Transcript

Well, as you’re taking your seat, grab your Bibles and let’s go to 1 John 2. We’ve been going through 1 John on Sunday nights and, um, I decided I would use this text to speak with you this morning. 1 John 2 and we’ll begin in verse 24 and go down through verse 28. John, the elder apostle, is writing to the churches. He has such a fatherly and gracious tone, yet like so much of the epistles, I’ve never tried to estimate how much but like so much of the New Testament epistles, he finds himself writing about guarding the churches from false doctrine. Over and over and over in Paul’s writing and now in John’s writings, that comes to their heart and mind very often because it seems that the enemy never ceases to try to find an inroad into God’s church and diminish, discourage them, undermine the Lord, undermine the true Gospel. All you gotta do is go out through the world today in what’s called Christian churches and realize the amount of error that has crept into the churches, so no wonder God in his word gives us so many cautions. In that context, he says beginning in verse 24,

24 As for you [in other words, in contrast to what the liars and the antichrists of the day would be telling you], As for you, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. 25 This is the promise which He Himself made to us: eternal life. 26 These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you. 27 As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you [and this is a command], you abide in Him. 28 Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.

What are we gonna do in these strange and uncertain times that we live in? Let me back up for a moment and remind all of us that since Adam and Eve sinned in the garden of Eden and sin has corrupted human beings made in the image of God and sin has corrupted all of creation, since that time these have always been strange and uncertain times. It’s strange and warped that the God who made man in his own image and the creation that he made for his own glory would be alienated from him. It’s always been strange. It’s always been out of joint, if you will, sometimes, or maybe no more strange than others.

Here we live in a day when we have such rabid and rapid moral upheaval all of a sudden, I mean, just in a few years. I, I remember back, uh, Joe Biden and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and others adamantly supporting traditional marriage, adamantly standing against any other definition of marriage. What, 8 years ago? 12 years ago? And now that’s completely reversed. And not even that, no, no longer can we even think in terms of can men marry men and women marry women but we’re not sure what a man is and a woman is anymore. Total moral upheaval in the culture and it’s happening so quickly. You and I live in a day where literally, I don’t think I’d be exaggerating to say this, over a few months the definition of racism has been redefined, has been changed. The definition of what it means to be oppressed or to be an oppressor has been re, rewritten, re- established. I mean, if you were in the flow of the world and you wanted to keep up with all of this, you, you just have to, I guess, I don’t know, who are these people who decided this, by the way? Where does this come from? Can I say this? A whole lot of it’s coming from women in universities who write this stuff and then it’s like all the world falls at their feet, “Oh, the great new Gnostic thinkers of the day.”

Anyway, saying all that to say it’s an era, it’s a time, it’s a day of moral upheaval. I mean, literally in my heart in a few weeks I’ve gone from saying, you know, our universities are good and thank God for the good teachers and the good professors that are out there. If you guys were not out there, it’d all be sunk. But we, we’re at the, we’re at the place for the next few decades, and I won’t be around for all of those, we’re gonna have to rethink education A to Z, those of us who have any Christian moorings and Christian values. And then on top of this moral upheaval and reversal and redefining everything, we have this global pandemic, and then on top of that we have all these people politicizing the pandemic. You know what we need? We need a firm place to stand. We need a rock to rest our lives and our convictions upon, and by the way, as Christians we have one, his name is Jesus Christ and this is his word. Listen, this is the true doctrine of God once for all delivered to the saints. The world may get in upheaval, the world may change, the world may go crazy, the world may begin to call right wrong and wrong right, but we do not change. God’s word is settled and that’s where we stand.

Isn’t it good to have a rock? I feel sorry for the Christians who love the Lord who’ve been going to churches in these last few days and have no idea what their pastor’s gonna come out with because he’s, he’s listening to the, the tune of the present movements in society. We don’t need that. We’ve got this. It can move wherever it wants to out there, I’m staying right here. We have a rock.

