Where
Welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church.
Thank you for coming this evening.
It's good to see you all.
Let's take your seats and open up our hymn books to page 61.
We're going to sing, We'll Never Say Goodbye
for our first song this evening.
Page 61, We'll Never Say Goodbye.
Yeah, yeah.
We'll never say goodbye in glory In the morning, oh great honor
We'll never say goodbye in glory We'll never say goodbye in glory
Help them to preach your word boldly
out of 1st John chapter two.
I pray that you would help us to apply the message
to our lives and that we would worship and glorify you
in everything we do.
In Jesus' name I pray, amen.
Our second song, page 19 this evening.
Page 19, there is a fountain.
Page number 19.
Page number 19, there is a fountain.
Good singing. If you don't already have a bulletin, just lift it with your hand nice and high.
One of the ushers can come by and get you guys a bulletin.
We're on Jude 14 for our memory verse of the week.
Anyone 18 or under that can quote it and get an ice cream after the service.
Service and soul winning times are listed there on the left hand side.
Please be in...
Keeping up with the soul winning stats by putting him in our group chat and everything like that and then on the right
We have several ladies who are expecting. So if you please be in prayer for them upcoming events this Saturday night
It's gonna be the teen event
July 26th. We're doing a bowling night. It's gonna be a lot of fun. And so really looking forward to that
There's a joint baby shower on the 9th. There's also another teen event August 9th, and then there's a men's retreat August 14th to the
16th
Make sure to sign up so that way we have an accurate count
as far as who's coming.
FBBF conference, August 27th through the 31st.
It's gonna be a lot of fun, cool activities.
We're giving away some cool drip.
I don't know what to call it.
That's what the cool kids are calling it these days, right?
What do you call it anymore?
I use merch and then people are like,
but you're not selling anything right.
We're not selling anything, but it's basically some swag.
Is that the older term?
Sorry, you guys are from like the 90s or something.
You got swag or something, right?
Mission's trip, Mexico City, September 8th through the 12th.
Brother Diego's gonna be helping lead us on that.
Baby shower down below details for both ladies.
Miss Alderman and Carlson, it's gonna be on
the 9th, the 12th, the two.
Please RSVP to Miss Milstead if you'd like to attend.
All ladies are invited, so even if you don't know them
very well and you'd like to just attend,
you're welcome to.
If you'd like to bring a dessert or a gift, you can.
Nothing is required.
nursing's only preferred. On the back is our prayer list. Continue to pray for the
Carlson's for their mother and father. We're praying for the Miss Miller's
friend, her mother who has cancer. Continue to pray for both the Scots and
then also Miss Olivia if you pray for Brother Garcia's health. We're praying
for the Foley's dad who has kidney disease. Continue to pray for the
Urbanix grandmother. She's been in the hospital in and out and had a lot of
We're praying for their friend as well who's recovering from surgery continue to pray for brother Goodwin for his
Brother-in-law who's recovering from surgery also if you pray for brother. Ellie's dad who has some kidney stones
Hopefully is that is that updated?
He's good praise God for that one. All right, and then also brother Gabe asked for prayer for his mom
Who has some foot issues, so that's that's pretty much all I have as far as
our update for our prayer list.
We'll just go ahead and say a quick word of prayer
as a church family.
Thank you Heavenly Father so much for our church.
Thank you for all the ladies who are expecting.
Please be with them during their pregnancies.
Please help their children's development.
Please give them a timely birth.
I pray that you'd also bless those
that have recently given birth.
That you please just help them with their development
and bless their families.
I pray that you would help our church family
that's having all kinds of struggles
with their chronic health issues
or just health in general.
I pray that you would just please give them
recovery, please give them favor. I pray that you would help those of our friends
and family that need to the gospel, that you give us that boldness, that you give
us that opportunity, that you'd soften their hearts. I pray that you would help
us with our upcoming events and our conferences, that we could just do these
things in honor and glory of you, that you keep us safe. Please bless our
evangelists and the Philippines and all the work that he's doing out there and
their church, and I pray that we would do everything in honor and glory of your son
in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
So I have four announcements. We're gonna go ahead and sing Psalm 117. It's in our special
Psalm hymn and binders
Spiritual song binders. So if you if you have one of these I turn it out to Psalm
117
All right again, that's Psalm 117
Let's sing it out. We're going to sing this twice. So let's sing it out the first.
You can turn your bibles to first John chapter 2 first John chapter 2
John chapter number two, the Bible reads,
My little children, these things write unto you
that ye sin not.
And if any man sinned, we have an advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.
And he is the propitiation for our sins
and not for ours only, but also for the sins
of the whole world.
And hereby we do know that we know him
if we keep his commandments.
He that sayeth I know him and keepeth not his commandments
as a liar and the truth is not in him.
But whoso keepeth his word and him verily
Hereby know we that we are in him.
He that saith he abideth in him,
ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.
Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you,
but an old commandment,
which ye have had from the beginning.
The old commandment is the word which we have heard from the beginning.
Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you, because
the darkness is past and the true light now shineth.
He that saith he is in the light, and hatheth his brother, is in darkness even until now.
He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling
in him.
But he that hatheth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whether
I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you, for his name's sake.
I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning.
I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one.
I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father.
I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning.
I have written unto you, young men, because you are strong,
and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.
Love not the world neither the things that are in the world if any man love the world the love of the father is not in him
For all that is in the world the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the father
But is of the world and the world passed away in the lust thereof
But he that doeth the will of God abideeth forever little children
It is the last time and as you have heard that antichrist shall come
even now are there many Antichrists whereby we know that it is the last time.
They went out from us, but they were not of us, for if they had been of us,
they would no doubt have continued with us. But they went out that they might be made manifest,
that they were not all of us. But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.
I have not written unto you, because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it,
and that no lie is of the truth. Who is a liar, but he that denyeth that Jesus is the Christ?
He is an Antichrist that denies the Father and the Son, who so denies the Son the same
hath not the Father, but he that acknowledges the Son hath the Father also.
Let that therefore bide in you which ye have heard from the beginning.
If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue
in the Son and in the Father.
And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.
but the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man
teach you, but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and his truth, and his no lie,
and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. And now little children abide in him,
that when ye shall appear, we may have confidence in not be ashamed before him at his coming.
If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that everyone that doeth righteousness is born of him."
Thank you for your word.
Thank you for this church. Thank you for the souls that have been saved.
I just pray that you'd bless Pastor Shelley, fill him with your whole experience. He preached unto us.
Help us make applicable changes to our lives. And I praise in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.
Here, as we transition into chapter two, we continue the same theme that was brought up
in the last few verses of chapter one, emphasizing the idea of not sinning and having a close
fellowship with Jesus Christ being tied to not sinning and confessing your sins.
We notice in verse nine of the previous chapter, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and
just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
and his word is not in us.
There's a tension in the Bible of obviously
we should not send a draw close to the Lord Jesus Christ,
yet,
we're sinners and we will continue to sin and we still have this tug of war of the flesh and the
spirit and we are never going to perfectly obey the spirit. We're never going to always walk in
the spirit but the more that we walk in the spirit, the more that we crucify the flesh,
the more that we get sin out of our lives, the more we're going to draw close unto the Lord Jesus
Christ and we're going to have good fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ and of course that's
Lord Jesus Christ, that's what it said in verse number four.
And so then it's reiterated here in verse one, my little children, these things write
unto you that you sin not.
So the goal of 1st John is to draw close to the Lord Jesus Christ and to have the close fellowship with him and with God the Father and with the apostles and with true Christians.
And in order to accomplish that particular goal, what you need to do is you need to sin not.
Not sinning is a commandment, is an instruction in the goal of the pursuit of fellowship with Jesus Christ and God the Father and the true saints and the true apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And if we were to look at religion today,
if we were to look at those who are the closest
to the Lord Jesus Christ,
the closest to following the Lord Jesus Christ,
it would be those that are trying not to sin.
Trying to forgive, forgo sinning and not sinning.
The Bible's very clear that we should not sin.
It says here, if we do though, and if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours
only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
So we have an advocate no matter what time of day, no matter what point in our lives,
we always have an advocate, meaning someone that's going to bat for us, someone that's
on our side.
someone that's going to be a mediator,
someone that's going to intercede for us,
and that's Jesus Christ, the righteous.
And so when we approach God the Father through prayer,
we have that advocate of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's why you pray to the Father in Jesus' name,
because he's the advocate, he's the intercessor,
he's the mediator between us.
There's only one mediator between God and man,
the man, God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
There's only one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
And of course Catholics, they try to pray through Mary.
They try to pray through other saints.
They try to pray through other individuals.
But the only advocate that we truly have is Jesus Christ.
Mary is up in heaven, rolling her eyes every time some Catholic tries to pray to her.
