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The wrong kind of love, 1 John 2:15-17

Last week as we looked at the preceding verses, we talked about spiritual maturity. After our new birth, when we are born again spiritually, John described  three stages of spiritual growth which he titled as little children, young men and fathers.  And what we determined last week was that the goal of spiritual maturity is to become like Jesus Christ.  That is what spiritual maturity accomplishes in our lives.  We grow spiritually to become conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.  That process of becoming like Christ is what the Bible calls sanctification.  Sanctification is becoming more like Christ.  Sanctification is a process which begins at new birth and matures as we grow spiritually to be like Christ.

Now in this passage we are looking at today, John gives the antithesis for spiritual maturity.  The antithesis for spiritual maturity is to become like the world.  Instead of becoming like Christ, we become conformed to the world. The apostle Paul warned against that in Romans 12:2 saying, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”  So the hindrance to spiritual maturity is being conformed to the world.  Instead of loving Christ and loving what He loved, we love the world and we love what the world loves.  So there are two opposing ways to walk, two opposing ways to live.  You cannot walk north and south at the same time, can you? Neither can you walk after the Spirit and walk after the flesh.

Paul refers to that contrast of flesh and spirit. He says the flesh and the Spirit are opposed to one another.  In Gal 5:17 he says,  “For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another.”

Now that’s what John has been teaching since the beginning of his epistle.  That light and darkness cannot have fellowship together.  He says in chapter 1: vs5-6  “This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and [yet] walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.”

So John is concerned that we walk in the Spirit.  His concern is that we walk in the light, not in darkness. His concern is that we keep the commandments of God, and not do the works of darkness.  He says you cannot say you have fellowship with God and walk in the darkness.  John wants to help bring us to spiritual maturity in Christ, to become like Christ.  And so to do that, he has said that we must not walk in darkness.  He has said that we must not practice sin but practice the truth.  And now he speaks of this contrast in another dimension, and says that we must not love the world.

He says in vs 15, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world.”  It’s necessary for us to define what he means by the world. The Greek word is kosmos.  And there are numerous ways in which this word world are used in the Bible.  It can refer to the physical earth, it can refer to people, it can refer to a system.  

Now when John says here to “do not love the world,” he’s not talking about the world of individuals, because we know that God Himself loves the world of individuals, and we are told to love one another.  Everyone should be familiar with John 3:16 which says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”  So if God loves the world, then John must not be saying we should not love the individuals of the world.

And he must not be speaking of the physical world which is the earth and the plants and the creatures God has created. For we know that the heavens declare the glory of God, and as Romans 1:20 says, the creation teaches us about the invisible attributes of God. “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”

But what the world refers to in this context is the world system that is in opposition to the heavenly system.  It is the natural, sinful nature of mankind acting in opposition to the spiritual, godly nature.  It is a world system that has been orchestrated by Satan to bring about the rebellion of man against God. In Col 1:13 it is described as two opposing kingdoms.  It says, “For [God] rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.”  The apostle Paul spoke of it this way in Ephesians 2:1-2  “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,  in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.”

This idea which Paul refers to as the course of this world, can be likened to a river that runs in it’s course, the rushing water having eaten out a course in which the water is carried along in a path.  In other places, it is called an age, this present age, or this present world.  Paul says it’s a satanically devised course that carries along the people in a current, rushing them towards an inevitable end which is destruction.

So the world system, this age, this course that is moving, sweeping along all who are held within it, which is going in the opposite direction than what it means to walk with God.  It’s a system that has blinded the eyes of those who are in it.  It’s a system that captivates and enslaves those that are in it. And it’s a system that leads to their destruction.  John calls it simply the world.  And he warns us – do not love the world.

Well, why would a person love the world to begin with?  The answer is because everyone is doing it. Have you ever been rafting down a river?  My family was talking the other day about going on a short trip this summer, and we talked about going to Harper’s Ferry.  The big thing to do there is you rent a inner tube and they take you way up the Shenandoah River and drop you off and you float down the river with the current.  I went over the bridge there once on a sunny, summer day and there looked like hundreds of people floating downstream enjoying the river.

The funny thing is when you are floating down the river with all these people you don’t have the sense that you are going all that fast.  You’re all floating along together.  It’s fun.  It doesn’t seem dangerous. But once you are in the current, it’s going to take you where it wants to take you, and as you are caught up in it, it has control of you. 

Now that may be fine for an afternoon on the Shenandoah, but it’s another thing to be floating on the Niagara River and not know that the falls are up ahead. That’s what it’s like to be caught up in the world and being swept along to an eventual end which the Bible calls death.  So John says do not love the world. Don’t let yourself be enamored by what the world system is selling. It’s alienation from God. It’s life which is in opposition to God. It’s living by the world’s standards, by what the world says is fun, by what the world says is fulfilling, by what the world says is acceptable. But it’s in opposition to God.  In fact, the world is orchestrated by Satan himself to take us captive and destroy us.  John says later in chapter 5 vs 19 of this epistle, “We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in [the power of] the evil one.”

So John adds, “Do not love the world, nor the things of this world.” The things of this world is just an expansion on the world.  John’s not talking about the things that God created, but it’s the things that this world system values.  Such things could be money, luxury items, homes, a certain life-style.  These things of the world could even be people.  It could be woman or a man that you desire, that you think if I could just have this person, then I would be happy, my life would be perfect. I think the things of this world could be thought of as shiny, seductive lures which the devil uses to draw you into his world system. They are the attractive things of this world that you desire, that promise fulfillment, but in fact just get you hooked into the devil’s system, that gets you caught up in chasing things that never fulfill what they promise.

Jesus said if you love Me, you will keep My commandments.  So to love the world and the things of the world is to have a love for the things of the world that supersedes the love which we should have for God.  The things of this world are not necessarily bad in and of themselves.  There is nothing wrong with having a nice house, or a nice car, or having a wife or husband. But what is wrong is when you put those things above the love for God that should be preeminent.  

Jesus said in Matt. 10:37 “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.” And then again in Matt. 19:29 “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name’s sake, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life.”

The point being that anything that supersedes our love for God is sinful.  It’s not the thing that is necessarily sinful, it’s the love of those things which is sinful. 1 Timothy 6:10 says, “For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil.”   It’s not money that is sinful, it’s the love of money that is sinful. So it’s not the world that is sinful, it’s loving the world that is sinful.

When I was growing up as a pastor’s kid in the church, there was a lot of talk about worldliness. Anything that looked cool was considered worldly.  Anything that seemed like fun was worldly.  And there was a pretty long list of things that were considered worldly.  Some of those things seem so antiquated now.  Dancing was worldly.  Movies were worldly. I wanted to join the Boy Scouts when I was a young kid, but my dad said it was worldly.  Knowing what we know about the Boy Scouts that have come out lately, maybe it wasn’t a bad idea to keep me out of it. But the warnings against worldliness for the most part missed the mark.  They focused too much on the external and not enough on the internal. It’s not the things of the world that’s the problem as much as it is our affection for the world.  So the important distinction to this warning is what do you love? What has first place in your heart?

John then goes on to say, “If any one loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” The first thing he says is that loving the world and loving the Father are incompatible. These two loves cannot go together. They are contradictory, very much like our Lord speaks in Matthew 6:24 when he says, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” 

We are to be in the world, but not of the world.  In John 17:14 Jesus prayed in the upper room for the disciples saying, “I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil [one.] They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.”  So we are in the world, but not of the world.  If we love the world, then we cannot love God.  Our love for God is to be preeminent.  If we love God we obey God’s commandments.  If we love the world, then God’s love is not in us. That simply means that the our love is the evidence of our faith.  If we love the world and obey it’s desires, then we are not God’s children.  The evidence of our salvation is proven by what we love.

So John goes on to give further justification of the incompatibility of these two loves.  He says in vs 16 “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.”

It’s almost as if he sums up all the things of the world as being in one of these three categories;   the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life.  One writer called them a trinity of evil.  They are in opposition to the Holy Trinity.  Or as John writes, they are not of the Father, but of the world.

So what does he mean when he says lusts of the flesh? When we hear the word lust we tend to think of sexual sins.  And while it certainly includes that, lusts are really just desires that are in opposition to godly desires. They are sensual desires, desires of the senses.  You can lust after food, lust after sex, lust after power, lust after fame or fortune.  Desires of the flesh then are those that would appear to satisfy the physical body.  Sexual desires outside of marriage are lusts of the flesh, but so are the desires for food which are gluttony. It might also be a desire for drink, for drugs, for anything that serves the body, the senses.  These are desires that are in excess, that are outside of the way that God ordained for our senses to operate. It’s a love for such things that exceeds or perverts God’s created intention.

The next category John gives is “the lust of the eyes.” I think what this refers to is coveting.  It’s desiring what you see, what is not yours, but which you want. It’s like being married and as you and your wife are walking through the mall, your head is swiveling around to look at another woman. You may not act upon it, but you nevertheless desire it, and that desire is sin.  Coveting is the sin of the heart.  It’s a desire for that which is not yours, being unsatisfied with what God has given you, and desiring more than you should.

Now that covers a lot of territory. It covers pornography, or coveting your neighbors things, or desiring anything that does not belong to you.  Lust is a perversion of love.  So it’s a perverse desire for what is not yours, but which you wish was.  The lust of the eyes is the sin of the heart before it becomes a sin of the flesh.  Before Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, she looked with her eyes and saw that the fruit of the tree was desirable. 

Genesis 3:6 “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make [one] wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.”  God had forbidden the fruit, but Eve looked with her eyes, it delighted her eyes, and she desired it so she took it and sinned against God.

The last category of this illicit love of the world that John warns against is the pride of life.  The pride of life can cover a wide gamut of things.  For instance, it can be arrogance, which is the lack of humility. It’s thinking you are better than others, more deserving.  It can be a lack of love for others.  It can be a spirit of competition, always trying to outdo someone. Keeping up with the Jones.  Whatever form it takes, it is not expressive of a love for God and a love for one another.  Instead it is a love of one’s self.  It’s self love, or selfishness.  That is contrary to the love of God which is a sacrificial love for others.

So this love of the things of the world is not from the Father, but from the satanic system of the world.  And the end of those things is death, but the end result of our love for God is life.  John states this principle in 1John 2:17 “The world is passing away, and [also] its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.”

The world is passing away… the clock is ticking, time is passing, and the time of the end is approaching.  It’s possible that you might even say that the earth is dying, as everything in it eventually dies, as everything is corrupted by death. The environmentalists think that somehow we can stop the world from dying.  But this world is not going to last forever.  At the fall, sin entered the world and death by sin. And it’s headed towards it’s inevitable conclusion.  The culmination of this age will coincide with the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Peter said that the world and it’s works will be burned up. In 2 Peter 3:10 he says, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.” Everything that is in the world, everything that was so desirable, that caused men to lust after them, all those things are passing away.  They are all in the process of death.  Why would we want to be chasing those things which are destined to be destroyed? 

Jesus said in Matthew 16:26  “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”  What good does it do to spend your life chasing after the things of this world, trying to fulfill the lusts of this world? They are passing away.  And one day you also will pass away.  There is a popular bumper sticker which says, “He who dies with the most toys wins.”  That’s actually a pretty sick joke. There are no winners in the system of the world.  There are only losers.  And as Jesus said, in the pursuit of the world, you also lose your own soul.  Even if you manage to get more than your fair share in this world, you cannot take it with you in the next.  The world’s currency has no value in heaven.  Money cannot buy eternal life.

But John says the one who does the will of God lives forever.  What is the will of God? To love God and love the Son. To obey Him, to abide with Him, to walk with Him, to worship Him, to have faith in Him. And he who has faith in Jesus Christ and follows Him will live forever.  Jesus said in John 11:25, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Do you believe this?  Do you believe that Jesus is God in the flesh, that He came to earth to live a perfect life, and to be your substitute, to pay the penalty for your sins by His death on the cross?  Do you believe that God raised Him from the dead and that He lives and stands at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us?  Do you believe in Him, if so, then He gives life to them that believe.  Life that continues after the grave.  Life that is not of this world, but spiritual.  And He freely gives it to all who confess their sins and believe in Him.  

You cannot love the world and love God.  Choose this day whom you will serve, whom you will love.  Are you loving the world and the things of the world, or will you love and serve the Lord?  Chose to love God, and receive everlasting life in Christ.

Three levels of spiritual maturity, 1 John 2: 12-14

The apostle John has been showing in this epistle the contrast between those who live in sin, and those who are righteous.  He has been showing a contrast between those who walk in the light, and those who walk in darkness.  He has been showing a contrast between those who keep the commandments, and those who do not keep the commandments.  And the basic difference between these two types of people is that one is saved, and the other is unsaved.  Those that are unsaved may claim they are saved, they may claim that they know God, but they show by their deeds that they do not.  But in contrast, those that are truly saved show by their walk, by their life, that they are saved, that they do have fellowship with God.  

Now last week I spent a lot of time going back to the prophecies of the Old Testament, particularly in Ezekiel and Jeremiah, which prophesied that in the new covenant, God would do a new thing, which is He would forgive their sins, give them a new spirit, and also give them the Holy Spirit.  That transaction speaks of being born again, to be born spiritually. And only when a person is born again will they have the power to keep God’s commandments.  That’s what the Old Testament prophecies of Ezekiel and Jeremiah tell us will happen when a person is born again.  Let me just read one of those passages, for the sake of those who may not have been here last week when we talked about this.  

Ezekiel 36:25 says,  “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”  That’s talking about being born again spiritually, and then in the power of the Spirit having the strength to keep the ordinances of God.  That’s the only way we can keep the ordinances of God.  We cannot do it in the natural man, but only as we are reborn spiritually.

Now in the passage we are looking at today, John speaks directly to those who have been born again, to those who are saved.  And he divides those who have been born again, or who have been saved, into three categories.  He says I write to you little children, I write to you fathers, and I write to you young men.  These are three categories that John divides all Christians into.

So the question then is what do these three terms mean?  And the answer would seem to be  that John is speaking of levels of maturity.  It is a common teaching in the New Testament that there are levels of spiritual maturity in our Christian life, and we are encouraged and expected to grow into maturity.  Being born again is the beginning of our spiritual life, but we are not expected to stay infants, but to grow into the full stature of Christ.

For instance, Paul says in Ephesians Eph. 4:12-13 that the pastor/teachers in the church are given for “the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ;  until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”

So spiritual growth is the evidence of spiritual life.  God, who gave us spiritual life in Christ, intends for that life to grow, intends for that life to grow into maturity.  And maturity is evidenced in that we look more and more like Christ, we act like Christ, we are conformed to the image of Christ in our life.  Romans 8:29 tells us, “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren.” 

Now that’s what John told us a few verses back in 1 John 2:6, “the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.” So the goal of our salvation, the goal of being born again, is to live like Christ, to become like Christ. And that process of becoming like Christ is what it means to come to spiritual maturity. 

And the means of that spiritual growth is the Scripture. First Peter 2:2 says, “Desire the pure milk of the Word, that you may grow by it.” Just as a baby needs milk in order to grow, you desire the milk of the Word which is your food so that you also can grow. Spiritual growth is another way to describe what we call sanctification.

So sanctification is the process of becoming like Christ.  It’s the second stage of our salvation.  The first stage of our salvation is justification, when we are justified, our sins forgiven and we are given the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Justification is immediate, we are born again as children of God. The second stage of our salvation is sanctification, where we become conformed to the image of Christ. Sanctification is progressive.  It’s the process of growth, of maturity.  And then the final stage of our salvation is glorification, when Christ returns and there is no more sin, no more Satan, and the flesh and the earth are remade in sinless perfection. But we that are saved are living in the middle stage, the process of sanctification, becoming conformed to Jesus Christ.

And it is to this middle stage, that John is writing to in this passage. He addresses three stages of maturity, or three stages of sanctification. Spiritual growth is facilitated much the same way that you grow physically.  It is affected by what you eat, by exercise and by learning. And as Christians we spiritually are fed by the Word of God.  We exercise by doing the will of God.  And we learn by practicing the truth. And in this way we grow, we mature.

So John addresses first of all what he calls little children.  The word that he uses includes infants up to young children.  It’s a term of endearment, but it’s also a term that indicates spiritual immaturity.  Now that is not necessarily a bad thing.  It’s normal in new birth for a child to remain an infant for a time, and then a toddler and so on.  And as Christians, there was a time when we were all infants spiritually speaking.  We were new born. And there are characteristics of that stage that are appropriate to a new born child of God.  

So he starts with a general statement in verse 12. “I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name’s sake.”  This term includes all those who have come to new birth through faith in Jesus Christ. Your sins are forgiven.  That’s the major distinction that we all share at the early stage of our development.  So when he says “little children” in verse 12, he’s talking about all believers – he uses the word teknia. Now, that word simply means “born ones.” Those that have been born again.  They may not have gotten much beyond that stage, but they are forgiven.  They have been made children of God.  They have new life in Christ.