So what are we gonna do in these kind of times? We’re gonna do what we’ve always done, we’re going to continually abide in Christ and that’s what John is talking about in these verses of Scripture. Six things I want to point out to you about continually abiding in Christ, just pulling it straight out of the text. There’s so much you could say but let me bring out these things as we unpack it beginning in verse 24. John writes to these Christians and says, “Don’t be pulled away by the fashion of the day, the, the new, um, enticing teaching that’s going around. You stay with the stuff.” First of all, you continually abide in him because it brings communion with God. The truth of Christ is the only thing that truly brought you into intimacy with God the Father, God Almighty. In verse 24, notice how John writes it. He says, “As for you,” that’s in contrast to the ones he’s been talking about, verse 22, the liar, those who deny Jesus is the Christ, the antichrist spirited ones. They’re going on direction, he says, “But, okay, church, but as for you, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning.” The word “that” refers to the truth. You’ve heard the truth. You’ve heard the truth about God, you’ve heard the truth about man’s sinful fallenness before this God, and the just abiding wrath of God that is upon you, and you’ve, you’ve heard, you’ve heard the truth about God’s unfathomable love to send his Son to be your vicarious atoning sacrifice and your faith in him is all you need to be in communion with the Father. You, church, stay right there. Don’t be pulled off to one side or the other.

He says hold to that truth, that truth you’ve had from the beginning, then he says abide. He uses that word “abide” in verse 24, ” As for you, let that abide in you.” The word “abide” just has the idea of continue or to remain. I like to word it this way, “Let your faithing in Christ continue on.” As I’ve told you so many times over these decades, you didn’t just put faith in Jesus, your faith in Christ is not something you did, it’s not something that just happened at a time. It began at a time but what happened is there was a time when you changed and you became a faither in Jesus Christ, you became one who as a lifestyle pattern find your heart calling out to him saying, “O Lord, if You don’t save me, I’m sunk. If Your atoning death is not sufficient for me, I’ll never make it. I stumble, I fail, I am weak, I’m wrought, uh, uh, prone rather to error and indifference and cold- heartedness. O God, I cry out again that Christ, You’re my hope.” It’s that. That’s what a, that’s what abide, continue on in your lifestyle being anchored to Jesus Christ and one who calls upon him. That’s what the Bible means when it says “he who calls upon the name of the Lord.” It doesn’t mean you just called at one time, it means you became a caller on the [cough], excuse me, the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Keep abiding in that.

Then he says in verse 24, if that’s true, “you will also abide in the Son and in the Father.” The idea is that you have deposited your faith in God and his provision of his Son Jesus Christ and God has deposited his divine nature in you. There’s a communion now, a oneness. The contrast element is this: the antichrist spirited person is teaching this new doctrine, this new fad sweeps across the Greek culture and says you’ve gotta do it this way and you’ve gotta embrace this and you’ve gotta embrace that, John says, “Look, the only thing that gets you in touch with the true God of the universe is your faith in Jesus Christ. Stay with that. Stay with that. It brings you in communion with the Father.”

Well, secondly, continue to abide in him because it is truth that cannot change. It is truth that cannot change. Loot at it there in verse 24. He says this phrase twice, “in which you have heard from the beginning. If what you have heard from the beginning.” Notice John’s emphasis that, “This is what I’ve always taught.” It’s almost like John says, “Every time I write to you or every time you’ve heard me preach or teach you, have I given you some new flavor? Some new spin on it? Some new, uh, uh, niche that kind of fits where you are today?” He says, “No, no, what I’ve given you is what I’m still giving you because it’s the truth that does not and cannot change.” We don’t need any new spins. We don’t need any new insights from these new, uh, self-appointed elitist thinkers. We’re staying with the old stuff. Jesus Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried, was raised on the third day. That’s my hope. That’s my confidence. That’s my trust.

Truth does not evolve. Can I say that again in this time where we turn on the tv and they’re coming up with a whole new thing we’re supposed to do, a whole new way we’re supposed to believe if we’re really caring, loving people? It never needs adjustment and this, by the way, is the characteristic of false teaching. False teachers are always changing and adjusting and reformatting and altering the narrative because they want to get following. By the way, when you get behind all false teaching, let’s get back behind this chair, when you get back behind all false teaching, you know what the modus operandi is? You know what the motive is? Power and control. It’s whatever gives us power and control. If the spirit of the day goes this way, we gotta kinda bring that into our teaching and our doctrine so we can have more of a hearing, you have more power and control. Whether it’s the theological realm, the church realm, the political realm, it’s always about power and control. As I’ve said many, as I’ve heard, rather, many times through the ages, someone said if it’s true, or rather if it’s new, it ain’t true. The truth has been established and settled. In 2 Timothy 4:3, Paul again writes to Timothy there, we’ve referred to it a lot and he tells Timothy to preach the word and to preach the word in season and out of season, when people like it and receive it, and keep preaching it when they don’t and when they’re not interested. What’s the point? “Because the truth doesn’t change, Timothy. People change in their appetites, what’s the flavor of the month, but, Timothy, you don’t change what you preach. The truth hasn’t changed.” And he basically says there in 2 Timothy 4:3 that people want to be furnished with the latest fad. Same thing happening here that John’s writing about as people keep hearing these new notions floating around about Jesus plus this, or Jesus plus that. He says, “Reject it. It’s the truth that doesn’t change.” John says very simply, “You’ve heard this from the beginning. Stay there.”

