5.  In a like manner, the Old Testament Hebrews devoted money to God, as defined by the Law, by giving it into God's sanctuary.  That was a finite amount of money that was God's, and could be calculated and counted in the tabernacle and, later, the temple.  Nee then states that God has a limited amount of money in His treasury but that Satan has unlimited funds.  The basis for that statement is not that God is all-powerful and owns everything, which Nee acknowledges, but that the only money God has for use is that of people wholly devoted to Him.
6.  Then Nee asks another question:  does the money we touch represent money devoted and given to God's sanctuary, or is it the "mammon of unrighteousness"?  Money received by believers must be immediately converted to money of the sanctuary.  Money can thusly destroy or protect us.  It can have great value to God if we bring it with our hearts and souls out of the world.  God may then allow us to bring many precious things out of the world, just as the Israelites brought many precious things out of Egypt (many of which ended up in God's tabernacle).
7.  The author  gives the New Testament key to "finance" - hold nothing of your finances to yourself, citing Jesus' instruction: "Give and it will be given to you, . . ." (Luke 6:38).  The New Testament never says, "Save and be rich."  Nee states, "The principle of divine increase is giving, not storage."  God desires that.

8.  Nee finishes by giving an informal summary of this book.  We spoil Satan' dominion of the world by personal dedication to God and Christ.  To be redeemed from the world we must offer ourselves utterly to God.  No matter who we are, what we do, or what we have, all of us are the same; we must be dedicated to God and make Him the center of our lives.  The last paragraph of this chapter and the book says it all:  " 'Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.'  You have an anointing from the Holy One; live by it!  Give yourself to God; live for Him wholly and utterly; see to it that, [for] you personally . . ., the things of this world are scored off Satan's books and transferred to God's account.  For 'the world passes away, and the lust thereof:  but he that does the will of God abides forever.' " 

5.  Then the author uses Psalm 8, Hebrews 2 and Genesis 1 in sequence to make his points.  In Psalm 8, only the original intent of creation - man's dominion - is noted; men are being brought to "glory and honor" by God, and mighty men are not needed to reduce the enemy's strength; "the mouth of babes" will do.  Hebrews 2 extends this idea to include the idea that everything was meant to be subject to man, but man fell and then was redeemed in Jesus Christ, who was made like man in order to destroy the power of death in the devil.  God's original goal for man remained unchanged, but we don't yet see all things put under subjection to man.  But in the Cross and the Resurrection, Christ has accomplished what man failed to do:  dominion over the world system.
6.  The Church has the responsibility to "register the victory of Christ" in Satan's territory - the world.  Nee then makes this complex statement:  "If there is to be a testimony to the principalities and powers, if the impact of Christ's sovereignty through His Cross is to be registered in the spiritual realm, it can only be as the judicial foothold in our hearts of the 'pretender' in the race is met and, by the same Cross, removed and repudiated."  That is our work in the world.  Nee states that the Gospel is necessary, but that the Church's work is not just the Gospel, or winning souls, but the reclaiming of a moral dominion over the world.  Going back to correcting the fall of Genesis 3 is not enough; the Church must go all the way back to Genesis 1, and establish the dominion that God means for man to have.
7.  Man was created to meet God's need, so we must get back to that by dealing directly with Satan himself and his power.  That means working in the realm of principalities and powers, and means meeting a higher cost than does winning souls.  Work in that spiritual realm requires what Nee calls "an utterness of spirit Godward."  He points out that evil spirits know who is sincere and powerful for God, and who is insincere and may be defied and/or ignored by them.  So to overthrow those evil spirits, we must have "utter allegiance to God."  There is no room for self in that endeavor; self-interest interferes with God's power in us against Satan.  The witness of evil spirits about us is more important than the praise of men.
8.  Nee finishes this chapter with three key questions:  I)  Are you and I in our lives here "utterly committed, utterly given to God"?  ii)  If so, are we now "tasting . . . the powers of that future glorious age?"  and iii)  "Are we reclaiming territory from [Satan] for the One whose alone it rightly is?"
    

5.  In 1 Corinthians 7:29-32, Paul wrote of the principle for Christians dealing with the world:  ". . . those who have . . . should be as though they had none." (v. 29).  So Christians are different in their approach to things of the world; their hearts are delivered from the worldly grip of its things.  They may live as not having in the face of having in the world.  They may use the world without being claimed by its leader.  The Holy Spirit will show God's limits.
6.  Jesus taught, "The prince of the world has nothing in Me," (John 14:30), meaning, per Nee, that He had kept His heart completely separated from the world, as an example for us.  And the Holy Spirit has been provided for us to make the life from above real in us, under God's protection.  In Christ, we Christians are not of the world or of the flesh but of God.
7.  In the world, Satan exercises his power in all realms, but if Christians walk in the Spirit, then that power of the enemy vanishes.  Nee observes that Satan cannot be anywhere where God is.  The author finishes this chapter with two powerful questions for believers.  1)  "Are we thus utterly for God?" and 2)  Can Satan say of each of us, "I cannot entrap that person!"?

