Never allow yourself to approve of another’s sins. You can not keep clean and do it. Again, we may be partakers of other men’s sins by partaking of the results of them. If a man cheats another in business, and then I share in his ill-gotten gain, I am partaking of his sin. It may be that I would not steal my neighbor’s melons; but if another steals them, and I, knowing his theft, eat of them with him, do I not partake of his sins? And so it is with all the affairs of life. We must keep ourselves separate from sin. We can not help being in Ephesus. We must live in this corrupt and sinful world. So the important thing is that we attend to keeping ourselves in Christ—unspotted from the world. If the Ephesians could do this, so can we. But to do it, we must walk uprightly. We must not stoop down into the mire of sin, but keep ourselves erect, and keep our spiritual nostrils above the poisonous gases of sin. Lot was a man of God. He dwelt in Sodom, and we are told that his righteous soul was vexed from day to day because of the wicked conduct of the Sodomites. But he kept himself clear; he had no part with them; he hated their sins. When we reach a place where we do not hate sin, where we can see it and hear and know of it and find no vexation in our souls, it causes us no uneasiness, we have no particular repugnance for it, it is time that we were becoming awakened. We are commanded to abhor that which is evil, and it is only by so doing and by keeping ourselves clean from it that we can be safe in Christ Jesus and dwell in this wicked world. There was a bit of heaven in every Christian heart in Ephesus. That bit of heaven was just as pure as the celestial realms above. We too have that heavenly element in our hearts; and in that transplanted bit of God’s holiness will flourish all the plants of righteousness that bloom in the courts eternal. But we must guard these plants by keeping the gates of our hearts closed night and day against evil. Only thus can we keep pure and acceptable to God. This we can do and be holy and faithful in the worst “Ephesus” that exists today, if it be our lot to abide there. TALK THIRTY-FIVE. THE PRACTICAL SIDE OF RELIGION