Book of 1 John - Ch. 5, Vs. 14-21 (01/16/2000)

Park Meadows Church

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Verse 14, 1

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John 5, 14. Some of these I snuck ahead and covered during one of my other lessons, so we'll just kind of mention those when we get to them.

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In verse 14, and this is the confidence that we have in Him that if we ask anything according to His will,

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He heareth us. And if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him.

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There's a lot of misunderstanding, I think, about prayer in Christian circles, and the more you listen to television and hear

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TV evangelists and sometimes things on the radio, the worse the confusion becomes, because the modern concept of prayer is that God is a genie in a bottle, and prayer is the act of rubbing the bottle.

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And the bottle, the genie comes out, and you say, I need this, I need this, and as the verse says here, we know that we have the petitions.

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That's the part that they preach. If you ask, we know we have the petitions. Well, there are some conditions on this in this verse.

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Notice at the end of verse 14, there's the word if. I should say in the middle of the verse.

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If, that brings a condition. It's a conditional statement. If we ask anything according to His will is the condition.

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Then He hears us, and whatever you ask will be answered, it says. Well, now let me ask you a question.

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When you pray, how do you know that you're asking in His will? And now, brings to mind an interesting verse in the book of James.

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Somebody help me out. I'm looking for the verse that says, you have not for you ask not. Like I said, it came to mind.

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Doesn't mean I know the address of it. Let's see. Okay, there you are.

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There it is. James 4, 3. Well, let's go up and look at the end of verse 2.

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Yet ye have not, because you ask not, and ye ask and receive not, because you ask amiss that you may consume it upon your lusts.

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Now, that would be an example of a prayer that's in the flesh.

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That's the genie -in -the -bottle prayer. And it's because it says you're asking according to the lusts.

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And the word lusts in the Bible deals directly with the flesh. It's the flesh that lusts after things.

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And so how could we know, on the other hand though, that we're asking in God's will?

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Well, turn to Romans chapter 8, verse 26. Let me just review a message I preached earlier this year, or one verse we used in the message.

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I won't review the whole message this afternoon, but key verse, Romans 8, 26.

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And I really believe this is a key verse in understanding prayer on the face of this earth.

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How it works, the workings of it. Why is it that God is able to promise us this conditional promise that if we ask according to his will, he hears us.

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And if we know that he hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions.

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You can already know the prayer is going to be answered. How can God make a promise like that?

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Well, look at Romans 8, 26. Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought.

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Because if you're not careful, you end up in James, what was it, four, two, and three?

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If you're not careful, you can end up in that place where you're asking according to the lusts of the flesh.

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So how would we know? Well, we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the

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Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

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And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to what?

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The will of God. Isn't that amazing? So what we see here is a process that takes place where God, by the

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Holy Spirit, and it's kind of interesting when you think about God the Father is outside of time.

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He's not in time. He's the eternal I am. And as we've seen in a verse that we read this morning in the morning sermon, everything is finished.

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But it's interesting that God can come in time, because if the Holy Spirit is in your body, and your body is in time, then he's in time, isn't he?

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And when Jesus walked on the face of this earth, he was in time, but was he

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God? Yes he was, and is the Holy Spirit God? And he is he is in your body, your body is the temple of the living

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God. So what happens is the Holy Spirit, you know, this verse 27 where it says he searcheth the hearts, and he knoweth the mind of the

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Spirit. You see, the Holy Spirit can search your spirit, and he can know you a lot better than you can know you.

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In fact, the Bible says the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. Who can know it?

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We can't even know our own heart sometimes, but the Holy Spirit can. But he also searches the mind and heart of the

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Father, isn't that amazing? Because he is the Spirit of the Father. And so what he can do is he can take the perfect will of God, and bring it into your heart, and move you to pray for it.

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Move your heart to be in line, or move your spirit to be in line with his spirit. And he'll place those thoughts in your heart of things that you are to pray for.

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Now when that occurs, 1st John 5 and verse 14 says we have this confidence that he will hear that prayer, and we will have that petition.

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So it is a promise. Now how can it be so sure? Because it's already happened.

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Now that blows your mind, but from the Father's point of view, it's already happened.

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If you want to look at it from human point of view in time, you might say it this way, God's already been out to the future and been there.

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But that's a meager way of looking at it, because that's looking at it from human viewpoint. From God's viewpoint, it's even hard to talk about, because time is the only way we can think, but he's not in it.

