I think that the song that we
just sang by Augustus Toplady encaptures the very truth of
the gospel and the basis of our hope as the sons of God in the justice of God. Now we
often hear it said, You often hear men say, and I understand
what they mean by this, and I've said it myself, and there's certain
context in which we can say it, is that we desire the mercy of
God and not His justice. That is a true thing. We do indeed
seek the mercy of God, and without the mercy of God we shall surely
perish. But the basis of our faith, and
the substance of that which we believe rests in the justice
of God. For God will be just and the
justifier of those which believe in Jesus. And our salvation does
not rest in his mercy, though it is his mercy that brought
that salvation to us. But our salvation rests in the
justice of a holy God who demanded a payment for sin. And then when
once that payment for sin is made, then there remaineth nothing
else to be done. You know, if something's free,
you can't pay for it. You know, I mean, if somebody
says I'm giving you this, you can't do anything about it. They
gave it to you. You can't pay it, you can't earn
it, nothing you can do but receive it as that gift which they have
given you. Now some say you can't, that
the Lord, you know, he gives this gift, but you gotta receive
it because if you don't actively receive it, it'll just sit there
and it won't do you any good. How foolish that God should give
a gift unto his people and not ascertain, make it certain that
they shall have it. You know, how foolish would it
be to tell a man that you love him and then not
be able to do anything to save him? Now, David was in that situation,
was he not? As an earthly father, he loved
his son, loved him dearly. As a father does love his children,
he can't help it. And in spite of whatever his
child might do, he still loves his child. David exhibits that
love. But David exhibits the love of
a earthly father who cannot deliver his child. But our heavenly father
is not in that situation. Now that's the picture that much
of that which goes under the guise of calling itself the gospel
paints, they would paint the Lord to be like David with Absalom,
pleading and grieving that men don't come to him but unable
to do anything about it. But the Lord is not like David
in that respect, for he calls. And he calls with an effectual
call. Thy people shall be willing in
the day of thy power. The almighty God who rules in
the heavens will lose none of those whom he loves. He'll draw
all of those who belong to him unto himself, and he shall lose
none. The Lord said that the Father
hath given unto him his sheep, and no man can pluck them. from
his hand. What a glorious thought that
it is impossible for the children of God to be lost. They can't
be. Why? Because Christ has died. And if Christ has died and he
has paid the sin debt, there's no debt left to pay. And it would be an injustice
according to God himself. if those whose sins were paid
for were then called upon to pay for them themselves. Oh,
how foolish is the way of man. And how true is the gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And we see in 1 John, the whole
book of 1 John, I believe this message and that is that the Lord has
paid the price for His people's sin and that because He has paid
the price for their sin, they have no sin. They are sinless. Nothing can bring them into condemnation. Now this is a hard thing for
a sinner to come to grips with. The greatest struggle you'll
ever have in your life is believing that your sins are taken away
in Christ. The most astounding thing that
could possibly be true, and the most difficult, impossible
for a man to believe it. I mean, unless the Lord applies
that to your mind and heart, unless he burns that within your
soul, you can't believe it. And we vacillate in our lives
between believing it and not believing it. Between fear and
unbelief and trusting him. We're constantly one or the other. We're over here, we're over there.
But thanks be unto God that it does not depend on where we are
or what we are. or what we have done, but it
depends on Christ. And it's in Him that we rest.
And so, as we read this, and we've gone through some of these
verses, and I'm gonna begin in verse 10. We actually looked
at that last week. Well, let me go to verse nine. And if you just took this, verse
out of the scripture, you could get very confused. But if you
read this in the context in which John writes it, it's very clear.
Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin. Now he doesn't say whatsoever. He said whosoever. is born of God, doth not commit
sin. For his seed remaineth in him,
and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." Now, that's
a very confusing verse in light of the fact that if you take
it just by itself, especially in light of what John said at
the end of the first chapter, if we say we have no sin, then
the truth's not in us. That's confusing, isn't it? I
mean, if you just look at those two verses, if you take them
and you say, and this is why men say, oh, well, see, there's
contradictions in the Bible. No, there's no contradictions
in the Bible. There's lack of understanding
that men have of what the Lord's saying, but when we understand
what it is that the Lord's saying, there's no contradiction at all.
We're false and full of sin. Our flesh is a wellspring of
corruption. And there's no remedy for it.
You know, you hope you get better. But I got sad news for you, you're
probably gonna get worse. But thanks be unto God that Christ
is our salvation. And so we, if we belong to him,
if we're born of God, We do not commit sin. We are free from
sin. In this the children of God are
manifest, and the children of the devil. Whosoever doeth not
righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his
brother. For this is the message that
ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother?
And wherefore slew he him, because his own works were evil, and
his brother's righteous? Marvel not, my brethren, if the
world hate you. We know that we have passed from
death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth
not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother
is a murderer, and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life
abiding in him. Hereby perceive we the love of
God, because he laid down his life for us, and we ought to
lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath this world's good,
and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of
compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little
children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but
in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that we are
of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him. That word
assure could be translated persuade. We might understand it better.