I can't imagine what she's looking down from heaven
and seeing just all this idolatry and graven images
and statues and just, I was just kind of thinking like she,
I don't know if you can be embarrassed in heaven or not,
but if you can, I would just think like Mary
would just be so embarrassed in heaven.
And just kind of like thinking like, man, what are they doing down there?
Like, this is just kind of weird, this is just kind of awkward.
Of course, there's other saints like St. Peter and other people that Catholics will raise up graven images to,
they'll bow down to, and this is what's funny, they'll say, we don't worship Mary.
But the definition of worship in the Bible or the way that worship is used in the Bible is just simply kneeling down.
It's just prostrating yourself, kneeling down, getting on your knees, and we could
just show thousands if not millions of pictures of Catholics bowing down, kneeling down, getting
on their knees and praying to Mary statues, all the while saying, we're not worshiping
her.
Well, you are worshiping her.
You're literally worshiping her in a physical sense.
And then, of course, they would say, yeah, but we're not worshiping her like we worship
God.
which again, holy, we refer to God the Father.
There's only one that's really holy and that's God.
We don't sit here and just say to each other like,
holy so and so, holy brother or holy whatever.
Sometimes people use that as a cuss word, holy cow.
But at the end of the day, that is not or is some kind of a slang.
But you know what? We don't attribute holy to the saints.
We don't say you're holy so-and-so or whatever.
Now we should strive for holiness, but we are not holy.
And when you look in Revelation, it says holy, holy, holy.
That's the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
not to Mary. So they say, oh, we venerate Mary.
Well, I don't care what you call it, you bow down to worship
and you give her titles such as Holy Mary
that are not found in the text. I saw some Catholic post
this like kind of an infographic
of four different mentions of the Bible. It's like basically saying it, it looked
like it was just quoting the Bible.
If you just look at the graphic, it looks like it's just showing little
quotes of the Bible, and then we'd have the reference.
We'd just say, like, here in 1 Peter, this is what it says,
and here in John, this is what it says.
And I was thinking, like, every time I looked at the quote,
I'm thinking, like, that's not what the Bible says.
I thought, well, maybe it's in the Catholic Bible.
So then I would, like, look up their quote,
and then the Catholic Bible didn't say it either.
And so I just like comment on this guy's post, I'm like,
hey, your post doesn't say that, it's just not in text anywhere.
And then he just posts some other thing,
some other like just chart explaining how Mary's holy or something.
Because it said like quote, holy Mary,
and then it gives a Bible reference and it's just not there.
Because you know what the Bible never says? Holy Mary.
anywhere. She is not an advocate, she's not a mediatrix.
We have one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
It is not, there's no other option. You know that's a good verse to show
Catholics
is that there's only one mediator.
Here, it's saying we have the advocate.
Why?
Jesus Christ, the righteous.
That's a good indication of something.
What is different about Jesus and us?
He's righteous.
There's only one that we can declare His righteousness is, and that's Jesus.
In Romans chapter number three, we declare His righteousness, and He declares us justified.
by our faith in the one that was righteous, which is Jesus Christ.
There's one that was righteous and that's what gives us the free gift according to Romans chapter
number five. We're not righteous and look, Mary's not righteous either. By the righteousness of one,
the free gift came upon all men under justification.
by the righteousness of one, because there's only one that's righteous,
Jesus Christ the righteous. Mary is not righteous. Now,
was Mary a good Christian? I'm sure she was.
Obviously she was favored among women as the Bible describes her.
Obviously she had a special role in being
a chosen vessel to give birth to the Lord Jesus Christ
and we see her following Jesus throughout his ministry
She was a great Christian.
She's going to be greatly rewarded in heaven,
but she was not righteous, she was a sinner.
Mary was a sinner, and she's no longer a virgin.
She was a virgin. She's no longer a virgin because Joseph did not know her till after the first born
okay, till Jesus Christ was born and
We do not pray to Mary. We don't pray to the Peter and
Somebody will give me a verse these catheters give me this verse
What says pray one for another and I'm thinking like okay, but you know what the Bible is shows?
Nowhere in the text where people are praying to someone that's dead
Where it's like hey, let's just because because if we can just ask people that are dead to pray for us
Why would I pick Mary? Why don't I pick Abraham?
Why don't I pick Isaac? Why don't I pick David? Why don't I pick Solomon? Why don't I pick Peter?
Why don't I pick Paul?
I mean, why don't I pick Elias?
I mean, the Bible says specifically about Elias or Elijah that his prayers are really
special because it's saying the prayers of a righteous man avail of much and it's in
context about Elijah.
So if I really wanted someone to go to bat for me, wouldn't I pick Elijah?
But then they pick Mary, which is just random.
There's only one advocate. It's Jesus Christ the righteous and he is the propitiation for our sins
What is propitiation? You could think of it as like a payment substitute. He's basically taking our place
What we deserve he is the propitiation for our sins
He is what appeases God for our sins. This is different than Islam because Islam will say well
God just waves his hand and all sin is just forgiven, but here's the thing that makes Allah unjust
Our God is different in that He allows a substitute,
yet He does not allow sin to go unpunished.
All sins are punished, making God just
and allowing us to receive His mercy through faith
and His Son, Jesus Christ.
Whereas Islam will just wave His hand and just,
oh, you're fine, now you get to go to heaven
because you blew yourself up and you killed infidels
and you did some nonsense that the Bible does not describe anywhere.
The Bible does not teach some kind of a vigilante martyrdom.
Going around blowing yourself up, killing people, slay the infidel!
You know, that's just not what the Bible says.
The Bible doesn't have this attitude.
The Bible is not contradictory either,
whereas you read the Quran in some sections,
it's like, be nice to Christians,
and be nice to the Jews,
and then you flip the page and it's like,
slay them, kill them, murder them!
You're just like, what in the world?
It's because it's like the Quran was written through different time periods and so in different time periods when he is at peace with the Jews and Christians
It's like, oh, let's be friendly. Let's be kind and then when they're at war
It's like slave them slave the infidel kill them because it's not the word of God
It's just some demon whispering in Muhammad's ear
And look, Islam is a false religion, Catholicism is a false religion, there's only one mediator,
there's only one advocate, there's only one intercessor, it's the Lord Jesus Christ.
And he was the propitiation for our sins, and this is great, and not for ours only,
but also for the whole world.
How in the world can you be a Calvinist with verses like this in the Bible?
Calvinists will say that what Jesus did is limited to only those that are saved, whereas
the Bible says no, he was the payment for everyone.
This idea of limited atonement says Jesus didn't die for everyone.
Because then they say, well, in a court of law, there's this idea of double jeopardy,
where you can't go to, you know, if Jesus already paid for it, then how can I go to
hell and pay for my sins, well, I don't really know because I don't really care about your
logic.
The Bible says that he's the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world
That's what the Bible says. He he paid the penalty for everyone
He went ahead and just paid your ticket and he says hey, I got you if you believe in me
If you put your trust in me if you put your faith in me it to me
It's just kind of like hey, what if you owe to debt to somebody?
What if you owe five bucks to somebody and they say hey someone comes around and say I'll pay it
And they give you a bar of gold to cover it. Well that more than covers it doesn't it?
So then he can just basically say, hey, I got you, and I got you, and I got you.
What Jesus did was enough to pay for the sins of the entire world.
Now does it apply to everyone?
It only applies to those who believe in Jesus Christ and accept the free gift of eternal life.
But it was paid for, and the Bible makes this clear.
Why would the Calvinists not like this?
To me I just I don't even understand it. It's just like man's logic trying to
Somehow make them be more special or be prideful
because think about it if if Jesus didn't pay for some guy over here sin, you know this this unbeliever
Whatever whatever person you want to categorize it. Let's just say Donald Trump because he's an unbeliever
Do you want to say, hey, Jesus didn't pay for Donald Trump's sins, but he paid for my sins?
Well, what does that do? That makes use more special than Donald Trump, doesn't it?
It says you're better, you're more special than Donald Trump. Whereas if I say, hey, Jesus paid for
both Donald Trump's sins and my sins, you know what that does? That makes Jesus more special.
So here's the thing, the right doctrine makes Jesus special. Your doctrine tries to lift yourself up,
and you know what? That is the religion of Calvinism, is it's a pride man-centered religion.
It's all about them and it's so funny because they'll say no no our view makes God special and we give all the decisions to God
But then you're saying but God picked you
But then God thinks you're better than other people and it's like based on nothing based on
Absolutely nada, which makes no sense and it makes their God a weird God
a weird God that just makes decisions that are arbitrary.