3. Continue to abide in Christ or in him because it holds the promise of eternal life. It holds the promise of eternal life. Look at verse 25, “And this is the promise He Himself made to us, that is, eternal life.” False teachers will promise you anything. False teachers will promise you everything but listen to me, no teacher gives eternal life. Christ gives eternal life. I’m getting ahead of myself but here’s the important aspect of Christianity and that is this is an experiential religion. It is not Jeff Noblit’s teaching that saves you, it is Christ that saves you. It is not a formula or a plan or four steps or five steps or three rules or whatever, it is Christ that saves you. And so John goes back and says, “He Himself promises eternal life.” Through abiding in your faith, through remaining, uh, one who places his faith in Jesus Christ, you know God the Father and now you know the one who he himself is promising you eternal life. The word literally means “a duration or enduring life,” that is, life that never ends.

This is the promise he himself made to us. Not a prophet. Not just a preacher. Not another scholars or another wise man. Not some meditating, uh, guru up on a mountainside but God, he himself has promised this. Remember in John 14:6 Jesus said in effect, “I did not come to show the way,” he says, “I am the way.” That’s, you know, as I meditated on this, I thought, “You know, I know it’s true. I know it’s so true but yet to articulate it is beyond me.” I, I don’t want you to learn a lesson, I want you to know him. Jesus says, “I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life.” So don’t come into this church building and say, “Pastor, let me check off some boxes. Give me some hoops to jump through.” That’s not what we’re about. We’re about you knowing him and then you have the promise of eternal life. It just so happens he has ordained that his primary means by which he is revealed is the faithful preaching of his word in the power of the Spirit. I didn’t design it that way, God did through what the Bible author says, through the foolishness of preaching. You see, Jesus doesn’t just teach us about the beginning and the end, he says, “I’m the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. I’m not here to teach you about how it all begins and how,” he said, “I am the beginning and the end. It all is encompassed in Me.”

Lazarus was dead. His sister, Martha, entreats Jesus. She says, “Jesus, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” Jesus responds to Martha, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha responds back, “I know he will rise in the resurrection on the last day.” I, I just wish I’d been there when Jesus gave this last reply, John 11:25. Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. You don’t understand, Martha, it’s not about the last day, it’s about Me. When I showed up, the resurrection showed up.” You have him through believing the truth John’s talking about here. The truth he gave to these people is the same truth he gives to us today through his precious word and through the truth, that is, you’re a sinner, Christ died for your sins, your faith is in him. Through that truth, you know God and he is the one who gives you the promise, eternal life. What, uh, assurance that is.

So the one who promises us eternal life, he himself is eternal life. Do you understand, church? I know it’s mystical in a sense, we can’t wrap our analytical minds around it, but the Spirit testifies, I’m getting to that, by the way, it’s him. You see, I don’t want you to believe the Gospel of Christ only, I want you to believe in the Christ of the Gospel. He makes himself real. Well, we want to continually abide in him, number 4, because it shuts out the false teacher. There’s a sense in which when we are abiding in him, we sense and know when the false teaching is coming, we sense and know that it’s not right.

I, I think I’ve told you this. When you’ve been preaching to people for 40 years, they, you’ve usually told them everything you know and every experience you’ve ever had. There was, a, a young man who was converted and he was, um, very gifted musically and he, he hadn’t been saved long at all and he came from a, as non-Christian of a background as you can come from in the southeast, and he was invited to a church that believes in the signs, wonders and miracles, gifts of the Spirit. And he did his singing and gave something of his testimony and he said, “All of a sudden,” and I, I’m not saying this just to put those, there’s some dear sweet and godly people who are in those movements even though I disagree with them on that, on some of those points, and he said, “All of a sudden people started falling on the floor,” and, and he said, “What is that?” And they said, “They’re slain in the Spirit.” He said and that went on for a few minutes and then the pastor got up and just basically said, “Okay, we’re done.” He said, “And 10 minutes later we were eating hot dogs in the fellowship hall.” Brand new Christian. I said, “What did you think about that?” He said, “I don’t know what I think about it, but I thought if God hits you that hard and God really came upon you like that that you had to fall out on the floor, you just couldn’t get up and eat a hot dog 10 minutes later.” I thought that was pretty discerning.

