False Assertions

Have your Bible tonight you think you would first John chapter 1 we look at verses six through 10 first John chapter 16 through 10 we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth with walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another. The blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin. We save we have no say and 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. We say that we have not seen and we make him a liar and his word is not in us.

Spray heavenly father, we thank you for such a powerful passage. Tonight we buy father that you would use it in our lives to draw us closer to Christ father. This book is a book that John has written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to give assurance to true believers and to put conviction into the heart of those who just think they are true believers. We pray heavenly father that you would help us tonight that we might see truth and principles here that would help us in our walk with Christ that we might understand that which is espoused in the Christian world, a day that is not true and that we might see it that we would understand the false assertions and be able to deal with them in a way that would bring joy to our own hearts and help us Lord, that we might truly walk in truth guide and direct us Lord through this passage tonight. May Jesus be uplifted in it is congregation beatified by your holy and wonderful and precious name we pray. Amen. You may be seated.

I just read to you five verses all of them started with the word EF except one and that started with the two words but EF now that's important to say that because it lets us know that John is not just espousing random truths here, but what he is doing is he is fighting heresy. John has come to understand that there is some false doctrine. That is, is spreading out all over his known world, and that that false doctrine needs to be dealt with.

He can't just sit back and ignore it and act as if it doesn't exist. He has got to deal with it and Jesus was walking or when John was walking with Jesus, back when Jesus was alive and John was one of his disciples.

Jesus often called him Bo and Andrew energies and that particular word means son of thunder, and I will what it applies to think is John's anger that John would often express anger and as we look at these passages today.

I think we can see glimpses of that anger. John's not a happy camper.

Here is dealing with some things that have made him mad and some things that he knows can bring great destruction into the Christian world, so he is dealing with these things. There was a group of people in John's day, who were called gnostics and they claim to be Christians, but they were teaching blatant heresy. They believe that there was this disconnect between the soul in this and in the body. They believe that the body was inherently evil and that when God saved a person he was only interested in the soul. And so when the person died. His body would just decay go back to the dust that was all there was to it and his is soul would go on to be with the Lord. So God is not concerned what the person did with his body because there was that big disconnect and that person was free to do with every wanted to do with his body and they the soul was what was important so they totally denied the doctrine of the resurrection.

So you had adulterers and you had drunkards you had couples that were just living together outside of marriage and in all these different groups that were claiming to be Christians.

I said yeah we believe in Jesus, we go to church. We got a bumper sticker on the back of our donkey. This is honk if you love Jesus and solicit we were doing all the right things we we know were okay and and and were good. John was livid. John said no, you're not Christians.

What what you say you are and what you really are are two different things. So when these few little verses John takes the hammer of truth and he shatters the lies of the Gnostics.

Now don't personally know anyone the day he calls himself a Gnostic, yet the theology of the Gnostics and in their lifestyle of the Gnostics is is seen very readily all over our present age. Through this passage onus to look at a fault assertion that that will see how John dealt with. And here's the primary false assertion is this man can fellowship with God and yet still walk in darkness, man can fellowship with God and yet still walk in darkness. Verse six is this.

If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. The first we met must ask the question what is it mean to walk in Genesis 522. The Scripture says that Enoch walked with the Lord that does not have anything to do with physical steps not talking about the physical act of walking. It means agreement with it means fellowship with it means to be in communion with an Amos chapter 3 verse three.

The Scripture says can two walk together, unless they be in agreement that it is possible to walk together with with somebody just physically and not be in agreement with him some you guys were in the military and you have people that is you are a Christian and and been friends in and saw fellow soldiers that were maybe Buddhist or Hindus or agnostics, or atheist, and you marched together with them so physically as possible to walk together with people who are not in agreement with you at all is not what he's talking about there. Amos and E Nick and John were not referring to a physical walk, but a spiritual walk. They were talking about fellowship. John chapter 1 verse five John said God is light and in him is no darkness at all.

That means God is holy. He is sinless he is perfectly pure, how could one is perfectly pure agree with the person and fellowship with a person who is walking in darkness. What is it mean to walk in darkness, Walt means fellowship. If I walk in darkness, that I commune with evil. I'm in agreement with it. I love it. I enjoy it I get pleasure from it. I am motivated by.

I'm not repulsed by I gravitate to it. Do you walk in darkness, and ask yourself is what moves you. What moves you when you gravitate to win when you're in a bookstore.

What books do you do you feel yourself drawn to. When you go to a video store. What videos do you gravitate to what when you turn on the Internet what what sites do you feel like you you desire to go to the kingdom of darkness is the kingdom that tips you with evil. It incites the flesh and and inflames wrong desires. This verse is dangerous because we live in the world and and the whole world according to first John 519 is under the sway with the power of the wicked one to you to come in contact with evil every single day. If you got a TV you can be subject to evil.

