Wednesday Night Bible Study

Well, praise the Lord everybody. >> It is a great great honor to be able to uh stand before you and to be able to teach uh the word of the Lord. We have the uh premier Bible teacher in all of Pentecost who teaches to us every Wednesday night. And this church has been built by his teaching and his leadership. And so I am not going to attempt to fill Bishop Mcool's shoes. Uh but I will follow the footsteps that he has laid down before us. And I think it'd be appropriate if we gave Bishop Mcool a great big hand of appreciation for his teaching for his teaching of the word of God. I'm thankful. I'm thankful for this church that loves to study the Bible. Uh so if you didn't get if you didn't get uh a booklet, you are certainly welcome to do that. Uh they they've got plenty in the uh in the lobby at the media table. Uh if you didn't get one, make sure you grab one. Keep it uh as we do this on the next several Wednesday nights. I don't know how long it might take. It might take uh one lesson and you get tired of it and then we'll move on to something else. But it might take us a couple weeks, couple three weeks. Uh but I I hope I hope that uh you enjoy it. I hope that you enjoy this study of First John. And so I want to give you um some introductory matters as we begin tonight. And before we do that, I think it'd be appropriate. I know we've prayed. I know we've worshiped. But I think it'd be appropriate if we would just slip up our hand right where we are and ask the Lord to help us to speak to us from his word tonight. Father, we are so thankful for every opportunity that we get to study your word, the inspired word of God. And I pray, Lord, that you would help me, your frail servant, to be able to teach it adequately and sufficiently, Lord, the depths of this wonderful book. but every individual that is here, let them receive something from you in Jesus name we pray. And everyone said, "Amen." >> So, a few years ago, um, Pastor Rob Acres, who pastors in my hometown of Bloomington, Indiana, uh, about seven years ago, uh, asked me to, um, begin a Bible conference with him there at, uh, the church. It's actually right next door to my elementary school that I went to in my hometown. And uh he he had this vision and this burden. He said as apostolic Pentecostals, he said we are heavy on Old Testament narrative. We are heavy on the gospels, preaching the gospels, heavy on acts. and he said, 'I feel that the apostolic Pentecostal church is very weak when it comes to the New Testament letters. And he said, I think uh you might be able to help us and I want you to take a New Testament letter and teach it every year. And so this was my sixth year to do that. So you'll see that on the front. You're like, "What's the bread of life conference uh volume six?" Well, that was for them. And so every year, this is my sixth year. Uh I take a year I take 10 to 12 months to study a New Testament letter. I've done Romans, Hebrews, Colossians, uh James, and Jude. And then this year we did First John. And we we take time for three nights trying to cram all of this information into this. They turn their sanctuary into a classroom. They've got tables and desks and chairs. And I set up and I just teach for three nights. And so this is the fruit of that. And you, so if you read this booklet, I will apologize. I opened it as soon as I got my hands on a copy of this uh last month. I noticed mistakes. So I don't need you to come up and say, "Brother Nate, you're missing a comma here on page 13." I know. I know. I am aware. This is my my revised version. I've gone through and I was going through it again this week and I'm like, "Lord have mercy." So, please please forgive me if you see something in there um that that might be an error. I am a flawed uh a flawed writer and I'm not I'm not a great writer. Uh but I do try to communicate the best that I can uh with with what God has given me. So, if you see some errors, uh just overlook that and and and and realize that the word of God has no errors and thank him for that. Amen. So let me just kind of give you um introductory matters as we begin this study. Uh it's important to understand that what I want to do when I when I teach this way, when I teach through um a letter is give you reasons why or even model for you how you should read, study, and interpret the Bible. It's important that when you open up the word of God that you read it in its context, right? That's been a big deal the last 10, 12 years, right? Well, they've taken me out of context. You've taken that statement out of context. That was clipped and edited. That's out of context. And so, show the whole context, right? So, it's important that when you open up your Bible and you're like, "Lord, speak to me today." and you're just kind of, you know, thumbing through it and all of a sudden you land on and he shall judge the rebellious. Father, speak to me from somewhere else today, right? Or you read Song of Solomon and you're