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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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