Let's turn, brethren, to 1 John
chapter 3. 1 John chapter 3. When our Lord Jesus Christ had
sent out the 70, He sent out to preach and they came back
and they were all excited. And they came back saying, Lord,
even the devils are subject to us through Thy name. And he said
to them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from the sky. You think
that's something? I beheld Satan as lightning fall
from the sky, from heaven. He said, Behold, I give you power
to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the
enemy and nothing shall by any means hurt you. He said, notwithstanding,
in this rejoice not. That's not what the Lord said
to rejoice in. He said, don't rejoice that the
spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names
are written in heaven. Rejoice because you're a child
of God. And at that moment, he rejoiced.
And he prayed to the Father and he said, Father, I'm thankful
that you've hidden these things from the wise and the prudent
and revealed them unto babes. For so it seemed good in thy
sight. And you think about all the things
the Apostle John had seen. All the miracles he had seen
the Lord work. And here's what John was astonished
at. He says here, verse 1, Behold,
this is a term of astonishment, Behold, what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called sons
of God. Now that is something to be astonished
about. the love of God that He's bestowed
upon us that we should be called the sons of God. And brethren,
John tells us here, he says that's a purifying love. He says there
in verse 2, when He's worked this in your heart and made you
to behold what manner of love He's bestowed upon you, He makes
you know some things. He says, Beloved, now are we
the sons of God? Right now. We know this. We are the sons of God. Now it
does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know. We know this. That when He shall appear, we
shall be like Him. For we shall see Him as He is.
And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself
even as he is pure. I want to talk a little bit about
God's purifying love. Now the world believes a lie
where they're telling everybody that God loves everybody and
He wants to save everybody. He's doing everything He can.
But then they exalt the sinner and they say the problem is You
won't let Him. You won't cooperate with Him.
You won't let Him save you. Well, that's completely false.
That's totally opposite to what the Scriptures teach, brethren.
God loves His children in a manner so as to purify us within. He gives us a hope. He forms
Christ in us and He purifies us within. And He makes us, brethren,
to know we are His sons. And He makes us to know that
we shall be saved by His great love. And when He makes you know
this, He makes you repent from the darkness of lives. He makes
you come to Christ the light and to to where He's planted
His gospel and where His people dwell. And He makes you abide
in the truth, believing on Christ. And He'll never let you turn
from Christ. Ever. Now, I want to show you
this. First of all, He bestows His
love on His children in the new birth. This is when we first
experience it, is in the new birth. And He does that through
the righteousness of Christ. through the redemption Christ
accomplished. Look back now at verse 29, 1
John 2, 29. He says, if you know that Christ
is righteous, you know that everyone that doeth righteousness. We
saw last time, that means everyone that believeth on Christ. If you know that Christ is righteous,
then you know everyone that believes on Christ is born of Him. Now,
I want you to remember the context. We're going through this book,
so I want to preach it in context. John has been declaring the difference
between those who are anti-Christ, who go out from among God's people
and no longer assemble with God's people and assemble with lies,
under lies. He's telling the difference between
them and God's children. And the difference is God gives
His children the unction of the Holy Spirit so that we know the
truth and we're kept abiding in the truth. He said there in
1 John 2.20, you have an unction from the Holy One and you know
all things. By the Holy Spirit we're born
again. We're given a new heart and we're made to believe the
truth. And when He does that, you experience the adoption of
children. You're made to know that God's
your Father and you're His Son. No man has a right to claim God
as his Father and he's the Son of God until he's been born of
God. That's when we're taught that God's our Father and we're
His Son. That's when we experience the adoption. And brethren, God,
He loved His people freely in eternity. Not a cause in us.
It was a free, it was of God and not of us. And He chose His
people in Christ, blessed us with all spiritual blessings,
and when He did, Scripture says He predestinated us unto the
adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself. He predestinated
the very time when He would send forth the Gospel, send forth
the Holy Spirit, and call His people to Himself. But now listen. The great love of adoption, this
great love where God bestows His love on us, makes us know
we're His sons and His daughters. He does this through the redemption
that Christ accomplished, through the righteousness of Christ.