John spoke of that in 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  That’s the beginning of our new life. Forgiven of the penalty of sin. Christ paid our penalty through His death on the cross so that we are forgiven.  And being forgiven, through faith in what He has done for us, we are given a new heart, a new spirit, and the Holy Spirit to dwell in us. 

John says we are forgiven not because of what we have done, but for His name’s sake.  That means we are forgiven on the basis of what Christ did for us.  Not by our works of righteousness, but for His name’s sake.  God looked at what Jesus did for us as our substitute, and forgave us our sins, and gave us Christ’s righteousness.  And in that transaction, we are born again. That forgiveness and imputed righteousness is the first stage of our maturity, the first stage of new life, the first stage of sanctification, of becoming like Christ.

The second category of our spiritual growth that John writes about is that of fathers.  It’s odd that he goes from babies to fathers, and then comes back to young men.  But nevertheless, we will follow his pattern.  I suppose that John skips from babies to fathers because fathers is the goal of our maturity.  You know, there is an obsession in our culture with being young, or trying to stay young.  Just the other morning I was thinking about someone I knew in the 70’s when I was growing up, and I tried to imagine what they must be like now that they are old, like me.  I still remember them as they looked then.  And I felt a sadness for the passing of youth.  The years fly by.  But we try so hard to hold onto our youth.  And as a society we seem to idolize youth. But youth is transitory.  The Bible doesn’t idolize youth.  It encourages growing up. The goal is maturity.

So John says in vs 13, “I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning.” Fathers is the most mature level of our sanctification here on earth.  What John is saying is that these Christians have come to know Christ in a very intimate way.  Not just knowing Christ in a superficial way, or even just a theological way.  But in a way that is only gained by living and following someone daily, day after day, year after year. Having close communion and intimacy with Christ on a personal level.

You know the Bible speaks of the church as the bride of Christ. The person that knows me better than anyone in the world is my wife.  She has spent over 30 years with me now.  She has walked with me through almost every type of storm and trial, as well as we have experienced many periods of happiness and joy. She knows me better than my children or my parents, because she has been with me for so many years now.

That’s the relationship that John speaks to here in this word to fathers, that they know Him. In the original Greek it’s ginosko, which means of course to know, to understand,  but can also speak of the intimacy between a husband and wife. I think the title of father is also significant. Notice he doesn’t address just old men, but fathers.  The only way to be a father is to have a child. So I think there is included in this maturity of fathers a necessity to reproduce spiritual life. To bring others to the Lord is a mark of maturity.

Back in vs 3, John said this about knowing Christ; “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.” That reveals that to know God means that we keep His commandments. That is a higher degree of maturity, that you have learned to keep His commandments.  We get the change of heart at new birth which means that we have a desire to keep His commandments, but actually coming to a point where we do so, is a means of practice, of discipline, and of love. Jesus said if you love Me, you will keep My commandments.  Keeping the commandments is a mark of maturity that comes as a result of a life devoted to Him, to following Him, walking with Him.

The third category of maturity that John addresses is young men.  Vs13, “I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one.”  Young men speaks of the middle stage of our sanctification.  You are no longer a child, yet you have not reached the level of maturity of the fathers.  But there is a progressive maturity that is indicative of these young men. 

And I believe that that maturity is defined at this stage by overcoming temptation. When we are born again, we are given a new spirit.  But the flesh is still there, and it’s the same old body, still prone to the same lusts of the flesh. The devil is called in scripture the tempter. Temptation is particularly the bane of the young Christian in whom is a battle between the flesh and the spirit. But the Bible says in 1Cor. 10:13 “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.”

How do young Christians overcome temptation?  Through the power of the Spirit.  Through walking close to the Lord.  Through reading His word. Through prayer.  The point is that there are given to us the means by which to overcome temptation.  And one major means is by recognizing that the devil is the deceiver, he is a liar, and the truth is not in him.  And so what he is tempting you with is a lie.  The forbidden fruit will not make you smarter, it will not make you happier, it will in fact destroy you. Recognizing the devil is a liar and recognizing the lie in temptation is the key to overcoming the evil one.

Now at the end of vs 13, we see John start to repeat himself. As I get older, I’ve been accused by my family of repeating myself.  I guess I don’t always remember having told a certain story.  But sometimes, I don’t care if I have told it before, I think it bears repeating.  Well, John is about 90 years old by this point.  But I think he deliberately repeats himself.  He repeats these three statements, but with a different emphasis. And I think he does it deliberately, strategically, not only for emphasis, but as an aid to learning.  We learn by repetition, don’t we?  We memorize by repetition.  We learn to play an instrument by repetition.  Repetition is the key to learning, and learning is one of the means of sanctification.

So he speaks again to children at the end of vs 13. “I have written to you, children, because you know the Father.”  Notice that in the first address, John uses present tense.  And in the second address, he uses past tense. I am writing to you, I have written to you. I’m not sure what that means.  It may refer to the earlier writing which John authored which is his gospel of John.  But I don’t think we can say conclusively.  One commentator suggested that John took a coffee break in his writing and when he came back he now used the past tense.  I don’t think that is very likely.  My thinking is that the change from present tense to past tense conveys a progression in time, which is consistent with what we know about sanctification, it’s a progression in maturity in your spiritual life that changes with time.

But notice the change in how he addresses the children. In the NASB the word “little” is missing. It’s now just children.  John has changed the original Greek word translated as children.  In the first address it was teknion, in  the second address it is paidion.  Teknion is little children, infants, babes in Christ, paidon is a young child that is of teachable age.  Teachers were called paidagogos, responsible for the instruction of little ones.  And so we see even there indicated the progressive nature of sanctification.  They have matured past the infant stage to the toddler stage. That’s significant.  We aren’t intended to stay in the infant stage but are to be trained in righteousness, trained by the Spirit of God.

And John says of these children, that they know the Father.  Now notice the difference between the father’s knowing Christ, and the children knowing the Father.  It’s normal isn’t it, for a young child to know his daddy?  To recognize him?  It should be normal to see a child’s face light up when daddy comes home and run out the front door to meet him and give him a hug? 

I think that’s what John is speaking of here.  He is speaking of the love that we develop as new borns, spiritually speaking, for our heavenly Father. It’s natural for a child to have a love for his father, and it should be a natural thing for us in the spiritual realm to have a love for God our Father.  And it’s truly a wonderful thing that we can call the Supreme God of the universe, our Father. We can go to Him as we would go to our Father.  Yes, we respect Him, we reverence Him, but we know that we are His child, and we have a special relationship with Him, and we love Him. That’s an important stage in our maturity as believers. To love God and know Him as our Father.

John then addresses once again the fathers.  The order of his repetition stays the same.  And in this category, the address is exactly the same. No change, except from present tense to past tense.  Vs 14, “I have written to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning.” 

Once again the emphasis is on knowing Christ. And I suppose it is exactly the same because though the knowledge and experience  and maturity increases, the process stays the same.  It’s still abiding with Christ. It’s still following Christ.  To use a common metaphor, it’s like still being married to Christ.  What’s the difference between being married to someone for 10 years and being married to someone for 40 years? I would suggest that it gets better and better.

Married life may change as the years go by.  But there is nothing better in life than having someone who loves you, is committed to you, that understands you and cares about you.  To stay with someone, to persevere with someone through all the difficulties of life, that is love, and that produces a knowledge that is intimate, it produces a maturity that cannot be obtained through any short cut.  And perhaps also included in this address is the idea that John spoke of in vs 3, that you know that you know.  You have an assurance of your salvation that grows more sure as the years go by. And that’s a comforting thing as you get older, to know that you know you belong to Christ.

The last word that John gives is once again addressed to the young men.  “I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.”   In the previous address, John simply said you have overcome the evil one.  In this address, he tells us how they overcame him.

First he says it’s because you were strong.  The Bible is replete with admonitions to be strong.  But it’s usually accompanied with the phrase “in the Lord.”  “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.”  Young men are strong physically.  There is a natural strength and endurance that young men have that old men definitely no longer have.  But I don’t think John is talking about physical strength.  I think he’s talking about spiritual strength.  And spiritual strength is found in reliance upon the Lord.

In Luke 1:80, speaking of John the Baptist, it says, “And the child continued to grow and to become strong in spirit, and he lived in the deserts until the day of his public appearance to Israel.”  He became strong in spirit. It’s spiritual strength that made John the Baptist great.

And the Bible indicates the same thing about Christ.  Luke 2:40 “The Child continued to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him.” I’m sure that doesn’t mean that Jesus became strong like Samson, but rather strong spiritually. And it says of Jesus that His strength was related to increasing in wisdom.  That correlates to the next  point of how the young men overcame the evil one.

And that is because the word of God abides in you.  Knowledge is essential to maturity. They are equipped with spiritual knowledge.  Young men, spiritually speaking, are Christians who have acquired knowledge of the truth. They’re well established in the area of doctrine. As they have fed upon the spiritual meat of the word, spiritual strength has resulted. 

Jesus when He was tempted in the wilderness, overcame every temptation of the evil one with the word of God.  Each time Satan tempted Jesus, He responded with scripture.  Satan even tried to tempt Christ by incorporating scripture, but Christ interpreted scripture correctly.  You may have heard it said that the best offense is a good defense.  Well, our best defense against the temptations of the devil is the word of God, and the best offensive against the devil is the word of God.  The Bible says, resist the devil and he will flee from you.  How do you resist a liar and a deceiver?  With the truth of God’s word. 

Psalm 119:11 says, “Your word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against You.” Even as Christ relied upon the word to defeat the evil one, even more so must we depend upon the word of God for our strength, so that we may overcome the evil one.

Being an overcomer is the key to the process of sanctification. Knowing the word is the means by which we know the Father, and know the Son.  Let us be sure to feast daily on the word of God, and then in that strength exercise our faith by walking in the Spirit, so that we may overcome the evil one, and so that we may grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord. 

2Peter 3:18 “but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him [be] the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.”

A new commandment, 1 John 2:7-11

What John has been teaching up to this point is that a life of sin and new life in Christ are incompatible.  He says in chapter 1 vs 6 that you cannot walk in darkness, that means walk in sin, and say that you have fellowship with  God.  He also makes it clear in the next verse that fellowship with one another is predicated on being right with God.

Now that is the positive perspective, being right with God is being in fellowship with God and with one another.  From a negative perspective, John says that sin breaks fellowship with God and with one another.  And sin is defined by the commandments.

You cannot determine sin apart from the commandments of God. Now God did plant in the heart of man a conscience which is supposed to make us feel guilty for our sin, but we can’t actually rely on our conscience to do that, because it’s possible for the conscience to become so callused by sin that it no longer does what it should. 1Tim. 4:1-2 says, “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron.”  So false teaching, demonic doctrines, and the lies of the enemy can cause the conscience to stop working, so that a person no longer feels any remorse or not even any consciousness of sin.

John indicates that the most reliable way we come to know sin is through the commandments. Paul agreed with that principle.  He said I would not have come to know sin except through the commandment.  Romans 7:7 “What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “YOU SHALL NOT COVET.”  So the law is not sin, but the law is good, and the law defines sin as sin.

Listen, it’s important to recognize sin as sin. I don’t think you can be saved unless you recognize you are a sinner.  I think that’s why John deals first of all in his epistle with the issue of sin.  Paul does the same thing in the first chapters of Romans, defining sin.  The lie of Satan is to debunk the law and thereby attempt to nullify sin.  The lie of the false teachers and false prophets abounding in the church in America today is to in effect say that there is no sin, or to legitimize sin, or say that what the Bible calls sin is not really sin at all.  

So starting in chapter 2 vs 3 John shows that fellowship with God is contingent on not living in sin, and that sin is defined by the commandments.  Vs 3 “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.  The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; . but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected, or completed.”  In other words, the love of God is received by us, which sets off a chain reaction in us, that completes the transformation that God initiated in us, which is that we love like He loves us.

So that, to use the metaphysical language of John in vs 6,  we walk as Christ walked. We walk in the light as He is in the light.  We become like Christ. We love like Christ loves.

Now I warned you last time at the end of my message that it’s possible to misinterpret the message of John and get the idea that you had to keep the commandments and try to be a better person in hope that you earn the right to fellowship with God.  But if you do that then you miss the essential point of salvation.  The essential point in salvation is that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And that happens by faith in what Jesus did on the cross as our propitiation, as the satisfaction for the judgment of God towards sin.

That cleansing, that forgiveness of sins, produces in us a righteousness from God, not on the basis of what we have done, but on the basis of what Christ has done. But it also produces in us a transformation; change of heart, a change of our nature, a change from death to life.  This new heart is the key to keeping the commandments.  It’s not just mustering up enough will power to overcome your natural tendencies and become by an act of self will and discipline a nicer person. 

Rather God changes our heart.  He gives us a new spirit and puts His Spirit within us.  The result is that we are a new creation.  We have a new nature, new desires, new attitudes informed by the Spirit of God, so that we might be empowered to do His will.  And so as a regenerated child of God, we are able to keep His commandments because we want to please Him.  The product of our regeneration is sanctification.  We learn to act like children of God.

God spoke of this supernatural change of heart which would come about through salvation previously in the Old Testament.  The first reference to it is found in Jeremiah 31:31, which says, “Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

Notice that in the new covenant, God not only forgives their sin, but writes HIs laws upon their heart, puts His law within them. That speaks of a heart change, from a heart of stone to a heart that is in tune with God, a heart that loves God, and consequently a heart that obeys God.

There are three references in Ezekiel to this heart transformation resulting in keeping the commandments.  The first is found in Ezekiel 11:19-20 which says, “And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh,  that they may walk in My statutes and keep My ordinances and do them. Then they will be My people, and I shall be their God.” Then further down in vs 27 God says,  “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”  

So not only is the regenerated man given a new heart, by which he has a love for God and a desire to keep the commandments of God, but he is also given the Holy Spirit, who gives us the power to keep God’s commandments.  We get a new heart, and a new spirit, plus the Holy Spirit to indwell us.  That’s the difference between the old and new covenant.  In the old covenant, they were given the law and the penalty for not keeping the law.  In the new covenant, we are given the law, Jesus paid the penalty due because of the law, and we are given a new heart, a new spirit, and the Holy Spirit to enable us to keep His word.

The last reference to this transformation is Ezekiel 36:26 which basically says the same thing as those previous references.  Ezekiel 36:25-27  “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”

Now that’s such a tremendously important doctrine that God repeats it no less than three times in the Old Testament.  And it’s important to comprehend this doctrine because that truth is the basis for understanding what John is teaching here in 1 John 2.  As we understand that doctrine, we can now read vs 7 and 8 with discernment.  

Listen to vs 7 and 8. “Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard.  On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining.”

Without the insight given us through the Spirit as we consider the promises of God in Ezekiel and Jeremiah, we might be scratching our heads over this idea of an old commandment and new commandment.  And perhaps because of that many commentators have tried to find some sort of distinction being made here between the old covenant and the new covenant.  They say that under the old covenant there are given 613 or so laws, but under the new covenant we are given only two; love God and love one another.  And so they seek to explain it as if in the new covenant there are only two, easier commandments that we are obligated to keep, and everything else is just legalism that has now been eliminated by grace.

But that, of course, is the wrong exegesis.  What John is actually saying here is that the difference between the old commandment and the new commandment is simply that there is a new way of keeping it.  In the old covenant there was just the law given, and the penalty given for not keeping it.  In the new covenant, we are given the means by which to keep the commandments.  Under the old covenant, the only incentive was to avoid punishment.  In the new covenant, the incentive is love, which comes from a regenerated heart, and a new spirit, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to help us.  In the old covenant, you were legally bound to keep the law, but you didn’t have the resource to keep it.  In the new covenant, you have the all the resource you need, which is the power of the Holy Spirit in you.

That’s where the modern charismatic movement misses the boat on the purpose of the Holy Spirit.  They think the Holy Spirit is given to give us a feeling, an ecstatic experience which validates that we know God.  But in fact the Holy Spirit is given to give us the power to keep the commandments of God, to be our Helper that we might do the deeds of God.

Notice also John says in vs 8, that he is “writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining.” Now what is he saying?  I submit that when he speaks of that which is true in Him and in you, He is speaking of the Word of God. Another analogy which we saw earlier in Ezekiel talked of sprinkling clean water on you.  That is another reference to the word of God as evidenced by Eph. 5: 25 “Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her,  so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,  that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.”  Sanctification, holiness, which is keeping the commandments, comes as a result of the washing of water with the word.  

So we are able to keep the commandment because we have the cleansing power of the word of God at work in our lives, which John says means that the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining.  The word of God is the truth, is the light, which makes the darkness, the sin and ignorance flee.  Peter speaks of this in 2Peter 1:19 saying,  “And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”  

Peter goes on to say the subsequent verses that the scripture is given by the Holy Spirit. So we see there how the word of God is used by the Holy Spirit to work in us, which in produces good works from us, so that we keep the commandments.

