to 1 John 3. I've looked very
much forward to being here this evening. But 1 John 3, and let me give you the
latest news on Brother Gary. He's doing extremely well, very,
very good. And he has a swelling in the
upper chamber of his heart, and the The doctor today gave a CAT
scan of his heart to make a measurement by, and he'll get to come home
tomorrow, but they wanted to make a measurement of it so that
when he comes back and does another one, they'll see how well the
medicine and things will do it. But he is just, he's running
on all eight cylinders. He's feeling very, very good,
and the Lord had mercy on him and us by sparing him, not letting
it be any worse than it possibly could be. Here's another good
one that James gave. We'll start reading again in
verse four, down to verse 15. Whosoever commits sin transgresses
also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law. And
you know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and in
him is no sin. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth
not. Whosoever sinneth hath not seen
him, neither known him. The little children. Let no man
deceive you. He that doeth righteousness is
righteous, even as he is righteous. He that committeth sin is of
the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this
purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works
of the devil. Whosoever is born of God doth
not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him. And he cannot
sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are
manifest, and the children of the devil. Whosoever doeth not
righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his
brother. For this is the message that ye have heard from the beginning,
that we should love one another, not as Cain, who was of that
wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him, because
his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous. Marvel
not, my brethren, if the world hate you. We know that we have
passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. He that
loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his
brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer hath eternal
life abiding in him. All right, look back here with
me in John chapter 10. John 10, John chapter 3, 1st
John chapter 3. Must have John 10 on my mind.
But I want to get my subject, the title of my message there,
out of verse 11. This, for this is the message,
this is the message. In the margin it says commandment,
commandment. And I'm going to deal with verses
10 through 15 this evening, if I can. And John, through his
epistle, He made contrast throughout his letter. I've mentioned this
before. He made great contrast. He made a difference between
light and darkness. God is light. There's no darkness
in him. And if you say you walk in the
light as he is in the light and walk in darkness, you do lie
and the truth's not in you. So God is light and you can't
be in God and not walk in the light. Can't do it. And then
he did contrasted life and death. And he refers to life and death
24 times in this little epistle. Life and death. Life and death. And right here in this particular
chapter, look what it says in verse 14. We know that we have
passed from death unto life. Death and life. And he refers
to it 24 times. Life and death. Either you have
life or you're dead in sins. You have life of Christ in you.
We have eternal life, and he that believeth on the Son of
God hath life. This is the record that God giveth
unto us, that if we believe on his Son, that we have the witness
within ourselves, that we have life. God said, this life is
in my Son, he that hath the Son hath life. And death, death without
Christ, everything without Christ is death. And life and light
go together. You're in Christ, and the light
and life, they go together. And the darkness and the death,
they go together. He that abides in darkness, he's
dead. And he that's dead in his sins,
he's walking in darkness. And that's what it is. And that's what John does. He
makes these great contrasts between these things. And then he makes
a great contrast between love and hate. How many times does
he talk about love in this chapter? Well, in his whole epistle. Oh,
how many times does he talk about love? He said, God is love. God
is love. And then he talks about hate.
And he referenced hate and love 57 times. 57 times. Get your concordes down or just
sit down and count them yourself. And a believer, a believer not
only loves God, loves Christ, feels their need of God, feels
their need of Christ, but He loves His brethren. He truly
loves the brethren. He really, truly does. It's His
nature to do that. He's got that nature of Christ.
He's got that nature of God in Him. He's passed from death to
life. And so, and then the second thing, fourth thing that He does
in contrast is obedience versus sin. Obedience versus sin. You know, if you're righteous,
as Christ is righteous, you'll live a righteous life. You'll
live a life according to what the scripture says. Not what
you think, not what you feel, not what you even believe. You'll
go by what God said. And you'll try to pattern your
life after what the scripture says. What it says about us,
about God, about Christ, and we want to walk in that life.
