This precept is very extensive and important

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(John Newton)

"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind . . ." Romans 12:2

This precept is very extensive and important. As believers, we are strangers and pilgrims upon earth. Heaven is our country--and the Lord is our King. We are to be known as His subjects--and therefore it is His pleasure that we do not speak the language or adopt the customs, of the land in which we sojourn.

We must not conform to the spirit of the world. As members of society, we have a part to act in it, in common with others. But though our business is the same--our principles and ends are to be entirely different!

We must not conform to the maxims of the world. The world in various instances calls evil, good--and good, evil. But we have recourse to the law and to the testimony, and are to judge of things by the unerring Word of God--uninfluenced by the determination of the great or the many.

We must not conform to the world in their amusements and diversions. We are to mix with the world, only so far as our necessary and providential connections engage us--so far as we have a reasonable expectation of doing or getting good, and no farther.

"What fellowship has light with darkness, or what concord has Christ with Belial?" What call can a believer have into those places and companies . . .

  where everything tends to promote a spirit of dissipation;

  where the fear of God has no place;

  where things are purposely disposed to inflame or indulge corrupt and sinful appetites and passions, and to banish all serious thoughts of God and ourselves?

If it is our duty  . . .

  to redeem time,

  to walk with God,

  to do all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,

  to follow the example which He set for us when He was upon the earth,

  and to work out our salvation with fear and trembling

--then it must of course be our duty to avoid a conformity with the world in those vain and sensual diversions, which stand in as direct contradiction to a spiritual frame of mind, as darkness to light.

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