Here’s my point: as you abide in him and by the way, this always includes the local church, your Bible study, your time in the word, your time in the prayer closet, your time sitting under the preaching of the word, all of that is a part of enriching your abiding in him. As you’re abiding in him, you become resistant to the infiltrations of false teaching. You, you may not can explain why it’s wrong, you just know it’s wrong. Like the man who was converted out of a Indian background and, uh, he was hearing some false teacher one day and a pastor came up to him later and said, “What did you think about that teaching?” He said, “I don’t know but something inside of me just kept saying, ‘Liar. Liar. Liar.'” He could never explain why, he couldn’t show chapter and verse, but he just knew this wasn’t right.

Any and all deviations from the old truth given to the church whereby you must be saved is of the antichrist spirit. That’s what John calls it in this text. Matter of fact, look back up at verse 18. He says, “Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not really of us; if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.” Now I believe this includes church discipline where some are disciplined and removed because they were teaching false doctrine and would not repent. Verse 20, “But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also.” So he’s talking about those of the antichrist spirit who would bring these extra teachings in instead of simple faith in Jesus Christ.

When we turn to Jesus, the Jesus revealed in the word, and when we embrace him and we’re learning to love him, to meditate on him, to learn of him, to continue to abide in him, then we develop spiritual Teflon, false teaching just doesn’t seem to stick, it just kinda rolls off. That’s what he’s saying. All false teaching comes from the world. It’s worldly teaching. James 3:15, “This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, and natural, and demonic.” Jay, John, rather, here calls it an antichrist. Philippians 3:19, “whose end is destruction,” whose end is destruction, their “god is their appetite, who glory is in their shame, and who set their minds on earthly things.” This is where teaching that undermines simple faith in Christ comes from. It’s not from heaven. It’s earthly and it’s natural and it’s demonic.

False teaching usually comes out of two earthly ditches: liberalism or legalism. I mean, just about all of them, you can just lump them in one of those two ditches. And there’s one stream of false teaching that keeps coming around every two or three decades and that is the false teaching – notice my wording – that Christianity should be primarily concerned with curing the ills of the society. Did you hear that? That’s false teaching that Christianity must be primarily concerned with curing the ills of society. And by the way, when you kind of go along with false teaching, it’s very alluring because it makes your flesh feel good. It makes you popular with the world. We can go back a ways, decades back and there was a thing called liberation theology which basically said that Christianity existed to rid the world of oppression, mistreatment. Then there was the social gospel, same basic thing, Christianity exists primarily to help those who are disadvantaged. Then the social work movement and today they call it the social justice movement. Now I want you to listen to what I’m telling you. Certainly because of Christian love we’re concerned about all of these things, but that’s very different from making it a core doctrine of the church. When somebody tells us, “You have to be involved in this cause because it’s a Gospel issue,” notice those words, “if’s a Gospel issue,” I’m gonna tell you, my, my ears perk, perk up when I hear that. My resistance goes up, “Brother, there’s nothing that’s come along that’s been added to the Gospel that’s essential or foundational to the Gospel. It’s the old Gospel from the beginning, it’s the same Gospel now.” We don’t add anything to it and I know some good brothers and sisters have used that phrase and I don’t think they’re bad people but I would caution them don’t call it a Gospel issue. The Gospel is all men are sinners, Christ died for our sins, he was buried and he was raised again. That’s the Gospel. When you’ve been changed by the Gospel, the love in you would cause you to want to do good for all men as best you can, the Bible says, but you’re, you’re on dangerous ground when you say this is a Gospel issue, in effect, this is part of the Gospel. It is not. God has not commissioned the church primarily to cure the ills of society. God has commissioned his children to build his church in the world, not to fix the world. And by the way, you give me a world full of true, biblically, spiritually healthy churches and that will do more to fix the world than anything else because we’re the salt and the light. But that’s not our primary aim. We’re not about behavior modification for the culture, we’re about building God’s church in a godless world. That’s the Gospel. Sometimes and I think some very well-meaning people will use the phrase, “Well, this reflects the Gospel.” What do you mean it reflects the Gospel? There’s an endless amount of things you could say there and we don’t need, that’s dangerous. Don’t add to, when you use the Gospel I want you to be very laser-focused on biblical exegesis, not on cultural influences.

