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Alas, how many who have named the name of Christ have never gone very far away from the "former things." In the world they are not known as Christians, and are only known as Christians in the church by the fact that their names are on the church roll or parish register as having been baptized and confirmed. It must be apparent to any thoughtful person that any half-and-half position with reference to Christ and His salvation is not only an inconsistent, but a very unhappy, one.

I. "NOT VERY FAR AWAY" IS INCONSISTENT WITH THE FIRST LAW OF CHRISTIAN LIFE, which demands that we shall break with this world. "For our citizenship is in heaven" (Philippians 3:20). "The whole world lieth in the evil one" (1 John 5:19); and to abide in the world is to take up quarters on Satan's ground. Besides, the very object that Moses had in going down to Egypt was to bring the people up out of that land into a good land and large. How could they ever reach Canaan if they consented not to go "very far away"? And how shall we be separated from this present evil world if we, as confessors of Christ, insist on lingering about the borders of the old life?

II. "NOT VERY FAR AWAY" IS ENTIRELY INCOMPATIBLE WITH A HAPPY CHRISTIAN LIFE. In the times of the old border wars between the Scots and the English, the people living in the border counties had a most wretched time of it. First the Scots would come pouring down into the northern counties of England, and devastate and destroy there; and then the English would invade the southern counties of Scotland, and desolation and death would be their portion. So it is with the border-Christians. The Word of God catches them in the world, and pricks and cuts without healing; and if they are only a little way in the kingdom they are thoroughly exposed to the temptations and buffetings of Satan. With the back to the world and face to Christ, ever marching forward, is the only way of peace and happiness.

III. "NOT VERY FAR AWAY" IS A DANGEROUS PLACE TO BE IN. I once heard of a little girl who fell out of bed during the night. The mother heard the child's fall and cry, and ran to her little one. After she had picked her up and somewhat pacified her, she asked the little girl, "How did you come to fall out, my dear?" The child replied, "Oh, I suppose I went to sleep too near to the edge of the bed where I fell out," and then, quickly correcting her statement, said, "No, I mean I went to sleep too near to the place where I got in." That was the real truth of it. There are a great many persons who profess conversion; but they do not get very far into the kingdom; and then they go to sleep, and when they fall out the real reason is that they did not get far enough in. "Not far away" is a most dangerous compromise to consent to.

IV. "NOT VERY FAR AWAY" IS A POSITION FROM WHICH GOD CAN CHOOSE NO WORKERS. I am very free to say that God can make little or no use of a worldly half-and-half Christian. In the first place, the world has no confidence in a Christian who is hand-and-glove with it, while at the same time professing to have found something infinitely better, and to have been saved from the world. In the second place, a half-and-half Christian cannot do with "all his might" what God would give him to do. Consecration and service go necessarily together; and no consecrated life can be maintained on the edge of the world or on the edge of the Church.

(G. F. Pentecost, D. D.)

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KJV: And Pharaoh called for Moses and for Aaron, and said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land.

WEB: Pharaoh called for Moses and for Aaron, and said, "Go, sacrifice to your God in the land!"