Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to our second reading, the first
epistle general of John, chapter 1, and reading for our text,
the first three verses. 1 John, chapter 1, the first
three verses. 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. 1 John chapter 1, the first three
verses, the word that is specifically upon my spirit is at the end
of verse 1, the Word of Life. The Word of Life. and it is the
experience of the Word of Life that we have before us this morning. Now by nature we are dead, dead
in trespasses and sins. Our first parents fell, they
transgressed, they broke the commandment of God and God has
said that in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely
die. And so death is in the world,
men die, we know we must die, must be laid in the grave. After
that there is the judgment, and then either eternal life or eternal
death, but a conscious existence of the soul, and that resurrection
adjoining of the body to the soul again. But here in this
life we are also spiritually dead. The natural man, we're
told, receiveth not the things of God, neither can he know them,
because they are spiritually discerned. And it is vital that
we be given life. In fact, our Lord insists in
the Gospel according to John, and chapter 3, that we must be
born again, or begin life again. Not naturally, as Nicodemus,
who we were speaking to, thought it meant to be born again in
the mother's womb, but spiritually, you must be born again. And to
be born again, we need life. And so we have in the word of
our text, the experience of the word of life. Now, the apostles,
they were witnesses of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to
His Godhead, to who He was, that He is the Eternal Son of God,
and it is through the Lord Jesus Christ that that life comes. And they testify here of their
experience of Him on earth, and testify that He is the Word of
Life. And that is what is before us
this morning, pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ as the true
and eternal God, and not only to Him as that, but as the true
Word, the Word of Life, so that those of us who will never see
Him in the flesh, yet we will know those things that the Apostle
speaks of in a spiritual way, though they saw him with their
literal eyes. So on to look then, and confining
our thoughts this morning, firstly, to the Word of Life, Jesus Christ. And then secondly, a personal
experience of the Word of Life. That is very evident, set forth
in the words of our text. And then thirdly, an experience
to be shared. In verse 3, the apostle says,
that which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you. He is, in
this epistle, and really in all the gospels, they are sharing
their experience of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we also are
to do the same. But firstly, the Word of Life,
Jesus Christ. Now what is the first thing that
is set before us is that these Apostles, these men, John, that
they had seen Jesus of Nazareth in the flesh. Many had seen Him. in the flesh. He was a real man. The Jews deridingly said that
he was Jesus, the son of Joseph, the carpenter's son. But John
and the apostles had much different to say of him than that. In fact, we read in the Gospel,
according to John, that the Lord Jesus Christ was the Word, and
with a capital, the Word incarnate, was with God, and the Word was
God. The same was in the beginning
with God. All things were made by Him.
Without Him was not anything made that was made. And then
He introduces again His teaching, in Him was life, and the life
was the light of men. And that life gave life in a
natural way to creation, but it also gives life in a spiritual
way. John, when he comes to the end
of his epistle, or no, the end of the gospel rather, in chapter
20, the second to last chapter, he says, and many other signs
truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not
written in this book, but these are written that he might believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing,
he might have life through his name. So he gathers these things
together, the Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth. If he was
not the eternal Son of God, then there's no warrant for following
him, for thinking the Scriptures fulfilled, And certainly there
could not be thought that there should be life through his name. It's easy for us who have been
brought up under the sound of the truth, we're very familiar
with the gospel accounts, to put ourselves in the place of
those that lived in the time of Christ, and to see a man that
the Jews, all they saw was a man, nothing different, no halo over
his head, No stature even like Saul who stood above all of the
people. Isaiah said, he has no form or
comeliness that when we see him that we should desire him. He
is a root out of a dry ground. There was nothing in him to proclaim
who he was and from whence he came and yet John the Baptist,
who was sent before, he proclaimed him, pointed to him as the Lamb
of God that taketh away the sin of the world. And the Jews would
have well known what had been prefigured by the Lamb in all
of the sacrifices. The Passover Lamb, when I see
