Good evening. Good to see you tonight and before I get started, let me just give you a word of thanks from Paula and I for the gracious way you've received us and spoiling us. We're going to be rotten. time we get back home and I won't be able to stand us back there. You have treated us like a king and queen and we appreciate it so much. Thank you for such a warm reception for the attentiveness that you've given to the word of God. That's that thrills us when we see that kind of rapt attention into the things of God. And these have been important things. We've been talking about the idea of how do we know that we have eternal life, how do we know that we know him? As John puts it, we've seen as we've gone through this and some of you may feel I feel like I'm just we just going around in circles. Well, good, you're paying attention because that's how John is writing. Remember, it's like we have this light that comes from heaven and hits this prism and splits into three components. We have the white, we have the red, we have the blue. I'm not going to test you once again on all of that, but you know, I mean by that purity of life, the moral test. We have one of the relationship tests, love of the brethren, and then we have the doctrinal tests, the love of the truth. Here are three vital signs that you have indeed spiritual life. Do you have these things in you? It indicates, as we've seen some seven times through this letter, that we are born of God. They that are born of God have these signs that they are, in fact, the children of God. And I hope that will help you as you examine. And again, we point out that's not typically the way we do it. We want to go back and talk to somebody. What did you really believe? Were you sincere when you believe? We want to go back to the beginning, and if you were born, I'm assuming you're still living, you're here, and so the way we know whether you're dead or alive is not to go back to the point of your birth, it's to check you right now for vital signs. It's what we would do with a fellow we found in the middle of the road. Is he breathing? You got a pulse? You know, check those signs. If he is, he's alive. And that's what we're doing. And again, I've had several comments and I do agree that there is a certain amount of spiritual depression that can come if we turn our eyes inward all the time. I don't know about you, but the old saying, take one look within and take a thousand looks at Christ. Oh, how true that is. And I liken that to the fact I'm still a heart patient and I got to go back soon as we get back to the Memphis area, go in and see my cardiologist. I don't particularly like that. It's not a pleasant thing, but it's necessary. But I don't go see him every day. But every now and then a checkup is necessary. And so it is for our spiritual health. How are we doing? Let me let's just be honest, if this thing we call salvation actually changes our life, can we detect that change in our hearts in our life? So we've been through this. And I said it's like the Protestant rosary here. You got the white bead. The red bead, the blue bead, and we've been through all those and the way it's laid out, you got a white bead, you got a red bead, you got a blue bead, a white bead, red bead. blue bead and then a final red bead. And so you're saying it feels like we're just going around and round and round. Well, yeah, we are. And that's how John is laying out. That's the structure of these middle three chapters. We've cycled through each of those, and that reflects that Eastern way of thinking. It's not the way we think in the West. It's not wrong. It's just different. We tend to think in straight lines. You start here, and by the way, Paul is a good example. You look at Paul's book of Romans. Paul really wasn't an Eastern man. Remember, he's from Tarsus in Asia Minor. He's out there in the Gentile world. He's out there where the Greek ideas are dominant. He's a Roman citizen. And he was educated in Jerusalem by Gamaliel. So here is a literally a cosmopolitan man. He's and you can see that he doesn't approach stuff like John does. You take the book of Romans. He starts here with your sin. With the justification, how does that happen? Sanctification, glorification. He just goes in a straight line, and I think that's why the book of Romans appeals to so many of us. It's very straightforward and logical. John just goes around in these, you know, he's going around the beads. But we come to this last chapter, chapter five, and you may notice it's very different. Did you notice that as the pastor read the text? All of a sudden in chapter five, it's like a reverse prism. You know, the light hit the prism and split into three components, and now it's like the prism is backwards, and those three components hit the prism, and they all come back together in one stream. So, in Chapter 5, we're seeing sort of what we saw in Chapter 1. We sort of finished these cycles, and we're now bringing everything back to a head, to a point. One of the things that has been very prominent is this idea of being born of God. It's not only prominent here, but of course, it's prominent in John's gospel. You know, his conversation, Jesus's conversation with Nicodemus about being born again. And John mentions it back there in the first chapter of that to those who receive Christ. He gave them power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name who were born. Not a blood or flesh nor the will of man, but of God. So this is a dominant theme in John. It's how he expresses