a study of the book of the epistles
of John, the first, second, third epistles of John. And the Lord
burdened me for it this week, and I got up here. I studied some yesterday, looked
at a few things, and got up here today. And you notice there in
the last three words in chapter 1, The Word of Life. You see, that
word is capitalized. That's a title of our Lord Jesus
Christ. The same thing John said in the
beginning was the Word. And he's talking about the Word
of Life. Christ, he says, the words that
I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. And so I want
to start a study in this. I've done a lot of reading today,
but there's one phrase that stands out throughout this book, and
I believe everybody knows it, and that is where John said,
and we know. How many times did he say, we
know, we know, we know. And we know things that are in
error, and we know things that are true. Look what he said in
verse 21 of chapter 2. We know things, things we know
now is error, and things we know is truth. We know some things. God's taught us these things.
He said, I have not written unto you because you know not the
truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth.
He said, I wrote to you so that you might know the truth. And
not that you would know the truth, but you do know the truth. And
that's what I want you to understand, that you know the truth. Now
there were some errors that John corrected in this epistle and
in the other two epistles. And they had in those days what's
called Gnosticism. And that's also what happened
over in Colossae. Gnosticism just means this, knowledge. Men began to think that they
knew more than God. They had an inside track. They
knew more than the Scriptures taught. They had a knowledge
that other people didn't have, and they would bring this knowledge
in, and bring it in as something that they had, a new direction,
or new doctrine that they had, or something new that the Lord
had revealed to them. And this Gnosticism came very
close to, you know, and it threatened the churches in John's day. And
that's why I wrote this epistle. Now we know that John here is
the same John whom that disciple, the scripture says that disciple
whom Jesus loved. That's the same one that leaned
on the breast of our Lord Jesus Christ. He was the son of Zebedee
and he had a brother named John and our Lord Jesus called them
sons of thunder. You remember the time that they
were going into Samaria and the people weren't going to receive
them and John said, Lord you want us to command fire to come
down from heaven out of heaven on these people like Elijah did?
They don't want you Lord, they don't want us, we'll just destroy
them. And our Lord said, you don't know what spirit you have.
He said, I've not come to destroy, I've come to save. And also,
Their mother went to the Lord Jesus Christ and said, I just
want to ask one thing of you. He said, well, what is that?
She said, when you come into your kingdom, I want one of my
sons to sit on your right hand. I want one to sit on your left
hand. I want them to sit on the throne
on either side of you. And you know, our Lord said,
that's not mine to give. That's not mine to give. And
oh my, so these fellas, but I'll tell you, they were men of God,
greatly used of God, especially John. But let me give you some
of the heresies that was going on at this time as an introduction
to this epistle. There was the heresy of what
you call spirit matter. And what it means is dualism. What that means is that matter
is the source of all evil, And the Spirit is the source of all
good. Now, if you took that to its conclusion, that means that
everything in this building, all material things in this building,
is evil. The creation is evil. Evil is
in the trees, evil is in food, evil is in different things,
but the Spirit, anything that you can touch, taste, or handle,
is evil. And they says that you know that
anything that had any matter to it had sin in it. That pew
don't have any sin in it. This don't have any sin in it.
Trees don't have any sin in it. But they said that it did. And
that the spirit in them was what's good. And I'll tell you what,
and this is the thing about it, and this is what happens when
you have this kind of attitude and you teach this kind of thing.
This is what produces monks. They leave the world and go get
in an asylum somewhere and get in a cage or get in a little
old mountainside place. This is what produces hermits.
It's because they don't want to live in the world. They're
so good they're above the world. And the world would so contaminate
them that they go off and get in cells. Martin Luther was a
fellow like this. He went off and got in a cell
and would be Himself. And these fellows would go off,
and you can find them down through history, that there was so much
sin in the things that was around them, that the only way they
could keep from sinning was to go be by themselves, or with
big people like themselves. But that sin's not in things,
sin's in people. There's not a thing I can eat
that's sinful. Ain't that what our Lord said? Ain't that what
He said? All thanks is to be received with thanksgiving. Nothing's
unclean of itself. There's nothing you can drink.
If you do it in moderation, that'll hurt you. Nothing you can handle
with your hands, that would hurt you if you do it according to
the Scripture. And this is what these folks
taught. And let me show you, you keep John, and look over
here in Colossians 2. Here's a perfect illustration.
