NO FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD SANS FELLOWSHIP WITH HIS HUMBLEST FOLLOWERS

"Apart from fellowship with God, man is valueless; there is no purpose in his existence, he would better not have been born."

"Whom Christ receives, receive ye." Paul. As far as we are from fellowship with the humblest believer in Christ, marks not our distance of fellowship from him but it is the exact distance we are from being in fellowship with the God with whom he is in fellowship. There is no such thing as fellowship with God while we refuse to be in fellowship with the lowliest with whom He is in fellowship.

As Frank H. Decker wrote:

"Dives is separated from Abraham who represents God in the parable. Dives is as far from fellowship from God as he is from fellowship with the poor beggar with whom God is in fellowship. The distance between Dives and Lazarus, who is in the bosom of Abraham, is the exact distance which Dives is from God and not from Lazarus; for the degree to which the selfish spirit separates us from fellowship from the most unselfish men is the degree in which that spirit separates us from the fellowship of God. We cannot be in fellowship with God while we have a spirit that separates us from fellowship with His most obscure and humble children. The parable of the Prodigal son illustrates the difficulty that God experiences in entering into fellowship with all of His children. What draws one class of men to Him is the very thing that repels another class from Him. The Father's treatment of the prodigal, which drew him away from a life of sin into a life of filial fellowship, embittered! the elder son's heart against both His Father and his brother, so that when one son came to the feast of fellowship which the Father had prepared for both his sons, the other withdrew from it.. The elder brother wanted fellowship with his Father but not with his brother. He was angry when told that he could not have fellowship with his Father except in company with his brother. He was deaf to the entreaties of his father to unite in fellowship with him because of the presence of his brother! The Father craved a fellowship which should unite him with both of his sons, (and with His elect in and out of all churches) but alas, the one did not desire fellowship with the other, though each wished union with the Father. How sad this experience of the Father who could not enjoy fellowship with His sons because of their refusal to fellowship each other! That is the experience that God has today, as He seeks union with all classes of men, while they hold themselves apart from each other. Great bodies of so-called Christians seek for themselves an exclusive communion with God. Little do they dream that their refusal to include in their fellowship with God the company of others who enjoy that fellowship, though not of their fold, excludes themselves from the fellowship of God! He who seeks fellowship with God but is not willing to share it with men like the prodigal will seek it in vain! He who knocks at the door of the kingdom of God with this selfish spirit will find himself knocking at a door that will not open. Any man (or church) who seeks fellowship with God solely on his own behalf, without any disposition to crave it for others, will seek it in vain."

Selfish, sectarian, unchristian, revivals, erect an insurmountable barrier, against Christian fellowship! The report goes forth of a great revival with scores and hundreds, professing. Wonderful! But we must insist that the test of its genuineness is the after fruit in likeness to the Spirit of Jesus! Nor is it long until the opportunity to reveal its depth is given -- others come to town preaching the same truths which brought the great revival. And, amazement, there is a refusal of fellowship and cooperation by the wonderful converts? Why? Oh, it is outside our church and we have little interest outside our charmed circle; we are taught to cling to our own vine or bush. Exactly! and in proportion as we do we are unlike Jesus, who, by example, withered this same selfish spirit in the Jews who refused to have any dealings with the Samaritans. He talked to a fallen Samaritan woman at the well. He further exposed the inharmoniousness of this spirit with His own spirit by saying there were other sheep not of their fold which were so dear to Him He must bring them also and that so far as the Jews having a selfish monopoly on God's grace, others would come from the North and South and East and West, and enjoy the fellowship of the kingdom of God!

In proportion to our exclusive spirit are we destitute of the Spirit of Christ[ A man meets another man. Both claim to be Christians. The familiar question is asked: "Where do you belong?" that is, "to what church do. you belong?" The answer is a disappointment to the questioner; he does not belong to his church. The questioner grunts a disgruntled grunt. Presently another party accosts the two. The questioner immediately asks him the partisan question, "Where do you belong?" and Oh, Joy, the glad answer is given, he belongs to the same sect as the questioner, who shows his unfeigned happiness by saying: "It certainly does seem good again to meet some one who belongs to your own church." Here is manifestly an impossibility to heartily fellowship the other good brother because he did not belong to the same sect. How much simpler is the Bible condition of fellowship: "If we walk in the light as He is in the light we have fellowship (without effort; effort to have fellowship reveals its absence in one or the other) one with another;" and, "One is your Master even Christ and all ye are brethren" who are in Him.

