Morning, June 27, adapted from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening

“Only you shall not go very far away.”  –Exodus 8:28

This is a devious word from the mouth of the slave driver Pharaoh. If the poor enslaved Israelites must have a need to go out of Egypt, then he bargains with them that it shall not be very far away; not too far for them to escape the dread of his army, and the observation of his spies. In the same way, the world does not care for the nonconformity of the Christian, or his refusal of the world’s ways; it would have us be more charitable and not carry matters to extreme. Death to the world’s ways, and burial with Christ, are experiences which minds centered on this existence treat with ridicule, and so the Scripture which sets them forth is almost universally neglected, and even condemned. Worldly wisdom recommends the path of compromise, and talks of “moderation.” According to this temporal policy, purity is admitted to be very desirable, but we are warned against being too specific; truth is of course to be followed, but error is not to be severely denounced. “Yes,” says the world, “be spiritually minded by all means, but do not deny yourself some indiscriminate relations, an occasional party, and the neglect of religious observation. What’s the good of crying down a thing when it is so fashionable, and everybody does it?” Scores of Christians yield to this crafty advice, to their own ruin. If we would follow the Lord wholly, we must go right away into the wilderness of separation, and leave the Egypt of the carnal world behind us. We must leave its maxims, its pleasures, and its religion too, and go far away to the place where the Lord calls his sanctified ones. When the town is on fire, our house cannot be too far from the flames. When the epidemic is abroad, a man cannot be too far from its center. The further from a viper the better, and the further from worldly conformity the better. To all true believers let the herald sound, “Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,” says the Lord.”