120 http://www.raystedman.org en-us ℗ & © 2007, Elaine Stedman Timeless messages by Ray C. Stedman. Ray Stedman A series of 35 timeless messages by Ray C. Stedman on the Book of First John. This new Ray Stedman podcast began on Saturday, March 10, 2007 and a new message will be added each Saturday morning (around 5:00 A.M.) during the 35 week series. All the previous sermons will automatically be available to "Get" (download) no matter when you subscribe. Complete transcriptions of these sermons and many other messages are available at Ray Stedman's Legacy Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org. Please click the website link/button and drop in for a visit! We hope you enjoy listening to these masterful expositions of the Book of First John in the Bible! A series of 35 timeless messages by Ray C. Stedman on the Book of First John. This new Ray Stedman podcast began on Saturday, March 10, 2007 and a new message will be added each Saturday morning (around 5:00 A.M.) during the 35 week series. All the previous sermons will automatically be available to "Get" (download) no matter when you subscribe. Complete transcriptions of these sermons and many other messages are available at Ray Stedman's Legacy Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org. Please click the website link/button and drop in for a visit! We hope you enjoy listening to these masterful expositions of the Book of First John in the Bible! http://www.raystedman.org/ray_bio_face.jpg http://www.raystedman.org RayStedman.org Ministry webmaster@raystedman.org No jesus,bible,church,ray,stedman,pbc,first john,john,sermon,1 john Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 1 of 35 (Sep 11, 1966) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "Life With Father" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 1:1-4 DATE: September 11, 1966 With this message, we begin a study of the first letter of the Apostle John. You will remember that from Paul we learned it was the task of the apostles to lay the foundation of the church, the only foundation which men can lay, which is Jesus Christ. But each of the apostles has a specific function in laying this foundation. Paul does not do the same thing as John, Peter has a different task than Paul or John, and Jude is called to yet another ministry. They all have a very important task, but God commits something original to each of these men to be passed along to us. Watchman Nee, in his very helpful book, What Shall This Man Do? suggests that these three ministries of John, Peter, and Paul can be distinguished by, and are characterized by, the tasks that each of these men were performing when they were called of God: Peter, for instance, was called as a fisherman, and we are told in the Gospels that the moment of his call occurred when the Lord found him casting a net into the sea. That work of fishing for men is characteristic of the Apostle Peter. He is always beginning things, initiating new programs. To him was committed the keys of the kingdom by which he could open the door to the new things God was introducing. On the day of Pentecost he used one of those keys and as a result caught 3,000 fish in his gospel net. You find that characteristic of this man all through his written ministry. To the Apostle Paul, however, was committed a different task. When Paul was called he was a tentmaker. He made things. He built things. This, then, was the ministry committed to the Apostle Paul. He is a builder. He not only lays the foundation, but he builds upon it. He calls himself "a wise master-builder" and to this man, this mighty apostle, was committed the task of building the great doctrinal foundation upon which the Christian faith rests. But John is different than both of these. When John was called he was found mending his nets. John is a mender. His written ministry comes in after the church has been in existence for several decades, and at a time when apostasy had begun to creep in. There was need of a voice to call people back to the original foundations and that is the ministry of the Apostle John. He calls men back to truth. When we begin to drift, when some false concept creeps into our thinking or into our actions, it is John who is ordained of the Lord to call us back, to mend the nets and to set things straight... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 10 Mar 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0134.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0134.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 2 of 35 (Sep 18, 1966) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "God Is Light" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 1:5 DATE: September 18, 1966 We are continuing our studies of the great letter from the hand of the Apostle John -- John the Mender -- the man who was called to follow Christ as a teenager when he was mending his nets. That act became symbolic of the ministry of this man, the one who mends things, who calls us back to fundamental matters. As we saw in the last message, John began by presenting to us a life, a life which appeared in history in the form of a person, a person who was touched and seen and heard and handled. He was, therefore, no mere figment of the imagination. He was not an invented person, a composite of the longings and desires of men, projected by their wishful thinking upon a being who never really lived. He is a man who lived, and walked among us, John said. We touched him, we saw him, we heard him, we handled him. The great and exciting message he has to declare to us is that there is a way to share this wonderful life today. There is a way that you can have this person, and he can have you, and the two of you can live together. When you do, John says, you will experience two wonderful things: First, fellowship: The experience of having everything in common, with all that means in view of the One with whom you are sharing life, One who is God himself, dwelling in you. This, in turn, will result in joy -- that secret, quiet excitement within that is not subject to circumstances, but burns like a steady flame, keeping life interesting, free from boredom, lending richness and color to every experience you go through. These are not just hopeful words, these are real facts. This is what John says he is writing to us about. All this will occur as we come to know this living Lord. Now, going on, he says that this life was also a message... