We turn to 1 John, chapter 1, please.
1st chapter of 1 John.
While you're turning, I'd just like to express
thanks to the saints here at Sioux City
for the fellowship of the Conference, for all
the hard work that has gone into it,
to all the loving attention to hospitality and
to meals and all the rest.
It really is very refreshing to be privileged
to participate in a conference like this, and
we're really deeply grateful.
A couple of prayer requests in connection with
the work at the school I'd just like
to leave with you.
One is that our beloved Cook has been
with us for 7 years, and she feels
she can't go on any further.
She wants to, but can't, and so we're
looking for someone to take care of a
family of anywhere between 100 and 200 next
year.
And, of course, there's a lot of help.
It's mostly, would be mostly supervisory work and
managing the kitchen.
Another need is a librarian.
If you know some devoted Christian who's looking
for work in the field of library science,
we'd like to know about it and get
in touch with her.
And you might pray about those two needs
at the moment.
1 John 1, verse 5, This then 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.
If we say that we have fellowship with
him and walk in darkness, we lie and
do not 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
Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not
in us.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful
and just to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If we say that we have not sinned,
we make him a liar, and his word
is not in us.
I'm thinking particularly of verse 5 where it
says, God is light, and in him is
no darkness at all.
Verse 7, 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 cleanseth us from all
sin.
I think if a young person were to
come to me today and ask me what
one of the most important lessons to learn
in the Christian life would be, I probably
would be tempted to say that in going
on for God, that one of the important
things is to walk in the light.
And by that I mean to keep short
accounts with God and with our fellow men.
I really think it's one of the great
secrets of Christian living and one of the
things of first importance to us today.
Now the Bible says here, God is light,
and in him is no darkness at all.
What do you think of that?
God is light.
What do you mean God is light?
Well that's a good question.
In what sense is God light?
I think the Bible helps us to understand
this.
According to the Bible, light is that which
doth make manifest.
Light is that which reveals.
You picture this room in utter darkness and
then you come and you snap on the
light.
What a difference.
Everything is hidden up to that moment that
you snap on the light and everything is
made manifest.
Isn't it?
You might say this, that when this room
is flooded with light, everything is out in
the open.
No secrets.
Nothing under the counter.
No hocus pocus.
Everything is crystal clear.
Everything is transparent in that sense.
I believe that this is all included in
the thought here.
God is light.
There's nothing hidden.
Nothing hidden with him at all.
There doesn't have to be, does there?
God is absolutely pure.
God is absolutely holy.
Did you know it was wonderful that God
came and visited our planet in the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ and of him
it was said, that was the true light
which lighteth every man coming into the world.
It was a wonderful thing when the Lord
Jesus came into the world.
Up until that time the room had been
in darkness, relatively speaking.
Relatively speaking the room had been in darkness
and all of a sudden a man comes
into the scene, the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is that which is the true light,
which lighteth every man that comes into the
world.
What does it mean?
Well, light makes man effect and you know
the coming of the Lord Jesus into the
world showed us up for what we really
were.
That's what it did.
The coming of the Lord Jesus into the
world showed us up for what we really
were.
I might illustrate that this way.
You never know what a crooked stick is
until first you see a straight one.
Do you?
You never know what a crooked stick is
until first you see a straight one.
Well, thank God that 1900 years ago one
who was absolutely straight came into the world
and it showed me how terribly, and that
was the sense in which this light beaming
upon the world showed us all exactly what
we were.
That was the true light which lighteth every
man coming into the world.
And you know the life of the Lord
Jesus is wonderful.
I never tire of reading and studying about
the Lord Jesus in the Gospels.
The Lord Jesus is absolutely unique.
The Lord Jesus is the only one who
could ever live and say to those about
him, when they came and they said to
him, who are you anyway?
He said, I am absolutely what I said
to you from the...
The Lord Jesus is the only one who
could say, look, I am what I say.
Well, that isn't true with me and with
you.
We're kind of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde.
Is this about me, what I really am?
And then there's that about me, what I
want you to think I am.
And they're not always the same.
What I really am and what I want
you to think I am.
I have a person and then I have
a person.
