We've been studying, I should
say, the two seeds that is found in the Word of God, the seed
of Satan and the seed of Christ. These make up the two different
kinds of people that there are. You remember we started in the
Bible speaks of We are born again, not of corruptible seed in one
Peter. We are not born of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible seed. Speaking of our second birth,
our new birth, or that birth that's from above, is not a birth
that is of corruptible seed, which we were in Adam. That's
the birth in the flesh, but of incorruptible seed. And so we
see that there are two seeds. There's a corruptible seed, And
there is an incorruptible seed. This incorruptible seed comes
from above. It is born from above. It began
above Christ being the son of God. Yes, if you don't mind,
please. Christ being the son of God and
we being sons of God. We are the seed of Christ. Now, a lot of people may be saying,
well, you know, what's the big deal? study this out. I mean,
what's the purpose of studying and making a big deal about two
seeds? I mean, we really don't see that
doctrine. As a matter of fact, there may
be a lot of people listening and watching that it's like,
you know, I've never even heard this doctrine. However, this
doctrine is taught very prominently throughout Baptist history. However,
the question might be, what's the purpose? Why are we studying
two scenes. What is this all about? Well,
we believe that the Bible teaches the doctrine of personal and
individual election. We believe that part of the gospel
in preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, that we preach and teach
the fact that the father has given to the son a specific people,
and that that people, the son becomes the surety or the substitute
for in redeeming them from sin and death. And that that salvation
that he secures and makes not possible, but sure for them will
be by his Holy Spirit given to them. They will experience that
salvation not only externally in the fact that they will become
manifest of who they are by the internal work of God in them,
by giving them faith to believe the gospel, by giving them faith
in Christ Jesus, giving them a love for God, love for the
word of God, love for the people of God, that whenever this new
birth is given to them, we see the effects of that externally
through that internal work of the Holy Spirit. But we also
see that the Holy Spirit comes in them to will and to do His
good pleasure. All these are the effects of
that salvation that Christ purchased for us. And so the study of the
two seeds is to show forth or to see where all through Scripture
it is taught that there are two lines of people, that there is
a people that out of one lump, there was made two types of people. There was the vessels of honor,
the vessels of dishonor. There is those who are for glory,
those who are for condemnation, okay? There are those who are
going to be condemned in their sin. They are gonna be the wicked
ones who the Lord has made, the Bible says, that God has made
all things for himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of
destruction. So he has made this group of
people the wicked for the day of destruction. And so within
that doctrine, we see that God has an elected group of people
and that this group of people are the recipients of God's love,
God's grace, God's mercy, that they are the recipients of God's
salvation. The other group of people are
not. God has created them for the purpose of bringing forth
all those things. And at the end of all this, this
is to bring forth the glory of Jesus Christ. And so the two
seeds is just basically a subsection of eternal election, of individual
election, and how that God has made for himself a people that
he has loved. And it is only those people that
he loves. And it is only those people that he died for. And
it is only those people that he will give this salvation to.
And it is only those people who in the end will be glorified
and will be saved from death and hell. And so we are looking
at the fact that this is shown throughout all of scripture,
that there are two groups of people. You're either in one
or the other. You're either made for one purpose
or the other. Now, to reiterate this, I just
want you to quickly turn to Romans chapter nine. We well familiar
with this and everybody watching and listening. I'm sure you're
well familiar with these passages, scriptures, and you know, your
preacher may precede with a different interpretation, but we must let
the scripture say what they what they will. In Romans chapter Nine, we see
leading up to this Paul's great defense of God justifying sinners. God has justified sinners and
that he is just in doing so because of the substitutionary work of
Christ Jesus. The faithfulness of Christ put
forth before God was the basis, the foundation upon which God
could be just in justifying sinners, okay? And in doing so, we see
that God is justifying some but not others. And so the question
arises to the Jew, to the Israel in the flesh, who in their mind
for thousands of years Has thought we are the chosen people of God
and we are going to be saved because of our flesh because
of our nationality because of our being children of Abraham
in the flesh and because of the law being give to them and for
them being a keeping the law. Well, they didn't keep the law,
but they held to the law and they follow the sacrifices that
was supposedly to cover those sins. Okay. Um, and so in their
minds, they was the chosen people of God and everybody outside
of Israel were just dogs. They were, they were Gentiles.
They were heathen. Uh, they were called the world.
Okay. They were called the world. There
was the Jews and there was the world. And so Paul here now is
dealing with an aspect of this salvation in that it is particular. It is sectarian. It comes to the place where it
is, I just lost the word that I was looking for, it is seclusive. It does distinguish between one
person and another, it is a respecter of persons. Now, the Bible says
that God is not a respecter of persons, right? You hear that
all the time. He's not a respecter of persons in the fact of rich,
poor, famous, not famous, you know, wealthy, not wealthy, you
know, all this stuff, you know, high esteem and low esteem. He's
not a respecter of persons of nationality or color. But God
surely is a respecter of persons in that He has created some for
honor and some for dishonor, and He does make that distinction.
Those who He has before loved, before the foundation of the
world, He has set that love upon them, and before anything had
ever happened, before Adam was created, before Adam ever sinned,
before sin and death ever entered into the world, before any of
that ever took place, God had had this people and he knew that
their names were written down in the Book of Life. These were
the ones who were going to be given life. And they were written
down before the foundation of the world. We see that in Revelation,
that there was a Book of Life and names were written in the
Book of Life and names were not written in the Book of Life.