the blood, I will pass over you. And the great idea there, that
without that Lamb, without the Passover, without Sheltering
beneath that blood, the destroying angel would have destroyed the
firstborn in each of those houses. So that Lamb was the difference
between life and death. And the Lord Jesus Christ, who
is that great antitype of the Passover Lamb, He who said to
His disciples with desire, I have desired to eat this Passover
with you before I suffer, and having eaten the Passover with
them, he then instituted the Lord's Supper, and he has set
himself forth as he truly is, the Lamb of God, the Passover
Lamb, and live. And so the apostles were very
clear here in giving a real witness and They say that which, and
going back to the verses of our text in 1 John 1, that which
was from the beginning, which we have heard. They heard Him. These apostles, they spoke, they
heard the Lord Jesus Christ literally speaking to them. And they saw
Him with their eyes. They saw Him. And then they say,
which we have looked upon. They looked upon in all the years
of his ministry, but especially when it comes to his resurrection. Because, of course, our Lord
came, and he came as the Passover lamb to be slain, to be sacrificed,
to die. Where is the life in death? Where
is the, if the Lord had not risen from the dead, where would the
life be then? How vital. that it be established
that Jesus is the Son of God, He is the true God, and that
having suffered and borne the sins of His people, endured the
wrath of God, fulfilled the law, made it honourable, paid the
debt that was due to His people, that He then rose again from
the dead. That is absolutely vital that
that was the case. We read in Luke 24 where the
Lord appeared to his disciples in the upper room. Jesus stood
in the midst of them, said unto them, Peace be unto you. But they were terrified and affrighted,
and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And he said unto them,
Why are ye troubled? Why do thoughts arise in your
hearts? Behold my hands and my feet,
and there they had to look, that it is I myself, handle me and
see. For a spirit hath not flesh and
bones, as ye see me have. And so when he says in our text,
that which we have looked upon and our hands have handled, that
the word of life, he is speaking of a risen, Saviour, Arisen Jesus,
He that truly laid down His life and took it again, we have seen
and bear witness and shown to you that eternal life which was
with the Father and was manifest unto us." That's very, very clear
in our text where the Apostle is speaking of the Word of Life.
He's not just speaking of a written Word. though it is the written
word, but it is the Lord Jesus Christ he is speaking of, that
eternal life which was with the Father and was manifest unto
us. And so the apostle is first establishing
very clearly that the Lord Jesus Christ is the eternal God, that
he showed himself to them, that they saw him, heard him, he truly
was a real man. And he truly laid down his life
as a ransom and took it again. And this is the message. And John, as we said before,
so emphasized more than any other of the evangelists and the apostles,
He dwells upon this, the vital necessity that Jesus of Nazareth
is viewed, believed on, as the Son of God. This was the testimony
that Philip desired of the eunuch when the eunuch desired to be
baptized, if thou believest with all thine heart thou mayest,
and he said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And this is the message that
is given us here. Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Now I want to go one step further
here, is what John is setting forth. When John is writing to
the churches here, we'll say, Lord Jesus Christ has ascended
up into heaven. He is no longer to be seen as
John and the apostles had seen him, no longer can he be handled,
no longer can his voice be heard as it was to them. But we are
given the Word, the Word of the Lord Jesus Christ and the whole
of the Word of God from Genesis is the Word of God. It is inspired,
it is breathed, God breathed by the Holy Spirit is the author
of the Word of God. Through many human authors, they
wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. And the Lord Jesus
Christ, one with the Father and the Spirit, the Word is His Word. And it is vital for us to realize
that. So when we have in our text the
Word of Life, John is specifically choosing how he is describing
the Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn't say that which we
have looked upon in our hands have handled of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He is choosing to use this description,
the Word of Life. And that Word of Life is what
the Church of God has now, you and I have now, in the Holy Scriptures
of Truth. Through the Scriptures of Truth,
we will see the Lord Jesus Christ. Through the Scriptures of Truth,
we will hear Him. And we also will handle those
precious truths in our experience. It's vital to come to that. We've had it emphasized several
times of late, whether here and elsewhere, that through the Word
of God, it is the Word of God by which He is known. God is
a spirit. God Himself cannot be seen. God manifests in the flesh, Emmanuel
