Sunday March 3: 26 Adar

It was on this day in the year 1940 that the Nazis issued an order barring Jewish physicians from treating Ayrans and Aryan physicians from treating Jews, thus accentuating the separation between the two peoples. The Nazi provocation for this was their hatred of the Jews and the belief that the Jewish race was inferior to their own.

We see this kind of hate-inspired separation taking place in Egypt during the time just before the Exodus. When the Pharaoh “who knew not Joseph” came to power, he considered the Hebrews to be a threat to national security and, consequently, began to implement policies that were designed to isolate the Hebrews. Hatred for God’s people seems always to follow the same pattern – divide and conquer; separate and annihilate. In neither of these situations was the Creator taken by surprise, in fact, we can conclude that He allowed it to happen and, if so, what would be the purpose?

Since the beginning of time the Creator has called upon His people to be a holy or set apart people. When His people don’t respond to that call, He allows uncomfortable things to touch their lives. When His people are content and intent on mixing and mingling with the nations, as they did in Egypt, inevitably an oppressor will come to power who then forces God’s people to separate from the nations. However, he doesn’t separate the people in order that they may live, but to make it easier to kill them.

“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10)

In the words of the Messiah, Satan’s effort to destroy God’s people is a process. We make it easier for him to destroy us, to kill us, and to steal from us when we resist the call to be set apart for God’s purposes. The Creator has not changed. He still calls upon His people to “come out from among them” and to be a separate people (2 Corinthians 6:17-18), in order that we may live. Those of His people who are unwilling to comply with this challenge might find themselves being forced, once again, to be a separate people, but by the one who has evil intentions. To be clear, we’re not talking about the Creator; we’re talking about tyrants and oppressors.

Consider what’s going on in the world and in our own country. Systematically, we are being forced to comply with the mainstream or separate from the rest of the world by those in power, which is a potentially frightening replay of the past. Rather than being forced to separate from the nations according to their terms, it would be better if, of our own volition, we chose to become a set apart people because we choose to follow the Messiah and live. Remember the words of our Father, as He presented them to Israel, centuries ago:

“I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days” (Deuteronomy 30:19-20)

Choose life, to be set apart and be blessed.