Same with Catholicism in another way because they say God doesn't have any emotions
and I'm thinking like well then all his decisions are arbitrary too
because he's sending people to heaven that he doesn't love and he's
sending people to hell that he doesn't hate. Whereas the God of the Bible sends
people that he loves
to heaven and he sends people that he hates to hell. And the Bible says that
God
sends those who believe in Jesus to heaven and those who rejected the free gift
of eternal life
That's what the real God of the Bible does, and of course Jesus Christ, his blood spilled and shed and put on the mercy seat was a sufficient payment, not only for us, but for everyone.
Therefore, when we knock on someone's door, we can truly say, hey, Jesus died for you and paid for your sins, whereas the Calvinists could say, Jesus might have died for you.
I don't even know.
And they'd say, okay, well, how do I accept this? You can't.
What do you mean? I can't well, it's unconditional election. So there's nothing you're gonna do and
You know, it's irresistible grace. So if if it's right
I won't even have to convince you because there's nothing that could stop you from believing it and just getting sucked into the Calvinist laser beam
So frankly speaking, I don't even know why I'm here
Because by me explaining these things to you has no impact if you're gonna believe it or not has no impact if you're gonna get sucked into the
irresistible laser beam and
Frankly speaking if you get sucked in you can't even get out anyways
So what's the what's the point of Calvinism?
There's literally no point to Calvinism whatsoever. It's just it's a doctrine of stupidity of nonsense
It's just when man in his own wisdom thinks he's smarter than God. He just ends up coming out to be the fool
Calvinism is a dumb doctrine and this is what they'll do to try and twist this verse is they'll say well
It says not for ours only and it says but also for the sins of the whole world
What it what the text is really saying though is for the sins of the elect of the whole world
So it's like it's not only us apostles
But also all the whole world of the saved of the elect and this is what you'll notice that Calvinist like to do
Insert words to make their doctrine fit
They can't let the text make it fit they have to insert extra words that discount the entire point
Why would it say whole world if it's again just only the elects sake?
And again, the us here is not only in view of the apostles in this particular section.
What does it say in verse 8?
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
Is that only the apostles?
Is the us there only applied to the apostles?
Or is anybody who says, hey, we haven't sinned or we don't sinned
or we don't have any sin that the truth is not in them too?
That obviously applies to every single person and applies to every single person that would make this statement in the same way
This is also saying hey if we
You know
Recognize who Jesus Christ is
We get saved, but you know it's not only us. It's every single person that Jesus Christ died for
Yeah, obviously by believing in him it applies to us in a special way
But it is not limited to us you know the Bible talks about also how I
Jesus Christ saves us, and the faith in him saves us,
but it says in another text, it's like,
especially those that believe.
It's like Jesus is the payment, he's the ransom,
and it's not just for us, it's for everyone,
and especially for those who believe,
or especially for those who believe.
Obviously, we understand that you have to accept
this gift to get it, but Jesus did die
for every single person.
Verse three says this, and hereby we do know
We keep His commandments. So again, what is the whole context?
The whole context is keeping His commandments.
That started at the ending of chapter 1.
It's reiterated in the first verse of chapter 2,
keeping the commandments, not sinning.
If you're sinning, then you're kind of a liar.
That's what it says in verse 4.
He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments,
is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
Look, there'll be a temptation, there'll be a lot of people who will come to a church
like ours or hear some of our doctrine and they'll say, oh, you're a church, you judge
people who get divorced?
Hey, I don't like that because I'm going to go get divorced or I like committing the
sin of divorce and remarriage and whatever because my Jesus is more forgiving than yours.
No, no, no, you have the wrong Jesus.
And the person that says, well, I know who Jesus,
I know who Jesus really is.
Jesus is gonna be kind to my divorce and remarriage.
No, no, the same Jesus that you think that you have
is the same Jesus that in Matthew 19 said explicitly
that you're committing adultery.
And you don't really know Jesus very well
because the Jesus of the Bible says he doesn't like that.
He says that as a sin.
He says it's likened unto adultery.
Okay, so there will be this temptation.
Oh, well, my Jesus doesn't hate.
You have the wrong Jesus again.
Because the real Jesus does hate certain things and oh my Jesus is always nice
Well, the Bible says that the Lord is a man of war
You know anytime someone is trying to explain to who Jesus is or why they can justify their sin
They're wrong. They're a liar. They don't really know him. Look at verse four. He that said I know him. Oh
I know Jesus. I have a really I have a personal relationship with Jesus
Look, you hear this all the time.
You go out door knocking, you go to the fun centers today,
and they all say, I have a personal relationship with Jesus.
You know what that is? I know him.
But then they don't keep his commandments.
What does the Bible say? They're a liar.
They're a liar, because you know what?
When you say you know him, that would say, I know Leviticus, because that's Jesus.
I know Deuteronomy.
I know 1 Corinthians, chapter number 11.
I know 1 Timothy.
I know Revelation.
I know Genesis.
That's what it means to know him, and when someone says, I have a personal relationship
with them, and they're violating clear verses in the Bible, they're a liar, they're wrong.
This is who Jesus is, and the person that knows him is going to follow his commandments and knows his commandments and likes his commandments.
And what does the Bible say? And the truth is not in him. Hey, you don't have the truth. Look, the truth is, this is the truth.
If someone's you know, if someone's outside of the boundaries of the text, they're not accurate. It's not true
It's not legitimate. If you could if someone says hey, you're wrong. I don't like your doctrine. I don't like your beliefs
I don't like what your church does. This is what I could say. Okay. Show me in here
Show me here. Oh, no, no, no, no. I just I have a personal relationship
Okay, well your personal relationship, I have the same relationship, it's my hand, I have
the mind of Christ right here, show me in the mind of Christ where we're wrong, show
me where it's different, show me how it's something else, because if we're wrong the
text would prove that we're wrong.
This is Jesus Christ, we have the mind of Christ, we know what is right and wrong.
If we keep his commandments, I can actually say I know Jesus if I keep his commandments.
If I say I know him, but I'm not keeping his commandments, I don't really know him.
Because people will go on both sides of this.
Some people say you can't know anything and we can't know what's up and down.
We can't know who Jesus is and we can't see anything.
No, no, I can know him.
And I can know who doesn't know him.
The one that's keeping his commandments knows him.
The one that's not keeping his commandments does not know him.
This is how we know and how we can test who's really of Jesus Christ,
and who's really of God.
What is the church that really knows Jesus it's the one who's trying to keep his commandments the one that's
Knows what the text says and is trying to do what the text says verse five
But who so keep of this word in him verily is the love of God perfected here by noe that we are at him
What is the love of God look like it's keeping his commandments and look people think like oh religions not a bunch of do's and don'ts
Okay, but but wait a minute what what is in the text like what is in the text that's so scary?
You know, I mean like I'm always thinking about this
I'm like what in the Old Testament even what in the Old Testament laws is just like so terrifying that if you did
It's like causing problems in society because according to the Bible the entire Old Testament law is either loving God or loving your neighbor as yourself
Is like, not lying to people, like somehow scary?
Like is that gonna really cause a lot of problems and decide if we don't lie to people?
If we don't commit adultery, if we're not stealing,
if we're doing nice things under other people,
if we know to do good and we do it,
if we don't get tattoos, am I like harming society by not getting tattoos?
Oh man, the tattoo parlor might shut down.
Well praise God.
Oh, am I really harming people by being sober 24-7?
That when I get in my vehicle and drive home, I'm actually sober and have a sound mind when
I actually drive home?
Is that harming people today?
Is it really harming people that I'm not getting tattoos all over my body?
Is it really harming me that I'm faithful to my wife?
Is it really harmful to the world that I'm having lots of kids?
No, you know what?
It actually helps your state and your country and your nation when you have lots of kids.
is it really harmful to the society when I actually discipline my kids
and when I go out in public everybody's thinking like wow your kids are really respectful
your kids don't have to be like physically hooked up
to a TV to obey when out in public.
I mean I go out in the public and it's like parents have one kid and they have to like
hook him up to all these contraptions to sit at the table and he's still more obnoxious
than a bunch of, you know, my kids sitting there.
Am I really harming society with my six, seven kids or whatever and you can't even keep
your one in line?
I mean, am I really harming society?
But by loving my neighbor and doing good unto my neighbor
and trying to teach the Bible,
I mean, it's like people get all weirded out,
like, oh man, you know, over there,
they actually want to keep the commandments.
Well, which one of them are so scary to you?
Right?
I mean, what is scaring you from the Old Testament law?
Because I read the Old Testament law
and I'm thinking like, I wish more people were like this,
not less.
You know, the Bible is talking about putting up battlements on your roof so that people don't fall off and hurt themselves and kill themselves.
The Bible is saying, hey, when your neighbor's ox or ass is astray and you find it to keep it and try to restore it and try to find it,
the Bible is saying, hey, when you find a rapist, put a bullet in his head. It's called stoning him to death.
