O your Saviour, come and leave
Elam for joy. Glory to God and praise and love
be ever, ever him. By saints below and saints above,
the Church in earth and heaven. OK, let's go back to 1 John,
chapter 2. 1 John, chapter 2, which Brother
Bob read for us. Now, this is the Word of God. This is God's Word, though It
came through a man named John you'll notice the title on the
page is the first epistle or letter general job that is this
is not. a letter to a particular church
such as Ephesus Philippi Colossians so forth but to all of God's
people to the Church of God but this is God's word. God who is
the father. Of his people the father of his
children this is written to God's children, for he says in verse
one of chapter two, my little children, these things write
I unto you. That's always important. We seem
to labor that point a little bit, don't we? Making sure that
everyone understands to whom God is speaking. And I believe
that's so important, especially today, when men misapply the
Word of God, as they do apply it to everyone. See, everyone
is not a child of God, no matter what they say. Scripture says
this, listen, Romans 9, verses 7 and 8 say, neither because
they're the seed of Abraham. Because they're Jews doesn't
mean they're the children of God. They which are the children
of the flesh, no. But the children of the promise. They're the children of God.
Chosen one. Promise. In Isaac. Not Ishmael. In Isaac. So, this is written to God's
children who are his elect. His elect. And he calls them
little children throughout. He calls us, let me go ahead
and address you. He calls us little children.
In this chapter alone, he says it four or five times. Look at
it. Look down at verse 12. He says, I write unto you little
children. Verse 18, little children is
the last time. Verse 28, and now little children. Little children. Does this offend
anyone to be called a little child? I don't think so. I hope not.
John was one of the disciples who, when the disciples were
arguing among themselves about who should be the greatest in
the kingdom, you remember that? John and all of them were in
on it after about a year or so. Believing the truth like they
thought they were something. And began to argue among themselves
who was the greatest and our Lord reprimanded all of them.
Without exception he said unto them except you become as little
children. You shall not enter the kingdom
of heaven. You've got to be a little child
to enter the kingdom. Little children. And the Lord
from then on, John, I don't think John, well, I know he wasn't offended,
but the Lord from then on called them little children. He said,
my little children, it's the last time. Little children, have
you any meat? Little children. He called them
little children. Little children this is a wonderful. And affectionate. Way that the
Lord God addresses his people little. Little children not. Big children but little children
meaning infants infants toddlers little children. Children. Children have special needs,
don't they? Children need to be taught. Children need to be
taught. And quite often, they have to
be taught over and over and over the same lessons, don't they?
How about you little children? Not me. Children need to be led. If they're not led, The children
aren't led, aren't taken by the hand. If they're not guided, they'll
get in trouble, they'll fall, they need to be led. How about
you, little children? Children need to be corrected. Oh, well, they need to be corrected. And so do we. Little children,
children need to be cared for, don't they? Children can't take
care of themselves. How about you? Are you self-sufficient? None of God's people feel that
way. Little children are to be provided
for. They need provisions. They need
somebody to provide for them. They can't provide for themselves,
little children. Little children need protection. Oh, how they need protection. Little children need patience,
don't they? Little children need more patience
than adults, anyway. They need patience. Oh, how we need the God of patience. Little children need tenderness.