How startling! that our selfish refusal of fellowship to the man who loves God whether in our church or in another or in none is the loss of the fellowship of God! The healed blind man whom the Jews refused to fellowship whom they excommunicated, casting him out of their synagogue, is soon sought by the Lord Jesus and welcomed to His fellowship though without the religious system. Oh, for the broadening vision of Jesus to include in our fellowship all whom He fellowships! When they cast out the poor blind man another man was cast out with him, the Man Christ Jesus! When we despise the least who believe on Him we despise Him; when we refuse to love and fellowship the most unprepossessing follower of Jesus we grieve Him and exclude Him from our fellowship. The Jews claimed to be in fellowship with God and they claimed Abraham for their ancestor but Jesus whom God sent and whose day Abraham rejoiced to see, who was before Abraham, they refused to fellowship and thus mutually excluded themselves from the fellowship of God and Abraham; if God were their Father, as they claimed, they would love Him whom God sent and if Abraham were their ancestor they would reverence Him whom Abraham reverenced: For, "Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: (but) he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also." First John, 2:23. If a man say I have fellowship with God and at the same time refuse to fellowship his brother with whom God fellowships he is a liar, for he that fellowships not him whom God fellowships is himself excluded from the fellowship of God; he who fellowships God fellowships also his brother whom God fellowships; this is no violation, to substitute fellowship for love; for when in love with God we are in fellowship with Him and when in love with our brother we are in fellowship with him; when out of the love of God we are out of the love of our brother and consequently out of fellowship with both. Absence of fellowship with a brother who is in fellowship with God is thus the absence of love for our brother and this involves the presence of hate and can not fellowship the object of its hate and hate is murder so that the final outcome of the refusal of fellowship to those in fellowship with God is identical with hate which is the same as a murderous spirit! Think of it! A murderous spirit has taken possession of the man who refuses to fellowship the man who is in fellowship with God!

If we are in fellowship with God we are in effortless fellowship with all those who enjoy fellowship with God. If we refuse to fellowship the one whom God fellowships we lose the fellowship of God or have it not; our distance from fellowship with the man with whom God is in fellowship, let us again say, is not our distance from the man himself, but it properly is our distance from the God with whom he is in fellowship. In other words we are as far from fellowship with God as we are from fellowship with the humblest one who enjoys God's fellowship. The rich man would seek to enjoy his fellows:hip with God while his heart is dead to fellowship with his poor brother. "The Pharisee seeks communion with God while he refuses to speak to a brother. What the elder brother wanted was something from which the younger brother was excluded. What many of our churches want today is a life in God from which others in other churches are excluded and from which unfortunate individuals are excluded. Bring such a man as this younger brother fresh from a life of shame, into many of our churches and many of the men and women of culture would be angry at his presence."

"Selfishness in man contradicts the very nature of God and makes fellowship with Him impossible. All of a man's belief in religious dogma and practice of religious forms will not give him the least crumb of fellowship with God, so long as he remains in bondage to the selfish spirit. He who would permit another man to lie in his friendlessness and sickness and poverty unministered to, at his gate, could not possibly have any fellowship with God by means of any thing he might do in mere observance of forms or rights of religion. Jesus solemnly warns us that the love which prepares a soul for fellowship with God is a love that goes far beyond one's near relatives or (church or sect); that it is a love that includes the least of God's children, that does not pass by the man that is "down and out" (or up and out?), at the gate or in the gilded hall. No man can have Christ's fellowship with God except as he have Christ's love for men."

Fellowship with God is inconsistent with partisan limitations. It is not as one said "two or more fellows in the same ship" which would imply that they must be in the same denominational ship to have the fellowship. Rather it is a fellow-feeling one has for all who enjoy fellowship with God! Righteousness rather than location in its basic condition. The woman at the well said to Jesus, Mount Gerizim is the place to worship God. Jesus replied it was not a place where men worshipped God as they thought but in what spirit they worshipped God! Peter perceived, after the illuminating vision that in every nation;he who feared God and worked righteousness was acceptable to him. If this is so on the ground of being in the nations it must be so in the denominations too as they are in the nations. Away with our unfair tests of Christianity by the way men stand to us or to our denominations: rather let us place the emphasis on their attitude to God and righteousness.