6.  Nee states that sometimes being tarnished from the world hurts a Christian more than conscious sin.  Sin is forgiven by the blood of Christ in repentance, but what treats tarnish of the world?  It reduces our effectiveness in the world, so it is very good to have refreshment from a fellow Christian.
7.  Nee lists two rules for refreshing by "washing the feet":  1)  There can be no discord between the Christian and his Lord; that makes one useless and a burden;  2) Refreshing is always mutual; those who are refreshing others must also be refreshed themselves; all touch the world, and all need refreshing; no one is above that.
8.  This principle works within the Body of Christ:  refresh and be refreshed.  No one is insignificant or unimportant; everyone has a role.  Nee states that such refreshment is the "united front of the Body against the world."  And Nee finishes this chapter with Jesus' finishing statement to His disciples after the lesson of the washing of their feet:  "If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them" (John 13:17).

5.  We are the Church, to be a light in the world's darkness.  But more and more the Church is using and even abusing the ways of the world.  We must constantly watch for, in order to become detached from, involvement in the ways of the world.  Nee makes the interesting statement that some things of the world we legitimately need, but to be "weighed down" by them is not legitimate, and risks losing some benefits from God.
6.  Nee goes into the last portion of Revelation to discuss its "Babylon," which he states represents "corrupted Christianity."  He talks about the lust-corrupting aspects of commerce in the world, and how it currently pursues even "highly-principled Christians," taking them away from God to undo them.  Such unprotected commerce leads to "unscrupulous self-seeking!"  The answer is not total avoidance of these activities of the world, but preventing the power behind them from having victory over us.
7.  In his final argument, Nee asks how we Christians can hold "material things" of the world within the will of God.  He suggests that all must be held for God, not ourselves.  As such, we must be willing to part with them as God asks.  Nee finishes with, "I keep nothing because I love it, but let it go without regret when the call comes to leave it behind.  That is what it means to be detached."

5.  The Christian's role, then, is to be in the world, a shining light, preaching the Gospel (Mark 16:15).  That is our privilege and duty, and we are protected by God's peace.
6.  Our "secular employment" arena then becomes our mission field in the world; we are to claim everything there for God and Christ.  Satan hates that, and often tries to frighten us out of the world or entice us into it, to live by its standards.  If he does either, that is his victory; but if we stay in the world, living by our otherworldly standards, then that is Satan's defeat and the glorifying of God.
7.  The Bible never says that man overcomes sin, so we continue to need God's deliverance for us from sin.  But the world has been overcome, just as light shown into darkness overcomes that darkness.  Therefore we can touch the world and overcome it from above.
8.  Faith in Christ is the victory that overcomes the world (1 John 5:5).  Being born again into Jesus Christ allows us to live in the same world Jesus did, apart from the world as He did, a lamp for light to those around us.  "Because as He is, so are we in this world" (1 John 4:17); we as His Church glorify God by radiating His light into the world, which is where that is meant to be done.

5.  Our own effort to resist the world then becomes unnecessary; Christ IS that barrier of resistance.  In my heart I have that barrier in Jesus, so that the world cannot reach me.  My own efforts at resisting the world will just draw me more closer to and more involved with the world.  Like Israel out of Egypt, we have been redeemed by Christ out of the world.
6.  The new Christian life from above makes the world hate us.  The world can accept the fruits of that life - good deeds, charity, patience, etc. - but cannot accept its basis in God and Christ.  The world is always hostile to that basis.  Nee states, "The best heart of the world has nothing in common with the least significant Christian."
7.  God planted His Church in the world for a purpose.  Because of its heavenly origin, physical separation from the world is not necessary.  Jesus prayed that His disciples not be taken from the world, but rather be protected from the evil one (John 17:14-15).  Believers in Christ are not to try to leave the world, but to have a vital place in it, to stay and overcome in Christ.  Nee states, ". . . we are to accept with joy the fact that God has placed us in it (the world)" and "that distinctiveness, our gift from God in Christ, is all the safeguard we need."

