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On writes in verse three of chapter one, that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that you also may have fellowship with us, yea, and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. I take him to be meaning by fellowship, not just that we shall have happy times of communion in our prayer life and praise life, uh, with the divine persons. More than that, more at a more fundamental, uh, uh, thing than that, we share with them in something. We partake with them in something. Like Peter and his partners were sharers in a business.
That is, they didn't just talk to each other, they shared something together. They were fellow partakers in something. So here, fellowship means fellow partaking in eternal life. And if that is so, this is a magnificent statement that, uh, uh, would be appropriate had we the time to let it sink into our hearts and provoke the most profound worship and amazement at this. It's not just that we talk to God and pray to God, and he talks to us. What has been manifested is that eternal life that was with the Father.
To the Father's eternal satisfaction. That life has been manifested. And you ex- you see the feel, the excitement that runs down the pen of the apostle as he puts the words there. He's talking about the delightful life of Christ as they saw it, and then came to realize that this was God incarnate. This is the very life of God expressed. And then the wonder, they not only contemplated and handled it and assured us that this was real, this wasn't some imaginary, uh, philosophical construct.
This wasn't some internal daydream. This was real concrete life expressed, the very life of God expressed in the person of Jesus Christ. The wonder was that before he left, he indicated how they might be one with him, and he in them, and they in him, and as he was in the Father, and the Father was in him, so they together, the Father and the Son, would be in his people, and his people in them. They would share the very life of God. That's what we have in common. Now you say, what difference is there in all this?
Well, a very big practical difference, because you will hear some dear, uh, believers say, well, yes, of course I'm saved, but um, uh, uh, some days I enjoy communion with the Lord. But of course, if we sin, that communion is broken. Now, that may well be true, but they think that's what John is talking about here. Do you see? That if we sin, our fellowship with God is broken. But wait a minute, if fellowship with God is partaking the very life of God, can that partaking be broken? Do you lose your eternal life if you sin as a believer? No, of course not.
You see, a child, physical child, has his father's life. In that profound sense, he shares with his father the father's life, doesn't he? The genes of the father are into the child. Now, the child may misbehave and be out of sorts with its father, but he still has the life of its father. I submit, uh, to say that John is talking about fellowship in that most fundamental sense, you'll see, and now lays down the conditions upon which that fellowship may be had.
Verses five of chapter one, you'll see, uh, give us the conditions, and then he, uh, after talks about the evidences that we've got it. So let me make some, uh, distinctions, if I may, that we may expect in these verses. We'll see. Um, the conditions for sharing. God's life.
The evidences that we share God's life. And it would be very important that we make the distinction in our thinking between conditions and evidences. To cite the analogy once more that we had before the break, a little baby doesn't get life by crying. Gets it by an altogether different principle.
But if it has life, it will cry. And if on being born, the child never cries. You know what I'm saying? That's serious, isn't it? Why? Because it's evidence it doesn't have life. It's still born. But if somebody, if a child is, uh, uh, uh, uh, a caught death, for instance, and the mother goes up and sees the child, and the child's lying there, and the mother feels a tremendous pang of terror go through her. Uh, this isn't a cot death, is it? And she, she feels the child, and the child is cold, but she can't believe it's dead, so she, she moves it and caresses it, and, and nothing happens. You can imagine the mother saying, cry, don't cry, just to show you're alive.
But if the child is in fact dead, it's no good telling it to cry. Crying won't bring it life, will it? So there's a difference between conditions for having and evidence that we have. And the difference, uh, can be put in other terms. There's a certain balance in John's writings. He's writing about eternal life, and life is always a, true life is a balanced thing. When John talks about the conditions, he talks about our walking, but it is a question of where, where we walk.
And what do I mean by that? Well, let's look at the actual text. This then is the message, he says, one John one five. This is the message which we have heard from him and announce 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, walk in darkness. You notice that, strictly speaking, is a question of where we walk, not how we walk. If we say we have fellowship with him and walk in the 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, cleanses us from all sin.
The all important thing at that stage is where we walk. When you come to chapter two verse six, John is by this time talking about the evidences, not the conditions, but the evidences. Look at verse four of chapter two. He that saith, I know him and keepeth not his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word in him, verily hath the love of God been perfected. Hereby know we that we are in him. This is how we know it. These are the evidences. He who says he abides in him ought himself also to walk, even as.
Now it's not a question of where you walk, but how you walk. Yes? Everybody's translations, uh, agree with the basic facts and observations, yes? Yes. Now that might at first stage of a, uh, uh, sight feel like splitting hairs, but no, this is inspired scripture, verbally inspired. The prepositions are exceedingly important, the difference of where we walk and how we walk. And so let's go back to that initial thing then. God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in the darkness, we lie and do not the truth. Uh, if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we do have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus his son cleanseth us from all sin. The first, the one condition in those laid down here, the one condition for sharing the life of God is simply this, if we walk in the light. We do have fellowship. Notice it doesn't say that if, first of all, you repent of your sin and the blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, cleanses you from all sin, then you are free and you can come and, uh, uh, walk in the light.
It doesn't put it round that way. It says first, if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship. This is the condition. You say, but what about my sin then? Well, that's the point. We walk in the light as he is in the light, there is provision for that sin, and we'll come to that for a moment. The first prime condition is if we walk in the light, where we walk. But then notice the verb. The verb is not if we come to the light, we have fellowship one with another, but if we walk in it.
Not enough just to come. The verb is walk. I know it's a Hebraism, a Hebrew idiom for behavior, walking. But if we walk in the light, not just come to it. The classical s- place where this kind of thing is told us at length is, of course, the John, Gospel of John chapter eight. In John chapter eight, our Lord announces himself, I am the light of the world. Eight verse 12, is it not? So after much long discussion, we're told that as he said these things, many of the Jews believed on him.
That's John eight uh, verse thirty. As he spake these things, many believed on him. Jesus, therefore said to those Jews which had believed him, if you abide, if you continue in my word, then are you truly my disciples, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. They answered unto him, we be Abram's seed and have never yet been in bondage to any man. How sayest thou you shall be made free? Jesus answered them, verily, verily, I say unto you, everyone that committeth sin is the bondservant of sin, and the bondservant abideth not in the house forever, the Son abideth forever.
If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. Do you see? They had come to the light. They had professed to believe, indeed. But as they began to walk in the light, the light exposed them. That's what light does. And their sins were exposed, and now, uh, the following verses show how uncomfortable that became. They said, we're of Abraham's seed. Funny, said Christ, if you're Abraham's seed, you wouldn't seek to kill me, would you? Abraham didn't do that kind of thing. They said, we have one father, even God. Oh, really, said Christ. If God were your father, you'd love me, wouldn't you?
Well, then they really got annoyed, and he had to tell them, you, far from being Abram's true spiritual seed and children of God, you are of your father, the devil. Wow. Pick up stones to stone him. Put the light out. Not enough to come to the light. One has to be prepared to walk in it, continue in it, stay in it, live in it. Yeah, but you say if I, if I come to the light like that and, and walk in it, it will expose me. That certainly will. Well, then if that exposes my sin, that breaks my fellowship.
No, it doesn't. If I'm prepared to come and walk in the light, I may have eternal life. I may share the life of God. What about my sin? The blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, deals with that. The one condition is I must be prepared to come and walk in the light, even as he is in the light. Now, that has its practical implications, doesn't it? Remember years and years and years and years and years ago, eh, I was asked to go to the top of Cambridgeshire, where it borders on Norfolk, uh, to some folks, uh, a farmer and his wife.
