As I was re-reading this text
this morning in preparation for preaching, I was having me a
cup of coffee and I was sitting there and flicked on the TV and
it went to channel 4 and Kenneth Copeland was on there and he
was preaching from the text of this 1 John chapter 1 today. And he was really tearing it
up. He was having a good time and he was talking about the
fact that this fact that God is light and in him is no darkness
at all in verse 5. He was saying that his spirit
kept him from the releasing the power of these blessings because
of the darkness of his spirit. And at the end of the show I
just kept watching to see if he's going to say anything else
stupid and he did. He actually lifted his hand to
heaven and he said, God, I love you with all my heart, my soul,
my mind. I love my neighbor as myself.
That's perfection, folks. Only one person ever did that,
and that was the Lord Jesus Christ. And when he said that, I knew
that he had no idea what 1 John chapter 1 said. I had no idea
whatsoever. Now John here is declaring to
the church in general the source of our fellowship, of our oneness, of that which
motivates us and moves us. That's what fellowship is. It
has to do with being together. When he talks about being partakers
of the divine nature. That word nature there is fellowship. Fellowship with the father, fellowship
with the son. Now fellowship means that you
have something in common with someone and that the thing you
have in common is what's important to both parties in order for
you to fellowship together. In England, you have Shakespeare
fellowships. Now you're not going to be a
member of the Shakespeare fellowship unless you know Shakespeare backwards
and forwards. You're not going to be members
of the Shakespeare fellowship if you believe Marlow wrote some
of Shakespeare's sonnets. You're not going to be a member.
To be a member of that fellowship, you must have a center, and that
center is William Shakespeare. In order to fellowship with the
father and the son, you must fellowship in the singular means
where they fellowship, where all the prophets have fellowshiped,
all the Psalms have fellowshiped, all the kings have fellowshiped,
all the brethren fellowshiped, and that's in the gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's our fellowship, and we
have a wonderful fellowship in that. I can go to places and
stay in people's houses, and if they're believers of the gospel,
we have fellowship. We may be strangers when I walk
through their front door, but we're not strangers long. We
have a fellowship, we have a common and a singular interest. When
I go to Winston-Salem and sit down with my mom and dad, and
I'm so thankful for this, I can sit down with my mom and dad
and we talk about Christ. We can glory in it and rejoice
in it. Sure, we talk about other stuff.
But when it comes to things of importance, we are single-minded.
We can talk about the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what fellowship
is, and that's what John is saying to these people. The church of
the living God, he's saying that which was from the beginning,
that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we
have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, that is,
gazed upon, worshipped, and our hands have handled the word of
life. Now he's talking about the Lord
Jesus Christ. He said this life was manifested. Look back at I Peter, if you
will. 1 Peter 1 and verse 18, Forasmuch
as ye know that ye are not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver
and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your
fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as a lamb without
spot and blemish, who verily was foreordained before the foundation
of the world, but was manifest in these last times, for you,
who by Him do believe in God, that raised Him up from the dead,
and gave Him glory, that your faith and hope might be manifest
in God, or might be in God, that your hope might be in God. What
he's saying here is that Jesus Christ, who is the Word, that
eternal Word of God in John chapter 1, in the beginning was the Word,
the Word was God, the same was in the beginning with God, that
same Word in John 1.14, the Word was made flesh and dwelt among
us, and we beheld Him, We looked upon Him as the only begotten
of the Father, full of grace and truth. We've handled Him.
I laid my head on His breast, John said. We've handled Him. We've handled Him. That's the
Word of Life, and that Word of Life is a person. He is the Word
of eternal life. And he says we bear witness of
that fact. We bear witness of that fact
and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father
and was manifested unto us. That's the Lord Jesus Christ
in this world, in human flesh. That which we have seen and heard,
we declare unto you. I know a lot of religion is based
on witnessing. Now, I grew up in religion, and
they told me what witnessing was. They was lying, but they
told me what witnessing was. They said I went to people's
houses and knocked on their door and bothered them and made them
cut off their TV and sit down and listen to me, ask them some
questions about the Bible, and if they answered correctly, then
I could walk away and tell them that they're saved. And I had
witnessed. That ain't witnessing. You know what a witness is? Somebody
sees something. That's what it's talking about. You can't witness
of who Christ is unless you've seen Him in this Word, as the
Word of Life, unless you've handled this Word of Life. You can't
witness. You only witness if you've seen
someone, if you've looked upon someone, if you've handled someone,
and every child of God has, through the Word of God, handled the
Lord Jesus Christ. We've held Him and latched on
to Him. You can be a witness. You can
be a witness. It's no wonder why preachers
in this world today stand up and declare anything other than
Christ. They can't declare Him because
they've never been a witness to Him. They've never seen Him.
