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For this moment.
The person of my son with us.
Sorry.
We're about to open my word testimony. They are the ones that give testimony of the meeting.
That may help us to.
Know my life with all of us equal comes the different versions that we're about to read. Well then Italy we may keep that our hearts may be strong, close and Lord Jesus, other than their word, no other things in the name of the Lord Jesus, Amen. Amen.
Where should we start, Brother Bob?
5.
First John chapter one. We'll start down with verse 5.
00:05:02
This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all, if we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness.
We lie and do not the truth.
But if we walk in the light and see us in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in US.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in Him.
They're speaking this morning about fellowship.
With the apostles in verse 3, which is truly fellowship with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ.
Now in the verse we have started with this afternoon.
We have this message.
Such an tremendously important message.
That's so simple a message. God is light, and if you're going to have fellowship with God, you're going to have to be in the light.
In him is no darkness at all.
Brother John was talking this morning. That John speaks abstractly. That's a word that maybe we don't understand very well, but he speaks characteristically, perhaps as a word that's easier to understand.
God is life. John speaks in black or white, no Shades of Grey.
Either it's this way or that way. God is light and in Him is no darkness at all you find in the first chapter of the Bible.
That God separated the light from the darkness. You can't mix those two things. They are separate. And so if we're going to enjoy fellowship with the Father and with His Son, absolutely everything has to be out in the open. You can't go around hiding things in your life. It doesn't work.
It will hinder your fellowship with God.
How important these principles are?
I think of the Samaritan woman who.
Came to the Lord and didn't realize of course, who he was at first.
And finally the Lord says to her, Go, call thy husband and come here.
And she thought she could just put him off by saying I don't have a husband.
But he said.
Asked rightly answered, I have no husband, because thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou hast is not thy husband. And she found herself completely out in the light, completely exposed.
But what is so beautiful about the Lord is that that woman did not feel repulsed. She felt attracted to him. You know, sometimes we think if we bring out into the light the truth as to our lives, we're going to be repulsed. You may be by some people, but not by God. Get it out into the light. If there's something that has to be confessed, young person. So often I see people that are really.
Miserable.
You can see it written on their faces. They're miserable. I don't know what it is.
But something they're hiding is robbing their joy.
You want to keep on living that way. Is that the way you want to live your life?
God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. This is the message.
You're going to have fellowship with God.
It's got to be in the light, because God.
Is life.
And it's a rather frightening thing, isn't it, to be brought into that kind of light?
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We read in another scripture, we won't turn to it, but it says men love darkness rather than light. Why? Because their deeds were evil. And that's been the history of this world, hasn't it? And even if it's not a case of evil work, that would perhaps get me in trouble with the law. Yet I think it's fair to say that the vast majority of people in this world and even believers.
Live in a world of pretend. Pretending about themselves. Pretending to be what we're not pretending.
As to things in our lives that, as Bob says, we aren't willing to own up to, and often it's a very, very frightening thing to have the old sinful self exposed for what it really is. Remember reading a case where a man was just as Bob's been describing? I don't know whether he was a believer or not. At least be professed to be.
And he was miserable, thoroughly miserable, and he spent some time with a fellow Christian who gently probed and probed and probed.
To try and get them to come out and confess what it was in his life.
That he wasn't having out before God.
And eventually when it got to that point.
Where that was about to be exposed.
The man who was interacting with him actually wrote what I read. He said that man just put his hands over his eyes and ran out of my office, half shouting, half screaming. Why? Because the exposure of the awfulness of the human heart is sometimes more than even we ourselves can bear.
But in John here we find that we have to do with a God, as we've heard that.
Is all light, and in Him is no darkness at all. But what is also there?
Grace, and not merely, if I could say it, grace that overlooks my sin because that wouldn't be true grace. It says grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
But what the light reveals the blood covers. Isn't that blessed? But the light reveals the blood covers. Let you let me be as bad as we may be.
Let me read 2 verses on the blood of Jesus Christ. His Son cleanses us from all sin. There's no need to pretend before God because as we've already heard, He knows it all. We only make ourselves miserable. But how blessed to be able to step into the light, knowing that the blood of Christ covers it all.