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 17 Mar 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0135.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0135.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 3 of 35 (Sep 25, 1966) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "The Man Who Ignores Light" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 1:3, 6-7 DATE: September 25, 1966 We have learned from the Apostle John that life without fellowship with God is like being shut away from the light; it is dark and cold, depressing and filled with illusions. God is light. This is the message of the life of our Lord Jesus, John declares. This is what he came to tell us and to show us. As light, he warms, fills, and fulfills us and unveils reality to us by showing up the false. But, evidently, not to everyone. This is the problem which we now must face. Why is it that some Christians seem to be transformed by contact with Jesus Christ -- their lives are perceptibly different -- but others are not? Some Christians, even Christians of long standing, seem still to be very much conformed to the world around them, even deformed in their views and outlooks. Yet all of them stoutly assert that they are Christians, that they, too, have been born again by faith in Jesus Christ. It is not strange that the world asks, what is wrong, why is this condition true? The secret, John says, is fellowship. The reason he writes this letter is that we might understand that. Verse 3 tells us, ...that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:3 RSV) So the key is fellowship. We must distinguish and understand very clearly the difference between relationship and fellowship. Relationship is becoming a member of the family of God, by faith in Jesus Christ. It is established by asking him to come into your life and heart. John makes that clear at the end of this letter. "He who has the Son has life [that is relationship]; but he who has not the Son of God has not life [he does not have a relationship]," (1 John 5:12 RSV). The Christian life starts right there with this matter of relationship. But fellowship is experiencing Christ. Relationship is accepting Christ; fellowship is experiencing him. You can never have fellowship until you have established relationship, but you can certainly have relationship without fellowship. This is what this letter emphasizes for us. Relationship puts us into the family of God, but fellowship permits the life of that family to shine out through us. That is what marks the difference between Christians. Relationship is to be "in the Lord" but fellowship is to be "strong in the Lord and in the power of his might," (Ephesians 6:10 KJV), as Paul so beautifully expresses it in his letter to the Ephesians. Relationship means that all God has is potentially yours, but fellowship means... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 24 Mar 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0136.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0136.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 4 of 35 (Oct 2, 1966) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "The Man Who Denies Sin" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 1:8-9 DATE: October 2, 1966 We are now experiencing the unique ministry of John the Mender, the apostle whose particular function it was to call men back to fundamentals. This was foreseen, in figure, in the act John was performing when he was called by Christ, for he was found mending his nets. The ministry of a mender is very much needed in any hour of weakness and attack. This is why the Holy Spirit chose the Apostle John to be the last writer of Scripture. His writings came at a time when the Church had begun to be infiltrated by various false concepts and ideas, and strong persecution had arisen. John lived in the reign of Domitian, the Roman emperor whose cruelties exceeded all those before him, including even the infamous Nero. The Church was under great attack, not only from the violence of a direct and frontal attack on it by the Roman empire, but also from the subtle and much more dangerous attacks of various ideas which had arisen. Now you will recognize that we live in the same kind of a day. Today much of the Christian church is under direct and frontal attack. Here in America we are free from that, and we ought to give thanks every day for our freedom, but here we are exposed to a very powerful barrage of attack by many devious errors that exist today. The Christian faith is threatened with a very subtle undermining that removes all vestiges of vital Christianity, leaving us dull, dead, and useless. So this letter of John's has tremendous significance for us. John is writing to Christians and pointing out that their great need is fellowship with Jesus Christ, i.e., to hold all things in common with him. Not just to talk about it -- he makes that point clear. It is so easy to say we have fellowship but what is needed is to really have fellowship, actually enter into the experience of having all our resources in common with him, and all his resources in common with us. In other words, it is to turn from a reliance upon methods and propaganda, programs, and pronouncements unto power; to discover again the power of genuine Christianity... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 31 Mar 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0137.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0137.