God with us, the Lord Jesus, could be seen. A real body. The same, we have it in the Articles
of Faith, the same flesh and bones that hung upon the cross
are now in heaven. And so, when the Lord created
the world, He created it with the Word, He spoke and it was
done. When He appeared to Adam after
he had fell, Adam heard the voice, or the Word, of the Lord. in
the Garden of Eden, and he hid himself. How the Lord blesses
the church is through the Word. His ministers preach the Word. They preach Jesus Christ. We see Him no more, but His Spirit
is given us, and those of the Thessalonians receive the Word,
not in word only, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. And so, here the Apostle establishes
first, the Word of Life is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's given
this title, the Word of Life, because He is one with the written
Word. Jesus and the written Word in
all things are the same. And what John speaks here of
is how they have had experience with the Lord Jesus personally
may be applied in a spiritual way to those who have received
the Lord Jesus Christ, seen and heard Him by experience themselves. Go on to look then, secondly,
a personal experience of the Word of Life. John here, he is speaking of
his own personal experience. But each one of the people of
God are to have a personal experience. Our Lord in John 10, he speaks
of his sheep. My sheep, they hear my voice
and they follow me. That did not apply just to the
time when he was upon earth. It applies right to the end of
time. How is his voice heard? Through
the Word of God, through the ministry of the Word. He that heareth you, heareth
me, and he that heareth me, heareth my Father that sent me. The Word is one, and so the experience
of it is vital and Lord, insisting he must be born again, he must
be born again spiritually, and the insistence that there be
a belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, a receiving Him, embracing Him
as one's only hope for time and eternity, as the only name given
among men whereby we must be saved. So our Lord is known as
the Word to His people. Maybe this morning you tried
and tempted that you do not really know or love the Lord as you
should. Some people may feel they've
got to even imagine the Lord or think on Him as a person. But when we have it set before
us here, the way that we know and handle and love the Lord
Jesus Christ is through His Word, then it comes right where we
are as we receive blessing through the Word of God. And so when we think of how it's
set before us here, The Apostle, he first says, which we have
heard. How vital it is that the Word
of God, the Holy Bible, be sent throughout all the world. It is a great blessing, a vital
blessing, to hear the Word of God. Faith cometh by hearing,
and hearing by the Word of God. How can they hear without a preacher? How can they preach except they
be sent? It is through the Word of God
that we know all that we do know about God, about ourselves, about
the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no other revelation apart
from the Holy Bible, and it's a great blessing the Lord has
seen fit that as His They hear it as they have never
heard it before. Not just with the outward ear,
but hearing it inwardly. It affects them. It arrests them. They hear it with new ears. Oh, what a blessing it is to
be quickened into life. I remember our late sister in
faith, Dulcie Jellis. and she testified when she came
before us as a church that the Bible was a new Bible, the hymn
book was a new hymn book. It wasn't really, but she was
listening, she was hearing it as she hadn't heard before. And
that is what the Lord says here through John, that when we hear
the word like this, we have heard Him. He has spoken to us through
His Word. In these last days He has spoken
unto us through His Son. This is what we have set before
us in the opening chapter of Hebrews. God, who at sundry times
and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers
by the prophets, hath in these last days, that's these gospel
days from Christ to the end of the world, unto us by his Son,
whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made
the worlds." And we have the same thing. He's spoken to us
by his Son. How has he done that? Through
the Word of God. Every Word of God is pure. It's
received as the Word of God, as the Word of his beloved Son,
and through the preaching of the Word, an experience of that. Do we know what it is to hear
the Word of God? It is said in the last day, the
resurrection, that even the dead, those that are in the grave,
shall hear the voice and Word of the Son of God. But before
that, in a spiritual way, that those parts of the Word of God
that God has used for us, He's spoken to us, and we may say
we have heard our Lord speaking to us through His Word. Do we have that mark of a sheep
to hear His voice and then follow Him? We're drawn to that. And
our Lord says that no man can come unto Me except the Father
which hath sent Me draw him, and I'll raise him up at the
last day. And what are we drawn to? We're
drawn to the Lord Jesus Christ in the Word. Attracted to it. You think of the two on the way
to Emmaus. They didn't know the stranger that was with them.
