From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: We're considering at the present time the first two verses in the 12th chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans, which read like this in the authorized version. "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."

Now, we've reached the point at which we are considering the first phrase in the second verse: "Be not conformed to this world." You notice the progression of the thought. The Apostle is making an appeal to Christian people to put into practice the things that he had already been outlining to them. He shows them that there are two great motives, in other words, for Christian living: the motive of working out the doctrine and the great motive of gratitude and of thankfulness.

And then he has gone on to address them in the form of an exhortation or injunction, and that is that they present their bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable or spiritual or intelligent or mental service. We've dealt with that. Now, having done that, he comes on to this second great exhortation. I have suggested that there is a progression in the thought here in this way: that he starts with the body and then goes on to the realm of the soul. And that is what we're dealing with at the present time.

Now, here we are dealing with this most practical and urgently important matter. I was trying to show last Friday night, as you remember, the extreme urgency of the relevance of this statement to the situation in which we find ourselves at the present time, not only as individuals but also as members of the Christian church. I'm trying to show that some of our most urgent problems are dealt with in this great comprehensive statement in these first two verses of this 12th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans.

Now then, because it is such an important subject, it's important that we should be clear about our terms. So we spent most of our time last Friday in defining what is meant by this word "world." It is this outlook, man's outlook apart from God. Man thinking of his life in this world and of himself apart from God and the revelation of God. That is what is meant by living according to this world. It is thought and practice governed by the devil instead of being governed by God. It is man living to his own glory instead of living to the glory of God.

And I tried to show last week that, unfortunately, this is the very thing that is happening at the present time, not in the world so much as in the church. I tried to show how the thinking of the church is governed by something which is the exact opposite of this. Modern theology is entirely governed by the outlook of the world. It starts by asking, "What is the modern man capable of believing?" And thereby it has already surrendered to the mind of this present world.

I tried to show that the same thing, unfortunately, tends to be the case also with so much of modern evangelism. And thirdly, how it tends even to govern moral theory. I haven't come to the realm of practice yet; we were only dealing with theory last week. I tried to show that the moral outlook, what is happening in Sweden as an example of this, modern moral theorizing is governed again by what the man in the street thinks. Your laws are governed by that; laws are changed solely with that end and object in view.

And so we see that, speaking generally, the thinking of the church and the world today are governed by the mind of this world, which is a direct opposite to and contradiction of what the Apostle tells us here. But now, having made that statement, I feel constrained to issue a word of warning. In other words, I wasn't able to say all that I'd got to say last Friday night. I had to leave my statement, owing to the exigencies of time, incomplete. And it would be very wrong indeed if we were to leave it at that point.

I have stated the principle, and I repeat it. It is wrong for the church to allow her theology to be governed by the mind and outlook of the world. It is wrong for the church to allow her evangelism to be governed by the mind and thinking and outlook of the world. It is wrong for the church to allow her moral teaching and instruction to be governed by the mind and thought and outlook of the world. There is the principle, the general principle.

But having said that, I have to now come to what I'm calling a word of warning. For instance, in the realm of thought or in the realm of theology, while I still repeat my general principle, I have got to go on to point out that we are doing something which is very wrong and reprehensible if we interpret that in terms of becoming obscurantists. You see the danger with us always; we react so violently from one extreme to the other, don't we?

And the danger that has often confronted Christian people—it is always a danger and especially with the more conscientious Christian people—is to swing right over from the extreme of being governed by the mind and thought and outlook of the world to the exact opposite, which is obscurantism. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, let me give you one illustration. You have often seen references, no doubt in the newspapers or in other places, to the Roman Catholic Church and her opposition to Galileo and what she did about him.

You remember it's a point that is so often brought against the whole of Christianity, and many people try to dismiss the whole of Christianity in terms of that. But they say, "Look at the Roman church, how she opposed the teaching of this new astronomy," and so on at that point in history. Now, we've got to face this quite frankly and quite honestly. When the church opposed that teaching, she was doing something that was wrong; she was guilty of obscurantism.

But the important thing for us to discover is why she ever fell into that error. And you and I can fall into the same error unless we are clear about this matter. Now, what happened, of course, was this: that the Roman Catholic Church, instead of having her thinking determined solely by the Bible, was being governed by the Bible plus the philosophy of Aristotle, which was such a fundamental part of the dogmatic teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. She had gone beyond the Bible.

In other words, there is nothing in the Bible itself which is opposed to this new teaching concerning astronomy which came in round about to the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century. But the Roman Catholic Church said this was wrong, it is contrary to the teaching of the church. Yes, but what she meant by the teaching of the church was the Bible plus what they had added to that in terms of their own philosophical thinking. Now, this is always a very real danger.