7.  The Cross of Christ has ruined any future man had in the world.  In Galatians 6:14, Paul cited two key aspects of the work of the Cross against the world:  i) I am crucified unto the world, and ii)  the world has been crucified unto me (notice the title of this chapter).  Both the world and I are up on the Cross to face Christ's judgment.  Nee then states that I cannot escape the world on my own, but by the Cross I have escaped the world.
8.  Man wants to escape danger by removing himself from it, but physical separation does not bring spiritual separation, and physical contact with the world does not bring spiritual capture by it.
Spiritual bondage comes from spiritual blindness; when our eyes are opened then we are released from the world's power by seeing its Satanic nature, "at enmity with God."
9.  Do not fear or run away from your trade in the world, but rather see that trade as under a death sentence for the world's hostility to God.  That will change your life forever, and you can then live in that world "as one who truly loves and fears" God. 

6.  Peter's reference to the Flood of Noah's time is reviewed; the totally corrupt world of that time was completely destroyed under water except for Noah and his family, who were saved out of the water.  (Interestingly, the name, Mt. Ararat, where Noah and his family landed, means 'holy ground'!)  Similarly, in baptism one goes under the water, taking his own world with him; the person then comes up in Christ, but the world is left under, being cut off from that person forever.
7.  Baptism does two things:  establishes one on salvation ground in Christ, and buries forever Satan's whole system.  Nothing is carried over from the old world into the new.
8.  The importance of baptism is critical; Jesus commanded it, and insisted on having it Himself.  It is a declaration that one has left behind the old world to claim the new in Christ.  It brings a complete change to one's life.  One is baptized into two things with Christ:  into His death (and the death of the world), and into Jesus Christ Himself, opening up a totally new existence.
9.  So instead of being sentenced to the judgment of the world, by faith and baptism we are drawn out of the world to the "lifted up" Christ in salvation.  "What a Gospel to preach to the whole creation!"

Comments:  Just a few comments and questions will be made here:
a.  What a different idea of baptism here, not of a cleansing from sin by God, as in, for example, Psalm 51 and Ezekiel 36, but a drowning of the entire anti-God world in our lives, such that it can never live again!  And that fits so well with the "Hebrew Word Picture" for repentance (which is also part of the salvation preached by Jesus and His disciples):  "destroy the house (so one can never return to it)" and the comment by Dr. Frank Seekin that in repentance, one moves where he/she lives from one kingdom to another!
b.  The concept of baptism here is obviously one of complete immersion.  Some Christian denominations still baptize by sprinkling.  Does that also symbolically work to drown the world?
If so, can parents by proxy declare the faith needed before baptism for salvation for their young children?  Does that ever replace more "conscious" baptism of self-responsible believers?
c.  The question might be raised here again:  how did Satan "usurp" God's "very good" Creation?  In God's omnipotence, there again must have been some aspect of His permissive will involved.  Why?  Was that all part of God's creative plan before anything was created?
d.  How is it possible to live in the world (after baptism) and have it be totally dead?  I know that only by the Holy Spirit's power can that happen.  Why do we still sin every day?  Can the "old man" in us still surface after the "world" has been drowned forever?
This was another very thought-provoking chapter from

Comments:  In this chapter a basic, unsettling thought is provided and defended to some degree:  just as the natural trend of things in the "world" (including the human body) is to deteriorate and wear out physically, so also is there a trend over time for all things to move away from God and toward Satan.  While Nee states that everything in the "world" does this, including activities and businesses which originally may have been based on God and Christ, only the active, continuous work of God can oppose that trend.  But here are some questions that this chapter raises for me:
A.  Some art (paintings of Christ, for example) and some science (for me, for example, the incredible working of every living cell, and the incorporation of trillions of such cells into living, functioning organisms) clearly give glory to God.  How can we tell when such things are of the "world"?  Is some of that in the eye of the beholder?
B.  How do we know when Christian-initiated things (i.e., Christian missionary work) have become a thing of the "world," as it may not be obvious when such endeavors begin to oppose God's will?
C.  Other than by constant prayer, how can Christian believers know that they are protected from Satanic influence as they make their way in the "world"?  Didn't Jesus ask for just that in John 17?  Is that part of His, and the Holy Spirit's, intercessions for us before the Father (Rom 8:26, 34)?
D.  Should it be obvious to believers - is it part of the Holy Spirit's gift of discernment - when they might be helping Satan build his kingdom?  This chapter warns of the subtle but serious dangers!

In this chapter Nee does not really offer proof or much Scriptural evidence to support his points.  He seems to be drawing conclusions from his own experiences in China.  Hopefully his points will crystallize further in subsequent chapters.