The Bible is saying, hey, when people are stealing people, put them to death.
The Bible is saying, hey, when we find faggots, we put them to death.
We don't praise them and put them on the TV and try to put them on the magazine
and put a banner up in every single restaurant and force it down everybody's throat.
I mean, when I read the Old Testament Law, I'm thinking like, man, we need more of this, not less of this.
What are you so scared of?
I love the Word of God.
What does it say but who so keepeth his word and invariably is the love of God perfected look what is the love of God?
It's keeping the commandments. It's loving your neighbor as yourself. It's rebuking him and not suffering sin upon him
That's another thing that's important. What do God our society would actually tell people that they're wrong
And that when people are told that they're wrong, they would say thank you.
They would say, hey, by smiting me, it's a kindness unto me.
You would turn the other cheek. You would repent. You would get things right.
You would actually care about what the Bible says. You'd care about what people say.
I mean, it's a shame and embarrassment today how people can't take criticism anymore.
There's no judgment anymore.
How people don't respect authority anymore.
People don't respect their parents.
People don't respect the law.
People don't respect the government.
People don't respect the Constitution.
I mean, it's basically their entire government.
People don't respect their neighbor.
They rip them off through oppression and usury and deceit and false religion.
I mean, the problems of this world are that we don't have the love of God perfected.
Not that, hey, the Bible is just really bringing us down, man.
It's really causing us all these problems in society.
No, the problems in society are not following what the Bible says.
Not keeping His commandments.
You know, it's just kind of a sad twisting the people act like oh, okay
We have some fun
You know I have lots of fun and you can have lots of fun keeping God's commandments
You know, it's not fun paying child support. You know, it's not fun alimony. You know, it's not fun telling your kids
Oh me and me and mom don't love each other anymore and we're gonna separate put a name down on the paper who you want to live with
That's not fun. You know, it's not fun paying thousands and thousands of dollars to lawyers
for them to screw you over and hate your guts.
You know, it's not fun having the government repossess all of your possessions because you keep committing crimes.
You know, it's not fun having a government that taxes us through the nose because we just don't care.
We just let our government walk all over us and do all kinds of evils so then they oppress us.
If we actually held them to a biblical standard, you know what, maybe they wouldn't tax us through the nose as much.
Maybe they wouldn't print money every single second and constantly deflate the dollar and steal from us every single day.
If we actually cared about child molesters and predators and pedophiles,
I mean, it's just like, we have an entire list of all the worst pedophiles and we can't release it.
Why? Because our old government's on it.
Right, right, right, come on.
Oh, what's the problem in society?
Is it people trying to keep God's commandments?
Or is it the pedophile list in our government that we can't release?
I mean, which one?
And then our president being like, why are you so obsessed with this?
Yeah.
Why do you care so much about this or whatever it's like? Why do you know?
Why would you not be concerned with tons of children being exploited to it to basically?
blackmail every
Rich famous and powerful person in our country who's making all these decisions. I don't know what could be more important
I mean what could be more important than uncovering people blackmailing and
extorting the most rich and powerful leaders of the entire world and while
at the same time victimizing children to do so? I mean what could be more
important than that? There's literally nothing more important than that.
I mean, that's insane to think like,
oh, I don't think that's very important.
It's extremely important because these same people
that are willing to go to such links,
what other links are they willing to go to?
Dragging countries through wars like World War III,
dragging people through all kinds of military conflict,
CIA operations, overthrowing governments, tyranny,
raising all kinds of tariffs,
doing all kinds of other blackmail.
I mean,
Joe Biden had threatened other political regimes and governments that if they were going to release information about his son
He was going to come after them with the CIA and all kinds of stuff and kill their family
I mean look that is what's really bad
to say to try to undermine a list of pedophiles and
They're all the elites of this world and say that that's not important or we shouldn't talk about it is the ultimate gaslighting
I mean, it is the ultimate gaslighting.
Even Donald Trump's son, his own son, said,
hey, why is the government hiding this list?
We need to expose the pedophiles.
We need to get this out in the front.
Anybody that's not exposing this is like evil.
And it's like, oh, it's your dad.
It's your dad that's not exposing this,
that's not allowing this to go through.
Aren't you so glad you voted for Trump?
I mean, but here's the thing, why should it shock you?
Why should it surprise you that Donald Trump's a scumbag when the Bible is making it clear
that hey, the people that aren't keeping his commandments are liars and the truth is not
in them?
Why why would I be confused about this kind of a person that already has shown me no integrity?
Showing me someone that doesn't love God doesn't love the word of God doesn't love the Bible
I mean do I really expect these people to be honest? I don't even expect Christians to be honest
Let alone someone like him
You say well Kamala and worse, maybe I mean I'm not I'm not even saying that she wouldn't be but at the end of the day
Donald Trump's bad
And he's part of the same evil wicked system that's out there.
And you know what?
We as Christians, we shouldn't put our confidence in the government and man and any of these
things.
We should put our confidence in the Bible.
And if they don't like it, well, nuts to them.
Because I know Jesus and I like Jesus and we're not of this world.
You know, to skip forward in this, it actually says this in chapter 5.
The good is as in verse 19 and we know that we are of God and the whole world lies in wickedness
Hey, we're of God
Even though the whole world lies in wickedness. We don't want to be like the world
We want to be different because the whole world is wicked evil going down a bad path
Let's keep reading here in chapter 2
He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk even as he walked again
Jesus is not asking us to do something. He didn't do he kept the law
He kept God's commandments. He was faithful. He walked in the spirit
He wants us to also do the same thing verse 7 brethren
I write no new commandment unto you but an old command which he had from the beginning the old commandment is the word
Which you have heard from the beginning
Again, a new commandment I write unto you,
which thing is true in him and in you
because the darkness is past
and the true light now shineeth.
Now, on the surface that sounds a little awkward
because it almost sounds like it's contradicting itself,
it's kind of saying like,
hey, I'm writing something that's not new to you
and then in the next breath it's like,
hey, here's a new thing that I'm writing unto you.
What does that mean?
Well, basically what he's trying to say is,
what I'm gonna write a new commandment unto you.
But what I'm saying is not something that you didn't already know or that you didn't already have,
I'm just reiterating what you already knew.
Because the Old Testament makes it abundantly clear they're supposed to love our brother,
love our neighbors ourself, that we're supposed to do good unto our brother.
So it's not like when he's saying, hey, love your brother, that this is a radical new doctrine
that the Bible didn't already teach or that you couldn't have discerned from the Old Testament law,
but then he's like, hey, I'm going to say it again.
I thought of it like, in church, what if I said,
hey, I'm gonna give you a new rule in church.
If you make a mess in the sanctuary, clean it up.
It's not a new rule.
Because you should have already done that, but I'm just gonna give it to you again, right?
It's just like, hey, I'm gonna tell you something that you should do. It's not like you shouldn't have been doing it
It's not like you shouldn't have known that it's not like that wasn't available for you to have it's just hey
I'm just gonna reiterate it again. I'm gonna explain this again
So you're saying hey, this is a new commandment, but it's still an old commandment in the sense that we already had it
You already know it and I'm just reiterating basically what the text already said and what is that?
We're supposed to love one another. We're supposed to love our brother
and it's really, really important here.
It says in verse eight again a new commandment I write on you which thing is true in him and in you because the darkness is past and
The true light now shineth he that say these in the light and hated this brother is in darkness even until now
He that love of this brother abides in the light and there is none occasion of stumbling in him
But he that hated this brother's in darkness and walketh in darkness and knoweth not whether he goeth because that darkness had blinded
His eyes so in this text is telling us. Hey, don't hate your brother because God will blind you
You need to love your brother
so that you can see clearly and you can continue walking in the light.
And again, keeping his commandments is in line with loving your brother and loving your neighbor as
yourself. That's the commandments. So when you're not loving your brother, you're not keeping his
commandments, you're not doing what's right, and God will cause you to be in darkness. A really good
physical example of this, if you keep your finger, go to 1 Samuel 18 for a second, is David and King
I believe that, you know, I primarily apply this passage to save people.
You could obviously an unsaved person just not going to love their brother.
But I don't think the commandment is really for them because they can't love their brother because they're not saved.
So, to me, it's really indicating a commandment to those that are saved, because those that
are saved are commanded to love their brother, and if you're not saved, you're not really
capable of that yet.
You have to first get saved, for God to then really give you this commandment of then the
following commandments, because the Bible says you're free from righteousness when you're
under the law of sin.
when in Romans chapter number six you're basically free from righteousness
what the Bible says.
So you have to get saved first for this to really apply to you. Now King Saul and
David are both saved though
and they're brethren and Saul should love David but he ends up hating him
and look what it says in verse 9.
and Saul eyed David from that day and forward.
