What is the truth of the gospel? Would you like
for somebody to tell you just in simple, everyday language,
what is the gospel? What is the truth according to
what God says the truth is? 1 John 5.11 begins, and this
is the record. The record means this is the
truth. This is the witness God gives. This is the testimony of God. This is His statement. Now, it's
impossible to believe anything unless you have at least two
credible witnesses. We expect that in our courts
of law. And we expect that if we're gonna
believe something as stated as being the truth, we want some
witnesses to it. And God doesn't expect less from
us. He actually demands that. He says, in the mouth of two
or three witnesses shall every word be established. There's
got to be at least two or three witnesses. John is writing this,
and John is a witness. He's writing what he saw, what
he heard. Look over at Revelation 1. It's
to your right, a few pages. Revelation 1, look at verse 1. The revelation of Jesus Christ,
which God gave unto him, to show unto his servants things which
must shortly come to pass, and he sent and signified it by his
angel unto his servant John. who bear record. John bear testimony. He bear witness of the Word of
God and of the testimony of Jesus Christ. Now here we got three
witnesses already. We got the Word of John. We got,
he's speaking the Word of God, which is also the testimony of
Jesus Christ. We got three witnesses right
there. And he spoke of all things that he saw. The Word says, Blessed
is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy. And keep those things which are
written therein, for the time is at hand. Now, go back over
to 1 John, and there's greater witness than John, though, in
what we just saw there. But look back up now, and look
back up at verse 7. There are three that bear record
in heaven. God the Father, God the Word,
the Word is Christ who came, the Word, and the Holy Ghost,
God the Holy Spirit. And these three are one. And
there are three that bear witness in the earth. The Holy Spirit
bears witness. The water, which is what you're
reading right here, the Word of God. given by the water, the
washing of water by the Word, this is the Word, and the blood,
that which Christ accomplished, shedding His own blood. And it
says here that there's a witness that's greater than any of man's
witness in verse 9. If we receive the witness of
men, The witness of God. You can put in the place there
that word witness, record would go just as well. That's the same
word. If we receive the record of men, the record of God is
greater. It's greater. For this is the
record of God which He hath testified of His Son. That's what we're
reading here. This is what God has said of
His Son. Paul said the reason that he
didn't come with excellency of speech declaring the testimony
that he declared was, he said, because it's the testimony of
God. It's the Word of God. I'm speaking
to you what God said. And so, and there's the Spirit
of God talking about the Spirit bearing witness. The Holy Spirit
bears witness within the heart of the believer. That's how we're
going to believe is the Spirit's going to bear witness in our
heart. Look at verse 10. He that believeth on the Son
of God hath the witness in himself. The witness in himself. The record
in himself. The Word in himself. He's born
of the Word. Tell me now, what is the record?
What is the gospel? What is this record that God
has given of His Son? I want it in plain, as plain
a language as you can give it to me. What does God say? Let's
just take verse 11. Let's take verse 11 and let's
just take it word by word. 1 John 5, 11. Now, will you read
this with me? Now, let's pay close attention
and see what's being said here. Think about this now. Think of
the importance of this. This is God's Word. The God who
made heaven and earth. The God who gave you breath.
That one you just breathed. The God who gave you strength
to blink that eye that you just blinked. To have the thoughts
that you just had. This is His Word. of how He saves. We do well to look into it. We
do good to pay attention to what God says. Pick up a Bible and
open it up and read this with me. Read this with me. Look now,
here's the first word. This is the record that God,
that God Everything that has to do with salvation, everything,
period, but everything, especially the salvation of a sinner, begins
with God. Salvation is of the Lord. The salvation of a sinner doesn't
begin with a sinner. It doesn't begin with you and
me. We didn't make the first step. That's not how salvation begins.
Isaiah 59, 16. It tells us that God chose His
Son. He chose His own arm, Isaiah
59-16. His own arm is His Son. Look, it says He chose Him, Isaiah
59-16. And He saw that there was no
man and wondered that there was no intercessor. Therefore, His
arm brought salvation unto Him and His righteousness, it sustained
Him. God did this first. He looked. He saw no man. He chose His Son
to work salvation, work righteousness, to uphold His glory. And then
God chose whom He would in His Son. Look at 2 Thessalonians
2. 2 Thessalonians 2 and verse 13. We are bound to give thanks always
to God. He's the only one to thank for
this. We're bound to give thanks to
God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord. Because God hath
from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the spirit and belief of the truth. We're bound to give thanks
always to God. Beloved of the Lord, because
God hath, God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation. Redemption
from the fall. Romans, look at Romans 8 chapter
3. Romans 8 chapter 3. Redemption
from the fall in the garden from sin is by God the Son. God hath, do you see this? God
hath. Look at Romans 8 3. for what
the law could not do, and that it was weak through the flesh."
