The Church Has No Fellowship with the World

Satan always seeks to disrupt the work of God and does that by joining the church to the kingdom of darkness. It's in the parables of Matthew 13 where Jesus says, the devil will come and sow tares among the wheat. Or by seducing, either the devil sows unbelievers in the church or seduces the church to make alliances with the world. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. During the great missionary movements of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, there was a common belief that the gospel would spread around the world, and things would get better and better until Christ came. But over time, that view fell out of favor, and it's obvious why.

No one would say that society is getting better. It's only going to get darker and darker until Christ's return. But as a Christian, you're not supposed to just sit around and wait for that glorious day. We're called to honor God and do what we can to make a difference in the world.

But exactly how do we do that? What's the right strategy in this culture that is so hostile to the Lord? Consider that today as John continues his study, the world versus the kingdom of God. And now here's John. I've been preaching from this pulpit on the invisible kingdom, trying to distinguish the difference between the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness.

And obviously, they're diametrically opposed to each other. We've tried to help to understand the foundational realities of what the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God and the kingdom of light is all about. And it comes down to, I think, two defining statements, one in John 18 where Jesus says, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight so that I would not be delivered over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here. So it is a kingdom that exists parallel to the kingdom of this world, to the kingdom of darkness, but it doesn't mingle. The other thing that our Lord said is in the 17th chapter of Luke where He said, the kingdom of God is in your midst. And that is to say that the kingdom is here because the King is here, and wherever the King reigns, the kingdom exists. And that means it comes down to individual believers' hearts as well as the collective believers in the church. So we are, as it were, a kingdom here in the world, not of the world, alien to the world, existing in a parallel universe, imperceptible to the world. The apostle Paul said, it is not manifest what we are because there has not been the glorious manifestation of the children of God. The world looks at us and they don't understand that we are eternally the people of God, that we have been redeemed, that we are indwelt by the King, and that we belong to the eternal kingdom. They can't distinguish that.

In the natural sense, that's not possible. What is possible is for them to hate everything about us, everything about the kingdom of light. This is nothing new, and it takes different forms in every period of history. So I want to talk about the need for the church to understand that it cannot partner with the world in any real sense. We'll talk about that from a number of passages. So let's begin by looking at Matthew 16, Matthew 16.

We'll pick up the very familiar story of Peter's confession in verse 13. Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples, who do people say the Son of Man is? And they said, some say John the Baptist, and others Elijah, but still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.

He said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus said to him, Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven." That is the highest moment of Peter's life. Every one of us could wish to have the Lord say to us, what you have spoken is directly from heaven.

Blessed are you, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. That is the high point of Peter. Such a high point, the Lord says, You're Peter, and upon this rock I'll build My church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. I'll give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.

I mean, these are stunning, stunning identifications given to Peter. He is part of the foundation of the church. He is given the keys to the kingdom. That is to say, he can tell people how to enter the kingdom and what will cause them to be shut out of the kingdom. He is given that kind of delegated authority from God. This is Peter's high point. He is speaking from God, and that is God's own testimony.

In an immediate contradiction to that, you come to verse 21, from that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised on the third day. Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, God forbid it, Lord, this shall never happen to you, but He turned and said to Peter, get behind me, Satan. In the space of six inches, He goes from speaking for God to representing Satan. You're a stumbling block to me, for you're not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's.

This is the ultimate low point in Peter's life, from the high point to the low point in two adjacent passages. Get behind me, Satan. I mark that Jesus said that to an apostle, the leading apostle, the apostle who would be an eyewitness to the resurrection, the apostle who would preach the first sermon in the founding of the church on the Day of Pentecost, the apostle who would be the preacher through the first half of the book of Acts. Get behind me, Satan. That's strong language, and the Lord uses the verb upage, begone, it's a fierce rebuke. And it appears another place in Matthew, in the fourth chapter and the tenth verse when Satan came to tempt Jesus, and Jesus said the same thing to the devil. Jesus said to Peter exactly what He said to Satan, and that's why He follows it up by saying you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's. The most fierce rebuke, you have taken up the devil's agenda.

