1 John 1, we'll be reading verses five through 10. The world that we live in today, and this will not be news to any of you, but the world that we live in today is lost in seemingly greater darkness than we've experienced in our lifetimes. I remember as a child, and maybe I remember former days in better ways than they actually were, and Solomon encourages us not to do that, but remember that there was at least something of a semblance of a Christian mindset over our culture. Honesty, hard work, commitment to virtue, identification and awareness of who we are, as created in the image of God, and I know, I'm not naive enough to say that a mere 30 years ago, 40, that the world was in this great and wonderful place, and that over the course of my life, it has gone to the place where it is now, and that it was just these 40 years that did it. I read in history, and you see through history a repeated pattern of people drawing close to God as a nation and God blessing that nation and those people sustained by the presence of God in their land and the ideals that he incites into that country through the individuals and the homes and the families to be diligent about their lives and to be thoughtful about how they live here that those things lead to prosperity. They lead to increase, they lead to advances, they lead to things that make life better. And unfortunately, because we're in a fallen world, and we are fallen creatures, that ease and prosperity, it often tends to drive us away from God, allows us to depend upon what we feel is secure, what we believe is secure. And that then leads to us abandoning the very things that brought us to where we were as a prosperous and healthy and helpful nation. And today, it certainly seems to me that we are on a particular point in history where in our land and in many others, there's just darkness over the land, just upside down. And I want to read to you and I want to talk to you today about the light of God. In the darkness of sin. The light of God in the darkness of sin. John writes to us. This is the message we have heard from him. And proclaim to you. That God is light. And in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. The light of God and the darkness of sin. We live in a time and in a world that is always overshadowed in some way by the darkness of sin. Even on the clearest day, even on the brightest day, Even on days that we feel the presence of God in our life and we walk through this world, there is always a shadow of sin here. That is why the psalmist in the 23rd Psalm talked about walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Everything is tainted by it. There is not anything in this life and in this world that is not in some way tainted by the shadow of sin, nothing. No human relationship, no wealth, no prosperity, even the trees and the planet. It's overshadowed and it has been marred by sin. And that is the very beginning of understanding, I think, of what life and why we experience struggle here. I believe it was Tim Binion one time who said that all suffering can be traced to sin. There's not a single bit of it. Now, as Job found out, some of it is because of things we have done individually. And in Job's case, it's because we live in a world that is impacted and overshadowed by sin. And sin brings darkness, confusion, and fear. And God brings light and peace and forgiveness. And yet, John here, and 1 John, as we just read that ninth verse that is so often quoted to the lost, and it's good to quote it to them, To those who don't know the Lord, I profess to you today that that verse is true, that God is able, He desires, He is faithful and just to forgive you of all of your sin. And if in your mind you are thinking, even this one, this terrible thought that I had, this terrible deed that I have committed, this horrible thing that I have done, even that one, yes. The word all in the Greek means all. It's not confusing. It's not such that we can't understand what he is saying. He said very plainly, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. And so for you that don't know the Lord, I encourage you with that truth. God can make you clean. He can forgive you. There is only one thing that he will not forgive. And that is the sin against the Holy Spirit. And I believe it's essentially when he calls to your heart and you reject him and reject him and reject him until time is no more. I remember in Ghana one year, it seemed like this was an ongoing conversation among several of us and the people that we were working with there. If you commit blasphemy, do you ever have a chance again the rest of your life? The Spirit comes and convicts you. Can you ever be saved if you turn Him away? This is my conviction on the matter. I believe if you are drawing breath today in your lungs, God has offered to you and continues to make available to you His Son and the forgiveness of sin. But there will be a day when you will no longer be breathing in the air of this fallen world, and you will enter into eternity and you must be prepared. And at that point, you must know the Lord. This world is lost in darkness and it is a darkness of sin. I thought about this throughout this week and I kept thinking about the days when I was younger in high school in Southwest Missouri, Bolivar, where in late July and early August and that summer heat out there on two-a-day football practices and how you could stand there with your helmet and all your gear on and you were just as hot as you could possibly be, and you'd look out across the field, and you'd see those