You got a computer you will be subject to evil. If you go to the mall you can be subjected to evil. So what you do, you move to a desert island and become a hermit know that won't work because the problem is not outside problem. Problems inside problem. The problem is not that we just commit acts of sin.

The problem is that we have a sin nature sin nature that that that that changes our desires or or leaves our desires to do that which is wrong and tries to rule over us.

The key to understanding verse six is to understand what it means to walk a true Christian doesn't walk in darkness, he doesn't love his sin.

He hates it. He fights it. Sometimes he loses battles with sin, but he doesn't just give in and say I give up this temptation is too tough.

I'm not going fight it anymore. The true Christian does not do that. Martyn Lloyd Jones said said it this way, walk in darkness is, is this walk in darkness means that you live in such a way that you rarely have any thoughts about God at all and if you do think of adding you not think of him as light, in whom is no darkness at all to think of him as some benign fatherly person who is ready to smile upon your failures and he was ready to grant you an entry into heaven at the end that is walking in darkness, the failure to realize the very organization of man. The outlook of humanity is opposed to God that godlessness is in control and empower and it dominates everything and what does that tell us about the kingdom of darkness. It tells us that people who were in it are people who really don't care about the things of God.

Ask yourself this question. Does it bother you to lay out a church and when I say that I don't mean you feel little prick in your conscience. I mean if you lay out a church is there feeling of emptiness down in the on the inside did you feel like man I have missed communion with God's people, and I miss the opportunity to worship the Lord on the Lord's day. Does that bother you. Does that bother you not talking about that little prick in your conscience may just emptiness their have you and your desires changed did do you thirst to know God's will. When you miss your quiet time is there feeling of of just dryness and emptiness. It's layered and you just really realized how much that quiet time had great it is for you and what it means to you.

You want to know how to defeat temptation. Does your heart ache when you commit acts of sin. If you get angry you say something to hurt somebody's feelings. Is there this immediate this immediate conviction that what you've done is wrong and you want to make it right. If your husband you've got a wife that's feeling terribly neglected the does that hurt your heart because maybe you are not loving her, as Christ loves the church or your wife and your husband feels like you're not being submissive to him. Does that bring a conviction in your heart that things need to change.

There needs to be repentance walking in darkness is been apathetic to the things of God. If you're apathetic to the things of God, and you claim to be a Christian.

John says that you are a liar and you do not the truth. Remember John is writing this to whites, white people up out of this false doctrine to wake people up. We've been believing this false teaching of the Gnostics John sound mean-spirited to you here gunning for Ripley us who thought John sounded really mean a assorted theist was upset because this verse is if you believe that you can fellowship with God and live in a habitual sin, then you're a liar you live yourself and you lied to God's refuse was a Gnostic and he was teaching this terrible false doctrine in that very city in Ephesus where John was living and John went to him and I mean he let him have mitigating all this truth that took to letting know to get away from this doctrine to run from it and serenity is just laughed at and blew them all and John is that point time turned away from serenity us would not even speak to him any longer. That was at mean-spirited lite what it was. It was loving. It is loving to tell people who are not walking in truth, that they're not walking in truth Galatians 416. Paul addressed that very issue. And Paul said they asked if I become your enemy because I tell you the truth, Dr. RG Lee put it this way. He said I know some people call the preacher. He stands firmly on the doctrines of Scripture, NARA, harsh and cruel extra billionaire Dr. Lisa is I have no desire to be any broader than Jesus as her being cruel.

Is it cruel to tell a man the truth is Amanda B.

Cruel, he preaches the whole counsel of God and points me into danger.

Is it cruel to row sleeping people to the fact that the house is on fire. Is it cruel to jerk a blind man away from a coal rattlesnake.

Is it cruel to tell people the deadliness of disease and tell them of the medicine to take. Then Dr. Lee said I would rather be called cruel for being kind to be called kind for being cruel to ridicule a preacher who believes in hail would be as foolish as to ridicule a doctor who believes in cancer.

