The next department of religion we wish to notice in connection with wrong mixtures is that of service. The ox and the ass were not to be yoked together. This signifies service. Service constitutes a large portion of our religion. Without proper service to God we could not hope to continue in the grace of God. Certainly it stands one in hand to know what kind of service he should engage in. The world and the religion of Jesus Christ were never calculated to mix. It is the unholy mixtures all down the ages that have brought the stigma upon the Church of God. It always causes trouble. "And the mixed multitude that was among them fell a lusting: and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat?" The children of Israel fell into line with the murmurings of the mixture they had on hand. God's plan has always been for His people to be separated people. That is the reason He took them out of Egypt. He warned them before they ever got to Canaan, that they must remain separated from the inhabitants of the land. They were not to intermarry; they were not to mix. When Balaam utterly failed to curse the children of Israel for Balak's sake, because the Lord would not let him, yet on his departure he told Balak how he could succeed anyway. He told him to mix up with the children of Israel in an unholy and abominable alliance. He did so and brought the curse and plague of God upon Israel, and thousands were slain thereby. When Nehemiah was sent to rebuild Jerusalem, he found a terrible state of affairs had arisen by the intermarriage of the Jews with the women of Ashdod, Ammon and Moab. There were a lot of little half-breeds running around that could not talk the Jews' language. So Nehemiah had a great cleaning up time on his hands. God has called His Church to stand out clean and spotless from the world. What a power she would have been had she always taken the separated, clean way! But how sad to see those who profess to be followers of the meek and lowly Nazarene, courting the world and mixing with them in their pleasures, pride, popularity, and polluted politics!