In other words, you couldn't keep it, and I couldn't keep
it, but God's law. God, God hath, this is the record,
God hath, what did He do? God sending His Son, His own
Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned
sin, in the flesh. God hath, do you see this? John
17, 4. Look there with me. John 17, 4. This is the Word of God. This
is God speaking. John 17, 4. Christ said, I have
glorified thee on the earth. I have finished the work which
thou gavest me to do. I finished it. I did it. God
hath. What is the work that God sent
him to do? Look at Hebrews 9. Hebrews 9. I want you to look at these scriptures
and see this. We want some plain, everyday
teaching. Some plain, something we can
see. Here it is. He said, I've finished
the work you gave me to do. This is what the son said of
the father. Look at Isaiah 9 verse 26. The second half there. Now, once in the end of the world,
hath he appeared, now look at this, this was the work given
him to do, to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Did He sacrifice Himself? Did
Christ Jesus go to the cross and give Himself and sacrifice
Himself? He did. Did He put away sin? He did. That's what He came to
do. He put away sin by that sacrifice. Whose sin did He put away? He put away the sin of everybody
for whom He died. He put all their sin away. All
of it. This is the record. God hath
put away sin. God hath put away sin. The church
of God which He purchased with His own blood. That's who His
church is. This is the record. God hath. God hath. How are we going to
be taught this record? How are you going to be taught
this record, truly taught it in your heart so that you believe
God? God hath. This is the record. God hath. You're going to have
to be taught it by God. John 6, 45. Look at John 6, 45. The Lord said, that which is
born of the flesh is flesh. And that which is born of God
the Holy Spirit is spirit. Now, that which is born of the
flesh is flesh. That's what it is. That which
is born of God is It's born of God the Holy Spirit. It's of
Him. And so since this new birth begins and is of God the Spirit,
this is the record. God hath. He teaches His children. Look at verse 45. John 6, 45.
It is written in the prophets, they shall be all taught of God. Every man, therefore, that hath
heard and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me." That's
what Christ said. They all do. All for whom he
died have all been taught of God, been born of God the Holy
Spirit, and all have come to God one way. From the beginning
of time to there is time to end of time, everyone for whom Christ
died will come to God one way. They'll come by being taught
of God. in Christ Jesus through Him.
The only thing that you and I get credit for, this is the offense
of the cross, the only thing we get credit for is sinning. The only thing that we can boast
in is we sinned against God. We turned our back on God and
tried to put God out of our mind and try
to have nothing to do with God. We have spent all of our lives
taking everything God has given in this earth, everything that
is created by Him, and everything that He sustains here in this
earth, and we go through this life trying to eat it all, drink
it all, smell it all, live it all, touch it all, use it all,
abuse it all, and then when we get through with it, We expect
God's going to receive us after we just had nothing to do with
Him and would have none of His except for His gifts and then
come into His presence. Alright, so the first word is
God hath. God hath. Here's the next word.
What has God done? Verse 11, 1 John 5, 11. This
is the record that God hath given. given. Nothing that God gives
to a sinner is or can be earned by the sinner. Nothing. A sinner conceived and born in
sin cannot do anything by his own hand to make God receive
him. We can't give anything to God. God is sufficiency. God is fullness. Even if God
saves you and me, we haven't given anything to God. Even if
we We're called of God and we spent the rest of our lives trying
to live in perfect obedience to God. And we should. That's
exactly how we should try to live. But if we did it, if we
measured up to be the one who was better than any other sinner
in obeying God, we didn't do anything but what we should have
done. We haven't given God anything. And we don't. We just don't give
God anything. And God owes no man nothing.
