Let us now turn in the word of
God to the first epistle written by John.
I would like to read from the first
chapter verses 5 to 7.
And this will be the basis of our
message tonight.
Following the very challenging word of the Lord
that has already gripped our consciences and I'm
sure our hearts.
1 John chapter 1 verses 5 to 7.
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 live according to the truth.
But if we walk in the light as
he is in the light.
We have fellowship one with another and the
blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from
all sin.
Doctrine and duty, belief and behavior are inextricably
bound together in scripture.
Nowhere is that principle enunciated with greater clarity
and with a more forceful application than in
these particular words.
First of all the inspired apostle John presents
us with a major Christian doctrine.
He tells us that God is light.
And with the next breath as it were
he proceeds to tell us something of the
very practical implications of this fact.
And the two divisions of our message tonight
will be found there.
First of all we shall look at the
cardinal Christian affirmation that we have in this
text.
And then the practical apostolic application of that
great and basic Christian doctrine.
First of all then we shall look at
this cardinal Christian affirmation.
Let me read it again.
This then says John is the message which
we have heard of him and declare unto
you that God is light.
And in him is no darkness at all.
Now this is a cardinal Christian statement on
many counts.
First of all because of its subject.
It is a statement concerning God.
And since the nature of Christianity as such,
as well as of its ethical and moral
demands, are alike determined by the person and
by the nature of God.
This is essentially a cardinal statement.
If it tells us about God and about
his nature it is of primary significance.
Secondly it is a cardinal Christian statement because
of its source.
It comes here from the pen of an
authorized apostle of the Lamb.
A chosen and appointed emissary of the risen
Lord Jesus Christ.
And in the strict sense the apostles have
no successor.
They accompanied the Lord, they lived with him,
they heard him, they touched him, they handled
him, they witnessed his life and his resurrection.
And as such they have no successor.
And this is a word that comes from
the pen of an apostle of Jesus Christ.
It's not, it's not a statement that comes
from the lips of a philosopher.
Not even a theologian.
It is a word that comes from the
pen of an apostle.
And he tells us that he heard this
message himself.
This is the message we have heard from
him.
It did not originate with the apostles.
The apostles declared this word that they heard
it from the very lips of the incarnate
Lord Jesus Christ.
This then is something that comes from the
self-revelation of God in his son Jesus
Christ.
Moreover it's crucial and its basic importance is
evident from the substance of the statement itself.
It describes the essential nature of God.
The reference is not to any supposedly ephemeral
or conceivably changeable aspect of God's being, but
rather to what God is, and what God
has eternally been, and what God will forever
be.
It refers in other words to God's essential
nature.
Something that cannot change.
Something that will be the same forever in
God because God is unchangeable.
And the statement is that God is light.
And in him is no darkness at all.
Not a shadow, not a semblance, not a
suggestion of darkness.
He is light and he is nothing but
light.
He is absolutely light.
Now what does this mean?
Light may very well be a synonym for
knowledge.
You remember the Apostle Paul for example uses
it as synonymous with knowledge in one or
two places.
May I just refer to one.
Paul uses it in that sense when he
tells the Corinthians how God has quote, shined
into our heart to give the light of
the knowledge of the glory of God in
the face of Jesus Christ.
The light of the knowledge of the glory
of God.
Knowledge is light.
And if you know you walk in light,
ignorant of darkness.
Now if John meant by this statement, if
he meant to refer to God as the
all-knowing God, the omniscient God, then the
point is this.
He would have us realize that there is
nothing hid from the eyes of him with
whom we have to do.
He knows our down-sitting and our up
-rising.
He knows our incoming and our outgoing.
He knows our thoughts.
He knows all about us.
He's an all-knowing God.
God is light.
If that was John's mind or in John's
mind.
Again light could be a synonym for God's
glory and majesty.
Paul uses it in this sense.
He does so for example when he writes
to Timothy.
And suddenly he breaks out to speak of
the blessed and only potency.
The king of kings and Lord of lords.
Who only has immortality.
Dwelling in light which no man can approach
unto.
God is dwelling in light which no man
can approach unto.
That is the glory and the splendor of
his great white throne is such that you
may speak of it as light that is
unapproachable.
All this word light may have reference to
God's holiness.
God's moral character.
And in John's writings it would appear.
