Bible Commentaries

THE CALL TO SEPARATION

‘Come out of her, My people.’

Revelation 18:4

‘Babylon the great’ (Revelation 18:2) typifies for us in this twentieth century the ungodly world. In this world you and I are living and must live. Are we of it? Do we belong to it? Once we were of the world, worldly. Have we come out of the world? Have we cast out of our hearts the worldly spirit? Remember, ‘the friendship of the world is enmity with God,’ and if we are to serve God we must resolve to come out of the world. The text is the call to separation. ‘Be ye separate’ is the command, and it is a call to the Church as a corporate body as well as to the individual believer.

I. The call to the Church.—From the very earliest days the spirit of the world has invaded the Church, and there have been times in her history when the spirit of worldliness has so dominated her life that it has seemed there was no difference—the Church and the world seemed to be one. How is it to-day? ‘Come out of her, My people,’ and the Church is never so strong spiritually as when the line of demarcation between the Church and the world is most clearly marked.

II. The call to the individual.—But it is to each one of us that the call comes with the greatest force. If we would be Christ’s people we must have no part with the world. And yet the world and all that the world stands for is very attractive to us, and too many of us yield to the desire to enjoy the world’s pleasures—and sometimes, alas! the world’s sin—while at the same time professing to serve Christ. But this will not do. There must be complete separation.