The Gospel is the Gospel. Again, I, I would advise better wording, that is, Christian love would lead Christians to support all true just causes, but isn’t it interesting Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul lived in an era of extreme injustice, extreme racism, and they scarcely ever mention it. Not that they were not against it, of course they were. Not that they didn’t perhaps address is from time to time, but they had a commission, what was that? To preach the Gospel and build the church. It’s amazing how subtle Satan is with his false teaching to creep in with good-sounding things, things that seem right, the Bible says, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

So we’re not about primarily fixing the world. Satan’s the god of this world. I don’t necessarily want Satan to have a better world. We’re not about primarily fixing the world, we’re about primarily building his church in the world and then the world will truly be a better place. And by the way, we do not have any obligation to appease this fallen wicked world or to accommodate this fallen wicked world, or to please them. If they don’t like what we’re about, they don’t like what we’re about. We must be about standing on the truth. Listen to what the Apostle Paul said about how he was received in the world. 2 Corinthians 2:15-16, ” For we are a fragrance of God, or rather of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life.” And Paul said, “It is hard, who is adequate for these things?” Paul says, “As I faithfully preach the gospel and build the church, some people say, ‘That’s words of life to me,’ and others say, ‘We hate you. That’s death to me.'” Now don’t go out there and try to be death to people. Don’t go out there and try to be a problem. Just be true and be faithful. It’ll all settle where it’s supposed to settle.

John’s point is if you’re continuing to abide in him, then you will see through the false teaching. You’ll become aware that this is going in the wrong direction. If you have him and you’re fellowshipping with him, here’s what you need to say to the world, “Can you give me, in your new philosophy, in your new twist on things and your new spin on what we’re supposed to be doing in our churches etc., can you give me anything better than Him? Because the doctrine I told, hold to has given me Him.” And when you think about it, if you have him, what can you add to him? The answer is obviously nothing and that’s what John’s saying. He says, “Christians, you’re not just following some tenets of a new teacher, you follow the truth which came from God which brought you to God. So don’t be seduced by these false teachers. You have Him, Jesus Christ.”

Well, number 5, continue to abide in him, the Holy Spirit affirms your abiding faith. Look at it in verse, um, 27, “As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you.” Why are you listening to all these outside voices when you have him? “But as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.” This is what I often call the amen of the Spirit. It’s that spiritual part of us that can’t quite get our hands on but when the Bible is read, when the Bible is taught, when the Bible is preached, something in us rises up and says, “Amen! Yes! True! Right! That’s where I believe. That’s where I am. That’s where I stand.”

John calls it the anointing, just the idea of the Spirit’s indwelling presence. The Spirit of God in you must teach you and that’s where we pastors and as we do the Pastoral Training Institute, we, it’s not about sharp, slick notes. Now I, I guarantee you, if you, Brother Steve’s gonna help teach some, Brother Tim Seal’s gonna do a lot of teaching, I’m gonna do teaching and, and we’ve learned some things through the decades and we’ve got some good notes and we have some things we want to teach these guys but at the end of the day if the Holy Spirit of God does not illumine their understanding, it’s worthless. Do you understand that, church? It’s not just about being a good communicator or effective or loud like me. It’s about the Spirit of God making it real to you. You see, it’s far more important to me that you leave this service and say, “I know Him better,” than for you to say, “He preached a good sermon.” Okay, I preached a good sermon but do you know God better? Do you love God more? Is he more precious and wonderful to you than he was before? And only the Holy Spirit can bring that about.

He says, “You have this anointing and it teaches you.” The Spirit’s work of illuminating the understanding as true doctrine is heard, it’s a powerful assurance that you’re on the right track. John 15:26, our Lord said, “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me.” John says, “On top of everything else I’ve told you, don’t veer from abiding in your faith in Christ because even the Holy Spirit affirms to you you’re on the right track.” The Spirit reveals the only-ness of Jesus. He says, “You’ve heard it from the beginning. From the very beginning you’ve heard that only the Spirit of God can make these things real to you. Only the Spirit of God can regenerate your heart and give you the heart and mind to repent and believe.” And I might view it this way, that the word of God and the work of the Holy Spirit are two inseparable co-workers. The word of God and the illumination of the Holy Spirit, the word of God, the illumination of the Holy Spirit.