like, whoa, slow your roll. I'm single, right? Um, but we have to read it in its original context. So, I use this little analogy. It's it's a it's a weak analogy, but I've I've used this for several years when I teach about um studying the Bible. Say you buy a house, site unseen. You buy an old house. Maybe it was built uh the late 1800s, early 1900s. You found it on Zillow. You found it on Facebook Marketplace or something. It's in a town you want to raise your family in or something. You found a job and you like old homes. And so you buy this old uh rickety house side unseen and you get there and you decide when you go into the house. You're going to check things out. Well, they it's been cleaned out. It looks presentable. And then you find an attict. You're like, "Oh my goodness, I didn't know this this house had an attic." Well, old houses have attics. And so you you pull down the stairs from the attic and you you you know you crawl up this hot, dusty, musty little room and you find boxes, dusty boxes. And maybe you find a small little box and in that small little box you find letters. You're like, I got to read these, right? That's what you do because you know it's old, right? So I think you can be able to do that. Now it would be foolish. I think you would agree it would be foolish if you opened up that letter and go, "Wow, this was written directly to me. Can you believe it? I I can't wait to read what's inside of this letter." And then you begin to read it and it was written by, say, it was written by a husband who was uh in World War II. He was overseas somewhere and he was writing to his wife back home. It would be foolish for you to think that this letter was written directly to me, right? That'd be foolish to think. And so, as you read the letter, there would be things in it that seem unfamiliar. Maybe words that are unfamiliar, words we don't use anymore. Maybe there are events. Uh maybe there are references to uh places or things that are no longer relevant or you have no idea what they are. So, you want to do some investigative work as you're reading the letter. It might be a love letter and he's writing about what he's seen, he's experienced, where he's at. He's writing about uh his love to his wife and so on and so forth. So, what you would do is you're trying to fill in the gaps of your knowledge as you read this letter. Well, that's what we have to do when we come to the Bible. When we come to the Bible, yes, it is inspired of God. Yes, holy men of God were moved upon by the spirit of God and they spake and they wrote what the Lord gave them. But originally, it was not written to you and to me. So what we have to do as Bible students, we have to go and get the context. We have to find the context of places and times and people. Who wrote it? Why did they write it? Who are they writing to? What are the circumstances for this letter? Because if you would do that for a letter that you find in uh an attic somewhere, how much more should we do that with the very words of God? >> Right? We cannot and it's important that when when when Paul tells Timothy to study to show thyself approved unto God, that's not just for preachers. All of us should be students of the word of God. And as students of the word of God, we must realize that he's God and I'm not. He knows more than I do. And so I have to submit myself to what is written here. And in order for me to do that, I must know the context. All right? Does that make sense? So, we're going to look at some introductory matters and we're going to try to move as fast as we can. I know we usually get out by uh 9:30 and so nobody's no one's disagreeing. Okay, I'm teasing you. I know we get out about 8:45. Okay, but let's look at some introductory matters because this is important as we study not just First John but any book of the Bible. And you think, "Well, how how can I do that if you're not here or somebody's not showing me?" Well, you can do this with any good study Bible. Get a good study Bible and it's going to have this type of information in it. Uh, and I highly recommend that you do that so you can rightly divide the word of the Lord. So, let's go right into this a study of First John. A study of First John. And and I want to kind of give you some background as to why I chose this book for this year. We're living in a day in an age of great and deep uncertainty socially, culturally. Uh the ground beneath us seems to be shifting every day economically, politically. uh instability is the new norm right every idea the very idea of truth is under suspicion if you are to say I believe this to be the truth immediately someone in our culture would say you're close-minded hard-headed maybe you're ignorant Ant, maybe you're intolerant. So, in order for us to make room for truth, um, let me give quotes around that truth. We'll say things or hear things like this. That's my truth. Speak your truth. That's your truth. That's not my truth. Brothers and sisters, that's called an opinion. Right now they may change the definition of truth but truth is truth no matter what. And truth is truth whether you want to accept it and believe it or not. Okay. But we have made doubt and uncertainty a premium in our day. We place more emphasis on doubt than we do on truth. You just need to doubt your your truth. Just doubt your faith. Doubt your beliefs. Doubt what you know. And that's okay. But as soon as you say, "I don't believe this and I believe that." Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Who do you think you are? And so if you are claiming to know truth or believe truth or to speak the truth, you're immediately marked by some way, shape or form. Right? And this is happening not just in our in our culture overall. It's happening in the Christian church because if there is a standard of truth or a sure foundation of knowing something, you become too exclusive. And we don't want to make anybody feel excluded. God forbid anybody feel left out. Everybody's a winner. I hate to tell you this. Somebody's going to lose. >> If you're playing a game, I heard some coach say this. It's a great saying, you play to win the game, right? You're not you're not playing so both can win. I'm not training. I'm not conditioning. I'm not learning the rules. I'm not disciplining myself just so everybody can win. No, I want to beat you, right? So we don't want to make people feel excluded. So we want to become inclusive. Let's bring everybody in and let's simply be tolerant. Tolerant in our age trumps truth. We would rather sacrifice truth so we can be tolerant. But if you read First John, you're going to see that John's going to have none of that. You are either in the light or in the darkness. You are either in the truth or you are in error. You are either in or you are out. Brothers and sisters, we can't make this so gray that we no longer draw lines where people know where truth is. You might be or you might lose favor if you start standing up for truth. But let me just tell you something. Nobody gives their life for an opinion. Nobody lays down their life for an opinion, but you will lay down your life for truth. Well, what is truth? Truth is made up of certainty. It's made up of assurance. We must be assured of several things. We must have certainty of several things. And we're going to talk about that. But the theme of this letter is Christ our assurance. Christ our assurance. That we get our assurance from Jesus. If we try to put our faith or our certainty on anything else, we are going to be standing on shaky ground. And so what John sets out to do is give his readers assurance. He says in 1 John 5:13, let me just stop and say this and make a statement. uh the church that I teach this at, they they use the English Standard Version when we do this conference. So, my notes in here are that, okay? But I'll do uh the King James version. So, if I read something, don't don't don't freak out in the notes, okay? Uh we we decided to do this last week. I ordered the book, didn't have time to edit through that. So, if you see that, that's what that is. And um I'm not gonna make any apologies for that, but so you understand if I if I read that from the notes, that's what that is. Okay. Now he says, "I have written these things that you may know." Know what? That you have eternal life. If there's anything that we need to know is that we have eternal life. If there is anything that we need assurance of is that we have eternal life. Because if we don't know that, if we don't have that certainty, we are going to give in to our emotions, to our feelings, to our good days and our bad days. You would be surprised, and I've mentioned this before, how many I have come in contact with over the years who have come to church, had faith, repented, been baptized, received the Holy Ghost, and they don't know if they're really saved. Now, I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand, but I guarantee in this room, somebody has felt that way at some point in their life. And if you have it, it will come one day. Now, if you've never had that, you don't need First John, but I'm sure everybody in this room needs assurance. Now, here's where I want to uh put your mind at ease. Okay? Now there are two extremes of assurance. There is the extreme that is popular especially where we are geographically that there is nothing you can do to lose your salvation. It's called once saved always saved. Right? So let me put your mind at ease. Our salvation is sure. But John gives us tests of our salvation in this letter that you can know, you can walk out of this room tonight or next Wednesday or Sunday and have the assurance that I am saved, that I'm in Christ and Christ is in me. there you can know that and if you don't think you can know that you need first John because John says I have written these things so that you know >> not feel do you feel married anybody anybody feel like a parent they're not in here it's okay to I don't like I'm cra like I don't