waves of heat coming off of the ground, and it just made everything kind of shimmer. The things that I was looking at weren't shimmering. They were not moving. But it looked as though they were. And the hotter you got, and the later in the practice, the more it got that way, it seemed. That's kind of what sin does to this world. It makes it look different than what it really is. You kind of see things here that you think you see. And one of the things that you think you see is certainty. You think you see things that are worth your time and your effort. You think you see things that are worth your confidence and your trust. Someone, something. But it has been marred by this thing called and labeled sin. And sin is just rebellion against God. began in heaven. Satan, as he lifted up himself in pride and attempted, and do you not see the insanity that sin can drive a created being to? When Lucifer says, I believe I will take the place of God. One who saw him like we have never seen him. in heaven and in the created world and the created things that he saw, Satan decides, I think I will take his place. Make no mistake, Satan is insane. He's not in his right mind. And neither is anyone else who sees themselves as able to stand in this life without God. Insane. Not in our right minds. The mind is broken. And it seems to me today that society's mind as a whole is broken. It's incredible where we have come in such a short amount of time to turn away from the truth of God's word and turn to fables of man and turn to things that are just silly and inconsequential. and men who sound so learned and so aware, and men who have so many degrees behind their name and so many initials and are declared experts, and you listen to them and to what they conclude, and you begin to think, am I completely mad or are they? It seems to me, honestly, that the amount of foolishness in the world is in direct proportion to the number of experts that are in the world. Those who think and believe that they can look at the rock and know where that rock came from. I've always wondered, has the rock talked to you? Did the rock tell you how I got here? Then are we not merely speculating? Is not so much of what we think is accurate and true and real, is it not really just speculation on our part? Speculation, by the way, on a mind that is not omniscient. We don't know. And I will tell you today, there is always going to be a place where you get to in your life where you are going to say, I don't know. I don't know. And you will not be able to search the ends of the world for somebody who's going to have the ultimate answer to the ultimate question of your life. Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? That one is God. And it's found only in His light. Not in the darkness of sin. Not in the darkness of a world that has lost its way. Now, John says to us, this is the message. And this is why the world has so much trouble today with Christianity. This is why you and I, who believe this book, and more importantly, believe the God who wrote this book, believe in Him, believe in what He says. This is why the world is going to have so much trouble with you and me today, because of statements that John just made. This is the message. The Bible does not say this is a message. The Bible does not say this is this is one path that you might take to enter heaven. The Bible does not give us multiple pathways to God. It gives us the pathway who is Jesus Christ. Bleeding and dying on a cross for sin, the sins of all the world. yours and mine. But the darkness of sin will make us think and make us believe that we can find our own way to God when it is not the message, the singular message. This is the message. It's not that one. It's some idea of man. And I know that there are It seems today a majority of the learned, of the successful in the world today, that look at this Bible in complete and total dismissal. And they look at anyone who believes this book in the same light, just dismisses them as foolish and silly and unlearned. But I would ask you anytime that happens, to actually listen. and see if they actually have anything to contradict about what the Word of God says or if they just belittle it simply because it is what it claims to be. This book has stood the test of time and it will because it is God's Word. Forever, O Lord, thy Word is settled in heaven is what the psalmist said. This is the message And then he turns it again and he says to us that we have heard from Him. This is the message, the singular message, the one true message from God to man, John says, this is it. And of course, there's this whole scripture, the New Testament itself, and the Old Testament as it prophesied of Christ and the New Testament as it reveals His life and the letters and all the way to Revelation. It expands and expounds upon this singular message. But this singular message, all the difference in the world is made when we hear it from God. This is the message, John says, that we have heard from Him, from God. I heard it from the Lord Jesus Christ, who Thomas has already looked at and bowed and said, my Lord and my God. This is that message, the one we have heard from Him that makes all the difference in the world. Hearing the message of the gospel from a man is good, but it will not get you to heaven. you must hear the message of the gospel from God. It's the only thing that will set you on the path to a Christian life here and a Christian eternity there, is hearing it from God. hearing from the Holy Spirit of God. As we pray, and as we prayed even