I'm going to be preaching this morning from 1 John chapter 5 on the subject, as you can see on the screen there, sin, death, and eternal life. Sin, death, and eternal life.

Before I get to our text, though, I want you to turn to John. If I can remember this scripture, I didn't write it down. And that's something I should do. Turn to John chapter. And if I can't find it, I'll just quote it. No, anyway. Yeah, I messed up. I do that once in a while. But. It's the scripture, Jim and Randy and Robert, y'all might know, all of you might know it. It's where he says, if I go not away, I'll send the Holy Spirit.

16. Thank you, Randy. I was thinking John 6. I know that verse like the back of my hand. But you know what? I'm at the stage of life where I'll have senior moments. And I had one. OK. Let's look at John 16. I want you to start there. This is where the Lord is describing to his disciples the work of the Holy Spirit in the New Covenant age. And that work of the Spirit, as you know, is the new birth. That is the application of the life of Christ, what some theologians call the resurrection life of Christ.

You know, when he died and he was buried and he rose again the third day, that life that he brought forth, he is the prince of life. And he is life, he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father but by me. And we're gonna be talking about eternal life as opposed to sin and death.

So anyway, when he died on the cross, he established the righteousness of God And righteousness demands life. Sin demands death. Righteousness demands life. Never forget that. The wages of sin is death. The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And all of that. So righteousness demands life.

But he's describing here the work of the Spirit to apply that life to each and every one of Christ's sheep in time in the new birth. And that's what happens. And there are things that happen in the new birth. We can't describe all of it. The impartation of the spirit of life. We talk about God says he gives us a new life, a new spirit, a new heart.

Remember the heart now is not just that vessel beating in our chest. The heart is the mind, the affections, the will, the conscience. So in other words, when you're born again, that changes. From something that is unholy and ungodly to something that is holy and godly. From something that is in unbelief to something that is in faith, God-given faith. From something that is unrepentant to something that is repentant. And that's the evidences of the new birth.

Well, all of that that the Holy Spirit does, and He did it He was active in doing that even in the Old Testament saints before Christ died, but it was granted to them because it was always sure and certain that Christ would die, that He would be buried, and that He would be raised again the third day. There was no doubt about that. Not in the mind of God. It was always so. And it was so sure and certain that God, He birthed Abel again. Noah, Abraham, all those saints, they were given faith. They were born again by the Spirit based upon what Christ would come in the future and do.

And we who are born today, we're born by the Spirit in lieu of what Christ has done. But the crux of that whole history is Christ on the cross, dying, being buried, and raised again the third day. So we put it this way. The ground of our salvation is the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, charged to our account. And he did that based upon our sins charged to his account. He died. So that's the ground. That's the cause. And then the fruit of salvation is the new birth by the Spirit. You see? And don't get those two mixed up. One's the ground, one's the fruit. Christ is everything. And we're the result, the fruit.

Well, that's what he's describing here in John 16. Look at verse seven. He says, nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is expedient for you that I go away. That means it's necessary. I have to go away. This is not something I can choose not to do. He had agreed Going away here means going to the cross. It means suffering and bleeding and dying, going to the grave, being raised again, and then going to the Father. I must go away. And he had agreed to do that before the world began, before the world was ever created, for his people given to him by the Father. So he says it's expedient, it's necessary for you that I go away.

For if I go not away, the Comforter will not come." Now this is the Comforter, you know, Christ is called our Comforter, but the Holy Spirit is called our Comforter because He leads us to Christ. And He says the Comforter will not come, and the Holy Spirit won't come. The Holy Spirit, if Christ did not do His work, in his death and burial and resurrection, establishing, putting away our sins legally and giving us a righteousness that answers the demands of God's law and justice, there'd be no life. There'd be no life for the Spirit to give. So he says, the Comforter will not come unto you, but if I depart, I will send him unto you.

And when he has come, He will do three things here, and this is just a summation. You can break it down even more, but he says in verse eight, when he's come, he will reprove. Now that word reprove means convince or convict. In other words, if the Spirit does this work on you, whatever it is he's talking about, you're gonna be convinced about that. You're gonna be convicted about it. You're not gonna refuse, it's an invincible, irresistible work. He will reprove the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. Three things.