Paul dealt with this over in Colossians chapter 2. It started
verse 20. And this is, you know, that sin's
in things, not in people. And that's the thing if they
think if we can get away from things and get away from matter,
get away from things that's got substance to it and go off and
be by ourselves, we won't sin. But look what he said here in
verse 20. Colossians 2. Wherefore if you
be dead with Christ, crucified with Christ, dead to sin with
Christ, dead to the world in Christ, from the rudiments of
this world. And the rudiments means the elements
that's in this world, things that's in this world. Why, as
though living in the world, are you subject to ordinances? Now,
leave off the, dismiss the parentheses and go up and say, after the
commandments and doctrines of men. And what are these things
that they said that you're now subject to? Don't touch not,
don't taste not, don't handle on. And they said, this is what
you're going to have to do. Which all are to perish with
the using. Which you can touch it, taste
it, handle it. It's going to perish with the using. And he
says, why would you do this after the commandments and doctrines
of men? They tell you not to do this. And they said, this
is what it appears to be. This is why these fellows do
this. Which things indeed have a show of wisdom. Oh, ain't we
wise. Ain't we smart. Don't we have
some knowledge that other people don't have? And it's in will
worship. It don't have nothing to do with
the worship of God. Don't have nothing to do with
the worship of Christ. Don't have nothing to do with
the truth of the Scripture. And by their own will and their
own power, they worship. This does not taste, not handle
not. And they have a show of humility and said, Oh my, you
know, I can't have this and that. And neglecting the body. And you know what it says in
the margin talked about neglecting the body? That means punishing
the body. Punishing the body. And oh, and it's dishonorable
or not honored to satisfying the flesh. Can't do it. And so that's what they're talking
about. Now, let's go back over to John. Let me see if I can
give you another one of these heresies that John was fighting. And we'll see, starting next
week, some of these things. This is one thing that they taught,
and this is why John talks so much about Antichrist. There was people, these Gnostics,
taught that there could not be an incarnation of the Lord Jesus
Christ. There could not be. they thought
that there's a distinction between the Heavenly Christ and the Earthly
Christ. And what they said that the Heavenly
Christ could never fully unite with the Earthly Jesus. And what
they taught was that the Heavenly Christ descended upon Jesus,
the Earthly Jesus, and on Him in His baptism, and then He left
Him the night before His crucifixion, because the heavenly Christ could
not suffer. So they say there could not be
a crucifixion. There could not be an incarnation.
So they have two. They can't believe in the God,
the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, when they say
that Christ and the heavenly Jesus and earthly Jesus are two
different people. Let me show you over here in
1 John 5, verse 5, look what it says here. Do you know what
it would mean not to have an incarnation? Do you know what
it would mean to believe that right there? You couldn't possibly
have a Savior if it was just a man that was
crucified and not God-man, because only man can die, but God can't
die. But only God can satisfy God.
But God can't die. Man can die, but he can't satisfy
God. So God and man had to unite in
one person in order to satisfy God and be able to die. And man
couldn't put sin away by himself. It took God to put sin away.
And that was why Christ's coming was an incarnation in the flesh.
That's why Paul said, Great is the mystery of godliness. God
was manifest in the flesh. There wasn't two of them. There
wasn't two of them. God was manifested in flesh.
And oh, look what he said here in 1 John 5. In verse 5. Who is he that overcometh the
world? Now listen to this. But he that believeth that Jesus
is the Son of God. He come from God, he went back
to God, and that's one thing that they held against him. They
said, we asked him one time, for what good work are you going
to stone me? We're not going to stone you for a good work,
because you being a man, make yourself to be God. And these
fellas, they got so smart that they said it'd be impossible
for the heavenly Jesus, the Christ that come from heaven, to suffer
So he just came on the earthly Jesus, stayed for a while, done
a few miracles, and then left him and went back to heaven,
left him to die by himself. What a heresy that is. And let
me give you another one. The material body, this body
right here, the flesh, is the source and seat of all evil. And that's why they say a real
coming into the flesh of Christ is impossible. For Christ to
come down in the flesh, it's impossible. Because sin dwells
in the flesh. Sin dwells in the body. So Christ
could not have possibly come and assumed a body. They say
God is too pure to become united with human body, with the human
flesh. Well, look what John said here
in 1 John 4. They said God is too pure to
become united with the human body. And that Christ could not have
possibly come in the flesh because for Him to assume a body is impossible. It's too sinful. But look what
John said here in verse 2. Hereby I know you the Spirit
of God. Now watch this. Every spirit,
my spirit, me personally, Don't say that's not a capital letter.