this morning, once again, before we came, as we tried to finalize our preparation, God, nothing I say will matter if your Holy Spirit does not come and move and work among us, and we do not presume upon you, as we so often think of that valley of dry bones that Ezekiel stood before, and as God, you ask him, Can these bones live? And Ezekiel did not presume upon you, and he did not doubt you. He said, You know, O Lord. They can, God, if you will raise them. This is the message we have heard from him. It makes all the difference in the world. I had heard the gospel for a very, very long time, many years before I was saved, before God spoke it to me. before I heard it from Him, and that makes all the difference. I would want to say it makes all the difference in the world, but that would sell it short. It makes all the difference in eternity, this world and the next. To hear it from God, we don't read in the Bible about men who gave their life to God on the testimony of someone else. We don't hear Abraham leaving his home because somebody came by and said, you know, Abraham, you really ought to dedicate your life to God. You really ought to live a Christian life. That's the way to live a good life here. You know, Abraham, I read a book the other day about how to live your best life now. About how to live and be a good person. About how to go through this life and just be somebody that when you die, they think of you and they go, boy, what a wonderful man, Abraham, you were. It's not what the Bible says. It's not why Abraham left his home. It's not why he left his parents and everything that was familiar to him. He left because God had spoke to him. And you can say the same thing about Isaiah and Amos and all of them, Hosea and all of the prophets of the Old Testament. You can say the same thing about the apostles. You can say the same thing about every child of God that you read about in the word. We have heard the message from him. makes all the difference in the world, and I want to tell you today that that obligates you. When you hear the message of God from God, that obligates you. Back before the days of Twitter and Facebook and text messages, before the days of television, before the days of radio, before the days of man's ability to communicate to a vast number of people at the same time, the king would send out a herald. to announce his rules, his dictates, to announce the things that the king wants the people to hear. And he would send out a man, and his job, and it was to herald, it was to proclaim the message of the king. And when that herald came to your town and proclaimed to you the message of God, or message, in this sense again, of the king, and he told you what the law was, you were under obligation to obey what that herald says, not because of the herald, but because of the word that the herald brought, which was the word of the king. Now listen, you don't have to listen to me. I would encourage you not to, if my word ever contradicts the word of God, because that is my commission. That is what God called me to do, and every minister and preacher of the gospel message, this word he has given, which by the way, you have in your hands. But when the herald spoke, when he came to any particular town, and he spoke, and he gave the king's word, people were to obey. And you might say, boy, that really, there's a danger there, I see. Boy, what kind of power that herald seemed to possess, and he could just take over, and he could say whatever he wanted to say. How can we know for sure that what he is saying is true? And I would say, back then, the word would get back to the king. And that herald would have a hard time. Today I would say that as well. One day I am going to give an account and every minister of the gospel will too. How he handled and presented the Word of God, the Word of the King. So you do not have to listen to me. But I beg you to listen to him. I beg you to try what I say. By the Word of God. untold abuse of men and the eternal souls of men and women have been perpetrated by men and women who are not heralds, who are not heralding the word of the king and instead substituting in its place their own words. May that not be true today. And I tell you today that this is the message we have heard from Him and proclaim to you. This message that John was proclaiming was a message that he had heard from God, from Christ, from the Lord. And he says, now I proclaim it to you. I want you to understand something today. God, as my witness, I'm not lying to you. I'm not making up a story. I'm not encouraging you to something that isn't real. I am not telling you something that God has not brought to me. I am not telling you a message of salvation that I have not walked through myself. By the mercy and the grace of God, He saved me. And I know He did. I couldn't at that moment tell you a number of things that perhaps today I could tell you about it, but I knew I had found him. Peace came. I had heard from God, not with these ears. I had seen God, not with these eyes, but I knew him. I had observed him. I knew what he had done in my heart because everything had changed inwardly in my heart from burden to peace, joy. and I am bringing to you today that same message. I have no reason to lie to you. I have no purpose in deceiving you. There's no advantage. There's no gain for me to tell you some lie or some fable, or to just go through the motions. It's not what we're trying to do here today, I pray. It's just go through the Christian motions. This nation has been going through the Christian motions