I wanted that song because that's
what happened to Donald Fortner about one o'clock in the morning.
Went to sleep and woke up in the presence of Christ. Oh, what
a blessing, what a blessing. Now back over here in 1 John,
I want you to look in verse 18 through 20 and you'll see my
subject. As we know, verse 19, we know,
and verse 20, and we know. I want to talk about we know,
we know, and we know. We know, that's one of John's
favorite expressions. You know with love and light,
and we know, we know, we know. And he speaks in certainty. He
speaks in dogmatism. He says we know. There are people
in religion who say you can't know until you get there. You
can't know if you made it until you got there. You may not make
it. If you don't live right and you
end up dying with sin or something, you won't get to go there. And
people live their lives in fear that they won't make it. But
John says we know. We know. We don't have to guess.
We don't have to think. John says we know. He says it
three times. Three times. Well, and he says
it more than that in this chapter, but right here in three verses
he says it three times. Three times. And you know, I
tell you what he said over here in chapter 14, looking for chapter
14, excuse me, chapter 3 in verse 14. Here's another one of his
we know. We know. That we've passed from death
unto life, how do we know we've passed from death unto life?
Well, I tell you what, if you're dead and you have life, you know
that you got life. But here's one of the evidences
and one of the proofs that we've been passed from death unto life. Everybody knows what it's like
to go from life to death. Everybody has experienced that
with somebody they love. But go from death to life. And this is the reason because
we love the brethren. We love the brethren. And he that loveth not his brethren,
he's still undead. He's still dead. He's still dead.
And so I tell you what, let's go back over here in our text
now. Look what it says here. And we know that whosoever is
born of God sinneth not. That's the first thing we know.
We know that whosoever, whosoever, You can put your name in there,
anybody's name in there. We know that whosoever is born
of God sinneth not. And you know he mentions seven
times in this book of being born again seven times. Of being born
of God seven times. And in this particular verse
he mentions it twice. We know that whosoever is born
of God sinneth not, but he that is begotten of God. Not only
born of God, but begotten of God. And we go through the scripture,
it says, so and so begat so and so begat so and so. But he said,
here God begat us. We're God's children. He that's
born of God. And he mentions it seven different
times. Here in verse 1 of chapter 5.
He said, and know whosoever, with this word whosoever, you
know, And I love that. That means that anybody that
believes, whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ that
God sent His Son, the Anointed One, the One sent from God, the
One sent to save, the One sent with the power, the One sent
with the authority, the One sent with the work to do, the One
sent by grace, the One sent on purpose. Whosoever believeth
that Jesus is the Christ, he's born of God. I believe that Jesus
Christ was sin of God, was the eternal God, Son of God. And
I tell you what, and everyone that loveth him that begat, the
one that begat you, the one that gave you the birth, loveth him
also that is begotten of him. Verse 4, look what he says here
in verse 4. For whatsoever is born of God
overcomes the world. And this is the victor that overcometh
the world, even our faith. And you know who overcomes the
world? He that believeth that Jesus is the Christ, the Son
of God. And so back over here he says, we know that whosoever
is born of God. He mentions being born of God
seven different times. Seven different times. And when
it says, sinneth not, what he's saying is that it's not his tenor
of life. It's not how he lives his life.
It's not how he conducts his life. His tenor of life, and
a tenor of life is how somebody consistently lives. His tenor
of life is different. That man that's born of God,
his tenor of life is different. What makes it different? Because
he's born of God. He's begotten of God. And I'll
tell you, beloved, when you talk about being begotten of God,
the Scriptures tell us that if any man be in Christ, he's a
new creature. He's a new creature. A new creature. A new nature. He that's begotten,
you know, He says, we're made partakers of the divine nature.
And I tell you what, beloved, a new creature means somebody
that was brought into existence that didn't exist before. When
you're born of God, that's what He's talking about. A new creature.
