1 John, chapter 2, verses 28 and
29, and then chapter 3 and verse 1. The title of the message this
evening is, Abiding in Christ. Abiding in Christ. The Scripture says, And now,
little children, abide in Him. that when He shall appear, we
may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming. If ye know that He is righteous,
ye know that everyone that doeth righteousness is born of Him. Behold! Behold what manner of
love the Father hath bestowed upon us! that we should be called
the sons of God. Therefore, the world knoweth
us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons
of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know
that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall
see him as he is. As the loving spiritual father
of this small flock, the Apostle John, he calls them together. He calls his little children
together. He calls them together and he
says this to them. Abide in Christ. Abide in Him. Jesus said, I am the true vine,
and you are the branches. He that abideth in Me shall bear
much fruit. Abide in Me, He says. Abide in
Christ. What is it to abide in Christ?
It is to believe. It is to trust. in Christ. That's what it is to abide. To
continually, daily, moment by moment, in faith, believe in
Christ. This church that the apostle
was preaching to, they were suffering. This was a suffering church.
This church had seen people come in and profess faith in Christ
and then go away. This church was suffering under
the persecution of the enemy. This church was greatly suffering,
and we know this. We can all, as believers in Christ,
we identify with suffering. You know, our Lord Jesus Christ
never promised anyone who believes in Christ a bed of roses. What He promised was a bed of
thorns. Suffering. Our Lord Jesus Christ
suffered the hatred and the wrath of man, and so will His people. So will everyone who believes
in Christ. We will suffer persecution in
this life. We suffer hardships, we suffer
sorrows. And I'll tell you, we do at times
have comforts and joys, don't we? We do. We have gifts of God,
times of refreshing. We need that. We need those times
of refreshing. But whether in sorrow or whether
in joy, it doesn't matter. Let us abide in Christ. Let us not take our eyes off
of Him. We are distracted by so many
things, so many temptations of sin, so many distractions. Abide in me. Trust in me. Believe in me. Don't take your
eyes off of me. Trust in Christ. This church,
as I told you, was suffering because they had people that
were departing the gospel. They were leaving the gospel.
Go back over to verse 18 in chapter 2. He says, little children, It is the last time. And as you
have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many
anti Christ's. Whereby we know. That it is the
last time. They went out from us. But they
were not of us. For if they had been of us, they
would have no doubt have continued with us. But they went out that
they might be made manifest that they were not all of us." This church was having people
to leave who profess faith in Christ. Friends, there is only
one Gospel. One. There are not many Gospels. There is only one. This is why
Jesus said straight is the gate and narrow is the way. It's not
talking about works. It's not talking about law that
you have to obey a certain strict law in order to enter into life. No, it's narrow because it's
single. There is no other gospel. There
is only one gospel. That's it. There is only one truth. And everything else is a lie. Go to Galatians chapter 1. Let
us see how emphatic the Apostle Paul was about this one gospel. Galatians chapter 1 and verse
6, he says, I marvel, I'm amazed. I'm amazed that you are so soon
removed from him that called you unto the grace of Christ,
into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel, which is not
another. But there are some that trouble
you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we or an
angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that
which we have preached unto you, let him go to hell." That's what
Paul said. Let him be anathema. Let him be accursed. As we said before, so now I say
again. Just in case you missed that
one, he's going to say it again. If any man preach any other gospel
unto you than that which you have received, let him go to
hell. Let him be accursed. Friends, there is only one gospel.
There are not many gospels. It's only one. It's single. There's not many. Why is that? Because there is only one Savior. There's only one Savior. The
gospel is the Savior. The gospel is Christ. And if we get Christ wrong, you've
got the gospel wrong. That's what he says. He says,
I'm so, I'm marveled that you're moved from Him. You notice how
He ties Him, Christ, in with the Gospel. They're one and the
same. You can't separate them. They're
one. We preach Christ, we preach the
Gospel. If we preach not Christ, we preach
not the Gospel. He is salvation. Salvation is
not in what you can memorize. It's not what you can know. It's
in a person. He, Him. The God-man, Jesus,
He is salvation. He is. He is the gospel. Therefore, if men do not know
the Christ, then they do not preach the gospel. The preaching of the gospel to
this world is foolishness. It is absolutely and utterly
foolish for me to stand up here and tell you what you know. I
know that you know these things. I know that you've heard these
things. These things are not new. As a matter of fact, if
I say anything new, a flag needs to come up. I'm not going to
say anything new. This is an old gospel. It's been
around since eternity. It's been there forever. Not
new. But by the preaching of the gospel,
what men think is foolish, this is how God saves sinners. This
is how God feeds His people. This is how He does it. Why? Because God said so. What else
do you need? 1 Corinthians, flip over there,
1 Corinthians chapter 1. Christ sent me not to baptize,
but to preach the gospel." Now, Paul baptized some. What is he
saying? That we shouldn't, no, that's
not saying we shouldn't baptize. But the main objective of a pastor
is to preach. To preach the gospel of Christ.