And she had been nominally, uh, Christian and, uh, Anglican, and he had been, uh, nominal Christian, not quite so nominal, uh, uh, not so good as his wife, really, but nominal too. Uh, he was a Methodist, and someone had prevailed upon them to go to some great evangelistic campaign in Cambridge. I forget who the evangelist was, and they had both stood up at one of the meetings to profess faith in the Lord, you see. That was marvelous. And the friend who was interested in them eventually collared me and asked would I go along, uh, and take some Bible studies in their home, you see. So I tried to do that to the best of my ability, and the dear lady came to me very tearfully one stage and said, you know, David, she said, I went to the meetings and I profess to be saved, but David, she said, since I've been saved, I've been worse than I was before I was saved, therefore I'm not saved.
Which is a very interesting logical proposition, isn't it, if you work it out. Since I haven't been saved, I've been worse than I was before I was saved, therefore I'm not saved. You see. What has happened to the dear lady? Well, before she'd been nominally religious, but walking far distant from the Lord. Now she comes to the light, starts to walk in it, with the inevitable result. Of course, it exposes our sins, doesn't it? Instead of feeling marvelously good, we, we don't feel so good as we felt before. Yes, but it can be a very healthy sign.
We've come to the light. What we must not do is to turn around like those men did and go off. The only condition for having fellowship with God is to come and walk in the light. When it exposes my sin, then God has provision for it. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, cleanses us from all sin. And the next, uh, uh, uh, phrase is, if we say that we have no sin, let's see, instead of admitting it, but wait a minute, what does that mean, to have sin?
Um, you could read the verse simply as saying, if we say we have no sin, that we are sinless. There are very few people that would maintain that they are sinless. The phrase to have sin is a phrase you'll find in the Gospel of John and in the Epistles of John. Uh, says our Lord, if you were blind, John chapter nine at the end of it, if you were blind, you would not have sin. It doesn't mean if you were spiritually blind, you would be sinless, sinlessly perfect. He means if you were spiritually blind, you would not be blameworthy.
You would not be guilty. You can't be blamed for not seeing what you can't see. Yes? If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin. That doesn't mean they would have been sinless. But if I hadn't come and spoken to them, they couldn't be blamed for not believing what they never heard. Now I have come and spoken to them, their sin remains. Right, so here, if we say we have no sin, meaning if we claim it isn't our fault. And you'll see.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. So you have your choice how you translate it. Is is a man saying, I have no sin, I am sinless? Or is he saying, like so many do nowadays, that, yeah, well, I have these urges and whatnot, but, uh, I'm not to be blamed for it. It's in my genes, or it's, uh, what is their denying responsibility for their sin, and therefore they can't help it. I know that won't do. W- if we say that, um, we, uh, are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
What we must do is to confess it. But let's not read it simply as saying, oh, this is some terrible condition that I have to fulfill, I have to confess it. Well, we can, we can put it like that if we wish. But the thing is gospel. You don't have to hide it. You can confess it. Well, some people don't like doing it, do they? But the marvel, let's, let's put it positively, if we confess it, there is forgiveness. As you'll see, it's endless sticking your sto- uh, toes in and denying it.
If we confess our sins, then he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And the other, uh, uh, if we say that we have not sinned. You see the difference here between that and verse eight. If we say we have not actually committed wrong deeds, if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. And chapter two verse one is going to put the opposite to that, and if any man sin, or but if any man sin, then we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world.
Notice all the way through the conditions and the marvelous grace of God being emphasized, uh, juicy. If we're prepared to come and walk in the light, that is the sole condition, come and walk in it. Then in spite of the sin it ex- exposes, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from sin. So, when you say walk in the light, Mm-hmm. Are you, what are you, what are you actually referring to in another, in another language? Oh, well, that's a good question, isn't it? Uh, walk is a Hebrew metaphor for to live and behave.
Eh, the men that came to John, uh, uh, came to our Lord in the Gospel of John, they physically came to him because he was there present, yes? So they came to him and they listened to what he said. Some of them, like Thomas and Ju- and and John and Peter, continued with him, stayed with him. And as he taught them, they abode in his word, continued in it. There were others that, when they heard what the Lord was exactly saying, oh, they turned back and they walked no more with him. And our Lord turned around to the twelve and he said, will you also go away?
So here was walking in the literal sense when he was here on earth. They came to him, and uh, some of them continued with him. Others walked no more with him. They went back. In other words, they didn't follow him. But then, of course, the word takes on, uh, a deeper meaning, doesn't it? Walk, he's not here physically. But if I want to share the life of God, I must come and walk where God is, as God is in the light. I must come and walk in that light, yes? I must come and walk with the Savior daily, yes?
These are the terms. Does it do, does that begin to make sense? Yeah, I just wonder how that relates to the concept of grace. Is there any... Concept of grace. You know, it almost sounds as though... that I may have it wrong on this take, but it almost sounds as though we have this responsibility to be continually there. We do, yes. Yeah, but that is after salvation, you know? Well, let's put it is you come to the Lord, yes? And you get salvation. Tell me, my dear sir, I, uh, ha- have a bit of an old jalopy car, okay, and when it goes wrong, I take it to the garage man.
I just did it this last week, okay. He puts it right. And when he puts it right, I say, thank you very much, garage man, goodbye. Don't stay in the garage. Don't stay with the engineer, mechanic. I just go to him when I'm in trouble, and then I go off. Is that how you get saved? You want eternal life, you come to Christ, and then say, thank you very much for the gift, bye-bye. Is that how you get saved? I, I would rather fancy if you put that to the apostles, they say, no, you don't do it like that.
Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Come to me. We come to the Savior. But does that mean we just come, like I come to the, the grocer and say I want a packet of tea, and he gives me a packet of tea, and I say goodbye, uh, uh, perhaps never go again. I come to Christ, and he gives me eternal life, and I just walk off, and I still got eternal life. But I don't walk with him. What would you say to that? Yeah, yeah. What do we all think about it? What I've normally said to people in this context is that walking in the light is walking with, with our lives open to the script- the scriptures.
In other words, my behavior, moment by moment, day by day, is subject to the standards and light of scripture. Mm-hmm. And that I am walking in the light when I allow my s- my behavior to be judged by scripture, and when it fails to say, forgive and cleanse me. Marvelous. Um, Tom Geddes told a story about walking in the jungle. Mm-hmm. In the dark. Mm-hmm. And one person had a tilling lamp. Mm-hmm. And the tilling lamp shone on a small patch of ground. Mm-hmm. And the only way they could walk in safety was to walk close together Mm-hmm.
in the light. Mm-hmm. Because if they got out the light, they were in darkness. Mm-hmm. They couldn't see where they were going. They couldn't move. And the picture seems to be a very beautiful illustration of the same truth. Mm. But it's walking close to the standards of scripture, close to the Lord, and allowing our lives to be judged in that way, um, confess and put right what we feel. William, sir. If instead of saying, I agree with you, so not not, you're not wrong, uh, thy word is a light unto my path. So we have to walk in the light of scripture, marvelous.
Suppose I substituted for that John eight where Christ says, I am the light of the world. So Christ is the light. Then walking in the light means? Oh yeah, doesn't it? Doesn't it? Is there a salvation? Let me put it crudely, so sometimes being crude and putting things in extremes helps us to think through things. Is there a salvation that says you can come to Christ, receive salvation, and then go off from him? You've still got salvation, but you're not walking in communion with the Lord. Is there such a salvation? No.
And the very ethos of our work within EM is to make people disciples. Yes, sir. Contains the, the following, the, the ongoing relationship rather than a believism. I once encountered somebody, I believe in his existence because I met him, but now, in terms of Christ, it's not a, an encounter I once had. I believe in him because I'm with him day by day. I'm a, I'm a follower, I'm a disciple. Yes, I believe he's absolutely so. And you are, of course, citing what John eight is saying. The Jews believed on him. Really? Our Lord said to the Jews that believed on him, if you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
But that wasn't long after that they took up stones to stone him. They'd come to the light, they said they believed on it. But when they found the light exposing them, they were not prepared to walk in the light. Goodness me, no. What would you say of such Jews? Well, they were believers because they came to Christ and they believed on him, but they weren't prepared to walk in his light, but they got eternal life anyway. You know, very often it's been presented though as a, as a kind of insurance policy that you, you, uh, when necessary, you can bring out your bit of paper and save it, but it's, it's not a life.
