if we put them immediately under His precious
Blood, the moment we are conscious of them. And they are sins. Their
source is unbelief and an inverted form of pride, and they have
hindered and hidden Him times without number.]

CHAPTER 3
THE WAY OF FELLOWSHIP

When man fell and chose to make himself, rather than God, the centre
of his life, the effect was not only to put man out of fellowship
with God, but also out of fellowship with his fellow man. The story
of man's first quarrel with God in the third chapter of Genesis is
closely followed, in the fourth chapter, by the story of man's first
quarrel with his fellow, Cain's murder of Abel. The Fall is simply,
"we have turned every one to his own way."[footnote1: Is. 53: 6] If I
want my own way rather than God's, it is quite obvious that I shall
want my own way rather than the other man's. A man does not assert
his independence of God to surrender it to a fellow man, if he can
help it. But a world in which each man wants his own way cannot but
be a world full of tensions, barriers, suspicions, misunderstandings,
clashes and conflicts.

Now the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross was not only to
bring men back into fellowship with God, but also into fellowship
with their fellow men. Indeed it cannot do one without the other. As
the spokes get nearer the centre of the wheel, they get nearer to one
another. But if we have not been brought into vital fellowship with
our brother, it is a proof that to that extent we have not been
brought into vital fellowship with God. The first epistle of John
(what a new light Revival sheds on this Scripture!) insists on
testing the depth and reality of a man's fellowship with God by the
depth and reality of his fellowship with his brethren.[footnote2:I
John 2:9,3:14-15,4:20]

Some of us have come to see how utterly connected a man's
relationship to his fellows is with his relationship to God.
Everything that comes as a barrier between us and another, be it
never so small, comes as a barrier between us and God. We have found
that where these barriers are not put right immediately, they get
thicker and thicker until we find ourselves shut off from God and our
brother by what seem to be veritable brick walls. Quite obviously, if
we allow New Life to come to us, it will have to manifest itself by a
walk of oneness with God and our brother, with nothing between.

Light and Darkness.

On what basis can we have real fellowshi