What a blessed gospel has been given to us. The good news that Jesus Christ has died for sinners. Came not called the righteous, but sinners to repentance. And only those who are sinners will ever repent. A lot of people think that the world is full of sinners. But like Joseph Hart said, a sinner is a sacred thing. The Holy Ghost hath made him so. And it was only as the Lord is pleased to awaken a man to see what he is by nature that he will seek the Lord. And thank the Lord he does that. He does it in times when we think it's impossible. He does it in such times as we think not. Yet the Lord is faithful and is ever calling His people unto Himself. And you know, His timetable is not ours. Sometimes He suffers long with his children. Sometimes he brings them to him quickly. You know, I have no doubt that some are called as children and, you know, live their life as one desiring to follow Christ. But then I also believe there are those who, in great age, the Lord is pleased to awaken and all places in between, because it's according to his purpose and not ours that men are called unto him. What a blessing it is to be the called according to his purpose. We're looking in 1 John, 1 John, and we're in chapter two. Says, my little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And he is a propitiation for our sins. And not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. Now I would get you to notice that in that second verse there, the word, or the two words, the sins of the whole world are actually not in the original. The original language actually reads, but also for the whole world. And hereby we do know that we know him. if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected. Hereby know we that we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk even as he walked. Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write unto you which thing is true in him and in you because the darkness is past and the true light now shineth. He that saith he is in the light and hateth his brother is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whether he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes. I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father. I've written unto you fathers because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I've written unto you young men because ye are strong and the word of God abideth in you and ye have overcome the wicked one. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away in the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. Little children, it is the last time. And as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now are there many Antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us. But they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things. I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth. Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is Antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father. But he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also. Now that also is added in by the translators. Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise, that he hath promised us even eternal life. These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you. But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you. And ye need not that any man teach you, but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie. And even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. And now, little children, abide in him, that when he shall appear we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone that doeth righteousness is born of him. Now, this is not anything that, John is not telling these that he's writing to anything that he has not already taught them. He's bringing back to their memory the things that they know. And I believe this is a true thing, that when the Lord is pleased to teach a man by his spirit, there are things that he knows. He may not know that he knows them, You know, there are people that don't know what they know, but yet when they hear it, they know that it's true. Now I think about that, you know, in my own case, as I grew up under the sound of the Bible being preached and taught, and I never heard In my youth, anybody speak about an absolute sovereign God. I never heard anybody speak about an atonement which was particular to the elect of God. I never even heard that there was an elect of God. But in such time as it pleased the Lord, he brought me to a place where I knew that was the truth. Nobody taught it to me. What happened was the Spirit of God revealed to me that these things were true, and that's the way that truth comes to the people of God. They're taught by the Spirit of God. You know, because we can stand here all day. I mean, I can teach you doctrine, this, that, and the other. I mean, you can memorize it, you know, and all of these things, and you can know it. You can write books about it. But only the Spirit of God can burn these things into your heart and your mind so that you know these things to be true. And that's what John's writing. He said to them, you know these things are true. Yeah, brethren, we know, you know, when God is pleased to awaken a man, he knows that he's a sinner. You don't have to teach him he's a sinner. You know, they used to, when I was coming along, they had the four spiritual laws, and one of the four spiritual laws was, you know, that we have, that basically we're sinners. As if that was some thing that a man could grasp, and if he could agree with it, you know, then he was on the right track. But men can't agree to that, because nobody believes that. You know, you didn't believe you was a sinner until such time as God showed you that you were a sinner. And when he showed you that you were a sinner, you knew you were a sinner. And it didn't make any difference who came along and said otherwise, you knew that it was true. And that's the work of the Spirit of God in the people of God. So he teaches us, and I say this over and over again, but this is