So the evidence that you know God, the evidence that you have fellowship with God, the evidence that you have the Spirit of God, is that you keep the commandments. John has made that very clear. It’s not in some feeling you have, or some experience you had, or some claim that you are on intimate terms with God and He talks directly to you.  The evidence  that you know God is that you walk according to the word, that you keep His commandments.

Now last week we concluded that all the commandments were able to be summarized in what Jesus said in response to the lawyer.  That the foremost commandment was to love God with all your heart, and the second was like it, which was to love your neighbor as yourself. He said, on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.  So love is the summary of the law.  It doesn’t diminish the law, but in fact, it encompasses all of the law, and the prophets, so all of the Old Testament.  Paul speaks of this law of love in Rom. 13:10, “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of [the] law.”  So in both the Old and New Testaments, love is the summary, the fulfillment of the law.

So keeping the commandments, especially the law of love which is the summary of the commandments, is a test by which we may prove that we know God. John gives us two tests, both a negative test and a positive test by which we may know that we know God.  He states the negative first in vs 9 “The one who says he is in the Light and [yet] hates his brother is in the darkness until now.”  John goes back to this metaphor of light and darkness to illustrate our relationship with God.  It’s almost a restatement of chapter 1 vs 6, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and [yet] walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.”  So to hate your brother is darkness.  To hate is sin. 

Back in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus equates anger towards a brother with the sin of murder.  Matt. 5:21-22  “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty [enough to go] into the fiery hell.”

Now vehemence, or anger towards a brother may be the manifestation of hate. When we think of hate we tend to think of it that way, a violent, vehement, anger towards someone.  But hate is actually broader than that.  Hate may be disdain, contempt.  It may not manifest itself outwardly at all.  It may just be an attitude of contempt for someone, as if they were beneath you, as if they are not worthy of your attention.  That also may be considered hate. 

But I would suggest that hate in the usage of this verse is even broader and seemingly more innocuous than that.  I would suggest that hate in this context may be the opposite of love.  Hate is the opposite of love.  We can see that in the next verse, as John contrasts love with hate.  He is contrasting the man who hates, versus the man who loves.  So hate is whatever love is not.  

That being the case then, it is necessary to define love if we are to define hate.  In vs 10, we have the introduction to the law of love. John says, “The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him.”  The word love is from the Greek word agapaō.  It’s a very familiar word for most Christians, I’m sure.  But nevertheless, let me give a synopsis of the word as a refresher so that we might be able to better define what love is not.

Agape is a divine love, the kind of love which God has for the world, which was manifested by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  So this love is a self sacrificing love for another that puts their good above your own. In the KJV it was translated as charity.


In 1Cor. 13:4-7 Paul gives an even fuller account of love, saying “Love is patient, love is kind [and] is not jealous; love does not brag [and] is not arrogant,  does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong [suffered,]  does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;  bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

That sets love at a pretty high standard.  It’s the law of love.  Jesus said in John 13:34 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”  Jesus loved us with an unconditional, sacrificial love.  And we are to love one another like that.  We are to love our brother like that.

So based on that definition of love, hate then is what love is not. Hate is not caring about the better good of your brother but only caring about your good.  Seeking your own interests and not seeking your brother’s best interests is hate. Hate is being unforgiving towards another.  Hate is being provoked towards another.  Hate does not act becomingly towards another. Hate is being jealous of another. Hate is arrogance towards another. Hate rejoices in unrighteousness.  Another way of saying that is hate condones unrighteousness.   

So John says the person who says he is in the Light, that says he is a Christian, he is in fellowship with God, and yet he acts in any of those ways which are the opposite of the way love operates, then he is actually in the darkness.  He is in sin.  Love is righteousness, but hate is sin.  Such a person who hates is in sin.  And sin has no fellowship with God, even as darkness and light cannot coexist at the same time.

John continues on that theme in vs 11, saying, “But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.”  Sin has blinded his eyes so that he doesn’t know where he is going. I think that’s a reference to what we spoke of earlier about the conscience being calloused, being seared continuing in sin.  Notice here John speaks of not only being in darkness, but walking in darkness.  That’s a continuing life style.  To continue in sin is to harden your heart, sin builds up a callous on your heart which keeps you from feeling remorse or guilt.  And so in their sin, their heart becomes hardened, calloused, and they continue on in the way of darkness, believing a lie, and not knowing that where they are going is the path of destruction.

But in contrast to the person who hates, John presents the person who loves in vs 10. “The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him.”

To abide means to continue, to dwell in the Light.  This is fellowship with God. To be in the Light, and to dwell in the Light.  It’s to walk in the light.  And we do this by walking in the word. Psalm 119 says, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”  To walk according to the word is to walk in the Spirit.  This is how we stay close to the Lord.

And because we are in fellowship with God we love our brother.  We love because He first loved us. Abiding in the Light produces love towards one another.  Love is the manifestation of our faith.  It’s the product of our love for God.  Jesus said if you love Me, then you will keep My commandments.  

And abiding in the Light and loving one another, gives no cause for stumbling in us.  What that means is our life is not a stumbling block to one another.  Because love is giving preferential treatment to another.  It’s not holding a grudge, it’s not being jealous.  All those things Paul says love is not back in 1 Cor. 13, those are things that end up being a stumbling block to the other person.  A stumbling block causes them to fall into sin.  Being a stumbling block to others is the result of hate. Its the result of selfishness, not love.  But when we love the way Christ loved us, then the stumbling block is removed.  And the other person is edified.  

So if we abide in the Light, we love one another, and do not put a stumbling block in front of them by our behavior, but we actually encourage and strengthen and edify one another.  That is the fulfillment of the law, and that is the evidence that we are in fellowship with God. I pray that you are walking in the Light, as He is in the Light.  That you walk by the Spirit, and in the power of the Spirit within you are being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ as we obey Him, and keep HIs commandment to love one another, even as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her.

God is Light, John 1:5,6

In the first few verses of 1 John, John is declaring to us the Word of God, which is the message of God, which is the truth of God.  And he says the truth of God produces in us the life of God so that we might have fellowship with God.  He said in vs 1, the Word of God is eternal, that which was from the beginning. He said in the gospel of John chapter 1 that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

He goes on to say that the Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us.  The Word became manifest.  The God which was invisible became visible. God which is Spirit became flesh. Jesus was the Message of God, the Word of God, made flesh.  The Word of God became a man and the disciples heard Him, touched Him, saw Him, and studied Him.  Jesus spoke the Word of God.  Jesus worked the works of God. Jesus’s life was the message of God.

John says that what they had seen and heard they testify to you.  The words, the actions, the life of Christ the disciples have proclaimed to you.  And this message results in life, which is fellowship with God, and which is eternal life from God.  The message, the Word of God imparts this life of God in you if you receive it and believe it. Jesus said in John 6:63 “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” And then back in vs 4 of our text, John said this is the message which we write to you.  The message of Jesus, the message of the Word is what John wrote to us in this epistle.

So Jesus is the Message, Jesus is the Word, He is the Life, or as Jesus Himself said, He is the way, the truth and the life of God. And John has proclaimed this message, written this message, and now in vs 5, he says he announces this message.  And this is the message; “that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.”  John summarizes the entire message of the gospel in one brief sentence; God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all.

It’s interesting that John announces the message of Christ in both a positive and negative way. Let’s look first at the positive.  God is light.  The order of that statement is important.  You cannot reverse it and say that light is God.  Otherwise, sun worshippers would be worshipping the true God.  But God is characterized as light.  John will also present later on in this epistle other defining characteristics of God, such as that He is righteous, that He is Spirit, that He is love.  

But to begin John says that the message which Jesus gave, and which he is declaring,  is that God is light. God is Light.  Such a simple statement, just three words,  and yet to expound it fully would take a book full of words and we still might not plumb the depths of it. Like light itself which can be condensed and focused like a laser beam, or which can illuminate the span of the heavens, so the exposition of this doctrine that God is light can be focused with pin point exactness or expanded  infinitely.  So if the characterization of God is that He is light, then it should provoke the question  how does the Bible describe light? 

I could spend a lot of time this morning trying to present the physical characteristics of light.  But I am not a scientist and to tell you the truth I really don’t understand much about it from that perspective. However, I don’t think that John relates the doctrine that God is light so that we might learn all the physical characteristics of light.  But more importantly I believe there is a spiritual dimension of light that we should consider. And so to get the answer to what constitutes light from a spiritual perspective we turn not to scientific journals, but to the Word of God.

The principle that God is light is one that is spoken of throughout scripture, in both the Old and the New Testaments.  Let’s consider what the Bible has to say about the relation of God with light.  

In Psalm 27:1 we read  “The LORD is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The LORD is the defense of my life; Whom shall I dread?” Light there is correlated with salvation. Light is spiritual life.

A few chapters further we read in Psalm 36:9  “For with You is the fountain of life; In Your light we see light.” Light from God is the source of life. God’s light illumines our eyes that we might see light.  Light is correlated there with life from God. 

Then in Psalm 119:105 we read about another aspect of light;  “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Here the word of God is related to light, to light up our way, or light up our life.  So to combine those three verses we can deduce that light is the spiritual life of God which is given to man.

Isaiah 9:2 speaks of that divine illumination which shines on men, saying; “The people who walk in darkness Will see a great light; Those who live in a dark land, The light will shine on them.”  There light is related to the manifestation of Word of God to the world. The light of God shines on the world which is in darkness. Christ is the light of God which was manifested to the world.

Isaiah goes on to speak of this manifestation of the Light in Isaiah 60:1, “Arise, shine; for your light has come, And the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earth And deep darkness the peoples; But the LORD will rise upon you And His glory will appear upon you.”  The light of the Lord delivers the world from darkness. The light revealed to the world is described as the glory of God which is given to men and reflected from men.

There are many more such examples in the Old Testament, but for the sake of time, let’s consider some New Testament references to light.

In the Gospel of John 1:4, speaking of Jesus, the Word, John says “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it, or overpower it.”

And then down a few verses in John 1:9 “There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.”

As I was studying these passages this week, I was reminded of when Moses was on Mt. Sinai receiving the commandments from the Lord.  At that time Moses spent 40 days and 40 nights on Mt. Sinai with the Lord while he received the ten commandments.  And in recounting that event Moses said in Deuteronomy 9:9 that he while on the mountain he did not eat or drink for 40 days.  That’s the same length of time which the Lord Jesus spent fasting in the wilderness before His ministry.  But the thing I want to emphasize is that to not eat or drink for 40 days would kill most people. You can survive a couple of weeks or so without eating, perhaps, but generally speaking, you cannot survive much longer than three days without water. 

But when Moses came down from the mountain after being with God for 40 days, he wasn’t so weak that he couldn’t walk.  He wasn’t half dead and starving. But he was full of strength to be able to walk down the mountain.  And rather than being half dead, his face was glowing so brightly that he had to put a veil over it to keep from blinding people. What that reveals is that the light of God, the life of God that emanated from God, was in itself life sustaining.  God is the source of life and to be in the glory of His presence is to receive the fullness of life.  You don’t need food and water to live when you are in the presence of the life of God. God Himself is the source of life. And so I think that illustration in the life of Moses is very informative, in light of what we are considering today.

So John says in Jesus was that life, the life of God, the sustaining, source of life. I think that’s the importance of the scriptures which emphasize that Christ is the Creator of life.  Listen to what Hebrews 1 vs 1 says about that. Heb .1:1-3 “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways,  in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.  And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.”  Such a tremendous passage which tells us so much.  God spoke in Jesus Christ. Not just spoke through Jesus Christ, but spoke in Him.  His being, His life, was the message, the Word of God.  And it says He was the radiance of His glory.  That speaks of Jesus as the Light of God.  

And back in the gospel of John, chapter 1 vs 4 it says His life was the light of men. Vs.9 He was the true light which enlightens every man.  He is the source of light, the source of life which is given to men.

In John 8:12 Jesus said, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”  That says that when we follow Christ, when we have His presence in us, then we have the Light of life.  As we have the Light of God, so we have the life of God.  And if we have the life of God, then we cannot be in darkness, we cannot walk in darkness. That is an echo of the negative aspect of the principle that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.  If you dwell in the light then there cannot be darkness, because there is no darkness at all in God.

Let’s consider a couple more. John 12:35-36  Jesus said to them, “For a little while longer the Light is among you. Walk while you have the Light, so that darkness will not overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes. While you have the Light, believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light.” Notice the progression, walk in the light, believe in the light, and become sons of Light. Light is personified in Jesus Christ. He is the light, and as you believe in the Light, which is His message, His word, HIs life, then you become sons of Light, which is to say, sons of God.

Paul indicates that to be sons of the Light is to be sons of the kingdom of Christ in Col. 1:13 saying, “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.”

Now all of those references show us that the Biblical doctrine of light is very broad.  In one sense, and probably the most often used sense, light stands for truth. We still use light as a metaphor for truth in our culture today.  We hear expressions like “I saw the light.”  Or “a light bulb went off.”  We speak about enlightenment, as in the age of enlightenment. So the reference to light means the light of truth, the truth of God, the word of God.

We also see the Bible use light as a reference to purity, to holiness, to righteousness. God dwells in inapproachable light.  It says in Psalm 102:1, “O LORD my God, You are very great; You are clothed with splendor and majesty, covering Yourself with light as with a cloak.” 

Now the opposite of light is darkness.  And darkness in the Bible refers to ignorance. The Dark Ages was a time of ignorance.  The age of enlightenment came after the Dark Ages. In the scripture, darkness often is used to refer to sin, to evil. In John 3:19 Jesus said, “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” In the verse we read a moment ago, the domain of darkness referred to the dominion of Satan. Man in his natural state, is in sin, is in darkness, and living under the dominion of Satan. Jesus said Satan is the ruler of this world. He dominates those in darkness, he holds the world captive in sin.

But light speaks of the kingdom of God. Revelation 21:23 speaking of the culmination of the kingdom of God says, “And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp [is] the Lamb.”

So the message that Jesus brought to the world is that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. There is no evil in God.  There is no sin. There is only goodness, holiness and righteousness.  In darkness there is death, but in the Light there is life.  And Christ is the light that gives life.  And that life in us is the presence of God, fellowship with God, communion with God. The light of Christ that gives life is the truth of God.  In His light, we see light.  Jesus said in John 8:31-32 “If you continue in My word, [then] you are truly disciples of Mine;  and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”  When we receive the light of truth, we are freed from the darkness of ignorance and evil, and we have the life of God in us.

Jesus said that in it’s natural state the whole world lies in darkness. It is held captive by the dominion of darkness, the dominion of Satan.  But Truth is the light that scatters the darkness, and the light of Truth sets the prisoners free. The devil wants to keep people in darkness, in ignorance. He wants them to be so confused that they can’t discern the light.  But God is light.  And God shines His light of truth in the hearts of men that they might see the truth and be set free.  Without God’s illumination in our hearts we could not see light of truth.  But in His light, we see light.

Listen how Paul states it in 2 Cor. 4:6 “For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”

Then in vs 6 of 1 John 1, John goes on to say about the darkness, that “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and [yet] walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” That statement reveals that if you claim to have the life of God, to be in Christ, to be in the light of God, and yet  live in darkness, then you are lying.  If we live in sin you are of the darkness.  If you live in the light, then you are of the light.

What it indicates is that the life of God in us is not dependent upon what we say, or what we claim, but what we do. How we live. Many people claim to know God, to have a relationship with God.  Many people claim to be Christian. But the evidence of the way they live their life reveals that they are still in darkness. You cannot be light and darkness at the same time.  If you truly have fellowship with God then you will be living in the Light and not living in darkness.  John says, you may say that you have fellowship with God but what are you doing? How are you living? How could you possibly have fellowship with God who is light if you are walking in darkness?  

There is a common misconception today that you can live in sin and still be saved.  John says that you can’t live in light and darkness at the same time.  You can’t live in the light of God’s word and still practice sin.  That doesn’t mean that a Christian will never sin.  John says later on in vs 8, “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.”  If the truth is not in us, then that means the light is not in us, and we are not saved.

But the distinction of what he is saying is what you practice. John says “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and [yet] walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” He is talking about practicing sin or practicing the truth.  Practice is deliberate. It’s repetitive. It’s continual.  Practice is not accidental. I remember for a short while when I was a kid my Mom had me take piano lessons.  And if that wasn’t bad enough, that meant I had to practice my piano lessons.  All of the neighborhood kids would be playing ball in the empty lot and my Mom would start calling me to come home to practice my piano.  I hated it.  And consequently I never learned anything.  But what I did learn is that practice is not accidental.

