Thank you, Mark. Well, it's certainly
good to be back with you again. And not only are we glad to come
here to see you all and to visit with you all, but we're just
glad to get out of winter. We've had a tough one up there.
Of course, it's getting better up there. I think it's supposed
to be up in the 50s and 60s there, too. So we're just thankful to
see some good sunshine and warm weather. And I'm just glad to
be here. Appreciate all your prayers for
us in Ashland, and I do bring you greetings from all the brethren
there. We're doing fine, and I see that
you're all doing fine, too, and it's just amazing how the Lord
continues to get the gospel out around the world. I mean, you
know, we sometimes take that for granted, but we ought not
to. That's an amazing thing, isn't it? So with that in mind,
I want you to turn in your Bibles to 1 John chapter 3. 1st John
chapter 3. Now what I'm going to do this
morning in a Bible study is pretty much just read through some of
this passage. But let me give you a little
bit of the background of what I've been trying to do. I've
been preaching several messages up home about the last days. And you hear so much about that,
you know, from so-called churches and television preachers about
the second coming of Christ and the issues that revolve around
that subject. And you hear a lot about anti-Christ,
the anti-Christ, whatever he is or that is or that spirit
is. And so in dealing with that subject, you know, the term Antichrist,
John is the only apostle who really used that term in his
epistles, 1 and 2 John, and Paul He dealt with the issue of Antichrist
even though he didn't call it that, but it was the same thing.
And that spirit of Antichrist is a spirit of false religion. That's what it is. False religion. that claims to be Christian,
that comes in the name of Christ, but denies the truths of Christ,
either some combination of the truths of his person and his
finished work, what he accomplished on Calvary. to save his people
from their sins, from our sins, to redeem us, to, as Daniel chapter
nine and verse 24 puts it, to finish the transgression, make
an end of sin, bring in everlasting righteousness, seal up the vision
and the prophecy, and anoint the most holy. Although that's
one of the most succinct verses that comprehends Christ, who
he is, and his obedience unto death and what he accomplished
that you'll find in the scriptures. And so anything that opposes
any one of those things but comes in the name of Christianity is
anti-Christ. It's an anti-Christian spirit.
John deals with that over in 1 John chapter 2. And we'll look
at that in just a moment, but I want to read two verses here
that really serve as a basis of my study through 1 John 3. And many of you have heard me
preach on this and teach on this, and some of your preachers have
dealt with it. And so a lot of this is not going
to be unfamiliar to you. This will just be like a reminder.
You know, as Isaiah said, precept upon precept. But look at verse
9 of 1 John 3. I told our folks up in Ashland,
I said, you know, if you don't understand this verse, if you
really don't understand it, it ought to scare you to death.
It ought to scare you to death. Because Brother David Atkins,
he used to tell me, he'd read that verse and he'd just shake
his head. What in the world? Listen to
it. It says, whosoever is born of God, now that's the new birth,
Christ said you must be born again, doth not commit sin. That's what it says. For his
seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born
of God." And then he says in verse 10, in this, the children
of God are manifest, and the children of the devil. This is
how you tell the difference between a child of God, one who is truly
Christian, one who follows Christ, believes in Christ, serves Christ,
loves Christ, and a child of the devil, anti-Christ. That's
what that is. i think about because the one
who's born of god is is christian doesn't commit sin and uh... it says here he he he cannot
sin we know from number one from
scriptural testimony and from our own experience that it that
if he's talking about some kind of sinless perfection within
us Then, where does that leave us? And he goes on, he says,
whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that
loveth not his brother. Now, the title of this message
is Children of God Manifested. The word manifested means they're
made evident, means they're made known. They come to the forefront. And that's what he's talking
about. So, when you look at a verse like that, what do you see? Well,
look at the context. Now, first of all, I'm not going
to go back and read through the whole book of 1 John. I don't
have time to do that. But here's what John is talking
about in his first epistle. What he's talking about mainly
is the eternal, unbreakable fellowship that exists between christ and
his people and that exist between his people among themselves that
is an eternal unbreakable fellowship and what he's talking about it
you know there's a lot of a lot of things that we could talk
about as as that pertains to that in eternal fellowship and
unbreakable fellowship well right away you know uh... the old saying once saved always
saved What we're talking about is the eternal security of the
believer, the eternal security of the saint. Here's a fellowship
that's created by God, not man, conditioned on Christ, that cannot
be broken. It's eternal. and i'll say no
matter what now that uh... you know you in course you know
the objection that people raised against that is where you're
saying that you can just go out and do this that in the other
you know now let's not what we're talking about you know you don't
know you they do air not knowing the scriptures and we'll see
that but it's an eternal unbreakable fellowship well before we get
into first john three turn back to first john two and look at
first eighteen A good thing to do in your own
Bible study is to just read through the whole book with this in mind.
