Immediately before the last miracle prior to the departure of the children of Israel from Egypt, God gave special directions concerning the judgment about to fall upon that country. In Exodus 11:5, God said that ” … all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die … ” He spoke of the great lament that would be heard all over the land among the Egyptians because of this awful judgment.
“But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue, against man or beast: that ye may know how that the LORD doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel” (Exodus 11 :7). It must be noticed and emphasized that this “difference” between the people of the world and the people of God is a difference God Himself puts there. It is a separation given and enforced by divine decree. It marks the distinction between those who are God’s and those who are not. This instruction from God is worth saying again – the difference itself is the work of God. It was not the work of man, but of God. This difference was made effective by blood. Those homes upon which the blood of the lamb was put escaped the death executed upon those without blood. When the Lord saw the blood, He passed over that house, and no one died (Exodus 12: 13). He looked for the “token”-the blood – the sign – of the separation; and when He saw it, He passed over it, and the household remained safe. The “token” – the blood testified that that house where it was put was a house separated unto God, under His special protection, and different from other houses.
The eternal principle-the separation of God’s people from the world-this “difference” is taught everywhere in the Word of God. This separation is obedience to God, that is, God Himself puts an actual difference that the world sees visibly because of the presence of the blood that is applied. There is no partial obedience in this matter permitted by God. The blood of the Passover Lamb had to be applied in three places: above the door and on the posts at either side of the door.
A compromise plan, such as putting the blood on only two sides, or above the door only, would have been completely invalid. Obedience to God’s specific command made the separation effective; and safety, protection, blessing, and His presence among His people was thus perfectly assured.
But to obtain these blessings a difference had to be established and maintained between the people of God and those who were of the world. It was the blood that made the difference, or separation, evident to the Lord as He passed throughout the land of Egypt that night. And until now, this spiritual law has not changed from what it was so many thousand years ago in Egypt. The redeemed of the Lord must maintain a separation, must give evidence to the world, that the blood has been applied, and that they are therefore set aside in a special way by that difference that God Himself has made.
This difference, as just mentioned, that God put in those ancient days of lsrael ‘s redemption, still abides. Our Lord Jesus restated it in His words given in John 15:18-19. Reading from verse 18, we are told, “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.” The difference God places between His people and those of the world will bring misunderstanding, conflict, opposition, and even hatred. Therefore attacks will be made against us because of this difference. The only way to get victory over all this is to remember that the difference is of God. He is the One who put the difference there. Let that difference, therefore, testify to the reality of our relation and union with Him, even our Lord Jesus. It is this difference that shows itself in separation-which is obedience to God. The sign of the separation is the blood of Christ. Only those who are born again, chosen of God, are, by God’s direct command, separated ones. The difference is between them and those who are not born again through the blood of Christ.
It is our purpose to emphasize the importance of this kind of separation. We are not interested in a separation that man makes, that is, that which is based upon men’s opinion while ignoring God’s own true separation. Separation based upon the idea that one man is a better person than another, or that his ability is of a finer grade than his neighbor’s, or that he is in a different and better class in society than others, and other such ideas, all of them issuing from the pride of man, are types of separation in which we have no interest and no part.
We stand for a separation marked by godliness of life, based upon the fact that God has made His children for the purpose of fellowship with Him, the holy God; and so He Himself makes a difference that we must acknowledge and respect, and show to the world as something actually true in ourselves. We believe that we should” … have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” reproved back to the Word of God, the standards of which are perfect and whose directions for His children are wholesome and pure, producing fruits of righteousness. The Word of God, its pure doctrines, its divine origin, its message, must be proclaimed and defended against teachers of error and false prophets. (Ephesians 5: 11 ). “Reprove” is not criticism from man’s standards of principles, but rather to direct those reproved back to the Word of God, the standards of which are perfect and whose directions for His children are wholesome and pure, producing fruits of righteousness. The Word of God, its pure doctrines, its divine origin, its message, must be proclaimed and defended against teachers of error and false prophets.
We pray that the difference God has put between you and the world will ever be seen by man to be of God- a difference of life and death procured by the blood of the Lamb of God.