That’s why he says in verse 27, “you have no need of anyone to teach you.” He’s not saying that you shouldn’t be taught. Obviously we are all still learning but he means in, in the context of finding God, finding forgiveness, finding eternal life. He says, “That’s all settled because of your faith in Jesus Christ.” God is in you, eternal life is in you. You don’t have to go find it because it’s found you. You know him. You’re not trying to find him, you have him. That’s the point. The Holy Spirit keeps bearing witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, the Bible says. So the next wise teacher that comes along and says, “Yes, but you’ve gotta have these tenets,” you need to say, “Now wait a minute, what’s that gonna add to Him because I have Him?” The Spirit keeps affirming that in me. Concerning knowing God and eternal life, you have nothing to learn from anyone. You already possess the Spirit and he affirms these things and that’s where your hope is.

Now he ends verse 27 with a command, “you abide in Him.” In other words, get back on track and stay there.

Alright, number 6, continue to abide or continually abide in him and you will stand for time and eternity. Look at verse 28, “Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.” Now he said in the earlier verses there are already those who went astray, there are already those who came up, up, became a part of them and then went away from them, and then he says “because they were never really of us.” Here’s what I’m saying – listen to me – we believe in the old Bible Baptist doctrine of the perseverance of the saints and if it’s true saving faith, it continues on to the end. And by the way, only those who continue on to the end are saved in the end. Now don’t get mixed up on, “I’ve gotta continue on in some sort of level of perfection, or I’ve gotta score at least a 70 to get in.” That’s not what he’s talking about. It means there’s been a change in you whereby you can’t fall away from the faith. It keeps drawing you back. You keep drawing back to looking to Christ and abiding in him and only those who have that track record are those who will stand both the time and in eternity.

In verse 28 he talks about, um, if you’ll abide in him so that when he appears we may have confidence, and here’s the contrast, and not shrink away. You’ll either have boldness on the day of Christ appearing or you will have shame. It reminds us of Revelation 6:16, those who do not know Christ when he returns will say to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb.” There are two types of people and only two types of people who will be present on the last day: those who shrink away in shame and those who stand with bold confidence. That’s the only two that’ll be there. In a very real sense, there’s only one who stands just. In a very real sense, there’s only one who stands righteous. In a very real sense, there’s only one who stands acceptable before the Father and that’s Jesus Christ. You have to stand in him. Remember it’s not, “Well, I prayed that prayer. I did this and did that.” That’s not the point. That may be fine that you did that, the point is are you in him? Are you a faither in him? As the days and the months and the years have rolled on in your Christianity, are you continually drawn back to him and to his teaching and to his word and the simple doctrine of Christ and Christ alone as our Savior?

Over in 1 John 5:20 John writes, “And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true.” Notice the emphasis again is knowing him. Now notice this, “we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” So at the last day, if you’ve been one who through this life your trust and faith was in the simple old Gospel, you’ve confessed that you’re a sinner before God, matter of fact, you’ve never stopped confessing you’re a sinner before God and you’ve never stopped confessing that my hope is only in Jesus and his shed blood for me, if that carries you all the way through death’s door, then you will be one who can stand before God on that day righteous in him. You, you don’t need to try to stand before him in his, in your righteousness, you stand before God in Christ’s righteousness.

“I hear the Savior say, Thy strength indeed is small, Child of weakness, watch and pray, Find in Me thine all in all.

Lord, now indeed I find Thy power, and Thine alone, (I can’t fix me) Thy power, and Thine alone, Can change the leper’s spots, And melt the heart of stone.

For nothing good have I Whereby Thy grace to claim, I’ll wash my garments white In the blood of Calvary’s Lamb.

And when, before the throne, (that’s where John’s got us right now) I stand in Him complete.” I could run through a wall. What an assurance. What a joy. What a Rock. I stand in him complete. Glory to God. When, before the throne, I stand in Him complete.” Not almost complete. Not I listened to this guy’s teaching and it helped get me complete. No, no, no, I’m in him and the Father loves him and the Father accepts him. He’s pleasing to the Father. “This is My beloved Son,” the Father said, “in whom I am well-pleased.”

“And when, before the throne,”

Say, “Finish the song, Pastor.” I will in a minute.

“I stand in Him complete, Jesus died my soul to save, My lips shall still repeat.

Jesus paid it all, All to Him I Owe; Sin had left a crimson stain, He’s washed it white as snow.”

Now brothers and sisters, nothing in the world, nothing in religion, nothing in teachings can give you that. It’s all in him. So Paul writes to the dear church and says, “Do you continually abide in Him?” It takes care of everything.