know what I'm doing half the time Right? Do you feel? Now, if you're always needing to feel, now we're Pentecostal. We like to feel. We like emotion. We like that. But if you base your salvation on that, as soon as you have a bad day, but you can't so avoid assurance and salvation that you swing the pendulum all the way over here like we have done and think that you can lose your salvation over a night's sleep. There is a balance, brothers and sisters. I'm going to mess your world up. Actually, I'm not. John is, but that God wants you to know, you are his. And that you don't have to fear that since you'd had a bad day, it's over. I just want to tell somebody and assure you from the word of God, John has written these things that you may feel no know that you have eternal life. >> But I don't root that knowing that assurance in myself or anybody else or my feeling or my day or the culture. I put my faith and assurance in the one who did the saving. That's the important part. And that's what John does. He is writing that we might know you have eternal life. All right, let's go through these notes here. Page five. Let's look at these introductory matters. who wrote it. It's important. Your Bible probably says at the top, like mine does, the first epistle of John. But if you read this letter, John's name is not found in it. Okay, you're thinking, well, how do we know? It's a good question. It's a good question. We have internal and we have external evidence to help us see who the writer is. Now early manuscripts, Greek manuscripts of this have the inscription like we have in ours uh a letter of John or the first letter of John. uh Tertullian, Clement, Aranius, they ascribed this letter. Early church fathers, what we call them church fathers, they ascribed this letter to John. Internally, we have some evidence too. Now, if you read the fourth gospel, if you read the gospel according to John and then you read first John, you're going to pick up some clues that it's probably the same writer. similar words, similar themes, similar phrasing like words like abide, light, darkness, life, truth, things that you read in John's gospel are found in his first letter, even in the the second and third letter as well. And immediately, so let me just kind of give you a for instance, let me give you an example. Chapter 1 verse one that which was from the beginning that sounds like John 1 and1 in the beginning was right and he even says the word of life here it's the word of life eternal life those things so we have this internal uh evidence that John wrote it then it says here in verse three that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you Verse one he says we've seen with our eyes uh our hands have handled the word of life. So this is a eyewitness testimony right which gives us more reason to believe that it's the apostle John. Then also history tells us as well that uh revelation was written by John on an island called Patmas which was just off the coast of Asia Minor which included uh Ephesus and I'm going to talk about the audience here in a moment. So, uh, it's it gives it gives evidence, bolsters our our belief that the Apostle John wrote this. Now, let's talk about the date when it was written. Uh, I'm not going to try to get in the weeds with a lot of this detail, but let me just kind of give you a brief overview. John, it is said that John was the youngest of the disciples. He was one of the youngest. And if you've heard Bishop Raymond Woodward teach on um talking about empowering the next generation, he did it at our general ministry conference. He goes through a host a whole study of how the disciples were all teenagers when Jesus called them. It's a great it's on YouTube, I believe. It's a great study in that. But John, uh, some believe that he was the youngest of the disciples, which kind of gives some credence to some of the things that he would say like, "Make us sit at your right hand and your left hand." Right? Or, "Call down fire from heaven upon those." Right? That sounds like something teenagers would do. And his mom comes along along the way too and checks in on him. uh he might have been the youngest but by this time of the writing of first John uh he is probably an old man. He's an older man. He may be the last of the apostles. He is the last one who would die and he might be the last living one here at this time as well. Now let's talk about the audience because this is important to it's John writing to certain people. He is writing to Jewish and Gentile believers in Ephesus. Again, if he's off the island of Patmas when he wrote Revelation, uh history says that he was an overseer of the churches in Ephesus late in life. Now, you might remember Ephesus or the Ephesians. Acts chapter number 19, we're introduced uh to John's believers, John the Baptist believers. Um and Paul finds them and he asked them that great question. Have you received the Holy Ghost since you first believed? They said, "We don't know whether