See, some don't believe in double predestination. They think that
God predestinated some people to be saved But the rest of them,
he just kind of passed over them and in a passive way, just let
them go the way of their nature. But that's not true. God actively
wrote some names down and decisively left other names out. God prepared one vessel for honor
and one vessel for dishonor. The ones who he did not write
down were the ones in whom he knew would be and would choose
to be the vessels of dishonor to bring forth all of the things
that he purposed in this lifetime. The ones of honor, he would bless
them with all spiritual blessings. Grace would be bestowed upon
them. Mercy would be bestowed upon them. All the works of Christ
would be laid to their account. The righteousness of Christ is
imputed to them. They have no sin on their account. There is no sin whatsoever in
God's eyes. They are sinless before God. And that is the blessings that
that line of people received and that was before the foundation
of the world. God wrote them down. The Bible says that we
are born into this world dead in trespasses and sin, and everybody
who is of Satan's seed remain in that state. They remain dead
in trespasses and sin. But those who are of Christ,
those who were chosen before the foundation of the world in
God's eternal election, the purpose of God according to election,
we'll see that here in a minute, That the purpose of God was election,
electing a people to save out of that one lump of sin and death. That that one group of people
would be given life. So thus before the foundation
of the world, God wrote and whether he did it with an actual pen
and paper, I don't know. You don't need that, but he gives
us that imagery that names were written down in the book of life. These are the ones for whom life
will be given. But the Bible says there were
also those whose names were not written in the book of life from
the foundation of the world. And so the names existed. This
is not some just, you know, faceless crowd of people that God said,
well, these are going to be all the believing ones. And these
are going to be all the non-believing ones. And then in time, Whoever
believes, oop, now you're in this group, oop, if you're not
a believer, you're in this group, okay? That's not how God viewed
it. They were individual names. They
were names that God knew. The Bible says those, as a matter
of fact, Paul wrote in chapter eight, right before chapter nine,
he said, for whom he did foreknow, he did predestinate. For whom,
that's people, right? He foreknew a people. See, a
lot of detractors who want to say that what we preach and teach
here is wrong, that God foreknew or God foreknew that they would
choose Him. Well, if that's the case, then
the Holy Spirit was wrong in its grammar. It wouldn't be for
whom, it would be for what He foreknew. See, choosing God,
if God looked down the corridor of time and seen somebody choose
him, that's an action. So it wouldn't be for whom, it
would be for what he foreknew. He foresaw the act of them choosing
him. But that's not what it says,
it says for whom he did foreknow. It was a people that he foreknew
and he wrote their names down. For
whom he did foreknow, he did predestinate to be conformed
to the image of His Son. These people that He wrote down
in the Lamb's Book of Life, why is it called the Lamb's Book
of Life? Because it is the people that belong to the Lamb. The
people for whom the Lamb would redeem. The people for whom the
Lamb would substitute and become the mediator for so that life
could be given to them. John 3.16, for God so loved the
world that He gave His only begotten Son, the Lamb, that whosoever
believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life. See,
the book of life is the book of God's elect. The book of the
Lamb's people. We are the Lamb's people. And
he has given us life because he chose to put us in the book
of life. And so those whom he foreknew
He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his
son. Now in chapter 9, we see Paul
coming now to this argument that the Israelites are going to be
making about, you know, hey, wait a minute, we're the chosen
people of God. And you mean to tell me that
there are some of Israel that's not going to be saved? That goes
against all that we've been taught. Paul, that all of Israel will
be saved. And so Paul begins in chapter
nine, verse one, he says, I say the truth in Christ, I lie not,
my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that
I have a great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself
were accursed from Christ, or separated from Christ. I wish
that myself were separated from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen,
according to the flesh." So what's Paul talking about here? He says
he has a burden upon his heart about the people of Israel in
the flesh, okay? Those flesh-kindred men. That would be like me saying,
you know, Americans. You know, I have a burden for
the Americans in the flesh, my people in the flesh, okay? He
says, verse four, who are Israelites, to whom pertaineth the adoption
and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and
the service of God and the promises. Speaking of, hey, this nation
was blessed in the fact that it was the ones who was the recipients
out of all other people. Remember in Malachi, God said
that I have loved you with an everlasting love. And he said,
you know, I loved you and I didn't love Esau. He said, you have
I loved, but Esau I have hated. He said, the way that I, how
do we know that you love us? Because I chose you and not Esau. See, God has chosen these people. And he said, I have loved you
out of every nation. No other nation has received
what you have received. You have received the adoption,
the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service
of God, the promises of God, whose are the fathers and of
whom are as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is overall God
blessed forever. Amen. So Christ came first for
the Israelites, remember? He even said that. Remember whenever
the Syrophoenician woman came to him and was begging him for
the crumbs off the table and everything like that. And he
said, you know, I've come for the lost sheep of Israel, not
for the Gentiles. Why? Because God had predestinated
that the gospel would come first to the Jew and then to the Gentile. So in the purpose of God, this
is where he was supposed to go. But again, God has in his purpose
sparsely throughout history, there has been Gentiles that
has been saved. We look at Rahab, we look at
others in the Old Testament, there have been Gentiles who
have been saved. But Paul here, he says, you know,
I'm concerned for these people in the flesh, And it seems like,
you know, that everything was given to them. And to the confused
mind, they may say, well, if that's the case, then how come
not all of us are being saved? Has God's word been nullified? Has God's word fallen? Has he
lied? But look at verse six, it says,
not as though the word of God have taken none effect, for they
are not of Israel, which are of Israel. Okay, so what is he saying there?
