Our scripture reading this evening is 2 Corinthians chapter 6. 2 Corinthians chapter 6. Paul starts out in this chapter talking about himself and his fellow laborers and what they do for the sake of the church. That's the first pronoun, then we, then as workers together with him are the apostles and the preachers that he has in mind there. We then as workers together with him beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain. For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succored thee. Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Giving no offense in anything that the ministry be not blamed. but in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings, by pureness, by knowledge, by long suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report, as deceivers and yet true, as unknown and yet well-known, as dying and behold, we live as chastened and not killed, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing and yet possessing all things. O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged. Ye are not straightened in us, but ye are straightened in your own bowels. Now for a recompense in the same, I speak as unto my children, be ye also enlarged. Now just to note, pause there. The preceding verses have established Paul's right as a pastor who is willing to suffer all of that for their sake. to give the following admonitions, beginning at verse 14. Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness, and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God. As God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Now the text for the sermon are these last two verses of the chapter. 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. So far we read God's holy word. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, the text begins with the word wherefore, indicating that a conclusion is being drawn. And that conclusion is being drawn from two realities which are set forth in verses 14 through 16. On the one hand, the previous verses have revealed or set forth what is the believer's relationship to the world. And that is that we are not to be unequally yoked with the world. Paul draws there from an Old Testament law where the Israelites were forbidden to yoke together two different kinds of animals. You couldn't put together an ox and a horse. They would not pull the same. That would be unkind to the animals. It would be a foolish thing for a farmer to do. But that has spiritual application. As Paul says, a believer and an unbeliever are not to be yoked together. That would be an unequal yoke if they would come together. Because the unbeliever is of the world, his goals are the kingdom of this earth and all of the pleasures of this life, and the believer's goals are heavenly and spiritual. They cannot pull together under the same yoke. Paul then emphasizes that he drives that home with four rhetorical questions, the answer of which is obvious for each one, and that is, what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And the answer, obviously, there is none. They're opposites. What communion hath light with darkness? And again, that's impossible. They're opposites. Where the one is, the other cannot be. What concord hath Christ with Belial, with the devil himself? And the answer is, obviously, there's no concord there. Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? That is, with an unbeliever. And the answer is they have nothing in common from a spiritual point of view. So that, on the one hand, is what he has been setting forth. Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. But then he goes in the end of verse 16 to say, well, what is your relationship to God? And that's that God is our covenant God. because God himself said, I will dwell in them. You are the temples of God. I will walk with them. I will be their God and they shall be my people. That's covenant language. That's the almost the formula that we look for. Whenever God talks to his people, he says that I will be your God. You will be my people. So you have those two realities, the relationship to the world and the relationship that you have to God, both of them being true. Now, wherefore, drawing the conclusion, what should we conclude from that? And the answer is, be separate from the ungodly. Be separate. Separate means living the life of the antithesis. We'll explain that word in more detail, but you have a sense of what that means. The antithesis has everything to do with the confession of faith made tonight. Everything to do with that. The Reformed faith that you and all of us here together with you confess tonight, the Reformed faith, demands antithetical living, absolutely. Because the heart of the Reformed truth is the covenant, the covenant of friendship that God establishes with his people. And that reality that we belong to God's covenant requires that we live the antithesis. It requires more than that you know the doctrine of the antithesis, but if we do not live it, then all the beautiful answers that you gave before the consistory, a head full of knowledge of reformed doctrine, and our orthodox talk about the truth is all worth nothing if we do not live the antithesis. You promised that tonight. You promised to live a new, that is, the new life of Jesus that is in you, to live that life, and that life is antithetical. Let's see what God requires of us as those who are part of God's live-in, are members of God's covenant, when he calls us to be separate. So we take as the theme the call to antithetical living in the covenant, the call to antithetical living in the covenant. Notice in the first place, the Lord's command, it's the Lord who commands it, and that's what we consider first. Secondly, the covenantal basis for this call, and thirdly, the sure promise. The Lord's command is be separate, be separate. That's the middle of the three commands in this, be ye separate. And the word in the original basic meaning is to draw a boundary, to draw a boundary. And by drawing that boundary, you're making a separation between that land and this land. And then after