No one like to talk about hail no one likes to talk about cancer, but we can't simply ignore it and hope it will go away and I know people say, well, the scholars don't believe in hell anymore assigned to say a place could not exist. The philosophers claim that it could not be but listen 1 ounce of what the word of God has to say is worth a ton of what they have to say were going to have to find that with the word of God has to say about it because only the word of God can settle the issue and laughing and stopping about hail does not put the fire out. Abraham Lincoln once asked a little boy questioned son if a dog has four legs and you call his tail a leg, and how many legs does he have will boy said five they ran Lincoln said no sunny just have for that matter what you call his tail, it still will tail men can say there's no hail they can call it something else but that doesn't change it. Words don't change facts hail is for real so that the false assertion corrected in verse seven but if we walk in the light is he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanses us from all sin. The question that John is answering is this who is a true Christian, a true Christian is one who walks in the light who's been changed and cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ. And he has true fellowship with true believers and before I deal with the first part, verse only deal. The second part is, like taken Oreo and and knitted up, lick it off the white before you get to the cookie but I am in this last part of this verse is just too glorious in the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. How much sin, all sin, all sin. Maybe you're here this evening you feel down, you feel depressed, you feel totally unworthy to be here, you feel that you see. And so horribly that that that your without hope. Listen of this verse and the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanses us from all sin. Moses was a murderer. David was an adulterer. Paul was a accomplice to murder Jacob was a liar and deceiver cheat Peter what was a reveler. It was a foul mouth fisherman. He denied Christ and yet all of their sin was cleansed by the blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus is your hope he is your purifier may be used in their thinking. Doug, you just don't know my heart. You just don't know the bondage that I'm in.

You don't know the addiction that that I'm struggling with, and I understand that but you're asking yourself of across the line is my depravity been too great that there's no hope for me.

I want you to know there is no sense a great that the blood of Jesus Christ cannot completely totally washes away. He can cleanse you completely save you for eternity and use your life for his glory. Do not leave this building tonight feeling hopeless no one to stop right here in and say some things I think we need to keep in mind is where going through this book of first John.

John does not write as clearly and systematically as does the apostle Paul of the apostle Paul had this just this ability to express logic and reason and write it down systematically. It was just unbelievable. I got this from from being taught. The school of Gamaliel, but we see it looks like in the letter to the Romans. We start off with total depravity.

Then he goes right to the cross. Then he lays out systematically how how God does it is foreknowledge and predestination. There's calling there's justification or sanctification. And then there's glorification is just like that so beautifully systematically step-by-step and it's very easy to follow.

John was a fisherman in his theology is solid but is not near as systematic and and laid out step-by-step like Paul's was yet to read first John is a whole I think to get the whole picture. Many people make mistakes by taking a verse out of context and then building a doctrine around it. They've done this was sanctification like the first part of this verse says this, but if we walk in our verse seven but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another. How does God walk in the light. He walks in the light perfectly, perfectly without sin perfectly holy.

There's no darkness, none whatsoever. No sin, totally above reproach. So some theologians are taken that verse out of context and this is what they said God is commanding us to sinless perfection. If you are a true Christian, then you will live with the same holiness as God lives.

You will not sin you will live above it is a Wesley and doctrine of sinless perfection. It states that we can reach a level of of holiness that is so high that we are actually above sin Jimmy Swaggart teaches that doctrine and I heard him back in the in the mid-1980s and he was trying to to orderly explain how it works and he said it this way, he said can you go without sinning for a minute sure you can if you can go without sinning for a minute. Can you go without sinning for an hour sure you can you can go south sinning for an hour.

Can you go without sinning for a day. Sure you can if you can go without sinning for a day can you go that sinning for weight sure you can if you can go that sinning for a week and you go without sinning for a month. Sure you can go without sinning for a month. Can you go that sinning for a year. Surely you can. Hey, if you can go that sinning for year.

Can you let out the rest of your life in sinless perfection is answer was.

Sure you can and he stated that he had reached that state of sinless perfection that he was living without sin.

I didn't have to wait till 1997 when his big scandal took place and he was taken out of the pulpit by his denomination.

I didn't have to wait for that because I had first John chapter 1 verse eight in verse nine. I'm in verse 10.

This is this. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

If we say that we have not sin. We make God a liar and his word is not in us. Jimmy's problem was a defective understanding of sin. Sin is not just a little act of disobedience. Sin is a disposition of the heart to cannot go a minute without sin to go a second without sin. Why because my heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things. Jimmy was thinking this way he was say and I can go up a minute without looking at a Playboy magazine I can go for a minute. What without making a prideful statement.

I can go for a minute without lusting after my neighbor's wife. I can go minute without stealing or or or murdering someone will those things might be truly what Jimmy didn't realize was this just the fault that he had arrived is a horrible, terrible sin, his belief in the doctrine of sinless perfection is calling God a liar and what a horrible sin that is Charles Spurgeon was in a pastors conference one time and there was a Wesley and God it was, they are in his preaching on the doctrine of sinless perfection and it's a finished is finished his sermon, he said to the congregation. It was there. He said I have arrived at the state I am in a state of sinless perfection.

