I WAS ONCE DROWNING in the world's depths and condemnation.  But "He sent from above, he took me; he drew me out of many waters." How deep were the seas into which the Savior sank--"All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me"--that He might "deliver (pluck out, rescue) us from this present evil world!" How wonderful our rescue!  Further victory is needed, however, in getting the sea taken out of us.  Yet it is crowning victory when those rescued plunge back into the sea to rescue other perishing ones.  Even so. After the victory of being taken out of the world, and after the victory of having the foul elements of this world's darkness taken out of us, there is the crowning victory of getting us sent into that very world to rescue other perishing ones from the world's doom.

However, in re-entering this present evil world, it is imperative that our relationship to that world be kept crystal clear before us.  Having been born from above, our citizenship is in Heaven.  We have been "spiritually disfranchised of the world." Christ says plainly, 'Ye are not of the world." We have been crucified to the world and the world unto us.  And how great the moral distance between the crucified disciple and the crucified world?  As far asunder as the throne of Heaven is from the gate of hell, and as different in disposition as "lambs in the midst of wolves." With what bold and daring contrast we are to stand out as sons of God in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom we are to shine as lights in the world!

In John 17 Jesus sets forth the Christian's position as taken out of the world (v. 6), not of the world (v. 14), kept from the evil of the world (v. 15), left in the world (v. 11), sent into the world to preach to the world (vv. 18, 20), and as a result hated by the world (v. 14).  Since our message centers around the world's attitude to the Cross, this last point is important.

Settle it in your mind, O Christian, that "because they (ye) are not of the world," therefore the world hateth you.  Minimize not the world's hatred of the truth.  The world that crucified Christ will not be able to tolerate you.  The worldlings will clash madly against you.  The reproach of Christ will fall upon you from all quarters.  Think it not strange.  It is a mark of true discipleship.  "Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." Let no one think that we write as one who has any "morbid greed for persecution," or that we hold any brief for a self-made martyrdom.  Perish all such contemptible hypocrisy!  But, without contradiction, the only reason the scandal of the Cross has ceased for some professed disciples is that they have become so compromising that the world is no longer rebuked by their lives or testimony.  The Church and the world, like Samson and Delilah, are found in an unhallowed and foul fellowship.
 
 

One of the most searching and condemning sentences which ever fell from the Savior's lips was that uttered to His own unbelieving brethren: "The world cannot hate you" (John 7:7).  If ever I become so one with the world, so tolerant of its spirit and atmosphere that I reprove it no more, incur not its hatred, rouse not its enmity to Christ--if the world can find in me no cause to hate me and cast me from its company, then I have betrayed Christ and crucified Him afresh in the house of His friends.  On intimate terms with this world that nailed Him to the tree?  Perish the thought!  In full identification with Christ the world can regard me as only fit for crucifixion.  And as a disciple of Christ I should no more covet the favor of this crucified world than I would court and covet the smile of a cursed and crucified and expiring felon.

It is the first condition of our initiation into the secret society of the Friends of God, that we take our place with Him before the judgment seat of the world; and arc with Him mocked, patronized, and misunderstood