"I fear that most of those who profess the name of Christ are still so ignorant of His real Spirit that they will not enter into loving fellowship with those who most need the encouragement of their friendship. Their attitude toward their repentant brothers is proof that they do not share for them the love of the Heavenly Father. That man who will not gladly fellowship one who has lived a life of shame, now that he or she has repented of it cannot possibly have fellowship with God, for one can have fellowship with God only as one fellowships the poorest man or woman whom God fellowships. The church, when it excludes those who are poor in money or education or character, while it gladly welcomes those whose chief attraction is their money or social standing, excludes Another also and all of His friends. He is the Heavenly Father and they are all of those who are in union with Him. When you exclude the humblest of God's repentant children from your loving fellowship, you exclude Him. Fellowship with God apart from fellowship with those whom He loves you can never have. This is a tremendous truth, is it not? How it explains the absence of the Spirit of the eternal God from many of our churches! No man can share Christ's fellowship with God who does not share Christ's love for man." "Christ's Experience of God."

A very pathetic incident came under our observation recently: a meek brother, despised by those who should have welcomed him to their fellowship, because they claimed to be in fellowship with Jesus, rebuffed and set at naught and persecuted so that he feared to be seen in the assembly lest they should violently eject him (cases like this have been known in camp meetings where perfect love was preached) from the church. So he meekly came to the services because he detected a note of sympathy to all of the Lord's sheep in the messages; but for fear of detection and ejection he would sit in the rear of the building behind an iron post and quickly and quietly slip out at the Conclusion of the service; he finally came to us and explained his not taking part in the testimony service: "I am getting so much help out of the services and the Word is such rich food to my soul that I am keeping perfectly still lest they (my enemies) deprive me of hearing the Word." Thus ignorant enthusiasts for the "Higher Life" would seek to bind the Word of God. But thank God, it is not bound!

When there is burning indignation at the presence in the choir of a redeemed fallen one, there is a legitimate question of the depth of our sanctity. Whomever Christ receives to His loving fellowship we gladly receive to ours.

The call to the fellowship of God's Son, as Paul wrote, includes the call to the hearty fellowship of all enjoying that fellowship: the exclusion from our fellowship of any who enjoy His fellowship automatically shuts us off from the exalted fellowship.

Our opposition to the man of God registers our opposition to God in Him; the Jews who stoned Stephen were really trying to kill God who spoke through and shone out through Stephen's life; apart from God in Stephen there would have been no enmity. Alignment with God brings the fire of enmity from those who spurn Him; those who reproach God by a law of necessity must reproach those who are God's. Our distance from those who hold intimate converse with God fixes our distance from God. If we are in true fellowship with God we are by a law of necessity inducted into fellowship with all those whom God fellowships. While in fellowship with God it is not possible to despise one of the little ones who believe on Him. The impossibility of those out of fellowship with God having fellowship with the man who enjoys His fellowship is not because of any disagreement in doctrine or views but because of a difference in nature -- the lack of that new nature which just fellowships God with our effort and all in His fellowship. Fellowship with God to the one without it, and with those in His fellowship, is impossible till the hindrance is removed. It is not, as often expressed, I can not have fellowship with so and so but I can not have fellowship with their God. There is an inevitable inability to fellowship the man in touch with God when we are out of touch with God and the hindrance to the fellowship, the separation is not in him but in us. In nature there are certain elements, like oil and water, which can not be induced to mingle and in music there are inharmonious discordant notes and in grace we must be in tune with the Infinite to be in accord with those in symphony with Him. Paul asks the unanswerable questions:

"I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. Ye can not drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils (at the same time): ye cannot partake of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils."

"For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?"

Ananias was prejudiced against Paul and refused to extend to him the right hand of fellowship until God took him for a walk down a street called Straight; he then eagerly extended his hand to Paul and greeted him as "Brother Paul." Oh that all Christians would take this kink-straightening walk with God and then would they greet each other as brothers. It took even more then the original Pentecostal Baptism with the Holy Spirit purifying the heart and speaking in tongues, to show Peter that he was to fellowship everybody with whom God was in fellowship.

