And we have been looking at the
whole subject of prayer. And what I want to do, if everyone
has an outline, is deal with one last final point in your
outline. And that is the category that
is called D, the sin unto death, the sin unto death. And I want
to simply share with you under that particular category four
justifications, four justifications for not praying for someone,
for not praying for someone. Obviously, as we learned last
week, if you were here, the tone and context in which John was
speaking about the subject of prayer in verses 14 through 16, is a tone that says we are privileged
to pray, we are obligated to pray, and that prayer is something
essential to the interdependency, the advancement and the success
of the people of God in anything that we do. So as we now begin
to deal with this one prohibition, this one caveat which has been
a real challenge for a lot of people throughout the years. Why would God tell his people
not to pray for a person or a people or a group? This one caveat needs
to be dealt with, but it needs to be dealt with in the context
of the overall tenor of the people of God. And this is really if
you haven't been with us in the context of the corporate responsibility
of the church. It's true for every believer
that every believer is privileged not only to pray for others,
but when we are in a time of low ebb weakness, we are to seek
others to pray for us. That's a privilege and a responsibility
on the part of the believer. And when we don't do that, When
we don't call upon others to pray for us, it indicates that
we are in even a greater and more desperate problem with God,
because we don't even have the strength to acknowledge that
we can't pray for ourselves in any availing way to ask someone
to do so. I just wanna say this by way
of preparation for this part of the subject. When you have
walked with the Lord for some time and you really do understand
grace, what you understand about grace is that grace teaches you
your constant and unending dependence upon God for everything. If you
don't have that kind of definition of grace, you have yet to experience
the grace of God. So what God does for his people
as he brings them into a saving relationship with them, What
he does is he humbles them to the point of them recognizing
that they have no strength within themselves to accomplish anything. What I mean by that is he moves
you past the Bible verses that you learn to quote into the reality
of those passages that you have learned. He moves you past quoting
without me, you can do nothing. to the reality that Lord, without
you, I can do nothing. And that's a critical transition
from mere religious talk to the substance of a relationship with
God. And it's important for you and I to understand that because
I get the impression as well as my own experience with believers
that in their coming to know God and growing in grace and
the knowledge of God, and that's going to be what John treats
at the end of verses 19 through 21, I come to think sometimes,
particularly in Western Christianity, that the believer is under the
assumption that when he or she comes to God, that the journey
of the believer ought to be one of constant, unending triumph
in Christ. where they are successful on
every hand. That God should open doors just
because they have a relationship with God. That God should respond
speedily to their requests and desires just because they have
a relationship with God. That God should act in their
behalf as a UPS agent every time they requested And when they
come to discover that God acts like God with them, as he does
with everybody else, they become discombobulated and sometimes
become even disenchanted with God. They become troubled and
they become fearful that somehow they haven't tapped into the
real and true and living God. And this makes them susceptible
to paganism and false religion because lots of false religion
will offer you a God that is speedy to help you prosper. Only
you got to pay a price for that. You do understand that, right?
And so when you come to the true and the living God and he starts
to deal with you in terms of his grace, his sovereign grace,
what he's going to do is humble you, humble you, humble you. I, The high and lofty God dwell
with the broken and the contrite to revive the broken and the
contrite spirit. This is the true and the living
God. And this is how he deals with us. So I want to simply
say to you, if you are in a place where you are bewildered because
God hasn't answered your prayers as quickly as you thought he
should, let me advise you on something. This is true for all
of us, not one of us, Has had God to be such a Johnny on the
spot for us that basically he's our bellhop and we get whatever
we want We have come to learn how to wait on God when God teaches
you grace. He teaches you how to wait on
him When God teaches you grace, he teaches you how to depend
on him when God teaches you grace He teaches you how to stop presuming
on him when God teaches you grace, he teaches you that there are
a lot of things that he is undoing in your life before he is doing
in your life. Now you really got to learn this
because otherwise you will abandon the true and the living God for
idols. This is why John says what he says at the end of the
epistle, little children, remember the phrase there, little children,
keep yourselves from what? And that's the idea of you and
I falling prey to building an image of God that does not comport
with the truth. And we'll do that when we get
frustrated with God being God and him not answering our prayers.
All right. What we learned was last week.
is that prayer is something that God calls us to do. It's something
that we are impelled to do, we are compelled to do, we are commanded
to do, and we should do. But he comes to this one last
statement in verse 17. And here's what he says. All
unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin unto death. You see that? This here is a
repetition of the last clause in verse 16. There's a sin unto
death. And I do not say that he shall pray for it. John says,
I do not say pray for the person that sends the sin that leads
to eternal death. Do not pray for, or you are not
necessarily called upon to pray for the person whose sin leads
unto death. Now we disqualified a lot of
different notions about what that text meant. And essentially
what it means is for a man or a woman, to have had such an
overwhelming testimony of the person and work of Jesus Christ
to such a degree that their rejection of that testimony would be tenth
amount to the one sin that could constitute an eternal peril. And there's only one sin and
it's called blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. So I want to
say that again for you. We're going to look at the text
of Matthew's 12. In fact, you can go there. We're in Matthew's
chapter 12. We'll be looking at Matthew's chapter 12, a portion
of it. This sin, obviously, is not something that people commit
readily or quickly, but obviously, because our Lord Jesus said there
will be one sin for which there is no forgiveness, neither in
this life or in the life to come. It then does merit us to ask
the question, what is that sin? And I say that sin is apostasy
from biblical truth with regards to the person and work of Jesus
Christ. Now, if that does not mean anything
to you, it's because you have not grasped the utter importance
of a revelation of Christ as the unique effort and objective
of God in the saving of sinners. When you come to understand that
God, the father has given us one exclusive means by which
we obtain eternal life. And that one, uh, uh, that one
exclusive means is not, uh, optional. It's not something you can give
or take. There are consequences to rejecting the gospel. As Paul
said in 1 Corinthians 9, woe unto me if I do not preach the
gospel when once Christ had revealed himself to him on the Damascus
road and had laid upon him multitudes of testimonies affirming the
reality of Christ. And what we are really getting
at, my brothers and sisters, is that there is a kind of testimony
that a person can receive that is so overwhelming with regards
to the reality of who Jesus is that there is nothing else that
can come along and sufficiently controvert that testimony so
that you can stand before God on the last day and say, you
know what? I sincerely did not believe that Jesus was the Christ. But that kind of witness is exclusive
to only a few. So what John is dealing with
is a context where he is primarily targeting his message in first
John, second and third John, to his own Jewish constituency. John was around when Jesus did
ministry, correct? John was around when there were
the debates going on between Christ and the Pharisees, Sadducees,
Herodians and the like, correct? So what I am getting at is that
there was a historical context in which there was a unique period
in time where certain human beings had the privilege of observing
in a three-dimensional way the revelation of God in Christ.
