1 John chapter 5, this time.
1 John chapter 5, and I'll begin reading
at the first verse.
1 John chapter 5, verse 1.
Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is
born of God, and every one that loveth
him that begat loveth him also that is
begotten of him.
By this we know that we love the
children of God, and we love God and
keep his commandments.
For this is the love of God, that
we keep his commandments, and his commandments are
not grievous.
For once a reverend born of God overcomes
the world, and this is a victory that
overcomes the world, even our faith.
Who is he that overcometh the world, but
he that believeth that Jesus is the son
of God?
Is it he that came by water and
blood, even Jesus Christ?
Not by water only, but by water and
blood, and it is the spirit that beareth
witness, because the spirit is truth.
Verse 8.
And there are three that beareth witness in
the earth, the spirit, the water, and the
blood, and these three agree in one.
If we receive the witness of men, the
witness of God is greater.
For this is a witness of God which
he hath testified of his son.
He that believeth on the son of God
is a witness in himself.
He that believeth not God hath made him
a liar, because he believeth not the record
that God gave of his son.
And this is a record that God has
given to us eternal life, and this life
is in his son.
He that hath the son hath life, and
he that hath not the son of God
hath not life.
For any who were not here in our
previous meetings, I might just mention that we've
been looking at John's first epistle, and we
mentioned that in this letter he's giving us
the text of life.
He's giving us the mark of those who
truly belong to Jesus Christ.
It's a very practical letter, and a very
helpful one, although it does have problems in
it, of course.
We saw, first of all, that the true
believer is obedient to the commandments of the
Lord, the text of obedience.
He's not only obedient to the written word
of God, but he wants to do the
things that please the heart of Christ.
I'll never forget, Stacey would say that in
the authentic constant years ago, the Lord gave
me a single, pure desire to do the
thing that pleases your heart.
I like that, and the true believer in
the Lord Jesus is obedient by walking as
Jesus walked.
And, yesterday morning, we saw a second mark
of a true believer.
He does not love the world.
He walks in separation from the world, although
testifying to it, and then yesterday afternoon we
saw a third mark of the true believer,
and that he does not practice sin.
He may sin, but he does not practice
sin.
It's not the dominating influence of his life.
Now, this morning, we come to a fourth
test of life, as far as the leader
is concerned, and you might call it a
test of sound doctrine.
The true believer confesses Jesus is the Christ.
Now, perhaps a few words of explanation would
be helpful here.
We mentioned that the background of this letter
was the rise of a heresy, a false
cult in the early days of the church
known as Gnosticism.
You can live a normal life without knowing
that word.
I'll spell it g-n-o-s-t
-i-c-i-s-m.
These people professed to have superior knowledge.
Knowledge that was superior to what's found in
the word of God, and their con was,
look, we have additional mysteries in which you
should be initiated, and you'll never be really
happy until you know what we know.
It was a cult professing superior knowledge.
Now, one of their basic tenets was that
matter is evil.
Matter?
So, they couldn't accept that Jesus was God,
because Jesus was a man in a body
of matter, therefore evil.
So, here's God up here in absolute perfection,
and here's Jesus down here.
And what they did was they devised a
series of emanations coming from God down to
men.
In order to bridge that gulf between God
and Jesus, they devised a series of what
you might call emanations, spirits, influences, call it
what you will.
For instance, they say that the Christ came
upon Jesus.
Jesus was not the Christ, but the Christ
was an emanation or an influence that came
on Jesus, and infected him, and left in
the Garden of Gethsemane.
Therefore, the Christ didn't die, Jesus died.
They couldn't conceive of the Christ dying, so
they separated the person of Jesus and the
Christ.
Let me say that again.
They said the Christ was an influence that
came upon Jesus at his baptism, and left
in the Garden of Gethsemane.
So, Jesus went to the cross as Jesus,
not as the Christ.
Would you be surprised that there's a cult
here in Dallas that teaches exactly that?
Founded by a woman named Mary Patterson Baker's
lover, Eddie.
Shame to say it starts back, and that's
Jesus for a kingdom, and it is a
Gnostic cult, and it teaches exactly that, that
the Christ came upon Jesus at his baptism,
and left in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Isn't it wonderful that our bible says, Christ
died for our sins according to the scriptures,
and was buried and rose again the third
day according to the scriptures, and the word
of God knocked that heresy right in the
head.