there be any Holy Ghost." And he said, "Well, how are you baptized?" They said, "Under John's baptism." Again, this is two different Johns. Okay? So the revival and the beginning of the churches in Ephesus was uh spearheaded by the apostle Paul that you find in acts 19 and acts chapter number 20. But Paul later on would leave Timothy his proteéé over the churches in Ephesus and that's where we get the letters first and second Timothy. History says that the churches in Ephesus, the this was the largest body of believers in the world at that time that surpassed the believers in Jerusalem. It was a large church. Now, by the time that John is an elder, statesman, bishop, overseer, obviously he's an apostle at this area, this is a large body of believers. And at the time that he wrote this, this is a church that probably has second and third generation believers. So this is not a young church. I mean, it could be. You can say that's kind of subjective, but it's not first generation believers. And if they were first generation believers, we might understand some of the issues that we're going to talk about. But if they're second and third, possibly third generation believers, this is a wellestablished body of believers in Ephesus. Now, this is important because it puts us our feet in the soil of where they're living, right? It gives a little life to what he is saying here. He is he's writing to them and he says, "I am writing that you may know you have eternal life." But let's look at the purpose. Why did he write it? What are they going through? Because if you're going to write a letter, you're usually writing a letter for a reason. There's something going on. For instance, I was reading Galatians the night before church. Paul is writing to the church in uh Galatia because false teachers have come in and trying to bring them back under Judaism. And he said, "You've been swept away and why are you going back to this? Did you receive the spirit by keeping the law or did you receive it by faith?" And he says all of this, he's going back through. So that's, you know, sometimes you have little clues like that, obvious clues when you're reading a New Testament letter of why they're writing it. And John does the same. He does it over and over and over again. Let's look at a few of these. And this is what he says. He says, I got a few highlighted here on page six. He uses this phrase or similar phrases like, I write or I have written. And so, for example, I have written so that our joy may be complete. So that you may not sin because your sins are forgiven. or I've written to warn you about those who deceive or chapter 5:13 as we've read that you may know you have eternal life. Now, several months ago, I was thinking through why he wrote it. Let me give you three things here. I like to eliterate as I'm thinking through these things. I was going for a walk. I thought, well, how could I summarize why John wrote these things? And I thought of these three words. They all begin with C. Confidence, comfort, and confrontation. Confidence, which we briefly hit upon. We're going to talk about this a whole bunch in this series. Confidence or assurance, right? We must have confidence. He does not want them to doubt. He doesn't want them to doubt. Doubt what? Doubt their salvation. doubt the doctrine of Christ, doubt uh you know uh the world around them, this pagan culture, this idolatrous culture around them to cause them to doubt. He wants them to have confidence. He wants them to have assurance. And he roots this assurance in several ways. He does it through the eyewitness testimony of Christ and his life and ministry. That's how he begins in these first four verses. It's the inward uh witness of the Holy Spirit and the moral and doctrinal tests that separate genuine faith from the counterfeit. And so John's goal is assurance. So as you're reading First John over the next few days or weeks, it won't take you very long. I want you to keep that in the forefront that he is wanting his readers to have assurance or confidence and it's confidence in something better yet someone and that is Jesus and then it is to comfort them got to have confidence right in teaching and preaching we try to give confidence confidence that Jesus can save confidence that he can hear your prayers confidence that he can heal you, confidence that he can restore. But then every once in a while, we need some comfort. And I thought of Bishop Mcool's story. I shared this in in Indiana, and he just recently passed the story of Brother Summers and the story about the car coming into the trailer, right? I'm butchering the details, but when he called Bishop in the middle of the night through this tragic event of the car going into the the trailer, Bishop's going, "What can I do? What can I do? How can I come? Is there anything I can get for you?" And brother Summer said, "Bishop, I just need a little comfort. Sometimes we just need a little comfort." And they, the Ephesian believers, needed