He doesn't owe us anything but to leave us in our sin and to
give us the wages of that sin which is death. God owes me and
you nothing. Absolutely nothing. God has not
given because of any good in us. Every sinner God saves was
as wicked as the next one. Every one of them. There is none
good, no not one. That's all of us. That's just
all of us. We won't quit bragging about
ourselves and we won't quit getting offended when somebody else says
some little something that upsets us and we won't stop thinking
why they look at me that way and all these different things
we think until we realize I'm as evil as everybody else. When
we realize that, we'll stop thinking we deserve for somebody else
to treat us some way. That's just that old prideful
flesh of ours. This is the record. God hath
given. When we're talking about the
gift of God, we're talking about grace. That's what grace is.
It's a gift. Grace. Unmerited, undeserved,
unearned favor. Grace. Look over to Romans 11. Romans 11. If somebody gives
you a gift, if they give you a gift, we don't really give
gifts in this life. to folks who don't
deserve it. Usually when we give a gift,
we like them. They've done something to kind
of endear themselves to us or what have you. We really don't
freely give even a gift. But just for the illustration,
when you give a gift, you purchase it, you pick it out, you deliver
it, you give it to them, and the person that you give it to
doesn't have to do anything. They didn't have to work for
it. They didn't have to earn it. They didn't marry it. They
didn't do anything to get it. It's a gift. You gave it to them.
It's a gift. Now, when you go to work at your
job, you expect a paycheck at the end of the week, don't you?
Because you worked. and you have it coming to you.
You deserve it. You earned it. You're supposed
to get it. And if you don't get it, you go straight to the boss's
office and say, according to my record, I was supposed to
get this much, and I didn't get this much. We keep close tabs
on what we're supposed to get, what we're supposed to get. Now,
it's either one or the other. Either God's salvation is a gift,
or we worked and earned it. It can't be both. It can't be
one. It can't be a combination. Look at Romans 11, 6. Romans
11, 6. If by grace, then is it no more
of works. Otherwise, grace is no more grace. Let's read that again. If by
grace, then is it no more of works. If salvation is by grace,
it's not of works. Otherwise, grace is not grace. Now look at the next part. But
if it be of works, then is it no more grace. Otherwise, work
is no more work. You see, they can't go together.
It can't be partly by grace and partly by works. That's an impossibility. It's an impossibility. If you
say it's your birthday and somebody came and they gave you a gift
and you said, well, let me pay for half of it. It stops being
a gift. It's not a gift anymore. You
paid for part of it. It's not a gift anymore. But
if it's all together given It's a gift. It can't be both. It
can't be a gift and a work. It just can't be. Salvation is
all of grace. This is the record that God hath
given. Lorette, what's the next word
in 1 John 5 11? This is the record that God hath
given to us. He's given to us. Who are the
us? I'll tell you who the Scriptures
say the us are, and you see if you're among the us. The us are
all of those that God beloved from the beginning, that He chose
from the beginning. The us are all of us who were ordained unto
eternal life. You know what that word ordained
means? It means to arrange in an orderly manner, to assign,
to appoint, to determine. When I was in school, I actually
thought this was kind of exciting. They would never tell us before
the school year, first day of school, where I went to school,
elementary, junior high, they wouldn't tell us who our teacher
was. We didn't have a clue, and some of them you didn't want.
Some of them you just hoped you didn't have. Some of them you
really wanted, but some you just didn't want at all. But the way
you found out was, you went the first day of school, and the
hallway was full of all your fellow students, and you went
up to each door, where your teachers were for that year that taught
that whole grade. You went up to each door and
you looked at the list on the door and you just went down the
list to see if my name's on that list. And if it wasn't on that
list, you went to the next door. And you looked at that list,
my name on that list. You went to the one you wanted
to be in first and worked your way down the line. But when you
saw your name on the list, that means you were ordained to be
in that class. You had nothing to do with it
whatsoever. done in an orderly manner. Somebody arranged it
beforehand. They appointed for you to be
in that class. They wrote your name down on
that list and you were ordained to be in that class. That's who
the Us are. Their names were written in the
Lamb's Book of Life before the foundation of the world by God
Almighty. They were ordained, appointed
to obtain eternal life. The Us are those who, let me,
I better show you that. Let's go over here and look at
this. Acts 13, 48. Acts 13, 48. Paul was preaching to the Gentiles
one day and the Jews didn't consider the Gentiles to be us. They didn't
consider the Gentiles to be part of us. Because up until the gospel
began to be sent by Christ into the Gentile world, there weren't
many Gentiles who had been called prior to that. But the Jews thought,
we're the us because we live in Israel. We're the us because
we're Jews. We're the us because we're the
Hebrews. We're the us because my mama and daddy was of Israel
and all these things. That doesn't make you one of
us. That doesn't make you part of this us. It's being ordained
to eternal life. But one day Paul was preaching
to these Gentiles, and a bunch of these Gentiles got excited,
because that record was born in their heart. They were born
of the Word. They were born of the incorruptible seed, and they
got really excited about this. And this is what the scripture
says about that in Acts 13, 48. And when the Gentiles heard this,
they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. You see,
this is the record. They glorified the record of
the Lord. They said, this is the record.
