We will begin in 2 Corinthians chapter 13.
2 Corinthians chapter 13, verse 5.
Test yourselves to see if you are in
the faith.
Examine yourselves, or do you not recognize this
about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you,
unless indeed you fail the test.
Let's go to the Lord in prayer.
Father, I come before you in the name
of your Son.
And now, Lord, it is an unction that
I need.
Do you know?
In Jesus' name, amen.
You may be seated.
There are so many people who go to
church on Sunday, even in Bible-teaching churches
like this one has been, and yet do
not know the Lord.
They do not know Him.
They can even be involved in ministry.
They can even be involved in religious activity.
But they do not know Him.
And why is that?
Because of the preaching that is so prevalent
in this country today.
Now, I'm not going to spend time dealing
on what is wrong.
I want to get to what is right.
But we need to understand something.
So much has been done in the evangelical
community that is not biblical and it is
not historical.
We have taken the gospel of Jesus Christ
and reduced it down to four or five
little principles and a prayer that you repeat
at the end.
That's not Christianity.
We see people, a very, very handsome speaker
on television, a while back, he was speaking
and he went through his entire sermon about
people's temporal needs and all such and sort
of things.
And then he gets to the very end
and he looks right into the camera and
he says, pray this prayer if you want
Jesus to fix your life.
And after he led those people in a
prayer, he said, we believe, we know that
if you repeated that prayer, God has given
you eternal life.
My friend, that's not true.
That is not true.
Now, we come down to an issue.
You know how so many people, it's very,
very common in America today to hear someone
say, I don't want none of that theology
stuff.
I don't want none of that doctrine.
When you say you don't want theology, those
are two words, theos and logos in the
Greek language.
You're saying, I don't want a word from
God, because that's what that means.
Also, when you say you don't want doctrine,
Hebrew word means teaching.
I don't want teaching.
I want all the benefits of eternal life
and salvation, but I don't want to hear
a word from God.
Everything that we do must be founded upon
doctrine.
Just because I use the word doctrine does
not mean it's something men teach.
Jesus taught doctrine, He taught truth.
And that's where we need to stand, upon
the truth.
Now, in theology, in doctrine, there are two
doctrines that are very important.
One of them is the security of the
believer, and the other is the doctrine of
assurance.
Today in America, we've combined both of those
and lost both of them.
We've combined them into one doctrine and lost
both of them.
Now, what is the doctrine of security?
I really don't like that title, but we'll
use it because it's common today.
It's better to say perseverance of the saints.
But, the doctrine of security is this, when
God has truly saved an individual, the same
power of God that saved that individual keeps
that individual unto the end, keeps them from
falling.
Now, that's the doctrine of security.
But there's another doctrine.
It's called the doctrine of assurance.
The doctrine of security is, if you have
truly believed in Jesus Christ, you are secure.
The doctrine of assurance is, how do you
know you have believed?
How can you be assured that you have
truly believed unto salvation?
Now, think about the importance of this question.
When you look around, all we'd have to
do is dismiss this church right now and
go knock on doors throughout this entire county.
What would we find?
We would find that everybody basically in this
county has been saved.
They all believe they believe.
I believe.
We could go to trailer parks, we could
go everywhere you would want to go, we
could go to rodeos today, we could go
anywhere you would want to go, and we
would find people without number who believe and
believe they are saved.
And yet, there is no evidence of a
new life in them.
There is no evidence of Christ.
There is no evidence of a supernatural work
of God.
So the question comes down to this, how
can you and I be assured?
How can we have confidence that we truly
believe unto salvation?
How do you know you believe?
That's a fearful question when you think that
you're surrounded by multitudes of people who claim
to believe, and it seems as though that
claim is false.
How do you know you are saved?
Let me put it this way.
I ask someone, do you have eternal life?
Are you saved?
Are you going to heaven?
And they say, yes.
I ask them, why?
Well, because I believe.
My next question, how do you know you
believe?
How do you know that what you're calling
belief is actually saving faith?
Now, in many instances around this country, there
will be people today who will walk up
to pastors all over this country and say,
Pastor, I'm not really sure if I'm a
Christian or not.
And you know what the primary question will
be that will be asked?
Well, let me ask you a question.
