The unity of believers is not natural but supernatural, established through the new birth and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This unity transcends natural divisions and is evidenced by love for fellow believers, who are called brothers and sisters in Christ. The sermon cautions against ecumenicity that yokes believers with unbelievers, emphasizing that true unity is found in Christ alone and requires contending for the faith. Believers are called to fellowship with God and with each other, recognizing their mutual need for support, warmth, and defense against spiritual attacks, as all members of the body of Christ are interdependent and share in suffering and joy.
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of our unity one it is not nature now it's true that man is gregarious man by nature enjoys the company of other people but our unity is the unity of believers is not the unity of nature a that unity was destroyed by sin at Babel. Genesis eleven, one to nine, you'll remember the story. When men sinned against God and refused to scatter throughout the world and repopulated, decided they'd make a name for themselves, God came down and confused their language.
From that time on there has not been any natural unity among the human race. And B, perennial warfare plagues the race. James four, one and two, raises the question, whence come wars and fighting among you? And he tells us that they come even from the lusts in our own hearts. So we do not have unity on the basis of nature. Now subdivision two, it is supernatural through the new birth.
John three, one to eight. It is supernatural through the new birth. A, we are called brothers and sisters many times in the New Testament. Now attempts have been made by liberals to destroy this lovely relationship of Christians by saying that we're brothers with all. But this is different. There is a relationship between Christians, which is different from all the others.
And B, we know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren. Just put down, we love the brethren. First John three, fourteen. This is one of the truths that we are the children of God. You may not like them and you may not love everything about them, but we do love the brethren because we are born again. And see, we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. I don't get... so emotionally involved in this idea of laying down your life for some Christian that you forget the next verse.
And that tells you what to do about the dollar and a half you got in your pocket. It's one thing to talk about laying down your life for the brethren. It's another thing to recognize that you can be a help to them in everyday living. And that's the passage that follows. And these when you're often spoken of as all the brethren. You'll find this expression many times in the New Testament, all the brethren. Now, any concept of the family of God that is narrower than this is sectarian. Let me say that again. You don't need to put it down.
I want you to get it in your minds firmly. Any concept of the family of God that is narrower than all the brethren, is sectarianism. We need to be awfully careful of this. It's so easy to think of our little special group. Those are our brothers and sisters. But if we're the children of God, we are brothers and sisters with all other children of God. And number three, this is the unity of the spirits, Ephesians four and verse three. On that same chapter he talks about a time when we shall come into the unity of the faith.
We don't have that yet. Christians don't understand all of the scriptures alike. We don't agree on everything about the Bible. We'll have to wait until we all come to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ before we'll all see things exactly alike. So the unity of the faith is still a future thing. But the unity of the Spirit we have. And he tells us that we are to endeavor to keep that. You don't have to manufacture it. You don't have to do anything to get it. We do have the unity of the Spirit. And this is because, A, we are born of the Spirit.
John three, verse eight. tells us about being born of the Spirit. What is born of the Spirit is Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh. And B, he indwells each one of us. First Corinthians, six, nineteen, know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you. Now you can see what this does to make us one with every other believer. The same Holy Spirit who teaches and leads and comforts, guides us, is resident within that Christian whom you may have never met before.
And there is a unity because of this indwelling. And see, he occupies us all with Christ. Second Corinthians three in verse eighteen ought to be on your memory list. There he tells us that the Spirit of God leads us so that we beholding, as in the glass, the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord. So this is what the Holy Spirit seeks to do, to occupy us with the Lord Jesus. Now I'm occupied with him and you're occupied with him.
It'll be pretty easy for us to stand shoulder to shoulder. Now the second division of our study, the folly of ecumenicity. I'm sure there are great many people in the world today who will object violently to my calling it folly. But I'd like to show you that it is. One, true believers are already one. Galatians, three, twenty-eight, He says there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. He doesn't say you will be when the ecumenical movement gets nigh here.
He says you are one with every true believer. Now A, our Lord's prayer must be answered. John seventeen three times in that chapter. He prays that we all might be one. Now, do you think that God would have to wait nineteen centuries until the ecumenical movement would come into being to fulfill the prayer of our blessed Lord before he went to the cross? This is utterly ridiculous. And B, we are one with our captains.
Hebrews two ten and eleven he says that the captain of our salvation is made perfect through suffering and then he says he that sanctify and they who are sanctified are all of one the literal meaning of the expression as it occurs in the language in which our New Testament is written is they are all of one piece And this is true of the body, isn't it? If my body were not all in one piece, that'd be extremely uncomfortable. Now, it's true the head is in heaven and the members are on earth, but so far as God is concerned, so far as God is concerned, they're all in one piece.
Now, number two, we are not to be unequally yoked. Second Corinthians six. He speaks about the unequal yoke with unbelievers. And he uses five similes. A. The righteous with the unrighteous. Now this has nothing to do with behavior. This has to do with standing. All believers are righteous. Even Lot was called a righteous man in the New Testament, although we know from his history that he was anything but righteous in his behavior.
