almost need a new pencil before you finish! God knew where most of our troubles would arise and He had a lot to say about it. Bible Christians have become notorious for their lack of love. It is often the disgrace of the very people who con tend most earnestly for the faith. It has gotten them the name “ feudamentalists” . The pitiful splits and sub-splits and splinters into which the saints—all too few at most—have divided them selves speak more loudly than anything else they say. We thunder against Demas for loving this pres ent world, and well we may, but while Demas may be playing golf on Sunday, Diotrophes sits in church, loving the preeminence, and often doing more harm to the cause of Christ than any world ling. I f we know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren, then some might well question whether they have made the Great Transition. Any two Christians, whether husband and wife, parent and child, neighbors or fellow church-members, who cannot get along and resolve their differences by the grace of God cer tainly are not prepared to tell the world that Christ can solve every problem. Any church that cannot meet its own difficulties in the power of the Spirit had better do so before it claims to have the answer to everybody else’s needs. It is easier to live peace ably in some secular organizations than in some churches. There is absolutely no reason why Chris tians cannot get along. Ample provision has been made in the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. It is not done merely by step ping up natural affection. It calls for another kind of love but that love is available to all born- again people. The fellowship o f the saints should be the sweetest comradeship on earth but of how few can it be said, “ The love of every one of you toward each other aboundeth.” If we Christians cannot get along we have no business telling other people how to do it. If we are not getting along with each other, we are not getting along with the Lord. If we do not love our visible brother, how can we love the invisible God? Some are disobedient. Some are rebellious. Some are indifferent. All such are out of fellow ship, following afar off. Two cannot walk together except they be agreed. Enoch walked with God. He had this testimony that he pleased God. They got along. HOW ARE YOU “GETTING ALONG” ?
“ getting along” . It is surprising what the Bible tells us to let alone. Ephraim, joined to his idols (Hosea 4 :17 ); Pharisees (Matt. 15:14); church splitters (Rom. 16:17); the disorderly and lazy (2 Thess. 3:14) , . . we are to give these a wide berth. The righteous man walks not in the coun sel of the ungodly, stands not in the way of sin ners, sits not in the seat o f the scornful, and he is blessed for it. We are to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather re prove them. We are to let the dead bury the dead. “ Shouldest thou help the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord?” This does not mean a Pharisaic exclusiveness that refuses to rub elbows with a needy world and looks down, its nose in a “ holier-than-thou” superiority. Our Lord came to call the sinners, not the righteous to repentance. He ate with publicans and sinners. The sick need the physician, not the well. We are to let our light shine in a dark place. But exactly in order to be able to associate with this sick world in the right way, we cannot have fellowship with it in the wrong way. Surgeons and nurses deal with disease first-hand but in or der to do so effectively they keep themselves spot lessly clean. We Christians live in a world infeste'd and infected with the leprosy of iniquity. In order to help it we must keep ourselves unspotted from it. We have gotten awfully mixed up these days and are doing as Rome does with the pretext of helping the Romans. You will remember that Lot did not convert Sodom but Sodom practically ruined Lot. Such an end does not justify the means. We are not to do wrong in order to do right. We are not here to “ get along” with the world, the flesh and the devil. We are not to love the world, we are not to make provision for the flesh and we are not to give place to the devil. We are to overcome the world, crucify the flesh and resist the devil. We have already said that we are trying to get along with the wrong things and not getting along where we should. There is one area where we should live harmoniously and there we fail. TOO MANY CHRISTIANS ARE NOT GETTING ALONG WITH EACH OTHER. Take your New Testament and a red pencil and underline those verses that warn us against sins of the spirit, envying, debates, strife, divisions, whisperings, swellings, tumults, schisms, variance, contentions, murmuring, jealousy, backbiting, tattling. You will
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FEBRUARY, 1967
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