In a way, by the way, that you and I don't have. For while you
and I may believe the gospel today, it is not because we had
a personal, individual, one-on-one relationship with Jesus Christ
while he was here. See, what we're talking about,
if you don't understand, is gradations or levels are qualities of testimony. Gradations or levels are qualities
of testimony. The vast majority of us live
on what we call testimonials. Most of the information by which
you and I are educated, catechized, grow up, are taught in school,
for any discipline that you and I engage in, is basically rooted
in what we call testimonials. Someone else giving you data
or information that someone else gave them. that someone else
gave them, that someone else gave them, which may have been
the composite of exploration, excavation, philosophical conclusions. They may be empirical data. There
may be scientific data. They may be even personal experiential
data. For instance, in the Bible, we
really do have all of those instruments by which we come to the testimony
of Jesus. by which we come to the testimony
of God. We have the word of God as a testimony, don't we? We
have history as a testimony, don't we? We have the apostolic
testimony of the testimony of Jesus, don't we? We have Christ's
own testimony, don't we? And then we have the church's
testimony all the way down the line. So you and I are living
on what we call testimonies. Don't feel bad. That's all that
John was talking about in first John chapter five. If we receive
the testimony of men, It's not the testimony of God what? Greater. The vast majority of us acquire
our disciplines in life, our different skills in life, our
different vocations in life from testimonials. You sit in front
of a teacher and he tells you, she tells you about a particular
subject that she learned from someone else. Humbling, isn't
it? And yet what God has done is
he has accommodated himself to use the same means with the exception
of certain unique what we call special revelations. God has
broken into time space continuum as you and I know it from time
to time to give a special revelation of himself, either through angels,
through revelations, through dreams or visions, or by the
Lord's coming himself. And he would aid and abet those
revelations in our life today by his Holy Spirit. The Spirit
of God serves as a overwhelming witness to who the Lord Jesus
is in an extremely germane way. But we're looking at Matthew
12, where our Lord gives us one kind of warning with regards
to the forgiveness of sins, which is exclusive to a group of people
who would have had a qualitatively different testimony of God than
you and I could today. It does not mean that a person
today could not commit blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. But what
it does mean is it would be extremely difficult for you to find an
individual who has peered into and come to discover level of
depth of biblical truth concerning the person and work of Christ
for which Having walked away from it. There would be no way
he could be or she could be or they could be retrieved However,
what John is teaching you and I is those of us who are on the
outside Observing such persons are such people who walk away
from the gospel what he's saying to us is at length the individuals
who have been given a sufficient testimony of biblical truth concerning
the person and work of Christ, and then turn around and become
an enemy of the gospel, that individual is not one that you
have to be compelled to pray for. Wow. Wow. Well, see what it gets into,
ladies and gentlemen, is this. What is prayer? Which again,
we're going to take a week off next week because of the holidays.
But the subsequent Friday, which I think will be around the 12th
of July, we will be starting the Book of Acts, which will
be a profoundly intensive study with the objective of understanding
the nature of the church and what a church constitutes and
how God started the New Testament church and the manifestations
of Christ's glory in that church. And our desire is to learn what
we need to learn in order that we might be the church in all
that God has called us to be. And one of the areas in which
we will be constantly reminded throughout the book of Acts is
that the church of God was always a praying church. And it makes
all the sense in the world to me that the New Testament church
was a praying church because that church was born on the nucleus
of the apostles who had been taught by the master that as
they couldn't do anything without Christ, Christ couldn't do anything
without the Father. And that level of dependence
upon God to assist them in accomplishing supernatural tasks that were
far greater than any human being could do, was essential for that
little band of believers to not only penetrate Jerusalem, Judea,
Samaria, but the uttermost parts of the world, it would require
a praying people. In other words, here's what I'll
say to you. If you will ever do anything for God, according
to God's word, you're going to need God in your life in order
to get it done. That will make you an authentically
praying person. where you fail to learn how to
pray, you will see enormous amounts of shortcoming in your life.
And so here's what our master says in Matthew chapter 12. He
says over in verse 27, responding to what the Pharisees had said,
that Jesus was actually operating out of the power of the devil.
And if I, by Beelzebub, cast out devils, by whom do your children
cast them out? Therefore, they shall be your
judges. But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the
kingdom of God is come unto you. Or else, how can one enter into
a strong man's house and spoil his goods, except he first bind
the strong man, and then he will spoil his house? He that is not
with me is against me. Now, you notice this next, this
is called a proverb. He that is not with me is what?
Our master is teaching that there is no such thing as neutral ground
with Christ. When was you have been given
a revelation of who he is? There's no such thing as they're
kind of in between. Not when was you have been given
a revelation of who he is. So he says he that is not with
me is against me. And he that gathers not with
me does what? Profound. Because what it implies
is if you and I know to do good, but we do not do it, it is what?
Sin. If you and I have been told who
the mastery is, what the master has done, what his objectives
and goals are for his church, and you and I are not willing,
volitionally given over to what it means to be a Christian, to
be a partaker in the gathering of lost sinners to Christ with
him, we are impeding the process. We are not on neutral ground.
Y'all got that? This is why people didn't like
to hear Christ preach. Because he was so very serious.
