Amen. Well, it's a joy of the Lord to be back today. This morning service, this morning hour, when we can meet around his word. It's such a joy to know the Lord. Amen. And I'm glad you have come for this hour. And I believe God has something for everyone that's here. You just obey him. Do that, God will have us too. these times. Now I'll be speaking tonight will be the last night service and I'll be speaking during the meeting. During the morning services I'm going to be speaking the book of 1st John. I've been prayer and waiting before God about what he wanted for this meeting. I thought about a lot of things. Numerous things, I could have brought different books, different series of different things, but when everything was settled, God wants this particular book given. I'll not be able to give the entire book of John during these days, there's five chapters in the book of 1 John, but I do want to give four messages that I feel God would have to be brought during this conference. Now I'm not going to give a lot of preliminaries in order to get right down to the business. If you was going to a Bible school you might be interested in when it was written and all of the historical backgrounds and all of this and they are important. But the most important thing of any book is to see God and see the way that I feel that God wants us to approach the book of 1 John. I want you to open your Bibles there, and I'm going to read the first five verses. That's all I'm going to use today, just the first five verses of the book of 1 John. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the word of life. For the life was manifest and we have seen it bear witness and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifest unto us. That which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us. And truly, our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ. This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declaring to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. I'm going to stop there and tomorrow I'm going to talk about the rebuke of the fellowship. Today I want to speak on the reality of the fellowship. the reality of the fellowship. Tomorrow, the Lord willing, I'll speak on the rebuke of the fellowship. Now, the book of 1 John was written by the beloved John. John wrote the book of John. And he said, I wrote this book, and I wrote this unto you, that ye may have life. And that's what he has to do with. It's the book of life. And it's not just some dead kind of life, but I mean it's reality in God. Then when you come to the epistle of John, the first epistle of John, he said, I wrote this book unto you, that you might know that you have life. Then he wrote the two other epistles and finally after being boiled in oil, the book of the revelation. So that's what we'll say about him as far as his authorship of the book. The thing that's important about any book of the Bible is actually God is the final authority and the final author. God's the author of the book of Genesis through the book of the Revelation. And so, the book of 1 John is actually divided into two sections. The first two chapters of the book of 1 John has to do with our fellowship. The last three chapters of the book of 1 John has to do with our sonship. And we can test our lives through this book to find out whether or not we are in the fellowship or whether we are out of the fellowship. We can test our lives in this book to find out whether or not that we are in the sonship of Christ or whether we are outside of the sonship of Jesus Christ. Beloved, there is nothing as knowing that you are in this fellowship. There is nothing as glorious and joyous as knowing that you are members of the sonship of Jesus Christ. I mean, it's beyond words. It's wonderful. Now, when you come to the fellowship, it's a matter of light and darkness, actually. And when you come to the sonship, it's a matter of life and death. See? It's a matter of whether you're walking in the light, that determines whether you're in the fellowship or not. And then, when you check your life to see whether you have life or whether you're dead in trespasses and sin, that has to do with whether you're in the sonship of the Lord Jesus Christ or not. My friend, There's not any doubt that a person that is in the fellowship of Christ has the reality of God. A person that is in the sonship of Christ has the reality of God. I will ask the question and then I want to answer this question. And then I'm going to come to the three things that I want to share. Why do you suppose that we have so little reality in most of our fundamental churches? That's the question. The answer to that question, I believe, is this. That we have people that are retained in our fundamental churches, that are sincere in all respects, that are devoted in many respects, They're faithful in a lot of respects, but they know not Jesus Christ. Salvation is unreal to them. The only thing they have is a form of godliness. The only thing they have is a line of religion. They don't know Jesus. That's sad. They'll never know Him unless He reveals Himself to them. You just well to face it. God