Unholy Fellowship
Pastor Nick Bibile
Ephesians
5:7-13
7 Therefore do not associate with them; 8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you
are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for
the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), 10 and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.
11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of
darkness, but instead expose them. 12 For it
is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. 13 But when anything is exposed by the light, it
becomes visible.
We are pilgrims here on earth;
our true citizenship is not of this earth but of heaven. But here on this earth
we are to occupy until our Lord returns. As pilgrims we are taking a different
road than the people of the world. The people of the world is taking the broad
road according to their feelings, emotions and temptations, this road leads to
destructions but the pilgrims take the narrow road which leads to life. There are
warning signs to the pilgrims’ one of them is that we need to avoid unholy
fellowship.
7 Therefore do not associate with them
Unholy fellowship is having
fellowship with unbelievers. You can be friends with them but do not have an
intimate fellowship with them.
Why God does not want the
true born again Christian to have an unholy fellowship with the unbelievers?
Deut
2 Cur
“I
will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
17 Therefore go out from their midst,
and be separate from them, says the Lord,
and touch no unclean thing;
then I will welcome you,
18 and I will be a father to you,
and you shall be sons and daughters to me,
says the Lord Almighty.”
In
the Old Testament God warned
Deut 6: 14 You
shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you, 15 for the Lord your
God in your midst is a jealous God, lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy
you from off the face of the earth.
16 “You shall not put the
Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at
Massah. 17 You shall diligently keep the
commandments of the Lord your God, and his
testimonies and his statutes, which he has commanded you. 18 And you shall do what is right and good in the
sight of the Lord, that it may go well with you,
and that you may go in and take possession of the good land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers
Verse 8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are
light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.
Here
the apostle brings to remembrance our days before conversion. Darkness means before you were born again.
You were living in sin according to your passions, the Light means when you heard
the gospel you were enlightened with the light of God’s word and God’s word
saved you from God’s wrath. You are
rescued from the dominion of Satan who is the prince of darkness to the
marvelous light of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and we are in his kingdom.
Isaiah
9: 2 The
people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shined.
Salvation is of the Lord
Psalm
the Lord my God lightens my darkness.
1
Pet 2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people
for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who
called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
The
spirit of God is in us and we need to live as true Christians and not as
unbelievers.
1 John
Satan
always tempts us to come to the edge of the cliff. The flower at the edge of
the cliff always looks beautiful. He
shows the glories and the splendor of this world. The vines of Sodom and the
fields of Gomorrah looks pleasing to the eye and Lot was deceived by the looks
of the sweetness of sin as he walked by sight not by faith, the sweetness of
sin is going to be a cup of damnation as God poured out his wrath on Sodom and
Gomorrah.
Before our conversion we drank the sweetness of sin
and we enjoyed the cup of pleasure. We saw all the worldly movies and enjoyed
the worldly amusements and now we have tasted the sweetness of Christ our
blessed Savior how can we go back to our old life style? Like a dog he will
return to his vomit again?
Back to Ephesians
Verse 9 (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and
true).
The
result of our salvation is good works, there will be good fruits, and we will
be godly. Vegetation cannot survive without the sun; sun is needed for the
plants to grow and to bear fruits. In the same way God is called the Light.
1 John 1:5 This is the message we
have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no
darkness at all.
And
when we live in God his light shines upon us and we bear good fruits of conduct
and behavior.
1
John 1: 7 But if we walk in the light, as he
is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus
his Son cleanses us from all sin.
Unbelievers
live in darkness as their minds are blinded by the enemy and they don’t see the
Light of God.
2 Cor 4:4 In their case the god
of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from
seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
Verse 10 and try to discern what is pleasing to the
Lord.
The
ministers and the pastors duty is to encourage people to live in holiness, to
promote holiness and to set and example to the people, in their life and
conduct. It pleases God when you live
according to his will. If you are not following the worldly people in the broad
road and following the narrow road of righteousness it pleases God. When you
are not having fellowship with unbelievers it pleases God.
