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Subject 14 : The First Epistle of JOHN
[Chapter 2-4] Do Not Love the World or The Things in the World (1 John 2:15-17)
“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.”
I know that you and I are struggling with three kinds of lust. In James 4:1, it is written, “Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?” Here in 1 John, the Bible speaks of lust as the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
In fact, it is because these three kinds of lust that we struggle with our lives of faith and so often stumble over the things of the world. Because of this lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, our lives of faith are often interrupted, though we have been saved. And it saddens me deeply to see this happening.
The Bible frequently tells us to wait for the day of our Lord’s return and to persevere until that day, as it is written in James 5:7, “Be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord.” Just as the Bible admonishes us, I believe that until that day, we must dedicate our lives to the spreading of the gospel of the water and the Spirit and persevere with this precious work until its end.
I know, of course, that such a life of patience is hard to live. We live through various hardships not because of anything else particular, but because of the lust of our flesh, the lust of our eyes, and the pride of our lives. Of course, you may consider these three kinds of greeds as nothing to you, but to actually fight against them and to follow the Lord can be difficult and painful.
The Apostle John tells us here in 1 John 2:15, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” Indeed, if we love the things in the world even a bit, and if the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life that love the world come into our hearts ever so slightly, then it becomes that much more difficult for us to lead our true lives of faith.
This does not mean, however, that we as Christians must be cut loose from the ties of the world. Our Lord did not tell us to leave the world and live entirely apart from it. Rather, what He told us is to cast aside our greed. Nor did our Lord tell us to despise the world. He did tell us, however, to beware of the three kinds of lust in our hearts.
Until the last day, we must live our lives preaching the gospel, for before us, there are many souls that still have not received the remission of their sins. Yet this is no easy task; it is really difficult to spread the gospel of the water and the Spirit to everyone before our lives are over. Even so, no matter when our Lord returns, and no matter when we go and stand before His presence, we must preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit until that day. I thank the Lord for placing us in His Church, protecting us with spiritual fences, and enabling us to preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit, for we are such that if our hearts are drawn to the world ever so slightly, we simply would not be able to serve the gospel.
I see how difficult it is to keep our hearts of faith. I think it is more difficult than to endure hard physical labor. Physical labor is not so hard, nor is it that difficult to live in this world—we simply do what we have to do. But for our hearts to move away from God is the greatest curse, and this is why it is so problematic and troublesome. So the Bible admonishes us, “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life” (Proverb 4:23). Even so, because our Lord has blotted out all our sins, I believe that if we do not fall into these three kinds of lust too deeply, then this is not such an insurmountable problem.
How many souls are still there, to whom we must preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit? So that these souls would all come to believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit and be saved from their sins, we must indeed keep our hearts, turn around from our wrong ways, and live by faith.
Who knows when the Great Tribulation of seven years will descend to this world? In this age and time, the signs of the end times are arising all over. You may have heard of the abnormal climatic changes and the natural disasters that result from them. The boundary lines of the polar icecaps were reported to be retreating rapidly. There is no doubt that this is because of global warming. Great natural disasters unleashed by such climatic changes as El Niño have now become annual events.
Moreover, this age is filled with so much tension and conflict among nations. War and terrorist attacks break out without cease. Now is such an age. So when we think about how we can spread the gospel to our own family members and to all the souls throughout the whole world, and as well as how we can live by faith until the day our Lord returns, we cannot help but rely on our faith in the Lord. And this is also the reason why we should keep our hearts with all diligence.
The Apostle John said, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:15-17).
Who does not love the things of the world? It is because everyone loves them so much that John told us not to love the things in the world. Though we love the things in the world, to preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit to people, we need to maintain self-control so that our hearts would not drown in the world. It is really difficult for us not to love this world as we live in it, but whatever the reason may be, if we love this world, then there is no room for God’s love in our hearts, and if we love the world, then nor can we preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit to people. This is why we must not love this world.
The gospel of the water and the Spirit that you already believe is not so intellectually simple, nor easy to understand. Some people say that to believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit is easier than to breathe, but it is difficult when one has to first remove all the lies that false teachers have spread.
