Alright brethren, let's go to
1 John. 1 John chapter 2. I want to read one verse to begin. John says, verse 1, My little
children, these things write I unto you that ye sin not. These things write I unto you
that ye sin not. Now what things is he talking
about here? Well, he began the epistle talking
about the word of life. Christ who is life, Christ who
is eternal life. And then he said this, if we
walk in the light, verse 7, as he is in the light, we have fellowship
one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth
us from all sin. He said in verse 9, if we confess
our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And then He said in verse 2, I mean in the second part of
verse 1, and if any man sin or when any man sin, Speaking of
believers, he says, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus
Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins,
and not for ours only, but also for the whole world, or for His
elect throughout the world in all ages of time. But verse 1, these are the things
he was talking about. My little children, these things
write I unto you that ye sin not. Now John is an aged apostle
when he's writing this. Some say he was probably 90 years
old when he wrote this epistle. And he's writing this to believers
when he says my little children. They were believers who some
were probably called through John's preaching. Others were
dear to John, but these were believers. He says, look in chapter
2 and verse 12, I'll write unto you, little children, because
your sins are forgiven you for his namesake. He's writing to
believers here. Now in this statement, in verse
1, My little children, these things write unto you that you
sin not. John is giving a purpose. a reason why we preach only the
message of Christ and Him crucified. He's declaring why we preach
the gospel of God's free and total forgiveness of all the
believer's sins through the blood of Christ. He says, my little children,
these things write unto you that you sin not. Now, John He does
urge them not to sin. And He will say much about us
not sinning. But John is not saying by this
statement that I'm telling you not to sin and I hope you take
my advice and you don't sin. That's not what he's saying.
He's saying we declare these things because this is the message
through which the Holy Spirit mortifies our sinful flesh. and makes it so that we are no
longer under the dominion of sin and makes it so we can do
the things that we otherwise would not be able to do. I am
declaring this to you because this is the message by which
you are going to be made not to sin. Not to sin. Let me show you in chapter 1.
It gave two other reasons why we preach the gospel. He said
in verse 3, ìThat which weíve seen and heard,î speaking of
Christ the Word of Life, He says, ìThat which weíve seen and heard
declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with
us.î And truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His
Son, Jesus Christ. ìAnd these things write we unto
you, that your joy may be full.î Now John, knew He didn't have
any ability to give them fellowship with Him, with God the Father
and God the Son. He had no ability to do that.
But it's through the Gospel that God gives His people fellowship
with Him and also fills us with joy because of that fellowship.
It's through the Gospel. It's through the preaching of
the Word. And in our text, He's saying the same thing. My little
children, these things I write unto you that you sin not. It's so that the Lord will work
in your heart. That's why I'm preaching what
I'm preaching. Now there are preachers who reject
declaring to people the gospel of God's total free forgiveness
of all the sins of His people through the blood of Christ and
the free forgiveness of everyone that believes on Christ. There
are sinners that say you can't dare preach that. There are sinners
who would hear John here say, if we confess our sins, He's
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from
all unrighteousness. And in the future, if you sin,
when you sin, we have an advocate with the Father and He's the
satisfaction for our sins. There are preachers who would
say, you can't tell a believer that or he's going to live in
sin. He'll take that as an opportunity to say, well if I'm forgiven,
all my sins are forgiven, and even if I sin in the future,
it's going to be forgiven. I just live in sin. And they
say, you can't preach that. Jude says, men that make that
charge, men who are making that charge, turn the grace of our
God into lasciviousness. and deny the Lord God and our
Lord Jesus Christ. It's not the Gospel, the free
grace of God and the free forgiveness of God through Christ. It's not
the Gospel that's going to make a man feel like he has a license
to sin. The Gospel never does that where
God's working in the heart. But men who make that charge
and say that's what the Gospel will do. If you preach that,
you're going to make make men live in sin, then you're charging
that the grace of God is a lascivious doctrine and that it will produce
lasciviousness. And Jude said that's denying
God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ to make that charge. The
gospel of free forgiveness by the blood of Christ to the believer
is the message through which God successfully mortifies the
sinful flesh in the believer. The gospel of free forgiveness
in Christ, past, present and future is the message that the
Holy Spirit uses to mortify our sinful flesh. Not to make us
live in sin. It mortifies our flesh. Now it's
important to understand that this is what John is declaring
because this is his main point throughout this epistle. It's
been the reason why he declared what we've already heard and
everything going forward. This is what he's declaring.