And so you see, because this new teaching didn't fit in with what the church had always taught about the universe, they condemned it and said that it was wrong. But by now they know and have had to admit that they were wrong. Now, there is an illustration which I give of this particular danger. In other words, we must always be governed by the clear teaching of the Bible. If the Bible doesn't teach us about a certain matter, well then we mustn't say that this is the biblical teaching; we must realize it's our opinion. And our opinions can be wrong, though we are Christians.

Or let me put it to you like this: while we must never submit to the mind and the teaching and the outlook of the world, we must be equally careful never to become traditionalists. Now, you know the difference between tradition and traditionalism. Thank God for every good tradition, but God preserve us from traditionalism. A man who is guilty of traditionalism is a man who starts by saying everything new is wrong.

Now, the moment you get into that position, you're in as bad a position as the man who is submitting on the other extreme to the mind and the thinking and the outlook of the world. There are two extremes here: worldliness, traditionalism. "Anything new must be wrong. Anything I've never heard before is certain to be wrong." Now, that's an attitude which is not biblical. My principle is that we are never to be at either of these extremes, but we are always to be in the biblical position.

Now, it's not so easy, of course, to be in the biblical position as it is to be at the extremes. Extremes are always easy. But if you're in the biblical position, you will be aware of certain tensions. Everything won't be cut and dried. There's a craving in us all for a sort of ready-reckoner Christianity. "Problem? Turn it up. Here you are." But you can't do that. That isn't the biblical teaching. It always leaves you with a certain tension, and it avoids the two extremes.

So I say, in the realm of thinking, we must be careful not only on the one hand of worldliness but on the other of a dead obscurantism and mere traditionalism. I could illustrate this to you from other examples of history, but let that suffice for the present time. But now let's come on and give the same sort of warning in the matter of evangelism. And this is quite a topical matter at the present time. There's a good deal of talk about this, and I think a good deal of confusion also.

Now, I've laid down the principle, and I must repeat it: that our evangelism must never be governed by the mind and the outlook and the thinking of the world. But once more, we've got to be very careful that we don't react so violently to that as to go to another extreme, which in my opinion is equally wrong and equally bad. What do I mean by that? Well, we must be very careful lest, in our desire not to be worldly in our evangelistic methods, we put ourselves into a position in which we lose any point of contact whatsoever with the world which is round and about us.

And we become again guilty of another form of traditionalism, or indeed a form of legalism. What am I talking about? Well, let me illustrate to you. There are many people who are in great trouble about evangelistic methods. It's quite right that we should consider these; that's why I mentioned it and dealt with it in terms of my principle last Friday night. But God forbid that I should be misunderstood about this.

There are people, you know, who object to the singing of hymns and regard it as virtually sinful. Now, that's the sort of thing that needs to be examined. There are people who object to certain forms or certain things which are used in connection with evangelism. Now, I happen to have had the problem put to me a number of times quite recently, so I mention it to you. A number of Christian people in different parts of this country are beginning to use what is called—I believe I'm using the correct term—coffee bar evangelism.

What it means, as I understand it, is this. I know of one instance, for example, where a certain group of Christian men have taken over a building, and they go there at a certain hour every night and they open this place—it's all done on a voluntary basis—and they provide tea and coffee and so on and invite people in off the street, particularly young boys and girls, young men and women, who are leading the sort of lives that we read about in the newspapers but which many of us know nothing at all about in practice.

They're concerned about these people, so they invite them in, give them coffee or tea, whatever it may be, and then they address them on the subject of their souls and the way of salvation. Now, this is subject to a great deal of criticism from many people. They say that's a worldly method. "Fancies supplying coffee. This is regarded as something terrible; it's wrong and it shouldn't be done." And then, of course, there are various other things that are being done at the present time which come under criticism in exactly the same way.

Now, I'm simply raising this question and showing you that there are dangers on the extreme opposite of submitting to worldly thinking and worldly ideas and worldly methods. I am suggesting that the thing we have to be very careful about as we interpret this instruction is that we do not develop a hyper-critical spirit. That we never allow ourselves to get into a position in which we are reacting so violently to what some people are doing that we are virtually spiritual detectives and inspectors and are waiting for things on which we can pounce and which we can denounce and decry simply because they haven't been done in the past, simply because they're something new, and simply because they're the sort of thing that we would not instinctively do ourselves.

