I want you to open your Bibles with me to 1 John chapter 2. 1 John chapter 2. The title of the message this morning is The Abiding Word. And you know the word abide means to continue. So we're talking about the Word the Word of God, the Gospel, which is imprinted on a child of God's heart, that means his mind, that means his affections, it means his will, and it means his conscience, that when the Holy Spirit does his work in the new birth, You must be born again or you cannot see or enter the kingdom of God. When the Holy Spirit does that great work of new birth under the preaching of the truth, the gospel, the word of God, he literally imprints that, stamps it indelibly upon our hearts. And that's what John was talking about in verse 20 of 1 John 2 when he talked about you have an unction. That unction is a power, it's an anointing of the Word of God and it's from the Holy One, it's from Christ, applied by the Spirit. And he says, and you know all things, meaning all things concerning the gospel, concerning a right relationship with God, salvation. That's what we know. I know there's a lot of things I don't know. And even in the Bible, I studied the Bible and read the Bible, and sometimes my mind will change on, for example, the interpretation of a particular verse in light of the gospel. But here's something that never changes. The gospel that has been imprinted upon my mind, my heart, my will, my affections, my conscience, it never changes. And it's never gonna change. secondly, I'm never going to leave it and that's not because I'm so strong or so good or so staunch, it's because God our Lord and Savior will not let us leave it. We talk about the doctrine of perseverance of the saints, that's abiding in the truth without without leaving it, without apostatizing, which means to turn against it. John is dealing with that. Remember back up in verse 18, look at it. Little children, it is the last time, last days, we're living in them. And as you've heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last time. Now look at verse 19. They went out from us. They turned against the truth that they once professed to believe, and turned against the people of God, and denied the Lord Jesus Christ, even to the point of calling Him accursed. Now you understand, these are people like us in the profession of the gospel. He's not talking about people here who preached a false gospel and believed a false. They claimed to believe the truth, but then they left it. Now they didn't lose their salvation. Look at it. They went out from us, verse 19, but they were not all of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued, abided with us. But they went out that they might be made manifest, that means they're exposed, that they were not all of us. They didn't lose their salvation, they never believed it to begin with. And they went out. Now, if you have that unction from the Holy One, verse 20, you can't do that, you can't go out from us. Now I'm not saying you can't get angry and stop coming to church for a while or whatever, or get sidetracked, we do. But I'm saying they turn against the truth of the gospel of how God saves sinners. And if you have this unction, you cannot do it. You couldn't get away from it at all. You've got to feed on the Word of God, on the truth. And so John, rather, writes in verse 21, he says, I've not written unto you because you know not the truth. I know you know the truth, John's saying. That's not why I'm writing you, but because you know it. And that no lies of the truth. When somebody comes along claiming to preach the truth and tells a lie, no lies of the truth. That's not what's been stamped on your heart. Look over at Romans chapter six with me, talking about being stamped with the word of God. In Romans chapter six, listen to this passage here, beginning at verse 17. This tells you a lot about that. Verse 17, Paul writes, but God bethanked that you were the servants of sin. Now, a servant of sin here is an unbeliever. You were unbelievers. You were unregenerate. At some point in the beginning of your life, you didn't have that unction from the Holy One. You didn't get that until this, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. And literally, I've told you this several times, literally what that would read is like this in the original. It says, you've obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. In other words, God in his providence brought you under the sound of the gospel and you obeyed it from the heart. Well, the natural heart won't obey it. Jeremiah wrote that in Jeremiah 17, the heart's deceitful, desperately wicked, who can know it? Paul wrote about that in 1 Corinthians 2, the natural man, unregenerate, not born again, he will not receive the things of the Spirit of God, but you've obeyed them from the heart. Now, what is the heart there? I told you, it's the mind, the affections, the will, the conscience. It's the new heart that God grants you, gives you. Back over in Ezekiel 36, he said, I'll give them a new heart, a new spirit. and they'll be brought to faith in Christ. Well, that word form there, that form of doctrine, that doctrine is teaching the truth of Christ crucified and risen from the dead, how God saves sinners based upon the shed blood, the imputed righteousness of Christ. That word form is like, you've heard of somebody who works in tool and die? The die is like a mark, a stamp that cannot be removed, indelible. And that's what that word form is. In other words, this truth has been stamped upon your heart so much that you can't leave it. And it's not because of your power and good, it's because of God. He preserves His people. He won't let us go. He won't do it. And look at verse 18. He says, being then made free, liberated from sin, you became the servants of righteousness. That means now you're a sinner saved by grace, walking in faith. God-given faith in the person and work of Christ. Now go back to 1 John 2. Now you know the difference if this unction has come to you, if this stamp has been stamped upon your new heart. If you have a new heart, if you've been born again, you'll know that no lie is of the truth and you won't tolerate it. You can't. You sit under the preaching of a lie, it'll make you sick. I'm serious. I've