1 John chapter 1, 1328 in your
pew bible if you have one. I want us to just sort of continue
what we were looking at this morning about this word deceived. Look at 4 or 5 more passages
in the scriptures concerning this word and the concept of
being deceived. Maybe as it affects our everyday
life as we look at some places this Word is written. It is here
in 1 John chapter 1. And let's begin reading in verse
5. 1 John chapter 1 and verse 5. This then is the message which
we have heard of Him in declaring to you that God is light and
in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship
with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. If we walk in the light as He
is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood
of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that
we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If
we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our
sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The verse I
was thinking about is found there in verse 8. If we say that we
have no sin, we deceive ourselves. Now all of God's children know
themselves to be sinners. And the reason they know that
is because God has taught them that. The Lord Jesus said, when
the Holy Spirit is come, he will reprove the world of sin. And he said, I came not to call
the righteous, but sinners to repentance. So when a man is
called to come to Christ by the Holy Spirit, one of the things
the Holy Spirit teaches us is that we are sinners. And when
we come to the Lord and we acknowledge that, He opens our hearts and
gives to us a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. He removes the condemnation. He does not charge us with sin
anymore. He that heareth my words, and
believes on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall
never come unto condemnation, but is passed from death. and
the life. God will never deal with one
of His children to condemn him again. Not in this life or not
in the life to come. There is no condemnation to them
which are in Christ Jesus. Now in regards to sins, God deals with His children as
a Father and He chastens them because of sins. If you be without
chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are you illegitimate. You're not even sons at all,
but you're bastards. The Lord corrects His children,
but He never condemns them. He corrects them, but He never
condemns them. And the reason that is, is because
that He dealt with their substitute in their place. He'll never forsake
them. He'll never condemn them because
their substitute was forsaken and condemned in their place. The only time I ever read in
the Scriptures where the Lord Jesus addressed His Father as
God in His prayer was upon the cross. When He said, My God,
My God, why hast thou forsaken Me? That's the only time I read
where He did not address Him as His Father. And I think the
reason was he was stressing there that he had utterly been forsaken
of his father. And he did that so you and I
as God's children would never be forsaken. He suffered our
sins and the guilt and the condemnation that you and I would never be
condemned. Who is he that condemns? It is God that justifies. Who
shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's Christ who
died. So the sin, they're gone. Their sins are gone. But having
said that, we know this. As we rejoice in that, we know
that God has not delivered us from the being of sin. We are yet sinners. We were sinners
when we were born. We live sinners and will die
sinners. Paul tells us to let everybody
that names the name of Christ depart from iniquity. And God
help us to depart the sins, the iniquities. But there's one sin
that we can't depart from and that's what we are. In me, that
is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. To will is present with
me, but how to perform that which is good I find not, O wretched
man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? And every child of God knows
that. And John says here in verse 8, if we say that we have no
sin, If we say that we're not sinners anymore, if we say that
we're not struggling with sin, with sinful self, then we have
deceived ourselves and the truth is not in us. Now that's something
we face in everyday life, ain't it? And I think one of the evidences
that you are a child of God, that you do struggle against
sin, You don't want it to have dominion
over you. And you want to walk in the Spirit. And you're afraid
to walk after the flesh. You are aware that you are yet
a sinner. And I don't think God's ever
going to let us forget that. I don't think He's ever going
to let us forget that. But having realized this, it makes us cleave
to the Lord Jesus Christ. But this old sin nature that
we have, it's at the bottom. of every sin that we commit.
If we weren't sinners by nature yet, we'd have no trouble with
sin. We'd never commit a sin. When
David had committed that awful sin with Bathsheba and killed
her husband, and he confessed it there in Psalm 51 and pleaded
with the Lord for cleansing, he admitted this. There was something
that laid right at the bottom of his sinning. And he said this,
ìI was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive
me.î In other words, he said, ìLord, I know whatís at the bottom
of why I did what I did. I am a sinner, an awful, awful
sinner.î We donít excuse it, do we? We sure donít brag about
it. But we are yet sinners. God has
not delivered us from the bed of sin. And John said, ìIf we
donít know that, or we deny that, We try to hide that. We're only
deceiving ourselves. Look over here at another passage
of Scripture in Galatians chapter 6. You find all of these confronted
and they're confronted right in the church. Paul was writing
these epistles and John was writing these epistles to Christians.
And Paul confronts The church at Galatia with this, and it
goes along sort of with what we were talking about just now. Here in chapter 6, and look in
verse 1. Galatians chapter 6 verse 1.
