Separation from the World and the Ten Commandments

By Amy Pavlovik

            How can I be separate from the world’s ways? The question is an important one. This month we will look at the basic principle underlying all true separation from the world: obedience. True obedience means obedience to all of God’s requirements. It is not selective, submitting to only those commands which go along with our natural feelings or which still allow us to fit in with the crowd. True obedience is surrender of our feelings and desires and accepting God’s desires for us.

            God has given us a standard of obedi-ence: “Fear God, and keep His command-ments: for this is the whole duty of man.” Ecclesiastes 12:13. The Ten Commandments given by God from Mt. Sinai are a description of the obedience God requires. By obedience to them, we set ourselves on a different path than that which the world is traveling.

            Then why do so many professed Christian teachers today tell us that the Ten Commandments are not applicable to our day, that we do not need to obey them? We should not be surprised that this is happening. It is plain that Satan would do all in his power to obscure the dividing line of obedience between Christians and the world. And in erasing the importance of God’s Law in the minds of Christians, he is effectively leading them to conform to the principles of the surrounding heathen world. The history of Israel and Judah shows that when God’s Law was lightly esteemed, conformity to the world resulted which led to calamity. 

            Can we then be truly separate from the world without reverencing God’s Law? The Bible reveals the fact that God will have a peculiar people at the end of time. It describes them as keeping His Commandments. “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.” Revelation 14:12; 22:14.  

Thus true separation from the world is founded upon obedience to God’s Commandments. In the last days there will be only two classes—those who obey God, and those who do not. Those who obey His requirements—all of them—will be able to enter the Holy City and partake of the tree of life.