Turn in your Bibles to 1 John
chapter 5. 1 John chapter 5. I call this message, The Witness of God. I'll begin reading in 1 John
chapter 5 at verse 7. For there are three that bear record
in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these
three are one. And there are three that bear
witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood,
and these three agree in one. If we receive the witness of
men, the witness of God is greater. For this is the witness of God
which He has testified of His Son. He that believeth on the
Son of God hath the witness in himself. He that believeth not
God hath made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that
God gave of his Son." And this is the record that God hath given
to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath
the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath
not life. These things have I written unto
you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may
know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the
name of the Son of God." Most of you are familiar in some
degree with the name of that man who wrote the song, Amazing
Grace. His name was John Newton. But he wrote other hymns. And one of those hymns begins
with a verse that seems to express doubt. Doubt. It begins, "'Tis a point
I long to know. Oft it causes anxious thought. Do I love the Lord or no? Am I His or am I not?' And he, like so many of the Lord's
people, was undoubtedly facing bouts and times in which he lacked
assurance. Assurance of salvation. But what John is telling us here, is that assurance of salvation
comes only through believing. In other words, the same word
by which God saves us is the same word by which He assures
us. The disciples there in John chapter
6, Peter especially, says to the Lord Jesus when He asks them,
will you also go away like the multitudes had? Peter says, we
believe and are sure that you are that Christ, the Son of the
living God." Did you notice the order in that confession? We
believe and therefore are sure that you are the Son of God. And then the Apostle Paul writes
in Romans chapter 15, something that says virtually the same
thing. When he says, now the God of
hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing. all joy and peace in believing
that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost."
It lies in believing. But believing is only as good,
only as sure as that which is believed. I've used an illustration oftentimes
how a man could leap out of an aeroplane with a parachute pack
on his back that had no parachute in it. He may leap in confidence,
he may leap in sincerity, he may pull that rope confidently,
But it's only as good as the parachute in the pack. If it's no good, his belief in
it, his competence in it, will avail nothing but sure death. But not only that, the thing
that is believed is only as good and only as true as the witness
of it. the witness of it. And John is repeating the witness
of the truth here, that is, what we are to believe and why we
are to believe it. And he does this by reminding
us that we are to believe the gospel, the gospel that we find
in the Scriptures. We are to believe this gospel
because of who it is from. Where did this message come from? Well, it came from heaven. If you look in verse 7, he says,
"...for there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father,
the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one." This
is the message, the witness of heaven, and the persons of the
Godhead, they're in agreement in this. It's not that the Father
says one thing and the Son says another thing and the Holy Spirit
says or does another thing. They're in perfect agreement
and harmony in this matter. And they are, in their agreement,
the one and the only true God. It isn't faiths, it isn't gods,
it isn't messages, it isn't ways. This is the witness of heaven,
the witness of the triune God. And what Paul called in one place,
our gospel, is the only gospel that agrees with heaven. The only one on earth that agrees
with God as He is. There are lots of so-called gospels,
there are lots of so-called witnesses, records, But the gospel that
we find in this book is the only gospel that agrees with heaven,
that agrees with God. Verse 8, And there are three
that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the
blood, and these three agree in one. I take that to believe
the Holy Spirit and the water of the Word and the blood or
death of Christ, these things not only agree together, but
they agree with heaven. That is what God has set forth. But men and women are more naturally
inclined. to believe men than they are
to believe God. That's what he says in verse
9. If we receive the witness of
men, and we surely do, as a matter of fact, What is received and
believed that is witnessed by men, if we only stopped and thought
about it for just a moment, most of it we think it was really
foolish to believe. We'll receive the witness of
men. We'll follow such stupidity as
evolution or climate change or a host of other things, swallow
it, hook, line and sinker, and the only basis we have for believing
that it's true is the witness of fallen man. But God-given faith, Not the faith of devils that
we read about in Scriptures. Not the faith that devils demonstrate,
believing that there is a God. They surely know that, but God-given
faith believes God only. He says, if we receive the witness
of men, the witness of God is greater. For this is the witness
of God which He testified of His Son." And look at what he
says in verse 13. These things have I written unto
you that believe on the name of the Son of God. He didn't
have some new message or some different message. There wasn't
something that he could rise up and climb up to, or achieve,
or some new revelation. These things have I written unto
you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may
know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the
name of the Son of God. You see, we only believe to the
saving of our souls when we believe God. And we only believe God
when we believe what He says about His Son. You can say, I believe. That
means nothing. Or we can believe what preacher
so-and-so says, that means nothing. Or we can believe what a million
before us believed, and it still means nothing. We only truly
believe when we believe what God says about His Son. We may believe that there was
an Israel, we may believe that God created the world, we may
believe a host of Bible facts, a host of historical information
from the Bible, but we do not truly believe until we believe
what God says about the Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul expresses that when
he was caught up, you know, in that wind, that storm, and everybody
was in fear, and rightly so. But he said this, he said, "...Wherefore,
sirs, be of good cheer, for I believe God, that it shall be even as
it was told me." And you see, what God had told
Paul as their way of salvation was, stick with the ship. He said, there will be no soul
lost of all that sail with you. And the way of salvation will
be that they stick with the ship until God does what He would
do with that. That was not logical. Paul said,
I believe God. What is it to believe God? To
believe what He has told to me. To believe what He says in His
Word. And the Spirit of God bears witness
to the truth of God, to the truth of this Gospel of God. Verse
10. He that believeth on the Son
of God hath the witness in himself." I can't convince you that this
is the Word of God. I can't convince you that what
is said in this book concerning God is of God. I can't convince
you that what is said about the Lord Jesus Christ is true, so
as for you to be able to rest all your hope on it, but the
Spirit of God can. He's the only one that can. And
he bears witness to the truth of the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And then having said all of this,
John now, he gives us the gospel, this good news of God, in a nutshell. And he does that in verse 11. He says, and this is the record.
