All right, we are recording To
turn your Bibles to 1st John and chapter 5 I want to read from verse 7 to
verse 13 of 1st John chapter 5 For there are three that bear
record in heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and and
these three are one. And there are three that bear
witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood,
and these three agree in one. If we receive the witness of
men, the witness of God is greater, for this is the witness of God
which he hath testified of his Son. He that believeth on the
Son of God hath the witness in himself, He that believeth not
God hath made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that
God gave of his Son. And this is the record, that
God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his
Son. He that hath the Son hath life,
and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto
you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may
know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the
name of the Son of God." I'm going to stop right there. What
I'm going to attempt to get to this morning is this is the record. I like the Apostle John. He writes
things plain. He writes them plain. You look
at his gospel, you'll see phrases like this is everywhere, scattered
throughout. This is eternal life. And that's what it is. Well,
here he says, this is the record. First of all, this is the introduction.
First of all, there is a record. There's a record. There's a witness. There's a testimony. There is
one. Second, there's only one record. And again, it's the record, the
record which God has given. And third of all, we are to know
this record. It's given to us to know. It starts off here with this
wonderful, wonderful statement For there are three that bear
record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost,
and these three are one. Now this is the definitive, definitive
statement of what is known as the triune God. Three persons,
one God. This is it. Paul states it flat
out. There's no, you want to deny
the Trinity, go right ahead. but you're calling God a liar.
John gets to that. And that's as much part of the
scripture as everything else. The truth is the truth. And Walter,
I looked. This is just for you. This word
three here, it's plural. It's plural. The word is actually
threes. And guess what that? That doesn't
mean a thing. It's Greek grammar. That's all
it is. The pronoun these is plural, and that's what those three is
talking about. So it uses a plural word. That's all it means, and
that's kind of an inside joke. Some of you get it. Don't worry
about it if you don't. It's not important. These three
are one. John says it flat out. There's
no question about it. This is not the primary reason
for starting here, but that never hurts. These three are one. God
the Father, God the Son, the Word of Life, and God the Holy
Ghost. Now, the thing that I learned
here when I was reading this and studying on it and looking
at it, Walter, I never really put this together, but there's
two English words here that this word says bare record. It's two
words, two English words. It's actually one Greek word,
but that's a verb. It's a verb. Actually, as far as our English
nowadays, what we would say is, these three are in heaven bearing
record. It's active, and it's in the
present tense. Right now, God the Father God
the Son and God the Holy Ghost are actively bearing this record
out. It's happening now. It was happening
when John wrote it. It was happening before John
wrote it. It'll happen after. And it's happening now. It'll
happen forever. These three are bearing the record.
Now this is basically a legal term. You'll
see Throughout this passage of scripture. You will see it in
verb form then you'll see the noun forms But it's basically
from the same word. It's just the noun form as an
actual thing and the action of Performing that thing You get
both of it, but right here. It's not talking about a thing
It's talking about what God the Father God the Son and God the
Holy Ghost are doing right now It's more of a court term than
anything else They are giving evidence They are giving their
testimony right now in heaven That's what they're doing and
that's what John is headed for right here as he keeps going
this verb is in the present tense and this is one of the things
the triune God is doing and We're to know this The next verse says,
and there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit,
and the water, and the blood, and these three agree in one.
Now, I looked at that word agree, that ain't what it says. Now, to bear witness, the word
witness is the same word as the word bear record. I don't know
why they translated it different. I mean the Greek spelling is
exactly the same. This is also a verb. It is also something actively
being done right now on earth. What? As it is in heaven. They're bearing record. They
are actively bearing testimony, giving evidence in the earth
also. Now the literal translation,
I looked at it, Says in actually in the order of the Greek it
says these three to the one are It's the same word as these three
are one these three are to the one the spirit the water and
the blood These three are to the one now. They do agree in
one. There's nothing wrong with that
I understand the policy, but it actually has a couple of prepositions
in there to the one, and that's what it's talking about. Bearing
the record, the witness, giving the testimony on earth just as
the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are in heaven. Why? Because it is the record. These are giving the exact same
record that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are giving in
heaven. Now, who are these three? Boy. Boy, that can get complicated,
depending upon what you read and what access you have. And
right now, I have more access to more stuff than I need. Because
I'm telling you, you can wander real far afield in this. There
are three things that Paul wrote here,
the spirit, the water, and the blood. But there must be about
50 different opinions as to what the spirit is, the water is,
and the blood is here. The best thing I saw written
was written by Robert Harker. I don't exactly agree with all
of it, but darn, it's a wonderful thing. So I'm going to read it
to you. The truth to which those witnesses bear testimony in earth
is the same to which those spoken of before bear record in heaven.