The Bible also says in another passage
that he became his enemy continually.
Saul became David's enemy continually.
Now, go to chapter 23.
And then there's this progression where Saul kind of just starts hating David and hating him more and more and more and more.
And he has this kind of really, if you think about it, blindness applying to him.
Now it wasn't a physical blindness, it was more like a spiritual blindness.
And often what a spiritual blindness will do is it just causes you to not make good decisions in your life.
You don't know which way to walk. You don't know which way to go.
The Bible is confusing to you. The Word of God is confusing to you. Life will be confusing to you.
And just start making decisions that are confusing. You're going to be a double-minded man.
You're going to be unstable in all your ways. And boy, I've seen this in a lot of people's lives.
I've seen people, I've seen pastors even, that just start hating another brother in Christ
and then it's just like all their decision-making just goes to trash instantly.
They start teaching weird things that no one's ever heard before.
And they start just believing lies, and believing heresy, and going down a bad path, and it's not...
It really isn't shocking, it should be obvious, okay, you started hating your brother in your heart,
you started envying your brother in your heart, and as a result God just keeps making you more blind,
more and more blind, you start doing dumb things, weird things, and you can't get on the right track.
And so that's why it's important that we love our brother,
even if we don't like them that much,
or even if we have problems with them,
we're still supposed to try to love them, overcome that,
and not reward evil for...
Or reward, yeah, evil for good,
or even evil for evil.
Psalm 1st, Samuel 23, look at verse 14,
And David abode the wilderness in the strongholds,
or in strongholds and remained in a mountain,
in the wilderness of Ziff,
and Saul sought him every day.
But God delivered him, not into his hand.
So Saul is looking for David every day and can't find him.
Verse 15,
And David saw that Saul was come out to seek his life,
and David was in the wilderness of Ziff in a wood.
And Jonathan saw his son arose and went to David into the wood,
and strengthened his hand as God.
This is what's so funny to me.
It's like Saul looks for David every day.
He can't find him, can't find him, can't find him.
As soon as Jonathan wants to find David,
he just immediately just goes to him.
You see that why because Jonathan doesn't hate David so he can see clearly so he can just walk right to David
He can find David whereas Saul
He is trying to find David every single day, and he can't
Now what is this symbolism here? Well David represents somebody who the Lord Jesus Christ and here's the thing the person
That is right with God and loves his brother. You know what when he seeks Jesus. He just finds Jesus right away
Whereas the guy that's hating his brother, he's in darkness and even though he looked for Jesus every single day
He won't find him
He might look in temple zero and he won't find him
He can look all over and he just can't find him
He could read the Bible cover to cover in one day and he just won't see Jesus on the page because he's blind now
He'll just say stupid things and weird things and you know what it'll be like a a city lost
It'll be like a pastor lost
Where he's just wandering around he can't find things he doesn't know where things are
Why because he hates his brother in his heart and so God's blind to them
And he can't find them until he gets right with God and he gets right with his brother
And it'll be unstable in all its ways, believing heresy, believing lies, making dumb decisions.
And you know what, when you see people go down these paths, you know what you also don't see them doing?
Epic soul winning, epic soul winning marathons, getting tons of people saved, preaching awesome sermons.
You know what you see? Heresies.
Not doing backing off soul winning
De-emphasizing soul winning attacking soul winning accusing people of doing weird stuff
I mean that's what the road they go down because they have hatred in their heart not love in their heart when you have love in your heart
You're trying to get people saved and you care about the gospel and you want to elevate Christ
And you want to preach the word of God with power look
There is a spiritual connection to the decisions we make in our lives and when you hate your brother
You're gonna make dumb bad decisions and you're gonna just
spend your whole life just trying to kill David and you're going to fail.
Whereas David just is trying to get away from this guy and eventually when God
you know avenges him then David goes on to do great exploits
and to continue to serve the Lord and is really successful
because look where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty
and there's going to be blessing and there's going to be favor. When God is not
with you you're going to just look like the trash that you are
because you know what our flesh isn't that great anyways.
And I just love this example.
It's kind of funny too, look at verse 26,
and Saul went on this side of the mountain
and David and his men on that side of the mountain.
It's just like, no matter where, he's over here,
can't find him, he's over there,
and it's just a total mismatch.
He's blinded, he can't see a far off,
and just every decision he makes
is just gonna be a bad decision.
Go back to 1st John.
You know, this applies to us too.
You know, don't get mad at someone in this room.
Love your brother.
You ladies don't start hating on another lady in the church
Just love the ladies in the church because as soon as you just start hating the same person hating another Christian boy
You just become
crazy
I mean there's been people there's been people that leave our church and and I feel like they're like like clinically insane
Like because they're just so obsessed with hating us or hating saved people that they just obsess and stalk and and then they just
Start saying weird things and believing all kinds of strange heresies and attaching themselves even weirder people
And you're just thinking like what is wrong with you?
But look when you're blind
Well, you just make just crazy wild decisions. You just do dumb things that you never would
You know, if you're walking around your house at night and all the lights are off, you'll
just start running into all kinds of things that you would never run into.
You run into the coffee table, you hit the stuff on the wall, you hit the light fixture,
you're just, you're like, I would never do this if the lights were on, you would never
do it.
But look, when the lights are out, you can run into all kinds of things and trip and
fall and stumble and hurt yourself and cause yourself all kinds of pain and woe and sorrow.
Hatred blinds.
Love will give you sight.
It'll give you vision.
It'll give you clarity.
And when we love the Lord Jesus Christ,
you know, we are gonna love his brethren
and we're gonna follow his commandments
and we're gonna do good unto the brethren
and we'll be able to see very clearly.
There's a tie to sight
and loving your brother.
First number 12, the Bible says,
I write unto you
Little children because your sins are forgiven you for his namesake. I write in you fathers because you've known him that it's from the beginning
I write in young men because you've become the wicked one. I write in you little children because you've known the father
I have written in you fathers because you've known him that it's from the beginning
I've written in young men because you're strong in the word of God to bite it than you and you've overcome the wicked one now a
Couple things we can learn from this number one is that the whole church is together
That's what I really like.
You have the little children, you have young men,
you have the fathers.
So we have all the men here gathered and assembled
and he's talking to them.
And of course, you know, this particular passage
isn't bringing up women,
but obviously women are still important.
They're still valuable people.
And these instructions could apply to their counterparts
in many ways as well.
It's just obviously these men are gonna be the leaders.
Obviously the Bible kind of emphasizes leaders.
and so we have the men being brought up in this particular passage.
It doesn't make men, you know, better than women or anything like that,
but as leaders we have to take responsibility
and we have to take accountability for our decisions.
Now it brings up, you know, for the little children two different things,
for the fathers like the same thing and for the young men,
it's kind of like the same thing but worded with a little bit of extra.
We look at little children. It's saying that their sins are forgiven them and that they've known the father and
You know, this is just my
Interpretation of these three things
There's a little they're a little bit vague as far as just what these could be a meaning
I think there's probably a lot of applications to so again, don't don't take what I'm saying is like the only thing
One of the reasons why I think that he's emphasizing to little children that their sins are forgiven them is because
Most little children if not just a hundred percent. It's probably like ninety nine point nine nine nine
You will commit your worst sins in the future not now
Like, as a little child, your worst sins and your biggest backslidings and your biggest problems are ahead of you, not behind you.
And so I think what's important is for you as a little child to always remember, hey, you're already saved and all your sins have already been forgiven you.
And he's just reemphasizing that to the little children, hey, you're saved and your sins have forgiven you.
Not just your past, but even your future sins, so that when they do sin, what do they do?
and they get right with God again.
That they go to the advocate, Jesus Christ the Righteous,
and they're seeking the Lord even when they do screw up
because we will still screw up.
Now that is not a license to sin.
We're not encouraging people to sin.
Obviously, John's not doing this.
He said these things right on you that you sin not.
The whole point is to not sin.
But we also have that balance to realize you probably will
and little children, hey, your worst sins
are probably ahead of you in life.
But when you sin, confess it and get right with God.
Don't allow yourself to keep going down that backslidden path.
Don't allow yourself to get so discouraged you give up on God.
Don't allow sin to overcome you. No, stick with God.
And of course that comes into the young men
who are probably more in the active part of their life
where those sins are coming true.
Where the sins are very prevalent.
The temptations of this world are probably the strongest on young men.
When you look at Proverbs, it is emphasizing the young man.
It's emphasizing even single men and the temptations of this world and the pressures of this world.
Because when you're little, you have a lot of accountability from your parents and your family.
And when you're older, you have a lot of accountability with your wife and your job and your family.
It's kind of that middle section where, boy, a lot of people are tempted heavy.