Gifts to get it out into the light. It really brings us into liberty and I think of that Samaritan woman. She went back into the city and said to the men of the city come see a man that told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ goodness wasn't she ashamed of it all? No, she had it out in the light. Now there's nothing to hide and she could go out and there was liberty and conscience. I think I saw a tremendously beautiful.
And the Lord told her everything she'd ever done. I don't think so.
She felt she was in the light and she couldn't hide anything there.
There's a verse in Ephesians that tells us what the light is, brother, and I've enjoyed it and it's good to let scripture interpret itself. But Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 13.
But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light.
For whatsoever doth make manifest His light.
So everything, brother, I've sometimes said to I get up in front of you all up there on that platform and I try to hide something behind my back all the time I'm standing up there. I'm going to be making myself that much more conspicuous. You're going to say, what in the world is he trying to hide?
So if you're going to try to hide something in the light, just remember that you're going to make yourself that much more conspicuous. Don't do it. Get it out, confess it, be done with it, and you'll find it'll bring you into real liberty.
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There's a real good reason to do that quickly to that expression of revelation.
Jezebel says he gave her space to repent. The Lord doesn't deal with us all that we do wrong publicly.
But if we go on and keep going on and keep going on, He may have to bring something out in very public way that would not have been needed to be done if we had just run to the one who were running away from. And who among us would want all of the mistakes and sins of our lives exposed before everyone's eyes? Certainly not me. But if we would run to him instead of away from him, we listen to the enemy who tells us lies.
About being afraid to come to the Lord Jesus about something instead of running to Him right away.
And bringing it out in the open and dealing with it there and leaving it there and realizing the truth of what Brother Bob was saying, that the blood covers that thing and be done with it and go on.
Think of that verse. The Lord is my light.
My salvation, Psalm 27. I think we're familiar with that beautiful song and.
That's the way we were when we were unsaved. We were brought into the light to see ourselves really as God sees us.
Exposed in his presence, but then the psalmist says and my salvation a wonderful that though the Lord knows all about us and.
His Holiness demands a punishment for those sins, and the the exposing of them we see in the work of the cross.
Full salvation to put away those sins, according to.
God's holy demands, and yet, according to His marvelous grace, He didn't compromise any part of His character in forgiving us all those sins which the light of His presence exposes. And so we have in this sixth verse here, if we say that we have fellowship with Him, a person may say that.
But if they're walking in darkness, they're not telling the truth.
But the position of the believer is in the light. We we are there as to our position in the light.
And we have fellowship one with another.
That little expression at the beginning of verse six if we say.
Not I said verse eight if we say, verse 10 if we say.
Chapter 2 and verse.
For he that said verse six, he that said, you know, it's easy to talk, brother.
But it's not in our talk.
That the reality is it's in our walk.
If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness.
We lie.
The abstract that John was talking about, the position of the Christian is really in the light, but he's put it in this abstract.
And there's a lot in this world that pertains to darkness, brethren, morally speaking. Darkness. You trying to mix some of the darkness into your Christian life?
You think that will help you and your fellowship with the Lord?
There's something totally incongruous with it.
Don't try.
I suppose that verse six, really then, in terms of the way John writes, has reference to an unbeliever, doesn't it? It's another case of pretending. Not that you and I can't apply it to ourselves, but if we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, what then? How serious a thing to pretend to be a Christian? How serious a thing to say we have fellowship with him?
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And yet our walk betrays the fact that we don't belong to him it.
Say, Brother Bob earlier on, we only make fools of ourselves if we try to do that, because others look on and say, well, that man, he calls himself a Christian.
Remember, a man who was an unbeliever stood up to preach the gospel way back when my father was a young man in Germany years ago.
The man who heard him preach saw right through him, he said. That's interesting, he said. One heathen.
Telling another heathen that he ought to get saved, he said. That doesn't add up.
But you know that the Lord used His word, and the man who said that eventually did get saved, because even though the preacher was a heathen himself, the word of God had its effect.
But the audience wasn't fooled.
Man was pretending to have fellowship with God.
But his life told otherwise. And so it's a very, very serious thing. But we need to point out, just to be clear on it. And those that were at Dartmouth last weekend will bear with me if we make the same remark again, because there's a difference in the way that the IF is used in verse six and the if of verse 7.
And we understand this in natural language, don't we?
In verse 6 is what we might call the if of condition.
If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness.
Then we lie.
But the if in verse seven is more the if of argument.