That kind of doesn't make any sense to first glance. They are not all Israel, which
are of Israel. What's he saying? That means
that there is a one kind of Israel and another kind of Israel. There
is one kind of Israel that is made up of some people that isn't
made up of this kind of Israel. Now, what is those times? Well,
there is the Israel that is spiritual, and there is Israel that is physical.
The physical, fleshly Israel does not make up all of Israel. He says here, they are not all
Israel, spiritual Israel, which are of Israel natural or physical
or of the flesh. Neither because they are the
seed of Abraham, that's the fleshly part, okay? Are they all children? But in Isaac shall thy seed be
called. Now, what's he referring to?
Remember, Jesus came to Abraham and said that you're gonna have
a son. And remember, Abraham's wife, Sarah, she laughed
and said, how is that gonna happen? I'm old, you know? Abraham was
old. She was old. How are they going
to have children? But God said, the promise is going to come.
Sarah is going to have a child. Time went by. Sarah hadn't had
a child yet. Abraham got a little antsy, wanted
to take things into his own hands and by the flesh produced the
work of God. See, Abraham didn't want to trust
God. He wanted to trust his works. He wanted to trust in his flesh
to do the job. And so what did he do? He took
his wife's handmaiden and had a child by that person. So now,
that child was Abraham's seed. But that wasn't the seed that
God had promised, right? That wasn't the seed to whom
the promise was made. The promise was made to Abraham
to have a seed, but the seed was gonna be through Sarah, not the handmaiden. And so the
handmaiden had a son, Ishmael. But God came and said, this is
not the child of promise. Sarah will have a child and that
child will be the child of promise. So out of Abraham, there were
two children, Ishmael and Isaac. The children of promise. The
children of not, not a promise. Matter of fact, what happened?
Whenever Isaac was born, God came to Abraham and said, you
must throw out the bond woman. You must throw out her son and
have nothing to do with them. And so they did. They had to
throw him out of the camp. And so, uh, uh, the bond woman
and her son, Isaac or Ishmael, They were cast out. Now, what
is that a picture of? Well, when we get to the New Testament,
we find out that that that is a picture of law and works and
grace and faith. We see that the children of grace,
the children of Sarah, the children of promise are those who are
the children by faith, not by works of the flesh. And Ishmael
represents those who are the ones who try to work and do in
the flesh. They are not the children of
promise. And so now Paul is talking about
that. They that which are the children
of God, these are not the children of God that are by the children
of the flesh, but the children of the promise accounted for
the seed. I'm sorry, I skipped verse 7. Neither because they
are the seed of Abraham are they all children, but in Isaac shall
thy seed be called. That is, they which are the children
of the flesh, these are not the children of God, but the children
of the promise are counted for the seed. So there we go, there's
the word. Why are we preaching about two
seeds? Because the two seeds throughout the Scriptures, whenever
you see the two the images, the imagery, the metaphors, the symbolism
throughout scripture of the two, the duality. You see those who
are righteous, those who are unrighteous, those who are holy,
those who are wicked. You see those who are of faith
and those who are of the flesh are of works. And so he says here, This promise
that was made throughout all of the Old Testament wasn't to
the flesh children of Israel, but to the spiritual children
of Israel. See, Abraham was the father that showed forth how
this all began. He trusted God. Remember back
in Genesis 15, whenever God came to him and said that your seed
is going to be as the stars in the sky. And he told him about that seed.
And the Bible says that Abraham heard God and listened to God
and that he trusted God and that he counted that seed that God
was telling him about. He counted him as his righteousness. And so it was accounted to Abraham. Christ was accounted to Abraham.
as his righteousness. So he believed that he wouldn't
be righteousness by anything that he did, by anything that
he does, but only what Christ would do. And so he believed
God, he believed the gospel. And those who come from Abraham
in this spiritual imagery, the spiritual seed does the same
thing. They don't look to their self
for their salvation, their decisions, their will, their baptisms, their
church memberships. They don't look to anything of
the worst, their law keeping or anything like that. They look
to Christ alone. It's only what Christ has done
that gets me saved. And it's only what Christ has
done that I'm continually viewed as saved. See, we're not viewed
and saved by once we get saved, and now we, you know, we try
to be as good as we can be, and we do as much as we can, and
by that, you know, God judges us, yes, you're good, or you're
not good, or, no, it's all good, all the time. He never does see
us in any other way other than righteous and holy, justified
in Christ Jesus. That's the only way He sees us.
And that's before the foundation of the world. God purposed that.
That's why the Bible says that blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord imputeth not sin. See, child of grace, you've not
been imputed with sin. Why? Because you're of the line
of Christ. You're Christ seed. You have
no sin. You're sinless. Turn with me
to 1 John. Look with me, if you would, down
to... In fact, let's just start in
chapter four. I don't want to get too far off track. Verse one, beloved, believe not
every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God, because
many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know
ye the spirit of God, every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ
has come into the flesh is of God. and every spirit that confesses
not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And
this is that spirit of antichrist wherever you've heard that it
should come and even now already is in the world. You are of God,
little children, and have overcome them because greater is he that
is in you than he that is in the world. Okay, so here again
we see the two groups of people, the little children of God the
overcomers, those that have Him in them, okay? They are of the world, therefore
speak they of the world and the world heareth them. We, the people
of God, are of God. We are of God. We spring from
God. We come from God. They don't
come from God. Now, let me just sidetrack there. Now, by creation, yes, they come
from God. God created them. But we're talking
about this spiritual life. We are of God. We are his generation. We are his seed. We are his lineage. We are his people, the children
of the, not of the flesh, but the children of the spirit, the
children of the promise, okay? And so he says here that we are
of God. He that knoweth God, heareth
us. He that is not of God, heareth
not us, hereby know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error."