But listen to what John says here in verse 18. He says, little
children, it is the last time. That's the last days. And the
last days, you know, describes the time period between the first
coming of Christ and his accomplishing of his work and his obedience
unto death, his death, burial, and resurrection, and his ascension
unto glory, where he is now seated at the right hand of the Father,
ever living to make intercession for us. And incidentally, I think
a lot of times that we as gospel preachers don't emphasize the
intercessory work of Christ enough, because that really is the foundation
of our eternal security. Christ accomplished on the cross. He put away our sin, we'll see
in just a moment. He established an everlasting
righteousness of infinite value whereby God could be just and
justify. And he continually pleads the
merits of his obedience unto death as our mediator, our intercessor. John says in 1 John 2, 1 and
2, our advocate. It's kind of like our defense
attorney. One who stands for us and pleads the evidence for
our justification, which is his righteousness imputed. And so
that's the intercessory work of Christ. But he says from that
time that he ascended unto glory to do his intercessory work until
his second coming is the last days, the last times. And the
Bible teaches that as we approach the second coming of Christ,
things are going to get worse and worse. Now a lot of people
don't read the scripture when they talk about things getting
worse and worse. You know what they read mainly?
The newspaper. And that's not right. You're
not going to get your information about God's plan and purpose
from the newspapers or the local newscast. You know, you say,
well, I need to know what's going on over in Israel and all that.
No, you need to know what God says from his word. That's what
you need to know. That's what I need to know. And
let me tell you what's going to get worse and worse as the
day of his second coming approaches. Anti-Christian religion. That's
what's going to get worse and worse. There's going to be more
deception in religion. There's going to be more false
doctrine that comes in the name of Christ. It's going to get
so bad that what is commonly considered and judged and known
as Christian is not even Christian at all. It's going to be a subtly
disguised, cleverly disguised system of work salvation where
men claim to believe in Christ and claim to be Christian But
at some stage, to some degree, at some place, they're going
to introduce man's works as far as attaining or maintaining salvation. Now, that's what's gonna get
worse. Somebody said, well, there's gonna be more wars. Christ told
his disciples, he said, there's gonna be wars and rumors of wars.
He said, but the end hasn't come yet. He said, that's just the
beginning of sorrows. He called it the beginnings of
sorrows. All the things that people look at in the newspaper
that are going on, you know, we talk about the earthquake
in Japan, you know, and we say, well, that's getting worse. No,
they've always had earthquakes. That's not the sign of his second
coming, even though those things will happen. There'll be wars
and rumors of war. There's always been wars and
rumors of war, hasn't there? Have you got any historians here?
Read it. I mean, that's not gotten worse.
We can say, well, it's gotten worse, but that just goes on
like it's always gone on. But this anti-Christian religion,
this false religion, that's gonna get worse and worse and worse
and worse. That's why in the book of Revelation,
it says that there's only two witnesses left. Of course, I
believe that's talking about the law and the gospel. People
will totally forget it. But look here, he says it's the
last time And as you have heard that Antichrist shall come, it's
a future aspect of it. Even now are there many Antichrists,
not just one person that arises on the political scene. And incidentally,
when you read about Antichrist in the scriptures, he's not a
political figure, he's a religious figure. It's not a political
spirit, it's a religious spirit, anti-religion. Not against religion,
but I'm talking about anti-Christian religion. And he says there's
many Antichrists. In other words, people claiming
to be Christian, but they're not. That's what that is, all
right? So he says, whereby we know that
it is the last time. Now look at verse 19. He says,
they went out from us. Now, did you get that? They once
claimed to be with us, but then they went out from us. They left
us. And he says, but they were not
of us. Now, when they left us, they didn't lose their salvation.
