Well, I was thinking about this. Brother Jim Bird, who's pastor
of 13th Street Baptist Church in Ashland, I was talking to
him. And I'm going to be up there,
of course, in two weeks after I preach, two weeks from this
day. After I preach, most of you know I'm going to head to
Kentucky to kidnap my wife and bring her back here. drag her
away from two grandchildren. That's tough. Now let me tell
you, it's tough. If you've got grandkids, you know what I'm
talking about. Anyway, Brother Byrd asked me to preach up there
on that Wednesday, that's September 7th, and I got to thinking about
that, how that almost 36 years ago, Brother Henry Mahan, Pastor Henry
Mahan, who was the pastor back then, that church. He started a preacher's school
and ever since then I've made it my life in this matter of preaching
and teaching to study the Bible. I believe this book is the Word
of God. I don't believe it just contains
the Word of God. I believe it is the Word of God.
I believe this is the inspired, the verbally inspired, inerrant
Word of God. And you'd be surprised how many
people don't believe that. I mean, you may not be surprised.
And what you find when you go into the Bible, and I mentioned
this a couple weeks ago, how there are things that we just
naturally think that do not line up with the Bible. You see, our
thinking, when God saves a sinner, He brings us to meekness. A fellow asked me, what is meekness?
Well, meekness is a willingness to submit to God. That's what
it is. Meekness is not weakness, but
it's a willingness to bow to God's word. In other words, whatever
God says, that's true. However I react to it. You know,
I've told you about the church sign that I saw that said, God
said it, I believe it, that settles it. That's not right. It should
be God said it, that settles it. Whether I believe it or not,
God's word is true. And I spent a lot of years before
this preacher school, before actually being converted, trying
to disprove the Bible. I did, I thought it was full
of contradictions, but I've been studying this book for all these
years and I'm constantly amazed at the miracle of this Bible.
And I know people want to talk about different translations,
and I know everybody says, well, you see it your way, I see it
my way. I'm not going to go into all that this morning, because
we don't have time. I'm just telling you, I believe this is
the Word of God. I believe the King James Version is the best
translation, because it stood the test of time. There are some
other good versions. There are some terrible versions,
too. You need to be a noble Berean. You need to study it. 2 Timothy
2, you know, study to show thyself proved unto God a workman that
needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. I've
got a book coming out here pretty soon on rightly dividing the
word. It talks about eight rules of scriptural interpretation.
And that's how the Bible is. But it has to be revealed by
God. We know that. Well, I said all that to say
this, that many times in studying the Bible, you will run into
things you don't want to hear, but things that you need to hear.
And I liken that in the realm of Christ being the great physician.
You know, we sing that song, the great physician heals the
sick. And the thing about a good physician,
a good doctor, He may not tell you what you want to hear. But
if he's a good doctor, a responsible doctor, a benevolent doctor,
he'll tell you what you need to hear. Hopefully, when he does
that, he has a cure to prescribe. Hopefully. But for the people
of God, we know what the ultimate cure is, don't we? To go to be
with the Lord. That's a permanent healing, isn't
it? Well, the title of the message today is Love and Hate. Love and Hate. What does the
Bible say here about the children of God as distinguished from
the children of the devil? Now we've studied this, and I
just want to go back and read this, but I want to get into
the next verses today. Look at verse 10 of 1 John chapter
3. He says, in this the children
of God are manifest, made known, and the children of the devil.
Now here's how you know the children of God, and here's how you know
the children of the devil. He said, whosoever, and you see
the colon there, now of course you know these punctuation marks
were supplied by the translators of the KJV, but they mainly got
it right. There's a couple places I would
differ with them on where a comma should be, but we're not going
to split the church over that. But what that colon means is
what's following is an explanation of what has just been said. He
said, whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God. Now, he had already
said that those who do righteousness are those who are born of God.
In other words, you've got to be born of God or you can't do
righteousness. But here's the thing about it.
If you're going to study the Bible and understand it correctly,
you've got to understand what it means by due righteousness.
Now, righteousness is a legal term. Actually, think about it.