absolute truth. There's only two things that you need to know. What a great sinner that you are, and what a great savior Christ is. If you know those things, dear brethren, then you know the truth of what the gospel is about. And when I say you know them, not just in your mind, not just because somebody told you, but when you know that, that there is no savior other than Christ. It doesn't make any difference what route you go down. Those who are taught by the Spirit of God, they must have Christ. They can't be satisfied with anything else. It's Christ. It's nothing but Christ. See, a lot of people believe in Christ. They say they do. They say they believe that Jesus is the Savior. But they don't believe that he is the Savior alone. They gotta add something to it. They gotta make things up that you gotta do in addition to that. Well, you know, we're saved by grace, but. No buts in the gospel. Because Christ is the salvation of his people. And so that's what John's writing about. You know, as you read through the book of John, or you read through the writings of Paul, and there's always one, there's one message. It's Christ. Him crucified. And that's the only message we hope to ever preach, to ever declare. You know, there's a lot of things you can learn. I mean, the Bible is just a wealth of knowledge and information about all aspects of life and everything else. But when you boil it all down, what is the message of the Bible is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And you can know all the stuff that the Bible teaches I remember hearing a fellow one time said he had 16 different messages on angels. He had preached 16 different messages on angels. Well, you can know all about the angels. I don't know much about angels. I've never seen one as far as a heavenly creature. Now, I believe that those that are sent with the gospel are angels, I believe the angels of the churches in the book of the Revelation speaking about those who were sent with the gospel to them. And so there is that aspect because an angel is a messenger. And so the Lord, he may send, he didn't send messengers, he sent a messenger to Joseph, did he not? Said, don't fear to take unto you Mary as your wife, because he said, she's gonna have the child, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. And so the Lord does send messages by angels. I don't know of very many people that, or I don't know of anybody actually that's ever met with an angel. I've heard some people talk about that they have. I don't think they knew, they might have met with an angel, but I don't know that it was an angel of the Lord. So he says, my little children, these things write I unto you that ye sin not. Now he just got through saying if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word's not in us. And then he says, don't sin. Now that's a pretty simple message, isn't it? Don't sin. Okay, let's close the book up and go out. All right, so we're in good shape. He said, don't sin. See, we've been accused, those that preach grace, been accused of teaching men to sin that grace may abound. How foolish. How can we that are dead to sin live any longer in it? We can't embrace it. We can't look at it and say, man, this is great. Because the Lord's convinced us that we're sinners. And sin is the thing that's caused us the greatest grief. And continues to do so. And we would desire to be rid of it, unfortunately, because we live in this world and we have that old flesh that hangs about us. Paul calls it the body of this death. Because of that, we're grateful that he goes on to say, and if any man sin, We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. Because it is a true thing that if a man breathes, he's going to commit sin. Because he's a sinner. And that's just a fact. And of course, there are a lot of people who believe that you can keep improving in your life and you can quit this sin and that. And usually what they mean by that is, if they look at chewing tobacco as sin, then you can quit chewing tobacco. If they say drinking liquor is a sin, then you can quit That, you can quit all kinds of stuff, but if the one thing you can't do is quit sin, because it's not something that we do, it's something that we are. And that's what the Spirit of God has come to teach us, to remind us. And so John says, don't sin. But if you sin, we have an advocate. And that's where the glorious truth of the gospel comes as a breath of fresh air, as that piece we sang about there a moment ago. This is the peace that the Lord gives. See, that even in the midst of our, we're brokenhearted over having sinned, as David was. He was broken. over his sin. But the glorious thing, as Nathan came to him and he said, but I have taken away thy sin. And what a glorious thing. If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. He is thy spokesman. He's that one who stands. before the throne of God in our behalf. A lot of people, when they think about Christ being an advocate, they picture it as though he's up there arguing in our behalf and saying things. He doesn't argue in our behalf, but he's there. Five bleeding wounds he bears, received on Calvary. They pour effectual prayers. They strongly plead for me. See, Christ has died, and he is our advocate. The one who died, the one who poured out his life's blood that we might live, the one who said, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me, I'll in no wise cast out. He is our advocate. He said, of all that the Father giveth me, I have lost none, because they belong to me. They were yours and you gave them to me. Oh, what a glorious Savior he is, an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ, the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins. He didn't make a propitiation for our sins. A lot of people say, well, he made an atonement. Well, I wouldn't argue with somebody about that, because indeed he has made an atonement, but he is the atonement. He is our propitiation. He is the satisfaction. He's the expiation. He's the one who took our