PARENTHOOD
a divine stewardship

The World Trending Away From God

In this issue of Parenthood we continue a series of articles from a book written by Watchman Nee concerning the world. The Bible refers to the world as the created physical earth or universe, as the people occupying the earth, or as the things belonging to the earthly sphere. However there is something behind these outward factors--the world is a system, and there is behind that system, a mind which organizes, conducts, and controls how the world operates. "The whole world lies under the evil one," is the pronouncement of the Bible concerning the guiding source of the world system. We need to be fully aware that Satan is the mind behind the world system in all of its aspects.

Because God's enemy is behind the world system, it is in a continuing trend away from God. As believers, we are very conscious of the evil in the world, but we may not be aware of the nature behind the good things in the world: "the whole world"--not just a part--"lies under the evil one." We may be very wary of the entertainment aspects of the world, but be without any feeling concerning the corruptible nature that is hidden within the educational world. In recent years many parents have realized this hidden nature and have turned to home schooling as an alternative. However, even in home schooling, there is the element of the world. We cannot escape the world.

Hence, the Lord Jesus prayed concerning His disciples: "I am no longer in the world; yet they are in the world, and I am coming to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, which You have given to Me, that they may be one even as We are.... I have given them Your word, and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world even as I am not of the world. I do not ask that You would take them out of the world, but that You would keep them out of the hands of the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world" (John 17: 11, 15-16). What shall we do? Watchman Nee cautions not to try to evade the world, "But walk softly, for you are upon territory that is governed by God's enemy, and unless you are on the watch you are as liable as anyone else to fall a prey to his devices." May we learn this lesson and train our children in this way.

Having every one of us been in bondage to sin, we readily believe that sinful things are Satanic; but do we believe equally that the things of the world are Satanic? Many of us, I think, are still in two minds about this. Yet how clearly Scripture affirms that "the whole world lieth in the evil one" (1 John 5:19). Satan well knows that, generally speaking, to try to ensnare real Christians through things that are positively sinful is vain and futile. They will usually sense the danger and elude him. So he has contrived instead an enticing network, the mesh of which is so skillfully woven as to entrap the most innocent of men. We flee sinful lusts, and with good reason, but when it comes to such seemingly innocuous things as science and art and education, how readily do we lose our sense of values and fall a prey to his enticements!

Yet our Lord's sentence of judgment clearly implies that everything that constitutes "the world" is out of line with God's purpose. His words, "Now is the judgment of this world," clearly imply the condemnation of all that goes to make up the kosmos, and would never have been uttered if there were not something radically amiss with it. Further, when Jesus goes on: "Now shall the prince of this world be cast out," He is stressing not merely the intimate relation between Satan and the world order but the fact that its condemnation is linked with his. Do we acknowledge that Satan is today the prince of education and science and culture and the arts, and that they, with him, are doomed? Do we acknowledge that he is the effective master of all those things that together make up the world system?

When mention is made of a dance hall or a nightclub, our reaction as Christians is one of instinctive disapproval. To us that is "the world" par excellence. When, however, to go to the other extreme, medical science or social service are discussed, there may be no such reaction at all. These things command our tacit approval, and maybe too our enthusiastic support....Yet let us face the fact that judgment has been pronounced by God, not upon certain selected things that belong to this world, but impartially upon them all.

(continued on page 2)