You can't be too rough on little children, because they're just
little children. How about you? You need tenderness,
compassion. The scripture says, as the father
pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. So he said, my little children,
are you a little child before God, helpless, in need of all
of his care and his provision, all of his Corrections of what
he said little children these things right on to you. What banks well in chapter one
we read it. We've been studying it these
things of who Christ is he started out chapter one that glorious
declaration who Christ is that which we heard and saying, that
word of life, the life, in him is life. It was manifested under
that, who Christ is, who God is. God is light. You remember? We've looked at these things
that we write unto you. He said we write, verse 4 of
chapter 1, for your joy, that your joy may be full. And this
message, this morning, is for your joy. Little children, these
things we write unto you that your joy may be full. These things
we write unto you, and look at it, verse 1, that you sin not. Little children, the Father says,
don't sin. When your children are When they
begin to be old enough to understand what you're saying. What do you
seem to say more than anything else? What is it that you find yourself
saying over and over and over all the time? Don't do that. Stop. Because their natural tendency. Is to sin is to. do wrong. So our Heavenly Father says to
little children. Is that you you find your natural
propensity tendency is to sin. Is it easier to do well or to
sin? Little children don't sin. Don't sin. Now over in chapter
one you remember verse eight he says if we say that we have
no sin we deceive ourselves. If someone could foolishly, if
someone could ridiculously say, well, I don't sin anymore. Some, some really think that
they don't, but if anyone says that they have no sin, they deceive
themselves. We deceive ourselves and the
truth is not in it. Because this is, and we looked
at that, this is what the Holy Spirit of truth first teaches. all of God's children, John 645,
they shall all be taught of God. God the Father, God the Son,
God the Holy Spirit, he's called the Spirit of Truth. And the
first thing the Holy Spirit of Truth teaches every one of his
children is this, a sinner before God. And he continually reminds them
of that, huh? Convinces sin, righteousness
and judgment, the Holy Spirit. And if someone would say, I have
no sin, they deceive themselves, and the Holy Spirit is not in
them. These holier-than-thou, these people today who claim
the Holy Spirit, are the worst sinners of all. They have not
the Spirit. If anyone says in me, that is,
in my flesh, dwelleth no sin. He deceives himself. But this
is what all of God's people are brought to understand, that in
my flesh dwelleth no good thing. And they say with Paul, O wretched
man that I am. They say with Paul, I can't do
what I want to do. I can't not do what I don't want
to do. And when we're talking about
sinners, that's what we're talking about. And this gospel in a minute
we're going to tell you the good news is to only only the center. Only the center. So this is what
all of God's people are taught what they are no good. Undone. Held as urban center. And yet the father says. Don't
do that. Then don't do that. What kind
of father would he be if he didn't? Don't sin. As any faithful father
would say, don't go where you shouldn't go. Don't think what you shouldn't
think. Don't think thoughts like that. Don't say what you ought
not to say. Put a watch over your mouth. Don't act like that. Stop acting
like that. Do you tell, have you quit telling
that to Blair, Theresa? Don't act like that. Scripture
says things like this to his children. Lay aside all malice
and all guile and hypocrisies and envies and all evil speaking. Stop that, the father said. He says put off the old man and
put on the new. Scripture is over and over again,
the father tells us quit acting like The old man. Act like the
new. Scripture says things like this
from the father. He says, come me out from among
them. Don't run with the wrong crowd.
You ever told your children that? Don't run with them. Come me
out from among them, the world that is. Be separate, saith the
Lord. Touch not the unclean thing.
Don't go there. Don't do that. Faithful father
says that, and he says, and I will receive you and will be a father
unto you and you'll be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord
Almighty. Don't do that. Don't go there. Stop that. Do
you need that? Do you need that rebuke? When are we going to
stop needing that? These are chastenings, these
are corrections, these are rebukes and reproofs and instructions.
from the father, aren't they? They're profitable. If you be
without these corrections, you're a bastard. You don't tell this
to anybody else's children, do you? You don't reprimand other
people's children, but you do your own, over and over again.
And we need that. So if God does not chasten us,
we're as bastards, we're not children. And all of God's children
want to be without sin, don't they? This is the heartfelt desire
of all of God's people. They want to be just like Jesus
Christ. How's that? Without sin. They strive to be like Christ.
Someone does not, they're not God's child. All of God's children,
if you love your father, you want to grow up to be like him,
don't you? They strive to be like the Lord
Jesus Christ. They don't want to sin. God's
people don't love sin. They hate it. And they, like
Job, eschew it. They want to avoid it. Right? Sure. But try as they may. Like a little child. tries they
may, they still sin. They still sin. They get themselves
in a mess of trouble every time. And so, our Father says, after
that gentle reproof and exhortation and rebuke, children don't sin. But he goes on and says, but,
and, if any man sin. Aren't you glad he added these
words? If you do. If any man sin. Remember he says, if any man
say, we have no sin. Easy to see, but if any man sing,
you have an advocate with the Father. You have an advocate with the
Father. Jesus Christ the righteous. Now, how many times have you
heard this? I pray, and our brother's
prayer will be answered, that you'll hear this for the first
time. I'm quite certain everyone in here hasn't heard this. But most of us have heard this
over and over again. This is the good news. It's the
same old same old. The same thing. To write the
same things. To say the same things to you
is not grievous to me. And it's not grievous to a sinner
to hear it again. This is the good news. Because
we're sinners. We wake up a sinner. We go to
bed a sinner. We need an advocate. We can't
seem to do anything but sin. Until the day we die we'll be
a sinner. And so what do we need? We need
to hear the good news, and this is the good news. If any man
sin, we have an advocate, a go-between, a daisman, a mediator, a representative
with the Father. He's Jesus Christ, the righteous. Let's look at this. Now, as I
said, you've heard this so many times, but not everyone. Woe is unto me if I do not declare
the gospel plainly. Clearly, again and again. Now,
though God is our Father, He is still, first and foremost,
our holy and righteous God, is He not? This is why we're told
to fear the Lord. We never quit fearing the Lord.