drawing the boundary, you come away from that. You separate yourself even from that point. This call to be separate, let's be very clear about this, is not a call to physical isolation. This has been tried. Going all the way back to the Middle Ages and into the ancient church, there were Christians who thought that obedience to this command, be ye separate, meant physical isolation. Some of them went off and lived in caves and they were called hermits. Some astoundingly lived on top of poles and said, I'm separate from the world. Others came together in communities and had strict rules about morality. The goal is live a holy life unto God separate from the world. The Roman Catholic monasteries and nunneries are remnants of that movement that what the Bible calls us to do is physical isolation from the world. This was tried also by some who followed Luther out in the Reformation but didn't understand the heart of it, the Anabaptists, whose remnants today are found in the Mennonites and the Amish. They seek to flee the world, separate themselves from the world from a physical point of view, and this is the way that they are seeking to live a godly life in isolation. This is not what the text is calling for. These efforts have always failed because you get a group of people together who say, we're the church, there will be unbelievers that are mixed in with the church. You cannot separate yourself from the world in that way. And if you would try to go off by yourself and say, in isolation, I will live a holy life. The problem is you have a wicked heart. We take that evil nature with us. You cannot escape sin by isolation. in that way. Not only that, this is clearly not God's purpose. He has determined that His people will live side-by-side physically with the wicked world This is evident from the parable of the wheat and the tares, where the wicked, the devil, having sown the tares among the wheat, and the servants say, shall we take the tares out? And the owner of the field says, no, they must grow unto the harvest. The wicked and the righteous will live in this earth unto the harvest, in order that the light of God's people will shine in the darkness of this world in the greatest possible contrast. So not isolation, but living in the world. and yet be not of the world." It is a spiritual isolation that the text calls for. And if it's spiritual, it begins in the heart, a heart that loves God, a heart that is filled with love for God as the highest good. that delights in him and seeks to know him and live unto him, that desires above all that God be honored by his own life and by all those who live around him, that God be honored and glorified. Necessarily then, there is a hatred of sinners, ungodly people, and of sin. Psalm 119, the psalmist says this, Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? Am I not grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred. I count them my enemies. But then he recognizes the problem is not merely them. The problem is me, because the next two verses say this. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. A hatred of sin, a hatred of the ungodly who oppose God's righteous ways. That love for God, that hatred of sin, manifests itself in living the antithesis. Antithesis means there's something against. Anti is against. Thesis is truth. This is the standard of truth. And the believer recognizes God is truth and the wicked are constantly opposing him. But the believer says, I will not join them, I will stand against all those who oppose my God and His ways. In simplest terms, living the antithesis is simply this, that we say yes to everything that God has clearly indicated in His Word He wants us to do. and that we say no to anything that God has obviously indicated in His Word is forbidden to us. If God says no, the believer says, no, I will not. This will shape and mold the believer's attitude over against the world, the world that serves Satan. What Satan demands they are more than willing to do. They are seeking a kingdom of this earth, a kingdom of man. They hate God, they hate righteousness, they hate holiness. They are determined to live this life to the fullest and enjoy the lusts of the flesh. They press every new invention into the service of sin and their pursuit of iniquity. On the other hand, the believer has, though he shares with them that wicked nature, he has the new life of Jesus Christ. He seeks to live out of that life, that's the new life about which you made confession. He battles, the believer battles against his own sinful nature and therefore opposes the temptations, the ways of the world. Separation, draw the line, draw the boundary and remove yourself from it. But the text gives two additional commands that will elaborate on what that means for the believer. First of all, come out from among them. Come out from among them. This is taken from Isaiah, those words, and it is repeated in Revelation 18, verse 4, where The believers are called out of Babylon, out of the false church, which has become the whore and supported the beast, the Antichrist. The Antichrist is someone who is against Christ, opposes him, but at the same time wants to replace Christ and to make himself to seem as though he is the savior of mankind. The quotation used that way reminds us that the world around us is not neutral. It's not favorable to us or the cause of Jesus Christ. It is, in fact, Babylon. In Babylon, if you go to the Old Testament and study that history of Daniel, you'll see that Babylon is a city that entices. It will put a smile on their face. Daniel and your three friends, you have new names. Here's your new clothes, food and abundance. You can study all you want for three full years. Babylon entices. It seeks to draw us into their lifestyle, to learn their language, to dress as they dress, to walk as they walk. They hold out in front of them the amusements and the fun of life and even give incentives. If you work your way up, look at what you can become in this world. But if you stand apart from it, as Daniel and his three friends did, then it's