See, they're going to be the people of the world, the people
of the seed of Satan, whatever you want to call them, the other
people, Esau, Ishmael, those who are not of God, the children
of the flesh, they're not going to hear God. They're not going
to hear us, our message. because they are not of God. And so we are given to hear God,
thereby we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
Verse seven, beloved, let us love one another for love is
of God and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. Now this is not, again, this
is not a ooey gooey love. This is a love that is based
in the gospel. A love that is based in the gospel. We love God, the gospel of God,
that true gospel that puts down the notions of free will, the
notions of human effort, of fleshly words. We love the God that saves
sovereignly. Nothing in my hands I bring,
only to the cross I cling. We come before God looking and
knowing that there is nothing in us, nothing able in us, nothing
that we can continue to do. Even whenever we come to the
knowledge of our salvation and the new birth, that even in that,
in the flesh, we can produce no good works. Only that which
God does in us is good. And that is by His power, that
is by His doing, that is by His motivation and initiation. We
can't work it up. We can't just decide today, I'm
going to do good works in the power of the Holy Spirit. The
Holy Spirit gives that in His time, in His ability to do that
which is pleasing to God in and through us. And so when we look
at this, we see that the love of God is the love of the God
of the Bible. Not this just generic love for
God, it's the love of the God of the Bible. We love the God
who is sovereign over all things. We love the brethren of God who
love that gospel, who love that God. See, it's just not a generic
ooey-gooey love. Oh, well, we love our, we love
Christians everywhere. You know, all you need is love,
love, love, okay? It's not what we're talking about.
We're talking about a love that is motivated, that is fueled
by, centered upon the gospel of Jesus Christ. And there are many religious
people that are out there and many other churches that are
out there that have a false love, a false hope, a false gospel
and a false unity around this ooey-gooey love, this, you know,
just kind of a, you know, let us all get along and hold hands
and, you know, let's take the message throughout the world
that God is love. God truly is love, brethren.
We don't deny that at all. But that love is a distinctive
love. The Bible is very clear that
His love is set upon his seed upon his people. He that loveth
not knoweth not God, for God is love. We say amen, we don't
shy from that. But God is not bound to show
that love to everyone. Just because he is love, the
personification of love, the source of love, he is love. But just because he is love,
because he is sovereign, he can love whom he wants. That's why
the Bible says that he can choose whoever he wants to set this
love upon. He says, in this was manifested
the love of God towards us because that God sent his only begotten
son in the world that we might live through him. The reason
that he sent the son is that we might live. There is an effect
to the work of God in Christ Jesus. God's love was shown by
sending his son And in sending his son and the work that was
accomplished by him had an effect. It caused his seed to live. But see, if you believe in universal
salvation, if you believe that Jesus died for everybody and
that his death was given to everybody, but they just have to receive
it or they have to take it for themselves or believe it or,
you know, whatever the case might be, then everybody will be living
because the effect of God sending his son, because of his love,
is that they might live. I mean, that's exactly what John
3, 16 says, that whosoever believeth in him. And listen, that whosoever
is not a conditional thing. That's not saying come, whosoever
will may come. That's not what, that whosoever
is just identifying that it is the believing ones. The believing
ones are the ones receiving eternal life. Therefore, they're believing.
They believe because they were given life to believe. The scriptures
are very clear in that regard. Matter of fact, I'll just mention
that verse, whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but
have everlasting life. The same wording, the same grammatical
construct It's whenever Jesus said, whosoever shall look upon
a woman with lust have committed adultery with her. Is that whosoever
look upon a woman to lust? Is that an invitation to lust? And no more is the whosoever
believeth on him is an invitation to come and believe on him. It's
not an invitation. It's not an offer. Salvation
is not an offer. Salvation is an accomplished
fact, it is accomplished work, and a declared gospel. We declare
the gospel, we don't invite and offer the gospel. The gospel
is a declaration. We preach what Christ has done,
what Christ is doing, and what Christ will do in the future,
whenever he returns. It's a declaration of the facts,
not a proposal or an offering based upon conditions. That's where the gospel gets
money. These religious people, there's
this line that they say, yes, Jesus, yes, death, yes, receive,
yes, believe, yes, repent, but yet they don't give credit to
where that comes from. Therefore it becomes another
gospel. Here it says in this was manifested the love of God
towards us because that God sent his only begotten son into the
world that we might live through him here in his love. Not that
we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the
propitiation of our sins. That means he's the one that
turned away. The anger of God. God's anger never did fall upon
us. We were not ordained to condemnation. Beloved, if God so loved us,
we are also to love one another. No man has seen God at any time.