is in control. God is in authority. And He's the one that must reveal Himself to any of us, to our children, our families. And we ought to be very careful how we deal with matters in this life. even us that are Christians, and how we walk with God. Now I want to share today three things in the book of 1 John that I believe will let you know whether you are in the reality if you face it. If God sends the light like he can, or the fellowship or not. Number one, I want you to know that the reality of the fellowship, it is a reality of life. The reality of life. And this is found in the scriptures. Here in the first two verses he talks about the reality of life. Now, you have the word manifest five times in the book of 1 John. This was a word that John The Beloved Loved. He used it many times. The word manifest. Now as God manifests this reality of life, He manifests this through these five ways. First of all, in 1 John, in 4 and verse 9, turn your Bible down please. It is a reality of life because it is manifest by love. 4 in verse 9, the Bible said, in this, laws manifest or made known the love of God. toward us because that God sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him. Now God, first of all, one way that we can know that we have the reality of life is the fact that God manifested his love, first of all, to us. But this love don't stop with us, for loving. Only that I can be assured, from this book, that I have the reality of true life, that is divine life, that comes from God, is for that divine life not only to be shown to me of God, but also to work in my own personal way toward others. Now you say, well, Preacher, I've got that symptom, I've got that character in my life. Well, now, really have you? It's no problem for me to love anyone that's kind and gracious to me. It's no problem for me to love someone that stands true in the church that I pastor. I have no problems with that. I mean, I could love them if I didn't even know God. Because if I just had religion at heart and made it then, I could love what they're doing with a humanistic type of love. But it would not be genuine. There would be no reality of it as far as life is concerned. But see where our test comes in, in this situation here, can I love the man that is raising up himself against the gospel? I don't love his way. My friend, there's a genuine love that flows from my soul. If I really walk with God that'll make me hide in the prayer closet before the God of heaven that's on the throne and thrust myself at his feet and say, God, if you'd change him, he'd be a different person. Amen. My friend, you can pray and have a genuine love for your enemy if you love God. I mean if you've met God. And this is a test of the reality of life. I mean it may be a maiden pastor down the road that's not preaching anything but a perverted gospel. And you know what the human nature is? Is to take that person and pull them apart. But I'm going to tell you what God's nature is. God's nature is that we would call before His throne of grace, and we'd wait in prayer before His throne of grace, that God would change that individual's life if they're unsaved, that God would save them. If they're saved, that God would bring life, that they are preached in a perverted gospel. And that would be from the pastor's standpoint. My friend, I'm going to tell you something. There's people that call themselves Christians in our fellowships today, that they can't even love one another in their own homes. There's something wrong with us. And it may be that we don't have the reality of life. Did you know that? It just could be that we're not saved. What do you say? Preacher! If they just do this, it'd be alright. I think it shouldn't change our love. We should go before the throne of grace and ask God to work in their hearts. God's the only one that can change people. And if God don't change them, He can change us. We can tolerate. And then we got this problem in our churches. I think there are people who come, and they'll talk about how they love God, and they don't even love one another. They can get crossed at one another and stay crossed for five and ten years. I'm going to tell you, you might stay crossed at me ten years, but if I'm right with God, I won't stay crossed at you no ten years, or ten months. The man for the Holy Ghost of God smites me and shows me that I have sinned against my brother. Then I'll say, now brother, I was wrong. But you say, what if he don't get right? That's between him and God. My part is to get my part right. Well, yeah, but I'm not going to get that right. No, you're not going to be right with God either. And it bogs our fellowships down. And the reason a lot of us won't ever apologize, we don't have the reality of life, it hasn't killed anything in us because we're just dead and trespassed in sin to begin with. And there's no death, and so we just go on living like we're always dead. Cursing God, raving about that. Going on giving our tithes and coming to Sunday morning, Sunday evening service, and Wednesday evening service, and acts like they're more or less when we're on our way to hell. My friend, this