Now, he mentions sin first. One of the keys to understanding the Bible and understanding the gospel and understanding the realities of sin and death and eternal life is to have a biblical, Holy Spirit worked understanding of sin, what sin is. And here he says it, but a lot of people miss it. Verse nine, I've sinned because they believe not on me. Now, a lot of people will tell you, well, that's the sin of unbelief. It is, but it's more than that. And what he's teaching us is this, the Holy Spirit will convict us of this fact, that without Christ as my Redeemer, my Savior, my Substitute, my Surety, my Keeper, without Christ, I'm nothing but sin in the eyes of God. Everything I do is sin in the eyes of God, not in the eyes of men now. Men may give you the key to the city, but without Christ, it's all sin. God, listen, it's all sin.

All right? There's various words in the Bible used for sin. The most common word in the New Testament and really in the Old Testament in the Hebrew, it means this, missing the mark. You understand that? missing the mark. What is the mark? Okay, the mark is perfect righteousness that can only be found in Christ. So no matter how good you try to be or how good you think you are, you're still falling short of the mark. Now that's what Romans 3.23 means. You all quote that on the Roman road? You've heard that. All have sinned and done what? Come short of the glory of God. And what is the glory of God? Christ. So no matter how good you are on any given day or any given hour or any given second or any given nanosecond, you're still short. You can't make it. And you can go through the scriptures and find so many, I mean so many examples of that. Remember when Christ said to those false preachers, depart from me, you that work iniquity? That's another word for sin, iniquity. You know what it means? It means unequal, inequity. You don't equal out to righteousness. So the Holy Spirit, when he comes in conviction in the new birth, he's gonna convince you of that. Lord, have mercy on me. I can't make it. I've tried and I've tried, sometimes harder than others.

Okay? All right, here's the second one. Verse 10, of righteousness because I go to my father and you see me no more. How did Christ go to his father? He went by way of the cross, by way of the grave, by way of the resurrection, by way of the ascension, all based on the fact that by his obedience unto death, he put away sin, he cleansed it, he purged it, and brought forth an everlasting righteousness of infinite value, whereby God is just to justify sinners. And that's the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It's the power of God and the salvation to everyone that believe it. The Jew first, the Greek also, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the justified shall live by faith. So the Spirit is going to convince you of righteousness that can only be found in Christ. In other words, this righteousness is real. This righteousness is imputed to God's people, accounted to them. How? Christ went to the Father. He passed through into the heavens. He didn't stay in the grave. Death couldn't keep him. The grave couldn't hold him. He arose again. Why? Because in his death, there was the payment of the debt. Debt's another word for sin in the scripture. That's what sin does. It runs up a debt. Well, if you're one of Christ's sheep, he brings you to faith which he will if you're one of his sheep your debt was accounted to him he took it upon himself he's our surety

all right now here's the third one verse 11 of judgment or justice because the prince of this world is judged now who's the prince of this world well that's satan and what does satan do mainly he accuses the brethren He's the great accuser. Satan does not have the power of life and death. He can't kill you and he can't make you alive. Only God can do that. But Satan can accuse you, but in a believer whose sin has been put away and who is righteous in God's sight, Satan's accusations are empty. He'll judge you, but you've already been judged. Do you know that? This is justice. When was I judged? On the cross. When Christ died for my sins, charged to him. He put them away. What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus. That's it. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. You see it?

Now with that in mind, let's go over to 1 John 5. Sin, death, and eternal life. Beginning at verse 16. He says, if any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, you see that? He shall ask and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death. I do not say that he shall pray for it.

In verse 17, he says, All unrighteousness is sin. Everything that falls short is sin. And there is a sin not unto death. What does that mean?

Most of the time, people get into verses like that and they go looking for what is normally known as the unforgivable or the unpardonable sin. And they get their mind fixed on that and they go awry. But let me tell you something, there is no sin, technically speaking, that is unforgivable. Unforgivable?

Now, what most people say, well, that's talking about unbelief. Well, where were you when you started out in life? Unbelief. We're all by nature unbelievers. We're born in sin. We're born totally depraved. That doesn't mean we can't be religious and moral in the eyes of people. It just simply means that we don't have any inclination towards God in Christ. It means we're blind, we're darkened, we're unbelief, depraved, spiritually dead.

for a good part of my life, up and through to my 20s, I was an unbeliever, but you know what God did? He forgave me of that sin. Now, if unbelief is an unpardonable or unforgivable sin, then how could I be forgiven? How can you be forgiven? None of us could be. You say, oh yeah, but we changed. No, we didn't. God changed us, but we didn't change. Technically, we did change, but God's the one who did it. That's what I'm saying, all right?