Let us dismiss the idea that we may be in God's favor while we look with contempt, derision or scorn on the most despised believer in Christ; he that loves God loves his brother also; he who loves God with all his heart has the necessary complement of loving his neighbor as himself; he who is in fellowship with God is in fellowship without effort with his brother who is also in fellowship with God; he whose conscience is void of offense toward God is likewise toward man; if we restrict our fellowship in its free outflow with God, God restricts His fellowship with us to the same degree we refuse it to those who enjoy it: refusing to fellowship the one in fellowship with God automatically cuts off our fellowship with God and brings a sense of uneasiness or consciousness of interruption to our fellowship. The Levite and Priest who refuse to fellowship in helpful ministrations the man waylaid on the road by thieves are themselves excluded from the fellowship of God who was looking for some one to show His Spirit to the unfortunate man; to refuse helpful service to the sick and needy and imprisoned is to refuse it to Jesus; to give the cup of cold water in His Name is to be sure of the reward of His loving fellowship; to refuse our fellowship to those who crave it is to cut off Another who hungers for it. Shortly after we were married and income was exceedingly small, wife and I fed a poor tramp who had had nothing to eat for three days. Believe me, if you will, but as we gave of our scanty food supply and he ate as one famished there stole into his countenance a wondrous illumination which more and more reminded us of Jesus -- we were feeding the poor hobo as unto Him and in His Name and we found we were feeding Jesus as He said: "Inasmuch is ye do it unto the least of these my brethren ye do it unto me." And when in sectarian narrowness we refuse fellowship to the least of these who believe on Him we refuse fellowship to Jesus. In that same community there came another unfortunate seeking fellowship and sympathy; he knocked at many of the doors of the homes of the professors of exalted piety and was harshly and rudely told to begone; He obeyed! Crushed and discouraged he walked a pace down the railroad track and ended the search for sympathy by hanging himself to a tree in sight of the homes of the professors of a Christless Christianity and a Pharisaical, unmerciful holiness.

A brother, during a camp meeting, courteously invited the writer and a co-worker to spend the night at his home. We accepted the kind invitation and prepared to go with him, when a member of the committee rushed up to us and forbid us to go because the man said he was of the devil. But we saw no reason to violate our promise to him so we went over the committee's protest. We were curious to gather the facts of his relation to Satan. They were these: One night after preaching he was innocently called on to pray and while praying the glory came down and the seeker was beautifully filled with the Spirit; we found on entering his home that the walls were decorated with inspiring Scriptural mottoes; we further found that he had sold his farm and gave the proceeds of the sale to the poor -- giving as many as 8000 free meals in a year; that he gave all of his time and income to the work of the Lord; before leaving in the morning this man whom prejudice said, was filled with the devil, observed that my friend's clothes were shabby and gave to him a beautiful broad-cloth ministerial suit which would now be worth $100.00 and which fit him to perfection. We were not a bit jealous but we would not have minded if he had had another one like it in our size! So we would not feel slighted he gave us a liberal sized check and planted the kiss of brotherly love upon our cheek. When my friend and I reached the street we turned and faced each other and said almost in unison, "If that man is of the devil, as his enemies say, the Old Boy has got converted, hasn't he?" Ah, the Christianity of Christ enables us to welcome to our loving fellowship all whom God welcomes to His loving fellowship! We are companions of all them who keep His precepts! We gladly become associates of those who for Christ's sake are made gazing stocks by a scoffing world! Thank God for the power to identify ourselves with the unpopular man! We dare not do otherwise; to despise him would be to despise Christ! It would be to surrender our manhood.

"A man will lose faith in the truth he has when he makes it the final truth for it is not that, and if he seeks to hold it as such, he must lose it. From him that hath some truth that which he hath shall be taken away if he will not surrender it to the larger truth when it comes. A man can keep a partial truth so long as it is all the truth he has seen; but when he closes his eyes to the larger truth when it appears, he will find that he can not hold the smaller truth in sincerity.

How few care enough for fellowship with God to maintain it at the loss of fellowship with unspiritual men!

Fellowship with God for Christ was costly exposing Him to suffering and death at the hands of men who despised that fellowship; the reproaches of them who reproached His Father fell on Him; our fellowship, too, with Him and His, will expose us to the antagonism of those who little esteem fellowship with Him. Our preference of His fellowship contrasts vividly their rejection of His fellowship and will become the ground of persecution.

