We are dealing with verses 16
and 17 of 1 John chapter 5. I'm going to read them and we're
going to follow through the outline. It's a bit different than the
outline that we had previously, the witness of the spirit and
believing through prayer, but the basic concepts are the same.
This outline is kind of designed to draw out some real practical
points on the subject of prayer. before we close out the admonition
that John gives us here in verses 16 to 17 and then move on to
some things that we should know. According to verse 18 through
21, we should know some things and we wanna consider those after
this study. Verse 15 says, and if we know
that he hears us whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the
petition or the request that we desired of him. If any man
see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask
and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death. I
do not say that he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is
sin and there is a sin not unto death. Those two verses have
to be understood as John appealing to the church
to understand the privilege of prayer, particularly in the context
of the struggle and challenges that the church that John went
through had. I wanna just set a bit of a context
so we can actually understand contextually these verses because
I'm sure if you've ever had these verses read to you or if you've
ever read them before, they may have been a real struggle for
you. What is John getting at? What is the sin unto death? What
is the sin that we should not pray for? A very strange concept,
things that we should not pray for. And so how should we contextualize
this? Well, with any proper exposition
or development of the scripture, every verse is to be understood
first and foremost in its context, right? So you read a verse in
light of the the chapter and in light of the book, John is
dealing with a movement of people who were in the church that John
oversaw as the overseer of the churches in Ephesus, a movement
that left the church. They became apostates. They were
described by John in 1 John 2, 18 and 19 as an antichrist system. and he explained explicitly the
evidences of apostasy in regards to an antichrist system. We'll
look at those verses, but it's this context out of which John
gives us first John. And if you remember carefully
in first John chapters one, two, and three, we described seven
things that the heretics, the apostate Christians who were
in John's church, but left John's church declared. They were saying
things like, we don't sin. They were saying things like,
we have never ever sinned. They were saying things like,
we don't have a sin nature. And they were saying things that
implied that the death of Jesus Christ, therefore, was not necessary
for the reconciling of sinners to God. And thus, because of
the position they held that they were not sinners, they had never
sinned, that they don't have a sin nature, Remember the construction
was, if any men say that he has not sinned, the truth is not
in him and he is a liar. If we say that we have not sinned,
and if you understand the construction, then we are a liar and the truth
is not abiding in us. And John said, if any man say
that he knows God but is not walking in the light, again,
he is a liar. If any man does not confess that
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, this person is of antichrist.
So the way that John identified these parties that were in the
church was by what they were saying. And we had learned in
our opening studies, six months ago, four months ago, when we
opened up, that to say you are a Christian does not make you
a Christian, right? To say you are a Christian does
not make you a Christian. So when you hear the phrase,
if any man say, like his constituent James in the book of James chapter
two, remember James addressing the principle of credible faith,
legitimate faith, authentic faith. If a person says he has faith,
The operative phrase is, say. See, it's really easy to say
we're a Christian, but Christianity is born out by its evidence when
one is authentically a Christian. So what James says, if any man
says he has faith, but does not have works, his faith is vain
being dead. You guys remember that. So what
the apostles tell men and women is, The whole idea of Christianity
is not merely something that we declare. It's something that
manifests itself in our life because of a vital union between
the redeemed sinner and the Lord Jesus Christ. And so what John
is doing is helping his church understand how to discern between
false doctrine and true doctrine. And now what he does is closes
out in verse 16 and 17 with some very, very stern warnings about
what this group, who has left the church has done and the condition
they are in before God. And so he uses the phrase that
he often uses, ladies and gentlemen, if any man, see that phrase? If any man, if anyone sees his
brother sin a sin, which is not unto death, he shall ask and
he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. Thus,
I want you to take up with me the first point in your outline.
Pray for sinning believers. Pray for sinning believers. Because the construction of the
verb there is in the imperative. If you see a brother sinning,
pray for him. Pray for him. That's in the imperative. It's not an indicative. It's
not an assumption. It's not a subjective. It's an
imperative. If you see a sinning believer,
if you know one, who was wrapped up in, tied into, bound by, trapped
by, because that's how sin works. Sin is a cord that gets a hold
of you by your own volition, drags you into its snare, and
leaves you there until you are delivered. Now, that would fall
into the same category as if any man see his neighbor's ox
fall into a ditch, right? and he does not help his neighbor
pull his ox out of the ditch, how say ye that you love your
neighbor? So the law told us to love our
neighbor as our what? So now follow this then, if I
am a believer in Christ, and this is gonna kind of bind together
something that we're gonna learn when we start the series in the
book of Acts in three weeks. What the word of God would do
is it would obligate you as a true Christian to not only a vertical
relationship between you and God, That's the foundation. That is your premise upon which
you have your existence as a believer. But it binds you horizontally
to the body of Christ as well. That authentic Christianity is
not an isolated, sort of private, as it were, sole proprietorship. where you can have a relationship
with Jesus all by yourself and not be concerned about your fellow
brethren. In fact, as true believers, not
only are we to be concerned, which would be a predisposition,
a privileged honor, recognizing that they are members of the
same family, but I am obligated to make sure that their best
interest is always available to them, especially if it's in
my power to do good. So then what James would say
is this, He that knoweth to do good and does not do it, for
him it is what? That's right. Now this again
is extracted from what we call the royal law. Do unto others
as you would have them to do unto you, right? Love the Lord
with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and your neighbor
as your what? That's right. So then I am obligated to want
the highest good for my neighbor and especially the household
of God that I would want for myself. If you perceive, not
guessed, or not assumed, or constructed, sometimes we can get in trouble
with this. If you perceive that I am actually in a sin, not guessed,
not presumed, because you know, folks go around, as it were,
conjuring up sin. If you know that I am in a sin,
and you don't help me in some way to get out of it, you don't
love me. Am I telling the truth? See,
the nature of the gospel is redemption from sin, extrication from the
bondage of sin, deliverance from the snare of sin, right? So what
I am saying is the first point in our outline drawn out of John's
observation before he closes out dealing with a very critical
doctrine in verses 18 through 21 is, if any man see his brother
sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, He shall ask, in
your outline, praying for sitting believers is a positive command,
not a what? Not an option. Now, here's three
reasons for which you and I ought to be praying for believers.