It doesn't mean that if we walk in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and in that case then the blood covers our sins and washes them away. No, the thought is rather, since we walk in the light, every believer is in the light. Every believer walks in that light. And that's the way John looks at it. Verse 6 is really an unbeliever, but verse 7 is a believer, and so we could read it.
Since we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.
And what is the result? As we said earlier, what the light exposes, no matter how bad it may be, the blood covers. And how precious that is, as Bob was saying a moment ago, it gives liberty of conscience. First of all, it's liberty in God's presence, but then it's liberty before everyone else. Supposing someone comes to me and says, Bill, you were a pretty bad egg before you were saved.
What do I do if I'm a natural man? Start to argue with him or I point the finger back at him and say well you're worse than I am or some remark like that. But the believer simply says yes, I was, and you only know the half of it.
But what I was as a lost Sinner, the blood has totally cleansed total liberty. And that's what that woman in the fourth of John had, didn't she?
Remarkable to see the marvelous efficacy of the work of Christ on behalf of the believer. We don't enter into it that that work was so perfect before God.
Perfect work accomplished by a perfect person giving us a perfect standing before God and that's the thought I believe in the verse that we're looking at here. We're walking in the light as to our position are standing before God. Now my state may not be up to that standard, but that's because I am not walking in self judgment, but in God's sight. I'm in the light as the OFT repeated.
Incident.
In Mr. Darby's.
Answer to a question.
What about a believer who turns his back on the light?
And Mr. Darby said, well, the light will shine on his back.
So we are there in that wonderful position, justified from all things, but we should not use that as an excuse for carelessness in our lives. You should be exercised. I'm walking in the light. In fact, sin and the believer is far more serious than sin in an unbeliever. Because if I sin, I'm sinning in the light. And that's a serious thing. Communion is broken and.
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And the Lord's name is dishonored so.
We can't have that fellowship or enjoy that fellowship unless we are walking in the path of obedience.
To the word of God, and in self judgment.
Santa is that with Cricks fellowship?
And God has provided at all cost himself that which hinders fellowship, so that it can be. He has provided that which cleanses.
Sin which hinders fellowship so that we can be in fellowship again. And it doesn't matter if it's fellowship with God or fellowship amongst ourselves, sin always breaks fellowship.
First of all with God, and then with our fellow brethren, to our fellow human beings.
But I'd like to make a point here. I think it is worth thinking about, brethren, that in verse three we have fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. In verse seven we have fellowship one with another.
What is first?
I really believe we get these things turned around in our.
Souls at times.
1St is fellowship with the father and with his son.
In the measure that there is fellowship with the father and with his son and I meet up with my brother Bill, he's walking in that fellowship with the father and the son. The automatic thing is going to be, there's going to be fellowship between the state. That's the order it should be. But I fear that sometimes we make more of fellowship with amongst ourselves and it's an important thing, fellowship amongst ourselves.
Not first.
1St is fellowship with the father and with his son. Oh, brother, and the Lord, help us to cultivate that fellowship.
To read his word, to let him speak to us, and then to pray, to speak to Him, to take time. What impresses me is how hurried our lives are.
You're going to have fellowship with the Lord. You're going to have to take some time. You're going to have to make some time, Better said.
It just won't happen automatically.
You've got to listen. Remember talking to a young man who professed to be a Christian in South America and I asked him if he is reading the word.
No, I don't have any time to read, but I pray. I pray every day.
I guess he thought I'd be impressed with that. So I say, yeah, well, it's good to pray, I said. But that's like saying to God, God, I want you to listen to me, but I don't have any time to listen to you.
Does that sound pretty good?
He says. That sounds kind of lopsided, doesn't it?
I said I think so, and if you want better results for your prayers I would suggest you do some listening.
And that's what we need, brother. We need to take serious time. I have to say for myself that sometimes in the morning when I open my Bible to read, I can often read through a whole chapter and my mind's been off somewhere else. I've not been listening.
Enough to stop and go back over the chat, read it until that voice comes through. It's so important, brethren, to cultivate that fellowship. And I fear that there are many who break bread and we say they're in fellowship.
But I don't know.
If they really are in fellowship with the father and with his sons, yes, they're in fellowship with us. They bring bread together. Remember, breaking the bread is the only is the way we show our fellowship.