My dad, I call him dad, still call him dad, called him dad
from early on. Yet, I was to never approach
him in a flippant and careless and familiar way, was I? call
him by his first name or something like that. There's a certain
amount of fear that he deserved, right? Same way with our Father,
always will be. Though God is our Father, he
is first and foremost our holy and righteous God. He's a just
God. He said, look unto me and be
ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God. I'm a just
God. This needs to be sounded forth
today more than ever. He's just God. God is not first
love. He is first, just he's the first,
first, the holy and righteous God is in on. The judge. Of all mankind, and
we all have sinned and we still do against God. And he, the scripture
says, will by no means clear the guilty. And he says, No man cometh unto
the Father. No man can approach unto God.
You remember reading that in 1 Timothy? He's a God which cannot
be approached unto. He's a consuming fire, Hebrews
says. And yet men and women all over
just talk about God this, God that, God this, God that, without
any mention of an advocate. And I'm going to give you an
illustration in a little while that will clearly reveal this. You can't, God is not anyone's
father except through the son. We're not born son, well we're
born again, we're adopted children. There's a firstborn, the eldest
son, the heir. And we're joint heirs with him. We cannot approach unto God except
one way. It's only one way. An advocate.
Only one. Only one. There's one God, Scripture
says, and one mediator. One mediator between God and
men. Not mankind. It doesn't say God
and mankind. It says between God and men. This advocate is not everyone's
advocate. There in verse two, where it
says he is the propitiation, that is the bloody sacrifice
for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the whole
world. John wrote that before, didn't he, in John 3, 16. He
wrote what the Lord said. You know, he's not saying every
single individual in the world or else everyone would be saved.
But no, he has a people out of the whole world out of every
tribe, kindred, nation, and tongue on earth. But there's only one advocate
between God and men, the man, the man. It's not Mary, the man,
Christ Jesus. It's not John, it's not Peter,
it's not Christopher, whoever that is, It's the Lord Jesus Christ, one
advocate, one advocate, the only one the Father hears. And we're
told to keep coming to him by Christ, aren't we? We're told
to keep calling on him through the Lord Jesus Christ. He is
the one advocate. We're still a sinner. We need
an advocate. And he's the only one the Father
hears. He's the only one the Father
accepts. He's the only one the father deals with on behalf of
his people. Right? He's the second Adam.
There's one God and one mediator. And he says, if any man sin,
we have an advocate. Now the word advocate is a lawyer. That's what that is. A lawyer. An attorney. That's what the
word advocate is. About the best illustration of
this I've ever heard. We have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. Brother Marvin Stoniker. Well,
Gabe told me a little of this and then Marvin gave me the full
details of this. It's a true story. Best I've
ever heard. Brother Marvin, years ago, had
a friend named Mr. James Beasley. And Mr. Beasley owned a convenience store. He was a proprietor of a convenience
store which sold various things and sold alcohol. And a miner
came in one day and he sold some alcohol to a miner unknowingly. He didn't know. This was back
years ago when they didn't, you know, check people's Age too
much and he unknowingly broke the law. It was against the law. And he broke it unknowingly,
he didn't know he'd broken the law. And someone turned him in. And
so the authorities came to him and issued him a subpoena. To
appear in court. Guilty. He said I, of what? of selling to a minor who when
he didn't know he'd broken the law, but he had and they issued
him a subpoena. You're to appear in court. With
this charge against you be there. Well. He was summons and as that day
began to. Get near. He. As you would was afraid. And one day, this is true, one
day a man walked in his store, he'd never seen before, a man
he didn't know, walked into his store and said to him, you're
Mr. Beasley? He said, yeah. He said,
I'm an attorney and I have heard that you're to appear in court
on such and such a date and I have agreed to represent you. Now, Mr. Beasley didn't call
on this attorney. Mr. Beasley didn't ask for an
attorney. Mr. Beasley didn't even know
this man, didn't know who he was, where he came from. I asked
Marvin later on, I said, where did that man come from? He said
that he had no idea who sent him. Well, this attorney, this advocate,
came to Mr. Beasley and said, I'm going to
represent you. Mr. Beasley said, I can't afford
to pay you. He said, it won't cost you anything. I'm going
to do it for free. So the day came, the day of his
court, and this was several weeks before his court appearance,
and he never saw the man again. He never heard from him again.