If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected
in us. Hereby know we that we dwell
in him and he in us because he hath given us of his spirit.
and we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son
to be the Savior of the world. Whosoever shall confess that
Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him. See there, you
see where that is just a statement of fact? It's not an invitation,
it's not a condition, it's a statement of fact. Whosoever shall confess
that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him. and he in
God. And we have known and believed
the love that God hath to us. God is love, and he that dwelleth
in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love
made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment,
because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear
in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect
in love, We love him because he first loved us. If a man say
I love God and hated his brother, he's a liar for he loves not
his brother whom he has seen. How can he love God whom he has
not seen? In this commandment have we from him that he who
loves God loves his brother also. Whosoever believeth that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God. And everyone that loveth him
that begot loveth him also that is begotten of him. Now we talked
about this a couple weeks ago, a few weeks ago. And we talked
about how this is an identifying mark of those who have been born
again. They love the brethren who love the gospel of Jesus
Christ. Our unity is built around the
doctrine of Christ. By this we know that we love
the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God that
we keep his commandments and his commandments are not grievous.
For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world, And this
is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who
is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus
is the Son of God. And this is he that came by water
and blood, even Jesus Christ, not by water only, but by water
and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth
witness because the Spirit is true. For there are three that
bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost.
And these three are one. These three record bearers, the
Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, they're 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. So this is the
witness of God, which he hath testified of his Son. He that
believeth on the Son 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. Now remember, go back to the
beginning of our study, the principle that God laid down, that everything
was made after its own kind with its life in itself. Christ is
life, and He has life in Himself. He gives unto us that life. Why? Because we are his seed.
That life is passed down from seed to seed to seed. Remember,
I gave you the illustration of the apple tree. The life of every
apple tree that would ever come from that seed is found in that
one seed. And whenever it goes in the ground
and it dies, it bears forth fruit and it brings up another tree
that has apples on it. And in those apples are seeds
and those seeds have that same life of that original seed in
them. We throughout all the generations are a seed under Christ that
has his life in us. Not Adam's life made better,
but life that comes from above, eternal life, spiritual life,
not fleshly life, not natural life. God breathed in the nostrils
of Adam and he became a living soul. He became a natural living
person in the flesh. But we were born from above and
became new creation, a new creation, a new creature. And so it is
that line of Christ that receives that life. And here He says,
this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life,
and he that hath not the Son 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. He wrote these things
to those who are already the children of God so that they
might know that they're the children of God. This isn't written to
those who are not the children of God so that they might become
the children of God. No, these things are written
to those who already believe. These things are written to those
who already believe so that they'll know why they believe, why they
are recipients of this stuff. It is because you are the children
of God. You are the children of God,
thus you have received his life. You are my children. And you
have life because I have given you life, so to speak, through
myself. You live because I live. If I would have died before you
ever were conceived, you would not exist, right? If you don't believe me, go back
and watch Back to the Future. Change the timeline, people will
start disappearing, right? He says, and this is the confidence
we have in him, that if we ask anything, Courtney's will, he
heareth us. And if we know that he heareth us, whosoever we ask,
we know that we have the petitions that we desire from him. If any
man see his brother sin, I didn't mean to go that far, I'm sorry.
Now, with that being the case, look at, I want us to go backwards now
to, back to chapter three of 1 John. Now all this time before we got
into what we just read in chapter four, But I wanted to read that
to you so that you might have an understanding of what was
being said in three. Behold, what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the
sons of God. See, because of God's love, we
are sons. The Bible says, because you are
sons, God has sent his spirit into us, whereby we cry, Abba,
Father. He says, behold what manner of
love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called
the sons of God. Therefore, the world knoweth us not because
it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons
of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know
that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall
see him as he is. And every man that hath this
hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. Whosoever
committeth sin transgresseth also the law, for sin is the
transgression of the law. And ye know that he was manifested
to take away our sins, and in him is no sin. No sin. Now listen, whosoever
abideth in him sinneth not. Now, we probably got, maybe,
because I've gone a little further than I wanted to in all this
this morning, we'll probably have one more week in this two-seat
thing but I plan on preaching a message on abiding in Him coming
up, unless the Lord changes my mind before then, but that's
my next sermon that I'm gonna preach on is about abiding in
Christ. But this word abide here, it isn't something that we strive
to do. Whenever somebody abides, what is abiding? It's just resting,
right? It's just being there. Okay,
Jesus said, if you abide in me and I in you, fruit. Okay, the
fruit abides in the vine or the Jesus said, I'm the vine, you're
the branches, the branch abides in the vine, it doesn't do nothing
to say there's not hanging on by dear life. It's just there. And what does he say here? He says, whosoever abideth in
him, or whoever is resting in him, whoever is the one who has
been given to believe upon Christ, The one who has been given faith
to trust in Christ's work alone for their salvation. That's the
ones who are resting. The ones who are resting are
the ones who are trusting Christ alone, not law keeping, not good
works, not baptisms and church memberships and, you know, mission
trips and things like that. No, the one who is resting is
the one who knows that there is nothing I can do. I can try
with all my might to keep the laws of God, but I'm never going
to keep them. Therefore I will be cursed. And
so what do we do? We cease from our labor and we
rest in Christ. That's abiding. And he says,
whosoever abideth in him sinneth not. What does that mean? Does
that mean now that I'm abiding, I'm not ever going to sin again?