New creation. What kind of creation? A creation
of God. Born of God. God's seed within
a man. And I tell you what, He gives
him a new heart. A new heart. Oh, He takes out
that stony heart. And He puts in a heart of flesh.
He takes out that heart that's so hard. That heart that can't
be touched. And there's still hearts that's
past feeling. But oh beloved God, He takes out that stony
heart and He puts in a new heart. A new heart. And then He not
only puts in a new heart. A heart that can be touched.
A heart that can feel. A heart that can love. Things
that never loved before. Then not only that, but He gives
you a new mind. I mean a new mind. Your mind's
different than it was before you was born of God, ain't it?
You know, our mind, and our mind means our heart. It means the
same thing as our heart. Mind. What we think, what we
feel, how we act, how we react to things. And I'll tell you
what, He gave us a new mind. Our minds was once darkened.
Darkened and he came and beloved he in took that darkness and
he turned on the light in that understanding and the light Beloved
took the darkness out that understanding and I tell you we've got a new
mind a mind to know God Mind to know the scriptures a mind
to know one another. Oh, we got a new mind Then we're
a new creature. He gave us a new will and He gave us a new will. One time
we were unwilling. Now He said, whosoever. Well,
I'm one of whosoever's. And you know how I became willing?
In the day of His power, He made us willing. And He gave us a
new will. This will, you know, look back
up here. Look back up here in verse 14.
This is what I'm talking about. Give us a new will. This is the
confidence that we have in him that we ask anything Now we're
talking about praying here We have this confidence in Christ
that if we ask anything and here's the qualification According to
his will we hear is him now. Would you ever pray against God's
will and No, you've got a will that wants God's will. Your will
submits to God's will. Your will submits to the Word
of God. Your will submits to your place
in this world. And we've got a new will. And
oh, new loves. Oh, we have such new loves. We do have new loves. Oh, we
love God. We love Christ. We love the brethren. We love the scriptures. We love
our husbands, we love our wives, we love our children. One thing
we don't love, we don't love the world. And I tell you what,
He gives us new desires. New desires. We desire. Our desires
are different than they used to be. I mean, we desire fellowship
with God. We desire fellowship with God.
We desire fellowship with the gospel. We desire the Holy Spirit. We desire one another. We desire
a reunion with Christ. We desire for the day that we'll
see Christ face to face. There was a time we didn't have
a desire. Now we have a desire. You're here because you desire
to be here. I'm here because I desire to
be here. I want to be here. This is my
desire. And our Lord Jesus told His disciples,
He said, With desire have I desired to eat this supper with you. He said, I desired to come down
to the place when I would eat my last supper with you. When
I would break this bread and say, this is my body. When I
would hand you this cup of wine and say, this is my blood. He
said, I desired to do that. I desire to come to this place
because I know that when this is done, I've got to go and face
God on the cross. I've got to go face your sins.
And I'm going to give you something to remember me by. Broken bread
and a broken body and blood that was shed for you. And I tell
you what, that's what we do. We desire to be with Him. We desire to know Him. We desire
to know Him better, to know Him more. And I want you to look
over here. And I tell you what, when we're
talking about born of God, begotten of God, look in chapter 3 and
verse 9. He sinneth not. He said here
in verse 9, Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin. Wait
a minute! Whoa! Over there he talked about
sinning not. Over here it says you can't sin.
Huh? Oh, he has God's seed in him.
And listen to this. Whosoever is born of God doeth
not commit sin. For his seed, whose seed, Christ's
seed, remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born
of God. Well, when we talk about Christ,
Christ in you, He has God's seed in Him. He cannot sin. We have a nature that cannot
sin, and then we have a nature that can do nothing but sin.
And this is what we're talking about when we talk about holiness.
