1 John chapter 5. We'll begin reading in verse number 12. He that hath the Son hath life. and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. And this is the confidence that we have in Him that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us. And if we know that he heareth us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions 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. We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not, but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not. And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. And we know that the Son of God has come and have given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true. And we are in Him that is true, even in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen. Let's go once again to the Lord in prayer. Ryan, would you pray for us? Amen. Last week we had somewhat of a difficult text, and in borrowing from our present text, which is found in verse number 18, we know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not, but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not. And coupling that together with the verse from last week about This idea of a sin unto death. What can't be true of a Christian? A true Christian cannot lose his salvation. We just go back to what we're talking about this morning and we get proof of that, don't we? Who are you kept by if you belong unto Him? You're kept by God. He keepeth the feet of the saints. If you're His, you belong unto Him. Do you think that he would allow such a thing to happen as to lose your salvation? Certainly not. That's not possible. Could one for whom Christ died ultimately and finally be lost? No. All that Christ died for shall be saved. Nothing shall separate us from the love of God, Romans 8 tells us. Philippians 1, 6 says that we're confident of this very thing. What's that? He that begun a good work in you. You're his. God's begun a work of salvation in you. Guess what? God doesn't start anything that He can't finish. There's nothing that God can't finish anyway. I'm just putting this in human terms that we can understand. Being confident in this very thing that He which begun a good work in you will perform it, He will continue it until when? Until the day of Jesus Christ. That is, until our Lord returns and takes us home. He will continue this work. Therefore, there is no one sin that the child of God can commit that is what? unforgivable. We have this idea of the sin and the death in verses 16 and 17. I wanted to give you some other views on this that we looked at last week in regards to the sin and the death. I'll give you four of them. One is that this passage is referring to, and this is what we've already kind of debunked, I guess we could say, and what we've already said this morning. One view is that this passage refers to a particularly heinous sin, a particularly ungodly sin that someone can commit, that God has determined beforehand, if somebody does that, I'm not going to forgive them for it. Now, I know people that have committed sins as Christians and they felt like that they've committed the sin of death because of the situation, circumstances they found themselves in and the guilt associated with the sin that they had committed. It just was overwhelming to them. But though a person may feel they've committed such a sin, the reasons against such a thing, we've already mentioned some, but I think the chief one would be Matthew 12, 31. All manner of sin shall be forgiven. Except what? Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, against the Spirit of God itself, or himself, I should say. That would be the only thing. Well, what's that? Well, that's an unpardonable thing. I mean, that's something that someone's rejected Christ. I mean, you don't expect someone to receive salvation that's rejected Christ. There's only one way, right? Only one way in which we might be saved and that's through Christ. Our text says that all sin is unrighteousness. First John 1 9 tells us if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to do what? Forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Not some, but all. Who's the person that's not going to go unto the Lord and confess his sin that he might be cleansed? The person is rejected Christ. So what sin is there that a Christian can commit that he couldn't be forgiven for? That he could not go to the Lord and say, Lord, I repent and turn from this. Forgive me, I pray. And the Lord not forgive. All men are sin shall be forgiven. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I thought of the hymn, Would you be free from your burden of sin? There's power in what? The blood, the blood of Christ, the death of Christ. Not only to declare you righteous, that's just half, but to make you so, to make you righteous. A second view is that John is thinking here of apostasy, which we've already somewhat talked about. I think that's my phone causing that feedback there, so I'm going to take it out of my pocket. Namely, we talk about apostasy, namely, that is an abandonment and a repudiation of Christ himself, of the Christian faith, of the gospel. I reject, refuse. Someone for whom God has given some light, some understanding, and yet they refuse, reject, turn from, abandon. Thirdly, some maintain that John is simply speaking