that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in His
Son. That is so clear. That is so
concise. That is so infinitely and eternally
wonderful. It is so glorious beyond description,
and yet it is such a message, that were it not for the Spirit
of God, we are so logically and naturally against and opposed
such a thing, that without God, we'll never believe God. He said, this is the record. And every time I read that, I
read that word THE, and it stands out to emphasize the singularity
of this message. He didn't say, this is a record. He didn't say, this is one of
the records. He said, this is the record. The record. And the word record
here means testimony. This is the testimony of God. It means evidence that is given. This is the report that Isaiah
talks about in Isaiah 53. Who hath believed our report? It is a witness. This is the witness of God. Just in our lives, we know individuals. If we hear some news that kind
of strikes us, maybe as amazing, or we've never heard of it at
all, and we say, well, that's really something. Where did you
hear that from? And they say, well, that's old
John so-and-so told me that. Oh, we don't believe anything
he says. He's not a faithful witness.
But John says here, John the Apostle, that this is the witness
of God. And in John 3, he says, "...he
that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God
is true." We believe what Christ says about Himself. We believe
what God said through these apostles that He sent, these prophets
that He sent. We set this seal to them that
God is true. And if not, He said, we make
Him a liar. We make God a liar. And that
means that all these who give a record or a witness or a testimony
that eternal life is in or to be gotten by something other
than Christ Himself and Christ alone, they call God a liar. That's what it amounts to. They
give you a prescription of what you're to do, or a prescription
of how you're to maintain. But no matter what is prescribed,
no matter what is ordered and offered and what have you, we
come right back to this one statement, this is the record that God hath
given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. The same is true, just turn over
a page to Revelation, the first chapter. In that Revelation of
John, again here, in chapter 1 and verse 1, it says, Who did what? Who bear record
of the Word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and
of all things that he saw. He simply bore record. He bore
witness, like is being said here. He bore a witness and a testimony
of that which God said to him and taught him, and the revelation
of Christ that he had received by the Spirit of God. And look
at what it says in that third verse, "...Blessed is he that
readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep
those things which are written therein, for the time is at hand."
Well, here's John. He has a revelation from God. He writes it down in a book.
All the things that he was shown by the angel, shown by the Spirit
of God, all these visions. And men take those things that
he describes here, these things that he tells us in the first
plainly, that they were signified, they signify some things, but
that everything is about one thing. What's that? The revelation? of Jesus Christ. He promises
a blessing to those who read it and believe it as it reveals
Christ. And here you have all these other
people who hear the witness of men concerning these things. They are more fascinated with
a beast or antichrist or a host of other things. They love the
doomsday prophecies that men bring out of them, and they miss
Christ. This is a testimony of Christ,
a witness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And when you read John's words
here in 1 John 5, it's obvious. He tells us that this record
is a witness, a testimony, it is evidence given of God and
what He has done for someone in something that He has given. This is the witness of God. What
does it have to do with? It has to do with something He's
given to a people. It doesn't have to do about your
works. That's not the gospel. It doesn't
have to do with what you can give Him. It has to do with what
He's given. It has something to do with His
grace, with His gifts. The gospel of grace, which is
the words he uses to describe the gospel, it has to do with
something God has given. His gifts. As a matter of fact,
everything in salvation. This would shock most people.
