I'm just looking at 1 John again,
but I'm going to read the second chapter this evening. Read the second chapter. I'm
not going to preach from here, but I'm going to read from here.
And the ladies are going to have their lunch tomorrow, their luncheon
tomorrow, a week early, because next Thursday is Thanksgiving.
And so they'll meet and do that. My little children, these things
write I unto you that you sin not. And if any man sin, we have
an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.
And he is the perpetuation for our sins and not for ours only,
but also for the sins of the whole world. And hereby we do
know that we know him if we keep his commandments. He that saith
I know him and keepeth not his commandments is a liar and the
truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word in
him verily is the love of God perfected. Hereby know that we
are in him. He that saith he abideth in him
ought himself also so to walk even as he walked. Brethren,
I write no new commandment unto you. but an old commandment,
which you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word
which you have heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment
I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you, because
the darkness is past and the true light now shineth. He that
saith he is in the light and hateth his brother is in darkness
even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth
in the light and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.
But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and knoweth not
whither he goeth, because the darkness hath blinded his eyes.
I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven
you for His name's sake. I write unto you, fathers, because
you have known Him that is from the beginning. I write unto you,
young men, because you have overcome the wicked one. I write unto
you, little children, because you have known the Father. I
have written unto you, fathers, because you have known Him that
is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young
men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you,
and ye have overcome the wicked one. Love not the world, neither
the things in the world. If any man love the world, the
love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world,
the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of
life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world
passes away. and the lust thereof, but he
that doeth the will of God abideth forever." We'll stop there. We'll
stop there. Ms. Barahart has ever claimed
this key. I certainly hope they don't need it. It's a truck key,
car key or something. All right, here in John chapter
1, I want you to look with me and Down here in verse five and six, this then is the message which
we have heard of him and declare unto you that God is light and
in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship
with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. If we say Three times here that
the apostle says, if we say. In verse six, he says, if we
say. In verse eight, he says, if we
say. In verse 10, he said, if we say. That's my subject this
evening, if we say. Now, there's three things I want
to draw attention to in my introduction tonight about this letter of
John. It's written in the simplest
words. It's written in the very simplest words. We don't have
any problem understanding what we read. Written so we can understand
it. And as you read this, you'd never
know that this was the man who wrote the Revelation. If you
read what he says through here, you'd never understand. It's
as simple as he was, and plain as he was, and he's understanding
as he is. You'd never realize that this is the man that wrote
the Revelation, which is really mysterious unless God opens your
understanding to it. And the second thing about this
book and how it's written, it's written in the spirit of love,
written in the spirit of love. Every line in this epistle is
seasoned with his love, or seasoned with love, the love of Christ.
And what he does in his epistle here is he tries every profession,
every profession by the rule of love, by the rule of love,
tries every profession by the rule of love. He measures every
claim by the test of love. Oh, how he does that. And what
he comes to conclusion of, do we, and here's the thing that
he brings us, didn't he test our profession and test our claims
by this, this test of love, this measure of love. Do we love Christ? Or do we love one another? That's
what John's saying. He deals with everything in the
light of love. And the third reason he writes here is he writes
that we be not deceived. He don't want the Lord's people
deceived. He's not writing because they
didn't know the truth or he didn't know the truth. He's writing
telling the truth and showing the difference between light
and darkness, death and life, truth and lie. And he does not
want these believers here to be deceived. And he insists in
his writings that there's a difference in saying a thing and experiencing
that thing. If we say this, we have fellowship
with God, have we experienced fellowship with God? That's what
he's saying. And he says there's a difference
in saying that you have something or doing something and then experiencing
it itself. He's telling here as plainly
and clearly as a difference in profession that people have and
a possession that people have. And he makes that distinction
all the way through this little book. And this why he says here
then in verse five, this then is the message. The message,
we dealt with that last week, that God is light. And this word
message, he said, we declare it unto you. That same word is
heralded unto you. shout it out to you, declare
it unto you. And who is it that declares this?
We, the apostles. We agree in these things. We
agree in these blessed things. And he says, then this is the
message that God is light. God is light. And in him is no
darkness at all, no evil. He's light. And then he says,
if we have, and if we say, in verse six, if we say that we
have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we do not the
truth. Now, this is the way fellowship
goes. I believe this is right. Fellowship is two people. Amos asked this question, can
two walk together except they be agreed? And if two people
are walking together on a journey or a companionship, going somewhere
together, Then they got to know something about one another to
have this fellowship, this communion, this companionship, and going
on this journey together. The scripture said in Genesis
5.22 that Enoch walked with God. And what that means that Enoch
had fellowship with God. God, he had communion with God
and fellowship with God. That's what it means. He walked
with God. He had communion with God. He had fellowship with God.