Most people commit their worst sins and they have their biggest struggles in the college years.
When they first get that little bit of freedom and they don't have that accountability.
But you know what? God also does something.
At that point in your life, you're the strongest in many cases.
You're the strongest physically. You have a lot of energy.
You have just a capability of overcoming these things,
and that's why he's emphasizing it.
He says he have overcome the wicked one,
so you've already done this,
and he says he's writing on you because you're strong,
and the word of God abideth in you,
and you have overcome the wicked one.
Look, you already overcame him by getting saved,
and you can then also overcome sins in this world.
You can overcome fornication.
You don't have to commit fornication.
believe that the men in this room can be a virgin on their wedding night. And you
know what? You're strong and the Word of God abides in you and you know what? If
you're seeking God, if you're seeking His commandments, if you're going to church,
if you're being around like-minded brethren, you can overcome sin. But let me
tell you something. If you go hang out at the bar, if you go hang out with worldly
friends, if you go hang out at the non-denominational fun center, you
probably will not overcome sin.
If you go just try to live on your own and do your own thing, and try to just hang out with the world,
you will probably succumb to sin, succumb to evil.
You get the bad friends, you go to the parties, you go hang out with the young people.
You know what? They're just exercising no self-control, no temperance.
The chances of you keeping yourself from that, very slim.
You know, that's why as a young man, you need to be careful in the decisions you make.
You know what?
Spend a lot of time working hard.
You have more free time, just take all of your free time and just do something productive
with it.
You know, read your Bible extra, go soul winning extra, work on a foreign language extra, get
overtime, get a second job if you have to.
And you know what, when you get married, you'll realize it's not as easy.
Then you start having kids, it's not as easy.
You know, you don't have all that free time.
In fact, here's another thing, work out a lot.
I mean, because here's one thing that's kind of cool about working out.
It's like if you kind of build yourself up and you get a lot of muscle,
it's a lot easier to just maintain that than if you don't have it to build it all back up when you're older.
So you might as well just kind of like work really hard now and build yourself up so that
that way you can just maintain for the rest of your life.
You don't have to like wake up when you're 40 and you're an athletic and you're like
what in the world do I need now?
It's way harder.
Plus when you're young, I mean you like lift weights really hard, like really hard and
you be a little bit sore the next day and then you're fine the next.
I'm just saying, when you get even older, sometimes you lift weights and you just injure yourself for the rest of your life.
I mean, you know, you're strong right now.
You know what? Use that strength for something good.
Build yourself up, work hard, do something productive with your time.
You know what? Make a lot of extra money.
You say, man, I don't have any women.
Well, make a ton of money.
Money ends with all things. That's what the Bible says.
And I'm just saying, you know, you walk up to a girl and you're like, hey, what's your
name?
She's like, I'm not that interested.
And you're like, oh, well, I made a million dollars this year and she's like, what's your
name again?
You know, it's like, hey, and you know, people say like, oh, she's a gold digger or whatever.
But it's like, you're the same way because what are you looking for?
An attractive woman.
And she's looking for a provider.
So if you want to judge a girl based on her looks, she should get to judge you on your
wallet, buddy.
Sorry, you don't like that, but that's just facts.
Because you know what, if I was a woman,
I know I'm never gonna be one.
I can't be one, I'll never be one.
But if I was a woman, let me tell you something.
I would wanna know how much money this guy's gonna make
because I'm stuck with him.
You know what I mean?
I don't know if this guy's gonna actually pay the bills,
is he gonna work hard, if he's gonna try and do something.
Hey, you know what, praise God.
My wife married me when I was poor, you know?
But I guess maybe she saw some potential. I don't know. Maybe whatever but at the end of the day, you know
There's nothing wrong with marrying a young guy that doesn't have much money
But you know what you better look at some potential there, too
And at the end of the day, you know, I don't want to just marry my daughter off to some guy that's not going to provide
Not take care of her not take care of her or do good under I'm going to try and encourage her
Hey, consider this guy's earning potential considering consider how hard this guy works is this guy lazy
What does this guy spend his extra time on? Well, he's trying to become a professional video game player
No
Nope.
What does he do?
I mean, he works 20 hours a week at 7-Eleven.
No.
You know, like, I want a guy that's working hard, that's investing, has a vision, has
plans, you know, is going to do some of his life, does he have to go to college?
I don't care about that.
But you know what, if he doesn't have a vision, if he doesn't have a plan in his life, you
know what, that's not a very good option.
And you know what, as a young man, you're strong, you've already overcome the wicked one,
you got saved, now apply that salvation, apply the word of God to your life, and try to do
something with your life.
Be somebody.
You only have one opportunity, do something with what God has given you.
Don't just bury your talents into the ground, use them for God, do something with your life.
And you say, well, I just go home and try to waste time and do whatever.
Find something to do and do it and do it all I might and look I
There is more stuff to do than time
Even when you're single okay, so there's plenty of stuff to do
Don't don't come up with excuses of like why I don't have anything to do you just don't want to do the right stuff
Now it says also the men the fathers that they have known him that is from the beginning and again
Who's that from the beginning? Well, that's Jesus because did you see in verse one of chapter one that which was from the beginning?
Who's the beginning? That's Jesus Christ the fathers have known Jesus and so I think again
It's just kind of tying the whole Bible because the Bible is Jesus and he's reminding the fathers. Hey, you've known Jesus
You've known the word of God. I'm not giving you new commandments. You need to basically stick with what you already have
Don't go after anything new because what's the temptation is you go through a midlife crisis
You get a little older and you start searching for the new stuff
I want new doctrines new religion knew whatever and they kind of veer from what they've already established
What they already know and it's like no no stick with what you know stick with Jesus
You've already known him that's from the beginning. Just that's right
We're fundamental, we're fundamental baddest.
We don't need to change, we don't need to get
the skinny jeans on.
I mean, how many pastors seem like they're going through
a midlife crisis today?
Putting on the skinny jeans, the graphic tee,
and they're trying to be hip or cool or whatever.
It's like, no, no, no, we already got it.
Just stick with it, stay the same.
You know, I like those guys.
They had the same haircut from 20 to like 70.
You know, he's just like, he's got the same shirt
and the same tie and the same shoes
and the same Bible and the same hymns.
and the same gospel, and the same doctrine.
We want to be steadfast.
We have already known him from the beginning.
We're not changing on that.
We already got it. We got it locked in. We don't need it anymore.
Of course, the little children also know the Father.
I think it's important for them to realize,
I didn't mention this, but going back to this,
I don't want to skip on this,
is that when you're a little child,
you don't only have your earthly Father,
you know how the new Father, you have the heavenly Father.
And we should not only concern ourselves with what our father wants to do,
but what our father's business is, our heavenly Father,
and realize we have a different Father, God the Father.
And we should seek His will and seek His purpose in our lives,
not just our earthly Father's will or decisions.
Those are some things to think about verse 15 says this love not the world
Neither the things that are in the world of any man love the world the love of the father is not in him
For all that is in the world the lust of the flesh and lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the father
But it's of the world and the world pass of the way and the lust thereof
But he that do the will of God abideth forever now verses 15 through 17
I think I have to be framed within this chapter. We have to always make sure we're understanding the context
What is the context verse 1 these things right unto you that you sin not
And he's emphasizing, not sinning, knowing Jesus through keeping his commandments.
Then it talks about loving your brother.
And so what is the context?
Loving God, loving your brother through keeping the commandments, and then what is it contrasted
with not loving the world?
So, I think what you have to understand is when we talk about the world here which is
a broad term, I believe it's primarily still addressing sin issues.
It's not just saying like, just you have to hate planet earth or something and you want
to have to be like Elon Musk and go to Mars or something like that.
No, I believe it's in the context of worldly sins, the sins that the Bible is bringing
up in three categories, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.
There's an idea out there called asceticism and asceticism is this idea of just basically
not finding pleasure in anything in this world and just kind of kind of
abstaining from all pleasures of this world. I believe it's a satanic doctrine.
It's not biblical. It's not what the Bible teaches and I do not live an ascetic life.
And people might falsely accuse me of, like, not wanting to serve God because I love things that are in this world.
But we have to understand the context.
The Bible says, you know, specifically, eat thou honey.
There's nothing wrong with liking honey.
There's nothing wrong.
I mean, the Bible talks about corn and the Bible talks about wine making Mary the heart of man.
which God have created and we're supposed to eat them with Thanksgiving.
Nothing is to be refused.
You know what? I love steak.
I love brisket.
I love the things. I even love chicken.
I love all. I love food. I love what God has given us.
But you know what? We'll be a sin in this category.
