First John, chapter 5, and we'll
read the first 12 verses. Everyone who believes that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the Father
loves his child as well. This is how we know that we love
the children of God, by loving God and carrying out his commands.
This is love for God, to obey his commands. And his commands
are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world.
This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our
faith. Who is it that overcomes the
world? Only he who believes that Jesus
is the Son of God. This is the one who came by water
and blood, Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only,
but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies,
because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify,
the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and the three are in agreement. We accept man's testimony. God's
testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which
he has given about his Son. Anyone who believes in the Son
of God has this testimony in his heart, or as it's strictly
put in the Greek language, he has this testimony in himself. Anyone who does not believe God
has made him out to be a liar because he has not believed the
testimony God has given about his son. And this is the testimony. God has given us eternal life
and this life is in his son. He who has the son of God has
life. He who does not have the son
of God does not have life. Now, on the bulletins, I've entitled
this message a personal testimony. But I look at the top of my notes
and I've entitled it an inner witness. But they go together. When I was typing up the bulletin,
I decided on that title because I remember in my youth, in the
religion of my youth, they so often ask people, why don't you
stand and give your personal testimony? Some of them said things that
were honoring to God, but it seems most of the time a person's
personal testimony became what they believed they had personally
done for God and for the cause of God in this world. But there is an inner testimony
within every believer. The gospel is a testimony. It is made up of a historical
reality. Paul says, I deliver to you again
what I delivered to you at the beginning, how that Christ died
for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried
and raised again according to the scriptures, that he was seen,
and then Paul, this is in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul goes on to describe
those who saw the Lord raised from the dead, 500 of them at
one time, and then Paul says, and last of all, me. The last one ever to see the
risen Christ was the apostle Paul. Now it's true that John
saw a vision of the risen Christ in the book of Revelation, but
Paul was the last new person to see the risen Christ. And I think we can go from there
to say this, no one has seen the risen Christ since then.
If anybody tells you he has, he doesn't know what he's talking
about. Paul was the last one, and that made him the last of
the apostles. But it is a testimony of real historical events. Not only this, it's made up of
historical reality personally witnessed. Now when I preach
the gospel to you, I'm telling you what others told me. I did not personally witness
the life, death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus
Christ, nor did the men who preached it to me. And we could go back through
a long chain of preachers who declared this word, but they
themselves had never personally witnessed these things in a eyewitness sort of way. However,
every one of them had access to the scriptures which are the
testimony of those who were eyewitnesses of the things that the gospel
declares. Over here in or back at the beginning
of 1st John, look at the very first verse of 1st John chapter
1 that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we
have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands
have touched, this we proclaim concerning the word of life."
The life appeared and then it became visible. And we have seen
it and testified to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life
which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim
to you what we have seen and heard, so that you may have fellowship
with us." So John, one of the apostles, writes in this letter
of his, we're not telling you things that were mere visions
to us. That was not what his gospel
preaching was made of. He said, we're not telling you
things that we as the apostles got together and made up out
of our own sense of wisdom. He says, we are declaring things
to you that we saw with our own eyes, that we heard with our
own ears. Eye and ear witnesses, in fact,
in the Greek, language one of those verbs there when it talks
about seeing is the word we would translate gaze he's saying it
was not just a glance we gave you know so often when a crime
is committed they look for eyewitnesses and eyewitnesses may have just
seen one or two seconds or maybe even a split second of the event
and they're trying to extract a testimony out of this supposed
eyewitness. But John says that's not the
kind of eyewitnesses we were. We gazed on him. They walked
with him for three years, at least three years. And they saw
him time after time after time. They saw what He did, the things
He could do. They heard His preaching over
and over again. When He was on the cross, they
stood there watching Him. When He came out of the tomb,
for 40 days He walked with them. This was no glance, this could
not be mistaken. It's not a case of mistaken identity. They gazed on Him. And then they
told us what they saw. The gospel is not merely an elegant
theological system. Something actually happened 2,000
years ago. Events took place. Someone came
and he did something. And he and his work constitute
the gospel of Jesus Christ. You cannot declare the gospel.
without declaring who Christ is and what he did, because that
is the gospel. There are some who declare the
gospel in a systematic fashion, a system of doctrine, and the
doctrines all fit together nicely, they're very elegant, they're
very beautiful to behold, and I'm not even saying that's a
bad thing, but what I'm saying is the gospel is not merely made
of a nicely connected series of doctrines, it is a declaration
of events that actually happened in space and time, and some people
saw it, and they have declared to us what they saw. Now, why
do I go to all that reason or all that explanation? Because
we who live within the framework of time and space understand
reality in that way. We can kind of think about eternal
things, but we really cannot grasp even what eternity means,
let alone what it must be for things to be done in eternity. We cannot fathom a God who exists
outside the framework of time and space, because we simply
cannot think of anything apart from time and space. If we think
about an event, we want to know when did it happen? How long
did it take? We're always talking about time.
