Address—Bob Thonney
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Doesn't look like we're all here yet, but I think the hour has come so we might as well start.
Since we're not going to sing, I'm going to start with a verse.
I won't tell you where it is, I will let you.
Tell me after I pray where that verse is.
God is faithful.
By whom ye were called.
Unto the fellowship of his son.
Jesus Christ our Lord.
Blessed God our Father, what a privilege to be together.
And to open thy word.
And to read it.
And, uh, listen to divert voice speaking.
Father, we are not sufficient for the task of.
Expounding it properly, but we're so thankful for the presence and power of Thy Holy Spirit.
To make it good to each one according to the need.
We give thanks.
And ask thee for thy direction this hour, in the name of our Lord Jesus, Amen.
Who can tell me where that verse is?
First Corinthians one verse.
Nine, very good. Thank you.
To me, it is the most amazingly wonderful thing.
To think that we have been called.
To walk in fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
The creator of the universe.
God's eternal Son. It just blows my mind to try to comprehend the greatness of this person.
Never had a beginning, always was. Let me tell you, it just doesn't fit in my head.
But I have been called to walk into fellowship. If you're a believer in the Lord Jesus, you have been called to walk in the fellowship of that person.
Amazingly wonderful. I want to say that life really has no meaning until you grasp that and walk in the enjoyment of it.
Is amazingly wonderful. I want to go tonight to 1St John chapter one.
Where we have the question of fellowship address.
Fellowship.
With God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God. I'm going to read the chapter because it's only 10 verses long.
That which was from the beginning.
Which we have heard.
Which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon.
And our hands have handled of the word of life, for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.
That which we have seen and heard declaring unto you.
That ye also may have fellowship with us.
And truly.
Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
And these things.
Right we unto you, that your joy may be full.
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Is there anybody here that would like to be unhappy?
Please raise your hands.
Anybody here would like to be really happy, please raise your hand.
Here's the secret.
This thing's right way unto you, that your joy.
May be full.
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. Reading first John chapter one.
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 as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin.
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 US.
There's a word in this chapter that's repeated four times.
I don't know if you noticed it as we read the chapter.
It's the word fellowship.
Mentioned twice in verse 3.
It's mentioned in verse six and then in verse seven. Fellowship, what's that?
I would guess.
That's why a lot of you came here.
To have fellowship.
To enjoy each other.
We call that fellowship.
Some people say fellowship is fellows in the same ship.
But I don't exactly like that because sometimes sailors on one ship, they fight together, and that's not exactly fellowship.
Another word that is like it is communion. If you take the COM off of communion, what do you have? Union? It's being together, it's having the same enjoyments. That's fellowship and I don't know if you noticed that in verse three it says our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
That amazing.
We can have fellowship with God.
And then fellowship with one another. You know where that comes in the chapter.
Verse 7.
Oh.
Fellowship went with another isn't first.
No, it's not first.
It's the last mention of fellowship.
Tim, brother. Tim, I appreciate you as a brother. I enjoy your fellowship. I don't want to tell you you're not first. Sorry.
You're not first somebody else. It's first, you know, We got to get that settled in our minds. It's so important.
To learn to cultivate fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
With God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, I just find that so amazing. You know, I, I find in scripture that those that enjoy that fellowship.
For those who oftentimes were all by themselves, they were all wrong.
You go back to Genesis, you read about a man called Enoch.
And it said he walked with God.
I would guess the reason he walked with God is that he was in fellowship with God.
What would they do walking together? Here's God, and here's Enoch walking together.
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You know what I'm saying? They were doing this talking to you and she had it to each other.
What did they talk about? Well, if you go to the very last epistle of the Bible, you'll find out something that Enoch said. I would guess you must have got it when he was walking with God.
It says, behold, the Lord cometh with 10 thousands of his Saints. Hey, this is before the flood. How did he know about the Lord's coming with?
The myriads of his Saints, how did he know that? Because he walked with God. And I suppose one day God said to Enoch, Enoch, I just want to tell you about one of the most glorious events that's ever going to happen in human history.
The Lord is going to come with the myriads of His Saints, and it's still future for us today.
Isn't that incredible? He didn't have the Bible to know about that.
But it we it wasn't because he walked with God.
I enjoyed the story of a Sunday school girl.
That was talking about Enoch.
And this was her the way she taught. She told the story. She says Enoch was a man that walked with God.
Every day that we're walking together.
In fellowship and one day at the end of the day.
God said the Enoch, Enoch, we've come so far today.