is a test of our real reality of God, the real fetishism. It manifests, I mean the reality of Christ manifests itself to love. My friend, then it manifests itself by the taking away of sin. John's Gospel, chapter 3, verse 5, the Bible said, and ye know that he was manifest to take away our sins. Somebody said, I got saved and I'm going to heaven, but I still got my old sins. No, you just got counterfeited. That's what happened to you. You didn't get saved because the reality of life My friend, the evidence of the reality of life is that Jesus took away my sins, thank God. I think when I met God, He took away my sins. I didn't just reform, I didn't just turn away when you leave, I didn't just decide quit doing this and stopped doing that, glory to God, he took away my sin. He put, he sold him up in a bag, the psalm said, he put him in the sea of forgiveness, he put him behind his back, and God said, you and I can remember him, but he is going to never remember him anymore. But I mean God done that for me and I got the reality of life. You can talk all you want to but you'll never convince me that I'm not born to give. Amen. I mean I met him. The reason I know I met him, I had sin, I devoided it down with it and God took it all. That's how he manifested himself. Devoid my sins. But another thing about the reality of life. He manifested himself by destroying the works of Satan. Chapter 3 and verse 8 said, He that committeth sins of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning. Now what this has to do with he that habitly just keeps on holding grudges and holding grudges and holding grudges. and practicing sins, and practicing sins, and practicing sins, and practicing sins, and God never chastises him, and he never repents, and he never gets right with God either, and he never turns from it, he's of the devil. Right? He's of the devil. She's of the devil. He's of the devil, let Michael know who he is. But look at him. For this purpose, the son of My friend, if we know God, I want you to know that our God that we serve is able to destroy the works of the devil. He's a devil. He's manifest. You know why the devil gets so mad when Jesus is being manifest in the church? Because when Christ is manifest in the church and not some personality or what they believe is being manifest or how good they can sing or how good they can preach or how good they can do this or how bad they don't do that. When that's not being manifest, but when Christ is being manifest, and Jesus is being glorified, the light of Satan is put to flight. And they destroy it, and God has cleared it out, and he's given her the truth, and believe it, Satan don't like it, because there's nothing he knew about it. And God this week is going to tear down some of the strongholds of the temple right here in this place. He's working, and he's going to tear down the strongholds of Satan, but he'll not do it Wickedness in high places. Our battle is not with flesh and blood, it's with the principalities and powers. Spiritual wickedness in high places. But you say, I just don't know where God and Jacob are. Well, let me inform you a little bit something about God. He's on the throne. Let me tell you something else about God. He's Lord. And I want to tell you something else about God, he's not just running a little place down here called Fairbairn, and he's not just running a little island over here called the USA, but God's over this whole outfit. He's sovereign. That's why I've got to go before him on my face and say, Oh God, if you don't move, and you don't take on the strong hands of Satan, and you don't chew away lies and reality in me, I'm worth nothing, I'm useless. All that God would help us to see. And then, he manifests himself in whom we belong to. If you look at it in verse 10 of chapter 3, the Bible said, in this the children of God are manifest. And the children of the devil. You got the contract. The children of God and the children of the devil. Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God. You know, we've pampered, we've petted the flesh so much that we got the point that we are just about claimin' anything saved. Did you know that? We, we, oh boy, I tell ya, I got a great church, I'm runnin' 200, I'm runnin' 250 and boy, we are just turnin' things upside down. And you see them on Sunday mornin', they live like the devil through the week. And they don't have any righteous marks. They just don't have any righteousness of God. There's no marks of holiness. There's no marks of God's divine glory. There's no marks of spirit spirituality. and they're just working like beans to try to be righteous and working like beans to try to be holy when if they just fall at the feet of Jesus and say God I'm unholy and if you don't make me holy I'm going to perish! Now you hear me folks I don't care how good morally a woman is or how good morally a man is I don't care how active you are in a thing called a church or religious work. If God's righteousness is not being manifest in your life or my life, we don't know God. That's what the Bible said. The Bible said, and the children of the temple, the children of God are manifest. Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, Neither he that loveth not his brother My friend I've been mad at my brother You ever get mad at your brother? I've been mad at my sister and the Lord But I'm gonna tell you something folks that we cannot, on an indefinite basis, stay angry with our brother, racist, and be right with God. Well, I'm not mad at them any longer. I got mad at them. And I'm not mad at them any longer. You know, I got that settled. Well, did you? Oh yes, I got that settled. I got that settled between me and God. Now, did you? Did you really get it settled? Oh yeah, I prayed about it. No. If that's all you've done, you didn't get it settled. Did you? If that's all I've done, I didn't get it settled. You know when you get it settled? When you go and say now brother, I had a wrong spirit. Brother, I was wrong. And I want you to forgive me. Well, but he hasn't got right. That don't have anything to do with whether you get right. That don't have a thing in the world to do with whether you get right. But if you do your part, then that will clear the line for your fellowship with God, and it will clear the line for you walking with God, and it will clear the line again for God to hear your prayers. But every how long you stay mad at your brother and you don't, or I don't, apologize to them, it closes a pattern. This is why it's so important that Christian men and women live together in unity. Like our brother talked about, didn't he? In our homes, if my wife and I have a difference and a fuss, and a disagreement and there's an evil spirit in me toward her until I say honey I'm sorry that's wrong and she has an evil spirit well what if she don't get right that wouldn't keep me from getting right I mean that wouldn't keep me from getting right and probably if I didn't get right she would get right Well, I'm not going to do that. You know why? You're dead. You've never been saved. You don't have any reality of life and you can live with that. Just eat in it, sleep in it, go on in it. No reality of life and you can tolerate it. But if God ever moves in your house, Your life, if you're like God, you won't live like that. You can't live like that. God won't let you live like that. He said you just love your brother. Well I know if I'm going to love a man, I could love my wife, don't you? What could make you love some people but God? I mean, how is it nothing but God could be there? Well, there needs to be the reality of life. And then, the last thing on that reality of life is he manifests his eternal life to the believer, and that's in verse 2. The Bible said, for the life was manifest, and we've seen it. Now John literally saw Jesus. And he literally saw him. But I'm going to tell you, Christ has been manifest in believers and we saw him. Now I saw the life of God. You say, but you mean you really saw the life of God? Yes, just like I see a tornado. A tornado can come through this area here and blow through this place. Blow this house away, the parsonage down here, and still wait up and down for you, and you'll never see the wind itself, but you'll see where it's been. You'll see where it's been. And friend, when God works reality in the life of a sinner, you'll see where it's been. And if there is no showing of where the reality of life has been and come, you're still dead, I'm still dead, and trespassing sin will need to get saved. Right. John said, for this life will manifest, and you see it, and they'll witness and show it to you, their eternal life. I will never die. I'll never be more alive. If Jesus don't come in the rapture and carry me home, then the day they roll me out the cemetery and put the cloth in. You just tell everybody, I did not die, I went home. To the long home. And tell them I'm going to come back. When Jesus does. Amen. Glory to God. I mean what we got's eternal. It's eternal. It's life! No other people in the world have this but God's people. I'm talking about it's the reality of life! Glory to God, that's just like kicking a barrel of honey over in here. Well you see preacher I've had this but certain things come my way and I've let the devil get in and steal that joy. I know when I used to have joy. What did it? What stole your joy? And what stole it you know. Now go get it straight. And God will restore your joy. There's at least three people in this building this morning already. You don't have joy. You may be saved, but you don't have any reality. You've lost your reality if you ever had any. There may be more we discover before we get through. Well, you say, who are you talking about? Well, they know. Well, so how do you know? Well, I just happen to see eternal life. When it springs up, I just can't help but recognize it. When I don't recognize it, I know there's something wrong. Now I'm not saying you're lost or faded, I don't really know, but I know there's one or two things wrong with you. You're either stifling and smothered out at this line, or else you never have had it. Alright, I got two more points. I'm going to get done on time, the Lord willing. Alright? It's a reality, the reality of the fellowship, it's a reality