Holiness and sanctification are one and the same. And you can't
have Christ and not be holy. And I'll tell you, God Himself
said He cannot sin that's born of God. And you know why sin bothers
us? Because of that new nature. I never had a problem with sin
and you didn't either. We didn't have a problem with
pride. We didn't have a problem with self-righteousness. We didn't
have a problem with legalism. We didn't have a problem with
religion. We didn't have a problem with anything until God put his
seed in us and then we started having a warfare in our souls. Paul said with my mind I served
the law of God. I'm sinless before God but in His flesh I'm a servant
of sin in His flesh And beloved, I can't explain that, but you
know it and I know it and God says it. If God says you cannot
sin, you reckon He means what you cannot sin? He said He had
a record. He had a testimony. And I'm going to believe God.
I don't care what anybody says. And you say, well you say you
don't sin. I say I cannot sin. But I've
also got a nature that can't do nothing else but that. And everybody in this building
this morning, everybody that's been born of God knows exactly
what I'm talking about. They understand, all the believers
understand that. You know, everybody else tells
you, you better quit your sinning. I wish I could. One of these days I will. But
this is the way, this is the way God views us. Can He view
His Son having sin? No. Do we have any sin? No. Why? Because Christ bore
it away in His own body on the cross. And beloved, He being
dead to sin, But alive under God, when you die under sin,
you die once. And we died in Christ, and we
died under sin, and Christ put our sin away. So even though
we have sin with this old nature as far as God's concerned, we
don't have sin even in the record of heaven itself right now. God says you don't have it. He
said there are sins and iniquities, will I remember no more. Who
is that? People that are born of God. And what John is saying here,
we know those regenerated by the grace and power of God, born
of God, begotten of God, those that have been regenerated by
the grace and the power of God, they have Christ formed in them. Christ is formed in them. This
is the mystery. What mystery? Had been hid that
when Christ come, when Christ lived and Christ died, and Christ
comes back again by the Spirit of God, He said, I'll put my
seed in you. And He said, that seed that's
born of God and comes in you, He said, that's Christ in you
Himself. He told us, He said, I and my
Father will come and live with you, abide with you, that means
I'm going to dwell with you, I'm going to live with you. And
ain't you grateful that God lives in us? That's the only thing
that makes us answer to Christ right now, is Christ in us recognizes
Christ. That's why we don't have to have
the witness of men, we've already got the witness of God in ourselves. Who is He? Christ in you. And that's our hope of glory.
Oh, bless His name. I tell you what, the made partakers
of the divine nature, He's begotten of God. And I tell you what,
He said there's a sin unto death. They don't and they won't sin
the sin unto death. Two sins, two sins that will
cause us to sin unto death. One is the blasphemy against
the Holy Ghost. He said that sin will never be
forgiven you. And the second is, is an apostasy. Falling away,
walking away from the truth of the gospel. Walking away from
Christ, the only sacrifice from sin. Coming and saying, I believe,
I believe, I believe, and then one day you say, I don't believe
anymore, or you just quit, and you walk away from Christ. Falling
away. That's a sin unto death. You
leave Christ, and there's no hope for you. There's not another
sacrifice, and Christ is not going to be crucified again.
There's no other way for God to have anything to do with man
other than His Son. You walk away from that. You're
walking away from the only thing God has for a man in this world.
Huh? And I tell you what, He says
the end wouldn't come until there first come a falling away. And
that falling away is falling away from the Gospel. Falling
away from the truth. Not falling away from religion.
Men don't never fall away from, I've never heard a preacher that
didn't start preaching that he don't give up his profession
of faith. No matter what he preaches. He'll start preaching the gospel. I know a preacher that preached
the gospel for a long time and then all of a sudden he decided
I don't believe in particular redemption anymore. Well he didn't
believe the gospel to start with. You cannot believe the gospel
and not believe that Christ died for a particular people. Huh? Oh my. I know two preachers had
done that. Two preachers had done that.
They decided, Tim James went one place to preach in a place
down in Alabama, and that preacher got up and said, you know, I
used to believe in particular redemption, I don't believe in
it anymore. And Tim got up and said, oh I wish you hadn't said
that. Tim got up right off the bat and said, I wish you hadn't
said that. And now that's what I'm going to have to deal with.