That's righteousness. And that's what he says in this,
that anybody that's not had this, you know, Christ is both our
Lord, our Lord, we obey him as Lord. Not my will, but thine
be done. It's in our heart to say, Lord,
not I will, but thine be done. And he's our Savior, and he saved
us from sin. Ain't that what it says in verse
five here of chapter three? And you know that he was manifested
to take away our sins, and in him is no sin. In him is no sin. And then the last contrast he
makes is between truth and error, truth and error, truth and error. And he references truth and error
13 times, 13 times. And he tells us again here in
verse 7 of chapter 3, little children, let no man deceive
you. There's people out there that'll deceive you. They'll
want to deceive you. They try to deceive you. Just
today, I had, you know, the Lord, every once in a while, he'll
give us an opportunity to talk to somebody. And the man walked
up to me today and asked me what I was going to preach tonight.
And I began to quote the scriptures to him, tell him what I was going
to say. And he says, but now, doesn't God give you a choice
between the two? And I've had the opportunity
to tell him what death is, what it is to be dead in sins, and
not only what it is to be dead in sins, but how you become dead
in sins. And you can't give yourself life,
and Christ has to give you life. And so I had an opportunity to
talk about that. And then he began to ask me more questions
and more questions. But you've got to start with
the issue between God and man. Man's in sin, he's dead in sin,
and he can't put away sin, he can't give himself life, so if
Christ gives him life, then the first evidence of life is, is
that you get hungry and you start crying. Now ain't that right? And once you start crying, you
know when you gonna stop crying? When you enter glory. You gonna
cry out until you enter glory. Ain't that right? I told him,
I said, I want on my tombstone here lays a lifelong seeker after
the Lord Jesus Christ. Lifelong seeker. And so here
in verse 10, and we'll start here in verse 10. Here and all
the way through this chapter from up in verse four, he deals
with two seeds. Two seeds, two offsprings, two
parents, the devil and God. The devil and God. And that's
what happened many times. He says that, you know, in verse
eight, he said, he that commits sin is of the devil. And then
over in verse nine, whosoever is born of God does not commit
sin. And so in this, the children
of God are manifesting the children of the devil. Two seeds, two
offsprings. Two parents, two fathers. And
John makes it just right, he brings it right down to a point
here. He brings it down to where the only question is, am I of
God or am I of the devil? Which one's my father? And we
know that the devil sins from the beginning. And that's what
he says. And he says to parents, and look
what he says here. And whosoever doeth not righteousness
is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. And he
makes these distinctions here. Who does righteousness? He said
in verse 29 of chapter 2, you know that He is righteous. You
know that everyone that doeth righteousness is born of Him.
And He says over here, if a man is not doing righteousness and
don't love his brother, that means he's not of God. He cannot
be of God. It proves that you're not of
God. And that's what He says. He brings us right down to this
point where one of them is our parents. And that's what our Lord Jesus
Christ told the Pharisees one day. And a bunch of Jews, he
said, you are of your father the devil. And the works of your
father you're gonna do. You're gonna do. And that's what
he says. And I'll tell you, and then look
what he goes on to say. So I'll tell you, if you don't
do righteousness, if you don't obey the scriptures, if you don't
delight in the scriptures, if you don't love the brother or
love your brother, then you're not of God. That's what John's
saying. It just makes it as plain as the nose on your face. And
love is not something that we did yesterday or something that
we'd done a long time ago. Look what he says in verse 11,
for this then is the message. This is the commandment that
you heard from the beginning that we should love one another.
This is the message and this started in the beginning. Now
our Lord told us some things about this business about love.
Made it very plain for us to understand. But it started, it
started way back in the garden is where this business of love
started and evil started. But look with me now. You keep
John 3 here and I want you to look in John 13. You keep 1 John
3 and look in John 13 to what our Master said. what our blessed,
blessed Master said. John 13, 34. This then is the
message from the beginning. And our Lord said here, a new
commandment. See, He didn't say now I'm going
to give you this option. You can do this if you want to.