He's declaring that when God puts the incorruptible seed,
the Word, into a sinner's heart, he successfully brings that believer
to believe on Christ and to love his brethren, and he'll never
part from Christ, because that's the grace God works in his heart. When you get over there to 1
John 3, and John says, he that's born of the seed, and he has
the seed of Christ in him, he does not sin. He cannot sin,
because his seed remains in him. What John is talking about is
he cannot not believe on Christ and he cannot cease loving his
brethren because the incorruptible seed is in his heart. He cannot
sin unto death. He can't deny Christ and he can't
deny his brethren because the seed of God works successfully
in the heart of his people. That's his message throughout.
Later he's going to talk about false anti-Christ teachers that
were seducing these believers. And that's the backdrop of why
he's writing what he's writing. Because there were some that
came in who were anti-Christ. And among all the different types
of heresy, one of those groups of heresy was the Gnostics. And
the Gnostics taught the heresy that the Son of God did not really
come in the flesh. They said that everything is
so sinful in this world that He could not have come in the
flesh or He would have been sin. And so they deny, they say it's
for the glory of Christ. So they deny He came in the flesh.
And denying that, they deny He was made of a woman. They deny
He was made under the law. They deny He was made sin for
us. They deny He was made a curse
for us. And so John says that's anti-Christ. That's anti-Christ. That's a false prophet. And they
were seducing these believers to join with them and forsake
John and the other apostles. And so John declares that the
reason he preached the truth of Christ is so that God might
continue to give you fellowship with us apostles. And truly now,
our fellowship is true fellowship. It's in God the Father and His
Son Christ Jesus. And then Gnostics taught that
we're saved by arriving at a certain level of knowledge. And it doesn't
matter if you live in sin. It doesn't matter if you don't
love your brethren. And so John says, this then, verse 5, 1 John
1 verse 5, this then is the message we've heard of Him and declare
unto you that God's light and in Him is no darkness at all.
If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness,
we lie and do not the truth. You see how He's given them warning
against this heretical Gnostic doctrine that would say that
God doesn't make you a new creation. He doesn't change your walk at
all. It doesn't matter. All that matters
is knowledge. John said, no, that's a lie.
If we walk in the light as He's in the light, we have fellowship
one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses
us from all sin. And then He goes into declaring
what I'm going to show you tonight. That all this is by the truth,
by the Word being put into the sinner. Whereby He's created
anew. And He's made honest. So I want
to say that to you because it's important to understand that
this is what He's declaring. This is His message throughout
this epistle. He's declaring that it's through
the gospel of the free forgiveness of God through the blood of Christ
that He brings His redeemed people to believe on Christ and makes
us new inwardly. That's why He's declaring these
things because this is the gospel whereby God's going to work that
work. So my subject tonight is the message that mortifies, the
message that mortifies. The gospel is the message that
mortifies our flesh by the Spirit of God working in us. Now first
of all, it's through the gospel of Christ that the truth, the
Word is imparted within us, making us to believe on Christ and confess
our sins to God. It's by that Word, it's by the
truth in us. Look here in 1 John chapter 1
and verse 8. If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. You see that? The truth is not in us. Look
