And Pharaoh said, I will let you go, that ye may sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness; only ye shall not go very far away…
Exodus 8:28
After a few plagues, Pharaoh decided to allow the Israelites to go worship and sacrifice to the Lord, but he doesn’t want to “go very far away”. In the Bible, Egypt is always a picture of the world set in contrast to God’s people, who are in the world, but not of the world. This ploy by Pharaoh is a classic ploy of the Godless world. The world doesn’t mind if you are “religious”. They don’t mind if you “sacrifice to the Lord”- as long as you don’t get too far away. Don’t go to the “Promised Land”. Go ahead and do your religious “duty”, just don’t get too far away from the world.
As a teacher, it saddens me that so many kids (and adults) today want to “be Christians”, but want to live as close to world as possible. That is definitely not how it should be. “…Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?”. (James 4:4) It grieves me to think of the times in my life when I tried to live as close to the world as possible. May God help us, as Moses did, to reject this offer of compromise and draw as close to the Lord and His perfect will as we can. May God help us to “come out from among them, and be ye separate”!
Justified Freely 