So spreading the gospel of the water and the Spirit is possible only when we have the heart of the Father that loves all souls. If we have the Lord’s love in our hearts, then all that we have to do is spread this love. But if this God-given love is not in our hearts, but all that we love is the world, then there is nothing more difficult than trying to spread this love only grudgingly. Since we have been perfectly saved from our sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, we must absolutely keep our hearts if we were to preach this true gospel until the day our Lord returns. We must serve the gospel of the water and the Spirit, in other words, by turning our wrongful hearts around, by correcting them, by coming closer to the Lord, and by discarding the lust that keeps entering us. Only when we turn around, time after time, from our hearts that have gone astray can we serve the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Today’s scripture passage says, “The world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.” My dear fellow believers, this age is the last age. Because the time is nearing, Satan is doing all he can to make everyone love this world. Technological advancement has exposed everyone to the countless temptations that provoke his lust. Through such means of the world, Satan is trying to steal everything—our eyes, ears, lips, hands, feet, and even hearts.
When such an age passes by, there will be nothing remaining in this world anymore, but only war, earthquakes, disasters, and tribulations. Only destruction will come to everything that mankind has ever built. To this day, mankind has relentlessly pursued to further advance science and technology, but as their discoveries and inventions are not used for only good purposes, they will eventually face destruction from the very things that they created.
This is why God is telling us in this hour, “Do not love the world or the things in the world.” While it is okay for us to enjoy the things in this world, it is wrong to love them with our hearts. It is right for us to reign over the things in this world, to enjoy them, and to manage them well and use them for good purposes.
But no matter how much money we might have in this world, how many things to be proud of, and even the power to rule over the world, when this world and we ourselves face destruction, everything will be rendered completely useless. It is because the Apostle John knew this so well that he is telling us here in the Bible, “Do not love the world or the things in the world.” He told us not to love the things of the world because if we love them, the love of Christ is not in our hearts.
This message is something that we must take to our hearts and ruminate upon time after time, even if it is heard for a hundred times. These three kinds of lust are always near us, so that we may be enticed to follow them at anytime. But if we follow the three lusts of the flesh, then the love of the Father will disappear from our hearts and we will be cut from His love of salvation. Therefore, we must always be wary and be careful of the things of the world, and instead of loving them, we must devote our hearts even more to the spreading the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
What is it that you and I need the most in this age and time? What is the greatest problem that you and I are now facing? It is for us to love this world. If something is wrong in our hearts and we are now living our lives of faith only in emotion, then this can only mean that we are serving at least one of these three lusts—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. If we follow the world like this and seek after our own lust, we cannot lead a proper life of faith, and as a result, we will end up perishing, as will our family.
So we must beware and be cautious of these three carnal lusts. Though such lusts of the flesh are in our heart, we must realize that they are not from God. The lust of the flesh, in other words, comes from the world and Satan. Moreover, lusting after something does not mean that it could be satisfied fully just because we pursue it. It is only when God the Father allows us to have something that it becomes ours. The Bible states, “Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; Unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain” (Psalms 127:1). So for our hearts to lust after something is meaningless, and it is only wise for us to watch out for such greed and overcome it.
If we want to keep our lives of faith until the day our Lord returns, we must remember this one message that God told us here: “Do not love the world or the things of the world.” Only when we remember this commandment of God can we keep our lives of faith until the day of our Lord’s return. If we do not have the love of Christ in our hearts, then we cannot carry on with our lives of faith, for it is by the heart and faith that they are led. This is why we must cast aside our love for this world until the love of Christ blossoms in our hearts instead. It is only when we cast aside such love for this world that the love of the Father can sprout in our hearts, and we can also serve the Lord, follow Him willingly, bear spiritual fruits with Him, and receive the fertility of the earth, abundant blessings, and care from God the Father as well. For us to be blessed both in body and spirit, we must not love the things in the world, but we must overcome the lust of the flesh and turn around from it.
