Twinkies Or Broccoli

For believers, however, there are two possible objects for affection: the world and God, and these two are direct opposites. To have a warm, familiar attitude toward this evil world is to be on good terms with God’s enemy. It is to adopt the world’s set of values and to want what the world wants.

The Greek could be translated – “if you make the choice to be a friend of the world, you are in fact an enemy of God.” Whether that’s the choice you want to make, or think you’re making, it is in fact the choice you make if you are overly friendly with the things of the world…

Believer’s Bible Commentary

So again here, we see that this is a choice. Just as clear a choice as choosing twinkies or broccoli. James is condemning love of material things as spiritual adultery. This theme of the danger of loving the world is a refrain we hear in many other passages of scripture as well. Let’s look briefly at a few.

1 Peter 2:11 Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.

Peter tells us we’re not of this world. At least, when we’re born again, we’re new creatures, born of the Spirit. As such, we become aliens and strangers in the world. It’s not our home anymore. And in the world, we are tempted by sinful desires that war against our soul. That implies a mortal threat, doesn’t it? War is a dangerous thing to be in the middle of.

There are some very sad consequences to loving the world. Some of the things that love of the world can produce in the believer’s life (from the Open Bible) are:

1. A turning away from the Lord’s work and other believers

2 Tim. 4:10 (NIV) for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me…

What a thing to be remembered for! Demas loved the world, and because of that, deserted the writer of much of the New Testament. He left the side of the man responsible for much of the initial spread of the gospel among the Gentile world. All because He loved the world.

2. Alienation from God (James 4:4) which we just read about.

3. Corrupting sins (2 Pet. 1:4)

2 Peter 1:3-4 (NIV) His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

When we love the Lord, He gives us all we need to love Him not just in word, but in deed. He equips us to live for Him. This allows us to escape the corruption in the world, caused by our sinful, evil desires. Could these be the same things John wrote of, in our text this morning?

16For everything in the world--the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does--comes not from the Father but from the world.

The cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes, the boasting of what he has and does – the pride of life. Another way to describe these things might be the way Peter does here… Evil desires.