But you know with the Lord Jesus there
was no difference.
There was no difference between his person and
his personality.
And when you met the Lord Jesus and
talked with him and walked with him and
watched him, you knew him, you knew exactly
what he was.
He was absolutely transparent and there was nothing
hidden.
But I believe that all of this is
included in the thought, God is light and
in him is no darkness at all.
Isn't that wonderful to think of a life
in which there's no darkness?
Look into your own heart, dear friend.
Any darkness there?
Any locked closets there?
Any unforgiving spirit there?
Nothing like that with God.
With God everything's out in the open.
God is light and in him is no
darkness at all.
And what the scripture is saying here is
that if I'm going to walk in fellowship
with God, that's the way my life is.
If I'm really going to make progress for
God, I can't go around unforgiving things in
my life.
I've got to drag the wretched monsters out
and call them by their real name and
confess and forsake before God and before my
fellow men.
It's really searching, isn't it?
I suppose that would be another S to
add to our brother's series.
Searched.
To walk in the light means to bring
everything out into the open.
Godward and manward.
Have you ever known a person, have you
ever known a Christian who had a very,
very sensitive disposition?
And maybe someday, even in conversation, he said
something to you and then the minute he
said it, he realized he didn't mean it.
Or someone who spoke unadvisedly with his lips.
Maybe he flew off the handle.
And it didn't take very long before the
Spirit of God came to him and said,
look brother, in him is no darkness at
all and if I'm going to walk in
fellowship with God, I have to drag everything
out into the open.
Godward.
You know, there's an interesting word used in
the New Testament in this connection.
The word is the word blameless.
Have you ever noticed that word?
It's an interesting word.
The Apostle Paul said that even before his
conversion, touching the law, he kept the law
perfectly all the days of his life.
No, it doesn't mean that.
But I think it does mean this, that
the Apostle Paul, as a Jew, before God,
when he realized that he had broken the
law of God, he quickly went and offered
the sacrifice that was required by the law.
And that put him in a position blameless
before God.
Now, on Christian ground, it says in connection
with the elders or the bishops of an
assembly, a bishop must be blameless.
What do you think that means?
Does that mean a bishop never sins?
Does that mean the bishop never flies off
the handle?
Does that mean the bishop never makes a
mistake?
No, it doesn't mean that at all.
But it means that when an elder of
a local assembly does any of those things,
he's blameless.
And this is what it means to walk
in fellowship with God.
God is light.
In him is no darkness at all.
If we walk in the light, as he
is in the light, we have fellowship one
with another.
The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses
us from all sin.
First of all, this must be God-worthy.
Our lives must be sensitive towards the Lord.
It's easy for us to become hard and
cynical and even bitter and cold.
It's hard going through life and seeing all
that you see and getting the terrible revelation
of what human nature is in yourself first
and then in others.
It's hard not to become hard and spying.
And what the Lord teaches us is that
we mustn't be hard.
The moment that we're conscious that anything has
come into our lives to break fellowship with
God, that thing must be dragged.
What is it?
Oh, you say perhaps it's impure thought.
Yes, it could be impure thought.
It could be sins of omission.
It could be secret sins.
It could be pride or discouragement or worry
or unbelief or envy or any of these
things.
And I'll tell you, when you study the
life of the Lord Jesus and his moral
glory, it makes you realize with a shock
how unlike him.
And so when the Lord brings this to
our attention, the thing for us to do
is to come before him and bow very
low before him.
He loves it.
What do you mean he loves it?
I mean it with all my heart.
God loves it.
The sacrifices of God are a broken.
And if you want to see it, act
it out and practice, just read the 32nd
Psalm or the 51st Psalm and then you'll
find out why David was a man after
God's own heart.
I'll tell you a wonderful thing to me
to read those Psalms and hear that dear
man before the Lord crying out to the
Lord.
I do believe that those Psalms are punctuated
with tears, with hot human tears.
Because David empties his soul before God and
confesses his sin against God.
I tell you, this is the pathway of
life.
Sinlessness?
No, there's no sinlessness for us down here.
Blamelessness?
Yes, that's a different thing.
It's inevitable that offenses will come.
