1 John 2:15-17 — Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

It seems more and more difficult to have people recognize the reality of sin. Any kind of sexual activity seems to be increasingly regarded as a matter of choice. Theft, vandalism and destruction are often forgiven as “protest”. Marital infidelity, it seems, is more seen as a misfortune than a misdeed. 
I’m not sure why this struck me so forcibly today, but so much of the news I have seen recently supports my argument. Anyway, I thought I’d go back to basics and see what the Bible says.
It seems pretty straightforward. Believers – the “little children” to whom John is writing, having risen above the world’s level by faith are to be detached from it – loving its victims but rejecting – utterly – its attractions. We cannot love the things of the world. You can either love the things of God, or the things of the world – but “no man can serve two masters”.
All the things of the world can be put into one of three groups.
There are things whose attraction lies in “the lust of the flesh”. Things like hunger, or sexual attraction fall into this group. They are the things to which we have a visceral, bodily attraction. There are those who say that these are the temptations that plague us most when we are young. If so, I still have a fair bit of aging to do!
There are things whose attraction lies in “the lust of the eyes”. These are the external things which when we see them, we want. It is easy to confuse these with things that fall into the first group – but if the key to their attraction is the desire to possess, then it is the lust of the eyes at work.
Lastly, there are those things whose attraction lies in “the pride of life”. These things are more about status and position than about possessions in and of themselves. This is the sin that causes people to buy houses beyond their means from a desire to “keep up with the Jones’s”.
Sometimes, of course, the sins come as a pair – or even all three together. When Eve “When she saw that the tree was good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise,” she was tempted in all three ways at the same time. 
The end of the things of the world – the wages of sin – is, of course, death. “The world passeth away”. But the gift of God is eternal life.
Lord, lead us not into temptation.