so long, that most haven't even observed how dark it really is. I am proclaiming to you a message that God brought to me. And it's real. It's true. It's true. You say, how can I know it's true? You might say to me, preacher, I have not seen this God that you speak of. I've not seen His light. I don't believe that He is real. I don't believe that if He is real, that He brings any light to the world. Maybe you've explained and not swallowed the silly science of our day, and you refuse to believe that something came from nothing, and that is good, and I pray that your mind at least works that much still. You might be of the mind and say, yes, there's a God, I don't know Him, I don't know if He ever will know me, if He's even concerned about knowing me, and I can tell you today, He is. I can tell you how much He is concerned about knowing you. He sent His own Son and placed Him on a cross to die for you. That's how much He wants you to know Him. And He is light, and in Him there's no darkness at all, as we have seen. That is the message. He's light. He's revealed Himself. He has not shrouded Himself in darkness. He has not hidden Himself from the world. And if you are saying to yourself, I don't know, preacher, this God you speak of, and I don't believe He's real because I have not seen Him, I wanna ask you a question. Are you so certain that you are right? Are you so certain? Because you might say that you have not seen Him, that you've not seen this light of which I am speaking and proclaiming to you today. And you might think this is not real because I have not seen it. I have not experienced it. And I would ask again, can you be so sure? It is not that God has hidden himself from the world. It is that the world has hidden God from you. When God has done all that He can and all that He will to proclaim to you who He is and what He has done and the world around us and the nature itself cries of its Creator. Don't be so certain that you can say, because I don't know Him, He does not exist. Those are two different assertions. Two different things. God is light and Him is no darkness at all. If we say so, how then, how is it that we remain in darkness? How is it that we can't and don't see the light of God and instead see so much of the darkness of sin? It is this, if we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie. Do not practice the truth. In John three, we get a little bit of a picture of what I think he is writing here in the first letter of his. He said in John chapter three, the gospel, and this is the judgment. The light has come into the world and people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. People remain in darkness. And so long as you walk in the darkness of sin, why would you ever expect to see the light of God? So long as we walk, in the darkness of sin, why should we? How can we ever expect to experience and feel and see the light of God? John is saying, look, if we say, and he starts these five if statements in the remainder of this section of scripture, these five, if this, then that. And the first one is, if we say we have fellowship him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. Sometimes I wonder at our blindness and my own silliness at times. God, I don't feel you, I don't see you, I don't sense you like I would like. And then God in his mercy and grace comes and reveals to me the darkness that I am choosing to walk in. And he again says to me, why would you expect to see my light there? Why would you expect to see me? while you cling instead to the darkness of sin, while you instead choose to practice sin and not practice the truth. I tell you, whether you walk in truth or walk in sin, that will tell you how much light and darkness you experience. It's a direct relationship to one another many times. He goes on in verse seven, but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin. This is really an incredible verse. It's really an incredible verse when you think about it. And when you keep in mind that God is speaking that John here is writing to believers primarily, there is a give and take and a back and forth and a logical difficulty that sometimes we can come up against here. We're told that in order to have fellowship with God, we must walk in His light and not walk in the darkness of sin. And yet here, John says, if we walk with Him in the light, if we walk with Him, Then he will cleanse us from all sin. That is an incredible statement and a logical thing that must be spiritually discerned. And we're told in Scripture that the carnal man, the natural man, does not receive the things of God. He doesn't understand them because they are spiritually discerned. Let me ask you this question that lies right on the surface here. How can a man be walking with God and yet in the present tense be being cleansed of sin? How can sin remain while he walks with God? And some people have this idea that the Christian life is about being perfect, about always having the right answer, about always being able to stand and proclaim the love of God with a heart that is overflowing with his love and with not an ounce of doubt, with an ounce of fear, without an ounce of reservation or hesitation. And yet here, John says to us that if we walk in the light, God will cleanse us. It's all present tense. This is what he's going to be doing for us and with us as we walk in his light. Look, the Christian life is not about being perfect, but it is about being perfected. It isn't about being that perfect little boy or girl, or that perfect preacher, or that perfect mother, that