Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

Looking into the Word
Nov 30th, 2010
CommentaryArt Sadlier
Categories: Exhortation;Inspirational;Topical Study

The Separated Life

In Genesis 18:1 we see Abraham sitting alone with his family in the door of his tent. Abraham had separated from the pagan Canaanite tribes; his tent was pitched far from them. Abraham’s life was marked by a tent and an altar. The tent signalled to those around him that this world was not his home, the things of this world had no claim upon him, and he was just passing through. The tent was a mark of his separation. The smoke of the altar witnessed to all around that he was a worshipper of God.

In chapter 19, we see lot sitting in the gate of the city. Sitting in gate identified him as a leader of the city. Lot identified with wicked worldly men of Sodom. He was not living a separated life, he identified with the city and all it stood for. Lot looked upon the wickedness of the men around him, day after day, month after month. We discover that sin around him affected him greatly; it affected his wife and his daughters. In verse 8, we see how Lot lost all sense of right and wrong. In later verses we see he lost his wife, and later his daughter’s sense of right and wrong.

Abraham chose to live a life separated from the world around him. He turned away from the riches the world had to offer and ended up a wealthy man. Lot sought the riches this world had to offer and ended up with nothing, he lost it all, including his family.

Today; New Evangelicals have repeated the error of Lot. They are not willing to separate from the world; they want all the world has to offer. They want its pleasures, its entertainments, its associations and its wealth and success. They want to walk with the world and they want the world to walk with them. They want the world to attend church with them, even if it means deceiving them, through easy-believism, into thinking that they are on their way to heaven.

The thought of walking a lonely road or of going outside the camp with Christ or of bearing His reproach is beyond their comprehension. “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.
And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty,” 2 Corinthians 6:17-18. Does that verse imply that those who are not separated are not received as sons and daughters? Lot was certainly a son of God, but what an awful price he paid for his compromise with the world!

Hebrews 13:12-14 says, “Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.”

Lot sought to rescue the men who visited him from the wicked men around, but he couldn’t. In verse 9, the men of Sodom said in effect to Lot,” you are a hypocrite, why should we listen to you?”  Abraham, by way of contrast, prayed for Lot and God heard his prayers and rescued Lot.

The man who is willing to separate from the world around him is the man God can bless and use to glorify His name. I believe he is the only man who can have real assurance that he is a child of God. If you play the role of Lot, you may be saved as by fire and miss the reward and blessing of God upon your life, or you may end up in the category of those to whom Jesus said, “Depart from me I never knew you.”

Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom and ended up in Sodom. Have you pitched your tent toward the world? Is the focus of your life, the things of this world?