And it's inevitable in our lives that there
are going to be things that are run
Christlike.
What do you do when you become defeated
and frustrated and discouraged and then just give
up?
No, you don't.
You come before the Lord like David came
before the Lord and said, against thee, thee
only have I sinned and done this evil
in my soul.
Dear friends, I'm persuaded that the reason for
tremendous loss of power in our lives individually
and in our local assembly is our failure
to keep short.
I'm persuaded if we could come together and
make things right before God and one another
that the Lord would come in in a
tremendous burst of power and that we'd see
blessing beyond our fondest thoughts.
But this confession is not only Godward, it's
manward as well.
And you know, I hope I don't shock
anybody by saying this, but it seems to
me that that's the hardest part of it.
Do you find it easier to confess to
God than you do to yourself?
And I fight.
The Spirit of God comes to me and
says, look, you were wrong.
I want you to make it right.
And I grit my teeth at all that
stubbornness.
And I hope with the passing of time
that the thing will just subside and I
won't have to.
I wonder, have you ever known that?
Have you ever known the Spirit of God
striving with you to go to a brother
and say, brother, sometimes
some years ago when I spoke to a
brother in the Lord, I shouldn't have said
it.
I really told him all that was on
my heart.
And some months later I was on a
train going to a church.
And God knows that it's such a humiliating
experience for us to go to one another
like this, that we think twice before we
fly off the handle the next time, don't
we?
God has his ways of producing holiness and
sanctification in our lives.
He certainly knows how to do it.
I remember dear George Verwer, a young friend
of mine, following Gates in Gospel Literature Distribution.
He was there in a mountain of correspondence.
It was just then his little boy, Benny,
toddled into the room and Lord
Verena came in.
George said that five minutes later he folded
them into his arms.
Rather amusing, he went back.
I don't mean to tell that story that
every time you confess something you're going to
get a fellowship check of $250, but the
Lord spoke to him.
The Lord is what the Lord wants us
to do.
God is light, in him is no darkness
at all.
And God wants us, he wants him to
be consistent.
A book called Continuous Revival works.
And I thought it was very nice the
way the author said that we should not
only keep the roof off our house, but
the walls down as well.
We should not only keep the roof off
our house, but keep the walls down.
In other words, clear lines of communication to
God and clear lines of communication.
Mind you, this would cover an awful lot
of areas in human life today.
Areas such as stealing, taking what doesn't belong
to us.
There can be no fellowship with God until
something like that is not only confessed, but
until restitution is made.
Don't you believe the Bible teaches restitution?
I think it does very clearly in the
book of Philemon.
Paul didn't say that now that Onesimus was
saved there was no more indebtedness there.
He never said that.
If anything, Paul acknowledged the indebtedness and said,
charge it to me.
And you know, as we gloss over things
in our lives and we think, oh well,
it's past, I've confessed it to the Lord
and that's the end of it.
I tell you, there's a leakage of power
among men with our brethren and even with
the unsafe.
You know, sometimes Christians do things that are
wrong with the unsafe.
And you think, well I wouldn't dare go
and confess it to them because they know
I'm a Christian and I wouldn't dare confess
it to them.
They're ungodly.
Why, you know, that's the very type of
thing that God uses to break their hearts
sometimes.
Because that's what they're not in the habit
of doing.
And sometimes just our unwillingness to bow low
and to confess the wrong that we have
done, and they know it all the time,
those are the things that hinder blessings.
Gossip, criticism of others, hypocrisy, dislike of other
people are unkind words.
Why, when you think of the harm and
the hurt that has been done in the
world, and just think of how hard it
is, especially the inheritance.
You know, some of us like to pass
it off that we've inherited certain kinds of
dispositions.
Well, it is a sad thing.
I will say this, it is a sad
thing to realize that there are Christians in
the world, and to them it's a matter
of pride that they've robbed it.
Seven angels from heaven swore against me.
Everybody makes mistakes.
Everybody hurts.
And the pathway of blessing is to keep
short accounts.
I won't do a thing.
You know, I read an interesting book some
time ago.
It's called The Doctor's Casebook.
Who went to a doctor with a very
severe case of anemia.
