Fellowship With God Is So Vital
Spiritual Building-Stone No. 89

I John 1:5-7, "This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin."

Our desire is to have fellowship with God, and we want to hear how God has revealed this mystery to us in our days through the Prophet of Malachi 4:

Now, when God made man in the beginning to fellowship with Him, then this man was in perfect fellowship in the garden of Eden. He was in perfect fellowship with God. And how it must have been on that day when God would come down in the cool of the evening and call Adam. He and Eve would come up, and they would worship God, and they would fellowship and commune, one with the other. That's the very thing that calls us together like this, setting together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:6), fellowshipping in the Holy Spirit (Phil. 2:1-4). No difference in us, we are all one in Christ Jesus, in that perfect harmony of fellowship. There's nothing like it I've ever found on earth, is to come together in heavenly places and have communion, fellowship with God and with each other. Now that's what God intended in the garden of Eden (Gen. 2:15-17; Gen. 3:8-9).

Then that fellowship from God and man was broken by sin - which is unbelief. Now, God made a basis and a ground upon which man could remain or retain his fellowship. And it wasn't through a get-together, or organization, or an education. It was on the basis of the shed blood of an innocent animal (Gen. 3:21; Gen. 4:1-4), and that's the only place of fellowship that we have with God today, and the only meeting place is through the Blood of Jesus Christ.

How has the fellowship broken in the garden of Eden?

In the garden of Eden, there were two trees: One was knowledge and one was Life. And as long as man eat off the Tree of Life, he had Everlasting Life. The first bite he took from the tree of knowledge, he separated his fellowship from God, and every time he takes a bite yet, he destroys himself. He bit off gun powder; look what that does. He bit off automobile off the tree of knowledge; kills more of his comrades than all the wars does. He's got a hydrogen bomb bit off now. I wonder what he's going to with that? God don't destroy nothing; man destroys himself by knowledge.

And when fellowship was broken between God and man, there had to be some sort of an agreement, some sort of an arrangements to restore again that lost fellowship. And God found the plan; and it was through the blood of an innocent victim, that God restored man back to fellowship with Him again.

There's been many substitutes tried. Adam tried it. We've tried to educate people to it. We've tried all different forms, but there's nothing that brings man back into fellowship with His Maker but the Blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. It's the only propitiation God has, is the Blood (Romans 3:21-26).
An innocent victim died for a guilty person. That brought the fellowship back to God and man again. Then Adam, covered by this Blood, could stand in the Presence of God and worship again. Oh, I love that. There's something about it, when you speak of Blood. Blood has life. Without the shedding of Blood there's no remission of sins (Hebrews 9:11-22).

You can have everything in the world. You can have any kind of a thing that you wish to, any object of worship, any creed to live by, but you can never come into divine fellowship with God, until first you come under the Blood. That's God's holy, and ordained, and provided way for human beings to fellowship with Him, through the Blood of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. That was God's plan. It's still God's plan. It will forever be God's plan. No other plan but through the shedding of the Blood...

God came down and become flesh and died the death in Christ (Heb. 2:9), so that He could clean the Church in order to get into it for fellowship. God loves fellowship. That's what He made the man at the first time for, was for fellowship. God dwells alone with Cherubims. And notice now, He made man, and man fell. So He came down and redeemed man, because God loves to be worshipped!

Now, we have tried organizing to fellowship. You break off with another group when you do that. All right. We tried to educate them to fellowship. And what do we get? Why, we get a bunch of educated idiots. And that's a horrible for a preacher to make a statement like that, but that's the truth.
Something happened to me a few weeks ago. And I'm determined, by the help of God, never to be negative on anything anymore, no matter what it costs, be sincere and down to the bottom of it. And that's the truth.
And men just educate themselves till they educate themselves away from one another. They get complexes. You don't get no complex by the Blood of Jesus Christ; you get love. You get love, not a complex, that, "I'm a little bigger than somebody else, little better than somebody else, and know a little more than somebody else." You just got your arms around everybody, and it's a basis of love through the Blood. The Blood cleanses (Romans 5:3-10).

Now, fellowship comes by love. And love requires fellowship. If you love your wife, you've just got to get with her and talk with her. If you love your friend, you've got to get with him and talk to him. And if you love God, there's got to be a basis for fellowship. You cannot have complete fellowship and livelihood without these agreements.

You cannot be married without an agreement. You cannot have a wife without some kind of an agreement. And that agreement is based upon your vow.

You cannot have fellowship with God without coming to God's agreement. And there's a basic thing for fellowship, and that's the Blood, the Blood only. It's been God's way from the beginning, and it will be till the end. The only place of fellowship is through the Blood.