perfect father. It is about a heart that longs to walk in the light of God. And as we do so, the glorious result of that is that God will continue to strip from us sin and darkness. One after the other. And as we walk in the light of God, and His light grows brighter and brighter in our life, do you know what He's going to do with that? Do you know what's going to happen? He's going to allow us to see sin that we never saw before. He's going to allow us to see things in our life that maybe previously didn't bother us at all. That television show that we used to watch, those friends we used to hang around with, That language we used to use, those books we used to read, that before didn't bother us at all. As we walk closer to God and walk more in His light, He shines that light upon us, and we begin to see, oh, that's sin. And in my heart and in my mind, we can say, honestly, God, I didn't know. It was not from a heart of rebellion, Father, that I did that. Father, it's not from a heart of rebellion that at moments in my life, I don't know the answers that I would like to have. It's not, God, because I desire to rebel against You, that sometimes I wake up in the mornings and I don't know which way to go, and I don't know what to do. The Christian life is not about being perfect. It's about being perfected. And one by one, day by day, as we walk more in the light of God, and He begins to reveal to us more and more of the darkness that overshadows us, that we don't even recognize and know. And He begins to cleanse us one day at a time of one sin and the next, until one day, one day, I will not have to lay aside one more sin. because this body will pay the penalty that is due, death. But my soul will go to that place where it awaits to be reunited with a body that is perfect and pure, and you talk about light. The light of God will be experienced in that new body like I I hope and pray from this day to my last, I contemplate and think about and see my life here and light of that life there that I am going to, that I know is there, that God has told me about, that I've heard from Him. What sin has God cleansed you of lately? What sin is God cleaning? in your life. If you don't have an answer for that, I'm not sure you're walking in the light. And I didn't say I'm not sure you're not saved. I found it interesting that John used the words, you're not practicing the truth. He didn't say you didn't know it. He said you weren't walking in it. So if you were to If you were to list, if you were to keep a list in your life of the things that God is cleaning in your heart and in your life, what is on that list? Because the more of God that you have, the more light you have, the more light you have reveals more sin that still besets you. You say, but I thought living the Christian life was about becoming a person of such holiness and such goodness that people looked at you and wanted to bow down and think, boy, what a wonderful Christian that person is. That's not at all. That's not it. And I know this largely because of what we're being told here by the apostle John, because he talks, and again, who is he writing to? He's writing to people who are believers, people that know God, people that have seen His light, but yet maybe have chosen to walk in darkness and practice darkness and cling to the darkness of sin. And in their life, more and more clouds of sin and oppression come and hang over them. And John says, this is going to be the case so long as you choose to walk in the darkness of sin. But if you don't, and you walk in God's light, as He is in the light, let me tell you this, you can't walk with God and not walk in light at the same time. It's not possible. It's this perfecting of a child of God that John is after here. to make us understand that as we walk with Him, we have fellowship with one another, the blood of Jesus, His Son cleanses us. As we walk with Him, He is cleaning us and continuing to clean us. And one day, He's gonna separate us from this body of sin, this tabernacle of flesh, this tent, this temporary dwelling. And He's gonna give us a new one. He's going to give us a new one for us to dwell in. Man is man as he was created in the original state, and he'll be man like that, I believe, in eternity as well. He is perfecting us, drawing us to him. Walking in the light, and we just want to hit a few things here as we work towards the close. Walking in the light includes confession of sin. That's how we do it. If we confess our sins, verse nine, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. And here it is again, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. When you get saved, you begin a journey from here to eternity. And your life here is measured by days and weeks, months, perhaps years. God knew the number of my days when on January 11, 1973, I came into the world. He knew exactly how many days, He knew how many hours, He knew how many seconds He was going to give me here. But from the moment I was 11 years old and got saved, from that moment until that last second of my life, I had the opportunity to walk in light, in the light of God, or in the darkness of sin. And if we walk in the light of God, we will confess our sins. He knows them. And we confess them and we name them to Him so that we don't hide them from ourselves. We confess our sins to God so that we do not hide them from ourselves. God, help me to walk more and more in Your light, not in the darkness of sin. And Father, for me to do that, I know it is time for me to confess my sin to You, and You will cleanse