James 4:4 You adulterers and adulteresses, know you not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?… Are we God's people? Let us then realise the closeness and sacredness of our relation to Him. He will not allow any other being or object to share along with Him the throne of the heart, but resents every attempt and suggestion of the kind. And forget not that the world is a foreign and hostile power. Friendship with it is enmity with Him. The two are irreconcilable. Many try to please both, and fancy themselves successful. But they are grievously mistaken, for every step in its direction carries them so far away from Him, and all submission to the one is rebellion against the other. Let Christians beware of its influence, for it is stealthy and deceitful. The best defence and preservative is to have the heart filled to overflowing with the love of God — so shall the evil spirit not find the house empty, but full, and be unable to effect an entrance. Are some of you not God's people? See how you may be admitted into His friendship; yea, how you may have Him, your Maker, as your husband. Surely it were a blessed thing to be thus united to one so great and gracious — one who can supply our every want, and deliver us from every evil — one who can be infinitely more to us than the nearest and dearest of earthly relatives, His grace alone can draw us into and fix us in this state of spiritual wedlock. And how are any made its subjects? It is only in the way of being abased, emptied of our own self-sufficiency, divested of all fancied merit, and laid at the feet of Jesus. (John Adam.) Parallel Verses KJV: Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. |
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