And the doctor examiner, he took the blood
count and all the rest.
And yes, yes, yes, she had a very
bad case of anemia.
And what she needed was to go up
into the Alps, into a hostel up there,
and have a few weeks of quiet and
rest and vacation.
But in order for her to go up
to one of these government hostels, she had
to go to another doctor to get her
permission.
And so, in the meantime, I think three
or four weeks had passed by.
And she went to this doctor and he
said, And guess what is it?
Well, she said, I have anemia.
And she said, my doctor says I should
go up to the hospital and I should
get some care.
And so he said, well, let's examine you.
And so he examined her.
How are you feeling now?
She said, I'm feeling much better now.
He said, I think I'll send that doctor
to examine her.
And then they sat there and they talked
about it a while.
And he said to her, has there been
any crisis in your life?
And she thought for a while.
She said, the only thing I can think
of is that I held a lifelong grudge.
And she said, I gave it up.
And Dr. Paul Tournier, one of the recognized
doctors of Switzerland, says that that's what cured
her anemia.
Do you believe that?
God knows that it's hard to do that.
God knows that it's hard to make things
right.
You know, the thing of it is, it
must not only be a once affair, but
it must be a continual affair.
It must be the attitude in which we
live.
Wonderful thing to have a conscience that's sensitive
towards sin and a spirit that's so willing
that rather than grieve the Spirit of God,
and rather than displease the Lord, to have
a spirit that's willing right now to make
the thing right.
I wonder if the Lord might be speaking
to some of our hearts this afternoon.
I wonder if I can look back in
my life and think of what kept me
awake at night when I think of all
the things that I didn't say and would
like to have said.
And I find that I'm cherishing a hard
and bitter spirit in my heart toward a
brother in Christ or a sister.
God is saying to me, look, I'm light.
And in me there's no darkness at all.
Everything out in the open.
If you want to walk in fellowship with
me, that's the way.
In this connection, there's something else important that
we should remember, and that is this, that
once we have confessed and forsaken and made
restitution if necessary, God forgets, and we ought
to forget as well.
You know, I find, Mr. Powell spoke about
guilt complexes and the psychiatrist being overloaded with
people with guilt complexes.
I find in talking to Christian people, a
lot of people who have gone to the
Lord and confessed their sins and gone to
one another and confessed their sins, and their
sins have been forgiven, but those dear Christians
can't forgive.
Well, I believe that by faith, as you
claim forgiveness from God, as you receive forgiveness
from your fellow man, you must accept it
that way and go on.
Now, think what this would mean in the
home.
Think what it would mean in the home
if a husband and wife and parents and
children were to walk day by day.
Things are going to happen.
There aren't going to be explosions.
You might as well, and you know what
the explosions you do, and you know how
they break fellowship in the home.
But just think how wonderful it would be
if we were so broken and so soft
and so tender before the Lord.
Mind you, this is the way of the
flesh.
If we were so broken and so soft,
we'd be able to go to one another.
I'm sorry, I don't think
that's bona fide.
Not if I was wrong.
I was wrong.
Think what it would mean in the assembly.
You know, I believe that every functioning assembly
is a miracle.
I don't
like to use personal references, but we have
a group of men at school, a group
of teachers there, and every Tuesday they meet
around the table and they discuss the policies
of the school.
They've been going on for 17 years now
without a good fight.
You know what I mean?
How?
How do you do it?
By simply going in and bringing everything out
on the table and keeping short accounts with
one another.
This involved apologies from time to time, and
I won't tell you who made them, but
I'll tell you it's wonderful.
We're recognizing that we're just human beings saved
by the grace of God, that we make
mistakes and we say things we shouldn't say,
and we do things we shouldn't do, but
we want to walk in fellowship with God,
and so we drag it out in the
open.
Think of what it would mean at work
and in school and in every department of
life if we could just be so wide
open before the Lord and before those.
May the Lord speak to our hearts through
this, especially through this verse, through his own
words.
If God is light, in him is no
darkness at all.
If we're going to walk in fellowship with
God, everything's got to be out, exposed to
the searchlight of his holiness.
May the Lord help us.