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 5 of 35 (Oct 9, 1966) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "The Man Who Rationalizes Sin" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 1:10-2:2 DATE: October 9, 1966 In this present series in the First Letter of John we are concerned with the great and pressing question of maintaining an intimate and, therefore, powerful and fruitful fellowship with the Son of God. It is fellowship which makes Christian life vital, compelling, effective, and worth the living. We have seen before that there are two ties we may have with Christ: There is the matter of relationship which is established by the response of our faith to the invitation of his Word. You come to know Jesus Christ by coming to him. He puts it on that basis. "Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest," Matthew 11:28). "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink; out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water," John 7:37-38). That establishes relationship. It makes you one with Christ and opens the possibility of gaining all that he is in your experience. But fellowship, as John is making clear in this first letter, is the actual experience of his power and wisdom, his love and life at work in you. It is actually to come into a day-by-day experience of Christ working, living, and manifesting himself through you. There is nothing more exciting that that! And this experience of fellowship is continually yours if you live honestly before God and call the reactions of your life what God calls them, shunning all pretense and deceit. In other words, walking in the light is the secret of fellowship. Fellowship is the secret of power, and walking in the light is the secret of fellowship. Now it sounds easy to do, does it not? Just to be open, to be honest, to not kid ourselves, to cease pretending to be something we are not; then all that God is, is available to us and we can live as God intended man to live in the fullness of fellowship, having all things in common with him. I do not suppose there is one of us here today who would not readily subscribe to the necessity of being honest, but when it comes to translating it into practical living it is sometimes difficult to do... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 7 Apr 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0138.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0138.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 6 of 35 (Oct 16, 1966) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "Counterfeits and Reflectors" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 2:3-6 DATE: October 16, 1966 We are considering John's great analysis, in his first letter, of the way to maintain unbroken fellowship with the Son of God. Such fellowship is described to us by Jesus himself as the flowing of rivers of living water out of the center of life. It is something that cannot be hindered by anything outward because it comes from within. Jesus said, "If anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink. ... 'Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water,'" (John 7:37-38 RSV). John adds, "this he said about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive," (John 7:39a RSV). Now in this first letter of John we have examined the three conditions which, John indicates, interrupt the flow of these rivers. Or, to use the figure that John himself employs, that block the light that shines to us from the person of God. "God is light and in him is no darkness at all," (1 John 1:5b RSV). We can block the light from shining into our life, and thus revealing reality in three ways: First, by ignoring the light, i.e., refusing to examine ourselves, never stopping to look at what the light reveals, going on with our life without ever stopping to ask ourselves questions about where we are and what we are doing and why we are what we are. Then we can close our eyes to the light by denying the possibility of sin. John indicates that it is possible to come to the place where we think that, for one reason or another, we are no longer able to sin. And finally, we can obscure the light by rationalizing the sin which is revealed in our life, by excusing it because of circumstances, or calling it another name that does not sound as bad. We looked at that together last week. Now John pauses in the flow of his discourse to deal with an inevitable human reaction to this kind of a searching examination of our spiritual life... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 14 Apr 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0139.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0139.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 7 of 35 (Oct 30, 1966) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "Visible Christianity" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 2:7-11 DATE: October 30, 1966 One often hears today the saying that Christianity has been rejected by the world on the basis of a caricature which has been mistaken for the real thing. We 20th century Christians tend to say that as though it had never happened before. But we need to realize this is something that has been true ever since the 1st century and is not new at all. We have seen it in a new form, perhaps, in our own generation, but the phenomenon is a common one and has been true in every century. The work of the devil is always to distort and to twist truth, and to make it appear something which it is not. This, of course, is what we are experiencing today. Now it is the ministry of the Apostle John to call us back to original things, to foundations, to fundamental issues, to repair that which is broken. This is clearly evident in this first letter, as John is correcting the twisted caricature of Christianity which existed in his day, and exists equally in our day. If you know the real, you will be able to detect the false and twisted form: The caricature, for instance, says that Christianity is primarily a religion concerned about the behavior of men. But as we see in Scripture, the real form of Christianity indicates that its primary concern is not with behavior at all, but with being, with character, from which all behavior must ultimately come. The caricature tells us that Christianity's attitude toward life is essentially negative -- don't do this, don't do that, stop doing this, stop doing that. That is the view of Christian faith held by the average man on the street. But the real, genuine article says that in Christ we are discovering the secret of the fullest, freest, most satisfying life that could possibly be experienced by anyone. As Jesus himself said, "I am come that they might have life, and might have it more abundantly... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 21 Apr 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0140.