Everything in salvation, from A to Z, has to do with His gift. And if you ever follow that with
a but, You're in trouble. For by grace
are you saved. Well, that's what we believe,
but no, it has to do with what God has given. As a matter of fact, everywhere
you look in this book, the witness of God is that every part or
every grace of salvation is a gift. Christ Himself thanks be unto
God for His unspeakable gift, immeasurable, indescribable,
wonderful gift of the Lord Jesus Christ. When you read Romans
chapter 5, I'll read it to you from another translation. He says, But the free gift is
not like the trespass. For if many died through one
man's trespass, much more hath the grace of God and the free
gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ hath abounded
for many. In Adam, everything that happened
in that man was deserved. But said in contrast to that
is the one man Jesus Christ, and everything in Him is a gift. Romans 6.23, often quoted, "...for
the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord." Ephesians 2. For by grace are
you being saved. He didn't say, for by grace are
you saved, and then it's up to you to keep it. For by grace
are you being saved. And if I ever learned anything
else, I've assured and learned in my own experience that it
is by grace that I'm being saved. In Acts chapter 5, when Peter
stood up, speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, he says, "...Him,
the One you've taken and by wicked hands have slain, God has exalted
with His right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, for to give repentance
to Israel and forgiveness of sins." And he said, you that
bear witness by Paul writing to Timothy. He said, when you
go out and bear witness of the truth of God's grace and gifts,
when you tell men and women what I say that you're to tell them,
tell them the witness and testimony of God. You do so in meekness. You do so in humility, instructing
them that oppose themselves, if God, per adventure, will give
them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. It has to do with
God's gifts. It says He's given, not offered,
not made available. But if you look at what it says,
and remember that John is writing to believers that he describes
again and again as these little children of God. He says, this
is the record that God hath given to us eternal life. He doesn't say He's given it
to everybody. But to these who are brought to believe the witness
of the Godhead concerning Christ, to each and every one of them,
and the reason that they do is because of His grace, He says to us, hold your place
and turn over to John chapter 17. John chapter 17, look at what
it says here. It says in verse 1, "...these
words spake Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said,
Father, the hour is come, glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may
glorify Thee." I'll tell you, the Lord opened
my eyes to that word, glorify, some years ago. Because men naturally
have an idea that to glorify something is to improve it, or
make it better, or make it special. That's not what the word glorify
means. There is no way that the Father
could make the Son better. There's no way that the Son could
make the Father better. But there's something that Christ
coming into this world to do, there's something in who He is
as a man and what He did as a man that reveals or shows us something
about the Father. And in sending Him, the Father
shows us something about Himself. What is that? Well, when we see
the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, we find out that God is infinitely
holy, that He is inflexibly just, that He is righteous in all things. And yet at the same time, in
that cross is a revelation of His love. It's a revelation of
His everlasting love and His mercy and grace all in one. In that cross death, in this
man Christ Jesus, the Father glorifies the Son, reveals who
He is, and the Son glorifies the Father, reveals who and how
He is. But look at that second verse.
as thou hast given Him power over all flesh." You talk about
absolute sovereignty, power over all flesh. Matthew 28, all power
in heaven and earth. And He is not all-powerful and
all-mighty as a man simply to do a few amazing things. He does it in order to accomplish
something. That He should give eternal life. There it is again. That He should
give eternal life. to as many as thou hast given
Him." That's what He came to do. That's
what He came to give. That's who He came to give it
to. A people that the Father had
given Him out of Adam's fallen race to be His bride, to be His
church, to be His body. And he says, to give eternal
life, which is what John says there in our text, which is what? If God gives me eternal life,
if He gives you eternal life, what is eternal life? Is it to
live forever? No. Every soul is going to live
forever. And it's never what people think.