of physical death. He's not talking about spiritual death. He's talking about physical death brought about by God and inflicted as a result of a Christian's persistence and perseverance in sin, some deliberate sin. And they will list something like, you know, the passage where Ananias and Sapphira come in and they lied, you know, to the apostles about this tract of land they had sold. They were going to give the money to the church. They only gave half of it, gave half back, and kept half back for themselves. And yet they said they'd given the whole amount. They fell dead there, those who were eating and drinking at the Lord's table, and done so unworthily, not discerning the Lord's body, to which many were weak, sickly among them, and some even slept or were dead. So the idea here is that God has determined some physical judgment upon a person, and it doesn't matter if you intercede or pray. In other words, I guess you say instead of intercede that you pray on their behalf. God's already determined that he's going to do this, and there's nothing that can be done by prayer. A fourth and final view. is that the sin that can be equated to as we said before the blasphemy against the Spirit in Matthew 12. If you go and read that account what you see about the Pharisees is that the miracle that the Lord performs in Matthew 12 they actually attribute to and claim that he does by the power of Satan himself. So not only do they reject him But they call what he has done something that that he's done by the power of Satan. So suffice it to say, just in kind of mentioning those in passing, suffice it to say that no matter what the interpretation of that verse is, there are some things that in this matter of prayer, because that's that's the subject, right? In those verses that you're praying for someone, there are some things in this matter of prayer that aren't according to God's will. I mean, you can pray all you want to about certain things, but there's some things that God, you know, his will, his mind, we could say is made up sort of, so to speak, but it's his will that something happen. You can pray against that all you want to. It's not going to change things. And we don't want it to change things. We talked about that. We're talking about the fact that we have this access to God. What do we want as Christians? We want God's will to be done. I desire God's will. I want God's will to be done in my life. So. God will do what is, and if we think about that, and we talked about that some this morning, about God keeping us. If we think about what God does, does God ever do anything that is inconsistent with who he is? No. And what is he? He's holy, he's righteous, he's good. He never does anything inconsistent with that. He's one who changes not, his compassions, they fail not. Let me put it in these terms, give you an illustration to help grasp the concept here. I was asked once how I would have responded to a certain situation. There was a woman. Her husband was ill. I've told you about this before. There was a woman whose husband was ill. The church was praying, the woman certainly was, that her husband would recover from his sickness, that he would be healed. But he ultimately died. Now, if we look at what we've been talking about in the preceding verses and like in verse number 14, for instance, this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us. And if we know that he hears whatsoever we ask, verse number 15, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him. And so they asked me, how would you respond to that woman? who had asked the church to pray, had been praying herself that her husband would be healed, and yet he was not healed, and he died. And I said, well, I may not say it exactly in these words, but simply put, it was not God's will that that man live. It doesn't necessarily have to be because of anything bad he had done, but it was his appointed time to depart from this earth. So there are some things that we're going to pray about. You might see something in someone's life and you and we're told that we ought to pray. If we see a verse number 16, if we see a brother's sin, a sin which is not unto death, we shall ask. And what does it say? God will give us give him life, give him life. For that sin that is not unto death, so we are to pray for one another. We are our brother's keeper in a sense, you know, it's not an occasion that we see somebody doing something wrong to go around and blast and blab it around to everybody in the congregation. Oh, you know what so and so is doing? I know we ought to be keep it to yourself. Pray about it. Seek the Lord over it. Ask the Lord to give them grace to overcome whatever it is that they may be facing. But ultimately, guess what? We don't have to depend necessarily on just one another. I don't have to depend, if I fall into some kind of sin, I don't have to depend just on Brother Doug to pray for me. I'm kept by the power of God, right? I'm kept. And that's something Brother Doug could pray. If he saw something in me, he could say, Lord, I know he's yours, and I know he's kept by your power. Keep him. Keep him. But ultimately, we kept by the Lord himself and not just by one another. So then we get to verse number 18. And this is where we want to spend the balance of our time here this morning. We know that