The temptation was the same. What was Satan's temptation? To give to the Lord the kingdoms of the world without the cross, right? The crown without the cross, the kingdom without the cross, bow down to me and I'll give you all those things. The devil is still saying that, and he's saying it to evangelicals. You can avoid the offense, you can avoid the hostility, you can avoid the persecution, you can adjust the message, and you can have the kingdom without the cross.

You can have the crown without the cross. This is the most devastating rebuke that ever came out of the lips of the Lord toward a disciple. You have taken up Satan's cause. You are in partnership with the devil when you think there's going to be a crown without a cross, when you think you're going to accomplish the purpose of advancing the name of Christ through the gospel without suffering. Everything that could be identified under the term pragmatism is designed to eliminate the suffering, and our Lord says, you're a stumbling block to me. Peter means stone, upon this rock I'll build my church.

Peter goes from a stone to a rock to a stumbling stone. If you want to get in the way of the purposes of God, take up the devil's cause to advance the kingdom without the conflict, to advance the kingdom without the suffering, to advance the kingdom without the cross. You're not setting your mind on God's interest, but man's. The worst rebuke, of course, for this loving disciple who just wants to help Jesus, right? Just wants to help Jesus, help him avoid suffering, and the devil's way is always that, to try to get Christians to think that the kingdom of light can advance without suffering by making certain concessions and compromises with the dark kingdom. Peter's sin has been repeated incessantly throughout all of church history, and it's being done today. Christians have been trying to help Jesus build His kingdom by striking deals with the devil. Every effort to advance the kingdom by means of any worldly scheme is doing the devil's work. Jesus said, they hate Me because I tell them their deeds are evil, John 7, 7. In John 15, 18, 23, He says, if they hated Me, they'll hate you.

This goes with the territory. But there's always this propensity among weak leaders to try to eliminate the hostility. Distributed intentions and maybe even love for Christ, prompting efforts to advance the kingdom by political lobbying, pragmatism, social change, shallow gospel, entertainment, emotional manipulation, acceptance of sin. All of that is to cross over into the darkness and do the devil's work. Our Lord's way is to stay on the side of the kingdom of light, and there's a hard line between the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light. So we have two kingdoms, one the kingdom of God, the kingdom of truth, the kingdom of Christ. The other, the kingdom of Satan, the kingdom of lies, the kingdom of antichrist.

So what does the church's mandate in the world? There are a number of passages we could look at. Let me draw you to Ephesians, chapter 5, because it spells it out, Ephesians 5, and we can pick it up in verse 5. "'For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man who is an idolater has an entrance into the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them, for you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth.'" Verse 7, "'Do not be partakers with them, you have no alliance with the kingdom of darkness that would be just or righteous.'" Don't be deceived, verse 6, with empty words.

Don't be in any alliance with the kingdom of darkness. In Colossians, chapter 2, verse 6, "'Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed and overflowing with gratitude. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. For in Him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete.'"

Chapter 3, familiar words. "'If you've been raised with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things above, not on the things that are on the earth.'" And even down in verse 12, "'You have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another, forgiving each other. Whoever has a complaint against anyone, and just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to the Lord. Whatever you do in word or deed to all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.'" That is the sum of your life is related to God and to Christ, everything, everything in your life is related to the one who reigns in the kingdom of light. Now we could talk about those passages, but it's another one that I really want you to look at with me. Second Corinthians chapter 6, and very familiar passage, but I think overlooked to the detriment of the church, certainly in this period of time. Second Corinthians 6, 14, the opening statement of verse 14 doesn't need a lot of explanation. Do not be bound together with unbelievers.

Is that hard to get, hard to grasp? Do not be bound together with unbelievers. It's an unqualified statement. Do not be bound together with unbelievers, for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness, or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever, or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God, just as God said, I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Therefore come out from their midst and be separate, says the Lord, and do not touch what is unclean.