Practice is a discipline.  Practice is a commitment. You may make a mistake when you practice, but you correct it, and keep practicing until you get it right.  In Heb 5:14, speaking of the practice of a Christian which leads to getting it right, it says, “But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.”  In the life we receive from God we are trained in righteousness by practice. By deliberately, consciously following the truth of God’s word.  We may mess up, but we correct it, we repent of it, we press on, we practice what we are taught by the Word of God, working through the Spirit of God in us, training us in righteousness.  In Hebrews 12:1 speaking of this practice, this discipline, says, “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”

So the evidence of our salvation is our walk. The evidence of our salvation is whether we are practicing righteousness or practicing sin.  We either walk in darkness, and do not have the light and the life of God.  Or we walk in the light, and we have the life of God, which is fellowship with God, and we have forgiveness of sin. Vs. 7 “but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”

To walk in the light is to live in accordance to the light of truth, the word of God, the leading of the Spirit of God which is given to us that believe in Christ.  Jesus’s ministry on earth was not to get people to simply give lip service to His deity, but to become followers, disciples of His teaching, which is the word of God, the message of God.  To walk in the light as He is in the light. To have the life of God in us, living through us, so that we have the presence of God in us, the fellowship of God with us, that we might become like God in all respects.  That is the message, that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. 

I hope that you have become children of the Light.  That you have received the light, believed the light, and are walking in the light.  That you have the life of God in you.  If you don’t realize that about your life, then call upon Jesus to save you, to give you life, to give you His righteousness, and to give you His Spirit.  Call upon Him today and He will shine upon you and give you life in Him.

Fellowship with God, 1 John 1:1-4

At the time this epistle is written, John was the last surviving apostle, and probably one of the last people living who had seen and heard Jesus during His ministry on earth.  When John was one of Jesus’s disciples, he was known as the disciple whom Jesus loved.  He had a special relationship with Jesus.  It’s believed that he was  the youngest of the 12 disciples of Christ, perhaps not even 20 years old when he first started to follow Christ.  He had an older brother named James, and together they were referred to as “the sons of thunder.”  His brother James was the first of the disciples to be martyred, whereas John was the longest living apostle.  It’s believed that John was very old by the time he wrote this epistle, perhaps in his eighties.  He also wrote the gospel of John, and Revelation.

It’s interesting to consider how John remembers Jesus.  He spent three years with Him, daily eating and sleeping and traveling all over Israel.  He saw Him in all kinds of situations.  But what comes out of his remembrances of Jesus is not some sort of sentimental feelings for the humanity of Jesus, nor a lot of remarks concerning HIs personality or His looks, but rather a firm conviction of His deity.

You would think just the opposite would be true. It’s kind of like if you met a celebrity, what you might take away from that encounter is the humaness of the person.  You would probably say things to your friends like, “He seemed like just a normal guy.”  We’re always surprised that they are just people, and we think that is so noteworthy.  But John doesn’t reminisce that way about Jesus.  His first thoughts, both in this epistle and his gospel, is to note the deity of Christ, the supernatural qualities of God incarnate.

Notice John declares first of all that Jesus was from the beginning. When John speaks of the beginning he is not talking about creation, he is talking about the time before creation, before there was anything.  When there was only God. In so doing, he emphasizes the eternality of Christ.  He does the same in his gospel, albeit with even more explanation. Listen to the way John introduces Christ in his gospel, in John 1:1. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.  In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.”

John identifies in both books Jesus as the Word.  He was in the beginning with God. John doesn’t say He was created in the beginning with God, but that He was in the beginning with God.  Most importantly, John says the Word was not only in the beginning with God, but that the Word was God.  That truth is foundational to our faith.  If we are to believe in Him, if we are to have faith in Him, then it has to be a belief that He is God. And Jesus says in chapter 3:16 that whosoever believes in Him will have eternal life. 

This doctrine of the deity of Christ is the point at which a lot of the cults and heresies show their true colors.  They will say they believe in Jesus Christ, but when you investigate you find they don’t believe that Jesus was God.  They believe that He was a prophet, or a teacher, or a higher order of creation on par with the angels, but not God.  And though John doesn’t directly address it, there was a heresy called Gnosticism that was gaining ground in the church in his day which was corrupting the doctrine of Christ.  And we will see other evidences in John’s writings in which he would seem to be setting forth certain absolute truths by which to counter the false teachings which were prevalent in his day.

Notice another thing that John says about Jesus in both books, that Jesus is life.  In the gospel he says “in Him was life and the life was the life of man.” In the epistle He says he is speaking of the “Word of Life, and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life.” They both refer to the same thing, that in Jesus Christ was life.  He is the creator of all life.  In John 1 vs 3 he said, “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.”  If you remember the Genesis account of creation, God spoke the world in existence.  The Word was with God, and nothing came into being without the Word.

Not only is the Word of Life the creator, but the Word gives life.  Now we know that life is more than just the body, but it is also soul and spirit. When a person dies, the heart stops beating, the breath stops, the body shuts down. But the soul continues to exist. The soul includes the intellect, feelings, and the will of man.  When God made man, He first formed the body out of clay, but then He breathed His breath into man, and man became a living soul.  The soul of man lives forever.  The body of man is destined to grow old and die.  But the soul of man continues.  But there is another aspect of life which is spirit.  And though we are born dead spiritually because of sin, we are able to be born again in the spirit by the Word of Life.  The spirit is that which is the life of God in us, by which we are able to have fellowship with God in the fullness of life for eternity that God intended for man at creation.

To be spiritually dead then means that the body is dead, the spirit is dead, but the soul lives on, however it lives separated for eternity from God. Man was created for fellowship with God, to live with God, but sin caused death of the spirit, which in turn causes death of the flesh, and causes death to the soul, which is eternal separation from the life of God.

This is difficult for us to fathom.  We cannot separate our body from our thoughts. But as we get older, it should become more apparent that there is a life in our minds which is different from life in our body.  We start to see that our life of the body is failing, but in our mind we may not sense much of a change. We still feel and think the way we always have.  Sure, our experiences in life have an affect on the way we think, but fundamentally, we still feel the same in our minds, even though we recognize a decline in our bodies.  For instance, you can lose all movement, all feeling in your body, and yet still have the same thoughts, the same mind.  That should tell us that there is more to life than the body.  The soul lives on after the body is gone.  What we don’t really comprehend, is the loss of the spirit.  We never had any sense of it to begin with.  It was dead when we were born. So we don’t sense the loss of our spirit.  That’s what makes it so difficult for us to comprehend all that God intended for us in life.  But if we are thinking people, we should at least have a sense of the immortality of the soul.

So Jesus is the source of life, the giver of the fullness of life; body, soul and spirit. In John 14:6 Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”  There we see that truth is necessary for life, the truth is the way to life.

In the gospel of John, chapter 1, John uses light as a synonym of truth.  John said, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not comprehend it.”  Darkness is always used in the Bible as a metaphor for ignorance, for sin, for the absence of truth.  So truth is related to light.  John goes on to say in that chapter, “There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.” So the truth of God enlightens man. It gives understanding. The truth gives life. 

Notice how John speaks of it in the epistle of 1 John. Vs 5 “This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and [yet] walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” These verses we will be studying in more detail next week, but I mention them now just to show that John correlates truth and light.

The greatest minds of men have always searched for truth. That was the goal of the great philosophers of ancient Greece. And in their search for truth they sought to understand life, and gain spiritual life, or enduring life.  Socrates, for instance, believed in the immortality of the human soul.  And they sought truth through reason. In some respects, these philosophers, though carnal, sinful men, were on a higher plane intellectually because they at least came to understand the immortality of the soul and attempt through reason to answer questions concerning the afterlife.

Other men in history were not quite so noble, yet perhaps were just concerned with escaping death. Ponce de Leon, for instance, is one of many men in history who famously searched for the fountain of youth.  They were concerned with life, but only in extending the life that they had.  They failed to realize that the source of life is not a magical water, but that it comes by the Spirit.  That was the thought behind the words which John the Baptist used at the baptism of Jesus, saying, “this is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.” And Jesus says that the spirit is life in John 6:63 saying “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and [they] are life.”  That’s incredible to think about – the words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.  

At the baptism of Jesus, the Light of Truth, the Word made flesh, was manifested to the world. John said “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life– and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us—“

In his gospel, John speaks of it this way; “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

What John is saying here is that the Word which was from the beginning, the eternal God, manifested Himself to the world in human flesh.  And John and the other disciples heard Him, saw Him, touched Him, lived with Him.  They knew Him.  They were first hand witnesses of Him. And they now testify of Him.

The implications are tremendous because they said that the eternal God became accessible to man in the most tangible way, so that we might know the truth. The Word of God, the Word of Life can be known, because He has revealed Himself to us, and His revelation is the truth of God.  John’s words carry the weight of eyewitness testimony. He did not speak of myths or of fables. He had carefully studied the person of Christ and he knew whom he spoke about.  He said, we beheld His glory in the flesh.  We saw His deity in the flesh.

John was setting forth an absolute truth which would be an important tenet of the argument in refuting Gnosticism.  Part of the teaching of Gnosticism was that though Jesus was a form of deity, He was not actually a physical man, but instead some kind of phantom that only appeared human. Yet John declares, “I heard Him! I saw Him! I studied Him! I touched Him!”

Gnosticism taught a super knowledge, or a secret knowledge of God.  But John speaks of a personal knowledge, an intimate knowledge, and a manifest knowledge.  It’s interesting to study the word “Logos” which is the Greek translated Word.  For the Greek, their philosophers had spoken for centuries about the Logos – the basis for organization and intelligence in the universe, the Ultimate Reason which controls all things. But for the philosophers, it was intangible, if not unknowable. They understood the meaning of logos as not only the spoken word, but the reason, the thinking of the mind. 

But John says we know the Word.  We have touched the Word, heard the Word, seen the Word.  The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.  The truth was manifested in human flesh in the body of Jesus Christ.  And yet though the physical Jesus Christ is given such importance in the scriptures,  it is so amazing that there is not one reference in the New Testament to the way Jesus looked as a man in the flesh.  If we were in the position of an eyewitness, and writing about it later, I think we would spend a lot of paper and ink writing about how Jesus looked.  About His appearance, how tall, or short, His physical characteristics.  But that is not the emphasis of the disciples.  They were more concerned about His words, His deeds.

I’m reminded of Isaiah 53 which describes Jesus in prophetic form, long before He was ever manifested in the flesh.  Isaiah said this about Him; “He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face. He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.”

We were talking at the dinner table at my house the other day about certain movies that portrayed Jesus.  And one of the downfalls of such movies is that the actor who plays Jesus kind of gets in your head and starts to dominate your thinking of Him. They usually are some strong, viral, handsome man that plays the part. I think it’s no accident that God left no picture of Jesus. But if we really were to believe what Isaiah says of Him by inspiration, then perhaps the picture would not be quite what we are looking for.  He said he has no appearance that we should be attracted to Him.  He had no stately form or majesty.  I wonder if God saw fit to deliberately make Jesus unattractive so that people would not be drawn to Him for the wrong reasons. One day we shall see Him as He is, and I think that as He is, is much the same as He was when He was on earth.

So though John saw Him in the flesh, he recognized Him as the Word, the expression of God. And he bares witness to the Life that was manifested, and as a result of that, he proclaims to us the eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us. He is saying that eternal life is possible to us through Jesus Christ who is the Life. As I alluded to at the beginning, eternal life is so much more than just a chronologically long life. It is even more than just immortality.  It is the fullness of life. Jesus said, “I have come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.”   Life is fellowship with God. It is being in the presence of God. It is fulfillment and joy.  And because God is the source of life, the life He gives is everlasting.  It does not come to an end. Jesus said in John 11:26, “everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.”

John calls that life fellowship with God.  That fellowship with God is what John invites us to join.  He says in vs 3, “What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.”  To be in the presence of God, to have fellowship with God, who is the source of life, who is the Light of the world, who is the source of truth, who is the source of love, who is all powerful, all knowing, is too wonderful to comprehend.  We often talk about what heaven will be like.  We imagine streets of gold, or mansions, or all the wonderful things that we will enjoy.  But what we sometimes fail to comprehend is how wonderful God is, and how wonderful it will be to be in His presence.

There is an ancient Christian doctrine which does not get much airplay today, which is called the beatific vision.  It refers to being in the presence of inapproachable light, in the presence of pure holiness, pure righteousness and the incredible joy and blessing that will be experienced in that presence. It was something the early church fathers wrote about and looked forward to.  I think that we need to have more expectancy of the beatific vision as the ultimate fulfillment and joy in life. To be in the presence of God in perfect fellowship with Him is going to be more wonderful than we can comprehend.  And because we shall see Him as He is, the Bible says that we shall be like Him.  That’s even more incomprehensible.  But it should be what we are looking forward to more than anything.

This doctrine of fellowship with God is one of the most important ideas in this letter of John’s. Fellowship is the ancient Greek word koinonia, which speaks of a sharing, a communion, a common bond and common life. It speaks of a living, breathing, sharing, loving relationship with another person.  And John says that we can have fellowship with God through Jesus Christ.  What a tremendous opportunity.  That which men have sought throughout the ages is now possible through faith in Christ.  That we might have that kind of relationship with the immortal, invisible God of the universe is incredible.

But I”m afraid for some people that idea is totally unappealing. Perhaps it is because they don’t know who God is, and an invitation to have a “personal relationship with God” is about as attractive to them as telling a teenager that they can have a personal relationship with the assistant principal. But when we know the greatness, the goodness, the power and the glory of God, we should want to have a relationship with Him.

And finally in vs 4, we see the benefit of this fellowship that we can have with God.  “These things we write, so that our joy may be made complete.” The result of fellowship is fullness of joy. Lots of things in this world promise happiness.  The band Switchfoot said in one of their songs that happiness is a yuppie word. It’s a shallow word.  The pursuit of happiness is just that – a pursuit.  It rarely ends up producing lasting joy.  Joy is something that is satisfied.  It is contentment.  It is fulfillment. It’s not necessarily laughing or even smiling.  But it is the satisfaction of the soul.  That is joy.  And you are never going to know that satisfaction of the soul without Jesus Christ. 

You may find some happiness in the world for a season or two. You may get rich, you may gain the world, but without Christ you lose your own soul. Jesus said, “What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” But when you gain Jesus, you gain life, you gain joy, you gain fellowship with God.  You gain it all.

Reject Christ and you have everything to lose.  Claim Christ and you have everything to gain.  It should be an easy choice.  Call upon Jesus today and be given the everlasting, eternal, fulfilled life of God. God invites you today to have fellowship with Him through faith in Jesus Christ His Son.

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The Parable of the Talents, Matthew 25:14-30

Jesus declared about Himself in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except by Me.” What He is saying is that through Him is the way of life, real life, abundant life, spiritual life. He said in John 10:10 “I have come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.” He isn’t talking about having a good life, or living the good life, receiving material blessings from God. When He speaks about abundant life He is talking about spiritual life. And to have spiritual life Jesus said you must be born again, in the spirit, by the Spirit.

Now that point was made in the parable we looked at last week, the parable of the 10 virgins. Five were foolish, five were wise. Five had oil for their lamps, five did not have oil. And we said last week that the oil represented the indwelling of the Spirit of Christ. Those virgins that did not have the Spirit did not enter into the marriage supper. Those that did have the Spirit entered into the celebration of the bridegroom. And that was illustrative of the fact that if you do not have the Spirit of Christ you are not His. Paul said in Romans 8:9 “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” So he makes it plain that having or not having the Spirit of Christ is the qualifying factor for entry into the fullness of life in the kingdom of heaven.

In the next section of the Olivet Discourse, directly following the parable of the 10 virgins, Jesus gave another parable. He makes this next parable contingent upon the statement at the end of the parable of the 10 virgins which is vs 13, “Be on the alert then, for you do not know the day nor the hour.” I say He makes the next parable contingent upon that statement, because He is emphasizing the sudden appearance of His second coming. At the second coming it will precipitate a judgment upon the life of man, either to be found belonging to Him, or not.

Jesus describes that event in vs 31, directly following this parable. “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.”

This parable of the talents then is given to illustrate that judgment. It is given to illustrate the fact that Christ’s second appearing will precipitate a judgement of the living and the dead; the truly spiritual life and the natural life. Those that have spiritual life will enter into the joy of the Lord. Those that do not have spiritual life will be cast out into outer darkness.

Now it’s important to realize at the outset that is what Jesus is talking about here. Because the common misconception is that this parable has something to do with being judged by what we have done with whatever natural talents that we might have. And obviously, the word talent that is used in the parable has led to that misunderstanding. It also feeds into our own narcissistic view of Christianity. The view that tends to equate Christianity with what we deem to be physical blessings, which we think is God giving us things such as prosperity or some special giftedness by which we can play the piano, or play guitar, or sing or any number of other things we tend to think of as talents or abilities.

Now I do believe that we are going to be judged to some degree on what we have done with our lives in regards to our stewardship of our money, time, opportunities, responsibilities and abilities. Paul said in Romans 14:12 “ So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God.” And Jesus said the same thing in Matt. 12:36 “But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment.”

But even though it is true that we shall give an account for every word and deed, I don’t believe that is what Jesus is referring to specifically here. What I think He is specifically referring to here is the judgement that will determine that have real spiritual life, and those that do not. To use Christ’s own analogies, it is the judgement of the sheep and the goats, the wise virgins and the foolish virgins, the house built on the rock and the house built on sand, the wheat and the tares.