Righteousness is not a moral quality of character. But righteousness
is the standard of law by which all moral character is to be
measured. So it's not, well, somebody says,
well, I'm trying to keep the law. Well, that's moral character. And we should be moral. We who
are especially believers, we ought to be the most moral people
in the world. But here's the question. Does
my moral character, does it measure up to the standard of righteousness? And the answer is no. What is
righteousness? It is perfect satisfaction to
God's law and justice. That's what righteousness is
in the scripture. Perfect satisfaction to God's law and justice. I told
that to a fellow one time, we were having lunch and he was
wanting to know about the gospel that I preach. And I told him
that and his eyes got real big. He looked at me and said, well,
nobody can do that. And I said, that's exactly right. That's
why the Bible says there's none righteous, no not one. There's
none that do of good, no not one. That's why the Bible says
that those who are under the law are cursed. That salvation
is by grace and not by works. If you or I could measure up
to righteousness by our morality, or our dedication, or our sincerity,
or our religiosity, we would not need grace. Do you understand
that? We wouldn't need mercy. Had an
old elder up in Ashland who always talked about himself as a mercy
beggar. That's a good term for a believer.
I'm a mercy beggar. I need God's grace. I need God's
mercy every second of my life. I may have a good day today and
in my own little pitiful mind say, well, you know, I did pretty
good today. Well, I don't need Christ as
much as I needed him the other day when I had a bad day. I lost
my temper or whatever. No, no, no. I need Christ every
day, every hour, every minute, every second or I'm doomed. So what is it to do righteousness?
It's to believe in and cling to Jesus Christ as my only righteousness. I'm saved and preserved and when
I enter glory, it will be by the merits of Jesus Christ. Not by mine. Not by my merits,
because I don't have any. You say, well, aren't you trying
to be moral? Yes, but that's not my merit. My merit is Christ. That's why the Apostle Paul said,
I strive not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. It's His obedience unto death
that saves me, that washes away my sins. I talked about confession. Does my confession make me clean? No. Should I confess? Yes. Confess to God, not to you. To
God. Sincerely? Heart confession? Not just sham hypocrisy. I should
be a confessor. But my confession does not wash
away my sins. What washes away my sins? Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. You see the difference? And that's
not just splitting hairs, folks. To do righteousness is to cling
to Christ. It's to plead Christ. That's
what he's talking about here. He talks about a true child of
God will not let go of Christ because he can't. And you know
why? Because God holds him. So that's the first thing. And
then he says in verse 10, neither he that loveth not his brother.
A true child of God loves the brethren. So there's two things
he gives us here. Children of God are those who
do righteousness, they cling to Christ for all salvation,
for all forgiveness, for all righteousness, for all life and
godliness, and they love the brethren. Believers are commanded
to love one another. And let me add now, And I'm not
trying to excuse bad behavior. I'm not trying to excuse treating someone badly. But here's
the fact of the matter. True believers are not commanded
to like one another. Should we try to like one? Yeah,
but we're not commanded. We're commanded to love one another.
To love one another. You've heard me quote from that
poem, to dwell above with saints we love will be a wondrous glory. To dwell below with saints we
know, well, that's another story. Sometimes that's the case, isn't
it? It's kind of like the woman who'd been going to church all
of her life, she missed a Sunday and she came back. And a lady
who had never spoken to her, never gave her the time of day,
wouldn't even look at her, came up and gave her a big hug. She
sat down, the preacher started preaching. He said, I'm going
to tell you the same thing I told you last week. Find somebody you
can't stand and hug them. Don't you wish that this love
that he's talking about here would be as simple as giving
somebody a hug? But it's not. Not that at all,
is it? Love one another. True believers
are commanded to love the brethren. Now, this is not love based on
physical connections or feelings. This love here, if you're my
brother or my sister in Christ, it has nothing to do how I feel
towards you, emotionally or whatever. It has nothing to do with physical
attraction. It has nothing to do with common
likes and interests. You see, that's why people, when
they go looking for a church, you know, most of the time, people
are looking for people who have common likes and interests in
the world. But that's a wrong standard. Somebody said one time, said,
well, I don't want to go to church with a whole bunch of people I don't
like. Well, you go to church where the truth is preached,
where Christ is preached. This love, now let me say this,
this love is not love that is based on acts of kindness and
charity or self-sacrifice. Now, should we be kind? Yes.
That's not an issue. We're not arguing. Should we
be charitable? Yes. Should we be self-sacrificing? Yes. But that's not what this
love is. This here, this is love of fellowship. This is love in the truth. And
you need to understand this now. If you love me, or if I love
you, we will not lie to one another. But what if the truth hurts? Love tells the truth, even when
it hurts. Now, obviously, I'm not talking
about the things of this world. Somebody said, well, you know,
lady comes in, she's got a hat on, and I hate that hat. I'm
just going to tell her the truth. No, that's not what, that's not,
don't be silly like that. We're talking about in the things
of eternal life. Just like I said, the great physician.