And if you're gonna have fellowship and walk with somebody and commune
with somebody and go on this journey with somebody, and we're
on a journey, I mean, we're on a journey. We're strangers and
pilgrims in here and we're on a journey and we're supposed
to be on a journey with God. And for fellowship, two things
are absolutely necessary if we're gonna have fellowship with God.
And the thing is that you must know the character of the two
persons taking part in the fellowship. You've got to know the characters
of the two people. You've got to know the character
of God, and you've got to know your own character. And if you
don't know those two things, then the thing is, and what he
says about God is, God is light. That's the first thing. You want
fellowship with God? God is light. God is holy. God is pure. God is righteous. God dwells in the light that
no man can approach Him. There's no darkness in Him. There's
no evil in Him. There's no impurity in Him. There's
nothing in the God that else except light, light, light, light,
purity, honesty, glory, power, righteousness, and holiness in
three blessed persons. And I'll tell you, we gotta,
if you go, and that's what he says, you gonna fellowship with
God, God's light. Go walk with God, God's light. Go have communion with God and
journey with God and walk with God, God is light. And then we
must also know something about ourselves. We gotta know something
about ourselves. Know something about our limitations
and our imperfections. And John addresses our limitations,
our imperfections. And that's why he, you know,
he describes the nature of God, and he also describes our nature.
And before there can be any fellowship, something's got to be done about
those two natures. He says, God is like, then look
what he says down in verse 8. He said in verse 6, he said,
if we say, If we say, down in verse eight, if we say that we
have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth's not in us. In
verse 10, if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar
and his word's not in us. And that's the first thing you
learn about yourself is that you have nothing and no way to
walk with God and fellowship with God unless you confess what
you are. And that's why it says if you're
going to walk with God and have fellowship with God. You can't
do it and be dishonest with yourself and not know what God's like.
Walking with God is not joining the church. Walking with God's
not making a decision. Walking with God's not doing
the best you can. Walking with God's not saying,
well, He's love and I'm going to just have fellowship with
Him on the basis of love. God's infinitely holy. And if
we say and do, we have fellowship with God, union with God, and
we don't walk with God, and we don't have fellowship with God,
and we don't know that God's light, then he says we're walking
in darkness. You walk in darkness and you
lie. That's what he says. You can't be in the light and
walk in darkness at the same time. That's what John's saying
here. And I tell you, there's a realm of darkness. There's
a realm of darkness that people live in. And what is the problem?
What is the problem that would make people say that they walk
with God and yet turn around and walk in darkness when God
is light? And you say you're walking with
God and you're walking in the light as God is light. And then
you're walking in darkness. You're walking in the darkness
of the world and walking in the darkness of sin and opposed to
God. Opposed to his righteousness,
opposed to his claims, opposed to his holiness, opposed to being
obedient unto him. John says there, you lie. It's
a false claim. It's not true. And I tell you what, you know
why people make claims like that? Because they don't know what
they are by nature. People make false claims because they don't
know what they are by nature. Don't know what sin is, and that's
why John says here, you know, if we say that we have no sin,
verse 8, we deceive ourselves and the truth's not in us. He
makes these great distinction if we say we have no sin. God made this world perfect.
Made this, made this world perfect. They come from his hand, and
he said it's good, it's very good. And then he made man, and
it was man was made upright, he was made, oh, had a holy nature.
But he had a mutable nature. And sin came into this world. And man right then and there
lost all relationship with God. And how in the world is that
relationship going to be re-established? The Scriptures tells us that
there's two kingdoms. The Bible tells us very plainly
that there's two kingdoms. The kingdom of God and the kingdom
of evil. The kingdom of light and the
kingdom of darkness. And so out of these two kingdoms,
a man lives in one or the other. He has two realms. He either
lives in light or he's darkness. He lives in righteousness or
in sin. And to walk in darkness is being opposed to God, is being
opposed to his holiness and his perfection. And oh, I wouldn't
want to do that. I wouldn't want to be against
God, would you? Huh? Oh, no. Wouldn't want to be opposed
to God at all. I wouldn't want to be opposed
to Him. I want to know God. We was talking about before the
service. I want to know God. And that's what John is saying
here. God is light. And if we say we have fellowship
with Him, we walk with Him and we commune with Him. And we walk
in the darkness of religion, walk in the darkness of a false
profession, walk in the darkness of the world, and materialism,
and covetousness, and self-glory, and self-honor, and self-love.