I mentioned before that God allowed all of
the cults, all the heresies to arise in
the early days of the church, and they're
all answered in the sacred scriptures.
There's no new heresy today.
All it is is a rehash of something
that existed back in the apostolic time.
So, it's a wonder of this book that
we hold in our hands.
So, this book is adequate to answer any
of the heretical teachings that men are propounding
today.
The answer is all here, and so God
is saying here that the true believer in
the Lord Jesus Christ identifies Jesus as the
Christ.
He believes that Jesus Christ came in the
flesh.
That's the great confession, that that baby born
in Bethlehem's manger was the Jehovah of the
Old Testament, the anointed, the Messiah of God.
Okay?
That sounds awful.
John says that the true believer believes that
the Lord Jesus is the Son of God.
Now, a lot of the cults come around
when they come to your door.
They'd be willing to admit that Jesus is
the Son of God, but what they're thinking
is God has made them.
All believers are spoken of as sons of
God.
Beloved, how are we the sons of God?
Let's not get up here where we shall
be.
God has done something.
When the bible speaks of the Lord Jesus
as the Son of God, it speaks of
it as son in a unique way.
God has one unique son, and he has
many other sons.
The next all believers are sons of God,
children of God, but the Lord Jesus is
the Son of God in a unique way,
and you know, the Jews of Jesus' day
knew that.
They understood that, and when Jesus claimed that
he's the Son of God, they took up
stones of stone, because he called God his
Father, making himself equal with God, and if
that wasn't the intention of the Lord Jesus,
that was his perfect opportunity to say, no,
no, you're misunderstanding me.
I'm just the Son of God the way
all believers are sons of God.
He didn't say it, because it wasn't the
truth.
That's why John in John 3 16 speaks
of the Lord Jesus as the unique Son
of God, and that's really what it means.
God so loved the world that he gave
his unique son, that whosoever believeth on him
should not perish, but have everlasting life, and
John insists in this epistle that the true
believer confesses that Jesus is the Son of
God.
He believes that Jesus is the Christ.
He confesses Jesus Christ come in the flesh.
The true believer accepts the teachings of the
apostles as they are set forth in the
New Testament concerning the person and word of
the Lord Jesus.
Now, I think what I've said this morning
might illuminate somewhat verse six of chapter five
of first John.
It says, this is he that came by
water and by blood.
Even Jesus Christ, not by water only, but
by water and by blood.
Well, it's a difficult passage, but in the
light of what I've said, let's look at
it this way.
There were two termini terminals of Jesus' public
ministration, his baptism and his death on the
cross.
Water is baptism, blood is death on the
cross.
The Gnostics would admit he came by water.
They would say that Christ came upon the
man in Jesus at his baptism, but they
would deny that he came by blood.
They would deny that the one who died
on the cross was the Christ, and John
insists here that the two terminals of the
Lord Jesus' public ministry were water and blood,
the Jordan and the cross, his baptism and
his sacrificial death.
This is he that came by water and
by blood, not by water only, as you
Gnostics say, as you cultists say, but by
water and by blood, and it's the spirit
that bears witness because the spirit is truth,
and that is the truth that the spirit
of God bears witness to in this portion
of the Word.
Now, I'd like to just go beyond the
text of sound doctrine.
I'd like to carry this matter of confessing
Christ just a step further, and incidentally, when
the scriptures speak of confession of Christ, it
isn't just a matter of the lip, but
it's the wholehearted confession of Christ with the
life.
Anyway, in other words, Jesus is Lord.
A Hindu could say that, a Brahmin could
say that, a Buddhist could say that, but
confession in the scriptures is not just saying
words with your mouth, but it's the whole
being of a person wrapped up in that
truth, and I'd like to suggest to you
today that where there is real salvation for
a person who has truly been born again
of the spirit of God, there is that
warm, outgoing confession of the Lord Jesus Christ
as Lord.
In the days of the Roman Emperors, the
Christians were put under tremendous pressure to confess
that Caesar is Lord, and the word wouldn't
come out of their lips.
Instead, the word came out, Jesus is Lord.
What a cry of triumph!
With all the rest of the world down
on their knees saying, Caesar is Lord, and
here are a few Christians still on their
feet saying, not so!
Jesus is Lord.
