Welcome to From the Pulpit in Classic Sermons.
Each week we bring you a different message
from some of history's greatest speakers in the
Christian faith and powerful sermons from modern preachers
too.
This week we have Parris Reedhead with his
message So Great a Salvation, Hating Sin.
Now we should turn to the little epistle
of 1 John.
You that are joining us this morning that
will not have been with us in the
other services may be interested in knowing that
I've asked each of the people present to
mark certain verses in 1 John so that
they can use them.
You know, today we have so many people
that will come saying, I'm not sure about
my salvation.
I'm not sure I'm a Christian.
I'm not sure I've been born of God.
And to tell you the truth, there's a
great deal of reason why many ought to
be concerned.
I've seen missionaries that have discovered they've not
been born of God and pastors and deacons
and Christian workers.
Because during the lifetime there's been so much
that one might term easy believism or shallow
evangelism or something else.
So people have a right to be concerned
about it.
And I've asked that folk mark this.
Now, not just for your sake, but for
the sake of those that will be coming
to you.
When someone says, I'm not sure I'm a
Christian, what are you going to do?
Pat them on the back?
Smile at them?
Why do you worry?
Or are you going to have the same
kind of concern that a doctor should have
even though he's a friend of the family?
If someone comes and says, I think I
may have cancer.
You don't want that doctor to just pat
you on the back and smile at you
and tell a joke, do you?
Wouldn't you rather that the doctor would say,
well, because we're friends, I'm going to use
everything available to me in medical knowledge and
equipment to help discover this.
If you have it, we should not let
one day go.
If you don't have it, you should have
the assurance that comes from knowing that.
And so with people that say, I'm not
sure I'm a child of God.
We're viewing 1 John as God's little x
-ray machine.
And we ask the person to read each
of these verses.
Because each verse is in the midst of
a truth that deals exactly with that issue.
In 1 John 5 and 10, we are
told these things are written that you might
know that you have eternal life.
That's why they're written, so that you can
know.
Well, the first of these evidences of eternal
life is the first chapter and the sixth
verse.
If we say that we have fellowship with
Him and walk in darkness, we lie and
do not the truth.
So this person sitting across from you in
the restaurant to whom you're speaking because they've
asked you this question, you just turn your
Testament or your Bible and say, well, read
that.
Well, what's it say?
Well, if we say we have fellowship with
Him and walk in darkness.
Well, what does that mean?
Well, just what it says.
How do you walk?
Is it your purpose to walk in the
light or are you still walking in darkness?
They have a question.
What does it mean to walk in darkness?
And of course, you take them to Ephesians
chapter 4 verse 17 through about the sixth
verse of the fifth chapter and you have
God's explanation of what it means to walk
in darkness.
Now put a number two next to the
third verse of the second chapter.
Hereby we do know that we know Him
if we keep His commandments.
He that saith I know Him and keepeth
not His commandments is a liar and the
truth is not in Him.
How do you walk?
What's your attitude toward the commandments?
That's evidence number two.
And then I have chosen to put three
verses with a number three has to do
with loving your brother.
In this case, it's enough just to put
a number three next to verse nine of
the second chapter.
He that saith he is in the light
and hateth his brother is in darkness even
until now.
He that loveth his brother abideth in the
light.
What's your attitude toward others?
Do you love God?
You know to love God with all your
heart and mind and soul and strength includes
loving your neighbor as yourself.
Hatred is the intention to harm somebody and
love the intention to help and bless someone.
Well, that's number three.
Number four, we've put just opposite verse 15
of the second chapter.
The fourth evidence.
Love not the world neither the things that
are in the world.
If any man love the world, the love
of the Father is not in him.
Well, that's pretty clear, isn't it?
What's your attitude toward the world?
Whom you love, you seek to please.
You get your happiness from.
Do you love God?
Or do you love the world?
That's the fourth evidence.
And then the next evidence is found in
the 24th verse of the second chapter.
Let that therefore abide in you which you've
heard from the beginning.
If that which you've heard from the beginning
shall remain in you, you shall also continue
in the Son and in the Father.
