Why should the love of the world lead to this result? It is because God must be all or nothing to the human soul. The first commandment in the law is--"_Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might_." This is not an arbitrary enactment, but it has its ground in the eternal fitness of things. God is the infinitely powerful, the infinitely wise, and the infinitely good, and as such demands the undivided love of man. Anything less than this, not only falls below His lawful claim, but also fails to satisfy our profoundest aspirations. As Augustine puts it, "Thou hast made us for Thyself; our hearts are restless, until they find rest in Thee." But it may be asked, Does love to God exclude all other loves? By no means. The second commandment in the law, "_Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself_," is inseparable from the first. It is impossible to obey the one without obeying the other. Obedience that does not regard both is partial, and therefore futile. The reason is plain. God is immanent in creation. The Christian beholds God in everything, and everything in God. Thus it comes to pass that his supreme love--his love to God--intensifies, ennobles, and hallows every other. If you would have an example of the highest type of love--love to God manifesting itself as love to man--go to a Christian home, and you will find it there in all its charm, uniting husband and wife, parents and children, master and servants, making the house a veritable "paradise regained." There is a sense in which the Christian even loves the world--loves it as no other man can love it--that is, when the term is applied to the wondrous system of nature. He loves sometimes to wander in the fields, where innumerable lovely forms, both animate and inanimate, reveal their beauty to the eye; and at other times to meditate upon the illimitable expanse of heaven, crowded by ten thousand worlds, which all declare the glory of Him who is Lord over all. Paul could not have had this meaning in his mind when he spoke of Demas as having, through loving the present world, made shipwreck concerning his faith. He was thinking rather of the sum-total of those pursuits, pleasures, and ambitions which bind man to earth, hamper his spiritual growth, and lead him to his ruin. The "world" in this sense is God's rival; to love the "world" is to hate God.