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0140.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 8 of 35 (Nov 6, 1966) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "Growing in Grace" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 2:12-14 DATE: November 6, 1966 It has been our privilege to sit under the ministry of the Apostle John, the Mender, the one to whom it was given by our Lord to restate the foundations of the church. This is the ministry of the Apostle John, both in his gospel and in his letters. In this first letter his primary concern has been to restore to Christians, in every age and place, that intimacy with and restful confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ himself, which John calls fellowship. Remember Jesus himself had spoken of this. He said that if anyone came to him he would put in him "a well of living water" John 14:4 KJV) which would be "in him." It would be impervious to circumstances, could not be touched by anything outside. He also spoke of "rivers of living water" that would flow from within (John 7:38). In another place he describes this relationship as "abiding in him." He said without this, "you can do nothing" (John 15:5 RSV), i.e., nothing significant, nothing worthwhile, nothing lasting. This has been John's theme in this letter. Paul calls this "the filling of the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18, Galatians 5:25) because it comes to us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, but he is referring to the same thing. He also calls it "spirituality," that relationship to the Spirit, by which the life of Christ is so continually imparted to us that he clothes himself with our personality and lives his life again in us. Paul also uses the same term John uses, fellowship. Now such fellowship with Christ ought to be the supreme concern of every Christian, because from it all power, all effectiveness and all satisfaction with Christian faith comes. If you are not satisfied with your Christian life and do not feel you are experiencing all that the Word of God promises, you are faced with a problem in the area of fellowship. John has already made clear to us in this letter that it all begins with an act of relationship which results from a moment of choice when we deliberately, willfully, open our lives to the Lord Jesus. We receive him, we accept Christ, we invite him to enter into our life. That results in a new union. God acts, he does something to us, in that moment of choice. We are united with him. As the gospel tells us, we are "translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 28 Apr 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0141.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0141.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 9 of 35 (Nov 13, 1966) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "The Maturing Process" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 2:12-14 DATE: November 13, 1966 To me, the true glory of the Christian message is not the fact that it is a way to get to heaven, (though there was a time in my early Christian life when that was all important to me, and it certainly is the way to get to heaven), but the richness of the Christian proclamation to me is that, in Christ, I discover a way to become a man. That is the really tremendous thing. God is not interested in making saints, period. He is interested in making saints, but only as one step in the process of producing men. After all, that is what God is after -- men and women. The goal is not sainthood, but manhood and womanhood, as God intended them to be. All the writers of Scripture aim toward that goal. You can see this in the first letter of the Apostle John. He makes clear right from the beginning that it is impossible to become a man, as God intended men to be, without first becoming a Christian. In other words, God is absolutely necessary to the process of fulfilling our humanity. God is not, therefore, an option to life, as we are being told on many sides today. He is the most basic necessity of life. It is impossible to live and fulfill ourselves without coming to know God through Jesus Christ. Our Lord himself put it flatly, "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God," Matthew 4:4). That is essential to the full development of manhood and womanhood. Now in this passage in First John, John has told us there are three stages in the process of becoming what God intends us to be. These he describes in Verse 12 and part of Verse 13... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 5 May 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0142.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0142.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 10 of 35 (Nov 20, 1966) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "The Enemy Around" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 2:15-17 DATE: November 20, 1966 It is significant that the first subject John chooses to instruct upon is that which is supreme in Christian experience because it is the fountain from which both truth and love must flow -- fellowship with the Son of God, the shared life. This is also the way to maturity, as we have seen. We learned that we do not achieve maturity by some sudden certain experience. It does not come in one moment of time. We achieve it in fits and starts, as we do physical growth, in varying degrees and through varying experiences. These experiences and moments of growth can be divided, as the apostle divides them, into three general stages of Christian life, marked by these terms, "little children," "young men," and "fathers." Now, in a final word on the subject of maintaining fellowship, the apostle deals with the supreme peril to fellowship, and, therefore, the greatest peril to Christian maturity. Here is a great enemy of the Christian, the siren voice that seeks to lure us aside, trap us, delude us and ultimately to defeat us... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 12 May 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0143.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0143.