But in John's writings it would appear to
be fairly obvious that this at any rate
is the predominating force.
Ah he may have at the back of
his mind the notion that God is an
all-knowing and omniscient deity.
Yes.
And that God is a God of glory
and of majesty.
Yes that may be so.
But in this context it's quite obvious.
The main thing is this.
God is morally light.
There's nothing shady about him.
There's nothing doubtful about him.
Everything that God is, God is light.
God's absolute moral purity and excellence is such.
As makes it wholly impossible for him to
come to terms with anything that is evil.
With anything that is doubtful.
With anything that has the least semblance of
imperfection.
God is light and he can have no
truck whatsoever with that which is inconsistent with
his being.
The burning light of his holy nature flashes
in open and consistent opposition to and condemnation
of anything that can be termed morally shady.
Ah a cardinal Christian affirmation.
Now we are living in a day and
in an age when there are all kinds
of views of God abroad.
And one of the most important doctrines that
would appear to be almost forgotten is this.
That the God who is revealed in the
law and in the prophets and in his
son Jesus Christ is a God who is
light.
Now this is not all the truth about
God.
God is also love.
It was my privilege to take part in
the service here.
Was it yesterday morning and then we were
dealing particularly with certain aspects of the divine
love.
And this is so.
This is true.
But now we're looking at this and this
is equally true.
God is light.
His love does not cancel out his light,
his moral character.
Now come with me and let us look
at the practical apostolic application of this very
cardinal doctrine of our Christian faith.
That sublime albeit terribly challenging revelation concerning God's
nature is no mere piece of theological furniture
for our creedal shelf.
We all have a shelf on which we
shelve our beliefs.
And when people ask us what we believe
we kind of take it out and we
say yes yes I believe this and I
believe that.
But they don't apparently influence our lives over
much.
Now this is not a doctrine to be
put on the shelf.
It is a far reaching doctrine this and
we've got to apply it to every detail
and every aspect of life and living if
we are to know fellowship with God.
Failure to come to terms with its truth
cannot other than shut a man away to
the mere shadows of a real Christian experience.
It is impossible for a man to have
fellowship, communion with God unless he is prepared
to come to terms with this cardinal statement
concerning God as the God who is light.
Now let's examine this in a little detail.
First of all I would like you to
notice what we may speak of here as
the regular profession of Christians.
What is the profession of a Christian?
What is our Christian profession?
Well John puts it in these words.
We say that we have fellowship with him.
Now there are many ways of putting our
Christian profession into words.
We can crystallize our profession in many ways.
This is one.
We say, believers in the Lord Jesus Christ,
men and women who have been born again
of the Holy Spirit, Christian people, we say
that we have fellowship with him.
I put it like this.
In professing to be Christian, we profess that
we have been reconciled to God by the
blood by the death of his Son.
Time was when we were afar off, but
the distant have been made nigh by the
blood of Christ.
Time was when we were alone perhaps in
the depths and mire of sin, but by
the infinite grace of God we have been
lifted up from the pit.
So the distant have been brought near, the
low have been lifted up, and in the
heavenly places in Christ Jesus we have already
been received into the arms of God and
to the throne of God.
We have been accepted of him.
In him we are accepted.
Not only that, we have been given a
new nature.
And the spirit of adoption has been sent
into our hearts whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
And you see what's happening.
The moment a man has come to this,
he begins to enjoy fellowship with God, and
as he begins to enjoy fellowship with God,
so also with all who belong to the
family.
Our Lord Jesus Christ taught his disciples to
pray saying, Our Father.
And I can never say, Our Father, unless
I recognize the children as my brethren and
sisters.
And this is, this is the basis of
Christian fellowship.
I claim that I'm right with God.
Sin has been put away.
His spirit has been given me.
I'm a child of God.
I've the right of a child of God,
and the privileges of a child of God.
Here I can call upon him.
He speaks to me.
He chastises me.
He comforts me.
And the father-child relationship has begun.
And so also on the plane, on the
horizontal, of the horizontal.
Now, this is a regular profession of Christian
people.
You may not put it in so many
words, but this is what it means to
be a Christian.
Now look with me next at the regulating
principle in such Christian fellowship.
And let me read again verses six and
seven, which comprise my text.
If we say we have fellowship with him
while we walk in darkness, we lie and
do not live according to the truth.