And, uh, there are thousands of people, I suspect, wandering around Northern Ireland who have prayed the prayer or he had some kind of response like the Jews did in John eight, but didn't stay. Ah, ah, ah. You see, this is a, uh, uh, uh, uh, I mean, I may be confusing things a little because I'm using terms in a slightly different way from what sometimes in evangelical circles they used. But anyway, that will have the great benefit of bringing us back to what scripture says. That can't be altogether bad. And the condition for having fellowship with God is if we walk in the light.
Now, of course, some of the confusion I may be c- uh, uh, creating is because I have defined fellowship with God as that fundamental sharing the very life of God. That is what eternal life is, isn't it? That may be crude, but you see, sometimes, uh, uh, uh, we hear ourselves and other folks talking as though eternal life was a sort of a gift, like Santa Claus brings at Christmas all tied up with ribbon, and now we've got it. Thank you very much, Santa Claus. He goes back to the North Pole, wherever it is he hangs out, and we've got the eternal life, whether we have anything to do with him. Well, we say good, you know, welcome in the next Christmas, but we've got eternal life.
No, you don't. You listen to Paul in Colossians. Your life is hid with Christ in God, and when Christ who is your life. We don't have any life apart from Christ. Eternal life is sharing the life of God, yes? That's what it is. You can't then take that life and and say, well, look, I know it's in Christ for the time being, I've got all I need, like I teach, treat my garage man. I don't have life without Christ. That's an impossibility.
And having eternal life is sharing the life of God, and the condition for sharing the life of God is that, um, because it is a life anyway, isn't it? Sharing the life of God, the condition is if we walk in the light, as he is in the light. It's not saying you must walk perfectly. It's not how you walk. It's where you walk. What do you mean the difference? Well, let me take a, a, a, a little, okay? Uh, uh, let me take a little illustration.
I have, from time to time, lecture on the Jewish tabernacle, and my friends think I got tabernacle on the brain. It could be I have. Not a bad thing to have on the brain either. Tabernacle's a oblong building like that, you see, and it had a veil across here, and here was the ark with a cherubim on top, you see, and there was the mercy seat. Yeah, or propitiatory, as it's called. Here was the veil, and outside here was the candlestick, do you see, with its six branches.
And over here was a table. It called, it got legs on, uh, called the table of showbread, and it had twelve loaves on. Bread. Yeah? And here was a little altar called the incense altar, where the, uh, priest, uh, prayed as he stood here, doing at the time of prayer, and, uh, he burned the incense, of course, and he addressed the prayers to God, who was present above the, uh, on the cherubim above the mercy seat, yes?
That was the arrangement. Now, the loaf on this table, the loaves on this table were put there primarily for God. They were there for God's benefit. They were put there at the beginning of the week and left for a whole week for God. You shall put them on the table before the Lord continually, you'll see. At the end of the week, the priests were allowed to come, and, uh, you'll see they came to the table and they, uh, took the old bread off, you'll see, and put new bread on for God, and then the old bread they took away and they ate it in a holy place. So, a very simple symbol that man was allowed to share the same table with God.
That's a marvelous example of what fellowship would mean. It didn't mean simply that they came to God and said a few prayers. Fellowship with God for them meant that this food was put there for God, and then at the end of the week they were allowed to come and share it with God. That's having fellowship with God, isn't it? And could be an illustration for us, if we want to one at the practical level, of what John is talking about, that eternal life that was with the Father, that bread of God that satisfied God with all God's infinitude of capacity, that eternal life that was with the Father.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. God's infinite delight and satisfaction, that life was manifest. And now for us becomes the very bread of God, and we are invited to come and partake of that very bread of which God partakes. That's fellowship. Mm-hmm. Oh, well, of course, now there was this lampstand, and I put it square on, but actually it was sideways on here, of course, and there were seven lamps, one on the stem, one on each of the end of the branches, and they were shedding their light.
Beams of light. This is worth some money by the time I finish. This is modern art. Pardon? Do you see? Mm-hmm. And uh, uh, yes, so the light was coming. Now here's a priest of an evening, and he wants to have fellowship with God. And outside here, because it's evening time, it's all dark. If he wants to have fellowship with God at that table, what's he got to do? Yeah. Yes. He can't come to that table without walking in the light.
It's where he walks. Isn't it? So with Peter, for example, um, when Peter denied Christ, he was still walking in the light, so to speak, but the evidence Ah, well. Yeah, wait a minute. Yeah, wait a minute. We'll come to that. We'll come to that in that very next thing. Yes, that's worth thinking through. You'll see, uh, to, to, to, um, to, um, have fellowship with God at that table, you must come and walk in the light. I sometimes say, talking about this, uh, suppose a young priest comes in, and this is the first time he exercises this holy privilege to come and take the bread, to eat the bread.
And he's so flustered, he knows what all he should do, but he's so overcome with the awe of the situation. It's the first time he'd done it, and he comes in here, do you see, and his toe catches in the bottom of his road, and he falls flat on his face. Well, he's in the light. He isn't walking very well in the light. In fact, he's fallen over. But he's fallen over in the light. Yes? So says the illustration. Condition of sharing fel- uh, the life of God, having eternal life and enjoying it with God because it is a life, is that we walk in the light as he is in the light.
There is no other possible way, for eternal life is God's life. It doesn't just break off a bit of eternal life and says, there you are, and now you can go off and by yourself. It is sharing the life of God. And we just come where God is and walk in the light with God. Thank God it doesn't, it's not how you walk. It doesn't say if you walk a hundred ke- uh, perfectly, you have fellowship. If that were the c- condition, none of us would ever come. If the condition were that we walk perfectly, we should never enjoy eternal life, not two minutes at a time, should we?
Well, you might, I could, I wouldn't. The condition is where you walk, not how, massively. And when the light exposes us, then thank God we have, uh, uh, the blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, cleanses us from all sin. That is how it is possible for God to have fellowship with us. We mustn't forget, we talk about believers who are willfully sinning, maybe, and says, oh, that breaks the fellowship. We forget that you and I, sitting here this morning, touching the holy word of God, we're downright sinners anyway. Oh, Bill is.
Well, he told me, told me in the car coming across, you see. And if God depended, uh, demanded hundred percent walking correctly, of any one of us, none of us in this room would qualify, would we? No, we wouldn't. Indeed, we wouldn't. You see, we're compared with our fellow Christians, we're, we stand with them rather. Yeah. We are sinful in God's sight. If we saw God like Isaiah saw him, we would be overwhelmed with a sense of our sinfulness. Even now.
The marvelous grace of God is it is not how you walk, but where you walk. You prepared to come and walk in the light. To walk in the light, even though it exposes you for what you are, the blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, cleanses us from all sin. Of course, if we're so stupid to say we don't have any, perhaps that means, some think it means this, that we think we're, well, I haven't done anything wrong with this week, quite oblivious to the fact that inside us there are still wrong attitudes, sinful attitudes in our hearts, yes, that we're not often not aware of. And as we go on in life, we discover things about ourselves that we never knew were there before.
Before we were living in a kind of a fool's paradise. They were there, but we didn't recognize them. Do you see? If we say we have no sin, oh well, we do deceive ourselves. But we can confess it. There's the marvel of it. We don't have to pretend and confess our sin. And if we confess our sin, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us. He's interested in not just forgiveness, but cleansing us and constantly cleansing us and cleansing us from all unrighteousness. That's a very long process. It doesn't demand that that cleansing be complete and perfect before we're allowed to come and have fellowship with him.