Not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be
made none effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that
perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the
power of God. You see, have you ever heard
anybody say, well, man, that's silly. Surely you can do better
than that. Surely we've got better things
that we can do to make people learn. We can use projectors
and chalkboards and graphs and charts and we can entertain you,
we can sing to you and we can do all of these things. No, that's
not the power of God. The power of God comes in the
preaching of the message by the man sent of God. That's where
it comes. Verse 21, for after in the wisdom
of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the
foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Why do I preach? It pleased God. Why does he save men by the preaching
of the gospel? It pleased God. I have no other
reason. There's no other reason for you
to be here. There's no other reason for you to hear me. None.
but that God might come in power and show you, that He might reveal
Himself to you. To preach any other gospel than
the gospel of God's grace, John says he's a liar. Flip over back
to your text. Go to John 2 and verse 22. He said, Who is a liar but he
that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? Anybody that denies that Jesus
is the Christ is a liar. Well, wait. Now, doesn't every
church profess Christ? Do they not use that name? I
remember when I was a little kid, like Audrey, I thought Christ
was his last name. Jesus Christ, I thought that
was... No! They proclaim Christ, but what
Christ do they proclaim? Because the gospel and Christ
are one and the same, they must proclaim the Christ in order
to preach the gospel. And anyone who does not preach
the Christ, John says he's a liar. He said he's not preaching that
Jesus is the Christ. Now, the word Christ, what is
that? What does that mean? Well, that's the word in the
Hebrew that was Messiah. That's what they were looking
for. That's what God had promised from the beginning. The seed
of the woman shall bruise or crush the head of the serpent.
That was the promise. That was the salvation God promised. And from that time forward, they
were looking for Him. They were waiting for Him. And
just as God went along in time, He opened that door just a little
more, and a little more light shined in. And a little more
light, and a little more light, until the day dawned and Christ
came. How do we know that Jesus is
the Christ? because he fulfilled all the
Scriptures concerning Christ. If Jesus did not complete every
prophecy of the Old Testament, he is not Christ. You see, there's
a very specific thing. You think of the thousands of
years and the many types and illustrations and pictures and
prophecies, and yet only one man in all of history has fulfilled
all of them, and that is Jesus Christ. Jesus of Nazareth, the
man, the God-man. He is Christ. He is Christ. So then any Christ will not do. Isn't that right? Now you can
use the word Christ, but if your Christ is not the Christ of this
book, then He is not Christ. He is not Christ. Christ accomplished and fulfilled
all the scriptures and everything else is anti-Christ. First of all, Christ must be
the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. If Jesus was not the sinless,
spotless Son of the living God, then He was not the Christ. We
preach that Jesus is the Son of God and the Son of Man. He was just as much man as if
He was not God, and just as much God as if He was not man. He
was holy, both of them, in the same body. Absolutely perfect in everything. Go to Isaiah 53. This is declared
as the gospel according to Isaiah. The gospel according to Isaiah. Verse 10. Yet it pleased the
Lord. There's that word pleased again.
It pleased the Lord. To do what? To crush Him. To bruise Him. He hath put Him to grief. When
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. He shall prolong his days, and
the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of
his soul, and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. There's a prophecy. 700 years before the Lord Jesus
Christ, the man Isaiah received the word of God and prophesied
that there would be one There would be one spotless, sinless
who did no sin. He said he hadn't in the previous
verses. He said he had done no violence.
Neither were there deceit in his mouth. In other words, everything
he spoke was true. Everything he spoke was true.
He was God's righteous servant. God's spotless lamb. And it pleased God to crush.
It pleased God to kill His only begotten Son. That's what pleased
God. And so when we say Christ, we
are talking about one individual in all existence who has fully
obeyed God's law in absolute perfection. The Scripture tells us that if
we obeyed the law, If we just obey the law, we deserve nothing
because we've done just exactly what we're supposed to do. I
tell my kids to go clean their room and they come out and they
say, well, I need some money for cleaning my room. No, that's
just what you're supposed to do. You're not getting any reward
for that. That's your job. And so it is
every man's job to obey the law in absolute perfection. And none
of us have done that. But Christ did more than that.