They weren't drawn to him as a person. They didn't know who
he was. But when he started speaking in all the scriptures, the things
concerning himself, then their heart burned within them. And
that is the same with us. The Lord speaks to us in all
the Scriptures concerning Himself, then our heart will burn within
us. And where that has been the case,
may we desire it to be the case again, and each time we read
the Word, and each time we hear it preached, may we desire to
hear our Saviour speak, hear the Lord Jesus Christ, speaking
to us through His Word, which we have heard. Poor sinner, can
you say that? Can I say that? I have heard
His Word. And then which we have seen with
our eyes, spiritual eyes. The psalmist says, open thou
mine eyes, that I might behold wondrous things out of thy law. We think of the man that was
born blind, and spiritually we are all born blind. But the Lord
opened his eyes, and he said that once I was blind, but now
I see. And in a spiritual way, there
are those things that by nature we never see in the Word. We
never understand, we cannot see Him. Sometimes we might have
someone try to explain something to us, in words, just to explain
maybe a natural thing, or perhaps a mechanical thing, or electrical
thing, or how something works. And they'll explain it, and they'll
speak all these words explaining it, and at the end they'll say,
I cannot see it, I cannot see it, or I cannot understand it. And all that's been said before
us is words, but we use the phrase that we cannot of sin at all. And you think of the Jews who
really struggled to receive the idea that the Gentile has been
brought into the bond of the covenant and to be blessed. And
you think, how could they not have seen, right through the
prophecies of Isaiah, right through the Old Testament, it speaks
of the Gentiles being brought in. How could they not have seen
that? But they didn't, as it were a
veil over them. And the Apostle Paul speaks of
that at this time, over the Jews, there's that veil that they cannot
see, cannot understand. When the Lord first quickened
my soul, it was at first as if the whole Bible was the law.
And wherever I read, it brought me in as a guilty sinner. But
then when the Lord blessed me with showing the Lord Jesus Christ,
and then all the Word, it had the Gospel on every page, wherever
I turned, there was the Gospel, there I saw it. The broken tables,
even at Mount Sinai, they didn't, it wasn't remained like that,
broken. The Lord gave new tables and
wrote in them the same law and put them They were to be put
in the Ark, the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilling the law and making
it honourable. And when we start to see those
things in the Word of God, and our heart burns and warms, and
we love the Word and we love what we have seen, and we haven't
seen it before and haven't understood it before, but now we do. And it's all done through the
Word of God, the Lord blessing the Word of God. It's all, you're
troubled and tried and tempted, whether you've truly been blessed,
truly received the Lord, or believed in the Lord, or known Him at
all, it is in the compass of what the Lord has shown you through
His Word. And how that Word has been precious,
and Christ being precious, as He's revealed to you through
the Word of God. Whom, having not seen, ye love,
in whom, though now ye see him not yet believing, ye have joy,
joy unspeakable, full of glory, unto you which believe. He is
precious, and we believe through the Word of God. But then, he is not only seen,
But here it is handled. Have we handled the Lord? What
does that mean? How have we handled the Word?
When we have seen a precious promise in the Word, Word of
God, how have we handled that? Have we taken it to the throne
of God? Have we taken it to the Lord
in prayer? Have we pleaded that Word, Lord
thou sense? Thou will surely do thee good.
Put the Lord in remembrance of why He came and why He suffered
and what He has endured. It's how we handle it in prayer. By nature we never handle the
Word of God. It doesn't affect our lives.
We don't go home from the house of God and suddenly we put things
right, we stop doing things, we change our arrangements or
we start doing things. But when the Lord is in it, then
we handle that Word. We plead the promises and receiving
the fear nots, it comforts our heart. We handle that Word in
regulating the affairs in our life and what we do and don't
do. We handle that Word when we meditate
upon Him, when we feed upon Him, when we are strengthened by Him.
When we use that as a reason why we do things and why we don't. A word is a lamp unto my feet,
a light unto my path. And the word is actually handled
in that way. In solemn things, Satan sometimes
handles it. You think of how that he tempted
our Lord Jesus Christ and came to him and brought him up to
the pinnacle of the temple, to cast thyself down from hence. For it is written that the angels
shall bear thee up in their arms, lest thou dast thy foot against
a stone. And now our Lord says that it
is written again, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And
so Satan was handling the word of God deceitfully, and we are
warned against that But our Lord then brought that word again,
and by comparing it, he put Satan to flying. But the word of God
is to be handled, handled in a gracious way, handled in a
way like the Bereans did. When the apostle Paul preached
the word, then they went home, they searched the scriptures
daily, whether these things were so. Therefore, many of them believed. Why? They found Christ there. What did Paul preach to them?
