2 Corinthians 6:14-16 Be you not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness?… I. THERE SEEM TO BE TWO CAPITAL REASONS WHY CHRISTIANS SHOULD NOT BY CHOICE ASSOCIATE WITH THOSE OF A WORLDLY OR IDOLATROUS SPIRIT. 1. There is really no congeniality between the two spirits. As there is the want of a common taste, so there is the want of common topics. For a man to delight in the conversation of an irreligious party, bears on it the evidence of his own irreligion. And, if it be the symptom of having passed from death unto life that we love the brethren and their society, then may the love of another society, at utter antipodes, administer the suspicion of a still unregenerated heart, of a still unsubdued worldliness. 2. So to consort with the ungodly not only proves the existence of a kindred leaven in our spirit, but tends to ferment it — not only argues the ungodliness which yet is in the constitution, but tends to strengthen it the more. And who can doubt of the blight and the barrenness that are brought upon the spirit by its converse with the world? II. BOTH THESE CONSIDERATIONS ARE DIRECTLY APPLICABLE TOUCHSTONES BY WHICH TO TRY, we will not say the lawfulness, but at least THE EXPEDIENCY, of — 1. The theatre and all public entertainments. Think of the degree of congeniality which there is between the temperament of sacredness and the temperament of any of these assemblages. The matter next to be determined is, will the dance, the music, the merriment, the representation, and the whole tumult of that vanity attune the consent of the spirit to the feelings and exercises of sacredness? If there be risk of being exposed to the language of profaneness or impurity, this were reason enough why a Christian should maintain himself at the most determined distance from them both. There may be a difficulty in replying to the interrogation — What is the crime of music? yet would you feel yourself entitled to rebuke the scholar whose love for music dissipated his mind away from all the preparations indispensable to his professional excellence. 2. And, as it is with this world's amusements, so may it be with this world's companies. There may be none of the excesses of intemperance, of the execrations of profanity, of the sneers of infidelity. All may have been pure and dignified and intellectual, affectionate and kind. And then the question is put — where is the mighty and mysterious harm of all this? The answer is that, with all the attractive qualities which each member of the company referred to may personally realise, it is quite a possible thing that there be not one trait of godliness on the character of any one of them. They may all be living without God in the world, and by a tacit but faithful compact during the whole process of this conviviality, all thought and talk of the ever-present Deity may for the season be abandoned. And thus is it a very possible thing that, in simply prosecuting your round of invitations among this world's amiable friends and hospitable families, you may be cradling the soul into utter insensibility against the portentous realities of another world — a spiritual lethargy may grow and gather every year till it settles down into the irrevocable sleep of death. (T. Chalmers, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? |
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