The first is they need it. They need it. Who doesn't have
an outline? Does everybody have an outline? The first is they
need it. I want you to know this now. Your believing brother or
sister whom you see clearly and explicitly snared by a sin need
you need you to pray. They need you to pray. And because
it's a necessity, On their part, it's an obligation on your part.
You guys got that? And so we want to affirm that
through some passages of scripture. I quoted one, I wrote down one,
Isaiah chapter 59, 15. I just want this to lodge in
your head. Go there. Isaiah 59, 15. I want you to see this. In
Isaiah 59, 15, this is what our Lord says about the condition
of Israel at the time in which they were decimated with regards
to sin, dominating the culture, the body politic. They're all
over the place. A lot of troubles, a lot of struggles.
And here's what the Lord says. This is anthropomorphical terms.
It's anthropomorphical, yet it's very, very, very important for
us to grasp this. Isaiah chapter 59, verse 16.
Are we there? I'm going to, I'm going to start
back at verse 15. Yay. Truth fail within the street.
And you actually could, you could easily go way back, but I'll
start at verse 15. Truth is failing in the street.
And the person that departs from evil makes himself a prey. You
guys know what that means, right? Here you are in a society where
many women have no regard for biblical truth. in the church
and out of the church. And yet you are committed to
the glory of God. So you're gonna walk with God,
you're gonna honor God. Well now, because you are a minority
in a culture of people who have abandoned biblical truth, you
make yourself a prey, even to the church folk. Because see,
when you are walking with God and they are not, you establish
a contrast, an antithesis, a tension in the body, right? Now they're
going to call you hit. They're going to call you self-righteous
or judgmental or holier than thou. And all that kind of stuff
we do when our conscience is bothering us, when we're not
walking right. And we need to discredit your conviction to
walk with God in spite of the majority. You remember what God
said in the book of Exodus. You remember, you shall not follow
a multitude to do what? It doesn't matter if the whole
world's doing evil. God graces me to stand with him then I must
do that and when you are actually doing that you are loving everybody
else that is Apostatizing around you but you can make yourself
a prey You're gonna be set up for some trouble and the Lord
saw it and it displeased him that there was no what? It displeased
him that there was no judgment Now the depths of this judgment,
ladies and gentlemen, is not merely observation of a defect
from biblical truth on the part of the people that are living
a sinful lifestyle and yet are called God's coveted people.
That is a problem. And that text right there affirms
where we are in our culture today as an axiom. You know what our
culture says today? Don't judge me. You know what
our culture said? You ain't got no right to judge
me. I got a, uh, a t-shirt, uh, last
Sunday for father's day. And, uh, the person that gave
it to me was so well-meaning. I like it too. It's a black t-shirt
cause I like black. It's got all kinds of glitter and gold
on. I'm aware cause of the way it looks, but the message was
extremely troublesome to me. You know what it says? No one
can judge me, but God. Whoa. I want that to resonate
with you because this is where people live today under the false
notion that they can live any kind of way they want to and
not come under the scrutiny, analysis, assessment, criticism,
and loving apprehension of a brother or sister to tell you when you're
wrong. If I follow the logic of that
proposition written on that t-shirt, I would be fundamentally asking
to be a reprobate. I would be saying that I am outside
of the scope of any legitimate, true, helpful judgment of any
human being but God. If I bought into that notion,
I want you to follow me now, I want you to get this now, I'm
gonna move on. If I bought into that notion, I would be harming
my own self. If I make it to where I am not
able to be critiqued, in love, by peers, or my upline, or my
children even, because of a behavior that is inconsistent with my
calling as a Christian, but because I've already put a wall around
myself and I've said, can't nobody judge me but God, I'm setting
myself up for failure. Now, now, I'm just going to ask
you saints for a moment. I just want, I want you to, I
want you to, I want you to think this through. Would the Bible
affirm that kind of proposition? Would the Bible, when you, you
know, your Bible from Genesis to Revelation, could we find
texts of scripture that would clearly militate against that
conclusion? Wouldn't the Bible tell us that
we better judge ourselves so that we won't be judged with
the world? First Corinthians chapter 11. Wouldn't the Bible
tell us in 2 Corinthians chapter 13 that we are to examine ourselves
whether we be in the faith or not except we be reprobate? Wouldn't
the Bible tell us in 1 Corinthians chapter 5 as well as 6 that those
that are wise among us must exercise these judgments because believers
do fall into sin? Wouldn't the Bible say that?
Wouldn't James say, isn't there wise men among you who have the
capacity to discriminate, to exercise judgment and to draw
conclusions for the health of the body, to separate sin from
the believer and separate sinful people from the believing politic?
Wouldn't the word of God affirm what I just stated? Absolutely. And when the church fails to
understand the high privilege of being in the place of lovingly
dealing with sinful practices on the part of the people of
God. God will remove us from being a mediator in the world.
He will remove us from being a mediator in the world because
we have abandoned knowledge. Hosea chapter four verse six.
What does it say? My people perish for lack of
knowledge. My people perish for lack of
knowledge And because they have rejected me, I have rejected
them from being a priesthood before me to stand in the gap. See, this is what I'm getting
ready to deal with standing in the gap. I have rejected them from being
a priesthood for me. And because they have rejected
me, I'm going to reject their children. I serious, isn't it? And one of the things we're going
to learn on Sunday is the preposition through, as we began to learn
last week, is critical to our calling as Christians. God has
privileged you and I to be the means by which he exercises his
grace and his mercy to sinners through us, not around us, not
beyond us, not in front of us, not behind us, through us. Right? But you know what the text says
in second Corinthians chapter 10, Verse five and six, after
casting down every stronghold and every imagination that exalts
itself against the knowledge of the truth, bringing into captivity
those things to the obedience of Christ, we do that when once
our own obedience is what? Established, right? So now once
our obedience is established, then we go forth apprehending
error, bringing it into subjection to biblical truth so that God's
people can walk aright. I'm making some sense, Emma.