God made Himself known through the Fatherhood, through the Sonship, and through the Holy Spirit. He brought into Hisself a blood cell, wrapped Hisself up into this, broke forth the Blood at Calvary, throwed out His Blood that He might bring through this Blood-cleansing, by this same Atonement, taking every sinner and cleanse him, bring him into a fellowship that He can talk with man and walk with man, like He did in the garden of Eden before sin ever come on the earth.

And our relationship is restored to Jehovah through the offering of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And Christ's body was only revealed in that Blood cell and through the offering of Blood (which is Life), that He might destroy the life of sin and bring in the Life of righteousness through His Son, Christ Jesus, putting a part of His Life in ours, and we are together.

Didn't Jesus say, "In that day, you'll know that I'm in the Father, the Father is in Me, and I in you, and you in Me?" There you are. Then the Church of the Living God is the anointed body of the Lord Jesus Christ, walking on earth here, giving every hope and everything to the outside world, that nothing else can give, Eternal Life (St.John 14:12).

I don't care if you're a Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, if you can forget your differences (Roman Catholic, whatever you might be) and will come under the shed Blood, God will meet with both of us there. That's where we can all meet and fellowship on the same grounds. But otherwise, He will not meet just because you're a Methodist. He will not meet just because you're Pentecostals. He will meet with you under one condition; that's under the shed Blood, when your sins has been confessed and expelled in His Presence. And the Blood is always before Him, and therefore, He only can see you through that shed Blood. And you're white as snow when you've confessed your sins; otherwise, you're not there. You cannot fellowship (Isaiah 1:18).

That's the reason that you don't see things happening in the churches; they confess that they believe the Blood, but they reject the very plan to get to the Blood - the Word. And what is the Blood for today? - The Message of God, the Inspiration, the Holy Spirit Itself poured out into the Bride of Christ.

There's only one way God will honor that Word. You'll never honor that Word, come and say, "I'm a Roman Catholic; I demand this dogma or creed to be done." (poining on creeds and dogmas). You can't do it. Methodist, Baptist, or Pentecostals, you can't do it. The only way you can do it is under the mercies of God through His grace, is to come through the shed Blood of Jesus Christ. Say, "Lord, I claim the promise." See? And then if you really are under that Blood, God's obligated to that Word. But first, you've got to be under that Blood. You see it now?

Now, we find there, then, that only under the blood, that God met the worshipper, so they met at Jerusalem (in the Old Testament). And Christ - the Fullness of the Word - is God's provided Lamb of sacrifice. And today, there's only one place that God will meet man, and that's under the Blood of Jesus Christ. Anywhere else it is condemned; God will never hear it. You might do all kind of emotions, and all kind of isms, and shake, and jump, and have blood and fire and smoke and everything else; but as long as that life isn't compared with the Word, and God thoroughly identifying that life; then there's no need of trying it, because you're out. And God will never meet it till it comes under the care of that Blood. That's right.

So you see, in the Scripture we've got a Jerusalem (the church has); it's in heaven, a heavenly Jerusalem, where God is God. And today, it's not under some creed or something that we try to make it a Jerusalem. The Methodists would like to make the Methodist headquarters at Jerusalem; the Catholic like to make Rome. And the different places where we have our headquarters, we'd like to make that our--a Jerusalem. But the Bible says that our Jerusalem is from above, which is mother of all the believers (Gal. 4:26).

Now, and Christ is God's provided Lamb. Notice how appropriate it was now, showing that that Jerusalem was ceasing. When? It was in effect until that hour; the blood of the lamb was all right until that day. But now, at the crucifixion of Christ it changes. The old system is done. There was a new one, and the Lamb of God Jesus Christ was at the sacrifice. The Lamb, the sacrificial Lamb, was on the grounds. They were condemning and doing the very thing there that they had to do. That's right.

God be blessed for seeing this wonderful, heavenly Light in this last day, because the churches is doing the same thing today. Until the hour that organization religion is condemned and proved to be sacrificing Christ's Word, from then on comes the Word and the Word only. The old paschal lamb passed away, and Christ become our Lamb at the day of the crucifixion. And the day that the denomination crucified the Word of God and accepted a creed in the stead of the Word, that's the day the Word come into full effect.