And we shall persuade our hearts before him. For if our heart
condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn
us not, then have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we
ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and
do those things that are pleasing in his sight. And this is his
commandment, that we should believe on the name of his son, Jesus
Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment. And
he that keepeth his commandments dwell in him, and he in him,
and hereby we know that he abideth in us by the spirit which he
hath given us. Now, you know, I would make mention
of this in looking at this passage because this is a common, I guess you'd call it interpretation
or view or however, that men often make and I believe it is
a mistake Because I believe it confuses terms that the Bible
never confuses. And that is that some would say,
well, what John is speaking about here, when he says, whosoever
is born of God does not commit sin, he's talking about the new
man. And the old man commits sin,
but the new man doesn't. I understand why people say that,
and this is, I wrote a paper a while back, it's been a long
time ago, on this subject of the new man and the old man.
And I know that how I view that is not how a lot of people view
it. I don't believe that we are the
old man and the new man. I believe we are one new man,
who's still in the flesh. In other words, our flesh wars
against the Spirit. It's not our old man warring
against the new man, but it is our flesh warring against the
Spirit. We are in the flesh, and we will
continue to be in the flesh, but dear brethren, we are new
creatures in Christ. We have put off the old man and
put on the new man. And so I believe it's a confusion
of terms when people try to make the flesh and the old man the
same thing. They're not. The old man's who
we were. The new man is who we are. And
John is talking about who we are. We don't commit sin. Because why? We're in Christ.
Now, in the flesh, we're still just like we always were. We've
never changed a bit. You've never seen the flesh of
a man ever improve a bit. Now, you can do some outward
things, you know. You can paint it up and make
it look good, and you can get rid of some bad habits and those
type of things, but the heart remains like it always was, desperately
wicked. And so it is that when we look
at this passage of scripture, we look at it from the perspective
that we are new men, that we've been made new in Christ, and
that we are passed from death unto life. For this is the message, that
ye should love one another, not as Cain. Now who, you know, the
exhortation of loving one another can only be applicable to a new
man, to the new man. Because the flesh is opposed
to that. And so what we are is new creatures
made in Christ who rejoice in that commandment. That's a good
thing. We don't have any problem with
that. See, we desire to love the brethren. Now, our greatest
lament is that we don't love the brethren. And that's what
he says here, that we should love one another. He didn't say
that you are going to love one another, but that you should
love one another. because that is that which he
has pressed upon us and that which we desire. As Newman, not
as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother, and
wherefore did he slay him? Because his own works were evil
and his brother's righteous. Now see, jealousy was what moved
Cain to slay Abel. He didn't like the fact that
the Lord blessed Abel and he received Abel's offering and
he didn't receive his. And so he killed him. And that's
the nature of that anti-love, if you want to call that, natural
bent of man against other people is that we don't desire for other
people to have what we have. See, it's an amazing thing, covetousness. is not simply wanting something
somebody else has. But covetousness is despising
the fact that somebody else has what they have. In other words,
it's not so much that we want what they have, we don't like
the fact that they have it. Isn't that, I mean isn't that
the whole basis of the view of the political left? In other
words, they hate the fact that the rich have money. Why do we
care? Why would we care? I mean, if
a man gets out here, the Lord blesses him and he's able to,
you know, gain money, why does that affect me? It doesn't have
anything to do with me. And so when we get thinking,
oh yeah, they're just a bunch of rich people, well, what are
we actually saying? We're saying, I wish they didn't
have it. You know, I deserve that, and they didn't. And that's
what happened with Cain. Yeah, his own works were evil,
and his brother's righteous. Abel didn't do anything but love
the Lord. Marvel not, my brethren, if the
world hate you. And so, we don't need to be amazed
because, you know, if you go out here and you start preaching
that God loves and elects people, you're gonna have some people
that's gonna say, wait a minute. Well, who do you think you are?