Okay, so it's important for you and I to see what God says. He
says, it displeased him that there was no judgment. And he
saw, now watch this, watch what happens when a society allows
sin to run rampant in his body politic. Watch what happens on
a personal level and on a mediatorial level on the part of people who
can do something about it. God saw that there was no judgment
and he was displeased. And he saw that there was no
what? No man. And he wondered that
there was no what? Now, so I'm going to tie the
word man with intercessor. The word man in this context
can be understood on a generic level. Mankind. Okay. Just for
a moment. What God is saying is he did
not find a human being functioning in the authority to which they
were called in when God created them to be a king, to be a priest,
to be a prophet as God's vicar on this earth with regards to
their fellow man. See, to be a real man is to operate
in your calling. To be a real man is to operate
in your calling. And therefore, to be a real man or woman is
to be compelled by your dignified position before God as his representative
to deal with issues that threaten the whole body. Let me give you
an example. My wife, uh, and I think I talked
about this the other day. I know I talked about it on my
Monday show. We were at a swim meet with my wife, uh, me and
my wife, our children this last Saturday. And she showed me on
her telephone, a little video clip that had went viral about
this nut. who was over at the BART station
running around butt naked. How many of y'all saw that? I
just need to know. Okay, good. Now follow me. This nut was running
around butt naked, doing handstands and cartwheels and flips and
everything. And if that wasn't bad enough, he was groping women. But what was more horrific was
that there were men who saw him doing it and didn't do anything
about it. Are you gentlemen hearing me?
And as my wife was showing that to me, I was becoming grieved. Yeah. You know, when you're grieved,
you have to be careful because you will say something ungodly. What I, what I thought to myself
was how deplorable it was for all those men that were walking
by and not one of those men went to apprehend that boy. I mean,
he didn't look like the mighty Hulk. I, you know, I mean, he
wasn't a big old super big brother like my, some of my, you know,
I would have still tackled him. I would have caught him from
behind and tackle. But what it indicated is our culture has
lost judgment. And, and, and because we have
lost judgment, our women are in trouble. See, because he groped
two or three women on the little, uh, the little quarter of time.
My wife had two or three women and men were watching the, uh,
Bart attended, tried to get him a little bit, but the guy was
throwing kicks and punches and stuff. He kind of backed away,
but it was three or four of them. They could have easily tackled
this guy and stopped it before he even came close to one of
the women. And I mean, he was chasing the women. And what it
was, ladies and gentlemen, was an insight into a loss of integrity,
a loss of character, a loss of principle on the part of men.
I want you to think with me for a moment before we go on into
our text. Where are you and I in terms
of a sense of obligation to protect our women and our children and
even our brothers in the midst of a situation like that? Do
we have it in us as a fundamental principle a mode of operation
that if my brother is in some kind of danger, I'm going to
use some kind of wisdom, some kind of determinant action to
help him get out of that situation. Or am I going to turn a blind
eye, see no evil, hear no evil, think no evil, feel no evil.
But you see where we are in our culture today? We've been dumbed
down so much in terms of solid In invariable morals and ethics
that we should be obligated to operate in that we don't have
any ability to make a judgment See had the men made a judgment.
They would have went after this cat See that was a little insight
into the present culture that we live in I say to myself and
I didn't think it through I'm thinking it through now we have
in grace and And I hope other churches too are of any significant
size. It doesn't matter what size we
have in grace, a strategy set up for any fool that think he
would come in here and make himself center stage. You got that? We have a strategy in place and
every church ought to, cause a fool will try to come in and
take center stage. When the only person that gets
center stage in the church is Christ. Y'all hear what I'm saying? See, and if you don't already
have that as a prerequisite in your heart, if that's not part
of your principle for protecting and preserving the safety and
welfare of your family, the thief gonna come at a time you think
not, and you're gonna be caught unawares. See, now what I'm doing
is I'm tying together the principle of intercession. with the principle
of being a man. The Lord looked to see if there
was a man. Got that? To see if there was an intercessor.
You know what that means? For me to see a brother or sister
in trouble spiritually, and for me to hit my knees and go to
God for them, constitutes my manhood before God. Got it? Constitutes my manhood. before God. That's what God is
looking for. We know it has this ultimate
and quintessential reality in the person of Jesus Christ. We
know that, don't we? We know the one mediator between
God and man is the man, Christ Jesus. Do we know that? We know
he was as manly as any man could be. There was not an ounce of
wimpishness in Christ. Am I telling the truth? You talk
about standing in the gap for helpless hell-bound sinner standing
in the gap for his bride tied and bound by the cords of sin,
standing in the gap and mediating before God against the wrath
of God to deliver his bride. You can't be a bigger man than
that. We got a manly gospel. We have a manly savior. Are y'all
hearing what I'm saying? And his DNA is supposed to be
in us. His DNA is supposed to be in
us. I hope that was a good application for you. Listen to it so we can
go on back. Therefore his arm brought salvation unto him and
his righteousness sustained him. Why do we pray for our brothers
and sisters? Because they desperately, they desperately need it. Secondly,
why do we pray for them? Because we are privileged to
do it. I'm quoting first Timothy chapter
two, verse one, that we are called upon by God to make intercession
and prayers for all men everywhere. Supplication and prayer intercession
for Kings and dignitaries and men everywhere. Isn't that the
nature of the church? I will that men pray everywhere,
lifting up holy hands as were a visible representation of their
headship in the church, calling on God on the behalf of people
that need him. You see now when we get past
this this confusion in the church and men are doing their job When
you observe me and praying publicly in the church ladies with their
hand lifted up to the true and the Living God They are standing
in the gap like real men calling on God for the blessing to come
down on the whole body That's what Paul was talking about What
Paul was talking about was not a show religion thing. He was
talking about men abandoning themselves to the source of power
for which they know they need in order for them to do their
job and the church to do their job and the city and the state
and the nation to be at peace because it's our privilege. Go
with me in your Bible to Daniel chapter nine. I want to look
at Daniel nine, five, six, 16 and 20 Daniel chapter nine. I
want you to see it in Daniel's case. So now what I'm doing,
is fundamentally urging you to exercise the privilege of prayer
in the context of John's imperative or command to us to do it because
we may be very sure that our brothers and sisters in Christ
on some occasion are in sinful conditions for which they will
not be delivered until you pray. Daniel chapter 9, are you there?