So as John was going through here and he's declaring, brethren,
that God gives the unction and He does this through the Holy
Spirit and He said, He makes you to experience the adoption
of children. He says to us there, He says, so if you know Christ
is righteous, you know this is through the righteousness of
Christ, through the redemption of Christ, that we're given this
unction of the Holy Spirit, that we're made to experience this
adoption of children. If you know this is so, then
you know that everyone that doeth righteousness, everyone that
believes on Christ is born of Him. Look at Galatians 4, I'll
show you what I'm talking about. Galatians chapter 4 and look
at verse 4. When the fullness of time was
come, God sent forth His Son made of a woman, made under the
law to redeem, to make righteous them that were under the law.
And here's why He did it. That we might receive the adoption
of sons. And because you are sons, God
had already chosen his sons before the foundation of the world in
Christ. He predestinated us under this time that Paul's talking
about right here. And because you are sons, God
has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying,
Abba, Father. Wherefore you're no more a servant,
but a son. And if a son, then an heir of
God through Jesus Christ. Now go back to 1 John and look
at chapter 2 and verse 29. So this is what John meant as
he was talking about this unction and this spirit given whereby
we experience the adoption of children. He says, so if you
know that Christ is righteous, If you know that this unction
is given, the Holy Spirit is given, and you experience the
adoption of children through the righteousness of Christ,
through the redemption of Christ, then you know that everyone that
believes on Christ, everybody that does righteousness is born
of Him. Look over at 1 John 3.10. I just
want to review a minute to make sure you understand that doing
righteousness is believing on Christ. 1 John 3.10. See, this
is what he's declaring. He's declaring how the children
of God and the children of the devil are manifest. Look, in
this the children of God are manifest and the children of
the devil. Whosoever doeth not righteousness,
he's meaning does not believe on Christ, he's not of God, he's
not born of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. He says
the same thing again in verse 23. Look down there. This is
His commandment, that we should do righteousness, that we should
believe on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another. See, He says those same two things.
And He that keepeth His commandments, He that does righteousness, believes
on Christ, and loves His brother, He's born of Him. He dwells in
Him, and He in Him. Look at 1 John 5.1. Whosoever believeth that Jesus
is the Christ, whosoever does righteousness, he's born of God. He's born of God. And everyone
that loveth Him, that begat Him, everyone that loveth God by whom
He's born again, He's saying the same thing. This is why He
believes. This is why He does righteousness.
He's born of God. And everyone that loves Him,
that begat, loves His brethren who are begotten of Him. So those
two things are mentioned there. This is doing righteousness,
brethren. So John, he's declaring now, he's going through there,
he's talking about this unction. He's saying the difference between
those antichrists that went out, that left out from the church
and no longer walk and they sit under lies and they're promoting
lies, the difference in them and you is you have an unction
of the Holy Spirit. You've experienced adoption of
children. And you know this, that it's through the righteousness
of Christ. So if you know Christ is righteous,
you know that this is through the redemption He accomplished,
and you know that everybody that believes on Christ is born of
Him. And as He declares that, He's just overcome with astonishment. And He says, Behold, what manner
of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called
the sons of God. He loved us from eternity and
because He loved us from eternity, He sent His only begotten Son. And not only His only begotten
Son, He sent Him to this vile place, brethren, to save sinners
that didn't love Him. We didn't love Him. Look at 1
John 4.9. And this was manifested, the
love of God toward us, because the God sent His only begotten
Son, and we're descending into the world, this sin-cursed world. Why? That we might live through
Him. Here in His love. Not that we
loved God. Those He loved and those He came
to save, we did not love Him. But He loved us. loved us from eternity, loved
us before He ever made the world. He said, I've loved you with
an everlasting love. It never changes, has no beginning,
no ending. Those He's loved, He's always
loved. Paul said in Romans 8, nothing can separate us from
the love of God and it's in Christ Jesus. Herein is love, not that we love
God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be satisfaction
for our sins. So as John was thinking about
this sanction, he was thinking about how this sanction is given
through the redemption that Christ accomplished. He said, behold
what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us. He sent
His Son into this world, into this vile place. I try to think
of some place that's vile and I would hate to send my son,
some rat infested disease ridden, dark, wet, dirty sewer to send
my son there to save somebody that does not love me? And that
doesn't compare. That falls short of what we're
talking about. He sent his son into this world
and the scripture says he sent him that we might live through
him. That means he's going to have
to lay down his life. Because the people He came to
save are guilty and we deserve death. And to uphold justice,
He's going to have to die in our place. Not just any death. He's going to have to bear the
sin of His people and bear the guilt of His people. In His conscience,
He's going to experience. That's what we see in the Psalms.