I think you were closer to my house than we are to your house. Why don't you just come home with me?
And that's what happened.
He disappeared.
He went home to the glory he was not because God took amazingly wonderful.
Why does it have to be then that there are people that were kind of alone? And I know some of you in your local meetings maybe feel you're kind of alone. Maybe you do have friends in your meeting. That's great when you do.
I must say some of the young men in my meeting were a great help to me in getting me to go the right direction in my youth.
Abraham was another one. One day he was sitting in the tent door of his tent. He was a wealthy man. He had 318 servants.
Anybody here that has a company with 318 employees?
I really don't think so.
Sorry about that.
But Abraham, there he was, sitting in his tents door in the heat of the day. All of a sudden he lifted up his eyes. Oh, there's three men standing there.
He didn't know, I guess offhand, who they were, so he gets up and runs over to them and invites them to stay not too long when he realizes one of them is the Lord.
And later on we find out that two the two others were angels.
To me, it's amazing. Abraham was ready to have a visit from the Lord, and the Lord wanted to visit with him. I think that's fascinating. You know what? God wants to have your fellowship, You young men up here in the front, young ladies.
God wants your fellowship. To me it is the most amazing thing.
So Abraham.
Prepare the meal.
Did you know that angels eat?
I wouldn't have known that except for that.
And it has made me, ever since I got thinking about it, a little bit conscious that angels appear. You know, never in the Bible do you have that Angels have wings. That's the way they paint them in pictures.
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Seraphims and cherubims have wings, but not I don't think we ever have the record of any Angel having a wing, says they.
Fly because they're spirit beings. But.
They appear as people and there's been certain people I've met up with that afterwards I wondered.
Was that really a person or was that an Angel? Fascinating to think about. I've had people tell me fascinating stories that I don't know. I can't say it was, but I can't say it wasn't either. But it's fascinating to to think about.
So Abraham entertained the Lord and two angels.
Interesting.
It wasn't Sarah that brought out the food and served them. It was Abraham. He served the Lord and those two angels. To me, that's amazingly wonderful to think about. And they got talking and the Lord talked to Abraham about you, what he's going to do.
In connection with Sodom and Gomorrah.
Fascinating. And Abraham starts reasoning with the Lord.
What he says to the Lord, you think he was talking to another human being, but it was to the Lord. And to me that shows that God wants our fellowship. He wants us to talk to Him. He wants us to reason with Him.
Hey, Abraham, uh, Abraham said. It couldn't be that you would destroy the righteous with the wicked. That would never be right.
And so he reasons with the Lord. I find that very fascinating.
What I wanna get to your young people is that God wants to walk in fellowship with us.
And so we have here in this chapter.
The Lord Jesus.
As in verse two, it says that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us. What's eternal life?
Oh, you say that's the life that just goes on and on and on and on and on and never ends well. That's true. The eternal life is something far more than that.
For John chapter 17 and verse 3, this is eternal life, that they might know they the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.
And so eternal life is to know God.
Isn't that amazing?
This.
Puny little human being on this earth can know the eternal God. I find that incredibly wonderful.
And yet, that's the message I find in this chapter.
Just want to go back to verse one. You know there's 4 verses.
In the Bible, however, I should say four books of the Bible that have the beginning in the very first verse.
One of them is Genesis 11. In the beginning was the Word. I'm sorry, that's John 11, Genesis 11. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
John 11 is in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. But notice this is a little bit different, the beginning here that which was from the beginning which we have heard.
Which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon in our hands of handled of the word of life.
This is the beginning of the manifestation of eternal life in this world in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Wonderful to think about Him. So he says in verse one that which we have heard. Have you heard him?
Here we're reading the Word of God. You've heard him.
That which we have seen with our eyes. Have you seen him?
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It says in Hebrews chapter 2.
We see Jesus.
Who has made a little lower than the angels crowned with glory and honor? It's not seen with these eyes in our head, seen with the eyes of faith, because faith is the substance of things not seen.
And so it's become so real to us. It's less if we're looking at them. Lord Jesus is a man, a human being, sitting at the pinnacle of all authority in the glory. And it's that person to which you and I have been called to walk in fellowship with.
I don't know how to try to make it more vivid to you young people and children, older ones too.
To cultivate fellowship with the Lord Jesus.
And then he goes on to say that which we have looked upon. What's the difference between seeing and looking upon?
Seen as maybe just a glass. Yeah, I saw that person on the street today. But when you look upon something, you're looking at it very intensely.
Detailed.