I love me some Daniel. Now Daniel and Nehemiah and Ezra
bridge the gap between the captivity and the return. Daniel, Nehemiah,
and Ezra. Ezra and Nehemiah. Daniel, Ezra,
and Nehemiah bridged the gap between the captivity of Israel
in 587 BC under Nebuchadnezzar and their return to the land
some 70 years after. 70 years after they were in captivity,
according to the covenant curse, Daniel understood the 70 years
was up. He read the books. And he started
falling on his face, calling upon God, to acknowledge that
the judgment that had come upon Israel was just and right. And
I want you to watch how this holy man, Daniel. Now, you know,
if you went through the book of Daniel, by the time you get
to chapter nine, you know, Daniel was bad. You know, that brother
was cold. You know, he was committed to
his God. That that brother has already been through the fire.
He hadn't been cast into a pit and the line stroke in his back. He didn't seem several. He didn't
seem several dignitaries come from Nebuchadnezzar. His son
now Darius and Cyrus is about to come on the scene as God had
prophesied. Daniel's a bad dude. He's about 95, almost a hundred
years old. Now he has walked with God every
since the youth, a youth being a eunuch. He knows his God. Now notice what Daniel does when
he prays. This will be a good model for
you. So you won't pray in a way that God doesn't hear you. Over in verse three, four and
five, I set my face unto the Lord God to seek by prayer and
supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. And I prayed
unto the Lord, my God, and I made my what? See, he didn't fall
prey to the lie of the apostates that left John's church in first
John, because they said we have no sin. They said we do no sin. They said we don't even have
a sin nature. Why should we confess our sin to God? We're not sinners
Y'all got that but Daniel as excellent a person as he was
Knew what he was in his nature or what? sinner saved by the
grace of God and Coming through the front door not the side door
or the back door if there were one there wasn't but one door
and He comes right to the altar and he confesses his sin Which
is what we do when we know God am I telling the truth? When
we come to God we come to God with the lights on don't we?
that's what confession is wide open mouth wide open telling
everything telling the whole truth and You don't pull, you
don't hold nothing back from God. When you are a legitimate,
authentic confessor, you come with all the cards on the table
before God. That's how you come to God. Now
watch what he says. And I made my confession and
said, Oh Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping covenant
and mercy to them that love him and to them that keep his commandments.
Verse five. Are you ready? Watch this. We
have sin. See what he did? He stood in
the gap as a mediator, not indicting his brothers and sisters, but
affirming their condition as identifying with them, which
is what a mediator does. Got that? And this is a great
allusion to Jesus Christ as well, being our great high priest and
mediator, bearing our sins so that he could go to our heavenly
father and say, Father, we have sinned. That's good, isn't it? We have seen him. He didn't say
father, they have seen. Listen to it. We have sinned
and we have committed iniquity. We've done wickedly and have
rebelled, even departing from your precepts and from your judgments. And it goes on to say in verse
16, I want to jump to 16 verse 16. Oh Lord, according to all
your righteousness, I beseech thee, let your anger and your
fury be turned away from your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain,
because our sins for the iniquity of our fathers, Jerusalem and
your people are now become a reproach to all that are about us. And then look at verse 20, over
in verse 20. And while I was speaking and
praying and what? Confessing my sin. And the sin
of what? My people, Israel. And presenting
my supplication before the Lord, my God, for the holy mountain
of my God. Do you see the communal prayer
there? You see how he has completely wrapped himself up in identification
with his God, with his God's mountain, that's Jerusalem, with
his God's people and with himself. In other words, he's not standing
on the outside praying in, he's on the inside praying for, identifying
with, beseeching God for God's glory. to actually resolve this
problem of the church being a reproach at this present time. I'm giving
you some insight into how you pray for your brothers and sisters
when they are wayward. This is how you pray. If it wasn't
for the grace of God, there go I. So father, I'm coming to you
as if I were them, because if it wasn't for your providence,
it would be me. And because we are one in Christ,
it is me. Am I making some sense? That's
a mediating prayer of intercession, standing in the gap for our brothers
and sisters. God hears that kind of prayer.
So the second reason we pray is because we're privileged to
do it. We are privileged to do it. Now
I quote Job 42 verse 8, which is a fascinating conclusion to
the whole story of Job. He had three friends condemning
him of all kinds of stuff. Remember those cats? With friends
like that, you don't need enemies, right? They, they, they, they,
they pulling all kinds of stuff out of the woodwork job. You
listen, you, you, you jacked up. This is the reason why God's
judging. God comes along and says, listen, you guys are in
trouble. Go to my, my servant Joe and bring some oxen so he
can pray for you because you're in trouble. Now don't miss the
point. God didn't say to them, pray
for yourself. See this demolishes this hyper
autonomy that people walk in thinking that they are as it
were impenetrable from a kind of laxing into sin that can fundamentally
discard their capacity to commune with God and thus does not need
another believer or other believers to intercede for them. Do I have
to explain that a little further? Okay, I do. Let me, here's what
I'm saying. You can get into a state of sin
where your heart is so hard that your prayers are not sincere
and authentic. They aren't even leaving the
room, let alone the atmosphere to get into the realm of heaven.
because the heart can be so aloof and so far from God. And in God's economy, this is
why we're going through the text of where we are in God's economy,
what he's wanting you to do, because often one of the things
that sin does is separates us from the body. It separates us
from the saints. And we have heaped on the saints
who by the grace of God are staying on the course, making them our
adversaries. Part of the problem, the reason
why I ain't going to church. Are y'all hearing what I'm saying?
Now watch this. I ain't going to church because
of them. But I'm going to pray to God. When the scripture tells
us in Matthew 5, if you have an aught with your brother, before
you go to pray to God, you better go work it out with your brethren.