whosoever and this isn't the first time we've encountered this. We've encountered the same thing in chapter number three. Verse number 18, we know that whosoever is born of God, that's the first qualification there, right? Born of God. You were born to your parents. You gain physical life, you know, in that manner. Of course, God gave that to you. Parents just didn't decide to create you, and here you are. Now God appointed for you to be born, and to be born here you were born to. So, that's physical birth. But here we're talking about being born of God. Being born again, being born anew. Why is it necessary? Well, we sang about it this morning. One of the hymns we sang talked about the fall. We were all born in sin, conceived in sin. We all had this problem with sin. being born once, and the only way that we're able to overcome that is by being born twice, and that's by faith in Christ. So we know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not, but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not. So what's John not saying here? That's something I always appreciated about Brother Conrad Murrell. When he would preach a sermon, that's the first thing he would always tell you. What is this not? Before we say what it is. And so what can we say about that verse of scripture? What's it not saying? Well, from your experience, you know what it's not saying. You know, being a Christian, you know that what it's not saying here is that it's not saying it's not possible for a Christian to sin because that is possible and it does happen. If this were so, that it were not possible for a Christian to sin, and what was being said here is that whosoever is born of God does not commit any sin, then those verses that we've already read previously, in verse number 16, wouldn't be necessary, would they? What does it say there? If any man see a brother sin of sin, why would you say that? If a person could not, if a Christian could not sin, wouldn't have any reason to. That's not what's being said here. It's not we're not being told that it's not possible for a Christian to sin. This verse is similar to, as I said, we've already covered this territory before in first John, chapter three and verse number nine, if you want to turn back there. Similar thing is stated by John and first John, three, nine, whosoever is born of God does not commit sin. Sounds real similar to what we just read. In verse number 18, we know that whosoever is born of God said it not. 1 John 3 9 says, Who so is born of God doth not commit sin. Go on reading 1 John 3 9, For his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. Again, John's not saying that it's impossible for a Christian to sin. What he's talking about here is our mode and manner of life. You know what your life was like if you're a Christian, you know what your life was like before. You know the kind of life you live. You didn't live for God, you lived for yourself. You committed sin, it didn't bother you. The only thing that bothered you was if you got caught doing something you shouldn't do. But you enjoyed sin. You liked your sin. You didn't mind sin. That's something that you look forward to doing. It didn't bother you. But as a Christian being born again, That's not you anymore. That's not how you live your life. That's not the pattern of your life anymore. That's not consistent with who you are in Christ. You desire to do righteousness, not sin. Sin is incompatible with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. You think about God himself taking up residence in you as a child of God. Sin is not compatible with the Holy Spirit being Indwelling you what kind of spirit Holy Spirit? Calls us under what holiness righteousness We're new creatures a new creation in Christ 2nd Corinthians 517 says therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature a Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. Once we lived and abided in sin, we don't seek to live there anymore as a Christian. We seek to live in righteousness. We don't seek to please ourselves. We seek to please God. Honor Him. Glorify Him. That that we read there in 1 John chapter 3 and verse number 9 talked about His seed. His seed remaineth in us. His seed. That's the new birth. The new birth. The principle of life within you from God, whereby you desire to do what is righteous and holy and good. First, Peter, chapter one, verse 23, says, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. So when we think about this new birth and what God's done being born of God, is that something that can be undone? And if you're born from above, if you're born of God, if God indwells you by his Spirit because you belong unto him, he's marked you out for himself, you have turned unto Christ, you have sought after salvation, and God has changed your heart. It's new. Old things are passed away. The old Russell's gone. Now there only abides this new Russell that's been born from above in God, in Christ, the life of God abiding within. Can that be taken away? Can that be undone? Can I go back to the person that I was before? Not even if I try. Not even if I try. Not that I want to. The very nature of the new life within me causes me to desire to do what is right. Again, though, this verse is not saying that it's in the Christians incapable of sinning. That's not