Namely, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and in whom we
have our eternal life. And the witnesses themselves,
it should seem, are the spirit, when witnessing to our spirits,
of our being the children of God. And he says the water of
regeneration and the blood of Christ. And these all correspond
to the same. I say it should seem to be these
because it is added that this is the witness of God and which
the child of God receives. And it is. and which he cannot
receive but by regeneration. And hence the unregenerate who
receive it not, neither accept it, give God the lie by the rejection
of God's record to his son. And what an awful state those
men in who by rejecting his Godhead cannot but reject with it the
eternal life which he brings. for who less than an eternal
being can bring eternal life. I like that, I do. Now, I do
know this, I've got three things here, three or four, that there
is no true bearing of testimony in this earth outside of the
spirit of God. There isn't, there isn't. There may be some facts spoken,
But there is no truth revealed outside of the Spirit of God,
because even some people prophesy that they don't even know what
they're doing. Caiaphas, the high priest, prophesied that
it was expedient for Christ to have died for his people. He was right and wrong at the
same time. Because it was meat, it was predestined,
it was the counsel of God that Jesus Christ should die. But
not for the reasons that Caiaphas had in his heart. Not to spare
himself from the wrath of Rome. And Balaam preached a mighty
fine sermon, even though he was a heretic. You read that sermon,
that's a good one. That was the word from the Lord.
Even though it says he was a reprobate. So there is no true bearing of
testimony in the earth outside of spirit. So I believe that
is the spirit of God. I believe, I also know this,
that there is no true bearing record of the Son of God on earth
by men without the washing of regeneration. That's true. And
the renewing of the Holy Spirit. Christ said we must be born of
the water and the spirit and without this we can't recognize
anything. Okay? You have to be born from
above to see the kingdom of God. You have to be born of the water
and the spirit to what? Enter the kingdom of God. And that is, I believe, the washing
of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, spoken of,
written by Paul and Timothy. But here, I'm not so sure that
it doesn't mean our Lord's baptism, where he was first, first, first,
in his public ministry, acknowledged as approved by God the Father,
publicly. There was a voice that spoke
from heaven. The Holy Ghost descended like a dove when Christ was baptized. And that's the water. I don't
know. You can have either one because they're both true. Now,
the third thing is the blood of Christ. That's all there is
to it. I mean, that was simple. There were people who made it
complicated that I read, but it's simple. But I refer back
to the verse I didn't read, verse six. It says, this is he that
came by water and blood. Even Jesus Christ, not by water
only, but by water and blood. He was shown approved of God
at his baptism. He was shown approved of God
when he shed his blood. He was resurrected from the dead. And
what's it say, the next thing? And it's the spirit that beareth
witness. Because the spirit is true. So I think those are the
three things that are bearing witness in this earth right now
to this day. And they're bearing witness to
the exact same thing that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit
bear witness to in heaven. There's only one record. And there's no debate about the
record. There's no argument. The record's the same in heaven
and in earth, for it's not true. It's that simple. If what we
preach doesn't agree with the whole of scripture, with all
of scripture, what we're preaching is wrong. What we're bearing
witness to is wrong. And this is the only and the
single proof that we have. I mean, I'll use commentators.
I mean, I'll use commentaries. I'll use, you know, messages,
sermons, written sermons, audio sermon. But this is the final judgment
for what we have. It is soul of scripture. The
scripture alone is our authority to speak and to not speak. Now in the next verse, the word
witness is used three times. Verse nine, if we receive the
witness of men, the witness of God is greater, for this is the
witness of God which he has testified of his son. Now these three times,
this word witness, this is a noun. It's actually talking about the
testimony given, received in evidence in a court, as they
say. The court reporter sits there and writes it down. And
guess what? It's officially evidence in the
trial, whatever the trial is. It is evidence. That's what this
word means. This is the noun. It is the thing, not the action
of producing the thing, which is what we were talking about
in the first two verses, which is ongoing, active, present tense. But this is the witness. And
this is what it says to us. If we receive the witness of
men, the witness of God is greater. Now, the deep meaning of that
is that if we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is
greater. Okay? If you want to get really specific
into the depths of it, if we receive the witness of God, the
witness of men is wrong. That's where it is. That's all
it is. Because if the witness of men
disagrees with the witness of God, it's wrong. It's error at
best, blasphemy and heresy at worst. And we're surrounded by
it. I'm sorry, we are. I mean, we
are inundated with it. But I do want to say this, in
particular, the witness of men is not the witness of God. Now we do receive testimony,
we receive witness from men about many things. There are people
that among the secular affairs that I have, there are people
that I semi-trust to tell me the truth. Mostly at work, and
not very many of them, it's a few, but there are a couple. I will
receive their witness, I will receive their evidence, but not
about the things of God. You know, we were there and I'm
really the thing that kind of jumped out here because there
are many testimonies. There's about as many testimonies
as there are church buildings. There are about as many messages,
records, testimonies, witnesses as there are congregations or
people because they all vary in one way or another. And I
don't know, you know, as far as I know, we're not wrong. But
if I knew I was wrong, I'd fix it. But I'm not saying I'm perfect
or even close. But I try to stay with this word.