In His conscience, He experienced the shame of sin. That'll be part of punishment
of sin in hell. God says that. You're going to
know your sin perfectly. You're going to know how you
rejected God. You're going to know the gospel
perfectly and know your sin of rejecting Him perfectly. And
you're going to live with the shame of that all your days if
you go to that place. And He knew the shame of our
sin and He knew the shame of our guilt. And Scripture says
He endured the cross despising the shame. Our Lord had to bear being made
a curse. He had to bear the Father He
loved who's of two pure eyes to behold iniquity. When sin
was found on His Son, God turned His face from our Redeemer. And
our Lord Jesus Christ came knowing that's what He came to bear.
God the Father sent His Son knowing that's what He would bear. That's
how much He loved His people. You get some idea of how much
he loved his people? And he did this to be a propitiation
for our sins, to make total, complete satisfaction to the
justice of God for the sins of his people. Paul said, he prayed to God that
we might be able to comprehend with all the saints the breadth
and the length and the depth and the height of this love. You know what He called it? The
love of Christ which passes knowledge. We can't comprehend it. We can't
get a hold to it of how much the Father loved His people and
how much the Son loved His people. When it says that we might live
through Him, it doesn't mean maybe. That's not what it means.
It doesn't mean He sent His Son so that maybe we'll have life
through Him. He didn't leave anything to chance. It means, brethren, we shall,
because He propitiated God. He satisfied God for the sins
of His people. Isaiah said, for peace I had
great bitterness. I couldn't get any peace. I had
nothing but bitterness, but thou hast in love to my soul. delivered it from the pit of
corruption, for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. Before the law of God, in God's
record book, God's people have no sins. We think about sins
being blotted out, we think about like you take white out, you
cover them up, but underneath them, they're still there. No.
When you open God's record book, there's no record of any sin
that's ever been there. Why? Because before we ever sinned,
He put us in Christ. And He always beheld us in Him,
holy and without blame, in love, in Christ. And Christ came and
He took all our sin and put it all away. So before God, we never
have sinned. Isn't that love? Isn't that love? Oh, so brethren,
the justice of God says we have to be given life. Go over to
Jeremiah 3. We have to be given life. Justice
is satisfied. Listen to me now, listen to this
character. Everybody Christ died for, He satisfied justice for
them. He redeemed them. He purged them
of their sin. He took our sins away into a
land not inhabited and God remembers them no more. So the justice
of God says we have to be given life. Now look at this, Jeremiah
3.19, But God said, How shall I put thee among the children? How shall I give thee a pleasant
land and a goodly heritage of the hosts of nations? God is
saying, out of all the multitude of sinners in all the nations,
out of all the hosts of the nations, out of all the sinners in all
this world, God says, how shall I make you my children? How am I going to make you heirs,
my heirs? How am I going to do this? How
am I going to give you a goodly inheritance? How am I going to
plant you in a pleasant land? Look at this, and I said, Thou
shalt call me my father. You're going to call me father.