They show the reality of their salvation by
the open-hearted confession of the Son of
God, but it isn't all that way.
One of the greatest contradictions in the world
today exists in the lives of people who
are ashamed of Jesus.
It's interesting, isn't it?
People aren't ashamed of the name Ronald Reuben.
They're not ashamed to enter into conversations about
politics, or business, or the letter, but it's
an interesting thing that, when the subject moves
toward the person of the Lord, thus the
conversation comes to a screeching halt, and I'd
like to think with you about that for
a little while.
The utter absurdity, a most bizarre situation in
which a creature should ever be ashamed of
its creator.
Some years ago, a young kid in junior
high school and the mother had to go
to the high school to the junior high
one day to contact him, and when she
got there, the kids were all out in
the playground having a ball out there, and
the mother was trying to attract the attention
of her son, but he didn't want to
be attracted.
He was ashamed of her, and so he
sinned against himself playing with his playmates so
he wouldn't see his mother in his dreams.
I've heard so many words than that.
I heard of a young man, I hope
it's just a story, a young man who
lived at home with his mother, and he
fell in love with a girl, and plans
progressed toward marriage, and he took the girl
to his home, and he found that there
was an old lady living upstairs, and he
introduced the old lady as old Mary.
It was his mother.
She had brought him to the world.
She had gone down into the jaws of
death to give life to that fellow.
She had changed his diapers innumerable times, and
said to him, he was a helpless baby.
She had nursed him through massive sickness, and
now he has the gall to introduce her
as old Mary.
A man.
He was ashamed of his mother.
A year ago, there was a fellow down
in Georgia, and he had a widowed mother.
She was very poor, and she had to
work hard to support herself and to pay
his way to school.
So, she took him washing.
The fellow was very bright, and he graduated,
and he was going to graduate with honors.
He was going to be given a gold
medal.
He was going to be the valedictorian of
his class, and graduation day came, and he
said to his mother, Mother, this is graduation
day, and I graduate.
Why aren't you getting ready to come to
the commencement exercise?
And she said, oh, she said, I'm not
going.
She said, I have nothing fit to wear.
She said, you'd be ashamed of your old
mother if I went there in my faded
dress, she said.
All the people of the city will be
there in the auditorium, and his eyes beamed
with admiration, and he said, what mother?
Ashamed of you?
Never.
He said, I owe everything I have in
the world to you, and I won't go
if you don't go, and so he helped
her get ready.
He insisted that she go, and she finally
consented, and he helped her to make herself
as tidy looking as possible, and he started
down the street with his mother's hands and
shoes, and they entered the hall where the
exercises were going to take place, and he
escorted her right down to the front, and
he gave her a place among the elegant
people of the town.
There she sat in her faded dress, and
they with their filth and elegance, and he
put his plate on the platform, and he
delivered the valedictory address, and the gold medal
was pinned upon him, and there was much
surprise, but no sooner had he received it
and the exercises were over than he got
on the platform, walked down to where his
mother was sitting, and pinned that gold medal
on her dress, and said to their mother,
that belonged to you.
You earned it.
Well, that's the way it should be.
You know, Dr. Taric told that story years
ago, and he told his tears streaming down
the eyes of the people in his audience,
and finally they broke out in applause.
He said to them, there's something you can
do better than applaud, and he said, by
imitating that young fellow, he said, you owe
everything to Jesus Christ.
Stand up and confess him.
That's true, isn't it?
We owe everything to Jesus Christ, and we
ought to stand up and confess him.
Why aren't people saved?
Maybe they're unsaved people here in the meeting
today.
I don't know.
If you're here today, why aren't you saved?
I'm here to go out back in New
Jersey, and I had a first cousin back
there.
I hadn't seen him before in my life,
but I met him.
We were in the car, and I said
to him, are you saved?
And he said, oh no, I'm not saved.
And I said to him, why aren't you
saved?
And it was a long, dull, awkward pause,
which I was determined not to break.
Finally, he said, cry, I guess, and I
guess he had guessed correctly, because that's why
people aren't saved.
Cry, ashamed of Jesus, irrational, and it is.
Let's take a minute.
Ashamed of the one who created us, the
one who designed these marvelous images in our
fingers, and these eyes, and how these eyes
projected images somewhere in our brain.
I can't explain the whole process of it.