But if we walk in the light, as
he is in the light, then we have
fellowship one with another, and the blood of
Jesus Christ his son cleanseth us from all
sin.
The regulating principle in this life of fellowship
is brought out there.
Amos asked long ago, can two walk together
except they be agreed?
And the answer is obviously no.
There must be some sort of agreement if
people are to live together and to share
life together.
John states categorically that God and man can
only get on together when that relationship is
safeguarded in all its phases by the antiseptic
of God's holiness.
This must be the dominant and the regulating
principle throughout.
What is consistent with God's holiness, I must
cherish and love.
What is inconsistent with God's holiness, I must
abandon and turn my back upon and learn
to hate.
It is God who determines the terms of
our fellowship and not ourselves.
Now this is something that we need to
shout in our own ears.
Not in other people's perhaps, but in our
own.
The conditions of fellowship with God are to
be determined by him and not by us.
You see, sin has turned us upside down
and topsy-turvy.
We think of ourselves as the all-important
people who must decide the terms of everything.
No, no, no.
It is God who is the Lord.
And we must gear ourselves to the nature
and to the being and to the character
of God and especially to God as light.
Now that brings me to the revealing application
of this regulating principle that we have here.
You apply this principle faithfully to your life
and it will lead you to an ever
deepening, ever widening, ever more and more enriching
knowledge of God and fellowship with him.
But you neglect it.
And self-will comes in its place and
self-sufficiency and some of the other sins
that my brother has been talking about.
You neglect this.
And you'll find that in a moment your
fellowship with God has become remote.
And your awareness of the presence of God
becomes less and less.
Faith begins to wilt and love grows cold.
And religion becomes a matter of going through
the routine.
But the heart has gone out of it.
The soul is gone, even if the shell
remains.
And heaven only knows there are far too
many Christian men and women that are simply
living on a shell tonight.
Who are not really walking in a life
of fellowship with God.
Because sin and self and Satan have somehow
managed to come in between.
Now look at this.
There is a profession which in the light
of this principle is clearly false and futile.
Listen again to the text.
If we say that we have fellowship with
him while we walk in darkness, we lie.
John doesn't beat about the bush.
We lie.
And we do not the truth or we
do not live according to the truth.
Since God is light and God doesn't change.
Since God is light says John and there
is not a semblance of darkness in him.
Then any man who is consistently walking in
darkness simply can't be in fellowship with him
however loudly he says it.
And how many times he may say it.
He simply is not says John in fellowship
with God.
He may have had knowledge of God.
He may claim to be this, he may
claim to be that.
But fellowship with God a man cannot be
enjoying if he is walking consistently in a
way of moral darkness.
For God is light and in him there
is no shadow at all.
God does not come down to have fellowship
with me when I am in darkness.
By continually walking in darkness as a matter
of fact and consistently walking in darkness I
prove that my sympathy is not with the
light but rather with that darkness.
Now let us make a point clear here.
Let it be clearly noted that John is
not demanding sinlessness as a proof or basis
of genuine fellowship.
That's not the point.
The Bible says categorically there is no man
that sinneth not.
1 Kings 8 46 and Ecclesiastes 7 20.
There is no man that sinneth not.
John is not talking about sinless perfection.
What he is saying is this.
When a man is walking consistently on a
plane of moral shadiness or darkness.
That man cannot claim that he is in
fellowship with God.
Because God is light.
Are you walking in shady territory?
My friend however loudly you proclaim it.
And however many times you say it.
It is an active lie.
Fellowship there cannot be between a man walking
in darkness and a God who lives in
the light and has no truck with darkness.
Now as sure as there is a profession
which this regulating principle exposes as false and
futile.
So also is there a practice which it
commends as right and rewarding.
Oh I'm glad to come to this.
But you see we've got to walk through
the way the scriptures lead us before we
come to the main thing haven't we.
They've got to come in through the vestibule
into the holy of holies of scripture all
the time.
Otherwise we miss the splendor of it.
Now listen to this.
But if we walk in the light.
As he is in the light.
We have fellowship one with another.
And the blood of Jesus Christ his son
keeps on cleansing us from all sin.
What does it mean to walk in light?
Well you'll notice that this is a walk
again.
Not an occasional trip into the light.
Not an occasional deed of light.
But walking in the light.
