So refreshing to be here and hear the prayers and sing these songs with the people of God. A little foretaste of what the world to come will be like. All week long, we have to hear the rattling of the world, the negative stuff, false stuff. We always have to be on our guard. Isn't it refreshing to be with the people of God, with those who love Him? that are forever failing. And thank you for the excellent scripture reading, the music this morning, it's all been very, very edifying. Father, we come to you this morning once again to pray that you will enable us to look to you, past the speaker, the flaws of the speaker, the infirmities of our flesh, May we have a glimpse of you this morning and of eternal truth that will feed us. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Way back in more than a hundred years ago, there was a best-selling book entitled, The Christian Secret of a Happy Life. by Hannah Whitehall Smith. Anybody heard of the book? If you've heard of it, let me see your hands. It's gonna be before your time, but it's sold millions of copies. And believe it or not, you can still Google it and get a copy of the book, The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life. But Mrs. Smith, who lived from 1832 to 1911, lived anything but a happy life. a little history lesson for you here today. Her book, Essential Messages, Keswick, K-E-S-W-I-C-K, theology, which is entire surrender or entire abandonment theology. And their favorite slogan was, let go and let God. Let go and let God. What most people don't know about Hannah was that she and her husband had anything but a happy life. The Smith family, I'm reading a little section here, experienced a series of sad events, including the following. At the height of his success as the higher life revivalist, Robert fell doctrinally and morally, doctrinally and morally, nearly destroying the entire Keswick movement. Robert and Hannah's deteriorating marriage declined even further. Hannah's intense feminism and independence, Robert's manic depressive nature, they didn't call it that then, they didn't have all these big words, and Robert's persistence in unrepentant adultery, we got words for that, all contributed to a very unhappy marriage. Robert later apostatized, that is, he took a stand away from the truth and became an agnostic. You know, agnostic is supposed to be a person who knows, a knower. Agnostic means you can't know. There may be a God, may not be a God, but he took that position of uncertainty about whether, much like Mugger to reason about whether he even is a God. Hannah also apostatized, the one who wrote the book. She lost interest in the higher life, rejoined the Quakers in 1886 and embraced universalism and religious pluralism. That is everybody goes to heaven eventually. That Jesus died to save everyone and everyone will eventually be saved. Some of them went so far as to even say the devil will be saved ultimately. which is so contrary, so contrary description. But yet her book continues to sell, Christian Secret of a Happy Life. Now, frankly, I ain't interested in reading that book. I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to, my wife cringes every time I say ain't. I do know better, I don't talk that way. I don't know why I did it when I'm free. I'm gonna have to pay her a dollar every time I use the word from now on so that it breaks me of the habit. but I'm not interested in reading the book. If that's what it produced for those people that hawk this stuff. And by the way, the whole idea of letting go and letting God, just relax. There's nothing for you to do. Just let God rule your life and everything will just flow. That's not the language of scripture. We're told to fight, cast down, struggle to make your calling and election sure. Mortify the deeds of your body on the earth. Man, that's a war, we're at war. It's not just let go and let God. Man, if I let myself go, I can tell you, run me over a cliff pretty quick. We're not supposed to let go. We're supposed to cleave to the Lord with purpose of heart. I could find you verses all day long that talk about how we're supposed to labor to enter into that rest, that blessed rest. Having said all that, there is an abundant life, just not what she said it was. And her husband said it was. It didn't work for them. It never worked for anybody else. But what we find in 1 John will work. What God says will work, will work. There is such a thing as an abundant life. Jesus said, John 10, verse 10, I am come that they might have life. and have it more abundantly. Now, frankly, that does not mean the American dream. It does not mean lots of money. The apostles said, if in this life only we have hope, we're of all men most miserable. We don't have anything. Jesus said, didn't have a place to lay his head. So it's not about material money. 1 Timothy 6, godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment, let us be there with content. If we know Jesus Christ and have peace of heart and conscience and assurance of hope, I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. That's the abundant life, friends. That's what the abundant life is. It's a victorious life, no matter what the circumstances externally may be. So abundant living is an assured living. By the way, that's the reason for 1 John. He's assuming that his readers are Christians. 