We're looking in 2 John. Brother Al read those names of
these mighty men and they are recorded there on purpose that
we might know that there are mighty men in the earth. But we must always remember this.
that there is no mighty man in the earth that has not been made
so by the Lord. There's none that have lifted
up themselves to any sort of prominence or gained any victory
over any enemy that has not been so ordained by Almighty God for
His own purpose. That is a something that rankles
the pride of man and humbles men in the dust when the Lord
is pleased to give them a understanding of it and a desire that it be
so. I mean, you know, we We, Brother
Ed and I were, yesterday, were sitting, waiting
on Brother John Crowley to arrive, and we were by a cemetery. And we took note of the fact
that there was a multitude of tombstones out there, some very
small, some falling over. But then there was some that
they were bigger than others. And then there was some that
was huge. And such is the thought of man You know, if a man has
plenty of money, he figures, well, I'll raise me up a big
monument. You know, when they put me in
the ground, says, I want people to remember who I was. And so he puts him up a big marker,
you know, and the guy over here doesn't have much money. He just
got a little one. But the reality is that none
of those things make any difference whatsoever. because none of the
deeds and exploits of men are to bring praise unto them. It's
to bring praise unto God. And so, you know, a lot is made about funerals
and stuff when people die. I'm not opposed to the cultural
ways of men, that's fine. But it's an unfortunate fact
that most times funerals exist for men to glory in men. And
it's seldom that you go to a funeral And this is the design of it,
so I'm not shocked at it, but it's most of the time when you
go to a funeral, you expect that you're gonna hear about all the
great things about this person. But you know, the children of
God, our desire ought always to be that our names be forgotten
and Christ be exalted. And may it be so. And as we go
through this life, that we might not seek to make a name for ourself,
but that we might seek to exalt and honor the one name which
is above every name. Because you know, you read about
all these great men, and surely the Lord used them and raised
them up for his own purpose, and he exalted them as he saw
fit. But the scripture says there's one name that is above all names. So much so that it's as if these
other names don't even matter. They're insignificant. Because
the greatest man you can ever think of couldn't do anything
for you. When you stand before Almighty
God, it doesn't make any difference who your daddy was, It doesn't
make any difference what you did. Doesn't matter if he was
President of the United States. Makes no difference. May the
Lord be praised. May we remember that and may
he ever put those things upon our heart and mind. Looking in
2 John, we've been looking at this for a few weeks here. I'm
gonna begin reading in verse four. Says, I rejoiced greatly
that I found of thy children walking in truth, as we have
received a commandment from the Father. And now I beseech thee,
lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that
which we had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is love that we walk
after his commandments. This is the commandment that
as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it. For many
deceivers are entered into the world who confess not that Jesus
Christ has come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Look to yourselves that we lose
not those things which we have wrought, that we receive a full
reward. I'm gonna stop there. I don't
know if I'll get all the way through that, but John gives a exhortation to the
sons of God, and he has a place of rejoicing. And he says, I
rejoiced greatly that I found of thy children walking in truth. That is a great encouragement
to the sons of God, when we find somebody that's walking in truth. You can find all kinds of people
out here in the world that go to church. You can find all kinds
of people out here that claim to be what they call Christians. But it is a great blessing when
you come across somebody that's walking in the truth. Walking in the truth is more
than just saying some things that are true. I mean, there's
all kind of doctrinal stuff that people go through, and it may
all be true. But if they're not walking in
the truth. See, not walking in the truth
doesn't mean that I'm parroting doctrines that somebody taught
me. I mean, I can teach you all kinds of stuff. A lot of people,
they get off into all these different things. And it's not that there's
not truth here. I mean, think about it. There's,
of course, down through the years, been a great controversy between
those that call themselves Armenians and those that call themselves
Calvinists. Now, most people's ashamed to call themselves Armenians.
You know, you don't find too many people that stand up and
say, I'm an Armenian. Because I believe it's a true
thing, because if a man really, you know, pauses and considers
that, he knows that can't be true. But he wants to believe
it. And so he's willing to stand
with it. But then you got those that are
proud to be Calvinist. By the way, we ain't them Armenians.
