Because the world hasn’t ABCDed and gained regeneration, it is an unregenerated world. This devotional reading looks at the four parts of the ungenerated world.
Nuggets
- The unregenerated world has a religious part to it, but it does not follow God.
- Morality can be found in an unregenerated world; however, it is not God’s spiritual graces.
- The unregenerated world is larger than the regenerated world.
- Living in an unregenerated world leads to hell.
We are going to take a step back out of Revelation for a while and take a look at why Jesus needed to come and why He had to die. This will show us what eternity will fix.
Adam and Eve let sin into the world with the original sin. They took the world a whole 180 degrees from where God wanted it to be.
Regeneration is where we are born again into what God made us to be. Since the world isn’t, it is a unregenerated world.
Let's Put It into Context #1
To read devotions in the On the Day of the Lord theme, click the button below.
Devotions in the A World without God series
The foundation of this series is Boston’s sermon The Unregenerate World Described.
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Let's Put It into Context #2
The world is divided into two parts. There is the regenerated part and the unregenerated part. In this life, we are all lumped together. We will be separated for eternity.
The regenerate part of the world has altered their state. They have ABCDed.
All of those who have not ABCDed are already a part of the unregenerated world. “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (Jn. 3: 18 ESV).
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
The Religious Part
“They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them” (Rom. 2: 15 ESV)
The unregenerated world has a religious part to it, but it does not follow God.
Worldview people may feel that they do not have a religious bone in their bodies. They would be wrong.
Mankind was made in God’s image. We all know the difference between good and evil.
In other words, we all have a conscience. It is this conscience that is used to judge us.
All have knowledge and holiness buried deep within us. We to have to in order to be made in God’s image.
Geikie explained that. He wrote, “The apostle is explaining how the heathen, who had not the written law of God, were yet amenable to an unwritten law impressed on the hearts of all mankind.”
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The problem is sin has corrupted that. That is why we have to ABCD and accept a new self.
- “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Col. 3: 9-10 ESV).
- “But that is not the way you learned Christ! — assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph. 4: 20-24 ESV).
- “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (II Cor. 5: 17 ESV).
- “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2: 20 ESV).
- “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert” (Isa. 43: 18-19 ESV).
- “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2: 10 ESV).
- And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God” (Ezek. 11: 19-20 ESV).
- “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezek. 36: 26 ESV)
- “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded” (Jas. 4: 8 ESV).
Too many times, we see our consciences as the law – especially our moral law. Unfortunately, we make it our law, not God’s law.
The Moral Part
Morality can be found in an unregenerated world; however, it is not God’s spiritual graces.
Many think that morality is what religion is all about. It isn’t.
Religion is about a relationship with God. But it isn’t about our relationship with others – as a worldview person might think.
Boston explained two ways an unregenerated world brings in morality. He wrote,
“(1) Civil society, by which means men may live at peace in the world, and be protected from injuries.
“(2) Natural modesty and temper, in respect of which there is a great difference among even worldly men.”
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How did morality become part of a sinful world? People want to live peacefully in the world, and many think that being moral is not only natural but also the standard.
Two things about that. We may be in the world, but we are not of the world. The standard is a worldview standard.
Why can’t we go with the worldly morals? Too often, our passions get the best of us.
Because of that, we may slide the line of the worldly standards. Isn’t that what the world thinks? They see things as evolving. What may be applicable yesterday, isn’t today.
Worse yet, as Foster said, our conscience may go judgmental on us. Yep, it could be tied in with our passions.
But then Foster said it could go the other way. We might Conscience can be reduced by a state of habitual insensibility.
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But how do we know what is the going moral for today or recognize what has dulled our sense of conscience? How do we know someone hasn’t changed it on us or took us down a wrong path?
That is why it is so great that God does not change.
- “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed” (Mal. 3: 6 ESV)
- “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (Jas. 1: 17 CSB)
Go back to habits for a second. Our theme last year was about habitual holiness.
We get to choose what habits we make. The choice we need to make is to have and be strengthening habits that bring us closer to God.
The thing is, we have to not only have a conscience and habits, but we also have to have a heart. “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Heb. 8: 10 ESV).
We have to get it down to the heart level. By getting morality to the heart, they come through our submission to God. They become His spiritual graces that lead to holiness.
The Immoral Part
“For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another” (Ti. 3: 3 ESV)
The unregenerated world is larger than the regenerated world.
The world is corrupt. There are far more people following the worldview way than God’s way.
“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Mt. 7: 13-14 ESV).
That is why there are so many things in this world that can tempt us. “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes!” (Mt. 18: 7 ESV).
Unfortunately, worldview people do not see themselves as slaves to sin. But they are.
- “Jesus answered them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin’” (Jn, 8: 34 ESV).
- “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Gal. 5: 1 ESV).
- “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin” (Rom. 6: 6 ESV).
- “They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved” (II Pet. 2: 19 ESV).
- “Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?” (Rom. 6: 16 ESV).
Only putting our faith and trust in Jesus and living as He directs can free us from the bondage of sin.
Comparing Them All
“And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done” (Rev. 20: 12-13 ESV)
Living in an unregenerated world leads to hell.
This world is made up of the religious, moral, and immoral. Boston argued that the first two had merit over the last.
True, being both can make this life nicer. They bring a peace with them absent to those who live an immoral life.
Boston read these two verses an interesting way. He wrote, “Though the world, the unregenerate world’s religion and morality will not bring them to heaven, yet it will make them a softer hell than the immoral shall have (Revelation 20:12, 13).”
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Following the world’s religion isn’t going to get us into Heaven. Being a good person isn’t going to get us into Heaven.
Boston argued it would get us a better seat in hell. “… and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done” (Rev. 20: 13 ESV).
Maybe. Maybe not. This really doesn’t elaborate on what the sentencing will be.
Even if this does imply that there will be levels in hell, I don’t think we should take comfort in that. Hell is going to be a place of eternal, extreme torment.
It has to be. God will not be there. He is everything that is beautiful and right.
“… when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed” (II Thess. 1: 7-10 ESV).
Did you catch that? It is those who follow the unregenerate world’s religion and morality who will find themselves in hell. “inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (II Thess. 1: 8 ESV).
It isn’t just about knowing who Jesus was as a Person that saves us. It is about agreeing to obey Him.
Making the Connections
We talked in last year’s theme of habitual holiness that God is expecting an inward transformation, not just an outward religion or morality.
Beddome wrote that conscience is, in part, an inward witness. Notice he said witness, not transformation.
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We aren’t saved just because we have a conscience.
Instead, our conscience is a witness to God. Beddome said it is a credible, faithful witness that knows much more than we ever will.
Since it is from God, it is an eternal witness.
How Do We Apply This?
- Seek God.
- Don’t let our soft consciences lead to disobedience to God’s laws.
- Let our consciences lead us to the cross.
- Choose to follow our consciences to obey rather than sin.
- Don’t corrupt our consciences.
- Pray that the blood of Christ removes our evil consciences.
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Father God. We know we live in an unregenerated world. That is why You said we are to in the world but not of it. Help us to witness to all we come in contact with so that they can choose to follow You.
What do you think?
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