So I say this, don't get looking at me. You know why is the closer you look at me, the more defects you're going to see.
The closer you look at Jesus, the more perfection you're gonna see. I just amazed at how perfect he really was in this world. You know, each person he came in contact with, he showed him who God was. He was a human being, but he was at the same time God manifest in the flesh.
Not wonderful.
That we can walk with him, we can know him.
And so one day.
There was a city to the north of Jerusalem called Samaria.
And a woman is coming out of that city with a water pot.
And as she comes toward the well to fill her water pot, there's a man sitting there.
OK, that's a little strange.
Generally, she didn't see a man sitting there.
Happened to be the Lord Jesus.
His disciples had gone to the city to seek if they could find some food.
And so as she comes up to the well, she wasn't going to talk to him because she thought he was a Jew.
And so she prepares to fill her jar with water.
And that man says to her, give me the drink.
How come you?
As a Jew, as drink of me, I'm a Samaritan. Jews and the Samaritans don't have any relations together.
The Lord, instead of answering her question, he says, if you would know the gift of God and who it was that said to you, give me to drink, you would have asked Him and he would have given you living water.
Living Water. You know what that is? It's a springing well.
Owie.
And after she talks a bit with him, she says, Sir, give me this water.
But you know what? She had a history. It was pretty sad. So the Lord Jesus in his perfect wisdom says, so call your husband and come here. So she says, I don't have a husband.
So Jesus says, yeah, what you said is true, You don't have a husband because you've had five husbands. The one you have right now isn't your husband. You said that right.
Can you imagine how she felt? There's somebody that knows all about me. I can't hide anything from him.
And so they get talking. A little later the disciples come out. She.
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Goes off. She forgot her water pot. That wasn't important anymore. She had met somebody so tremendously interesting. She goes into the city and she says to the men of the city, come see a man that told me everything I ever did. Did he tell her everything she'd ever done? No. He told her a little bit about her married life.
But she realized that he knew everything about her.
And yet she did not feel repulsed. She said come see this man. And they came out of the city and came to see Jesus. I think that is some amazingly wonderful.
Because she has such a history, was she a reject? No.
God is there in that city of Samaritan Samaria and God wants to use you and me too, but we have to learn to cultivate fellowship with the Lord Jesus. Notice what it says at the end of verse one, which our hands have handled. In other words, the apostle John says, you know what, this eternal life got so close to us that I can say our hands handle him we're not talking about.
Not cleverly devised tables. We're talking about you, that true person that came into this world.
And he wants to have fellowship to me. It was amazingly wonderful. And so he says in verse three, notice that which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us. And when he says with us, that's the apostles. He's speaking in the plural. John was an apostle, but there were other apostles that also.
Gave testimony to the Lord Jesus and it says.
Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. So what the apostles wrote down in the Scriptures is written there so that we can enjoy this fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
I want to ask you, how can you and I have fellowship with this person, you know when we get together and I don't know all your names, but I know a few of you guys names and girls names, but uh.
I talked to you a little bit. You talked to me.
That's the way you have fellowship.
So when we read the word of God, it's God speaking to us. When we pray, it's we speaking to God. And that's extremely important. The two things, reading the scriptures and praying, that's the way you have fellowship with him.
I want to ask you how many of you on your own?
Read some of the scriptures every day.
I want to ask you to lift your hand on this one, but I want you to think about it.
If this one is coming to this world with the purpose of having fellowship with us, are you going to say to him, I'm sorry, sorry, today I'm too busy, I don't have any time.
So listen.
To me, that's pretty sad.
I've noticed that generally speaking, I can read a chapter.
Most chapters in less than 5 minutes.
5 minutes, Is that too much? Can't you come up with five minutes?
To listen to him speaking to you, oh, it's such a blessing. I've noticed young men, young ladies that take time and you have to make a decision about it because we live in a busy world that pushes everything out. If you let it. You have to come to a decision to take time.
To listen to God.
Oh, how important that is, the reading of the precious Word of God. I just want to encourage you to read it consecutively. I see some people, they read over here today, tomorrow they read back here, and next day they jump over here. If you want to read and really come to understand the Scriptures, read consecutively, start Matthew 11.
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You just get one chapter market and then come back.
The next time you have time to read and start there and read on, it will help you to understand that.
I don't say this as I trust a boast.
That as something that was a real blessing to me and I was still single. When you get married, you have a lot more responsibilities and you don't have as much time. When I was still single, I decided when I was living in Chicago.