I am now living above sin and after the service was over they had a big dinner for the pastors that were there and they were all sitting around this this big table. Charles Spurgeon came up to the guy behind him. He had big picture of milk in his hand and he came over to any ported over his head and the God jumped up and before he realized that he blurted out a curse word and said, you idiot. What did you do that and Spurgeon said I just wanted you to see and understand that your doctrine can hold water or milk either. Verse seven is a call to holiness. We are being told here that one of the distinguishing marks of a believer, a true believer is that he walks in the light but read that in the context of what is being said and in verse eight and in verse 10, because if you walk out of here thinking that on this earth in this human body you will ever attain sinless perfection and Satan's got you exactly right where he wants you what I will ask is this not a wit. Are you without sin.

But when you read these words that say, but if you walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.

When you read those words. Does that cause a struggle is or something down inside of you that says I want that so bad I want to be holy like Jesus holy I want to please him.

I have a desire down in my heart to to walk, but I stumble off Paula I mess up and and I do something sometimes and let my pride and anger get in the way I'm struggling with an addiction.

If you're not feeling that struggle that I think you need to be concerned about your salvation. If you are feeling that struggle and that's a good thing. Walking in the light doesn't mean being perfectly holy, but it means loving Jesus and walking toward the light. How I look at Paul and II think is a must of been such a holy holy man, yet Paul said that he wasn't hey said, I press on toward the mark for the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus, walking in the light is pressing on it stumbling in and getting back up its persevering in the faith. This be an open and honest before God and before others, to walk in the light is to be a confessor of sins, and in first Timothy chapter 1 verse 15, Paul said I'm the chief of all sinners. He didn't say it in the past tense. I was of the chief of all sinners is that I am the chief of all sinners. How can a true Christian say that because Paul knew the closer he got to God who is perfect light.

The though the more he could see the condition of his heart.

He said I'm the chief of all sinners. Paul was just being dead honest and open tree fellowship demands openness, it demands transparency and honesty. If I can't be real with you if I can't tell you now what you pray for me. I'm struggling with this particular temptation or this particular sin. If we can't be open. We don't have real fellowship, but we need to take the mask off and be able to be open with each other realizing that that we have full problems that that we of failures that that we are not where we need to be yet just being transparent and open and finding sin with all of her heart. Listen Martin Lloyd Jones definition of walking in the light. Is it when we come to this verse about walking in the light we interpreted is just the antithesis and the exact opposite of walking in darkness, therefore, does not mean that I claim absolute perfection but it does mean that I claim that I'm now belong to a different realm to the kingdom of light to the kingdom of God in that kingdom. The last I may be most unworthy, but though unworthy, I am in it and I belong to it and walking in the realm of light, God is the God of that kingdom and God is is in that kingdom as the king is the Lord. I emphasize this because you will find that certain people with their particular theory of holiness and sanctification are always teaching that the only people who walk in the light or certain very special Christians were is what John is saying is that every Christian of necessity is one is walking in the light the non-Christians.

The one is walking in darkness all Christians, however feeble, unworthy and faltering. Our people are walking in the light, otherwise they are not Christians at all and none of the remarks of the apostle in any way apply to them. So praise God, if you're not, you're not a believer you're not struggling with the desire to be holy if you're just apathetic about the things of God. Then I got a solution for you turn to Christ, submit to his Lordship, love him and see what he will do, he will change you forever if you're Christian be real. Take off the mask pulled down the façade and get down in the trenches with us in battle verse nine says this is the most quoted most beloved verse and all of first John, if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. John's been hit us pretty hard up to this point time but now he says there's hope for. We have a Savior who is loving and unbelievably good. He gives us a challenge and a declaration here. First, the challenge if we confess our sins as a key in Proverbs 28 verse 13, King Solomon said. Hugh covers his sin will not prosper, but he you confesses and forsakes his sin shall have mercy God insight to this, do that or keep this wall or take this responsibility, he says, confess, agree with God that your center at your sin is damning you to hail and and that you know that your only hope is to the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

What is the declaration. The declaration is this he the Lord is faithful and righteous. He is just PE he is just and he cleanses us from all unrighteousness you see it is your heart, hunger to know this God, to walk in the light with him to have fellowship with him. Do you know what when Satan tempts me to despair tells me of the guilt within upward Outlook and see them.

They are due May the end of all my sin because a similar Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free for God. The justice satisfied to look on Jesus and pardon me to look on Jesus and pardon me, here's a question, do you believe that do you really believe us pray heavenly father we thank you for the privilege of gathering together. Here's your people tonight and just taken a look at what you had to say in this glorious book it would call first John, we thank you Lord to the principles here, we thank you Lord for the promises that we have. We ask heavenly father that you help us that we might have fellowship with his great God in this great Jesus who loves us so much that he gave his life for us that we could have a relationship with him Jesus. We love you tonight. Thank you for dying for us. Thank you for shedding your precious blood.

Thank you for the hope that you give us each day that you are. They are never leave us nor forsake us. We love you and praise you, and it's Jesus precious name we pray. Amen