what we express salvation and over and over again. Some seven times in this little letter we see this idea of being born of God. And typically you have. Let's look at this one here. Chapter 5 verse one right here under our nose. Whosoever believes. By the way, in Greek, were believed is in the present tense. That means it's a constant activity. OK, whosoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born in Greek. That's in the perfect tense. That means it happened and the effects go on. We have this Little running battle with the Armenians, you know, I'm out. How do you get born again? Well, they say, well, you get born again by believing. What John is telling us is no, you believe because you're born again. Let's don't mix up the cause and effect here. There is a school of thought among Calvinists, the primitive Baptist folks. I've had some dealings with them over the years. And one of the differences about that group and us, I say us, I'm assuming you're more or less on the same page I am, is that they believe that you could be born again a long time before you ever come to faith. In fact, one of the real problems in that circle is that you've sort of got to figure out if you're God's elect before you have a warrant to believe. Because if you're not his elect, you don't have anything to believe on him for. He didn't do anything for you anyway, so it wouldn't help you if you believed on him, OK? I spent the night with a fellow in West Virginia, back up there in the hills, who came out of that circle. And I asked him, I said, one of these things I've always wanted to know, how did you, how do you figure out you're God's elect? And he said, I don't know how it works elsewhere, but this is the way we do it here, that we tell people to go out into the woods And look at the knotholes on the tree. And when they see Jesus's face in the knothole, that is God revealing his son to them. That's their sign that they are the elect. And so now they can believe they're saved. I said, you've got to be kidding me. You go out in the woods and you stare at knotholes. He said, yeah, he said that's the way it works up here. Now I've talked to other primitive Baptist other places and that's not all the way the way it is, but notice that is a problem. You gotta figure it out which comes first, the chicken or the egg here. What this verse is telling you, just like all the other verses that the one who does righteousness is born of God, born of God. He doesn't do righteous to be born. He does righteousness because he is born. Those born of God love the brethren, they don't love the brethren in order to get born of God, they love the brethren because they are. And here you see the relationship of this new birth and faith very clearly in the Greek. You who believe this constant act of believing have been born of God. In fact, some of the translations will translate it like that. That's how the Greek verbs work here. So this is telling us that if we want to, and I must be very careful here, I don't think we can say that we separate faith from the new birth in time. In time, they're simultaneous. The moment you believe is the moment you're born again, and the moment you're born again is the moment you believe, else you have an absurdity of a born again non-believer or a believer who's not born again. You see, it's. Searching for an illustration here, you remember when Jesus told the blind man to go wash? Spittle off his eyes in the pool of Salome and when he did, he saw remember that miracle? Well, let me ask you which came first, the seeing or the healing. Well, they were simultaneous. The moment he saw was the moment he was healed, and the moment he was healed was the moment he saw, or else you have a healed blind man who still can't see, or a seeing man who hasn't been healed. You see, in other words, it's in time, it's simultaneous. But in logic, which produces the other, the healing produces the seeing. If he could see, he didn't need to be healed. And that's what we're dealing with here, that in time, the moment I believe is the moment I'm born again, and the moment I'm born again is the moment I believe. And yet, which comes first in logic? Which comes first in producing the cause and the effect? The cause is the new birth. The effect is faith. So that's why the confusion comes in, I believe, and he goes on to say, that everyone that loves him. Notice how all three of these streams that we've been tracing. So we're going around in circles. Notice how they all come together here in these first few verses of this last chapter. Notice the second half of verse one. Everyone that loves him that begot loves him also that is begotten of him. If you love the father, you're going to love the kids. Right, and so this is back to the love. That's that red bead, right? By this we know that we love the children of God and we love God and keep his commandments. We're back to the white bean. Verse 4, whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And remember earlier in Chapter 4, it is the fact that we believe the truth that overcomes the world, that greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. You have this ocean of the Holy Spirit that enables you to receive the truth and cleave to the truth. So you've got all three of these streams of thought that we have been tracing through this epistle now coming to a head here. Notice again, verse 5, who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God. It can all be phrased that believing on the Son of God includes all those three