I was preaching a few nights ago on the sacrifice in the days of the atonement. I was preaching on the only place that God will meet a man in; and that is... He said, the place that He put His Name (Deuteronomy 16:1-17). He said, "I won't meet them in any other place but the place--the gate that I put My Name in." Now, He don't meet you in a Methodist gate, a Baptist gate, or Pentecostal gate, or any of them, but He put His Name in His Son. He said, "I came in My Father's Name" (St.John 5:43). Any child comes in his father's name. And Jesus, the Son, came in the Father's Name. And He said: "In this Gate that I put My Name in that was the Sacrifice." And in Jesus Christ is the only place that you'll ever find fellowship and worship to God.
You say, "Well, I belong to the church." That don't make one thing different. You've got to be in Christ.

The man on the outside, standing in justification, he can hear the Word. He might be an orator of any kind that could explain that Word in ways that the other fellow knowed nothing about, but still, if he hasn't walked through those elements in under the Blood to the fellowship and the Shekinah Glory, he doesn't know what we're talking about. But here, where we've all received the Holy Ghost, we're altogether one for we've been all made drink of the same Spirit. After we've been sanctified, into one Spirit. Justification it's waters of separation, sanctification, the cleansing of our soul. And when we go into the holiest of holies where the shekinah glory is, by that one Spirit we are baptized into that one body and have fellowship with God.
You say, "I'm a Christian, I made a confession." That's fine. You've come through the waters of separation. Oh, look... "I've been sanctified. I don't smoke or drink with..." That's very fine, my brother, but have you come into the fellowship yet, where God meets you under the shed Blood? After you have come under the shed Blood, the Life in that Blood comes back in the form of the Holy Ghost, which is Christ in the Spirit to fellowship with His children.

God's back like He was in the garden of Eden, communing with our souls, speaking to us. No wonder people, standing on the outside with a intellectual education, trying to find out what these people are doing on the inside there... You'll never be able to do it by the waters of separation alone. Jesus is that water of separation. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (St.John 1:1-3). This is God, God's message to you that Jesus died for you--waters of separation.

Sanctification is what cleanses us up. And the Holy Spirit that come out of Him... The reason the animal life couldn't give them the Holy Ghost, is because the animal, the life that was in the animal, when that life was taken, it was the animal's life. It would not coincide to the human life, because the animal has not a soul. But when Jesus died, then He was not only man, but He was God and man, God in-veiled in man. And when that Cell was broke, God's Life was turned loose again to come back through the shed Blood to sanctify and to live in every vessel, that would dare to receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost. There's why we have that fellowship. That's what makes the real thing. It's something like that.
First we come into fellowship with God again, and by that also into fellowship with one another and among one another (Acts 4:31; Phil. 2:1-4; II Cor. 13:13).

By faith are you saved; that's your faith in God (Eph. 2:8-9). The Blood keeps you clean from sin, because it makes a sacrifice. The Blood doesn't save you; the Blood keeps you clean. How do you say you're saved? By faith are you saved, and that by God's foreknowledge, calling you. You are saved, and the Blood makes an atonement, constantly keeping you clean. And then by one Spirit you're baptized into the Holy Ghost, into the fellowship of the believers, and into the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, to be led by the Spirit, doing signs, wonders (I Cor. 12:13).

And therefore, when we speak to each other, we quickly can understand right away whether we are Christians or not, because there's a fellowship in the spirit that we talk from. You see, that it vibrates to one another that whether we are Christians or not. Therefore we have never seen each other.

If you've got Eternal Life, you were in God before there ever was a world. You are a part, a son of God, an attribute of God. He knowed the very age you were coming. He predestinated you to that age to take that place, and no one else can take it... care how many impersonations and things, you've got to be there, because He knew you'd be there. Now, you are made manifest; now you can fellowship with Him, and that's what He wants. He's longing for fellowship, to be worshipped.

God put His sons here, His attributes, to fellowship with Him by hearing His Word.

And when we get out of fellowship with one another in the church, and out of fellowship with the Holy Spirit, it brings us to a dry place, a desert, nothing alive, everything got stickers on it. See, a desert, a little piece of cactus with that sticker on it. Did you know what that is? That's a precious little tender leaf that hasn't had no water, it's just wound itself up so tight till it's a sticker. And when you see somebody like that, maybe it's a precious soul that could have been watered right, would have been a tender little leaf or something. But instead of that, it's wound itself up till it's a sticker, just punching at everything, you know, finding fault. Only thing it needs is just water. That's all. It just needs a revival, or a breaking up, a refreshing from the Lord. It'll unfold its little self, if you'll just put it to the water.

But that's where them who live in that place has to suffer with the conditions of that place. And those who desire to live in that kind of an atmosphere, of where everything is just punching and fussing, and quarreling and stewing like that, well, you'll just live under that atmosphere, that's all. But we don't have to live there, it's not necessary for us to stay there.