That doesn't blow the doctrine of eternal security out of the
water here now. When they left us, they only
proved that they were never of us to begin with. For if they
had been of us, if they had been in that eternal, unbreakable
fellowship that we have by the grace of God in Christ and based
upon His blood and righteousness alone, He said they would have
no doubt continued with us. But they went out, that they
might be made manifest. Now, what did he say over there?
In this the children of God are manifest, and in this the children
of the devil are manifest. Well, John says they went out
from us, that they might be made manifest. That what? That they lost their salvation?
No, that they were not all of us. They had a profession, but
they didn't know the truth. They didn't know the true Christ.
Now that's the context that he deals with in 1 John 3, but let's
read on. Look at 1 John 2 20. He says,
but you, now who's the you here? That's those who are saved by
the grace of God. That's those who are part of
this eternal, unbreakable fellowship. These are the people whom God
chose from the foundation of the world, whom he justified
by the blood and righteousness of Christ, whom he gave life
by the Holy Spirit in the new birth and called them out by
the gospel, the good news of salvation by grace in Christ. You, he says, have an unction. That word unction is a power.
It's the power of life. It's like you've got ears to
hear. That's the unction. You've got eyes to see. That's
the unction. You've got a heart and mind to understand and know
the reality of sin and of judgment and of God's one way of salvation
by the grace of God through the cross of Christ and through what
he accomplished on Calvary. And you have that from the Holy
One. You have it from Christ. And you know all things, he said.
I don't mean you're a know-it-all. There are a lot of things we
don't know. We're continually learning. But you know all things
that pertain to the reality of salvation. That's what he's talking
about. So there's the difference. Now, look down at verse 29 of
1 John 2. Now, let me just read through
this. We're going to start at verse 29 of 1 John 2. And the
first thing he gives us here is the state of grace. the state
of grace, all right? If you're in a state of grace,
you cannot be taken out of that state. If you're in a state of
grace, you were put there by God. Look at verse 29. If you
know that he is righteous, now who is the he there? That's Christ.
That's who that's referring to. The context tells us that. And
I didn't read the verses before that, but like I said, you go
back and read it all. If you know that Christ is righteous,
You know that everyone that doeth righteousness, now that's a little
bit of a difficult term because people don't understand what
righteousness is. What is righteousness? Well, a lot of times in the Bible,
you can interchange these two terms, righteous and just, or
righteousness and justice, all right? And in the Old Testament,
it was kind of like a term that meant balancing things out. In
other words, here's the standard over here, and you've got to
make it balance out. And that's why men and women
by nature think that they can work their way into God's favor,
because they think they can do enough good works to balance
things out. And you've heard the old saying
about people who believe, well, I know I'm a sinner, but I'm
gonna do enough good works to balance this thing out, and hopefully,
my good works will outweigh my bad works. And of course, we
know that's a person who believes that and claims to be Christian
is Antichrist. That's that spirit, you know,
because you can't do enough good works to balance it out. That's
why it's called iniquity. It means inequity. It doesn't
equal out. Alright. And so, whatever you
do in trying to save yourself or make yourself righteous, establishing
a righteousness of your own, it will not balance out because
on the other side of the scale is the righteousness of God,
the righteousness of Christ. Acts 17, 31, God's commanded
all men everywhere to repent because he hath appointed a day
into which he will judge the world in righteousness by that
man whom he hath ordained in that he hath given assurance
unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead. So
in other words, the other side of that scale for any of us is
the righteousness of Christ. And so he says, if you know that
he is righteous, if you know what's on the other side of that
scale, you know that everyone that doeth righteousness is what? Is born of him. They're birthed
of him. They're his offspring. That's
what he means. When you have a child, you have
an offspring, all right? You get what he's saying there?
What is it to do righteousness? Well, what is righteousness?
It's perfect satisfaction to God's law and justice. What is
it to do righteousness? Let me tell you what doing righteousness
is. It's not just the practice of
what religion calls morality. Should we be moral? Yes, yes. But that's not our righteousness.