See, God doesn't play games. Ooh. This is good stuff. This is why folks don't pray.
Because prayer is a privilege. And like all things, it must
be done with an understanding. And you're not going to ascend
to the holy hill of Zion with a raggedy heart. The Spirit of
God is not going to give you access. You'll be praying and
the Lord will be causing folks' face to blow up right in front
of your mind. You trying to get rid of their
face and you can't get rid of their face because that's the
block between you and God Your wife Your husband your son your
daughter your brother your sister the member in the church your
pastor your leaders your elders You didn't all him up Am I making
some sense? And you trying to get to God
see So this is why Daniel's prayers
hurt. So Daniel passed the baton on to Ezra. Ezra did the same
thing, fell on his face, sought God. Ezra passed the baton to
Nehemiah. Nehemiah did the same thing,
fell on his face. And the next thing we know, we had the people
of God returning to Israel. So how do people recover? They
recover because of the collective responsibility of the body of
Christ, praying for one another that we may be healed. Am I making
some sense? The third reason why we pray
is because it works. Go with me to James chapter five.
I wouldn't pray if it didn't work. How many of you know that
prayer works? Don't be playing with me now.
Don't be playing with me. I know that prayer works. You remember the first time you
prayed and God explicitly answered your prayer and it blew you away,
man, prayer works. Remember that? I mean, he did
something so quick and so poignant and so relevant to the request
that you made that you knew that was God. Now he does that to
let you know he hears and answers prayer. That prayer is not some
kind of old mythical, archaic, you know, ungodly or mystical
practice. It is a very, very, very substantive,
effectual practice that the people of God are called to. It is valid.
And in fact, it is non-negotiable as a way of life for the people
of God. Prayer is. Here's what James says in James
chapter five, verse 16. And he treats this subject as
a whole, starting at verse 13. Is any among you afflicted? Let
him pray. Is any married? Let him sing hymns or psalms. Is any sick among you? Let him
call for the elders of the church and let them pray. Prayer again,
right? See, now watch this. You can get physically sick,
so sick that you can't pray for your own healing. Am I making some sense? I don't
need the elders. I can pray for myself. Get sick.
We'll see. I'm talking about get real sick.
I'm talking about get dog sick, close to death sick. And you'll
see how quick you call for the elders. Am I making some sense? See the reason why the admonition
is not landing safely upon a wise receptive heart is because you
haven't been in these kinds of exigencies, in these kinds of
disturbances, in these kinds of troubles to realize the blessing
of saying to somebody that you know that knows the Lord, pray
for me. Sometimes you are in a situation
where you have been trying to work it out for yourself and
violating Proverbs 3 5 and it's going from bad to worse. You
know how you're trying to do something and every time you
touch it, it just gets worse and you sweat because you're
trying to make it work in your pride. However, you haven't sought
God in it and the thing gets so bad. that now in God's providence,
you got to let somebody else know about it because it's too
big for you to handle. Am I making some sense? It's
too big for you to handle. You didn't throw that thing up
so bad, trying to make it work for yourself, trying to be God
yourself. Now you got to get somebody else in on it. People
who are wiser than you, more mature than you, more experienced
than you, more knowledgeable about the situation and God than
you. to be able to come in and stand
in the gap for you. And God answers their prayers,
recover the situation, humble you and teach you how to seek
God early instead of late. This is good. And it's free to
listen to it. And the prayer I'm sorry, Call
for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing
him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith
shall save the sick and the prayer of faith shall save the sick. Not the prayer of faith by the
person who is sick praying for himself, but the prayer of faith
on the person that sick that has enough faith to obey God,
to call on the elders, to pray the prayer of faith for the sick. that the Lord may raise him up.
And if he have committed any sin, they shall be what? And really that conjunction there,
that last clause there can be understood this way. And the
prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise
him up. Having committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. The
idea is that in some cases, sickness is a symptom of a sinful pattern
that will be forgiven in conjunction with or consistent with the recovery
of that sickness. Y'all got that? And the believer
who is suffering that malady in his conscious, her conscious,
they know it. They recover not only physically,
but they also recover spiritually. They restored the fellowship
with God. Verse 16, here it is. Confess your faults one to another.
Pray for one another. that you may be what? All right,
stay there. We have to honor the proposition,
don't we? And the operative word there
is that communal principle, that cooperative principle, right? Pray for, confess your faults
one to another, pray for one another, right? Pray for one
another and you will be what? You all see that? Did y'all see
that? Confess your faults one to another
and pray for one another that you may be healed. And actually,
if we were to run this, uh, if we were to deconstruct this portion
of the verse, because it should, it should end right there and
there should be a verse 17, the effectual fervent prayer of a
righteous man availeth much. Um, because in the original language,
our Greek, uh, manuscripts did not have the verses in the chapters,
the numbers. Okay. They were just letters.
I would have broke up verse 16 and 17, starting at the effectual,
fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. That would
have been verse 17 for me, because it's a conclusive thought. It's
a concluding thought. In that text is dealing with
what appears to be sort of a co-ordinate construction. Listen to it. Confess your faults one to another
and pray for one another so that you may be healed. You guys see
that? Confess your faults. one to another and pray for one
another so that you may be healed. Which means God is actually promising
to heal through this specific process that really requires
a communion on the part of the people of God because the healing
has to be communal. Because the problem is communal.
See, this is not an isolated event of an individual being
sick individually. This is actually dealing with
what the Old Testament was working through as a catechismal exercise
in the Levitical priesthood of the hygienic challenges in terms
of cleanliness in the Church of Israel. The priest was to
go through the camp and discern whether or not people had certain
sicknesses. And if they had certain sicknesses,
they had to be isolated from the body politic to determine
whether those sicknesses could be healed, were healed before
they were returned to the body politic. And so it is in the
ministry of the church. In the ministry of the church,
there should be that gracious, loving, necessary examination
by which we determine how healthy we are in our relationship with
one another so that we aren't increasing in the kind of spiritual
diseases and maladies that depict a carnal world where they bite
and devour and destroy one another. Being spiritually unhealthy.