They've never heard of Him. They have never heard from Him.
But John says, "...that which we have seen," in verse 3, "...and
heard, that's what we declare unto you." what we've seen and
we've heard. What have you seen and heard?
You've seen and heard the gospel. What are you supposed to declare? Be against abortion? March against
homosexuality? I see all kinds of stuff like
that. Is that what we're here for? Make people dress up Adam
and make him look good? To give you a better life? A
more abundant life? A richer life? To have health
and wealth and such as that? What have we seen and heard?
The gospel. And that's what we declare unto
you. You see, the same message has been going down through the
ages since Genesis. This very same message has been
going down through the ages and it's not changed. The people
who are saying it have changed, but the message hasn't changed.
The message of the gospel of God's sovereign grace in Jesus
Christ was responsible for every true revival that's ever hit
this world. The Welsh Revival, the revival in America called
the New Awakening, that was all due to the preaching of the gospel
of Jesus Christ. The gospel of God's sovereign
grace in Jesus Christ. Jonathan Edwards didn't stand
up and talk about men's free will. He stood up and talked
about men must answer to an absolutely holy God. And they're in His hands to do
with as He pleases. They're sinners in the hands
of a God who's angry with sinners every day. And their only hope
is that same God is not angry with them. Because that's in
whose hands they are. sinners in the hands of an angry
God. We declare unto you, why do we preach the gospel? Why
do we continually preach the gospel? Why do we load up with
it? Why do we, every time we get
together, why do we talk about the gospel? Because that's where
our fellowship is. And that's why John said, that's
why I preach this. That's why I tell you and declare
to you this same thing over and over again. What I've seen, what
I've heard, what I've handled. I tell you that, he says, that
we might have fellowship. that you and I might have fellowship.
I don't know what people have in the social order of churches
in this world, but if it ain't based on and centered in the
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, it ain't fellowship. John said,
our fellowship is in Christ. It's in Christ alone. And truly
our fellowship, being in the Gospel, is with the Father. Because the Father was the first
to preach the Gospel. Galatians chapter 3, the Scriptures
beforehand preached unto Abraham. God the Father was the first
preacher of the Gospel when He said, Let there be light. And
there was light. That light is the light of the
world which is the Lord Jesus Christ. Our fellowship is with
Jesus Christ the Son. We can't fellowship with God
unless we fellowship through the Son. If He's a Father, He's
a Father because He has a Son. That's what makes Him a Father.
He ain't a Father if He don't have a Son. So you can't worship
Him as Father unless you worship Him through the Son. And that's
where our fellowship is. It's in Jesus Christ the Son.
That's why we gather here on Sunday morning, Sunday night,
and Wednesday night to hear the gospel. So we can fellowship
one with another and worship together as a body of people
to hear the gospel. To hear the gospel. And when
you talk about worship in Scripture, you're not talking about private
worship. Rarely, if ever, except maybe a few times when the Lord
said pray in a closet and such things as that. Every time worship
is in Scripture, it's public worship where the people of God
are gathered together. Together to worship God through
the gospel. That's what they're there for.
That's fellowship. That's fellowship. And it's all
in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. John goes on to say,
And these things right we unto you, that your joy may be full.
And I'm telling you this, you'll never have anything even vaguely
close to full joy in this world apart from the gospel of Jesus
Christ. What you got to be happy about? outside of the gospel,
really. Nothing. We're not feeling better
every day. We're certainly not looking better
every day. We get sick at the drop of a
hat. A little old germ put us out of business. We're always
complaining about this and that. You know, what you got to make
you happy in this world? Really, really happy. It's the
gospel. He says, I preach the gospel
that your joy may be full. That for at least the time when
you hear me talk about Jesus Christ, your joy will be full. You can be joyful in this world. This then, he said, is the message. Boy, I want to know that. Don't
you? This then is the message. In
another place he said, this is the report. that we have from
the Father. He that hath the Son hath life,
he that hath not the Son hath not life. That's the report.
He said this then is the message. It's the message that he's heard,
seen, looked upon, and handled. The Word of Life. It's the message
wherein we have fellowship with the Father and the Son. It's
the message that gives us joy in this old troubled world, in
our lives that are full of troubles. It's the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. This then is the message which we have heard from Christ. This ain't no wives' tale. It's
not no Aesop's fable. I didn't get this from a commentary
on the Bible. I heard the voice of Jesus Christ.