some comfort because they had just went through a church split. Now, this is not a church split over the color of the carpet or because it's too cold or too hot in the sanctuary. And that happens sometimes in in not here but other places in the world you know important matters. But they went through a division on false doctrine. False teachers had arose and taught a false gospel with a false Jesus and a false Christian lifestyle. And there was a church split. And some had left and followed those false teachers. And assuredly, I'm sure it could have been family members, friends, neighbors, saints, people you thought would never leave the truth. And John's writing to give them a little comfort. You need some comfort sometimes when you go through some tragic events. I'm thankful for the church that we can get a little comfort here. You're not going to find Now listen, I'm not going to rail, but you're not going to find comfort on Facebook. Now, you might get your your your your pity hit. You know, some people are so addicted to pity, they got to get their pity hit on Facebook. You know, that's all you're going to get. Pity is not the same as comfort. But the church gives comfort when there's a loss. The church gives comfort when there's tragedy. The church gives comfort when you're going through. Where do you turn? You're not going to turn to the world. You're going to turn to the body. He gives them comfort. But not only that, he's going to confront. John writes with an edge of confrontation. False teachers had slithered into the community, denying Jesus's incarnation, twisting the gospel into license for sin, sowing division among the believers. And he will not let it go untouched. He is going to confront it headon. And how does he do it? He does it with such, how can I say it? um gentlemanly, scholarly, politically correct by calling them deceivers, antichrists. You think I'm bad sometimes. You should read John. John calls them what they are, deceivers, antichrist, and he is going to do it with the word of God. So he's giving confidence and comfort to the believers and he is confronting the false teachers. Now let's talk about the false teaching on page seven. I go through it here and we're going to unpack it uh for a little bit as we go on. Y'all okay? You doing okay? Am I going too fast? Okay. Okay. What's great is that you got it all all my notes. So if I'm going too fast or too slow, you can go ahead or slow down. You've got it there. As long as you don't get hung up on my mistakes. Brother Nate, you misspelled Jesus. All right. Hope I didn't. G for Jesus. False teaching. You know, false teaching is not a modern problem. False teaching's been around since the beginning of the church. Go read Acts 19. One of the greatest revivals takes place under Paul's ministry in Ephesus. And in chapter number 20 at the end, he's getting ready to leave and he gives them this warning. He says, "Wolves are going to arise from within the church." It's bad to have pressure and persecution from outside the church. It's worse when division and false doctrine comes up in the church. We're always going to have threats on the outside. But Paul says, "You better be ready, church, in Ephesus, for the false teachers that are going to arise within the church." Not the ones on the outside, the ones within. And it happened. It happened. Now the key doctrinal issue or schism, the main one was an early form ofnosticism. Has anybody heard the word gnostic ornosticism? A popular a popular word today or title today is agnostic. So someone say, "Well, I'm I'm an atheist. I don't believe there is a God." That's an atheist, right? Or anti- deist. And then or anti-theist. An agnostic would say, "Well, I don't believe we can know there's a God. If there is, we can't know him." Well, an early form of that wasnosticism that held to the idea it had all kinds of different flavors and forms and shapes. And we're going to get into that just a little bit. One being that there was this mystical nosis. That's where we get this word knowledge. This this mystical uh or spiritual otherworldly knowledge that you could get to. Now Paul deals with this headon in his letter to the Colossians and John is dealing with this same type of issue here in this church in Ephesus. But part of the problem was this early form ofnosticism was really taking aim at the person and work of Jesus Christ. For instance, in short form,nosticism says matter is evil. So everything in the material world is evil or on the opposite end of that that everything in the spiritual realm is pure. So if there is a God, he is so spiritual and pure that he couldn't have created something as evil and destructive as the material world. So the world emanated from this spiritual realm went through several uh uh intimations of creation. Sounds like evolution, does it not? that boom, here's this material world because God is or this spirit, this force is so pure and holy, it has he's he's far from the material world. Well, how