Yeah, the Lord, you know, He
has, over the years, I've seen so
many different people that the Lord has brought me into contact
with, and I often have wondered, well, why? How did that ever
happen, you know? Like Brother Ed sitting over
here, many years ago, We met on a job site. And down through the years, we
did business together. And then for a while, we were
kind of apart. I mean, I got out of the construction
business. And so for a number of years,
we didn't see one another, talk to one another. And then one
day he called me up and he asked me if I was on the radio. And he said that he had heard
our radio broadcast and we rejoiced in fellowship. I remember from
time to time he and I would have discussions this has been years
ago, about the sovereignty of God. And he wasn't sure if he
agreed with that or not, but I think he does now. But the
Lord leads his people in a way that they knew not. You know,
how'd we get where we are? Except for the mercy of God.
Now a lot of people wouldn't think that it was mercy. They
think, well, man, you're all confused and whatever. And I
guess in the minds of some, we probably are. I probably am confused. And I would be the first to confess
that. I stay kind of in a state of
confusion about many things, and many things that I thought
one time that I knew pretty well, I'm more confused about now than
I ever have been. But one thing that I'm not confused
about, one thing that is clearer in my eyes and mind than ever
before in my life, is the glory that resides in Jesus Christ,
that He is the Savior of sinners, and that He saves His people
from the uttermost to the uttermost. They belong to Him. And He will
lose none that the Father gave Him. And that's a glorious consideration,
to remember that He is the one worthy of praise And there's
a lot of preaching that goes on today, but there's very little
comparatively that goes on that has one central theme and one
central theme only, and that's Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And Paul said he determined that
he would know nothing among those to whom he came except that.
And that's all I want to do. You know, there's a lot of subjects
that you can go, somebody was here, was sharing with us about
some fella that was so proud of the fact that he had 33 messages
on angels. Why would somebody waste their
time with 33 sermons on angels, when when you get through with
your study of angels in the scripture, you won't know any more about
it than when you started. Because that's a mysterious,
angels are beyond the comprehension of men. Now if angels are beyond
the comprehension of men, how much more so is the true and
living God that created the angels? I mean, he is dwelling in the
light to which no man can approach. And he's incomprehensible. Men
can't grasp who he is. And yet, he's pleased to visit
us and teach us and lead us and give us a mind and heart to seek
after him. What a glorious God he is. We're
gonna begin looking here in the second the epistle of John. Of course, John wrote the gospel
of John and then probably wrote the gospel of John rather early
in his sojourn. But then it is believed that
these last three letters and the book of the Revelation were
written at the very close of John's life. Now again, a lot
of this stuff we don't know for a fact as far as timelines and
stuff. Some people, historically and
traditionally, it's believed that John was the last of the
apostles. That is, that he lived, he outlived
all of the rest of them. And that, I think a case can
be made for that. And of course the scripture says
that he was the apostle whom the Lord loved. Now that doesn't
mean he didn't love the other ones, you know. And the Lord
can love a man unconditionally and without limit,
and yet love another man in a greater fashion than that. And nobody,
you see, a man is not, the disciples, only the one has recorded in
scripture is the one whom the Lord loved, but yet none of the
other disciples were in any wise hurt by that. You know, and that's
one of men's arguments against the electing grace of God, is
that, well, it's not fair. But I mean, you know, it's not
fair that the Lord loved anybody. I mean, why should he have loved
anybody? And so, that he has loved anybody is an amazing thing. That he would love us is even
more amazing. Now, I'm going to read this and
make a few comments on it. Second John, the elder unto the
elect lady and her children whom I love in the truth, and not
I only, but also they all they that have known the truth. For
the truth's sake which dwelleth in us and shall be with us forever. Grace be with you, mercy and
peace from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the
Son of the Father, in truth and love. I rejoice 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 ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in
it. For many deceivers are entered into the world who confess not
that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver
and an antichrist. Look to yourselves that we lose
not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive
a full reward. Whoso transgresseth and abideth
not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God. He that abideth
in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the
Son. If there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine,
neither receive him not into your house, neither bid him God's
speed. For he that biddeth him God's
speed is partaker of his evil deeds. Having many things to
write unto you I would not write with paper and ink, but I trust
to come unto you and speak face to face that our joy may be full. The children of thy elect sister
greet thee. Amen. This begins, the whole beginning
of this book and the things that he, the one to whom he is addressing
this is very controversial in so far as we understand exactly
who it is that he is writing to. Now, I would say probably
the consensus opinion, when it says the elder, or we know who
the elder is, that's John, the elder, unto the elect lady and
her children. Now, the elect lady, there is
several opinions about who this is, and I don't claim that my
opinion is correct, But it's my opinion. You can have yours,
you know, as you look at it. And it won't, it doesn't really
matter who you come to the conclusion of that he's speaking of as the
elect lady. The truth that he speaks to the
elect lady is what's important. And so some, I'd say the consensus
opinion about who John is writing to here is some prominent lady
that was in the church, and he's speaking to her. She's a prominent
believer. The other opinion that is not
held by a lot of folks is that he's speaking to the church,
a specific church, and churches that have sprung out of her.
