Worldliness
For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. – 1 Thessalonians 4:7.
I have been reading a book by Vance Havner entitled, “Holy Desperation.” As I was reading this morning, he shared about hearing Billy Graham make a confession about worldliness. Graham said, “I heard Kenneth Cansler preach the other day on worldliness, and I got under conviction, and I’ve got to do something about what he talked about. I find myself laughing at things on television that I wouldn’t have laughed at ten years ago. And I’ve got to do something about it.”
Havner says that he knew what Graham was talking about. Havner says he used to watch tennis tournaments on Sunday afternoons. He says, “You wouldn’t go to hell for looking at things like that, but as I sat there one afternoon, a voice, not my own, said, ‘You’re preaching tonight to people who are standing between life and death, between heaven and hell, and there’s a better way to get ready for it than what you’re doing now.’” Havner says that was the end of watching tennis tournaments on Sunday afternoons.
Jim Elliott who died a martyr for the Lord Christ in South America once said, “A friend of mine invited me over to his house to watch television, and God spoke to me with Psalm 119:37, “Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity.” The NKJV puts this verse as: “Turn away my eyes from looking at worthless things, and revive me in Your way.”
Who among us can say that we don’t need to repent of looking at worthless things? I know that I do. I read what these godly men have said about worldliness and far too many of us, myself included, need to drop our heads in shame and ask the Lord to “revive me in Your way.”
Quoting one of my own devotionals: Is your life covered in the slime of this world? If so, and you want to be cleansed 1 John 1:9 tells us how to be cleansed, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Then, turn off and turn down the world’s immoral messages and instead fill your life with good things like God’s Word; think about good things as we are told in Philippians 4:8; and fill your life up with, “whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure….”
(Is your life covered with worldliness?)