Now then, is this just my personal opinion? Well, let me show you that it isn't, but that it is biblical teaching. There is a great warning, it seems to me, from the scriptures and from history to us at this point. My dear friends, we've got to watch our spirits. We may be very clear about worldly methods. All right, I've laid it down as a principle myself, and we must always adhere to it. But let us be very careful that we don't develop a false spirit in this matter.

What's my warning? Well, I take as the great warning the way in which the Pharisees and scribes reacted to our blessed Lord and Savior. They saw the publicans and the sinners drawing near unto Him, and they saw that He was ready to receive them, that He was ready to sit down with them and to eat and drink with them. And they turned at him aghast and said, "This man receiveth sinners. This man is a friend of publicans and sinners. He's a wine-bibber."

They were amazed at this. Fancy our Lord mixing with people like that and sitting down and eating and drinking with them. To the Pharisee, this was a terrible thing; it was unthinkable. Yes, but remember, it is the measure of their complete failure in the realm of spirit to understand the whole object of the coming of our blessed Lord into this world. That is the terrible thing about the Pharisee.

Or take it in exactly the same way: you find that these same kind of people, who were called Judaizers later on, followed the Apostle Paul everywhere and were highly critical of his methods and his dealings with the Gentiles. They said this man's quite wrong; he's doing something that has never been done before, and he doesn't compel these people to submit to circumcision and so on. Now, that was the whole error. They thought that the Apostle Paul was being lax and loose in his evangelism and in his methods. There's no question about this.

And then when you come down in history, let me just take one example and illustration: the great George Whitefield got into trouble because of his open-air preaching. John Wesley stumbled at this; he couldn't understand this. George Whitefield was preaching in the open air, but you shouldn't preach anywhere except in a consecrated building. "What right has a man to preach in a building which hasn't been consecrated, or on standing on a table or on a stone in the open air? The place hasn't been consecrated, and you mustn't preach and evangelize except in a consecrated building."

Now, this was quite a genuine objection. And he thought that he was being biblical, and he wasn't the only one, of course. He was convinced about this quite soon and began to do it himself. But there were many who thought that this was a terrible thing to do and a terribly wrong thing for a man to do. He was doing something new; it had never been done before, and this was therefore queried: "Can this be right, this new method that this man is using?"

Now here, and I could give you other examples of the same thing, here I'm showing you is a very great and a very real danger to those of us who are so clear about not being governed by the mind and the thinking and the outlook of the world. Our danger is to go so far to that other extreme as to become guilty of the spirit and the outlook of the Pharisees and scribes, the traditionalists.

Now, I'm saying we must never become traditionalists. There are certain poles of opposites here which we must be clear about. Well then, what do we say about this question? Well, I would suggest that we must say something like this: we must always in these matters be quite certain that we are being controlled by biblical teaching and thinking and not by our own personal prejudices. We mustn't be governed by prejudices; we mustn't be governed by tradition.

We must always be governed by biblical thinking. If we are not, we shall soon find ourselves resisting and opposing some new thing that God is doing in a difficult age such as this. It's a very subtle matter this, but it must always be biblical. And if we can't prove it's biblical, well then I say we must be very careful in what we say. And so I've often had to say to our friends who are opposed to singing hymns and who say we should think sing nothing but psalms, let them prove it. They can't do that.

Take the passage we read from Ephesians 5: what are those "spiritual songs"? I have no doubt whatsoever that it means singing under the direct inspiration of the spirit, exactly as you have it in 1 Corinthians 14. I'm not going into that; I dealt with it at length one Sunday morning or two Sunday mornings if I remember rightly in this pulpit. However, I'm only showing you the danger of being governed by a rigid traditionalism. And though you think you're serving God, you may be opposing some new thing that God is doing.

Secondly, we must never be governed by the spirit of fear. The spirit of fear is a very terrible thing. Some of the most terrible crimes have been committed as the result of the spirit of fear. A man can be very honest, but if he's governed by the spirit of fear and concern only about his own correctness, he puts himself, I say, into a very dangerous position. So if ever we find ourselves in these matters primarily concerned about ourselves and our own correctness, we're already in danger.

Or let me put that positively: if a concern for the souls and the salvation of others is not my main and my leading motive, I must be very careful what I say about evangelism. I should always maintain my evangelistic concern. If that isn't primary, there's something wrong with me. This is the primary task of the church is to evangelize, to preach the gospel of salvation that the souls of men may be saved. The primary business of the church is not always to be guarding our own correctness and our own perfection. You know, you can put an iron curtain round yourself in a spiritual sense; you'll be absolutely perfect within—at any rate in theory—and you'll be completely useless in the matter of evangelism.