That work of cleansing will go on as long as we are on earth. The constant cleansing us from all unrighteousness. Not only unrighteous deeds, but unrighteousness in the twists and turns of our personalities that God is working on, cleansing them away. It's a long, long process, but we don't have to wait till it's finished. We can come and walk in the light. If over any, not only about our perverse, uh, uh, uh, uh, character, but our actual deeds, if we say we have not sinned, of course we have sinned. Individual sins. We deceive ourselves, you see.
But, oh, don't get this wrong, says John. Incidentally, I'm not saying all this to encourage you to sin and to make you think that sin doesn't matter. I'm writing it the very opposite. My little children, I write unto you that you do. Don't get it the wrong way round. But why that is so? If, if we will confess our sins, if any man sin indeed, if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins. That's lovely. Did you notice the progression? First of all, the man says, I have no sin. Secondly, the man says, I have not sinned.
Do you see? That's bad. You see? We're not to do that. We are to walk in the light. We are to confess our sins. We are to admit that we have sinned. But now listen to this. If any man sin, and it doesn't say if then he confesses it, if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. Look at this little, little illustration for a moment. The man has to come and walk in the light, yes, to have fellowship with God. This altar was the altar of intercession and prayer.
Zechariah, when he went into the temple, you remember Luke chapter one, the priest, he went into the hour, at the hour of prayer to offer incense and to pray for the people who were standing outside. Look at that. If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another. And if any man sin, and immediately you've got an advocate with the Father to take up your case. You know, when they offered the sin offering, and from time to time, this little altar had horns on.
And they took the blood of the sin offering, and they put it on these horns. It was the power of the intercession. If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sin. And therefore, that is the basis of his advocacy with the Father, to maintain us in fellowship. You know, that's magnificent, isn't it, what? If any man sinned, that is true of a believer, you know, even before he may have sinned without realizing it.
And God is thrice holy. How can God continue sharing his life with somebody that has sinned? And I haven't even realized I've sinned. You say that the holiness of God would demand he cut you off forthwith. No, no. Because if any man sinned, we've been advocate. Now notice the term that's used, and he is the propitiation for our sins. What does that mean? Well, the pro- The New Testament word propitiation, sometimes it translates as atonement.
You'll see, in the Old Testament, the great day of propitiation, the great day of atonement, when the high priest entered the holiest of all once a year. The great day of atonement, the point of it was, here was the tabernacle, the dwelling place of God with his people, and here were all the people all around it. And says God, that, uh, very presence of the people defiles my tabernacle. So the Day of Atonement was instituted to cleanse the tabernacle from all the defilements that incurred by remaining among the people.
That's what the Day of Atonement was for. And you think of God who allows us to come and have fellowship with him, and we are sinful folks still. How can God continue with us and maintain us and share his life with us still when we are sinful people, even when we haven't realized it? And the marvelous answer is that the blood of Christ acts as a propitiation for our sins that makes it possible for God to restrain his wrath and anger. Here is the blood that acts as a propitiation and allows God, in full justice, to carry on in fellowship with us. That is magnificent, you know.
Yeah? That, that was meant by Hebrews right. the sins committed of ignorance. Yeah, that's right. It's that kind of thing, yes. Mm-hmm. I look back on my youth. You imagine me standing up to preach to anybody and look back in my youth to what I may have thought was marvelous Christian spirit. I look back at it now with horror. The pride and stupidity and folly and all the rest of it. And God allowed me still to continue in his presence and didn't take his eternal life away from me and allowed me still to share with him his eternal life in Christ, yes?
How can he possibly do it? When I become conscious of sin, I must confess it, of course. I mustn't deny I have inward sin. I mustn't deny the sins, uh, particular sins I've done. But even when I sin and I don't even realize I sinned, I have an advocate who's able to maintain that fellowship with God. Justly, he is a propitiation for our sins, Jesus Christ the righteous, yeah? There is God's provision that we come and share his eternal life.
Now then, all the problems. No, you had a problem, yes? Mm-hmm. Uh, it's just this concept of walking and remaining walking in the light. Mm-hmm. Almost implies to me that you can walk away from it, and therefore the notion of eternal salvation. Mm-hmm. I may just be complicating the thing, yes. Yes, yes, it replies if I, if we say that walking in the light is a condition for, uh, having eternal life, we must come and walk in the light. Does not the very term walk in the light, uh, imply that you can, um, walk out of it? Giving up your faith, or?
Yes, uh, I suppose you're not saying that. And what is the opposite of walking in the light? It's walking in darkness. But what does that mean? You see, you have two, uh, two main choices, don't you? The, perhaps the right view, who knows? I could well be wrong. The c- common interpretation would be that, uh, John is saying we believers have eternal life. Now, having eternal life, a believer should walk in the light, that is, in the light of God's word and daily searching his word and have his quiet time and fellowship with the Lord. But of course, it is possible for a believer not to come and walk in the light.
He still has eternal life, but he doesn't walk in the light, as he neglects scripture, he neglects prayer, he doesn't walk in active communion with the Lord, but he he's still walking somewhere or other, uh, do you see? But he's not walking in the light of scripture, but still has eternal life. So if he's not walking in the light of scripture, in John's terms, he's walking in the dark. Yes? And that would mean that he's living perhaps a sinful, uh, life and a worldly life and is walking in the dark. And he's not, then you'll have to say he's not having, mm-hmm, he's not having practical fellowship with God.
Yes, and when you meet that verse, if we say we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the true. Then you'll have to take it to mean we say we have com- daily communion with God, but we don't because we're wa- living a sinful life, and we're not confessing our sin, and we're not walking in the light of scripture. So we're walking in the dark, but we still have eternal life. Yes? The difficulty with my interpretation would be... and I'm saying that fellowship with God is not just quiet communion with the Lord. It's the basic thing of sharing the very life of God.
That's what eternal life is. Yes? And therefore, the condition for having eternal life is walking in the light. You feel that risks too much. That might suggest that the, the condition for having eternal life at all is, is walking in the light, then a believer could decide to walk out of the light, and then he would lose his eternal life. Mm-hmm. Do you see that? Do we all see the difference?
You see the difference? Well, when I next meet you, because it's half past twelve, when I next meet you, pray, uh, um, tell me what you have come, what, you know. I submit to, let me put it through, I submit to you my suggestions. On reflection, you might fi- see, no, that won't do. Walking in the light is simply a matter of a Christian who already has eternal life and can't lose it, of course. It's him, um, just having proper fellowship with the Lord day by day in his word. But if a believer cuts that out, he's now walking in darkness, but he still has eternal life. And that would mean you can walk in darkness but still share the life of God, wouldn't it?
Yes? That's what you would be saying. You can share the life of God, which is eternal life, and walk in darkness. I think I would hesitate to go that far. I don't know how you would feel. You can share the very life of God, that eternal life, your life which is hid with Christ in God, you can, you can share the very life of God and walk in darkness. Mm-hmm. Is it true to say that in the Gospel of John, darkness and light are presented very much in stark opposites?
Ah, well, yes. You have the example, I mean, maybe it's not an example, but uh, I was thinking of John's little comment about Judas when he went out. And it was dark, it was night. Yeah. Yes, yes, uh, yes, Gilbert, thank you. And I would, uh, suggest that, uh, the difficulty that arises here and what is going through our heads, and we're pondering it and this and the other, is the difficulty that we meet elsewhere. He that has this hope, says John, in him. Notice what he says, purifies himself. Uh, he doesn't say he that has this hope ought to purify himself. He says he that has this hope in him purifies himself.