You're going to call me your father. And you shall not turn
away from me. That's John's whole point in
his epistle. He's trying to warn. There were
people seducing his brethren. They were seducing them. They
were trying to lead them away into lies. And John is telling
them, I'm speaking these things to you concerning them that seduce
you. You have an option. You know
the truth. And here's how you know a liar from somebody who's
a true believer. Those that believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ in truth. You know that person's born of
God because he's righteous and he's brought them to that place
through his redemption. He's given them the spirit of
adoption. And he's saying, and they can't turn away God's promise. They'll never turn away from
Him. Whosoever's born of God does not commit sin. What sin
is John talking about? He's talking about the unpardonable
sin. You know what that is? If you
forsake the assembling of yourselves together with God's people, and
if we forsake Christ Jesus the Lord, there remains no more sacrifice
for sin. That's the unpardonable sin.
If we leave Christ, we forsake Christ, there's no more pardon
for that sin. And John says here, whosoever
is born of God does not commit sin. He's not going to turn from
Christ because God's incorruptible seed remains in the believer
and he cannot sin. He cannot turn away an apostasy
because he's born of God. He can't do it. And that's why
I read Jeremiah 32 to you. If you want to look there again,
I just want to read this one verse. He said in verse 38, they
shall be my people and I will be their God. I will give them
one heart, one faith, by one spirit, and I'll give them one
way, that's Christ's way, that they may fear me forever, that
they may believe me forever, that they may look to me forever
for the good of them and of their spiritual children after them.
And I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will
not turn away from them, to do them good, but I'll put my fear
in their hearts that they shall not depart from Me." They're
not going to depart from Me. They're just not. But here we
are, we're dead in our sins. Christ did all that. He redeemed
us. He came and He did all that. He loved us. God manifested His
love. But we didn't love God. We came into this world from
Adam and we're dead in sin and we didn't want a thing to do
with God. But God. Oh, don't you love that,
but God. But God who is rich in mercy. Why? Because of His great love
wherewith He loved us. Even when we were dead in sins.
hath quickened us together with Christ. He quickened us with
Christ. He made us alive with Christ.
And so it's by grace that you're saved. Turn to John chapter 1,
brethren. In our text, John tells us this. Because we're born of God's Spirit
through this righteousness of Christ, because God has shed
His love on us so abundantly, John said, therefore the world
knows us not because it knew Him not. Think about that. Because of
God's great love toward us. He's speaking about because God
sent His Son and He did all the work and made us righteous and
because we had to be born of the Spirit and He sent that Spirit
and caused us to be quickened and made alive and we come to
Him because of how God shed His love on us, this world doesn't
know us. But it's because it didn't know
Him. Look here, John 1.10, He was in the world and the world
was made by Him and the world knew Him not. You think about that. Our Creator
came in flesh and walked among us and we didn't know Him. And
it wasn't like He hadn't been telling us for thousands of years
exactly how He was going to come, exactly what He was going to
do, and we still didn't recognize Him. He came unto His own and His
own received Him not, but watch this, but as many as received
Him. to them gave He power to become
the sons of God. It means He gave us the privilege
and the faith to experience the adoption of sons. He gave it
back to us. even to them that believe on
His name. How did He do it? Which were born, not of blood,
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God. That's how. Look at John 15. So here's what John's saying
to us. He's saying to us the only reason
we're holy and righteous is because of God's great love. That's it. We were sinners. We were vile.
We were unlovable. And yet God loved us without
a cause in us. And He sent His Son to lay down
His life for us. And He redeemed us. He purged
us. He made us righteous. And then
He sent His Spirit because we're sons. And He gave us life to
believe on Him. And He gave us the privilege
of experiencing what it is to be the sons of God and know the
love of God toward us. And John is saying, because this
is what we tell sinners. This is how he loves sinners.