Am I making some sense? Yeah. See, actually what I'm
doing tonight, Saints, which is intentional in part, is emphasizing
and stressing the communion of the Saints. because we have a
tremendous problem with failing to acknowledge that reality and
that economy and God's kingdom purpose in America. We are all
too quick to separate ourselves from the body. Does that make
some sense? All too quick, all too quick. And verse 16 is certainly affirming
the necessity of that. Then it closes out. The effectual
fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much, and then he
gives us the contextual analogy of Elijah back in the days of
the kings. Let me do this, because I got
about 15 more minutes, and I'm going to make sure I run through
these three points very clear. But let me just read through
for the sake of this message that will be aired at some point
in the future. Kinds of sinful patterns for
which we are to be praying for fellow believers and groups of
believers, if not whole churches, kinds, carnality, worldliness,
materialism, pride, anger, lust, covetousness, et cetera. What kinds of perpetual ongoing
sinful patterns can disrupt the fellowship and affect believers
and set them up for destructive patterns of life, carnality,
worldliness, materialism, pride, anger, lust, covetousness, saints. Every one of these descriptions,
every one of these characteristics can take a hold of a believer
and bind him or her and separate them from fellowship with God
and fellowship with the saints. Are y'all hearing me? Every one
of them. I kind of drew up a list of 50
or 60. I just wanted to give you a little taste, just in case
you don't know what to look for. If you haven't grown in the Lord
and matured in Christ enough to be able to look for the patterns
that sets your brothers and sisters up. Those of us who have been
in the faith long time, we see the trends. You can see when
a brother or sister in Christ is getting in trouble. They are
falling prey to the excess of these particular sinful maladies
and falling prey to the excess of these sinful maladies that
is worldliness. Listen, you aren't healthy if as a believer your
life is depicted and dominated by worldliness. What is worldliness? Thinking the world's thoughts
after them. Agreeing with this diabolical
system and worldview that on every level opposes God. Engaged
in and enjoying the things of this world in such a way that
you don't even see anymore how it militates against a biblical
worldview that you're supposed to be embracing. Are y'all hearing
what I'm saying? It becomes that mindly world
set where an individual has crept in Individual, meaning a spirit,
meaning a concept, an ideology has crept in and started causing
you to actually believe it's all right to think this way. And in that, you are finding
yourself drifting further and further away from the light of
God's word, which would actually tell you otherwise. What are the effects? No worship,
no study, no communion, no fellowship. Let me back that up. No, no true
worship of God, no sincere study of God's word, no communion in
fellowship with, with God, our communion and fellowship with
the saints, no witness to the world. You guys got that? And it amounts to what James
says in James chapter four, back up to James chapter four, the,
what we call spiritual adultery. Are you in James chapter four?
Listen to what he says. And we use this text last week
when we're dealing with a faulty approach to God in prayer. From
whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not thence
even of your, what? Lust, which warn your members.
You lust and you have not. You kill and you desire to have
and you cannot obtain. You are fighting and you are
warring. James is describing an individual
who is going through a civil war within because he's giving
himself over to the passions of the flesh, right? He's also
dealing with the larger collective body of believers, our professing
believers, church folk who are really given over to carnality
and worldliness. They're fighting among themselves.
Y'all know anything about that? Know anything about church folk
who are as carnal as the unbelieving world? Carnal and fleshly as
can be. And argumentative and divisive and strife ridden and
greedy. and given over to backbiting
and gossip and all kinds of horrific carnal manifestations while professing
to be believers. Y'all know what I'm talking about?
But that ain't you though. I understand that. I understand. Listen to it. You fight in war
and you have not because you do not ask. Do you see that?
I told you before, if you're fighting, you're not praying.
Verse three, you ask and you receive not because you're asking
with the wrong motive. Because for you, it's all about
you. Isn't that a good interpretation
right there in that text? See, when you go, listen, you can
be so blinded in your lust and passion, you actually are asking
God to get on your side to aid and abet and affirm you in your
folly. You know you jacked up when you go into God like that.
God, listen, These people here are all messed up. You know,
I'm your boy. You know, I'm your girl. You
know, I love you. I need you to do this and you
are walking in steep darkness and trying to get God on your
side. You know what God says? You have prayed to me. Are you with me? You know what
God said? You have not prayed to me. One of the areas in which you're
going to have to be real honest. Cause it does no good to pretend
that you are doing something that in fact you are not doing.
You need to be real honest about prayer. Cause God's no joke. You know what God says? The hypocrite
will not come before me in prayer. Read it for yourself as the book
of Job. Read it for yourself in Psalm chapter seven. You know
what God says? God does not hear the hypocrite
because through the pride of his continence, he won't see
God. Now, you know who God was describing?
Church folk. These are the folk coming to
church, raising their hand. This is Isaiah chapter one. Raising
their hands, calling on Jesus. And God says, I don't hear them.
Because what God hears is right hearts. He doesn't hear words. He hears hearts. Will y'all hear
me? He hears hearts. He hears hearts. He doesn't hear words. But now
I can say this. If you would just examine the whole of the
pattern of your prayer life, if your life is wrapped up in
all of these kinds of admixtures of problems, you can be sure
that your prayer life is poor at best and non-existent at worst. that you struggle with talking
to God if you're in this condition. And I would say if you're in
this condition, what you would wanna do if for the last hour
you have been listening to me, you would want to find somebody
that's right with God and say, pray for me. Points B, C, and D. All sin ultimately
leads to death. Is that true? Romans 6, 23, the
wages of sin is what? Ezekiel 18, 4 says, the soul
that sinneth, it shall what? Genesis chapter 2, 17 says, in
the day you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
you will surely what? Romans 8 5 through 8 plainly says the
carnal mind is enmity against God. It can't do the things of
God. It doesn't desire the things of God. It's adverse to God's
law. So a carnal mind obviously cannot
go towards God. And it leads to death. Carnality
leads to death. Isn't that what Romans 8 says?