We should not seek fellowship with God merely for its joys but for its righteousness.

Fellowship with Christ will often include fellowship with the unpopular man and cause.

To enter into Christ's fellowship with God we must have Christ's motive to do the will of the Father; not a mere purpose to do it but a preference to do it when its doing is costly.

Violation of the will of God interrupts our fellowship with Him; a moment's spiritual fellowship with God is impossible as long as we hold on to one darling sin.

Let us recapitulate the sin of unfellowship with those with whom God is in fellowship --

He who fellowships God fellowships also his brother who is in fellowship with God.

The Jews wanted fellowship with God but they did not want it on condition of fellowship with the despised Samaritans and they would not share it with the Gentile dog.

The scholars of the law want fellowship with God, but the Amharets, the poor ignorant, unlettered common people they hold in contempt; they regard them who know not the law as accursed. This is the imperialism of scholarship, which Jesus, to rebuke, chose His disciples largely from the "ungrammatikos," the unlettered, calling not many wise.

Again, the Jews claimed fellowship with Abraham as their Ancestor, and Moses for their leader and God for their Father; but Jesus the Son, the Divine Son, of their reputed Father and who was held in reverence by their leader -- "of whom Moses in the Law and the prophets did write" they held in contempt as an impostor, a babbler and a low fellow born of fornication. They wanted fellowship with God, Moses, Abraham and the prophets but Christ sent by One and the theme of the rest they would exclude utterly from their fellowship. But if they were in fellowship with Abraham in the remote sense of being his descendants He was the father of all who had faith in Christ, the father of the faithful; he saw the day of Christ and rejoiced to see His day; Abraham reverenced Christ and if they were in fellowship With Abraham they would reverence Him whom Abraham reverenced; if they were the disciples of Moses, Moses wrote of Jesus and they would revere Him of whom their leader Moses wrote; and if they were the children of the prophets they all wrote of Christ so that refusing fellowship with Christ they are excluded from fellowship with all the rest. If God were their Father they would love His Son; if they were the children of Abraham they would do the works of Abraham and obey the teachings of Moses about Christ. But what they really wanted was a fellowship with God and the prophets from which Jesus was excluded and thus denying the Son they lost the Father -- "Whosoever denieth the Son the same hath not the Father."

How much condemnation do we heap to ourselves by claiming to be children of the Fathers -- to be followers of Wesley. If we were really so, we would do the works of Wesley. One instance many of his reputed followers were filled with the spirit of war and are, and would be on occasion, again filled with that spirit which,, would inevitably lead to the killing of those who are in fellowship with God and whom we must fellowship and regard as God regards them if we are in His fellowship! John Wesley characterized war "the sum total of all villianies."

The elder brother wanted fellowship with His Father but was filled with fiery indignation at the thought that its condition was a willingness to share it with his prodigal brother now that he had turned from a life of sin. God had no fellowship for the elder brother which life was not willing to share with the younger brother now that he was repentant. That is a wonderful truth that God's fellowship is immediately the portion of the sinful when they return from sin. And he would beget in us an attitude toward the sinner like His own. If we refuse to fellowship men and women, however sinful they may have been when they turn from their sin, we are refused the fellowship of God who fellowships them.

I recall the case of a party who had lived a life of horrible sin and when awakened by the Spirit to the enormity of their sin was tempted to commit suicide by leaping into the river because said they, no one will ever have anything to do with me, I have been such an awful sinner. We replied that they should not leap into the river because of the discovery of the only thing in them to recommend them to the mercy of God, their ungodliness, for He justifies the ungodly, not the Godly, not the Righteous, but the unrighteous and that need not trouble you that you will be spurned by your fellows for all have sinned; there is no difference; and redeemed by the blood of Christ you will be dearer to me than the members of my own family who spurn that redemption which is in Him, the ties of grace being nearer than the ties of nature. They speedily entered into righteousness by faith and were soon in very active Christian work.

The society church wants a fellowship of respectability with God which is exclusive of the poor and the fallen even though they repent. But excluding them they exclude Him. Their indignation at the reception of the poor and lowly is indignation at their Redeemer. As there is no other way to serve Him here except by acts of kindness to our fellows in His Name there is likewise no other way to register our opposition to Him except unkindness to those whom He fellowships.

Ananias wants a fellowship with God from which the repentant transformed Paul is excluded, erroneously judging Paul to be what he had been before he had repented of his persecuting spirit.