But it goes on to say this. Here it is. Verse 31, here's
our text, and we're going to look at three others. Wherefore,
I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven
unto men. That's a great statement. All
manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men. Don't run
past that real quick. You need that type of wide open
mercy from God. I need that kind of wide open
mercy from God. All manner of sin shall be available
forgiveness for forgiveness of men. But the blasphemy Against
the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men you guys got that so
now that's a that's one of the Justifying texts for not praying
because if one really could know that an individual has Blasphemed
the Holy Spirit then there would be no need for us to pray for
that individual. Is that true? I If I knew that
individual had blasphemed the Holy Ghost and there was no forgiveness
for that person in this life or the life to come, there would
be no grounds for me to pray for that person. Be no reason
for it, right? So, we do know that that's a
category that really exists for people. The text that informs
this is over in the Old Testament, and I want you to see that with
me too. Jeremiah 7, verse 16. I remember reading this when
I first began my Christian journey, and it blew me away going through
the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah being the demolition
prophet, the one prophet that God used to constantly demolish
Israel's, and more particularly, Judah's presumption against God.
their arrogance and their pompousness and their rank hypocrisy and
their rank rebellion against God even in the midst of the
church and in the midst of the temple here's what God says to
Jeremiah who wanted to pray for them but here's what God said
over in verse 12 through verse 16 which verse 16 is our text
you go now into my place which was in Shiloh where I set my
name at the first this was in the days of Samuel and see what
I did to it for the wickedness of what kind of people my people
Israel and now because you have done all these works said the
Lord I speak unto you rising up early speaking but you heard
not I call but you what now what our Lord is doing is summing
up the fact that he repeatedly gave them warnings over and over
and over and over and over again through the mouth of his prophets.
They rose up B times coming to the people, warning them to stop
their rebellion against God, to stop. You are under covenant.
You are under covenant obligation. Jehovah is a jealous God. Stop
your sin against your God. They constantly came. The prophets
were lawyers for God. They came with indictments against
Israel. They were under covenant contract.
They broke the covenant and the lawyers were saying the judgment
is going to come upon you according to the covenant contract. Stop. By the way, when God warns you
to stop, he's showing mercy to you. He's showing mercy. So here, what God is saying to
Jeremiah is let him know that the probational period for them
to turn from the rebellion is over. I called, I called, I called,
but you would not hear, and neither did you answer." You know what's
going on with that kind of dynamic? And I said this in our previous
outline, is that the people, so-called people of God, were
hardening their hearts against God's appeal to turn from their
sin. See, when you are called upon
to turn from your sin by the preaching of the word, the preaching
of the gospel, by the appeal of the spirit of God through
the minister, and you don't turn from your sin, you are actually
hardening your heart against God. Are you guys hearing me?
It is not possible to be a moral agent, understanding right and
wrong. and to be in the context of being
admonished over and over again to change a behavior and your
heart is not affected by it. It's not possible. In fact, I
want you to think this through because what God loves, he loves
a tender heart. This is what is meant by a broken
and contrite heart, a tender heart, not a tender head. Not a tender set of emotions
that will try to manipulate God with tears, a tender heart. And a tender heart is the core
and seat and essence of the reality of the person. So I want to help
you with this. When you and I know to do right,
but we're doing wrong and you are explicitly warned, you can
know right away whether you are hardening your heart are you
are yielding to and capitulating to the Spirit of God. To the
degree that you continue to harden your heart, and these are degrees
ever so small, but they are never so subconscious that you don't
know that you're doing them. You know that you're doing them.
You stand the chance in your disobedience to God's precept
of hardening your heart in such a fashion that you don't have
the capacity for repentance unless God comes in with extremely brutal
mercies to break you. When you and I rebel against
God's commands and we harden our heart, what we don't have
the guarantee of is turning ourselves. Are you guys following me? You
don't have that guarantee. In fact, you don't really have
that capacity. That's why treasuring and respecting and longing for
a tender heart is critical to your and I relationship with
God. God, give me a broken and tender
heart that I might submit myself to your appeals when they come
because my fallen nature will naturally want to do what it
wants to do and it will oppose the God of heaven. And over time,
the heart hardens to the degree where you stop actually hearing
the Word of God in power. You can hear it intellectually.
You can hear it rationally. You can hear it propositionally.
But it does nothing for the soul to grip it like it used to. You
understand what I'm getting at? That's a dangerous place to be
because it sets you up for being unproductive in the cause of
Christ. It sets you up for having a pattern
of disobedience that renders your witness unproductive for
Christ. And that's what he's dealing
with here. He's saying they're done. My appeals through my prophets
have not worked. And in fact, on many occasions,
what they did was persecute the prophets. This is how you know
you're in trouble when you hear the word and the Spirit of God
has broken through the chambers of your heart and has exposed
the particularities of your specific rebellion against him. You are
then finding yourself hostile towards the messenger. That's
a bad place to be. That's an extremely bad place
to be. Once you are there, you are now at direct war with God. because there is no other voice
coming to you, but the voice of the mediating role of the
prophets who are appealing to you to turn from your sins. Am
I making some sense? There is then with that, what
we call again, the interdependence of the body of Christ, where
you, if you think you can get by yourself and kind of go in
the corner and read your Bible, you know, I'm going to get right
with God by reading my Bible in my corner. Well, the book's
not going to open to you. It's going to be shut. Because
what you're saying is I want to do what God wants me to do,
but I want to do what God wants me to do my way. Am I making some sense? And so
then you find yourself putting the book down and then you try
to pray, which is getting us back to our point. But your prayers
are completely useless. Here's a context in which you
and I are ostensibly on the right side of God's mercy and grace.
But we've got relatives and friends, or we've got individuals that
we know. We've got church brothers and sisters, ostensibly, who
have rebelled against God for so long. And you and I have seen
all of the markers, all of the signs, all of the evidences of
their continued justification. And they have gradually drifted
away from God because we know what the evidences are for drifting
away from God. And we have tried to encourage
them. We've tried to warn them. We've tried to be used of God
to cudgel them back into a safe place of walking with God. But
no, they have insisted on moving further and further away. You
have been praying for them for the longest. There comes a time,
even in your own conscience, where you become startling aware
and alarmed that you have no more zeal to pray for them. No more zeal. They can be a child. They can be a spouse. They can
be a brother or sister. The zeal to pray for them utterly
disappears. I could ask some of you to raise
your hand because you would know what I'm talking about. For those
of you who don't know, you may get there one day if your love
for people is such that you passionately pray for them, which is last
week's class and the week before, as you know. But there's times
when The spirit of God does not give you the prompting to pray
anymore for certain things in certain people. And here's what
God says. Therefore, will I do unto this house, which is called
by my name, wherein you trust, and unto the place which I gave
to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. And I
will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast all your brethren,
even the whole seed of Ephraim. That's the 10 northern tribes.