You know, we're Calvinists. Oh, I can tell you what the doctrines
are. Here they are, buddy. You got this one, and you got
that one, and you got the other one. And all those things are
true. I mean, if somebody cut me open,
they'd find out that I'm what people might term a Calvinist. I'm a predestinarian. I'm a lot of things people might
label me to be, but I'm not interested in that. I want to know, am I
walking in Christ? You know, is that the place where
I'm at? Not do I know these things. Now I'm encouraged, believe me,
don't get me wrong, I'm encouraged when I hear somebody speaking
forth what I believe to be the gospel of God's free and sovereign
grace. That is a delightful thing when
I hear that. And you don't hear it all over
the place, but you'll every now and then, you'll hear it and
it'll make you wanna wind the tape back or get the, you know,
you wish you could go back on the radio and say, what did he
say? Because you rejoice that somebody is giving glory to God
and to none alone, none else, to him alone. But John didn't say he rejoiced
that he found the children knowing the truth. He said he found joy
in knowing that they were walking in the truth. And there is a
big difference in knowing the truth and walking in the truth.
May the Lord give us grace that we might know the truth for sure,
because you can't walk in the truth if you don't know the truth.
And the Lord does indeed apply the truth to our heart, but oh,
that he might give us grace to walk in it, to be obedient children. And it says, as we have received
a commandment from the Father, that's the commandment from the
Fathers, to walk in the truth. This is the whole duty of man, to fear God. and keep His commandments. And this is His commandment,
that we walk in the truth. And now I beseech thee, lady,
And of course, speaking of this elect lady that he's speaking
to, which we believe to be some particular church, I mean, that's
my own conviction. And now I beseech thee, lady,
not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we
had from the beginning, that we love one another. Now that's
a very simplistic truth, is it not? that we love one another. But yet here's John at the very
close of his life with the ability, no doubt, to expound upon many
doctrines and things that the Lord had taught him. I mean,
can you imagine? what he could have talked about. I mean, think about all the things
that the Lord showed him during his walk with him here on the
earth. But then, down through the ages,
some people consider that John was probably in his 90s when
he wrote this book. They may not have been. I don't
know how old he was. Nobody else does either. That's
historically kind of what the framework that is. But can you
imagine that in that period of time, walking upon the earth
as one of the apostles of Christ, one who had walked with him and
been taught with him through his very lips, day after day,
had seen his death, had seen his resurrection, had seen his
ascension into heaven. What could he have told us? Oh,
a multitude of things, but what did he tell us? He said, here's
a commandment that we've received from God, that you love one another. Now, of course, in the world,
there is a perversion of everything that's true. And the world's
perversion of what John's saying here is, oh, we just need to
love everybody. You know, just go out here and
don't have any, don't ever try to ruffle anybody's feathers
or don't ever do anything, just love everybody. That's the world's
idea. Just be tolerant. See, that's
the world's idea of what love is, is toleration. Well, toleration's
definitely involved in loving. We have to learn to tolerate
one another, especially if you're gonna stay married. And wives have to tolerate more
than husbands do, no doubt about it. But toleration is not love,
of what he's speaking about here. Because what he's talking about
is loving somebody more than you love yourself. Now, it's difficult enough to
love somebody as much as you love yourself, but it is impossible
to love somebody more than you love yourself, apart from the
grace of God. And the Lord does indeed, as
he says in scripture sometimes. He said it's possible that a
man might even lay down his life for his friends. These men that
Brother Al was speaking about that went and got that water
out of that well of Bethlehem for David's sake, they loved
David more than they loved their own lives. They were willing
to lay down their lives to get this water for him. And this is love. And it's nothing new. I mean,
this didn't start with the New Testament. It's always been true
that we might love our neighbor. That's what the Ten Commandments,
what men call the The second table of the commandments, I
don't particularly like those terms and whatnot, but they're
directed towards how we relate to men. We love the Lord our
God with all of our heart, we're commanded to, and our neighbor
as ourself. As ye would that men should do
unto you, do ye even so to them. And so this is what we've had
from the beginning. I mean, from the very beginning,
but most especially from the beginning of our journey with
Christ. Because the whole of the gospel is summed up in the words that
the Lord spoke to Nicodemus. For God so loved the world, that
he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life. Now that's a glorious demonstration
of the love of God and the parameters of it. It doesn't say that he loved
every individual in the world the same, but it says that he
loved the world, all of those which belong to him in the world. There he is. Now that's evident
throughout the scripture. When he prayed in the garden,
he said, Father, I pray not for the world, but for those which
thou hast given me out of the world. Thine they were, and thou
hast given them to me. He prayed. He prayed for Peter.
