All right, now turn with me,
if you would, to 1 John, chapter 2. 1 John, chapter 2. And let's read what will be our
text, which is verses 12 to 14. 1 John 2 verse 12, I write unto
you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for
His namesake. I write unto you, fathers, because
you have known Him that is from the beginning. I write unto you,
young men, because you have overcome the wicked one. I write unto
you little children because you have known the father. I have
written unto you fathers because you have known him that is from
the beginning. I have written unto you young
men, because you are strong, and the word of God abideth in
you, and you have overcome the wicked one. Now there are some
specific things that I would like for us to see in those three
verses. And then I want us to answer
this question. Who are the scriptures written
to? Who are the scriptures written
to? We are going to study a little
bit. We're going to study some of
the things that he said in this word. We'll have a little Bible
study. And we're going to review for just a minute. And then we're
going to see the reality of what he has to say to God's people. who he refers to as little children,
fathers, and young men. And this is where we're gonna
end up. This is what we're getting to. The title of this message
is, Who Are the Scriptures Written to? Who are these scriptures
written to? Now the wording of these verses
perfectly, purposefully, repeat. They are repetitive, uh, by design. They're perfectly repetitive.
This is what he said. We just read it. He said, little
children, fathers, young men. And then he said, little children,
fathers, young men. He repeated it in verse 12. He said, I write unto you. In verse 13, he said, I write
unto you. In the middle of verse 13, he
said, I write unto you. At the end of verse 13, he said,
I write unto you. Verse 14, he said, I have written
unto you. In the middle of verse 14, he
said, I have written unto you. He's writing to somebody specifically. I've written unto you. I'm talking
to you. I'm writing this to you. Me? Yes, you. I'm writing to you. So he repeats that to them. He
repeats who he is speaking to, and with each one of them he
says, because, I write this to you because. This is why I'm
writing this to you. Now as we get into this, we're
gonna see that the Lord's ways are not our ways, and aren't
we so glad? Aren't we so glad? All right,
he said in verse 12, I write unto you little children he's
speaking to all of God's people all of God's particular people
God has a particular people and he is writing to all of them
that little children We just said that it's repeated. That
particular little children means all disciples. When you look
it up, that's what it means. All disciples. Just like in verse
one, chapter two, verse one, he said, my little children,
he's speaking to all of God's people. But the little children
that's at the end of verse 13, that's a different little children.
That one means new in the faith. newly born, newly born again. So he's speaking to all of God's
people, but he acknowledges that there are three different stages
of faith within God's people. Fathers in the faith, young men
in the faith and little children in the faith, but to all of them,
to all of them, he said, I'm writing to you. I write these
things to you. All right. Now, what did he write?
Well, just in this one chapter, if we just look at this one chapter,
he said in verse one, my little children, These things write
I unto you that you sin not. And if any man sin, we have an
advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." That could
be the most taken for granted verse of scripture in all the
Bible. If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous. We have someone Every time a
child of God sins, someone stands on his behalf. If any man sin,
we have someone who will plead our defense and prove our innocency. Who is it? Who stands? Jesus
Christ the righteous. Jesus Christ, the righteous one,
Jesus Christ, the only mediator who's able to stand between God
and sinners. He is the one who can and will
defend us. And he's the one who prove our
innocent, our innocency. Now, why will he do that? It's
because he's the one who paid the price in full. He's the one
who made the payment in full. He made it. He was the payment.
That's what verse two says. And he is the propitiation, the
one who made the payment. And he is the payment. He is
the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also
for the sins of the whole world. He made that payment for a particular
people scattered all over this world. And I'm so thankful for
that. I love knowing God has a people
all over this world. Send the gospel out as far as
you can. And it won't return void. Now
verse three, he said, and hereby we do know that we know him. This is how we can know that
we know him. This is how we can know that
He knows us and we know Him. This is how we can know that
He chose us and we belong to Him. Verse three says, if we
keep His commandments. Hereby we do know that we know
Him if we keep His commandments. Verse four, He that saith, I
know Him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and
the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word in
him verily is the love of God perfected. Hereby know we that
we are in him. He said, if we keep his commandments,
we know that we know him and we know that we're in him. All
right, what did he say his commandments were? Look at 1 John 3 verse
23. And this is his commandment,
that we should believe on the name of his son, Jesus Christ,
and love one another as he gave us commandment. And he that keepeth
his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him, and hereby
we know that he abideth in us by the spirit which he hath given
us. He said, whoever I give a heart
to, whoever I give a desire to believe on the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ, whoever I cause to cast their all on the blood
of Jesus Christ for salvation. And that's where we are. We have
cast our all on the blood of Jesus Christ. That blood is all
we have. That's all our hope. That's all
our hope. He said, whoever I give a heart
to do that and a desire to do that, whoever receives that desire
and a love for all those who have done the same, then that
person Evidence is knowing me and being found in me. Faith
in Christ. And love for the people of Christ,
that's the evidence that the love of God has been perfected
in a person. All right, so back in chapter
2, verse 7. Brethren, I write no new commandment
unto you, but an old commandment which you had from the beginning.