Therefore pray not thou for this people. Do you see that? Do not
pray for them, Jeremiah. Neither lift up cry nor prayer
for them, neither make intercession to me, for I will not hear you. Powerful, isn't it? Powerful. So at this point, what God has
done to his servant Jeremiah is giving him insight into his
resolve. to judge them. And he's giving
Jeremiah a commandment to no longer seek God in prayer. And
this becomes one of those texts for us again, that grips us because
we would say, we would assume, and I've heard it many, many
times that God is always there. He's always there. If you just
come to him, he's always there. But the Bible does not use that
kind of terminology that you can always presume upon God. That you can always presume that
he has his hands reached out to bring you in. Proverbs chapter
one makes it plain, doesn't it? There's a time when God will
stop listening. Since you didn't listen to me,
I will not listen to you. And this is a depiction of the
biblical God. It's not in most of your Christian churches, but
this is a depiction of the biblical God. So now the next place I
want you to go with that, because I know that startled you, is
to John chapter 17, John 17. Because in John 17, our Lord
also makes a statement around the specificity of prayer on
his part. John 17 is an extremely important
chapter. We generally call it in theology,
the high priestly prayer of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,
right before he goes back to glory and to his father. And he is praying for the welfare,
the success, the full manifestation of the purpose of the church
through his disciples. And there's a lot of wonderful
theology in John 17 that has to do with God's people being
protected in order to accomplish the purpose for which they are
now going to take over for Christ. But here's what our master says
over in verse 8 and 9, and you need to hear this. For I have
given them, that is the disciples, the words which you have given
me, and they have received them. and have known surely that I
came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst
send me." You're going to see how this works when we get back
to 1 John chapter 5, verse 9. I am praying for them. You guys see that? Now, this is the mediator of
the world, the God-man Jesus Christ, the one mediator between
God and man, Christ Jesus. And He is making an exclusive
statement those for whom he is praying I pray for them now watch
this I pray not for the world got it I am NOT praying for the
world I am praying for them which thou has given me for they are
mine now that statement actually includes certain attributes of
Christ essential to affirming his deity. And that's this. He knew that it would be of no
avail for him to pray for those whom the father did not give
him. For those who were not given
to Christ by the father will continue to live in open rebellion
and in opposition to the gospel, the glory of God, the reality
of who Christ is, and they will perish justly under the wrath
of God, wanting to go to hell in rejection of the claims of
the gospel. Are you guys following me? Now,
you and I know that there's a vast majority of the world who will
perish that way and they will perish because they want to. That's their responsibility.
There won't be anyone ladies and gentlemen in hell who ultimately
did not want to be there There won't be however, our interest
is in this The fact that our high priest
has told us in the prayer of john chapter 17 That there are
persons for whom he is not praying and that then affirms for us
or justifies us that there are times when no prayer is to be
had. for particular individuals. By
the way, you can mark if you want to, as sort of a hermeneutical
or exegetical continuum, that John chapter 17, verse nine,
when he says, I pray not for the world, I pray not for the
world, this world is the same world that John is dealing with
in 1 John chapters two through chapter five. In 1 John chapter
two, John says, they went out from us because they were not
of us, For had they been of us, they would no doubt have remained
among us. But they went out from us in
order to demonstrate that they were never at all among us. And
it's this same category of people that John says many false prophets
have gone out into the world. So this is a sphere that Jesus
is talking about and it's a realm and it's a system. We're not
talking about the physical world. We're not talking about going
out into the geographical world. We're talking about a dimension
and a realm and ideology, a worldview, a construction of thinking, a
realm. kingdom called the kingdom of
darkness where men and women are operating out of a carnal
mindset which is enmity against God reinforced by all of the
devil's lies necessary to build his army against God's army so
when he says I'm not praying for the world he's saying I'm
not praying for the devil's system I'm not praying for the people
who give allegiance to the devil's system. I am only praying for
those whom you have given me. This is a specific category of
people for which this kind of revelation would set you and
I on the path of simply asking the question, am I one of those
who have been given by the father to the son? And that's what the
study is designed to lead us to. Am I one of those who have
been given by the Father to the Son before the world began? Am
I one of those who have been given to the Father by the Son
in the work of regeneration through the gospel? Does my life depict,
in terms of my conviction, my beliefs, my hopes, my aspirations,
my desires, my life, does my life depict those who have been
given to the Father? Because there's many verses about
those who have been given to the Father. Those who have been
given to the Father, first of all, come to Christ. Y'all got
that? John chapter 6, 37-40. Those
who have been given to the Father obtain eternal life. Those who
have been given to the Father see the Son in the preaching
of the Gospel for who He really is. This is the will of Him that
sent me, that all that seeth the Son shall have everlasting
life, and I'll raise Him up at the last day. Those who are given
to the Father believe the Gospel. Those who are given to the Father
walk by faith. Those who have been given to
the Father believe God's Word. They believe God's testimony.
They trust Christ. They serve Him. My sheep, what? So I'm pressing this home because
this is not mere affirmation of certain doctrinal systems
that we all believe in love. This here is eternal truth with
regards to those who are excluded from the prayer of the great
high priest, whose prayers always avail with God and those who
make it in. Christ is praying for his. Now in that concept, in that
discussion, ladies and gentlemen, what you and I are concerned
about and we are burdened with, and go with me now in your Bible
to Acts chapter five. I'm going to show you one more,
even though we're going to develop this in our series. And I would encourage
you once we get into the book of Acts that you would commit
yourself to it, because this is going to be another huge mirror
necessary for us to learn, engage where we are in terms of the
church of Jesus Christ collectively and individually. And I would
encourage you to, uh, spur your friends and loved ones on as
well into the study of what the church is and supposed to be
just in case they have never had an in-depth study in the
book of Acts. It will be profoundly important
here in Acts chapter five and an unusual event occurs, which
is of what we call apostolic proportion. And that is Ananias
and Sapphira, a husband, wife team have chosen to lie to God. Right. I know the first time
you guys read that portion of scripture, you said, Lord, I
will never lie again. But you end up lying again. Well, this goes to, again, what
we were saying earlier. about levels and degrees of testimony
before God and the penetration of the light of truth in the
conscience being overcome by a person's own willful and volitional
rejection of that light, rejection of that truth in order for them
to do their own will. You and I cannot gauge the level
of a person's rebellion against God. You and I cannot gauge the
level of internal conscientious volitional rebellion against
God. Did you guys get that? Because
you're looking startled. I want to make sure you understand
this. You and I don't have the capacity to peer into the realm
of the conscience, which is a domain between God and his eternity
bound soul, because he created us all in his image. He created
us all with a conscience. He created us all with a kind
of light of knowing for which you and I now are accountable
before God for what we do. But one person may be different
in his or her level of awareness of the depth of their transgression
against God than another person. Only God knows this is why in
the book of Romans chapter 14 the Apostle Paul told the church
at Rome be careful When you start handling brand-new baby Christians
Because there's a tendency on older Christians part to play
the judge in the life of baby Christians. I and to act like
Jesus Christ in their life and to tell them what's right and
wrong, what they can do, what they can't do. And at that point,
you are usurping Christ's authority over them when you didn't die
for them, Christ died for them. When you don't have the playbook
for their specific form of sanctification, Christ has that playbook. Christ
knows the degrees, the manner, the timing, the different levels,
the different ebbs and flows, the different seasons for which
he is going to grow his individual believer. And you and I have
no say in that process. Some believers will grow quickly. And as a consequence, because
of God's gifting in their life, they will be used significantly.