He loves us in Christ. He loves his people savingly.
He loves his people discriminately. He said, Jacob have I loved,
but he shall have I hated. He loves his people without end.
He loves His people in Christ, sending Christ to be our righteousness.
He loves His people in the Holy Spirit, sending Him to give us
a new heart. And because this is how He loved us, we tell other
sinners this, and they hate us for it. They don't know us. They look
at you like you're crazy. They never heard it. What are
you saying? You're saying that what about
our will? What about our works? What about
the will of my mom and daddy who some say baptized me when
I was an infant? What about all the sacrifices
I've made? The Lord said it's not of the
will of man. It's not of the will of the flesh. And it's not of blood. It's not
of your sacrifices. We're born of God. And men hear
that and they hate you for that. They don't know you and they
hate that gospel. Why do they do that? Look at
what our Lord said here, because it knew Him not. Look at John
15, 18. He says, If the world hates you,
you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of
the world, the world would love His own. But because you're not
of the world, but I've chosen you out of the world, therefore
the world hates you. Now look, look at verse 22. If I had not come and spoken
unto them, they had not had sin. But now they have no cloak for
their sin. Verse 24. If I had not done among them
the works which none other man did, they had not had sin. But
now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. You see,
here's why the world doesn't know us. Here's why the world
hates us. Because we give all the work. We put all the work
in the hand of God. to save sinners. God the Father
choosing us, Christ redeeming us, the Spirit regenerating us. And when a sinner hears that,
they hear the works that no man can do. They hear that they're
not saved by their own works. They hear that they're sinners.
And they're ruined. And it pricks them in their conscience.
And that's why they reject you. And that's why they reject your
gospel. because they don't know Christ. That's why. They don't know God saves by
grace apart from words. That's why. That's why. Now, look at this. Go back to
our text, 1 John 3, 2. Now, here's John's main point
that he's declaring. When God has bestowed His love
in such a manner, He purifies us. He really purifies us in
the heart. He gives us a hope. He purifies
us by making us know the truth so that we can no longer continue
in lies. Look here in verse 2. Beloved,
now are we the sons of God? It does not yet appear what we
shall be. We don't know what we're going to be yet. We don't
know the fullness of it or what's going to happen. But we know,
we do know, look, that when He shall appear, and we know He
shall, we know He shall appear. Christ is coming. We know that.
And we know when He shall appear, we shall be like Him. We know
that. For we shall see Him as He is. And every man that hath this
hope in him purifieth himself even as Christ is pure. Now some
people read that and they think it means that a believer makes
himself pure. Now let me tell you something.
We can't make ourselves pure. We can't give ourselves a pure
heart and make ourselves pure much less make ourselves pure
even as Christ is pure. We can't do that. But we just
saw in all these scriptures we've been looking at that we're made
pure by the work of the Holy Spirit through the righteousness
of Christ. That's how we're made pure. Go
back over to 1 Peter 1. We saw this last time, but I
want you to look at this again. He said it the same way John
says it, but Peter shows us here a little more clearly that this
is the work of God that purifies us. Look at 1 Peter 1.21. He says, he's been speaking of
Christ being redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, and
he says, who by Him do believe in God. It's by Christ, it's
through His redemption. that raised him up from the dead
and gave him glory. Because Christ accomplished that
redemption of his people, God raised him and gave him the glory
of being the head of the church, of sending forth the Holy Spirit,
and giving all his people this unction, teaching us the gospel.
He gave Christ the glory. He's our prophet, priest, and
king. So it came from him. He's the Holy One John's speaking
about that this Holy Spirit came from, the unction. Now watch
this. He did it that your faith and
hope might be in God. Seeing you have purified your
souls in obeying the truth. Now that's just how John said
it. What's he talking about? He's attributing it to us simply
because it's through faith. It's through obeying the truth.