would that infect the doctrine of Christ? Because if matter is evil, God would not come in flesh. So John doesn't give, "Hey, hey, how you doing? I'm writing this. I hope you're doing great. I love you. I appreciate all the work you're doing at Ephesus." No, he doesn't begin that way. He begins in the beginning. In the beginning, from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, the word of life, and the life, or for the life was manifested, and we have seen it. We bear witness and show unto you the spirit, the eternal life which was with the father was manifested unto us. That's why he begins the way he does because these false teachers had come in and had preached that God could not defile himself in bodily form. But John says that which was from the beginning >> has been manifested unto us. >> And I can tell you about it because I seen it. I heard it and I touched it with my own hands and I am declaring that unto you. So he begins this way because if the false teachers had led some people away from the church, the true church, John says, "Oh no, no. Let me just go ahead and start this thing off the right way. I want to give you assurance that what we are worshiping, what we are devoted to is not some myth. It is not some force. But the eternal life was made flesh. >> And if he can do that, >> what else can he do? >> I'm going to preach. >> That's what he's doing here. I'm not I'm way ahead. That's like on page 15. I'm already there. But a you're seeing where this is going. Then there are some that said this was dosetism that Jesus only appeared human. He was like a hologram. Now let me just put the brakes on for a second. You think you laugh, but in the 1990s, there was a missionary in our oneness movement who wrote a book saying that Jesus didn't have human flesh like you and I had, but he had divine flesh. That happened within the last 30 years in our movement. It's old hags dressed up in new dresses. There is no, as bishop said the other night, there is no or or pastor, there is no new revelation. >> There's just old heresies. >> So, doatism said, "Well, he was just a hologram. He's a he appeared. He appeared." And this is, listen, people are still trying to figure out who Jesus is. That's why you need to know who he is. That's why you need doctrine. That's why you've gonna have to have theology. We don't leave our brains at the door. We need to know with assurance who Jesus is, that he's God manifest in the flesh, and we are connected to the eyewitnesses. This is what apostolic means is that we are connected to the apostles who are eyewitnesses to these things. What you and I believe is rooted in history. And this is what John would have to say about something like this. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. But if they don't, they're an antichrist. If you deny the incarnation, and that that's a fancy word to say that God was in flesh. If you deny that, now I got nine minutes, y'all. All right. I didn't even get to theme one. Let me just let me give you example of this. My mother is a seamstress. All right. Seamstress. We set up a we hired somebody to come put together a sewing machine desk this week. Mom's a seamstress. And so I mean, I watched my mom sew and make things. I mean, unbelievable things. And you know what made what irritated my mom more than anything when I was growing up was getting something picked. You got to pick, you know, or ra we call it a ravlin. Anybody know what I'm talking about? I am I am showing you my age at this moment. But if you had a sweater, wool sweater, and it got picked. Now, if you would pick that that sweater, you walk by, you know, a door handle and it grabbed you or something like that and it'd pick. Now, you you you'd lose something of that of that fabric, right? It'd hang out. It would hang out and like, "Oh, I can fix that. I can just tuck it back in or something, you know?" But here's the thing. If you do that with a sweater on this side, something has also been twisted. Right? If you are wrong about who Jesus is, it will inevitably infect and twist everything else about the Christian faith. If you are wrong on his flesh, his spirit, his deity, his humanity, his redemptive work, if you are wrong, if you are any bit, just a small bit, it's going to affect somewhere else. And that's what happened here. Because they said if if he's not really God in flesh and then he really didn't shed his blood and if he really didn't shed his blood then sin really isn't that bad in the first place. So then you can live however you want. >> Do you see the dominoes falling? >> So if we are wrong on who he is, we are going to be wrong on everything else. That's why John began this way. Because our assurance, our certainty, our confidence comes in who he is. That's why you got to know who he is. You just can't sing about it. You just can't clap about it. You're going to have to get it in your mind and in your heart and in your spirit. [Applause] Someone say, "Amen." >> Go to