The reference is to consistency.
A consistent mode of living.
A mode of behavior.
In principle walking in light means tuning in
to the moral character of God.
It means in principle this.
That I deliberately restore everything in my life
to the bar of God in his holiness.
And as a matter of principle everything is
referred to him.
So that what I do is not just
what I desire to do.
Nor what people expect me to do.
Nor what according to custom other people do.
But it is this that I have concluded
in the light of the bar of the
great white throne itself.
God in his light appears to demand this
of me.
And because God requires it in his word
and in his holiness I do it.
And if God proscribes it I don't do
it.
Now this is what it means to walk
in the light.
Oh how many Christians, young Christians particularly there
are.
And they wonder why things have gone wrong
and why fellowship with God has not become.
You know my friends this is the principle.
Now in principle it's because something's gone wrong
here.
They harbour sin and they walk in the
darkness.
And they don't want to acknowledge that such
and such a thing is wrong.
And they don't want to leave it.
And yet they expect God who is light
to have fellowship.
And to open his heart to them.
Now that's impossible.
In practice thus to walk in the light
is a necessary.
Albeit sometimes very painful discipline.
It may well involve us in an excruciating
crisis to begin with.
But it will most certainly necessitate a self
effacing discipline thereafter.
To bring your life out into the open.
And for the first time to take the
lid off and beg the almighty God.
Assess everything that's going on in the inner
sanctuary of your soul.
As well as in outward behaviour.
To submit everything to God for the first
time properly and honestly and sincerely.
You know it's an excruciating moment.
Yet I believe that for many in this
convention there can be no blessing whatsoever.
Until you come to this point.
You may listen to the best preaching that
has ever been heard in the world.
And the spirit of God may be here
to bless the people sitting next to you.
And all heaven may be opened upon other
people.
But my friend you will be like a
stone.
Until you open up your heart and all
its sins and all its dark things.
To the all seeing eye of God and
say.
Lord I know you can see through it
anyway.
But I open up and I submit.
And I ask your judgement upon the whole
business of my life.
Now John speaks in his gospel of coming
to the light.
Coming to the light.
In the sense of course this is what
it means to become a Christian.
This is the condemnation says John that light
has come into the world.
And men love darkness rather than light.
This is why many people don't come to
the light of the gospel.
They don't want their hearts to be exposed
at all.
But there are many who have gone through
that initial experience and then have tried to
cover up.
Oh my dear friends don't let us judge
Watergate too harshly.
I'm not taking sides I don't know anything
about it.
And I don't want to pass judgement on
anybody.
Every man is innocent until he is proved
guilty as far as I'm concerned.
But I know one thing that there is
something in the human heart from the fall
that wants to cover up.
From the time our parents try to hide
behind a shrub in the garden and then
put on an apron leaf.
Men and women when they sinned against God
somehow instinctively hide and try to cover up
and put the lid on.
Are you doing that?
And you've managed it, you've got away with
it.
You've even been made a Sunday school teacher
or superintendent.
You've been promoted even in the church despite
the things that are going on in your
heart and in your life.
And you've got away with it.
You've put on the mask and people have
fallen for it.
But God knows you and you know that.
And you can't appear.
Listen my friend.
If these were the last words I shall
ever utter from the pulpit.
I beg of you in my master's name.
Come to the light.
There is no way into fellowship with a
holy God until you expose your soul to
him and ask his assessment of every solitary
deed.
When you have time read the eighth of
Ezekiel.
And you will see how God took hold
of his prophet by the lock of the
head in a vision.
And took him on one occasion and let
him see the kind of things that God
could see were going on in the hearts
of the leaders of the children of Israel.
You know it's a most remarkable vision, it's
a most frightening one.
I don't know of any chapter to humble
a man like the eighth of Ezekiel.
Ostensibly these are, these are the leaders of
religion.
Ostensibly these are the holy ones.
But the Lord says to this, to the
prophet come on he says come on and
there is a hole in the wall.
And if you dig carefully you can see
through the hole and you can see what's
going on in the inside.
See what my people are doing in the
dark he says.
And the prophet wasn't sent there by the
news of the world or any other such
journal.
On an illicit errand.
To look into other people's affairs where he
had no business.
May I say it quietly.
God has the right to be looking into
your bedroom as well as your breakfast room.