of the land. Number two, it's a reality of love. And this is found in verse three. The Bible teaches us in verse three, look at it, that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you. John uses this word declare, he uses it in verse five again. He said, we declare this unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us. And you know what most Baptists think fellowship is? They think that having fellowship is going out to the steakhouse, the western sizzler, and getting you a big salad and putting all that goulash on it. and order the best steak and sitting down with some Christian brothers and sisters and you cannot fellowship that way if you fellowship around God but if you fellowship around your glutton and stomachs and fellowship around the ball games Fellowship around all of these things, well that's not fellowship, the world can do that. Brother David said, and I know what he means, I'm not going to pick too hard on the pastor, but he said we're going to have a fellowship on Friday, the ladies is going to bring, we're going to spread dinner. Now we could go over there and fill up all of us and the town could come in and we could call that fellowship. My friend, when we really fellowship, we have the same thing in common. You know what? You can come in and out of this church and be lost and sing in this choir or take a part, teach, do a lot of things. And you can have the humanistic fellowship, that just humanistic fellowship among the people. and be deceived and think everything's going well and never enter into the fellowship of God and His people. And our fundamental church is just full of people like that. They're coming right in, and they're feeding right in, and they look at the pattern, and they join right in, but they have never entered into the reality of love. I'm going to tell you, if you enter into a reality of love, when there is something wrong in that fellowship down at the church, you'll have a broken heart. When there's something wrong with your fellowship between you and your brother, you'll have a broken heart. When there's something wrong with your fellowship between you and your sister, you are a broken heart. And you will not stop until you have exhausted every source that you possibly can to bring yourself back to the fellowship with that brother or sister in Christ. And if you don't do that, if you're saved, your reality is dead from that day. If you ever had any. My friend, if you never have had any, you're dead and trespassing sin and you may raise the devil all the time with somebody and not even know that you're unsaved. I've seen people look like the devil just planted them in churches. And they just, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to tell you, it don't make any difference if it's a preacher, it don't make any difference if it's deacons, it don't make any difference who it is, when we are constantly ripping our brothers and sisters up and down the back with malice and backbiting and hatred, and we don't really come into a fellowship of unity in Christ. There is something sad and wrong in our lives. And this world reads us so well that we don't have them food. It's amazing. You know things will come and they'll pop up in a church and a lot of folks will say, well I'm just surprised about that. Well, if you'd been watching their lives, you wouldn't have been so surprised. Walk with God and pray every day for somebody, you know, back and forth in your fellowship. God has really shown me something. I've had to really, I've had to confess. Friend, there's nothing as important in the life of a pastor is laying hold of God really in love for his people. I mean, I don't have time every day unless I pray two to two and a half hours to just take a few seconds every day to pray for everybody in my church and really lay hold of God. And sometime when I'm praying in that quiet place, in love, God will say, this person has a spiritual problem. And then God will say, this person's lost. That's what's the matter with their life. They got their name on the church book. And I suppose in the last few weeks, that God has showed me that I got 50 lost people in my church. Oh, you say, Preacher, you exaggerate it. I'm not exaggerating at all. Us fundamental badness are beating the bushes on Thursday evening, and I'm for it, 100%. A church that don't have an artery shall die. The greatest work that needs to be done in our day is a reality of God worked in the hearts of the people that are sitting on our pews. We've got a lot of lost people. Some of them is in place of leadership. Some of them is singing in our choirs. Some of them is teaching in our Sunday schools. Some of them are deacons in churches. Some of them are pastors even. And our pews are sitting full of lost people and we got so little of the power of God that they just fit right in with us and we don't hardly ever notice it. We just call them carnal Christians. And there is a carnal Christian, but a person that will not grow under that will not go under Bible teaching is dead in trespasses and in sin and need to be saved. You're right Richard. Call them Carl if you want to, they're