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So if you want to look at it from our point of view, it's like he's been there. And so he obviously knows what to place in your heart.

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Now you say, well what good is all that? If that's true, we're not doing anything. That's how the humanist thinks.

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And it's natural for us to think that way. Oh, you know, what good is that? I mean, I'm not really doing the praying.

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That's true. And another thing to think about is that even though it's true that God has ordained everything that will happen, he has also ordained the means by which it will happen.

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When you look back, it's easy to see these things. You can look back in your own life, for instance, I can remember my grandmother trying to get me to go to church every, you know, all the time.

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Even during the week when there was an evangelist there, she wanted me to go. And I wouldn't go with her, usually.

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Every once in a while I would, but usually I wouldn't. And I know that my mom was praying for me, and my grandmother was praying for me.

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And so I can look back and see how God had them praying for me, and then

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I was saved. And we can see how God orchestrates all that in the past.

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Looking at the present and into the future, it's hard for us to see these things and think about them as clearly.

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But it's the same thing. There is no way that you could pray for anything and get it right, let alone get it answered, if the

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Lord did not originate that prayer. Because he's the only one that knows what's going to happen. And we can't know that.

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We could never know if we were praying for the right thing or not, if it weren't for the intercession of the

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Holy Spirit. So he is our prayer partner. And it's so important to make sure that we don't go into James 4, chapter 2,

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I mean chapter 4, verse 2, and start rubbing that genie and saying, give me this, give me that.

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That is not what prayer is all about. The mature Christian should come before the

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Lord and say, Lord, please fellowship with me and commune with me and let me know how

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I can be a part of your work. He says he works together in us.

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That's his will, that he has desired for us to be part of his work and to work together with him in his great work, in his vineyard, as they say.

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And that's his desire. And so when we come before him with that attitude and we say, just show me how

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I can be a part of your great plan, he's going to move you to pray for things. And you will find that there will be certain times in your life,

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I'm convinced of this by my own experience, but by what the scripture says as well, that there will be times when you can get up off your knees and you just forget about it because you know it's done.

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And that is a marvelous thing when that happens. And we had that happen once, didn't we?

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Me and you and Jenny. Where's Jenny? Babysitting. But my dad, we thought, was going to die that night or else be on life support systems, you know, indefinitely is what they told us.

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And the three of us had been kind of crushed all week before that, especially me.

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I shouldn't speak for you, for the others, but I mean I had sort of just given up. It's just, he's not going home.

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It was the attitude I had. And then when we prayed at that time, when we got up, we knew something was different.

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And the next morning, two or three doctors with two or three nurses apiece came rushing down this hall and went in this room and pulled all these tubes out of his body.

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And then he came home to Texas. And we knew that before it happened, didn't we? I can think of one other interesting case of that.

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Any of you remember when Miss Matika's mother had the brain aneurysm? Remember that?

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And the Lord moved us to pray for her to live.

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And I just knew she was going to be fine. And she was back playing golf.

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She's a professional golfer, practically, and was back playing golf within about a month after that.

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And so, yes sir, because that's pride.

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If I could convince you of that, I could make lots of money on TV. All we'd have to do is film these services.

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And, well, I think there's a great spiritual pride in a Christian who wants everyone to know they're the prayer warrior.

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They're moving God. They're moving God here and there and making all this happen because of their prayers.

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And I've seen that especially in independent Baptist circles. We have the prayer warriors out there.

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And I believe a genuine prayer warrior, nobody even knows about it. I mean, you don't know who that person is and they get absolutely no credit.

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They don't want any, for one thing. And so, this is

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God. The source is from the Father through the Holy Spirit to the

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Christian and then back up to the Father through the

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Holy Spirit. So, it's a process like that. And it's amazing how you will get that peace that that prayer is going to be answered if you know that it came from the

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Lord. And you don't have to continue to pray at that point unless the Lord leads you to.

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But normally, it's a done thing and you don't have to. And that's exactly what 1

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John 5, 14, and 15 are talking about. Proper prayer in the Holy Spirit.

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Now, let's go to, well, I had,

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I had a, it's interesting. We read Romans 8, 26 about the intercession of the

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Holy Spirit and prayer. You can go into some other verses and Romans 8, 34 talks about Jesus Christ interceding on our behalf.

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And Hebrews 7, 25 talks about the fact says, wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come to God by him seeing that he ever liveth to make intercession for them.