Unbelievers usually swim with the stream like dead
fish, the follow the latest worldly fashion, the worldly customs as they follow
the crowd; it is only the living fish that goes against the stream and we
Christians are the living fish.
Romans 12:1 I appeal to you
therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to
present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is
your spiritual worship. 2 Do
not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,
that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and
acceptable and perfect.
It is only the Christian who despises customs, Christians
are pressured by the world to follow their ways but the true Christian asks
himself the question, “Is it right or is it wrong? If it is right, I will be in
the minority. If all the other people in
the world are doing it I will not do it. If they stone me to death I will not follow
the world. If the multitude will not follow me, I will go without them. I will
despise their customs; I care not what others do, I shall not be tempted or pressured
by other men, but to my own Master, my Lord and Savior I stand or fall. In this
I conquer and overcome the customs of the world.
Our
Lord set the example of obedience, he did not come to do his will but to do the
will of the Father, in the same way we should not do what we like to do or what
our emotions and feelings feel like doing but doing what is in the word of God,
which is the will of the Father. The Father was pleased with Christ’s
obedience.
“This
is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”
11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of
darkness, but instead expose them.
If
we have intimate fellowship of unbelievers it is very easy to get influenced by
them. Because sometimes they sound good yet we should not walk according to our
feelings, we don’t walk by what we see but by faith. Do not trust in them but trust in the word of
God.
Jer
17: 5 Thus says the Lord:
“Cursed is the man who trusts in man
and makes flesh his strength,
whose heart turns away from the Lord.
1 Thes 5:5 For you are all children of light, children of
the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. 6 So
then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. 7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those
who get drunk, are drunk at night. 8 But
since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of
faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.
And you should be separate from the world in your
actions. We cannot honor Christ and the world, we cannot taste the sweetness of
sin and the sweetness of Christ, it is like Darkness and Light, we cannot have
both.
12 For it is shameful even to speak of the things
that they do in secret.
There
is an old proverb which says, "Night has no shame." Many
are involved in darling secret sins. We are ashamed to say what the wicked are
doing but the wicked are not ashamed of doing their secret sins.
Sexual immorality is openly displayed in worldly movies, pornography
is rampant every where. The government, the police, judges are all corrupt as
they have forsaken the commandments of the Lord. Schools are corrupt and
majority of the churches are corrupt as they do not want to talk of sin. But we
need to expose sin as sin.
13 But when anything is exposed by the light, it
becomes visible.
When
we expose the sins in the light of God’s word many people get offended. I get
many letters of people getting offended because we expose the false teachers in
the light of God’s word. Jesus said:
John
3: 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and
people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.
20 For everyone who does
wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds
should be exposed.
1
2
We
Christians are the light of the world as we received this light from Christ who
is the light from the Sun of righteousness. We cannot be soft on sin and cannot
be pussy footed Christians but be bold to tell the truth in love.
Let
me close with the following.
Heaven
and hell have no fellowship. God and the devil have no fellowship. Light and
darkness have no fellowship; God has divided the light and darkness. Christians
of the light must not have fellowship with unbelievers and enjoy their
pleasures of sin, don’t have fellowship of their doctrines, or any kinds of deceits
of darkness. We must discern what is right and wrong. What God has divided, let
us never try to unite, the children of the day must be sober, honest, and bold
in their Lord’s work. Let us come out from the ungodly, and be a peculiar
people. I can guarantee one thing you will not be very popular in the world.
Remember
beloved, you are a Christian, you are a son of the King of kings. Therefore,
keep yourself unspotted from the world. Do not allow your eyes to become the
windows of lust because very soon in heaven you will see our Lord the King in
his beauty. Do not let your feet be defiled walking in sinfulness, which are
soon to walk the golden streets of heaven.
If we pray, then we also
should act, or else we are hypocrites. If we go to church and profess to love
him, then we should love him all the time. We need to take what we learned
today to the world, even if there are 10 million people in the city and you are
the only one who is not following their ways of evil come out from them and be
separate then you have overcome the world.