He said, you're a liar. He said, you're just a liar.
That's easy to understand, ain't it? Very easy to understand.
And oh, listen, let me show you, look over here in 2 Corinthians
6. This is something that the apostles said over here about
this. 2 Corinthians chapter 4, excuse me, chapter 6 and verse
14. Chapter 6 and verse 14. You know,
we really show what we are by what we do. We really show what we are, but
what we do. That's what John said here. If
we say, and we don't, we're liars. And we really show what we are,
but what we do. We reveal our doctrine and what
we really believe by the practice and how we live. There's some
of the old timers, they had what they called practical atheism.
Practical atheism is that people says they believe in God, and
they attend services somewhere, and yet they live their lives
as if God doesn't exist. That's practical atheism. You
know, people come into service, they got their Bibles with them,
some of them do and some of them don't, and they go to the church
and they go to the Sunday school and take their kids and go to
the Sunday school. And they attend all the services. And then when
the service is over, they get up, and you know, and Sunday
night rolls around, they're somewhere else doing something else. And
here's the thing about it, they attend these services, but when
they leave, it's as if God has no influence in their lives whatsoever. It's like they're practical atheists
because they don't live like God is in existence, like God
knows them. God is light! And He sees us
as we are. And they live their lives as
if God does not know them, does not care about them, does not
be interested in them, and they're certainly not interested in God.
They get all the religion they want on Sunday. And that's what
John said, is if that's all you get, and that's all you want,
And then you turn around and say you're fellowshipping with
God, walking with God, communing with God. He says, you're saying
one thing and you're doing something else. That's what he's saying.
But look here in 2 Corinthians 6.14. Be ye not unequally yoked together
with unbelievers. Now listen to this. What fellowship
hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light
with darkness. Light and darkness can't commune.
Either one's going to control the other. Light's going to run
away darkness or darkness is going to put out the light. And
oh, look over here in Ephesians 5.13. Here's another one. Ephesians
5.13. Look at this. Talking about the
light. Ephesians 5.13. Look what it says here. That
all things that are approved or discovered, brought out, what
are it? It says here, they're made manifest
by the light. For whatsoever doeth make manifest
is light. What brings out the truth? What
brings out sin? What brings out righteousness?
What brings out salvation? What brings holiness? What brings
righteousness? What brings understanding? What
brings light to our minds? What makes manifest to who we
are and what we are and how desperately need God the light does? It makes
manifest. It makes manifest God. It makes
manifest the truth of the scriptures. It makes manifest our own thoughts
and our own intents of our hearts. It makes, it brings the, here's
this, here's we are, and the light comes and makes manifest
to us. God, sin, righteousness, everything
we need, it makes manifest. And oh, let me ask you while
we look back over here in 1 John, how many people How many people
do you know that believes they have no sin? How many people you reckon you
know? If you were to start talking to them about their sin, how
many of them would get offended? How many of them would get upset?
How many of them would say, oh, listen, I've made a few mistakes
in my life. I falter some. I know I ain't
had the perfect life, but boy, when you start talking to them
about their sin, and why they're sinners, and how they became
sin, and sin is not so much what they do, but what they are. And
that's why John said here, if we say, he says three times,
if we say, if we say, it's not what you say, it's what you do.