The old commandment is the word which you've heard from the beginning.
Again, a new commandment, I write unto you which thing is true
in him and in you because the darkness is past and the true
light now shineth. All the commandments have always
hung on this one word, love. Love, the love of God, love for
God, and love for his people. That's the ancient commandment. But it's brand new every day. The old commandment is fresh
every day. I've told you this before, and
I'll tell it to you again. I love this, that a dear, dear
brother named Bob Poncer, just a dear, sweet, just kind, his
face was so happy all the time, just smile on his face. He attended
where Brother Larry Criss attended. They attended together. Brother
Larry's now in Silicon, Alabama, but he knew him well, and Brother
Larry was preaching one time, about to preach, and just before
the service started, Brother Larry was sitting on the front
row, and Brother Bob comes up behind him, and he said, Brother
Larry, do you have something new and stale or old and fresh
for us? And that's what the gospel is.
It's old and fresh. It's old and fresh. Verse 7,
Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment
which you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word
which you've heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write
unto you, which thing is true in him and in you, because the
darkness is past and the true light now shineth. He that saith
he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even
until now. It is true that if a person does
not love his brother in Christ, he does not show the evidence
of being in Christ himself. But how much more if a person
does not love Christ, his elder brother? If a person does not
bow to Christ, his elder brother, he that sayeth he is in the light
and will not bow to Christ, his elder brother, will not believe
on, will not look to, will not cry out for mercy. That man is
in darkness even until now. Verse 10 says, He that loveth
his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of
stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother
is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither
he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes. Now, he
said in verse 12, I write these things to you, little children,
disciples of Christ, followers of Christ, believers on Christ.
I write these things to you because this is why I'm writing all these
things to you. Your sins are forgiven you. I'm
writing all these things to you because your sins are forgiven
you. They are already forgiven you. That reminds me, whenever I read
that, your sins are forgiven you. That reminded me of the
story of that man who was let down through the roof. He had the palsy and let down
through the roof. I love this story. I absolutely
love this story. I love thinking about all the
details that went in to the events of this story. I love envisioning
Our Lord going into a house to preach. Our Lord could have preached
anywhere. But he went into a house to preach knowing it was going
to be packed and knowing that four men were going to bring
their friend. Okay, four men have to get to
me. My own has to get to me, so what
am I gonna do? I'm gonna go into a house, and
I'm gonna pack it so full of people you cannot get through. It had to be packed for them
to rip the roof off that house. So packed, all right? So he goes
in, and he starts preaching. He's standing there, and it just
so happens that he positioned himself in the exact spot that
the hole would be. What if they ripped the hole
on the other side of the house? You can't get through the crowd,
all right? But he's standing in the very
spot that they ripped this hole into the roof. And they start
letting this man down in the bed. And can't you see this man?
He can't see what's under him. All he sees is a hole in the
roof. And here he is going down. And as he's looking over, all
of a sudden he sees the hair of a man. And then he sees the forehead
of a man. And then he sees two eyes looking right at him. They
let him down a little lower and he sees a mouth smiling at him.
And I can see our Lord putting his hand on him. It wouldn't
be like our Lord to put his hand on him. Son, thy sins are forgiven
thee. Your sins are forgiven you. Forgiven
son, I chose you. My little children, these things,
I'm writing it to you. I chose you. That's amazing. I bought you, I could have bought
anybody, I bought you. You belong to me, you belong
to me. Your sins are forgiven you. Verse
12, I write unto you little children because your sins are forgiven
you for his name sake. They are forgiven because he
is the savior. Not because of anything you did,
your sins are not forgiven because of anything you did. It's because
of who he is and what he has done for you. Call His name Savior
because He shall sacrifice Himself. He will give the life of His
blood to save His people from their sins. Now, I said a moment ago that
we were going to see how our Lord's ways are not our ways. Not at all. I want to enter into
that by what he has written and who he has written it to. Who
are the people of God? He said, I'm writing this to
you. Who is he writing to? Who are the scriptures written
to? Who can claim this? Who can claim
these promises and these things? All right, verse 12 says, I write
unto you little children because Your sins are forgiven you for
his name's sake. Only sinners can have their sins
forgiven. Only sinners can have their sins
forgiven. Just think about that. Only sinners,
only sinners. We get so disgusted with ourselves. We don't like what we see and
we acknowledge I'm nothing but a sinner. I'm just a sinner.