But sometimes we're doing it kind of mechanically without there being reality in our souls.
You can fool me. You might be able to fool the rest of your brethren too, for a time. You can't fool the Lord.
And sooner or later it's going to come out that it was just a face, that's all. There wasn't any reality underneath. Lord, help us, brethren, to be real with God. We're living in the last days and we're going to stand. We're going to need to be real with God.
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Just going back to verse six, I was just questioning in my mind in consideration of the subject here of fellowship.
Batman and Koran, who had his father's wife.
It seems what we understand in second chapter that he was a real believer and that he was brought to repentance and restoration.
But we couldn't say of that. Couldn't we not say of that man that he was saying he had fellowship with God, he was walking with the Saints and he was breaking bread and he didn't know the Lord, I believe yet. He wasn't walking in the truth. He was walking according to darkness.
I just suggest this thought that not that I don't want to get away from the abstract, but I wonder if the subject is not just here communion because the Lord knows the heart and if we say we profess something and our life denies it, then we are doing what it says here we are walking in darkness.
Lying and we're not practicing the truth. Does that say we're not safe?
I'm asking the question.
What Bill said earlier, I think is helpful on that, Michelle.
It's not the question of being saved. You're not walking characteristic of a child of God. You are walking characteristically about one that's that's in the darkness, an unsafe person completely.
That's not characteristic as a Christian.
And we sometimes find in the word of God that we have a warning given to us.
That is in its strictest sense intended for an unbeliever, but yet God gives it for you and for me, because we can fall into the same trap. For example, at the end of Philippians 3, it talks about those who are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose God is their belly, who mind earthly things, but it also says whose end is destruction.
But whom was he writing to?
To an assembly of believers. And I don't believe that we could just throw that verse aside and say, well, that's for unbelievers. No, a believer can be an enemy of the cross of Christ. He can mind earthly things. He can be self-centered instead of Christ centered. So I believe we can all take this to heart. But again, what John says is what is characteristic. So for John, everything is black or white. Either you're a believer and you act like it.
Or you're an unbeliever and then you act characteristic of an unbeliever. But it doesn't mean that what he says about unbelievers doesn't have a warning for you and for me.
Thinking of a scripture too and Genesis chapter 19 in connection with law.
Lot gives warning to his sons in law in verse 14.
Lot went out and spake unto his sons in law, which married his daughters, and said, Pop, get ye out of this place, for the Lord will destroy this city.
What he certainly said was true.
It was a warning, but then let's see what it says at the end of that verse. But he seemed as one that mocked onto his sons in law.
Well.
His word was not consistent with his walk, was it?
And so that that was a glaring.
Contradiction.
You're saying this, but you've done that. And so that's what we have to be.
Concerned with, isn't it?
And our walk and stumble, as I was mentioning yesterday to brother Sam.
Very significant remark that was made by Mahatma Gandhi and the remark was if it wasn't for Christians.
I would be a Christian.
Now he sought he saw inconsistencies there the.
Walk didn't.
Match up with the Talk.
Like to say to in connection with verse 7 when it says the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin.
Say we're talking about what is characteristic, What is characteristic of the blood of Christ is that it lenses from all sin. I have seen that there is not clarity in the teaching sometimes about this. And people think that every time they sin they need the blood of Christ to cleanse them all over again. But if you go back to the Old Testament, you'll find that in the consecration of the priests there was.
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Once we're all at his consecration, the blood was applied.
And after that, when he went in to do the service of the Tabernacle, he washed at the labor his hands and his feet.
For us, it's not a matter of our hands because the work is done, but it's a matter of our walk. So it's the feet, and that's what you have in John chapter 13. But the cleansing of the blood of Christ is once for all. I think that's an important point. What it's saying here is when it says it cleanses from all sin, it's talking about what is characteristic of the blood of Christ.
But it's once for all. We don't go back and every time we sin, we get a fresh application of the blood. No, what we need is the cleansing of the water by the word, the water, the word of God. It's the labor to cleanse us from those things that are wrong in life. So I think that's important to understand in connection with this subject that we're we have here fellowship.
I was just thinking too Brother Bob, you did refer to that 13th chapter of John, but might be nice to read that 10th 1St.
Jesus saith saith to him, He that is washed needeth not saved to wash his feet.
But it's clean every width and you're clean but not all.