things. That's what I'm trying to say. All three of those things come together with this one statement that we believe on the Son of God. Verse six, and let me say that there are many difficult verses. In the Bible, a few here in first John, and I would like to be more certain of what they're saying than I am, but I think after studying this for years and I know I believe the truth because I believe about everything that's ever been written on this verse of hell, one position after the other. Uh, let's read it first and you'll see what I mean. Verse six, this is he that came by water and blood. Even Jesus Christ, not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the spirit that beareth witness because the spirit is truth. OK, you have this strange statement that he came by water and blood and not by water only, but by blood too. And then you have what is called the common comma Johanan. You do realize that there's a lot of controversy over verse seven, whether it actually belongs in the Greek text there. As far as I know, there's not one Greek text before the 14th century that has this verse in it. It was in the it was in the Latin Bible, but you remember Jerome. I don't know if you know this church history. Jerome was the guy that was tasked with the task of translating the scriptures from Greek into Latin so that the church could have a standard Bible to read. That translation was known as the Vulgate. It was after the idea of the vulgar language. Rather than it being Greek, it's into the vulgar language, the Latin, which Latin was spoken in the Roman Empire. This was the language everybody conversed in. Now language, the old saying is, Latin is a dead language, as dead as it can be. First it killed the Romans, now it's killing me. You know, those that have studied the language, that is their motto. But the point is, is that they needed a Bible. And everybody that knew a little Greek in the Roman Empire was trying to make their own translation. And they wanted an official Bible that they could all sort of standardize on. So Jerome translated the Vulgate. This verse wasn't in his Bible. because it wasn't in the text that were given to him to translate. At some point, it snuck in to the Vulgate. And then later on, you got it in the Vulgate, you don't have it in the Greek text until about the 14th century, and when Well, there's a lot of, oh me, I'm getting off track here. But I'm trying to give you some history about this verse. You begin to see the controversy. Is this really, is this really part of the inspired word of God or not? Was it inserted by man? I think it's true what the verse says, whether it was part of the original text. That's what I am very unsure of. My stand would be I don't see the evidence saying that it was, because of the fact that it was not in any of the older editions. Even Erasmus, who put together the first Greek text that was then used by people like Luther and others to translate into their local languages, his original Greek text didn't have this verse in it. However, everybody went to screaming because it's in the Latin Bible. Why is it in your Bible? And under pressure, he finally snuck it back in and they kept saying what he kept saying. You can just show me a Greek manuscript. It's got it in it. I'll put it in it. And sure enough, they got one. The ink was still wet, but they had one with this verse in it. So he put it in there against by protest. So anyway, you begin to see a lot of controversy about this. I'm not going to deal with that. I want to deal with the next verse and there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, the water in the blood. That's what ties back to verse 6. In other words, the whole the whole text here is as we're going to see in verse 9, God giving witness to his son. That's the context of this. And what we're seeing is back in verse six that there is a witness that Christ came by water and by blood and not by water only, but by blood also. And you say, what in the world does that mean? When you put two theologians in a room and you'll come out with about six opinions. That's true of this verse. The main schools of thought, one that Luther followed, is that this is talking about the Lord's table. This is the water and the blood. This is talking about partaking of what we call communion. That's a far stretch as far as I'm concerned, because why would you not mention the bread if you're talking about communion? You would think that would be an important part of this. But that was Luther's view. Calvin Calvin was sort of all over the map, but it seems that he majored. Do you remember this? The last thing that happened after the death of Christ was the soldier took the lance and pierced Christ's side and out came blood and water. Remember that? And so Calvin took that position. And by the way, that was my position for a long, long time. Is that this is talk? Well, let me put it in a poetic way. Augustus Toplady, you know his wonderful hymn Rock of Ages. Says, let the water and the blood from thy wounded side, which flowed be of sin. The double cure say from wrath. That's the blood and make me pure. That's the water. So this is speaking. Calvin said of a the dual cleansing. of Christ, the blood to cleanse us from the guilt of our sins, the water to wash away the presence and defilement of our sin. That sounds pretty good. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to fit the context. And later on, after studying this and staring at it and thinking through all the stuff, I think a better way of approaching it is to remember the historical situation. Again, we've been going back over this several times. There's this heretic there that's saying that Jesus, the man Jesus, was adopted at his baptism by the Christ and then right before his death, the Christ leaves him and the man Jesus was crucified. And that what John is referring to here is like bookends of Christ's ministry. The water referring to his baptism, where we have the witness of the spirit. Coming down to bear witness to who this is. This is God's son. And then at the end of his ministry at the cross, the witness of his blood. And the Holy Spirit bearing witness to that in not only the miraculous things that are happening around the crucifixion of Christ, but the fact of the resurrection. I mean, you do realize that the resurrection is God's stamp of approval on his own. What if Jesus had been crucified, buried, and he never came out of that tomb? What would you assume? You say, well, it didn't work. Whatever he was trying to do, it didn't succeed. The fact of Christ's resurrection is God's validation of it. And to use Paul's language over in Romans chapter one, that though he was of the seed of David, according to the flesh, he was declared to be the son of God. Notice the difference. He was made. According to the seed of David after the flesh, but he's declared to be the son of God. He didn't become the son of God, but he's declared to be the son of God. According to the spirit, Paul says, by the resurrection from the dead. What is he saying? This is God's validation that what Christ did was sufficient. This is his son. This is his servant who he sent in here to do this work. And the resurrection is God's validation of that. And so this view takes that the water and the blood are like the beginning and end of Christ's ministry. That is much more satisfying to me. It may not satisfy you at all. I'm sorry about that, but that's the that's the best I can do and why I think this is the probable explanation is this little phrase in here where he says he didn't come by water only. But by water and blood, because remember, this Corinthian Gnosticism was saying, oh yeah, we believe he came by water. That's when we believe the spirit came upon him, but they would have denied that he came by blood. Remember, they said that Christ left him before the cross, and so this would make it make sense why John is stating it this way, that it's not only his baptism. But it's also his death on the cross that this is the beginning and the end of his earthly ministry. That would make perfect sense. And that God's validation of that was by the Holy Spirit, both at the beginning and at the end of his ministry. I'm much more content with that explanation. I'm still I'm sort of like the physicists, they say, is light a particle or a wave? He said, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I think it's a particle. On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, I think it's a wave. And he said, well, what about Sunday? He said, on Sunday, I think about it. Well, that's where I am. I want to have a little time to think about it. But why I think this is important is because what we're leading into is what we see in verse nine. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater. For this is the witness of God, which he hath testified of his son. We have in my King James, I was listening as the pastor read. You've got the new King James. As you were reading, wording is a little bit different, but I've got three terms here in the next few verses. The word witness see that in verse nine testified or testimony there in the last part of verse nine down in verse 11. This is the record. My version says. Those three words to testify, to witness, the record, all three of the same word in Greek. You know, I've got three English words, translating one, and it's the word martyrion or martyria, verb form of the same thing. You sort of hear it here in that. What do you think that word means? We get our word martyr from it because that's how the connection was made. The one who bore witness to Christ most of the time paid for it with his life. He was martyred. But all three terms are identical terms, and they all mean to bear testimony, to give witness, to bear record to something. I got in trouble back at a conference several years ago about bringing up what I thought. I still think it's the truth. I'm saying, you know, you and I, we talk about going witnessing, but there's a real problem with that. Technically speaking, You can't do it. Of all the things Paul took the New Testament church to task for, he never accused them of not going witnessing. You say you don't mean we shouldn't go evangelize the lost. I didn't say that. You say, well, why do you say that we can't go witness because you're not qualified? You have we have back Memphis eyewitness news. Eyewitness. My friend, there ain't no other kind. Technically speaking, the only one who can bear, I mean, I saw enough Perry Mason when I was growing up to know a lot about law. And I know if a guy gets on the witness stand and they say, what'd you say? Well, I didn't really see it. I heard it from somebody. And immediately the guy stands up. I object, your honor, hearsay. You're not qualified to be a witness unless you're a firsthand witness. And remember, that's how this letter began, right? The things that we heard, the things we saw, we touched with our hands. That's what we're bearing witness of. What do you know of Jesus? I'm sure you can tell me a lot. If you've been in