And that's what we try to do here. But there are all these
testimonies. But you notice John wrote this
testimony singular. Now it says men is plural. But
the testimony is singular, even though there are many testimonies.
So I thought about this. And it came to me. It doesn't matter what the witness
of men is. It doesn't matter. Here's what
it isn't. It isn't the witness of God.
That's the two choices. There's the witness of God, and
there's not. There's the witness of the scripture,
and there's not. There's the witness of the truth,
and there's the lie. That's what there is. It is singular,
even though there are many testimonies and there's many differences,
and they will fight amongst themselves. Online and in person and on the
radio and on TV, they'll scrap amongst themselves. And sometimes
I am greatly amused by this. Because they're straining at
the gnat and swallowing the camel. They swallowed it whole, the
live. Because there's only one lie,
and you're saying God's not true. That's the testimony of men,
plural. The single testimony of plural
men. A lie that God is not true. The next thing is, no matter
what the witness of men is, God's witness is greater. It's greater. It's greater. It's greater. And
again, what does that make the witness singular of men plural? It makes it wrong. Dead wrong. Unregenerate wrong. Sometimes
reprobate wrong. The testimony of God is also
singular and so is God. The record of God is singular,
and God is one. These three are one. The record
of God is singular, and the God is singular. Only one record,
one witness of God, there is only one gospel. There's a testifying in heaven,
there's a testifying in earth. But there's only one record.
There's only one witness. There's only one truth. And this
truth is in His Son. That's where it is. He that believeth
on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. You've got the record
in you. It's in me. It's in me. Have you ever wondered sometimes
when you'll be reading the scripture and all of a sudden something
just jumps right out at you? And you say, that's true. I never
saw that before, Walter. I didn't know about this barren
record. But as soon as I found out it was a verb, it's like,
of course that's what it is. His witness, or his spirit bears
witness with our spirit. And the spirit teaches us the
things of God. We're just learning what the
spirit already knows in us. That's what it is. He's revealing
God's Word to us. And He does this individually.
This is not a group effort. It's not a group effort. We do assemble together, but
God teaches individually. It's the Holy Spirit in you.
And if the Holy Spirit's not in you, I can't teach you anyway. I can't teach you anyway if the
Holy Spirit's in you. It lets me off the hook. Yes,
I'm speaking for God, and yes, that's solemn and serious, but
He's the one that has to apply the Word. And He does, because
if you're His, you have the witness in yourself. You have this record. It's a noun in you. But the hope of glory, Jesus
Christ our Lord, His Spirit bears witness with our spirit. How
great is this salvation? And how can we neglect it? Well,
we can. We're that depraved. But that
witness is still in us, even when we neglect it. It doesn't
matter about your feelings, the witness is there if you're His.
And if He's brought you to Him and He has regenerated you and
given you faith and you believe Him, that witness is inside you
and you cannot deny it or Him. You can't deny Him. You can deny
yourself all you want to, you can doubt yourself, but don't
doubt Christ. You might doubt your part or
lot in this matter, but don't doubt this matter because this
is the salvation of God. He's put His witness in us. He's
put His witness in us and we have Him. We have Him. He that believeth on the Son
of God has witness in Himself. He that believeth not God hath
made Him a liar. John didn't mince words. John
didn't mince words. By the scriptures you are fully
authorized, I wouldn't recommend it, to go up to another church
and point at somebody and say, liar. I'm sorry, you're denying
God. If you deny the work of Christ,
if you deny the efficacy of His blood and what it did, If you
deny His reception by the Father, the acceptance of His offering,
once, for sin, forever, forever and ever, you're a liar. You don't like it? Take it up
with the Apostle. I got a feeling, if you want to appeal to the
Apostle Paul, go right ahead. He'll say something worse. Let
him be accursed. And they're a liar. or you're
a liar and let you be accursed. Because he believeth not the
record that God gave of his son. There is nothing more important
to the father than the person and the work of his dearly beloved
son. Nothing more important to him.