It's not heaven. It may include it, but it's not
heaven. It's not simply a new body. It's
not simply victory over sin. It's to know God. There are lots of folks who claim
to have eternal life. They don't have a clue as to
who God is. They don't have any understanding
of how God is. But look at what it says here
in verse 3 of John 17. He says, "...and this is life
eternal, that they might know Thee, the
only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." Now you
don't know God. Number one, you don't have eternal
life if you don't know God. And that word, know, is just
filled with every kind of expression, has to do with knowledge, that
you don't know about God, or that you do not know that is
to love God, or that you do not know so as to have a close fellowship
and relationship to God. But eternal life is to know God. There's only one way you can
know God. There's such a difference between
us and God. There's such a gulf that separates
us. We being sinners, He being holy,
we being lawbreakers, He being just, and the list goes on and
on and on. So that eternal life can only
be to know God in Jesus Christ, whom He hath sent." I hear a
lot of folks talking about Jesus Christ. But when I read this
book, I find out immediately that the one they're talking
about, that the one they're trusting in, is not the one whom the Father
sent. If you look back over in our
text, In 1 John 5, John goes on in verse 20 and he says, "...and
we know, set against the whole world," he says, "...that lies
in wickedness, and we know that the Son of God is come and hath
given us an understanding." Boy, do we need that. An understanding. That doesn't mean we understand
it, everything. But everyone that God saves,
He by His Spirit and by this witness and testimony and evidence
He's given, gives us an understanding that we may know Him that is
true. That we might be able to distinguish
The truth from the false. That we might be able to distinguish
Christ from Antichrist. That we might know and be able
to distinguish between Jesus and what Paul called another
Jesus. And deception is such that such
a revelation of the truth, and the truth as it is in Christ,
is absolutely essential, Him enabling us to believe the witness
of God rather than that witness we naturally want to believe. Sometimes it arises from our
own hard, fallen, blind hearts. Sometimes it's spoken by our
family or by our friends, sometimes by all these preachers and prophets
and such that are in the world. It's like a maze. I often think
about it like that. I think about this maze that
makes up this world, especially this religious world right now. And how that it is impossible
that a sinner can come from that lost place that they are in this
maze, find their ways to this one way which is Christ, only
by the grace of God. If I thought it lie in my ability
to convince or persuade or instruct, I'd give it up. But I heard the
shepherd say concerning his sheep, he said, them also I must bring. He brings every one of them. But I want you to especially
notice this. And that's the last phrase of
this 11th verse where he says, and this life is in His Son. This life is in His Son. Now,
he's not saying that eternal life that God gives is in Christ. As if to say, this food is on
this table, if you'll go over there and eat it. He's not saying like, this is
like the Eiffel Tower, it's in Paris, if you'll go over there
and see it. No, He said, this life is in
His Son. And how many times in the New
Testament do we read those words, in Christ? In Him. In Christ Jesus. But as I said, it doesn't mean
these things that men naturally use and use as illustrations
of what it is to believe on Christ. What he's talking here about
is being in a union with Christ. Being viewed by God as one with
the Lord Jesus Christ. I was traveling on a vacation
once in the mountains and the weekend was coming and I was
wanting to find a place to worship bad. Now if I go, I plan it ahead
of time. I plan my vacation around where
I'm going to worship. But I went and there was a certain
area of the western part of our state where the Waldensians settled. And I thought, you know, I just
wonder. They were supposed to believe
some things about the grace of God. Flew, fled persecution because
of what they believed about the gospel. I wonder if there would
be a place around here where there would be a remnant of somebody
who... And I found this, looked in the
phone book and all this stuff, and I found a church that said
something about grace. Church, I thought, well, that's
about the best shot I've got. And so, I went to the service
and I was about two minutes into the service and I knew I was
in the wrong place. But one thing the preacher did
was, he was going to show by way of illustration how easy
it is to believe on Christ, how easy it is to come to Christ,
how easy it is to receive this free gift. And so he said, it's
like this. And he reached in his pocket
and he pulled out a dollar bill. And he said, here it is. Here's
eternal life. Now whoever wants it, just come
up and take it. And finally after a while, a
little boy got up and he went up there and took that dollar
bill. But the boy was sitting right
in front of me so I saw the whole thing. The only way he ever did
that was when his mama pulled him over there to her and whispered
in his ears and said, you get up there and you get that dollar
bill. He didn't do it willingly. He
didn't do it freely. And what had taken place was
the man unknowingly had proved by his illustration just the
opposite of what he had tried to produce.
You see, all who are in Christ, are in Him by an act of God's
free and sovereign grace. The triune God has put them in
Christ, has joined them to Christ, has viewed them in Christ. And that's the only reason they're
in Christ. I say that because the Father
Here's this witness that comes from heaven, the gospel that's
witnessed on earth by the Word of God and the Spirit of God.
The Father chose them in Christ before the foundation of the
world. And you can go to Ephesians 1.
And Paul leads those Ephesian believers in blessing and praising
God because He, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, has
blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ gave them
all in Christ, and chose us in Him before the world began, and
in love predestinated us to be conformed to the image of His
Son, and graced us, or as it is, made us accepted in the Beloved."
That's what the Bible says the Father did. He initiated this
grace. He's the author of salvation.