You and I have been given a righteous standing, and the unbeliever is still called unrighteous, and we have no communion, and be light with darkness. Now it's impossible to have light and darkness in the same room. You can't have the left half of this room light and the right half dark. The only way you can do it is to put a wall in there. And that's exactly what happens among the Lord's people. When walls are put up, then you're separated them. And this is the only way that God can do with light and darkness in eternity. He's going to put a wall between those who are light in the Lord and those who are still in darkness.
And this is going to be for all eternity. Now, why should we try to break down that barrier now? And the ecumenical movement is an attempt to put together in one organization, because it's not an organism, in one organization, light and darkness. The plan now is not simply to unite all Christian, quote, unquote, denominations, but to unite all religions. Christian, Jewish, Mohammedan, Buddhist, and all the rest. And the Pope of Rome has already officially stated that he will not be satisfied until he has united all the religions of the world.
This is going to result in just one thing, that is the forming of the great whore church. of the book of the Revelation, Babylon the Great. Now see Christ with Belial. Belial is the name for idolatry, a general name for idolatry. Now it's unthinkable that Christ should be associated with idolatry. How are you going to put Christ and Buddha in the same category? This is awful. And D. a believer with an infidel.
While many people would object to this, anyone who is not a believer is an infidel, because that's what the word infidel means. It means one who does not believe. The word fidel is the word for believer. Fidelity is faithfulness. And E, the temple of God, with idols. All these things are said in Second Corinthians six, eleven and eighteen, to be incompatible. We must not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. And three, it always requires giving up of the truth.
Proverbs twenty-three and twenty-three says, Buy the truth and sell it not. The trouble is that the truth has not cost some people anything. They have inherited it. I hope that it will cost you something to know what you believe. It will cost you sincere study. It will cost you prayerful consideration. It will cost you deep spiritual exercise before God to know what you believe. and why you believe it. And once you have acquired this truth, you will not give it up for anything unto the Son.
A, we should contend for the faith. Now in Galatians two, verses four and five, Paul says that we did not give place to these teachers who tried to spoil us and take away our liberty. We did not give place to them, no not for an hour. I don't get the idea that it's wrong to argue. It's true that the Bible says the servant of God must not strive if it's a matter of strife, that is, trying to get the upper hand. Strife is one thing, but to contend for the faith is commanded.
And in Jude, verse three, the reference is appended here, In Jude verse three, it plainly says that you should earnestly contend for the faith. Now don't contend for your opinions. Don't contend for, quote, your church, unquote. But do contend for the faith. Don't give it up. And be, we should hold fast the form of sound words. Second Timothy one, thirteen. That's practically a quote. To hold fast the form of sound words. Now the form of sound words is the truth as is taught in the scriptures themselves.
To me this is one of the most dangerous things about the introduction of all of these paraphrases of the scriptures today. They are substituting other words for the sound words which are given in the Bible. Be awfully careful of this. It's so easy to say the Lord Jesus is divine instead of saying that he's God. They're not the same at all. There are many things which are divine, but the Lord Jesus Christ is God. See what I mean? It's important that we have the right word. Mark Twain says the difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between lightning and lightning bug.
And don't be satisfied with kind of a halfway statement of facts. Know what you believe and state it in the words of Scripture. Don't tell a little child, for instance, let Jesus come into your heart. What does that mean? Nothing. It has no meaning whatever, except a meaning that you may attach to it. But teach that child in the words of Scripture, what it means to accept or receive the Lord Jesus, to trust in Him, to believe in Him. Let's stick to the form of sound words. Now, number three, we are called to fellowship. One, it is fellowship with God.
The Son, First Corinthians one and nine. That's A, the Son, and B, the Holy Spirit. In First Corinthians one and nine, he says we are called to the fellowship of His Son. Second Corinthians, thirteen and fourteen. He speaks about the communion of the Holy Ghost. And see the Father. First John one, three and four, truly our fellowship is with the Father. So we have fellowship with God. Now what does this mean to us? It means that we all begin in the same way. If you're going to have fellowship with other believers, you have to begin by having fellowship with God.
And this fellowship has been established on the basis of the finished work of Christ. Now, number two, we are fellow citizens of heaven. I've given you two verses here. If you look these up, you'll see that both of them have to do with citizenship. Philippians three twenty uses the word conversation, but the revised version and the marginal reading is citizenship. for we are fellow citizens of heaven. Number three, we are fellow heirs with Christ. Now you can see what this means.
This means that we are part of the family. This means that we have the same interests. This means that we have the same home. And then four, let me give you several things here. Number four, we should be fellow helpers Number five, fellow laborers. Number six, fellow servants. And number seven, fellow soldiers. And I have appended references here which use these phrases.
Fellow helpers, fellow laborers, fellow servants, fellow soldiers. That's a fine word, fellow. We're told in Ephesians, or rather in Hebrews, one in verse nine, that the Lord Jesus is anointed with the law of gladness above his fellows. So we are his fellows, and we are fellows together in the family. And number eight, we may be fellow prisoners. Romans sixteen and seven refers to this. Number nine, we have the privilege of fellowships, A, in suffering with Christ.