and you'll either respect it, and believe it, and know it,
and love it, or you're a liar. And the truth's not in you. What's
that mean? His witness is not in you. You
are yet dead in trespasses and in sickness. It's in you if you believe. And
then in the next verse, John's going to tell us how it got there,
this witness in you. 1 John 5 and verse 11, and this
is the record that God hath given to us eternal life. And this life is in His Son. The glory of that verse, the
wonder of that verse, the miracle of that verse. Eternal life is the gift of God. What's that mean? That means
that eternal life is the gift of God. If he don't give it,
you ain't got it. It's that simple. It is that
simple. And if you don't have the witness
in you, you've got no reason to think you've got eternal life.
If you don't believe the record God gave of his son and the one
that he's giving right now in heaven, the one that is being
given right here, right now in this place on earth, you ain't got it. And you got no claim on it. Now,
you might be elect. That's got nothing to do with
this. He's writing. He tells us. I'm writing to you that believe. Walter, you read this a while
back and it hit me. Back up just 1 John chapter 2
and verse 21. I love this verse now. And I
don't remember reading it or paying any attention to it until
Walter mentioned it. He was preaching, I have not
written unto you because ye know not the truth. John writing this
epistle is not evangelizing. I, but because ye know it, and
that no lie is of the truth. We say it all the time. These
epistles are written to believers and only to believers will it
do any good. That's what John just wrote. I didn't write this
to you because you don't know. I wrote it to you because you
know. because it's of value to you if you have the witness in
yourself. If you believe the record God
gave of his son, this epistle is of value to you. These words
are of value to us. A, it's eternal life, and B,
it's a gift. Now you can say people, You know,
I mean, that's part of the heresy around us. People get saved,
people get lost every day. The same person. That ain't eternal life. I don't
know what it is. Well, I do know what it is. It's
called strong delusion. They should believe the lie.
Because God's gifts are eternal. And God is unchanging. There's
not even a hint of a variableness of turning. His gifts are perfect and His
gifts are forever and His gift to us is eternal life. You didn't get it. You can't
lose it. Now if I went out and got it,
I probably could. Mason, there's nothing been made that I can't
lose. There's nothing been made normally yet that I've seen that
I can't break. But I didn't make this and I didn't get this. This
was given to me. This was a gift from God to every
single one of His people. When He calls them out and when
He adds to the church daily such as should be saved, they have the witness inside
and they have eternal life. Why? Because they have the sign.
and they believe the record God gave of His Son. John's not talking about walking
around breathing life, he's talking about the difference between
the natural man and the spiritual man. That's the way Paul put
it. And the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God, but the spiritual man does. What's the difference? God giving eternal life. God
giving life. It's defined here as eternal
life. It's described as eternal life. What it is is life to a
dead alien sinner Live When you're polluted in
your own blood, I saw thee and I said unto thee live That's
what he's talking about and that life John described it here and
in his gospel through the words of Christ just recording them.
This is eternal life Christ said it was eternal. I'll believe
him before I'll believe some preacher anywhere. John writes that God gives us
eternal life. And you know that word gives
is a verb and it's active. Now it's not active in what you
do, it's active in what God's doing. Because if it was talking
about us, it'd be a passive verb. You see it in him. When we receive
something, that's a passive verb. Why? Because we're not doing
anything. God's giving it, you're getting it. That's it. And this life is in His Son. This eternal life is in His Son. This is the testimony of the
Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. This is the testimony
of the Spirit, and the Water, and the Blood. In Heaven and in Earth, this
life is in His Son. This life is in His Son, and
nowhere else. This is the record of God. There's only one and it's in His Son. It's never been
anywhere else but in His Son. It's never been anywhere else.
Before the foundation of the world, we were chosen in Him.