Other believers will grow very slowly. So slowly it will drive
you crazy. But that's just your pride. You're
going to see it in our church bulletin on Sunday. I talk about
what is the church. And one of the things that we
did in our men's study after we had taught our leadership
class a couple of years ago is that we started what was called
an indicative study. And indicatives are statements
of biblical truth where God views the church, the believer, under
certain terms and phrases. Indicatives are such as you are
the light of the world. You are the city of the living
God. You are God's vineyard. You are
God's servant. And when you begin to look up
all the indicatives in the scripture as to how God sees the believer
and sees the church, you come up with dozens and dozens and
dozens and dozens of indicatives. In fact, maybe even hundreds. of metaphors and analogies of
what the believer and the church is. And when you begin to look
at those indicatives carefully, what you discover is, I don't
see myself the way God sees me. I don't view myself as being
a tree of righteousness. I don't view myself as being
a lamb or a sheep. I don't view myself as being
God's servant. I don't view myself as being
God's son. I don't view myself as being a pillar in the temple
of my God. I don't view myself as being a living epistle, vessels
of God. I don't view myself as being
weak, but God views us that way. Now, when you begin to take those
indicatives, and learn about the inherent meaning of those
indicatives, then you begin to see what your true identity is
in Christ. Something we're going to be talking
about on Sunday, because a major problem with every believer is
that they fail to understand who they really are in Christ.
And as a consequence, they are set up to compromise or fail
because of their lack of knowledge of who they are in Christ. Am
I making some sense? This is a tremendous, tremendous
point of application with regards to God's purposes in our life,
God's objective in our life, the purpose for which Christ
sacrificed Himself. Had Ananias and Sapphira been
true believers, and I know some would say that they were, I don't
buy that for a moment because what happens to them at this
point is a startling judgment. that God has to exercise in the
early days of the New Testament church that corresponds to what
he had to do to the two sons of Aaron. When on the second
worship service, they thought they had the prerogative to enter
into the presence of God. And God did not anoint or ordain
them to do so. And they went to worship God
as if they were the appointed mediators. And fire came down
from heaven, consumed them in their clothes. And the priest
had to drag them out of the temple. That was a bad day for Daddy
Aaron. You know what Daddy Aaron learned?
That God was not to be played with. You know what Daddy Aaron
learned? That God is not stuck on nepotism.
God doesn't need your sons and your son's son. God can raise
up stones to bring him glory That when god prepares a minister
for the cause of the gospel He prepares his heart and his mind
to be consistent with the will of god so that he can honor god
in that calling God's not desperate for folks to have every kind
of son of belial entering into the cause of the ministry Are
y'all hearing what i'm saying? And so, in the same way, we come
to understand that as the early church being very poor, poverty
stricken, was in need of gathering their sources and monies together
in order to help the poor. Verse 37 of chapter four, having
land, they sold it and brought the money and laid it at the
feet of the apostles. Verse two of chapter five says,
Ananias and Sapphira kept back part of the price, his wife also
being privy to it. and brought a certain part and
laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why
hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost? Do
you see that? Peter received right there a
very decisive word of knowledge concerning the depths to which
Ananias had went in opposing God. Are y'all following me? He had received by divine revelation
as one of God's apostles, And there are no such apostles today,
not withstanding all of these hooks and crooks that want to
take on the title of apostle today. They're crooks. Let me,
let me just lay that out to you. Now they're crooks and they're
deceiving you. If you're not grounded in biblical
truth to know the qualifications for authentic apostolic calling. Okay. They're crooks and cons.
Uh, if they were legitimately apostles, they would have the
same powers that the apostles in the early church did. You
know what that means? they would have the power both
to raise people from the dead and to kill people on the spot. Got that? Here's what he said. You have lied to the Holy Ghost
and to keep back part of the price of the land. While it remained,
was it not yours? He's appealing to them. And after
it was so, was it not in your own power to do what you want?
Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied
unto men, but unto whom? So what he did with verse four
was to really excavate the process of what was taking place in Ananias
and Sapphira's heart as they schemed to put themselves in
a position where they could be honored and idolatrized by the
people in the church as being something that they were not.
They were early on ready to play church, pretend that they were
all this, and in reality, they were ranked hypocrites. And because
the early church was learning to establish what we call the
foundation, we'll see that, what God was not going to do was allow
the foundation of the church to be established upon the kind
of hypocrisy that you see rampant in our churches today. You guys
got that? So when you read the rest of
the chapter, what you come to find out is the same thing that
happened to Ananias happened to who? Sapphire. Which means
they both equally allowed their conscience to be plagued by a
conflict of soul, internal rebellion against God to such a degree
that he gave them over to the reprobation of their own agenda,
knowing that they would suffer the consequences of perishing
as a consequence of it. This is unique in the scriptures.
Generally, when two people get together to rip God off and people
do it all the time, one person will have a greater level of
commitment to rebel against God than the other person. Very seldom
will both have the same equal level of interest. One person
will be stronger than the other, manipulate the other, drag the
other into it. A lot of times in a greater level
of conflict, not really wanting to do it, but because they don't
have the power to stand on their own two feet and says, I must
obey God rather than man. Then they end up in cahoots with
the criminal and on a judicial level having to suffer the consequences.