Philippians three ten speaks about the fellowship of his suffering. I don't try to get out of it. Somebody went to a new place and they said to him, you'll be treated pretty rough when they find out you're a Christian up there. When he came home, they said, how'd you get along? He said, fine, they never even suspected I was a Christian. Now, you don't want that kind of thing. Share in the Lord's fellowship. He's rejected in this world. Share his rejection. And be in the spread of the gospel. Philippians one five. Paul thanks the Philippians for their fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, which was twelve years later.
And see in teaching the mystery of the church, Ephesians three and nine. Paul was thankful for this fellowship that he had of disseminating the truth about the church. Now you'll find many fundamental groups of Christians that are clear on the gospel, but they're as fuzzy and foggy in the matter of the church as possibly can be. And D, in relieving the needs of the saints, Second Corinthians eight and nine, take upon us the fellowship of the ministering to the saints. It's a wonderful privilege to have fellowship with Christ in all of this.
in having fellowship with him, to have fellowship with each other, to be labors together with God. Now the fourth section of our study, we have a common need of each other. And you may not be quite prepared to accept this. The human nature being what it is, we're apt to be very independent. And we, as we grow up from childhood, we like to feel our independence, first of all of our parents, and then of our family, and finally of everybody.
And then we find out we don't do so well alone, and then we gradually begin to go back and pick up the pieces. We realize we did need our family after all. We realize we did need our friends. And we realize that we need almost everybody. And this is especially true in the family of God. There's something dreadfully wrong with any Christian who thinks that he is totally independent and does not need the help and fellowship of fellow believers. Now let's notice why we have a common need of others, of each other. Number one, because of our weakness.
There's a very wonderful passage in the book of Ecclesiastes in the fourth chapter. I realize that the book of Ecclesiastes is not a deeply spiritual book. It is a record of the findings of a very wise man who decided that he would research the world and see just what there is in it. But the Spirit of God has recorded the findings in his research. for our good. And here's what he says about the need of each other. Two are better than ones, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow.
But woe to him that is alone when he falls, for he hath not another to help him up. So you can put down under number one, or rather under A, number one, A, if one falls, The other can help him out. Now the eleventh verse says, Again, if two lie together, then they have heat. But how can one be warm alone? And so under B, you can put, if one is cold, the other can warm him. Now do you see how this can be applied spiritually? What happens when a Christian gets out of touch with other Christians?
Well, usually he becomes rather cold and indifferent. A man went to visit a friend of his who had been staying away from meetings and had no fellowship with other Christians. And he knew that this man had a violent temper, and he knew that he was very hard to reach. And so he was very cautious. He just didn't have much to say. He sat down with his friend in front of the fireplace. and they gazed into the coals for a little while, and then he got up and took the tongs and lifted a brightly glowing red coal and set it over to one side. And they both sat there and watched it get dimmer and dimmer and dimmer until it was almost black.
Then he took the tongs again and lifted and put it back with the coals and it began to glow again. He never said a word. He looked over at his friend and tears are coming down his cheeks and he said, I know what you mean, and I'll be back there next Sunday. Now, if you realize how badly you need the warmth of other Christians, you will realize this common need. Now, the third thing it said here, if one prevails against him, two shall withstand him. So, under C, put, if one is attacked, the other can defend him. You know we're subject to the attacks of three violent enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil.
And you'll never know when you're going to be under attack, and you need the help of fellow Christians to ward off such attacks. I've been a believer for quite a bit over a half a century, and I'll tell you one thing, I need God's people. I need every one of them. There isn't a Christian so weak that I don't need the ministration and help of that Christian. Now number two, because of our interdependence, not independence. Sure you got that extra syllable in there, our interdependence. A one member of the body needs all others.
First Corinthians twelve, the eye cannot say to the hand, I don't need you, nor the head to the feet. I have no need of you. I believe that even the Lord Jesus, and I say it reverently, never says to any member of his body, I don't need you. If he needs us, how much more we need each other. and B, injury or honor, affects all alike. First Corinthians, twelve and twenty-six, he says if one member suffers, all suffer with it.
If one member is honored, all rejoice with it. We are so interdependent upon each other that anything that happens to another Christian affects me. expects each of us. And C, every joint supplies the lubrication of love. Ephesians four and sixteen. Now while it doesn't say in Ephesians four and sixteen that it is love, we know from other passages that that's what he's referring to, in that verse he says, From whom, from the head, the whole body is ministered to and edified by that which every joint supplies.
This is how a man can run a hundred yards in less than ten seconds, and his knees do not get hot. He's got a built-in lubrication system that's marvelous. The human body is fixed so that every place where two bones contact each other, there is lubrication. Now, whenever one Christian meets another, there's room for friction. It only takes two Christians to cause a big flare-up if there isn't mutual love between them. But there is this love between us. The Holy Spirit has supplied this. The fruit of the Spirit is love. And in Romans chapter five and verse five, he says, The love of God is shed abroad or literally poured into your hearts by the Holy Spirit, which is given unto you.
This is how Christians who never would have known each other and wouldn't have cared to, had they not been saved, now can become friends and helpers and workers together. And all of this has taken place as a result of the work of the Spirit of God within it. So this is a little resume of what I see in the unity with all believers.