No, that means that whoever is abiding in Christ, resting and
trusting in him, the sinless perfection of Christ has been
laid to your account and you don't sin before God. Now, do
we in actuality sin? Yes, our flesh continues to sin
until the day that we die, but God does not view that sin in
our account because we have been given life. And we have been
given to abide, trust in Christ. We have been given the righteousness
of Christ. And he says, and we know that he was manifested
to take away our sin. And in him is no sin. Whosoever
abideth in sinneth not, whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither
known him. Little children, let no man deceive
you. He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He that committeth sin is of
the devil. For the devil sinneth from the
beginning. Now there again, there's the
two groups of people, the devil and those of Christ. He that
committed sin is of the devil. For the devil sinneth from the
beginning. Now we're talking about behold, what manner of
love the father bestowed upon us that we should be called the
sons of God. We're beholding the love of God and what God
has done in that love. He has made us sons, and if we
are sons, then we are heirs of Christ Jesus. If we are sons,
we are sons of God, and the sons of God sin not. He that committed sin is of the
devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this
purpose, the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works
of the devil. Whosoever is born of God, doth
not commit sin. If you were born from God, you
do not commit sin. Now let's think about this because
there's a lot of interpretations of this and I've had, I've preached
another interpretation of this, but if you think about it, it
can't be what it's talking about. Number one, let's look at the
most obvious. Does this mean that whenever
you're born again, you never sin again? But we know it can't
be that because the Bible says that for all have sinned and
fallen short of the glory of God. We also know that the Bible
says that if you say that you have no sin, and he was still
writing to the same people here in one jar. If you say you have
no sin, you make God out to be a liar. You have sin. So it's not talking about that.
It's not talking about committing actual sins after you're born
again. Now, there's some that say that
you don't continue in habitual sin. And that's what I used to preach.
I used to preach that this verse means whosoever is born of God
does not continue in habitual sin because his seed remains
in him and he cannot sin or continue in habitual sin because he was
born of God. But let me ask you, is that what
the verse says? Is there anywhere else in the
Bible that says not to continue in habitual sin? That whosoever
is born of God does not continue in habitual sin. See, we lay our presuppositions
upon the text and try to make the text say what we think instead
of letting the Bible say what it says. This says here, whoever
is born of God doth not commit sin. Why? Because there's a reason, right? Because for his seed, whose seed? God's seed. Whoever is born of
God, being born of God is being God's seed, right? For his seed
remaineth in him. And he cannot sin because he
is born of God, that which is inside of us, that new creation
that comes from above, that eternal life, that life that was Christ. Remember, we just read that it
was Christ's life that was in him. Remember, the Bible says
that our life was hid with, hid with God in Christ before the
foundation of the world. That life is what we're talking
about. Not Adam's life. Adam's life can do nothing but
sin. We're talking about that life, that new creation born
from above. It cannot sin. That which is in us cannot commit
sin because he is born of God. It comes from God. It cannot
sin because it's born of God. Doesn't mean that by the flesh
they don't sin. but they cannot sin. And listen,
God does not view that sin, see that sin or account that sin
to them. Why? Because they have been redeemed
from Adam. They have been redeemed from
those sins. Christ paid the penalty for those sins. Therefore, God
does not account those sins to them. All he accounts is what's
on the inside. All he accounts to them is that
righteousness that is from Christ alone. Verse 10, in this the
children of God are manifest and the children of the devil.
There's the two seeds right there. The children of God and the children
of the devil. Whosoever doeth not righteousness
is not of God, neither he that loveth or neither he that loveth
his brother. For this is the message that
she heard from the beginning that we should love one another. Now, what is doing the righteousness
of God? What is doing the righteousness
of God? The righteousness of God that
we do is believe. That is the righteousness of
God that we do. The righteousness of God is to
believe on Christ. And that's where it is manifested,
the children of God and the children of the devil. The ones who are
resting, abiding, looking to, trusting, having faith in Christ
alone for their righteousness are the children of God. The
children of the devil look to the works of the flesh. Whether
it be a decision to choose Christ, their free will to come to Christ
or their ongoing works of righteousness by the flesh. That are the ones
who are the children of the devil. They believe that they should
keep up a righteousness of their own. That's what Ishmael was
about. That's what Esau was about. That's
what Cain was about. Whenever Adam sinned in the garden. What was the first thing him
and his wife went and did? They went and sowed fig leaves
for themselves to cover themselves, to hide their nakedness or their
sinfulness. They tried to hide their sinfulness
by doing something good, covering themselves. And whenever God
came along, Jesus walking through the garden, came to him, was
that enough? Was that covering good enough?
He said, no, that wasn't good enough. Because you're good enough
is never good enough. And to try to do good enough
to be accepted by Christ or to stay accepted by Christ is to
deny Christ and what he has done. That's why it's called unrighteousness. It's unrighteous to think that
you can keep the law to please God. Because He never intended
for you to please Him by works. He intended for you to please
Him by faith. That faith that only He gives.
That faith that comes from the inner works of the Holy Spirit.
That faith that came because Christ purchased it for us. That can't be, the source of
that faith can't be brought back to you. Thereby, who gets all
the glory? Christ does. See, it all comes
back to His glory. And so this all comes back to
what I said at the very beginning. Why are we preaching these two
seats? Because it is a teaching throughout
Scripture that God has a salvation, and He has chosen a group of
people to bring forth that salvation, and a group of people that will
not receive that salvation, so that in the ultimate end, Christ
will be glorified. And this salvation that happens
to this group of people, his seed, his generation, his lineage,
his group of people, cannot be laid at the feet of man. It cannot
be by boasting, for by grace are you saved through faith.