Was there ever a point in time in
your life when you prayed and asked Jesus
Christ to come into your heart?
And the person will say, yes.
And then, were you sincere?
I think so.
Well, then, this is just the devil bothering
you and you need to believe God.
You're saved.
Some of you have heard that in different
places.
Some of you have said that in different
places.
That's what we have done with the Gospel
of Jesus Christ.
Now, we have the Apostle Paul here in
this book and what's going on.
He is addressing a church that is in
disobedience.
Not only are there true Christians there who
are in a sense being disobedient, lifted up,
proud, but he's also addressing a church that
has within it people who profess faith in
Jesus Christ who really aren't Christians.
Now, how does the Apostle Paul deal with
assurance?
How does he talk to these people so
that they might truly know that they are
saved or truly know that they are not?
Well, we get to verse 5.
He says this, Test yourselves.
Look at that.
Test yourselves to see if you are in
the faith.
And then he repeats himself basically, examine yourselves.
He doesn't necessarily ask them to go back
to a point in time, even though in
counseling that's important to discuss someone's conversion experience,
very important.
But the issue isn't so much what did
you do back then, but what are you
doing now?
Because what you are doing now will determine
what really happened back then.
Because if God begins a work in you,
He continues it.
If He starts a work, the work will
persevere.
If you have repented, you'll continue to repent.
If you have believed, you're believing now.
Because he who began a good work will
finish that work.
So now, he gives us two words here.
And it's a word to you and to
me, not just to this church in Corinth.
But to you and to me, he gives
a word.
He says, test yourself.
Take a test.
Well, what material do we use?
Well, there's only one material.
You've been taught that quite well.
It's the Word of God.
You test your life in light of what
the Word of God says about genuine faith
and genuine Christianity.
That's what you do.
And then he says, examine yourself.
There are many times when I worked in
the Andes Mountains running mule trains and everything
else you can imagine, that when I was
having to go across a footbridge, I tested
it.
Why?
Because it's a long fall.
You test that footbridge.
Why?
Your life depends on it.
Do you not see?
I'm not preaching to hear myself preach.
I'm not talking just to say beautiful words.
Listen to me.
Whatever is spoken out of a pulpit when
the Word of God is truly preached, your
life depends upon it.
And the life of your children depend upon
it.
Do you not see?
This is not some flippant little thing.
This is not something that you just add
to your life as an accessory.
This is it.
I think not only of you, I think
about the children.
How many people go to hell because they
believed that they were converted in a vacation
Bible school where they were asked as little
children, how many of you love Jesus?
Have you ever had a little child raise
their hand and say, well, I hate Him?
Or how many of you little children want
to go to heaven?
Have you ever seen a little child raise
their hand and say, no, I'd rather go
to hell actually?
And then when the question is asked, how
many of you want to go to heaven?
How many of you believe in Jesus?
What happens?
They all raise their hand.
And then what happens?
They're all pronounced saved.
And then what happens?
They're baptized.
And then what happens?
When they're about 15 or 16 and start
feeling a little bit of strength, a little
bit of independence, they show their true colors.
And then what do we call it?
They just need to rededicate their life.
No.
They need to be saved.
They need to be regenerated by the power
of God.
Someone asked me one time, they said, can
a five-year-old be saved?
I said, a 65-year-old Harvard professor
cannot be saved apart from the power of
God, and a five-year-old can.
That's not the issue.
Children can be saved.
We have to be doctors of the soul
in this church.
We have to be people who love so
much that we are going to not only
test and examine our own lives, but it
is the responsibility of any spiritual leadership in
a church to also be very, very careful
of how they deal with the souls of
the people that God sends to them.
So he says, test yourselves to see if
you are in the faith.
Examine yourselves.
Now, how are we to do that?
Should we compare ourselves with others?
Well, no, Paul tells the church in Corinth,
that's a very foolish thing to do.
So how are we to test ourselves?
How are we to examine ourselves?
In the light of God's Word.
Now, he goes on to say this.
He says, Do you not recognize this about
yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you, unless
indeed you fail the test?
He's looking at these people who claim to
be believers.
He's saying, You live like a group of
people that do not even realize that God
has come to take up residence in your
life.