He obeyed the law and He obtained by His own merit the righteousness
of God Himself. He obtained it by His works.
I like this, when the Lamb stood before the throne, it says He
took the book from the hand of God. I'll tell you what, you
don't take anything from God unless you're worthy to take
it. And He took it. Because He was worthy. He was
worthy. He alone is worthy. And the Scripture
says that it was by His death. He shall see of the travail of
His soul. It was the death of Christ. It
was in that death that God saw you and me. He shall see His
seed. His church. His elect. In the death of Christ, he saw
us suffering in Christ. So that when that righteous lamb
died, I died with him. I died with him. I died in him. And his days was prolonged by
the resurrection. And he is ascended unto God and
rules all things. all things. Second of all, he must not only
be the sinless Son of God, which God has proven, but he must also
put away sin. This is where many of the Christs
of this world fail. They fail to put away sin. If anyone preaches a Christ that
failed, that failed to accomplish redemption
for his people, is no Christ at all. Why? Because Christ must fulfill
the Scriptures. He must. And what do the Scriptures
tell us? That He must bear the iniquities
of those. Let me go back over here. Flipped
over my page. I shouldn't have done that. It says, for he shall bear their
iniquities. He shall see of the trailed veil
of his soul, and he shall be what? Satisfied. Satisfied. Let me ask you this, was God
satisfied with Christ's death? Was sin removed? It was Christ that bore the sins. Of who? Many. Who's that? I don't know. Many! It didn't say all. He didn't
bear the sins of all men. And I'll tell you that Christ
that bore the sins of all men is no Christ. Because He is a
failure. He did not satisfy God. He has defiled the Scriptures.
That Christ does not exist. And that gospel is not real.
It's not true. Christ put away sin. He by His one offering, the Scripture
says in Hebrews 10, by His one offering, He hath. Now, you don't have to be a grammar
student to understand that's talking about past tense. He
hath by His one offering perfected. Perfected. What is it to be perfect? It's to be without sin, isn't
it? That's perfect. It's to be like God. Perfect. He hath perfected Who? Them that were sanctified. Them that were set apart by God
Himself. You see, I was perfected in eternity. God purposed my perfection. And
when Jesus Christ came, He accomplished my perfection. When the Spirit
came, He called me and imparted to me the perfection that He
had already accomplished. What part did I have? None. Zero. Zero. What can I add to it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Why would
I want to add to anything that's perfect? I would just ruin it. I'd ruin it. Another prophecy of this is Christ
must save His people then. If He accomplished it, He must
do it. He must save them. If they are
redeemed, they shall be saved. Matthew 1.21. You can flip over
there. Matthew 1.21. I could tell I'm not going to
get to the end of this. That's all right. I hope the Lord blesses
you with this. Matthew 121. Now, this is a prophecy. Remember, it is before the birth
of Christ. It is a prophecy. And she shall bring forth a son.
And thou shalt call his name Jesus. For He shall. He shall save. Who? His people from their sins. Now is that not emphatic enough?
That's Christ. That's Christ. I recognize Him. When I hear that, when I hear
a man preach that, I recognize that. I know that Christ. You see, I don't know a Christ
that died for everyone and saved no one. I don't know anybody
like that. Do you? Not if you know Christ. So what do we say? What does John say about everyone
who does not abide in him, who does not trust in him? He said
he's a liar. He's a liar. Abide in Christ. Behold, little children, those
who go out from us." What is he talking about? What do you
mean, go out from us? Did they just leave our church
building? Is that what he's talking about? No. He said, they went
out from the Gospel. They went out from among us. You see, false religion doesn't
come from anywhere. The most deceptive false religion
comes from within the true church, and they go out and preach it. They have a little knowledge,
they have a little understanding, and yet they go away from God's
church, preaching their own gospel. And John says, little children,
don't let this bother you. Don't let this bother you. I
tell you what, it does bother the flesh. To see the massive
multitudes of millions of people in false religion, it bothers
us. It concerns us. And I'll tell
you, we know people that are out there in it. And it bothers
us. But John says, little children, be comfortable. Little children,
they went out from us because they were not of us. If they
were of us, they would have continued in this gospel. If they were
gods, they would come here. If they were gods, they would
hear the gospel with us. They would rejoice with us if
they were His. If they would continue in the
gospel. You see, faith is not a one-time act. Faith is how we live. I live by faith, not by sight,
not by works, not by law. I live by faith. I trust Him. I abide in Him. My righteousness
comes from Him. It doesn't ever come from me.
It doesn't come from my obedience to the law. It comes from Him.