Before I went to work every morning to take one hour get up an hour earlier, Yeah, I couldn't sleep as long as I would have liked to get up an hour earlier to spend 1/2 an hour reading the scriptures, maybe some books about the scriptures, and then another half hour on my knees. Those times with the Lord.
By myself were times of tremendous blessing I.
Do not regret having done it. I want to encourage you to make a decision to take time to read the Scriptures to cultivate that fellowship with the Lord. It is a tremendous blessing. Remember what I said that in verse three is fellowship with the Father and with His Son.
It's not until you get down to verse seven that you have fellowship one with another.
So I'm glad to see you at the meetings wherever you go to meeting.
And sometimes you can't because of.
This quarantine, that's on that.
When you can, it's nice to see you there.
But I want to encourage you to cultivate fellowship with the Lord, with God as Father and the Lord Jesus as Savior. Read your Bible, pray every day. It's going to make your life meaningful.
I've read the this book for many years now.
Lot that I still don't understand.
But you know what? There is more and more that I learned. I want to tell you something. The more that you learn, the more you realize how little you really know.
Wonderful, wonderful to get to know him.
Verse four we've already talked about let's see way to be really happy. But now notice verse 5. This is the message which we have heard of him and declaring to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.
God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.
What is light?
We got some lights in this room.
Just like making any noise. Can you hear anything there? Is it saying anything?
What in the world do we have that then?
What's that for?
So make AC, isn't it? Without that light you can't see and that's what's so important. God is light and then him is no darkness at all. If you say.
That you have fellowship with God.
You're going to have to have fellowship in the light because God is light and there is nothing you can hide in your light. Sometimes, you know, you try to hide from your parents.
Or try to hide from the brother.
You gotta learn you can have fellowship with God. You can't hide anything. God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. You know in the first chapter of Genesis it said God divided the light from the darkness. You can't mix those two things. They are mutually exclusive.
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Either there's light or there's darkness.
Don't try to mix. This world says, yeah, you're a Christian, I know, but come on, a little bit of this world is not going to hurt you. They'll try to get you to mix the light with the darkness. In the end, you can't do it. Doesn't work.
That leads to disastrous results.
For a lot, he tries to mix the light with the darkness.
And he lost everything he had in his life. Tragic. He was a saved soul, we know from the New Testament. But he lost almost everything tragic. I don't want your life to be that way. God is light and then him is no darkness at all.
But then it goes on to say no, it's verse six how it starts the 1St 3 words of verse six if we say.
1St 3 words of verse 8.
If we say.
1St 3 words of verse 10.
If we say, what's that about?
It's that it's easy to talk.
We can say, yeah, I'm in fellowship with the Lord. Yeah, no problem. I'm in fellowship with the Lord.
So verse six says, if we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie.
Do not the truth.
He puts it in black and white.
Where are you walking?
Oh, it's so important. You're a believer in the Lord Jesus. You've come to know God, really, truly know him. You're in the light. Somebody asked a brother one time what happens when a Christian turns his back on the light?
The answer was the light shines on his back and that's the truth. He was looking away from the light.
Light shows everything you are, so don't try to hide anything in the light. If you want to have fellowship with God, put that out of the out of the picture. Don't try to hide anything, it doesn't work.
So it's interesting.
Verse 10, seven then says, but if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another. I think this is so beautiful. If you are walking in fellowship with the Lord and I'm walking in fellowship with the Lord, and we meet up together immediately we're going to feel the warmth of that fellowship.
One with another. It's the result of having fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ individually.
How important this is to enjoy.
You know, I sometimes see young people say I'm in fellowship. What they mean is that they're breaking bread.
But I wonder sometimes if they really are in fellowship. Yeah, they're breaking bread.
And I understand what you mean that you're in fellowship because you are partaking of that one low and of the cup, but.
It comes through walking in fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
And then there can be fellowship, one with another.
And then it says in the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son cleanses us from all sin. Why does that verse come in there? I thought that was a gospel verse.
John is not talking to and say people here. He's talking to Christians, ones that have been born into the family of God. Why does he give that there?
You know what I've come up with my own meditation is.
That sin is what breaks fellowship with God.
Does the Christian sin?
Yeah, sorry to say.
It's not characteristic of a Christian to send, but sometimes it happens.
And when you send as a Christian, you don't lose your salvation. What you lose is your fellowship with God. Here I am walking with the Lord. Happy fellowship.
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He's right beside me.
Talking to him once in a while in my own heart.