This is the promise He has promised us
even eternal life.
Are you continuing in that profession of faith
you've made in that trust in the finished
work of Christ?
Or have you gone away?
That's the issue.
And that's the fifth evidence.
Continuance.
Go carrying on, standing firm.
Now today we're coming to the sixth evidence.
And I want you, because you're now up
with us, I want you to put a
six next to the tenth verse of the
third chapter.
This is the sixth evidence of being born
of God.
I guess you have to check the ninth
verse and put the six next to ten.
Whosoever is born of God does not commit
or practice or do sin.
For his seed remaineth in him, and he
cannot do sin because he is born of
God.
In this the children of God are manifest
and the children of the devil.
Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God,
neither he that loveth not his brother.
Now everything that we've seen in 1 John
relates to those first three verses where John
said, that which we have seen and heard
declare we unto you that you might have
fellowship with us.
And truly our fellowship is with the Father
and with His Son, Jesus Christ.
And then he said, and these things write
we unto you that your joy may be
full.
And if we're going to have fellowship with
God, we've got to know about God.
We've got to know something about Him.
I regret that the beginning of the third
chapter did not start with the 29th verse
of the second chapter.
We're going to do that.
We're going to make verse 29 of chapter
2 the first verse, even though it isn't
in your Bible.
I'm not changing that.
I'm just including that and saying that's where
we're going to begin.
If you know that He is righteous, you
know that everyone that doeth righteousness is born
of Him.
In the seventh verse of the third chapter,
we're told that Christ is righteous.
The Lord Jesus Christ is righteous.
In this 29th verse, we're told that God
is righteous.
You see, it says, everyone that doeth righteousness
is born of Him.
Nowhere are we said to have been born
of the Son.
We're born of the Father.
So what we're discovering here is more about
the Father and about the Son.
If we're going to have fellowship with God
and our fellowship is with the Father and
with the Son, we'd better know all we
can know about them.
So what John is telling us here is
that God, God the Father, is righteous.
And I said in the seventh verse, the
Apostle says the Lord Jesus is righteous.
Now here's the argument that the Apostle makes.
God is righteous.
Everyone doing righteousness is born of Him.
That's his logical argument.
Now if I do not do righteousness, it
is evidence that I am not born of
God.
So someone is saying, am I a child
of God?
God says, do you do righteousness?
Do you practice righteousness?
God is righteous.
And everyone that's born of Him has been
made a partaker of the divine nature.
So if someone says that they're a child
of God and they've been born again and
they don't practice righteousness, the argument John makes
is they're not telling the truth because God
is righteous.
And therefore everyone born of Him will do
righteousness.
If I do it, if I do righteousness,
if I practice righteousness, there is evidence that
I'm born of God.
Now there are a great many in the
day of our Lord and ever since and
certainly today, a great many who pronounce themselves
to be righteous.
And we're not counting that.
For instance, Christ said to the Pharisees, you
are the ones declaring yourselves righteous before men.
You see, the Pharisees thought that if they
made a claim, then what they claimed was
a reality.
The claim made them what they claimed.
It doesn't work that way, I'm afraid.
It just doesn't happen that way.
They thought so.
They said because we declare ourselves to be
righteous, therefore we're righteous.
No, not so, said our Lord Jesus.
When Klaus Harms, on the anniversary of the
Reformation, the Lutheran Reformation, prepared the 95 theses
that he put on the door at the
cathedral, one of his theses was this.
People used to pay for the forgiveness of
their sins.
In other words, they bought indulgence from the
priest.
But nowadays, people have advanced.
They don't want to part with the money,
I guess.
So what they do is every sinner just
forgives his own sins or he declares himself
to be righteous.
And, of course, that, according to this good
man, is an evidence of the declension into
which we've come.
Oh yes, many do pronounce themselves righteous.
Then there's another company that consider themselves safe
because they're resting in their baptism as infants.
And so they assume themselves to be acceptable
to God.
And then there are other multitudes, multitudes of
people who'd followed the instructions of some religious
leader and they now have assumed themselves to
be righteous.
