Articles
God's Blessing of Marriage
The Lord God formed woman of the very substance of the man. Her creation was a wonderful type of the creation of the Bride of Christ — a prophecy in symbol of the crucifixion, resurrection, and marriage of the Lamb. While Adam was in a "deep sleep" God removed a rib from his side, and from it fashioned a woman the bride of Adam. It was while Christ was in the "deep sleep" of death that his Bride had her beginning, born of the blood that flowed from his side.
Sanctification
"Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth" (John 17:17).
It is the truth that separates. Therefore all those who hold the truth in belief and action are separate from the world and the things of the world, and so can have no fellowship with the world. Those who would suggest that the brethren of Christ join in with the churches around us obviously do not understand God's word in its fulness and so do not have the truth. Christ states in his prayer in the previous verse "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world". This being the case how can we fellowship the world when it hateth Christ (John 7:7John 7:7 7 The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.)?
The Altar of Damascus
And Urijah the priest built an altar according to all that king Ahaz had sent from Damascus... 2 Kings 16:11
Following the death of King Jotham of Judah his son Ahaz succeeded to the throne. Jotham had been a good king, the son of a good king; the previous chapter tells us as much in 2 Kings 15:342 Kings 15:34 And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD: he did according to all that his father Uzziah had done. for he followed in the steps of his father Uzziah. Though essentially a good king he did not follow in the footsteps of David, for he permitted the people to continue in their evil ways; ways which they had copied from the nations around them, and which where the reason that Yahweh had evicted the original inhabitants from the land of Canaan for their wickedness — "Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the LORD thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness the LORD hath brought me in to possess this land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD doth drive them out from before thee" (Deuteronomy 9:4).
The Leprous House
The Kingdom of God was at its greatest during the reigns of David and Solomon, and the forty year reign of Solomon in peace from the surrounding nations pointed forward to the reign of the Greater than Solomon who will soon return to sit upon the throne of the restored and expanded Kingdom of his Father.
The Need to Withdraw from those who walk Disorderly
"Can two walk together, except they be agreed?" (Amos 3:3)
"Neither be partaker of other men's sins: keep thyself pure" (1 Timothy 5:22)
The doctrine of fellowship commences in the Old Testament with the separation of Cain, who slew his brother, from his parents and the rest of their progeny. Abraham was told to come out of Ur of the Chaldees, and he and his descendants were told to become "strangers and pilgrims on the earth" (Heb 11:13Heb 11:13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.). Not only is the doctrine of fellowship the sharing of something by a group of people, but it is a doctrine of exclusion of those who do not share that same something.
Read more: The Need to Withdraw from those who walk Disorderly