We love it. Why? And as many as were ordained
to eternal life believed. as many as were ordained to eternal
life. They didn't believe and become
ordained. They were ordained, appointed before, and as many
as were, that's how many believed. They loved it. The us always
delight when God bears record in the heart and we find out,
I'm in that number. You mean God loved me before
the world began? You mean Christ died for me?
You mean He put my sin away? You mean He's come and gave bare-bore
record of this gospel in my heart and I've been born of Him? We
delight in it. Well, the us are as many as God
entrusted to His Son. He gave them to His Son. And
they're the us all for whom Christ died and redeemed by His blood.
When he died, they're the ones he died for. Christ didn't just
die at random. any more than you purchase a
gift at random and hope somebody will come and pick it up. Somebody
will come and take it off the shelf. You buy a gift for somebody.
He purchased the redemption for somebody. He bore the sins of
a particular people. He didn't just bear some random
thing called sin and put all sin away. If he put all the sin
of everybody in this world away, there can't be anybody that perishes
in unbelief. Everybody's got to believe this.
Everybody's got to go to hell or God's not just. I mean, go
to heaven or God's not just. The us are those who rejoice
that this record's true. That's what you'll do. When you
hear it, when you hear it, you have a heart of stone. What's
a heart of stone? Tell you what a heart of stone
is. A heart of stone is this. You can't convince me of that.
I'm going to have to convince myself of this. That's a heart
of stone. A heart of stone is, yeah, you
show me this book and that might be God's word, it might not be.
That's a heart of stone. A heart of stone is, yeah, but
I talk with some of my friends that are Jewish, and they don't
believe Christ has come yet. I talk to some of my friends
who, they're Muslim, and they believe that Ishmael is the chosen
seed, not Isaac. And I've talked to some people
that they don't even believe there is a God. And they make
a good argument. That's a stony heart. That's
a stony heart to consider everything and put confidence in everything
but anything. To think any of this could be
true. And I'll just go through life
saying, maybe, what if, this, that, and the other, rather than
saying, that's so. This is so. A stony heart does
that. A stony heart says, You can't
convince me of that. And I can't. I can't. But when
God bears record, when He bears record, that stony heart melts. It just melts. It melts into
nothing. It melts into submission. It
melts into delight. It melts into rejoicing. It melts
into the sun shining down from heaven's glory and you seeing,
God Almighty, this thing is not about me. having my way and me
having what I think is right to be right, this thing is about
God being right. This thing is about God being
just. It's about God being holy. Oh,
you see all of a sudden the attribute of God's long-suffering, of His
patience with you, because you realize, oh, I can't believe
God didn't snap my little ignorant, smart rear end out of this world.
the moment I came into it. And I've been going through life
shaking my fist in God's face and having nothing to do with
Him. And all the while, for the sake of His own glory and His
own justice and His own righteousness and His own holiness, He's been
suffering long. Not that it's hurting Him and
He's suffering. He's just been bearing with you.