And he gives me assurance of his presence, and come up upon a situation where I tell a little white lie.
Now is there fellowship?
What would you say?
No, you're judging me pretty strongly, aren't you?
It was just a little white lie.
You're exactly right.
No such thing as a little white lie with God. You have the Lord's right beside me still.
But now I've lost fellowship with him.
You know what? I find that so many times when young people.
Send they can't figure out how to get back in fellowship with God.
And they give place to another sin, and another, until they're a long ways off.
So I want to speak about these last few verses of this chapter, verse 8-9 and ten, because they are the ones that tell us how to restore fellowship once we have lost fellowship. Remember, sin is what breaks fellowship with God.
And the only thing that can take away sin is the blood of Jesus Christ.
That's why this comes here, because that's what God has provided, so that you and I can walk in fellowship with God.
Tremendous cost His old lady got his son hanging on that cross, suffering the awful judgment of God for sin, and then giving his life. And that soldier taking the spear and plunging into his side and out for blood and water. There he hangs a dead corpse on the cross.
That's what he paid.
So that I can have fellowship with God, You think I'm going to let?
Sin rob me of fellowship with God now.
I have to confess to you young people and older ones too, that sin sometimes comes into my life even at this age.
In fact, sometimes other ways too.
And I can sense I've lost fellowship with the Lord.
What do you do when that happens? I've seen some young people that are just so totally baffled that they just take off and go in the other direction. They don't even want to talk to their brethren anymore.
A young brother and Olivia who got away from the Lord.
We finally decided to go, two or three of us to visit him in his house.
And, uh, talk to him, see what was hindering him. Because he hardly ever showed up at the meetings anymore.
And he said, what is the problem?
And we asked him.
Did you ever confess what you did to the Lord?
Looking at verse nine, it says if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
So we asked him, Did you ever confess your sin to the Lord?
He put his head down for quite a while, finally said no. I only confessed it to the brother.
No wonder you're not restored to fellowship. It's not first with the brethren, it's first with the Lord, because sin always breaks fellowship with the Lord first of all. Yeah, it might break fellowship with your brethren too, but it's with the Lord first of all.
That was the turning point.
He confessed it to the Lord and he's back in fellowship for many years now, thankful to say, but we got to learn these things. But I just want to point out before we talk anymore about verse 9, want you to see in verse 8 and verse 10, we read the 1St 3 verses of each of these verses 68 and 10. If we say notice verse 8.
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We say that we have no sin. Notice that's sin as talking about the sin nature.
We receive ourselves, and the truth is not in US.
Verse 10 says if we say that we have not sinned, there's the act of sin. We make him a liar and his word is not in this. It's important when we sin not only to recognize the sin we've done.
But who is the guilty party?
That's what we have in verse 8, the guilty party. Where is the guilty party? You know what? When God called Adam to account, you know what Adam said, the woman.
She gave me.
Then when the Lord turned to the woman, you know what she said.
The serpent beguiled me. We always like to blame somebody else, and sometimes there are other people involved in the sin.
But you know what? If you send, you are the guilty party, and that is important to recognize.
I send OK, I am guilty. That's important.
And then verse 10 is what we've done to recognize and now verse 9.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. What's our part? Confess. What does that mean?
Tell the Lord what you did.
Dog beat around the Bush about it. He already knows what you did. Just tell him straight across the board because he knows about it.
Sometimes we like to beat around the Bush.
Remember the story of a young man? I don't know exactly where this happened, but you've gotten into bad company and you got drunk.
He felt so terrible. Afterwards he came to a brother that he had confidence in and said this is what happened to me brother, I don't know what to do.
So the brother pointed out this verse 9. You'll have to confess it to the Lord. If we confess, He's faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
So they both got down on their knees and young man started praying. Oh Lord, I really did a terrible thing. I really dishonored your name.
The older brother said beside him, Tell him what she did. So he starts out again and he just kept on beating around the Bush, not saying exactly what he did. And the brother said again, tell him what you did.
Finally said oh Lord, I got drunk.
Someone knows it, but He wants you to say it. That's confession and that's what's so important. That's our part. And then the Lord's part is what He is, faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. You can't do the clean up job. He's the one that does the clean up job.
He cleanses from all unrighteousness when you confess your sins.
I think it's such an important thing. You're going to walk in fellowship with God. You're going to have to employ what scripture says about it. Just want to say that asking for forgiveness is not what it says in verse 9.
There's so many people that think that they have to continue to ask for forgiveness when they sin.
That's not what it says.