I don't even understand the pathology of the
human body, but it marvels us, doesn't it?
Marvels!
The Lord Jesus is the one who designed
it all, with the infinite variety of all
the people in the world.
Shall I be ashamed of him?
Shall I be ashamed to confess his name
before us?
Not only that he made me, but he
preserved me.
I often think of the miracle that I'm
still alive after all these years.
Did you ever think of that?
It's marvelous, really.
In any folk called to life, I think
most of us have, most of us have
been delivered out of situations the human being
were impossible.
Only God could have plucked us out of
those situations, and here we are.
Did he even?
Have you ever been down at the very
edge of the valley of the channel?
He brought you back.
He preserves us.
Not only that, he supplies our needs.
Think of what a wonderful God he is,
that he opens his hand and provides the
needs of every living creature.
We admire him.
Should I be ashamed of such a one?
How did he die this day?
This is what baffles my heart.
There on the cross of Calvary, he poured
out his life for me.
He put a price tag on me.
He said, I value him for the value
of my own life, and I'll die for
him.
He did it.
For you to die that we might have
forgiveness of sins through Christ again, have a
hold in heaven forever.
He died to save us.
He offered eternal life to those who believe
on him.
Those who profess that Jesus is the Christ,
he offered eternal life.
And now, he says, I want you to
step forward and confess me before others.
I want you to take a stand for
me.
It's kind of thrilling for me to think
of how down through the ages people have
been doing that, taking a stand for the
Lord Jesus.
In the early days of the church, they
would be saying, and immediately they would go
into the waters of baptism, and before a
hostile world they would say, Christ is mine.
Let the consequences be what they may.
Christ is mine, and I'm not ashamed to
stand here in the waters and say, Jesus
is Lord.
Dear Father, Paul wasn't ashamed of him.
He said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel.
Christ is the power of God, the salvation
to everyone that believes him, to the Jew
first, and also to the Greek.
He said, I know, nevertheless I'm not ashamed.
I know whom I have to leave, and
persuaded that he's able to keep that which
I've committed against that day.
Well, this man was speaking yesterday about a
man named Antiphorus.
We can forgive him for his name, and
love him forever, because Paul said he was
not ashamed of my shame.
Now, that was interesting.
Paul was in a Roman prison, and his
fair other friends have all taken off.
I hope it wasn't too healthy to go
and visit Paul.
After all, Paul started a revolution everywhere he
went, and the civil authority didn't like it.
I don't think of the English mission, he
said.
Everywhere Paul went, he started a revolution.
Everywhere I go, they serve me a cup
of tea.
Now, I think that's where we are in
the 20th century.
Peter wasn't ashamed of the Lord, but the
Lord Jesus was in trial there in the
inner court.
Peter was out in the courtyard, and there
was a fire going there, and the enemies
of Christ were gathered around the fire, and
here's Peter warming his hands to the enemies
of Christ outside below, and he had a
name.
I've never seen her before, and never saw
her, so I can't ask her.
I didn't even know her.
She came and said, you wrote a lot
of them, weren't you?
You've got that Galilean dialect that I don't
know what you're talking about.
And then another one came along and said,
hey, you're associated with him.
He denied it three times with oaths and
curses.
A man came along and said, well, he's
a Galilean.
He belongs to Jesus?
He was furious, denied the Lord, was caught
in the throes, healed without it, wept in
her.
Why did he deny it?
Well, I think Peter might have had more
excuse than most of us have, because life
was on the line that night.
God knew it.
God knew that deep within his heart, in
spite of those denials, there was that love
for the Lord Jesus Christ.
This comes home very closely to me, because
as I look back to my unsaved days,
the thing that kept me from Christ was
that I was ashamed of him.
Looking back over it, it's been so insane,
so irrational, so unreasonable, but there it comes.
Ashamed of Jesus.
And I'll never forget our assembly met in
a room in the basement of the Hotel
Somerset in Boston, Massachusetts.
And, one Sunday night, there was a mail
for a text in, and they played that
song, Ashamed of Jesus.
Can it be a moral man ashamed of
thee?
Ashamed of thee whom angels praise, whose glory
shines through endless days?
I could feel a sore in my neck.
I mean, God was putting his finger right
on Bill and Donald.
Ashamed of Jesus, sooner far the evening blush
to own her star.
He said the beams of light divine for
this benighted soul of mine.