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That intercession deals more with his advocacy on our behalf before the

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Father, but surely it has to do with prayer as well. So, you really have two intercessors, the

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Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ. That's why he said, when I go, if you ask anything in my name, it shall be done.

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So, he intercedes for us too. Would the prayer that you're praying be the same prayer

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Jesus would pray if he were in your shoes in that circumstance? Would he sign the check, so to speak?

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If so, then pray it and pray it in his name. And that's what that means.

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Okay, now let's go to the, to the, you can see why

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I was stalling because now we have to go to verse 16. And I was conversing with some of the brethren before the service this afternoon to get a consensus on this verse.

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And what I'd like to do is give you some of the common interpretations and let you pick which one it is, okay?

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That's dangerous, but that's what we'll try. Oh, well, we're with a special group this afternoon.

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We can, we'll get away with it. If any man see his brother, that's an important word, underline the word brother because I didn't notice that one.

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If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, in other words, the man that saw it shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death.

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There is a sin unto death. I do not say that he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin and there is a sin not unto death.

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Now, I'd like to have your input. That means I have not a clue what it means. No, I do, I think

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I know what it means, but there are several interpretations. Why don't we use the process of elimination, okay?

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Let's eliminate, let's say what we know it can't mean first. First of all, if a man see his brother sin a sin unto death, which is not unto death, he shall ask and he shall give him life.

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Could this be talking about spiritual death and spiritual life? Okay, why not?

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Because that is one interpretation of it. We can't see it and what else?

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There's some other interesting reasons it couldn't. There you go.

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Yep, okay, so he couldn't lose his salvation, in other words.

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What's another reason it couldn't mean spiritual death? Okay, you are not the one that's gonna decide who's saved, right?

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By asking, okay? Now, you could say, though, someone might come and say, well, but the

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Holy Spirit may have led you to pray for that person's salvation. But still, if we're looking at the theory behind this, you're not gonna just simply by asking cause someone to be saved.

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So, can we eliminate that this is not spiritual life and death? So, what are we talking about then?

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Physical, okay, physical life or death? We're in agreement? Now, that helps because that eliminates several of the common interpretations of the verse.

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So, if we're talking about spiritual life or death here, now let's look at this. If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death.

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There is a sin unto death. I do not say that you should pray for it. There's another common interpretation.

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You remember the story of Ananias and Sapphira? What happened to them?

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That's right. And the young men carried him out. Remember that story?

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And so, I would probably say out of the commentaries that I've read, the majority of them say that's what this is.

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It's a sin that was like the straw, the breaking point where God just said,

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I'm taking you out of here. All right? Now, the book of Hebrews does say in chapter 12 verse 6 that the

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Lord loves who he loves. He chastens. He scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

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If you endure chastening, God dealeth with you as sons. For what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?

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And some would even go to John 15 to where it talks about every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away.

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You know, the taking away is kind of an interesting concept. And every branch that beareth fruit, he purchased it.

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And then it goes on down here and says in verse 6, if a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch and burned.

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Now, let me, now, so that would be used to prove that this is talking about the Christian who sinned and he refused to give that sin up, so God took him home.

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Now, what do you think about that interpretation? You shouldn't speak first.

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Okay, well, all right, we have one no.

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Probably two. There's the help meat sitting right there. Oh, well, you've been currently been studying that.

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Okay, tell us why that verse cannot apply to this. Why is it that this branch being cast forth and burned in fire cannot be applying to 1st

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John 5 16 where it says if you see your brother sin unto death, you do too know.

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Well, like Trudy said, if it's a brother, I mean, how can he be cast into fire and so forth?

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You know, that's kind of interesting. Now, if this is an

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Ananias and Sapphira type situation, could you, if you, let's put you back in that scene and let's say that you were standing there when

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Ananias began to speak and he said, yes, I've given all the land, I mean all the money from the land,

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I've given it and you happen to have seen the fact that he had put some aside. He wasn't telling the truth.

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Would you be in a position at that point to pray and ask God not to kill him? Why not?

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Two reasons, give me one. Well, obviously, if Ananias was going to find himself on the pages of Holy Writ in an eternal book, you weren't going to change that, were you?

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You just weren't going to change that. So what's the other reason, though, that you wouldn't have prayed for his life to be spared?

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That is the right answer. How would you know that that was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak?

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How would you know? You would never know. And so that cannot be the meaning of this passage.

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So is there anything left? What can it mean? And so I will share with you the consensus of the elders who met at the front before church this afternoon.

