Book of 1 John - Ch. 1, Vs. 1-7 (11/07/1999)

Park Meadows Church

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Each one of you take your Bible and open to the book of 1 John. Too many churchgoers practice religion today.

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We need more that live Christianity. Here's something to think about as we begin this study.

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To complain or find fault about your circumstances is to worship the devil.

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If we blame others for our mistakes, then we should give others credit for our successes.

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First John, first chapter, first verse. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, that our hands have handled of the word of life.

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For the life was manifested and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was the father and was manifested unto us.

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That which was from the beginning. Who can tell me what the word beginning means?

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The start. Alright. What does it mean here?

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That which was from the beginning. Beginning of the gospel.

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Alright, it could mean that. That that was at the beginning of the gospel.

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Greg, what else can beginning mean? What? It means

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God. Alright, but does the word beginning belong with God?

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That's true. But anytime we put beginning into it, we inject it into time.

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From our viewpoint, there has to be a beginning. With God, there is no such thing.

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And Richard, that has always just blown my mind. As Patsy Harmon says, it would always blow my hair back.

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Just think for a moment, if possible, God has always been.

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Roger, what was he doing before he created the creation? We haven't been told, have we?

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We have a few verses that vaguely relate to a time before the creation, such as the determinant counsel.

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But that which was from the beginning can be looked at in several different ways, and you have mentioned them.

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John wants us to know that at the beginning of the gospel, at the beginning of his walk, at the beginning which he learned about Christ, he says we have heard about it, we have seen it, we have handled with our hands, we have looked upon it.

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So my question is this, can you see eternal life?

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Debbie? You want to say what?

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Alright, why do you want to say yes? John says we have seen eternal life.

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What do you mean? Right, and Jesus is eternal life.

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You see, eternal life is not something, Roger, that he hands us outside of himself.

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He didn't make up eternal life and then give it to us. It is he himself, the eternal life.

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For the life was manifested, made seen, visible. We have seen it and bear witness.

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To hear means to perceive by the ear that what is announced in one's presence with an understanding.

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It is not just a hearing that people walking by could hear us in here.

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To hear is to understand. Only that can come from God.

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This epistle is going to stir up all that profess to know

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God. So if you do not profess to know

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God, you might as well leave right now. Because this is not for you. It is going to stir up those that profess to have communion with him.

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To believe in him. To walk in him. That they should walk in holiness and not in sin.

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Showing that a mere outward profession of Christianity is not sufficient.

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It must have more substance to it. Without the evidence of a holy life in our conduct, it means nothing.

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If your profession of Christianity did not change your life one bit, then you just got an experience and exercise.

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When he said we have looked upon it, Theomohy. We get our word theater from the same root.

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It means to behold, to look upon, to view attentively. Contemplate.

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Often used for public theaters or shows. To view, to take a view in the sense of visiting or meeting with a person.

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To learn by looking, to see with the eyes, to perceive. And they had looked in this respect upon Jesus.

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Question. Greg. When Jesus came back from among the dead, was he human?

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He wasn't? David wasn't a human?

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Shall we take a vote on it? What have you got to say now?

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What is your rebuttal? Alright.

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Not human as we view human. But certainly human. The glorified human.

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That which we will be. On the Mount of Transfiguration, we got a glimpse of what we shall be.

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Persecution is not the enemy of Christianity.

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The greatest enemy is seduction from within the church.

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I speak from experience. Christianity is not in danger of being destroyed.

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It is in danger of being changed. The attempt is being made to improve it.

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When Adam and Eve first sinned, sinned for the first time, what did they do?

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First thing. What? What did they do before they hid themselves?

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What? Alright. They got some old rusty fig leaves and tried to hide their shame.

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And man has been trying to invent a way to please God ever since. And it won't work.

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The liberals today and others within the church are trying to make it more intellectual.

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So it will have more respectability. And to let it speak in terms of popular philosophy.

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Debbie, we don't need that. All we need is the pure, simple, holy word. The acknowledgement of a proper view of Christ makes up the first test of genuine fellowship.

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The authority of his own personal experience is from what John is speaking.

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He was an eyewitness of Jesus. He reminds his leaders that his own personal testimony refutes that of the false teachers.

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They boasted arrogantly and wrongly about a Christ which they neither knew or had seen.

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Why did Christ come to earth? Roger, that's pretty good.

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Did somebody want to add to it? What? Alright.

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He did that. Alright. Trudy, why did he come to earth? To come to seek and to save that which was lost.

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Don't ever let anybody read it is lost. Why did he have to have a human body,

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Greg? Alright. Anything else?

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Alright. Were we saved by his keeping the law?

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You remember the illustration of the ant this morning?

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He had to become one of us in order to speak to us. To become human as we are human.

