We're going to be looking in
1 John. We just got through with Peter's epistles. You know, each
one of the apostles of the Lord were used as the Lord saw fit. James was the first one who was
slain for the cause of Christ. Well, Stephen and then James. Of course, Stephen was not an
apostle, but James was. But the Lord used them in different
ways. And John was one whom the Lord,
the scripture says, the apostle whom the Lord loved. Now, John gave that. a title
to himself, but he spoke according to the word of God. The Lord
gave it to him. The Lord was very fond of John and he was
by tradition, we don't know this to be fact, but by tradition
he was the last of the apostles to die. And the Lord gave him
a prolific ability to write to the church. He wrote one of the gospels. And then he wrote these three
letters that we have here, but then in finality. And the Lord
gave the end of the book If anybody should doubt if the book of the
Revelation is the end of the book, he says in there, if any
man should add to this or take from it, let him be accursed.
Because there is no more to write. The Lord gave John the privilege
of declaring the final chapter of the word of God. and it is
the revelation of Jesus Christ. Now, we don't ever need to forget
that. Now, you'll often hear, and we've all been guilty of
it from time to time, speaking about the book of the revelation
as revelations. In fact, you hear that quite
often. People say, well, we're gonna
turn to revelations. Well, this is, the last book
of the Bible is not revelations. It's not a bunch of revelations. It is the revelation of Jesus
Christ. That's what John said in the
very first of the book, the revelation of Jesus Christ, which the Lord
gave to John. And so that's an important thing
to remember because there's plenty of folks that come along trying
to give you all these different revelations of what's gonna happen
in the end time. I don't know what's gonna happen
in the last days of the last days. Any man that tells you
he does is not telling the truth because not given to men to know
these things. He has given us some indication
of things, but the primary thing that we're sent with in the earth,
the message is not giving people all these different answers to
all these various questions, but it is to declare Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. That is the message that we're
sent with. And I believe that the book of
the Revelation is an unfolding of that very thing, the redemptive
work of Christ from beginning to end. He is the Savior of sinners. And that's the message that we
find throughout the Word of God. It begins in the book of Genesis
and goes all the way through. You know, this is a cohesive
narrative. This is not a collection of various
people's thoughts on this, that, or the other. But it is a message
that the Lord has given to the people of God. And you can find
Christ on every page because he's on every page. Because this
is a book about him. And John was privileged to write
about these things. And so we'll begin there in 1
John chapter one. We've looked at these verses
before, this book before. In fact, I think when Thomas
was here, he went through this book and surely, you know, we
don't, I don't know any more about it than I did when I started.
I mean, this is new every time that we read it. You know, the
Bible's not a book that you read through and then you put it on
the shelf and, well, I've read that. You know, because, you
know, you take any other book, a book about fiction or whatever,
and once you've read it, I mean, if you go back over and read
it again, you already know what it is. It's not as enjoyable
to you when you read it. You don't want to read it over
and over again. You've already read that. But this is a book
that is as fresh each time we read it as it was the time before.
Because it's that which is the testimony of Jesus Christ. It
is that which testifies of him. And so he is the life and the
light of men. And so John begins, this epistle
saying that which was from the beginning, which we have heard,
which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and
our hands have handled of the word of life. For the life was
manifested and we have seen it. and bear witness and show unto
you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested
unto us. That which we have seen and heard
declare we unto you that ye also may have fellowship with us.
And truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son,
Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto
you that your joy may be full. This then is the message which
we have heard of him and declare unto you that God is light and
in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship
with him and walk in darkness, we lie. and do not the truth. But if we walk in the light,
as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another,
and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanseth us from all
sin. If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess
our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned,
we make him a liar and his word is not in us. Now that is a pretty
comprehensive description of the work of the Lord in his people. As we've said so many times,
one of the chief things that a man must learn, one of two
things that a man must learn is what a great sinner he is.
And that's not something you can forget. You know, that's
not something that you say, okay, well, we've been taught that,
let's move on. See, a lot of people say that.
They say, well, you don't need to keep talking about about people
being sinners, I mean, you know, we need to move on past that.