He said, the Lord told me this. I know men say that today, but
that's extra-biblical revelation. This man is writing under the
inspiration of God Almighty. This is God's Word. He actually
heard it. He said, this is what we've heard
from Christ. Paul learned the Gospel from
Christ three years on the back side of the desert, didn't he?
That's where Paul learned the Gospel. He thought he knew God,
didn't know God from a goose, until he met Jesus Christ. Then he learned who God was.
And you don't know God either unless you know Jesus Christ.
Don't pretend that you do. This then is the message which
we've heard of Him in declaring to you. And this is the message.
Now the rest of this chapter deals with this singular thing. This is the message. God is light. And in Him is no darkness at
all. That don't have anything to do
with you. It has something to do with Him. There is something to do with
you right here in a minute, but it has to do with this darkness
that's not in God. God is light. Truth, perfection,
righteousness, holiness, all those things. God is those things.
And there is not one thing in God that is not perfect and holy
and good. He is light. That not only means
that, that means knowing Him is to be disclosed for what we
are. To be stripped of our veneer. To be shown for what we are.
That we are indeed full of darkness. But He's not. The glory of it
is that He, as the Light, can embrace us and not be tainted
by us. That's the power and the purity
of Light. God is Light. What does that
mean? He ain't going to be fooled. You might fool me, probably you.
I know I fool you. I'm like old Scott Richardson.
Many times I say, I hope to God that nobody finds out what I'm
really like before I die. Because after I die, people say
nice things about me. I don't want to be discovered.
God knows. My wife don't really know what I'm like. Not really.
She's lived with me for almost 37 years, but she don't really
know what I'm like. She doesn't know what I am on the inside. I wouldn't
dare tell her. I'd just be too embarrassed. Your mom and dad don't know what
you're like. You don't know what you're like,
because your heart's deceitful. You've deceived yourself. God
knows, because He's light, and there ain't a shadow of darkness
in Him whatsoever. In Him is no darkness at all.
That's the message. God is light. Now, what does
that mean? What does that infer? What does
that teach us about God? The first thing it teaches us,
that if we, if we walk in darkness, we can't have fellowship with
Him. Now, what does that mean? Well, you know we're dark, preacher.
He's talking about the gospel. How do we walk in light? Didn't
the Lord say, you're the light of the world, walk in the light?
As ye have received Christ, so walk ye in Him. What is it to
walk in the light? It's not to be out here in some
glassy-eyed, smiley-faced religiosity. What it's talking about is walking
and living, relying upon and trusting and wholly leaning upon
Jesus Christ as He's revealed in this Word. That's what it
is to walk in light. To walk in darkness is to have
yourself insinuated into anything that has to do with God alone.
What does your salvation have to do with? God alone. What happened
on Calvary's tree? Jesus Christ offered Himself
a perfect sacrifice to God. Not to you. And He's not offered to you today.
He sits at the right hand of the Father, having accomplished
salvation for His people. His offering was Godward. He
made His soul an offering for sin. God was satisfied with that
offering. That's the light you walk in.
Well, you know, if I just do better. You ain't going to do
no better. The older you get, the more you
realize that you ain't going to do better. We see people in
rocking chairs, we think they're good people, they're just unable,
evil people. That's what they are. That's
all they are. They ain't got the wherewithal
to get out of the rocking chair and do what's really in their
heart. You don't know how bad you are,
and I don't know how bad I am. And what I do now scares me to
death. You're not getting better. Well, I'm better than I used
to be. No, you're not. And if you think that, boy, you've
got a bad religion. A religion that will put you
in hell if you think you're better than you was the day yesterday.
That ain't nothing but self-righteousness, and that's the scariest thing
in the world. What is it to walk in darkness,
not to walk in the gospel? Not to wholly and completely
rely upon Christ for all of your salvation. That's to walk in
darkness. Because this is the message after all. He's talking
to us about Him whom He's seen, heard, handled, and preaches
to us. What is it to walk in darkness? It's to walk in yourself. To walk in your own power. to
believe that you can merit a righteousness before God, to believe that you're
really a good person after all, that when it's all said and done,
I know you're not, I know you're not as good as some people, but
you're not as bad as old Joe Blow laying down in the gutter
out there. You're not as bad as he is. I know people say,
well, nobody's perfect. Well, that's not, you know, oh,
what a revelation. You have a great gift for the
obvious. Of course nobody's perfect except Jesus Christ. Listen to what he says. If we say that we fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie
and do not the truth. If we say, I'm on God's side, I'm convinced to be in heaven
as if I was already there, If we say that, and yet walk
in any way that brings any glory for anything to us, we're liars. We're just liars. Everybody has confidence here
this morning. I know that about people. I've never met a person
I didn't believe had confidence that they were going to heaven,
and I've talked to many of them. People who are profligates. I
once had a man working for me in the butcher shop years ago.