I know lots of partners. In fact, it happened to me. Found
myself behind bars. because of some stupid thing
a partner of mine did. You understand what I'm saying?
I almost wanted to say it wasn't me, it was him. Our hearts had
different motives, different levels of motives, but we were
both committing the crime. In this context, Ananias and
Sapphira were both equally committed to rebelling against God, which
means they did not have those necessary attributes or predicates
of a true believer. They did not have those necessary
attributes or predicates of a true believer, because a true believer
could never penetrate the depths of their own conscious and betray
God at that level. Are you guys following what I'm
saying? When you understand the Bible, you understand. In fact,
go back to 1 John chapter 5, because the next three or four
verses will affirm what I'm saying by this. This will help you understand
this. And as you are making your way
back to 1 John chapter 5, so that we can begin to wrap this
up, If you are somewhat alarmed, then that's good for you. Because
I would say this, and I've said it before, the warnings in the
Bible are really for the believer, the true believer. The non-believer
will scathe over the warnings. They will disregard the warnings.
They will run through the stop sign. They will break through
the yield sign. They'll go through the yellow
tape because they live to rebel against God. That's our culture.
Am I telling the truth? We have just affirmed same-sex
marriage in California after many, many, many, many, many,
many, many years of battles, right? Many years of battle.
And people are all upset in the church, all over the place. Stop
being upset. Be grieved, but don't be upset.
All right? Be grieved, but don't be upset.
Listen, the world has been practicing rebelling against God's commandments
since Adam and Eve failed. And God has allowed them to do
it. There's nothing really to clap about there either. But
I just want you to understand my point is this that you and
I don't have to be surprised when they break out in the kind
of rebellion that they do. That's the vast majority of the
world. The vast majority of people, you know, are willingly living
in rebellion against God's word and he's letting them do it.
You guys got that. He's warning them in so many
ways. Providence, circumstances, reverses
of finances, health, breakdown of relationships. Our culture
is suffering so many diseases, it's not even funny. You guys
know that. And it's all as a consequence of sin. The Word of God is right.
You know it's right. And yet they are disregarding
the warnings all over the place, aren't they? But they're still
reaping the consequences. And the day of judgment is still
coming. Here's what I'll say to you. Listen, God knows how
to fix it when he wants to fix it. He knows how to fix it when he
wants to fix it. So us as believers, we don't have to compromise and
agree with it. We better not. We don't have
to compromise and agree with any form of rebellion against
God. I don't care how many people are doing it. We better be ready
to stand on biblical truth. Even if it's just you and God
against the world, you better be ready to do that. But you
don't have to go out and picket and protest either. You don't
have to put on t-shirts and act a fool. You don't have to get
mad. You don't have to campaign against it. Do you understand
that? You don't have to waste your
time with that. They are lost sinners doing what lost sinners
do. Sticking their fist in God's
face and daring God to be God. And every second that God allows
them to live in this world with their fist in God's face, They
are treasuring to themselves wrath against the day of judgment,
according to Romans 2. Isn't that what the book says? Every second. So they are a people,
they are a people to be pitied. To be pitied. When God allows
us to sin against him, we are to be pitied. Because the only
reason you and I obey God's word is by his grace. Am I telling
the truth? It's by his grace. So watch how
John puts this. I'm gonna take this 15 minutes
to treat something that really requires three or four lessons.
This is not easy So I'm just gonna make some statements for
the record on this we read over in verse 18 After having been
told don't pray for that which becomes evidently sin against
the Holy Spirit where there is an irretrievable and irrevocable,
unrepentant lifestyle that turns around and not only rejects the
gospel, but denies Jesus Christ and denies Jesus Christ at a
level that they build a body of divinity in opposition to
him, because that's what the folks that had left John did.
They had denied his deity, they had denied his humanity, they
had denied his testimony, they had denied his witnesses. I'm
gonna show you that. So persons who have gone from
having a testimony of Christ to now opposing every biblical
doctrine concerning Christ is obviously energized by a power
that we would call the Antichrist. Correct? That is a woeful condition
to be in. It's one thing to be lost and
never hearing the gospel, and we have to deal with the lost
person. We can pray for them, be patient with them, because
they can come out of that into Christ. It's another thing in
this gospel age to have heard the gospel, pretend to believe
the gospel, then abandon the gospel, and then take up arms
against the gospel. You are in the clutches of the
wicked one when you do that. And it becomes a clear evidence
that you were never one of God's elect, 1 John 2. 18 and 19. Now watch what John says here. He's going to give us three we
knows. Verse 18, 19 and 20. Now we know that whosoever is
born of God does not what? But he that is begotten of God
keepeth himself and that wicked one does not what? Verse 18 is
a verse of comfort light of all that we have said by which John
says God's elect are not the topic of discussion in the previous
three verses did y'all get what I just said let me say that again
just in case you didn't get it as John explains pray for this
pray for that but don't pray for that don't pray for the other
thing don't pray for the other thing but let me know you that
let me let you know this We know, without a shadow of a doubt,
we understand, we comprehend, we have a clear biblical testimony
for several reasons, that God's elect, those for whom Christ
died, those whom the Father chose in Christ before the world began,
God's sheep, God's sheep, do not continue a lifestyle of sinning
as they did prior to their conversion. Now, all John is doing with this
text is reaffirming the lengthy study that we had in 1 John chapter
3. Remember that? 1st John chapter
3 said exactly the same thing. He that is born of God cannot
continue a lifestyle of sin like he did prior to his conversion
because his seed remains in him and he cannot continue in that
same course. That's first John three nine.
Are you guys following what I'm saying? So all John did was say,
let's go back a little bit, brother. Let me share something with you.
As I am describing folks who come into the church, pretend
to be Christian and then rise up in a diabolical opposition
to biblical truth. I'm letting you know, it's not
possible for true believers to do that because you will meet
a lot of folks who say, well, I used to go to church. I used
to be a believer. I used to be a Christian. No,
you weren't. There's no such thing as being born again and
then not born again. Did you hear what I just said?