So far at first God's messenger for our day.

God wants that we have communion with the body of Christ, and not fellowship with devils (I Cor. 10:14-22), or fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness (Eph. 5:11-14). We know of God's behalf there is only one body, and one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all (Eph. 4:1-6). But besides the Spirit of God, there are a lot of religious and wordly spirits who desires our attention, time, and they want to influence us. Spirits - demons rule over people, for there is a spirit behind every voice. Either the Spirit of God or spirits (fallen angels) which people accept, determine the way of life (II Cor. 11:1-5; II Cor. 6:14).

Further on the Prophet of God said:
When you're outside of Christ, you don't understand the heavenly place. When you're out there, you look and say,"Oh, that bunch of fanatics, they don't know what they're speaking about."

The reason you don't know because you've never been a partaker of the fellowship of His suffering (Phil. 3:7-11; I Peter 4:1-2; Acts 5:40-42). You've never laid your hands upon His blessed sacred head, and felt the pains of Calvary for your sins. You never knowed what that was, fellow friend.

You don't know what it means till you once climb to Calvary and see what a price was paid for you. Then when you realize what it's all about, God through grace, takes you through the Blood stream into His own fellowship with His beloved Son Christ Jesus.

That's what the church needs today, is a know-so fellowship under the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ; even death can't even darken it out.
I've stood by their bedside and watch them die with a cold hand shake. I've seen them stand there and die, shouting the praises of God, because it had fellowship. They knowed where they were standing.

Don't never, don't never try to get to God, anything other under the fellowship with God but under the Blood. That's the only way. God knows that's the only way God will recognize. You must first be washed by the water of the Word (Eph. 5:25-27; John 15:3), then cleansed through the Blood, and enter into the Shekinah Glory, go into there, into the fellowship. Then you know where you're standing at (I Cor. 1:9).

Let's find out:

You can only have fellowship with God there where His dwelling place is, where He met Moses - not in the forecourt (human flesh) or holy place (human spirit), but in the Holiest of Holy, where the ark of the Covenant with the mercy seat on it is (Exod. 25:21-22; Numbers 7:89). This today is the human heart, the heart of your soul. Today God has set forth Jesus Christ to be a propitiation, a mercy seat (Romans 3:21-26), with the Word in it. And we enter into it to speak with God like Moses (Exod. 34:35; Hebrews 8:5) in coming through the waters of separation, water of purification, under the blood-dripping Word. Then His Spirit comes and has fellowship with you, and the refreshment from the presence of the Lord comes (Isaiah 28:11-12). There we worship in the Spirit of God and in the thruth of the Word (St.John 4:24). At that time it was the tabernacle, the animal skins, where He dwelled (Numbers 9:15), today it is human skin (II Cor. 6:16-18). Today we are His house, His dwelling place, God's habitation through the spirit (Hebrews 3:1-6; Eph. 2:22).

What a blessed assurance:

How that even death itself, will never separate us because we have been joined together, in heart, in this great fellowship around the Word of God. And even death itself, will not separate us. We will be united in the great Eternal for all times and ages (Romans 8:38-39).

Reference:
"Fellowship" (60-0611B), par. E-16 - E-18,E-37 - E-38, E-58
"Whatever He Saith Unto You Do It" (54-0722), par. E-12
"God's Provided Approach To Fellowship" (60-0630), par. E-10 - E-11, E-36
"Who Is This Melchisedec", par. 44-45
"God Perfecting His Church" (54-1204), par. E-23 - E-24
"The Indictment" (Vol.3 No. 19), pg. 18/19 / "Things That Are To Be", par. 79
"Adoption, Part 3", par. 132
"Shalom", par. 6
"Satan's Eden", pg. 14
"The Rapture", par. 85
"The Ever-Present Water From The Rock", par. 88-89
"Position In Christ" (55-0116A), par. E-29
"Standing In The Gap", pg. 9 / "The Fifth Seal", Seals-Book pg. 348

Spiritual Building-Stone No. 89 from the Revealed Word of this Hour, compiled by: Gerd Rodewald Friedenstr. 69 D-75328 Schömberg
Germany Phone: (0) 72 35 76 13 Fax: (0) 72 35 33 06

There's coming one with a Message that's straight on the Bible, and quick work will circle the earth. The seeds will go in newspapers, reading material, until every predestinated Seed of God has heard It.
[Bro. Branham in "Conduct-Order-Doctrine", pg. 724]