But then he goes on.
He doesn't stop there.
Could it be that God has not come
to take up residence in your life?
You're living like someone in whom the Spirit
of Christ does not dwell.
Now, why do I say this?
Well, for the reason any preacher would say
this.
Love, how many of you, I'm not condemning
you, I'm not.
How many of you, other than coming to
church this Sunday, there is very little difference
between you and those who profess no faith
whatsoever in Christ.
It's not you I'm against, it's you I'm
for.
It's you we desire to reach.
How many of you, teenagers, young people, your
life is no different at school, except that
you go to church on Sunday.
Take this to heart.
Take it seriously.
Think about what's being said to you.
This is a test, not a minor thing.
You think of so many tests you must
take in order to get into a good
university.
Once there, you think of the MBA program
or law school or medical school and the
tests you must take.
I'm talking about an eternal thing, an eternal
wager.
Life and death, heaven and hell.
Two words that won't even be mentioned in
some churches this Sunday.
Is your faith real faith?
Let's examine it.
Let's turn to 1 John 5.
1 John 5.13
Now, when John writes his Gospel in John
20.31, he tells us why he has
written the words he has written.
So that people would believe that Jesus was
the Christ, the Son of God, and that
they might have eternal life.
That's the reason he wrote his Gospel.
Now he's going to tell us the reason
he wrote his Epistle.
He says, verse 13, These things I have
written to you who believe in the name
of the Son of God so that you
may know that you have eternal life.
Why did John write this letter?
He wrote it to a group of people
who were professing faith in Christ so that
through reading the letter, they would know whether
or not they were truly saved.
That's the purpose of this letter.
And this was well known in the old
days of old preaching.
That if you want to know whether or
not you're saved or not, you don't go
to some little magical formula.
If you want to know whether you're saved,
you go to 1 John.
Because the whole thing is a series of
tests that are given so that the Spirit
of God might reveal to your heart that
you truly are saved and give you a
biblical assurance instead of an emotional one.
But at the same time, maybe give you
biblical assurance that you're lost no matter what
the profession that comes out of your mouth.
And that's what we're going to do.
Let's take a brief look at verse 13.
And then we're going to try to get
into one or two of the tests this
morning.
And then this evening, we will continue on.
Now, there's twofold purpose here.
Number one, this is for you to examine
your own life.
It does not matter, sir.
It does not matter, sister, if you have
supposedly or really been in the faith for
40 years.
The Word of God is never something we
learn and then we don't have to listen
to anymore.
This is for you.
Every one of us should examine our lives
to see if we truly are in the
faith.
But also, listen to me, those of you
who are leaders, those of you who are
parents, learn this.
Why?
First of all, for your children's sake.
That you might be able to help them
discern whether or not they have truly come
to the faith.
Now, he says, what are these things?
The entire book of 1 John.
These things I have written to you who
believe in the name of the Son of
God.
Now, in the Scriptures, when the apostles and
such are writing their epistles, talk about someone
who believes.
Some men really get kind of messed up
here.
They say, well, he says they believe, they
really do believe.
He's talking to true believers.
No, he's talking in the same way any
pastor would.
Those of you who profess to believe.
I can't look in your heart.
I don't know if your profession is true,
but I'm writing to those of you who
say you believe.
And that's what he's doing here.
Now, he says, so that you may know.
Now look at that.
That one word destroys some denominations and some
teaching.
Those who would say you cannot know that
you are saved contradict everything in 1 John
5.
He says, so that you may know that
you have eternal life.
Let me just put a passing word here
about something very, very important.
Eternal life is not a ticket to heaven
and an escape from hell.
Eternal life is this, that they may know
you, the only true God and Jesus Christ
Whom you have sent.
Let me just give you something that's really
good.
This isn't one of the tests of faith,
but this will help you kind of square
off to see where you're at.
You know, so many people want to go
to heaven only because they want to go
to heaven.
They have nothing to do with God on
earth, yet they want to go to heaven.
Why?
Well, it's a nice place.
And the alternative is terrible.
So they want to go to heaven.
If that is your view of eternal life,
right there a red flag should jump up
that possibly you do not know Him.
My friend, heaven is heaven because God is
there.