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And this was the consensus, is that if you go back to the day this was written during the

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Roman Empire, there were quite a few capital crimes, which means if you committed them, you died, probably without a trial in some cases.

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And so this is saying if you as a Christian happen to see, you are the witness at the scene of a crime, and it's one of your brothers in church that did the crime, and you're the witness.

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And it's your job to turn them in and cause the whole process of human justice to take place.

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Well, there are some crimes that are unto death, and there are some that are not. And what this says is that if you see a brother sin a sin which is not a capital crime, you should ask the magistrate to spare his life, especially if he did the crime to you.

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Of course, if it was capital, you might not be around anymore. But there were more crimes than murder that were capital punishment in those days.

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But you would ask the magistrate to spare his life, or you could ask him to do so.

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Now, it goes on and says and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death.

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There is a sin unto death, I do not say that you should ask for it. Now, we just assume in those verses that we're talking about, pray, did

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I say ask or pray? Pray, but pray means ask. So we just assume that pray there at the end of verse 16 has to mean a person praying to God, when it doesn't have to mean that in the old

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English. It just simply means to ask. So I believe this is a view of a person asking or praying to the magistrate, beseeching the magistrate to not take this person's life who has done this crime.

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Maybe give him life in prison or something different, but don't take his life. But God says, however, if the crime is punishable by death, then you should not ask the magistrate for his life to be spared.

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Thank you, sir. If you use

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Bible interpretation methods, one of them is to look and see who was being spoken to and what were the customs of the time, but also to see if it fits the context.

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And I can't find any other interpretation that doesn't tend to do violence with some other things we know are true than that one.

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That one seems to fit. Does anyone else have a thought about that? Maybe you thought of a slightly different scenario.

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That seems to fit to me. I don't believe that it's talking about praying to God at the end of verse 16.

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I believe it's talking about asking the magistrate, like up at the first part of the verse where it says, he shall ask and he shall give him life.

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The he there, I think, is the magistrate who will give him life, will spare his life, or the government, the representative of the government.

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And so I think that's the same he at the bottom of verse 16. I won't be dogmatic about that though, but does anybody have a thought on that?

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But don't you think it refers to the magistrate, not to God? Okay. How's that fit?

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Yes. Yeah.

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Yeah, I do. That's why I said I won't be dogmatic on that part, because it could be praying to God.

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Well, he'd be doing both. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And so I think that that fits.

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Now, I have, up until the last couple of years,

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I've always thought that this was a sin unto death, was that you could sin and God would take your life because of that last sin.

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And I've heard that preached many times. It's probably the reason I thought that. So, but I don't really think that that fits in this situation at all.

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Alrighty, let's go on then. Verse 18.

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We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not, but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself and the wicked one toucheth him not.

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Did we cover this one earlier in another passage? Yeah, I think we did.

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Let's just go through it in case you weren't here though. We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not.

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Well, the best way to understand that would be to look at Romans chapter 7. So take a look for just a second.

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Romans chapter 7 and verse 20. The Apostle Paul is the penman here and he says, now if I do that that I would not, it is no more

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I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find in a law that when I would do good, evil is present with me.

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So if you notice carefully, you read that carefully, the Apostle Paul says, when I do that which

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I know I'm not supposed to do, it is not, it is no more I that do it. A lot of things are said in that little phrase.

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For one thing, the phrase no more I that do it implies it used to when he did that it was

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I that did it. Before salvation when he did sins he was doing the sins because he was living in the flesh.

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But after salvation in Romans chapter 8 it says, but ye are no more in the flesh but in the spirit.

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And so this is a reference to the new man. When you get born again there's the old man who is crucified in Christ but there's the new man, the resurrected man.

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The new man, the resurrected man who is in, who by definition is in communion with the

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Holy Spirit cannot sin. Not only will he not sin but he cannot sin. And that's the real you by the way.

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I have taught that for years in this church and believed it for a long long time and I finally found a man that believed it like I did here in the last couple of years.

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I've never heard anybody else that saw that that way but I don't know why that's because that's how it is isn't it?

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You should all see it this way. But the you, when you talk about me or when you're talking to yourself and you say hello me how are you doing today?

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That's the new man. And how do we know that? Because the old man is crucified that means it's already happened.

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When did it happen? Way back there. Well no no no not quite that far back.

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Well in a sense in a sense but you're getting too deep. Let's just keep it kind of you know at the cross.

