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 beloved physician, 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 shall it 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, may we
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 view
With repentant grieving,
Nor Thee crucify anew
By unholy living.
How could I refuse to shun
Every sinful pleasure,
Since for me God's only Son
Suffered without measure?
Amen.