It's through doing righteousness, believing on Christ by God's
grace. But look, we see that it's by
Christ. He said it's by Him that you
believe. It's through the Spirit, he says right here. Through the
Spirit. Look at verse 23. It's from being
born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by
the Word of God which lives and abides forever. And at the end
of verse 25 he says, And this is the Word which by the Gospels
preached unto you. It's by Christ. It's by the Holy
Spirit. It's by the incorruptible Word. It's by the washing of regeneration. God creates a pure heart within
His child. He gives us a new spirit so that
we're purified even as Christ is pure. You've got to be perfect
to come into God's presence. He makes you as pure as Christ
is pure. And then He tells you this, Now
let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith,
having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies
washed with pure water, having been purified by the Lord." Now,
we can come to God through faith in Christ. So now, here's my
question. Why does Peter and why does John
say we purify ourselves? Why does he say that? It's because
when God gives this unction, And He makes us to know all things.
He makes us to know the truth. He makes us to know Christ is
all. All our salvation is God the
Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit manifest in Christ
Jesus the Son of God. When He makes you to know that,
for the first time we behold what manner of love the Father
has bestowed upon us. We behold that we really are
now the children of God and we believe Him. We know we shall
be saved. We shall see Him as He is, and
when we shall see Him, we shall be like Him. We know this. And
by this purifying work, He said, Christ the hope of glory has
been formed in you. Christ is the hope of glory.
And so John says, and when you have this hope, that's like saying
when you've been purified, When you've been washed and you've
been purified and you've been made know God's love and you
have this hope in you, Christ is in you now. That's how we're
made pure. When you have that, God really
and truly, effectually grants repentance to His child. He makes
you come out of the darkness, out of the lies. And He gives
you faith so that you come to Christ alike. You do truth. You come to the light. And you
want your works to be manifest that they're all wrought in God,
in Christ. And He gives you an unfeigned,
an unfake, an unhypocritical love of others that are born
of Him and believe this same gospel. I had a man say to me
one time, He said, you know those men that you talk about, preachers
and whatever, they don't mean anything to me. I said, I don't
have to know a man personally. I gave him Brother Angus Fisher
as an example, I just met Angus. I didn't really know Angus personally,
never seen him face to face, never stood in the same room
with him. I said, but he preaches the gospel of Christ and he means
something to me. And I'm not being hypocritical
about it. I can listen to Him because He
means something to me because He preaches my Lord. He gives
Him glory. And so when God does this, He
makes you leave darkness, makes you leave lies, and makes you
come to Christ in truth and believe on Him. Go over to 2 Corinthians
6. I want to show you this. John's been speaking about darkness.
You know how he started this epistle talking about darkness
and light? He's talking about lies and truth. That's what he's
talking about. And he says that all through
the epistle. He's talking about lies and truth. When he's talking
about sinning and not sinning, he's talking about believing
on Christ or forsaking Christ. This is what he's talking about. He's reduced this thing down
to where the rubber meets the road. He's talking about either
you believe on Christ or you don't. But look here what Paul
says, 2 Corinthians 6.14, Be ye not unequally yoked together
with unbelievers. For what fellowship hath righteousness
with unrighteousness? What communion hath light with
darkness? See that? That's what John's
been talking about when he talks about light and darkness. He's
talking about Christ and Belial. He's talking about he that believeth,
is light and the infidel is darkness. He's saying they have no communion
together. Now look at this. What agreement? Verse 16. Have
the temple of God without us. You're the temple of the living
God. As God has said, he's quoting scripture, I'll dwell in them
and I'll walk in them and I will be their God and they shall be
my people. We just saw God say that in Jeremiah, didn't we?
That's what He said. Now watch this, "...wherefore
come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord,
and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and I'll
be a father unto you, and you'll be my sons and my daughters,
saith the Lord." He's talking about His great love in making
us sons. Now watch how Paul puts it, "...having
therefore these promises dearly beloved." Let us cleanse ourselves. Let us purify ourselves from
all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, coming to the end of
holiness, the perfecting, that end for which it's the end of
holiness is to come out. That's what he's talking about.