the burning fiery furnace. Then it's the lion's den. Come out from among them, Babylon. The them, Paul has indicated clearly who they are in the previous verses. They are the unrighteous. They are darkness. They are unbelievers whose lives are committed to idolatry. come out from among them. Now there is, though we reject the idea of isolation, there is a certain physical separation, isn't there, from the world. We do not seek to be companions of those who are darkness and unrighteous and unbelievers. fellowship, communion, and agreement. These are the things that are not allowed to someone who is living the antithesis. Hence, to come out from among them means the world is not our friend. We must shop in the same stores. We might have to live right next door to some ungodly people. We may have to work with people that are clearly unbelievers and profane, but when work is finished, we do not fellowship with them. Those are not our friends. Believers are called out. Mark the boundary. Come out from among them. Be separate. That's the first command that illustrates what it means to be separate. Secondly, touch not the unclean thing, that is, those things that are morally polluted, unclean. The world of ungodly men produce almost everything that we need and use. The cars we came here tonight, the clothes we are wearing, building materials, food, appliances, computers, they make them all. And these things certainly may be used, as Paul writes to Timothy in his first epistle, chapter 4, for every creature of God is good. and nothing to be received if it be received with thanksgiving, for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. But there are certain things that the world makes or does which cannot be sanctified by the word of God and prayer, because the sole purpose of it is sin. The television itself is not sin, but the entertainment of the world on the television is evil. The camera is not evil, but the camera that takes pictures and posts them, that illicit lust, those pictures are pure evil. The world's music for entertainment, for dances, defile, they are unclean. Touch not the unclean thing. The Old Testament laws again gave us good instruction here. Remember the laws about clean and unclean, not animals now, but containers. And if you had a vessel, a container, that touched something dead, that container became unclean until it was cleansed in a certain way according to the law. And anything that then was put in that container became unclean. The meat might be perfectly good, but if you put it in an unclean container, it was defiled, not to be eaten. So this is a teaching, this teaches us. The evil of this world corrupts the believer who touches it. The believer will not improve the evil of this world. We will not improve the vile iniquity, the corruption of their movies and their dances and their music and their parties. We will not walk in there and improve the situation. They will corrupt us if we touch them. Touch not the unclean thing. The form of the verb indicates that the Christians to whom Paul is writing, they had to be told, stop touching the unclean thing. And that's very appropriate for us, isn't it? We're in the midst of this world. It's pretty easy to enjoy a little bit of what the world offers us in their entertainment. So the Bible says to us, Stop touching, using the unclean thing. In the life of the Christian today, there are many threats. But surely one of the greatest is something that most of us carry around with us everywhere we go, and that's our smartphone. There's a world of iniquity inviting us to join with the world. And we can do it with nobody else but God, knowing that we are touching the unclean thing, that we are enjoying the world's sinful pleasures. The devil uses it to great advantage. Very smart men have figured out algorithms that if you clicked on something a couple of times, then that will pop up on that phone. So the temptation there comes back again and again. Tremendous diligence is needed. Do not trust yourself. Do not trust yourself. If there's any time we have to listen to Paul's admonition, it's now. Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. We cannot stand over against the alluring evils of this world. The cell phones do not belong in bedrooms late into the night. They don't belong in bedrooms. They are tools in the hands of the devil, social media, promotes vicious words, slander, attacks, mocking. It leads to immoral practices in pursuit of the world's vile iniquity, pornography, gambling, and a completely worldly lifestyle. More than one Christian youth from the Protestant Reformed churches, and I'm sure other places too, have been drawn into a life of immorality of the grossest kind using social media like Snapchat and other vile websites. More than one marriage has been destroyed by people following what's on their cell phone. God demands that we be separate. The text emphasizes that when it says, Seth the Lord. Seth the Lord. And the Lord there is Jesus himself. Remember in the Bible, a Lord is someone who owns his subjects. They belong to Him. And therefore, He has every right to give every command to them. They must obey. They belong to Him. But don't forget also that that Lord, because He owns His people, that He's a good Lord, and ours is the absolute best, He loves His people. He gives commands for their good. For their good. Nothing in here is intended to be for your evil. It's only for our good. But notice the tense of the verb. Seth, the Lord, not said. He told us once, that's enough. Seth, he continues to say it. Day after day he gives us this command. We need to hear these commands till the day that we die. Be separate. draw the boundaries clearly, withdraw from the ungodly and their lifestyle, not seeking to be as close as you possibly can, not standing with one foot on either side of the boundary that is to be drawn. Living the antithesis means when we are tempted, when someone from work or college who does not even believe in God or maybe even a fellow Protestant Reformed member invites you to parties where there's drinking