at verse 10. If we say that we have not sinned,
we make him a liar and his word, same thing, his truth is not
in us. He's saying if we deceive ourselves
that we have no sin, that we don't have a sin nature, that
we got from Adam, that's only sin. And if we deceive ourselves
that we have not sinned, if we deceive ourselves that we've
kept the law of God, and that all our works are without sin,
He says the reason for this deception is the truth, His Word is not
in us. Now, a man who does not have
the Word in him, doesn't have the truth in him, he's under
the dominion of his sin nature. And it's our sin nature that
deceives us. That's what deceives us. So a
man that doesn't have the Word, he doesn't have the truth within
him, he's under the dominion of sin. Now, it's the truth,
the truth, God's Word, imparted within us by the Holy Spirit
that creates us anew and makes us anew creation. That's what
cleanses us and purges our conscience so that we are no more deceived
by our sin nature. When John speaks of the truth
and he speaks of his words, He is speaking of the incorruptible
seed by which a sinner is born again. Go over with me to 1 Peter. Just back two books. 1 Peter
and look at chapter 1. He says, Well, let's begin in
verse 22. Seeing you've purified your souls
in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love
of the brethren, see that you love one another with a pure
heart fervently. Two things John's going to say
throughout his epistle that believers do is we believe on Christ and
we love one another. We're going to see here in a
minute how Peter could write that they purified their souls
in obeying the truth. We're going to see how they didn't
really do that, but through believing on Christ, the Lord did that.
He purified their soul, and we're going to see how He did it. But
look here, how did this come about? Verse 23, being born again,
not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word
of God. which liveth and abideth forever.
That's what John's talking about when he says the truth and the
Word. If a man's deceived into thinking
he has no sin nature and that he has never sinned and broken
God's law, then that man's deceived by his sin nature. He doesn't
have the Word of God in him. But when you're born again, it's
by the Word of God, which lives and abides forever. For all flesh
is as grass, and the glory of man is the flower of grass. He's
talking about those two things John's talking about. All flesh
is grass. Our sin nature is only sin. And
the glory of man, all our works, all the nature speaks of holiness. We don't have holiness by nature.
All flesh is this grass. And the glory of this grass,
all we can produce by our outward deeds, which has to do with righteousness,
all we can produce is unrighteousness. The glory of a man is as the
flower of the grass. This grass withereth, and the
flower thereof falleth away. But the word of the Lord endures
forever. Now hold your place right there
in 1 Peter. We're going to come back. So,
the truth, the word, That's what the Holy Spirit imparts in the
new birth. And when the Spirit imparts the
incorruptible seed, when the truth is imparted, when the Word
is planted in a sinner, Christ the Word, Christ the Life is
formed within. He enters in, within the sinner,
and within us there is a new spirit now in which is no God. That means no hypocrisy and no
deceit, no deception. Psalm 32, 2, David said, Blessed
is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in
whose spirit there is no guile. It's only then that we're going
to be made honest with God. It's only then that we're going
to come to God and confess our sins and confess that we need
Christ. It's only when God's put the
Word in us and given us a new spirit in which is no deceit
and no guile, only honest dealing. And that's what Christ meant
when He saw Nathanael and He said, Behold an Israelite indeed
in whom is no guile. He meant he'd been born again.
