Bible Lesson 190

“COME OUT FROM AMONG THEM AND BE SEPARATE, SAYS THE LORD, DO NOT TOUCH WHAT IS UNCLEAN, AND I WILL RECEIVE YOU. I WILL BE A FATHER TO YOU, AND YOU SHALL BE MY SONS AND DAUGHTERS, SAYS THE LORD ALMIGHTY.” 2ND CORINTHIANS 6:17-18

“In our well-intentioned identification with the world, we do not mold it, it molds us. We are not to be isolated, but insulated, moving in the midst of evil but untouched by it.”
Vance Havner

The same applies to the pairing of the Christian and the sinner. We have many differences, our walk is a holy walk, theirs is a sinful walk, our strength is the strength of God while their strength is in the flesh, our directions are not the same, since they are always heading for hell and we for heaven. They operate in the realm where Satan is the head, while we operate in the Realm where God is all and over all. We (Christians) operate in the arena of righteousness, while they (Sinners) operate in the arena of lawlessness.

That means that a Christian should not marry an unbeliever, or perhaps since it is hard to distinguish who is a true Christian, because there are so many unbelievers who are church members, I should say that a true believer, one who has experienced the new birth, should not marry one who is a non-believer, one who has never come to know that truth that sets one free. Now, lest any misunderstand; let me be clear here, if you are a Christian who did not know that you were not supposed to marry an unbeliever, you are stuck with your choice; however your life and your goal should be to convert them. God dealt with that in 1st Corinthians 7:10-16. The exhortation to not be unequally yoked will apply in all situations, because whether in marriage, business, or any kind of joint ventures, we as true Christians are not to be yoked with unbelievers.

Our scripture text for this lesson (2nd Corinthians 6:14-7:1) states pointed commands. I refuse to say suggestions or choices, because when the Lord speaks, whatever He says is a command, and we need to understand that. Verse 14 of that text commands us “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers”. Then we are told why we are not to be yoked with them,”For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness’ And what communion has light with darkness’ What we need to understand from that is, that we are on one plain (Spiritual) and they are on a completely different plain (flesh). Their lives are ordered and controlled by Satan and ours is ordered and controlled by God. We are Children of the light and they are children of the darkness! If we allow ourselves to be yoked together with an unbeliever (sinner), it becomes a contest rather than union. In Verse 15 of our Scriptural text for the month, we read, “What accord has Christ with Belial’ Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever”‘ There is no more room for being unequally yoked with unbelievers, than there is that Christ would yoke up with Belial (evil or lawlessness, or Satan)’ If you can ever envision that happening, there has to be something basically wrong in your understanding of God, because Christ and anything evil or satanic are at extreme poles.

That is the same extreme that God wants between a believer and an unbeliever. The next verse in our text is, verse 16, and it reminds us that if we are born again and obedient Christians, our bodies are the Temple of God (1st Corinthians 6:19): and then it asks,” What agreement has the Temple of God with idols”‘ There are exactly no idols, or idolaters who exist in the Temple of God. This flesh that the truly saved, born again, obedient Christian lives in is the Temple of God, the place where God in Spirit, lives; and there is absolutely no space for any idol in it. If you worship anything or anyone other than God you are not saved, (Luke 14:26-33). Those verses in Luke chapter 14 leave no room for anything or anyone, except Jesus Christ. Every person who is truly saved can and should say with the Apostle Paul, ” I have been crucified with Christ, and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”( Galatians 2:20, NKJV).

That bring us to the place where so many people today fall short of true belief, and consequently short of true salvation. We need to learn that the most important thing that any person has to grasp about God is that God is Sovereign, and it is God who extends His Grace to anyone, and that extension of grace is done through the person and work of Jesus Christ, the only Begotten Son of God. We are saved by Grace ‘Through Faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ (God in the flesh). When God extends His Grace toward any man, the Holy Spirit resurrects that man, who was born dead in trespass and sin, under the wrath of God. None of us really understands the work of the Spirit in our regeneration; and it is not necessary that we understand it, because God brings it to fruition, in the New Birth, that birth from above that is required before any person can even see the kingdom (John 3:3,). In true salvation, the penitent seeker comes forth as a new creature,created in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:10). This new creature has experienced a great change in his nature and his purpose.

We are told that the “old things are passed away, behold all things are become new” (2nd Corinthians 5:17). This new creature, this Child of God is immediately justified, sanctified, and glorified (Romans 8:30); and folks that means a lot more than most preachers in our day are willing to preach. They fear it because, just like Jesus said, in John 15:18-21; “If the world hates you, you know it hated Me before it hated you,” Preachers know full well that many, in their cobbled together congregations, are not saved and they will not preach anything that will upset them. That is a sad thing to have to say, but it is the truth and we all know it ‘even if many refuse to say it.