And as you mentioned, the labor to there were no dimensions given to the labor were there. And so that's very significant.
Yes, that's an interesting place just to read that again carefully. Verse 10 of John 13 that he mentioned Jesus said to him, that's to Peter, he that is washed.
That word is really bathed all over.
Needeth not saved to wash his feet, but is clean. Every wit and ye are clean but not all. He's referring to Judas Iscariot. There was a all over bath given to him which relates to the.
Washing of of the water by regeneration.
But there was the application of the blood and it wasn't repeated.
So the work of Christ on the cross, that application of the blood of Christ is once for all. Then we need the washing of water by the Word.
And that's a daily thing that we needed.
But when we trusted in Christ.
How many of our sins were put under the blood?
All of them, past, present, future. You hear sometimes people asking for forgiveness over and over again too. Well, how many sins were forgiven when you trusted in Christ?
All of them, past, present and future that.
I was pretty young. I remember somebody bringing this home and making it clear and saying, you know, it's.
When we confess our sins, and we are, I thank God for the blood that cleanses from all sin that its effectiveness.
That was applied way back then.
Is as good as it ever was, and that now I have the present conscious benefit of peace and the release of it and the forgiveness that is applied presently right now because of a thing that I did in space and time today.
And I enjoy it now. But I was forgiven. I was covered with the blood.
To pass him it's affected. This is just as good as it ever was.
It's interesting, Sam. I think it's helpful to understand.
That in the Word of God, after the Lord Jesus accomplished redemption on the cross.
Died, rose again, and ascended to heaven. We never have in the scriptures that a Christian.
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Asks for the forgiveness of sins. Not even an unbeliever, really.
Forgiveness of sins is to all those that believe on His name.
It's as if God was standing there with his hand out and saying, here's the forgiveness of sins to the unbeliever accepted. If they sit there, keep on asking the forgiveness of sins when he's offering it to him, it turns out to be really many peaceful. It's ignorance, but it's unbelievable. It could be unbelief too.
But once that work has been finished, you never find it in the epistles that we are to ask for the forgiveness of sins. We have forgiveness through His blood. We have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins through the riches of His grace. We have something different here in these next verses, 10 or 8-9 and ten. We have what a Christian should do when he does sin.
And it's evident that there is such a thing as sin.
Says in verse 8 and 10, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. The truth is not in US. Verse 10 if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in.
I like to think of the last part of this chapter as the way of restoration when?
Fellowship has been lost.
And let's speak clearly.
Salvation can never be lost if it's truly possessed, but fellowship is something that is extremely delicate.
And maybe just the little white lie.
Here I am with my Lord, walking side by side, and I tell what's supposedly a little white lie.
How is their fellowship?
He's still there right beside me, but there's no fellowship.
How could he be in fellowship with a lie? Impossible.
OK, I lost fellowship with him. I'm still his child.
Salvation is not a question of salvation, it's a question of fellowship.
So what do we have to do in that case?
And in verse 8 and 10, it's interesting, if you look at it closely, there's a difference in those two verses.
Verse 8 says if we say that we have no sin.
I do believe it's talking about the nature that produces.
The acts of sin, whereas verse 10 speaks about the act.
You know, sometimes we are willing to admit we did wrong, but.
We don't like to admit the reason we did wrong because of this sinful nature insight.
So we have the root in verse 8 and we have the fruit in verse 10. And it's important, if there's going to be true restoration, to recognize the one and the other as well. Sometimes it's easy to say, yeah, I know I did wrong. But you know that that guy, he, he provoked me.
We like to pass the blame on to somebody else.
That's what Adam did. He blamed his wife. He really blamed the Lord the woman now gave us.
And Eve did the same thing. She blamed the devil. The serpent beguiled me and I ate.
You'll never get the blessing, brother. You'll never get restoration until that.
Guilt, that finger of guilt, is back at your own self.
Recognize I did wrong, Yes. And the reason I did wrong was because I allowed this sin nature to act. And that's what David comes to the point in Psalm 51.
Behold, in sin did my mother conceive me.
He basically said it wasn't.
Her it was this sin nature here that led me astray. I allowed it to act. So it's important to recognize that we've done wrong and also recognize the root that produced. I sometimes say if you go out in the garden to get rid of the weeds, you just pull off the tops, the leaves off the tops of the weeds.