Page 1271. Brethren, if a man be overtaken,
if he be caught, overcome, in a fault, ye which are spiritual,
restore such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering yourself
lest thou also be tempted. Bear ye one another's burdens,
and so fulfil the law of Christ. And look in verse 3. For if any
man think himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceiveth
himself. Now that's a difficult position
to come to. And no man ever come to it apart
from the grace of God that I'm nothing. I am absolutely nothing. There's one scripture I know
that tops that, and that's the one that says we're less than
nothing. A fellow asked me one time, he said, can you be anything
below nothing? I said, I don't see how. He said,
the Bible says you're less than nothing. So that's a position
to come to that it takes God's grace to bring us there. But
I tell you, it takes God's grace to keep us there. It's like looking
in a mirror as you begin to get older. And boy, you see when
you've got a lighted mirror, you see the wrinkles. See, Adam,
you ain't there yet. You may think you're getting
there, but look at me, buddy. Wait a few years and you see
the wrinkles and the age spots and the baldness and the bulges,
you know. But here's what happens. You
see that and you say, my goodness, what's happened to me? Look at
that fellow. But then you turn right around
and you haven't made ten steps the other way and you forget
what you look like. And that's the way we are. We
reach this conclusion, God helping us, that we're nothing. And then
how easily we forget that. And we begin to think, boy, I'm
something. I'm really something. I've watched
people, I've told you this before, but I love to go, sometimes I
used to go out to the mall when Joe wanted to go shopping and
I'd get me a seat there somewhere just to watch people. I love
to watch people. And I tell you, I can tell you,
you know, what a lot of people are thinking about themselves.
When they come by, I say, boy, that woman there, she thinks
she's hot stuff. I do not think that because I
sit and see some man goes by and I think, boy, he thinks he's
something else. And you know how I know that? Because I know
they're thinking the same way I'm thinking about myself. It's
difficult, isn't it? Greg's always reminding me of
that old song that when we was a kid, this one guy sang it,
it's hard to be humble when you're perfect. And that's what we think
about ourselves, isn't it? And you know, this is when we're
difficult to get along with. This is when we get so picky,
so contrary, it's when we begin to think, I am something. It's when we see ourselves as
nothing that we don't judge other people so much. We don't judge
our brothers and sisters in Christ because we say, look at me. You
think they're bad, look at me. You think they're not as good
as they ought to be, look at me. That's what the Apostle Paul
was talking to you about, ye which are spiritual. What qualifies
spirituality? How would a man be thanking to
be thanking spiritually, to thank himself nothing? That's spiritual
thanking. I was telling Wayne, I think
Wayne and Greg up here the other day, this one fellow, I won't
mention his name because I'm afraid it wasn't him, but it
was one of the big evangelists was praying on stage in front
of this humongous congregation. And he said, Lord, this is not
private so-and-so, this is general so-and-so coming into your presence.
Can you imagine that? I am something now. I am general
so-and-so. Ain't that pride? That's not
spirituality, is it? You which are spiritual, restore
such a one. Consider yourself. You're nothing. You can do nothing. If you was
put in that guy's situation, you'd have probably felt worse
than he did. Pride and self-love to think we're something when
the Bible says we're nothing. And when a man thinks that way,
he's just deceiving himself. But I tell you, worse pride than
that, it's bad enough to look at it from a physical standpoint
or a psychological standpoint and think, boy, I'm something,
I'm a big banker, I'm this or that. But let me tell you the
height of pride. When a man believes in his heart
that God Almighty, before time, looked down through time and
chose Him to salvation because of something He saw in Him. That's
the height of pride. God chose me over you because
He saw something in me that wasn't in you. He saw I would do something
that you wouldn't do. That man is deceived. That's
pride. That's spiritual pride. I am
something. God chose me because I'm something. He is deceiving himself. We have a song, we sang it sometime,
it was written by James Gray. He was a pastor of a huge congregation
and they had a janitor that really loved his pastor. And he said one day, he said,
Pastor, I wish I could be a great servant of God like you. I wish
I could be a great servant of God like you. And James Gray
went into his office and he sat down and he wrote this psalm.