That's what I'm going to have to deal with. If he had kept
it to himself, Tim wouldn't have said anything. But when a man
gets up and tells you, and you're going to preach, and he says,
y'all don't believe in particular redemption, only thing you can
do is get up and preach, I lay down my life for the sheep. And
all that the Father giveth me. That's all you can do. What else can you do? But I tell
you what, that's what I'm talking about. That's a sin unto death. That's a sin unto death. And I tell you what, and I tell
you there's something else that they won't do, he that's born
of God. They will not deny the gospel of substitution and free
grace. The only thing that saved them,
the only hope they have is Christ dying for them, bearing their
sin. This is the record that God has given us. Oh my! And I tell you the free grace
of God. Oh my! And then he said all sin
is all unrighteousness is sin. But oh my! Oh, God's people,
one thing they cannot do, they cannot deny the gospel. You know,
the thing that saved them, the grace of God that came to them,
Christ that died for them, bearing their sins away, they cannot
deny Him. They can't deny that. They can't
walk away from that. It's the only hope we have. Walk away from Christ? Walk away
from free grace? Oh, no wonder. Oh, listen, then
it says here in verse 18, He's begotten of God, and God keepeth
himself, that that wicked one touches him not. And oh my, they
keep themselves. They keep themselves in the fear
of God. God put His fear in them. Oh
my, He keeps Himself with the gospels preached. They keep themselves
in the faith of Christ. They keep themselves in fellowship
with other believers. And that word keep means to watch
over, to preserve, to keep watch. And you know who's the keeper
of us? Kept by the power of God. You know what our Lord Jesus
Christ said? He said, Father, I've kept them, the lies in the
world. Now I'm leaving. Now Father,
you keep them. And there's one thing, another
thing I know about those that's begotten of God. You know who
he watches over more than anybody else? Himself. They could believe they could
fall away quicker than anybody else does. They have less hope
in themselves than they do in anybody else. They have esteemed
others better than themselves. Huh? And then it says here, and
that wicked one touches him not. That wicked one. And that word
touch means to fasten to, to cling to, to lay hold of. Now
beloved, He goes after us but He cannot fasten to us, He can't
cling to us and He can't lay hold of us. Why can't He? He
got to go through the blood. He can't do that. He can't do
that. Oh my, our Lord Jesus when He
was fixing to go back to glory and Mary, Mary was fixing to
grab hold of Him and cling to Him. He said, Mary don't do that.
Don't do that Mary. said you go tell my brethren
he said I'm not yet ascended to my God and your God to my
father and your father so don't cling to me here I gotta leave
and they got to see him go they got to see him go and then here
look what he says in verse 19 look what he says in verse 19
we're born of God we know that we're born of God We know that. And here's another one. And we
know that the Son of God has come. No, verse 19. And we know that we are of God. And the whole world lies in wickedness. How do we know we are of God? How do we know? Well, it's a
very simple question and a very simple answer to it. Do you remember
what you once were? Remember what you once were? We were lost, Christ found us. We were dead, Christ gave us
life. We were rebels, Christ subdued
us. We loved sin, Christ took the
love away from us. We were blind, but now we see. We were deaf, but now we hear. We used our mouth for everything
else than praising God and the Lord Jesus Christ. We had the
poison of asthma in our limbs. And now Christ is what we want
to think about, what we want to talk about, who we want to
sing about, who we want to preach, who we want to believe. Huh?
Oh my. John Newton said, I know, how
does he say that? I'm not what I was. I'm not what I once was. I'm not
what I will be. Three things he said. Well, I
shouldn't have even brought it up. I've done that the other day
with who? But I know who the who's are now. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? Who is he that condemneth? Who
shall separate us from the love of God? I'm going to preach on
who one of these days. Who? Who? But we know we are
of God. Ain't it something to know that
we are of God? We didn't make ourselves of God.