No, no, not the Holy Spirit. Every spirit, every spirit that
confesses that Jesus is the Christ, has come in the flesh, is of
God. That Jesus Christ come down here in a body, in a flesh, that
you can see and touch and taste, and He can be felt and feel people,
love people, be loved to people. Got tired and got weary and look
what else he goes on to say. And every spirit that confesses
not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And
watch what he says. And this is the spirit of Antichrist,
where if you have heard that it should come and even now already
is in the world. People keep waiting for this
great man, this Antichrist to arise. In the last days, John
says Antichrist was in his day. They were preaching that Jesus
Christ didn't come in the flesh. They were preaching that Jesus
Christ couldn't have possibly come in the flesh. That the body
is too sinful and that the Lord Jesus Christ couldn't take a
body because sin was in the body. I tell you what, let me show
you something. Now, where did I get my sin nature from? From Adam. I didn't get it from
the body. I got it from Adam. And that's what these fellows
miss. It's the nature of a person.
And it was the nature of God in Christ. The holiness of God.
perfections of God, the attributes of God, the glory of God, the
power of God, the wisdom of God. And so listen, I'll tell you
this idea that I... and listen, it's about the body. Christ didn't give us a new nature.
You know, this body, when we were regenerated, He never saved
the body. He saved the new nature. And
everything we get, we either get a new nature from Christ,
or we have our old nature from Adam. And that's the way our Lord Jesus
Christ, you know it said this about Him? It said, God sent
His own Son in the likeness. in the likeness, not sinful flesh,
in the likeness of sinful flesh. And for sin, judge sin and put
it away by that man coming into this world. Now what does that
mean by the likeness of sinful flesh? If he was in here tonight,
if our Lord, if we lived in the days of our Lord Jesus Christ
and say this was synagogue, he could walk in and he'd look like
anybody else. He'd look like an ordinary Jew
and he would come in And if anybody didn't know who he was, they'd
say, well, who are you? Oh, I'm Jesus. Where are you
from? I'm from Nazareth. He looked like any other man,
but he was a sinless man. He had the likeness of sinful
flesh. He looked like anybody else,
but he didn't have any sin, or he couldn't have been made an
offering for sin. I'll tell you, you know, this Antichrist is running rampant
today. I mean, Antichrist is everywhere.
And when you say this, that Christ could not have come in the body
because sin is in the body. You know, you can sin and sit
in a chair about half asleep. Your body don't have to be involved
in it at all. Oh my! But what it does, it denies
the Antichrist, denies the power of God and the wisdom of God
in the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everybody here
knows why Christ had to be virgin born. Because He couldn't be
related to Adam in any way. We're related to Adam. Christ
couldn't possibly be related to Adam. We're sons of Adam. Christ was the Son of God. We
were born, shaped in iniquity, and conceived in sin. Christ
was conceived of a virgin by the Holy Ghost so that He would
be sinless, so that He would not have a natural father, so
that He would not have any natural blood in Him like the Adam's
nature. And so that's the only way we
could have a Savior, by Him being born of a virgin. And oh, let me give you another
one. Antinomianism. We've dealt with this a time
or two. Antinomianism means without law. And what John was dealing
with was a life that's contrary to God's law. You know, a life
that lived without contrary to God's law. And what he meant
by that was the soul and the body, these fellows taught, have
nothing to do with each other. The soul that's in us and our
body has nothing to do with it. They're disconnected from one
another, is what these fellows taught. They're not the same. My soul and body would not be
connected to one another. And so what they said that the
soul, the soul part of us, the part that God saves, can be held
responsible for the deeds of the body. So the body can do
anything it wants to as long as the soul can. Be held responsible
for what the body does. How can you do anything with
the body and your soul not be involved in it? Soul and body
is connected. That's the way God made us. And
let me show you something. Let the body do whatever it pleases. It can sin all it wants to. But
look what He said over here in 1 John 1 and verse 8. Oh, if we say that we have no
sin, in the body, spirit, mind, and
soul, if we say we have no sin, what we're saying is we don't
need a Savior if we say we have no sin. That's the first thing
you have to deal with. If we say we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves, and John said, I'll tell you this much about you,
you ain't no truth in you. There ain't no truth in you whatsoever.
And then look what it says down in verse 10. If we say that we
have not sinned, that we wasn't born in sin, we
never did any sin, and we never sinned, we make God, make who? A liar, and His words not in
us. So, oh my, so they say the body can do anything it want
to. Let me show you the verse of Scripture they use. Turn with
me to 1 John 3. Here's the verse of Scripture
that they use. This is the verse of Scripture they use. And this
verse of Scripture is a great comfort to me, but it does not
tell me that I can go out here and let my body do anything it
wants to do, just yield to my body. 1 John 3.9, 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." Now they use
that verse of scripture to say that the soul cannot be responsible
for what the body does. But now let's look at the whole
context of what he's talking about. Go back up to verse 6. And I'll tell you something.