In this sermon, Jesus is illustrating the nature of the kingdom of heaven. It is the kingdom over which Christ rules, but not everyone in it has submitted to Him as Lord. Those that have receive an inheritance in the kingdom. They belong to Christ. They are born of God, sons and daughters of God. Those that have not submitted to Him as Lord and King will at His return be judged by the King, and then they will be cast out of the kingdom into outer darkness.

Jesus gives three parables to illustrate the principle of His coming again in judgment. The first was given in chapter 24, the parable of the fig tree. When you see the branches budding, know that summer is near, and He is near, right at the door. The point being the suddenness of Christ’s appearing.

The second parable is the parable of the ten virgins. And we saw that the criteria for being ready when He appears is that you have the Spirit of Christ indwelling in you. Now the third parable of the talents illustrates that same principle from another perspective. This parable illustrates the criteria for being ready when He appears is that you have spiritual life. If you are truly born again of the Spirit then you will have life in the spirit, and that spiritual life will be evidenced by the fruit of the Spirit.

Now let’s consider the parable to see how Jesus presents this truth and this warning to be ready for His appearing. Jesus says, “For [it is] just like a man [about] to go on a journey, who called his own slaves and entrusted his possessions to them.” The word “it” refers to the kingdom of heaven. He is making an analogy to the kingdom of heaven. Jesus isn’t trying to say everything that can be said about the kingdom of heaven. This is not going to be an all inclusive statement here that will answer every question concerning the kingdom. But He is presenting really just a couple of principle aspects of it here.

What He is presenting is the certainty of the Lord’s return, the judgment that will happen at His return, and the fruit that will be evident in the life of the Christian. So Jesus says it is like a man who is about to go on a journey. He is obviously wealthy, and he has a lot of slaves. And he entrusts his possessions to his slaves. This idea of entrusting his possessions is something that we have trouble understanding what it’s analogous to. I would suggest that “his possessions” indicates something of great value.

Look at vs 15; “To one he gave five talents, to another, two, and to another, one, each according to his own ability; and he went on his journey.” Now this word translated as “talent” is the source of a lot of misunderstanding. What a talent refers to is the highest standard of money that was known to the Jews. A talent was worth about fifteen years’ wages of a laborer. Today a talent might represent as much as a million dollars. So it’s a very considerable amount of money that the man entrusts to his slaves. We should recognize that in that day, a slave was often much more than a field hand. They could include any kind of work. In this case, these slaves were some sort of managers of the man’s estate.

What the talent represents then is not an ability, it’s not prosperity or wealth, it’s not what we might call a talent like playing an instrument or being able to perform in some way, but it represents an immense spiritual treasure. And we learned in previous parables of the pearl of great price, or the parable of the treasure hidden in the field, that the greatest spiritual treasure is spiritual life, the abundant life, eternal life. So the talent entrusted to each slave represents being given exposure to the light of the gospel which when received by faith, brings about spiritual life.

Now there are a number of elements about the story that if you try to find a direct correlation to from a spiritual point of view, you’re going to run into trouble. No matter what your template is for interpreting the parable, there are some elements that are going to cause difficulty in finding a direct parallel to the Christian life. We have seen this same difficulty in previously studied parables. So as we have said in our previous studies, we should look for the major point that is being taught, and avoid trying to draw allegorical applications from every dramatic detail.

That’s especially true in this case, as Jesus says one was given five talents, one was given two, and another one. To add even further confusion, Jesus says that they were given according to their own abilities.

The best way that I think we need to see this is that Jesus is the parallel of the master of the estate. Jesus is the King of the kingdom, the Lord who then gives the truth of the gospel, the light of the gospel, to man. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him. So the saving truth, the gospel of Jesus Christ is given to men. And some people are given more exposure to the truth than others.

In other words, He is speaking of the privilege and responsibility of being exposed to the truth of God, to the gospel of Christ. And some people are fives, they’ve been given tremendous privilege. Most of us would have to be considered at least a five on this particular scale, because we have been given great privilege in hearing the Gospel and having been taught the gospel.

On the other hand, there are some people who would be on the level of the one who received one talent. Their exposure to the gospel was more limited. But they still received enough light to believe and to be held accountable for what they knew. Romans 1 teaches that even those who only had the witness of creation had enough light so that they are without excuse. So the talent represents exposure to the light of the gospel.

And so you have a person’s exposure, and their faith, and their responsibility to respond to the light they have recieved, and you can find a parallel there with the number of talents that God gives to each. We have differing privileges spiritually in being exposed to the Gospel. Some have heard it simply and perhaps infrequently. Others have heard it in fully and completely many times and are the more privileged ones. And that privilege results in a corresponding degree of our responsibility.

When Jesus says that they were given talents according to their ability, I think you can draw an analogy from their ability to their degree of faith. Jesus speaks often of a little faith, or of great faith, or according to one’s faith. So there is an element of being given in proportion to faith.

So in the parable, the man given five talents immediately uses that to make five more talents. The man with two talents likewise puts his to work to make two more talents. But the man who has one talent, Jesus says went away, and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.

The first two show a 100% return on the investment given to them. That’s an illustration of saving faith. It receives the gift of spiritual life, and that faith results in regeneration. A new life is born and a new life is lived. Being born of the Spirit they now walk in the Spirit. There is a biblical principle of progressive sanctification. As you learn more, you respond more, you grow more, you mature more in your faith. The seed that was planted in good ground springs up and bears fruit. Jesus said in Matthew 7:16, “You shall know them by their fruit.” So there is a response of faith, which proportionally produces spiritual life.

The slave that only received one talent though, he went away and buried it in the ground. Now there’s the mark of a false servant. There is no response of faith on his part. He heard it, but he buried the truth. He pushed it to the back burner of his mind. And consequently there is no fruit. He illustrates the one who given privilege does not return the opportunity given to him, does not take advantage of it, does not use it. When he hears the Gospel, he doesn’t respond to it by faith. But even though he’s heard it on a limited basis, he is still responsible.

Listen, you could hear it on a level of five talents and not respond. You could hear it on a level of two and not respond. And if you wonder why it is the one talent person that doesn’t respond, it is because the Lord wants to illustrate that the person who would be seem to be the most excusable is not excusable.

If the person with the five-level privilege doesn’t respond, someone might think that God condemned him because he was angry that he wasted such privilege, because he was especially guilty, and so we might assume that hell is only for people who having had great privilege waste it. And so to make sure that that isn’t implied, the Lord picks the one who had only a very limited privilege and lets us know that being cast out of the kingdom will happen to people who waste even a limited privilege. Every person exposed to the Gospel, if they have at all been exposed to the saving truth of Jesus Christ, are inexcusable if they waste that opportunity.

Then, in the parable Jesus says that the day of reckoning comes. The master returns and he calls his slaves to give an account of themselves. Vs19 “Now after a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them.”

The implication there is that the Lord is telling them His coming will be delayed, just like in vs 5 where he said the bridegroom was delayed. Those are veiled ways of telling the disciples that the consummation of the kingdom will not be as soon as they think it is. After a long time, the Lord is going to come. And during the time before he comes, men and women are going to be given the privilege of the gospel, some on a level of five, some on a level of two, some on a level of one. But there will be a day when the Lord comes back to settle accounts.

“The one who had received the five talents came up and brought five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you entrusted five talents to me. See, I have gained five more talents.’ “His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’” Notice that Jesus incorporates the idea of faith as the response of the life that bore fruit. It’s faithfulness to the degree of exposure. To the degree that you acted in response to the knowledge you received, then you are regarded as faithful in a few things.

And because you were faithful in a few things, you will be given more. You will be given more light, more opportunity, more responsibility. At the consummation of the kingdom, when we enter into the age of eternity with the Lord, it will not be a just an eternity of blissful nothingness, of no activity, no productiveness, no service. But it will be a time of continued service to the Lord, but on a larger scale. We will rule and reign with Christ. I don’t know what that will look like exactly, but it will be greater than the service that we rendered here. Greater in position, greater in scope, greater in duration. And our responsibility there will be proportionate to what we achieved in this life. It’s hard to understand. The scripture says, “THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND which HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HEART OF MAN, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM.”

Well, Jesus says that the man who had received two talents produced two more talents, and he received the same commendation and reward as the man who had received five. But then the time came for the man who had received one to give an account. He said, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed. And I was afraid, and went away and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours.’”

So this man produces nothing. He buried that which the Lord had given him. He bore no fruit in keeping with the measure of what had been entrusted to him. He did not enjoin that light given him with faith. He recognized enough to be culpable for doing nothing with the knowledge that he had.

Notice also that its not bad enough that he did nothing, but he also impugns the character of his master. He finds fault with God’s justice. We see that often in our culture today. “I can’t believe in a God that allows such and such to happen in the world.” Rather than seeing in themselves the problem of unbelief, they want to blame their unbelief on God’s character and try to say that He is the problem, not them. He says, “you’re a hard man.” You are too judgmental. You are not loving enough. You are not merciful enough. You expect too much.”

vs 26 “But his master answered and said to him, ‘You wicked, lazy slave, you knew that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I scattered no [seed.] Then you ought to have put my money in the bank, and on my arrival I would have received my [money] back with interest. ‘Therefore take away the talent from him, and give it to the one who has the ten talents.’”

He says, “You wicked and lazy servant. You recognized enough of the truth concerning Me to have done something. But instead you pursued your evil pursuits. You just took the talent and stuck it in the ground. You blocked it out. You made no use of the gospel because it got in your way, the way of your wickedness and the way of your own lifestyle.

Jesus said the master said to the slave, “If you really believed these things about me, reaping where I have not sown, then why didn’t you put that talent in the bank so you could have at least made interest on it?” In other words, even a little faith would have resulted in some degree of return. But this guy didn’t respond at all. He did nothing.

So Jesus concludes this teaching with a summary principle. He says in vs29 “For to everyone who has, [more] shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away.” If you respond in faith, you believe what you have been shown, then God gives you more knowledge, more privilege, more life. But if you do not have, even what you have shall be taken away. That speaks of the judgment. If you do not have spiritual life, then the life which you do have, the temporal, natural life, will be taken away.

That life which will be taken away is our physical life. And Jesus relates that judgment in the parable to the man who had one talent, saying, “Throw out the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” That is death, spiritual and physical death, separated by outer darkness from the kingdom of heaven, separated forever from spiritual life in Christ.

The warning should be clear. Jesus has stated it again and again, and illustrated it three times in parables. “Be on the alert then, for you do not know the day nor the hour when the Lord will come. But He is coming, and on that day He will settle accounts. and to everyone who has, [more] shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away. … 31 “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. … “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; … “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

I pray that you have responded to the light of the gospel by faith, and evidence the fruit of righteousness in your life so that you will be found faithful when He comes.

The Parable of the Ten Virgins, Matthew 25:1-13

This parable is taken from a sermon that Jesus preached which is called the Olivet Discourse. It is found in Matthew 24 and 25 and its a sermon in which Jesus speaks about His second coming. And this particular parable is a warning parable. There are several such warning parables in this sermon.

The disciples had asked Him the question, which initiated the sermon, “When shall these things be?” In other words, they wanted to know the time of the second coming, the time of the establishing of the Kingdom, the time of setting up the Messiah’s rule on the earth. His answer came in chapter 24, verse 36, “Of that day and hour knows no man, no, not the angels of heaven nor the Son, but my Father only.” He repeated it in verse 42, “Watch, therefore, for you know not what hour your Lord comes.” He repeated it in verse 44, “Therefore be also ready for in such an hour as you think not, the Son of man comes.” He also repeated it in verse 50 where He says, “will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour which he does not know.”

And Jesus repeats this principle again in this parable, in chapter 25:13. “Be on the alert then, for you do not know the day nor the hour.” This parable’s intention is to teach us the suddenness and the unexpectedness of the coming of the Lord which should call us to be ready so that we are not unprepared for His coming.

Now when He introduces this parable by saying the kingdom of heaven is to be comparable to… we should be clear as to what the phrase, “the kingdom of heaven” refers to. The kingdom of heaven, or the kingdom of God, refers to the same thing. It was prophesied as coming with the prophets up to and including John the Baptist. The kingdom of heaven was inaugurated with the birth of the King, Jesus Christ and as His ministry commenced, it was said, the kingdom of heaven is here, it is in your midst. The kingdom of heaven then is not something in the future, but it is in effect now, as Jesus Christ reigns as king of kings and Lord of Lords, in heaven at the Father’s right hand, and His kingdom is over the world – over all the world, both the righteous and the unrighteous.

The ministry of Christ and His apostles then, and our ministry, is to tell the world how they may enter into the blessings of the kingdom of heaven. How they might become citizens of the kingdom, sons and daughters of the king, part of the court of the king, part of His administration. But everyone on earth is in one sense a part of the Kingdom of God, they are subject to Him whether they recognize Him as King or not. But only those that receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior inherit the blessings of the kingdom of heaven. They are made a part of His kingdom. Everyone who rejects Him as Lord is in rebellion, and one day they will receive judgment fitting to their rebellion. Jesus talks about that judgment at the end of this sermon in vs 32, saying in vs31-34, 41 “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. … 41 “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.”

That day of judgment is consummated at His return to earth to claim His kingdom. He will destroy all those that rebelled against Him. He will consume with fire the earth and all that is in it. And He will make all things new, a new heavens and a new earth. And He will take His seat on His throne and righteousness will dwell on the earth, and those that are His people shall live in the new heavens and new earth with Him forever, whereas those who rejected Him will be cast out of the kingdom into outer darkness.

Let me just give you a couple of glimpses of that day which are found at the end of John’s book of Revelation. I just want to pick out a few phrases which help illustrate this idea of how God’s plan for His kingdom come about at the end of the age. [Rev 19:11, 13, 15-16. “And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it [is] called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. … 13 [He is] clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. … 15 From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”

And over in Rev 21:1-3 “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer [any] sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them.”

Now that passage which refers to the church as the bride of Christ is especially significant in light of this parable that we are looking at today. The church is often referred to as the bride of Christ. That analogy is better understood if you understand the way in which Jewish weddings were conducted in those days. There were three stages to a Jewish wedding in the times. The first stage was engagement – a formal agreement made by the fathers. The second was betrothal – the ceremony where mutual promises are made. The third was the consummation of the marriage – approximately one year later when the bridegroom came at an unexpected time for his bride and there was a marriage supper and then the bridegroom took his wife to her new home. That explains the frequent mention in scripture of the marriage supper of the Lamb, which is the time directly following the Lord’s return for the church, as a celebration of the beginning of the eternal age in which we reign with Christ forever.

So as we consider this parable which Jesus gives in the context of His return to claim His bride and consummate His kingdom, we notice that He begins by saying, “then.” He is referring to the time of His appearing. The parable is meant to teach us that Jesus is coming. That He is coming to judge sinners and to reward the righteous. That He is coming in a sudden and unexpected moment and everyone should be prepared. And afterward there will be no second chance. People may knock all they want, but the door will be shut. The day of opportunity will be past.

Jesus begins this parable by speaking of 10 virgins, which would be the modern day equivalent of 10 bridesmaids. That’s who these young women were. There is no special spiritual significance to virgins other than that they are supposed to be part of the wedding party. They have been invited to participate in the wedding. “Then the kingdom of heaven will be comparable to ten virgins, who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.”

Theologians like to debate inconsequential things in scripture. And there seems to be a debate on what the lamp was like. Whether it was more of a torch on a stick or a small hand held lamp which had a bowl of oil and a floating wick, it really doesn’t matter. They both depend upon oil as the fuel for the fire.

The significant thing is that Jesus says five of the virgins were wise and five were foolish. Wisdom and foolishness are often used in the Old Testament scriptures as well as in the teaching of Christ as a simile for salvation or damnation. If you are wise you build your house upon the rock, if you are foolish then you build your house upon the sand. That principle of wise or foolish is frequently applied to either salvation or the rejection of salvation.

Now the wisdom or foolishness of the virgins is predicated on the fact that they either brought a supply of oil for their lamps or they did not. Vs 3 “For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the prudent took oil in flasks along with their lamps.” Jesus makes the condition for being either wise or foolish clear; the wise have oil, the foolish do not.

The question that we are left to figure out is what does the oil signify? The lack of oil is shown as a lack of being prepared for the Lord’s return. It is the reason that five of the virgins are considered foolish. It is the reason that five of the bridesmaids are locked out of the wedding feast.

Jesus doesn’t tell us what the oil is. But He does tell us that it is essential for entry into the feast. So we can extrapolate that without oil, whatever that is, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Theologians have long debated this point as well. But the traditional view of the Protestant faith, is that the oil signifies the Holy Spirit. And that would seem to be the most consistent view with scripture.

