Separation

Then the children of Israel who had returned from the captivity ate together with all who had separated themselves from the filth of the nations of the land in order to seek the Lord God of Israel. And they kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread seven days with joy; for the Lord made them joyful, and turned the heart of the king of Assyria toward them, to strengthen their hands in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel. – Ezra 6.21-22

It is a tough call to try to live in this world and not be a part of this world. We have to live here. We can’t crawl away in a hole someplace or gather together in a cave and ignore the fact that the world is here. We have family and friends and co-workers and neighbours and associates that we see every day. We can’t just withdraw from the world.

And that is not want the people did here. They were in the world but they had learned to separate themselves from the filth of the nations in order to seek the Lord God. In the world they were not of the world. They were in the world but the world was not in them.

Of course we are ‘go out from among them and be separate.’ That’s clear from God’s word. We need not let the filth of this world corrupt us. We have to separate form it. When Jesus prayed for us He did not pray that God would take us out of the world, but that He would deliver us from the world and its sin and filth.

These Jews could not seek the Lord while defiled by the world. They had to choose one or the other. And so do we. We can’t seek the Lord while allowing the filth of the world to impact our lives.

At the moment I am preaching about the time Paul was all alone in the pagan city of Athens while he waited for the rest of the missionary team. He had a couple of choices. He could have just given up and joined in with the life of the city. He could have just become angry and attacked the people. But what he did is what we should do – he simply preached Jesus.

That’s how we respond to the world. We don’t get involved with the wickedness and we preach Jesus.