Well, brethren, when you have moved past sin, you have moved
too far. And what I mean by that, what
I mean by that is the recognition of what we are by nature. We've
never changed from the moment we were born, and we won't change
until They put us in the ground. We're what we are. We're sons
of Adam, born as sinners. And we sin because we're sinners. We don't become sinners because
we sin, because our nature is that which brings us and causes
us to sin. And so he says, that which was
from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen
with our eyes, which we have looked upon, our hands have handled,
of the word of life. Now who is it that he's speaking
of? He's speaking of Christ. He said we heard him from the
beginning. He came and was teaching us the
truth. And we've heard it. Not only
have we heard it, we've seen with our eyes the things that
he did. Now you and I were not privileged
to be, to walk with the Lord when he was here in the earth
and to see the things that he did. John said that if the things,
if all the things that he had done were written down, said
all the books in the world couldn't contain it. But just a few of
the things that he did are written here. an amazing thing are given
and reported to us by the apostles who did hear him and see him. You know there is more evidence by more people that the Lord
Jesus Christ walked upon the earth and did the things that
he did than there is that George Washington did, the things he
did. You know, everybody just, what
do you know about, who do you know that knew George Washington?
I mean, who do you know that wrote extensively about George
Washington in the extent that men have written about Jesus
Christ? You know? So, as great a man
as George Washington was, he's nothing compared to this one
of whom John writes, because he said, we have known him who
is the word of life. Now isn't that, that's really
what he began his gospel with, was it not? In the beginning
was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. And so we don't have any doubt
as to the identity of this one who came clothed in flesh and
blood, that he is God. He is the word of life. There
is no life, there is no truth that comes forth that we are
benefited by except that which comes to us in Christ. We have
looked upon him, our hands have handled him, we've touched him. The Word of Life. For the life
was manifested, and we have seen it. The life of God was manifested. We saw Him. He said we saw Him
walk the forest day by day. We saw Him raise the dead. We
saw Him heal the sick. We saw Him save sinners. We saw
Him show mercy and kindness. We saw Him serve us. It was manifested. It was set
forth. We have seen it and bear witness
and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father
and was manifested unto us. What is eternal life? It's Christ. I mean, He is eternal life. You
know, if a man says, I want eternal life, then he must have Christ.
Because to be without Christ is to be without life. He is
the life. See, we don't have any life. You know, men talk about men
having an immortal soul. There's nothing in the scripture
that teaches such a thing as that. We're not immortal in any
way. He is immortal. He is invisible. He's the only wise God. He inhabits
eternity. You and I are creatures of a
span. We have no life at all except
that which he's pleased to give us. My heart's beating within
my chest because he causes it to beat. It doesn't just happen
by some natural occurrence, for it's appointed unto man once
to die. And every man's life is appointed
by God, and the moment of his death is as sure as the moment
of his birth. It's ordained by him. He said,
I kill and I make alive. I the Lord do all these things.
So he is the life, dear brethren. And so if a man talks about having
eternal life, the only life he has is that which is in Christ. And we will live because he lives. And that's the only reason that
it would be so. This eternal life which was with
the Father. This is that eternal life which
is in the Father. And was manifested in the Son.
See, the only way that a man can ever see the Father is by
seeing the Son. You know, this business about
trying to divide God up into three equal parts is not found
in the Scripture. The Lord our God is one Lord. And Jesus Christ is the revelation
of God to men. He's that one who has come and
shown us the Father. Is that not what he, remember
Philip asked the Lord, he said, Lord, show us the Father. Now Lord said, Philip. He said,
have I been so long time with you and you have not known me?
He that has seen me has seen the Father. Now that's pretty
clear, is it not? It is to me. We have seen this
life, was manifested to us. That which we have seen and heard
declare we unto you that ye may have fellowship with us. And
truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son,
Jesus Christ. That which we have seen and heard,
we declare that you may have fellowship with us. See, that's
the glorious thing about the children of God is that we have
fellowship together, but our fellowship is in Christ. Now,
it's a common thing today among religious organizations and whatnot
to try to get people to have these little interest groups.