what's being told unto us. But it is saying this. So we said, well, it doesn't say what does what is this verse saying to us, this verse is saying, and it does mean this, no one born again, no one given a new nature, no one transformed, no one regenerated by the power of God goes on in the same unbroken pattern of sin that they lived their lives according to before they were converted. You're not the same. If you're a child of God, you are not the same. Even if you find yourself in some sin, guess what? If you committed it, you don't like it. You don't like that you've done it. You hate it. You hang your head in shame over it. That doesn't happen to a person who has not been born again. That doesn't take place. They're OK with sin. They're all right with it. The Christians not, though. Guess what, the Spirit of God within you is not all right with it either. Him being grieved, you feel grieved. Men and women who are not born of God are under the dominion of Satan and their their whole life is a life of sin. They dwell in it. It is the realm that they inhabit, but those who are born of God are no longer in that state. And have been taken out of it. The child of God does not go on continuing in a state of sin. Mark what I'm saying here. I'm not saying that he cannot sin, but I'm saying his life is not marked by sin and he doesn't continue in a state of sin. I'm not saying that you don't face different things and you find yourself having temptations, thoughts and you commit ungodly deeds. You may do some of those things, but that does not define you. That does not define who you are. That's not the desire of your heart to be that either. You do not go on practicing sin as you once did before you knew Christ. You do not dwell there. Sin doesn't have dominion over you any longer in that way. Your nature has been changed. One person put it like this, and maybe this will help. Illustrations are good to help us grasp things sometimes, grasp concepts. There are two realms, realm of light, realm of darkness. You want to put it in those terms, or you could put it in the dominion of God, the dominion of Satan. Or you could put it this way. One is a higher realm and one is a lower realm. One being up, one being down. Those who are not born of God, they dwell in that lower region. They dwell in that lower realm. They dwell under the dominion of Satan. They dwell in darkness. They may make occasional efforts to improve themselves. They attempt to raise themselves for a while, but guess what? They go right back to what they were. They go right back to where they were. OK? That is their level down there. But Christians, those who are born of God, those who are of the kingdom of God, of the realm of light, a higher realm, They've been elevated. They've been raised up by Christ to a new height so that the level of life on which they are living is up there now, unfortunately. It's the reversal we're talking about with those who dwell in darkness, unfortunately, these occasionally fall into sin, but that does not mean that they continually live down there. They may fall to that level, but they rise again. They rise again, they fall, they repent and they are received back again to the height and level of the life that they've been called into. It made me think of Proverbs 24, 16. For a just man falleth seven times, though a just man falleth seven times, he rises up again. And it's like that illustration there, that person that falls. You know, from that height into sin, but guess what? They come back up to that height. It's like when I was a kid, sat there on the bank, you know, with a cane pole and a line in the water with a cork bobbing there. You know, that fish had hit it, and if he didn't get on it and take it under, guess what? That cork was coming back. It's the same sort of thing. You want to use that as an illustration? The sinner's like the lead weight. He's never going to float to the top, you know? He may get pulled up, you know, if the pole is lifted up. But if he's put back in the water, he's going to sink. But that cork is going to float all the time unless it's pulled under. And occasionally we may fall into sin. But guess what? We're going to come back up to the surface. Why? Why is that? How can that be? What were we talking about this morning? Being kept by the power of God, right? That's what we're talking about. 1 Peter 1, verse 5. Turn over there with me. This is too important of a verse for us just to read it to you. 1 Peter chapter 1 and verse number 5. That's on page 894 in the Pew Bible. Andrew laughs at me when I do this, but I know I said verse number 5, but let's back up a little bit and read a little more of the context. Verse number three says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which, according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again into a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. What to? What have we been raised unto? An inheritance, verse number four says, incorruptible. Think about that, an inheritance, that's what? There's a corruptible inheritance, you know, that you could be corrupted and the next thing you know, you've lost it. You've lost your inheritance. Or your inheritance can be corrupted. It can be eaten up or stolen or whatever. But no, it's not what it says. It's an inheritance that's incorruptible. It