Let every man examine himself in this matter. There are people who spend the whole of their time in safeguarding themselves and their doctrines and their activities that in the end there is no activity as regards the outside world. That is always wrong, always. The primary task of the church is that of evangelism.

But let me go on. There's one side, here's the other: we must never trust a method. That's where these people go wrong, is that they put their faith in their methods. They've got this new method which they've borrowed from the world, and this is going to do it, and they put it into practice. And of course, they get some sort of results, but what are they? That's because they've put their trust in methods.

So I would lay it down as a principle that we must always reduce our methods to the absolute minimum, as little as is possible. That's a good rule, I think. But let me put it in biblical terms. Take what the Apostle says in 1 Corinthians 9: he says, "I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some." Now, that's an apologia. The Apostle is justifying his own evangelistic methods. He was being misunderstood and, as I say, grievously persecuted by the legalists and the Judaizers.

That's his answer: "I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some." What's it mean? Well, I think it means this: there must never be any variation in the message. The message is one, and we must never vary the message in any sense. But I think he equally clearly teaches that we must have a certain degree of elasticity in our methods. When he deals with a Jew, as with a Jew; Gentile, as with a Gentile; to a man who is under the law, as under the law; to a man who is not under the law, as without the law (not that we are without law altogether, he says, but as under the law of Christ).

So I say that there is the principle that you never touch or vary the message, but that there is an element of elasticity in the method in this way: that you have always got to speak to the people you're dealing with. And you've got to deal with them as they are, not as you wish them to be. Now, of course, every preacher wished that he had got men before him always every time he preaches who know their Bible from cover to cover and have read all the theology and are well-versed in the Puritans. Here they are, they're ready for it.

But you know, it's very seldom one gets a congregation like that. And if a preacher doesn't preach to the congregation that is in front of him, he'd better go out of the pulpit. A preacher's not to preach to people as he'd like them to be; he is to preach to them as they are. And if I don't make my message clear to people as they are, I'm a very bad preacher. I ought—I say—but they oughtn't to be like that. The moment I say that, I'm being a bad preacher. It's my business to improve them.

And if I don't start with them as they are, I'll never help them. It's no use my giving a great exposition of the law to a man who knows nothing about the law. I've got to teach him about the law first, and so on. That's exactly what the great Apostle did. And you and I have got to do the same thing. What do we know, my friends, about some of these poor adolescents of this present age? Who've never had a chance in life, many of them. Kicked about from pillar to post by drunken parents and others. What do we know about them and their background? What right have we to postulate as to what these people should be like? I say our business is to deal with them as they are, and to try by all means to bring the knowledge of the Lord to them.

"Oh, but," you say, "you're opening the door now to everything." I'm not. I'm controlling it in this way: I say your message doesn't vary. I'll add to that, your motive must always be constant. And your motive must always be to bring them to a knowledge of salvation. And if you are confronted by a situation that you can make no contact at all with these people except you give them a cup of coffee, well, I say in the name of God, give them many cups of coffee.

What is your concern? Is it the purity of your church and your methods, or is it the salvation of the souls of men and women and boys and girls who are going to hell round and about you? As long as your motive is correct and pure, it will govern your methods. So I would say to many of the friends who are submitting to worldly methods, you must never go in for change for the sake of change. But on the other hand, you must never say that all change is wrong, or you'll be with the Pharisees and the scribes.

There must never be any lightness; you must never allow your methods to contradict your message. And how the giving of a cup of coffee contradicts the message passes my comprehension; I just can't see it. Of course, if you're going to rely upon cups of coffee, then you're wrong again because you're relying upon something you shouldn't rely upon. It's only a means to an end; you rely upon the word and the spirit upon the word.

You see, you've got extremes here. It isn't simple; you can't lay it down: absolute rules and laws. It's a very easy thing to criticize people and their methods, but be very careful that you're not criticizing a work of God. Something that God is prepared to honor, though you may think it's very ineffective. So there are two great extremes here. We must never be guilty of rigidity, neither must we on the other hand ever be guilty of laxity. We must never be guilty of rigidity, neither must we on the other hand ever be guilty of laxity.

These are extremes, and both are wrong. The Christian who's rigid is a very poor Christian. He's really a legalist. He's probably suffering from the spirit of fear. He doesn't know much about the freedom and the liberty of the children of God. Rigidity, laxity, both are wrong. The Christian is holding a balance here in the middle. He knows his truth, he knows his motives, he knows his own heart, and he only employs methods to get a point of contact, to give an opportunity for the gospel. That's his only concern.