Somebody told old Walter Gruber one time, and this is where this
started at. Somebody told Walter, He said,
Boy, if I believed what you preach, I could sin all I want to. He
said, No, you wouldn't, because I sin a heap sight more than
I want to. And that's the way we do. Whether we do anything
or not, we have too much sin in us, the way we are by nature.
Ain't that right? Oh, my goodness. Our minds run
here, yonder, and everywhere else. Oh, boy. God help us. I need help. Oh,
Lord, I need help. But look what he said in verse
6. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not. That word sinneth is always
in the present tense if I'm not mistaken. Sinneth not. Continually sinneth. And so he
does not sinneth not. He does a continuing sin. It's
not a present thing all the time that he's doing. Whosoever sinneth,
continually sins, lives in sins, abides in sin, hath neither seen
him, neither known him." So that fellow that just goes out here
and lives with us. Now watch what, little children,
let no man deceive you. He that doeth righteousness is
righteous. Now what does he mean by that?
He means that we will swear hurt to ourselves. It means that we're
honest people. It means that we believe God. And we're going to justify God. It means that we love one another.
And we mean good to one another. And we're going to have honest
dealings in the world. And so it says, He that is righteous
doeth righteous even as he is righteous. Now watch this. He that committeth sin is of
the devil. That man that makes his life
a life of sin, he's of the devil. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ told
all those Pharisees one day, He says, you know, know the truth
and the truth will set you free. He said, we never have been in
bondage to anybody. He said, we're Abraham's children. We're Abraham's seed. And He
said, if you were Abraham's children, you know what you'd do? You'd
do what Abraham did. You'd believe me. And you'd go
out. And you'd follow me. You'd do
what I told you to do. And our Lord Jesus Christ said,
I know who your father is. And he said, well, who is he?
He said, we're not born to fornicate. He said, your father is the devil
and the deeds of your father you're going to do That's what
he said you're going to do. And that's what John said right
here at the very same time. He said, He that commiteth sin
is of the devil. He that lives in sin, commits
sin, continually does. For the devil sins from the beginning. Now watch this. For this purpose,
for this purpose, the Son of God was manifested that he might
destroy the works of the devil. And that's why he said, Whosoever
is born of God. He does not commit sin. That means, beloved,
that we have this new nature that's in us. If I understand
this right, this new nature that's in us, this nature that's made
for takers of the divine nature. Can God sin? We have a nature
in us that God looks at and all He sees is Christ. And Christ
did not sin, Christ could not sin, and we have the seed of
Christ in us, and God views us as Christ, and that seed of Christ
in us can not sin, if I understand that right. Now me, Donnie Bell,
in the body, in my own nature, I do plenty of it. But why do
we despise sin so much? Why do we abhor sin so much?
Why is sin so troublesome to us? Why is evil thoughts? Why is anger? Why is impatience? Why are these things so troubling
to us? It's because of that new nature.
Now, if we didn't have that new nature, we'd be committing sin,
sinning all the time. But that new nature won't let
us. We just despise it. All right, he goes on to say
in verse 10 here, In this the children of God are manifest,
the difference between them, and the children of the devil.
Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God. He that don't
do what God tells him and teaches him to do is not of God. Neither
he that loveth not his brother. For this is the message that
you've heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
He said, that's the difference between the child of devil and
the child of God. And here's the last one. Here's
the last one. They taught, there was a heresy,
that knowledge, knowledge, not love, is the highest virtue.
That knowledge, what you know, and not love is the highest virtue. But our Lord taught just the
opposite of that. He said, By this shall all men
know you are my disciple's wife. You'll have love one toward another.
Though a man have the tongues of men and angels, and have not
charity, he's a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. And that's
what these fellas taught, said knowledge. And I know some people
that does this today. I know some men are this way
today. Knowledge. If you don't have a certain amount
of knowledge and you don't understand things the way they understand
it, as far as they're concerned, you're not converted. But they
say knowledge, not love, is the highest virtue. But oh my, there's
a lot of things we can't do, but one thing we can do by the
Spirit of God, we can love. We may not be able to give lots
of money, but we can love. We may not be able to preach,
but we can love. We may not be able to pray publicly,
but we can love. Can't we? We can do that. And
that's what our Lord taught us. Now look here in 1 John. We're in chapter 3. Let's start
in verse 13. We left off just a minute ago.