You can do this by your free will. You can do this by your
own power. A new commandment I give unto you. You. What is
this commandment? And it's a commandment. We're
talking about obeying Christ. That you love one another. That
you love one another. As I have loved you, that you
also love one another. That you love one another. And
look what he said in verse 35. By this shall all, by this shall
all know that you are my disciples. If you love, have love one to
another. Not just love one another, but
have love. Active. Something that happens. Something that goes on. And look
in John 15 and verse 12 with me. John 15 and verse 12. And look what our master said.
This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved
you. And that's why John talks so
much about love. Greater love. hath no man than
this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. And you are my friends, so I'm
gonna lay down my life for my friends. If you do whatsoever
I command you, henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant
doesn't know what his master does, what his Lord does, but
I've called you friends. For all things that I've heard
of my Father, I've made known unto you. You have not chosen
me, but I have chosen you and ordained you that you should
go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain
that whatsoever shall ask of the Father in my name he may
give you. These things I command you that
you love one another. And that's what he's saying over
here. This was from the beginning, from the very beginning. And
without this love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
Ghost, we're just a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.
That's all we would be. We may have the voice of an angel,
faith to remove mountains, give everything we give to the poor,
everything we own to the poor, even let our bodies be burned
at the stake if we don't have this love. Our Lord said, if
profit's a man, nothing, nothing, nothing. And I tell you, Shirley
and I was talking about this yesterday. She was dealing with
this thing of lust. She got to thinking about it,
and she looked into scriptures and done some studying on 1 Corinthians
13. And let me tell you something.
I heard this years ago, and I know it's so because I do this myself,
and I hope you do. But you know how to get over
being upset with someone or feeling hard towards somebody? You know
the best way to get over it? Start praying for them. You pray
for that person that you're upset with, you got hard feelings towards
them, you start praying for them. And it's awful, awful hard to
keep hard feelings when you pray for them. You know you can't
do that before God. When you're praying for somebody
before the Lord, You know, you got to go for the Lord. And I'll
tell you what, you can't stay upset when you're praying for
somebody for the Lord. You start talking about how much
you love them, how much you care for them, what a blessing they've
been to you over the years, and how thankful you are for them.
And Lord, please help me to be this way, and forgive me of that,
and forgive me of that. And you're talking about taking
that out of your heart, and out of your mind, out of your spirit.
You start praying for that person you're upset with. And it'll
change you. It'll really change you. And
if you think I'm making it up, try it. Just try it. And then
look what he says. And all the children of God are
manifest, the children of the devil. This is the message that
you heard from the beginning, that you should love one another.
Not like Cain. Don't love one another, not like
Cain. Don't be like, you know, here's the children of God and
the dead. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, the devil,
and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him, because
his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous. Love
never entered into Cain's heart. You know, and here's, let's look
at Genesis chapter four together. Let's just look at this together.
I thought a lot about this today and yesterday. And here's one
doing righteous. Abel's doing righteous. God himself
bore witness to Abel that he was righteous, testifying of
his gifts. That's what God said about him
in Hebrews 11, four. And oh my, Cain and Abel, one's doing righteous,
he offered the right sacrifice, that's Abel. The other wasn't. He didn't offer the right sacrifice.
One was loving, the other wasn't. And this is that love he's talking
about, that was from the very beginning, from the fall. Now
here's two brothers. Here's two brothers that grew
up together. Here's two brothers that played
together when they were children. And they grew up together and
they went to walking together. And look what it says here now
in verse 1 of chapter 4. And Adam knew Eve, his wife,
and she conceived and bare Cain. Said, I've got a man from the
Lord. And said, I have gotten a man
from the Lord. And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel
was a keeper of the sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
And in process of time it came that Cain brought of the fruit
of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel he also brought
of the firstlings of his flock, and the fat thereof, and the
Lord had respect unto Abel in his offering. But unto Cain in
his offering he had not respect. instead of saying, Lord, what
do I need to do? Show me my sacrifice. Tell me
what I need to do to be accepted of you. But that's not what he
did. He got very angry and his countenance fell. And the Lord
said unto Cain, why are you wroth? Why are you angry? And why is
your countenance falling? If you do well, and thou shalt
now not be accepted, if thou dost not well, sin lieth at the
door. That word, sin lieth at the door,
means there's a sacrifice that I will accept lying at your door.