He didn't pray for Judas. But he demonstrated his love
for his people as he prayed for Peter Peter, I have prayed for
thee that thy faith fail not. He demonstrated his love when
he met that woman whom we sang about a moment ago, who was at
a well drawing water. And as the song says, she disrespected
him. She said, well, you're just a
Jew. What am I to do? What would I
be talking to you about? But the Lord loved her. The rich
young ruler, when he came to the Lord, the scripture says
the Lord loved him. Now some of them surmise that
the rich young ruler went away and never came back. I don't
believe that's true. I believe that when he saw what
he was and the Lord showed it to him when he said, go give
all that you have to the poor, he realized how far from the
truth he was. And the Lord loving him, looked
on him, and loved him enough to show him that. And so it is
that we love one another. Sometimes love is that which causes us to confront
our brethren. Not because we despise them,
but because we love them. If we see a brother overtaken
in a fault, you know, are we just gonna sit back and let him
just go on down the pathway of destruction, or we're gonna seek
to do what the Lord would have us to do, to seek to bring them
back, not in pride, not in condemnation, but knowing ourselves to be sinners,
we come to them in love. That's what he says, love one
another, even as Christ loved the church. and gave himself
for it. So this is not a new commandment,
and this is love, he said, that we walk after his commandments. Remember, in 1 John, he gave
us two commandments. He said the two commandments
were believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and love one another.
Now, people want to lay a lot of stuff on people. They say,
oh, well, you need to be doing this. I have a dear, I call him
a friend. He and I don't see eye to eye
on the subject of the Sabbath. And he's constantly trying to
lay the keeping of a particular day upon those who he speaks
to about keeping this particular day. Now he doesn't believe it's
the seventh day, he believes it's the first day. And you know,
that's a common idea. I never discovered in the scripture
where the Lord said I'm changing the Sabbath day to the first
day. Now we meet together on the first
day of the week because we believe it's what's called the Lord's
day in the scripture. But we don't meet on the Lord's
day for the same reason that the Jews were commanded to rest
on the seventh day. They were commanded to rest on
the seventh day in order that we might see Christ as our rest. And the resting that the Jews
had on the seventh day was to point God's people to the fact
that there is therefore now a rest to the people of God. And it's
Christ. See, Christ is our Sabbath. He's
that one who fulfilled the Sabbath. He's the Lord of the Sabbath.
And so we're not, the commandments that we're speaking about here
are not the commandments of Moses, though we certainly believe the
commandments of Moses are true, and are to be used for what God
has sent them for. What is the purpose of Moses'
commandments? To teach us what sin is. I mean,
Paul said, I didn't know what sin was, except the law said
This, he said, and when the commandment came to me, sin revived and I
died. I saw what I was by nature because
the law condemned me. And so every time that a man's
brought to the law, he's brought condemnation. I mean, a man can't
come to the law and be happy. I mean, not if he's thinking
about his own self. Now we can look at the law and
say thanks be to God that he gave us a law. Thanks be to God
that he's a God of the law. And those things are true, but
as the law was applied to us, brethren, it's a terrible thing. Not the law, but us. It shows
us what we are. Is the law sin? God forbid. But that's not the commandment.
This is love, that we walk after His commandments. What are His
commandments? His commandments are believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what He said in the first
book. And love one another. May that
be so with us. That as ye have heard from the
beginning, ye shall walk in it. Now how do I know that's what
He's talking about? Because of what He says in the next verse.
He said, for there are many deceivers entered into the world who confess
not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. This is a deceiver
and an antichrist. Now, there's a lot in that. Now I would say, we could say
on the surface, well I think most people believe Jesus Christ
was a real man and he came in the flesh, yes. I would say that
probably most people believe that. Even a lot of people that
are non-believers, so to speak, would believe that there was
a man named Jesus who came from Nazareth, and then he lived and
he died in the world. But that's not to believe that
Jesus is the Christ. Because you see, the Pharisees,
They knew that Jesus was real, did he not? They knew he was
in the flesh, but they didn't believe that Jesus Christ was
come in the flesh. See, they didn't believe that
he was who he said he was. They rejected who he said he
was, they rejected who he actually was, even though they knew he's,
I mean, Nicodemus said, hey, we believe you're a teacher sent
from God. I don't think they could deny
it. Now, they did deny it. I mean, they ultimately denied
it because they didn't believe that this was Christ in the flesh. They said, you can't be the Christ. You can't be him because the
Christ doesn't come out of Nazareth. You couldn't be him. but Jesus Christ is come in the
flesh. The one of whom we speak that
of all these things he has come into the world and he has walked
among men in a flesh and blood body and he has died in that
body. He has been buried in that body. He has been raised from the grave
in that body and he has ascended into heaven in the same. He didn't ascend as a spirit.