church, you know a lot of facts about Jesus. How do you know those things? Were you there? I wasn't. Well, I learned them, you know, well, maybe some of you say I learned them from my parents. I learned them at church. I heard my pastor teach. They said, well, how did he get to know him? Well, he heard another man. Who heard another man? Who heard another man and another man all the way back to a man who heard the apostles? Who heard it straight from Jesus? There the eyewitnesses. They were specially chosen by Jesus to be witnesses, eyewitnesses of his ministry, of his death, burial and resurrection, of the facts, which is like the skeleton on which the teaching of Jesus hangs. You and I weren't there. Were you there when they crucified the Lord? No. I wasn't. Well, how do you know this is so? And whose witness is this? I mean, what I'm saying, do you understand? Technically speaking, it's the apostles witness that we evangelize with. You say, well, I sure wish we had some of those guys around. You don't need to. You got their witness right here. We can testify of the change in our own life, in our own experience, but we are not qualified to be witnesses of Christ in that technical sense. Now, please don't take me to task. I'll slip every now and then say we need to go witnessing. And I know we use that term in a general way for evangelizing the lost, taking the gospel to them. But you understand what I'm saying. Technically speaking, the apostles. Were the witnesses. Witnesses of Christ, who is the living embodiment of the truth. He's not just one that brings light. He is the light, the light of the world. He just doesn't tell you how to find life. He is the life, as we're going to see in a few minutes. Where did he come from? And so this is what this is pointing out, that if we trace this thing that you and I believe, this thing we call New Testament Christianity, we trace it all the way back to its source. From your pastor to his pastor, all the way back to the apostles, all the way back to Christ, and finally, all the way back to God, this is what John is saying here. This is God testifying of his son. It's his validation of him. And if we receive the witness of man, the witness of God is greater. These were the instruments you see that God chose to use to give the truth to you and I. I mentioned the other day, I can't recall which message. That in John 17, when Jesus is praying, he prays for himself. He then prays for the apostles, and then he says, I pray for all of them who shall believe on me through their word. Get that. I like that, because that's me and that's you. If we believe on Jesus, it's not through our eyewitness testimony. It's believing their eyewitness testimony. That Christ chose them to for this very purpose. that you and I would believe on him through their witness. OK, are we clear on on this? And I think it is important that we sense. As I say, we in Baptist circles, we tend to downplay and diminish the role of apostles. Maybe it's because Roman Catholics make such a big deal of it. I don't know. But we need to be careful that we understand that they had a special peculiar role. They were handpicked by Jesus himself for this task. And remember when he met with them after his resurrection, what does he say? Ye shall be my witnesses. The witness doesn't normally put himself on the witness stand. Somebody else does. And man, did Christ put these guys on the witness stand in the book of Acts over and over and over again? Did they bear testimony of the things that they had seen and they heard? They heard it with their ears. Saw it with their eyes. They felt with their hands. So that's an important thing to grasp here. That's the way it's supposed to work. That's not a diminishing of you and I. It's simply an of the historical way this truth has arrived. This light has come to you and me. Okay, where were we before I was so rudely interrupted here? Notice again the importance of God's witness. Verse 10, he that believes on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. He that believes not God hath made him a liar, because he believes not the record, again the witness, that God gave of his Son. You said, well, I'd sure like to know what this witness is in a nutshell. Oh, I'm glad you asked your such an astute audience. You asked such wonderful questions because that's now what he's going to. He's going to give it to you in a nutshell. What is that witness? Give me the shorthand version. It's this. That God has given to us eternal life. In this life. Is any sign? And he that has the Son hath life. He that hath not the Son of God hath not life. Is that clear? Is that simple? How could you state it any more simply? Life is in Christ. And if you have him. You have life. But what does it mean to have him? How do I receive him? I said this morning that faith is nothing less than the sucking of the soul is how I receive. Over and over again, you see, you can illustrate this in the sense of Paul and I were in Paris earlier this year and we tried to go to the Lou. They wouldn't let us in. Anyway, it's the way the French are. But anyway, I've been there once before, saw the Mona Lisa. Amazing thing. I tell you, I wasn't all that impressed, but I was impressed by how much they said that thing's worth. I get impressed by money. Maybe not art, but money. Yeah, that's impressive. But let me ask you this. Did my looking at the Mona Lisa improve the painting? You know, it added value and worth and beauty to the painting. No. You see, the eye is a receptive organ. We can