Coming out of darkness into the light. Coming out of lies to
the truth and believing on Christ. And so John is basically telling
us here, brethren, when he saw this problem in the church, he
said, there's men seducing you, they're trying to call you away
into lies, and he said, you have an unction and you know the truth.
And he said, and this anointing that you received abides in you
and it's no lie. And he's teaching you the truth.
It's not darkness, it's light. And as it teaches you to abide
in Christ, you're going to abide in Christ. And he says, now let
me remind you, if you know Christ is righteous, and you know this
work is done through the redemption of Christ, that we're given this
unction, and we're made to be a partaker of this adoption of
children, then you know everybody that believes in Christ is born
of Him. And he says, now behold the love that God's given to
us. Behold how He's made us sons of God. We are sons of God, and
we shall be like Christ when He shall appear. He has saved
us. And he says, now when God's purified your heart and He's
put this, He's formed Christ in you and He's given you this
hope, the man who's done that is going to come out of darkness
and he's going to abide in the truth. He's going to come out
of lies and he's going to walk with Christ in truth and believe
on Christ and he won't stop doing it. Because God said, they won't
stop. They won't stop. They'll never
turn away from me. They're going to keep on believing
in me. So that's what we're talking
about here, brethren. John's just given us assurance
in our hearts. Do you know the Lord? Do you
believe Him? Do you trust Him? So many people
look for assurance. And I like this, Brother David
Pledger would say to men when they come saying, well, I don't
have assurance. He said, you don't believe Christ accomplished the
redemption of His people? They say, yeah, I believe that.
You don't believe? that He's not going to lose one
of His, that He bought with His precious blood? Yeah, I believe
that. You don't believe that the Spirit of God is working
in His people and that He's going to keep His people and He's not
going to let us go? We're saved, we're kept by the
power of God? Yeah, I believe that. Well, then
the problem is you're looking in the wrong place. If you don't
have assurance, you're looking at you. instead of Him. And that's what John said here.
You can be sure of this. This is how you're going to know
the truth from a lie. Those that give Christ all the
glory and abide in Him and love others that promote the gospel
that gives Christ all the glory, they're born of God. And they
can't do anything but continue to believe in Him. That's how
you know. That's how you know. You come
across somebody where they can listen to the truth today or
tomorrow, they can listen to universal redemption. They can
listen today about God's sovereign grace giving you a new will to
believe on Him. Or tomorrow they can listen to
lies about how it's of man's will that he brings himself to
be born again and believe God. or they come up with something
that's not even relevant, and they go off the deep end on that,
and try to make something else the issue other than Christ.
John is saying, His people can't do that. They can't do that. Because there's seeds in them,
and they can't. And that's how you're going to know the difference.
That's how you're going to know the difference. So how excellent
is the loving kindness of our God. Therefore the children of
men put their trust under the shadow of his wings. They shall
be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house. Thou
shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures because
with thee is the fountain of life. And in thy light we shall
see light. He's the fountain of life. He's
the fountain of youth. And in His light, His people
are going to see light. And they're not going to turn
away. Alright. Father, we come before You now. We ask You to bless this to our
hearts and to truly make us understand that those that truly love You
and truly believe on You, Brethren, despite our sins, despite our
shortcoming, despite the ways that we hate our flesh and the
lusts of it, it's those that you keep, Father, depending on
you and looking to you and trusting you that are yours. You make
us to come out from the darkness and trust Christ alone and won't
let us do otherwise. Lord, thank you for that. Thank
you for that. But make us see You're our only
assurance. And forgive us our doubting.
Keep us in truth. Keep us looking to Christ. Keep
us together with our brethren. Assemble together. We trust You. We believe Your Word, Lord. In
Christ's name we pray. Amen. Alright, Brother Art.