I want you to do a mental exercise and examine your church and what it does, as far as preaching the truth of the Word of God. Now, I am not talking about preaching with an open Bible after reading a verse or two of scripture, I’m talking about explaining it in context of all of scripture, and really applying it to those who hear it. I think that we will all agree that not many congregations of our day consist of strictly saved people; but preachers, preach as if that were true. They are guilty of allowing (In fact, encouraging) the sin of being unequally yoked to exist, and in fact honoring it because it exists. Too many preach God, as an inclusive God, when the Bible clearly declares Him to be exclusive. We love John 3:16, and I thank God for John 3:16, but verse 16 does not stand alone, it is defined by verses 17-21, which shows us the clear separation of those who are believers and unbelievers, those who believe and are not condemned, and those who do not believe, and are condemned right here and right now, those who have come into the light (Jesus), and those who love darkness rather than light, those who practice evil and those who walk according to the light.

Jesus preached while He walked among us and said, “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad” (Matthew 12:30). There can be no doubt that in the language of our day Jesus left us with this message, ‘sinners talk and the righteous walk’. God will not accept anything except those who have come to Him, being drawn by the Father, and prepared to live accord to His Word and Will. Most ‘professors’ today can be compared to a person who hires on to a Paint contractor, but goes every day and works for a plumber, and then on pay day wants the painter to pay him his wages. What would you think if on your wedding day, your spouse walks back down the aisle to begin your honeymoon, but drops your hand and grabs the hand of a former lover and rushes out with them. That has become the way that we profess Christ, we go to church and say that we believe, and when we leave the church, we go right back to our old lives.

Those who are saved are commanded to separate from sin and the world, and live for Christ according to the Word and Will of God. That does not mean that we must go to another planet or become a hermit! What it means that we do not involve ourselves in the way the world does, and we instead speak out the truth of God to them but we do not form alliances with them. Christ separated Himself from the world, by the walk that he lived, spoke, interacted with people, and finally from the established authority who allowed Him to be crucified. He was dead, buried and on the third day arose and some 40 days later He ascended back into heaven as our Prophet, Priest and King. That demonstrates How important it is that we be separate.

We are told that we required such a High Priest, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and who has become higher than the heavens. We are commanded to separate ourselves from sinners, as we walk here on the earth. What that means is that we must always walk different, talk different, have different morals and live in such as way that everyone can see that we are different from the world. This is not our home, we are just passing through. If what you love, and have set your heart and life on, is here on the earth, you need to seek the face of God and ask for forgiveness for idolatry, because you worship in the way you think and act. If you are a friend of the world then you are the enemy of God, (James 4:2-4).

Now, there are those who want to find something to complain about, and do not intend to be separate, who draw all kinds of unachievable kinds of lessons from Christian Separation, but the only thing that I can say is that God has given us some hard things to do, as we live in this evil world, but He, in salvation, has given us the power to complete every assigned duty, in the power of God, the Holy Spirit. Every truly saved person, those who have been recreated in Christ, indwelled by the Holy Spirit, justified, sanctified and glorified, have been enabled to live a separate life. We are insulated but not isolated. God has made us available to sinners, not to be led astray by them, but to point them to the gospel of Christ. We are to live in the world, but not like the world. There exists a great and insidious error in preaching that I see today, and that is, for the most part, professing church members (especially preachers), are willing to separate from almost anything except their identity as sinners. I know preachers that are good men, good preachers, but they continually stand in their pulpits and accuse themselves and their congregations of being sinners, and then he normally says that he is the worst sinner in the church. Now, I don’t know about you, but if I can’t help sinning by the power of the One who Created me, then I want to look someplace else. Certainly, I want to go to heaven, but if there were no heaven, (which there is a heaven), I would not want to die, in rebellion against my Creator.

We don’t mind separating, as long as we don’t have to separate from our sinful nature. But the sinful nature is what God deals with in true salvation. God knows and demonstrates for us what He meant by separation from the world in Matthew 25:31-34,41. We are told there, by Jesus Christ Himself, that when He comes in His glory, with all the Holy Angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and “He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on the right hand, but the goats on the left”. Now, that is separation the way that God speaks of separation, the sheep (saved) on His right hand, and the goats on the left hand. If we continue to read that passage, we find in verse 34, “Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

Read Matthew Chapter 25 ,verse 34, from your Bible. Did you find there that the Sheep had been separated from the goats, and that the sheep had been ushered into heaven because they were not goats (Sinners)’ We need to stop fooling ourselves and others who may be honest seekers of God, and separate ourselves from sin and the act of calling God into question, as we steadily say that we are saved to the uttermost, but are yet sinners. God does not call His true children sinners, instead God calls His children Saints. In fact, we are told that God calls us to be Saints, not when we get to heaven but while we live and breath here on this earth, (Romans 1:7; 1st Corinthians 1:2).

We are called and called speaks of that call that God makes on the heart, mind, soul, and body of the person that He intends to save, (Romans 8:30). The Apostle Paul says that He was, separated from His mother’s womb, and called by His grace, Galatians 1:15, now I ask you was Paul separated from His mothers womb, or is he still in the womb’ I would ask these sinners that ‘say’ they were saved by grace, when they were called to be Saints; did God save you but leave you as a sinner’ Think about what you have read and be sure you run out all of the scriptures that were quoted, now think on these things. Are you a sinner or a Saint’ God could have left us all as sinners , and sent us to hell, but He chose to separate a people for heaven, make sure you get on the right bus!