He's the originator. He's the instigator, if you want
to call Him that. And all these acts, acts of election,
acts of predestination, acts of grace, He just graced us with
this life in Christ Jesus. And the Son is in a total agreement
with that. You see, the Son, in acts of
grace, took them unto Himself and became their surety in what
is called the everlasting covenant of grace, and He represented
them before God and His justice in every matter concerning their
sins. Their sins were not imputed or
charged to them, they were charged to Him. And at the appointed
time, He came into this world, and He took upon Himself a body,
and in that sinless body He died in their place, and all their
salvation is accomplished by Him and for them, because they
are before God in Him." Paul said, dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete in Him." Never will
more wonderful words pin down. And you are complete in Him. You're never viewed by God. And
I can't help but feel like maybe Newton's thoughts at that time
are like our thoughts sometimes when we get to viewing ourselves
in ourselves. But he said, always complete
in Him. He says in Romans 6, knowing
this, that our old man was crucified with Him. The objects of God's grace are
so united and counted as one before God that Paul says, when
He died, we died in Him. When He went to that cross, we
went to that cross before the judgment of God in Him. And when
He was raised from the dead, we were raised from the dead
in Him. And even when He was ascended on high and seated in
the thrones of glory, we were seated in Him. Eternal life is
in His Son. We were like Noah and his family
in the ark. Christ is our Ark. But not only does the Father
bear witness to this and the Son, but also the Holy Spirit. They're one and they agree. Verse 10, he says, "...he that
believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself."
I can't explain all there is to that. All I know is there
was a time when I did not believe the truth of God. Would talk
against what was plain and obvious because nobody I knew knew it,
believed it, and I didn't naturally want to believe it. But one day
I just started believing it. I began to think, what a fool
you are. What a wretch you are to think
you could ever do anything to merit God's salvation or accomplish
it or add to it or anything else. God has looked on you in mercy
from eternity. That's what Christ was doing
on that cross. That's why He came into this
world to save sinners of whom you're the chief of them. But the Spirit of God comes to
these, and He gives them spiritual life. What is the evidence of spiritual
life? There are so many people so mixed
up on this, so deceived on this. They give as the evidence of
spiritual life, the evidence of being born again, things that
unregenerate men and women can do. Be nice. Quit their drinking. Quit a lot
of things. Be zealous. Be faithful. There
are a whole lot of lost people doing that. So what is the evidence
of spiritual life? It is belief of the truth. The very ones that Christ made
the most scathing testimony about. Morally, they were as clean as
a houndstooth, as we say. They were religious. They even
weighed out their tithes, weighing out the spices in the exact amount. And he said, you're liars. You're
hypocrites. You're like sepulchres adorned
on the outside, but inside full of dead bones. You may clean
the surface of the plate, but you're lost. The truth of
the matter is the evidence of faith is faith. "'Tis a point I long to know.'"
How will you ever know it, John Newton? Through believing. I could never
believe such a glorious promise, such a wonderful truth, that
God had given me eternal life had He not given me faith. As a matter of fact, I'm like
Newton more often than I'd like to admit. It's almost like I'm
trying to prove to God that I can't have it. And I come back to a
verse like this. This is the witness of God. That He has given unto us eternal
life. And this life is not in us. It's
in His Son. This life is not even Him being
in us. This life is us being in Him. Paul said, "...in whom ye also
trusted, after that you heard the word of truth, the gospel
of your salvation, in whom also after that you believed, you
were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise." Paul said, "...God hath from
the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the
Spirit and belief of the truth." By our necessary act and work
of grace in us, the Spirit of God brings us to believe on Christ
and to have Christ as our all. So much so that the Apostle tells
us something that only faith can believe. And that is, before
God, as He is, So are we in this world. You see, believers believe the
witness of God above the witness of their own
selves. And if they did not, they could
never have a moment's peace. But yet they have hope and they
have joy through believing. The work of the Father is eternal. The work of the Son is eternal. The work of the Spirit is eternal. So the life we have from God
is eternal. And our Savior says, I give unto
them eternal life. And they shall never perish,
neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father which
gave them Me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck
them out of My Father's hand." Verse 12, "...he that hath the
Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." Can we believe the witness of
God? Only if He gives us grace to
and faith to. Only if His Spirit bears witness
with our spirit that we are the children of God. Father, this
day we pray that You would bless Your Word and Your witness to
the hearts of those who hear. Bless it to my own heart. Enable
me to believe and have confidence and trust and therefore hope
and rest in your witness, your testimony. Help us to receive
the witness of God that is greater than the witness of men. that
You have given unto us eternal life. And this life is in Your
Son. We pray and ask all things in
His name. Amen.