receive the beauty, but our eye doesn't contribute anything to the beauty. Got it? How about my ear? If I go listen to a Beethoven symphony, does my listening to the symphony improve the music? Not one iota, but it is through the ear that I receive the music. So it is with faith. It is the receptive organ of the soul. It's how I receive Christ. It doesn't add anything to it. It doesn't produce anything any more than my eye or my ear produces anything, but it is the means by which I can receive it. And so we find statements like the hearing of faith. Or that by faith, Moses saw him that is invisible. It is that you see the illustration here. It's my faith that I receive this thing. What what exactly am I receiving? Go to Romans 8 just a minute. I've realized we're jumping from John to Paul. Forgive me there. But let's jump over there for a moment. Romans 8. Here in Romans 8, Paul is describing two different classes of people. Romans 8, 5, for they that are after the flesh, mind the things of the flesh, they that are after the spirit, mind the things of the spirit. Now, this is not talking about spiritual Christians and carnal Christians and so forth. It's talking about carnal man, lost man, and saved man, spiritual man. Notice that's clear in verse 6, for to be carnally minded is death. Carnally minded is not being just immature or out of sorts, out of fellowship with God. It's death, in a state of death. But to be spiritually minded is life in peace. This is the difference between night and day, saved and lost. Because the carnal mind is at enmity with God, against God, for it's not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. I'm trying to get across to you, this is not just an immature, childish Christian. This is a lost person. But ye, says Paul, on the other hand, or not in the flesh, but in the spirit. If so, be look at this the spirit of God dwell in you. Now, if any man have not the spirit of Christ. He is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of Christ righteousness. I want you to examine the three ways he expresses this. It's the spirit of God. The spirit of Christ. And just Christ. Do you see that if the spirit of God be in you, if the spirit of Christ be in you, or if Christ be in you? May I point out this is not talking about three different things. This is talking about the same thing in three different ways. And so when we talk about Christ living in us, we're not talking about some little Jesus sitting in here. We used to have that track. I was talking brother Dale this afternoon. We reminiscing about our early days in the thing, and you know, they had the four spiritual laws and you had the little chair and Jesus sitting on the little chair in your heart and call that the little Jesus, you know. We're not talking about Christ physically indwelling us. But we're talking about the spirit of Christ. dwelling in us. There is something, as we have seen in the study of this letter, something in us, this ocean that keeps us in the truth, this seed. That doesn't let us go on in the pursuit of sin. There's something that has entered our life. Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. Who is the he that is in you? It's Christ, but it's not Christ bodily. It is Christ through his spirit that indwells our life. OK, go back to first John now. You see the importance of all that. And so it makes perfect sense to say, then, that he that hath the Son has life. He that hath not the Son of God has not life. That Christ is in union with us through his Spirit indwelling us. And as we're going to see, it's not only that he is in us, we are also in him. That is Paul's favorite term of describing a Christian. that you are in Christ. Some say that it's sort of like baptism also had not only what we think of, but the immersing of a cloth in dye, in water that has dye in it. If you want to dye the cloth, you dip the water, the cloth down in the water. And when you bring it out, you could ask yourself, is the water, is the dye in the cloth or the cloth in the dye? It's both. And so it is in the case of us that we have Christ indwelling us and we are dwelling in him. To use Paul's language again in 1 Corinthians 12, by one spirit we've all been baptized into one body, into the body of Christ. We've all been placed in him by the spirit and he indwells us by the spirit. So that we literally have, I should say literally, but not physically literally, spiritually literally. Am I confusing? It's real, but it's not tangible. You say, well, I can feel the spirit moving around in there. That's probably last night's pizza. If it's spirit, you can't feel it. There is no physical sensation, but the spirit does have effects of it indwelling us. That's what we've been dealing with. These effects that flow out of the presence of the spirit of Christ in our heart and in our life. Well, let's move on. Time is running out and we sort of look at a lot of things that seem to us to just be sort of thrown in here at the last minute. You ever pack for a trip, you got everything neat and nice, and then you get down to the last minute, you start throwing stuff in there. That's sort of how it feels when we look at what remains here of this text. But notice he talks about prayer in verse 13. or 14, that this is the confidence we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him. Prayer is a strange thing. I don't know if you've ever thought about it. On one hand, it's a very natural thing for us. In fact, you know, a lost man. You know, you put him in a plane about to