Depart from Evil

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 15, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 46.

"Depart from Evil."—"Evil company doth corrupt good manners," reads the revision of 1 Cor. 15:33. How true this was in the case of Lot! Abraham gave Lot his choice; Lot chose Sodom because it was well-watered and fertile, notwithstanding its wickedness. The good example of Abraham, his uncle, was no longer with him. He became affected by Sodom's wickedness. When he was forced to flee from the doomed city, his married daughters chose the sin of the city. His two virgin daughters had become so blinded by sin that they afterward justified incest in themselves as expedient. And Lot's wife, while she departed from the city bodily, left her heart with it and perished. Lot's fertile land of promise became a salt sea. What is the lesson?—Shun evil company, worldly company. But do such not need to be saved?—Surely. If God send you as He did the angels, go. Go to tell them of God, to warn them of the doom of sin, to live among them the Christ life; but that very moment when you find your conscience becoming benumbed, your heart going out after the world, your spiritual vision dimming, your appetite for the things of God dainty, then flee from every unholy association. Nay, more, wherever you are, even among the wicked, associate only with God and good. Make yourself one only with such. Your only business with the sinful is to win them from evil associations to association with God. "Awake to righteousness, and sin not." 1 Cor. 15:34.