No doubt exactly what he preached to the Corinthians. I determined
to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That was what the Apostle preached. And that is what they found consistent
with the Old Testament Scriptures. Christ in all the Scriptures. And so they handled that work.
How many times have the Psalms been on our lips in prayer? We've taken those same breathings
and those things that have been the hope. Why art thou cast down,
O my soul? Why art thou disquieted within
me? Hope thou in God, I shall yet
praise him, who is the health of my countenance and my God. And the psalmist's language is
our own language. When we have read, this poor
man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all
his troubles. And sometimes that is just dropped
in as just where we are. We think this poor man is the
Lord Jesus Christ, is David walking it out. And our Lord walked it
out and I'm walking it out. And we handle that word in that
way that it becomes meat and drink to our soul. Except ye
eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man, ye have no
life in you. And how is that done? It's done
through the Word of God. You know the clean beasts, they
chewed the cud, and not only ate it the first time, they went
back over it again. And God's dear people are to
do the same. And it's a precious thing when
the Holy Spirit brings back to our remembrance all things whatsoever
the Lord has said unto you. The Lord says in John 17 that
I have given them thy word and the world hath hated them. Notice
that. What a difference it makes between
God's people and the world. The world can't receive the word
of God. They hate it and they hate the
Lord Jesus Christ. They want to separate as it were
our Lord Jesus Christ from the written word, and say, well,
he is a God of love, we will rejoice in him, but you bring
the word of God to them, and they don't like that, they don't
receive it. And so the people of God, they
not only receive the Lord, they receive his word. And so those
that believed on the Lord in John 8, the Lord said to them,
if you continue, Where? Continue following here? No,
if you continue in my word, then you shall be my disciples indeed. You shall know the truth and
the truth shall make you free. And so, as the apostle says here,
they had handled the word of life, a risen saviour literally,
but it is to be experienced. God's dear children, that life
is manifest, it is shown to them, and it is life through His name
and through the Word of God. Thy words were found, said Jeremiah,
and I did eat them. They were to the joy and rejoicing
of my soul. Therefore, have you, have I,
received and handled the Word of life? Do we have a personal
The experience of the Word is not just in the Bible, it's in
our hearts. It's formed within us. God has
put it there. And in the cup of salvation,
we might be able to put one verse here and one verse there. One received at the beginning
of the journey and many strewn along the way precious words. those are precious to us because
they've been words of life to our soul. How many times we can
look upon when we've been so low, discouraged, disheartened,
bowed down, and the Lord has spoken some of his words into
our soul, and immediately has revived us, strengthened us again,
encouraged us again, a personal experience of the
Word of Life. May we all bear witness that
we do have a personal experience of the Word of Life. On to look
then thirdly at an experience to be shared. There's several aspects here.