And even there, I say, he's always got to keep watch on this: that he never goes so far in that respect that his method is ultimately contradicting his message. I suggest you can never get closer to a definition than that. None of your ready-reckoners in the spiritual life. You can't turn it up; here it is. Impossible. That's Pharisaism. This is a matter of the spirit. Let's watch our spirits. There are grave dangers at the two extremes.

But come, let's go beyond that. Now let's come to the realm of practice. There we have qualified—not qualified but explained perhaps more fully, yes, and in a sense qualified—what I was saying last week. Because if you left it only at that, it is an extreme emphasis. You've got to keep the two sides in view. Having done that, let's come to the question now of actual practice: "Be not conformed to this world." No longer thinking but practice, and yet of course thinking comes in all the time. The same general point has to be made here once more: we must avoid the extreme which will always lead us to miss the true biblical position.

I'm certain as I say this that I'm being misunderstood, and people are saying, "Oh, he's become a compromiser, has he? I thought he was a man who held his views strongly. Now he's saying a bit of this and a bit of that. There it is, common denominator divide by two." I'm saying the exact opposite. I'm saying that you've got to hold two positions in tension, which is much more difficult. But that, I believe, is the truly biblical position.

Let me show you what I mean now then in practice. "Be not conformed to this world." All right, says a man listening to me. I agree with that 100 percent. And therefore, I am going out of the world tonight. I am going to be a monk; I'm going to enter a monastery. I'm finishing with the world; you can't be a Christian in this world. And I'm told here that I must not be conformed to it. How can a man be in business without being conformed to the world? How can a man be in a profession without being conformed to this world? No, no, there's only one thing to do: I'm getting out of it.

So he becomes a monk or an anchorite or a hermit. That's what I call one of the wrong extremes, my friend. You see this violent reaction. The only way not to be conformed to the world is to go right out of the world. That was the whole fallacy behind monasticism, and it was a terrible and a grievous fallacy. It was a failure to understand New Testament teaching. And of course, this was the grand thing that was given to Martin Luther to see, and we need many of us to see the same thing at this present time.

But then, short of monasticism, there is a second danger which I would describe under the heading of legalism. Legalism. "Be not conformed to the world." Now then, the devil comes and he'll get you right over to a legalistic position. What do I mean by that? Well, of course, it always appears the easy way, doesn't it? As I've said already, we all like to have rules and regulations. We've got a feeling always that it's easier to be under the law than under grace. It's all cut and dried: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, there they are, all numbered and all you do is to look up the number.

Perfectly simple; no trouble at all. But you know that isn't the position of the New Testament man. The New Testament man is not under law; he is under grace and he's being treated as a man. As the Apostle Paul says: while you were children and infants, you needed a pedagogue, a schoolmaster, somebody to look after you and to keep you in order. But you're no longer there; you've been taken out of that. That doesn't mean, of course, lawlessness as I'm going to show, but it does mean that you're not under law. It seems easier always to be under law, and that is why we always tend when we meet a text like this to switch right back and to go into legalism once more.

Now, I want to show you, and I'm going to give you a modern illustration of this very danger to which I am referring. Have you ever heard anything of people called Mennonites? Some of you have; if you've ever been in America, you've come across them. Or if you've ever read the whole story of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, you must have read something about them. There were many groups, you remember, in that early Protestant period and amongst them there was a man of the name of Menno. He was a Dutchman and he had a particular teaching. He really belonged to one of the branches of what is called Anabaptism.

And of course, with the migrations to America, it spread to America. And at the present time, there is a body of Mennonites and a particular subdivision of them called the Amish Mennonites, living in a certain part of Pennsylvania. I remember the first time I ever saw any of them. I was astounded, being driven in a car to see people coming along in a sort of horse-drawn vehicle, a very old-fashioned kind of buggy I think they used to call it. And and they were dressed in an extraordinary manner. And I said, "What? What are those?" Well, they said, "They're some of the Amish people." And I'd heard of them, and they are a branch of the Mennonites, and they live in a community in Pennsylvania.

Now, let me tell you something about the Mennonites. They're there tonight; they're quite a well-known group of people. Here are some of the things that they hold. Their this is their great text: "Be not conformed to this world." And this is how they interpret it. They say you must never put curtains up on your windows. That's to be worldly. The Christian mustn't put curtains up in his windows. As regards the dress of the men, they are to wear black baggy trousers and large black broad-brimmed hats, and they do so. To do anything else, they regard as worldly.