Becoming a glutton.
understanding of the lust of the flesh because I don't I don't believe it's just like enjoying this world like
beautiful sunsets like mountains like the ocean like golf courses like whatever like I don't think that's what it's talking about
What is it talking about then it's talking about drugs?
Alcohol it's talking about gluttony. It's talking about the sins of the flesh that the most of the world's indulge in
They can't just go and enjoy this world, they have to drink alcohol, they have to do drugs.
We have women that are taking SSRIs by the droves, almost a quarter of boomer women.
Actually, it's higher than that.
I think it's like 40%.
It's like over a quarter of like a high percentage of women are on these drugs,
but I think it's like 40% of boomers.
are on SSRIs, which is just releasing serotonin
into their brain, which is just like a happy drug.
Kind of have like dopamine, and you have serotonin.
Both of these are just like happy drugs.
And the body naturally releases these.
The body will naturally release.
You eat steak, you go for a run,
you are intimate with your spouse,
you'll release serotonin, you'll release dopamine.
But you know what people want to do?
They want to lay on their couch and eat junk food and not be intimate with their spouse
and then they're sad and depressed and lonely and then they just want to basically take
a drug to replace that feeling, that sense of happiness.
And so there's just all these people on drugs and then they'll drink alcohol with it and
alcohol is not going to make you happy.
So alcohol is not an upper. It's a downer and it is it's a depressant and it'll make you depressed
Oh, I'm so depressed. I'm gonna drink alcohol. Well, that's not gonna fix it. That's gonna make you more depressed and
Of course the consequences of alcohol will make you even more depressed
And people make stupid decisions when they drink alcohol, you know, I wonder if the CEO from astronomer
And his HR director, they got caught at this Coldplay concert.
I wonder if they were drinking alcohol.
Wouldn't surprise me.
Wouldn't surprise me if the vast majority of the people they were drinking alcohol.
I would bet a lot of people commit adultery
and they wouldn't have if they just hadn't drank alcohol.
Like alcohol specifically or if they didn't go pursue alcohol
They wouldn't have met up with some money that wanted to commit adultery with them because you know when you go to the library
There's usually not a line of Hucci Mamas ready to commit adultery
When you're going to church, it's not like that is it?
When you're going to the grocery store, it's not so much like that
Oh, maybe I don't know Walmart's kind of crazy these days, but I'm just saying go to Aldi or something, right?
Maybe it's a little bit better, options.
I'm just saying, hey, you don't really see that
at the normal places of business,
when people are pursuing alcohol,
then it gives in to what?
The lust of the eyes too, isn't it?
And I'm not saying that there's nothing wrong with finding your wife attractive.
There's nothing wrong with enjoying your wife or enjoying your family or enjoying
sunsets or enjoying the beauty that God has made of this world.
You know what, people have to feast their eyes on things that are simple, things that
are wrong, on smut, on filth, on things that they shouldn't be interested in, and the whole
world is going after those things, going after adultery.
Having eyes full of adultery is what the false prophets do.
Not someone else.
The Bible says the pride of life, what is this popularity?
Of course, you know, while these things are like less of the eyes,
while some things can be observed and like,
you could also get a covetous attitude too, right?
With all the beauty and all the fashion of this world,
and people are interested in dressing like whores,
dressing like freaks, dressing like weirdos,
getting all kinds of tattoos all over their body.
Look, the tattoos don't even look good.
I don't like tattoos. I think they're ugly.
Now look, if you have a tattoo, I do not try to get it off. I don't care at all.
My personal opinion is that if I had tattoos, I would not try to get them removed.
So when I preach hard against tattoos, don't make me think like,
I'm mad at you for not getting it removed because I would never get it removed.
I wouldn't even think about it. I would just be like, yep, I got this tattoo.
Whatever now, maybe if you had like a satanic like blasphemous style tattoo, I might get it covered
I still probably wouldn't even get it removed because I don't think it can I don't even think you can kind of do that
But you know what? I'm also gonna I'm gonna say that tattoos are ugly and they're gross and you shouldn't get one
And people are just I mean the tattoos are out of control in this country
And I hate it. I hate it. We need people that do not get tattoos.
And you say, I don't know about this preaching. Well, you know what?
It just takes one stupid night for you to go out and get a tattoo and you have it forever.
So I need to yell and scream at you so that when your friend's like,
hey, let's get matching tattoos, you're like, eh, no.
Do anything else, run away, stay away from that.
They're not cool, you'll probably stop being friends
very soon after, because the kind of people
that get tattoos aren't lifelong friends
and they'll probably leave you.
Look, the pride of life popularity.
Oh, I need to get a tattoo to fit in.
You're not gonna fit in.
Look, all the people that were popular and cool
in high school, they're losers.
They're losers now.
And all the losers that have a little pocket protector, they're the rich people that, like, are actually popular now.
But you know what? They're only popular because they have money.
Because as soon as they lost their money, everybody would hate them again because they're a loser.
Look, the popularity of this world is meaningless. It's vanity.
Don't chase after these things.
Oh, Pastor Shelly, you're not popular. Good.
Woe unto you, and all men shall speak well of you.
That's what the Bible says oh everybody loves John MacArthur must be a false prophet
Fact must be a false prophet if everybody likes you if everybody thinks you're wonderful
You must have been a terrible preacher of the Bible because you know what people don't like the Bible
What I mean the Bible is saying hey the love of this world is not of the father did you notice that?
It said that the pride of life is not of the father, but is of the world
If you are liked of this world, you're not of God
Look, they they call Peter the first pope. He was not liked
He was killed. He was martyred
The early Christians were killed and hated the Bible says that they were the off scouring of this world
Everybody just wishes they would just leave. They're the party poopers
Well, everybody's trying to have fun getting tattoos and getting drunk and committing adultery and divorcing their spouse and just partying at Coldplay.
You have some preacher out there ripping on them and everybody hates them, which should go home.
Hey, hey, Amos, get out of here. We don't want you to prophesy here. Go back home and preach or whatever.
They get all mad when you show up at the city council meeting and you're a buke the mayor for being a fag-loving idiot.
They don't like you the newspaper will shame you people give you the one-star reviews
I mean I get I got a one-star review when I was giving announcements I
Get one-star reviews every second and it wasn't even my fault was one of your faults
Okay, they said someone came to our house and told my my mom that she's gonna go to hell
It's probably true. I mean yeah, okay
But is she on her way to hell?
I mean, you know, I don't want her to go to hell.
We tried to, I guarantee we didn't just walk up
and say, go to hell.
I'm sure we said, hey, you're headed there.
We want you to go to heaven.
I think there's too much in this chapter,
but you know, friendship or the world is
enmity with God, as the Bible says.
Yeah.
You know, and Demis had forsaken me having loved this present world and has departed on the Thessalonica.
You know, Christians will say, you know what, I want to just, I want to live the life of the Gentiles.
I just want to drink and party and just live it up and do whatever because it's just fun and I hate being unpopular.
I want to be popular. I want to be cool and they'll just desert things of God.
And they'll say, you know what, I'm done making documentaries about the Bible.
I want to make documentaries that Alex Jones likes, and that the world likes, and I want
to get popular and I want to get rich.
And then it's funny, when they chase that, they end up failing and looking like losers,
anyways.
Because chasing this world, you'll never, as a Christian, you just won't fit in.
You're already the nerd of society.
You just need to just embrace it.
You're the you're the goody two shoes that no one wanted to come to the party because you come to the party and they're like
Hey, mom and dad said we couldn't do this. They're like shut up. We're gonna do it. Anyways, mom and dad said we can't drink
Well, I'm gonna drink in you. You know, you're the one that keeps saying like hey, let's not do this and they're like who invited this guy
We don't like him. You're never gonna go to the depths of Satan that the world's gonna go to so you might as well just embrace Christ and
Live a clean life anyways
And sin will make you do things you never imagined you would do that you never want to do.
Now it says in verse 18,
little children is the last time, and as you have heard,
that antichrist shall come even now with their many antichrists,
whereby we know that it is the last time.
They went out from us, but they were not of us,
for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us,
but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.
This is a great passage on how false prophets will not continue in the faith.
So if someone starts a Baptist and turns out to be a Catholic, they weren't saved.
And here's an example, John MacArthur in the 1970s said salvation was a free gift, not of works,
has nothing to do with how you live your life, it's just believe in Jesus Christ.
Then he spends the next 30 years explaining that salvation is by works.
And say, how does that make sense?
Because when he said it in the 70s, he was lying and he didn't believe it.
Because if he had believed it, he would have never stopped believing it.
He would have never changed.
He is a false prophet.
He went out from us because if he was of us,
he would no doubt have continued with us.