Should we try to do good? Yes. Should we love and be kind
and compassionate? Yes, but that's not our righteousness. See, this is where Antichrist
messes up. They believe that the sinner's
efforts to be good is his goodness, not so. They believe the sinner's
efforts to be righteous is his righteousness. Not so. Oh, and
they'll say, with the help of God. I'm gonna deal with a passage
in the main message here this morning that shows that. So what
is it to do righteousness? It's to live, listen to it. You
gotta be born into it in this sense. It's a life lived resting
in Christ and trusting him for all righteousness. That's what
doing righteousness is. A life lived resting in Christ. My righteousness is not my doing. It's his doing on the cross.
It's what Christ accomplished at Calvary in his obedience unto
death. He is my righteousness. That's
why the Bible identifies him as Jehovah Sidcanu, the Lord
our righteousness. So it's living a life trusting
and resting in Christ for all righteousness, for all forgiveness,
for all acceptance. That's what doing righteousness
is. It's not righteousness by my works or my efforts, the best
of them or the worst of them, but it's looking to Christ and
resting in Him, faith in Him. So anybody who does that, what
does that show? They're born of God. You don't
do that unless you're born again. That's why Christ told Nicodemus
in John chapter three that you must be born again or you cannot
enter or see, understand, save in the kingdom of heaven. That's
what faith is all about. It's not about the perfection
and the power of my believing. It's about the perfection and
the power of the one in whom I believe. You see, this is another
place where Antichrist messes up. Faith to Antichrist and being
Christian is the power and the perfection of their believing.
You just got to believe hard enough. You heard that? You know,
it's like a genie in a bottle, you know. You just got to believe
it hard enough and that power of positive thinking will get
you through. Now listen, I'll be honest with
you. I believe in the power of positive thinking. I don't even
like to be around people who are all the time negative. How
about you? But that's not my righteousness. That's not my
salvation. Christ is. You see the difference? The power of faith is not in
the power of believing. It's the power of Christ in whom
we have faith. So if we have faith in Him and
if we're trusting Him and living a life in Him, we're born of
God. Now look at verse 1 of chapter
3. This is a state of grace now. Behold, what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us. Now that love is defined over
in 1 John. It's actually defined all over the scripture, but give
you a specific scripture. First John chapter four in verse
10, where he says, hearing his love, not that we love God. The greatness of this love is
not how much we love God, but how much he loves his children.
His offspring is not the whole world without exception. Now,
this is those who are born of God. And he says God proved that
in that he gave his son to be the propitiation. There's love
in line with justice, righteousness. That propitiation is a satisfaction. It's a sin offering that brings
about satisfaction, brings about righteousness. And he says that
we should be called the sons of God. And that word called
there is identified as. It's not just a label. This is the right and the privilege
that we have. We're children of God right now
in Christ. And he says, therefore the world
knoweth us not. The world doesn't judge this
properly. The world doesn't know what a,
the world here is the unbelieving world. And they don't even know
what a Christian is. I mean, they can look at you
and they can tell, well, he's a fine upstanding citizen and
that's okay. But they really don't know the
reality of what Christian is. And so he says, because it knew
him not, didn't know our Lord. Remember Christ said in John
15, 18, marvel not if the world hates you, hated me before it
hated you. And then he says in verse two,
now look at this. This is a state of grace. We're children of God.
We're born again into the kingdom because he's righteous and Christ
worked out a righteousness. that enables God to be just and
justifier, and from Him who is our righteousness comes life,
and that's how we live a life resting in Him for all righteousness. We do with righteousness, you
see. That's the state of grace. And so he says in verse two,
beloved now are we the sons of God. That's not a future aspiration,
that's a reality right now for a child of God, an offspring
of Christ. And he says, and it doth not
yet appear what we shall be. Now what we're going to be in
glory, we don't really have much of an inkling. We have a little
bit of information given in the scripture, but not a whole lot.
We're going to be resurrected in glory with a perfect spiritual
body, no tears, no pain. And he says, does not yet appear
what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, when
Christ comes again, we shall be like him, for we shall see
him as he is. We'll see him with perfect eyes. We'll see him in his effulgent
glory, with no hindrances of the flesh, no hindrances of the
world, no hindrances of sin and contamination. Now there's a
state of grace and then he says in verse three, now listen to
this, and every man that had this hope in him, that's the
hope of my inner being, the hope of my heart, the inner man, and
that is the certainty of glory based on the righteousness of
Christ. That's my hope in him, in Christ, purifies himself even
as he's pure. Now what is that purification?
within us. That's what he's talking about.