The Word has been planted in him and he's been given a new
spirit to be honest with God about himself and about his need
of Christ. Now, what means is the Word,
what means is the truth, the incorruptible seed imparted within
those that Christ has redeemed? How is this Word imparted to
us? Go back over there, 1 Peter 1.25
and look at that last phrase, 1 Peter 1.25. He talked about
the Word. the Word, that Word of that incorruptible
seed, and He says, and this is the Word which by the Gospel
is preached unto you. It's preached unto you. It's
only through the preaching of the Gospel of Christ, only through
that preaching of the Gospel that the Holy Spirit is going
to impart the Word. He's going to impart the truth
of the Word in the heart of a sinner. You know, You think, how are
you going to make a sinner confess his sins? This is what the haters
of God's grace say. How are you going to make a sinner
confess his sins if you stand up and tell him that his flesh
is grass, all his nature is a sin nature, and all his deeds are
unrighteous and corrupt, and he can't do one thing of himself? How are you going to get him
to call on Christ if you tell him he can't? That's exactly what the Lord
told Ezekiel to declare to the valley of dry bones. He said,
go to this valley of parched bones who are bleached white
and can do nothing whatsoever to give themselves life. And
say to them, bones live. And we come and we preach the
gospel and we tell you, believe on Christ. And we tell you, but
your flesh is grass. Your nature is nothing but sin
and corruption. You hate God by nature and all
your deeds are corrupt. And you can't do one thing pleasing
to God of yourself. Now believe on Christ. And we declare the message that
it's only Christ, our victorious Redeemer, who can purge us. and make us clean and who we
have full, total, complete forgiveness with God because by His blood
He's made complete atonement for all His people. This is the
message, the two-fold message we preach and this is why we
only preach Christ and Him crucified. This is why we exalt God and
preach Christ and Him crucified and declare Him victorious having
accomplished the redemption of a particular people and this
is why at the same time we declare that all of us by nature are
sinful and unable to do anything to please God whatsoever. It's
because as this Word's going forth, the Holy Spirit enters
in and implants that incorruptible seed, the Word, the truth, in
the heart. And for the first time, when
He does that, we have a Spirit now in us that is not deceitful. Before, all we were was deceit. All we knew was deceit. Now,
He's given us a new spirit through this Word, through this Gospel.
And in that new spirit now, there's no deceit. For the first time
now, we behold our sins in the light of God's holy, unyielding
justice. You ever watch these shows where
people get caught doing something and they try to confess that
they're innocent? And they're caught. You watch
it on the video, something happens, they're caught. There's just
no denying the fact they're guilty. And they go to try and explain
it and get them... and say they're not guilty. That's
us by nature. Deceitful. But when God gives
you this new heart, He makes you honest with God. For the
first time you see Everything God said about you is true. You
now see that you have sin. That your fleshly nature is nothing
but sin. And now you come to God, confessing
to God, I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good
thing. Lord, I know that just what's
of Adam, the product of Adam, what came from his incorruptible
seed, my flesh, my sin nature, dwells nothing good whatsoever.
I have sinned. And you confess that you have
sinned. Now you confess that even those deeds that you thought
was righteousness that was commending you to God, everything you thought
that was making God pleased with you and going to make you accepted
with God, now you declare to God, all our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. Everything I've ever done to
try to come and please you God is nothing but sin and unrighteousness. And that's when we've been made
honest to come to Christ. When you're honest to come to
God and confess what you are, it's because He's made you behold
something of Christ Jesus your Redeemer. And He's made you to
know that in the light of Christ, by giving you the light of Christ,
He's made you to believe the gospel. The truth that John declares
here in verse 7, that if we walk in the light, as He is in the
light, we were in darkness and we hated the light and we would
not come to the light because we didn't want those deeds that
we did that we thought was righteous. We didn't want those deeds to
be reproved. Now, we hear this message that
if you come to the light, You walk in the light. You be honest
with God. You come to God, walk in the
light as Christ is in the light. Then you'll have fellowship one
with another. He'll commune with you. He'll
hear you in Christ. And the blood of Jesus Christ
His Son cleanseth us from all sin. The sin of our nature and
the sin of our works. So we come confessing our sins.
We come believing God. We come trusting His Son. In
verse 9, this is what takes place. If we confess our sins, He's
faithful and just to forgive us our sins. There's the sins
of the nature, our lusts of our flesh. And to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness, He cleanses us from our sinful, unrighteous,
dead works. You have here, one is the sins
of our flesh and He forgives us all our sins and He also cleanses
us from all those unrighteous deeds whereby we thought we were
commending ourselves to God. We behold and we believe now
God's faithful. God's faithful to forgive me.