And the man who isn't purifying himself, well, you say then he doesn't have the hope. Mm-hmm. Because it's a same straightforward statement. He that has this hope in him purifies himself. Man says, I hope to be like Christ one day. Well, if he's sincere, he'll want to be like Christ today, won't he? And he'll say, well, I'm far off like Christ, and therefore I, I, I do seriously take this. I want to purify myself because one day I hope to be like Christ. I want to be like him now, and so I purify myself. The man that is careless and doesn't purify himself, how can he convincingly say, but I do have the hope of being like Christ one day?
That would be a contradiction, wouldn't it? But if you put it starkly like that, light and dark, you have the hope, you don't have the hope, that, uh, raises all those problems. He, he that sins is of the devil. The mark of a child of God is he doesn't sin. Well, if you put it that starkly like John does, you're going to raise the question of what happens to in the question of Of inconsistency. But periods of long backsliding. Yes, of periods of long backsliding, yes. And I would have said for about three years of my Christian life, I would have been a backslider, not in the sense of maybe going back to a lot of the things that I had formerly been involved in.
I didn't become a Christian until I was twenty one, but just a coldness. Isn't that right? You know, it was just Mm-hmm. I- I read the Bible every day Mm-hmm. during that three years. Mm-hmm. I prayed every day. Mm-hmm. I seldom got out of the Book of Solomon, actually, because I couldn't feel that I could verbalize to God, God, I love you, but I needed to hear him say to me, Mm-hmm. Evan, I love you. Mm-hmm. Uh, I- I knew Mm-hmm. that though this isn't what it's all supposed to be, Mm-hmm. but there was that period. Of coldness of heart. Coldness of heart. And distance. No, there was no spot. Yeah. There was no. Mm-hmm. And if Mm-hmm. if I had have been looking at me in the mirror or whatever, Mm-hmm.
I would have said, isn't that really what walking in the light's all about? Mm-hmm. And yet I wouldn't have... uh, you know, there was at that period, I would have said three years. No one would have known because I've got gone to the meetings. Mm-hmm. And so on. Mm-hmm. Yet I knew there's Mm-hmm. got to be something more. Yes, marking at a distance. That is consistent with the life that I and I Mm-hmm. uh, profess to Mm-hmm. have. Mm-hmm. Uh, and uh, you know, so how do, where did I, was I walk- walking in darkness Oh. and needing to come back? Yeah. That's the thing, this is maybe Yes, I try. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes, that's right, and user.
I mean, I've always thought that the opposite of walking in the light is walking in darkness, but I'm wondering, is that so? Is the opposite of walking in the light not walking in the light rather than walking in darkness? In other words, the light is still there, but it is the emphasis on either we're walking, we're we're making the most of that that we ought to be making, but at the opposite of that is that while the light is still there, the grace of God isn't withdrawn from us, but we're simply not deriving the benefit from it. And I'm wondering if I was to go out here today and turn right rather than left and go home to my wife and family, if I turned right and went onto the ferry and went to live in Scotland, Mm-hmm. I would still be married, I would still have that relationship, Mm-hmm.
but I wouldn't be living in the light of that. Mm. It wouldn't cancel out the relationship, but it would cancel out the use. Mm-hmm. And the implications of. Yes, yes. And I, could that be it? Where we're wrong in thinking is that it's either the choice between light and darkness, but it's the choice between walking and not walking. The light remains. Yes, that's right. The light remains, yes. And here I would want to come and say it is basically a question of where we walk and rather than how we're walking. There's some good believers, and we're not walking very well. But it's not a question of how we walk, it's where we walk.
But in the question of, of, uh, people being a long time backsliding, so to speak, let me, let me, uh, uh, uh, point out three story. The one is the one you know of Peter, who denied the Lord, did he not? And a terrible inconsistency. So much so, if you'd have been standing by him when he swore all his oaths and curses and said he wasn't a believer, wasn't a follower of Christ, you say, well, I think he is, but what can you say when a man himself says he isn't? The question is, was he still, or was he, when he said he wasn't a believer, was he telling a big whopper of a lie?
Horribly inconsistent, but he was a believer in spite of his disgraceful behavior. Do you see? Uh, we know he was still a believer because the Lord says so, and he was restored. And that wasn't a very long incident. But let me name you two other things. Eh, when I first came to live over here in Ireland, uh, do you see, eh, I suppose it would have been about nineteen sixty, There was a gentleman in this province, and as a young man, brought up his father in Ballyhackam or Gospel Hall. A place that had a name like that was something, I suppose. Uh, barely Hackamore.
And, uh, you'll see he believed the Lord, and he's a young man, he began to preach, and apparently he was an acceptable preacher, and so on and so on. He went into business, went up to Londonderry. He was presented, so he subsequently told me, with a a v- a rather shady business deal. Had a bad conscience about it, but looked around and saw other professed believers who were businessmen doing these kind of deals, and he did it himself. And for him, it proved the beginning of a slippery slope downwards. He prospered in business, he had a factory, he became an MP in Stormont, do you see, prospered well, and was far away from the Lord.
You see, went on for nearly forty years. He, uh, got very bitter against Christianity. He was going with his daughter to write a book again it, again the Brethren, as he told me. His business began to go downhill. He had problems, I think, with his nurse and alcohol and whatnot. He lost his seat in Stormont. And he was in a very bad way, trying to keep his business afloat, and under a psychiatrist for his nerves at the time, you see.
He was coming back through Belfast early one Sunday morning, having been in his factory for about two o'clock in the morning, coming back in his car, driving through Belfast, and uh, there was a Victoria Hall in May Street at that time. To see. On the notice board was the fact that Dog's Body was to preach on Sunday, and some curious desire got hold of him to hear Dog's Body preach. I don't know whether anybody in his right mind would, but that's how it was. Now, this was a chap who for years would take his father to the gospel meeting at night, drop him outside the door, and would not go in himself, and would come back and fetch his father.
Overwhelmed with this desire to come and hear this chap preach. Now, it so happened at that stage I was preaching four sermons of a Sunday night on the confessions of the apostles, that is, what the apostles said of how they came to faith in Christ. And this night I had come to Peter. And there were four five hundred folks there. I didn't know anything about this chap anyway, do you see? And I preached on Peter, who discovered Christ as a rock, solid rock beneath his feet, to whom coming as a living stone and all that. And why that meant a lot to Peter, you see.
The times when he felt himself sinking, when he tried to walk on the water and went down, and how Christ saved him. And the awful time in the high priest's court when panic got hold of him. And I happen to say, I to- uh, as an expression, like a man, uh, falling in a pit and trying to grab the sides only to find they're slimy and he can't get a grip and he's sinking, sinking, sinking, sinking. And how he found the Savior and the Savior brought him back. Well, the Monday or Tuesday after I got a phone call from this man, would I have lunch with him? And he came back to the Lord. You just imagine the kindness of the Lord with him.
Forty years away. And the first time he comes to listen to the gospel preached in forty years. God has it that he has a story of Peter, and he said, when you said last night in the pulpit that Peter felt himself falling down a great shaft and, uh, into the dark and trying to grab hold, and he couldn't get a hold, and he was sinking, that was absolutely me, says he, that's how I feel. That impressed me, that. Not with him, but with the Lord. Forty years away, and this is a shepherd that brings folks back, you know. I was in Peebles about eight years ago, Scotland, for a weekend, uh, conference and whatnot.
And after the service on the Sunday night, my host took me out for a walk through the better parts of Peebles. It's a very pleasant town, and we were going up some very nice, uh, shady avenues with big houses. And there joined us a, a man in his middle life from the church, and then he had to part from us and say goodbye and went off in another direction. And my host says, you know, that chap, he's only recently come to the Lord, you know, in his mid-forties, and feels he's wasted his time all these years, and now he's converted, he wants to give himself to the Lord one hundred percent, he said, and he didn't know what to do, he said. He, so he came to me and told me he had an idea.