We know that the Spirit is essential for salvation. In John chapter 3, the quintessential passage of scripture regarding salvation, Jesus tells Nicodemus that you must be born again to enter the kingdom of heaven. He says this in vs 5-6 “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” So salvation comes through being reborn of the Spirit of God. Paul explains it further in Romans 8:9 “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” So he makes it plain that having or not having the Spirit of Christ is the qualifying factor for entry into the kingdom of heaven.

But there is an Old Testament scripture I want to share which also shows this relationship with the Holy Spirit as oil. And perhaps that is the basis for Jesus using oil as analogous to the Holy Spirit. It’s found in the vision of Zechariah in Zech.4:1-6 “Then the angel who was speaking with me returned and roused me, as a man who is awakened from his sleep. He said to me, “What do you see?” And I said, “I see, and behold, a lampstand all of gold with its bowl on the top of it, and its seven lamps on it with seven spouts belonging to each of the lamps which are on the top of it; also two olive trees by it, one on the right side of the bowl and the other on its left side.” Then I said to the angel who was speaking with me saying, “What are these, my lord?” So the angel who was speaking with me answered and said to me, “Do you not know what these are?” And I said, “No, my lord.” Then he said to me, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel saying, ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the LORD of hosts.”

So there we see that the lamp is supplied continuously by the oil and the Lord says that it is by the Spirit that the lamp stand gets it’s light. So I believe we can safely assume that the idea behind what Jesus is teaching here is that at the consummation of the kingdom some will possess the Holy Spirit and some will not, and those who do not will not be able to enter.

Now that is illustrated in the parable. Jesus continues in vs 5 “Now while the bridegroom was delaying, they all got drowsy and [began] to sleep. But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet [him.]’ Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the prudent, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the prudent answered, ‘No, there will not be enough for us and you [too;] go instead to the dealers and buy [some] for yourselves.’ And while they were going away to make the purchase, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding feast; and the door was shut.”

Another aspect of this story that bears consideration is Jesus says the bridegroom was delaying his return. What that means is that there will be a time of waiting for Christ’s return. The time is going to be delayed longer than anticipated. And we have certainly seen that. It’s been 2000 years since the resurrection, since the betrothal, since the bridegroom went away to prepare a house for His bride. And the church has been expecting Christ’s return to be soon ever since. The fact that the women grew drowsy and fell asleep is not given as a condemnation, but simply as an expression of the reality of the church’s expectation beginning to wane.

However, I will say that I am seeing a lot more interest in people lately who are looking at current events and believing that the end of the age must be upon us. And I understand that mentality. We find it hard to believe that things can get much worse. But the fact is that we don’t know the day nor the hour. There have been many other periods of history when circumstances were at least as dire as they are now, if not more so. I would suggest for instance that the time of the second world war would have been an opportune time for Jesus to return according to many people living in that day. There had just been the Great Depression in this country, a nationwide famine, and then these world wars. Hitler would have made a great candidate for the anti-Christ. So I hesitate to look too much at world events and try to draw conclusions about when the Lord has to return. What this parable indicates is that it’s going to be at a time when you don’t expect Him. The fact that they grow drowsy indicates that they don’t seem to think it’s going to be at that time.

But at midnight there was a shout. “Behold the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.” Paul says in 1Thess. 4:16 that the Lord’s return shall be preceded with a shout. “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of [the] archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.”

When the virgins hear the shout, they rise up to meet the bridegroom. They were to raise their lamps and go out to join Him in the procession. But at that point the distinction between the wise and the foolish virgins is made clear. The foolish do not have enough oil, and though they would like to borrow some from the wise virgins, they cannot do so. The wise virgins say, “No, there will not be enough for us and you [too;] go instead to the dealers and buy [some] for yourselves.”

Now Jesus is not speaking literally here of an actual chain of events, but He is speaking allegorically. As I mentioned earlier, in vs 31 of this chapter He speaks more literally of this separation between those who are His and who are outside the kingdom. He speaks of a judgment that will occur when He comes again and takes His throne.

Now back in the parable we see the five foolish bridesmaids return to the site of the wedding to find that the door had already been shut. That phrase is reminiscent of the door that was shut on the Ark in the days of Noah. Jesus had referenced that earlier in this sermon in chapter 24 vs 37, saying, “For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.” If you remember the Genesis account of the flood it says the Lord shut the door to the ark. And likewise, the coming of the Lord effectively shuts the door to the kingdom of heaven.

Notice the foolish virgins begged the groom to open the door, crying out, “Lord, Lord!” In the Bible, the repetition of a name often communicated intimacy, such as “Abram, Abram!” or “Absalom, Absalom! or Mary, Mary!” It indicates that those being turned away looked at the bridegroom with a degree of intimacy. They thought that they knew Him, they thought that they belonged to Him. Yet, the bridegroom replied that he did not know them. 

Jesus speaks of a similar thing in another sermon, one known as the Sermon on the Mount. He said in that instance in Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven [will enter.] “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’”

When Jesus says, “I never knew you,” He is not speaking in a cognitive sense, but in a personal and familial sense. He is saying “You do not belong to me.” “You are not of Me.” They were not born of the Spirit, and so they do not belong to the Lord. “I do not know you.” That’s a tragic, horrible sentence of condemnation to give to someone who obviously thought that they belonged to the kingdom of God.

This parable is not speaking about pagans who have never heard the gospel. Rather, it speaks of the danger towards those who claimed faith in Christ but have never been born again. It is a warning that while there is still time before the coming of Jesus Christ, it is not too late to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus. The Bible says that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

I’m afraid that there are possibly many people in the church today, who profess to know Jesus, but Jesus does not know them. They are not His. The difference is they have not been born of the Spirit. In the parable Jesus says half the virgins were not allowed into the wedding feast. We can extrapolate from that possibly 50% of people that are “in the church” are not actually saved. When I look at the church on a national scale, those that consider themselves to be Christians, I don’t think that number is an exaggeration. 

This parable calls all professing Christians to examine themselves. To prayerfully to discern whether they truly have been born again. Jesus concludes the parable by saying, ““Be on the alert then, for you do not know the day nor the hour.” In other words, He is saying, “wake up.” Consider your situation carefully. Don’t be lulled into sleep by apathy. Call upon the Lord while He may be found. Make certain of your calling.

Isaiah 55:6-7 says, “Seek the LORD while He may be found; Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way And the unrighteous man his thoughts; And let him return to the LORD, And He will have compassion on him, And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon.”

The Lord is coming back soon. It could be today. It could be tonight while we are sleeping. We don’t know the day or the hour. But it will be at a time when we are not expecting it. And His coming will be a sudden, final judgment which will shut the door of opportunity for salvation. I pray that you are wise, and evaluate the time, and make sure of your salvation.

The Parable of the Lost Son, Luke 15:11-32

Today we are looking at possibly the best known and the best loved parable that we have been given in the scriptures.  It is popularly known as the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Prodigal is a word that means wastefully extravagant, to spend or use resources recklessly.  It’s interesting that the word prodigal is not used in the Biblical account of Jesus’s words.  He never used that word.

Just to be contrary, I guess, I came up with what I think is a better title.  I am calling it The Parable of the Lost Son. I’ve heard many other possible titles over the years, but I feel that I have good reason to call it the Parable of the Lost Son because if you notice it is part of a trilogy of parables that Jesus gave on the same occasion, in response to the criticism of the Pharisees and scribes who were grumbling about Him, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”

So if you notice the first two parables that Jesus gives, you will see that in the first parable it’s a parable of the lost sheep.  The shepherd leaves the 99 sheep and goes after the one that was lost.  And the second parable is the parable of the lost coin.  The woman has 10 coins, loses one, and looks for that one until she finds it.

In both of those parables, Jesus emphasizes the fact that they were lost, and they were found.  And so I think it is obvious that this next parable follows the same template, but just as an expanded version.  And as with the previous two parables, this parable concludes with the same type of expression;  Jesus says, “for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live, and was lost and has been found.”

What being lost indicates is that a person is without salvation. When Christianity first started it was called “the Way.” And so to miss the way to life is to be lost.  And so in this parable we will see how the way of salvation is offered and received.  We also can see from the first two parables that salvation originates from God.  In the first  parable the shepherd goes to seek the lost sheep.  The sheep isn’t looking for the shepherd, but the shepherd is looking for the sheep.  It’s a picture of what Jesus said in Luke 19:10 “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

That same principle is being emphasized in the second parable of the lost coin.  The woman who owned the coins seeks for the lost coin until she finds it.  Again a picture of the origin of our salvation is God.  As Psalm 3:8 “Salvation belongs to the LORD.”  So we understand that our salvation originates with God seeking us,  quickening us, with Him opening our eyes, and causing us to be convicted of our need for salvation.

But in this third parable of the lost son, the divine origin of our salvation is not emphasized as much, but rather the sinner’s response is emphasized.  Jesus said that the lost son “came to his senses.” He had a spiritual awakening.  We know that salvation originates with God, but nevertheless it necessitates a response from the sinner.  It is necessary for the sinner to respond to the call of salvation. And so in this parable Jesus emphasizes the response of the sinner.

Let’s look at the parable to learn what Jesus is teaching concerning salvation. Jesus said a man had two sons, and the younger son asked the father to give him his inheritance early. This would have been a brash and offensive demand to make.  Basically, the young man was saying that “I can’t wait for you to die to get my inheritance. I want it now.”  The  young man doesn’t want to live under his father’s rule anymore, but he wants to cash out so he can live the way he wants. But nevertheless, the father figured out what part the son should receive and he divided it up and gave him his share.  

The younger son then gathered all that he had, and left home, going to a distant country.  And Jesus said that while there he squandered his estate with loose living.  He wasted his inheritance in riotous living. That’s quite common among young people, to want to leave home and go somewhere that they can live without fear of reprisal by their parents or people that know them. But in pursuing this reckless lifestyle he wasted all the wealth that his father had given him.

We could dramatize this part of the story and add a lot of embellishments in hopes of making this a more relevant, or more exciting story.  But the simplified way that Jesus tells it should suffice to understand that God has given us the blessing of life, but man wants to live according to what he thinks is good and beneficial, and so he seeks to satisfy the lusts of the flesh and the pride of life in the world, according to what the world says is desirable.  But this sinful lifestyle ends in ruin.

After the son spent all his money, a severe famine came upon the land. Without any resources to fall back on, the son was compelled to earn a living by taking care of pigs. The young man was so hungry that he would have gladly eaten the food that he was feeding to the pigs. Pigs were the most unclean of all animals in the eyes of a Jew, so Jesus uses this picture to show the extent of this man’s uncleanness.  To a Jew, he could not be more unclean.  And I think Jesus adds that element to the story to illustrate that we have to come to a point of recognizing our sin for what it is, and the horror of the depravity of our sin.


Finally, the son “came to himself” and realized the severity of his situation. It’s as if he had a great awakening, his eyes were opened, and he saw his situation for what it really was. At certain times, God awakes people to their spiritual predicament.  And it takes an act of God for such a person to come awake out of their blindness. There was an event in this country in the eighteenth century which was called the Great Awakening.  It was a time when God moved to bring this nation to revival.  He used men like George Whitfield, and John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards. 

Jonathan Edwards is known for one sermon in particular; Sinner’s in the Hands of an Angry God. God used this powerful message to break in to the conscience of the people, so that they felt the full weight of their sin, and they turned in repentance to the Lord.  Repentance really is the key to salvation that is expressed in all three parables here in this chapter.

Notice that in the first parable, even though the sheep showed no signs of seeking God, yet Jesus summarizes it by saying, ““I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”  Yes, God awakens, and God calls, and God initiates salvation, but it is necessary for sinners to repent.

The same principle is emphasized in the second parable of the lost coin.  When it was found, Jesus said in vs10 “In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Once again, repentance is not specifically taught by the story of  the woman who found the coin that was lost, but Jesus adds that in order to show that repentance is a necessary part of salvation.

In the parable of the lost son, Jesus doesn’t say specifically that he repented, but the characteristics of repentance are clearly there.  When he came to his senses, he showed an awareness of the depravity of his sinful condition, and he recognized his need to turn from the path he was on, and return to the father. That’s repentance. It says in vs17-19  “But when he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have more than enough bread, but I am dying here with hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight;  I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired men.”’

Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son, make me as one of your hired men.”  That is repentance, pure and simple.  He knows that he has sinned against God, and against his father.  And consequently, he is willing to turn away from that and live in service to the father if he would just accept him and forgive him.  Repentance is not just feeling sorry for the situation you find yourself in, feeling sorry for the consequences of your sin.  But true repentance is being willing to do a 180.  True repentance is being willing to die to  your reign over your life, and being willing to live for God under His reign. That is what is meant by Paul when he says in Romans 10:9 “if you confess Jesus as Lord… you shall be saved.  You relinquish the throne, and submit to Jesus as Lord.

Part of this young man’s problem was that he was in rebellion against his father.  He wanted to live as he thought best rather than submit to the father’s rule of the house.  And that is a picture of the sinner’s rebellion, wanting to live as master of their destiny, as the lord of their own house, rather than live under the control and authority of God. But when he realized that his situation was hopeless he decided to seek his father’s forgiveness.  He had a repentant heart. And it should be obvious that without that repentance, he would have remained in the same sinful condition that he was in.  2Cor. 7:10 says, “For the sorrow that is according to [the will of] God produces a repentance without regret, [leading] to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death.”

So the repentant son made the return journey to his father’s home, planning to confess his sin to his father. He rehearsed what he would say to his father, whom perhaps he imagined would be unsympathetic to the idea of him coming home.  So he would say he was no longer worthy to be called a son, but that he hoped to be hired as a servant in his father’s household. 

But long before he was even close to the house, the father saw him coming.  Jesus said, “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.”  That is the most beautiful part of the story, isn’t it?  Being a father, and having had a father, I kind of get a lump in my throat every time I read that part.

His father wasn’t sitting there in front of the television, grumbling about that “no good son of mine, that ungrateful, sorry no good you know what.”  No, the indication is that the father was out looking for the son every day.  He would walk out in the middle of the road and stand there looking at the direction his son had left, hoping and praying that one day he might return.  And you can just imagine after such a long time,  how one day, the father spotted a lone figure coming down the road, way off in the distance.  The resemblance seemed faintly familiar.  And then his breath caught in his chest as he began to believe that it was his son walking back down that road. 

Men in those days wore long robes and it was definitely considered undignified for the patriarch of the tribe to be seen running.  But this father couldn’t care less what people might think.  His compassion towards his son was so great that he hiked up his robe around his waist and started running down the dusty road while his son was still way off in the distance.  Remember what we said about compassion last week in the parable of the Good Samaritan?  It’s a love that moves you.  It’s a love that calls for action.  It’s pity, and empathy, and sympathy and love all rolled up into a great big emotional roller coaster that compels you to do whatever you can to help this person in need. Jesus said the father felt compassion for the lost son, and so he started running. 

What a tremendous picture that is of our God who pursues us, who seeks for us, who finds us, who calls us, who draws us to Himself.  What compassion that caused Him to come to our rescue, to become our sacrifice, our substitute, so that we might be saved. God is not unmoved, but He has moved heaven and earth to be our Savior and Lord.

The lost son started to say the words that he had rehearsed, but the father interrupted him.  He knew that the son was repentant, otherwise he would not be walking home down this road.  But he wanted to restore him, to show his love for him, and to renew him.  So he  said to his servants, ‘Quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet; and bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.’ And they began to celebrate.

The father fully forgave and restored his son. He embraced his son and kissed him. Instead of rebuking him, he restores his place in the family.  He summoned the servants to bring him fine clothes that were fit for a son in his house, and a ring for his finger which was a symbol of his place in the family as a son. And he ordered his servants to prepare a great feast to celebrate the return of the lost son.  He was lost, and has been found.  He was dead and has come to life again.  Such a picture of our salvation.

Well, that would be enough of a story for me if Jesus had just stopped there.  I kind of wish that He would have.  Because this last section has among certain theologians overshadowed the first part of the story.  And I think that is a mistake.  I think the first part of this story is the main part of the story.  Its’ the story of salvation; the story of repentance and restoration.

But nevertheless, Jesus added this last section for good reason.  Let’s see if we can find out why.  The older brother heard the noise of the celebration as he was returning from working in the field. And he asks the servants what’s going on.  Their answer angered him.  “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has received him back safe and sound.”  And because of his anger he would not go in to the celebration.

His father came out of the house and began pleading with him. “But he answered and said to his father, ‘Look! For so many years I have been serving you and I have never neglected a command of yours; and yet you have never given me a young goat, so that I might celebrate with my friends; but when this son of yours came, who has devoured your wealth with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.’

“And he said to him, ‘Son, you have always been with me, and all that is mine is yours.‘But we had to celebrate and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live, and was lost and has been found.’”