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It happened at the cross. The old man is crucified if you're in Christ and so the new man cannot sin and that's what verse 18 is talking about.

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That which is born of God cannot sin because you have the very nature of God. And he that is begotten of God keepeth himself and that wicked one toucheth him not.

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Well the phrase he that is begotten of God keepeth himself has to be taken in the context of all we know about God and the sanctifying work of the

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Holy Spirit and so forth. It does not literally mean that you keep yourself because we don't.

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The Holy Spirit works in our life continually. If the new man if you're walking and you're a new man you're in communion with the

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Holy Spirit and in that sense and in that sense only can you keep yourself is when you're in communion with the

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Holy Spirit. So really who is it that keeps us? Well let me give you a clue.

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Remember the verse we read that I said was Charlotte's favorite verse this morning? 1st

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Peter chapter 1 to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that fate if not a way reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of who?

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By the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

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So we keep ourself only if we're talking about the new man who is in complete perfect fellowship with the

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Holy Spirit so that you're one you're as one. And in that sense we keep ourselves from sin but only in that sense.

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Now when it says the wicked one toucheth him not the wicked one cannot touch the new man. He can only touch the old man.

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So don't ever let yourself believe that the old man is alive again or Satan will touch it. Yes you'd no longer you no longer serve sin you serve righteousness.

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You have that ability now for the first time. A lost person does not have that ability. That's very good.

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Also do you remember the verse that says when we see him we shall see him as he is and every man that hath this hope in him purifies himself even as he is pure.

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It's the same thing. Can you really purify yourself and keep yourself pure? Well in a sense you can in the sense that she just talked about.

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In the new man who is connected in complete unity with the Holy Spirit you can.

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In fact you're exhorted to. God would not exhort you to do something you can't do so you can in the

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Spirit. You cannot in the flesh obviously. So yet we have to understand just like prayer that we discussed earlier this afternoon.

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If in prayer the source must come from God and then to us and then we return it to God.

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Same is true of holiness. He exhorts us to pray doesn't he? But can we pray by ourselves?

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Would be worthless and an abomination to him if it were a self prayer. Same is true of holiness.

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He exhorts us to be holy as he is holy and he says here that you will not sin and he says over there if you have this hope you will purify yourself.

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So he does tell us to do that but could we do it on our own? The source has to be from heaven.

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The Holy Spirit comes in communes with our spirit and then our new man is in control of this whole thing and then we will not sin in that in that situation.

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Very good. You can do all things through Christ who is in me but it does say you can do the things but only in Christ.

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Beautiful. Boy I love that one. Wish I had that in my notes. It will be there next time. Very good.

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Okay. Alright let's see which one were we on here? We got to finish here.

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Okay that was verse 18. Verse 19 and we know that we are of God and the whole world lieth in wickedness.

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I love that verse. That verse took all new meaning for me just in the last month. Let me ask you a question in case you weren't here when

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I covered this earlier. Look at the word whole world.

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The phrase whole world. How much of the world is that? Be careful now.

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We will get tricky here. How much of the world is that? How much does it say it is?

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Alright says it's the whole world. So how much of the world is it? The entire world.

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Now what is the world? Let's define world here. What are we talking about? Okay she told the punchline before I got the joke out of my mouth.

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Most of y 'all didn't hear what she said. So let's go on with this. We're going to get out here early if we go with that.

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Now it said I got a guy over here biting and here you because he wasn't here the Sunday that I preached on this.

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He was working. Now yes well here's my point.

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It says the whole world lieth in wickedness. Most people when you read John 3 16 it says for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten

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Son and people will argue with you till they're blue in the face that that means God loved the whole world because it says the world.

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If you look at this verse it says the whole world lies in wickedness. Now if whole world always means every human in the world then that means everybody in this room is lying in wickedness today because we're part of the world.

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Correct? Now it even gets worse if you understand in the Greek language it says the whole world lieth in the lap of the wicked one.

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That's literal translation. So if whole world means whole world every time you see it that means everybody in this room is lying in the lap of Satan right now.

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Now do you believe that's true? If it is you really better spread apart. It's not true so whole world doesn't mean the whole world.

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So Trudy what does it mean in this verse? That's right it means the whole world of Satan's seed.