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Why did he die while in that human body? Alright.

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Why did he return to heaven? Steve? Alright.

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Why is he coming back, David? To get

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Richard and Richard's bread. That's why

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I said most of the church. He's coming back to take his own, to take his bride to himself.

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Also, there is a purpose in relation to the nation of Israel. Alright. Why is there a hell?

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To get them. To get them? Well, I got to have something a little better than that.

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Why is there a hell? It's made for the devil and his angels.

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There is a hell because he loves us. Why is there a heaven?

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I thought everybody knew, but now they had to shout when they talked to me. Because he loves us.

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Why didn't he just make heaven here on earth the first time? Tell them,

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David. Well, because it's bad.

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You know, evil.

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There he is. Goodness. Let's pray and grasp for us.

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Exactly so. Without hate, you cannot love. So, the purpose of this age is preparing us to be fit to live with him forever.

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We're in school, folks. We're going to graduate someday. One at a time.

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Unless it returns quickly. Why are some elected to heaven?

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Why are some elected to hell? I'd have to guess at what you said.

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They are used to it. I should have been quiet.

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Some elected to hell simply because there are those elected to heaven. Verse 3.

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That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you. Nothing else. Just that.

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We don't have to send off and get programs. Get somebody else's interpretation.

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What they think about it. We're going to declare the real thing to you.

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Because we've heard it. We've seen it. That ye also may have fellowship with us.

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And truly, our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

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There is a local club here in this town and in every town across the country, I guess.

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Because it's a member of a worldwide club. And they have a banner at the front of their meeting hall.

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And it says this. Fun, food, and fellowship. Well, their food wasn't anything to brag about.

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It was embalmed chicken. The peas were as hard as bullets.

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Their fun was an assortment of corny jokes. And their fellowship consisted of one man patting another one on the back and saying,

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How's business, Joe? Or how's your wife? They sang a little song together.

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And Debbie, that was their idea of fellowship. Sad. But that essential good, that uncreated excellence, which had been from the beginning, from eternity, as equal with the

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Father, and which at length appeared in human form for the salvation of sinners, was the great subject concern in which the

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Apostle wrote this letter. John 15 .4

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says, Abide in me, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine.

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No more can ye except you abide in me, that they all may be one as thou,

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Father, art in me. This is John 17 .21. And I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

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In 1 Corinthians 1 .9, God is faithful. By whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his

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Son, Jesus Christ. The word fellowship is cornia. It means communion, sharing in common.

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The only time you can have fellowship, and I still maintain, that the true meaning of fellowship belongs to the

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Christian community only. And it is a sharing of a common subject.

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And it's always Jesus Christ. Those that are outside of Christ think they can really have joy.

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Can they? Somebody say no.

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Alright. But the only way you can have real joy is what?

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Be in him. And the only way you can be in him is what?

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John 6 .44. Read it to her,

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Richard. Yes.

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So Steve, how do we get in Christ? By being drawn to him.

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I hope you understand the word draw. It means to be compelled, to drag, by a superior, irresistible force.

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Get a picture of a trailer on the back of a pickup. I used to say horse -drawn, and I found out a lot of people didn't even know what

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I was talking about. But a trailer's hooked to the back of the pickup. Does a trailer have any say -so in it?

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Even in being hooked up? Why does it follow behind the pickup?

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Being drugged. Very same way with our salvation. The Father drew us.

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Verse 4. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.

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So Debbie, in this study we're going to get our joy full. This was in the message, which we have heard of him and declared unto you, that God is light.

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And in him is no darkness at all. In the

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Monday and Tuesday night classes, we're in the book of Exodus, just starting with the beginning and end of the description of the tabernacle, which we're going to build in the next few months.

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I mean, by word, it won't be literally. In that tabernacle, there were no windows.

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Why? No natural light.

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So where did the light come from? From the lamp. In heaven, there will be no need of the sun.

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Why? It doesn't say there will not be a sun.

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It says there's no need of a sun. The word here, he is light.

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The word is phos, F -O -S. How valuable is a light without a receiver of that light, a receptor, something to respond to the light?

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What good is the light? None. So the light demands some type of instrument to receive and respond to it.

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And it does. He is light.

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God is light. He's also the source of the light and the power behind the source of the light.

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And in him is no shadow of turning. Let's be sure you understand that statement.

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No shadow of turning. If you was to have a light bulb, and just imagine

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I have a light bulb here, and it's burning. And I turn that light bulb.

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The part, the area that is lit of the bulb, is there a shadow goes around on it?

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No. There's no shadow of turning with God. The shadows come from some foreign instrument.

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But with him, he's the same no matter how you look at him. He's the same all of the time. In John 14, 17,

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Even the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him, but you know him, for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

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Now it did not say, even the spirit of truth whom the world refuses to see, or may not see, it says cannot see.