When I go see the doctor, what are we talking about? We're talking
about my physical life. My physical well-being. I want
to know what's wrong. Doesn't mean I want to hear something
wrong. But if there is something, I want to know. Well, how much
more important is that in eternal matters? Where you and I will
spend eternity. This is love in the truth. And
it's evidence, this love of the brethren. Now, what are brethren?
Brothers and sisters in Christ. That's what he's talking about.
They're in fellowship, and we'll see that in just a moment. But
he says, it's love in the truth, evidenced by our recognition
that we have the same spiritual father. Now we'll go back to
verse 10. In this the children of God are
manifest. That's those whom God is their
father. He's not talking about creation.
He's not talking about the universal creatorhood of God. He's talking
about the fatherhood of God to his church, his people who are
in the Lord Jesus Christ, evidenced by their belief in him, doing
righteousness, clinging to him. You see, go back to the verse
12 there. Cain and Abel, remember Cain
and Abel? Cain came to God pleading the works of his hands. What
does he say about Cain? Look at verse 12. Well, let's
read verse 11. For this is the message that you heard from the
beginning, that we should love one another, not as Cain, who
was of that wicked one. Cain was of the devil. And notice
he was religious. He was bringing the works of
his hands. That's why Cain was rejected.
God had already told Adam and Eve. He would not accept sinners
on the basis of their works. And you remember in Genesis 321
when he killed, slew animals and made them coats of skin? That was a picture, that was
an object lesson of how God saves and accepts and justifies sinners
on the basis of the blood sacrifice which pictured the Lamb of God,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Abel came with the blood of the
Lamb. That's Christ. And Hebrews 11 bears that out. If you're coming before God pleading
the merits of your works, what is that? You're doing a work
that's inspired by the devil. And you're lost in your sins.
And God rejects it. But if you come to God pleading
the merits of the blood of His only begotten Son, The Lamb of
God. Remember what he said when the
dove descended upon the head of Christ after he was baptized
by John? He said, this is my beloved son
in whom I am well pleased. And if you're in him, by election, by redemption, by
regeneration, by faith, if you're in Christ, God accepts you. Accepted in the beloved, Ephesians
chapter 1 says. And it says, Cain was of the
wicked one and he slew his brother and wherefore or why did Cain
slay Abel? Because his own works were evil
and his brother's righteous. Now why was Cain's works evil?
Because there was no blood. It was against God's commandment.
It was against God's way. It dishonored God. It denied
God's glory and way of salvation in Christ. It's the act of an
unbeliever. Did you know that? A person says,
well, I'm trying to work my way into heaven. That's an unbeliever. I'm trying to make myself righteous
so that I can be accepted before God. That's an unbeliever. But Abel's works were righteous.
What was Abel's works? He brought the blood of the Lamb. Now, here's Cain and Abel. Physically speaking, they were
brothers. Spiritually speaking, they were
enemies. Spiritually speaking, they didn't
have any fellowship at all. And Cain hated Abel. And it was
over religion. The first murder was over religion,
folks. How much blood has been shed
since then over religion? False religion is Cain. Someone said there's only two
religions in the world if you think about it. It's the religion
of Cain and the religion of Abel. You're either a Cainite or an
Abelite. And that's true because if you take all the religions
of man With all of their cultural, historical, ceremonial differences,
all their different doctrines, you can bring it down to one
thing, salvation by the works and the wills of men. And the
one true religion, and listen, you do realize that I realize
that this is not a popular message today, you understand that. This
is very unpopular, especially today in our day of pluralism
and relativism, no absolutes. It's like in the days of the
judges, every man does what's right in his own eyes, that kind
of thing. There's only two religions. It's
either by works or it's by grace, and grace comes to sinners by
Jesus Christ our Lord. He is the one way, the one truth,
the one life. There is no other. This love
is the fellowship of faith. The grace of God and His truth
in Christ that binds sinners saved by grace together and makes
us loyal to Christ and to one another in the faith of the gospel. That's what this love is. It
doesn't mean that we're going to be golf buddies or that we
like the same football teams or we like to socialize necessarily. I love to see believers socializing
together, but that's not what this love is. It's different. This is a love,
now listen to this, this is a love that we do not have naturally. This is a love that only comes
when the Holy Spirit sheds it abroad, as Romans 5 says, within
our hearts because we see the love of God for us in Christ. You know there are different
kinds of love, don't you? You've heard the term agape?