They say it is sinful and worldly to have your photograph taken. Still more so, of course, to put it up in a frame in a room in your house. They do not believe in the use of motorcars. Now, this is it, you see. A motorcar is worldliness; this is what the world has produced. Motorcars, there were no motorcars in the 16th century. This is a part of this worldliness that's come in, this internal combustion engine. So they don't use motorcars.

That isn't quite right; some of them, a section of them, are prepared to use motorcars only to go to a place of worship. Incidentally, they don't have buildings like this; they worship in one another's houses. But if you happen to live a long way from the house where the worship is held, you are allowed to use a motorcar. But listen, is this credible? This is a fact. If you do have a motorcar, you must not have rubber tires on it. Well, all right, my friends, all right. I want you to see this principle. This is something which is believed and practiced by very honest people who are trying not to conform to this world.

You mustn't use rubber tires, and another interesting thing: if you find you have a car which has got chromium-plated parts to it, you must cover over the chromium either with black tape or with paint. Chromium is showiness; it's worldliness. So they literally cover it over. They're most of them farmers, but they do not use a tractor or any petrol-driven implement in their farming. All that, they say, is a part of the world; it's a part of this change that has come in, this lack of morality, this moral degradation, modern America. It's a part of it, this tractor business. No, no, you must only plow the land with horse, with horses drawing the plows. You must not use this internal combustion engine at all.

And in the same way, they use no electricity. Not only do they not have television sets and radio sets, they don't even have telephones. Now, I wonder how some of you stand about that? Some of you don't believe in television sets, but you know if you if you're going to be really logical in this matter, you shouldn't have a telephone either. They don't have telephones because, you see, it's worked by electricity, as is your television set.

Now, this is exactly the thing that is being practiced by these Amish Mennonites at this present time. Now, that's only one example. I knew a man, a very godly man—let me say this, one of the most godly men I have ever known, I've ever met—he told me that as a young man, he passed through this phase of legalism. And the form it took in his case was this—I can't remember whether I've told you before—but he literally did this for a long time. He said it was wrong to do anything on Sunday which you could do the night before. So he used to put his boots on and tie them up on Saturday night and sleep in them. Very well, all right. You are laughing at this, and perhaps you're doing the right thing.

All I want you to see is this: that the danger confronting some of us is not the danger of conformity to the world, but swinging so violently against that in a spirit of fear that we become sheer legalists, which remember is equally bad and condemned in the New Testament in so many places.

But let me go on. The next danger that I would describe is that of Pharisaism. What's the difference between legalism and Pharisaism? There isn't much except that in the case of the Pharisee, you put more emphasis upon the spirit. The Mennonites, let me say this for them, are a humble people. I don't think I would describe these Amish Mennonites as Pharisees. I think they're misguided; they're badly instructed. But I wouldn't call them Pharisees.

Incidentally, I ought to have told you this about them. I said the majority of them were farmers. And this is one of these interesting things, you see, that the devil does with us. He'll isolate one thing and he'll make us concentrate on that and we'll be absolutely clear about that. Yes, but we won't be equally clear on other things. It is a simple fact that most of them in their farms are tobacco growers and are doing very well indeed out of growing tobacco. They don't they don't smoke it, but they grow it and they make money out of it. You see what the devil does with us when he drives us to extremes and we have ceased to be biblical in our thinking.

Where is there anything in the scripture that condemns the use of electricity or the internal combustion engine? See, that's not biblical; that's prejudice. That's really allowing a tradition—"we've always been like this; this has only come in in the last century; therefore, it must of necessity be wrong"—now, that's not biblical any longer. Well now, Pharisaism is different in this sense, that it's more a matter of the spirit and it is mainly a matter of pride. It's a matter of self-centeredness; it's a matter of self-satisfaction. "I thank thee, Oh God, that I am not as other men are, and especially this publican." If that's your attitude to what you call worldliness, you're in as bad a position as the worldly Christian. Quite as bad.

The other characteristic of the Pharisee always, of course, is censoriousness. And the moment you and I become censorious, we are hopelessly in transgression at this other extreme which is so far removed from conforming to this world. And then the fourth danger is the danger, of course, of the people who have not heeded this injunction at all. It is the danger of what is called antinomianism. And I think there's a great deal of this at the present time. It's the opposite of the poor Amish Mennonites and many others amongst us. This, you see, is just again a reaction. In other words, you conform to this world if you want to live a life that is as near as you can get to the world without actually sinning. That's the worldly mind and outlook; it's where your heart is. That's something that is condemned completely by this injunction.