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So in John 3 16 it means the whole world of God's children. Now if it can be it's obvious to us in verse 19 this doesn't mean the whole world but in verse 3 16 of John people will argue with you oh it has to mean whole world because it says it you're trying to change the

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Bible you're trying to say something the Bible doesn't say the Bible says the whole world well I know it says whole world but you have to know the context and you have to know the whole

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Bible you can't just pluck one verse out and say this is true so everything will make my doctrine fit around as one verse you have to use

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I'll tell you this is interesting there there is no one who interprets the

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Bible differently than I do everybody interprets the same way I do but there are a lot of people who have different interpretation interpretative methods so if you have two people that have the same method of interpretation they will come up with the same interpretation if they study the whole

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Bible so there it's not people say well there's you know five interpretations for every verse and so we just have to get along and believe you know agree to disagree and all that if everyone would learn the proper

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Bible interpretation methods you'll come up with the right interpretation eventually and one is you must let the

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Bible interpret the Bible so you can't just take one verse and figure the grammar of that verse out and say well then that makes makes it the way it is because it might contradict ten other verses or passages so you have to let the

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Bible interpret shed light on the Bible the other thing is like we discussed earlier you have to know a little bit about the times in which it was written and who it was specifically written to and ask the question does it apply to me or does it apply to them in other words can we catfish today or not because there's part of the

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Bible that says you can't so does that apply to you so these and Bible interpretation methods are important and in this particular verse when you look at whole world the context of the passage common sense helps a little on this one

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I mean goodness you know it doesn't mean that the Christians lie and in wickedness so you can tell by the context it doesn't really mean whole world even though it appears to say that it means the world of the lost well there are many many verses in the

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New Testament where it talks about the world where it means the world of the elect the world of God's children the ones that he chose before the foundation of the world the ones that the book of Deuteronomy says he set his love upon before he made anything the ones where Jesus says

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I know my sheep and they hear my voice and they follow me and ones where he says of all that the father giveth me

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I shall lose nothing but should raise it up the world of that and and I actually believe that is

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God's world I mean that's God's cosmos God's world is a world of order if we go out into the future and we go beyond the millennial period and we go to the place where God has wiped away all the memories of this life in this world and the sin and corruption and everything that sin brought here and we go out there and that's all gone and we look around that's the world that that is

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God's world and the rest will be in some place that we will not even knows there because we will have been wiped our memories wiped clean and we won't remember the concept of hell but there will be a place with people in it somewhere but that's not part of God's cosmos that's part of the world of disorder which is

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Satan's so it helps to understand these two worlds in verse 19 I don't know how many people get that out of verse 19 but that it's just that I had

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I had had several questioning me in recent times about you know well the whole world always has to mean whole world well it doesn't verse 19 proves that you have to go by the context and by the entire teachings of the scriptures to know what it means in each different case verse 20 and we know that the

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Son of God has come and hath given us an understanding put brackets around that because that's going to be in the sermon next

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Sunday morning the Lord willing look at this the

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Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true so the question is could you know him if you had not been given this understanding all right he has given us this understanding that you may know him that is true and we are in him that is true even in his son

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Jesus Christ this is the true God there's a great verse for the deity of Christ by the way and eternal life

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Joe's witness will tell you there's no place in the Bible where it says Jesus is God well try first John 520 right at the end and then it ends with this amazing verse that fits right in with our message this morning little children keep yourselves from idols amen idols what are idols you know what the

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New Testament definition for I Old Testament definition is a piece of wood carved out that you bow down and worship seems silly to us doesn't it you know what the

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New Testament is what things that control your affections things you love in the

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New Testament it says covetousness is as idolatry what is to covet is to go after things and so we can have our idols otherwise this wonderful New Testament book wouldn't end with that thought little children keep yourselves from idols we have to be so careful where the affection of our hearts go and little children means

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God's little children but isn't it interesting it says little children because I'm convinced that young people growing up as they get into those early teen years and and get into that early youthful time have to be very careful not to let people be idols not to let boys or girls be idols not to let things or games or this or that or the other and we carry that on into adult years don't we let our our career be an idol we can let our children be idols on and on how do we guard against it

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I think in our prayer life we can continually ask the Lord to search our hearts and bring to thought any unclean thing in our life any idol anything we've been giving inordinate undue affection towards a thing or a created thing more so than the love hearts love that we are sensing for the

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Lord and so that's obviously important because it closed the book and let's stand and have a word of prayer together dear father we thank you so much for your word and the clarity that it brings to us as we study together thank you for the insight that you've given several of the folks in the congregation today that made comments and and how it helped all of us to learn and we pray that in this week as we all study together that you will give us new insights into your word and teach us more of you and of your son