If you like motorcycles, well, we'll have a motorcycle group
over here that loves the Lord. Or if you're a cowboy, you can
be a cowboy for Jesus, or you can do all these things, but
listen to me. The only thing that holds the
people of God together is not carnal interests. It's not all
of these different things that men find pleasure in in this
world. And we are in the world. We're
not of the world, but we're in it. We walk in it day by day. But the only place of fellowship
which God's people have is in Christ. Because we'll fall out
with one another just about anything you can think of. You know, families
will go along for years and years with love for one another and
all of a sudden the parents die off and then they start bickering
among themselves. Pretty soon some of them won't
even speak to the other ones because of this, that, and the
other. Now why is that? Because the source of their fellowship.
was taken away. You see, as long as their parents
lived, they had this camaraderie. When you see in Christ, he is
our fellowship. And if he's taken away, if we
don't have him, we don't have anything. You know, because I
can find something to get mad at you about or to be upset with
you or something I think you should have done that you didn't
do. I guess that probably causes
more heartache among people. This is just a general lesson
here. If people fall out with one another more about what they
thought somebody should have done than what they did, because
you know if somebody does something and just makes you mad, you can
get over that. But a lot of times if you think
somebody should have done something and they didn't do it, you just
can't get over it. Because they should have done
that. Why didn't they do it? Well, you need to ask yourself
the same question. Why didn't you do the things you should
have done? And that's just the way we are. But you see, dear
brethren, our fellowship is with Christ. He's the glue that holds
us together. And so it is that we rejoice
in him. Now, I missed, I wanted to say
one thing and I kind of passed over it. It says, Showing you
that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested
unto us. Now Christ and his relationship
to his Father is indeed a glorious thing. He said to his disciples,
there in that 14th chapter of John, he said, ye believe in
God, believe also in me. Now what
did he mean by that? Did he say, I want you to believe
in God, and I want you to believe in me? No. He's telling them,
if you believe in God, you believe in me. For no man has seen God
at any time. Jesus Christ, which is in the
bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. What a glorious thing. And these things write we unto
you, that your joy may be full. Because our fellowship is with
the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. This then is the
message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you that
God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. He's the revelation
of truth. He said it in very simple words. I am the way, the truth, and
the life. No man comes to the Father but
by me. This then is the message that
we have heard and declared. God is light. In him's no darkness
at all. There's nothing. Remember what
he told his disciples, he said, if these things were, if it were
not so, he said, I'm going to prepare a place for you, that
there you may be. And then he said this, and this
is a, first time I ever saw this in its fullness, it was just
such a blessing. He said, if it were not so, I
would have told you. He's not keeping anything back
from us. He's not trying to fool us. He's not giving us a pie
in the sky by and by. Now, you see, a lot of people,
they believe in what they call heaven, and they kind of just
think of it kind of in an offhanded way, and it doesn't really mean
a whole lot to them, because they don't, it's not a thing
that just is the desire of their heart. They think about it, it's
gonna be out there. But he said, if this was not
so, I would have told you. What we're relying in and trusting
in is Jesus Christ and his word. And he said, if it wasn't true,
I would have told you, I believe him. And so, you know, it's not
about picking and choosing what he said that we believe, because
what he said is true. There's no darkness at all. There's
no error in it. Now, you know, you can read any
other what men call holy book, and there's error in it. There
is no darkness at all. There's no error in him. If we say that we have fellowship
with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. You know, a man can say, well,
I'm a follower of Christ. He's this thing on earth to do.
People join up every day. The Lord said, the seed sown
and many sprang up, but not having any root, they wither away. And
so he says, if we say that we have fellowship with him, and
that's a good thing. See, it's a good thing for men
to confess that they have fellowship with Christ. But if we say we
have fellowship with Christ, and we don't desire the truth,
we reject the truth, or we say, well, you know, we want Jesus
Christ to be our Savior, but we don't necessarily believe
everything that he said. You know, that's like those people
that say, well, you know, we believe the Bible, but I mean,
you know, when you get over there and you read that the Lord created
the heavens and the earth in seven days, or six days, man,
you know, I don't know if I believe that or not. Well, dear brethren, I believe
that. The reason I believe it is because
he said it. And if he didn't say it, I wouldn't believe it.