00:45:23
They're going to start, they're going to come right back, and pretty fast too.
And the reason why we go over it and over it and over it and have problem with the same thing so many times as we don't judge the root. It's not that we can pull it out, brethren, but we need to judge it.
So that's what we have in those two verses. But in verse 10 or 9 we have.
Confession.
And confession is much deeper than asking for forgiveness.
Let me just put it simply, Sam, you're a good friend of mine. We're walking down the street together, enjoying fellowship.
All of a sudden I give you.
A hit in the face.
Now is there fellowship?
What happened?
I sin, didn't I?
Heading now, I see you're a little bit.
Cool towards me.
And I'd assume you'd be my friend. So I say, Sam, forgive me.
If I say that I'm not really thinking of the bad thing I did, I'm thinking about that you're not very disposed toward me right now and I just soon you'd be disposed toward me.
That's not what God asked us to do, brother.
He asked us to confess.
And confession goes much deeper.
So I come up to Sam and I say Sam.
I hit you.
I recognize that was wrong.
I'm sorry for it. That's confession. That's what God wants. I've heard people say sometimes, Lord, if I did anything wrong, forgive me please.
That doesn't have any effect, brother.
I'm not saying we need to be. We need to be patient with people who don't have good teaching on these matters. But but what God wants is confession, and confession goes much deeper than asking for forgiveness.
So what He wants us to do is confess. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
And to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
We don't know really what we did wrong. We're not really thinking about it.
You know when somebody is caught in a crime and they finally fess up?
The police make you sit down at a table and write out the details, everything. They don't want anything left out. What you told us, we want you to write it out and sign it. I think about it that way. It's a little bit embarrassing to come back again and again to the Lord and tell the details about what you did. It makes you look at it, and I think that's part of the reason why the Lord wants us to do that. It makes you look at this thing, really look at it.
And talk with him about it. Well then I ought to do that. And then I ought to, as you said in the verse before, Lord, I allowed my flesh to act. In my flesh dwelleth no good thing. That's where it's coming from. Now behind that is, how did I get to where this happened? So maybe so easily or what led to that. There's all all that takes place instead of just sorry, Lord, forgive me.
Or something like that, which sometimes people do. But the idea that I did this thing, I allowed the flesh to act Lord, and I was paying attention, You know, I've got drift away. I didn't read this morning. Whatever it is, how we got there, we should pay attention to that and talk to the Lord about it and then move on from there. And there's real release, real release in that, and restoration and peace and rest. And if we really take a look at it and recognize where it came from.
You know, some, you know, I remember hearing judging, judging and judging and judge this and judge this in when I was a kid and going, well, I don't really know what that means, but somebody once said that and I got it. It means agreeing with God about that thing. What does God think about that thing? If I judge it, I'm saying God, I agree with you about that thing. I agree with you against myself. That's an interesting thing to say, but if you get there, you're in the right place. I agree with you, God, about that thing. I agree with what you say about that thing. I agree with you.
00:50:15
I agree it is sin and I acted in this way and it was the flesh and Lord.
I repent of that. I turn from that. I turn to you. Come in by your spirit. You know that kind of conversation is what we should have when sins come in.
I sometimes appreciate.
The father's side of it too, having had children that do things that are not exactly according to how daddy might want it done or mommy want it done.
These things happen and there is there is a wall that builds up between parent and child and the child may not be aware of the pain that the parent is going through but once that confession has come.
And that wall has taken down. Then it's just a total freedom again, you know, between the parent and the child and to a sense of what God is feeling, what the Lord is feeling when when we confess, when we come forward and say, I was wrong.
Forgive me. Thank you.
It's just to enter into his heart. It's good that God has given us these relationships, isn't it? Because we can learn about His heart?
Through them the relationship, the fathers and children, children to fathers and fathers to, you know, husbands to wives. All these things are beautifully illustrated in the in the Fellowship, like Bob was saying, that was from before the foundation of the world. There was the father.
And the sun and these relationships give us a sense of who he is.
The greatness of who he is and of his character, of his love to us, because we began to feel some of these things ourselves.
And it's important as just before Nora time is going, but.
We can't emphasize too much the importance of getting at the root.
As Bob was saying, when we try to pull a weed out of the garden, it won't do just to pull the top off.
