'Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing,
go ye out of the midst of her.' In the historical fulfilment of my
text, separation from Babylon was the preliminary of the march. Our
task is not so simple; our separation from Babylon must be the constant
accompaniment of our march. And day by day it has to be repeated, if we
would lift a foot in advance upon the road. There is still a Babylon.
The order in the midst of which we live is not organised on the
fundamental laws of Christ's Kingdom. And wherever there are men who
seek to order their lives as Christ would have them to be ordered, the
first necessity for them is, 'Come out from amongst them, and be ye
separate, saith the Lord.' There is no need in this day to warn
Christian people against an exaggerated interpretation of these
commandments. I almost wish there were more need. We have been told so
often, in late years, of how Christian men ought to mingle with all the
affairs of life, and count nothing that is human foreign to themselves,
that it seems to me there is vast need for a little emphasis being put
on the other side of the truth, and for separation being insisted upon.
Wherever there is a real grasp of Jesus Christ for a man's own personal
Saviour, and a true submission to Him as the Pattern and Guide of life,
a broad line of demarcation between that man and the irreligious life
round him will draw itself. If the heart have its tendrils twined round
the Cross, it will have detached them from the world around. Separation
by reason of an entirely different conception of life, separation
because the present does not look to you as it looks to the men who see
only it, separation because you and they have not only a different
ideal and theory of life, but are living from different motives and for
different ends and by different powers, will be the inevitable result
of any real union with Jesus Christ. If I am joined to Him I am
separated from the world; and detachment from it is the simple and
necessary result of any real attachment to Him. There will always be a
gulf in feeling, in purpose, in view, and therefore there will often
have to be separation outward things. 'So did not I because of the fear
of the Lord' will have to be said over and over again by any real and
honest follower of the Master.
This separation will not only be the result of union with Jesus Christ,
but it is the condition of all progress in our union with Him. We must
be unmoored before we can advance. Many a caravan has broken down in
African exploration for no other reason than because it was too well
provided with equipments, and so collapsed of its own weight.
Therefore, our prophet in the context says, 'Touch no unclean thing.'
_There_ is one of the differences between the new Exodus and the old.
When Israel came out of Egypt they spoiled the Egyptians, and came away
laden with gold and jewels; but it is dangerous work bringing anything
away from Babylon with us. Its treasure has to be left if we would
march close behind our Lord and Master. We must touch 'no unclean
thing,' because our hands are to be filled with the 'vessels of the
Lord.' I am preaching no impossible asceticism, no misanthropical
withdrawal from the duties of life, and the obligations that we owe to
society. God's world is a good one; man's world is a bad one. It is
man's world that we have to leave, but the lofties, sanctity requires
no abstention from anything that God has ordained.
Now, dear friends, I venture to think that this message is one that we
all dreadfully need to-day. There are a great many Christians,
so-called, in this generation, who seem to think that the main object
they should have in view is to obliterate the distinction between
themselves and the world of ungodly men, and in occupation and
amusements to be as like people that have no religion as they possibly
can manage. So they get credit for being 'liberal' Christians, and
praise from quarters whose praise is censure, and whose approval ought
to make a Christian man very uncomfortable. Better by far the narrowest
Puritanism--I was going to say better by far monkish austerities--than
a Christianity which knows no self-denial, which is perfectly at home
in an irreligious atmosphere, and which resents the exhortation to
separation, because it would fain keep the things that it is bidden to
drop. God's reiteration of the text through Paul to the Church in
luxurious, corrupt, wealthy Corinth is a gospel for this day for
English Christians, 'Come out from among them, and I will receive you.'
III. Further, note the purity which becomes the bearers of the vessels
of the Lord.
'Be ye clean.' The priest's hands must be pure, which figure, being
translated, is that transparent purity of conduct and character is
demanded from all Christian men who profess to bear God's sacred
deposit. You cannot carry it unless your hands are clean, for all the
gifts that God gives us glide from our grasp if our hands be stained.
Monkish legends tell of sacred pictures and vessels which, when an
impure touch was laid upon them, refused to be lifted from their place,
and grew there, as rooted, in spite of all efforts to move them.
Whoever seeks to hold the gifts of God in His Gospel in dirty hands
will fail miserably in the attempt; and all the joy and peace of
communion, the assurance of God's love, and the calm hope of immortal
life will vanish as a soap bubble, grasped by a child, turns into a
drop of foul water on its palm, if we try to hold them in foul hands.
Be clean, or you cannot bear the vessels of the Lord.
And further, remember that no priestly service nor any successful
warfare for Jesus Christ is possible, except on the same condition. One
sin, as well as one sinner, destroys much good, and a little
inconsistency on the part of us professing Christians neutralises all
the efforts that we may ever try to put forth for Him. Logic requires
that God's vessels should be carried with clean hands. God requires it,
men require it, and have a right to require it. The mightiest witness
for Him is the witness of a pure life, and if we go about the world
professing to be His messengers, and carrying His epistle in our dirty
fingers, the soiled thumb-mark upon it will prevent men from caring for
the message; and the Word will be despised because of the unworthiness
of its bearers. 'Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord.'
IV. Lastly, notice the leisurely confidence which should mark the march
that is guarded by God. 'Ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by
flight, for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be
your reward.'
This is partly an analogy and partly a contrast with the story of the
first Exodus. The unusual word translated 'with haste' is employed in
the Pentateuch to describe the hurry and bustle, not altogether due to
the urgency of the Egyptians, but partly also to the terror of Israel,
with which that first flight was conducted. And, says my text, in this
new coming out of bondage there shall be no need for tremor or
perturbation, lending wings to any man's feet; but, with quiet
deliberation, like that with which Peter was brought out of his
dungeon, because God knew that He could bring him out safely, the new
Exodus shall be carried on.
'He that believeth shall not make haste.' Why should he? There is no
need for a Christian man ever to be flurried, or to lose his
self-command, or ever to be in an undignified and unheroic hurry. His
march should be unceasing, swift, but calm and equable, as the motions
of the planets, unhasting and unresting.
There is a very good reason why we need not be in any haste due to
alarm. For, as in the first Exodus, the guiding pillar led the march,
and sometimes, when there were foes behind, as at the Red Sea, shifted
its place to the rear, so 'the Lord will go before you, and the God of
Israel will be your rereward.' He besets us behind and before, going in
front to be our Guide, and in the rear for our protection, gathering up
the stragglers, so that there shall not be 'a hoof left behind,' and
putting a wall of iron between us and the swarms of hovering enemies
that hang on our march. Thus encircled by God, we shall be safe. Christ
fulfils what the prophet pledged God to do; for He goes before us, the
Pattern, the Captain of our salvation, the Forerunner, 'the Breaker is
gone up before them '; and He comes behind us to guard us from evil;
for He is 'the _Alpha_ and _Omega_, the beginning and the ending, the
Almighty.'
Dear brethren, life for us all must be a weary pilgrimage. We cannot
alter that. It is the lot of every son of man. But we have the power of
either making it a dreary, solitary tramp over an undefended desert, to
end in the great darkness, or else of making it a march in which the
twin sisters Joy and Peace shall lead us forth, and go out with us, and
the other pair of angel-forms, 'Goodness and Mercy,' shall follow us
all the days of our lives. We may make it a journey with Jesus for
Guide and Companion, to Jesus as our Home. 'The ransomed of the Lord
shall return, and come to Zion with songs, and everlasting joy upon
their heads.'