had people tell me that. Said, I tried to go to this church and I wanted to hear the gospel. I'm trying to be positive, but I heard all kinds of stuff that denies Christ in his person and work. And he said, it just made me physically ill. And so look at verse 22. He said, who is a liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ. He is antichrist that denieth the father and the son. And so verse 23, whosoever denieth the son, the same hath not the father. There's no coming to God as your heavenly father apart from the glorious person of Christ and the finished successful work of Christ. Christ as your surety, meaning your sins charged to him and his righteousness to you, Christ as your substitute, who took your place on the cross and died for your sins, working out a perfect righteousness which God has imputed, and Christ as your Redeemer, bought you lock, stock, and barrel, and he will not lose you. He said, all that the Father giveth me cometh unto me. And all who come to me, I will in no wise cast out. He said, this is the Father's will which has sent me, that of all which he hath given me, I should lose nothing, but raise it up again at the last day. There's no such Savior in the Bible who made sinners savable if they would do their part. There's no such Savior in the Bible who died for people who perish in hell. Christ died for his sheep. I want to be one of those sheep, how about you? Well, what do the sheep do? They hear his voice. They hear his word. Not just audibly. When you hear me preaching the gospel, do you believe it? That's hearing. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So he says in verse 23, whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father. Now you notice the next words are in italics, it means that it wasn't in the original, it's supplied by the translators of the King James Version. And he says, but what they've got here, what they've added here is true. Read it again. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father. But he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also. they just put that in because it's the opposite of the first phrase but it's true. If you don't have Christ you don't believe in the Father and that's right and he that acknowledges Christ has the Father. John said the same thing over in second John 9. He that goes too far and denies the doctrine of Christ hath not God. he that acknowledges Christ hath both the Father and the Son." So look at verse 24, now listen to this, he says, let that therefore abide in you, the abiding Word. Now first of all, as I said, if you have this unction, if your heart has the new heart, you've been given a new heart and it's been stamped indelibly with the Word of God, you can't help but let it abide in you. And he says, which you have heard from the beginning, the gospel of the person and work of Christ. That's what they heard from the beginning. When Christ first arrived on the scene in his public ministry here on earth, he began preaching the gospel. He was baptized. And you remember in his baptism, that was a picture of the gospel, the death, burial and resurrection of Christ to fulfill all righteousness. Somebody might say to you, they say, well, all you gotta do is believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Oh no, now listen to me. Those are historical facts that we must believe. You cannot deny his death, his burial, or his resurrection and believe the gospel. But his death and his burial and his resurrection mean something, not just historical fact. And he said it at his baptism. You remember he came to John the Baptist and John said, I'm not worthy to baptize you, you need to baptize me. And he said, suffer it to be so, John, that we might do what? Fulfill all righteousness. Now let me tell you something about righteousness. Righteousness is the perfection and the satisfaction of the law and justice of God against the sins of his people. It is the perfection of the law and justice of God that cannot be found in you or me. That's what the Bible means in Romans 3 10 when it says there's none righteous, no not one. That perfection that God requires because of his nature, his holiness, all right, that perfection can only be found in the person and work of Christ. You can't find it anywhere else. You can try to work for it. You can never miss a service. As I said earlier, get a Sunday school pen. You can give all your money to the poor. You can do all the works of charity, sincerity. You cannot attain to that perfect righteousness that can only be found in Christ. And that's the word. Romans 10 and verse 4 says, for Christ is the end of the law. That word end means the finishing of it, the perfection of it, the completion of it. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believe it, that is, believes in Him as their righteousness. So he says in verse 24, let that therefore abide in you which you have heard from the beginning. That's what they heard from the beginning. Do you know that was established in the very beginning of the world after the fall? It was pictured. First of all, Christ was revealed, the Messiah was revealed as the seed of woman. And that established his nature as God and man in one person. And then what did God do? You remember Adam and Eve put fig leaf aprons on to cover their nakedness? That's a picture of man trying to hide his nakedness open to the judgment of God by his religion. It won't work. So God, what did he do? He removed the fig leaf aprons and he slew an animal and made coats of skin and that was the first establishment of the sacrificial way of worship under the old covenant. I believe it was the blood of a lamb. Well, who is the Lamb of God? Christ is. His blood was shed for the sins of his people, and he satisfied the justice of God, drank damnation dry. He became the propitiation, sin-bearing sacrifice that brought satisfaction. And out of that came the very righteousness of God, revealed in the Gospel, Romans 1, 16 and 70, which God has imputed, charged, accounted, reckoned to all of his chosen people. do I know it was reckoned to me? Because the Spirit brought me under the gospel and gave me life from the dead in the new birth, brought me to faith in Christ and repentance of dead works." So he says in verse 24, if