He descended, that's what the angel said, didn't he? He said,
this same Jesus. The same one, what did they behold? They beheld a resurrected Christ. They beheld a man who walked
on the shores of Galilee with them and fixed them a meal and
ate the fish with them and said, can a spirit eat fish? They saw this same Jesus go back
into heaven. They were flabbergasted. I mean,
they were all, I don't know how long it took, but I'm sure nobody
said anything. And the angel said, you men of
Galilee, why are you standing gazing up into heaven? This is
not a big deal. Don't be sitting here thinking
this is the thing, because the same one that went away, he's
coming back. He hadn't gone away so that you'll
never see him again. He came in the flesh, born of
a woman. He died in the same body and
he rose in the same one and was ascended back into heaven. And
we believe that he has come in the flesh. And there are many that don't
believe that. And anybody that confesses not
that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. I'm not talking about,
they just, as we said, oh, well, I believe he was a man. But they
believe that Jesus Christ, the God who rules the heavens and
the earth, that's him in the flesh. See, a lot of people believe
that Jesus Christ came, they even believe he was like part
God, you know, he was, on the ladder up here with God. He was down in there somewhere.
But no, this is the same God who said, let there be light. And there was light. And he has
come in the flesh. Now, can you explain it? I can't. Can you explain how that Jesus
Christ has come in the flesh and died
in the flesh as God, and yet God never died. Is any man capable of comprehending
that? No, but men are capable of trying
to explain it away, are they not? Oh, that's foolish. Well,
here's how it is. Well, I'm telling you, I don't
know how it is. But I believe it is. Because he said it was. And because he demonstrated it.
And we believe that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. And it is
a deceiver who is sent into the world that tries to deceive men
and turn them away from considering who he was as the God man. Not as part God and part man. You hear men say, oh, well this
was Jesus as God, and this was Jesus as Jesus. No, he's Jesus. He's that one whose name is above
every name. He's come in the flesh. It's
God come down to man. the most glorious thing, no more
glorious message can be brought to men in earth that the Lord
of heaven and earth came down and bled for sinners. And anybody tells you difference,
the difference is a deceiver. They tell you something that
leads you away from knowing that he is that God man. Not just a deceiver, but an antichrist. Now you hear all the time these
people talking about the antichrist. Oh, the antichrist is coming.
Well, as you read the scripture, I've never read that in scripture
at all. It says there are antichrists.
There are many who are antichrists. John speaks about them. He speaks
about them over here in the first book. Anybody that denies that
Jesus Christ, being God, has come into flesh is an antichrist,
is against Christ. And there are many. May the Lord
deliver us from them all. That's as far as we're gonna
go. As far as we need to go. I mean, you know, really, when
you come to the place where you, have a rejoicing in who Jesus
Christ is, by the grace of almighty God, you have come as far as
God would have men to go. You can't go any further than
that. That's a glorious thing. The angels in heaven can't even
comprehend it. But he's given to men whom he
loves. the faith to embrace him as who
he is, the savior of sinners. What a glorious thing. Oh, that
he might teach us what sinners we are, but what a savior he
is. He is a savior who saves to the
uttermost, never lost one for whom he died. We were talking
yesterday about universalism. And of course, universalism is
the original religion of man. It's the original deception of
Satan. As he came to the woman, and he said, you shall not surely
die. Because you see, the universalist
says, well, everybody, you know, all men, you know, all dogs go
to heaven. Somebody wrote a book about that,
I never read it. But you know, that's the idea
that, well, everybody's just gonna go up to heaven. If you
go to a funeral, you'll believe that. I say you'll believe it,
you'll hear it. Hopefully you don't believe it.
But because everybody that dies goes to heaven. at the most funerals,
any of them I've ever been to. I've never been to one where
somebody said, yeah, we believe that fellow went straight to
hell. No, they're not gonna say that. Well, they don't know that
in the first place, and I wouldn't ever stand up and say that either.
But I do know this, that there's never been a man that ever moved
one inch closer to heaven by any deed, goodness, righteousness
that was within himself. He's never lived, never been
a woman. It's the righteousness of Christ
alone that gives us a place of standing before Almighty God.
He's the Savior of sinners. A lot of people say they sinned,
but not very many people know they're sinners. But when God's
pleased to show a man he's a sinner, and that Christ is a Savior,
it's the most joyous revelation that can ever come to a man,
to know that it's not himself, but it's Christ. Oh, what a Savior
he is.