That's what this is. Agape is God's love. It's divine
love. Somebody said it's unconditional
love. Not necessarily. Now what I mean by that is this.
God loves His people freely and unconditionally, but there were
conditions on the love, but you know who fulfilled the conditions?
Christ did. If it were based upon me and
you, we'd be doomed. Turn over to 1 John 4. Listen
to this. 1 John chapter 4. Look at verse 5. He says, they are of the world.
Now, who's the they there? That's false preachers he's talking
about there. But it refers to anyone who is
in cahoots with the world. You remember in John 15, 18,
Christ said, marvel not if the world hates you, for it hated
me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the
world would love its own. Well, see, they are of the world.
That's unbelievers. Therefore, speak they of the world. And
the world hears them. The world listens to them. The
world likes what they say. But he says in verse six, look
at this, we are of God. And he that knoweth God heareth
us. Now the only ones, listen, the only ones who's gonna listen
to us are those who are of God. Chosen of God, redeemed by the
blood, regenerated by the spirit. He says, he that knoweth not,
Or he that knoweth God rather, heareth us, and he that is not
of God, heareth not us, hereby know we the spirit of truth and
the spirit of error." Someone comes and preaches a false gospel
of salvation conditioned on the sinner. What do we know? Well, that's the spirit of error. Now, a lot of people would say,
well, that's a hateful message. No. That's just telling the truth,
folks. That's telling us what we need
to hear. But look at verse 7. Beloved, let us love one another.
Let us stick together in this truth. That's what he's talking
about. For love is of God. You see, we're not the source
of this love. We're not even the power of this
love. Christ is. For love is of God, and everyone
that loveth is born of God. To have this love, this specific
love, this love of God, love of the brethren, fellowship,
you gotta be born again by the Spirit, or you don't have it.
So those who are born of God and knoweth God. Now, he says
in verse eight, he that loveth not knoweth not God, for God
is love. God is love. Now, God is love. Does that mean he's trying to
save everybody if they'll just let him? No. Doesn't the Bible say that God
hates? Now, here's one. You talk about
going to the Bible and reading things we don't want to hear.
It says in Romans 9, God loved Jacob and hated Esau. What do
most preachers do with that? Well, that means he loved Esau
less. That's not what the word means. I've got news for you.
The Bible says God hates all workers of iniquity. Well, aren't
we all workers of iniquity? Yes. Well, how in the world then
can I stand before God and not be rightly judged a worker of
iniquity? There's not but one way. By His
grace through the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, one of the biggest
mistakes that people make when they read the Bible is what the
old preacher used to say, they reason from the ground up. And
you can't do that. The Lord said that when he was
bringing an indictment against Israel and he made this statement,
he says, you thought I was like you. But God said, I'm not like
you. So when they hear the word love,
they automatically assume, well, God's love is like our love.
No, it's not like our love at all. And when they hear the word
hate, They automatically assume, well, God's hate is like my hate.
Oh, no. You see, when we hate, it is a high sin. We're commanded
not to hate anybody. The summation of the whole law,
love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and
love your neighbor as yourself, and your neighbor as who? That's
everybody. That's the universal creatorhood of God. Everybody's
my neighbor, even the ones I don't like, even the ones who do me
harm. Christ said, remember in the Sermon on the Mount? He said,
you've heard it said by them of, oh, love your friends, hate
your enemies. He said, that's like the heathen. He said, love
your enemies. Love them. And when we see the standard
of perfection that the love of God is Puts down in the Bible,
here's one thing I know about all of us. Not everybody realizes
this, but here's one thing I know if I stick to God's word. At
our best efforts to love our neighbor, we just do not have
anything to brag about. You see, God does not save me
based upon my love for him. Look at this, look down. Verse
8. He that loveth not knoweth not
God, for God is love. Verse 9, In this was manifested
the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten
Son into the world that we might live through him. And look at
verse 10, Herein is love, not that we love God. That's not
the source of this love. That's not the power of this
love. Herein is love, but that he loved us and sent his son
to be the propitiation for our sins. Now that word propitiation
is a very important word. It's not a word we use much today
in our modern lingo, but what does it mean? What is a propitiation? It's a satisfaction. It is a
sin-bearing sacrifice that brings satisfaction. You see, God's
love, here's what I'm saying, this love that he's talking about
here, it is only found in Christ. There is no love of God apart
from Christ. There's only hatred. Now God's
hatred is not like our hatred. When God hates, it's not selfishness,
it's not sinful as our hatred is. We're sinners. We have no right to hate anybody.