1 John is not written to tell people how to be safe. It's written to tell, to give people assurance that they're safe. First John chapter five again, and this is the record, martyria, this is the testimony that God has given to us eternal life. And this life is in his son. He that hath the son has life, and he that has not the son of God does not have life. And if you have Jesus friends, all things are yours. You've got to make. You're going to have to go through this season like Jesus did, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has set it down at the right hand of God. He looked, Jesus saw the cross. He saw how painful that was going to be. He dreaded that. He swept drops of blood in the garden. He was a man after all. But he looked through that to what was on the other side. That's how he endured. Now friends, that's how we have to endure. We have to look through the suffering of this life to what's on the other side that will enable us to get through this unscathed. If we have that vision of our home in Christ forever. By the way, I've said this before, but I guess it doesn't hurt to repeat it. Everything you see is yours anyway. We don't get it just yet. We are joint heirs with Christ. Now think of that. You know what a joint heir is? It's somebody that gets an equal share. Everything that Jesus inherits for eternity, we inherit. All things are yours. You are Christ. Christ is God's. It all belongs to you. That's why Satan was not successful to tempt Jesus. If you fall down and worship me, he showed him all the kingdoms of the world at a moment of time. If you'll just get off this idea of going to the cross, worship me, I'll give you all this. Jesus said, no, thank you. It was his anyway, but he had to wait for it. It all belongs to us, everything. everything, eternal riches beyond your wildest dreams. Eternally, not just for a short period of time, forever and ever and ever and ever. So we ought to be able to endure some junk along the way, right? By his grace, we endure, we see past, we see through our present time of suffering. Abundant living is assured living, Hereby we perceive the love of God, 16 through 19, because he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. That means I gotta go die for people? Probably not. But if you see your brother with a need and you shut up your bowels of compassion for him, if you don't give him the things James says, needful for the body, if he's hungry, How dwells the love of God in you? We can't just say I love you and give each other a hug on Sunday. There has to be a giving component. I not only love you, I care for you. Whatever your need is, I'm gonna try to meet that need as best I can. It's gonna cost me. It's gonna cost me, but it's worth it. My brother's success, my sister's success is also my success. We're one body. When one member of the body suffers, we all suffer with it, do we not? I told somebody, you know, if you have a, let's say you sprained your wrist, and it's painful, maybe it's broken. And you never think to yourself, you know what, this is just a nuisance, I'm just gonna cut it off. It never, that never occurs to you. All of a sudden that wrist is the center of your life. You put it on a pillow, you go see the doctor, you inject things in it. That wounded member is the center focus of your life. That's how the body of Christ is supposed to work. If we have a brother or a sister who's hurting, we're hurting. and we're gonna try our best to fix that. We baby it, we put it on a pillow, we sing songs to it. Whatever we have to do, we wanna get that thing working again, right? But whoso hath this world's good and sees his brother have need and shuts up his bowels or his compassion from him, how does the love of God dwell in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him. Loving other people doesn't give us eternal life, but it confirms to us that we have it. I do have a changed nature. That's not me by nature. I'm not naturally that concerned about what happens to Matt. Sorry, Matt. Or Jacob. I'm not naturally, by nature, I'm concerned about me and mine. But when God causes you to be born again, suddenly you have a capacity. Now I am concerned. I do care. Christ in me. That new spirit really does care what happens to my brother and my sister. We've all been groaning this week with Sierra. We all feel that, that's us. That's not just them, that's us. We know we're of the truth because that's true of us. We do care and shall assure our hearts before him. So today we see that abundant living is also confident verses 20 and 21. I may not get further than this, we'll see. If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart condemns us not, then we have confidence toward God. Now here's where it gets a little tricky. Conscience, our heart in this case is our conscience. If we feel that we are living right, and we perceive that we really do care for others, sometimes we doubt that, right? We are not sure. And our heart condemns us because our behavior is less than perfect. If I were to add, I want to see a show of hands, everybody whose behavior has been perfect this week, raise your hand. That's just what I thought. I can't raise mine either. And our heart can condemn us. It can destroy our assurance. It can't give us assurance, but it can sure weaken our assurance. By the way, where's that folder I brought you, the blue folder? Is there anybody that did not get a copy of this paper? That's just an empty folder. Who took my other? Pass it up now. Who took the other blue folder I brought this morning? Where's Steve? I suspect he's the culprit. Anyway, if you did not get a paper on insurance that I handed out, please see Steve after the, after the sermon today, get a copy of that, because it covers the whole gamut of this. But there's nothing more tormenting than wondering if you're