Exodus 8:28

Then Pharaoh said, I will let you go to make an offering to the Lord your God in the waste land; but do not go very far away, and make prayer for me.

This is a crafty word from the lip of the arch-tyrant Pharaoh. If the poor enslaved Israelites need to get out of Egypt, then he bargains with them that it shall not be very far away. Not far enough for them to escape the observation of his spies and the terror of his armies. After the same fashion, the world hates the non-conformity of nonconformity, or the dissidence of dissent. Our society would have us be more tolerant and not get carried away with holiness. Death to the world, and burial with Christ, are experiences which secular minds treat with ridicule. God's decree which sets them forth is almost universally neglected, and even condemned. Worldly wisdom recommends the path of compromise, and talks of "moderation" and "tolerance". According to this carnal policy, purity is admitted to be very desirable, but a "personal choice". We are warned against being too picky, Of course truth is a good thing, but error is not to be severely denounced, because maybe that is someone else's "truth" and maybe it is OK for them. "Yes," says the world, be spiritually minded by all means, but do not deny yourself a little gay society, an occasional one night stand, or the fun of "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas". What's the good of criticizing a thing when it is so fashionable, and everybody does it? Multitudes of leaders yield to this cunning advice, to their own eternal ruin and earthly embarrassment. If we would follow the Lord completely, we must go right away into the wilderness of separation and leave the Egypt of the secular,carnal world behind us. We must leave its rule of conduct, its pleasures, and its religion too, and go far away to the place where the Lord calls his sanctified ones. When the town is on fire, our house cannot be too far from the flames. When the plague is abroad, a man cannot be too far from its location. The further away from a poisonous snake the better, and the further from worldly conformity the better. If Christ-likeness were a table, we would want to be as close to the center and as far from falling off the edge as possible. To all true believers let the trumpet-call be sounded, "You come out from among them, be separate."