and dancing, invites you to movies, invites you to all of the immorality of this world, the antithesis says, no. I must be separate from that. I must not touch the unclean thing. Why is that so important? of what we consider in the second point, the covenantal basis. Very obviously this is about the covenant as we pointed out, the formula of the covenant. What is the covenant of God and then how is that connected to these commands? Well, the covenant of God is his relationship of friendship that he sovereignly establishes with his people in Jesus Christ. The covenant is all of God. Eternally, God determined to make a covenant with creatures, mere creatures. First of all, that covenant is with Jesus Christ as the mediator. And then with all those who are in him, all those whom God has eternally chosen in love belong to that. They are members of the covenant. The covenant is very much governed by God's eternal choice and good pleasure. It's a covenant that God also realizes. He not only planned it, He realizes it in Jesus Christ, who redeemed the covenant people from their sins on the cross, paid for their sins, and earned an eternal righteousness which gives the people the right to live with God. They must have that. And God then draws His people out of the midst of this world. He regenerates, giving them the life of Jesus Christ. He sanctifies His people so that they are holy and can live with Him. The Spirit, in fact, makes our bodies to become His temples. He dwells in our bodies. This is a covenant that is based on God's own life within the Trinity, that beautiful life of friendship and love that God has within Himself. And now He is determined to bring His people into that covenant life, in and through Jesus Christ. So that they can know God. They can enjoy His love and grace. Actually be able to fellowship with God. Fellowship with God. And because they know God and are filled with His Spirit, they will praise Him forever. The nature of the covenant is very definitely friendship. It's not an agreement. It's not something that depends on us. But it's a friendship as God created Adam in His own image so that Adam could know God and fellowship with Him and then God came and talked with him in the garden. He was a friend-servant of God. And even after the fall, as God continued that covenant in Jesus, we read of God walking with Enoch and Noah. That's friendship. Three times the Bible calls Abraham the friend of God. That's what God is to His covenant people. This covenant is established in Jesus Christ. In Him we have the perfect Mediator, very God and very man to stand between God and us, and very God and very man as the only one that could redeem the people from their sins, pay their punishment, and give them life. A covenant of friendship. But an important element of that relationship then of friendship with God is the antithesis. This was true already in paradise. God made Adam and Eve and put them in the garden and said, dress it and keep it. And keep is guard. Guard this against anyone that might come opposed to God and to his rule. That, of course, was Satan. But there's another antithesis in there. Every single day, Adam was to say yes to the tree of life and to say no to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The antithesis was part of that first covenant life. After the fall, the antithesis even intensified and sharpened, because God said, there are two different seeds here, the seed of the woman, the elect, the seed of the serpent, the reprobate. And God said, I will put enmity between them. They are of the same race, but spiritually opposed to each other, opposites. And God put the hatred there by taking out of that one race, his elect people, making them to be holy so that they could live with God. And when the reprobate ungodly see the holiness in God's people, there's hatred, immediate hatred. The life of the antithesis intensifies after the fall. The antithetical line is clearly drawn. Are you for God or are you against him? Very, very simple. This is the antithesis of the covenant, being a friend of God. Nobody puts it better or stronger than James. In James 4, when he says to us, not a very complimentary names, ye adulterers and adulteresses, he addresses the church, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. You can't really say it any plainer than that. Friendship with the world is enmity with God. You want to be a friend of the world? You want to live with them and have them look upon you with favor and think you're a great guy, a great lady, and a girl, and you can have fun with them? Who would be a friend of the world is an enemy of God. That's the dreadful reality. Those who are friends with God must therefore live antithetically over against the world. Come out from among them. Touch not the unclean thing. That's God's word to his covenant people. To this, God adds a very beautiful promise. And I will receive you, and will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. That's the third thing we consider tonight. I will receive you. This is an amazing statement. One can scarcely imagine that God could say this. Wretched, miserable, sinners worthy of eternal hell, prone to every evil, who need to be called out of the world, who need to be told, stop handling the unclean thing. God says, I will receive you. I will welcome you. The verb is very strong, receive. It has an added element to the mere, the normal Greek word for receive. It means to receive kindly. It means to receive and to bless, to do well. As in the parable, the father runs out and embraces the prodigal son, and prepares a feast for him, although that son was completely unworthy of any good thing that his father would do for him. So God receives us. This is God's way. Now, we do need to pay attention, though, to the relationship here between the commands that are given on the one hand and the words, I will receive you. The reality is that God does not receive his people kindly when they walk in the filth of this world. He does not. He turns away from them. If a believer walks in sin and lives