The Highway Forums General Discussion Devotional Separation from the World

SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD

The subject is one that demands the best attention of all who profess and call themselves Christians. In every age of the Church separation from the world has always been one of the grand evidences of a work of grace in the heart. He that has been really born of the Spirit, and made a new creature in Christ Jesus, has always endeavoured to “come out from the world,” and live a separate life. They who have only had the name of Christian without the reality, have always refused to ‘come out and be separate’ from the world.

The subject perhaps was never more important than it is, at the present day. There is a widelyspread desire to make things pleasant in religion—to saw off the corners and edges of the cross, and to avoid, as far as possible, self-denial. On every side we hear professing Christians declaring loudly that we must not be “narrow and exclusive,” and that there is no harm in many things which the holiest saints of old thought bad for their souls. That we may go anywhere, and do anything, and spend our time in anything, and read anything, and keep any company, and plunge into anything, and all the while may be very good Christians—this, this is the maxim of thousands. In a day like this I think it good to raise a warning voice, and invite attention to the teaching of God’s Word. It is written in that Word, ‘Come out, and be separate.

From Practical Religion, page 184; James Clarke, Cambridge, 1977 (original 1878).

By J.C Ryle 1816-1900

What an important exhortation!

"If any man does not take up his cross and follow Me, he cannot be My disciple." Is there any greater enigma than a supposed follower of Christ that does not follow Christ? Self-denial is fundamentally opposed by the world. At least, self-denial for the glory of God. If such self-denial is the philosophy of our lives, then we will necessarily stand against the world and the world against us.

Especially since, as you pointed out, we live in a world marked by self-aggrandizement. A world that falls under Jesus' condemnation found in John 3:19-21 "And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God."

Men won't come to Christ because they don't want to admit that they are inherently evil and that the only good found in this world is the product of Jehovah's lovingkindness toward His elect.

cap