you've been saved out of the world. You're still in the world, but you're not all for it. But you've been saved out of the world. To go right back into the world, to win people out of the world.

And that's the only business you've got in this world. Now, will you never forget that, young people? Take a rest and it will make a big ring around these verses in John 17. I've been saved out of the world.

I'm still in the world. But I'm not all for it. But I've been saved out of the world. To go back into the world. To win people out of the world. And that's the only business I've got in this world. If you're going to do that, you've got to keep yourself clean.

Sanctification for the Sake of Others

Because in the operating room, the surgeons and the nurses keep themselves immaculate. For the sake of others, they set themselves apart. And Jesus said, give for their sake. I thank you, Father, and say.

For God's sake, be ye holy for I'm holy. For my sake, be ye holy that bear the vessels of the Lord. For their sake, I thank you, Father. I set apart myself. That is separation. And it's not just quitting two or three things.

It's saved in my world. All over this country, when I preach in revival. I first got the idea in Waco, Texas. At a meeting across the street from Baylor University. And sitting in James Church. Wednesday night, we combined the prayer meeting with the BRH.

The Baylor Religious Hour. And the gymnasium. With the faculty, the students, the church members. And the great Baylor choir behind me. And I said, now, choir, I want you to sing that old song, The Way that the Crow Feeds Home.

And everybody knows the first verse. But we can take a vote here and have unanimous vote on the first verse. We'll all agree on that. But I said, if you want to throw a chill over me. You try singing that last verse in mean business.

Then I bid farewell to the way of the world. The way it never was. Oh, does that ever separate the men from the boys. When you get around to that last verse. And all over this country, I have called. I've always had a certain invitation.

Everybody sings the first verse secretly. And I said, now, nobody's ready to sing the last verse. Unless you say good-bye world. Cross before me, the world behind me. I've decided to follow Jesus. I said, if you've told this old world good-bye, we'll not get it.

If you sing it, you're qualified. But I'm tired of this business thing. And then I bid farewell to the way of the world. And a lot of folks can't wait to get out of church to see Ed Sullivan. Or Franklin Hofstra.

Or whatever. Oh, my soul. Then I bid farewell. That's what it is. Separation. That's all it's saying. Dear Lord, we've been in a terrible condition tonight. It's not called us out of the world. Sometimes it gets pretty rough down here, Lord.

We're still in it. But help us not to be of it. But help us so to live that we'll be able to go back into it. To win others over. And help us to remember that that's our only business need. For Jesus' sake.

Amen.