His name was Bob Gibson. I'll never forget old Bob. Bob was
a drunk. Drank that fortified Longhorn
wine because you could get it cheap at the 7-Eleven. I didn't
even want to pay him. I'd try to get him to let me
fill his refrigerator. I'd try to get him to let me
put gasoline in his old car, something like that. I didn't
want to give him money because I knew that as soon as I gave
him money, he was going to walk out that door and go, right there at 7-Eleven,
I'm going to buy that fortified wife. I knew he was going to
do it. Bob flew P-51s in World War II. He was an ace. Had pictures of
his aircraft with him standing beside it. Saw him in his house. He was an engineer. Had a master's
degree in engineering. Smart. Man knew history like
the back of your hand. You could ask him anything about
American history or European history, he could pop to it just
like that. Smart man. Bob was a drunk. When I went
to his house, his bathtub was... He'd stop using his toilet because
it wouldn't flush, so he'd fill up his bathtub. He slept on an old, rancid mattress
on the floor and lived for that bottle of wine. Got cancer of the jaw. They took
off his jaw. You ever seen Bob without a jaw? It took a muscle out of his chest
and made him sort of like a thing that hung there. So he would
have sort of a face. He died behind a dumpster, behind
the 7-Eleven. He couldn't eat anymore. They'd
put a tube in his belly. And he went down to 7-Eleven
on the night he died and he bought him a pint of Longhorn. Put that
funnel in that tube. and poured it into his belly. I asked Bob one time, I said,
Bob, you got any hope at all? You got any hope at all? I said,
I love you, Bob. I don't want to see you perish.
He said, you got any hope? He said, well, I never hurt nobody
but me. He had hope. You got one too? I want to know this, is it light?
Or is it darkness? Because if it's darkness, you're
not having fellowship with God ever. Ever. Verse 7 says, But if you walk
in the light that is in the gospel, as He is in the light, we have
fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ
cleanses us from all sin. That's sweet fellowship. Then
our Lord says three things in the last part of this chapter. And here He talks about two things
that define what it is to walk in darkness and one thing of
what it is to walk in light and therefore fellowship with God
the Father. The first thing is this. This is darkness. If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. What's that
talking about? It's talking about original sin.
How you were born into this world. It's talking about when Adam
sinned in the Garden of Eden, it was accounted as your sin
and you stand before God as a sinner because of what Adam did 6,000
years ago in the Garden of Eden. That's what that means. If you deny that, If you deny
that, then you deceive yourself and the truth is not in you.
Well, who would deny that? Anybody. Anybody who says, declares, believes
that with the nature they're born with, by a mere decision, they can
go from death to life or decide for Jesus in the nature they
are born in, denies original sin. They deny what they are. Because the description of that
sin is that it plunged us into utter ruin and condemnation. We were condemned when our representative,
our federal head, Adam, the representative of all humanity, sinned and disobeyed
God in the garden. Sammy, it went on your account. On your account. So I wasn't
born yet. I don't care when you was and
the books was open. You were accounted as having
sinned back there in the Garden of Eden. Look at Romans chapter
5. In Romans chapter 5 and verse
12 it says, Wherefore as by one man sin entered the world, that's
how it got here, and death by sin. And so death
passed upon all men, and this is a poor wording in the English.