And as the day approached, he began to worry. I hope he shows
up. I hope my attorney, I hope he
was an attorney. Well, the day came and he sat
in that court. Brother Marvin was with him.
He was there. He was a witness to that. Brother Marvin was with
him. They sat in the back waiting on his name to be called his
case to come up. And Marvin said that that judge
sitting on that bench was the most strict. He was throwing
the book at everybody. And he said, particularly, there
were lots of people that tried to represent themselves. There
were people that would stand before him and say you're and
the judge would say. You're charged with such and
such a crime. How do you plead? And they'd say guilty or innocent.
And he'd say, well, who is your attorney? And person after person
would say, I don't have one. I'm going to represent my. And
Marvin said that this judge became increasingly angry. And he said the one this judge
said, finally said to one person, he said, you go get you an attorney
and don't come back in my court with that one. If you do, you're
going to jail. without me even hearing you." And he was throwing the book
at these people. And then finally, Mr. Beasley's name was called. They
said, Mr. James Beasley. And Marvin said
he wasn't even—Gilton Marvin wasn't even on trial there, but
he said fear went through him just hearing that name called.
He said his heart was in his throat. Imagine how Mr. Beasley
felt. Mr. James Beasley. And lo and
behold, on the front row was that man. He stood up and said,
Your Honor, I'm here to represent Mr. James Beasley. I'm his attorney. And Marvin said that the judge,
the whole countenance changed. Says he even smiled at the man
and said, OK. And apparently they had spoken
before. Apparently they had already discussed
this case because the judge said to the attorney, we'll talk about
this more later. Next. And Mr. James Beasley didn't have to
say a word. He had an advocate. And that's about the best illustration
you've ever heard. Where did he come from? Somebody
said it. Known by the judge, it says we
have an advocate with the father, you better not appear before
this God without one, but we have one. Where did he come from?
From the father. God, he's a court appointed attorney. May I use a play on words? He's
a publican defender. That's the only ones he defends.
He defends the guilty. That's the only cases he takes.
I mean, Plum guilty. Plum guilty. That's the only
reason, that's the only way he'll agree to take the case, is if
you're Plum guilty. And it's all at no charge. The judge and our advocates. They had our case before the
world began. The case of all of God's children
was with the Father and with our advocate. And our Lord Jesus Christ pleads. He's called Jesus Christ the
righteous, isn't it? The righteous. You see, God just
doesn't let his people off scot-free. Our sins have to be paid for.
And Jesus Christ, you know, if we... Jesus Christ stands on our behalf and says we're guilty. We're
guilty as children. But I'm not. I'm righteous. I'm holy. And in a supernatural, wonderful,
amazing, marvelous, merciful, gracious, loving, kind, substitutionary
work, he was made sin. So this just God punishes us. And we go free, but no, the crime
has been paid for. The Lord Jesus Christ by His
blood. And we're justified from all
things. How? Through Christ's righteousness. That's called substitution and
satisfaction. This is the heart and core, the
sum and substance, the crux of the gospel. Substitution and
satisfaction. Who did it all? Our advocate,
our advocate, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ,
the righteous, the sinner's advocate, takes all guilty cases. And here's
the wonderful, here's the wonderful thing about
it. He's never lost a case. Not one. Every single guilty
sinner that he undertakes their case. They're completely exonerated
of all charges for every single one. So come guilty. Come like
those kings of old with a rope around your neck, pleading the
mercy of God, but pleading the blood and righteousness of your
enemy. We have one. Jesus Christ is
right. He's the propitiation for our
sin. We better have one. We have one. Let's sing a closing hymn. What number did we pick out? 226. 226. Let's all stand and
turn to 226. I am not skilled to understand
what God hath willed, what God hath planned. I only know that
His right hand is one who is my Savior. I take Him at His
word indeed, Christ died for sinners since I reached. For in my heart I find a need
of Him to be my Savior. Sing the third as the last. That
he should leave his place on high And come for sin, O man
who died You counted brave, so once did I Before I knew my Savior I.