That's what he's saying. Now I'm not going to stand up
here and tell you that I have no sin. Why would I say I have
no sin? When the scriptures tells me
very plainly that in my flesh dwells no good thing. That when
I would do good, evil's present with me. The will's with me,
and how I perform, I don't know how. And if we say we have not
sinned, if we have not had sin in everything that we do, there's
not a thought, there's not a deed we've done that's not had sin
in it. There's not a service we've ever
attended, not a prayer we've ever prayed, and I know this
is so, and you all will agree with me, there's not a prayer
we've prayed, there's not a Bible reading we've done, there's not
a message we've preached that hasn't had sin involved in it. And that's what John's saying
here. If we say that we have not sinned, and I'm not going
to say that either, are you? That was enough sin and the best
message I've ever been. Bruce was joking about that the
other day. As you know, Marvin Priest, he brought two outstanding
messages. Come up with two things that
I never heard or anybody else had ever heard. The way he dealt
with things that I've dealt with myself and he dealt with them
in an entirely different way. But anyway, everybody's bragging
over all that and Bruce said, listen. He said, boy, we all
better leave him alone. His head will get big. And I
said, Bruce, everybody ain't like me and you, you know. Get
the big head before we even get out of the pulpit. You know,
it's one of me. You cannot. We just, that's just
the way it is. We're either down because we
feel like we're not, we didn't do well enough or didn't do enough
or didn't pray. You know, we either get down
because we feel like we failed or else when we feel like we
do good, we get proud and full of ourselves. There's no getting
around it. And that's what John says. And
so we know God. We know that He's light. And
we confess that we have sinned. We confess that we have sinned. We're not going to lie about
that. We're not going to be deceived in that. And that's what John
says. If a man says, I don't have any, he's a liar. Man says
that I haven't sinned, and there's people that, there's people in
Armenian churches that'll tell you that they haven't sinned,
they don't remember the last time they've sinned. They'll
tell you that. Well, and you know what he says
when they say that? They make God to be a liar. And the truth's
not, and his words, not in them. Not in them. But now listen to
this now. Look what he says here. And verse
seven, oh listen, and I'm gonna deal with this next, if we walk
in the light as he is in the light, walk in him as he is,
understanding that he's the only one that can give us light, and
he's the one who made us admit what we are, he's the one that
brought us and made us understand that he's light, he's the one
that was manifested to whom we've come to by his blessed grace,
And if we walk in the light as he is in the light, God is light. You walk in him and he's light. Our Lord Jesus Christ said, he
that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the
light of life. And he goes on to say here, we'll
have fellowship one with another. Fellowship with who? With the
father and with the son and with each other. And look what he
says. And oh, what about this sin we
talked about? The blood of Jesus Christ, his
son, cleanses us from all sin. Sins I ain't committed yet, he's
cleansed, put them all away. Bless his name. And then look
what he goes on to say. Oh my. And that's why he says,
if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth
not in us. Now listen to this. If we confess our sins, confess
them, confess them. Not only confess what I do, but
what I don't do. What we don't do is as bad as
what we do do. That's an awful way of describing
something. My grammar's not very good. But you understood what I said,
didn't you? But if we confess our sins, Lord,
here I am. I have no claim on you. I have
no right to you. But I'm confessing. I'm confessing
that I am sinned. I have sinned. That I have sins. Then look what it says. We say,
Great is thy faithfulness. He is faithful. Faithful. And listen to this. And here's
the key to the gospel. And just. Just. How can he be just and justifier? through the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ, through the offering of the Son of God, through the
sacrifice of Christ, just to forgive us our sins, and listen
to this, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so,
if you find somebody saying one thing and doing something else,
you found a liar, you found somebody deceived, you found somebody
that makes God a liar, and His Word's not in him. But you find
somebody that knows that God is light, and you come to His
blessed Son, and His blood washes you from all your sins, and God's
faithful when you confess it, and confess who you are and what
you are. He is faithful and just, to forgive you and cleanse you
and forgive you of all your sins and to cleanse you from everything
unrighteous you've ever done. And I think that some of us here
can say tonight, if we say that we have fellowship with Him,
we're not walking in darkness and we're not lying. We're walking
in the light as He's the light. We walk in the light. Old Barnard
used to say, walk in the light that God gives you and he'll
give you more light. You can't walk in light that
he hasn't given you. But when he gives you light,
you walk in that and he'll give you a little more. But we're
walking in the light as he is in that light. And oh my, thank
God for our Lord Jesus Christ. And I don't want to be one of
those fellows that says, I say and then do something else. I
don't want to be one of them fellas that I say and act some
other way. I don't want to be one of them.
Don't want to be one of them. I don't want to be deceived in
myself. I don't want you to be deceived. I don't want to make
God a liar. And I certainly don't want to
walk in darkness. So where does that leave me?
Coming to Christ. Coming to Christ. whose blood,
blood, shed blood, washes us and cleanses us from all our
sin. Our Father, in the blessed name
of Christ our Lord, thank you for the opportunity again to
stand and speak, to deal with your word. It's a big word, big
word, deep word, precious word. And I readily admit, Lord, no
wonder the apostle said, who's sufficient for these things?
Who is sufficient? But Lord, we look to you. We're
just a clay pot and pray that you'd keep the treasure. And
people see the treasure, not the pot. We ask for your blessings
and grace and the truth to be made known to us through our
Lord Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit. In his name we pray.
Amen. Amen.