Sermon Central
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The Need For Separation
Contributed by Andy Grossman on Feb 11, 2014 (message contributor)
Summary: The need for us to be separate from the world in our personal lives, our church and our country.
“The Need for Separation”
February 16, 2014
“Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said:
“I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” Therefore, “Come out from them
and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.” And, “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”
Do you want God’s blessings on your life? Do you want to be sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty? God wants to live with us and walk among us and be our God. But He asks one thing of us- NO! He DEMANDS one thing of us – that we be separate from the world. That we not compromise.
To me, it is kind of like being on a team and the coach asking you not to play for the other team but only for his team. But the other team has such nice uniforms and they have new equipment and they seem to be winners. Sometimes it seems like they even have more fun! “Maybe we could kind of support both sides.”
God says in the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:1-3,
“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me.”
“Fear the LORD your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land.”
God is very clear than He requires total commitment, complete allegiance to Him. He warns,
“If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), do not yield to them or listen to them...”
“See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.
But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.”
There is a reward and a curse before us. If we serve only the Lord, we will be blessed. If we are drawn away to other gods – we will be destroyed. So much of the Bible is history of the failure of Israel to follow completely God’s Commands. They were continually going off and following other Gods. They didn’t reject God – they just added some other god or gods. They just compromised. They talked the talk of following God – but they didn’t walk the walk. They claimed the promises of God and claimed to be His people – but they weren’t. They did their own thing and went their own way – suffered for it.
Our forefathers, when they created this country were fully aware of all this. And they determined to build this nation on the Bible and on Christ. That’s hard to believe isn’t it? We have been lied to. We have had our history rewritten and then forced on us from kindergarten on because a lot of people don’t want to believe that we are a Christian nation – or I should say – we WERE a Christian nation. They want to separate the Church from the state. The want to separate politics and religion. Let’s look at a few facts. First of all, let’s look at why the pilgrims came over here. The Mayflower Compact says it pretty well. A portion says,
“Having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and advancements of the Christian faith...”