And there's joy in that. There's no joy in the other things.
There's no peace there. There's no comfort. There's no
comfort to look around you and try to see. our salvation by the things that
happened to us. Think of all of the men who gave
their lives for the gospel. I mean, look at the multitudes
of people, and they were marching just a few down the street, and
they were burning them at the stake. It looked as though, hey,
they were maybe wrong. No! They abided in Christ all
the way to the flame. And the mass multitude that sent
them there was lost. They were not of us. God purposed to reveal this to
us so that we might be comforted. Don't worry about everyone else. God take care of them. Let them be. They have no effect
on the kingdom of God. None. None. God does not save, but by this
gospel. By this Christ. Any other Christ,
he's not worth abiding in. Because he's not real. This may be painful for us, but
it is necessary for our comfort. Believers in Christ, don't let
this distract us from the beauty that is in Christ. Don't let
them distract you from the beauty that's in Christ. We're so easily
moved. We're so easily taking our eyes
off of Christ and looking at other things and trying to judge
how He's doing this and what He's doing. Don't worry about
what He's doing. He'll do right. Just look to
Christ. Hold on to Christ. If God in
grace has chosen you and passed by another, Why will you be troubled
and reply against God fully? Wouldn't we rather just be thankful? Wouldn't that be more... I'll
tell you what, you know what, I don't know of a person that
is thankful and miserable at the same time. If a man's thankful,
he's happy. Happiness and thankfulness go
right together. We should be thankful God did
that for us. If he had not done it for us,
we would be with him. It's all of grace. If he did not pass us by, praise
God and praise the glory of his sovereign grace, he did not leave
us to our thoughts and our ways. There is a way. The scripture
said that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is
death. Death. There is only one way. There is only one truth. There
is only one life. And Jesus said, I'm it. I'm it. No man cometh to the father,
but. By. me. If you get Christ wrong, you've
got the gospel wrong. But if you know Him, you know
the gospel. And that gospel that we know
is not because of who we are or how smart we are. It's because
He gave us that understanding. Do you desire confidence and
assurance? Abide in Christ. Do you desire happiness and peace
in the midst of turmoil and trials? Abide in Christ. Abide in Christ. He is all our righteousness. And His blood is all our redemption. And I want to just mention this.
Go back to your text. John stops here in chapter three
as though he's starting a new thing. He just he's so amazed
at Christ. He's so amazed with Christ that
he just he just cuts into his thoughts and he says, Oh, behold,
stop. Behold, the manner of love. Behold, what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us. that we should be called the
sons of God. What manner, what type of love
is this? Oh, what wondrous love is this? Oh my soul, oh my soul, what
wondrous love is this? What kind of love is this? What
manner of love? It's free. That's the manner
of God's love. Free. I tell you what, there's no other
love worth having but free. His love was free. Behold, what manner of love,
what kind of free grace love of the Father that He has lavished
upon us that we, sinners, guilty, guilty, guilty, that we, Scripture says, For Jacob have
I loved, but Esau have I hated. Men are so surprised that God
hated Esau. What surprises me is that he
loved Jacob. I'm not surprised he hated Esau. I'm not surprised that God could
hate me. I'm surprised that God could
love me. I'm just surprised by grace. Grace surprises me. His mercies are new every morning. That we should be called the
sons of God. Therefore, the world knoweth
not because it knew Him not. Friends, the world, the world
does not know us. When you preach the gospel to
someone else, they will not know you. They will not understand
you. Why are you so adamant about
this? Why will you not bend? Why will
you not compromise? I had this one man I witnessed
too, and he says, you're saying then that I'm not a Christian.
I said, that's exactly what I'm saying. It's exactly what I'm
saying. If you believe that your works
save you, you are not believing on Christ. You don't know it. You don't know it. That's a hard
line to take, but that's the hard line the apostles took.
That's the hard line every believer should take. This is why we have
this conglomeration of garbage that we have out here. It's because
Christians have compromised. They've given their honor to
these whores, and that's what it is. That's what the Scripture
calls the false church. He calls it a whore, because
that's exactly what it is. She filled the assembly of God
with her fornication. Believers, we're to abide in
Christ. Behold the manner of love God
bestowed upon us, and the world won't know who we are. That's
all right. Because when He comes, He will
justify everything that we have said. When He separates His people,
the goats from the sheep, God will declare, you are My sons
and you are bastards. He'll separate them. May God give us eyes to see that.
Strength to believe, to trust, to hold only in Christ. I rest my soul on it. I pray that God bless this to your
hearts. Let's stand and we'll be dismissed in prayer.