And that, not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. I will share my glory with no
one. Christ is going to be glorified
and it's not going to be because you chose or decided or took
your destiny upon yourself. It is not going to be perseverance
by you to the end because you took this Bible and applied its
commandments to your life and lived before God in a holy way. No, it's going to be because
everything was freely given to you. Your righteousness was given
to you on your account. You didn't do nothing for that
righteousness. You didn't do nothing to actually show forth
that righteousness. Because anything that's righteous
that comes out of you was God who worked in you both to will
and to do His good pleasure. See, nothing's going to be laid
at our feet, brother. There's no way that we're going
to lay these things at our feet. And I know we talk about in the
end that we're going to receive all these crowns All these rewards
and blah, blah, blah. We even sing about that. You
know, I used to be a Southern gospel singer and we used to
sing about going to heaven and mansions and gold and getting
all these rewards. I'm going to get my reward and
all this kind of stuff like that. Listen, you know what our reward
is? You know what our inheritance is according to the word of God?
Christ. He's our reward. We receive Christ. We get Christ at the end. We
get Christ at the end. If there is any such thing as
a real crown that we're going to get, the crown of life, that
we're going to get the crown of life is Christ Jesus. He is
life. And he, the crown of life is
just symbolism of the fact that we recognize him as our life. And we have received his life,
not by our works, but by inheritance. Whenever a king is crowned from
being another king, what happened? There was a king who ruled, he
had a crown. He's about to die, what does
he do? He passes that down to his son, right? Whenever they
put that crown upon that king, he is now considered the king. That crown was a sign of authority. That crown was a sign of sovereignty. and that sovereignty was passed,
or that authority was passed from one to another, we have
that only because we are children of God. We are inheritors of
God. But brethren, that crown, if
it is a real crown, I'm not saying that it is or isn't, I'll be
honest with you, I don't know. But I know one thing, we're not
gonna strut around boasting of that crown. That crown or anything
else that we might receive as rewards is all going to be to
the glory of Christ Jesus and given to him. But why do we preach two seeds? Because we preach election. But
why do we preach election? Because we preach sovereign grace.
Well, why do we preach sovereign grace? Because that's the God
of the Bible. And the God of the Bible has
said, this is my salvation. This is my salvation. We are
beneficiaries of that salvation because of grace, not because
we're owed it, not because we deserve it, not because we're
good people. We get it because of grace. We
get it despite ourselves. And so we teach two seeds. We teach
this two lines. We teach the spiritual seed and
the fleshly seed because it shows forth that God has made a choice,
that He is sovereign. And we give Him the worship that
is due Him as the sovereign. And that that salvation that
is particular in its work and in its effect and in its outcome We give God the glory for that.
There's nothing that we did for that. And so that's why he says
here, this is this is how the children of God and the children
of the devil are manifested. And he says. Hereby we perceive we love we
have we love hereby perceive we the love of God because he
laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our
lives for the brethren, but whosoever hath this world's good and see
if his brother in need." Now again, we're talking about brothers
in Christ here. We're not talking about your next door neighbor.
Now that's the social gospel. That's the people that's out
there that are doing works to good deeds before God. They say,
Hey, we got to keep up the social gospel. We got to feed the poor. We got to clothe the, the naked,
we've got to do all this stuff for all these people that are
out there. And I'm not saying that we shouldn't do that. We
should love our enemies and do good to every man as we have
ability to do. And that's that's good. But first
and foremost, the Bible says that our places within the brethren. He says, but whosoever hath this
world's good and seeth his brother have need and shutteth up his
vows of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God
in him? My little children, let us not love in word, Neither
in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that
we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him.
We've seen blessed assurance a while ago, right? For if our
heart condemneth us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all
things. Beloved, if our heart condemneth
us not, then have we confidence towards God. And whatsoever we
ask, we receive with him because we keep his commandments and
do those things that are pleasing. What is his commandment? It's
to love God and love the brethren. And this is his commandment that
we should believe on the name of his son Jesus Christ and love
one another. There's the commandments that
were to keep right there. And even in that he gives us
the ability to do that. The commandments that we are
to keep is that we believe on the name. What is the name? We
believe on the authority. We believe on the word, the name
of Christ. It doesn't just mean the name
Jesus, okay? That's not what we're talking
about. We're talking about whenever someone's talking about the name,
it's talking about who that person is in their role as authority.
I come in the name of the law. Well, what does that mean? Well,
I'm coming under the authority of the law has given me the authority
to come and arrest you. Stop in the name of the law.
That means by their authority. And it says that we should believe
on the authority of his son, Jesus Christ. He is the one who
has given us life. He is the one that has done all
things. We look to His authority. Christ has been given authority.
Doesn't the Bible say that? All authority has been given
unto me in heaven and in earth. God has given me a power over
power, authority over all flesh that I may give life to as many
as God hath, who? Given me. And he that keepeth his commandments
dwelleth in him, and he in him. There's that abiding again. The
ones who are born of God abideth in God. And what is abiding in
Christ? Dwelling in him, keeping his
commandments to love God, believe upon the name of Christ Jesus,
and to love the brethren. And hereby we know that he abideth
in us by his spirit, which he has given us. We preach the two
seeds because it shows forth the manifest children of God
and those who are not of God. And that is by the gospel. Belief
of the gospel. Does anybody have any questions
or any comments this morning? Amen. It's good news, but it's
only good news to those who can hear it. The Bible says that
this gospel is the saver of life. to life, from death unto death.
There's a saver of life to them who are being saved. There's
a saver of death to those who are not. See, the people who
don't like this message are those who are not of God. That's why
he said they don't hear. They don't hear us. They don't
hear this message and rejoice in this message because they
still think that they have something to give to God, that God is going
to give them something in return for their service. But whenever
we abide, we rest and we put off all notions that anything
that we can do, we realize that any effort or duty that we try
to do, we then become unprofitable servants. The only thing that
the flesh can do is that which the flesh can do, and that's
not please God, not please God. And so you become an unprofitable
servant whenever you, by duty, try to please God. Now, does
that mean that we're going to just go out and live like hell?