That's a dangerous thing to do because God
is righteous and they that do righteousness as
He prescribes it are born of Him.
You see, the problem rides on this.
The world doesn't understand God.
We have it right here.
It's very clear.
Behold what manner of love the Father hath
bestowed upon us that we should be called
the sons of God.
Therefore, the world knoweth us not because it
knew Him not.
And therefore, those that have been born of
God, those that are truly His, are going
to have a little bit of a problem.
God may see them as righteous and God
may accept them, but the world has a
different standard.
The world knows what we were because many
times we've been born of God and yet
there are those around who recall how we
lived before we came to know the Lord.
They're going to realize that once we were
traitors against God and rebels and anarchists and
enemies that we walked according to the course
of this world, according to the prince and
the power of the air, the same spirit
that continues to work in them.
And they're going to say, well, what difference
is there about you?
No.
The world has no way of knowing God
and because the world doesn't know God, it
doesn't know those that are born of God.
It doesn't have the grounds for understanding what
has happened to us.
The world has this idea promulgated by a
lot of preachers of the universal fatherhood of
God and the brotherhood of man.
No concept of redemption or regeneration.
The world did not know our Lord Jesus
Christ.
That's a historical fact.
And since it never knew Him, didn't know
who He was, didn't understand who He was,
today the world doesn't know those that are
His.
But we shouldn't be grieved about that.
Don't grieve because the world doesn't understand you
as a child of God born into the
Father's family through faith in Christ.
I think you ought to be grieved if
the world did understand you.
The fact that it doesn't, that's alright.
People that you work with, the people that
know you and that you meet out in
the normal course of activities, they don't understand
this thing that's taken place in your life.
But they're certainly going to know the difference
that He's made.
Perhaps the best time in the world for
you to tell someone of what's taken place
in your life is when they come to
you and say, what's happened to you?
I've known you then, I've known you since,
but you're different.
What's happened to you?
Best opportunity in the world to tell someone
about Christ.
And if they don't see a difference, all
the talking in the world you're going to
do isn't going to mean anything to them.
They've got to see it.
They don't understand it.
We've established that.
But they recognize there is a difference and
they'd like to, or many of them at
least, would like to know more about it.
So we have to, in this same portion,
John's going to tell us more about those
who are born of God.
In this second verse of the third chapter,
Beloved, now are we the sons of God,
and it does not yet appear what we
shall be.
But we know that when He shall appear,
we shall be like Him, for we shall
see Him as He is.
Now we still look like other people, and
as I've pointed out, the world does not
really understand anything about us.
It laughs at the idea that we are
children of God.
You see, God has not yet made a
public display of His children.
One day He's going to do it.
We're going to have a body like unto
the body of glory of our Lord Jesus
Christ.
We have an incorruptible inheritance.
We'll have white robes, and we'll be all
that He has planned for us to be,
and then there'll be the setting forth of
the children of God.
But not yet.
We're still as we were in many respects,
and the world doesn't understand how we can
claim to be born of God and still
be so much like the rest of the
people in the world.
But we know that when He appears and
we see Him, we're going to be changed
into His likeness.
We'll be like Him.
You see, here on earth, this time, we
are in, shall I say, a state of
humiliation in the same way Christ was when
He was here.
He was said to be a root out
of the dry ground and no beauty that
anyone should desire Him.
But He's been glorified, and when we see
Him, we're going to be as He is.
They're going to appear like the Lord Jesus
Christ.
That's when it will be made manifest, that
one great final manifestation.
Then the children of this world will see
that those whom they've despised and disregarded, often
persecuted, are indeed the children of God.
Now, if you have been born of God,
if you are a child of God, the
evidence is going to be supported by the
fact that since you know He is righteous,
and you've been born of Him and made
a partaker of His nature, that one day
you're going to be like Him when you
see Him as He is.
You are going to certify the genuineness of
your faith in Christ by your continuing to
purify yourself even as the Lord Jesus Christ
is pure.
Now you say, well, how can you purify
yourself?
