Zechariah 5:8

And he said, This is wickedness

Worldliness

This is the ruin of thousands and tens of thousands.

It is not at all necessary to insure a man’s perdition that he either “steal” or “swear falsely.” A man may be a thorough worldling, without the practice of these or any gross iniquities. Whatever shuts God out from His place in the heart as the object of fear and love, and from His place in the conscience as the authoritative regulator of the life, that, be it what it may, is the ruin of the man. In the parable of the marriage feast, the men who declined the invitation, and went away to their farms and to their merchandise, are not charged with any selfish and fraudulent dealings in the management of their farms or the prosecution of their merchandise. What was their sin? Worldliness. They preferred the world to God. They declined the blessings of the Gospel for something more to their taste. They chose the world and the things of the world--no matter in how innocent a form--even the sweets of domestic life itself--to God and the things of God. And in the enjoyment of these, as their chosen portion, they “had their reward.” Thus it was of old; thus it is still. Let no man deceive himself by fancying it necessary to his forfeiture of the blessings of God’s salvation, that he give himself up to the practice of dishonesty and of open vice. If his heart is in the world, with the world he must have his portion. Let Christians be on their guard against “the love of this present world.” It is as insinuating and perilous principle. In proportion as it gains upon the heart, it tends to enfeeble the energies, and deaden the sensibilities, of the Divine life in the soul. God will not have a divided heart. “Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.” (Ralph Wardlaw, D. D.).