And I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to Me, says the Lord Almighty. Then verse 1 of chapter 7, therefore having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness and the fear of God. And the defilement is the defilement of those alliances, two opposing kingdoms, one marked by righteousness, light, Christ, believers, and God. The other marked by lawlessness, darkness, Belial, unbelievers, and idols.

There is no possibility of bringing these two kingdoms together in any partnership, any fellowship, any harmony, any mutual benefit. One is old, the other is new. One is earthly, the other is heavenly. One is deadly, the other is enlivening. One is material, the other is spiritual.

One is full of lies, the other is truthful. So the command then in verse 14, do not be bound together with unbelievers. That doesn't mean you should divorce an unbeliever. Paul addresses that, doesn't he, 1 Corinthians 7. It doesn't mean isolation because Paul himself says, I'm all things to all men that I might by all means win some. And Jesus says in John 17 in His high priestly prayer, I do not ask, Father, that You remove them from the world, but that You keep them from the evil one. So we're not talking about isolation, we're talking about being bound together.

Now look at that because it's really very important. It means unequally yoked, and that's I think the authorized translation. It's a good one because this command really, do not be bound together with unbelievers, is a prohibition based on Deuteronomy 22, 10. In Deuteronomy 22, 10 says, you shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together. You can't plow a straight furrow with two different beasts with two different natures, two different gates, two different dispositions that are designed two different ways. You can't connect in a common cause, that's the idea.

You can't connect in a common cause. This is not new, and Satan always seeks to disrupt the work of God, and does that by joining the church to the kingdom of darkness. It's in the parables of Matthew 13 where Jesus says, the devil will come and sow tares among the wheat. Or by seducing, either the devil sows unbelievers in the church or seduces the church to make alliances with the world. So what is the church doing in joining common cause with the world, common cause with its distortions of truth and reality, with its God-hating, Christ-rejecting attitudes? Paul's passage here is very, very powerful, so let's dig in a little bit.

I want you to look at it from the three views that are the most obvious, past, present, and future. He's making reference to the past if only in an oblique sense when we open with verse 14, do not be bound together with unbelievers. I draw that from Deuteronomy 22, 10, and that takes me to the Old Testament.

Let's look at the past. What was God's attitude toward alliances between His people and the world in the past? Well, the Old Testament is filled with prohibition.

Let's go back and look at some of them just so we get the full picture. There are a lot of places to go, but let's start with the 23rd chapter of Exodus, the 23rd chapter of Exodus, and verse 31, "'I will fix your boundary from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the river Euphrates, for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand. You'll drive them out before you. You shall make no covenant with them or with their gods. They shall not live in your land, because they will make you sin against Me, for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.'" Now we have laid out there the reality that God says to Israel, you need to remove them from the land because you can't survive their presence. That's how powerful and seductive the ungodly world is, even to the people of God. You need to conquer them, you need to destroy them, you need to chase them out, because you can't survive if they're still there.

That's how powerful and seductive the world is. In the 34th chapter of Exodus and verse 12, "'Watch yourselves that you make no covenant with the inhabitants of the land into which you're going, or it will become a snare in your midst. But rather, you are to tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, cut down their asherim. For you shall not worship any other god, for the Lord whose name is Jealous is a jealous god. Otherwise, you might make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land. They will play the harlot with their gods and sacrifice to their gods, and someone might invite you to eat of his sacrifice, and you might take some of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters might play the harlot with their gods and cause your sons also to play the harlot with their gods.

You shall make for yourselves no molten gods.'" In other words, this is so powerful and seductive that the very presence of these idolaters will lure you and suck you in. Isaiah 30, "'Woe to the rebellious children,' declares the Lord, who execute a plan, but not mine."

That sounds like Matthew, doesn't it? Your interest is in not God's, but man's agenda. "'Who execute a plan, but not mine, who make an alliance, but not of My Spirit, in order to add sin to sin, who proceed down to Egypt without consulting Me to take refuge in the safety of Pharaoh.'" This is getting political protection for the people of God. "'Seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt.'"