me, Father, from all unrighteousness. Day by day, as Your light shines greater, and as I read Your Word and see in Your Word, and it reflects back to me and mirrors to me Your perfect Son, and then it shows me where I yet lack. You help me, Father, and can cleanse me even from those things that that light continues to reveal. Let's say it a different way, verse nine, if we do not confess our sins. If we do not confess our sins, He will not be faithful and just, not because He can't be, but because He has given you and I a role to play. You're not a robot and you know it. You're not. God has given you a place and a role to play here. Walking in sin is a walk in the dark. It's why the world won't make any sense to you if you walk in it long enough. It's why everyone who's tried to find purpose in this life through the things of the world, and specifically the sin of the world that blankets our society, It's why when they get to the end of that road, they're just as lost as they can be. Because they're in complete and total darkness. And you know what, if you're in complete darkness, it doesn't matter whether your eyes are open or not. Doesn't matter whether you're looking for it at that point. It'll just be darkness. Jesus said, those who do not know him, he speaks of them more than any other person in the New Testament. Jesus speaks of hell and that place that those who deny him and rebel and reject him will go. And he says, it's outer darkness. You'll open your eyes there and you might look for light and you won't see any. Now I want to say this, the greatest sin, said it before, others have as well, the greatest sin, what would it be? Well, certainly it seems logical and rational to think that the greatest sin would be to break the greatest commandment, the one that was most important in all of scripture. And we know what that is. Jesus said, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Now, some might say, well, that's a very selfish God. That's an unloving God. To ask us to love Him beyond all other things, to ask us to forsake everything to follow Him in the fallen mind of man, He will judge God unrighteous in this command. He will say, God, you are unjust for your command for me to love you with all of myself, that there's not room, Father, for me to love others before you, that you must be first. And there is a world of Christianity today, and sadly, there are many behind pulpits today that will tell you God is satisfied if you just add Him to your life in some small way. Show up to church on Sunday. Write your check for 10%. Be nice. Provide for your family. Do all of those things and God is satisfied. And they do not proclaim to you the truth of the word of God, which this is the greatest commandment. Jesus says, love me with all of your heart. And now I want to tell you this about that. Is that not exactly what a loving God would do? to tell you to love Him with everything, because He knows that if you love anything else, you will be in darkness. Isn't that the loving thing that a loving God would do? It is no tyrant who asks you to love. It is not a God who simply wants to torture you, that calls you to obedience even in the midst of struggle. It is a God who loves you and this is exactly what a loving God would do to call you to the light that is in himself and the rejection of the sin that easily besets and casts darkness over our lives and confusion in our hearts and in our minds. The light of God and the darkness of sin, that's our choice every day, every moment, every hour. Am I gonna walk in the light of God? Or am I gonna walk in the darkness of sin? Am I gonna walk in the counsel of God's word? Or am I gonna walk in the darkness of the counsel of men? Am I gonna cling to God with all of my heart, mind, soul, and strength, and live in the light of His love and in His presence, even in the midst of terrible time here, struggles and trials? Am I going to count them as more precious than gold? Am I going to walk with him and experience greater light? Or will I choose my own path and turn down my own path that leads to darkness? I pray that you choose the light of God. I pray that if He is dealing with you today, that you would seek Him until you find Him, until you can tell me and others, I know Him. And then you too can say, this is the message that I proclaim to you, that I've heard from Him. I've heard it from Him. Now, I'll close with this. As I spoke earlier of the herald, You ought not listened to me merely because I'm a herald. You should listen to me because I pray that what has been said is the Word of God. And if it's the Word of God, then that does obligate you to respond. And I would ask you this. You standing before the Lord Jesus Christ one day out there in the future, it may be far. It may be near. It may be when you're 90. It may be yet today. You're standing before him. And you say to him that you had turned away. You say to him and begin to make excuse. You will be without words when he says to you. But I sent my herald. I sent my herald. and even in his imperfection, even in the imperfections that you could count in that herald. He wasn't eloquent enough, he wasn't convincing enough, he wasn't persuasive enough, he wasn't holy enough, he wasn't good enough looking, he wasn't impressive enough. God's gonna say, but he was my herald and he told you the truth. It's gonna happen someday. I pray you're ready for it, that God will convict your heart with his word, draw you close to him, that you would repent and believe the gospel for you and for God's glory and his honor.