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 11 of 35 (Nov 27, 1966) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "The Nature of Heresy" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 2:18-19 DATE: November 27, 1966 This is the first of a new series on a new subject in First John: Maintaining Truth. Of recent weeks, the attention of the Christian world has been captured by certain attempts to bring heresy charges against Bishop Pike because of his public denials of such important doctrines as the virgin birth of Christ, the Trinitarian character of the Godhead, and other headline-catching statements which he makes from time to time. Such attempts at heresy trials are not new in the Christian church. In every century there have been ecclesiastical leaders who have been charged with heresy. Such charges point up the concern of the church for maintaining the truth of God for which it has been put in the world. I know there are many who feel a sense of sympathy with Bishop Pike, feeling that he is being unjustly persecuted, that he is an honest, rather gentle man, who is unjustly charged with dereliction from the faith. There are those who feel that the church has no right to make such charges as these, or to harass a man like this, and that the whole idea of heresy trials is ridiculous since every man must be allowed the right to his own opinion. I agree that we may well feel sympathy for Bishop Pike. I do myself. He is a rather pathetic figure. He is obviously attempting to be an authority in a realm in which he has had no real experience -- that of Christian faith. Thus he fulfills that description the Lord used for certain religious leaders of his own day, "blind leaders of the blind." But there is no question that a charge of heresy is justified against ecclesiastical leaders who renounce the faith, and it is an exceedingly serious charge. We tend to discount its seriousness because ours is an age when we have made an idol of tolerance. We are told it does not really matter what anyone believes; it is what they do that counts. But it does matter what people believe, if only because action invariably follows belief. It is belief which produces action, and, therefore, belief is supremely important. This is why the practical sections of the epistles of the New Testament always come second. There is invariably a doctrinal division first. Each practical section begins with the word therefore, for action must follow belief. Belief, therefore, is a supremely important matter... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 19 May 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0144.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0144.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 12 of 35 (Dec 11, 1966) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "The Hard Core Of Truth" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 2:20-21 DATE: December 11, 1966 We have already noted that the first note of this letter of the Apostle John is one of power, the power of a Christian. And the power of a Christian is Jesus Christ himself, living within a human being today. It is Christ living in you, being God again in you, expressing his life in terms of your personality. Therefore, the key to this is fellowship, the sharing of the life of Jesus Christ. This is the note on which this letter begins. The second note of the letter is one of purpose. What is the purpose of the Christian in the world? The answer is, to tell the truth! That is what we are here for. Every Christian exists to be an instrument and channel by which the truth is to be made known, the wonderful, delivering truth, freeing truth which is in the gospel of Jesus Christ. It may sometimes be unwelcome, but it is the one thing for which men search, and the one thing they desperately need. The task of the Christian therefore is to declare and demonstrate the truth as it is in Jesus. John began this theme (in Chapter 2, Verse 18) on a rather negative note. He talked about heresies, about perversions of the truth, about the distortions and counterfeits that will exist from time to time, in cycles, throughout history. He went on to give us certain general characteristics of these heretical ideas, these anti-Christian doctrines which come disguised as Christianity, but which are often widespread caricatures of Christianity which most people, hearing, reject and therefore think they have rejected the real thing. John will give us later, beginning in Verse 22, certain specific details which characterize counterfeit Christianity, but in between he gives us a positive word of reassurance and hope. These two verses, 20 and 21, will occupy us now... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 26 May 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0145.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0145.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 13 of 35 (Dec 18, 1966) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "No Son, No Father" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 2:22-23 DATE: December 18, 1966 In considering this letter we have already seen how John recognizes the existence in his day (as it is also in ours) of a counterfeit Christianity. He has described its general characteristics. It makes its appearance in cycles in human history. It is always characterized by an attack upon the person of Christ and those who teach along these lines eventually depart from New Testament Christianity, though they begin within the circle of the church, the fellowship of faith. Then we have gone on with John to recognize the supreme fact that is always true of real Christians: they have received the Holy Spirit of truth, the One who has come to reveal Christ. Jesus said he would take of the things of his and reveal them unto us, and guide us into all truth. Because of this, John says, Christians are able to know, able to understand things that no man, apart from this instruction of the Spirit, can understand. Further, they are able to exercise moral judgment. This is manifestly what is missing in our present society where men and women seem utterly incapable of exercising moral judgments. Everything is relativistic, nothing is right and nothing is wrong. But the Christian is delivered from that attitude, and, by means of the Spirit of truth which is within him, is able again to