safe, right? When I was a young Christian, ah, thank you, Kelvin, man of the hour. If you need a copy of that, Kelvin would give it to you. Raise your hand if you didn't get it. Hey, all right. Read that at your leisure, not while I'm preaching, okay? If our heart condemns us, if our conscience causes us to doubt our salvation, remember God is greater than our heart and knows everything. He knows you're trying to get it right, even though you haven't. We're not good at introspection, navel gazing, analyzing yourself. We're not very good at that because we're flawed in our perceptions. That's why I like David's prayer in Psalm 139, 23 and 24. where he says, search me, O God. I'm not gonna search myself and try to figure out if I'm on safe ground. You search me, God, and know my thoughts. Try me and see if there's anything wicked in me and lead me in the way everlasting. And if God doesn't bring anything to you, now see the reason introspection is dangerous. If you start saying, let's see, am I living right or not? Am I self-sacrificing toward my brothers enough? Or am I really saved? Satan will slip right in there and accuse you of all kinds of stuff. He's a liar. He'll magnify everything you've ever done or said wrong. He'll drag you through the calls. We've all been through that. So self-examination is always risky, but this prayer, you search me, oh God, you know my heart, you know what I'm trying to get right, you know me, test me and know my thoughts and you see if there's anything wrong in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Now that's a good prayer, that's a good prayer. That's much safer than self-examination. because God is greater than our heart and he knows everything. And if our heart condemn us not, that is if we have that sense, by the grace of God, by the grace of God, I am what I am. Though not perfect, I've never claimed to be perfect. By the grace of God, I'm a sincere believer. And everything I am and have is at God's disposal. then we have confidence. If you have that, you have assurance, you have confidence in your prayer. I expect, like Monday morning's my prayer time, I go out to Munger Point Park and trot around and pray for all y'all, for the president, governor, the mayor of Virginia Beach, everybody I can think of that's in my orbit of concerning. and I expect my prayers to be answered. If my conscience is not tearing me up about something, I expect my prayers to be answered. So should you. When you stand praying, forgive if you have against any and believe that you have what you, and you shall have it, Jesus says. It's good authority. So if, Our heart condemn us, that's not the final, it may be that we're not condemned, it might be just bad thinking. God is greater than our heart, he knows. But if our heart does not condemn us, if we have a clear conscience. By the way, I wanna digress a minute, talk about conscience. Your conscience is extremely important to you. Everyone who lives has a conscience, we're born with it. but your conscience may not be programmed right. Your conscience may be under-programmed. I see people all the time doing things that are absolutely forbidden in scripture, and they have no conscience about it. I told you about the little boy down the street from us, little Joey, that used to go down the front yard, he says, oh God, oh God, Every time he said it, I just cringed. And finally I called him over, just a little kid, I said, look, you shouldn't speak God's name like that carelessly. He said, I didn't mean anything by it. I said, I know. That's what taking God's name in vain is, using the name of God in any manner when you don't mean anything by it. Don't you dare speak the name of God if you don't mean something by it. Don't you dare. That's sin. But they have no conscience because they never heard that. They never read the 10 commandments. Their parents didn't teach them anything. I could go on about some things in our culture that people are just blatantly ignorant of. They do horrible things. Clearly, they never read the Old Testament. It's obvious that most people never read the Old Testament. But God hadn't changed any. If he hated it in the Old Testament, guess what? He still does. Homosexuality, for example. God hated it. It was an abomination to him in the Old Testament. So when did God get converted? When did he change his opinion about that? He hasn't. He hasn't. Adultery. Oh, well, just a little peccadillo doesn't mean anything. Oh, contraire, yes, it does. Oh, yes, it does. Staying pure until you're married. That was always important to God, and it still is. It still is. He has not changed. He's merciful, but he hasn't changed. Unless that's repented of and comes under the blood of Jesus Christ, there'll be hell to pay for that. or violating the clear commandments of God. So, but a conscience can be under-programmed so that it's faulty. Remember this lady in Damascus, Syria that used to attend our church, and she was a Muslim and had this little crescent around her neck. I said, Mrs. Bitar, I'm kind of curious why you as a Muslim like our church. She says, oh, we love Christians. You hate the Jews and we hate the Jews. I said, no, Mrs. Bethar, no, we don't hate the Jews. See, her conscience was that if you're a good God-fearing person, you hate the Jews. And that's why we parents have to be so careful that we teach our kids what God says is right and what God says is wrong because he never changes. Then there's a problem with the over-programmed conscience. My grandmother had not only 10 commandments, she added about 30. Like reading newspapers on a