MINGLED AMONG THE HEATHEN

God called Israel out of Egypt to be separated from the increasingly immoral nations, whose evil threatened to corrupt the whole of mankind. He saved them to be holy as He is holy. For four centuries, He had waited patiently, but the Canaanites grew worse and worse. “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil”, Eccl. 8. 11. So at last God commanded Joshua to deal with the canker and cleanse the land.

Today we are not to execute judgment like Israel did. Elijah called down fire from heaven, but the Lord Jesus forbade His disciples to do so, Luke 9. 55. But we are “sanctified”, that is, set apart for the pleasure of God, holy as He is holy. We are bidden, “come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing”, 2 Cor. 6. 14-17; Rev. 18. 4. This does not imply living a monastic life, but acting as salt in the earth, arresting corruption by our conduct, and not following the crowd on the road to destruction.

But Israel disobeyed and mixed with the Canaanite, first tolerating and then imitating their ways. They “learned their works”, Psa. 106. 35, and became slaves to the idolatrous practices of the dissolute pagans. “Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils (demons)”, v. 37. Beware of the world’s idols, not only pop stars and film stars, but the love of money and the love of pleasure.

The believers in Corinth were warned, “Be not deceived”, for evil company corrupts good manners and morals, 1 Cor. 15. 33. My younger brothers and sisters in Christ: cultivate friendship not with merely professing Christians, but with those who are set to serve our Lord Jesus Christ. Follow the psalmist’s example, saying, “I am a companion of all them that fear thee, and of them that keep thy precepts”, Psa. 119. 63. To know and to keep God’s commandments are two very different things.

To walk in the counsel of the ungodly leads to standing in the way of sinners, and then to sitting in the seat of the scornful, Psa. 1. 1.

“Keep thyself pure”, 1 Tim. 5. 22; 1 Cor. 15. 33.