Only sinners will have their sins forgiven. They're the only
ones, the only ones that he's going to show mercy to. If I
am not a sinner against him, if I do not see in my flesh,
if I cannot acknowledge that I am a sinner against him, then
I should not expect forgiveness from my sin. Only sinners will have their
sins forgiven. He did not say, and I'm so glad
for this, he did not say in verse one, if any man sin not, We have
an advocate with the Father. He didn't say that. He said,
if any man sin, if any man sin, if I'm gonna have an advocate,
I have to be a sinner. I just have to be a sinner. He
said, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. All right, verse 13 says, I write
unto you fathers, spiritual fathers, in order to be a father in the
faith, you have to be a little child. We read that and think, oh, I'm
not a father in faith. In order to be a father in the
faith, you have to be a little child. Little children in the
faith think they are fathers. And fathers in the faith think
they are little children. If a man thinks he is wise, he's
a fool. And if a man thinks he's a fool,
he's wise. And that's just the way it is. Our Lord said, except you be
converted and become as little children, you will in no wise
enter into the kingdom of heaven. God's people are not, you know,
not trying to outdo each other in father status, children status. No brother, I'm lower, I'm smaller. John the Baptist, the Lord said,
that's the greatest man born of a woman. He said, I must decrease,
I must decrease. Verse 13 says, I write unto you
fathers because you have known him that is from the beginning. Only the ignorant will know him. Only the ignorant, only the sinners
will have their sins forgiven. And only the ignorant will know
him. If I am not ignorant in and of
myself, that is such an offensive thing to say. If you ever tell
somebody you're ignorant, it's not going to go well. That's
an offensive thing. But if I am not ignorant in and
of myself, if I'm not a self-proclaimed ignorant person when it comes
to anything, especially this, then I cannot know him. For our
scripture reading, we read where the Apostle Paul said, I count
it all dung so I can know him. I count it all dung so I can
know him. Our Lord said, I thank you, Father,
for hiding these things from the wise and prudent and revealing
them unto babes. Ignorant, simple babes. I want
to show you one of my favorite scriptures. Go to Acts chapter
4. Acts chapter four. Now, once
again, right here, the apostles are on trial for preaching the
gospel. They've been brought before a
council and what they just told this council was, we know whom
we have believed and we're persuaded that only he is able. We're preaching
him. We know Him, we know the One
from the beginning, Christ Jesus the Lord. Now watch verse 13,
Acts 4 verse 13. Now when they saw the boldness
of Peter and John and perceived that they were unlearned and
ignorant men, they marveled and took knowledge of them that they
had been with Jesus. I love that. I love they listen
to those men and they said, well, they're ignorant. They know him. We acknowledge this one thing.
They've been with him. Only the ignorant. Only those
who acknowledge the ignorance of their own flesh will ever
know him. I love that because that's what
I am. That's all I am. He's our wisdom in me. All right,
go back to first John two. Verse 13, I write unto you fathers
because you have known him that is from the beginning. I write
unto you young men because you have overcome the wicked one. Only those who take no part in
the fight will overcome the wicked one. Only those who take absolutely
no part in the fight will overcome the wicked one. Man foolishly
thinks that he is going to have his way with the adversary. Turn
over two or three pages to Jude chapter 1, only one chapter in
Jude. Verse 9. It says, Yet Michael the archangel,
when contending with the devil, he disputed about the body of
Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but
said, The Lord rebuketh thee. He did not even bring up an accusation. The Lord rebuketh thee. Look
at Revelation 12. Verse 7, and there was war in heaven.
Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and the dragon
fought in his angels and prevailed not, neither was their place
found anymore in heaven. How did Michael and the angels
prevail? The Lord rebuked them. And the very same thing applies
to us. Verse 9, the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent
called the devil and Satan, which deceived the whole world. He
was cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with
him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, now has come
salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power
of his Christ. For the accuser of our brethren
is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night,
and they overcame him. by the blood of the lamb. That's
how. That's how they overcame him.
By the blood of the lamb. Only those who take no part in
the fight will overcome. He has given us the victory. He's given us the victory. All
right, go back to our text. First John 2. Verse 13, it says, I write unto
you little children because you have known the Father. That's
the end of verse 13. Verse 14, I have written unto
you fathers because you have known him that is from the beginning. Why is he repeating the same
thing? If you look at verse 13, the beginning of it, I write
unto you fathers because you have known him that is from the
beginning. Verse 14, I have written unto
you fathers because you have known him that is from the beginning.
Why is he repeating the same thing? It's because the message
doesn't change. It does not change. He said,
the message I wrote to you before is the message I'm writing to
you now. It does not change. And this
is the message. Only sinners will have their
sins forgiven. Only the ignorant will know Him. Only those who take no part in
the fight will overcome. And verse 14 goes on to say,
I have written unto you, young man, because you are strong. And the word of God abideth in
you and you've overcome the wicked one. Only the weak are strong. Only the weak. Our Lord said,
my strength is made perfect in your weakness. The Apostle Paul
said, most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities,
in my weaknesses. For when I am weak, then am I
strong. And that is so true. That is
so true. Christ does not help those who
help themselves. Christ helps those who can't
help themselves. He's the help of the helpless.
So if that's us, that's me and you, if you are a little, weak,
helpless, ignorant sinner like I am, then this is our good news,
all right? Our sins are forgiven for Christ's
name's sake. If God has revealed these truths
to us about ourselves, If we see ourselves to be nothing and
Christ to be all, then we know Him because He knows us. In the victory of His blood,
all of our battle against sin is over. And as He is, how is
He? Strong. As He is, so are we in
this world. We're so weak in ourselves, we're
just so weak in ourselves, but we can do all things through
Him who strengthens us. He is our strength. John said, because you are the
people of God, I'm writing these things to you. Directly from
God Himself, I say these things to you. May these things be written
to us. All right, let's all stand together.