Peter wants to be in the charmed circle of an exclusive fellowship with God from which Cornelius whom he despised and whom he regarded as an unclean Gentile, is excluded.

As usual the one who is refused the fellowship is right with God and the one refusing to give it is in the wrong. What a spectacle! Paul and Cornelius right with God and Ananias and Peter so holy and exclusive and bigoted and prejudiced that they will not fellowship those who are on intimate terms with the God, whom they blindly imagine they may be in good standing with while they maintain the attitude so grievous to God. The vision cures Peter and the walk with God down a street called Straight takes the narrowness out of Ananias. We wish those who magnify so much the completeness of sanctification and the evidence of speaking in tongues would see in the light of the narrowness of these prominent leaders both of whom had doubtless been to Pentecost and received all of its manifestations, that there is a necessity of further teaching subsequent to that time to develop the soul in the fine point of Christian courtesy and the impossibility of continuing in the fellowship of God while excluding from our fellowship men whom God fellowships. How foolish to spurn the man God welcomes! How ludicrous to stand aloof from the one God accepts! What a sight! the "great I am" associating in fellowship with people whose company we are ashamed to be seen in! Ashamed to treat with the brotherly spirit those whom He is not ashamed to call brethren! We were once assisting in a communion service in which the presence of God was vividly manifested. Noticing a brother and his Wife refusing the table of the Lord we personally invited them to join us. The wife was inclined to come forward but the husband was surly.

Pressed for his reason he said that we did not go far enough in the ordinance; we did not wash feet. "But is not God consciously in our midst?" "Yes, we feel that He is but we can not fellowship with you because you do not wash feet." We tried to point out how precarious was his position in refusing to join in a service God was so consciously blessing and sealing to all hearts. No matter, he must maintain his theory even if he loses the fellowship of God in doing so. What a sight! The creature refusing to participate in what, according to his own admission, the Creator sanctioned!

Dives wants fellowship with Abraham who represents God in the parable but he does not propose to fellowship the low beggar whom he despises at his gate and whose plea for alms he refuses; the Priest and Levite are fresh from the temple worship of God and think that they are thereby in good standing with God, but they have no thought of fellowship with the unfortunate man, robbed, beaten and left to die by the road who was also dear to God; and they care less for the good Samaritan who embraces the opportunity to demonstrate to the unfortunate, God's willingness to fellowship and minister to him. Oh, how sad to judge a man's relation to God by his zeal for formal temple worship! Or by his enthusiasm for the endless round of church activities which often are utterly foreign to the work of the Lord. A living faith in Christ demonstrated by loving helpful service to our fellows is far more acceptable to the Lord than the most elaborate ritual with no faith in His Son and no service to our fellows as its complement. All formal worship followed by no loving service to others in His Name, is a grief to God.

Simon wants a fellowship with Christ which excluded the poor, broken-hearted, penitent, weeping adulteress who at Jesus feet weeps out her sorrow for her sins, abandoning them there and immediately entering into His fellowship. Simon's refusal to share fellowship with the repentant adulteress automatically cuts him off from the possibility of fellowship with Christ who had entered into fellowship with her. What a startling truth is this! How by it God would search our hearts and humble us to confession.

The wife who refuses her fellowship to the husband who is in fellowship with God is herself excluded from the fellowship of God who commands her to reverence her husband, be kindly affectionate to him, render him due benevolence and be in subjection to him in the Lord and learn from him at home, keeping it, rather than the State, and her refusal to comply with these commandments of God is not refusal to the husband as she may suppose, but to the God who made him head over her in the Lord. A woman once said to the writer, "Oh, what terrible darkness I have gotten into because I have allowed the devil to instill hatred toward my husband."

Fellowship with God and all those who enjoy His fellowship is effortless -- effort to have fellowship with the man or woman in God's fellowship annuls it in either one or the other. John does not say that if we walk in the light we try to have fellowship but we have it and that is anything in one's possession -- we do not struggle to get what we have.

If we restrict our fellowship from any one with whom God is in fellowship God at the same time, restricts His fellowship's free expression from us An exclusive fellowship with God is impossible for it excludes Christ from our fellowship as He thinks of the other sheep not of our fold. My father-in-law and his daughter, my wife, once assayed to go to the communion table in an exclusive close communion church and were promptly rebuffed by the preacher in charge with whom father remonstrated: "My daughter and I are both members of the body of Christ and yet you have excluded us from His table." The reply was, "You know our belief." -- (that is what is wrong with many of our beliefs, they are ours and not His).