sin away, because he bore it, and he went to the grave. and he arose victorious and ascended to the right hand of the Father. And he is a propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world. There's not another Savior. There's not a Jewish Savior. and a Gentile Savior. There's one Savior. The whole world. Jesus Christ, He is that Savior. He's not only our Savior, but we can boldly say to men, there is not another Savior. And if you would be saved, it must be in Jesus Christ. There's no other name given among, under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Not may be saved, but must. Because he is that kind of a savior. And hereby we do know that we know him if we keep his commandments. How many of y'all keep his commandments? Now, I'm gonna show you that we do keep His commandments, but what people usually mean by that is they pick out individual commandments and they say, well, I keep that one and I keep that one. Remember the rich young ruler? He came to the Lord. And he said, what can I do to inherit eternal life? And the Lord said, well, you know the commandments. And he said, well, I've kept all of those from my youth up. And the scripture says the Lord loved him and he looked on him and he said, if you will be perfect, go and sell all that you have and come and follow me. Now, he thought that by knowing the letter of the law and abiding by those principles day in and day out, that that was keeping the law. The Pharisees, if you asked any of the Pharisees if they were keepers of the law, they would say, why sure. I mean, we tithe mint and it's coming. We have all of these things that we do. We keep the Sabbath. I mean, that was their main thing is, you know, they were ready to kill the Lord Jesus Christ because he healed somebody on the Sabbath day. So they thought that that was keeping the law. Keeping the law is not an observation of a day. Keeping the law is that which David spoke about when he said, thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. So who are those that keep his commandments? He says here that we know him if we keep his commandments. So the opposite of that is true. We don't know him if we don't keep his commandments. Now, on the one hand, we say, well, we can't keep the commandments. We've broken every commandment there is. If a man's broken one, he's broken them all. It's not talking about breaking the commandments, it's talking about keeping the commandments. What does it mean? It means safeguarding. It means holding them close to us. It means we embrace them. See, a man can't reject the law of God and be a follower of Christ, can he? I mean, if the Lord said, I shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself, a man can't say, well, I don't believe in that. Or I'm rejecting that. I mean, I wanna be a follower of Christ, but I'm not gonna keep his commandments. That is, I'm not gonna hold those things dear to me. That's what he means. Hereby we do know that we know him if we keep his commandments. If a man loves the law of God, there's only one way that it can be true. Now the Pharisees said they loved God and they loved the law, but they didn't. They loved what they thought the law was. Just like that rich young ruler, he thought he kept the commandments. He thought he loved the Lord. He thought he loved the commandments of God. But he didn't because of the fact that he was asked that when he saith that I know him and keepeth not his commandments as a liar and the truth is not in him. Now here he was claiming to keep the commandments ever from the days of his youth, and yet the Lord taught him that he was a liar. And what'd he do? He went away sorrowing. Now a lot of people think, and of course we don't know this for an absolute fact, but I believe there's evidence, and mainly because the scripture says that in one of the gospels that the Lord looked on him and loved him. that they think that the rich young ruler, he went away sorrowful because he had many riches, and they think, well, that's the end of him. I don't think so. I think what caused him sorrow was the Spirit of God moved upon him and showed him how far from God he was. And so, did he go out and do what the Lord said? Well, I kind of believe that he probably did. You know, the Lord said, come and follow me. Oh, he that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandments is a liar, the truth's not in him. If we don't love the word of God, how can we say that we love God? Because how else can you know God except that he through his spirit teaches you his word? If it's not precious to you, how can you say you love God? Oh, if we keep His commandments, if we hold them close to us, if we are married to them, that's actually one of the words keep. It has to do with matrimony. Keeps it, holds it tight. It becomes part and parcel of us. We want to know the truth of God. I don't know the truth of God in its fullness. I want to know it, though. See, we see through a glass darkly. Now, I know where the truth is, and I know who the truth is, but I don't know all there is to know about him. But I know enough. See, that's the thing, John says, I'm not writing to you about things you don't know. You know this. Jesus Christ is our propitiation. He is our expiation. He is our salvation. And in that we have no doubt. In that we're not moved about by every wind of doctrine. We're not trusting in this one day and trusting in that the other. We're designed to know Christ. Oh, that's what he, As those men, I think they were Greeks, I don't remember, it escapes me right now, but they said, sirs, we would see Jesus. We will see him. I mean, we want to know him. We want to walk in his way. Now, I'm a poor example of somebody that walks in his way. But I want to be. I desire to be. I want to hold his word close to my heart. And I pray, Lord, help me to be one that magnifies your name and one that walks in obedience to your commands. And I'm thankful that if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father. What a glorious thing that is.