By Rev. J. C. PHILFOT, M.A.
TO come out of the world, to forsake it utterly, and never more to walk in its alluring paths, this is the revealed will of God, as He says, “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord,
and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” (2 Cor. vi, 17-18.) To forsake the world, all its vanities, pleasures, and charms, and, like Ruth of old, to cleave to the people of God, saying, “Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God,” thus to feel, and thus to act, is to do the revealed will of God, under the Spirit’s secret influence in the soul.
To come out and be separate from professing churches, which have a name to live while dead, is to do “the will of God”; for we read, “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such turn away” (2 Tim. iii, 5). Therefore to come boldly out of all letter churches, be they ever so high or so low, if the Holy Ghost is not in their midst, if the power of godliness is denied, or the things of God are not vitally felt by them; to come out and turn away from them is to do the will of God.
To forsake the ministry of letter preachers with orthodox doctrines in their heads, and enmity against the power of vital godliness and the living experience of God’s children in their hearts, to flee from such a ministry is to do the will of God; for the Lord commends the Church in Ephesus for “trying those who said they were apostles, and were not, and found them liars” (Rev. ii, 2). And if any of you who fear God are sitting under letter ministers, sound in the head, but devoid of experience in the heart, you are to do what God praises the Ephesian Church for doing — to try them by the Word of God and your own experience, and if you find them liars, lying against the truth of God in any of its blessed branches, you are to come out from among them, and forsake the tents of these wicked men. This is to do the will of God—to turn your back on the false apostles, and cast your lot among his poor, despised, and persecuted family.