We were chosen in Him. And in time, we are brought into
Him. And we are given the witness
in ourselves. This life has always been in
the sun, is in the sun, and will always be in the sun. That being
said, what is there outside the sun? Death. That's all there is. And you're so dead then, you
call God a liar. In Him there is life, and light,
and immortality, eternal life. John starts summing it up, he
that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son
of God hath not life. He's getting repetitious. Why? Because it bears repeating. Now it's not he that hath life
hath the Son, though that's true. John writes this from the viewpoint
of the reality of this life. You have the Son first before
you have life. Whether you know it or not. And usually you don't
know it. You don't know it. Because John
puts this in its proper order. God first and man not. That's the way it is. Now, you
have life, you have the Son. If you have the Son, you have
life. That's just, it's there. When he says live, guess what?
You live. Life's there. But oh, he that hath not the
Son, he that hath not the Son of God, he that hath not the
Son of God, no life. What's that? Death. Again, outside of the Son, there
is nothing but death. Verse 13, these things I have
written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God,
tells us who he's writing to again. Believers. That ye may
know that ye have eternal life and that ye may believe on the
name of the Son of God. It's okay to believe Christ.
It's okay. It's a good thing to believe
Jesus Christ. It's a good thing to have faith
in the Son of God. And we get to know that. We get
to know Him. Through Him we know the Father.
If you've seen Him, you've seen the Father. And you have the Holy Spirit
inside you. Walter, there's a whole bunch
that gets thrown around a lot. I don't know, I'm not sure you
remember. There are people, if you say
that I know whom I have believed. I know Christ. I know I have
eternal life. There are people, well you can't
know. You can't know. That's arrogance. No, it's called assurance. John
wrote these things so that you might know. Now he's not talking
about your feelings, he's not talking about how you feel or
the circumstances you're in, but he does want you to know
that if you believe Christ you have eternal life. Whether you
feel like it or not. Circumstances in this case, don't
matter. This is our assurance. Jesus
Christ the righteous. This is it. And you are to know
the record that God gave of His Son. And if you receive it, and
if you receive it with joy, with happiness, and if you feel blessed
to know Him and a little bit about Him, That's a bit of assurance that
you know the record God gave of His Son. We are to know Him. We are to believe Him. So the
conclusion, do you love hearing about the Son? Is that why you came? I know
we're going to eat later, and I'm here for that too. But that's
not my primary reason for being. I come here when we don't eat.
And so do you. We believers are active in our
faith, our God-given faith. We are to believe and to continue
and to continue to believe until we die or Christ comes. That's also His gift. His witness is in us, and it
ain't coming out. You didn't put it there, you
can't run it out. You can grieve the Spirit, yes,
but that's not what I'm talking about. You can't run it out. You ain't got the power. I don't
have the power. The only one who could take it
out is the one that put it there. And if he was going to take it
out later, he wouldn't have put it there in the first place.
He put the witness in you, and it's in you. And it'll come out of your mouth. Ah, John Lee Hooker. Let that
boy boogie woogies. It's in him, and it's got to
come out. Well, if the witness of God's in you, it's in you,
and it's going to come out. It's going to leak out on you,
what Earl used to say. I love that. Somehow, someway, it'll
leak out on you just a little bit here and there. People think
you're a little weird, but that's the way it is. Because you believe
the record of your son and they don't. There is a difference. We don't make the difference,
but there is a difference. Believers are to earnestly contend
for the faith once delivered to the saints. I like that. I
like that. That don't mean a fist fight. We have a common salvation. Common
in the fact that it is exactly the same salvation. It ain't
no different. Nobody saved any better or any
worse than anybody else. Now last week I spoke about Christ,
the head of His body. We have by God been given eternal
life and that life is in His Son. You are His body. We, I'll include myself, we are
his body. Now here comes the meddling part,
Walter. We have, by God, been given eternal
life and that life is in his son. Act like it. That's it. There you go. Act
like it. What's the record of God? He's
given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. You
can't have one without the other. That's why He put the and there.
The only life that matters, the only life that counts, the only
true life there is, and there is a record. There's only one
record, and we are to know this record that God gave of His Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ. And the three words that we end
with are continue, continue, continue. Because all these verbs that
are in here in the present tense, active, and all these nouns are
specific and to the point. But all those believing, the
words believing, he that believeth, active, present tense. Keep believing. Keep believing him. Keep believing
the record God gave of his son. Our Heavenly Father, we are thankful
again for this time in this place. But most of all, thankful for
you who gave your son and your son who gave his life for his
people. And you are applying that. giving
that life, that witness to us, in us. Thank you, Lord, for all. All the precious promises are
yea and amen, and all the blessings of God are blessings indeed.
In Christ's name we pray, amen.