He wanted to do something for the Lord, and he didn't know how. So he said, I, I've got a lot of, uh, beautiful records of Christian music, and I'm going round the houses, knock the door, and when they come to the door, I'm going to say, look, um, I- I've got these lovely, uh, records of, of Christian music, and I thought they were so nice, you- I thought you might like to borrow them. Well, that was a funny way, but anyway, that's how he decided he would do for the Lord. He'd wasted so much time, now he's going to serve the Lord. That's the way he thought of. And my host said, do you see that house there? I said, yes. He said that was the first house he came to. Beautiful big house. Knocked on the door. Man came to the door. He said, excuse me, he said, but um, I'm a Christian and and I I I've got this these records have such beautiful Christian music, I wonder whether you'd like to borrow them.
And the man said, you better come in. Showed him into a room, called his wife. We want to tell you our situation. We're both believers. We've been away from the Lord for forty years. And last night in this room, we came back to the Lord. And we told the Lord, Lord, if you'll have us back, please send us confirmation tomorrow that you've forgiven us and received us. And he said, we were sitting here, and the day has gone nearly by, and it was getting nine o'clock at night, and we thought, no, God won't have us back at all. He said, and you knock on the door. Hm? That's the shepherd.
That's the advocate with the father. Who makes it possible for God to continue even with his erring children. What time the Holy Spirit gets to work to bring them back. Go You'll see. Yes, I'm with you. I don't believe any believer can be lost. Oh, and that's why I say that sharing eternal life, that's a thing that once we have it can never be broken. Why? Because we have an advocate, and when we sin. He is the propitiation. He holds back what otherwise would be the just wrath of God.
That's what propitiation is. Makes it possible for God to continue with us in his mercy until we're brought to repentance. That's the magnificence of his ministry. But anyway, now I put that before you. I'm aware that, uh, uh, uh, one, that these things get a little complicated, uh, that my particular interpretation is questioned, questionable perhaps, but, uh, you see, I put it into the pool of your thinking because it is an important question. Don't let me deter you if you feel that the verse is to be interpreted that if we walk in the light, we have daily communion with the Lord, and that's lovely.
But if when we walk in the light of scripture, we have daily concourse with the Lord. If we don't walk in the light, we neglect our prayer life, or we neglect scripture, or we positively go into sin and don't confess it, then our practical communion with the Lord is broken. Well, that is true, of course, isn't it? Anyway, so you're not... you'll be saying the truth if you say that. My question I want to raise is, does John mean something somewhat deeper? Mm-hmm. When we next meet, you can tell me what you have decided. All I want to do just now is to, because it's getting on to one o'clock, is to go to the other side. Here is the question of where we walk.
Do we walk in the light? Do we walk in it, not just come to it, but walk in it? But now the other side of the story, where John emphasizes not where we walk, but how we walk. And there he says, uh, look at verse, uh, three onwards, and hereby know of chapter two. hereby know we that we know him if we keep his commandments. He that says I know him and keepeth not his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily hath the love of God been perfected. Hereby know we that we are in him.
He that saith he abides in him ought himself also to walk even as. That's not where you walk, but how you walk. If I say I am abiding in Christ, I'm in Christ, and I abide in Christ. All right, now, says John, you'll need to show evidences of that. You have a bounden duty. Not just to walk in the light, but now it's not where you walk, but how you walk. To walk even as he walked.
At our bound and duty, and we're now talking about evidences. Why do I say evidences? Well, look again at verse three. Hereby know we that we know. If I say, yes, I know the Lord. Meaning not simply I know about God, but I know him. Uh, to know him is eternal life. I, I do know the Lord in that technical sense of the term. I have eternal life. I know the Lord. The Lord's mine and I'm his, and I know him. Uh, do you see? I know my sheep, and my sheep know me. I know the Lord. All right. What about the evidences?
How do I know that I know the Lord? Well, says John, hereby we know that we know if we keep his commandments. We're not now talking about conditions, are we? We don't have to keep the commandments to be saved. We don't have to keep the commandments to receive eternal life. But once we're saved and we have eternal life and we are in Christ, then it is expected that we show the evidence of it. The evidence, not the condition, the evidence is that we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and doesn't keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
If a baby has life, it will cry. It will throw his arms about. It will eat. If a baby doesn't cry, doesn't throw its arms about, doesn't eat, doesn't do anything, what's the good of saying it's got life? Moreover, you see, look at, uh, verse five. "Whoso keepeth his word, in him verily hath the love of God been perfected. God loves him, and he loves the Lord. And if you know the Lord, you love the Lord. And if you love the Lord, you'll keep his commandments. Suppose I said to you, um, ah, you know what?
Um, I love Switzerland. Oh, I love Switzerland. It's a magnificent country. And five minutes later, you're talking about it, and you say how much you like Mountaineering and seeing the mountain. I say, well, there's one thing in life I can't stick, that's mountains. Mm-hmm. Can't stick mountains. Oh, do you know Switzerland? Oh, yes, I know Switzerland. And you say you love Switzerland? Oh, I love Switzerland. But you hate mountains. Well, how do you make sense of that? So the man's talking bilge. Doesn't know Switzerland, can't know Switzerland, full of mountains one end of the other, biggest mountains in Europe.
How on earth the man's saying he, he loves Switzerland, but he doesn't like mountains? He just doesn't know Switzerland. I say I d- know God, and I don't keep his commandments. Well, wait a minute. If, if we know God, we love God, don't we? To know God is to love him, and to love him is to keep his commandments. And therefore, if I say I'm in him, I have a bound and duty to walk even as he that is Christ walked. That, to my mind, is the opposite side of this. This is where we walk, this is how we walk.
These are the conditions upon which we can have eternal life. These are the evidences that show that we have it. Yeah? Let me just, uh, and we'll come to a conclusion now, let me now, um, uh, uh, show how this kind of balance in thinking is a feature of John's writing. Look at verse seven now. And from verse seven of chapter two onwards, um, the great burden of John's exhortation is that we shall love.
Yes? Beloved, no new commandment write I unto you, but an old commandment which you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard. Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light already shineth. He that saith he is in the light and hateth his brother is in the darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling is him, in him. He that hateth his brother is in the darkness and walks in darkness and knoweth not whither he goeth, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
Here, therefore, is the command to love. Look at the next verses down, and you'll come to verse fourteen. Love not. So here's a question now of our affections, not so much our walk, but our affections. And they must, uh, be likewise in proper balance. We are to love, that is, we're to love our brothers and sisters in Christ, but we are not to love the world. Yes, a balance between the two, yes?
It's possible to get the balance the other way around, you know, to find the world very attractive and our brothers and sisters in Christ not so attractive, you see, to love the world rather than our, our brothers and sisters. But here you are again, we're, we're talking about the tests of life. I- if I say I am a child of God, then it will affect my affections. I must judge myself by this criteria. Uh, do you see, not only of righteous behavior, but now of true love. And that true love will see loving the brothers, not loving the world.
Yeah? I'm all ears, therefore, for you to tell me, when you're teaching this kind of thing and trying to tell folks about the world, how do you define the world? What is worldliness according to you? I'm staying quiet. Staying quiet, is he? I always jump in and still speak. It's Gilbert's turn. It's Gilbert's turn. What, how do, what do, how do you explain the world to Christians?
Without on the one side, turning them into Pharisees, and on the other side, just letting any old thing go. What is the world? Well, I was, was saying that it's worldliness is, is to do with an attitude of heart, rather than to do with external fashions, like color of stock. Stocking. And things like that. Mm-hmm. But the world seems to be something in John that's opposed to the Father. The two are, are opposites.
Mm-hmm. Um, the world has rejected the Son of God. We are those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Mm-hmm. We overcome the world with the faith that he is the Son of God. So it's almost as if the world is a kind of self-contained unit, and people living as if this is all there is. Uh, and there is no Son of God, there is no eternal kingdom, or if it is, it's remote, and we'll worry about that when we die. Mm-hmm. That seems to me to be the, the kind of essence of worldliness, whereas the opposite, I suppose, holiness is, is our devotion to Jesus as the Son of God and living in accordance with that.