Where did it happen? That's how we describe things.
And yet the eternal God does not exist in space. He does not
exist in time. We don't even know how to think
about him, let alone talk about him. And so what did he do? He entered our time and space. And here within the framework
that we understand, he accomplished something. And we rest upon what he was
done, what he has done. The gospel is spoken, and actually
in this sense of the word, it can be understood intellectually
by almost anybody. Now when we say that the natural
man can't understand the gospel, we don't mean that he can't understand
the doctrines of it. He certainly can. When we say
that the scripture set forth that all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God, he can understand what those words
mean. When we say that our sins were laid upon the Lord Jesus
Christ and he stood in the presence of God bearing our sins and he
bore within himself the punishment of our sins, they can understand
that concept. What we mean is that he cannot
understand them so as to receive them as true. For example, you
and I can understand other religions, can't we? If we wanted to take
the time, we could learn their doctrines, but we can't believe
them, can we? Likewise, that one who has not
been born by the Spirit of God, we can open this Bible and tell
him what's in there, and he can look and say, yeah, that's what
that says. I understand that, yeah, but he can't believe it.
He can't rest his soul to it. He cannot receive it. Now this
testimony is recorded for us in the scriptures. Look over
at Romans chapter 1. Now this testimony is an objective
historical reality. What do I mean by objective?
We wouldn't, up until about a hundred years or so ago, we wouldn't
have even had to use that word objective. But now you have people
that believe truth is subjective. That is, What's truth for you
might not be truth for me. And I've heard people saying
things like that. Well, you know, that's a good
truth for you. But wait a minute, truth is truth. A thing is either true or it
is not. And so this truth that we believe is an objective outside
of us truth. It's true whether or not we believe
it. You know, when we preach the
truth and someone gets upset about it, they say, well, I don't
believe that. It doesn't change anything. It doesn't change whether
or not it's true, does it? No. Our reaction to the truth
of the gospel has no effect on the truth whatsoever. It may
have a big effect on us, but it has no effect on the truth.
This truth is historical, it's out there, this truth is recorded
in the scriptures. It says in the book of Romans
chapter 1 verse 2, the gospel he promised beforehand through
his prophets in the holy scriptures. And then over in 2nd Timothy
chapter 3 verse 15, Paul said to Timothy, from a child you
have known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise
unto salvation. Now at the time these words were
written, all the scriptures there were were the Old Testament scriptures.
But those Old Testament scriptures are the testimony of God regarding
His Son and they are a declaration of the gospel. Now it was declared
in a very shadowy way. It was declared in promises,
declared in prophecies, declared in pictures and illustrations,
but it was there. But what do I mean by this? Well,
why do I make this point? Historically, it's outside of
us and is unchanged by whether or not we believe it. In the
scriptures, it's outside of us, isn't it? This scripture doesn't
change because I want it to. I'm reminded of when Brother
Mahan was talking to one of his buddies from back in his free
will days, you know, and they were looking at the scriptures
and, you know, his buddy was still in free willism. And Henry
said, well, let me read you this. And he turned to Romans chapter
nine, that chapter that just sets forth the sovereignty of
God in absolutely everything, but especially salvation. And
he read that scripture to that man. And then he looked up at
the man, he said, now, do you believe that? The man said, well,
not the way you read it. We mean not the way you read it. There
it is. We can't change it, can we? That's why I'm glad that
God saw fit to write His Word down, or have men write it down.
And I know there are people who say, oh, you can't trust what's
in the Bible, because there's such differences among the manuscripts.
Well, I've looked. And do you realize that there
is not any text in all the world, in all of history, that so closely
resembles the ancient versions. And there are so few differences
in those ancient copies, and none of them makes any significant
difference in what it said. You and I have a trustworthy
declaration of God's truth in the scriptures. We know, or we can know, what
the prophets said, what the apostles preached, and what they wrote.