Let us again quote Decker to whom we are indebted for the germ thought of this chapter: "Our distance of fellowship from the man who is in fellowship with God is not properly our distance of fellowship from the man himself but it marks the exact distance we are from being in fellowship with the God with whom the man we refuse to fellowship is in fellowship."

A startling thing about the sin of unfellowship for those who are in fellowship with God is that it is the same as a murderous spirit for it is the absence of love and that is equivalent to the presence of hate which hates the object of its hate and is consequently a murderous spirit for whoever hates his brother is a murderer and though he does not actually kill his brother as Cain, yet the presence of hate in his heart is the same as murder, "Whoever hates his brother is a murderer" and he must kill his influence and refuses him loving fellowship. As we have before said whoever loves God has the complement of loving his brother also and is consequently in fellowship with him whom he loves and whoever fellowships God fellowships also his brother who is in that fellowship and not to do so is hate and that is equal to murder.

Fellowship with God excludes a sectarian spirit; also a narrow party spirit or a no sect-spirit are inconsistent with fellowship with God for He loves the whole world and not the little sect-world or smaller no-sect world. Men of all parties want unity and fellowship with others but on condition of all getting in with them, neither being willing to make concession to the other for the sake of unity and power, each thinking in bigoted narrowness that his party is the infallibly right party thus having the assumption of infallibility like the old Hierarchy with its infallible head. But God offers perfect unity and fellowship to all the mistaken parties on condition of all being inducted into the Spirit of His Son. "One is your Master even Christ and all ye are brethren."

Until the thing which hinders fellowship with God and all those with whom He is in fellowship is removed there will be uneasiness and the consciousness of an interrupted or retarded fellowship with Him and all those who are in His fellowship.

To have fellowship with God costs something; it cost Christ the enmity of the elders, priests and people of His day, who spurned that fellowship. Our fellowship with Christ cannot be continued without increasing cost to us; like the call of duty it will exact ever more: and more of us; we cannot maintain it while we attempt to fellowship the unspiritual; with it we can have no intimate friends who are not also intimate friends of our Christ; continuing in His fellowship may exclude sympathetic fellowship with our loved ones in the flesh and it will ever exclude fellowship with the world which knew Him not and which cannot know those who are His and are like Him.

We should not seek fellowship with God merely for its joys or ecstatic thrills, but because we love Him and feel our need of Him, and -- amazing thought -- He craves our fellowship!

Fellowship with God is impossible while we hold on to one darling sin. "If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me."

When we cast any out of our fellowship (as the healed blind man was cast out of the synagogue) who are enjoying His fellowship; there is Another who goes forth with them and reveals Himself to them. What spirit is that which makes a man ashamed to be seen walking or in converse with a humble lover of Jesus?

Fellowship excludes all darkness -- "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness." It calls for separation from all evil. It excludes all unspiritual men from its intimacy, though not from its sympathy; it excludes all disobedient children while they abide in disobedience. Fellowship is with the Father and with the Son: we are called to the fellowship of His Son, or to a fellowship such as the Son enjoys with the Father "That they may be one in us."

Fellowship has a doctrinal basis -- "They continued in the doctrine of the apostles and in fellowship."

We are called to the fellowship of His sufferings -- the joy set before Him for which He endured the cross, was the joy of obtaining that suffering and enduring to gain a people for His Name, His Body and His Bride.

"He was made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."