Those who really go to heaven go to
heaven not so that they can swing on
gates of pearl or walk down streets of
gold.
They go to heaven because they want to
see the face of the Savior.
They want to worship Christ.
They love Him.
Eternal life is not just longevity.
It's not just a perfect body in a
perfect place.
It is a love for God that will
finally and eternally be able to manifest itself.
A love that some of you so desire.
You so desire to love Him as He
ought to be loved.
You so desire to serve Him as He
ought to be served.
And heaven is heaven to you because there
it's going to happen.
You will see Him.
No more veils.
No more looking through a cloudy glass.
But you'll see Him.
But if you're sitting here today and heaven
is just a way to get out of
the alternative or a fine place to be,
you sound more like someone who wants to
rent a condo on Lake Travis, but not
someone who wants to go to heaven.
Because heaven is all about God.
All about...
Now, let's look at the tests that are
in Scripture.
And we'll start in chapter 1.
Now some of the things I'm going to
say here at the very beginning are absolutely
crucial.
Absolutely crucial to your understanding of this book
and this passage.
Crucial.
So, put your thinking caps on.
In chapter 1, verse 5, he says, "...This
is the message we have heard from Him
and announced to you that God is light
and in Him there is no darkness at
all."
Now this is not a test, it's an
introduction.
And you must understand this passage to get
to the rest.
Okay, now, first of all, what is the
message?
That God is light.
Now what does that mean?
He's saying this is the message that we
have heard from Him.
Well, let's just break it all down.
This is the message.
First of all, He doesn't say this is
a message.
Or this is a really good message among
a whole bunch of other messages.
No, He's saying this is the message you
need to hear at this time with the
problems that are going on in this church.
That's what He's saying.
And what were the problems going on?
They had a group of false teachers that
had moved in that were the roots of
a heresy that still exists today that we
call Gnosticism.
And what these false teachers taught was that
they alone possessed this esoteric, and the word
means hidden, they alone possessed this hidden knowledge
that the common believer, like all of us,
would never really understand.
But they possessed this knowledge which gave them
such a high ranking.
It also enabled them to live freely.
That was their term for it, but God's
term for it would be in bondage to
sin.
They were very immoral.
Very immoral.
Some of them would say, well, you know,
the body's going to be destroyed anyway, so
if you live in sin constantly, that's no
big deal for a Christian.
It was antinomianism, a word that means lawlessness.
They lived as though God had never given
a law.
Because the body's evil, it will be destroyed,
we'll go to heaven one day in our
soul and spirit, we can do whatever we
want with our body because it won't affect
our inward man.
They had many such heresies like that.
They denied many things about the doctrine of
the person of Christ.
They were a very wicked lot.
Now, he says, this is the message you
need to hear in the context of all
the wickedness and immorality that is around you.
And what is that message?
God is light.
My dear friend, if there was a message
the church of Jesus Christ needs to hear
in America today, it is this.
God is light.
You are surrounded by a sea of wickedness.
You live in a culture that is all
but pagan.
And it has affected you much more than
what you could imagine.
Don't think that you swim through this sea
without being tainted by its stain.
There is so much in all of us
that is so secular and unbiblical that if
it were to be pulled back all at
once, it would terrify us.
So again, this is not just people 2
,000 years ago.
This is today.
God is light.
Now what does that mean?
Well, John, if you study his Gospel and
study his epistles, all of them, you come
to understand something about him.
Very unusual in his writing.
He uses a lot of terms that kind
of leave you open to two or three
possibilities.
It's almost as though he's done it on
purpose.
So when you say, God is light, you
must look at the context around this to
discover what does he mean when he says
God is light?
Because it does no good to say God
is light if you don't know what that
means.
For example, we were in a seminary class
one day, and I was a young seminary
student, and the professor told us all, he
says, I just want each of you just
to mention an attribute of God.
So we all went through the class, and
after that we had a whole board written
of the attributes of God.
And all of a sudden, it just dawned
on me, I raised my hand, I said,
sir, that means absolutely nothing what we have
written.
He said, you're absolutely right.
Why does it mean nothing?
It means nothing to say God is holy
unless you go into the Bible and find
out what holy means.
Because the world will give you a definition
of holy.
