(Clip) Fellowship with God Excludes Walking in Darkness — Paris Reidhead

Fellowship with God Excludes Walking in Darkness

Christ. Fellowship with God excludes walking in darkness. We can't claim to have fellowship with God and continue to walk in darkness. Carefully read Ephesians chapter 4, verses 17 to 32 so that you get a clear, explicit picture of what it is to walk.

The Darkness of the Gentiles and the Light of Christ

Walk not as other Gentiles walk in the darkness of the mind and of the spirit. What is it? Vanity of the mind, empty-headed, the understanding darkened, alienated from the life of God, full of ignorance, blind of heart, choosing uncleanness over righteousness and cleanness.

Putting Off the Old Man and Putting On the New

That's the way those who are in darkness walk. We've not so learned, Christ, said Paul in that letter, if we're his, we've learned to walk in the light, to put off the old man, to be renewed in mind, and to put on the new man.

New Birth and the Expected Walk of the Believer

No. Fellowship with God excludes, totally excludes walking in darkness. Now I go back and tell you that that person who has been born into the family of God has had certain things happen. Now we've seen how he's to walk, but why is it to be expected that he can walk that way?

The Divine Operation of So Great Salvation

Last June I had the privilege of being here and speaking to you on so great salvation, at which time those of you were here, remember we gave you a chart with some 50 numbers on it. The first of those were, number one, when God wants to bring one out of darkness into light, out of death into life, the first thing he does is to put somebody up next to the sinner who's a sample of God's grace to live Christ before the sinner, to intercede for and to witness to him.

And the first phase of the divine operation is to awaken the sinner to his plight, to his danger, to his being dead in his sins. The second thing the Spirit of God does through the Word is to convict the sinner of his crimes, of turning to his own way, for sin is the committal of the will to the principle and the practice of pleasing oneself as the end and reason for their being.

Repentance as a Change of Life's Governing Principle

And on the basis of having discovered the nature of the crime, the Spirit of God then moves upon the heart of the sinner through all these agencies of grace to bring him to repentance. And to repent is to change one's mind, one's intention, one's purpose, one's rule of living, one's principle of government from pleasing himself to pleasing God.

And the Scripture so explicitly says,.