The first is that there is to bring tidings, really this is
the gospel, it is the gospel tidings, it is the ministry of
the word, to bring the gospel through all the world. Go ye
into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. It is the king's son is dead,
but the king's son is risen again. the account of when Absalom was
slain, and King David was waiting for tidings, waiting to know
how the battle had gone between his men and Absalom's men. And Ahimaaz, he so wanted to
go, but Joab said to him, thou shalt not bring tidings this
day, because the king's son is dead. And then he sent Kushai,
and the charge to Kushai was, go tell the king what thou hast
seen. That's all he said. And then
Ahimaaz, he badly wanted to go, and he overran Kushai and got
there first. And David, he wanted to know,
was the young man Absalom safe? But dear Ahimaaz, a good man,
but he couldn't Be faithful and clear in this, he says, I saw
a tumult, but I knew not what it was. And yet Job had told
him specifically what it was, and yet he couldn't. He couldn't
be a faithful bearer of tidings. But Cushi, when he was asked,
he was very clear that Absalom, that he'd be like all the enemies
of the Lord. And David got the message that
Absalom had been slain. But Cushio was bringing what
he had actually seen. He was sharing his experience. He was bringing tidings, faithful
tidings of what had happened. Now, every minister and the apostles
here, they are bringing those tidings, faithful tidings. And
may we share in your prayers to have grace that the trumpet
give a certain sound, that these tidings are, that there is life
in none other but in the Lord Jesus Christ. There's none other
name given among men whereby we must be saved. Having Him,
we have life. If we believe not that He is
Christ, our Lord says, you shall perish in your sins. There remaineth
no more. sacrifice for sins. There is
only one place where sin has been put away, and that is at
Calvary. And it is by faith in His name
that we are justified by all things, or counted without condemnation
from all things, by which we could not be justified by the
law of Moses, not of works, but of faith in Christ and what He
has done. only one way of salvation. So the first, experience to be
shared. God sends not angels who have
not experienced salvation, they have not experienced the precious
blood of Christ supplying to them, they have not experienced
what it is to be a lost and ruined sinner, to be found by God and
to be redeemed by God. But it is men who bring what
they have experienced of the truth of God and tell it to the
people of God from the word of God. But then secondly, it is
to bear a witness. The apostle here is bearing witness. Ye are my witnesses, saith the
Lord, right through to the end of times, The Lord has a people
that are to bear witness of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know,
we're very used to, if there is things that happen, criminal
things that happen, or whatever things may happen, the courts
of the land, one major feature of establishing the truth is
a witness. A witness that is a faithful
witness, and every one of God's dear children are. We think of
the man that was born blind, one thing I know, whereas I was
blind, now I see. A faithful witness to what has
been done. So, may our experience that we
have had be a witness, a witness to our neighbours, those around
us, a experience to be shared with this thought in mind, the
Lord in calling me, in blessing me with life through the Word
of God, through the Lord Jesus Christ, I am to be a witness
to that fact, to those that are round about. The third way that
experience is to be shared is making a profession of faith. Those that are baptized are baptized
on profession of faith. And before that, they share their
experience with the Church of God. Like those two in Emmaus,
they came back to the apostles and they told what things were
done in the way and how Jesus was made known unto them. Maybe it is. There are some of
you that hear me this morning that have an experience of the
Word of Life, but yet have not shared it and should share it. Come and hear all ye that fear
God, and I will tell what He had done for my soul. Are we
ashamed of it? Do we not want to share it? Is
it not worthy of being shared? Or should it be that the Church
of God here of it and that we walk in the ordinance of baptism
and in the ordinance of the Lord's Supper. The fourth thing is fellowship
and this is specifically set forth here in our text. In verse 3, that which we have
seen and heard declare we unto you that ye also may have fellowship
with us. Truly our fellowship is with
the Father and with the Son, Jesus Christ. It is a beautiful
token that is given again later on in this epistle. We know that
we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. But if you had the Lord's people
gathered in a room, and they were all to sit there absolutely
silent, they never told what God had done for them, they never
shared anything, They never declared anything that had been done for
them. How could there be any fellowship? It's only when one
starts opening their mouth, sharing and speaking about what they
felt, the experience of their souls, their sin, but the Lord's
mercy to them, the answers to prayer that they've had, the
Lord's kindness, and the parts of the Word that have been made
very precious to them, and then The hearts of those that know
the same things, they're drawn. They're drawn to what is said,
and they're drawn to those who have said them. And then they
have that sweet fellowship, one with another. In the first place,
with God's people, but really what it is, is fellowship with
the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. And this was the
incentive. God's people are to speak often
one to another. They are to have fellowship,
they are to see each other. We cannot see God, that's emphasised
in this epistle here. We can see our brethren, we can
see our brother, our sister in faith. We cannot see God, but
we can have that fellowship with those who are partakers of the
same benefit, the same blessing, the same favours. The Word of Life. May we then
view our Lord Jesus Christ as that Word of Life, and these
scriptures, they're a sweet savour, and a different view perhaps
than we had before, after this morning. And may we realise that
what we have had is a personal experience of the Word of Life,
and if we haven't, may we pray and ask the Lord, that He would
give us that personal experience, that we might handle the Word
in prayer, in pleading, in supplication, in thanksgiving, and that we
might share that experience, what we have received and heard
and been precious to us with the household of God and with
all that would ask us of the reason for the hope that is within
us.