That would be tantamount to saying I used to be physically alive,
but I'm no more physically alive. For once you are physically alive,
you are always physically alive for all eternity. And once you
are spiritually alive, you are always spiritually alive for
all eternity. And as the evidence of physical
life is certain, so the evidence of spiritual life is certain
as well. Am I making some sense, ladies
and gentlemen? And so John says, I want you to understand the
things that we've been talking about for the last hour almost
does not refer to God's elect. Verse 18, we know that whosoever
is born of God does not continue a lifestyle of sin. And the construction
here would be, Does not sin in the manner in which you and I
are discussing the folks who are part of the apostate group
that left John's church John is saying and in fact were never
born again Got that let me go on But he that is begotten of
God does what keep it himself you guys see that I? He that
is begotten of God keepeth himself. Now, those are difficult translations
going on there, but I'm going to just kind of basically give
you a short formula that I will hope that will work. The first
line in verse 18, we know that whatsoever or whosoever is born
of God does not continue in a practice of sin is actually describing
the true believer. It is what we call the present
tense. He has been born again. The true
believer has been born again. And thus, his sinful pattern
has been interrupted by the incorruptible seed of the gospel. But when
it uses the phrase in the second line, but he that is begotten
of God, you guys see that phrase? That's a distinctly different
term than he that is born of God. And the translators did
that in order to distinguish The difference between, I want
you to get this now, the individual believer who was born of God
by the Spirit of God, which Spirit is given to him by virtue of
the accomplishment of Christ's atonement on Calvary Street.
He's making a distinction between the individual believer and the
one who is said to be the begotten of God, which is Jesus Christ.
So I want you to understand the second term refers to Jesus Christ. The first term refers to those
who are in Christ. And the second term really should
be structured this way. He that is begotten of the father
being the son is able to keep him. The himself that reflects
of now actually is debatable as being there. But you and I
can work with that too. And I'll show you how. First
and foremost, the believer is secure in his eternal state because
of the nature of being born again. If any man be in Christ Jesus,
he is a what? He is an absolutely new creature
because he is a partaker of the divine nature. As Peter says,
he has been born of God. That means God's seed is in him.
God is eternal. God cannot perish. God cannot
die. God cannot change. So as a partaker
of the divine nature, the nature of the new believer is imperishable. Are you following me? However,
it is not only the case that the believer in himself is sustained
by his own new nature, but Christ, his head is obligated also to
keep the believer in himself. which is his head. So follow
this. Every true believer is born of
God, but it's also connected to Christ, who is the one that
is begotten of God, so that the life of the true believer, though
in itself is a consequence and deposit of the divine nature,
is sustained by Jesus Christ and union with Christ. Are y'all
hearing what I'm saying? You don't live independently
of yourself. You live by virtue of your union
with Christ. And so there is for the believer,
a security on three parts. My union with Jesus Christ, who
is the begotten of the father. And then the father also promises
to sustain me through Christ, which is the promise that we
have in John chapter 10, where Jesus plainly says, My sheep
hear my voice, this is about verse 27, John 10, 27. My sheep
hear my voice, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall
never what? John 10, 27, put it up on the
board. My sheep hear my voice, and I give unto them eternal
life, and they follow me, verse 28, listen to it. And I give
unto them eternal life, and they shall never what? That's an emphatic
statement. Neither shall anyone, it shouldn't
be men, it should be anyone, pluck them out of my hand. That
corresponds to our text. For what John is saying is, those
who are born of God cannot be snatched by the devil. He's only
echoing what his master told him that those who become objects
of God's grace being chosen in Christ and therefore his sheep
are not only saved and secure by a regeneration and new nature
placed in them, but because the union between them and the one
who died for them called the begotten Son of God is such that
it can never be violated, broken, Stolen by some power greater
than Jesus You guys got that and then Christ nails it by giving
us verse 29 watch this John 10 29 my father which gave them
me see those are the objects of his grace and love is greater
than all and no one is able to pluck them out of my father's
hand So if you have a visual of what it means to be secure
in Christ, it is that I am secure by a new nature. But I am also
secure by my new nature being bound to Christ's nature as God. I'm also secure by my new nature
being bound not only to Christ's nature as God, but Christ being
bound up in nature to God the Father. And all of this is a
consequence of the third person in his initial work of drawing
me to the son in order that I might be one with the son and one with
the father. So hence, all three persons are
obligated to keep the purchased possession for which Christ died,
which means there would never ever be a possibility of the
devil able to retrieve me out of the sphere and rim of God,
for I am a partaker of God's nature in total. Do you guys
see that? And this is what John is saying
in 1st John chapter 5 verse 18. We know that whosoever is born
of God does not continue a lifestyle of sin, evidence, but he that
is begotten of God keeps him. That is the promise and security
of Jesus Christ, according to John 10. And that wicked one
does not touch him. See the phrase touch him. It
does not mean that the wicked one cannot tempt you. It does
not mean that the wicked one cannot persecute you. It does
not mean that the wicked one cannot cause you to fall. It
does not mean that the wicked one cannot kill you in the flesh.
It means that the wicked one cannot penetrate into your soul
and conscious so as to overthrow the testimony of Jesus Christ
in your life Revealing to you who God is in the person of Christ
and all that he has done to redeem your soul So as to take your
testimony of Jesus and throw it out so that you become an
unbeliever all over again Y'all get what I'm saying for which
Interpretation we have a whole litany of biblical history of
men and women dying for the cause of Christ Dying for the gospel
Dying for the gospel. Are you ladies and gentlemen
hearing what I'm saying? Dying for the gospel. Little children,
young boys and young girls facing being hacked up, chopped in pieces,
burned alive, shot, killed, tortured, raped, violated by the beast,
this Babylonians. I'm talking about going on today.
This is why the idea of being a believer is far more important
than we take it. And sometimes I may press the
issue at grace to us about making sure you're authentic about your
Christianity is because I have such a universal worldview of
what it means to be a believer in other parts of the world where
they suffer exponentially more than we do for the cause of Christ.
When I know how I know how easy it could be for us, just deny
the gospel. and not suffer at the hands of
people. Are you guys hearing what I'm saying? See what my
brothers and sisters who are going through horrific and severe
persecution do for me is they cause me to fall on my face on
my knees and beg God for mercy to keep me. Keep me. Keep me from falling and turning
away from Christ. Keep me from falling and turning
away from Christ. This is how serious the text is now. Because
I want to stop here in a few minutes, I can't do much with
what I'm about to say in verses 20 through 21. But I'll say this,
this is another category of absolute knowledge or persuasive knowledge,
certain knowledge, as your outline would put it, three things we
know, certain of, confident, persuaded, having been taught.