The world will give you a definition of
love.
The world will give you a definition and
they'll all be wrong.
If you say God is light, you then
must go into the Scripture and say, okay,
what does that mean?
Now, throughout Scripture, and we talk about light,
especially in John in his Gospel and his
Epistles, he does this thing between light and
darkness, holiness, moral purity, sinlessness, perfection, and
sin, unrighteousness, wickedness.
So when John says that God is light,
he's saying God is holy.
Remember this, the Bible never says God is
love, love, love.
And it never says God is merciful, merciful,
merciful.
But it does say God is holy, holy,
holy.
And the repetition is important.
Very important.
You want to know what God is?
Who God is?
God's holy.
And if there was ever a message we
needed to hear in America today, it's that.
God is holy.
I have a dear friend that is so,
so very, very wise.
He's one of my favorite preachers in the
world.
When he witnesses to somebody, this is how
he'll start off.
He'll tell them how holy and how righteous
God is.
And then when they ask him, well, then
how am I to be saved?
He'll look at them and say, oh, that's
easy.
Be perfectly righteous and perfectly holy like God.
And then he'll turn away.
Because the person sitting there and going, you
just left me.
I mean, you've left me.
You tell me God is this way.
I'm nothing like that.
And now you're telling me in order to
go to heaven, I've got to be just
like God?
Yes.
Well, that's impossible.
Yes.
What do I do?
Jesus.
You see, in our witnessing, if we do
not deal with the attributes of God, when
we tell people, you know, you need to
be saved or that, you know, there's a
God, they could be thinking about a tree
or something.
You have to be able to explain what
does this mean?
Now, you may be noticing something about my
preaching right now.
And it might be to the dislike of
some of you and to the like of
others of you.
And it is this, I am not working
this sermon down to some fine point where
I can manipulate you to this altar.
I'm not trying to, you know, how do
I bring this to a crescendo?
No, I'm going to teach you the Bible.
And I believe that teaching you the Bible
is going to change your life.
Okay?
So when we run out of time, we'll
stop.
We'll give an invitation, but we will stop.
And we'll pick this right back up again
tonight.
Now, just so we all understand where we're
at.
Now, when he says that God is light,
it not only means that He's holy, but
in this context, it means something tremendous.
And if you don't catch it, you won't
understand what he's saying.
These teachers said that God was dark.
He was esoteric.
He was hidden.
You couldn't really know Him.
And you couldn't really know His will.
Sounds like the media today, doesn't it?
Everybody, all the politicians talk about God, but
you can't know who He is and you
can't know what He's required of the old
man.
Or that's the exact same thing.
And why did they teach that way?
Because everyone wants a God.
But when you start defining who He is
and what His law is, it brings responsibility.
So everyone wants a God, but a God
that's really far away that you really can't
know and you don't know what He wants.
Because then you have the liberty to live
just like your carnal heart desires.
I was debating with a man from Spain
one time and he had the advantage.
He was a very, very gifted man.
And the language, he just had such a
control of the language.
And we were discussing a philosopher from Spain,
Unamuno, who's one of the most famous philosophers
in Spain.
He's influenced much of Europe.
He wrote a book, La Vida es un
Sueño, Life is a Dream.
And what this is about is this, that
the greatest thing to be is a seeker
of the truth.
But the most arrogant thing you could ever
do is say you found it.
It's like if I go to a university
to debate or something.
If I stand up in front of the
entire group and I say, I am a
seeker of the truth, they'll all applaud me.
I mean, they'll applaud.
And then when I go, and I found
it, they'll boo me off the platform.
And I told this man from Spain, I
said, I just discovered why you don't want
to acknowledge that there really is a truth
out there.
Because the moment you acknowledge it, you're going
to have to submit to it and that's
what you don't want to do.
And that's the way these doctors were.
That's the way these false prophets were here
in this book.
God is this esoteric God that you really
can't know.
And His will, well, who knows what He
wants?
And John counters this by saying what?
God is light.
What does he mean?
He has shown you who He is and
He has told you His will.
And you can't escape it.
He's not a hidden God.
He's not a God that you have to
go look for with a flashlight or a
lantern like the philosopher went through the city
looking for a righteous man.
He's not that kind of God.