crash, he'll pray. He instinctively will cry out to God for mercy. Yeah, we know what prayer is, but how it works is the most mysterious thing. And notice here that John is telling us that if we ask anything according to God's will. He'll hear us. And if he hears us, we will receive it. And this is telling us that in prayer we're not changing God's will. Our purpose in prayer is to pray according to the will of God. We are asking in the name of Jesus the very things that Jesus himself would ask if he were asking. You see the point? To ask in his name is to ask in his authority and his power, but also in accordance to his nature. The things that Christ himself Would I pray is one of the most mysterious things in trying to write down how exactly this thing works. But I am glad that God chooses to use this means I think it works like this. That God puts in my heart the desire to pray for the very thing that he desires to give. And so if you have a burden, we call it. that God has placed on your heart to pray for a certain person or an individual. It may just be. But the reason that that burden is there is because that is, in fact, God's will. And I say this because you'll find a number of cases in the Old Testament where this is the way it worked. Yet, Daniel, he's reading the book of Jeremiah figures out 70 years and we're supposed to be out of Babylonian captivity, right? And what do you do? He then begins to pray that they would be released, you know, forgive us of our sins and release us from this mess. Well, if you know that it's God's purpose to release you, why do you pray? And it's because God often chooses to use the means of prayer, the praying of his people in order to bring about his purposes. It's God cutting you and me in on the action. And so that's why prayer is so important. It's not you say, well, it doesn't matter if he's chosen to do this or he's going to say this person or not that way, you know. He responds to the cries of his people. OK, I hope that's an encouragement for your prayer life. And then verse 16, that's what I was hoping we could just sort of skip. 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, and I do not say that he shall pray for it. What in the world is he talking about? Now, you probably know the common explanation is we do have some cases of disobedient people in the New Testament that died. You know, even Christians, Paul said they're because of the disorder there at the Lord's table in Corinth. Some of you are sickly and weak. Some of them sleep. They've died. That this is God's chastisement of his children, that sometimes that chastisement is death. That could be, but I don't think that's what John is talking about here. My personal belief is he's talking about what elsewhere we call the unpardonable sin. And that that sin, without going into a lot of detail, is simply the sin of apostasy. It is the sin that John has witnessed happening there in Ephesus when this group under Serenthes left the apostolic testimony that they had been under. They undoubtedly had heard the witness, the true witness of God. They turned their back on that witness and went out into the world and basically invented their own gospel. And that this is the same thing that Jesus referred to in the Gospels as the unpardonable sin. And notice how John is saying, I want you to pray for your brother that sins. God will hear that prayer. He'll forgive it. I don't say you pray for these this sin. These who are heretics, these who have turned their back on the apostolic faith. Now, it's difficult just because everybody, somebody gets upset and leaves the church, doesn't mean they've committed apostasy. This is a denial by those who have been exposed to gospel light. It's the final thrusting away of that witness. And what he is saying is you are not under the responsibility to seek to restore them like you are to your fellow church member. When they fall, when they sin, pray for them, God will hear you. You can restore that lost brother. But these heretics, when they have turned their back on the gospel and turn finally and utterly away from it and gone out. You don't have that same responsibility towards them. That's my best understanding. And then verse 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. Now notice, I think this verse needs to be understood in relationship to the verses we just covered. As opposed to the heretic, now we're looking at the one who is begotten of God. And the language that is strange here is that the one begotten of God keepeth himself. Which, you know, there's a sense, I guess, in which that's true. We've got a risk is to guard to keep in Greek here is to guard themselves. But that seems very strange that we're guarding ourselves. And so there is a couple of other interpretations that he says he that is begotten of God. Is, in fact, not referring to you and I, but referring to Jesus. The Good Shepherd, the only begotten Son of God, keeps him. That's possible, and then I've read some Greek scholars that say, well, there is a idiom in Greek that could say this. We know whosoever born of God doesn't sin, doesn't sin that sin that we just talked about, but. The one begotten of God, God keeps him, they say that's permissible. I don't know which is preferable, but it seems to me that the whole point here is that Christ, the good shepherd, is going to keep his sheep. These people who left the fellowship and went out into heresy. They may have claimed to have been Christians, but they never were of us, says John. They were never Christ's