It actually is not so hard to live a life of faith. We can lead this life of faith if we would just keep our hearts with all diligence, but if we fail to do so, then everything will simply collapse. As each year goes by, so do we come one step closer to the day our Lord returns, and yet it seems as though we have fallen asleep and are increasingly loving this world when we are in fact supposed to wait for Him. In the parable of the ten virgins waiting for the bridegroom, even the five wise virgins fell asleep. In these end times, the whole world seems to have fallen asleep just like these virgins. Nonetheless, let us all cast aside our hearts’ love for the world; let us live each year by doing the Lord’s work, receiving many blessings from Him, and bearing abundant spiritual fruits that save many souls; and then let us all meet our Lord in great joy.
If, by any chance, you feel something stifling and suffocating in your hearts as you are carrying on with your lives of faith, and you find that you only feel empty inwardly while serving the Lord outwardly, then surely this is because your hearts love the world, and therefore there is no love of the Father in them. There is no other reason. Our Lord wants to dwell in us and walk with us.
If we love the world, God the Holy Spirit in us becomes jealous and angry at us, saying, “I am in you and yet you are not satisfied by Me?” Because the Master in us is the Holy Spirit, when our Master gets angry and is hurt, then our outward men are bound to get hurt also, and as a result, we get angry and impatient at even the slightest thing, and we become hardened and spiritually blind. As such, we must cast aside our hearts’ love for the world, ask for what we need by faith, and fulfill our role as stewards by managing what we have wisely. We must also love Christ, live the blessed life that receives many spiritual and material blessings from Him and shares them with others until the day we meet our Lord.
If this love for the world creeps into your hearts or my heart, then let us get rid of it regularly. It seems that we would have to do this at least once a week. While once saved, we are forever saved, we still need to frequently filter out such sediments from our hearts. It is bound to happen that the love for this world or the three lusts of the flesh would arise in our hearts. In our hearts, there are the residues of our love for this world; this is not something that is unique only to you and me, but everyone is like this.
Given this, how could we then carry on with our lives of faith? Just as our houses are clean because we sweep and mop everyday, it is by cleaning our hearts from the love of this world that we can continue to lead our lives of faith. Before every Passover Feast came around, the Israelites had to remove leaven from their houses (Exodus 12:15). The Lord admonishes us, “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees” (Matthew 16:6). He warns us that we should stay away from legalism and secularism. If we allow our hearts to love this world constantly, even a little bit of such leaven will spoil all our hearts, and we will end up facing His Judgment.
Therefore, we need to sweep out such love of this world from our hearts; think about how the Lord has saved us, how this Lord Savior has blessed us, what pleases Him, and for what purpose He has saved us; and though we may not be able to do great things, do what pleases the Lord, even if it is small. We should then meet the Lord.
Beware of the Beauty of the Daughters of Men
Let us all now turn to Genesis 6:1-4: “Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. And the LORD said, ‘My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.’ There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.”
This age now appears as though it is an age when Genesis 6 is replayed once again. God is telling us that now, this age is like Noah’s age, and the end is nearing this world: “How does the end of the world come? What happens in the end times? What must we now be careful? ” I believe that such are what our God is telling us.
In the days of Noah, men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and sin had become widespread. And the people of God, abandoning faith and being drunk by the world, had also become wicked and evil. So God could not leave the world as it was, and decided to judge it.
Why then, did the people of God go spiritually astray? It was because the sons of God, seeing the beauty of the daughters of men, took whom they liked as their wives (Genesis 6:2). For this reason, God said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever.” What was so important about this that God would say that He would not be with man forever? We need to ponder on why God would leave the people of those days. And we need to also contemplate on what exactly this passage means.
God had abhorred it so much that His sons would be intoxicated by the beauty of the daughters of men. All human beings are the descendants of Adam. These descendants of Adam were all born as piles of sin, but among them, there were those who had been born again and those who had not. As time went by, this earth came to be populated by many people, but because many of them did not believe but instead went over to the world, mankind was divided into two kinds: those who believed in God and followed Him, and the worldly people who belonged to the world. By Noah’s time, sin was so widespread throughout this earth that even the sons of God were bewitched by the beauty of the daughters of men. This is the reason why God separated Himself from mankind and judged this earth.