And he's doing it regularly.
He knows what's going on.
And he's God.
Lord.
The holy one of Israel.
The God of glory.
And he will not change and come down
and compromise with sin.
If there is to be fellowship between me
and him.
I must ascend from the pit.
I must turn my back on evil.
And through Christ and by the spirit and
the word I must ascend.
There is a way for man to rise.
Come to the light.
Oh my friend this would be a great
night for you if you took the lid
off your life.
And submitted everything that's going on to the
judgment of God for the first time.
Now will you dare do that.
But wait a moment.
That's not enough.
When you do that you will have to
do what Paul speaks of in Romans chapter
13 verses 12 and 13.
Casting off the works of darkness.
It's a very dangerous thing to bring your
life open before God.
And to ask him to assess the things
that are going on.
Because he is going to put his finger
on this and upon that.
And you see having brought them out to
his judgment.
Now I must treat God as real.
As God.
And therefore in accepting his assessment of what's
going on.
I must be prepared to cast off the
works of darkness.
What are they?
Well the word of God is clear about
that.
I can't go after the list tonight.
If you'd like to read Colossians 3 verses
5 following and a few passages like that.
You do so at your leisure.
But the word of God will tell you.
And the spirit of God will tell you.
There are works that belong to the kingdom
of darkness.
They are initiated by the world, the flesh
or the devil.
And they are things that are inconsistent with
a God who is our God.
Now then.
God addresses us as men and women that
are regenerate by his spirit.
And he says look.
By the grace I've given you.
By the word I command you.
By the promises of my covenant to you.
Cast them off.
And as if you would cast a reptile
from your right hand.
You and I must be bold enough and
courageous enough to get rid of them.
And then is it all over?
No it isn't indeed.
It's only begun.
Now we must walk like that.
And what may be a crisis at this
moment of my bringing my life for the
first time honestly and sincerely before God in
this sense.
And what may really break my heart when
God comes down and gives his verdict upon
certain things.
I must not only get rid of them
and cast off the works of darkness by
the grace that he has promised.
But I must learn henceforth the discipline of
walking in the light.
When I was converted I didn't have very
many Christians.
Christians died.
But there was one dear lady known to
some in the tent here tonight.
Who was a great mother to me.
And one of the many things she taught
me was this.
My boy she said I'll never forget her.
Keep short accounts with God.
I didn't know what it meant at the
beginning.
I never learnt that jargon.
And so I had to question her what
do you mean keep short accounts with God.
Well she said see to it that twice
a day at any rate you ask him
to give his verdict on things that are
going on.
And if you can't go on with peace
in your soul don't go.
Oh my beloved are there some of you
among us here in Keswick tonight who are
disappointed with a Christian life.
You heard the gospel preached and perhaps an
evangelist told you that the whole Christian life
is nothing but a bed of roses.
I'm sorry if that were so and you
were not told the truth at the beginning.
But here you are you've made a profession
you've set a going and it's turned out
very much dissimilar from what you expected.
May I ask you honestly.
Could it be because you're walking in darkness.
You're setting a standard for yourself that is
inconsistent with the holiness of God.
Or you're accepting a standard set by a
society that is decadent and evil.
Which is contrary to the standard set by
almighty God.
Then in his name I bid you.
Oh come to the light.
God is light.
And in him is no darkness at all.
There's no hope to eternity of getting God
to compromise with sin.
If you want to know the sweetness of
it and the joys of it and the
bliss of it and the glory of it.
My friend you've got to come into the
light.
And you've got to stay there.
And in that light of life to walk.
Till traveling days are done and then at
last you'll see him.
In light unapproachable here.
But for which you will be equipped by
then.
I'm through but I want to say this.
Please, please, please don't treat this as a
sermon.
If this is not a message of God
to your soul tonight.
There's something wrong somewhere.
And I bid you with all the earnestness
of my heart.
Heed it.
As nothing short of the word of God.
To you his ransomed child.
And it is spoken with a love of
God.
In your ear.
So let it be.
Amen.
Now let us pray.
Purge me with hyssop.
And I shall be clean.
Wash me.
And I shall be whiter than snow.
Hide thy face from my sins.
And blot out all mine iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart.
Oh God.
And renew a right spirit within me.
May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And the love of God.
And the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
Be with us all ever more.
Amen.