Well, you do it by obeying the Word,
taking heed according to the Word.
Doing righteousness means that you obey the Scripture,
that you are careful to obey the Scripture.
You say, well, we're not under law.
No, we're not under the law of mosaic
offerings and sacrifices and all that pertain as
shadows and types of Christ.
But everything in the New Testament that's in
the imperative mood is a command of the
Holy Ghost.
And we are expected to give heed to
the Word of God.
We are told that the Word is to
have free course and be glorified in us.
And the Word is glorified in us when
we obey it.
How much time do you give in reading
the Word with the purpose of changing your
attitudes, your relationships, your activities to match the
Word?
Well, it's important for you to know that
because we are told that every man that
has this hope of seeing Him and being
like Him continues to purify himself even as
Christ is pure.
You've sung it.
Have you ever really thought about those words
when you sang them?
Oh, to be like Thee.
Oh, to be like Thee, blessed Redeemer, pure
as Thou art.
Come in Thy fullness.
Come in Thy pureness.
Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.
Well, that's the cry of the one who's
been born of God.
Oh, to be like Thee, blessed Redeemer.
Purifies himself even as He is pure by
taking heed according to the Word, by reading
it, by studying it.
It's so very, very important for us to
understand that.
And there is no exception.
No exception at all.
He who stops purifying himself has dropped this
hope from his heart.
You can't have it both ways.
You can't have it, that he that has
this hope in him purifies himself.
On the one hand, and say, he that
stops purifying himself still has this hope in
him.
It doesn't work that way.
It's got to be that he that has
this hope in him purifies himself.
And conversely, he that has stopped purifying himself
has dropped this hope from his heart.
And the evidence, therefore, is that if you're
born of God, you have this continuous desire
to bring your life in accord with the
Word of God, to purify yourself by the
Word.
How shall a young man cleanse his way,
purify himself, said David?
By taking heed thereto according to Thy Word.
And so it is, then, that the evidence
that we're born of God is this continuous
desire in every relationship, in every aspiration, in
all of our motivations, in our plans, in
our words.
Well, now, you say, my goodness, you're saying,
what if I fail?
What if I do?
What happens when I'm overtaken by a fault
and let aside into temptation?
What's that mean?
You mean to say that there's a place
in grace that I'll never be tempted anymore?
No, I don't mean that.
I know a lot of folks are looking
for it, but they aren't going to find
it.
If there ever came a place in the
Christian life or a state of grace where
you couldn't be tempted, do you know what
that would mean?
That would mean that you were holier than
your wonderful Lord.
Because He was tempted in all points, like
as we are, yet without sin.
See, temptation is not sin.
Temptation is the proposition presented to the mind
to satisfy a good appetite in a bad
way, and sin is the decision to do
it.
And there's no time in our pilgrimage when
we aren't subject to temptation and no place
in our life on earth that we're not
capable of yielding to temptation.
By the same token, there's no temptation that
we have to yield to, because with every
temptation He's made a way of escape that
we may be able to bear it.
So we've got protection there, but should it
be?
We do not avail ourselves of that way
of escape and we fall into sin.
The evidence that you are His, that you
have been born of God, is that when
you discover what you've done or said or
thought in terms of purpose, whenever you realize
what it is that's come between you and
the Lord, you deal with it, because your
hope of seeing Him means you're going to
purify yourself as He is pure, and the
purifying means that you're going to immediately do
everything the Scripture says to do.
What does the Scripture say to do?
Well, do you remember when the people at
Corinth got into trouble at the Lord's table
and sinned?
And Paul said in writing to them, Judge
yourself that you be not judged, for he
that is judged is chastened of the Lord,
that he should not be condemned with the
world.
Now, judge yourself means that the moment that
you discover that what you said and what
you wanted and what you purposed and even
what you continued to think about, because sometimes
sin gets in the mind the same way
a candy gets on a child's tongue and
it's sort of rolled over and the sweetness
sucked out without having acquired the outward actions
or the penalties that imposes, God looks on
the thoughts and the intents of the heart.
So what happens when we discover that?