Not have I gotten, but what I received. Grace hath bestowed it since
I have believed. Boast and excluded, pride I base. I'm only a sinner saved by grace. Nothing. I'm nothing. And when a man gets one inch
above nothing, than he's just in the process of deceiving himself. Look in another passage that
mentions this word, still on over to your left, in 1 Corinthians
chapter 3. 1 Corinthians chapter 3. This deals here, I think, with
mainly preachers and pastors, but I think it probably can be
applied to all of us. Look here in 1 Corinthians chapter
3, on page 1241. Look in verse 18. Chapter 3, 1 Corinthians 18. Let no man deceive himself. If
any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him
become a fool that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this
world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh
the wise in their own craftiness. And again, the Lord knoweth the
thoughts of the wise, that they are in vain. Now in verse 18,
let no man deceive himself. Now, look at the context. And
the Apostle Paul was talking about building upon the foundation. He says here in this chapter,
in verse 10, he said, I have laid the foundation. And another
man buildeth thereon. And then he says, But let every
man take heed how he builds thereupon. For other foundation can no man
lay than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus. He has
laid the foundation. And now he is going to tell the
preachers here at Corinth, Take heed how you build upon that
foundation. This is a very fearful and solemn
thing. Look what he says in verse 12.
If any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stone. Boy, that's one thing, isn't
it? And look at this. Wood, hay, or stubble. Now, it's easy to build out of
wood. You don't see many houses built
out of precious stone, do you? Or diamonds or pearls. Why? It's
too costly. So we build out of wood, don't
we? And some of the little animals build out of hay and stubble.
And here's what Paul is encouraging them and warning them. Be careful
how you build upon Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He is the
foundation. Verse 13 says, For every man's
work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it,
because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try
every man's work of what sort it is. And if any man's work
abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned,
he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so
as by fire." And what he is telling them here is build upon Jesus
Christ. But build with those materials
that God hath provided you to build with. Preach the Word. Preach the Word of God. Preach
the truth. And don't let anybody persuade
you or tempt you into compromising. Don't give yourselves over to
the gimmicks of men and the wisdom of men to build upon this foundation
with. And you know, that's easy done,
brothers and sisters. That is easy done. There have been men
that did it. There have been grace preachers
that did it. They fell into this temptation,
this snare of wanting to build a huge congregation. And they
compromised. They compromised. We have had
a little track back there by Chapel Library. They put out
some of the best material of anybody. And they put out a track
by J.I. Packard. Now, most of you probably
don't know J.I. Packard. But him and Martin Lloyd-Jones,
they were close friends. And J.I. Packard, he wanted to
go with Catholics and the Protestants and merge them together. I've
forgotten now what they call that, Larry, but it's where they
wanted to start an association. And J.I. Packard, he was a fine
preacher. A great writer, even Chapel Library,
printed one of his articles. But on the back, they called
upon J.I. Packer to repent. Repent of what
you've done. And Martin Lloyd-Jones tried
to persuade this great man, don't go down that road. He said, I
think we can get us all together. We can help one another. And
Martin Lloyd-Jones said, they'll take you away. You won't take
them away. They'll take you away. Well,
it's a year or so ago now. He's an old man. I saw him. And
they've turned him out of that organization. He's lost all of
his labor, you see. All of this that he fought for
and labored for. It's just like it's been burned
up. It's gone. And Paul said, if you think that
you can, in your ministry, And this applies to all of us. If
we think that we can win souls to Christ and be a light to this
world by resorting to the gimmicks and wisdom of this world, Paul
said, we're just deceiving ourselves. It's more difficult to build
with what material God has given us, His Word, the rule of His
Word. And you have to be patient as you do that. The man gets
in a hurry and goes cutting down some wood and building with hay
and stubble. He'll burn, won't he? He'll burn. We're utterly dependent upon
the Word of God and the Spirit of God. The Lord Jesus said,
upon this rock I will build my church. And the only way I know
to build upon this foundation is preach the Word. Preach the
truth. and leave it to the Holy Spirit
to add to the church such as should be saved. I'm afraid.
I'm afraid of these gimmicks. I'm just afraid of them. I don't
want to be deceived by them. Do you? Let no man deceive him. A man that thinks he can go around
the Word of God and revert to man's gimmicks, he's deceived. Nobody but himself. Let's go on to another passage. If I can find it. I've got way
ahead of myself. Look over in 1 Corinthians 15. Just go back over to your right.