Sunday was one of her things. One time she caught me in there looking at the funnies on Sunday, reading the funnies in the newspaper. She was aghast. Reading that newspaper on Sunday, good grief. And she really put the fear of God in me about that ever since. I'm not saying I never did it after that. But I always felt guilty every time I did it. I did it after that. And there are people like that. So-and-so drank wine. Oh, for heaven's sakes, oh my goodness, he's going to hell for sure. Now friends, the scripture really doesn't say that. I'm sorry. That is just the sign of a weaker brother. And we should be careful not to offend, not to make people stumble. But even the priests in the Old Testament were allowed to drink wine, not while they were serving, but they could drink wine any other time. Jesus, he didn't turn water into grape juice. He turned water into wine. A little wine, Timothy, for your stomach's sake. Now I respect, if people are, if their conscience will not permit them to do it, God bless them, I'll leave them alone. One man esteems one day above another, another man esteems every day alike. Everyone has to be fully persuaded in his own mind. But hopefully that mind is a mind trained by scripture, not by grandma. Is your mind of what constitutes right and wrong? Is it programmed by scripture or by your grandmother? That's a good question, isn't it? Jesus said, it's not what you eat that defiles a man. You didn't wash your hands when you ate. The Jews are mortified. What? You didn't wash your hands when you ate? He said, it's not what goes into a man that defiles him. It's what comes out of a man, out of his heart. That's what defiles the man. It's what you think in your heart. It's not what you eat or drink or don't eat or don't drink. That doesn't make you better or worse. Can I get an amen? So abundant living is confident living. If we feel good about ourselves, It helps our prayer life. It helps our morale. It makes us more joyful. It makes people say, whatever you got, I want some. If they see us living confident, happy lives, not Hannah Smith's version, but the scriptural version, they see us loving each other, walking in the light, confessing our sins, getting back up again, being happy and hopeful for the future. By the way, when we do get defiled by sin, I wanna read you a passage. For if the blood of, this is in Hebrews chapter nine, the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh. It's going back to the Old Testament showing the rituals they went through to cleanse themselves, to be clean. If the blood of bulls and goats, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? It's not our confessing our sins that gives us forgiveness, it's the blood of Jesus Christ that forgives our sins. The sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ when we come together having our bodies washed with pure water and our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience. Now I have to get my conscience sprinkled frequently. Say, Lord, I have sinned. There's no question about it. I said what I shouldn't have said. I had a bad attitude yesterday. I missed a golden opportunity to speak well. I've sinned in omission and commission. But I believe that your blood cleanses me from all sin. And it does. When we believe that, all that sin is put away. God says, I'll remember it no more. As far as the East is from the West, he removes our transgressions. Now we can't forget other people's sins. I wish we could. When someone really hurts us, it's almost impossible for us to forget. I mean, we choose not to dwell on it, right? We don't dwell on it. We don't stay angry about it, hopefully. but we really can't forget it. But God says, I'll forget it. Now, Fred, I heard this story about a guy and he fussed at his wife in the morning. He just had a bad fuss at her. Now, I know none of y'all know anything about that. And he said, oh God, please forgive me. I was on my way one morning out to pray, way out at Sandy Bridge. And Sandy and I had a spat. And this is my priority, I'm going out here to pray. And it dawned on me about halfway to Pungo, I can't pray. How am I gonna pray when my wife and I are having a spat? Now, that was the days of the payphone booths. They had one right at the corner out there by the Texaco station for the post office. So, ah, there's a phone booth. Ding, ding, ding. Hi, Sandy. I'm sorry. Babe, please forgive me. I shouldn't have run my mouth this morning. She said, I forgive you. Then I was able to go pray. But if you have unconfessed sin in your life, you're not praying, not to God. Your conscience has to be clean if you're gonna talk to God, right? Or the first thing you better be talking about is your sin. Isaiah the prophet, In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. And the smoke filled the temple of the Lord. I saw the Lord high and lifted up. And these beings say, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory. Talk about a vision of the, And by the way, that's Christ. The New Testament says that was Christ he saw. As Isaiah said when he saw him, it says in the gospels. So Isaiah saw the risen Christ and all these being, these cherubim saying, holy, holy, holy. And God's never repented even what I think was, they covered their feet, they covered their eyes. God is so holy, the angels couldn't even look on it. But they said they could see what we could not, and they said, holy, holy, holy. I think it means they were able to see the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Holy, holy, one God, three persons, holy, holy. Then what did Isaiah say? I