No, I'm not saying that. People are going to twist that
to say, well, then you believe you can just live anywhere that
you want. No, I didn't say that either. But the Bible says this,
that love that we have in us for God and for our brethren,
the Bible says the love of God constrained us. Because we love
God, it constrains us from wanting to go and do that evil. From doing those things that
are wicked. It constrains us. Now, whenever we talk about abiding
in Christ and not looking at our duty, OK, we're talking about
trusting Christ in all that we do. We we live and move and have
our being in him. If he wants to lead us to do
something, he was going to lead us to do something. But just
because somebody else might be led to do, you know, all the
time I've seen religious people throughout my life judging each
other by the accolades of others. or by the work of others, by
the motivation of others, by the activity of others. Well,
this church here, it's a growing church. We're looking for all
the things this new blah, blah, blah here. Well, this church over
here, they're not doing much. How come you're not like that
church? You know, judging ourselves by each other and not by the
gospel. See, we judge by the gospel,
brother, not by our own works, not by the law, not by the things
of the flesh. We judge by the gospel. Is the
gospel being faithfully preached? Well, it doesn't matter if you've
got 25 missionaries out in Africa and New Zealand and wherever,
you know, it doesn't matter. It's the gospel being preached
and the people of God loving God, loving each other and worshiping
God together. The God of the Bible, the gospel
being preached, the gospel of the Bible. See, that's, that's what it's
all about. What we do when we go outside of these walls? Yeah,
it's important. Do we need to tell others about
Christ? Amen, I think we ought to. We ought to preach the gospel
to all the people that God leads us around. But we don't need
to feel like we've been lesser of a Christian because we're
not out there doing a million things. Or our church is less
of an evangelical type church. And that even in and of itself,
I think is a misnomer. that our church is not a healthy
church because we don't have 1,000 programs and we're not
out in the community with 1,000 different branches and arms doing
a lot of different things. That isn't where the health of
the church is found. The health of the church is found in its
brethren keeping the commandments of Christ, loving God, the gospel
of Jesus Christ, believing on the name of Jesus Christ, and
loving its brethren, the brethren putting each other before each
other, themselves. loving them, edifying one another. That's where the health of the
church is found. Not in how much money they have,
not in how many cars are in the parking lot, not in any of that
stuff. Whether we're on TV or on a radio
program, how many Facebook likes we get, none of that junk. It's
about faithfulness and the commands of Christ to do these two things.
Believe on the name of his son and love one another. Brethren,
I, you know, I'm not trying to pat ourselves on the back here,
but I find that, you know, by grace, the Lord has given us
to do that here. We continue to do that here and pray that
the Lord would continue to persevere us in this very thing. that we
might love each other and love him and the gospel and be a beacon
of truth here. Despite what happens, you know,
COVID is not going to, by grace, is not going to knock us out.
The government who's going to try to shut us down from preaching
is not going to knock us out. They might knock us out of this
building where we're not out publicly seen. We might be back
into a house somewhere, but it's not going to stop the gospel.
Jesus promised that the gates of hell are not going to prevail
against this gospel. We might become unfaithful, but
the gospel and the church of Jesus, the institution will always
be here, whether this particular church is here or not. Churches
rise and fall, but we pray the Lord we keep us faithful for
many years to come. All right, let's bow and have
a word of prayer. Father, we thank you today for
your grace. We thank you for Christ Jesus.
We thank you for this word of God that teaches us keeps us
on track of what is true, gives us what's true. It is truth.
Father, I pray that we might see the glory in this teaching
about two seeds. Many can look at the negative
side that, oh, that's horrible that there's a group of people
that is not saved. But Father, by nature, none of
us deserve salvation and you could have rightly left every
person in that state and sent us all to hell and been justified
in doing so. The amazing fact isn't the fact
that God has saved us, but why he hasn't condemned every one
of us. But Father, we are grateful for your love towards your people.
We're grateful towards Christ and the work that he has done
on our behalf, living that life of perfection before you, fulfilling
the law and that righteousness being
laid to our account as if we ourselves had done the very thing.
And that Christ also giving forth his life as a sacrifice for us.
dying underneath the wrath of God for sin that he did not commit,
but yet took upon himself as his very own sin for all of us
so that we might not experience that. Father, we're grateful
for what you have done for us. We're grateful for what life
that we have by the Holy Spirit of Christ coming and giving us
that life from above. that began with God and will
end with God, so to speak. Whenever we are glorified, we
are brought forth and manifested before all of creation, the children
of God, that seed, that lineage, that kind, that spiritual kind
that was brought forth, not by the hands of man, not by the
will of man, but born of God. Thank you, Father, for that miraculous
work that is done in us, through us, and we look for your soon
return, Christ. We ask, Lord, that you come quickly,
remove us from this wickedness that's in this world. Father,
we pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ around the
world, that you might keep them strong in the faith, Lord, that
you might enable them to continue to abide in you despite the hardships
and trials that we're facing today. Father, I pray for families
everywhere that Satan is beginning to work on and destroy the lives
of families and the churches, Lord. And we just pray that you
keep them strong, that you grant repentance where repentance is
due. Father, we love you. We honor
you. We ask you to bless the time
of fellowship now. The food that we're about to
eat around the table may bring honor to you for it's in Christ's
name that we pray. Amen.