dead. Alright. They're dead and gone. My friends, there's fellowship with the believers. Well, I have fellowship with believers. I come Sunday morning, come Sunday evening, pay my tithes. That don't mean you have fellowship with the believers. You may even talk about the same thing. You may talk about God, visitation. You may talk about God and the church. You may talk about this, that, and the other. But if you don't enter into that reality of Christ, there's no fellowship. I mean, it's a real joy to see a real brother in the Lord and a real sister in the Lord. All right, then there's a fellowship with the Father. The same verse. You have here the fellowship of the Father. If you know Jesus, you've got fellowship with God. He said, first of all, that we may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with the Father. We have fellowship with the Father. I was going to point out some verses to go with these, but I'm not going to have time. The first point, if you want to put down, if you read 1 John 4, 7-8 and then with the father 4, 16 and fellowship with his son. The Bible said that truly a fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. I want to ask you, do you meet him? I mean, do you really meet the Lord? How has it been since you met God? Did you meet him this morning? before you come to church. Now I'll tell you I had so much to do I just didn't have time to meet God. Yeah that's our problem. See we say that God's on the throne he's running this universe but we'll put little things you know like vacuuming the floor, washing the dishes, powdering our face, combing our hair, polishing our shoes, all these things are alright, from the right perspective. But you know what, if we don't meet God, we'd be better off without our shoes polished and our face powdered. We'd be better off to meet God first and then take care of the other things. My wife told me last week, she said, your wife found out. And when I get up in the morning and just kind of do the necessities and then sit down with a Bible, for about an hour or an hour and a half, I just found out that I get my work done a lot faster, so everything is a lot faster. And my friend, I found out. If I don't close myself up at least 3 hours a week, I just will and get out of the business. We're fighting against principalities and powers. Spirits of wickedness in high places, where nothing is as important as beating God. And if we don't finish it with people, with our fellowship. We don't know nothing about worship. We don't worship God before we get here. There's no reality of life where there's no fellowship with God. So there's a reality of life, it's a reality of love, and last, it's a reality of light. You say, well what does God mean when he talks about light? Arthur Pinck said that light is God revealed to man. That's why he said lack. But I want to give you three things about lack, and I'll be done. In a physical way, lack represents glory. In other words, beloved, when you are woken in God's light, when Christ is living inside of you, then there is manifest His glory in people's life. You know why I know some people have eternal life? When I preach, I can see God's glory being manifest in their life. You know, just the reason why I have a right to question some people's salvation, or I have a right to question some people's fellowship with God, in that person. There's people that have been members of churches for years and are pastored people and they are good people. They try to carry on, they try to work, they try to do And one characteristic of light is God's glory. The second thing about this in a spiritual way, my friend, light represents truth. Represents truth. And a person that don't love the truth and a person that won't respond to the truth, excuse me, a person that won't respond to the truth, a person that will not stand to the truth is not walking in the light. My friend, if you don't desire to have truth, you're not walking in the light. This is one of the characteristics of light and God is light. The third thing is this. I'm going to take up here tomorrow. Light morally represents holiness. Now you can be morally straight and still not be holy. You know, you can wear your dress right, ladies. You can be modest. And God grant that we have some modest ladies and I'm grateful for them. But that's not holiness. You still must go before God and receive the reality of fellowship with Him in order to be holy. That's the only way you can be holy. That's the only way a man can be holy. You know the greatest gentleman you'll ever meet? Is a man that really walks with God. You know one way I can tell whether or not I'm walking close with God or not? The way I treat people. You know I'm more, the closer I get to God the more of a gentleman I am. Because God's holding me. will make you a lady. And God's holiness will make you a gentleman. And you know why we got people that don't want to be a gentleman? They want to look like a lady. And we got ladies that don't want to be a lady? They're not holy. Our Father, we thank you for this day, and thy word, and thy truth. We ask your blessing now for Jesus' sake.