He has made Himself known to you.
You know who He is and you also
know what He desires of thee.
That's what John's saying.
And that's very, very important.
Very important.
Very, very, very important.
Now, we're going to finish by going to
test number one.
And don't worry, there's ten of these.
The wonderful thing about preaching outside of this
country is you can preach this whole book
on one Sunday morning.
But in America, they just can't endure it.
Now let's look at the first test.
What is the first test?
Verse 6, if we say that we have
fellowship with Him and yet walk in darkness,
we lie and do not practice the truth.
But if we walk in the light as
He Himself is in the light, we have
fellowship with one another and the blood of
Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
Now, let's take this apart.
If we say we have fellowship with Him,
what does it mean to have fellowship with
Him?
My dear friend, in modern times, this book
has been treated much differently than it was
in ancient times.
Many people will look at this and say,
to have fellowship with Him, what He's talking
about is the difference between two types of
Christians.
A Christian who walks in fellowship with God
and a Christian who does not walk in
fellowship with God.
No, that's not what He's talking about.
And a boatload of ancient theologians will back
me up on that, as well as many
of the greatest Bible teachers alive today.
When He says, when He talks about fellowship,
koinonia, a fellowship, a unity, an intimate relationship,
He is not talking about two different types
of Christians, one that has fellowship and one
that doesn't.
He's talking about a lost man and a
saved man.
When He goes on and says, we know
that we've come to know Him, He's talking
about a saved man.
A saved man has fellowship with Him.
A saved man knows Him.
A person who abides in Him is a
person who knows Him.
A person who does not abide is a
person who is lost.
These are tests to determine, not whether or
not you're a good Christian or a bad
one.
These are tests to determine whether you are
a Christian.
So He says, verse 6, if we say
that we have fellowship with Him, if we
say that we are Christians, that we're born
again, that we're going to heaven, that we've
been regenerated, if we say that and yet
walk in darkness.
What does it mean to walk in darkness?
Well, first look at the word walk.
It comes from a Greek word peripateo, which
literally, the peri part on that, literally means,
gives it the idea of walking around or
wandering or going places.
It's not just walking in a straight line,
but just walking all over the place.
So what he's saying is this.
If we say we have fellowship, that we
are Christians, and yet we walk around in
the darkness.
Now, this is a present tense verb.
That means a continuous action.
If we say we're Christians and yet our
lifestyle, our habit of living is one of
walking around in darkness, then we're a liar
when we say we're a Christian.
Now, what is darkness?
We have to define that.
It's the opposite of light.
You say, oh, walking in unholiness.
Yes, but I want you to get this
a little bit deeper.
What is light?
God has told us who He is.
God has told us what He desires.
To walk in the light is to walk
according to what God has told us about
Himself and to walk according to what God
has told us about His will.
To walk in the darkness is to walk
in a way that contradicts what the Bible
teaches about the person of God and contradicts
what the Bible teaches about the will of
God.
Do you understand?
To walk in the darkness is to live
a life, to have characteristics in your life
and works in your life that totally contradict
everything we know about the person of God.
And it's to live a style of life
that contradicts everything God has ever said about
what He desires of you.
That's the difference between walking in the light
and walking in the darkness.
And what we're talking about here is lifestyle.
A word that is very, very important that
Dr. MacArthur uses quite a bit is habitual.
Habitual practices.
The practice of your life.
The style of your life.
Now let me show you the difference really
quick so that we don't get confused.
If you were to follow me around, especially
when I'm on our farm, if you were
to follow me around with a snapshot camera,
a camera that just takes snapshots, you know,
the old timey ones.
If you were to follow me around, say
I'm fixing a barn.
And I don't know if any of you
worked on barns, but that old, old tin
that they used to put on barns, not
that new flimsy stuff, but the real old
stuff.
And you're up there nailing.
And I'm nailing and you hear me, bam,
bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.
And all of a sudden I go, bam,
bam, bam.
And you hear a scream like nothing you've
ever heard before on this earth.
I throw the hammer, I jump down off
the roof, I kick the dog, and immediately,
you come up to me at that point
and you go, click!
And then you put it on the big
screen next Sunday and you say, I told
you that guy was a false prophet and
he wasn't saved.