page eight. Now, this is what I did. I'm closing with this. I usually for this study, I go like, if you've seen the other books I've done, I go chapter by chapter or paragraph by paragraph. John's letter I believe and scholars believe why it's missing the introductory matters is that it was a circular meaning it was sent to the churches to be read aloud. Now you have to remember too I got five minutes that the churches that they were you know the early church the first century was very illiterate. They didn't have libraries and iPads and you know Barnes & Noble, right? So they would have to go to a synagogue or go to somebody's house and the word of God would have to be read aloud. So when someone tells you it's not the same to listen to the Bible as it is to read it, you need to tell them about the first century church. If you have trouble reading it like some people do, then listen to it. Because Paul said this, faith comes by So he sent this letter, maybe a sermon to be read aloud to the churches. That's why it doesn't have these introductory matters or conclusions like we would have in Romans or Galatians. So it's to be read aloud. But if you read this letter, John repeats himself in different ways or he says the same thing in several different ways like a good preacher does, right? you must be born again or you must be born again of the water and of the spirit, right? And so you say the same thing, but you say it a different way. And so he says a lot of the same things over and over again, not to be redundant, but like a good preacher or teacher, but to make emphasis on. So I've done this study not uh necessarily chapter by chapter. I've done it theme by theme instead. And these are the six themes that I have written on and I feel like it does a good job of getting you to understand the whole letter. And next lesson I promise uh we're going to look at God's revelation in Jesus Christ. Why you need to know that these first four verses God is light. That's what John says. God is love. Then we go through God's commandments. uh if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. Jesus would say that in John's gospel, and he repeats that here in this first letter, God's truth. And then I I like to say this is my Sunday punch, God's assurance. But at the center of it all, at the uh the the foundation of it all is our assurance in Jesus Christ. God does not want us. Would you stand to your feet? God does not want us wavering. He does not want us tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. He wants us to stand with certainty. And if there's a day and an hour and an age that we need to know with certainty what we believe, Peter would say this in his first letter, give an answer to those who would want to know about the hope that is within you. We need to give an answer for why we believe the way we believe. It's not going to be sufficient any long. It's never been sufficient in the first place, but it's definitely not going to be sufficient any longer. It's say, "Well, this is what my preacher believes. This is what grandma believes. This we're we're beyond that. You've got to know you. You have to have assurance. You have to have assurance of who he is, what he has done. and who you are in him. But it all goes back to who he is. Assurance in him. These things I have written unto you that you may know. Someone say no. >> Someone say no. >> That sounds like you don't know. I've written these things that you may know. >> If you're going to go into the lion's den, you can't go. I don't know if he's going to save me or not. If they're if they if they've got my head in the chopping block for what I believe, I can't go. I hope he's I hope he's real. No, you're going to have to know beyond a shadow of a doubt who he is. Now, somebody say no. know with all assurance who he is, what he's done, and who I am in him. Let's lift up our hands and let's pray. Father, oh God, you want us to know with certainty who you are, Lord, and I pray that you would speak to us from this word, that you would put down within our heart assurance. If we don't know, if we are doubting, if we are if we are if we are fearful, if we don't have certainty that you would give it to us through the study of your word, it's not me, God. It's not going to be my eloquence or the lack thereof that's going to be able to do it. It's by your word, the word of God, that is forever settled in heaven. And I pray Lord that you would give us that assurance that we may face the culture around us. That we may have comfort from those. We may have comfort when those who have known it leave it. Let us have confidence in who you are and what you've done. But God, I pray that you would begin in me. Begin in us that we know who you are. Somebody say in Jesus name. In Jesus name, why don't you greet somebody around you? We're going to see you back Sunday morning, 10:00 a.m. for revival. We're going to have a great time Sunday night, 6:30. Invite somebody. We will see you Sunday.