said, woe is me. When you see Christ, when you see Christ in his glory, a vision of Christ, you immediately realize how far short you come of that part. And I come. I am a man of unclean, Isaiah was a priest. He wasn't a lady's man. He wasn't a gambler. He wasn't an adulterer. He wasn't a murderer. He wasn't a thief. He honored his father and mother. Isaiah was a good Jew, good Jew. He was a priest, but he had to say, Lord, I am a man of unclean lips. For mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. When you see Jesus, it shows you what a contrast there is between him and you. So God takes a tongue and takes a coal from off the altar and touches Isaiah's lips and cleansed him and then calls him to go preach. Now, if one burning coal from off that altar that burns sacrifices that pointed to the Lamb of God, the great sacrifice of God. If one coal from that could cleanse Isaiah's lips, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from an evil conscience to serve the living God. So while we think about the awfulness of our sins of omission and commission, Think about the marvel, the power of the blood of Christ to forgive that sin. Far greater than our sin, His mercies are more. His mercies are greater than our sins. As far as the East is from the West, He's removed our transgressions from us. And now friends, that's not just good news, that's hilarious news, and that's the gospel. And by the way, for the benefit of some of you young folks that may not have thought about this, John does not, he's writing to Christians, my little children, 11 times he says this. He's not telling them how to be safe, he's telling them how to know that they're safe. So I wanna take you a minute over to Romans chapter nine and close this about how to be safe. Paul says, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, You don't have to go up to heaven to find out the answer to this. You don't have to wait till after you die or have a vision going into heaven to figure it out. You don't have to go down into the deep. It won't become clear to you after you die. But the word is very near you in your heart and in your mind that if you will confess with your mouth, the Lord Jesus, the Lord, he's God, Jesus, he's a man. If you will confess with your mouth, the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God the Father has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart, man believeth unto righteousness, if it's only a head belief. Yeah, I guess it's true. My parents have taught it to me. Okay, I buy it. If it's only a head belief, it won't change the way you live. But if it's a heart belief, if it's a heart belief, it must change the way that you live. First John confirms this over and over again. It will make you love your brothers. It will make you hate sin. It will make you confess your sins. You'll be so miserable until you do, you can't stand it. It will give you hope for the future. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. There are no secret disciples. If you're ashamed of Jesus in this life, he's gonna be ashamed of you in the world to come. Now that's a frightening thought, isn't it? Well, by the grace of God, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It is my only hope of salvation. It's nothing I can do, have done, am doing, ever will do. None of that can save me. Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe, and I freely confess him with my mouth. Before Christians, where it's comfortable to do it, and I'm also making a confession before anybody else I get a chance to talk to. I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It is my hope. It is real. The world is false. The world's full of lies. So let me ask you this. Have you believed in your heart that God raised him from the dead, that he delivered him for your offenses and raised him again for your justification that was your sin on that cross punished? It's your resurrection to walk in newness of life. That's what your baptism says. We're buried with him in baptism. and we're raised again to walk in newness of life. If you believe that from the heart then, you believe it will change the way we live. It has changed, has it not, the way we live. And confession is made unto salvation. So especially I wanna ask you, you children, you young people, is it your parents' belief or is it yours? There has to come a time when you say, I believe Jesus died for my sins, who was buried in Rosinghead. I believe Jesus. Have you confessed him with your mouth and then been baptized accordingly? We're baptized to walk in newness of life, not perfection yet, but perfection in the making. We will be like him. when he appears, for we will see him as he is. And our Father, thank you today for allowing us to have this time to consider the high price of our salvation, not by our miserable works, which even at best is altogether vanity, but to put our hope and faith in the one you sent into the world, to live a perfect life, now imputed to our account, and to die a horrible death in payment for our sins, and raised again, not for his own justification, but for all of ours, that we are raised with him, we are crucified with him, buried with him by baptism into death and raised to walk in newness of life. I pray for this group, this little faith, Reformed Baptist Church. I thank you for the sincerity that I sense in this group. all these bright young people, and I pray, Heavenly Father, that we will walk in that newness of life, that assured, confident, so that our prayers, we always know that our prayers are being answered. In Jesus' name, amen.