We need to understand here what is meant by “the beauty of the daughters of men,” and why we have to be particularly attentive to this passage. The passage from Genesis 6 that we are considering here provides a description of the world just before God rendered His judgment of flood on this earth. So we can construe that this age was very similar to today’s age, as it is written, “For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men” (2 Peter 3:5-7).
So what does it mean when it says here that the sons of God were captivated by the daughters of men and married them, and that for this, they were abandoned and judged by God? We first need to understand what this “beauty of the daughters of men” is. The beauty of the daughters of men literally means the beauty of body. The sons of God, in other words, were drunk by the physical beauty of women.
The Bible tells us that in the ancient times of the Old Testament also, many people had perished from following such physical beauty and sexual attraction. The beauty of the daughters of men refers to such elements that express physical attractiveness as tall heights, long legs, lean bodies, shapely curves, voluptuous figures, large eyes, high noses, sexy lips, and so forth. So seeing such features pleasing to the eyes of the flesh, the sons of God were intoxicated by them and took the daughters of men as their wives.
Here then, in this age and time, we need to examine carefully whether we, today’s sons of God who have been born again by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, can also be attracted to the beauty of the daughters of men and be captivated by them. Not knowing ourselves well, we may say that this is not how we are, but we need to seriously examine ourselves to see whether we are not in fact being unwittingly drawn to the beauty of the daughters of men, and we need to find out what we must do.
Is it then possible for the sons of God to see and fall into the beauty of the daughters of men? This is quite possible. In fact, from a spiritual perspective, such beauty is nothing. When we dig into their fundamental selves in biblical perspective, we discover that such physical beauty in fact amounts to nothing. But when we do not have this biblical knowledge, the world looks beautiful, and we face so many temptations so often.
The people of this world prefer long legs to short legs, and they consider long, thin, and yet toned bodies with shapely curves as beautiful. They are so attracted to such features that these are all that occupies their minds, despite the fact when we really think about it, such superficial attributes actually amount to nothing. Just as Cleopatra ultimately succumbed to her death and thus to nothingness, and just as beautiful flowers dry up and wilt away in time, no matter how one may be the most beautiful woman in this entire world, when she, too, gets old and dies, everything ends all in vain. For even the most attractive people in this world, the praise for their beauty is only fleeting, lasting no more than a few years of their prime.
In the Old Testament, the sons of God saw how beautiful the daughters of men were, and being drunk by this beauty, they took these daughters as their wives and lived with them. In other words, the sons of God had fallen head over heels into the daughters of men, and had become one in body with them. What a great sin is it that they would fall into the beauty of the world that is bound to wilt away in the end and they themselves would tire of, and as a result abandon the everlasting Word of God?
Those who are not born again are still sinners even at their best. And no matter how beautiful they may be, the difference is only skin-deep. We cannot even compare them to the born-again. When we look spiritually, it is the born-again who are the most beautiful. To still be captured by the daughters of men, whose souls have not yet been born again, is then a great mistake. The flesh may move our carnal minds, but the great mistake here is that even their spiritual minds were spoiled by their carnal lusts.
When I look at this present age, I feel that it is exactly the same as the Noah’s age right before the great flood, when these sons of God were captivated by the daughters of men and took them as their wives. I wonder if such an age, when the sons of God were destroyed for succumbing to the beauty of the daughters of men, is none other than this very age that we are living in.
In times like this, when the people of God become one with so many people who have not been born again, God will be provoked to His wrath. Such times, when the sons of God are attracted to the women who have not been born again (the daughters of God to the godless men), intermarry and intermingle, will surely come to this last age. As Jesus said, “Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8), I wonder if this is not how everyone is going to perish.
What about you? By any chance, are you not also attracted to such beauty of the world? If you really look into your hearts and confess yourselves honestly, you will likely have to admit this. Since we are only human, it is quite possible for us to have such thoughts, but we should consider it fortunate that we at least know that we have such desires. What is more frightening is the prospect of not realizing that we have such lust and love for the world even when we have them, for when in our ignorance we fall into the beauty of the daughters of men, we may very well never be able to escape from it. If we know that we have such desires, then we will also be more careful. I am saying, in other words, that we should realize that we have this tendency, and that we should therefore be cautious about such carnal aspects.
