七月九日[mp3_embed playlst=”/downloading/audio/evening/07/0709.mp3″]
经文: 上帝就把光、暗分开了。（创世记一：4）
信徒的内心里面有两个原则在作工。按他的本性，他只服从一个原则──黑暗。现在光进来了，这两个原则发生了冲突。如同使徒保罗所描述的：“我觉得有个律，就是我愿意为善的时候，便有恶与我同在。因为按着我里面的意思，我是喜欢上帝的律。但我觉得肢体中另有个律，和我心中的律交战，把我掳去叫我附从那肢体中犯罪的律。”（罗七：21～23）这种状态是如何发生的呢？“上帝把光、暗分开了。”只有黑暗就只有静止，没有其它东西搅扰。当主羞遣光进入时就发生了冲突，因为两者互相敌对。冲突永不停止，直至信徒在主里变成完全光明。若在基督徒内心有一分离，必然在外面也有一分离。一旦主将光赐给人，他就开始使自己与围绕他的黑暗分离。他要从世界宗教的外在仪式中脱离出来，现在，缺少基督福音的事物不能再满足他。他从世界的社会和轻浮的娱乐中退出，转而寻求与圣徒作同伴。上帝所分开的，我们切勿全面使之联合。基督出到营外，忍受凌辱；让我们也离开不敬虔，成为特殊的子民，祂是圣洁的、不伤害人的、无污秽的，且与罪人有别的。我们要学像我们的主，与其他世人有所区别。
Evening, July 9
Scripture: “And God divided the light from the darkness.”(Genesis 1:4)
A believer has two principles at work within him. In his natural estate he was subject to one principle only, which was darkness; now light has entered, and the two principles disagree. Mark the apostle Paul’s words in the seventh chapter of Romans: “I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members.” How is this state of things occasioned? “The Lord divided the light from the darkness.” Darkness, by itself, is quiet and undisturbed, but when the Lord sends in light, there is a conflict, for the one is in opposition to the other: a conflict which will never cease till the believer is altogether light in the Lord. If there be a division within the individual Christian, there is certain to be a division without. So soon as the Lord gives to any man light, he proceeds to separate himself from the darkness around; he secedes from a merely worldly religion of outward ceremonial, for nothing short of the gospel of Christ will now satisfy him, and he withdraws himself from worldly society and frivolous amusements, and seeks the company of the saints, for “We know we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.” The light gathers to itself, and the darkness to itself. What God has divided, let us never try to unite, but as Christ went without the camp, bearing his reproach, so let us come out from the ungodly, and be a peculiar people. He was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners; and, as he was, so we are to be nonconformists to the world, dissenting from all sin, and distinguished from the rest of mankind by our likeness to our Master.