Depart, depart, go out from there!
Touch no unclean thing!
Come out from it and be pure,
you who carry the vessels of the LORDBut you will not leave in haste
or go in flight;
for the LORD will go before you,
the God of Israel will be your rear guard.
I’ve been reading this scripture from Isaiah 52 over and over again, and the Lord is beginning to reveal a promise to me from the midst of it. The words are a clarion call to righteousness, “Come out from it (the world) and be pure!”
The promise is even better: As you go out from among the world, you’ll do so under the protection and guidance of the Lord. “For the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.”
I’m reminded of the scripture in Daniel 10 where the Angel of the Lord says, “Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them.”
Then, I think about the lengths to which Daniel was willing to go in order to gain understanding:
So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes…while I was still speaking in prayer….Gabriel…..said, “Oh Daniel, I have now come forth to give you the skill to understand….consider the matter, understand the vision.” (Daniel 9:3, 21-23)
To be sure, living in prayer and fasting with sackcloth and ashes (mourning) was not popular in Daniels day, and it’s not popular in our day. Contending for the type of prophetic surety and power that comes from a deep, full relationship with the Lord will probably not win us stadiums full of adoring fans.
Consider the cost that David paid. The King lived a life of radical obedience and zeal for the Kingdom, subsequently penning these words:
“Because for Your sake I have borne reproach … I have become a stranger to my brothers … Because zeal for Your house has eaten me up, and the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me. When I wept and chastened my soul with fasting, that became my reproach. … I became a byword to them. Those who sit in the gate speak against me, and I am the song of the drunkards” (Psalm 69:7-12)
Radical purity makes people feel convicted. Most people don’t mind hearing sermons on the topic of consecration and purity, but to watch people actually live it in a way that effects their time and money is, for people who have not yet decided to be fully devoted, a hard pill to swallow. Still, the Word is clear that we will see a generation of believers rise up who will champion purity.
And, when they come, you will see the unbridled power of the bride of Christ. Something about radical purity makes God come running. Go back and read the initial scripture from Isaiah 52 above and you’ll see what I’m talking about.
I’m going to avoid all of the preachy stuff that normally accompanies a message of this sort. I’ll skip all of the easy lines that everybody has heard a thousand times about “being in the world but not of it,” although that message has relevance. Instead, I’ll just say that all over the world right now there are people who are quietly paying the price for deeper intimacy with Jesus. They pray. They fast. They silently place a down payment on the resurrection power that will usher in the coming of the Lord. Join them.