It was at Abel's door. Abel knew what it was. Abel knew
what was needed to be for a sacrifice. Then he said, and unto thee shall
be his design, thou shalt rule over him. You bring the same
sacrifice as Abel did, and you'll be accepted. you'll be counted
righteous too. And Cain talked with Abel his
brother. And it came to pass that they
were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel and his brother
and slew him. Now here's these two brothers
walking out in the field. And I tell you, this is just
It's just me reading into this. Here's these two brothers walking
along, and I guarantee you they was talking about their sacrifices.
They was talking about Abel was, Cain was saying, how come you
were accepted of God? How come you was counted righteous
before God? And how come that I wasn't accepted? Why did it anger me so much?
What do I need to do? And Abel began to tell him, said,
Cain, I'll tell you, my dear brother, I'll tell you. I love
you, and I tell you what, this is what you need to do. Go out
and get one of my lambs, and you slaughter one of them lambs,
and you take the blood, and you'll be accepted of God." And Cain
said, oh no, I can't do that. I can't do that if my best ain't
good enough. If the best I work and my work's
in my hand to meet all the things that I've done, if that's not
good enough, my works are not good enough, and if that don't
make me righteous enough, I don't want the righteousness of God.
I ain't going to submit to the righteousness of God. I'm going
to do it my way. And Abel kept telling Cain, don't
do this, don't do this. It's going to cost you because
he loved his brother. But what did Cain do? He rose
up against Abel. I don't believe that they walked
out in that field that Cain had it in his heart that he's going
to kill his brother. I believe they started having a conversation.
He got angrier and angrier and angrier because Abel would not
back down from what It took to be accepted of God. Would not
compromise with his brother. He loved God. He loved righteousness. He loved what the Lord told him
it needed to be done. And Abel kept trying to tell
him, no, no, no. And finally, Abel just kept on
pressing the point. And Cain rose up and slew him.
Got so angry that he slew him. And that's why he says in the
next verse here, 1 John 3, he says, marvel not my brethren.
Don't be marvel at this, don't think this is strange. If the
world hates you, it's not you they hate, it's the righteousness
of Christ they hate. It's the righteousness of Christ,
it's the blood of Christ. That's the first thing that man
said to me today when I said I'm gonna preach on these two
seas, these two fathers. He says, doesn't God give us
the choice which one we're gonna be of? I said, no, no, that's
not the way it is. It's not the way it is. And it went on, and then the
Lord said unto Cain, where's Abel? God knows where Abel was. God knows what Cain did. And
that's the whole point here, that you know, you're the devil
or of God, the devil or of Christ. And here was Abel, he loved his
brother, but Cain didn't. He hated his brother. He despised
his brother because his brother was accepted. And that's what
it says. He, because his deeds were evil and his brothers were
righteous. And that's why he hated him.
And where's Abel, your brother? And he said, I don't know. I
don't know where he's at. Am I my brother's keeper? You
think I'm supposed to keep a tab on Abel? And then he said, what
have you done? What have you done? And that's
what people's gonna say one of these days when God calls them
into judgment. What have you done? What have
you done? The voice of your brother's blood,
brother's blood, cries unto me from the ground, cries unto me. And that's why he's telling us
here that this is the love that was from the beginning. Abel
loved his brother. Talked to his brother, told about
the gospel, told about what sacrifice, God told him what sacrifice it
would take. But he didn't want it. And now
let's go back over here in John, 1 John 3. And it says here in
verse 12, why did he slay his brother? Why did he slay Abel? Because his own works were evil.