Look at that face.
Or you follow me around with a snapshot
camera, even in my own home.
And you see me give my wife a
quick word.
Child, can't you see I'm late?
I don't have time to do this.
Click!
You know what?
If you follow me around with a snapshot
camera, you are going to be able to
find times when I am acting in a
way that contradicts what we know about God
and contradicts what we know about God's will.
Is that not true?
And if you just take that snapshot camera,
you can condemn my soul to hell.
But, if you follow me around 24 hours
a day, 24-7, with a video camera,
and take the full course of my life,
are you going to see perfection?
No.
Are you going to see someone that imitates
Christ in absolutely every aspect of His being
and His daily life?
No.
But what are you going to see?
You are not going to see a habitual
practicing of darkness.
You are going to see someone to whom
light has come and who the darkness is
passing away.
You're going to see a style of life
that although it is intermittent with sin, it
is not habitual sin.
There is a sense that light has come.
There is a sense of, as a style
of life, although not perfect, as a style
of life, this man is walking in a
way that conforms to what God has told
us about His person.
And this man is walking in a way
that conforms to what God has revealed about
His will.
Style of life.
Now, he says, if we say, do you
know what your profession of faith in Jesus
Christ is worth?
Absolutely zero.
Because all the time here, he is going
to contradict, if we say.
He says, if we say, and yet.
If we say we know God, that we
have fellowship with God, that we abide in
Christ, that we are Christians, we are born
again.
If we use all this terminology, and yet,
we live a style of life that does
not conform to the person and will of
God, we lie.
Look at that.
Now, this is the apostle of love.
That's what he was called.
But look at the hard terminology he's losing.
I mean, he doesn't debate.
He just looks at you and says, no,
you lie.
He doesn't try to look inside your heart.
He doesn't count your hallelujahs.
He doesn't care about the tears streaming down
your face in worship.
What he says is, no, you lie when
you say that.
What will I say to you?
What else can I say?
I'm a man under compulsion.
If you say that you know him, but
your style of life contradicts his attributes, primarily
his holiness, and contradicts what he has revealed
about his will for your life, all our
lives, you lie.
If you're sitting here today and you say,
boy, you know, I profess to know him,
but my style of life is just flagrant
violation of everything the Bible teaches about God
and his will.
What would I tell you?
At least at the minimum, dear friend, a
red flag ought to pop up.
And you ought to say, wait a minute
here.
I need to get some godly counsel.
I need someone to take me through the
Word.
I need some help.
Well, that's what we're here for.
Help.
Now, I'm going to give an invitation to
Brother Robert to come up.
Listen to me.
Again, this is not about getting an altar
filled.
This is about you.
This is about you being saved.
This is about you being healed.
This is about you being warned.
Hopefully in a couple of weeks when I
can arrange it somehow, I'm going to have
it where if you want to go off
somewhere to a room, you can go.
And as soon as I get done here,
I will be there and I'll stay with
you.
We'll talk, whatever we have to do.
Because I don't want just one minute here
of a prayer and then see you go
back to the same old thing.
We need to deal with some things.
You need to get things right for the
sake of you and for the sake of
your children and most of all for the
sake of God.
There are some of you in here today,
and I am not a prophet or the
son of a prophet, but there are some
of you, you know unless your ears have
become so hardened that you go to church,
but when you walk out these doors, you're
going to live a life that contradicts everything
God has told us about Himself and contradicts
everything God has ever said about His will.
Oh, my dear friend, don't run from that.
Don't say, the preacher is being mean.
Come, let's talk.
Let's reason together.
Let's work this thing out.
Let's wrestle this thing to the ground.
Let's get victory.
Some of you might say, why just go
up there and pray?
I've gone up there and prayed a thousand
times and it's never done anything.
Okay, let's take this thing a little bit
further then.
Let's meet and talk.
Let's work this out.
It can be done.
Some of you ought to be very, very
happy because everything I've described up there indicates
that you're a believer.
And some of you ought to be absolutely
terrified that everything I said up there indicates
some red flags ought to be jumping up
in your life.
Now, I'm going to be down here.
Whatever elder, teacher, whatever wants to come down
here can.
Let's stand and let's sing.