in the filth of this world, then when they come under the preaching of the gospel, the preaching hardens them in their sin. Then God withdraws his spirit, not entirely, but it withdraws the spirit so that the prayers become cold and a mere formality. And God does not grant them the joy of forgiveness and of fellowship. And yet, in the way of separating yourself from the world, coming out from among them, touching not the unclean thing, in the way of doing that, God says, I will receive you. I will receive you kindly. I will receive you with favor and bless you. That is brought out again in the second promise. And will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters. I will be a father unto you? Well, that's not because the relationship of father and children did not exist before. Of course it existed before. His children have been chosen in Jesus Christ from all eternity. They have been redeemed in His blood. God regenerated them. They have the life of Jesus Christ. God gives them faith so that they embrace Jesus Christ and they are part of the family of God. God is their father. Jesus is their elder brother. They are sons and daughters of God, adopted for Jesus' sake. and yet separate and I will be a father unto you. If a believer lives with the world in their corruption, may he then, whenever he feels like it, go to God and say, Father. You see, that doesn't work. It doesn't work in this life. If a son lives a vile life of corruption and offense to his father and mother, but then he gets into trouble and he goes to his father and he says, father, can you give me a loan of $1,000? And his father looks at him and says, you are my son by birth, but you're not living as my child. Clean up your life and then come back and talk to me. God does not allow us simply to live as we please in wickedness and then say, oh, that's my father. He'll take care of me no matter what. Peter makes the same point. In 1 Peter 1, after saying, giving the reminder, be ye holy for I am holy, He says, and if ye call on the Father, and more literally it is, if you call Him Father, if that's what you do, if you call Him Father, who without respect to persons judgeth according to every man's work, if you do that, then pass the time of your sojourning here in fear. You cannot live as you please. Pass it in fear, that is the fear of God. Loving God, obeying God. God requires that of his children. Those therefore who live in the world and of the world, God does not give them the blessings of sonship. They cannot lose their adoption, of course not. They've been chosen eternally. They've been purchased in the cross. They cannot lose their justification. They cannot lose their regeneration. It will never be taken away. The Spirit will never completely absent himself from the elect sinner. But they will not experience the blessings of God so long as they are walking with the world. But the promise is, I will be a father unto you. As a father he showers his children with blessings beyond compare. The blessings of the covenant, the grace that they need daily. He gives them a seat at his table with the blessings of life with God. He calls them sons and daughters. Sons and daughters have a right to the inheritance They do. They have the right to have eternal life with God in heaven. He will take these children unto himself, into glory, dwell with them in covenant fellowship forever, as a father with his children. That's the beautiful promise. Separate yourself. Come out from among them. and I will be to you as a father, and you will be to me as sons and daughters. Is that promise reliable? Can you depend on it? Absolutely. Seth, the Lord, the Almighty. Now, a different word is used there for Lord than it was in the first part, and this emphasizes exactly what the King James says. Almighty. He's almighty. He has spoken it. He will bring it to pass. No one can prevent God from accomplishing His purposes. His covenant is unbreakable. Unbreakable. It is, therefore, these words are a tremendous incentive to us to hear the admonition and to live the antithetical life of the covenant. They're not conditions. It's obvious they're not conditions because already in verse 16, he says, I will live with you. I am your God. You are my people. Then comes the commands, do this. And then the beautiful promise. You can call it a reward. not because you earn it, but because God simply promised to give it. Something we can definitely look forward to, something that excites us to obedience in the way of spiritual separation from the world. You will experience these blessings. That's God's Word to all of us, but that's God's Word to you tonight who made confession of faith. You made a confession of faith. You publicly declared that God has saved you from your sin through the blood of Jesus Christ, and you are sure that God calls you His friends. With that certainty, be separate. live the life of the covenant antithetically. Amen. Let us pray. Father in heaven, we thank Thee for Thy goodness. Thou art a faithful and glorious God who is worthy of all praise and obedience. We are disobedient children. We walk so easily in the ways of the world. We thank Thee for the clear admonitions and for the heart that Thou hast given us, motivated by love and gratitude to be able to walk in obedience. Hear us, Father of all mercies, for Jesus' sake. Amen. We turn now to Psalm 139C, the third selection of Psalm 139. We read this earlier in the sermon. if in sin I stray, to choose the everlasting way." Stanzas 1, 2, 4, and 5, the first two and the last two of 139C. I give my neighbor thankful praise. Why, why, why? Why, why me? They speak against the vain divine. I've found God's word, the meter's fine. Touch me, O God, my heart discern. And in the ebb and sail I sway, To choose the everlasting way. And bless the Lord, ye saints below, who in his At home and free, give praise to him, to poor and poor. The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face to shine upon thee. The Lord be gracious unto thee and lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace. Amen.