Or it may be, and I've known Christians in this position, who were not concerned about their conduct at all. Their attitude was that saved—all right, once a man saved, always saved—it doesn't matter what you do. That's sheer antinomianism, and it's always ready to raise its ugly head.

But perhaps the most subtle form of antinomianism, and to me the most contemptible form, is the form that conforms to the world but uses as a pretext its concern about evangelism. So it teaches its women to use lipstick and so on in order that they may make Christianity attractive to the people who are not Christians in the world. Isn't it subtle? Oh, how subtle is the devil. It's a conforming to the world; it's a form of worldliness, but which masquerades as a great desire to evangelize. I don't think the use of lipstick has ever been responsible for the salvation of a single soul. The world expects us to be different, my dear friends, and we must be very careful of these specious excuses suggested to us by the devil to allow us to do the thing we really want to do. That's the terrible thing.

Very well, what then are we to do? Well, you see again, I can't give you detailed instructions; I can only put principles before you. Here's the great overriding principle: "Love not the world, nor the things that are in the world." Don't love them. If you've got any love for the world as defined and the things of the world, you're already wrong. Secondly, avoid all appearance of evil, which means avoid every appearance of evil. Take what I read to you from Ephesians 5 at the beginning: there are certain things that we all know are wrong, and they're denounced in the Bible itself, and we're told not to do them. Well, very well, there must be no argument about this; we just must not do them. If we do, we are conforming to this world. Where it is plainly laid down and it is clearly simple, the Christian mustn't even consider the thing; he rejects it.

But let's go on. Thirdly, let us not be governed by the world or molded by the world. What do I mean by that? Well, I'm using the modern phraseology for the sake of brevity. If there is any desire in you to be "with it," as it's called, that's conforming to the world. I don't care what form it takes; any desire to just be there, modern man up-to-date and so on. That always of the devil; that is conformity to the world. Whether it's in your dress or appearance or in your articles that you write or anything else. There's nothing more tragic to me than the feeble and pathetic attempt of certain journals to be "with it." They're modernizing themselves. It's very pathetic apart from being wrong.

Then another way is this: we must never be governed by the fashions of this world. Is there anything more ludicrous about the world than its fashions? Show and ostentation. Lust of the flesh and the lust of the eye and the pride of life. That's the characteristic of the world; it's always a matter of show and of ostentation. And look at the ridiculous extremes to which it goes in its so-called fashion. There is no doubt that at the present time fashion is being governed by a cult of ugliness. It was once the cult of beauty; it's obviously now the cult of ugliness. That's the latest thing: you make yourself as ugly as you can. Once upon a time, it was the fashion, it was the fashion to be clean; it is obviously the fashion now with "the" people to be dirty and unwashed. That's fashion. Once there was the most elaborate hairstyle; it's now the extreme opposite. Now, that's the world, you see.

And what I'm saying is that you must never be conformed to this. Fashions in men in the same way: I remember 40 years ago, men wearing very wide trousers. You see what they're doing today: the exact opposite. And so on with all these things. That's the world, and how ridiculous it is. And I'm saying that when we are told, "Be not conformed to this world," it means this: we mustn't be governed or molded by that sort of thing.

Now, let me be fair. I know it's difficult. People say, "But I've got to buy what's in the shops." I agree with you. It is difficult not up to a certain point to have to conform to that, and you're a helpless victim and you can't help it. All I'm saying is this: that you not only object to having to do that, but that you don't want to do that. Conforming to the world is the desire to do that. Or let me put it in another form: if ever you find you're governed by a spirit of fear and public opinion, you are conforming to this world. If you're thinking, "How's this going to affect me? Is this going to affect me adversely?" and if you're conforming to society and its fashions and its ways simply because you're in a spirit of fear, you really are conforming to the world.

Then what are your rules? says someone. Well, I can't give detailed rules, but I'll put it like this. We must avoid all that. We must avoid all extremes. I would say to the Christian: never be aggressive in any sense. You know, you can be aggressive even in your non-conformity to the world, but you must never be aggressive. The Christian is never aggressive. Or let me put it in another form: never parade. Never parade on any side. Don't parade in a fashion parade, but don't parade in the opposite either. Never parade; never make a parade of yourself. It was the Pharisees who made broad their phylacteries. It was the Pharisee who always sent a trumpeter ahead of him that the whole world might know what he was doing. And if you are always announcing that you're not conforming to the world, I say you are conforming to the world in a very subtle way.

