YOUR FRIENDLY ENEMY PART 1.

PERIOUS TIMES , LOVING PLEASURE RATHER THAN GOD!!!

PLEASURE-DISTRACTIONS

THE TEST: DO WE LOVE THE WORLD?

THE PROFESSING MAN

HE LOVES THE WORLD [VS15]

HE FOLLOW AFTER THE WORLD

LOVE NOT EVERYTHING-1 JOHN 2:15-17

LOVE NOT THE WORLD

NEITHER THE THINGS THAT ARE IN THE WORLD

IF…….ANY MAN LOVE THE WORLD, THE FATHER IS NOT IN HIM.

THE CRAVINGS OF THE FLESH-WHY IS IT SO HARD———

WHAT ARE YOU ENTERTAINING????

THE LUST OF THE EYES….

THE PRIDE OF LIFE: BOASTING OF WHAT HE HAS AND DOES

VERSE 16- HE IS NOT OF GOD!!!!!

THE KEY VERSE HERE IS 17, AND THE WORLD PASSETH AWAY, AND THE LUST THEREOF, BUT….HE THAT DOETH THE WILL OF GOD ABIDETH FOR EVER

Adrian Rogers Sermon Archive Introduction

Introduction

Adrian Rogers Sermon Archive (Introduction) Genesis chapter 13. It’s always good to know who your enemies are.

You have three enemies at least, and they are three big ones:

the world,

the flesh,

and the devil.

And no Christian can afford to be ignorant of these enemies,

for to be ignorant is to be unprepared,

and to be unprepared is to fall and to go down in shame and disgrace and ignominious defeat.

Now of these three enemies, I want to just take one and talk to you about that one enemy this morning.

And that one enemy is the world.

And I’ve entitled our message this morning

“Your Friendly Enemy,”

because the world seems so friendly,

so charming, so innocuous, sometimes beautiful,

sometimes helpful,

sometimes harmless.

But I want to warn you that what the Bible calls

“the world” is an enemy, and a deadly enemy.

So we’re thinking today about

“Your Friendly Enemy.” I’m reading here from Genesis chapter 13. I begin in verse 5. It is an episode in the lives of Abram and his nephew Lot. In verse 5, the Bible says, “And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks, and herds, and tents. And the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together: for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together.

And there was a strife between

the herdmen of Abram’s cattle and the herdmen of Lot’s cattle:

and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled then in the land.

And Abram said unto Lot,

Let there be no strife,

I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren.

Is not the whole land before thee? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left. And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar. Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other. Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom.” (Genesis 13:5–12)

Now, what do we mean when we say “the world”?

We have to be very careful because we’re certainly not talking about the earth,

Planet Earth.

Sometimes the word cosmos,

that’s translated “world,” speaks of Planet Earth.

For example, it does in Acts chapter 17, where the Bible says the Lord made the world and everything that is in it. (Acts 17:24) There’s nothing evil about the rocks and the trees, the birds, the oceans, the fields, the mountains.

Thank God for these things. Jesus said, “Consider the lilies how they grow.” (Luke 12:27)

Oh, there’s nothing wrong with the material physical universe—and never think that there is.

And when the Bible warns about the world,

it’s not warning about Planet Earth.

Do you have that?

All right,

secondly,

when the Bible warns about the world,

it’s not warning about the people of the world.

The Bible says, in John chapter 3, verse 16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son.” (John 3:16)

There He’s talking about the people of the world.

Now if God loves those people, we ought to love them.

“Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight.”

He’s not talking, therefore, about the physical universe or the physical earth;

he’s not talking about the people, some five billion of them now, that live on Planet Earth. When the Bible uses the word world, what does the Bible mean—when the Bible says, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world”—1 John 2, verse 15? (1 John 2:15)

Well, it’s the word cosmos.

And what does that mean?

It means a system, an order.

For example, when a woman is putting on her cosmetics, she’s putting her face in order.

We speak today of the world of sports, or the world of finance, the world of industry, the world of business; and what we mean by that is a system, an organized system.

Now there is a system that the Bible calls

“the world,” which is the world of wickedness

—and we’re told not to love it. First John 2, verse 15:

“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love [this system], the love of the Father is not in him.” (1 John 2:15)