Now I hold to the second opinion of that. I believe he's speaking
to a particular church, and then in relation to these children
of that church, of those that have gone out from them and other
places. And again, I could be wrong about
that, and it doesn't really matter about that aspect of things,
because the truth that he speaks is what's important. And he says
here, whom I love in the truth, and not I only, but also they
that have known the truth." Now this is a, as we've been speaking,
and John, I guess in many ways he speaks more about the love
of God than any of the other apostles. And is that not fittingly
so, that he's the apostle whom the Lord loved? And so it would
seem logical that he would have more of that concept of the love
of God. For God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten son. As far as I know, I'm pretty
sure this is true, none of the other apostles wrote of God loving
the world. Now, you can check that out and
tell me if I'm wrong, but John spoke of that. Now, we know who
he was talking about when he said the world. A lot of people
get all up in arms about that. misunderstand what he was saying.
You've got to take into account who it was he was speaking to.
Speaking to Nicodemus, Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a staunch
Jew, and Nicodemus' idea about how God would come to the world
was that he would come to the Jews alone. And the Lord said
to Nicodemus, Nicodemus, except a man be born again, he cannot
see the kingdom of God. And then he went on to say, 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. And so it is that the world of
which he speaks is the greater number of God's people, which
are not just Jews, but that are of the Gentiles. And so throughout
the Word of God, we find that that concept is true. I mean, even in the Old Testament,
we read about God being the God of the Gentiles. Now, the Jews
didn't like that. because they liked their own
little religious way, just like people do today. They say, well,
I'm this and I'm that, and they belong to this and belong to
that, and they take pride in it. Now, nothing wrong with identifying
yourself with a general group of believers who have held certain
doctrines. Nothing wrong with saying, you
know, that I'm a Baptist. If we understand by that, that
when we say we're a Baptist, we're not worshiping the Baptist,
but that we generally hold to truths that have been espoused
by those who have been known as Baptist. down through time. The same thing as Brother Don
there spoke about Calvinists today. We don't go around saying
we're Calvinists. Now, in reality, our doctrine,
the doctrinal points of things, the main gist of what we believe
would be classified as Calvinism. I'm not ashamed of that by any
stressed imagination. As Brother Don said, in some
things Calvin himself did, I'm ashamed. But then I'm ashamed
of some of the things David did. But the Lord used him, you know,
and the Lord definitely used Calvin to codify David. what we call the doctrines of
grace in a way that his name has become very closely associated
with that. So we don't, we're not ashamed
of being called a Calvinist. I don't like for people necessarily
to call me a Calvinist because I don't know what they mean by
that. It's like a brother I know up in Mississippi, he had come
to an understanding of the doctrines of grace And this buddy that
he knew and grew up with, they grew up in a Southern Baptist
church, which is, for the most part, quite contrary to what
we would call Calvinism. And so anyway, this other brother
found out that Richard was a Calvinist. preacher and their church didn't
have a preacher and so he said he called up Richard and asked
him to come preach and Richard told him well he would and so
during the week he got another call from this brother and the
brother said brother I just heard something he said about some
of the things you believe and I don't know I want you to tell
me about this." He says, I heard that you was a cannibalist. So, you know, Richard had a good
laugh about that. Of course, he kind of explained
to him what the situation was. And he didn't go preach, if my
memory serves me correct, because the fellow decided he didn't
really want him to. And here recently, well I say
recently, probably been a couple years ago now, a good friend
of mine asked me to preach at an evangelistic meeting they
were gonna have at the football field in Brantford. And I told
him I would be glad to do that. But I said, here I want you to
take, I had some messages on a CD. I said, I want you to take
this and I want you to listen to it. And I said, I want you
to know that what I'm gonna preach is what exactly is on this CD. He never did call me back. So, you know, I'm not ashamed
of the things and I'm not ashamed of labels that we might put upon
the thing or other people might put upon it, but before I tell
somebody I am a this or I am a that, I want to know what they
know what they think that is because, you know, if somebody
thinks that I'm something that I'm not, I'm not interested in
that. If they know what I believe and
they call that that, that's fine with me. I don't care. Doesn't
matter to me. But anyway, he said, whom I love
in the truth. Now that's what we want is the
truth. I don't care if John Calvin said
it or if John Wesley said it. It doesn't make a difference
to me who said it. What's important is, is it the
truth? Now the Lord Jesus Christ said,
I am the way, the truth, and the life. And so if it's the
truth, it's gonna be about Christ. He's gonna be the one that's
in the middle of it. And if he's left out of it, In
any part, it cannot be the truth. It may have some truth in it,
but it's not the truth. See, that's what he says here.