Mm-hmm. We may do a lot of the same things. We may go to a football match or play a table tennis or You go to f- you go to a football match. Give out tracks, of course. Oh, he goes there to give out tracks. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, he goes there to give out tracks. Oh, yes, yes, yes, thank you for that. I could have got the wrong idea. Cried after much now that said. Yeah, righto. Yeah. But very much about attitude of of heart. Attitude of heart. We're to love God, is then, uh, the world not anything that takes away our love, our affections from him? You mean Just in an opposite direction.
All the bad things in the world. No, well, how we're influenced by what the wor- how the world says we're to live. Uh, uh, John's talking about love and talking about life and talking about light, uh, with the world, uh, and all of that's to go towards God and represents what we have in God, then the world is anything that takes away. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Seeing the way your mind works, I would be surprised if you weren't bringing us to to the end by saying that the world are the false Christs, the false spirits, and the false gods, and that's where the circle of John's book taking us.
Yes, that is very good, sir. Yes, that is very good. Yes. The world has its religion, and uh, the false things at the bottom are the religious world, aren't they really? As you've noticed, they're not atheism, it's false Christs, antichrists. It's not atheism, it's false spirits. It's not atheism, it's false gods. Yes, that is true. We must beware of it. I mean, that is in the realm of our beliefs, actually, what we are b- to believe. Here is also our affections, isn't it? If I were to pin it down to what John says, for all that is in the world is not of the Father.
What do you mean? He didn't he create the world? I thought God created it. What do you mean all that is in the world is not of the Father? Well, John defines it then as the lust or desire of the eyes. Well, come, come, come, John. I go down the town and enter some beautiful shop, and the colors are magnificent, aren't they? Debenhams or somewhere, and the curtains are delightful, and the furniture's a nice style. I like it. Is that sinful? Well, I don't, I don't like the old crash, you know, all the bad things, but the desire of the eyes, I meant, I mean, I, I see a picture called magnificent picture.
Oh, I would like that. Yeah? Is that wrong? But how can it not be of the Father, I mean to say? Didn't God give us the artistic device? I, I don't like this modern music because I was an old, old chap. That sounds to me hideous, but all the classical music, oh, delightful, isn't it? Didn't God create music? Is that what I'm not to love? Then the problem, it's placed the priorities, and it takes a priority which is higher than God, higher than Christ.
Ah, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Then it is something. Yes. Yes. Mike Wells talked about it, and I, it was quite a good illustration to talk about an old cartwheel where you had a hub and spokes. Mm-hmm. And the hub, of course, is Christ. The spokes could be bad things, but the spokes could also be things which were quite good. Mm-hmm. Like music or ministry or sport or whatever. But if those spokes became the focus of our interest and commitment, they led us to the rim. Mm. To a life on the rim and a life away from Christ who was the hub. That's right. That's right. I think John's saying two things in this.
Uh, he obviously intends it, um, to be so. He talks about love of the world, but he also talks about love of the things in the world. Ah, yeah. So there is a distinction between Mm-hmm. things. There is the world, which I presume refers to an unbiblical philosophy of life, if you like, something along the lines of what Herbert was talking about, as well as the things that you've been mentioning about, which are the things which our eyes desire, our hearts desire, the things which, uh, use flesh in that sense, the flesh longs for. Mm-hmm. Well, surely, surely, there surely is the, uh, is the subtlety of Satan's, uh, uh, uh, temptations.
Uh, do you see? In the Garden of Eden, when he came to tempt our foreparents, he didn't tempt them to some outrageously immoral act, some vulgar, terrible, disgraceful outrage. The things he tempted them with were beautiful in the extreme. There are those trees that were good to look at and good for food. There was the tree of life, and there was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He didn't tempt them with horrible things. He tempted them with things that God himself had made, yes? Mm-hmm. And when the woman he pointed out to this tree, you'll see, she saw it was good for food, satisfying the flesh, and it was, uh, calculated to to make one wise, yes?
That was intellectual satisfaction, and it was, uh, uh, good to look at. That's aesthetic satisfaction. Beautiful. The whole thing was beautiful. Not something vulgar and horrible, slimy. But the question was, Satan said, he said, I mustn't eat this, for God has said no, uh, and Satan said, oh, blood, nonsense woman. God knows that in the day you eat that, you'll be as God, uh, and you, uh, can enjoy it without God. He used the beautiful things of the garden to tear their hearts away from God. Tempts me to say sometimes there'll be more people in hell seduced thither by beautiful things than there will be who were seduced by evil, horrible things.
Because however beautiful the thing it is, if, as Bill says, it draws my heart away from God, that's terrible. Imagine a, a wealthy, very wealthy man. I knew one like it at one stage, and his son became twenty one and he gave him a airplane, small airplane for his birthday, twenty first birthday, you see. You imagine there's the old airplane, and the father presents it to the son very proudly, and the son says, thank you very much, Dad, and gets into the airplane, says, goodbye, Dad, uh, that's the last you'll see of me, and flies off and never comes back. Oh, father would curse the day he gave that boy the airplane. Anything that takes my heart from the father is the world, isn't it?
Was one of the things in the world. Taking the gifts and rejecting the giver. Giver, yes. Like Jesus again. That's right, yes. That's right. And that's a very subtle thing, isn't it? And then to go to the final extreme of that is to boast in what you have, and your goods and your beautiful things, they become your pride of life. That's terrible if they're all from a father, isn't it? You see, I'm better than you, and I, I, I, I, I pride. I have better car than you. You have only a Rover, and I've got a Jaguar, and I've got a house, uh, in the best part of the city, and you haven't, and this is, I'm priding myself on this.
Oh, what a sad business. When all told, it's a gift of the Father. But I'm so far from the Father's heart. Then I'm boasting in these things. That becomes my goal in life, my ambition in life. And that's a desperate tram- uh, temptation. When, uh, I can imagine parents, I don't know, wanting the very best for their children. They want the highest education. That's nothing wrong in it, but oh God, help us, lest all those lovely things become the goal in life. And instead of setting before the children God as the goal, all these other things become the goal. It is so easy for Satan then to use them to draw their hearts away from God instead of to the Lord.
Not that the things are wrong, is it, but that they are, um, if they draw our hearts away from the Father, it is disastrous. Finally, yes, I just described this up, that last section in that, in that first division about the Antichrist, uh, now, uh, the world in the sense of our beliefs. And John is warning them about Antichrists. There are many going, thereby we know it's the last time. They went out from us, but they were not of us. If they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out that they might be made manifest, how that they all are not of us.
Notice that, incidentally, John affirming this, that if these men who had been in the church, obviously, and teachers in the church, never were true believers, they were never of us, says John. If they had been of us, they would have continued. Notice that as a statement of principle as we pass by. If they had been genuinely of us, they would have continued. But they went out that they might be made manifest that they are not of us. They never were true believers. And the epistles that talk about the false teachers of various kinds make this point, don't they?
Second Peter two makes it, and Jude makes it. But now, what is the seriousness of this particular false doctrine? Here it is, verse twenty two: who is the liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist, even he that denieth the Father and the Son. Now, this is doctrine. Does doctrine matter? They'll say, well, it does indeed. And this particular thing, eh, who is the liar but he that denieth is Jesus is the Christ. You might say, but that's, that's a theology. What does that matter practically?
Well, let me tell you a story. Some years ago, my student days, we were having some, uh, public lectures on Christianity in Newmarket, the town, the horsey town in England. And after one of the lectures, a man came up to me, I suppose in his, uh, middle thirties. He wanted to talk. He, uh, wanted to come to God, but he didn't know how. And so I invited him to my rooms in, in college, and he came, and his story was this. He had been in the RAF, he had been in India, and in India he'd le- read, uh, very deeply into yoga and beyond it into the Indian philosophies, very, very deeply.
