Separation

And yet this is only what becomes one who in the light of Christ's own words, realizes the place he is responsible to occupy in this world. There must be a complete separation of heart and feeling between the servant who is truly occupying for Christ and the world which has rejected Him. "What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?”
It may be urged that the citizens in Luke 19 do not represent nominal Christians who constitute the world around us. This is true, but if nominal Christians have become just as much "of the world" as the heathen, if Christ's lordship is just as little practically admitted among them as in the rest of the world, is the call for separation any the less urgent?
Is the world any more allowable because it takes the name of Christ while practically it disowns and rejects Him?
If there is one rule of separation in Scripture more stringent than another, it is the separation from those who are called by Christ's name, but are walking in an ungodly fashion. If there is one scene over which judgment is impending with more fearful gloom than over any other, it is over this very Christendom. On account of the privileges it has enjoyed and the sad use it has made of them, Christendom is held as especially guilty in God's sight. The principle of separation, therefore, applies with even greater force to the believer in the world of Christendom around him at present than to the believer in the midst of Jews and heathen.