It's written down here. And it hasn't changed because
it's written. You know, if we want to seal up the truth that something's
important, say some kind of contract we're entering into that involves
a good deal of money, you might say, well, you know, around here
we do business on a handshake. It may be that your honesty is
good enough for that, but your memory might not be. And it's
always good, isn't it, to write things down? Because if you write
them down, what's written won't change. I've noticed this, my
memory changes. I forget things that happened,
and unfortunately, I'm getting to the point I'm remembering
things that never happened. Memory is fallible, even if you're
an honest person. If you haven't written something
down, your memory can shift and you begin to believe things that
aren't so. And so if you're gonna write
down, if you're getting into contracts, good to write it down so you
can always go back and refer. We've got scriptures. You and I can always go back
to this book and see whether what we believe aligns with what
it says. Knowing this, if our faith aligns
with what the word of scripture say, that our faith is the faith
of God, the faith that comes from God. And we are not dependent
on the integrity or the memory of those who preach to us. We're so privileged to have such
easy access to Bibles. I saw a video, probably been
at least a year ago. I mean, it actually, I wept watching
it. You know, it's been a long time
since you could have a Bible in China. Those people have lived
under such political tyranny for so long, and that tyranny
hated Christianity. And only in recent years have
they begun to allow Preachers to come in and declare. Of course,
there were believers there. But you know, they had to live
on word of mouth. You couldn't get a Bible in there.
Now you can. And here was this video of this
group of believers gathering together. And somebody, probably
from the United States, had sent boxes of Bibles. And they were
handing out Bibles to these people. And you would have thought you
were giving them bricks of gold. The way they latched on to that.
And they were, Bibles, as I recall, they were kind of wrapped up
in plastic or something. And they were so anxious to get them
open. And to read what God had said. His testimony. They'd heard it. But oh, how good to have a written
copy of it in your own hand. so that you can always check
what's being told to you. You can always check and correct
what you're believing because we have an unchanging word in
our hands. Back in the days of the Protestant
Reformation, one of the things that brought it about, one of
the what we might call a secular thing, but you know God's in
control of the secular things too, but one of the technological
advances of the day was what they called movable type. and
the printing press. And that's when they first got,
someone came up with the idea, let's carve out a lot of little
letters, and you can arrange them however you want in some
kind of rack, and then you can print copy after copy after copy
of something. And that's when they started
printing Bibles, and it became possible for people to get their
own copy of the Bible, or maybe a church to have its own copy
of the Bible. And the Catholic Church didn't
care for that much. And I'll tell you, you ought
to be suspicious of any religious group that doesn't want the Bible
put in the hands of the people. It means they got something to
hide. And they knew full well, if this
book ever gets out, it's going to pull the supports out from
under them. And the story is told up in Ireland that just
a simple farmer had a copy of the Bible. And the local priest
came to him, you know, and said, I see you have a Bible there.
And the man said, yes, I do. And he says, well, laddie, he
says, why don't you give me that and I'll make sure you get God's
spiritual milk. And the preacher said, well,
I appreciate that, pastor. But he says, I think I'm going
to keep a cow for myself. You and I've got it, brethren,
right here. The sincere milk of the word, and we got a cow
of our own. So we have these two external
witnesses to the truth, historical truth, scriptural truth. But we who believe have another
testimony, and it's a very powerful one. We have the testimony within
ourselves. Now there are many in the world
of Christian religion who have Bibles, who have a knowledge
of the historical events which make up the gospel, and in having
those things they believe that they have been saved and are
participating in the blessings of God. But it's written here
in verse 10 of 1 John chapter 5, anyone who believes in the
Son of God has this testimony in his heart, in himself. To the believer, the gospel is
not simply some external system of religion. It is part and parcel
of who he is. Now we often say that the one who's not been born
of God cannot believe the gospel, and that's true. That's true.
But you want to know something equally true? He who has been born of God cannot
not believe the gospel. Why? Because the words in him,
it's a part of him. You'd have to make him into a
different man to make him disbelieve it. There may be times that you
can say, well, do you believe the gospel? And he'll scratch
his head and he might say, well, you know, at times I wonder whether
or not I do. But try to get him to deny it. Try to get someone born of God
to deny Christ. I mean, deny the truth of Christ.