He was an evil man. His works were evil. His works
were unaccepted. And his brother was righteous.
And his brother kept telling him what righteousness he would
take. And he wouldn't accept it. He wouldn't bow to it. He
wouldn't submit to it. And that's why our Lord said here in verse
13, marvel not, my brethren, if the world hates you. And this
is the truth. This is the truth. When you refuse
to compromise how a man's accepted of God, there's only one way
to be accepted of God. Only one righteousness that's
accepted of God. And that's Christ's blood cleansing
us from sin and His righteousness being given to us. There's no
other acceptance. There has to be shedding of blood.
Christ's blood washes away all sin. And He couldn't stand. Man is wicked. Why was our Lord
Jesus Christ crucified? Because He, being a man, made
Himself God. And that made Him to be righteous.
And that made Him to be perfect in their sight. And they could
not stand perfection in their sight. Sinlessness in their sight.
Because that condemned them. And so they, by their own wicked
hands, took and crucified the Lord of Glory. Why are you going
to kill Him? Because He makes Himself God.
And not only that, but He makes Himself a King. And not only
that, but he said that if he died, he would take care of all
the sins of his people. Oh, my. And I tell you, doing
righteousness and loving the brethren is proof one is born
of God. Abel was righteous. Cain wasn't. Abel loved God. Abel loved his
brother. But Cain couldn't. Cain couldn't. And then he goes on to say here
in verse 14, the difference between Those who know God and those
who don't. Those who are hated by the world, those who are.
We know that we have passed from death unto life. We know we have. Because we love the brethren.
He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Now here's
a contrast again. In verse 15, whosoever hateth
his brother. And here he talks about love
and hate again. Love and hate again. The way
of the world is death. We know that we've passed from
death unto life. And whosoever hateth his brother
is a murderer. That's the world. It's the way
of death. And the way of God is life. The way of the world
is to hate. The way of God is to love. And
he says, now we know, we know. We've passed from death unto
life. That is so self-explanatory. You don't know you've got life
until you've been given life from death. When we were dead,
We couldn't see, we couldn't hear, we couldn't feel, we didn't
know anything. Didn't know anything. We couldn't
feel our sin, we didn't know God, we didn't know the scriptures,
we didn't know ourselves, we didn't know Christ, we didn't
know righteousness, we didn't know the blood, we didn't know
any of those things. We didn't feel, we didn't know,
we couldn't love. And our Lord even says, you know,
not only love them that love you, but love them who hate you,
despitefully use you, and bless them that curse you. And oh,
and he said, that's the way it was. But now, when you get life,
you can feel, huh? We can love. We know what sin
is. We know what righteousness is.
We know what the scriptures say. How? We passed from death over
here into this realm of death into life. We went from darkness
over to light. We are translated from the kingdom
of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear son. And everybody
here that experienced that, they know when they were dead and
they know when they came alive. They know when they didn't have
an interest in God and they know when it started. They know when
there wasn't hunger after righteousness and now that's all they do do.
Not good grammar, but it worked. He understood what I said. Oh, and how do we know we've
passed from death unto life? How do we know? How do we know
we're born of God? How do we know that we're doing
righteousness? Because we love the brethren. That's why we love to go to Beaton.
That's why we love to have conferences. That's why we like to go other
places. And it's wonderful to see the brethren. It's wonderful
to see somebody you haven't seen in a while. When one of them
gets sick, you start praying for them and you start upholding
them before the Lord. And so we, you know, these are
things that you do. And oh my, you know, it's just,
to me, it's as natural for a brother to love as it is to breathe. It is to breathe. And oh my,
and look what he goes on to say now. He that loveth not his brother,
now what is he? No, he don't have life. He hasn't
passed from death unto life. What is he? He's still dead.