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That's an imperative statement. There's no way that the world can ever see the truth.

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He said that, I didn't. And neither can we until his light is received of us.

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And that's not our decision. In Matthew 6, 24, we have this.

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No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other.

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You cannot serve God and mammon. You cannot live for the devil six days and serve

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God on the seventh. He says, I will not hear you.

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Isaiah 1, 13 tells us this. Bring no more vain oblations.

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Incense is an abomination unto me. The new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies,

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I cannot away with. It is iniquity. Even the solemn meetings are iniquity.

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Your new moons and your appointed feasts, my soul hateth. They are a trouble unto me.

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I am weary to bear them, God speaking. And when you spread forth your hands,

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I will hide mine eyes from you. Yea, when ye make many prayers,

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I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. You either serve

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God or Satan, one or the other. There's no mixing. There's no in -between.

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You cannot remain in a static position. The Lord said, those that are not for us scatter.

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There's no way to just hold your own. 1

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John 1, 7, But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light,

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Greg, we have fellowship one with another. What?

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6? If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth.

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Does that make God a liar? Can you make

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God a liar? Can you make yourself a liar?

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But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.

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And the blood of Jesus, the Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

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Now, David, that's shouting ground. Imagine a triangle.

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Or if you have a piece of paper or something, draw a triangle on it with just one point up.

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Set it on its base, not on its point. At the top point, write

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God. At the left -hand point, write you.

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And at the right -hand point, write me. Now, draw a line between you and me.

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Can you and I have fellowship without connection with God?

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I'm talking about true fellowship. Can you have fellowship with God and not with me?

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You see, it takes connection from all three. And without any one of them, it's a lie.

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But if we walk in the light, notice it did not say if you walk according to the light.

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But to walk in the light. The important thing is where you walk, not how you walk.

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If you walk in the light, you're holy. If you do not walk in the light, you're sinning.

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You can't walk in the gray area. Because there is none. That's a man -made statement.

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Although it does make a difference how you walk. As far as your witness in this world and your love of God.

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But it depends on where you are that makes the big difference. I'll give you an illustration and then we'll close for today.

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I knew a man once who went squirrel hunting. And he loved to hunt squirrel.

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He and a buddy of his were out together. They were in a forest, hilly terrain.

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And they come to a dividing. And they decided that one of them would go around this side and one go around this way.

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And they'd meet at a certain point on the other side. And it looked like rain. But this friend of mine started out anyhow.

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And it began to rain. And he looked around for some cover. Well, he found a cave.

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And a little ways up on the side of the hill. And he managed to get to it. And he went inside.

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Sat in there out of the rain just looking out at everything. And was being so thankful because he was out of the rain.

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And he was just having a good time. I'd like to do the same thing and listen to the rain.

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But he got chilly. So he felt around. It was dark in the cave.

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But he felt around and found some sticks. And he started a little fire.

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And, boy, that felt good. And the fire began to grow bigger and bigger. And as it did, he began to look around the cave to see where he was.

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He saw snakes and spiders and a few other animals.

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And all of a sudden, his place of safety didn't seem so good. So he left.

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He'd take the rain rather than stay in there with all of that. Now, I say that to say this.

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When the light comes in your life, and you really see where you are, and you see the companions that you've been running with, you see the situation, for the first time, the light shows it.

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And you leave. You run to Christ. All right, we'll start.

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Or David will start next week with verse 8. And I'm going to abandon the pulpit.

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I just want to remind you. I forgot to announce this morning. We announced last week that Dr. Rocky Freeman will be with us this

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Sunday, this coming Sunday. We'll be having four sessions instead of the normal three that we have.

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And we'll be filming the teaching because it's going to be for use for extension students in a seminary in Jacksonville, Florida.

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But it'll be on the tabernacle. So he'll be here for Sunday school at 10 and then 11 o 'clock for church, 1 -15 for the third session.

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Then we'll take a little break. And those who want to stay, you're not required to. But if you want to stay, you can stick around.

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And there'll be a fourth session, and we'll film all four of those. And it will be a complete study of the tabernacle.

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It'll go fast because it's a lot of material, and he has to get that on the tape for the seminary.

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But he needed a place to tape it, and I asked him to do it here because it'll come across more naturally if he's speaking to some people, and we can get the benefit of it.

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So we will have a syllabus for you that'll be more than just an outline.

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It'll have quite a bit of the material on it, and we'll pass all that out to you. You might want to bring a notepad and a pen with lots of ink in it and take some notes, and it'll be a great time of learning for us.

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And so get the word out to your friends. I forgot to announce it, and some of them missed that this morning. I think most of those were here last

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Sunday when I announced it, though. But that'll be this next Sunday. Just wanted to announce that.