Many of the branches of the so-called Church of Christ have been founded in spiritual pride and the assumption of superiority a spirit out of harmony with the spirit of Jesus; and they are maintained in suspicion and jealousy that others will treat them as they did others in their origin. They are bound to build themselves up with little thought of the interests of others and less thought I fear of the transcendent interest of the paramount cause of the kingdom of heaven, the interest of which is preeminent to the success of any one of the so-called branches of His church. Hence each seeks what is impossible, an exclusive fellowship with God, which they can never have, God having nothing for any of them He is not willing to share with the rest. It is not unkind to state some patent facts: The Nazarenes want a fellowship with God but they are not very enthusiastic for fellowship with the Free Methodists and the Holiness people of the National Interdenominational Association, which is evident because they ridicule the National often and regarded themselves superior to the Free Methodists else they would have joined them instead of starting an independent movement of their own: thus the exclusive spirit enters in and raises one more effective barrier to that unity among all God's people so essential to the powerful revival needed. The International Church wants a fellowship with God but they suspect the Nazarenes of wholesale depredations among them merging their church into theirs; the Pentecostal Movement seeks a fellowship in some instances which excluded the Alliance and in turn the Alliance looks with suspicion on the Pentecostals and gives them a restricted fellowship. The Alliance people, while harboring some of God's choicest elect, are very much afraid of the holiness people and exclude them from their fellowship and this spirit is fully reciprocated by the holiness people, who, look upon them as unsound suppressionists; the holiness people in Methodism want fellowship with God from which they often exclude the independent holiness people: our Free Methodist friends want fellowship with God but it is difficult for them to see how a man may be sanctified and remain within the pale of the old Mother Methodist Church -- they do not seem overjoyed at the good people of God in other folds. The Come-outers or so-called Saints of God -- want a fellowship with God but they do not readily see that God has an elect everywhere in the older churches, a remnant, a seven thousand company who have not bowed the knee to Baal and they do not gladly endure as Paul wrote all things for this elect's sake. The Colleges in the University Senate want a fellowship with God from which the unofficial colleges without the Senate of their own creation are excluded, caring little for them except for the students who, by insinuation of the inferiority of the independent, unendowed, unequipped smaller school, they can beguile to finish their education with them: and even the independent schools are guilty of the sinful respect of persons fawning on an alumni often which is mediocre and despising the so-called undergraduate whom God may mightily employ. Oh, for a mourners-bench somewhere large enough to accommodate all Christendom in a penitential service over all its grievous misrepresentation of the Spirit of that Christ it professes to represent!

The One-fold Gospel people want fellowship with God but they deride the Two-fold Gospel people and two-fold Gospel people have contempt a plenty for the three-fold gospel people and they in turn look askance at the Four-fold Gospel people who spend much time exposing the error of the two-folders: the two-folders also spending much time exposing the get it all in one fold and the four-fold people are loathe to see how there may be any improvement in their four-fold shibboleth looking askance upon those who emphasize its manifoldness.

God has over-ruled the sad divisions to good and the writer is well aware of the Lord's excellent people everywhere within and without the organized church. He blesses notwithstanding the mistake or He would not bless at all and some there are who argue that the divisions are a blessing but it is very evident that the Lord could have done far more without the divisions.

God has nothing for the exclusive churches from which He would exclude other churches despised by them; He has nothing for the Methodists that He would not freely share with the Baptists. He has no blessing or light or gift or grace or healing or spirit of prayer for the Missionary Alliance that He would not gladly bestow on the Episcopalians; He has no Higher Life blessing for the Holiness Church devotee that He would not share with the Presbyterian; nothing for any one assembly of believers, He would not gladly give to all. Someone has well said that if the Church was living where she should, all the gifts would be manifested.

To have fellowship with the Pentecostal man I must speak in tongues and this very speaking in tongues which is the passport to his fellowship becomes the deportation from fellowship with the man who does not speak in tongues; to fellowship the man who thinks the healing of the body is in the atonement, like the salvation from sin, for all, I must see that truth as he sees it but this very step cuts me off from fellowship from the man who thinks the great consideration of the atonement is salvation from sin and that healing is incidental; to have fellowship with the suppressionist I must see his suppression doctrine and if I do the eradicationist will exclude me from his fellowship and to have the fellowship of the eradicationist I must be an eradicationist; and so on this line of reasoning might be pursued through all the mazes of difference in doctrine and practice of all the sects. It is an utterly unChristan and vicious requirement, foreign to the Spirit of Christ who unites all in Himself on the submission to His Personal Lordship and not on doctrinal agreement, but fruit. The only way for the Christian in this sad hour of division is to follow the Apostle Paul in his freedom from all men that he might serve all men -- Recognition and joy at all the good in all, reproof without contempt for their error as God gives us to see it, sympathy and well wishing for all, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace with all in that unity and praying for those without it: "Unity in diversity; charity in liberty;" malice toward none; love for all -- and yet freedom from a tolerance which fellowships sin.