Cancer Blog #43
By Brian Zimmerman
Begun on July 31, 2021
Email: dyingman1@yahoo.com
My Dying Words
Entry #43 – Death and Life in the World
June 10, 2022
[1John 2:15-17 NASB95] 15 Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. 17 The world is passing away, and [also] its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever
John here warns us about life in the world: a life with desires generated by the world – of the flesh, of the eyes, and of pride. He gives an indictment that sounds much like our modern life. Once again, as Christians, we need the long view of life, a life that doesn’t end with our death or the time of this world. The world (which is John’s word for a system of thinking and living that is arrayed against God and, therefore, against His people), is battling for what God and His kingdom is also concerned about: the desires of our bodies, eyes, and heart. We must always be aware where the world’s pressure points on us will be. To do otherwise is to yield to what Satan most yearns for: our desires as we live in this age. Only by the power of the Holy Spirit are we able to control and overrule those desires in those areas generated by the world. My wife and I pray daily that we would be filled with the Holy Spirit, and that His fruit would be seen growing in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (and, yes, we name them all in our prayer). We pray for the Spirit’s filling that by His power we might be able to put to death the old Brian and wife, and see Him raise up as a part of the new creation the new Brian and wife.
The desires of the world are increasing in the western world with the explosive growth of sinful desires, especially immorality: homosexuality and all manner of sexual perversions. There is also a desire to increase racial animosity and divisions. Greed is our national obsession. By despising and attacking sexual normality as Biblically defined, rejecting the Biblical call for racial harmony, and loving money above all else as our standard of success, the world promotes its hatred of God and its love of death. Yet we know that this hatred comes at a great cost to those who practice it: oftentimes misery here, and final and irrevocable death at the last Judgment. As John says, the world and its desires are passing away, fading, declining, disappearing. The world and its desires will come under God’s condemnation and His final sentence: hell with eternal suffering.
But, John offers us the hope of the gospel: if we will, by the power of the Spirit, do the will of God, we will live forever with Him. As we have seen before, this is not an eternal life in some colorless, drab existence: it is a life with our Savior, in His world, even in His home that He has prepared for us. And as a further blessing, it will be a life with His people, the earth full of peace, growth in use of talents and abilities God has given us, a time of never ending prosperity, of joy, and gladness!
So resist the lures and traps of the world as it attempts to distract you from the long game; prepare to live in eternity. Stop worrying about the world and its passing desires that will be here only briefly, attempting to blind us with the tyranny of the immediate. Do the will of God by His grace so that you can abide forever as John exhorts us!
Next: Death and the vaccine