It leads to death. Point number B, the sin that
does not lead to death, which is in our text. Go back to our
text. I want to deal with this quickly so I can make sure that
I don't have to come back and treat this next week because
I do want to treat the last three verses with at least an hour
Bible study before we transition into our new series. First John
chapter 5. See, I got 10 minutes here. All sin ultimately leads
to death. We know that. At least at least
physical death. That's certainly the case and
it will lead to eternal damnation too. So point B in your outline
says the death process in place when we sin and will terminate
in damnation if not interrupted y'all got that the death process
takes place when we sin there are three kinds of death that
we all deal with physical death spiritual death and eternal death
those are the three deaths The first two are two sides of the
same coin while we are in our fallen nature. In our fallen
nature we are spiritually dead and we are physically dying.
That means we are all under a covenant of what? Words. In Adam. Right? And so we are suffering
the principle of dying. In Adam all what? died, right? If we are still in our Adamic
nature prior to regeneration, then we are dead spiritually
too. That means we're separated from God and all of the evidences
of death are there. Hostility towards God, rebellion
towards God, love for the sinful world, embracing the world system,
opposing God, living outside of the covenant and blessings
of God. We're in a spiritually dead state, right? Till regeneration.
If that process is not interrupted, we will wake up in the judgment
on the last day with no hope for glory, only to be cast into
the lake of fire, which is the second death. Revelation chapter
20 verses 11 through 15. Y'all follow me? So while we
are living, we are in the land of mercy. This is the land of
hope. This is the place where things
can get arrested before they terminate in a eternal destiny
that is irreversible after one passes from this life. So that's
why I wrote that in the first part of our proposition. All sin ultimately leads to death.
Part C. The sin that does not lead to
death is the sin which is interrupted by what? Forgiveness. Forgiveness being the outcome
of a mediatorial process. Right? By which either you or
someone else stands in the gap and calls upon God for the forgiveness
of sins, hoping that God will interrupt the sin as Jesus taught
his disciples in Matthew chapter 6. When you pray, pray in this
manner with this theology, this rich theology in view. Our Father
who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Your kingdom come,
your will be done on earth as it already is being done in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our what? Forgive us our trespasses, forgive
us our debts, forgive us our sins, forgive us. The Lord's prayer is a communal
prayer. It is not a personal prayer.
This is not about you individually. This is about the body of Christ.
Y'all got that? The whole of it is about the
body of Christ. So when we are praying the Lord's prayer, we
are not praying specifically about me. We're praying about
us. Forgive us, provide for us, lead
us not. That prayer now is rooted in
the principle of love and love cares about others. Love does
not think of itself. It does not boast in itself.
It doesn't terminate in itself. It thinks about others. So when
you are praying the Lord's prayer, if you're going to pray the Lord's
prayer right, you're thinking about others, yourself included. Y'all got that? From now on,
when you go through the rope prayer, you know how we do as
religious folk, we ain't thanking, we just go all, my father who
art in heaven. Remember our father, not your
daddy. I mean, he is your daddy. Don't
get me wrong. If you're born again, he's your daddy, but he's,
he's the father of a bunch of us. So, you know, you may not
like me, but I'm in too. Sorry. You got to pray for me
too. You can't go to our father and not go for me. You cut me
off. You cut yourself off. I'm sorry. You just don't get to do it.
It comes with the package. You understand that now you may
be all right. I may not be all right, but see,
since we're part of the same family, you are obligated to
pray for me. Now you got a reason to pray because you know, pastor
Jesse ain't all right. You would cut him off, but you
can't because you can't get to the father without me. Ooh, that's
tough. Ooh, that's tough. Oh, that's
tough. I know somebody gonna write me
and say, you just blaspheme. I know it. Can I share something,
an insight with you? Very little of the scriptures
depicts the believers walk with God as an isolated event. Got it? And if you love God, you love
his people too. In fact, that's the way first
John five opens up. The man that believes on the
son of God is already born of God and he that is born of God
loves him that does the beginning and loves those that are begotten
of the one that loves the beginning. Isn't that right? You know, you
know you say because you can pray for folks you don't like That's grace isn't it when you
can pray for people you don't like cuz listen you ain't got
to like me but you got to love me a Few more minutes I'm almost
done The sin that does not lead to
death is intercepted by forgiveness and it is evidenced by confession. The sin that does not lead to
death is intercepted by forgiveness and it is evidenced by confession. So I'm going to leave you with
that because I do want to try to finish in a few moments. What
do I mean by confession again? It means that when God brings
you into the light out of darkness He reveals to you three realities
that don't go away until we are glorified. The first work of
the Spirit of God is to convince you and I of what? Sin! And sin is a reality in your
life and mine that we struggle with and have to deal with until
we hit the dust. While we are in a realm of sanctification,
sin will be an issue that we have to struggle with. and therefore
confession will always be a valid access into the presence of God.
Don't ever let somebody tell you what God didn't put away
all your sins, therefore you don't have to confess your sins.
That's positionally, that is not practically. Do you understand
that? Practically you are simultaneously
righteous and sinful at the same time. Therefore God can be displeased
with what you do, while he may be pleased with who you are in
Christ. And if you want to play with
God on the area of how displeased he can be with what you do, go
head on. I, I, I, I didn't, I didn't see
what he does to believers. I haven't seen how he pulls a
switch out and get after believers. I have seen how God will take
his hand off of you and let your heart go so wild. your arrogance to presume upon
his grace that you will get to a place where you think you are
not saved and when he is done humbling
you in your pride because you were not walking in the humble
privilege of being a believer in the body of Christ, in the
communion of the saints, enjoying the graces of God. When he's
done allowing you to be isolated, just like you want it to be,
he starts towing you back in and the tears start coming down.
And your soul says, I can't wait to get all the way back in. but
I know I can't get in if God don't told me in because the
same grace that saved me must be the grace that recovers me
or else I will never recover. God has to bring a man from darkness
to light. God has to recover the heart
when it is hardened itself against the privileges of God. And that's
why until there is a very clear line of demarcation between the
irretrievable apostate, which we're getting ready to get into
now briefly, and the person that is in steep sin, you and I are
to be praying for that person. Are y'all hearing what I'm saying?