Well, it's the cleansing of our conscience. It's not sinless perfection.
It doesn't mean that now I'm pure inside so that I'm sinlessly
perfect and I can do things purely imperfect without any contamination
of sin. No. Read Romans 7, 14 through
25. Read Galatians chapter 5. We have a struggle within, don't
we? Our conscience is cleansed because it's been purged. It's
been cleansed, how? By the blood of Christ. Read
that there in Mark, read Hebrews chapter 10. Read the verses before
that, Hebrews 10, 19, on the way through. He talks about how
the conscience is purged of guilt. Now what does it mean to have
the conscience purged of guilt? Romans 8, 1, there's therefore
now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. God will
not condemn me. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth, chargeth not iniquity. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifieth. Who
is he that condemneth? It's Christ that died, yea, rather
is risen again, and is what? Seated at the right hand of the
Lord. Remember his intercessory work. In other words, I'm a sinner,
but God doesn't hold it against me. Well, how do you know that? Okay, there's a state of grace.
Now go to the next one. Here's the foundation of grace.
Look at it. Verse 4, it says, whosoever committeth
sin transgresses also the law, for sin is the transgression
of the law. Now, there's no way you can get by that or get around
it or get through it. There's no loopholes. Sin is
transgression of the law. Righteousness is perfect satisfaction
to the law. You cannot, you cannot call anything
righteous that falls short of the standard of the law. I don't
care what it is. You say, well, I had a good day
yesterday and I was kind to everybody. Well, sin is still transgression
of the law. If there's any taint or hint
of sin in anything you've done, you can't call it righteousness.
You're not going to get around that. I don't care who you are,
child of God or child of the devil. Sin is still transgression
of the law. And the law says sin deserves
death. Remember in 2nd, or in 1st Corinthians 15, where he
talks about there at the end when he talks about, O death,
where is thy, what is it, O death, where is thy sting? Grave, where
is thy victory? And he says, the strength of sin is the law. I used to wonder about that phrase. The power of sin is the law?
Well, what he's talking about is the power of sin to condemn
us is the law of God, because sin is transgression of the law.
So you're not gonna get around that. We're still sinners, even
though we can save from God's Word, we're sinners saved by
grace. All right, verse five. Now here's the key, here's the
foundation of grace. And you know, remember he said
over there, you know all things? Well, here's what we know, listen.
And you know that he, who's the he there, that's Christ, was
manifested, he was made known, made evident, and came into the
world to do what? To take away our sins. He was
manifested to take them away. I'm a sinner, but Christ took
them away. How did He do that? By shedding
His blood on the cross. That's how He did it. He was
made sin. Our sins were charged to Him.
He became guilty and defiled in the sense of legal justice.
In that sense only. He didn't become a sinner. He
wasn't made a sinner. He didn't become contaminated
or confused or anything like that. But he was made sin. And everything that it is to
be made sin in that sense, he was our substitute. He was our
propitiation. And he died under the wrath of
God for the sins of his sheep. He said, I laid down my life
for the sheep. He suffered and bled and died
to do what? To take them away. Now what does
that mean? That's a legal term. That's what
that is. It means He expunged the books. In other words, it's like this.
Let me just show you this. God sees no... Well, let's read
the next phrase there in verse 4 or verse 5. It says, He was manifested to
take away our sins and in Him is no sin. Now it's true that
in Christ himself there's no sin, but that's not what that's
saying there. You see 2 Corinthians 5.20 says
he was made sin, Christ who knew no sin for us that we might be
made the righteousness of God in him. Our sins imputed to him,
his righteousness imputed to us. And in him personally, there
was no sin. But what this is saying is that
as we are children of God, in him, as we are considered in
him, as he is our representative, our substitute, our sin bearer,
our righteousness, there is no sin. In him is no sin. And what that means, listen to
this. You'll like this. It says, God sees no sin in us
as a matter of divine justice. The debt's been paid. The record
books of heaven record no iniquity, no transgression, and no sin
against God's elect, those for whom Christ died. God will not
impute sin to his saints or require satisfaction from us because
our sins were made Christ and were justly imputed or charged
to him when he was made sin for us. He paid for them. Our sins
have been forever expunged from the book of God's offended justice
by our Savior's precious blood." No sin. In Him, I'm perfect. I can say I have a sinless perfection
in heaven, Christ. Not in myself. Right now, it
doesn't appear what I shall be. Now, that's the foundation of
grace. And look at verse 6. And here's the result of it.
Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not." As long as I'm in Christ,
God will not charge me with sin. Because he took them away. Christ
took them away. When you look at me, you see a sinner. You
see a man whose body is dead because of sin. Romans, what
is that Jim? Romans 6, 8, Romans 6, 18 or
something. I can't remember. No, it's not
18. Somewhere around there. But the body is dead. It's Romans 8, isn't it? Yeah,
it's Romans 8. The body is dead because of sin, but the spirit
is life because of righteousness. Who's? Christ. I have life because
of Christ. So as long as I'm in him, God
will not impute sin to me. He will not hold it against me.
The law cannot condemn me. He says, whosoever sinneth hath
not seen him, neither known him. That's talking about an unbeliever
there. That's talking about one who's not in Christ. And so he
says in verse seven, little children, let no man deceive you. Now don't
be deceived about this. Don't let Antichrist deceive
you. And I told our folks, you know, now there's some people
who believe Antichrist is this and some people who believe Antichrist
is this and that and the other. Let me tell you something. Here's
your key issue now. Don't be deceived by whoever
or whatever Antichrist is. You say, well, how can I not
be deceived? Well, what's his issue? Look at, he says, he that doeth
righteousness is righteous even as he is righteous. He that lives
a life abiding in Christ, resting in him for all righteousness,
is righteous before God, who shall lay anything to the charge
of God's elect. Even as Christ is righteous,
and you know how we can say we're as righteous as Christ? Because
he is our righteousness. He's it. So go on now, verse
eight, he says, he that commit a sin is of the devil. Now there's
two applications of this, about this committing sin. He's not
talking about a believer who's still a sinner saved by grace,
to whom God does not impute sin. He's talking about an unbeliever
here who doesn't have Christ. He's not in Christ, he doesn't
abide in Christ. He's not a believer, and he's
of the devil. And he says, for the devil sinneth
from the beginning, goes all the way back to the beginning
when Satan brought about the fall of man. And he says, for
this purpose, the Son of God was manifested that he might
destroy the works of the devil. Now, when did he do that? At
the cross. He said it. He said, now is the prince of
this world judged. Now is he cast out. And what
does he mean by that? Well, what is Satan? He's the
accuser of the brethren. And because of the blood of Christ
shed on the cross, because of his righteousness imputed to
us, whatever Satan hurls in his accusations against the children
of God, they do not stick. Now why? Because in him is no
sin. In Christ there's no sin. So
he says in verse 9, now look at this, he says, whosoever is
born of God does not commit sin. For his seed remaineth in him,
and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. Now here's the
key to this. What is it? To not commit sin? It's to be
in Christ, not charged with our sin, and it's to abide in him. We don't leave him. Because he
won't leave us. He won't let us go. For his seed. Now the key to understanding
this, what is the seed? Read it this way. For his children
remaineth in him. Those who are born of Him, His
children, His offspring, they remain in Him. If you're truly
the offspring of Christ, born again by the Spirit, if you have
life through Him and by His righteousness alone, you'll remain in Him. You won't leave Christ. Like
those who, over in 1 John 2, that we read about, who went
out from us. A child of God cannot leave Christ. And it's not because the child
of God is so strong and powerful and good, it's because Christ
won't let him go. He holds on to us. And that's what he says
here. He remained with him and he cannot
sin. He cannot leave Christ. He cannot be charged with his
sin because he's born of God. And in this, the children of
God are manifest in the children of the devil. Whosoever doeth
not righteousness is not of God. If you're not in Christ, you're
not of God. If you're not abiding in him,
neither he that loveth not his brother." Now, I haven't worked
out all the messages in the rest of this chapter, and I'm running
out of time, so I'm going to quit. But I think that puts it
in a good perspective. Hope you enjoyed that.