That's what we're talking about. How did you come of God? When
he asked Nicodemus, you must be born again, the first thing
Nicodemus said, how in the world can that happen? I'm an old man. I'm an old man. What do you think
I can do? Get back in my mother's womb
and come out again? Our Lord said, oh my, if I tell
you of earthly things and you don't understand them, how if
I tell you of heavenly things? I talk about being a new birth
from God giving you life. And oh, to know we are of God.
This is God's work. We know salvation is of the Lord.
We know that. Salvation is of God from beginning
to end. From the day God saved us till
the day we leave this world, from eternity to eternity, salvation
is of the Lord. When did we learn that? When God taught us, huh? And
I tell you what, we know that it's of grace. We are of God.
We know we're of God. We know that salvation's of the
Lord. We know it's of grace. And we know that God gets all
the glory. Huh? And the Lord Jesus Christ
did it all. And look what He says here now.
We know that we are of God. Oh, to be of God. to be of God. I don't know how
many people I've told recently, you know, they ask me what I
do and I tell them and you know I said, I said, you know I've
been pastor of the same church 41, well March was 41 years,
41 years. I said, my word that's a long
time. I said, yeah, and I ain't even got started yet. The whole world lies in wickedness. Oh, my. Is this the same world
that God so loved when the whole world lies in wickedness? Next
time you hear somebody say John 3.16, say, well, look at 1 John
5.19, the whole world lies in wickedness. Huh? The whole world lies in
wickedness. Wait a minute. I thought you
said God so loved the world. He said the whole world lies
in wickedness. How can He love a wicked world? A world that
lives in wickedness. Gonna die in wickedness. Loves
wickedness. Delights in wickedness. Huh? Hold this and look in John chapter
1 with me. I want you to see something here.
This word world is one of the most abused words in the scripture. In John 3.16 is one of the most
abused verses of scripture in God's word. God's Word when they talk about
God so loved the world and that you know over in the book of
Acts the love of God's not mentioned one time and You go through there
and look at every message as preached in the book of Acts
by Peter by John by Philip by Paul By Barnabas you go and look
at every one of those messages It was preached in that book
of Acts and they never once mentioned God loves you Christ died for
you And you need to trust Him. Never mentioned Him. Never mentioned
Him. But look what He said here in
verse 10. He was in the world. In the world. He came to this earth. That's
what He's talking about. Came into this world. Into this
world system. Into this world of religion. And then the world was made by
him. Now he's talking about the earth
there. He's talking about the world and everything that was
made. He created it. That's two different worlds right
there. And then this world that he came into, this world that
he was supposed to love so much and wanted to save so bad. And
the world, when he came, they didn't know anything about him.
Didn't expect him, wasn't looking for him, and didn't care that
he came. Three different worlds right there. And the whole world
lies in wickedness. Back over in 1 John now. The
whole world lies in wickedness. And I tell you what. It lies
in that wicked one is what he is saying. The wicked one. He wants to touch us. He wants
to touch us. He has allurements. He has attractions. And he does things to draw us
away from God. Draw us away from God. You know,
God let him tempt Job. And the Scriptures tells us we
know the patience of Job after he was tried. But I tell you
one thing God did for Job that at the end of Job's life, and
you go back and look at it, he lost 10 children. lost all of
his wealth, lost all of his possessions and you go to the last chapter
of the book of Job and God doubled what he had before. Well how
in the world, well he had 10 children in glory and he gave
him 10 children down here so he had 20 children. How'd that happen? That's the
way God does things. He said there ain't no man left
his house left his mother, left his father, left everything that
he won't have a hundredfold in this life and everlasting life
in the world to come. Oh, this religious talks about,
you know, you need to give up this for Jesus, need to give
up that for Jesus, need to give up that for God. Listen, what in the world can you give
up to get God's attention? Everything we got, it's a sin
that kept us from it. He's the one that had to deal
with it. The flesh that is so against us, He's the only one
that can subdue it. Oh my! And I tell you, He has
allurements and attractions to draw us away from God. And for
the trials, and oh my, this world's being tried, God's people are
being tried, the fact that they can't meet together, they can't
gather to worship together. Shelby's going through a trial
right now. All people go through trials. You know, a lot of folks
are going through trials. Dee Dee's going through a trial.