If I come to God in Christ, confessing my sins and casting all my care
on Christ, He's faithful to forgive me of my sins. Because now what
I'm hearing in the gospel is all the promises that God makes
to His people, they're all in Christ. They're in Christ. And Christ has fulfilled every
covenant obligation for His people so that God's faithful to fulfill
every promise that He made that He will give to His people in
Christ. He's faithful for the sake of Christ. He's faithful
to forgive us all our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
And He's faithful to receive us and to forgive us. And He's
just to do it. When you behold Christ and He
makes you behold Christ, He makes you see now. This is where you
see your sin is in Christ on the cross. Because now you see,
you see how God will not spare the guilty. When you behold Christ
and you hear that God put all the sins of His people on Christ
and He spared not His own son. Now you know God's not going
to spare you. If you come to God in your sins, God's not going
to spare you. But because Christ bore those
sins and made satisfaction to God for His people, now God is
just to forgive me. He honored God's law. He gave
it perfect obedience and honored it completely. And then, under
the justice of God, He paid the penalty of God's law too. So
that God now is just to forgive us our sins. When you come to
Christ, believing on Christ and are honest with God, you don't
have to go anywhere. You don't have to come to the
front of a church. You certainly don't have to go to a priest, an earthly
priest. It's in our heart where He puts
this Word and He makes you honest with God. And you call out for
mercy and you call out with the need and you confess what you
are to God. If you're going to come to Him
and believe on Him, you've got to have some understanding that
He's given you and believe that He is going to be faithful and
just to forgive you. Or you wouldn't come to Him.
This is what He reveals to us in the Gospel, that He is faithful
and He is just to forgive us our sins. And then by the blood
of Christ, He's faithful and just to cleanse us from all our
dead unrighteousness, all those dead works that we thought was
committing us to God, and every sinful deed we've ever done.
But here particularly, He's talking about, brethren, that law-keeping
and that self-worth and whatever works that you consider to be
produced by your will and your power and you thought that was
going to make you accepted to God, God cleanses us from that. He cleanses us from putting any
confidence in that and from trusting in that and He brings us now
to serve the true and living God. Worship Him and serve Him. Hebrews 9.14 says, How much more
shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered
Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead
works to serve the living God? What is it that makes a sinner
stop trying to work for acceptance with God? How does the blood
of Christ make the believer cease from all those dead works and
start worshipping and serving the true and living God? How
does the blood of Christ do that? God declares in our conscience
that before Him, we're perfect. That's how He makes you stop
trying to work for acceptance with God. He purges your conscience
and declares in the court of your conscience that you are
perfect before Him forever. Forever. Holy and righteous. He declares
in our conscience we're not guilty. He declares in our conscience
He'll never remember our sins ever again so as to condemn us. He declares that He accepts us
forever. That's when a man will quit working.
for acceptance with God. Look here in Hebrews 10. I want
to show you that. Hebrews 10. Look in verse 1. I just want to point out some
key words. The law, it was a shadow of good things to come, not the
very image of the things, but look here, the law can never
with those sacrifices, and I tell you what you can put right here,
the law can never by your sacrifices, Look here at the very end. Make
you perfect. The law can never, right now
where you are in the year 2018, the law can never with any sacrifice
you make, make you perfect. But look what would happen if
it did. For then would they not have ceased to be offered. If
it did make you perfect, you wouldn't offer them anymore.
