At the conference, the leaders had organized separate sessions for the men and for the women. The men went into a large meeting room, and the women stayed in the auditorium. They do that occasionally – separate the men from the women.
On the first Day of Creation, God separated two things from each other. He separated the light from the darkness.
In Genesis 1:3-4 we read, “Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. …and God separated the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night.” Now, as you can see, the light did not get rid of the darkness altogether, nor did it mix with the darkness. Light and darkness were two distinct entities, and God simply separated them from each other.
The word “separate” is a word that means “to divide or distinguish.” It has the idea of assigning each part to its respective sphere and slot so that they occupy distinct spaces.
Now, this was a benign separation. It’s not that the darkness was evil and was therefore separated from the light, which was good. God simply called the light “day,” and the darkness He called “night.” He established the cyclical pattern of day and night that would govern the affairs of the earth. Notice that right from the beginning God carefully defined what a “day” is. Some have said that a day could be a whole geological period of millions of years (that is called “the day-age theory”). But God said that one cycle of light and dark was a day. He said that when he separated the light from the darkness.
Now you know the real meaning of the word.
Say — God likes to keep things separate. He wants us to separate ourselves from sinful behavior.