Severe trial. Her whole family goes with her.
Larry Matthews. People go through great trials.
Great trials. But oh my! And the difficulties
that we have ahead. And we got difficulties ahead
of us. I'm telling you. We may have
to go uphill difficulty one of these days. And been up it several
times. And we'll go up it again. But two things. First, we are
of God. We're born of God. For whatever
trials and afflictions lay ahead. We're born of God. We're loved
of God. Redeemed by God. Called of God. Sons of God. And right now, risen
and seated with Christ in the heavenly. And here's the second
thing. This world that lies in wickedness
holds nothing for us whatsoever. Oh my! This is not our home. This is not our dwelling place.
We don't look for its honors. We don't look to be recognized
by it. We don't look to be accepted by it. We don't look to go out
in and tell everybody what fine people we are. We're looking
for the day. We're looking for a city. That's what we're doing. Who's
builder and maker is God. Ain't we? Huh? Abraham went out
not knowing where he was going, but now we know where we are
going. This world has no place for us. Don't want to be recognized by
it, don't want to be honored by it. No, no. No, no. And the first thing you
think of when a believer is called home, the first thing you think
of, oh thank God, thank God, thank God. Bless the Lord. He's ceased from their labors
and entered into rest. Alright, here's the next third
thing that we know. We know, we know, and then look
what it says here, and we know. And here's something we know.
He that's born of God. We know that the Son of God has
come. We know the Son of God has come.
When we talk about the Son of God coming, what are we talking
about? We're talking about God in the person of Jesus Christ
coming into this world in the flesh. Born of a woman. Made of a woman. Come into this
world. Made under the law. And when
He came into this world, He was God when He came here. He was
the eternal God. But when He came here, He took
upon Him flesh. He took upon Him humanity. And
once He became a man, He never ceased to be God. And once He
became a man and a sinless man, He'll always be a man, God and
man in the same person, the Lord Jesus Christ. We know that He
come into flesh. We know why He had to come into
flesh. We know what He came to do in the flesh. We know why
He came to have a body. You know why He had to have a
body? God has prepared me a body. What for? To be a sacrifice. To be a substitute. To be a sin
offering. And I tell you, we know that
the Son of God's come. He come. And He come into a sin-cursed
world. Sin-cursed world. Hated of God
he come into a world full of darkness And he was the light
of God that came into this world of darkness He come to be despised
and rejected of men But he also come to do a work He came to do a work what was
that work I The one the Father gave Him.
What was that work that the Father gave Him? Father, they were Thine. And You gave them to me. You gave them to me. And everyone You gave to me. I've not lost one of them. And
Father, I've received this commandment from You that I lay down my life
for the sheep. I'm the good shepherd that lays
down his life for the sheep. And as a corn of wheat, Bruce
preached it yesterday, as a corn of wheat, Christ as a corn of
wheat dies, put in the ground, except it dies, it bites alone.
But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit. And beloved, we're
the fruit of God. We're that fruit. of the death
of our Lord Jesus Christ and His resurrection. He worked out
a salvation for us. He was obedient to His Father. His soul was made an offering
for sin. And He suffered. Oh, He suffered. How much did He suffer? So much
so that He died. Why did He die? If He was sinless,
why did He die? Well, he wasn't sinless. In himself
he was, but he had somebody else's sin that he had to deal with.
He had someone else's sin that he had to bear. All the sins of all his elect
for all time and eternity he bore all their sins in his own
body. And he put him away once and
for all by the sacrifice of himself. Then look what it says there.
We know that the Son of God has come, and listen to this, and
hath given us an understanding. by goodness. He said I pray not for the world
but for them that gave us me out of the world and all he has
given us and we have come. He has come. How? In the gospel. He came in the
truth. He came by the Spirit of God.