Judge it immediately.
This is what the Word of God says
about it.
Judge it to be what God's Word declares.
Then the second thing is, forsake it.
Done with it.
Finished with it.
No defense.
No plan to continue.
Forsake it.
For let the wicked forsake his way and
the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him
return unto the Lord and he'll have mercy.
And then to confess it.
Say with God exactly what God says.
And this is how we purify ourselves when
there comes into our life that which has
grieved God.
And he that hath this hope in him
of seeing him and being like him will
purify himself.
It used to be back down in the
south that every August after the corn was
laid by.
Any of you farmers know what that means?
When the corn got so high you couldn't
cultivate it anymore without breaking the stalks over.
And so that was the last cultivation.
Between the time the corn was laid by
and it had to be cut, they'd have
brush arbor meetings.
They'd go down in somebody's woods where there
was a stream for fresh water and they
would cut poles and lay them across the
branches and then they would cut branches and
lay them across the poles.
And then they would cut logs down, split
them in two and auger a couple of
holes and put some branches in them and
those were the seats.
And then they'd cut off a big tree
up to the front halfway through, fall it
in such a way that it became a
pulpit and they'd already set up.
People would come with their wagons and horses
and their tents and they'd have a brush
arbor meeting and all the families would be
there tending around and preachers would come and
would preach.
And an altar was a split log on
branches and they brought a few bales of
straw or loads of straw and they spread
that down, down the aisles and then preachers
would preach and call the people to repentance
and some of the folks got the idea
that when they sinned in September there wasn't
anything they could do about it till the
next August at the brush arbor meeting.
That was when you took care of these
things.
So like getting your foot infected in September
and limping around on it, losing it, till
the next August when you could treat it.
See, sin sets in an infection.
Well now the one that's looking for Christ,
yearning to see Him, knowing He's going to
be like Him, purifies Himself, He isn't going
to wait from September till the next August.
He can't afford to do that.
He's going to purify Himself, He's going to
do exactly what the Scripture says to do
at the moment that He discovers that He's
got a problem.
That's what the text teaches us here.
Everyone having this hope, oh the world is
full of people that have some kind of
hope, maybe they've invented the foundation, but this
hope rests on Christ who shed His blood,
who poured out His soul unto death.
And we're going to purify ourselves.
He is pure, we're His, we're going to
be like Him.
Our Lord's purity is an eternal state.
This is what He is by nature.
Ours is a constant purifying, an action.
We keep striving to be like the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Everyone, and then we proceed to say, whosoever
does sin, I'm using this because it gives
the idea of continuance, whosoever committeth, keeps on
practicing sin, transgresses also the law, for sin
is the transgression of the law.
Now, we've already seen in the past the
nature of the law.
The law is thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart and mind
and soul and strength.
That's the first and great commandment, and the
love of that commandment is the intention to
please God in everything.
And if you've been born of God, you
have repented of your sin, and your sin
was the intention to please yourself, and now
you've turned your back on that, and you've
made a commitment to please God in everything.
And therefore, the whole law is summed up
in that one commandment.
Do only that which will bring joy and
satisfaction and gladness and happiness to the heart
of God.
So if you find someone that claims to
be a child of God, but he is
transgressing that, he's living to please himself, well,
we have it here, whosoever committeth sin transgresseth
also the law, for sin is the transgression
of the law.
Everyone doing sin gives concrete evidence that he
hasn't been born of God.
His will is still set to do evil.
In Ecclesiastes chapter 8 and verse 11 we
are told, because the judgment upon sinners isn't
executed speedily, the heart is set to do
evil.
Is your heart set to please God?
Have you fixed your heart to please God?
Well, that's what the issue is.
That's what he's talking about.
Why?
Because we are told in that verse that
Christ came into the world.
He was manifested to take away our sins
and in Him is no sin.
Our sin was the committal of the will
to please ourself.
Our sins were what we had done in
obedience to that governing principle of pleasing ourself.
Now Christ came.
Remember what the angel said that night of
His birth.
Listen.
Hear the song.
You get the echo of it.
Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He
shall save His people from hell and take
them to heaven when they die.
Was that what the angel said about our
Lord?
Why have we preachers been focusing on that
and forgot what the angel did say?
The angel said, Thou shalt call His name
Jesus, for He shall save His people from
their sins.
That's what He came to do.
Do you mean to say that He could
love the world and give His life for
it?
Die and go into death, be raised from
the dead and not accomplish what He came
for?
I certainly don't believe that.
He accomplished what He came for.
He came into the world to destroy the
power of sin, to pardon the guilt of
sin, to cleanse from the pollution of sin,
and He made full and perfect and complete
provision to do everything He came for.
Do you think it can be stated that
He either cannot or will not do that
which was the object of His coming?
Well, you might think so, should you choose,
but I don't think so.
I don't hold it for a moment.
Since He came with the purpose of taking
away the sins, it's plain that anyone who
is doing the sin, anyone who is practicing
lawlessness, scorns Christ's sacrifice for sins, or if
he doesn't scorn it, he views it as
a license so he can go on to
practice sin and somehow escape from the consequence
of it.
No, the Lord Jesus accomplished what He came
for.
He came to save His people from their
sin.
And everyone that's in Him, everyone that's born
again, we read in verse 6, whosoever abideth
in Him doth not go on sinning.
And anyone who goes on sinning has not
seen Him nor has he known Him.
Oh, you know, if I had written this,
I might get a little afraid of the
face of the people.
But since I'm reading what God by the
Holy Ghost gave through John that's been part
of the Bible ever since then, I have
to read it.
Now, listen, if you'd have caught me a
few years ago, I had some clever, neat,
tricky little explanations that got all around this.
I was like somebody going through the blackberry
patch and I dodged the bushes and I
never got raked by one of the thorns.
I knew how to get right through it.
Come out on the other side and say,
well, that's not so bad.
The only thing was, I had given lip
service to what was inspired by the traditions
of the elders and the teaching of my
fathers that made the Word of God of
none effect.
Well, I've had to unlearn a lot since
then.
And you're catching me now at a point
where my unlearning isn't complete yet, but it's
well on the way.
And I'm going to have to tell you
what the explanation of these scriptures are in
1 John 3.
Do you know what they are?
It means just exactly what it says.
Now, you can either like that or not
like that as you wish, but that doesn't
change it in my opinion.
God meant it because He said it and
He said it because He meant it.
And the only way to deal with it
is to accept that God said what He
meant and meant what He said.
And He said, everyone remaining in Christ does
not go on practicing sin and everyone keeping
on practicing sin has not seen Him nor
has he known Him.
Everyone into whom Christ has come in response
to receiving faith and who remains in Christ
by faith simply does not keep on doing
or practicing sin.
Not to do sin implies a decisive break
with sin.
Now, I have a memory of my own
past days, years ago when I said, because
I read it.
Oh, I read a lot of nice things
that weren't true.
I read somewhere that everyone sins a thousand
times a day in thought, word, and deed.
And I figured about then that if I
was going to sin a thousand times a
day in thought, word, and deed, I might
just be clever enough to work in something
I enjoyed now and then.
And it became a license.
But it wasn't long until the Spirit of
God through the Word of God showed me
that antinomianism is a disease of the mind
and of the heart and of the spirit.
I got under deep conviction.
Listen, sin is the transgression of the law.
And the law is before us in the
word of God and the will of God.
And God does not treat as sin the
failure to measure up to the infinite predispositions
of God or the infinite perfections of angels.
We're talking about transgression of the law.
And we're saying that anyone who goes on
sinning implies that he has never made a
decisive break with his past and he's still
dead in his sins.
All right, verses 7 to 10, we learn
how to recognize those who are born of
God.
Now there's always a possibility of deception.
In verse 7 it says, Little children, let
no man deceive you.
Don't be taken in.
Everybody talking about heaven ain't going there.
If I can quote some of my southern
friends from a few hundred years ago, in
chapter 2, verses 18 and 19, shows that
there were and there are anti-Christian deceivers
who seek to lead astray.