1 Corinthians 15. A couple more and I'll let you
go. We know something about this next one. Verse 33. I think all
of us can relate to this even in a natural sense. Look in 1
Corinthians 15, and it is in verse 33. Be not deceived. Evil communications,
and that word communications here, I don't know why they translated
it as they did, but that is fine. It means bad company. Evil communications,
evil company corrupts Good habits are good manners. We all can
relate to this, can't we? Even teenagers can relate to
this. Evil company, evil companionship corrupts good manners. We've seen it, and we see it
all the time. We see this young teenager. He's 16 years old. And he respects
his mom and his dad. And everywhere he goes, he has
this on his mind that he don't want to do anything that would
bring shame or hurt his mom and dad. He's very careful. But he
begins to run with the wrong crowd. He begins to fall in with
people that don't care what their parents say. They don't respect
their parents. And what happens? It's not long
you see that young man's attitude change towards his parents. Then
after a while, he gets in trouble. And what do we say? I knew he
was running with the wrong crowd. I knew he was headed for trouble. And anybody that thinks, I don't
care if it's a young teenager or child, I don't care if it's
an adult, If somebody thinks that they can run with a bad
crowd, and, oh, I've got the willpower. It won't bother me. I've got the stamina. I can endure
this. It won't affect me at all. Paul
said, if anybody thinks that, he's deceiving himself. I tell
you, bad manners almost always influences good manners, don't
it? And he was applying this year
to the spiritual condition that was in the church here at Corinth. There were people in this Corinthian
church that didn't believe in the resurrection of the body.
They said, how are the dead raised? With what body do they come forth?
And Paul said, are you guys denying the resurrection? If you deny
the resurrection, that means Christ didn't raise. And if Christ
didn't raise the union in your sin, your faith is vain. And
they had received these guys into their congregation. Some
of them were getting close, buddy-buddy friends with them. And Paul said,
listen, if you think you can listen to that corrupt doctrine
and have it in your midst without checking it, and it won't affect
you, he said, you're deceiving yourself. You're deceiving yourself. And I tell you what it is. Some
of you were telling me that you went to church with this one
person that didn't believe in the virgin birth. And you said,
well, what does that matter? What does that matter? We believe
in the virgin birth. What does that matter? We've got this thing
today that truth is relative. That is, truth, there's no black
and whites. Just whatever you want the truth
to be at the time, however it may serve you. Truth is relative. Truth is black and white. It's plain, isn't it? Paul said,
now is Christ risen from the dead and became the first fruits
of them that slept. He has risen. He has ascended. And He's taken over heaven in
our place. That does matter. That does matter. We've got a good hope because
of that. And if a man comes in here and
says, well, that really don't matter, the virgin birth don't
matter, election don't matter, calling don't matter, blood redemption
don't matter, he ain't going to get along very good around
here. Because you let something like
that in, and I'm telling you it's not long. Corruption comes. Corruption comes. Bad matters. Bad matters. Bad doctrine. One more place. Look over in, if I can find it myself. You ought to see my notes. I
was preaching. I was preaching one time down
in Lexington, Kentucky. Todd's got two or three doctors
and a bunch of nurses and professors. This one fellow came up and he
wanted to look at my notes. He said, you made a statement
in there. And I said, I don't remember making that statement. He said,
oh, you made the statement. He said, let me see your notes. And I knew
he was in trouble. He looked at him, was funny to
him. He finally folded up his hand to him and said, I can't
find it. I can't find out what I'm looking
for. I had one more passage of scripture that I wanted to go
to, and I had it down someplace. But I can't even find it now. I can't find it. My wife has
been messing with my notes, I guess. OK, let's turn. One more place
I can think about, and that's over in James. over in James. I think it's in chapter 1. I'm
not even for sure of that. James chapter 1. James begins here in verse 18,
and he says this, Of his own will begot he us with the word
of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creature.
Wherefore, in the light of this, since God has begotten us by
his word, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear,
slow to speak, and slow to write. For the wrath of man worketh
not the righteousness of God. Wherefore, lay aside all filthiness,
and abundance of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the
engrafted word which is able to save your soul. But be ye
doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the
word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man, beholding his natural
face in a glass. For behold, he beholdeth himself,
and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man
he was. But whoso looketh unto the perfect law of liberty, and
continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a
doer of the work, this man is blessed in his deed. If any man
among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue,
but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is in vain." We
saw this morning the heart deceiving a man, and here we have now a
man deceiving his heart. Ain't that amazing? But he said,
if we hear the Word and we don't do it, then we're deceiving ourselves. Be ye doers of the Word and not
hearers only. You and I have often said this,
that sharing saves us. Sharing your soul shall live.
It justifies us. It brings faith to us. But to
go on then and not do what the Word of God commands us to do,
that's a useless profession, isn't it? Somebody said it won't
do any good. to talk about the door. You must
go through it. It won't do to stand and admire
the door, to talk about how beautiful it is. A door is there to enter. It's not enough to talk about
Christ. We must enter Christ. And it's
not enough to talk about how great He is and how good He is
and how kind He is if we're not following Him. If you love Me, keep My commandments. Doers of the Word and not yours
only, deceiving your own selves. Well, with that, we better quit. Shanna, would you dismiss us
again?