In fact, the Apostle Paul in one place says, no one says by
the Spirit of God that Christ is accursed. You see, they were being challenged
on this by the secular rulers. They were supposed to declare
that Caesar is Lord. and that Christ was just a cursed
criminal on a cross. And they could not get those
believers to do that, why? Because the spirit in them would
not let it happen. The word was in them because
the spirit was in them and they could not deny the word that
was in them. Now people can be brought to
deny a word that's outside of them. They can be brought to the point
of abandoning a truth maybe that they have long held to, but it
really never was a part of what they are. But he says this testimony, it's
in the one who believes. It's part of who they are. Now it's not for us to determine that if a person at any given
moment is found to deny the gospel, or even to leave a place where
the gospel is preached, it's not up to us to say such a one
is lost, because at any given moment, any one of us might prove
unfaithful. You say, I never would. Well,
remember, the Apostle Peter said that the night before the crucifixion. I'll follow you to the death. Well, if you swell yourself up
to such a confession, the Lord just might put you to a test
that makes you break. And you realize that in the hour
of trouble, you might be made to deny that you know Christ. But as Brother Mahan one time
pointed out, he said Peter denied that he knew Christ, but he never
denied that Jesus was the Christ. There's a difference. Yeah, it
was cowardly for him to disassociate himself from Jesus, but the testimony
was in him and he could not deny that Jesus is indeed the Christ. You cannot move a real believer
from the testimony of God. Can't be done. John says in this
very book about those who went out from them, and he's speaking
of preachers, but it could be applied to about anybody, says,
they went out from us. Had they been one of us, they
no doubt would have remained with us. But the fact that they
left is proof they never really were part of us. Now, believers
fall out with one another and churches split and people leave.
And that does not mean that whoever left doesn't believe the gospel,
nor does it necessarily mean that those who are left behind
don't believe the gospel. Unfortunately, not every split
that happens in churches is between sheep and goats. But you can pretty much follow
this rule. If a person leaves the preaching
of the gospel in order that he may worship where the gospel
is not preached, that puts a big question mark on what's inside
their hearts. Doesn't mean God can't restore
them, but the testimony of the gospel
is in a person and it therefore controls him. It's a part of
what he is. He cannot utterly deny it. Now what is this testimony? Well,
it is the testimony of God concerning his son. It's not the testimony of the
apostles, though the apostles did declare it. And yet before
they ever declared it, God did. Now, because it's God's testimony
concerning his son, and we see that in verse nine, by the way,
we accept man's testimony, but God's testimony is greater because
it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his son. And
if you look over here at Hebrews chapter six, Hebrews chapter six, beginning at verse 17. Because
God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear
to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath.
Now, how condescending on the part of God here. God, who cannot
lie, made a promise. But he understood how dishonest
we are. And that we won't believe anybody
about something really important unless they swear on it. That's
why people have to swear when they give testimony in court.
Because by nature, we're liars. And if the truth is gonna get
us in trouble, we're likely to tell a fib, aren't we? So God
condescended to speak to us in the language of liars. so that
we could be very sure of the unchanging nature of his purpose.
Verse 18, God did this so that by two unchangeable things in
which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take
hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. Two
things in which is impossible for God to lie. He spoke it and
he swore by what he spoke. That's why John said that anybody
who doesn't believe the gospel, the word, the testimony concerning
God's son, has made God to be a liar. Because he spoke it and
he swore on it. Now that makes it pretty certain,
doesn't it? How much more could God do to prove to you the sincerity
of his promise, the trustworthiness of it? He spoke it in plain words
and sealed it with an oath so that you and I might have great
confidence in what He said. How kind of Him to speak that
way. All the Old Testament is God's testimony concerning His
Son. And then if we go back to 1 John chapter 5, we're gonna see a threefold divine
testimony. Threefold divine testimony. Now,
why do we say threefold? Well, why did John point out
three ways in which this divine testimony was confirmed? Because
it was written in the law, in the mouth of two or three witnesses,
every fact shall be established. And so John says, I can call
forth witnesses now. I can bring forward to you three
witnesses to the testimony concerning Jesus Christ. And all three of
these witnesses are divine witnesses. In verse six, this is one who
came by water and blood, Jesus Christ. He did not come by water
only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies,
because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify,
the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and the three are in agreement. So here are three that agree
on this testimony. It is the Spirit, the water,
and the blood. Now what does he mean that Jesus
Christ came by water and blood? That does seem a strange thing. Well, if we understand the context,
in which John was writing these words, and what error he was
fighting. And you've often heard me mention
the Gnostics, and that's what the book of 1 John was written
to deal with, Gnosticism. And part of what these Gnostics
believed is this, that Jesus was just a man, but when he was
baptized in the water, the Christ spirit descended on him. But
just before he died, the Christ spirit left him. And it was a
mere man that died on Calvary. And John says he didn't come
just by water at baptism. He came by blood. He came, the same one who was
baptized is the same one that died on the tree. Now how are
those divine testimonies? Well Scott and I did not collude
but he read to us about our Lord's baptism and what do we find happens
when our Lord is baptized by John in the River Jordan? The Spirit of God descends and
a voice from heaven gives testimony. You are my son whom I love. With you I am well pleased."