that which you have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, you also shall continue in the Son and in the Father. abiding in the truth, the abiding word. Now, those back in verse 19, they didn't abide in the word and the word did not abide in them. They apostatized, they left it. But if you've got that unction, that abiding word, you can't leave it completely. You may leave it for a while, but God's got you on a leash Is that an insult? That's exactly what it is. Remember the woman eating the crumbs from the table? And he said, Lord, you saved such a dead dog as me. And then who was David's, Jonathan's nephew, Mephibosheth, eating at the king's table? That's a picture of a sinner saved by grace. The old Mephibosheth talked about himself as a dog. That's what happens, and thank God for it. You say, well, I thought we were sheep, not dogs. Well, you can interchange these metaphors. It's all right, we are sheep. We start out as lost sheep, and then Christ comes and gets us, puts us up on his shoulder and takes us home into the fold. So he said in verse 25, and this is the promise that he has promised us, even eternal life, not temporary life, not a life you can lose because it's wrapped up in the person and work of Christ. If it were conditioned on me or you, we'd lose it. That's the only assurance that we could have based upon our works is the assurance of losing what we think God has given us, but he ain't given us anything. We can't lose it. Verse 26, he said, these things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you. There were false preachers coming into the church and other churches trying to seduce them away from the gospel. Paul in Corinth in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, he said that they were trying to corrupt their minds from the simplicity that's in Christ. That simplicity is the singularity of the whole salvation based upon the merits of the person and work of Christ, not on us. You see, if you think salvation at any time is conditioned on you, that just complicates it. That corrupts the simplicity of it. The simple fact is that it's all in Christ and he did it all, and all the promises of God are in him, yea, and amen, which means sure and certain. he says in verse 26, I write them because they're trying to seduce you away, but verse 27 he says, but the anointing which you have received of him abideth in you. If you receive this anointing, this unction, this stamp, it abides in you and you need not that any man teach you. Now keep it in context, we need to be taught a lot of things But the one thing that we don't need to be retaught is the gospel. Now we need to be reminded of the gospel every time we meet together. Whatever I'm preaching, I'm gonna bring the gospel into it. I told the folks at the 10 o'clock hour, I said, if you're preaching obedience in certain areas, without the gospel, that's trying to run the best car you could ever buy, trying to run it without gas. Because the gospel establishes the motive for our obedience, which is love and grace and gratitude, not law. Not threats of punishment or promises of earned mercenary rewards. Obey God because you realize that he loves you and you love him. Obey God because you're a recipient of gifts by his grace which you did not earn and do not deserve. Think about it, mercy. So he says, verse 27, but the anointing which you have received of him abideth in you and you need not that any man teach you, but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things and is truth and is no lie, And even as it hath taught you, you shall abide in him. Paul said it this way in 2 Timothy 1, 12. He 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, the day of judgment. Now, what have I committed under Christ? I'll tell you exactly. My whole salvation is committed to him. None of it is committed to me. Human religion, false religion, wants at least part of it, if not all of it, committed to you and me. If that were the truth, it wouldn't abide. It would fail. But my whole salvation is committed to Christ and He is able, Hebrews 7, He is able to save them to the uttermost, that's the fullest, who come to the Father by Him. He's able. Now that's the abiding. Let me read verse 28. I don't have that listed on there, but I'm just gonna read it. And next week, Lord willing, I'm gonna take those last two verses, and I'm gonna talk about doing righteousness. That's a concept we need to understand. But verse 28 says, and now, little children, abide in him. Continue in him. Persevere in him. Don't take your eyes off of him. Don't be like Peter walking on the water, and when he took his eyes off Christ, he sank. Look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. And he said that when he shall appear, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming. Now that's talking about his second coming and the judgment. You want confidence at the judgment? Look over one more page. And look at verse 17 of chapter four. And I'll deal with this next week too. Herein, 1 John 4, 17, herein is our love made perfect. Now that doesn't mean that when we're born again we perfectly love God and perfectly love our neighbor, we don't. What that's talking about is the love of God to us reaching its goal, completed. And when do we know that the love of God has reached its goal in our life? When we come to Christ and believe on him and submit to him as the Lord our righteousness and repent of all dead works and former idolatry. That means the love of God has reached its goal with me. How about with you? And so he says that we may have boldness in the day of judgment because as he is, as Christ is, so are we in this world. We can have confidence in the day of judgment because we stand there washed in the blood of Christ and clothed in his righteousness imputed. Our sins cannot be held against us. Who shall anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justify. Who can condemn us? It's Christ that die. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Think about that. Do you want confidence at the day of judgment? Standing before God who knows your thoughts? You want confidence? Well, don't plead your works, because that'll be the death of you. Plead Christ. He's all we plead. His blood, His righteousness.