There is an old Yiddish saying, “To a worm in horseradish, the whole world is horseradish.” To Jonah for three days and three nights the whole world was a whale’s belly.
While to the worm surrounded by horseradish, it would appear that’s the whole world, Jonah in the depth of the whale’s belly was able to turn his thoughts to God in spite of his horrible environment. Things are not always as they may seem to us. We are of necessity in this world but we do not need to become part of it. God delivered Jonah out of the whale’s belly and He is willing and able to help us.
Paul told us, “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord.” How can we be separate from the world when we are surrounded by the world? This is the problem all of God’s children have faced.
“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world,” said John. “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.”
There is a difference between being in the world and being part of it. The world loves its own, and those who love the world are a part of it. We must not allow ourselves to be assimilated by the world just because we are in it. Jesus told us, “I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me…I am no more in the world but these are in the world…because they are not of the world…I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world even as I am not of the world.” It may not be easy, but it is possible to be in the horseradish and not become horseradish, to be in the whale’s belly, but not become part of the whale, to be in the world but not to be assimilated by the world.
The minute we love the world, feel comfortable in the world, and participate willingly in the world’s thoughts and activities, we are in danger of being absorbed by it. We need to turn to God in spite of our surroundings, as Jonah did. We can insulate ourselves from the things of the world as a grain of sand is covered by layers of pearl inside an oyster. We do not have to become part of our surroundings; we can fight back. The more we associate in worldly affairs the more likely we are to be absorbed into their fleshly way of life. Paul warned us “to be carnally minded is death but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”
If the things of the world do not seem so bad to us, it is because we have not created spiritual barriers between us and the world as in the example of the grain of sand in the oyster. Soon the thinking of the world may be so much a part of us that we think the whole world is horseradish or a whale’s belly and we begin to be absorbed into the worldly thinking that will be our downfall.
We need to constantly turn to God so that we will “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.”
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One