Luke records it as though the father was speaking directly
to the son. Matthew and Mark record it as
though God was speaking to the crowd, for it simply says, this
is my son whom I love. With him I am well pleased. But
both ways of putting it are the same testimony, isn't it? This
is God testifying that Jesus is his son. Not that he became
his son, not that some kind of spirit fell on him at that time
making him his son, rather the spirit came upon him in the form
of a dove because he is God's son. This is my beloved son. Divine testimony one, the baptism
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Divine testimony two, the blood. This same Jesus whom the father
opened the heavens and says this is my son, he goes on for about
three years teaching preaching and then he is crucified
now so far as the eye of flesh can see he was crucified because
he did not have the wisdom to moderate his words so as not
to upset the status quo of the powers that be and you know something
in the in the realm of what we call second causes that's true
Why did the Pharisees hate him? Why did the temple authorities
hate him? Because he was rattling their
cage really bad and he was a threat to their place in the world and
their riches. And that's what motivated them
to call for his crucifixion. Why did the Romans consent to
his crucifixion? Did Pilate say, you know I read
in the Bible that God's son was supposed to come and die in the
place of his people, I guess this must be it so I must allow
it to happen. He wasn't thinking anything like that at all. If
you read the story, he's being the consummate politician. He's
thinking to himself, oh, what a mess, why'd they ever, this
is really, you get this impression. He's saying, why did they send
me among these Jews? They got these weird ideas, they
got these weird laws, and they're always up in arms about it, and
now they got this guy, who I can tell, he didn't do anything wrong,
he's just a preacher. He means essentially nothing,
but it's an uproar, and I gotta find a way to settle these people
down. And so he consents to his crucifixion. But what we learn
from the scriptures is that's not really what was going on
at all. For Peter preaches to us on the day of Pentecost and
says, God foreordained everything that happened. And it was his
testimony of who Jesus Christ is, that he is the Messiah. And this blood that was shed,
it was not just the shedding of the blood that was the testimony. Let's look over here. I'm going
out on a limb a little bit here. Romans chapter one. I hope I've
remembered the right scripture here. Romans chapter one. Yeah. We'll just begin reading at verse
one. Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle
and set apart for the gospel of God. The gospel he promised
beforehand through his prophets and the holy scriptures regarding
his son, who as to the flesh, his human nature, was a descendant
of David, and now look at this, and who through the spirit of
holiness was declared with power to be what? The son of God. by his resurrection from the
dead, Jesus Christ our Lord. Here's another divine testimony
of who Christ is. He was raised from the dead and
that not only tells us who he is, declared with power to be
the Son of God, it also declares that the blood he shed was sufficient
to put away the sins that he bore or God never would have
raised him from the dead. Divine testimony of one, or divine
testimony number one, God opens a heaven and plainly says, this
is my son. Divine testimony two, the Spirit of God, exercising
the power of God, declared Jesus Christ to be the Son of God by
his resurrection from the dead. Divine testimony number three,
going back to 1 John chapter five, There's threefold testimony. We got the water and the blood
and it says in the spirit. The spirit testified to who Christ
is by giving him power to do things that no normal man could
do. The Lord Jesus Christ said the
spirit of the Lord is upon me and he gives a long list of miraculous
things ending with and to preach the gospel and to declare the
year of God's acceptance. And after that After Christ was
raised from the dead and went back to the Father, the Spirit
of God descended upon the apostles and gave them powers that no
normal man has. Gave them the ability to speak
in languages they had never naturally learned. Enabled them to heal diseases
that no one else could heal. Why? To testify that the message
they were proclaiming is the truth. A threefold divine testimony. And what is the summary of this
testimony? Verse 11. First John chapter five. And
this is the testimony. God has given us eternal life. First part of this testimony
is eternal life is a gift. The wages of sin is death. And
you can earn death. And we all did earn death, didn't
we? But the gift of God is eternal life. If you have eternal life,
it was given to you as a gift. You didn't do anything to earn
it or qualify for it. God has given us eternal life
and this life is in his son. John, in the book of John said,
when the word came into the world, and that word is Jesus Christ,
it says that he was the light of the world, and this light
was the life, excuse me, this life, he was the life, and this
life was the light of men. This eternal life that he brings
and imparts to his people, gives them the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Verse 12, he who has the son has life. He who does not have the son
does not have life. It's one of those things you
can't misunderstand. You may not believe it, but you
cannot misunderstand that. If you got the son, you've got
that life. If you don't have the son, you
ain't got the life. And this life is an inner thing,
thus he says, the one who believes has this testimony in him. This word is a living thing. It makes its home in believers.