Why? because the worshippers once
purged should have no more conscience of sins. That doesn't mean that
you're not pricked in your conscience sometimes and the Lord shows
you that you're sinning in some way or the other and reproves
you and corrects you. It means you have no more conscience
of sins so that you're condemned before God. When He comes and
He purges your conscience, He makes you to know you don't have
any more sins before Him. Nothing to condemn you ever again. That's what's going to make you
cease from your works. How do I have that? How do I
have that? Look here at verse 9. Then said He, Lo, I come to do
Thy will, O God. Look at verse 10. And by Christ
doing God's will, we are sanctified through the offering of the body
of Jesus Christ once. What does it mean that we're
sanctified? It's what God reveals in our conscience to make us
cease from dead works and begin serving Him. Verse 14, He makes
you know by Christ's one offering, He hath perfected forever you,
believer, that are sanctified. That's what it is. And when He
makes you to know that, you will cease from dead works. You'll
be honest with God and you won't want to come to God on any other
ground but through the faithfulness of Christ Jesus through His blood
and His righteousness alone. And you'll cease trying to gain
acceptance with God. Now John is telling us, my little
children, these things I'm writing unto you that you sin not. I'm
declaring this to you so that the Spirit might continually
purge your conscience from dead works, so that you walk and serve
the true and living God and worship only Him. I'm preaching this
so that the Spirit of God through this message will mortify your
flesh to serve the true and living God from a true heart. That's
what He's declaring. That's why I preach these things.
And then secondly, let me show you this, and I'm not going to
spend much time here because I want to go back another time
and look at this in depth, but I just want to show you this.
Through the gospel, the Lord makes us not fall away in the
sin of despair. Through the first part we were
seeing, He makes us not be presumptuous. He teaches us that in yourself
you are sin, and all your works are sinful. But it's in Christ
that you have free forgiveness. In Christ alone that God's just
and faithful to forgive you. So He never allows you to walk
in that sin of presumption saying, well I'm forgiven so I'm just
going to live it up. Sin and sin and sin and sin and
just live in sin. No, He keeps you honest with
God. But here now He's saying He saves
us from the sin of falling away in despair because of our sin. He says here, Verse 1, these
things I write unto you that you sin not, and if or when any
man sin, we have an advocate. With the Father, Jesus Christ
the righteous, and He's the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours
only, but also for the sins of the whole world. Every believer
is still a sinner. We're still a sinner. And before
the judgment seat of God, before the law of God, Christ is perfected
forever. He's brought us to believe on
Him and He's taught us, He's perfected us forever. God's forgiven
us all our sins, there's therefore no condemnation to the believer.
The blood of Christ has purged our conscience from dead works
to serve Him and follow Him. But though God's done all of
that in our flesh, we're still sinners. And we still sin. But while unregenerate
sinners and will worships glory in their sin and glory in their
shame, the believers vex by our sin and we're ashamed of our
sin. We simply can't enjoy sin any
longer. Not if we're born of God because
it's against God our Father and it's against His Son Jesus Christ.
It's because Christ dwells in that new nature. And the Spirit
of God has given us this new nature within us where He's always
pointing us to Christ on the cross and always reminding us,
that's what it took to purge you of all your sin,
cleanse you of all your sin. So whenever I sin, it's against
my Lord, it's against my Father, and by that He will not allow
the believer to love sin. He's given you a new nature that
hates sin, because God hates sin. I heard this illustration
and I don't know, it's probably from Spurgeon, but I don't know
where I read it, but this is a good illustration. If you take
a pig and you take a sheep and you lead them to mud, A lot that's
just nothing but mud, and bring them into that lot, and they
get all muddy, and you just leave them alone. And you're going
to find out there's two different natures there. That pig's going
to just lay down in it and wallow in it, because that's his nature.
He loves it. But that sheep's going to come out of there, because
he don't love it. It's not his nature. And a believer,
given a new nature, it's not our nature to love sin. It's
not our nature to want to wallow in sin. And it's by God's grace
He brings us to cry out, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver
me from the body of this death? And it's by Christ. Here's why
we preach the gospel. Here's why we have to continually
hear the gospel. Because we're continual sinners. We're sinners still. And we have
to hear it because it's through this gospel that the Spirit reminds
us when any believer sins, we have an advocate with the Father.
Jesus Christ the righteous and He is the propitiation for our
sins. An advocate is a lawyer who pleads
your cause before a judge. He's a lawyer. A counselor. And Christ is our counselor,
wonderful counselor. And He pleads the cause of His
people. The judge here is not said to
be a judge. You have an advocate with the
Father. He's Christ's Father and He's
our Father. And our advocate is Jesus, a
man touched with the filling of our infirmities. He's Christ. He's God's own choice anointed
Savior. God chose Him to be the advocate.