The original reads this way, in whom all sinned. It's in the Arioist tense, past
tense, Arioist one-time action. In whom all sinned. Tim James
did not exist except in the purpose of God. Tim James, 6,000 years
ago, sinned against God. And when Eve offered me the fruit,
It's written to me, and he did eat. And he did eat. You say, well that just don't
seem right. Some people call imputed sin,
they call that imputed nonsense. I've actually read that in theological
books, imputed nonsense. But let me tell you this, let
me be very clear about this. If you don't want anything to
do, with imputed sin. That is, you are made a sinner
by the acts of another. If you don't want anything to
do with that, then you can't have anything to do with imputed righteousness. That you are made righteousness
by the acts of another. They go hand in hand. In fact,
Adam was a prefigure of the Lord Jesus Christ, isn't that? All
sin. Death reigned, it says in verse
14, from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned
after the similitude of Adam's transgression. Who's that talking
about? Babies. That's the only people who didn't sin like Adam
sinned. Adam sinned as a person with all his faculties, the best
faculties, the crown of God's creation. You say, well, babies
are sinners? Yeah, hang around long enough,
you'll find out. What if they die in infancy? I believe they're
going to be with the Lord. That's my personal belief. I
don't have a lot of scripture to back that up. But that's what
I believe. So why do you believe it? Because
I want to. I want to. And you ain't going
to convince me otherwise. And I've had men who know a lot
of scripture try to convince me otherwise. And I'm not convinced
yet. I'm hard-headed in that way. I know that. But this is
talking about those who didn't sin like Adam sinned with a mature
intellectual choice. They're sinners too. And why
they grow up and die is because of sin. And why they die in infancy
is because of sin. Because people who aren't sinners
don't die. Death is for sin. When Adam sinned,
death came in. Because of sin. If we say we
have no sin, we deny the fact that we are depraved. And we
actually believe that we can muster up some measure of merit
whereby God will take care of us in the end. And if you believe
that, dear brothers, dear sisters, if you believe that on any level,
you are doomed. You are doomed. You deceive yourself, and the
truth is not in you. And that's true darkness. And
you walk in that, you ain't going to fellowship with God. You ain't
going to fellowship with God, ever. Verse 10 says this, if
we say we have not sinned, we make God a liar, And His Word
is not in us. Now this Word means the act of
sinning. If we say we have not sinned
or we don't sin, I remember Wayne Robinson telling a story about
a woman who came in a cloth shop one day who was a holiness woman,
and she told him, I don't sin. Wayne says, you're a liar, according
to God. You're a liar. You say you have
not sinned, that you do not sin, you're a liar. And the Word of
God is not in you. And Wayne went on and said, told
her she's ugly too. He didn't have to do that, but
he did. That was just something extra. If we say we have not sinned,
we don't sin, we're a liar. And we made God
a liar, because God says we have. God said all have sinned and
come short of the glory of God. In fact, the only reason Jesus
Christ came into this world was about sin. It is about sin. We are all sinners. We never stop being sinners though
we are made holy in the righteous eyes of God and by the blood
and righteousness of Jesus Christ we are made holy. But we are
sinners. And even when we get to glory,
when all our sin is gone, finally, finally gone, The old man is
dead now, and we're completely new in Jesus Christ, and no sickness,
no sin, no health, no sorrow, no unhealth, no sorrow. When
we're there, you know what we'll remember? Our sin. Because our song will be, worthy
is the Lamb that was slain, that has redeemed us by His blood.
Out of every kindred, nation, tongue, and people made us kings
and priests unto our God. Why did He redeem us? Because
we're sinners. Why did it take His blood? Because
sin requires death. We'll never forget that. God's
forgot it because of the blood of Christ. We will never forget
we're sinners. But here's darkness for a human
being on the top side of the earth to say, I don't sin. I
haven't sinned. I haven't sinned. You're a liar. And His truth is not in you. Because you see, the Gospel that
declares the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ deals with and sets
forth the fact in no uncertain terms that you are indeed a sinner. The first thing the elect learns
is that he's a sinner. That's the first thing. The sinner
is a sacred thing. The Holy Ghost has made him so.
That's what you learn first. No hope for me, I'm a goner.
Wait a minute. Christ died for goners. Christ
died for the ungodly. Christ died for sinners. There's
some hope. Because that's what I am. If
you say you did not sin in Adam, you're in darkness. If you say
you have no sin, you're in darkness. And because of that, you can't
fellowship with God the Father. You can't, and you never will. You never will. But here is what
it is to walk in light. Verse 9, if we confess our sins,
what does that mean? First of all, to who? To God. Now, we confess our faults one
to another, but we don't write a list of them and say, Crow,
here's one of my faults, here's one of my faults. When we're
confronted with our own weakness and frailty, we say, oh, forgive
me for what I am. I am, you know, so stupid. I
don't love like God. But we don't do that openly,
and we don't have seminars to do it. where we all sit around
a table and have some kind of session where we confess our
sins. And we certainly don't confess
them before the church. I know this is cardinal doctrine
in Baptist churches around here. If you mess up, you've got to
come up here and straighten it out. You've got to hold up your
hands and beg forgiveness of the church. The church can't
forgive you. The church ain't no court. Show
me anywhere in Scripture where somebody confesses before the
church. Anywhere. Old Testament or new? Did you
know that even in the Old Testament when they brought the lamb to
the tabernacle, that the man didn't confess, he brought the
lamb to the priest and the priest confessed? You see it over here,
in a representative. We made the church into a court.