Hebrews chapter four, verse 12 says the word of God is alive
and powerful. Now we got this little group
here and we might think this word can't be too powerful, it
hasn't gathered a lot of people. That's only because the word
hasn't tried to. But here's the proof of the power. To my recollection, Today is exactly 29 years since
I drove my family to Iowa. Now, I looked on the calendar,
and that makes it a Friday. Bonnie said, no, we came on a
Saturday. So maybe it's tomorrow is 29
years. I don't know. For us, that's
pretty long. That's almost half of my life.
Some of you have walked with us that entire time. Some of you came later on, but
most of you have been walking in this truth for quite a few
years, and you've done so despite many temptations not to. You've
done so despite the problems that naturally arise among any
group of human beings that get together regularly. And we do
things that upset each other. And yet you didn't quit listening
to the gospel because you got upset at some other person who
listens to the gospel or even the one who preaches it. You kept listening. Why? Other
people don't do that. They get upset the preacher.
They get rid of the preacher and go somewhere else. Why didn't you? And then you've suffered at the
hands maybe of friends and family who backed up a couple of steps
once you decided to align with this message and this church. You could have, with a little
bit of compromise, kept your friends. But you didn't compromise. You
just kept right on coming. Felt you had to. Some of you have endured some
serious, serious trials of life. God has ordained things for you
that I don't know how you bore them. I'm speaking humanly here. I've seen trials, much less trials,
come upon some professors of this gospel, that is some people
who profess to believe this gospel, and then some lesser trial than
what you've had to deal with fell upon you, and they went
out the door. They got mad. Because God didn't treat them
like they think he should. Some of you have endured such
difficulties as would have sent any goat out the door, but here
you are. You want to know why? Well, it's
not because I'm a particularly good preacher. I don't have the
power to keep you because I don't even have power to keep me. It's not because we have such
a well-described form of doctrine. Here's why you didn't leave.
The Word is in you. That's why. It's part and parcel
of what you are. God has worked a work in you
and changed you so that you believe a certain thing and you can't
believe otherwise and you cannot tolerate listening to something
else. That's why. I remember Don Fortner once telling
a story about some new church was getting started in town and
was as is typical of the churches in the southeast when a new church
starts they just they go out there and try to get everybody
they can to come to the church and become a part of their church
and that includes if they can get people that go to your church
To switch churches, that's as good to them as anything else.
And so they were going door-to-door knocking and all that, and somebody
in that little church there in Danville, Kentucky, where Brother
Fortner's the pastor, they got scared. You know, when you got
a small congregation, you don't want to lose any of them. And they
came up to Brother Don and said, I tell you, those people are
going around door-to-door. They're even trying to get some of our folks
to leave and go to their church. And Don said this, they can have
everyone they can convince. And brethren, that's the truth.
That's the truth. They can have everyone they can
convince. Why? Because if the word is in you,
they won't be able to convince you of anything contrary to the
word. That make sense? All blessed
work of God. He did not just give us a Bible. I'm glad he did. But he gave
us a testimony far more powerful in us. He put the word in us. He said to the Pharisees, my
word has no place in you. You don't believe. But the word
of God was put in you, and you can't help but believe. And that
is a great encouragement to me with regard to myself, because
I often think, boy, if I live another 30 years, will I keep
believing? Oh, if the word's in me, I will. And then because
I'm a worrier by nature, I worry about everybody out there. Well,
is any of them going to leave? Not if the word's in them. They
will remain true and faithful to the end. Well, God add his
blessing. Father, bless us as only you
can bless. Make your word powerful indeed.
May it find a place in our hearts. Hold us back from the sin of
unbelief. Keep us true to your word. In
Christ's name we pray it.