And He gave us an understanding. Oh, I've got to hurry. He giveth
us an understanding. Well, what did He give us an
understanding of? Of God. That's the first thing He gave
us. No man cometh unto me except the Father which sent me drawing.
And he that hath been drawn and been taught of the Father, he
hath to be taught, cometh unto me. He giveth us an understanding
of God. He giveth us an understanding
of himself. Thank God we know something about
Christ. Nothing like we want to know. We are not even close to what
we know about Him when we get there. And oh my! He taught us
and gave us an understanding of ourselves. What do we understand
about ourselves? We are nothing. We are nothing. We don't have anything. We can't
do anything. We have no worth. We have no
merit. We have no works. He gave us an understanding of
Himself, and then if He gave us an understanding of ourselves
without giving us an understanding of Him, that would have been
an awful state to be in, wouldn't it? And then He gave us an understanding
of our oneness with the Father, an understanding of the truths
of the Gospel, and the mysteries of God's blessed grace. And this
is why He come and give us an understanding. Listen to this. that we may know him that is
true. That's why he come and give us
an understanding that we can know him. You don't know me unless
I give you an understanding and not only that but he said he
gave us an understanding that we may know him that is true. True. The Father The one true
God. The Lord Jesus Christ. We're
in Christ by the will of God. We're in Christ on purpose. We're in Christ by election.
We're in Christ by faith. And look what he says. We are
in Him that is true, even in His Son, Jesus Christ. Oh my! God put us in Christ.
And listen to this. This is the true God and eternal
life. I am come, thou hast given him
power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to them
that know him. And this is eternal life, that
they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
thou hast sent. And then look what he says. Little
children, little children. Now he turns around, you know,
you're born of God, you are of God. Son of God, come give us
understanding." And then he turns around and says, little children.
Children of God, keep yourselves from idols. What he's saying,
keep yourself from false gods. Keep yourself from anything or
anyone that would take the place in your heart of the Lord Jesus
Christ. In your heart that's due to Christ
and God himself. Keep yourself from traditions.
superstitions, images. You know, when you close, you know, there
was a time that I had an image in my mind of what Christ was
like. But I don't now, I don't have, when I close my mind, I
don't have an image of what Christ looks like physically whatsoever.
Do you? No more. I don't have any image
of God. and I see these pictures of him
and I used to have a picture, you know, of Christ with a crown
over his head and a crown of thorns around and they put it
on the wall and everywhere you looked his eyes was following
you. Well, no, that's not him. Old moon, you know, that was
of the moonies. He said, he said, Jesus Christ,
I've seen Jesus Christ. I said, how do you know it's
him? He said, he looked just like the pictures. No, we don't want no images of
Christ. We don't want no image out in
our garden. We don't want Mary out there
in a statue, Jesus in a statue. We don't want none of them things.
Keep yourself from religious practices and observances brought
to you by so-called Christians. And this is the last thing I'll
say. If things are not according to the scriptures, don't have
nothing to do with it. Right? If they can't show you
in the Bible, say, well, I don't want it. I don't want it. I don't want it. Our Father and our Savior, thank
you for allowing us to preach the gospel this morning. Thank
you for the truth. And oh God, thank you for the
presence and your blessings. Thank you for those that's come
out. Thank you for those that's watching today. I pray that it's
been made a blessing to all of us and especially those that
are here. Those that hear, God bless the
word to our hearts, to our understandings, to our hearts and souls. Make
Christ, make Christ more to us than anything in this world.
Oh God, make Christ so precious to us. Make Christ to be the
lover of our souls, and we know He is. But make us to be lovers
of Christ, and lovers of one another. Please continue to come. Please continue to give us understanding
of your precious Word, and ourselves, and our Lord Jesus, and God Himself. We ask you to keep coming. Keep
giving us an understanding. We thank you for it in Christ's
name. Amen. Amen. Reach out and touch the
Lord as he passes by. You'll find he's not too busy
to hear your heart. See you tonight. Six o'clock.