When one reads the Old testament, they believe they find so many differences from the Old to the New testament, but this is not the case. A perfect example is the Biblical sense of seperating good from evil. This concept is first seen in the opening of Genesis when God seperated light from darkness, for God not only seperated the physical light from darkness in order to give us day and night, but wanted us to see the importance of seperating spiritual darkness from light. There is a corelation between light and darkness, and that is that it is the duty of the light to cast out darkness, and to prevent darkness from taking a hold in the light, for if the light inside you is darkness, how great is that darkness (Mat6:23). In the Old testament the people of God were told to cut off those who committed evil, whether that evil be sinful Israelites, or to kill all the inhabitants who worshipped other gods, and would cause the jews to worship the same. God did not want the Israelites to kill the inhabitants out of a love of killing, but to seperate the darkness of paganism, from the light of his followers. The same is why Jesus tells us that if our eye or hand causes us to sin that we should cut it off, becuase God wants His people to seperate themselves from darkness, for this is our calling, to cast out darkness. Jesus tells us it is better to suffer in this life, and to enter into heaven than to live fully in sin in this life and be cast into the fire, and it is for this reason that God calls us to seperate ourselves from darkness. There is a point here I want to make clear, serperating light from darkness is not the same as when Christians lock themselves in a church, or when they deny conversations with unbelievers and sinners. Instead it is more like when Jesus talks about not casting pearls before swine, Jesus met and dined and befreinded many sinners, who would come to repent and turn to God. Instead we must know the difference between those who can receive the word of God, and those who will not receive it, but will stay blind. And while we aught to make an effort to bring everyone into the knowledge of God, and pray for those who will not receive, we must learn when to seperate ourselves from that which is dark and will only serve to bring us further from God. For this is how we seperate ourselves from darkness, not by staying away from those who need to be saved, but by realizing when we are tossing pearls to swine, or are tempting ourselves, and it is in these situations we must create a seperation.

Amen.