And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. – 1 Johm 5:19

How shall I urge you to give more earnest heed to this holy separation? Let me add the voice of warning to that of entreaty. If we do not see to this matter, we shall bring sorrow on our own souls; we shall lose all hope of honoring Christ, and we shall sooner or later bring a great disaster on the world. You know the world is always trying to nationalize the Church. What a mercy it is that there are some who will not have it! If you could once make the Church and the nation one, what would follow? It must be destroyed; it must fall. It was when the church and the world became one in Noah’s day that the Lord sent the flood to destroy all people. No, the proper position of a Christian is not with the world, even in its best state and its most exalted condition. We are to be separated from this present evil world according to the will of God. Our position to-day is as much as in Christ’s day, outside the camp, not in it; we are still to be protesters, still to be testifiers against the world. “Ye are of God, little children, and the whole world lieth in the wicked one.” Scripture never supposes that the world will get better till the coming of Christ. It does not propose to lift the world up and marry it with the Church. It always supposes the Church to be as an alien and a stranger here until Christ, her husband shall come. On which side will you rank? Truce there cannot be, links between the two there must not be. God and mammon cannot go together. For which will you be-for God-for truth-for right? Or for Satan-for the wrong? Which shall it be? May the Spirit of God whisper in your heart and say, “Believe thou in Christ Jesus; take up thy cross and follow Him, and be enlisted on His side henceforth and forever.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon, sermon, The Clean and the Unclean