John says, Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. We know, as one of those we know,
we know that we have passed from death unto life because we love
the brethren. He that loveth not his brother,
listen to this, he abides in death. He's born dead and he's
still dead and he'll die that way. He that loveth not his brother,
he's still in death. whosoever hateth his brother."
That said, he's a murderer. And you know that no murderer
hath eternal life abiding in him. You can't murder him. You know you can murder a man
with your tongue. You can murder a man in your
heart. And that's what he said here. Hereby perceive we the
love of God. Well, we're not murderers and
we're not killing people and we're not hating people. Hereby
perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life
for us. You want to know what love is?
He laid down His life for us. And you want to know how much
we're to love one another? We ought to lay down our lives
for the brethren. Put our reputations, put our whole lives on the line for
our brethren. Somebody wants to say something
about them and not treat them right or do something like that,
we got it on this. Like old Tim James said one time, he said,
if you cut one of my brethren, I bleed with him. And that's about the way it is,
ain't it? Yeah. And so, look what else he goes
on to say. But whoso hath this, and this is what he's talking
about now. He's talking about love. Whoso hath this world's
good, and seeth his brother have need, And said, well, I'm sorry
for him. And shuts up, makes his heart
hard, shuts up his bowels of compassion from him. How dwells
the love of God in him. My little children, call us little
children. Let us not love just in words.
Let's not just say we love. Don't just use our tongue and
let it roll off our tongue like it's nothing. But let us love
indeed in the things we do. and let us love in truth, and
hereby we know that we are the truth, these things that we just
talked about, and shall assure our hearts before God." You see,
John called those who believe and taught these things Antichrist.
He talks about the Antichrist a lot. And to deny that the Jesus
of history is also the Christ, the Messiah, is to destroy the
Scriptures, and what our hope is, and the foundation of our
faith, if you deny that Jesus Christ is coming to flesh. He
not only writes to expose it, to warn against it, and to condemn
it. He also writes that the marks of those who have fellowship
with God, and are His children, may be clearly seen And that
true believers may have peace and joy in believing. And I'm
going to give you a couple of verses. And he arrives that we
may have some peace and assurance and be seen clearly. He makes
a distinction clearly who the children of God are and who they're
not. Now look back over in 1 John 3. Let's look at just a few verses
and I'll be done. Look what he said here. That which we have seen and heard,
declare we unto you. That's what the gospel is, a
declaration. That you also may have fellowship with us. And
who's he fellowship with? Who's his apostle fellowship
with? And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son,
Jesus Christ. And listen to what he says now.
And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. Oh, when you learn about Christ
and see Christ, your joy gets full. Look in chapter 2 and verse
12. Oh, here's another reason why
I wrote it. We may have peace and joy and
believe and may be clearly seen to be the children of God. He
said, I write unto you, little children, because your sins are
forgiven you for His name's sake. And I write unto you, fathers,
You older men, you men that's been on the way for a while,
because you've known Him, that is, from the beginning. You've
known Him longer than these children. 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. Oh, sins
forgiven, known the Father, known Him from the beginning. I have
written unto you, fathers, because you have known Him that is from
the beginning. And I have written unto you,
young men, because you're strong. And the Word of God abideth in
you, and you've overcome the wicked. Oh, such blessings. Look down at verse 21. I've done
read this once. I have not written unto you,
because you know not the truth. That's not why I wrote to you,
so because you didn't know the truth, but because you know it.
And you know whenever you hear a lie, you know that can't be
the truth. Can't be the truth. And then chapter 5, verse 3.
You know, that's what John wrote when he said the last verse he
had in John 20 was this. He said, These things I write
unto you, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, and
that believing you might have life through Him. And look what
it says here, in verse 3, 1 John 5, 3. For this is the love of
God, that we keep His commandments, and listen to this, His commandments,
they're not grievous, they're not hard, the way of the transgressors
is hard. Oh my, God save us from error,
save us from error. Our blessed, blessed Savior,
thank you for allowing us to meet here this evening. I pray that you've been honored
and pray that your name's been magnified,
truth has been told. God bless these dear saints,
encourage them, strengthen them, protect them, preserve them.
Save you people in this place, these young people, these children. Some of the older men who've
never yet confessed, oh Lord, open their hearts. Open the hearts
of my grandsons, my granddaughter, my children. Lord, they're without
God. Oh, please have mercy on them.
We ask these things in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. He's the Savior of my soul. Jesus, my Jesus. He's the Savior of my soul. He's the Savior of my soul. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, He's
the Savior of my soul. He's the Savior of my soul.