sheep. He left them go. But his sheep he will never let go. Remember when Peter denied the Lord? I mean, Peter did about what Judas did, not for money, but you know, he crumbled under the pressure, swore an oath that he didn't know him. I'd like you, wouldn't you like to? No, I don't want to be a fly on the wall. Imagine that, swearing an oath that he never, he doesn't know this man. Utter denial of Jesus, and yet remember that Jesus said, Peter, Satan's about to sift you like wheat. He's about to put you through the mill, through the wringer. Nevertheless, when you're restored, go and strengthen your brethren. And why? He says, Peter, I prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not. What's the difference between Peter and Judas? Peter had a Savior praying for him. That's the difference interceding for him. And that's what we have. We who are born of God, we have a Savior who not only saves his sheep, he keeps his sheep and no one can pluck them from his hand. And that is our confidence in our assurance of final preservation. Notice in verse 19, we know that we are of God in the whole world lies in wickedness. There's that binary thinking. We're in light. The world is in darkness. It pervades this book, and so we know that the Son of God is come. He's given to us understanding that's the light 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. Notice the emphasis on true true. It means the real deal. Coke is the real thing. Y'all old enough to remember that commercial. It's the real thing. It's not the vape, because that's what's going on in Ephesus. You've got this fake Christ that's being preached. You've got this fake gospel. You've got this fake church. We know that we believe the real deal, the true God. And the true eternal life. And then out of nowhere, where did this come from? Little children keep themselves from idols. It's like this out of the blue. Here comes this notion of what is an idol. It's a false God, a false conception of God, a false system of worship of God, right? And where did the idol come from? You say, oh, they made it with their hands or they molded in. It came from right here. It came from man's imagination. He thought it up. Where is the true religion come from? Up there, Jesus said, I'm from above, you're from beneath. It's a heavenly message, a heavenly revelation, and any other false. Religion. A false gospel, a false Christ is nothing more than an idol. Produced by the imagination of man's mind, somebody thought it up. You look at these cults, somebody thought it up. I don't know where they got it could be demonic. Some of them, you know. Joseph Smith said the angel Moroni came and told him, showed him where the book was. Even Mohammed said the angel Gabriel came and told him, I'm no doubt that there is demonism behind much of this false religion. But the point is what John is saying, anything other than the true gospel is nothing more than an idol. And little children, keep yourselves from idols. Stay in that which is true. I hope this has helped you. I hope it's clear, number one, and clear according to the word of God, and that it would be helpful to you in the days ahead to take stock of where you are in your Christian walk. That in some cases, when I go get a checkup, my cardiologist says, this doesn't look too good right here, you know, that we would see warning signs. If things are not what they're supposed to be, that we can take corrective action. That we can seek to put ourselves back on track, as it were. May we all. Cast ourselves ultimately on the mercy of God in Jesus Christ. I've got enough sermons I've preached to send me to hell. Enough air in them. I've got I need to repent of my praying. I don't trust. What is it the song song says? The sweetest frame. But holy lean. On Jesus name. And yet that faith has evidences. And I need to face facts or those evidences to be seen in me. May God bless you. May help you. People would come to me as pastor and want me to give them some assurance. And you say, number one, I can't do that. God gives assurance. The Spirit of God who cries out Abba Father within us. That's where our assurance comes from. You're asking me to do the work of God and I can't do that work. But may God give you that assurance if you're truly his. And if you're not, I pray that you would come to Christ, that you would seek him with all your heart. I don't find one case where anybody ever came to Jesus crying for mercy that didn't get it. Do you? Pass me not, O General Savior. While on others thou art calling, do not pass me by. Let's pray. Father, may you help us as we work our way through this wonderful little letter. Lord, wonderful things here, deep things, hard things in some cases to understand, but help us to wrap our minds around it. Illuminate our soul with your truth. That we might order our steps by him. That we might comprehend what you have done for us in the Lord Jesus Christ, sending him to be that wrath absorber. Sending him to shed his blood, that that blood might cleanse our guilt. The condemning voice of conscience. and satisfy your offended justice. Lord, may we find our hope in Him. May You help us as we walk this pilgrim walk to order our steps and to walk as Christ walked in our daily life. Bless us in the days ahead. Keep us by Your grace and mercy, by Your power. May we have assurance. May we have confidence. That greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world. And that by that power we shall surely overcome and persevere to the end. In Jesus name I ask you, Amen.