How bizarre is that? "'Therefore, the safety of Pharaoh will be your shame, and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt your humiliation. For their princes are at Zoan, and their ambassadors arrive at Haines. Man will be ashamed because of a people who cannot profit them, who are not for help or profit, but for shame and for reproach.'" All you're going to get out of alliances with Egypt is shame and reproach, and you're going to make clear to the world who's watching that you do not trust your God. So in chapter 31 he says, "'Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses and trust in chariots, because they are many, and in horsemen because they are very strong. They do not look to the Holy One of Israel, nor seek the Lord. Yet He also is wise and will bring disaster, and does not retract His words, but will arise against the house of evildoers and against the help of the workers of iniquity.

Now the Egyptians are men and not God, and their horses are flesh and not spirit. So the Lord will stretch out His hand, and he who helps will stumble, and he who is helped will fall, and all of them will come to an end together.'" You get nothing from an alliance with the world.

You get nothing from trusting in worldly leaders, politicians. You're listening to Grace to You with John MacArthur, chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. And the lesson you heard today is from John's current study called The World versus the Kingdom of God. Now, John, we've been in this study for nearly three weeks now, and I love your biblical perspective on the major social problems of our day. And of course, knowing how to respond correctly, biblically, to big picture social issues, that can be a challenge. It absolutely can be a challenge. And I have to say, Phil, that the landscape, the evangelical landscape, is littered with people who didn't know how to respond to some of these challenges in the last three or four years. Right. Facing the social justice issue, all the racial issues, wokeness, the lockdowns, the vaccines.

There were, sadly, a lot of people in positions of spiritual leadership who should have exercised much more discernment than they did, and consequently, it was disastrous for some Christian organizations. So we want to help you with that. We want to arm you for the next round, which is probably already in the making. We have a brand new book, and I'm excited about it. Its title is Truth Triumphs. Has there ever been a time when hostility for biblical standards has been more blatant? Society at large completely rejects biblical truth, maybe as never before. We're living in a Roman's one world. And yet, as bleak as the situation is, and as much as we all want Christ to return and put an end to the spiritual rebellion, it's important to remember this. Every Christian in this era of church history is right where God wants them to be. We have been chosen to work for the kingdom in this dark age, and frankly, I couldn't be more thankful for that. I'm glad that we were allowed the privilege of being in such a critical time to uphold the Word of God. But whether at this time or any other time in the church era, the source of the believer's strength is the same, biblical truth. To commemorate Grace Tiu's 55th anniversary, our editorial team has put together this new volume called Truth Triumphs. Each chapter features a sermon that gives clear biblical instruction on how God's people are to live and serve in this present age, and in fact, in every age, 14 chapters in all, including chapters like Telling the Truth in a Post-Truth World, How God Restrains Evil in the World, and Forgiveness in an Age of Rage, 290 pages. Order some copies of Truth Triumphs and Be a Discerning Believer. I promise you it'll help you to do that.

And yes it will, friend. This book brings biblical clarity to some of the most controversial issues you and your church will ever face. To order John's brand new book called Truth Triumphs, get in touch today. Call us at 855-GRACE or go to our website, GTY.org. Shipping is free for Truth Triumphs.

The cost is $19. Get one or more copies when you call 855-GRACE or shop online at GTY.org. Truth Triumphs is one of dozens of books you can buy from Grace Tiu. We also have books on the debate between creation and evolution, the nature of the gospel, how to protect your children in a fallen world, and much more. To see the complete selection, go to GTY.org, and I also encourage you to pick up the MacArthur Study Bible. That's our flagship resource.

In it, you get the full text of Scripture plus 25,000 footnotes that help you understand what each passage means. Our web address again, GTY.org. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace Tiu staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Remember to watch Grace Tiu television this Sunday on DirecTV channel 378, or you can watch anytime at GTY.org. And join us tomorrow when John looks at the devastation that follows when the church partners with the world. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Grace Tiu.