The Christian should never parade in any sense; he should never be aggressive. Well, what then? Well, what the Christian does is always to be an expression of his new character. That's all he's concerned about. The Christian is a man who knows what he's doing and he knows why he's doing it. Do you know, there ought to be something almost instinctive about the Christian in this matter of not conforming to the world? I can't recall again whether I've ever told you this before, but I was an eyewitness of it and it always struck me as being such a perfect illustration.

I knew a man who was converted out of a terrible life of drunkenness and many other terrible things, much worse even than drunkenness. But the great feature of this man was his extraordinary mustache. Unusual length. And he told me, and many others told me the same thing, that this man had often fought over this question. A man would challenge him in a semi-drunken condition as to whether he had got wider span of mustache than he had, and they'd fought about this and had half-killed one another many a time. Well, this man was converted. And I remember a few weeks after his conversion, he was attending a weeknight service; I was standing at the door and they all passed me on the way out. I saw this man coming with no mustache. And I was most annoyed; I felt sure that some busybody in the church had told him to shave off his mustache.

So when he came to me, I said, "Who told you to get rid of your mustache?" "Nobody," he said. "Now come along," I said, "don't you shield anybody. I don't like this sort of thing. I don't like these self-appointed detectives in the church. Tell me, who told you? I want to know because I want to correct this person." He said, "Nobody told me to do it." "Well," I said, "why did you do it?" He said, "I'll tell you. I did it this morning. I was getting up this morning and I had a wash," he said, "and as I was drying myself, I happened to see myself in the mirror and I saw the mustache. And I said to myself," he said, "'them things don't belong to a Christian.' So I got hold of a scissors and I cut them off and shaved the rest."

That's what I'm talking about. There's something instinctive in the Christian. He knows; there is something that tells him. You know, there's a good text for this, isn't it? "Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ." Philippians 1:27. That's the test. Is it becoming? Does it fit in with? Does it match this glorious gospel that I profess to believe? And the Christian, I say, has got this instinctively in him. So he doesn't parade; he doesn't announce; he doesn't blow his trumpet. But he just wants everything about himself to be in conformity with this great and glorious gospel that he believes.

So the great characteristic of the Christian always is moderation. He's never at any extreme. The Christian in his dress is never showy. But let me say this equally: he or she should never be dowdy either. For a Christian to dress in a dowdy manner is as bad as to dress in a showy manner because if you do dress in a dowdy manner, you're calling attention. It's a trumpeter; it's a parade. You're attracting attention to yourself, and the Christian is one who doesn't want to attract in this way at all. He simply wants to attract in a Christian way. He wants his character to attract. So he doesn't do it in these external forms on either extreme.

So I would say that the Christian in this matter of dress particular is always neat and tidy, and that's something we can all be. You avoid all extremes. It's neat, it's tidy. It's not obtrusive; it's not offensive in any sense at all. And there's none of this horrible element of parade in connection with it. The Christian, in other words, is always inoffensive. And he is the man who bears the witness. Take for instance this alcoholic drink question: there's a way of doing that that does much more harm than good. But the true Christian does it in an inoffensive manner. He does it, if you like, in a gentlemanly manner. He doesn't parade it; he doesn't hold up a placard; he doesn't announce it; he doesn't get his trumpeter to call attention. No, he does it quietly. And men look at him and they say there's something different about that man. They have to ask him to explain what it is. That's the way not to conform to the world; that is the way to bear your testimony to the Lord Jesus Christ and what he has done for you in his great and glorious salvation.

I can't get near a definition than that. That's the rule: only let your conversation, the whole of your life, demeanor, deportment, everything, only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ. You're not a worldling, but you're not a crank either. Christian cranks always done more harm than good. The Christian is neither, but he's a man of moderation. He's like our blessed Lord himself, who walked through this world often unrecognized, and yet there was always something. He couldn't be hid—not because he made a show. "He didn't cry aloud in the streets," we are told, and yet he couldn't be hid. It would shine forth. That's the ambition of the Christian. And as long as we are governed by that, we can be quite certain we shall not conform to this world.

Now next week, God willing, we'll go on to look at the positive aspect of all that as the Apostle proceeds to put it. We come to the hour. Heavenly Father, and once more we thank thee for thy word. Oh Lord, how can we thank thee sufficiently for it? Keep us, we pray thee, ever with a single eye to thy glory, ever to that simplicity which is in Christ. Lord, keep us there and give us one desire, and that is to tell for the glories and the wonders of thy grace. And may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship and the communion of the Holy Spirit abide and continue with us now this night and throughout the remainder of this our short uncertain earthly life and pilgrimage and until we shall see him as he is and shall find ourselves without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but even as he is himself and like unto him. Amen.