The Greek term is wido, it's a Greek word like gnosis and
other terms that means to understand, comprehend, receive and believe.
three things we believe. We know that the son of God is
come. Everybody doesn't know that,
but true believers know that we know that he's come. So we're
not debating whether or not Messiah has come. Messiah has come. And
we know that he has given us an understanding and that understanding
that he has given us is an understanding of the claims of the gospel.
Watch this, that we may know him. That is true. Jesus Christ
came the Son of God came to give us a revelation of his father
the true and the Living God Jesus Christ is the way the truth and
the life and Jesus Christ is the revelation of the true and
the Living God These are the repeated testimonies of New Testament
scriptures that not so ladies and gentlemen To know him that
is true and we are in him. That is true. So now notice the
progression of revelation. I The Son came that we might
know the truth about God. Not only did He come that we
might know the truth about God, the Son came that we might be
brought into an experiential relationship with God by Him. So that is not mere academic
knowledge. It is a truth that places you
in Christ. For to be in Christ is to be
in God. Am I making some sense? It's
not just information. Listen to what he says that we
may know him that is true and we are in him that is true even
in his son Jesus Christ remember what Christ said I am the Way
the truth and the life no one comes unto the father what? So
what John is saying is we know that we have the truth because
Christ is the truth Revealed to us and Christ has brought
us into himself and himself being in the father. We have a accurate
and and right knowledge of God through Jesus Christ, who is
the revelation of the invisible God. This here is a knowledge
that is based on relationship. This is a knowledge of union. This is what Jesus meant in John
17, 3. And this is eternal life. Remember
what he said? That they might know thee, the
only true God, and what? Jesus Christ, whom thou hast
sent. The gospel produces life in men
and women because it comes from God through Jesus Christ, who
is the means by which men and women have eternal life. And
this eternal life is a consequence of what we call a saving knowledge
of God, a soul saving knowledge of God. It's the kind of knowledge
that believers don't throw away. We throw everything else away,
but this knowledge, for this is the knowledge of God. I'm
going to go back to a very plain Bible verse. And for those of
you who have your new outline, you can read the verses, the
many verses that I have in there under three things we know, categories
A, B, C, D, E. And then there's some extended
verses as well. But I'm going to I'm going to
quote a very simple verse that you have been hearing for a long
time. And now the import of that verse is going to come home.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. You guys got that? That whosoever
believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Y'all
got that? Now watch what he's saying. God
is saying this is the way people will enjoy eternal life. I'm
going to reveal my son who is going to redeem his people. and
the people that he's going to redeem is going to hear the message
of the gospel and that message they are going to believe that
faith is going to access them into eternal life which eternal
life is in God the father and in God the son and is also in
them now through believing it is a humble and gracious methodology
of God by which he communicates to the human race who are dead
in trespasses and sins. The simple means of eternal life
is faith in Jesus Christ. Y'all got that? The simple means
of eternal life is faith in Jesus Christ. But that becomes the
hinge pin upon which all of the battle takes place. This is where
the devil comes. This is what he targets. This
is what he assaults. He assaults faith because he
knows without faith it's impossible what? He also knows that without
faith it's impossible to overcome the world. He that believes on
the Son of God has overcome the world. He knows that. He knows
that. So he must challenge every conscience as to whether or not
they actually believe God. Do they trust God? Do they trust
the revelation of God in Christ? Do they believe the testimony
of the gospel? That's what he's challenging.
There's only two categories of people in world. You guys know
that right believers and unbelievers Believers and unbelievers and
if a person dies unbelieving They will perish under the wrath
of god forever If a person ever comes to a saving knowledge of
god in christ to where the heart says I believe that jesus christ
is the son of the living god that individual is said to have
become already a partaker of eternal life Now here's what
John says as he closes with that. This verse actually requires
a whole lot more explanation, but I won't deal with it. Here's
what he says. And we know that the son of God has come and he
has given us an understanding that we may know him. That is
true. And we are in him. That is true. Even in his son,
Jesus Christ, this is the true God and eternal life. John says, you can't have the
father without what? That's right. And if you have
the son, you have what? That's right. And because God
is eternal life, you can't separate the son from the father as the
source and means of eternal life. And the man that has a son has
the father and he has eternal life as a consequence of it.
And then he warns us, he warns us in verse 21, little children,
keep yourselves from the false notion that you can have the
father without the son. Did y'all get what I just said?
Keep yourself from the false notion that you can have God
without Christ. Keep yourself from the false
notion that you can erect a true interpretation of God apart from
the revelation of the invisible God and the one who is the exact
representation of the invisible God. Little children do not fall
prey to the idea that you can get to God some other way than
Jesus Christ. Little children don't fall prey
to what many people do, and that is to deny the glory of God in
Christ. Little children don't distort
the truth about Christ. Little children don't distort
the gospel, which is the revelation of God in Christ. Little children,
be careful to not distort the gospel, for the gospel is the
revelation of the glory of God in Jesus Christ, by which many
women obtain eternal life merely by believing. And it seems so
simple, but that's the battle that's been going on for 2,000
years. And that's the battle we are waging today in this age
and generation in which you and I are in. Do not create an idol. Submit to the one icon that the
invisible God has given to the whole universe. And that icon
is his son, Jesus Christ. You guys got that only one icon,
only one icon that can give us insight into this glorious being
called God, who has no physical attributes by which we can comprehend
him. And that icon is his son, Jesus Christ. And he has come
and he has given us an understanding that we are in him. That is true.
Next week, we will be off. You guys get to enjoy July 4th. The subsequent week, we will
be back at it at full speed. Let's close in prayer. Father,
thank you for this time. Thank you for your word. Thank
you for the saints and grace. Thank you for everyone who has
come out tonight. Bless them with a. greater appreciation
for the simplicity of the gospel bless them with a greater appreciation
for the Word of God bless them with a greater desire to know
you and to know you more fully and to not only defend your gospel
but to share it proclaim it declare it everywhere that we might go
that men and women might know this great and glorious Savior
even as we do as we go our way give us traveling mercies we
pray in Jesus name