But he went out that he might
have made manifest that he was not of us
by preaching his lordship salvation,
by preaching his works damnation
heresy. And look,
you expect me to believe that a saved
child of God who believes
the right gospel in the 1970s
is going to start teaching damnable heresy
and God's going to allow him to die
You have lost your mind yeah, if you get off that course as a saved child of God
Baptist preacher God will rain fire and brimstone on your head before you live to be 80
and die in peace.
You know what?
He did that to just see how many fakes there were
that didn't really believe the gospel
so that John MacArthur could suck all of them
out of good churches.
With all this stupid Calvinism
and all this stupid Lordship damnation.
And you know what?
He's an evil, wicked, false prophet
who was on CNN.
who was on Fox, who was on all kinds of major TV networks,
who almost everybody praised, everybody said it was awesome.
Look, the guy is a liar, he's a deceiver,
he's a false prophet, and he's in hell right now.
Oh, well, you know what? I think that he was saying,
look, there's this group called Free Grace,
and look, I'm not against that term.
I'm not even against most of these people,
but they get really weird.
where they'll say like, yeah, this guy claimed to believe in Jesus and now he's in a God-hating satanist,
but he's still saved because once saved, always saved.
Well, we need to balance that with this passage here and realize, look,
if they were a saved Christian, they're not going to turn into a God-hating satanist.
There is limits to how far someone's going to go.
And look, Peter chapter number two, let's just flip there for a second and look at verse number one.
The Bible warns there's going to be false prophets.
False teachers that creep into our churches. What does it say?
But there are false prophets also among the people even as there should be false teachers among you who shall bring who?
Privilege shall bring in damnable heresies
even denying the Lord that bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction and
Many shall follow their pernicious ways by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of that is John MacArthur
John MacArthur privily brought in damnable heresies to a church that believed the right gospel.
He started teaching Puritan heresies of lordship damnation.
And then of course many followed his pernicious way meaning dangerous.
That's deadly. That's what pernicious is is a deadly dangerous way. Why because there's a damnable heresy
He privately bought in
Daniel heresy and he was just damning the next generation
Damning all the people that weren't saved damning people across this entire world
And of course the way of truth is evil spoken of even with him
The guy has Calvinism, it's evil, it's wicked, it doesn't make any sense.
People are turning away from Christianity because of Calvinism, specifically all the time.
And this guy and his minions, I mean, look, all of his disciples are the worst people.
Just some of the worst people, and they are not saved.
You can tell a tree by its fruit, and look, John MacArthur's fruit is rotten just like he was.
Verse 20, we're going to just kind of finish this quickly, but it says,
But you have an unction from the Holy One, He knew all things.
I have not written any because you know not the truth, but because you know it.
And that no lies of the truth. Who's a liar, but He that denied that Jesus is the Christ,
He's anti-Christ that denied the Father and the Son.
Whosoever denied the Son, the same had not the Father.
But He that acknowledged the Son had the Father also.
Let that therefore abide in you.
So again, those that are Jews are not saved.
They don't have the Father, they are anti-Christ, and no lies of the truth.
You know, oh, this rabbi, I know he's not saved yet, but he has a lot of truth.
No, no, no lies of the truth.
Oh, this Catholic priest, I know he's a Catholic, but he's got a lot of truth.
No, no, no, no, no lies of the truth.
Don't listen to these liars or anti-Christ, they're wrong on everything, they're false on everything.
Ben Shapiro is a devil, he has no truth in him.
Quit listening to him, unless you're making fun of him.
That's fine. If you're making clips to make fun of them, I approve.
If you're actually taking Ben Shapiro seriously, you're allowing yourself to be deceived.
There's no truth in that lie or that liar.
Verse 24,
Let that therefore abide in you which you have heard from the beginning.
If that which you have heard from the beginning shall remain in you,
you shall also continue the Son and the Father.
And this is a promise that has promised us even eternal life,
meaning specifically eternal life.
These things have I written and you can certainly even seduce you.
So look, what's the whole point? People are going to come in, they're going to creep in, they're going to go to false religion,
don't get sucked into false religion, don't get sucked out of good churches by the bad people,
don't allow those who hate their brother
to bring you down with them.
Don't you start hating your brother, too.
And don't allow sin to get into your life.
Don't love the world.
Stay away from the will of the Gentiles.
You know what? We need to keep ourselves pure and separated.
We're a fundamental Baptist church.
We try to separate from the world.
We're not trying to be like the world.
We don't want to be loved of the world.
We want to love Jesus Christ.
We want to love God the Father.
We want to have the love of God perfected in us.
And that's by keeping His commandments.
Don't let people seduce you.
You are going to be seduced.
Don't succumb to it.
Don't let that temptation overtake you.
Be strong, overcome the wicked one,
overcome his ministers and the liars and the devils
and the false religion that's out there.
But the anointing which you've receded of him abideth in you and you need not that any man teach you
But is the same anointing teach you that of all things in his truth and is no lie
Even as it hath taught you he shall abide in him and now little children abide in him that when he shall appear
We may have confidence and not be ashamed before him that is coming if you know that he's righteous
You know that everyone that doeth righteous and this is born of him again
We are gonna stand before the judgment seat of Christ and some will be ashamed
Who will be the ones that are ashamed those who were seduced by sin?
Those who are seduced by hatred towards their brother.
Those who are seduced by the love of this world,
by all the different sins of this world.
Those who are seduced by the Antichrist
and by the false teachers that we're creeping in.
Those people are coming to seduce you
and you know what?
We should know who's of God and who's not,
who's the one that does righteousness.
Like if you're going to a church and they're doing righteousness and they're preaching the gospel, they're of God.
The ones that are into sin, they're hating their brother, the ones that are bringing in rabbi so-and-so to come speak to you,
the ones that are soft on Catholics, the ones that love John MacArthur, they're not of God
and you should get away from them and you go to a church that actually cares about keeping God's commandments.
And is not trying to be like this world, is not going to be loved in this world, is going to rip on sin because you know what?
to rebuke thy neighbor.
You come to church to get rebuked.
Why?
So that you can have the love of God perfected in you.
And you won't be ashamed before Jesus Christ
because we all will stand before Jesus Christ.
The Bible says, therefore, knowing the terror of the Lord,
we persuade men.
Try to persuade you to keep His commandments.
Are they that scary?
His commandments are not grievous is what the Bible says.
It's a good thing.
It's a good thing to not get drunk.
It's a good thing to not commit fornication and adultery.
It's a good thing to love your wife and love your children and love your church and go
soul winning.
These things are good.
They're not going to hurt you.
They're not going to harm you.
It's a good thing to work hard and obey your boss and say yes, sir and yes, ma'am.
It's a good thing to obey your husband.
It's a good thing to obey your parents.
It's a good thing to take care of your parents in their old age.
It's a good thing to show up at church.
It's a good thing to read your Bible.
You know, people are like, oh, you're a cult.
What is it that we're encouraging to do that's so dangerous?
Reading your Bible?
Going to church?
Giving a meal to some lady that just had a baby?
Oh!
Go bowling with some teenagers?
Oh!
Listen to some preaching?
Love a pastor?
Play some music?
Sing songs to Jesus?
Don't lie. Don't steal. Don't I mean, what is it that we're teaching? There's just so scary and so dangerous
Yeah, you go to the non the nominational fund centers and they'll be permissive on everything get divorced get drunk
No problem live however you want
Swap wives swap Bibles swap songs. Let's just sing the next hell song song that's out there
Let's all talk about how John McArthur is so awesome. Look, it's a train wreck
You go to the Catholic Church is even worse
You go outside of that outside of Christianity in any sense, and it's just really bad
Islam
Mormons these religions are really really bad really really destructive stay with Jesus draw close unto him
Know him. That's why it's important. Read your Bible. So I'm never gonna be a pastor. Yeah, but do you want to know Jesus?
Just, you know, you don't have to be a pastor to know Jesus, but you should want in somewhere in your spirit
And you meant to want to just know who Jesus is
And you know what?
When you know Jesus, he'll keep you away from all the bad stuff out there.
Let's go to prayer.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for giving us the Word of God, for giving us the Bible.
Even though we may not be able to see Jesus right now, we can walk by faith and not by
sight.
Thank you for giving us the Bible so that we can know Jesus as much as possible, so we
can have the mind of Christ.
I pray that you would encourage the young men, that you would encourage the little children,
you encourage the fathers, you encourage the ladies, the mothers, the young women, and
the little girls for all of us to try and keep your commandments and to perfect the
love of God in our hearts.
We know there's gonna be seducers,
we know there's gonna be evil people out there
that are trying to get us off the right track.
I pray that we would do our best to listen to the spirit,
we listen to the word of God, we listen to the Holy Ghost,
and we would continue to walk, even as Jesus walked,
in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen, for our last song this evening,
page 10 in your hymn books, near the cross, page 10.
near the cross
Page number ten near the cross