And I know that he would not deceive his people. He said that's
what he did. And if we say we have fellowship
with him and walk in darkness, what is darkness? It's that which
denies the truth of God. It's that which says, well, you
gotta take that with a grain of salt. You can't necessarily
believe that just like it is. If we say we have fellowship
with Him and we walk contrary to that which He has told us,
we're telling a lie. Now, do any of us walk contrary
to what He told us? Every day. And He's gonna cover
that here in a minute. But that's not where we wanna
be. That's not our desire. We're not wanting to maintain
our sin while we have fellowship with Him. We wanna be rid of
it. If we walk in the light, as he
is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood
of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanseth us from all sin. If we walk in the light, as he
is in the light, then we have fellowship one with another.
That is, we have fellowship one with another's brethren, but
in greater sense, we have fellowship with him. as we walk in the light. See, as a man looks to Christ,
he has fellowship, he has rejoicing. But when he's walking in his
own way, he doesn't have fellowship with the Lord. David, when he
walked contrary to that way which he knew to be right, Did he have
fellowship with the Lord? No. But you see, what happened
was the Lord brought him to the place where he knew what he was
by nature. And he says, oh God, create in
me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me. For against
thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil which is in
thy sight. If we walk in the light, as he
is in the light, we have fellowship one with another. And the blood
of Jesus Christ, his son, cleansed us from all sin. Now is he describing
something there, an activity of men that they can perform
which will cause the blood of Christ to be effectual? No, he's
stating a fact. See, the blood of Jesus Christ
cleanses us from all sin. And as we walk in the light,
we can rejoice in that. That's in our mind. David, you
see, when he was out of fellowship with the Lord, he didn't have
that mind, did he? He said, cast me not away from
thy presence, O God. Because he felt, he understood
that he ought to be cast away. And he couldn't really comprehend
how it would be in fullness that the Lord would receive him, yet
that was his hope. That was his confidence. But
you see, he said, restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. And that's what he's talking
about here. We have fellowship one with another, and the blood
of Jesus Christ, his son, cleansed us from all sin. We have the
knowledge of it. It's ever in our mind. See, there's
no greater place, no greater place of joy for the children
of God than when they're walking in fellowship with the Lord,
and they see clearly the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ, even when
they know themselves to be great sinners. Yet they rejoiced, and
they have fellowship with him, and the blood of Jesus Christ
is cleansing them from their sin. They see it, they know it,
and they desire it. He says if we say that we have
no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. I've
known a few people, they were great religious people. And I've
had men actually tell me that they did not sin. That's a sad delusion. And the
scripture says if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. There's nothing worse than self-deception. Because you see, when a man is
deceived by his own self, he cannot escape it. Now if a man's
deceived by some outward force, if Al comes along and tells me
a lie and I'm taken in by it, I can get over that. But if I'm deceived in myself,
I can't get over that. See, there's nothing I can do
for myself because as long as I'm self-deceived, there's no
hope for me. And he says if we say that we
have no sin, we deceive ourselves. It's only as God who's pleased
to open the eyes of man to show him that he's a sinner that he
can see the truth. Because as long as a man thinks
he's doing all right, he's deceived in himself. He can't see it. You can't tell him. I mean, you
can tell him all day he's a sinner, he won't necessarily believe
that he's that bad. See, that's what people say.
