The Baptist Pillar © Brandon Bible Baptist Church 1992-Present www.baptistpillar.com
"...The church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth."
I Timothy 3:15
Is One a Fanatic Who Lives
Separated Unto the Lord?
Roy Mason
There are many people who want to belong to a church either for the social life that is furnished, or for the feeling that as a church member they are safe from the possibility of going to hell. But while they want to think that they are Christians, they do not want to live like Christ would have them to live. They want to live like the world and for the world. Churches are running over with such members. Indeed they are so numerous that many pastors do not have the courage to preach against the prevailing forms of worldliness, lest they be thrown out.
Less than a week before this was written, a man who had been pastor of a Baptist church in a neighboring town, visited our church. He told of preaching against dancing. He had some school teachers in his church who liked to dance, and they got up in arms immediately. Underhand, grapevine propaganda was resorted to and sentiment was worked up against the pastor. While he was away on vacation recently, a crowd drummed up, composed partly of people who had not been to church in years, and he was voted out of his pastorate.
The pastor had led them into a building program that gave them a wonderful church building, and under his ministry the church had made wonderful progress along all lines, but this was all forgotten in the light of the fact that he had preached separation of life. Hell gets afloat and the water rises in many churches when the pastor preaches separation.
Jesus lived a life of separation. Hebrews 7:26 speaks of Him as "...holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners..." It is the duty of the Christian to follow Him in this regard. I Peter 2:21 says that Jesus "...leaving us an example, that we should follow in his steps."
Separation is demanded in the Scriptures. Take II Corinthians 6:17 which says, "...come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord."
What Kind of a Life Is a Separated Life?
To live a separated life does not mean that one must wear a strange garb–that one must wear long whiskers, as do they of some sects. It does not mean that one must go around with a super pious air. Such is usually self-delusion and hypocrisy. It does not mean that we get too "good" in our thinking to associate with other people.
It means that we are to seek daily to live in the will of God, trying to please Him in all things, and abstaining from any and all things which we feel that He would disapprove of. A good illustration is the diver who although surrounded by water, is insulated from it by his diving suit, and gets his "atmosphere" from above.
As to speech, the separated person will not use profanity and will not engage in the telling of filthy stories. See Ephesians 5:4.
As to dress, the separated person will not adopt the use of clothing which is immodest. See I Timothy 2:9. The wearing of shorts in public destroys all separation. For a woman to appear nearly naked in public brands her as fleshly, and unsaved people would laugh her to scorn if she pretended to be a spiritually minded Christian.
As to home, a separated person will ban from his home those things that are plainly suggestive and evil. Dirty sex magazines, pin-up pictures of nearly nude women, pictures of movie actresses all over the walls, boogy woogy music, musical records that are pure trash–such things as these don’t belong in a Christian home.
As to amusements, the separated person will not patronize the amusements that are plainly sponsored by Satan, and anyone can honestly appraise such amusements.
What Lack of Separation Does
1. It renders a Christian unhappy. A born again person cannot be happy in his Christian life while giving allegiance to God and the devil at the same time. It is like a man trying to ride two horses at the same time, going in opposite directions.
2. It renders a Christian spiritually powerless. Powerless with God, in prayer, and powerless as a witness for Christ anywhere.
3. It brings the chastening hand of God. Such a Christian lives in disobedience and therefore a rod of correction is laid hard upon him.
4. It will bring loss of eternal rewards. Such persons will be saved if truly born-again, but their works will be burned up (I Cor. 3), and they will be "...saved; yet so as by fire." The un-separated Christian is just throwing his life away!