He says whom I love in the truth. He doesn't say whom I love in
truth. I would venture to say that every
religion on the earth, most of them, maybe some of them might
not, but practically every religion on the earth has some truth in
it. I mean, Buddhism has some truth
in it. The Hindus have some truth. Now, it's very little, but it's
not the truth. And so we're not interested in
truth, you know, just general truth. Some people, they just
want truth. I remember old Pilate, he asked
the Lord, he said, well, what is truth? But see, he didn't
really want to know what truth was, because he couldn't grasp
it, because the truth is in Christ. The Pharisees believed truth,
but they didn't believe the truth, because they didn't believe Christ.
They said, look, we got Moses, we don't need you. and that's
where they missed the boat. And so he says, whom I love in
the truth, and not I only, but also they that have known the
truth. Because you see, when a man knows
the truth, he can't be satisfied with anything that's not the
truth. See, you know, it always amazes
me how that I've known people that can sit under the sound
of true gospel, exalting Christ alone, and then go over and listen
to somebody preach something that's totally opposite of that,
and think that they were just in church, you know, it's all
right, doesn't matter. No, you cannot be, when you know
the truth, you can't be satisfied with less than that. You can't
be satisfied with more than that. You know, my hope is built on
nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness, but it's not
built on anything more than that either. And more people go astray
adding to it than taking from it. You know, I would venture
to say that if you went in most, and I'm going to pick on the
Baptists because I grew up among them, I would say that most of
them, their problem is not in believing that it's anything
less than Jesus Christ. What their problem is, is they
want to add something to it. You know, it's not what Christ
did, it's what Christ did and what you do. Because you know
God has a part and you have a part. You ever heard that, man's part
and God's part? Well, when you know the truth,
you ain't interested in man's part because you know that there
is no part of man, it is all of Christ. And so that's the
truth. And also they that have known
the truth. If the Spirit of God teaches
us anything, he'll teach us of Christ. That's what he said to
his disciples, did he not? He said, when he is come, he
will not speak of himself, but he will glorify me. Yes, he did. And so we rejoice
with all they that have known the truth. Not just known it,
but loved it. And I believe that's the thing
that binds the people of God together. The truth, now you
mentioned about the entertainment. Now you can get folks jived up
and get them to really, boy, I really like that church. And
the reason they like that church is because they get a good feeling
when they go there and it's, you know, everything is just
professionally done and you know, the preacher, he's trained and
he knows all the right things to say and to make folks happy
and everything's great. But when men know the truth,
they're not interested in that. That cannot satisfy us. May the
Lord help us. And know this, that when we say
we know the truth, we're not boasting. Because we don't know
anything. We don't know anything, but we
know one thing. See, I don't know a bunch of
stuff, but I know one thing. And the one thing that I know
is the only thing I wanna know. And that's Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. And right there is where we take
our stand. And, you know, we're not, I'm
not interested in getting involved in a bunch of doctrinal studies
and arguments with people. All of that stuff has its place,
and a lot of doctrines are very important as you study the scripture.
But there's only one doctrine that formulates the truth, and
that's Jesus Christ being crucified. And that's what John's writing
to this elect lady, whoever this is. He said, I love you in the
truth. And we love one another in the
truth because we know that in the truth, Christ is gonna be
glorified. And as Paul said, that I might
know him and the power of his resurrection. See, that's what
I want to know. I want to know Jesus Christ and
him crucified. May the Lord help us.