The Bible says that the blood of Jesus Christ forgiveth us of all sin, even the sin of unbelief. What was Paul, the apostle, before he was saved on the Damascus Road? He was a God-hater, a legalist, an unbeliever. who wanted to wipe the name of Jesus of Nazareth off the face of the earth. But God forgave him. God forgave him.

Some say it this way. They say, well, it's unbelief all through life and to death. Well, that sin is not forgiven. But it's not because it's unforgivable. If you go through life in unbelief and die in unbelief, You're not forgiven. Those who are forgiven are those who are brought to faith in Christ. And those who die and unbelieve, they're not forgiven. But it's not because that particular sin is not forgiven, it's because they don't have Christ.

Here's the point when you think about an unforgivable sin. Listen, without Christ, not one sin is forgiven. Without the blood of Christ, I don't care what it is, whatever sin it is, and we've got a multitude of them. None of them are forgiven because it's impossible for God to forgive sin except based upon the blood of His Son. He said, when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. And where He didn't see the blood, He didn't pass over, He destroyed them.

One thing about this verse here, verses 16 and 17, you see that word a, there is a sin unto death. In the original, the word a is not there. It just simply says there's sin unto death. I do not say he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin and there is sin not unto death. There's sin unto death. And who's that applied to? A person who lives and dies in unbelief without Christ.

And in the context of John, go over to verse three, chapter three. Wait a minute, let's read verse 18 first. I'm sorry, verse 18. He says, we know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not. You see that? Are you born again? Well, can you say that you sin not? Can you say that you don't sin now? A lady asked me last week on the phone, she said, some people are saying that it's wrong for us to call ourselves sinners. I often refer to us as, I've often said this, there's only two types of people on earth, there's sinners lost in their sins and sinners saved by grace.

But there are people who say, well, we shouldn't call ourselves sinners. Well, God does not charge our sins to us. I know that. He doesn't count them. He doesn't impute them to us. What does the Bible say in Romans 8, 34? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. God doesn't charge us. He charged our sin. The debt of our sins was charged to Christ and Christ bore the debt away. He paid it in full and it's gone.

But now, as you go through life, are you willing to say that you're not a sinner, you don't sin? No. We still sin in ourselves. We won't be, we're free from the penalty of sin. Christ took the penalty. We're free from the power of sin to keep us ignorant of Christ. But we're not free from the power of sin to influence our minds, our thoughts, our actions. Don't we still have to fight that? Isn't that called the warfare of the flesh and the spirit? We won't be free of that until we die. Go to be with the Lord or he comes back again. Then we'll be totally free from even the presence and influence of sin.

So I beg to differ. I think it's proper for us to call ourselves sinners saved by grace. In fact, I'll even go further than that. Even now, It's by grace we don't have, in the blessings of salvation, we don't have anything we've earned or deserved, even now. I've been preaching this message for 40 years now. I still don't earn or deserve the blessings of God's grace. All blessings are given to me freely and fully by the merits of Christ's obedience unto death in my stead. So, yes, we're sinners still, but we're sinners saved by grace.

But he says there, he who is born of God doth not commit sin. What's he talking about? Well, he's talking about this. Look over at 1 John 3 and verse 9. He says, whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin. You see that? For his seed, now that word seed there is sperma, it's his children, Christ's children, God's children. His seed remaineth in him, remaineth in Christ. And he cannot sin because he's born of God.

What John is talking about, and we went through this, if you didn't hear him, go back and get those messages. What he's talking about is a specific sin of apostasy. which means a person who at one time claimed to believe in Christ and then totally turned against Him, totally denies Him, calls Him accursed. Jump across the page there to 1 John 2 and verse 19, or verse 18. Here's what John's talking about. Little children, it's the last time, the last age, which we're living in now. And as you've heard that Antichrist shall come even now, are there many Antichrist whereby we know that it's the last time? They went out from us, they left believers, the family, but they were not of us. They weren't really of the family of believers. For if they had been of us, now look at this, if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us. If they were truly saved, truly born again, truly redeemed, they would have stayed with us, stayed with the family of believers. They would not have apostatized. They would not have fallen away unto perdition. But they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all others. When they left, they didn't lose their salvation. They just revealed they'd never been saved to begin with. That's what John's saying.