Now what is Jesus saying in this section? I think the answer is very simple and straightforward.  I think it was a gentle rebuke of the Pharisees. Remember at the beginning of this chapter?  The scribes and Pharisees were grumbling because tax collectors and sinners were coming to Jesus.  They said, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”

I think the Pharisees were jealous of the fact that grace was being shown to sinners.  They thought they had stayed home, so to speak, and obeyed the Father, while these sinners had been living in the world and doing all kinds of things that were against the commandments.  They wanted to see such people punished and their own behavior rewarded.  But Jesus makes the point that we are saved by grace, not by works.  And only when you realize that you are sinner in need of grace, and are willing to repent of your sins, can you be saved.  And I think he makes the point that if you have been truly saved by grace, you will not begrudge others that come to salvation by grace, and in fact you will rejoice over them, along with all the hosts of heaven.

“As the father said in the parable, ‘But we had to celebrate and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live, and was lost and has been found.’”  Let’s not lose sight of the primary message of this story, how the lost son was found, how the dead have begun to live.  It’s the story of the compassion of the Father being so great, that his mercy resulted in forgiveness, and his grace resulted in restoration and life.  Let us be sure we have returned to the Father in faith and repentance, confessing our sins, and asking for restoration and new life.  And not be found as the Pharisees, thinking they had no need of repentance because they trusted in their good deeds. Jesus came to seek and to save those that were lost.  Recognizing that you are lost, and in repentance turning to the Lord is the way to life. 

Isaiah 55:6-7 says, “Seek the LORD while He may be found; Call upon Him while He is near.  Let the wicked forsake his way And the unrighteous man his thoughts; And let him return to the LORD, And He will have compassion on him, And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon.”

The Church’s acceptance of one another, Romans 14:1-12

I grew up as a preacher’s kid. I was raised in a home that was practically an extension of the church.  We lived next door to the church in the parsonage, and so it seemed we were in church for one reason or another almost every day.  Being a preacher’s kid you can’t get away from the church. 

My dad was what they used to call a fire and brimstone preacher.  The church doctrine my dad preached was a little towards what might be labeled today as legalistic.  We had very strict convictions.  We didn’t believe that as a Christian you could smoke, or drink, or go to movies or dances or listen to certain types of music.  And growing up in the sixties and seventies, we made sure that everyone could tell we were Christians by the way we cut our hair and what type of clothes we wore.

What made those sort of standards even a little harder to bear was our attitude towards anyone who didn’t share our convictions.  Unfortunately, a lot of times anyone coming with a different perspective was not made to feel welcome and in fact often made to feel ostracized.  They either went along with the beliefs of the church or they soon left. That type of conflict in the church is what Paul is addressing in this chapter.  It is a conflict over non essentials – things that are necessary wrong or right, just a matter of personal standards and convictions.  

Now there are things that as Christians we should not tolerate.  As the church we should rebuke and convict Christians who are living in sin or giving into sin.  Sin is non negotiable. Sin destroys. Sin kills.  Sin condemns.  Jesus died to deliver us from sin; it’s penalty, it’s power over us, and it’s presence.  And so as His people whom He has redeemed, we are cleansed from all sin.  Not to claim that we never will sin again as long as we are in this fleshly body, but we certainly now want to abstain from sin, to repent from sin, and live in righteousness.  So the church has a responsibility to condemn sin and to rebuke those who fall into sin.

Now in the church I grew up in,  there were a lot of things wrong with our attitude towards others who didn’t share our convictions in that church.  But I will say that there was something that we got right.  And that is that the church was central to our Christian life.  Today’s message is not going to even seem relevant in the least to most of us here today because to our way of thinking, the church is non essential.  At the most we go to church three or four hours a month, and our fellowship with others in the church is almost non existent.  But I can tell you that is not what the Bible teaches. Look at the descriptions of early church life and you will see that they were connected on a daily basis with one another.  It was their new home, new family.  But today we are so far removed from that as to make this passage of scripture practically immaterial to us. However, it is not a non essential to the Lord, and I am going to give due diligence to teach these principles in hope that we rise up to the standard of church which the Bible teaches is essential to our Christian life.

Now there are a lot of aspects of how we might worship the Lord in the church that may be matters of differences in Biblical interpretation, or matters of personal conviction.  There are some areas that the Bible does not specifically speak to. These are areas that are not sinful, but matters of personal preferences based on someone’s understanding. And Paul is addressing those aspects of Christian living that may have arisen out of a cultural background or religious background.  He is speaking to the Roman church which was probably the most multi-cultural church in the world at that time.  At the very least there were Jews and Greeks and Romans who were a part of that church.  There were people that had come out of strict Judaism and those who had come out of paganism. There were former idol worshippers, and former worshipers of Jehovah. 

At the beginning of this epistle Paul had written in Romans 1:16 “I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God unto salvation to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”  That means that the gospel is the means of salvation for both Jews and Gentiles, transferring all believers, regardless of their national heritage, from whatever their previous religious background, into one new entity, which is the church. The church is their new community, their new family.  Paul spends the first 11 chapters of Romans explaining the theology and doctrine of how that is accomplished in Jesus Christ so that we are made new creatures, given a new life, unified with other parts of the same body, and that body is Christ’s church.  But then the practical side of how that works out starts in chapter 12 and following, as the logistics of making this diverse group into community comes into play.  How that is accomplished requires some practical input from Paul in order to form all these different groups into one unified body.

So starting in chapter 12 Paul starts talking about the practical applications of church doctrine, how the church is to worship, how the church is to use spiritual gifts, how the church is to love one another, how the church is to love the world, and love their neighbor, and how the church is to submit to the governing authorities. Now in chapter 14, Paul turns our attention to how the church is to accept one another.  

And Paul breaks down the church into two positions, what he calls the strong and the weak. Oddly enough, it would seem that what he calls strong we might call weak, and vice versa.  But according to Paul’s perspective, he calls the person who exercises more freedom in the area of personal convictions the strong, and the one who has more legalistic convictions the weak.  Now I am not going to address which perspective is right or wrong, because that is not Paul’s concern in this passage.  The issue here is not sinful actions on the part of the church, but differences in personal convictions of how they are to serve the Lord which may not always that clearly presented in scripture. 

Now in vs 1 Paul states the premise of his argument, saying, “Now accept the one who is weak in faith, [but] not for [the purpose of] passing judgment on his opinions.”  What Paul wants to do is to address the issue of treating one another in the church with contempt, or disdain or undue criticism because the other person does not hold the same view of certain convictions that you do.

Now as we look at these first 12 verses of chapter 14, we can break this down into four points, or four reasons we are to accept one another.The first reason for the strong to accept the weak, and for that matter, for the weak to receive the strong, is that God accepts them.  Verse 2.  “For one believes that he may eat all things.” One person, for example, believes he can eat anything.  He doesn’t have any dietary constraints.  He’s not bound by the old Mosaic ceremony, dietary laws.  On the other hand, there are others who being weak eat only vegetables. 

Now it’s very likely that this conviction not to eat meat was because a lot of the meat that was sold in the meat markets in Rome was originally offered to idols in the pagan temples and then resold. That seems to be the case in the Corinthian church as we see from Paul’s letters to them.  But irregardless of how they arrived at that conviction, Paul says that the issue is how you react to their convictions.  How you are to respect them and not condemn them or make it a point of breaking fellowship over something like eating or not eating meat.

But the issue is not the health benefits of vegetarianism verses the benefit of eating meat.  That may be a cultural issue for a lot of people today.  But the Bible doesn’t make eating meat an issue. 1 Timothy 4;4 says in regards to abstaining from certain foods, , “For every creature of God is good and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer.”  And in Acts 10 the Lord showed Peter in a vision all kinds of animals, both clean and unclean, and God said to him “Kill and eat” and afterward said, “Do not  call unclean what I have cleansed.”  So the strong position is technically right.  You can eat anything.  There are no dietary restrictions.  We are no longer under the laws of Moses. 

But Paul isn’t even attempting to address the legality of eating here.  All he’s saying is whether they’re Gentile or Jew and for whatever reason in their tradition, there are those who don’t restrict  what they eat and there are those who do for one reason or another.  But the principle comes in verse 3.  “Let not him that eats despise him that doesn’t eat.”  Don’t despise the one who doesn’t eat.  The issue really is how we are to love one another in the church.  We can’t love one another if we are critical of one another, if we make distinctions between ourselves which separate us.

This is so important in the church because there are always those liberated folks who want to condemn the people who are much more restricted in their thinking.  And there’s always that danger of a critical spirit.  We call them legalists, or worse.  But on the other hand, he says in verse 3, “And let not him who eats not,” that’s the weak who won’t eat because he’s afraid he’ll violate some tradition, “let him not  condemn the one that eats.”  So the strong should not  look with contempt on the weak and the weak should not look with condemnation on the strong. 

And so it is a factor that within the church of Jesus Christ, there are those who see certain freedoms in Christ and they condemn those who do not have their views, and there are those who do understand they have certain restrictions and they tend to despise those who don’t share their views.  And that is the potential schism which Paul wants to deal for the sake of unity in the church which is so essential to fellowship. 

So here’s  reason number one: Why we’re to accept one another; and we see that the end of verse 3, “For God has accepted him.”  Why are you to accept them? Because God has accepted them. If the Lord accepts the brother who has difficulty with certain things and so he doesn’t do them, then we ought to accept such a person.  And if the Lord accepts the person who sees liberty in certain things, then we ought to accept such a person.  So that we may be one in the church. One in the body.

Reason number two for accepting one another, is the Lord sustains each believer.  Notice what verse 4 says,  “Who are you to judge the servant of another?” You have no right to evaluate someone else’s servant. If he believes he is being obedient to his Lord then you have no right to criticize him.

So who is the master of the weak brother?  It’s the Lord.  Who is the master of the strong brother?  It’s the Lord.  Then it is going to be Christ’s own evaluation of the believer that matters and He will see whether that believer stands or falls, whether that believer succeeds or fails. And what will be the result?  Look at it in verse 4.  “And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.” So if he belongs to the Lord, you don’t need to worry about him, because the Lord will sustain him. 

I actually think this is speaking to some degree in regards to discipline of the Lord as opposed to discipline of the church. There are some things that are between you and the Lord, and therefore, discipline should be of the Lord and not of someone else.  Back in chapter 13 Paul laid down some principles for love towards one another in the church, saying in general that love does no harm to a neighbor.  So by extension, when you sin against a brother in the church it may be necessary to take that person to the church for discipline.  But in this case, this is not sinning against a brother.  It’s not the sin of adultery or stealing from your brother which has to be mediated by the church if he does not repent.  There is no sin here against someone.  This is between him and God.  And God is able to make him see the truth and change his perspective.   So it’s not our business to be critical towards him.

Reason number three for accepting one another;  the Lord is sovereign to each.  Paul’s point in verses 5 to 9 is that even though the practice in these non- moral areas of ceremony and custom and tradition and standards may vary according to the individual, the goal and motive is the same. 

And the goal is the same because he believes in his heart he is pleasing the Lord.  Why does a strong brother celebrate the freedoms that he’s given in Christ?  Because in his heart he believes that in doing so he pleases the Lord. And the weak brother restricts his activities because he believes that doing so pleases the Lord.  So the motive is the same in both cases.

Let me make sure though that you understand that weakness as Paul speaks of it here, doesn’t mean weak faith in terms of saving faith, but being too weak to believe that you really have the freedom you have. He may be afraid to exercise freedom in that area because he knows it will be a temptation to him to fall into sin.  So being weak in faith is not synonymous with being carnal.  It is not the same as being carnal, or fleshy, or disobedient or sinful. It may be the result of a lot of things, like upbringing, or even immaturity.  They may recently been saved out of a cultish kind of false religion that still affects their views on certain things.  And on the other hand, there are  strong believers who exercise their freedom but who can be very fleshy, or very worldly.  But the issue here is not rebelliousness or sinfulness, but a sincere desire to serve the Lord as a Christian and how they may view certain things that they may not have come to the point of being able to accept.

Another example of that is in verse 5.  “One man esteems one day above another.  Another esteems every day the same.”  If you were saved out of Judaism, you might think that there were some days more important than other days.  For example the Sabbath, and feast days and festivals and holy days. So the veneration of these days, according to Paul, is considered a weakness. That’s why in Colossians 2:16 Paul says don’t let anybody judge you in regards to new moons and Sabbaths and feast days. That’s why he says virtually the same thing in Galatians 4:9 and 10. 

But some people want to sanctify certain days. They want to hold on to those.  Other people look at every day the same.  I can remember as a little boy, because Sunday was considered a day of rest, we couldn’t do a lot of things on Sunday. We would come home and we would eat a big dinner. Gluttony was not an issue.  We would eat a huge meal.  And then we were supposed to rest.  As a boy, that was hard to do.  I think after a while my parents gave up on us trying to keep Sunday as a rest day. 

So how are we supposed to respond to this distinction that some people have in regards to sanctifying certain days?  “Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.”  Just do whatever you think you ought to do.  You might ask, “Well, how could you say that?”  Because it’s not a moral issue.  The Sabbath is not an issue. Paul has no concern at all with Sabbaths and feast days and festivals and all of that.  

I hate to jump ahead to next week’s message, but look at verse22:  “The faith which you have, have as your own conviction before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves.”  So do as you think is right before God.  Not according to what you want to do, but according to what you think is right before God being fully convinced in your own mind.  In other words, make sure your conscience is clear before God. 

What Paul doesn’t want to do is tell someone to violate their conscience.  If you train yourself to ignore your conscience, you’re going to have problems in your Christian life.  Because the Spirit of God leads through the Word of God to speak to your conscience.  And Paul does not want to do anything which might cause you to go against your conscience, because that is one of the ways that God directs our thinking.  He doesn’t want any callouses forming over your conscience because then when it is time for God to prompt you, you’re not going to be responsive.

In verse 6, he says, “He that regards the day,” the person who wants to sanctify a certain day, “regards it to the Lord.”  If he’s concerned about sanctifying that day, he does so for the Lord. “and he who eats, does so for the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who eats not, for the Lord he does not eat, and gives thanks to God.”

The strong brother eats everything he wants and he says, “Thank You, Lord,  for this freedom.  Thank You, Lord, for providing all of this food.”  And the weak brother is eating his restricted diet and he’s saying, “Thank You, Lord, that I can make this sacrifice for you.”  But in both cases, he is thanking the Lord.  He that eats says thanks, he that doesn’t eat says thanks and so the motive in both cases is the same.

Now the caveat to this attitude of the person who doesn’t eat, or who observes a certain day, is that it is not an attempt to earn their salvation.  The people in the church that Paul is speaking of are already Christians. They are believers. They have been transferred into Christ’s church.  So this is in response to their faith.  It is not the means of salvation. But the fruit of their salvation. So let’s make sure we understand that.  The Judaisers believed that you couldn’t be saved unless you had received circumcision.  That, Paul made very clear earlier in this epistle was wrong.  That was false teaching, and he corrected them on that.  But that is not what Paul is talking about here.  He is talking about restrictions that come as a result of their salvation, not as a means of procuring salvation.

So he continues in verse 7, “For none of us lives to himself and not one dies to himself.”  What is he saying? He’s saying as a Christian, as part of the body of Christ,  whether we’re weak or whether we’re strong, we don’t live for our own sake, we live for the the Lord.  1 Cor. 6:19 tells us that our lives are not our own, we are bought with a price.  So our lives are not our own.  We now live for the Lord. We do what He wants us to do. We do the things that are pleasing to Him.

He reiterates this principle in verse 8:  “for if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.”  That statement means that every Christian is under unconditional sovereignty.  Unconditional surrender.  We don’t come to salvation on our terms.  We don’t come to Christ with terms of our surrender.  But we must unconditionally surrender to the sovereignty of the Lord.  We have been bought and paid for.  Our life is not our own.  We serve the Lord as servants to do His will and not our own.  This is a tremendous statement  on the Lordship of Christ and His relation to the believer.  We are the Lord’s.  We are His possession.  We are not our own.

So both the strong and the weaker brother are servants of the Lord.  The weaker brother is the Lord’s servant, and as such what he does he does for the sake of serving the Lord.  The stronger brother is also a servant, and does what he does in the spirit of serving the Lord.  And since these matters are simply matters of preference and not sin, we must not make a rift in the church over them, but accept one another in Christ.  Let’s not break fellowship with someone over things that are not matters of sin, but of personal conviction and personal  preference.

The conclusion is that every Christian lives in light of the sovereign lordship of Christ, each and every one of us.  That’s why 1 Corinthians 15:23 says this little phrase, “They that are Christ’s.”  That principle should be the single greatest inducement to holy living: We are the Lord’s.  You don’t belong to you.  You belong to Him.  Weak or strong, new believer or mature Christian, you live for the Lord.

And just to emphasize that principle again, Paul says in vs 9, “For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.”  That Jesus is Lord is the foundation of our salvation.  Back in chapter 10:9 we read  “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”   Jesus is not just our Savior, He is Lord.  And as our Lord and Master we live for Him and we die for Him.

Whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.  Not even death can separate us from the love of God.  Paul said back in chapter 8:38-39 “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,  nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Notice that, not even death.  In death we are the Lord’s.  Paul said in another place, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.  That is our eternal security.  We belong to the Lord.  Our life is from the Lord, and we are in the hand of the Lord, whether now or in eternity.

So, we accept one another.  Why?  Because God accepts us on the basis of our faith in Christ.   And the Lord is sovereign over all His servants.  And one last brief point, the Lord alone will be judge over every believer.  So before we start  judging one another, remember this.  The Lord alone will be the judge.  This is a strong rebuke.  Verse 10 “But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.  For it is written, ‘AS I LIVE, SAYS THE LORD, EVERY KNEE SHALL BOW TO ME, AND EVERY TONGUE SHALL GIVE PRAISE TO GOD.’  So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God.”

So the Lord is the supreme judge, and everyone will be judged by Him. We don’t need to be concerned with judging one another lest we be guilty of usurping the position of God.  We had better be more concerned with the fact that we will have to give an account to God ourselves. 

So in conclusion, why do we accept one another?  Because God accepts us, because the Lord can hold us up and He will sustain us, because the Lord is the sovereign over each of us and because ultimately He is the only one who has the right to judge.  Now we’re not talking about sin, we’re talking about these personal areas of convictions.  And so we want to accept one another.  Many conflicts in the church can arise over non-moral, non- essential things and they need to be eliminated.  Let’s drop the contempt, stop the criticism.  Let the Lord be the judge.  Our responsibilty is that we should love one another and accept one another as co-servants of Christ.

Facing death through faith, Hebrews 11:20-29

Undoubtedly, the greatest enemy of man is death.  You sometimes hear people talking about “cheating death,” but the fact is that no one cheats death.  Death is certain.  The scripture says, “It is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment.”  Death was appointed unto man in the Garden of Eden at the fall as the result of man’s disobedience.  And so to a great extent, the whole purpose of the gospel is to deliver men from death.  

1Cor. 15:56-57 says, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law;  but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”   Now that victory over death is given at the beginning of Hebrews as the delivering power of the Lord Jesus.  In chapter 2:14-15 we read, “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”  

So in Christ, by faith in Christ, we are set free from the power of death, and we are set free to live the life which God has designed us to live.  But the key to having that live is that we live by faith in Christ.  It is a faith in progress, a faith that is working, and a faith that perseveres to the end.  

But a distinction has been made, and needs to be reinforced again, that hearing the gospel, even having a sort of intellectual assent to the gospel, does not constitute saving faith.  In chapter 4:1-2 we are warned,  “Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it. For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard.”  So hearing the gospel must be united in faith.  What does that mean? It means to believe and act upon that belief,  in obedience to, or acting in accordance to God’s word.  It is living faith, it is faith that works, faith that trusts and then steps out accordingly. 

We have been given the first 10 chapters of Hebrews to tell us who Christ is, and what He has accomplished for us, and what He is doing presently for us.  But that knowledge must be united by faith in us.  And the result of that faith is life.  Chapter 10:38, “But My righteous one shall live by faith.”  We are saved from death by faith, and we live by faith until death, and our faith will sustain us after death.

Now this principle of faith until death has been illustrated again and again in the heroes of the faith that we have looked at so far in this chapter.  In vs 4 we read of  Abel who was the first man to die in the history of the world.  And he died because of his faith.  He worshipped God the way God desired to be worshipped, and his brother Cain was jealous and killed him for it.  Enoch was the first of only 2 men in history to escape physical  death.  He walked with God and he was not, for God took him.  So his faith delivered him from death. And I think he was given to us as a type, that we might know that God gives life on the basis of our faith, and Enoch walked by faith to an exemplary degree, showing that saving faith is a daily walk, not just an intellectual assent to the truth.

Noah was faced with God’s judgment of death upon the whole world, and his faith delivered him and his family as he was obedient to the word of God.  For 125 years he built the ark, demonstrating the work of faith.  Abraham faced the death of his beloved son, Isaac.  And yet he received life for his son as a result of his obedience by faith in what God had promised; ie, that through Isaac’s descendants one would come through whom the world would be blessed.  Abraham’s great faith was revealed by his offering up Isaac on the altar believing in God’s power to raise the dead  in order to keep His promise. And because of his obedient faith, God supplied a substitute for the sacrifice, delivering Isaac from death.

Now we see three other men listed in quick succession who exhibited faith which endured to the end, that even looked beyond their physical death to the fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham.  Now it’s interesting that if you were to think of these men’s lives, and what times they exhibited their greatest faith, it would be doubtful that you would pick the end of their lives.  But the author of Hebrews is trying to emphasize the type of faith that sees what is invisible, that sees past the physical, that type of faith which produces life which extends beyond the grave.

So first he mentions the faith of Isaac.  There isn’t a whole lot said about Isaac in the scriptures after he and Abraham went up on the mountain to offer him as a sacrifice. I do believe that the indication of scripture is that he had faith as well as his father when he was offered up on the mountain.  But the author of Hebrews does not mention that. Otherwise, we only know He waited a long time to get married.  At 40 years of age his dad had to send a servant to find him a wife.  Then his wife had a hard time getting pregnant, and so he prayed to God and God gave him twins.  That’s pretty much the story of Isaac as we know it.  But at the end of his life, it says in vs20, “By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even regarding things to come.”  

It’s assumed, perhaps, that the readers know the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey used to say.  But for those who need a refresher, you might remember that Jacob and his mother tricked Isaac into giving Jacob the blessing that he had intended for Esau.  Isaac preferred Esau over Jacob and as the eldest son he was due a double blessing.  And when Isaac realized that he had been tricked, you may remember that he trembled, realizing that God’s purposes was able to triumph over his will. And that reinforced his belief that God’s purpose concerning his descendants would be accomplished as well, culminating in the One to come through whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed.

Then in vs.21, Jacob is mentioned. “By faith Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff.”  Jacob as well exhibited great faith even as he was near death, in seeing the future that God had promised to his great grandfather Abraham. And we get a glimpse into the strength of his faith by the phrase, “[he] worshipped, leaning on the top of his staff.”  

You should remember that Jacob leaned on his staff because when he wrestled with the Lord, and wouldn’t let go until He blessed him, the Lord touched him in the hip and he became lame.  And Jacob walked leaning on his staff until the day he died, as a physical reminder of the strength of God’s promise.  And in the strength of that faith, Jacob blessed the sons of Joseph before his death, relating that one day God would take them out of Egypt and return them to the land of promise.

Joseph is mentioned in vs 22.  And I can think of many times in Joseph’s life when I would have thought he exhibited great faith.  But again, this author focuses on the last days of his life, when he gave instructions to his sons to take his bones back to Canaan when God would deliver the Israelites.  All of these men’s exemplary examples of faith was practically on their death bed.  That doesn’t mean that they didn’t have faith before, but what it emphasizes is that they had faith until the end.  Even though they had not seen the fulfillment of the promises made to Abraham, yet they did not waver in unbelief, but they confidently spoke of the future fulfillment and their participation in it. 

Hebrews 11:13 says, “All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.”  They had confident faith in what God had promised, and though they physically were about to die, they believed in God’s ability to perform his promises after their death.

Then in vs23, we are reminded of the faith of Moses.  And Moses is given a much more extensive treatment here than we have seen in the last three patriarchs.  But still, the faith of Moses is given within the context of death.  If you will remember, the story of Moses begins with Pharaoh having determined that all male babies born to the Israelites would be put to death.  And so when he was born, his parents kept him hidden for three months.  And then, when they could no longer hide the fact that they had a baby, they put him in an ark made of bullrushes and pitch and set him on the Nile.  

Now the author tells us that they did they did this because they saw that he was a beautiful child.  The word beautiful has caused a lot of debate down through the centuries.  I’m sure that every parent sees their child as beautiful.  But the word  literally means “goodly.” And further insight  is found in the sermon of Steven recorded in Acts 7, where he says that he was lovely in the sight of God.  So the parents recognized perhaps that Moses had been appointed by God in some special way. 

But I can’t help but make a side note about what is lovely in the sight of God.  God told Samuel that man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. In our world so much emphasis is given to the way a person looks, whether or not they are attractive by our standards. And yet God doesn’t look at the outward appearance, he looks at the heart. That should be a great comfort to us.  So it would appear that God was able to see the heart of Moses long before Moses could even determine his choices in life. But I also thinks that this speaks to the compassion of God towards mankind.  I was thinking the other day about how all men and women must lay down to sleep at some point.  No matter how messed up we are, or how sinful we are, or how much of even a hardened criminal we might be, there is a time every day when we are completely defenseless, when we are asleep.  And I imagine that even the worst person reveals a certain helplessness, even  innocence when they are sleeping. 

And somehow I am comforted in that to know that God has compassion on sinners.  God sees us differently than we see ourselves.  And because of that, God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  So God has ordained certain natural things in our life, that should humble us, and remind us of our need to depend upon God, to draw near to Him.  And as we are learning, that is done through faith in Jesus Christ, that we might be delivered from death and have life in Him.

So Moses was born under the condemnation of death.  Even as we are all born under the condemnation of death. But by the faith of his parents, he was delivered from death.  His parents conceived a plan to put Moses in a basket and set him afloat on the river.  It’s interesting that in Exodus chapter 1, we see that the sentence of Pharaoh was that if the woman had a boy child, he was to be cast into the Nile.  So in effect, his mother did that, but she cast him afloat in a basket, and sent his older sister to watch from a distance over him.  But ultimately they trusted in God to deliver Moses from death on the river.

Well, that illustrated the faith of his parents, but the first characterization of Moses’ faith that Hebrews draws attention to is his renunciation of being a son of Pharaoh.  And that’s found in vs 24, “By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.”  

Moses had been adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter.  And many commentators believe that there is justification for the idea that Moses was the next in line to become Pharaoh.  Steven says concerning Moses in his sermon; “Pharaoh’s daughter took him away and nurtured him as her own son. Moses was educated in all the learning of the Egyptians, and he was a man of power in words and deeds.”  In Egypt the line of the  kingship was passed on through the daughter of Pharaoh.  And so Moses was in line to be the king.  Yet the upbringing that had been instilled in him by his mother when he was a child had sown the seed of faith which led to identification with his people.  And so Stephen says when he was 40 years old, he slew the Egyptian, thinking that his kinsmen would recognize that he was appointed to be their deliverer. 

Stephen says in his sermon found in Acts 7 “But when he was approaching the age of forty, it entered his mind to visit his brethren, the sons of Israel. And when he saw one [of them] being treated unjustly, he defended him and took vengeance for the oppressed by striking down the Egyptian. And he supposed that his brethren understood that God was granting them deliverance through him, but they did not understand.” 

In so doing, Moses renounced the position and prestige and unfathomable wealth of being a prince of Egypt, and chose instead to identify with the people of God. Vs25 says, Moses chose rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.  That’s a picture of saving faith.  To renounce the riches and pleasures of this world, for the sake of drawing near to God.  We are told it was by faith that Moses made this great renunciation, with all that it cost him in worldly terms. He chose to share their ill treatment, rather than the passing pleasures of sin.  Life is a series of choices.  And Moses chose to obey God rather than to go along with the world.

Let me emphasize something this morning.  There is pleasure in sin.  There is satisfaction, enjoyment, pleasure oftentimes that is found in the things of this world, especially  sinful things. But it is a passing pleasure.  It is a temporary pleasure.  Those that gain greatness here on this earth die just like any other person at the end.  All is vanity, says Solomon, it’s like chasing after the wind.  Life that endures beyond the end is the only thing worth living for, and that is only accomplished through faith in Christ. 

Thus it requires faith to see a greater value to something unseen, than to enjoy the temporary, but very physical fruits of this world. Moses could have easily convinced himself that he could have done more good for his people as Pharaoh, or in the courts of Pharaoh.  He could have imagined that he could use his influence to help them.  But he renounced his citizenship in Egypt for the sake of being true to God. 

We all are tempted I believe to make such a deal with the Lord, in an attempt to serve both Him and mammon.  And yet God says it cannot be done. I know a man who some time ago had great wealth and position in the community, and  he was at a time in life when he was feeling perhaps a call from God to completely devote himself to the Lord’s work.  And I encouraged him to resign from his work and dedicate the rest of his life to serving the Lord.  He could have retired at that point as a multi millionaire, and been able to dedicate all his time and resources to the Lord’s work.  And I remember his answer was that he felt that God could better use his wealth to help others, if he stayed in his position.  And at the time I felt that he was making the wrong decision, but he assured me that God had told him to continue to work in his job.  A yellow flag always pops up in my mind when I hear someone tell me that God spoke to them. The truth is that he liked the power and prestige that his work afforded him. 

Well, anyway, fast forward a few years  and the recession killed the market that his business was in, and he practically went bankrupt.  To make things worse, he lost his wife to divorce. Perhaps if he would have answered the call of God and made a choice to renounce the world for the sake of the gospel, he would have very likely kept his business, and possibly even his wife. But as I said, we all fall for that snare of the devil, that we can have our cake in this world, and still have our reward in heaven.  There is a saying that an old time evangelist used to say, which is “Don’t sacrifice the permanent on the altar of the immediate.”  This world is not permanent. And Moses saw that by faith and acted accordingly.

Moses could have been the next Pharaoh.  But even if his name was recorded as one of the ancient Pharaoh’s of Egypt, his fame would be nothing compared to what he achieved in his service to God. But at that time at 40 years of age, Moses could not see how it would all work out.  But nevertheless, by faith he left Egypt.   Like Paul, he counted all things as loss for the surpassing glory of knowing God.  Exodus 33:11 says,  “Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend.”

More and more in our society today there is a stigma attached to being associated as a Christian.  It should encourage our faith in light of such stigma, to remember that Moses counted it worth it all to be identified with the people of God, even as Christ was willing to identify with sinners, for our sake.  Both endured the stigma, while looking forward to the reward.  It says in vs 26 that Moses “considered the reproach of Christ, or the Messiah, greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward.”

Another aspect of Moses’ faith is found in vs27, “By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen.”  The idea is that Moses left Egypt by faith in God’s timing and purposes, not because he feared the king. Moses was ready to mount a revolution, but he was willing to submit to the timing and trials of God in the wilderness as a shepherd until such a time as God would be ready for him to act. 

But what I like in that verse is the statement that “he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen.”  That directly correlates to the description of faith in vs1, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Moses was more concerned about pleasing the King who is invisible than the king of Egypt. 

And I would point out, superfluously perhaps, that in leaving Egypt and renouncing his rights as a prince of Egypt, Moses was as good as dead to the world.  All his training, all the learning that he had been given in Egypt to one day rule the country, all his upbringing he counted as loss.  In leaving Egypt, he was essentially dying to the old way of life, dying to the world.

The final aspect of Moses’ faith as presented here in Hebrews is in regards to him instituting the Passover.  Vs28, “By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood, so that he who destroyed the firstborn would not touch them.”  Once again we find the Israelites as well as the Egyptians under the condemnation of death.  This time it comes not from Pharaoh, but as judgment from God Himself.  

But God prepared a way for those who would obey Him, who would believe in Him, to be delivered from death.  And so Moses prepared the Passover in obedience to the command of God. Now there is a whole series of messages that could be taken from the Passover.  We have already discussed it very often in our sermons in Hebrews up to this point.  But the point that I think the author wants to emphasize is simply that “my righteous one shall live by faith.”  Had not Moses been obedient to that command, all the first born sons of Israel would have been killed. 

Moses probably did not understood all the significance of the Passover.  It may not have seemed culturally appropriate to his senses.  It may not have made sense to kill an innocent lamb and spread the blood on the doorpost.  Furthermore he may not have ever seen an angel of death, and maybe people would have laughed at him to hear him talk about that.  But yet Moses believed God, and he acted in accordance with that belief, and as a result, he was spared death.

Well, the correlation to us here today should be clear.  The just shall live by faith.  We can face the fear of death through faith.  We can overcome death through faith.  We can live forever with the Lord through faith.  Moses had a lot to lose by his faith in God.  But he gained more than he could ever have imagined.  I think the greatest testimony to the perseverance of Moses’ faith is illustrated on the mount of transfiguration. By the faith Moses had when he was living on this earth,  he was able to stand on the mount of transfiguration with Jesus Christ, as the glory of God shown out of Jesus, and he was able to talk with Him there along with Elijah.  Two men that were living on this earth a thousand years before, and yet they were still living then, and Moses is finally seeing the culmination of the promise of Abraham.  The same promise that fueled the faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Joseph, was now in sight.  What had been unseen was now visible, and radiant, and full of glory.  And Moses must have rejoiced to see that promise fulfilled.  And he lives even now, waiting for the day of glorification, the day when Christ shall come back for his church, and take her home to be with Him forever in the new heavens and new earth.  

Peter said at the close of his second letter in 2Peter 3:13-15 “But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless,  and regard the patience of our Lord [as] salvation.”   I trust that you have that same living faith to be obedient to the Lord until the end, even unto death.