until the day He had appointed to send that Word into your heart
and bust it open so that you could see what He's done for
you and how He's waited and been patient with you. When you had
nothing in us, it deserved to be His patience. You start seeing
all the attributes of God and you quit looking at you. And
you quit looking at... Next thing you know, this friend's
coming up and he's saying, The other day we were talking about
this and how that we thought maybe everybody's a cat and when
we come back we'll come back as a cow or a dog or something
like that and you kind of thought that was so and you'll say man
that's the dumbest thing in the world. And you'll have another
friend that'll come up to you and they'll say, don't get carried
away in this religion thing. You're going off the deep end
now to believe something like that. And you'll say, you go
on with what you want to go with. I believe God. I know Him. I see Him. I believe Him. That's
what this record does when it's born in the heart. Well, what
has He given us? What has He given us? This is
the record, 1 John 5 11. This is the record that God has
given to us eternal life. Eternal life. Can you, can you,
I just sat and thought about eternal life and I thought, all
right, what is eternal life? How can you, how can you define
eternal life? How can you describe eternal
life? All I know is time. All you know
is time. That's all we know. We don't
know anything eternal. I mean, we're time. I mean, one of the first things
before we ever even knew anything about time, one of the first
things they did was write on our birth certificate a time
when we were born. Time rules everything in our
world. Time. Eternal life means life
without beginning or end. How can that be? I have a beginning. I had a beginning. How could it be that I have eternal
life which has never had a beginning and will never have an end? How
can that be? It's without beginning because
those that God put in Christ have always been alive eternally
in Christ. No beginning with God. They've
always been eternally alive in Christ. And without end, because
there's no end to God. When all this time and space
continuum, time-space continuum is gone, we will be with God
and see we've always been with Him. That's just too big for
us, isn't it? That's too big for a finite mind
to grasp what eternal life is. Glory, honor, immortality. This is the record, this is the
promise. 1 John 2.25 says this is the promise that He has promised
us, even eternal life. But without trying to define
it in that way and get your mind around that, here's what it is.
Here's what it is. It's a person. Look at the next
word. This life is in His Son. This is the record that God hath
given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Look at 1 John 5.20. We know
that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding
that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that
is true, even in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God. eternal life. He's eternal life. Look at 1 John 1. I'm going to
close right here with this. That which was from the beginning,
we have to have time language to understand this. 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. Can you handle a word? Can you touch a word? Can you
see a word? You can. The word of life, you
can. Look at verse 2, for the life
was manifested and we've seen and bear witness and show unto
you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested
unto us. We're declaring and showing to
you and telling you of that eternal life which was with the Father
and was manifested unto us, that which we have seen and heard."
We've seen eternal life. We've heard eternal life. And
we're declaring unto you that ye also may have fellowship with
us. And truly, our fellowship is
with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. He's eternal life. That as sin
has reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ. The wages of
sin, the merit of sin, the earning of sin, the work of sin, the
debt of sin is death. The gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord. There were some people one day
that heard that and they said, I don't believe that. We don't
believe that. And the Lord said this, you believe
not because you are not of my sheep. Now listen to me. You
may not believe this sitting here today, And I can't say you
believe not because you're not his sheep. I don't know. You
might be. Christ could say it because he
knew who his sheep were. And he knew exactly who his sheep
were. And he looked those people right in the face and he said,
the reason you do not believe me is because you're not my sheep. He didn't say you're not my sheep
because you don't believe me. He said, you don't believe me
because you're not my sheep. I haven't bore record in your
soul and I'm not going to bear record in your soul because I
didn't come for you. I didn't come to lay down my life for
you. God didn't give me you from before the foundation of the
world. That's what he told them. You're not my sheep. And he said,
my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I
give unto them eternal life. And they'll never perish. Nobody
will pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me
is greater than all and no man is able to pluck them out of
my Father's hand. He's given Him power over all flesh that
He should give eternal life to as many as the Father has given
Him. He's the Son of God, He's the
wisdom of God, and He's the wisdom God requires that we have to
have. He's the Son of God, He's the
righteousness of God, and He's the righteousness that we've
got to have. He's the Son of God, the holiness
of God, and He's the holiness we have to have to enter into
glory. He's the truth of God, and He's the only way that we're
going to know God is by knowing the Son. He's the fidelity to
God, perfect faithfulness to God, and having Christ, we have
the faithfulness, the fidelity that God demands of us. He's the way, the only way to
God. But this is so. He is God's gift of eternal life
to you who believe on Him. He is eternal life. Now, let's
go back to verse 10 and let's read the whole matter. Verse
10. Here's the conclusion. He that believeth on the Son
of God hath the witness in himself. You've got the record in you.
That's how come you believe. He that believeth not God has
made him a liar. He said, I don't believe the
record of holy God Almighty. Can you imagine somebody using
the breath, the very God's given them to say, I don't believe
God, I think he's a liar. Talk about dangerous ground.
Dangerous ground. He that believeth not God hath
made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave
of his son. And this is the record that God
hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life,
and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. Amen.