And so over here in verse nine of chapter three, he says, whosoever is born of God, if you're really born again by the Spirit, you can't commit that sin, that apostasy. You cannot totally leave Christ and apostatize, turn against him. For his seed, his children remain in him, and he cannot totally leave Christ, apostatize, because he's born of God. And if he does leave, he's not born of God. He just had a profession, an outward show.

Now go back over to 1 John 5. That's what he's talking about here. The sin unto death. Yes, it is living and dying in unbelief against Christ. But he's saying here that all unrighteousness is sin. There is sin not unto death. We're sinners. But our sins cannot condemn us to death. Sin and death. Why? Because Christ died in our place. Now we'll die physically, but we won't die spiritually and eternally. And that's why I named this sin, death, and eternal life. We'll live forever.

Think about it. If we're in Christ, He's living, He's not dead. He's seated at the right hand of the Father, ever living to make intercession for us. And we sin, we sin every day. We don't measure up any day. There's not one day, there's not one second that I can tell you that my obedience is equal to the perfection of righteousness that can only be found in Christ. Do you understand that? It always falls short while I'm in this life. But I'm forgiven.

Now that doesn't give me an excuse to sin. I don't really need an excuse to do that. It's pretty much there with me every day. Now a person who openly uses grace to just live a life of ungodliness, that's another matter. We can preach on that someday. But I know this, I know this, I always fall short in myself. But in Christ, I don't fall short at all. In Christ, I have a righteousness that answers the demands of God's law and justice. It's forever, it cannot be taken away, and it cannot be dirtied by my sins, and therefore I cannot leave Him. I can't leave him. That's what he means, he cannot sin.

Verse seven, verse 18. We know that whosoever is born of God, if you're born of the Spirit, if you have new life, a new heart, if you have faith, God-given faith, God-given repentance, perseverance by the grace of God, you cannot leave Christ. Now, we can talk about all kinds of scenarios. We can talk about, well, you might stray a little bit. True. And probably most of us have done that at some point in time. But God will not let you go. Didn't Christ say, no one shall pluck them out of my Father's hand? Aren't you glad? Aren't you glad of that? Paul said, we are not of them that fall away unto perdition, damnation. Can't do it.

So verse 18, we know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not, but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself. Now that's just another way of saying perseverance in the faith. He will persevere in the faith. He will continue. And why does He continue? Because God, the Holy Spirit, through Christ, preserves. I'm a kept man. If you're a believing woman, you're a kept woman. And who's keeping you? Paul said, I know whom I have believed and I'm persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day. 2 Timothy 1.12. And what have I committed to him? My whole salvation, my whole eternal life and well-being. And so he says, he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one, Satan, toucheth him not. There's your protection. You don't need a cross around your neck to fend off Satan. You don't need holy water to splash on him. All you need is Christ. Grace. That's right, you don't need a wooden stake.

And so here's what he says, here's the conclusion, verse 19, and we know that we are of God, we who are in Christ, we who believe in him, we who keep ourselves in him, and the whole world, the whole world, that's what it says, lieth in wickedness, literally lieth in the wicked one, the whole world. You hear these people arguing about the world. Well, Christ died for the whole world. Well, if he died for the whole world, the whole world's gonna be saved. Do you understand that? Or you don't understand his death. He didn't die for every individual without exception. He died for his chosen people. Somebody says, well, that's not fair. Read Romans 9 and argue with God. That's my advice to you. Read Romans 9 and argue with God. He'll tell you the truth.

But here's what I say when I hear that. I want to be one of them. That's what I want. Now, who are they? They are those who are brought into Christ, stay in him, and keep themselves in him. We are of God and the whole world lieth in the wickedness.

Verse 20, now look at this verse. This is one of my favorite verses in the Bible. And this is how John concludes it. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding. I heard a preacher say one time, salvation's not in your understanding, it's just in, I think, what did he say? Falling on your face. No, the Son of God has come and given us an understanding. That's an act of the mind and the heart. Remember how the Bible says, the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they're foolishness to him, they're spiritually discerned, spiritually understood. He gives us this understanding that we may know him That is true, not a false Christ, but the true Christ. And we are in Him, that is true, united to Him, one with Him in the eyes of God's law and justice, even in His Son, Jesus Christ, this is the true God and this is eternal life. You see it? Christ, in his high priestly prayer, he said, this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

Now, with that in mind, John concludes it with this word in verse 20, little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen. Climb into the word of God and know who Jesus Christ is, who God is, and know yourself. Know yourself. And keep yourself from idols. Okay.