cannot be corrupted. It cannot be taken away. It cannot be changed even. An inheritance that is incorruptible and undefiled. It can't be defiled. And that fadeth not away. Reserved in heaven for you. And verse five is what we wanted to read. Look there. Who are kept by the power of God. The Lord has a theme for us today, doesn't he? About us being kept. Kept by the power of God. Through faith, unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. Why does that court flip back up at the top whenever a person falls into sin? Why is he raised back to that place again? Because that's who he is. That's who he is. This is what John's saying. He doesn't fall into sin and remain in sin and he's lost. No, if he falls into sin, he comes out of that. He doesn't remain in that. I'm not saying that he can't commit that sin more than once. I'm not saying that it couldn't be something they struggled with for a long time, because it can. I've seen it. I've seen people go through that. But what I'm saying is, He's not going to remain there. And even while He's there, you know where He's looking? He's looking up. He wants out. He wants to be taken away. He wants this to be removed. He doesn't want to remain there. He's not saying to himself, oh man, I've got this sin here that I'm committing. I love this sin and I don't want to leave this sin. And you know what? Christ has died. It doesn't matter. I can sin all I want to. That's the problem. He doesn't want to. The Christian doesn't want to sin. And if he does, he wants to be free from it. That's what John is saying to us here. Speaking of Peter, we read first Peter, chapter one, verse five, you remember. What happened to Peter? Remember, the Lord said to Peter, you're going to before the cock crows, you're going to deny me three times. Peter said, there's no there's to himself and out loud, there's no way, Lord, I'll go to death with you. I'll be in prison with you. It's not going to happen. Long before that event took place, the Lord had told him that. But he also told him this in Luke 22, 31. He said, Simon. You know, that was Peter's name before, wasn't it? Simon, behold, Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you that your faith fail not. And when you are converted, strengthen. I'm calling you to strengthen your brethren. Strengthen your brethren. What did the Lord do? He prayed for him that his faith would fail not. What did the Lord do? He kept him. Who is the Lord? The shepherd. What was Peter? A sheep. He keeps all of his sheep. Not one of them is lost. So, here the concept again of being kept. We find God watching over, God taking care of, God keeping His eye upon Him, us. In John 17, 11, our Lord prayed, Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me that they may be one even as We are. All who are His, kept. None of them, lost. So, That being said... Keep your eyes upon the One who keeps you. Keep your eyes upon the One who keeps you. What was the psalmist doing in 121 this morning when we were going through that, talking about being kept by the power of God, being kept by the Lord, the feet of the saints being kept by Him? What did the psalmist say? I'll look unto the hills from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord who made heaven and earth. So, look unto the One who keeps you. That's what we're being told here. Look unto Him. Because that's really what the rest of this verse is saying, and that's as far as we'll get this morning, is just verse number 18. It talks about being begotten of God, being kept of God, and the wicked one touching you not. The wicked one touching you not. He keeps his own. We just have to point to Job, don't we? We've already mentioned him this morning. God kept him, didn't he? Now, some people look at Job and say, God did a pretty poor job of keeping him. Look at all the stuff that happened to him. God allowed those things to happen to him for a purpose, for a reason. It was for Job's good. Those things happen to what Job say, the Lord give it, the Lord take it away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. So we look at Job, Satan couldn't touch him until the Lord gave him permission. And then he couldn't take it. He could only do the things that the Lord allowed him to do. First took his possessions, then he took his health, but he couldn't take his life. Kept by the power of God. Before. You were converted, your life was a constant stream of any and all sin. but no longer. You are a slave to sin, but no longer. You are a willing participant of sin, but no longer. You are looking for every opportunity to enjoy sin, but no longer. Free from its bondage, free from its dominion, righteousness is your desire. God's will, His glory is what you seek in everything that you do. You may fall into sin, but you rise up out of it. You are not what you were before you came to Christ. If you're in him and the one born of God does not continue in that same pattern of life, it's not just some confession that he made and he went on living the same way that he did before. He didn't walk down an aisle, make a profession of faith, get baptized, you know, back here and then go on living the same life that lived before. There's a change that happens into it. If he truly is converted, his desire as a child of God is righteousness. His goal is God himself.