Separation for Another Reason

“Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the LORD.” (Isa 52:11 AV)

This verse is echoed in the New Testament.  Paul's states, “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean [thing]; and I will receive you,” (2Co 6:17 AV)  The application is different.  Paul’s advice is advice for godliness and the glory of God.  Isaiah is completely different.  Paul is concerned about the testimony of the Corinthian church and their usefulness to Him.  We often use this verse to correctly admonish the saved to refrain from marrying those who do not know the LORD.  A home built on inherent adversity will not be a home where God is the center.  It is Isaiah’s application that we want to consider this morning because it has a broader application.  Isaiah’s admonition is also echoed in the New Testament book of Revelation.  Specifically in the twelfth chapter.  The event spoken of here is for Israel to depart from Jerusalem as God prepares to judge it.  Sometimes, separation is not limited to the glory of God alone.  God must judge evil.  Regardless of where the saints are or with whom they consort, the LORD would not be righteous if He allowed wickedness to continue without judging it.  If we know the LORD will eventually judge wickedness, why would we not depart from it?

There are so many examples of this throughout the word of God.  Israel learned this rather vividly as they suffered through the aftereffects of judgment on Egypt.  Not all of the plagues affected them.  But some did.  God judged Pharaoh and his nation. As a result, Israel suffered somewhat before God brought them out.  Then there is Lot, his family, and his wife.  Because of the influence Sodom and Gomorrah had on his family, Lot lost most of them to hellfire and brimstone.  His own wife was turned into a pillar of salt because even though she physically left Sodom, her heart remained there.  Eventually, Lot became father to the two nations who would eventually be Israel’s greatest enemies.   Noah and his family may have been saved by water as others were destroyed by it, but the memory of all that death drove Noah to drink in his own tent.

Separation is a matter of our own sanity as well.  The hand of God will not rest idol.  There is wickedness all around.  God must and will judge this nation for their treatment of the most helpless of us all.  Murdering babies in the womb or mutilating them in the name of perversion cannot go unanswered.  A generation ago, we saw the pornography industry as the lowest mankind could ever go.  But today, we stand dumbfounded as the world makes victims of the hopeless and helpless.  Be warned.  The hand of God is coming.  He will judge what we have come accustomed to.  The shock of what the wicked are doing is too soon replaced by complacency.  We no longer react as we used to.  The ‘in-your-face’ attitude of the callous murderers and depraved perverts has made us hardened to the severity of what they do.  Yes, they need Jesus.  We should work to that end.  But there must be a balance.  There cannot be an acceptance of what is happening because reacting seems like an overreach.  We must come out from among them and be separate because the hand of God is coming.  When it does, we will be affected by it commensurate with how closely allied to it we are.  Come out from among it or suffer loss in the process of God’s almighty hand.