Also, we must not be double-minded. As it is written in James 4:8, “Purify your hearts, you double-minded,” we cannot keep two hearts. We cannot serve both God and the world. We should love and honor each other within the bounds that are permitted by Him, and not be captivated by and fall into the beauty of those who have not been born again. If this happens, then it will be the end of the world.
Just how many beauty pageants do we have in these days? They all singularly look at only outward appearances, crowning long-legged, shapely figured, and tall women with pretty faces as beauty queens.
Genesis tells us that the sons of God took the daughters of men and bore children, that these descendants were giants, and that there were many of them in the world. It also tells us that they were mighty men of renown. They were, in other words, tall, strong, and handsome.
How about the current of this age? Since we, too, are only human, we also like tall and well-built men, and beautiful and slender women, but this age puts so much emphasis on such superficial aspects that it is akin to the age when these giants roamed the earth. We, too, have eyes, and so we see all that there is to see; since we have ears, we hear all that there is to hear; since we have heads, we think all that there is to think; since we have minds of our own, we feel all that there is to feel; and since it is in the environment of this world that we live, we sense all that there is to sense, irrespective of whether we believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Therefore, if we lose our hearts to such beauty of the daughters of men, then there is no way that we can properly lead our lives of faith. Especially for you and I who are living in this age, such temptations of the world are even more enticing, and it takes a lot of effort to reject them.
For those of us who are doing God’s work, the greatest enemy is the beauty of the daughters of men—that is, the beauty of this world. Far more fearsome than any attack with guns and swords is this beauty of the daughters of men that we see with our eyes, the beauty of the world. This is why our Lord is telling us here that if we fall into such beauty, our faith will end there and we will face destruction inevitably.
Therefore, we must ensure that our hearts are sanctified. If, by any chance, we come to have such lustful hearts, we must sanctify our hearts and right them once again by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
My dear fellow believers, just how much is the beauty of the world that is all around us confusing us? There are so many temptations of the world looking for every opportunity to sneak in through the slightest cracks in our eyes, hearts, thoughts, and minds. These are not far away from us, but they are all around us. We have to engrave in our hearts once again that if we follow them to the world, we will end up surrendering ourselves to the lust of the flesh, and thus fail to fulfill the precious work that serves the gospel of the water and the Spirit. We must neither follow the world, nor mingle with it.
Because we are now living in such a fast age, virtually everything is easily accessible for us. In the old days, it took a long time for a rumor to spread around, but nowadays, it only takes a few hours for everyone to find out what happened last night. Only a generation ago, it used to take a full year for fashion to spread around and fade away, but now, fashion comes and goes by minutes. From TV, newspapers, and the Internet, we can easily access detailed information on virtually everything, from such mundane questions as which pop singer wore what clothes, shoes, and accessories and sang what songs, to what the latest fashion is, and to how politics, society, and the economy, both domestic and international, are developing. It is precisely because individuals know so much information that this age is called as the age of information flood. It is in such an age, such a time of so much confusion, transition, and rapid development, that we are all now living.
The entire civilization of the whole world is overflowing with the beauty of the daughters of men. Because of this, there are areas in which we the born-again also have already fallen into the beauty of the daughters of men to a considerable extent, without even realizing. Since we are following the lust of the flesh and falling deeply into it, to an extent that would have been unimaginable before, we do not realize our own conditions, and all of us find ourselves, without any exception, firmly lodged in this culture—what is even worse, furthermore, is that unable to recognize this, we are falling even deeper into the beauty of the daughters of the world.
If those who have been born again through the gospel of the water and the Spirit drift toward the flesh and are captivated by the beauty of the daughters of men, of those who have not been born again, they will ultimately be destroyed, for God is no longer with them. Therefore, the Bible warns us, “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame” (Hebrews 6:4-6). The Scripture continues to say that such people will surely be burned.
