In this message we shall see that the believers experience the dispensing of the divine Trinity in the matters of not loving the world and of overcoming Satan the Devil.
First John 2:15 says, “Do not love the world, neither the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” The Greek word for “world,” kosmos, has more than one meaning. In Matthew 25:34; John 17:15; Acts 17:24; Ephesians 1:4; and Revelation 13:8 it denotes the material universe as a system created by God. In John 1:29; 3:16; and Romans 5:12 it denotes the fallen human race corrupted and usurped by Satan as components for his evil world system. In 1 Peter 3:3 it denotes adorning, ornament. Here in 1 John 2:15, as in John 15:19; 17:14; and James 4:4, it denotes an order, a set form, an orderly arrangement, hence, an ordered system (set up by Satan, the adversary of God), not the earth. God created man to live on the earth for the fulfillment of His purpose. But His enemy Satan, in order to usurp the God-created man, has formed an anti-God world system on this earth by systematizing men with religion, culture, education, industry, commerce, and entertainment through men’s fallen nature in their lusts, pleasures, pursuits, and even in their indulgence in living necessities, such as food, clothing, housing, and transportation. Everything, everyone, and every matter have been systematized by the evil one, the adversary of God, and made a part of his world system. The whole of such a Satanic system lies in the evil one (1 John 5:19). Not loving such a world is the ground for overcoming the evil one. Loving it just a little gives the evil one the ground to defeat us and occupy us.
Satan not only employs the necessities of life to preoccupy man; he also organizes them into numerous individual systems in order to intensify his grip upon man. We may say that the satanic world system is a “university,” in which there are many different “departments,” such as food, clothing, transportation, housing, marriage, money, entertainment, and fame-more than we can enumerate. The aggregate result is a world university, occupying man with many “courses.” One by one, these courses enslave and possess man, causing him completely to forsake and forget God and go along with the current of the world. People believe that they are handling and enjoying all these, but, actually without realizing Satan’s deception, they have fallen into the hands of the evil one and are deceived and controlled by him. Therefore, the world denotes the enemy’s scheme, system, and organization to usurp the place of God in man and eventually to gain full possession of man.
First John 2:15b says, “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” The love of the Father here is our love toward Him generated by His love within us. We love Him with the love by which He has loved us.
To not love the world, which is against the Father, is to keep the love of God in us. But if we do not keep the love of God in us, we shall love something other than God. If we keep the love of God with which He has loved us, we shall not love anything in place of God. Then we shall not love the world.
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