Sure it's easier, it doesn't take as much effort, but if I just pull the top off.
Then what's going to happen? The weed will grow again and if I'd lightly deal with something in my life.
I'll do it again, and sometimes the route takes a little bit of probing.
A little bit of being in the Lord's presence to recognize what the root really is.
An example from Scripture, and we've already alluded to it when David sinned with Bathsheba.
He didn't blame her.
For being out there in the open, washing yourself wasn't a smart thing for her to do. But he didn't blame her. He blamed himself. But what was the root of the problem? Was it really a lust and an immorality that embodied his soul? That was there? But the root was deeper than that. And when Nathan the Prophet comes to confront him, it's striking that he doesn't even allude to the original act of adultery, but rather focuses on the cover up or the attempt to cover it up.
Why? Because I suggest the real root of the problem.
Was ultimately the abuse of his power and authority as a king. Nobody could have manipulated people in events the way a king could, and that was perhaps the root of the problem. Yes, immorality was involved and that was serious, but sometimes the route is not exactly what the fruit looks like.
And the Lord wants us to deal with the root. Why? So that not only can we confess the sin, but then he cleanses us from all unrighteousness. Is that the blood of Christ that does that? No, it's more a sense of the fact that that sin, as our brother Sam said before, has already been paid for. But it cost what? The suffering of Christ.
I've sinned and added, if I could put it that way, to the sufferings of Christ. Now I have a new life that wants to please Him.
I have been bathed in the words of John 13. What have I done? I've acted characteristic of the devil's family. And when all of that really gets a grip on my soul, I won't be so likely to do it again, will I?
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Just one more comment that I think is important in this verse nine is the forgiveness is not judicial forgiveness, brother. We get judicial forgiveness of our sins.
Time we accept the Lord Jesus as Savior and truth. What we have here is governmental forgiveness is forgiveness in the family of God. It's not a question of you being a real child of God or not. It's a question of fellowship. And until you confess, there will be no fellowship.
I remember when I was a boy disobeying my father and I knew.
In our household that I wasn't going to be forgiven until I came and admitted I'd done wrong.
I remember sometimes I cried more when I had to admit I'd done wrong than when I got the pattern.
But that was governmental, that was the government my father had in his house, and God has government in his house. And if you want to enjoy fellowship, you've got to confess. That's the only thing that is our part in verse 9. When we confess, then he does the rest. He forgives. That's the governmental forgiveness. And he cleanses. And I think that is important because.
Those characteristics of our.
Nature, sometimes we can't seem to get on top of it, but I've found if we will simply admit not only that we did wrong, but because of that rude insight. And the Lord operates and he not only forgives, he cleanses as well from all anyone.
Sing Happy Day, the first line of that song.
Oh, happy day, that thing.
When you're the one, I still go away.
He told me how to evolution.
Pray for every joy.
God and our Father, we thank thee for thy sovereign grace that saw that found each one of us and brought us into the light when we saw the not when we asked not for fellowship with the inside the tire alone. And now it's provided thine only begotten Son, the Lamb of God, that thou might have us in thy presence, holy without blame before thee in love, have us in thy presence in a way that was not solely that light that thou dost dwelling.
We pray that as we are in the light, we might walk in it in a practical way, day by day. Oh Lord Jesus, we think of that work in Calvary's cross like precious bloodshed that has put our sins away forever.
That has put that which we were by nature judged wholly in Calvary's cross and agreed never to rise again.
Lord Jesus.
We thank thee, all those ashes of a heifer sprinkling young clean, that we can go back.
When we have sinned.
And we can go back and have the remembrance.
Why so?
Offered once on that cross.
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The memory of what was offered, the memory of without its endure. Lord Jesus for us.
To bar hearts and repentance. Our God, our Father, we thank Thee for thy restoring grace. We thank thee for the advocacy of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We think of the full and rich provision now has provided in Christ in every way for us and we could be thanks. We thank you for this little chapter that we've had today. May it be used of thyself by the Spirit of God to reach the needs in our hearts as thou just see them perfectly and we do just commit ourselves to be now for the rest of the day at the gospel this evening and we think about.
Opportunity if we're left here.
A little longer for the precious blood of Christ to be proclaimed and all its value for sinners lost. And so we just commit ourselves to thee now, our God, our Father.