Today’s Scripture passage, therefore, tells us that we must not allow the lust of the flesh to overcome us so easily, nor be captivated by the beauty of the daughters of men, and points out what we must be careful of as you carry on with our lives of faith.
What, then, must we be most wary of and avoid the most? We must avoid from being captivated by the beauty of the daughters of men, becoming one with them, falling into the lust of the flesh, and thereby ending up discarding God’s work. This is what we must be most careful of in our hearts.
Do you know just how Noah’s time was before the coming of the flood? That age, just like this present age, was a very prosperous one. Some countries are now quite prosperous, and along with this prosperity came the single-minded obsession with superficial beauty, utter prevalence of sin, the hardening of its people’s hearts, and sexual immorality. But just as Noah’ age had also been a prosperous one right until the very moment of its destruction, there is a great possibility that this is what will happen to this age.
Throughout the whole world, this culture of shameless hedonism is highly developed and widespread, through every conceivable medium from movies to videos, songs, games, and the Internet. Even in less prosperous countries, this industry that advocates the enjoyment of the beauty of the flesh is highly advanced and booming, while many people continue suffer from hunger. Just take a look at the picture of this age that reminds everyone of the age of Noah’s flood. The Bible is telling us have the faith of Noah, who, by knowing his age and believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, had saved his life as well as his family’s lives.
Today’s world is reserved for fire until the Day of Judgment and perdition of ungodly men (2 Peter 3:7). In other words, God will burn this world with fire. How is this age then? It is beyond any doubt whatsoever that this age is now approaching its own destruction. It is an age that as a whole is utterly and thoroughly filled with the beauty of the daughters of men. And it is an age when the sons of God are possibly being captivated by their beauty.
The sad reality is that even those who ostensibly claim to believe in God and follow Him are, far from bearing witness to unbelievers, actually being fascinated and proselytized by them. We must remember here what the Lord said to us, that He would come when the times are such that the sons of God, far from preaching the gospel to the unbelievers, are instead proselytized by them, and, saturated in their flesh, are following the world. When this happens, the end of the world will come.
We, too, must recognize and realize that we may possibly be falling into such corruption, and that if this happens, we will be destroyed then. We must be careful of this kind of temptation; and until the day our Lord returns, we must maintain our guards, remain awake, pray, and keep our hearts. We must not follow the beauty of those who are yet to be born again, and be tempted by the world to abandon the work of God. We must realize that we have to keep our faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit in our hearts and do the work of God until the last days, not be captured by the world and follow the lust of the flesh. We must sanctify our hearts by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and diligently keep our hearts always clean.
We are the sons of God. We must not be captivated by the beauty of the daughters of men. We must not follow it. All of us, our brothers, sisters, and the servants of God alike, must not follow it. If we follow it, this will only mean our destruction. If the born-again follow the beauty of the world, not only will they face their own destruction, but the more there are such people, the sooner the judgment will come to this world. There will be, in other words, no more hope in this world.
We must be aware of such weaknesses in us and be careful, realizing that it is more than possible for us to fall into the sinful world. And having faith, we must not, in this age and time when the Lord’s return is imminent, be deceived by the temptations and deceptions of the world, nor must we follow the lust of the flesh and forsake everything. Having faith in the fact that we have been born again of water and the Spirit in Jesus Christ, we must live in purity. And we must fortify our faith so that we may not fall into the beauty of this world; we must instead struggle against it not to ultimately end up betraying our Lord.
It is my sincerest hope and prayer that in these times, when the end is so near, no one will ever end up abandoning his faith. Once having been born again, you must not betray the Lord, your Savior, nor follow the beauty of the daughters of men.
To follow the daughters of men does not just mean men following women and women following men. Rather, to follow the fame, power, wealth, or beauty of this world is to follow the beauty of the daughters of men.
Therefore, instead of just following this world’s wealth, fame, physical beauty, or all that is beautiful in this world, we must remember that the Lord has given us the great faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, keep this faith, thank God, and sanctify and keep our hearts always.
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