Now some of these in the 8th verse
the first chapter says they don't have any
sin.
They couldn't sin.
And some claim they cannot be saved from
sin.
And there are others that argue that, well,
sin won't do you any harm if you're
in the family of God because nothing can
happen to you anyway.
But the verse here says, Don't be deceived.
Everyone continuing to sin has not seen him
nor has he known him.
Oh, I get the idea that this is
intended to be understood just the way it's
written.
My little children, let no man deceive you.
He that doeth righteousness is righteous.
He that commiteth sin is of the devil.
He that keeps on practicing sin.
Conduct is a result of what a person
is.
And a person who is practicing doing righteousness
has been born into the family of God
and made a partaker of the divine nature.
And the person that is practicing sin is
doing exactly according to his father, the devil.
The devil maintains sin in the world by
controlling all those who serve him and he
continued holds his followers in sin.
And largely often because he keeps telling them
that there isn't any possibility of their being
saved from sin.
And regrettably, there are preachers today who were
like I was for years and are telling
them that that's true.
There's no way they can be saved from
sin.
Alright, the purpose of Christ's coming.
We are told in the 8th verse in
the second part of that verse, for this
purpose the Son of God was manifested that
He might destroy the works of the devil.
The Lord Jesus Christ was born of the
Virgin Mary, lived a sinless holy life.
He came to loose the bonds of sin
and release people from the power and influence
and control of sin.
He was manifest in the flesh, in His
human nature that He might destroy the works
of the devil.
Now, He was raised from the dead and
the resurrection of Christ from the dead is
the testimony to the universe that the Lord
Jesus accomplished what He came for.
And those who are born of God, who
pass from death unto life, share this life
of Christ and exhibit it as the victory
of their risen Lord.
Now, everyone that has been born of God
does not go on doing sin.
Do you see it right there?
Whosoever is born of God does not keep
on practicing sin for he who has been
born of God has been made a partaker
of the divine nature by the Holy Spirit
and therefore he cannot continue practicing sin for
God's seed remains in him and he can't
because he is born of God.
Boy, isn't that marvelous?
Isn't that wonderful?
Isn't that a great emancipation proclamation to the
human heart?
It seems so to me.
That's why Paul writing to that church at
Corinth in the second letter, 13th chapter, 5th
verse said to the Corinthians, examine yourself whether
you be in the faith.
Prove your own selves.
Do you not know your own selves how
that Christ be in you except you be
reprobate?
Therefore, anyone who has been born of God
cannot go on practicing sin.
It doesn't say he couldn't fall.
We dealt with that.
He isn't going to go on practicing.
His purpose is to please God.
Now, I want you to see the conclusion
here in the first part of this 10th
verse.
In this, the children of God are manifest
and the children of the devil.
How can the person know whether they're born
of God?
What's the evidence of eternal life?
Because of their hatred for sin and because
of their purpose to please God and it's
in this we are told that the children
of God are manifest and the children of
the devil.
So with that in our understanding, with that
before us, we've got the sixth evidence of
eternal life.
Examine your own heart.
Oh, to have gone through all of these
scripture verses and to have the Spirit of
God bear witness with your spirit.
Yes, this is what you were, but now
you are light in the Lord.
In 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 verse 6 we
read, God, who commanded the light to shine
out of darkness, has shined into our hearts
to give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of
Jesus Christ.
There, that's the testimony.
That's the work of the Spirit of God
through the word of God.
Heavenly Father, we're grateful that we have thy
word and as we've given our hearts to
it this hour, we ask that it may
have been buried there like good seed and
will spring forth a hundredfold to the glory
of Christ.
Let blessing come to those that have listened
and those who will permit the word of
God to have free course and be glorified
in it.
We ask for thanksgiving in Jesus' name.
You've been listening to the From the Pulpit
and Classic Sermons series.
This week you heard Parris Reedhead with his
message, So Great is Salvation, Hating Sin.
Tune in next week to hear E.A.
Johnston talk about the Cappuccino Church on From
the Pulpit and Classic Sermons.