But see, they don't understand that we understand that all of
us should have been destroyed. I mean, nobody deserves to be
saved, and so whenever we speak about the fact that God, in his
rich in mercy, has elected a people and determined to save them,
that's a glorious thing, because by all rights, he shouldn't have
saved anybody. And so what can we do but just
give him praise? I mean, if we belong to him,
but we shouldn't be amazed if the world hates us when we declare
such a message, you see. They hated Christ for it. He said to the Pharisees, you,
he says, you're a generation of vipers. He says, you will
not come to me. And then he said, ye cannot come
to me. They hated him. They said, who's
he to tell us that we can't? And so many who believe and set
forth free will as an idol, they will grow angry with the preaching
of a sovereign God because they will say, well, isn't it right
for God to choose some and bypass others? Marvel not, my brethren, if the
world hates you. We know that we have passed from
death unto life because we love the brethren. He that loveth
not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother
is a murderer, and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life
abiding in him. You know, hatred of any man is
akin to murder. Now, I'm not telling you that
you can not hate some. You know, there's certain things
some people do that just would cause hate to rise up in us. And, well, it should. There is
a righteous hatred. But we need to be careful how
far we carry that because at the moment, whenever we're thinking
about how much we hate what somebody's done, we need to reflect on the
fact that we would have done the exact same thing if the Lord
didn't restrain us from it. I mean, that's an humbling thing,
brother. And it causes us to recognize
what we are by nature. We don't have anything to boast
of. There's not one thing, you can't
think of one thing that makes you different from somebody else
except the mercy of God. Oh, what a glorious thing to be a recipient of his mercy
and his kindness. And a man who hates his brother,
what is hating your brother? He describes it here. It's the same as murder. Hereby perceive we the love of
God because he laid down his life for us. And what does he
say? We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Isn't that what he said? We ought
to love one another. And what did he say it was? Lay
down our lives for the brethren. Remember when he was rebuking
the Corinthians about going to the courts of law with one another
over frivolous matters and matters of property and these things.
He said, why would you not suffer yourself to be defrauded rather
than go to a court of law and put your dirty laundry out there
before the world. If you love one another, you'd
be willing to lay down your life, because that's what Christ showed
us, did he not? I mean, when we get on a high
horse and say, oh, well, we love the brethren, do we? I mean, would you lay down your
life for your brother? That's what he said love was.
He said, love one another. We ought to lay down our lives
for the brethren. But whoso hath this world's good,
and seeth his brothers have need, and shutteth up his bowels of
compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? So he describes what it is to
lay down our lives for the brethren. He doesn't necessarily, he's
not literally saying that in every case to love your brother,
you gotta die for him. That's not what he's saying.
A situation could arise where you would if you loved your brother. But to lay down our life is to
give of the substance that we have to our brethren if somebody's
in need. Now, we're a fortunate and I
guess in some ways an unfortunate people to live in a land of plenty. And it's hard really to find
anybody that isn't in, that's not doing okay. Now I know there's
people out there that are struggling and people that don't have things,
but I would venture to say that the poorest person in the society
in which we live here in the United States, the poorest person
that you can think of is better off than 95% of the people in
the world. So we're kind of insulated in
a way from what John's speaking about here, but not totally. And so he says here, if you have
this world's good, in other words, if you have the ability to help
someone, and you choose not to do it, how can you say that you
love that? Now he's specifically speaking
of the brethren. He's speaking of those whom we're
knit together with in Christ. I mean, how can we go along and
see our brother in dire need and we have the ability to help
him and we don't do it? How can we say then that we love
our brother? My little children, let us not
love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth. See, love is something that has
to be demonstrated, isn't it? I mean, you can tell somebody
you love them all day long, but the demonstration of love is
how true love is seen. And the Lord has seen fit to show us what
love is. For it's not that we love God,
but that he loved us and gave himself for us. Oh, what a demonstration
of love that is, dear brethren. And what a place of glory is
given to us to know this. See, these are the things that
he said, and hereby we know that we are of the truth and shall
persuade our hearts before him. How? Because we have been brought
to the place to see what true love is. And we're assured as
we look in him. See, you can't find assurance. When I was growing up, the manner
in which assurance was taught and preached was, well, what
you need to do is remember the time whenever you gave your heart
to the Lord. And you just remember that, and
any time you get to doubting, Whether or not you belong to
the Lord, all you got to do is just go back and remember back
to that time. That's an empty assurance. It's like the woman that, she had a religious experience
of some kind and she decided to write it down on a piece of
paper as to when that was and the things that happened. and
she wrote it down and put it up in the cupboard. And any time
she'd get to feeling doubts about her salvation and her walk with
the Lord, she'd go back to the cupboard and she'd pull that
piece of paper out and read it. And she'd be happy for a few
days. And one day she went to the cupboard and a rat had got
in there and ate that piece of paper. And she didn't have any more
assurance because that was where her assurance was, was in that
thing which she had wrote down and said, this is what I did
and therefore I'm assured of my salvation. Brethren, you can't
be assured of your salvation by looking at anything you did.
Anything that happened to you or anything else. You know, some
people look at their baptism. Well, I was baptized on such
and such a day, so that means that I'm a child of God. No,
that means you were dunked under the water. And it may have been
the answer of a good conscience toward God. I hope that it was,
but I don't know, you know, if it was or not. But it doesn't
make any difference. What matters is what did Christ
do. And our assurance, dear brethren,
is what is there. You never find a bit of assurance
in yourself. If you look to yourself for assurance,
you'll never have it. But if you look to Christ, and
you cast yourself on him, and he is your hope, and he is your
expectation, you will never be without assurance. I didn't say
you wouldn't have doubts and fears. But you'll always know
where your salvation is. Not in you, it's in Him. And
it's to Him that we run, and hereby we know that we're of
the truth and shall assure our hearts before Him. May the Lord help us.