The judge who he's pleading with, he's the one that chose him to
be the advocate. And he's the righteous. He's the righteousness
of God that God has provided for His people. He is the righteousness
whereby God's just to forgive the sin of His people. And he's
the righteousness of His people. And so, when we sin, our advocate's
not pleading anything like a lawyer does in a court of law and trying
to plead your innocence. No, no, you're guilty in yourself. Our advocate is pleading his
own righteousness. And his own righteousness pleads
for the non-imputation of our sin because he's put our sin
away. We don't possess any anymore, not before the law of God. And
His advocacy pleads continually, constantly, and it pleads on
the basis of justice satisfied. It's a just plea. The law that
demanded that all Christ's people had to die in Him, now because
He's died and risen again and satisfied justice, that same
justice demands no sin be laid to our charge. It's a just plea. And it's an effectual plea. He
always accomplishes the plea. And it says here, He's the propitiation
for our sins. He's the mercy seat. He's the
satisfaction for our sins. He's the place where we're reconciled
to God and so that God will meet with us there and be merciful
to us when we sin. That's what we have. The reason
I wanted to sing that song, it's been so good to sing these songs
that we don't know, but this is a good one that we can know.
I had to change a word in it, but listen to this third verse. All of this verse right here,
rise my soul arise, is telling you when you're sinful and you've
sinned against God, arise and go to Him. Just like you did
in the beginning, arise and go to Him. And this whole song is
about Him being our advocate and pleading our cause before
the Father. And listen to this, five bleeding
wounds, His hands and His side. Five bleeding wounds He bears,
received on Calvary. They pour effectual prayers.
They strongly plead for me. Forgive him, O forgive, they
cry, nor let that ransomed sinner die, nor let that ransomed sinner
die. That's what His wounds plead
for His people. You read the words to that song. It changed
that third line in the second verse. He made blood atonement
for all His race. And He sprinkles us now by His
blood. But you see that? It's all His advocacy. It's just
like the beginning. We come all over again confessing
our sin, being honest with God, and He's faithful and just to
forgive us our sin because Christ is our advocate with the Father.
Now let me end with this. This is why we preach Christ
being crucified. This is the message. Whether
it's a sinner just coming to Christ or it's believers who've
already come to Christ, we need to hear this one message. These
things write I unto you, that ye sin not. So let the haters
of the gospel of God's free forgiveness in Christ, or the ones who say,
don't preach that so broadly, but let them say what they will
brethren. The gospel of God's grace is not a licentious doctrine
and it won't lead God's people to sin. It mortifies the deeds
of our flesh. Listen to this. Psalm 130 verse
4 says, There is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be
feared. What he's saying is it's not
the whip of the law, it's not the message of hell's torments
that's going to constrain a believer in reverence to God. It's God's
forgiveness freely given by the blood of Christ because Christ
loved us and gave Himself for us and made it just for God to
forgive us. That's what it is that's going
to constrain a believer to live in reverence to God. A just man
falleth seven times and riseth up again, because he's got an
advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. This is
the gospel, and this is the heart of the believer who preached
it. I'm just going to read you two scriptures. This is the gospel
we preach, and this is the heart of the believer who preached
it. Listen, you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ
in God. When Christ who is our life shall
appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory. Mortify therefore
your members which are upon the earth. Listen to this. Reckon
ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto
God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign
in your mortal body that you should obey it in the lust thereof.
That's the nature. Neither yield ye your members
as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves
unto God. as those that are alive from
the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness
unto God. A believer says from the new heart, he's forgiven
me all my past sin, therefore I must not sin against him. He's
ready to forgive all my future sin, therefore let me offend
him no more. That's the heart of a believer.
The gospel and love and gratitude is a far greater constraint than
law and anger and threats. That's why we preach Christ's
name crucified. Amen.