Chapter 2 and verse 12 it says.
I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you. For His name's sake. We have the forgiveness of sins. What He asked for is not that we asked for the forgiveness of sins, that that we confess our sins, that we tell them exactly what we've done.
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It's so important.
And then he forgives. And I want to point out the fact that that forgiveness is not judicial forgiveness.
We have the forgiveness of sins judicially the moment we are. We accept the Lord Jesus as our Savior at the beginning of our Christian lives.
No, this is governmental forgiveness. God has government in his household and he can't let us back into the fellowship until there is confession. That's the forgiveness it's talking about. It's governmental forgiveness.
And not only does He forgive him, but He cleanses us from all unrighteousness. How wonderful it is to know that we have the forgiveness of sins. Ephesians 17 it says, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace.
That's judicial forgiveness and it's speaking about there because the Lord Jesus shed his blood, the price has been paid, and now we have the forgiveness of all our sins. We don't have to ask for that anymore. You know, people sometimes say to me, well, didn't Jesus teach his disciples to pray? Forgive us our sins as we also forgive our debtors?
Remember, that was before Jesus died on the cross. That was before he paid the price of redemption.
And that was proper then, but now that Jesus has died and paid that price, you'll never read from the book of the Acts through the epistles that we should ask for the forgiveness of our sins. I might have to ask a brother to forgive me that I've sinned against, but not God, because we have the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace. Wonderful.
Reality.
But here what we're talking about in our chapter, verse 9, the forgiveness it talks about is governmental forgiveness. I remember one time when I was a boy.
And I have to confess.
I got weapons.
Sometimes almost every day. So, you know, I'm not that great of a guy.
Anyhow, one day when I got my weapon.
My dad said to me, Robert, I always used to call me Robert at home.
I want you to come back to me and tell me you're sorry for what you did.
Wow, that was hard.
That meant I had to confess it was wrong.
And I remember when I did finally come back to my dad and confess it, I cried more than when I got the weapon. It hurts so bad. I have to admit that I was wrong.
I'm so glad I had a dad that taught me that when I was young. It has been a blessing my whole life long.
And I wasn't accepted back into the circle of fatherly fellowship until I did that. That's what we're talking about, he didn't say. You're not my son any longer. No.
You said I want you to do that, and it was only when I did that that he opened his arms and happy fellowship, I could be back in his arms.
Now we're talking about God our Father. We're living in a world of sin, and I know you guys and girls have sinned facing you sometimes when your mom and dad are not around, sometimes when the brother are not around and you're tempted.
I just want to encourage you to cultivate fellowship with God. Just want to say before we close to encourage you again, I like to challenge young people about reading the scriptures.
It was not this last Oaxaca conference in southern Mexico, but I think it was the year before.
00:55:01
We were in a place called La Cumbre.
In southern Mexico.
And at that conference, I think there were about 800 present, but there was a group of young brothers there I got talking with during between the meetings.
I say, I said to them, Do you guys read the scriptures every day?
Yeah, sometimes, I said. What do you mean by sometimes? Well, maybe 2-3 times a week. Oh, I see. I'm glad you read it that much.
I said I'd like to ask you a question.
How often do you eat your meals?
For every day.
Oh, OK, that means then that your, your body is quite a bit more important than your soul. Oh, don't say that, brother, I said, well, you're feeding your soul only two or three times a week. You're feeding your body every single day.
How much time do you take to eat your meals every day?
Came up with a figure somewhere around an hour.
If you find it hard to take 5 minutes to read something of the word of God, Dear young people, let me encourage you to make it a habit of your life. It's important to form good habits, but it's going to take decision on your part. Your mom and dad can tell you to do it, but unless you make that decision yourself, it's just going to be.
Until they're out of the picture, and then you won't do it anymore.
So I want to encourage you to make a decision to seriously get into the scriptures, to read it. Read some of the good books about the scriptures.
You know, when I see people, young brothers that do that, I can tell there's something happening there that's very positive and that makes me so happy to see.
And so I want to encourage that tonight our time is up. So Tim told me it was only 59 minutes, so I got to make sure not to go over.
Let's pray.
Father, thanks for Thy precious word. Make it register in our hearts, Oh Father, the wonder of walking in fellowship with thee, our God and our Father, and with thee, Lord Jesus, bless our time here at this camp.
The days ahead.
Helped dear Kim and Elaine in managing the affairs of the camp.
Father, we pray and give thanks now for the rest of the evening. We committed by hands in the name of the Lord Jesus, Amen.