When he came back, he had joined, well, he hadn't become a strict member, but gone along to the meetings of the Theosophical Society, you see, in Cambridge. And he had begun concerned about things, uh, on the airfield where he now worked in Civvy Street. There was apparently a believer who'd been talking to him, and he got concerned, and he felt he ought to seek God and be saved. And he went to his mother, uh, and she was a, a nominal Christian, uh, but didn't know the Lord. And she told him not to bother. He was baptized as an infant, so he was saved anyway. There's nothing in these things at all. And, uh, he not knowing what to do, he's told me, he said the Lord's Prayer.
Did he want to become a believer? But now he had problems. He did indeed. When he came to my room the first night in Trinity, they opened the door, and he was like an absolute ghost. His chest was heaving, and he was panting, and goodness knows, I thought the man would go out of his mind. And he said, I've had a terrible struggle to come up here. I have been overwhelmed that I shouldn't come. So I sat him down, I tried to pray, that didn't help at all. He got worse. I found that the way to calm him down was to read scripture. I read scripture. And from time to time he visited me, and I brought friends in to visit him.
They told me all about these philosophies of Indian philosophies, and that how theosophy was, um, only child's play compared with what he'd been dabbling in in India. You'll see. He brought me books about theosophy, and theosophy teaches that, of course, the Christ is coming again. All the holy books say that the Christ is coming again, but not Jesus. Jesus is not the Christ, you see. So I, I said to him at one stage, one night, he wanted me to go to the Theosophists. He was scared to go back to them. He borrowed some books, and he, he didn't want to read the books, and he didn't want to then take them back.
He didn't want to get caught back in this. Would we come with him? So three, two of us and myself, we went with him to the Theosophists. The expert sat up in the corner of a room, a man whose face was more like any, I imagine, Satan's face to be than anybody else I've ever met on the earth. He wouldn't deign to talk to me. He talked in jargon of Indian philosophy. Before we went, eh, eh, you see, he told me about these theosophy, theosophy people. I said to him, uh, tell me, I said, what did your friends tell you about Jesus? Did they tell you that he is the Christ or he isn't the Christ?
Oh, oh, ah yes, oh, they taught me, he said, he knew this bit, Jesus is not the Christ, the Christ is the great world spirit. And uh, you see, Jesus lent himself to the Christ. But of course the Christ, uh, uh, uh, he fills many different great leaders of religion. Jesus isn't the Christ himself, he just lent himself to the Christ. So I got out the Bible here in front of us, and I said, let me read you this, my boy. Who is the liar, save he that denies that Jesus is the Christ.
Some years ago we had the Divine Light Mission in Belfast. Do you remember the Divine Light Mission? No, you're too young. Do you remember that? You used to have a lorry and went round, uh, Belfast, uh, this chap from India who was the Messiah until his mother got tired of him and told him to come home and sent his brother instead. So he was the Messiah. Anyway, it was a bastard form of Hinduism, you see, and uh, they went around the town. One afternoon, young lady knocked my door, and she wanted to witness to me for the Divine Light Mission, you see. She told me she'd been to London and she'd seen the light. I said, I've no doubt you have, my dear, seen the light. Question is, what light? The Bible says that Satan transforms himself into an angel of light.
Or what light is it you've seen? You've seen the light, I have no doubt. Well, then the, the man who was leading the team, he came up and he was getting angry with me, and he said, that's you evangelicals from narrow-minded Christians in this province. Do you see, you think you're the only ones, and we believe the same as you do, really, do you see? I said, really do? Uh, yes, he said, we believe that Jesus is the Christ. We believe our man is the Christ as well. That's all that I can say. I said, you don't believe that Jesus is the Christ, do you? Yes, she did. I said, no, you don't. There happened to be two milk bottles standing on my doorstep, the back doorstep. I said, you see those two milk bottles there?
Yeah. I said, if you fill them, both of them with milk, now tell me what you would say. Would you say there are two milks there? You wouldn't, would you? There's only one substance, that's milk. It's the same substance, milk. Only the milk has filled two bottles. And I said, you don't believe Jesus is the Christ. You believe that Christ is the great world spirit, like the milk. And that the great world spirit filled Jesus when he was here on earth, and then left him, and he's now in the seventh somewhere or other. And the great world spirit has filled your man now, don't you? That Jesus is one bottle and your man's the other bottle, but the milk is the great world spirit, so that you don't believe that Jesus is the Christ, do you?
No, he said, well, I don't really. Oh. That's Hinduism. And now, as I ever, as I can sense, there is a very big rising tide of mysticism in the States. It is far advanced, where people are searching for the notion of communion with the great world spirit and union with God, mystical seeking after God. And we do need to be warned that there are antichrists. What is the mark of antichrist?
Whosoever denies that Jesus is the Christ, not that he was filled with the Christ. The Christ isn't the Holy Spirit. The Christ in the Bible is an adjective meaning anointed. It's not an, uh, uh, uh, uh, see, Christ is the Christ because he is the anointed one. The Christ isn't the Holy Spirit. The Christ is the anointed one, that is Jesus. But the mark of this type of false religion, the Antichrist, is that they will talk much about the great world spirit and the Christ, but they refuse, of course, straight to believe that Jesus is the Christ.
And it's becoming very, very widespread in its different forms. So if we're in a gospel that talks about fellowship with God and sharing the very life of God, we must be careful. Shirley MacLaine, or whatever she calls herself, or McElwain or whatever, that populist bastard, um, Hinduism, um, will tell you that she is God. The Gaia principle, and we all have to be in fellowship with the Gaia principle, and that fills us. That is not Christianity. Of course, that's a false God. So that when it comes to having fellowship with God and this whole matter of eternal life, we should be aware that in John's day it was up against the mystery religions that similarly taught fellowship with God.
Only, of course, they wouldn't believe that Jesus was the Christ. We are now in our post-Christian era up against the kind of mysticism that freely talk of union with God and fellowship with God and sharing the life of God, and that God is in me, indeed I am God. How do we distinguish? And one of the ways we shall distinguish is by the doctrine of the person of Christ. So that, uh, far from this being scaremongering or hair-splitting theology, it is an exceedingly practical thing, and in our postmodernist society, it will become ever more relevant to our preaching of the gospel and guarding our fellow believers from these false things.
I sat with two Americans some years ago in America, both of them professing to be, um, uh, Christian. They thought, they told me so, that all this, um, Shirley MacLaine stuff and all that was jolly good. They saw no d- danger in it. They didn't see the difference between that and Christianity. They thought it was Christianity. There is a book that nowadays sometimes you'll find quoted by evangelicals and recommended. It's called The Cloud of Unknowing.
How you can come to the vision of God and union with God. You will find some evangelicals think it is wonderful. It is based on the pagan philosopher Plotinus, and is horrific. To have to make the final leap of fellowship with God, this book will tell you you have to banish from your mind thoughts of Jesus and his passion. That would interfere with things. If you are prepared to banish him from your mind and thinking at that stage and concentrate you want to know God, then you'll see the light and you'll have fellowship with God and be joined with him. That is the cloud of unknowing, translated by an English monk in the thirteenth century, based eventually on the pagan philosopher Plotinus, do you see?
And dear believers nowadays, tired of the superficial Eva- uh, evangelicalism of America and TV evangelists and all that kind of thing, and easy believism, and looking for deeper experience and mystical experience of fellowship with God, that's marvelous, but they do need to be guarded, lest they fall into this kind of thing, such as the crowd of unknowing stands for, and the modern versions thereof. Mystical experience of God that contradicts the very person of Christ and is absolutely hostile to him and comes from Antichrist direct, who is not a liar, who is the liar?
Save he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ.