Oh, well, I'm not that bad. I'm a lot better off than somebody.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. See, sin
is not what we do, it's what we are. And if we say we have
no sin, then we're deceived. But then he says, if we confess
our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. See, that's the work of the Spirit
of God. Convince a man of sin and then to bring him to a place
where he confesses his sin. And if we confess our sin, now
again, is this something where we can get God to do this for
us? If we'll do this, that's not
what he's saying. He's saying because the Spirit of God works
in you to confess your sins, then the cleansing blood of Jesus
Christ come flowing into your mind and heart. We're made aware
of it, dear brethren. You see, the gospel is set to
bring light to the people of God, bring light to those that
sat in darkness. Because men sit in darkness without
a knowledge of who they are by nature, what they are. And it is the light of the gospel
that comes and shows us, yes, we need a savior. We need one
that can deliver us from this. And as he's pleased to apply
these things to our heart and mind, we rejoice in it. We have
fellowship with him. And the blood of Jesus Christ
cleanseth us from sin. And we rejoice in him. He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sin. Oh, what a glorious
thing. You know, I was thinking about
something John says later on over here in the book. Let me see if I can find it. He said, and hereby we know that
we're of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him. This is 1 John 3 verse 19. For if our heart condemn us,
God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things. Oh, what
a glorious place of rest is that. David said, in such times as
I am afraid, I will trust in the Lord. That's where we are
at all times when our heart condemns us, is it not? We're fearful. We come before the Lord, we wonder
how could he save us? How could he love us? How could
he hold us in his bosom? But David also said, I will trust
in the Lord. and not be afraid. See, it's
as the Lord works that trust in him that the fears which surround
us by nature are taken away. And that's what he's talking
about here. He said, if our heart condemn us, God's greater than
our heart. And know with all things. He
knows what we are. See, you can't fool him. He knows exactly what
you are. And yet, he loves you. You belong to him. He loves you
with an everlasting love. For if our heart condemn us,
God's greater than our heart knoweth all things. And then
he listened to this. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not,
then have we confidence toward God. That's what he's talking
about over here. That's what it is to walk in
fellowship with him. Our heart will condemn us from
time to time. I mean, it condemns us daily.
I mean, when we see what we are by nature, but brethren, we have
a savior. See, that's what the gospel has
come to, has been sent into the world to do, is to enlighten
men, to show the people of God who their savior is, that he
is that one who's ever faithful and he will not forsake us. If we confess our sins, he's
faithful and just to forgive us our sins, to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness. Do we confess our sins once in
a while? Does a man wait till he gets
them all saved up and then he goes and confesses? No, that's
not what it means. If we confess our sins, that's
the place we're at. Lord, we're sinners. We need
you. We can't go without you. You're
that one alone who can hold us up. If we say that we have not sinned,
we make him a liar and his word not in us. If we deny that, if we say it's not true, we're
not that bad, then we're saying God's a liar. Because he said
all have sinned, come short of the glory of God. He said there's
none good, no not one. There's none that seeketh after
God. Now that pretty much sews it up as to what man is by nature,
does it not? And if you deny that, then you're
saying God's a liar. And His Word's caught in you.
The Word of God is in the people of God. They can't run far enough
to get away from it. They can't dig a hole deep enough
to hide himself from him. David found that out, did he
not? Nathan came to see him one day. And the Lord, he visits
his people. And we desire, dear brethren,
to have fellowship with him. I don't want to be an outcast. I don't want to be on the fringes.
See, some people want just enough of what they call religion to
get them by. That's kind of the way I was
raised, more or less, or at least this is how it come across to
me in my mind. Well, you know, you need to get
you a little bit of salvation over here so that you got it
taken care of when you die, but then you can just kind of go
off, you know, then it don't really matter about anything
else. Everything else will be all right.
And you want just enough. Well, see, that's not the place
God has called his children to be. And that's not the place
his children are. His children desire fellowship
with Him. And He brings that fellowship
to them. And the way He brings it to them
is by causing them to realize they don't have fellowship with
Him. And as He is pleased to show them what they are by nature,
He brings them to the place where they confess their sins. and confessing their sins, he
gives them faith to believe that Jesus Christ is the righteous
God, who has taken away our sin as far as east is from the west.
And there is therefore now no condemnation. To who? To them that are in Christ Jesus,
who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. For the law of the spirit of
life in Christ Jesus hath made me free. from the law of sin
and death. Brethren, we've been set free
in Christ. And the sin which does so easily
beset us cannot destroy us. Not because of anything in us,
but because of him who remaineth faithful. May we have fellowship
with him day in and day out, knowing that Jesus Christ is
our life. And in Him is no darkness at
all.