Ephesians 5:11 - Careless Preaching

“Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.” Ephesians 5:11

Who is the "them" in the passage?  "Have no fellowship with them - reprove them."  Is this talking about people or the "unfruitful works of darkness?"

In my walk with the Lord over these several years, I have observed many professing Christians who approach sin manifested in the unregenerate in a way that communicates "Clean up your act and turn to Christ".  Is that the Gospel?   Do we understand this passage to mean - we are to tell people, (for example) "homosexuality is a sin" and you need to repent?  Reprove them?  Reprove the unregenerate?  or is this passage instructing us to "personally" have nothing to do with works of darkness in our own lives?

I cannot tell you how many professing Christians go about their day thinking it's their duty to reprove sin in others.  In many cases, it is because their pastor does not teach clearly on this passage.

Let us sit under C.H. Spurgeon preaching on this passage:

First, then, WHAT IS FORBIDDEN? “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.” We can have fellowship with them in a great number of ways.  Notice that the text does not say, “Have no fellowship with wicked men. Have no dealings with men who are not converted,” for then we must necessarily go out of the world. Many of us are obliged to earn our daily bread in the midst of men whom we certainly would not choose for our companions. Many of you, I know, are forced every day to hear language which is disgusting to you and you are brought into contact with modes of procedure which sadden your gracious spirits. Our Savior does not pray that you should be taken out of the world, but that you should be preserved from the
evil of it!

 If you are what you profess to be, you are the salt of the earth, and salt is not meant to be kept in a box, but to be well rubbed into the meat to keep it from putrefaction. We are not to shut ourselves up as select companies of men seeking only our own edification and enjoyment! It is intended that we should mingle with the ungodly so far as our duties demand. We are forced to do so—it is the Lord’s intent that we should, so that we may act as salt among them. God  grant that the salt may never lose its savor and that the unsavory world may never destroy the pungency of the piety of God’s people! With evil men, then, we must have some kind of fellowship—but with their works we are to have no fellowship. In order to avoid this evil, let us see what is here forbidden—“Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.”

And first, dear Friends, we have fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness by personally committing the sins so described. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked.” After all, a man must be judged by his life. If you do that which is holy and righteous and gracious, you have fellowship with the holy and the righteous and the gracious. But if you do that which is unclean and dishonest, you have fellowship with the unclean and the dishonest. The Lord will, at the last, put us among those whom we are most like—in that day when He shall separate the people gathered before Him, as a shepherd divides the sheep from the goats—the sheep will be put with the sheep and the goats with the goats. If you have lived like the wicked, you will die like the wicked and be damned like the wicked! It is only those who live the life of the righteous who can hope that they shall die the death of the righteous.

 I, who preach to you with all my heart the Doctrines of the Grace of God, do, nevertheless, just as boldly remind you  that the Grace of God brings forth fruit in the life and, where it is really in the heart, there will be in the life that which tokens its presence. If you and I are drunks, if we can do a dishonest action, if we are guilty of falsehood, if we are covetous, (I need not go over the list of all those evil things), then we belong to the class of men who delight in such practices—and with them we must go forever! We are having fellowship with them by doing as they do and we shall have an awful fellowship with them at the last by suffering as they shall suffer!

 God make us holy, then! The very name of Jesus signifies that He will save His people from their sins and He saves them from their sins by their ceasing to commit those sins that others do. His own Word is, “Be you holy, for I am holy.” “Be you clean that bear the vessels of the Lord.” Nothing more dishonors Him than to have a following of unclean men—men who refuse to be washed and resolve not to quit their old sins! Great sinners, yes—the biggest sinners out of  Hell—are welcome to come to Christ in order to be cleansed from their sin and set free from it! He keeps a hospital wherein He receives the most sick of all the sick, but it is that He may heal them! And if men do not wish to be healed but  count the marks of their disease to be beauty-spots—if they love their sins and hug them to their bosoms—then thus says the Lord to them, “You shall die in your sins.” God save all His professing people from this form of fellowship with the works of darkness!