He's in death. He abides in death. He abides,
he still lives in death. He's still dead. He's not passed
from death to life. And this, he goes back to bringing
this, coming back to this Cain and Abel and who's of God and
who isn't. Whosoever hateth his brother
is a murderer. Ain't that what Cain did to his
brother? Abel loved his brother. But Cain hated him and murdered
him. And you know, there's more murder,
more murder, more trouble manifested through this tongue and in this
mind, and God knows it. That's why he said to Cain, said,
Cain was able. He wanted Cain to confess, and
Cain wouldn't do it. And God said, now I know. I smell
your brother's blood. And it's speaking to me. And
it's speaking to me of his righteousness. It's speaking to me of his acceptance.
But it's also telling me that you're a murderer. That you're
a cursed man. And that's what he's saying here.
And whosoever hates his brother is a murderer. And people, and
you know, there is an unbelievable amount of hate in this world.
And people say, boy, I hate this and I hate that. When you say,
well, I hate that kind of food, I hate that. Hate and love is
two of the strongest words in the English language. You can
say, I dislike something. I don't like that as much as
some other people do. But to say, I hate, you know,
I hate broccoli. That's an awful strong word for
broccoli. You say, I don't like broccoli. I'm not going to eat
any broccoli. But that's the way people do
now. They hate. There's such a hatred. There's such a hatred. And listen, if there's going
to be any love in this world, and if there's going to be any
compassion, any generosity, any understanding, any compassion,
It's going to have to come from God's people. We're going to
have to treat people the way we really want to be treated,
and talk about our Lord when we get the opportunity, and talk
about how much we love our brethren, and how much we enjoy our meetings,
and start talking like that. And boy, oh boy, I believe I'll
just go over in here. I believe I'll go find out what's
going on. And he says in the last part of that verse, and
you know that no murderer hath eternal life. at what happened
to Kane. What happened to Kane. I remember
several years ago, they're gone now, but there was a man went
around and I had no clue. I did not have a clue that this
was going on. God by witness said I didn't.
And he went around, talked to several people and was really
upset with me. Still don't know why. But he
was very upset with me, and he went around and talked to some
different men in the church. And I didn't even know this until
one of the men told me. I didn't have a clue this was
happening. You know, charity covers your mouth. Charity don't
think evil. Charity just doesn't do that.
Charity doesn't think somebody that her brother is going to
be against you. It just doesn't think that. It doesn't feel that
way. And he was trying his best to turn some people against me.
And finally, one of the men asks him, says, do you love Brother
Donnie? Or what? He says, no, I don't.
Don't. Don't like him. He said, do you
hate him? He said, I know I don't like
him very much. And he says, you cannot be a Christian and not
love your brother. And that's the truth. That's
the truth. Write him letters, say, oh, you're
welcome back. Love to see you come. But boy, I tell you, the
only place love's going to be put in your heart, in my heart,
your heart, and in our mind, in our will, is for God to put
it in there by the Holy Ghost. And if he puts it in there, I'm
not saying that it don't get out of pocket. I mean, you know,
we're all that way. I mean, boy, sometimes we're
just like Ruben. Sometimes we're weak as water. Sometimes, you know, but the
tenor of our lives is going that way, ain't it? Tenor of our lives
going that direction. God help us to love one another,
to live lives righteous in honor and glorifying to Christ and
obey Him and His blessed word. Wouldn't that be a wonderful
thing? All of us, that's our desire. Our Father, oh, our blessed,
gracious Father in heaven, thank you for allowing us to meet here
this evening. I always love to come be with the children of
God. Oh, what a delightful thing. What a delightful thing to enjoy
your word, have some understanding from it, and Lord, to look out
and see the dear saints of God enjoying your word, rejoicing
in your word, agreeing with your word. And so our Father, we ask
that you would protect every soul, every home, every heart,
every child. And our Father, protect them,
preserve them, and keep them. Bless Brother Gary to go home
tomorrow and bless Peggy and make her strong. And our Father,
we come to you in need in our hearts, need in our minds, and
need in our souls. Pray for Brother Todd that you
would continue to bless him and Lynn. Father, thank you for this
evening. In Christ's name, amen. Amen.