Because God will let them harden their heart to teach them that
it's all of grace and that God resists the what? Does he? How many of you saints
know that God resists? God ain't playing with the proud.
Ask David. Ask Solomon. Ask them they'll
tell you you don't play with God. He's a holy. He's a merciful. He's a long-suffering He's a
patient God. He'll tell your butt up Am I
describing the right God? See I know in this present generation
this man be family Christianity that goes on on the radio They
don't like to depict God as a real father, but see long ago fathers
used to actually act like God and I used to get in my kids, but
they swear, they swear. I was their arch enemy. They,
they, they, I was the only person in the world that they had to
avoid when they were wrong. Are y'all hearing me? They had
no worse enemy than dad. And I love them with all my heart.
Let anyone else try to touch them. And they would see the
manifestation of the fury of my love for them. but I tear
that butt up just so that they can know the communion with me
and them is essential to their maturity and grow. If they're
going to make it in this life. And this is where we're all jacked
up today. You remember how dad used to get, mama used to be
bad enough to get at that, but remember that mama, you know,
mama used to turn into a super woman on you in a minute. You
said, man, where'd that strength come from? And that little old
woman chasing me down and catching me. All right. All right. Like a bad nightmare. You know, I used to run slow,
too slow. Why can't I get away? Because
Providence ain't letting you get away. You running trapped,
too. You can get down. Your mama kept
you by the collar. Boom. Tear that butt up. It's confession. The man or the
woman that is soon confessing before God their weaknesses,
their sins, their propensities for evil, is the man or the woman
that's gonna continually walk in the light. That's 1 John 1. And truly our fellowship is with
the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. And the blood of
Jesus Christ continues to cleanse us from all sin. Got it? You are going to be the person
that God uses the most. Because you're not going to be
coming to people with a gospel predicated upon your performances
and your good works and your righteousness, our so-called
righteous. You're going to come to sinners like you are. We all
need Christ. Right? Here it is. The sin that
is unto death. We'll get this done. The sin
that is unto death is rejection of the revelation of Christ as
our only hope for glory. See the sin unto death that John
is saying don't pray for is the sin that these folks had committed
by developing a whole theology and theses of opposition to the
very clear and explicit testimony of who Christ was and what he
did. They had built a complete volume
of doctrine against his incarnation and against his deity. And so
here's what the scriptures say. I'm going to read two verses.
I'm done. Done. Here's what the scriptures say. Go with me in
your Bible to first John chapter two. Listen to it. This is first
John chapter two. And you guys can read the rest
of it for yourself. I may touch on it when we get to kept from
his apostasy, kept from this apostasy next week. But it's
certainly this in first John chapter two. Here's what John
says over in verse 22 through verse 24. Are you there? Who
is a liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is the Messiah. He
is an antichrist that denieth, I want you to hear this now,
the father and the son. Got that? Now, John is saying
that with a specific reason for which we will get into next week
when he explains how we know the true God. Who is he that
is an antichrist, but he that denies the father and the son? He's establishing certain principles.
I'm not going to tell you about it right now, but he goes on
to say this. Whosoever denieth the son The
same does not have the father. Y'all got that? John has just
established a unity between the two persons of the Godhead, essential
to the affirmation of sound saving doctrine, that you cannot say
that you know the father, but don't know the son. Your doctrine
is not sound if you are able to divide, separate the father
from the son as two independent parties. I can reject the reality
of the son and I can embrace the reality of the father. John
says it can't be done for several reasons we'll talk about next
week. But in fact, that's what they were doing in that church
when they departed. Here's what he says. Whosoever
denies his son, the same has not the father. He that acknowledges
the Son hath the Father also. Seneitalis is not there, just
a redundancy. Verse 24, let that therefore
abide in you, which you have heard from the beginning. If
that which you have heard from the beginning shall remain in
you. What is that? That you heard from the beginning?
Are you guys ready? The gospel, the gospel. This is why you must know the
gospel in truth. It is only the gospel that reveals
the true God to you in the right way that brings about a salvation
so that you can know Him that is true, being in Him that is
true, and thus can declare to the world who the true God is. But you can only know that through
the gospel, you guys. This is why we're so critical about gospel
preaching. Gospel preaching is the only proper access into a
revelation of the true and the living God There's no other way
to get to God but through a proper Development and exposition of
the gospel truth without it. You can't know God All John is
doing is echoing many things that Jesus said Remember John
all John does is echo Jesus He that has seen me Has what? No man can come unto the father,
but what? That's exactly right He made
it very very plain That no one can come unto the father, but
by me Made it very clean clear. I am the way the truth and the
life For jesus is teaching if you don't honor the father, you
don't honor the son And the father has placed all honor in the hands
of the son that in order to honor the father You have to honor
who? Isn't that what Jesus said? It's
not possible to honor the father so long as you are diminishing
and dishonoring the son. If that which you have heard
from the beginning shall remain in you, you shall also continue
in the what? And in the what? See how he tied
them together? You can't have the father without
the son. Gotta have the son to have the father. You gotta have
the son the right way Can't distort the son to distort the son is
to distort the father. Do you believe that? Since he
is the exact representation of his image So that if I deny any
of the attributes and predicates Belonging to Christ revealed
in the Word of God concerning him if I deny those things I
am denying the father for the son is the exegesis of the invisible
God Important, isn't it? That's good stuff, isn't it?
All right, let's pray. Father, we come to you in the
name of the Lord Jesus. We thank you for this Bible study. We
thank you for your word. We thank you for the simplicity
of the gospel. We thank you for binding us together
as brothers and sisters all around the world through that one man,
Jesus Christ, who has by his own body made the twain one new
man. So making peace and teach us
Lord, how to walk in the unity of the peace that you have afforded
for us by your own sacrifice through your son, and thus protect
it, thus preserve it, thus walk in it so that you might be glorified,
we might be edified, and souls might be saved that are on the
outside of the great privileges of what it means to be a child
of God. As we go our way, give us traveling mercy, prepare us
to worship you on Sunday, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.