Ashamed of Jesus, just as soon that midnight
the exchange of noon.
Since midnight, with my soul, till he bright
morning star did darkness flee, they sang on,
and I sank deeper and deeper into my
tears.
Ashamed of Jesus, that dear friend on whom
my hopes of heaven depend.
So, when I blush, she lifts my shame
that I no more revere his name.
Ashamed of me, but yet I may, when
I have no sin to wash away.
No tear to wipe, no good to crave,
no tears to quell, no soul to save.
That's when I can be ashamed of Jesus,
when I don't have any of those things.
Till then, there is my boasting vain, till
then I boast the Savior's claim.
Though made it my glory be, the Christ
did not obtain the crown.
For as if on Jesus Christ you trust,
speak for him you surely must, though it's
humble to the dust if you love him
plainly.
If on Jesus you believe, and the spirit
you receive, lest he should that spirit leave,
don't delay, but stay so.
I often think of Joseph of Arimathea.
Jesus' psalms on the next week of Easter.
Joseph of Arimathea had a secret disciple of
the Lord Jesus.
I don't think it can be very long,
really.
There's the Lord Jesus, and his body is
entailed upon that trunk of wood, and Joseph
is his signatory in town.
He's a wheel.
He's a member of the council, and the
battle is going on within him, and he
thinks, if I pitch my site with these
of the Nazareth, that'll be the end of
me as far as the synagogue is concerned,
as far as you need to particularly administer.
That'll be the end of me politically as
my career's on.
That'll be the end of me economically.
I'll be cut off by the Jews.
I'll be disinherited.
I won't be able to find employment, and
all of those things went through the mind
of Joseph of Arimathea, and then he made
a decision.
I've got to take my stand for Christ.
He went to Pilate, and he begged the
body of Jesus.
Now, impressive something, dear friends.
When Joseph buried Jesus, he buried himself, too,
and he considered it a very good bargain.
A matter of what the cost may be,
come out and place your petitions to the
Lord Jesus.
There are two wonderful verses in Hebrews, chapter
2, verse 11.
It says, "...Christ is not ashamed to call
us brethren."
That speaks to my heart.
You know, he might very well be.
He might be very well a king to
identify himself with a wretch like me, but
he's not.
Therefore, he's not ashamed to call them brethren.
Then it says in Hebrews 11, 16, "...God
is not ashamed to be called their God."
He sees us walking down here, and especially
you see people walking down, walking a pilgrim's
pathway, and it says, "...not ashamed to be
called their God."
Dear friends, that's great.
We were thinking about great.
I want to tell you, that's great.
God is ashamed to identify himself with us.
But, this is a mark of a true
believer, the confession, the bold, warm, open confession
of Jesus Christ as Lord.
The empire said, "...I am not ashamed to
own my Lord, or to defend his cause,
and maintain the honor of his word, the
glory of his cross.
Jesus my Lord, I know his name.
His name is all my trust, nor will
he put my soul to shame, nor let
my hope be lost.
Burn at his throne his promised land, and
he can well secure what I've committed to
his hands till the decisive hour."
I love this last verse.
It says, "...then will he own my worthless
name."
Then will he own my worthless name before
his father's face, and in the new Jerusalem
appoint my soul.
I say, any emotional experience that we might
go through in confessing the name of Christ
down in the world of hate, there will
be nothing compared to the same joy of
that moment in heaven when he confesses our
worthless names to his father, and appoint our
soul a place with him.
I kind of was wondering if there's someone
in the meeting this morning, and if he
never confessed Jesus Christ as your Lord and
Savior, and the Spirit of God pounding at
your heart door this morning to say, do
it.
Did you do it?
How would I do it?
Are your heads as it were?
You're sitting by a definite act of faith,
receiving Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior,
repenting of your sins, and believing that the
Savior is your only hope for heaven.
If the meeting is over, go up to
someone and say, I receive Jesus Christ as
my Lord and Savior.
I'd like to sing a hymn with you
in closing, and maybe God will use this
moment for you to end with the Savior.
Hymn number 348, What Will You Do With
Jesus?
One of the marks of the believer is
a confession that Jesus is the Christ.
What a wonderful time to do it today.
For the first time, Jesus is standing in
silence, all friendless, forsaken, betrayed by all, what
meanest it for us all was.