We turn it into a legal thing where people got to come up and
supposedly confess, come down front and cry and weep and slobber
and blubber and carry on and raise their hands and act like,
oh, you know, that just makes you feel so good. Tears remove
the poisons from your system. That's physiological. It does
make you feel good, but it ain't confession. Confession is in
your closet before a holy and a righteous God, confessing what
you are, what you are. That's confession. Lord, y'all
just killed me and put me out of business. I don't belong among
your children. I am wretched. I am unclean. I am an old wretched man that
I am. Who should live me for the body of this death? That's
what I am. Lord, this is walking in light, confessing your darkness. If we confess our sins to God, I said, well, isn't it honest
for us to confess to each other? That's not honesty, that's braggadocio. That's what it is. I hear so
many people who are having trouble in their marriage, one of them
may have committed adultery or something like that, and they've
actually asked me, shouldn't I tell my mate that? No! Never! Keep it to yourself! Well, that's
being honest. It ain't being honest, it's being
hurtful and being mean. You know why? Because you're
doing it to get it off your chest and you're going to destroy two
people in the act. And a good marriage probably. I don't want to know how you
messed up. Keep it to yourself and God. And you certainly don't
know how I want to mess up. Well, I want to be honest. How
about being real instead? If we confess our sins. Well,
that would make God do something. No. God's already done something.
and He's going to declare something to you. If we confess our sin,
He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. Why? Because He's
already forgiven our sins. You see, our confession is for
us. It's not for God. Our confession doesn't get anything
from God. It's not some type of, you know, one of those things. What's that Catholics call marriage
and baptism? They call them sacraments. Sacraments.
It's not a sacrament. Confession is not a sacrament.
By confessing you don't get something from God. What you're confessing
is your darkness and your only hope is God. And God will then
declare unto you by His Word that you're already forgiven.
Confession is about what we know about ourselves. That's why we
seek forgiveness. That's why we want forgiveness.
I feel like I need to be forgiven, don't you? You already have been. We confess what we are and here's
the thing, God says, I'm faithful. To who? To my promise? To me? To my son? To all my people whom
I promise, I'm faithful? Even when you don't believe,
I remain faithful, I can't deny myself, I'm faithful. And I'm
just to forgive you. Wait a minute. You're just going
to set this sin aside? Uh-uh. I'm just to forgive you
because Jesus Christ died on Calvary's tree. And by His propitiatory
sacrifice, I am just to justify you. I declare my righteousness
in your justification." If we confess our sins, He's just to
forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That's what it is to walk into
life. To confess our sins, believing and knowing and understanding
and appreciating the fact that our confession doesn't do anything
except something for us. It helps us. It does. It doesn't
do anything for God. God's already done what we need. He's already taken care of that.
He forgives us of our sins. You know why? Because He don't
remember our sins anymore. You don't remember our sins anymore.
This isn't what it is to walk in the light. It's to walk in
the light of the gospel. The good news is that God has saved His
people from their sins by the blood, propitiatory death, sacrifice
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And no sin will ever be charged
to them. No sin will ever be accounted
to them. So we come before God in the light of that and confess,
I'm taking the place of the one for whom such a great work was
done. Lord, I confess my sins. It doesn't
even say we ask for forgiveness, does it? We confess what we are. God said, I'm just to justify
you and cleanse you of all unrighteousness. That's what it is to walk in
the light. Now, you're one place or the other today. All of us
are. We're either walking in light
or we're walking in darkness. And if we're walking in light,
we're having fellowship with God. We're on the same page as
God is. We're welcoming to His presence.
We're thinking like Christ thinks. We're walking in the light. And
if we're not, we're not walking with God because there is no
darkness at all in Him. And if we walk in darkness, we
can't fellowship with Him. This is what I've heard, you
see. I've seen I've handled my own hands. I've looked upon. This is what I declare unto you.
This is the message. God is light. In Him, there is
no darkness at all. Father, bless us to understand
and pray in Christ's name. Amen. Good day and God bless
you.