But God's hatred is not emotional, it's not a temper tantrum, it's
not unjust. God's hatred is simply His justice
against sin. That's it. It's His wrath. That's what His hatred is. We'll
go back to 1 John 3. As I said, there are different
kinds of love. There's this godly love. You know, there's brotherly
love. The Greek word phileo, that's
brotherly love. That's where the city of Philadelphia
got its brother, a city of brotherly love. It's not. One of the highest
murder rates in the world. But that's what it's called.
There's brotherly love. That's love of friendship, for
example. There's family love, like love of parents to children
and children to parents. And then there's romantic love
between a man and a woman, a husband and a wife. But this love here
is love in the truth that respects first and foremost the honor
of God's glory. Let me hurry now. Go to verse
13. He says, this is verse John 3. Marvel not, my brethren, if
the world hate you. Now how do you gauge this hatred?
You gauge it by rejection. Not by knives and guns and things
like that. Now, Cain hated Abel so much
that he murdered him. But the world's hatred does not
always come out to that degree, but it's still there. Because
what he's saying is that, marvel not my brethren, if the world...
Because we have the message of the cross, of the grace of God,
that gives men and women no room to boast, they hate it. You see, man by nature wants
to imagine that he makes the difference between saved and
lost, not Christ. That he makes the difference
between righteousness and unrighteousness, not Christ. And so we go about
our lives in unbelief, many times in false religion, trying to
do our best to make ourselves presentable, acceptable to God. And what does the gospel say?
What did it say to Cain? Your works are evil. Remember
the Apostle Paul in Philippians chapter 3, he said, if anybody
could boast in the flesh, I more. He said, I was a Hebrew of Hebrews,
circumcised the eighth day, tried to keep the law of the tribe
of Benjamin. All those things, he thought
those things were good and honest and recommended him before God
and made him righteous in God's sight. And then Christ confronted
him on the Damascus road and said, all of that is rubbish. in light of what it really takes
for a sinner to be accepted with God. Remember what Paul said
when he was converted? He said, I count all things but
loss for the excellency of the knowledge which is in Christ
Jesus my Lord. I count it but dung, he said,
that I may win Christ. Christ is all. Look at verse
14, he says, we know we have passed from death into life because
we love the brethren. That is those who cling to Christ. He that loveth not his brother
abideth in death. If you don't love your brother,
if you don't have fellowship with the people of God, that
shows you're spiritually dead. And what does that mean? Well,
if you don't love your brother, it means you don't love Christ.
You don't believe the gospel. You're like Cain. Verse 15, Whosoever
hateth his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer
hath eternal life abiding in him. Now he's talking about soul
murder there. That comes from preaching and
believing and promoting a false gospel. Let me show you one scripture
in closing. Turn to Galatians 6. Galatians 6 verse 14. Now think about it this way.
Here's a man named Saul of Tarsus, a very religious Jew who attained
great heights of morality, dedication, sincerity, and a high place in
his religion. At that time, he was in fellowship
with the world and the love of the world, but
something changed. What happened? God stopped him. As my old pastor used to say,
Saul of Tarsus, when he was on the Damascus road, you know what?
He was not on his way to a prayer meeting or a Bible study. He was on his way to arrest Christians
and have them tried. God stopped him. And something
changed. Well, what is it? Well, this
one verse kind of sums it up. Look at verse 14. But God forbid
That I should glory, now that word glory means to boast or
to have confidence, save or accept in the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ. That's the finished work of Christ
for all righteousness. And then what happened? His relationship
to the world changed. By whom the world is crucified
unto me. You know what that means? Cursed.
I look upon this world, even the religious world, that's in
false religion, as being cursed. I'm not in fellowship with them
anymore. And he says, and I unto the world. They look at me as
being cursed. That's what he's talking about
here. Those who love the brethren. I'm in fellowship with any person. No matter who they are, what
their background is, who's clinging to Christ for all salvation,
for all righteousness, for all forgiveness, for all life, and
for all glory. Now you want to interject the
works of man therein? I'm not in fellowship with you.
I love you and I want to tell you the truth. I want the best
for you. I pray for your salvation, but
I'm not in fellowship with you. I don't have a bond with you.
That's what he's talking about.