Apocalipse 18:4

And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come forth, my people, out of her, that ye have no fellowship with her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues:

Another voice from heaven ... See under the preceding verse for the reason behind this.

Come forth, my people, out of her ... Amazing! Does God have people in the harlot church? Yes, nor should this surprise us. There were also saints in Sardis (Revelation 3:14), and much people who belonged to God even in pagan Nineveh (Jonah 4:11). Even of wicked Corinth, God said to Paul in the night by a vision, "I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to harm thee: for I have much people in this city" (Acts 18:10). We shall leave it to others to edit these words out of the New Testament. The very fact of God's having people in the apostate church itself points to his having people, in one sense or another, in all the harlot daughters as well; and there is no way to harmonize this with any classification of people by denominations or groups as either saved or lost, on the basis of blanket judgments of the evil accepted by any group. Salvation is an individual matter; and Christ has specifically warned his people against "'judging." That was the great sin of the great harlot herself who arrogated to herself alone the right of deciding who is saved or lost, and then enforcing that decision even through the gates of the cemetery. "The Lord knoweth them that are his" (2 Timothy 2:19); and we consider it unchristian to meddle with this question in any manner. We have the commission to teach what the New Testament says, but not the right to bind our deductions from it upon others. That God's people in the apostate church are in mortal danger is clear enough, for they are ordered to "Come out!"

That ye have no fellowship with her sins ... "Through history, God is always calling his people to cut their connection with sin and to stand with him and for him."[26] "Persecuted and harried as they were, God's people must have been tempted to come to terms with the city; for she could make their lives rich and comfortable."[27] This call to "Come out" was the call of God to Abraham (Genesis 12:1), and to Lot (Genesis 19:12-14), to Moses (Numbers 16:23-26), to Israel (Isaiah 48:20), and to Christians (in this verse, and in 1 Corinthians 6:15,16). "This precept is obeyed by standing aloof from evil in the very heart of the world's traffic."[28]

That ye receive not of her plagues ... This is a warning that God's people, by their very association with apostasy, may also incur its penalties.

[26] William Barclay, The Revelation of John (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1976), p. 151.

[27] Leon Morris, op. cit., p. 215.

[28] Charles H. Roberson, op. cit., p. 138.