exercise moral judgment. Now John, in the second chapter of his letter, resumes his analysis of heresy, of anti-Christianity. He now unveils to us the nature of error in two verses. He exposes here the fundamental issue of error, i.e., the goal toward which all lies trend, and also the reason why this error is diabolically terrible and destructive in its character. "Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. He who confesses the Son has the Father also." (1 John 2:22-23 RSV) Did you ever ask yourself, "Why is it wrong to lie?" Many of us have a secret admiration for, if not agreement with, the little boy who defined a lie as "an abomination unto the Lord, but a very present help in time of trouble." But we do take a serious view of lying, at least when it is done by other people. Why is it that parents often say to their children, "I'm not punishing you because what you did was wrong, though it was wrong. But what I'm concerned about, and what I'm punishing you for, is that you lied about it." Why do they look so seriously upon lying? Do they not unconsciously sense that all lies are a pathway which can lead to the ultimate lie? That ultimate lie is the supreme expression of lying, of falsehood, of error. John says, this is the liar, the supreme liar, the one who has fallen victim to the supreme delusion, he who denies that Jesus is the Christ. That is the supreme lie of all ages... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 2 Jun 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0146.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0146.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 14 of 35 (Jan 1, 1967) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "The Living Word" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 2:24-25 DATE: January 1, 1967 You who have followed with us through these studies together in the great First Letter of John know that the concern of this apostle is to share with everyone the fellowship he himself enjoys. He said at the beginning of his letter, "...that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ." (1 John 1:3 RSV) Perhaps one of the deepest hungers present in humanity today is its hunger for a God who is a Father. Men long to know that the universe is not merely a heartless, impersonal machine, no cosmic sausage grinder, but behind the universe is a Father with a Father's heart. You can sense this wistful searching after the fatherhood of God in many of the religions of the world, in much of the philosophy of mankind, and in man's constant restless cry for something beyond himself. It is quite evident that man can see in nature all the proof he needs that there is a God. Oh, I know there are many who say there is no God. There is even a materialistic philosophy that has captured the imaginations and loyalties of almost half the earth which says there is no such a being as God. But it seems quite apparent, as one observes this phenomenon across a number of years, that beneath the surface is a great deal of evidence of a hunger and a search after God, despite the outward pronouncement that there is no God. Those who say there is no God have simply convinced themselves about something they have already determined to be true. But when man seeks for God in nature the God he discovers is always a distant God, a fearsome God, an austere God, a God who seems unrelated to the immediate needs, problems, difficulties, and heartaches of life. Men are never satisfied with a God like that. They are looking for a Father. The great announcement of the Christian faith is that God can only be discovered as Father, and known as Father, through contact and fellowship with the Son of God. As Jesus put it, "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man comes to the Father but by me," (John 14:6 KJV). Now I realize that this claim to uniqueness on the part of Christian faith has given rise to a great deal of criticism. There are many who regard Christians as essentially bigots, narrow-minded religious fanatics, because they refuse to admit that any other line of approach to God is valid, that all men, if they find God as Father, must come through Christ. It does appear, superficially, that this is the case. But this uniqueness is essentially because of the nature of man himself. As we have been learning from our studies together in the Scriptures, man consists of body, soul, and spirit. God is the creator of the body and the soul, but, according to Hebrews 12:9, he is "the Father of spirits." The God with whom we have to do is the Father of spirits and though he made us body and soul, he breathed into us a spirit, which was part of himself since he is the Father of spirits. But the problem is that in fallen man, as he now exists, as he is born into this world in this so-called "natural" state, the spirit is unresponsive. Man is dead, spiritually. The whole record of the Bible is that this is the underlying fact of human life which we must face if we are going to understand life at all. Man is not what God made him to be. He is unresponsive spiritually. He is dead in trespasses and sin... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 9 Jun 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0147.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0147.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 15 of 35 (Jan 8, 1967) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "The Teaching Spirit" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 2:26-27 DATE: January 8, 1967 Our last time together in this letter was to see what John had to say about the tremendous adequacy of the Word of God to bring us, if we submit to it, to the full experience of vital, fruitful living. It never fails to thrill me that Christianity is not trying to produce religious plaster saints, but thoroughly human individuals who operate as God intended them to operate. The whole thrust of the Christian message is to the end that we experience life as God intended life to be. And the instrument that will do this is the Word of God. It is designed to that end. But someone says, "This is where I have problems. I know the Bible is important. I know it is designed to produce in me what God desires. But my problem is, I have such difficulty understanding the Bible. I find there are a great many different interpretations of various passages, and there are so many contingencies upon which Scripture seems to rest, and so few areas of universal agreement, that I have great difficulty with the Bible." Well, the only answer to that is to see the full position the apostle takes here, the full thought of John on this matter. He goes on in this passage to say that we have more than the Word of God. There is not only the outward testimony of the Word, but there is also an inner witness. I am afraid very little is said in Christian churches today about the great theme of the witness, the anointing, the testimonium, of the Spirit of God. Yet it is one of the most vital themes of Scripture, for it explains what makes The difference between Bible study that is dull, dead, lifeless, and ineffective, and Bible study that is live, vital, compelling, and fruitful... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 16 Jun 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0148.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0148.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 16 of 35 (Jan 15, 1967) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "The Coming Day" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 2:28 DATE: January 15, 1967 This is the last message in the section of John's epistle on Maintaining Truth. In this section, which began in Chapter 2, Verse 18, the whole problem John has been facing here is how to live as a Christian in the midst of a confused and confusing world -- a world no different in his day than it is in ours; no different in ours than it was in his. In this section we learned many things: We learned that error appears in cycles of deceit throughout history. That is why, proverbially, history repeats itself. We learned that error arises first within the church, through church leaders, and then moves out to infect the world. It is most interesting to trace this fact through history. Religious error never originates with worldly, secular thinkers, but within the church. Then we saw error always aims at one definitive point, made clear by John in this section. It is an attack, ultimately, upon the person of Jesus Christ; upon the deity of the Son of God. As Joe Blinco put it so forcefully, "The devil is no pimple-squeezer." He does not waste time with trivialities, he is always striking for the jugular vein. Trace this through history and you will see this is always true. The full impact of heresy always comes out at that point, an attempt to destroy the real fundamental teaching of the deity of Jesus Christ. We also learned in this section that no lie is of the truth, i.e., there is no such thing as gray areas in moral or doctrinal truth. No lie is of the truth. Relativity in these areas does not exist. Finally, we saw that the believer's defense against the deceitfulness of the age in which we live lies in two special things: In his obedience to the word of truth, the apostolic word, the word which we have "heard from the beginning," and, that word as taught to the heart by an abiding Spirit. The Word and the Spirit -- these are always the defenses of the Christian. Not legislation; no forming action groups, not creating voting blocs, but by the Word and in the Spirit. These are our defenses, always have been, and always will be. But these must be held in balance. The Word without the Spirit is dead orthodoxy, lifeless, unappealing, completely repulsive to most people. The Spirit without the Word is wildfire, fanaticism, mysticism. But the two held in balance keeps us to the central truth of God as revealed in his Son. These are the things John has set before us here. We close this section with a verse that looks on to the end, when each Christian stands at last face to face with Jesus Christ... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 23 Jun 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0149.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0149.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 17 of 35 (Jan 22, 1967) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "Recognizing the Unrecognized" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 2:29-3:1 DATE: January 22, 1967 We begin, with this message, a new series in the first letter of John. We have traced John's major themes thus far concerning the necessity of maintaining fellowship with the Son of God, the shared life. Then the theme of maintaining truth in the midst of an exceedingly deceitful world. And now a new series on maintaining righteousness. "If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that every one who does right is born of him." (1 John 2:29 RSV) It is most unfortunate that the chapter break occurs after this verse and not before. If you compare this with Verse 7 of Chapter 3, you will see that Verse 29 belongs with Chapter 3 rather than with Chapter 2. It is surprising to me that among the plethora of new versions of the Bible we have, there is none that attempts to revise the chapter divisions. The authors of these new versions seem in many instances not to hesitate in the least to take liberties with the inspired text, but these uninspired and uninspiring chapter divisions they seem to regard as so many "sacred cows" which no one has the temerity to change. Well, some day I'm going to...Well, we will leave it at that. In this section John has been thinking of Jesus Christ. He has reminded us that there is coming an hour when each Christian will see him face to face. He is thinking of that encounter and the joy of seeing him again without that incomplete understanding we often experience now. It is not that Christians do not have personal contact with Christ now. We definitely do. It is that which keeps our faces alight, our hearts aflame, and our lives filled with joy. But, as Peter describes it, ours is now an experience of not seeing and yet loving. But John speaks of a day when we shall see him face to face. Suddenly he sees how the knowledge of Christ which we now have, incomplete as it may be, is the key to a problem that every Christian faces at one time or another -- the problem of recognizing other Christians. How to know whether a man or woman, a boy or girl, is genuinely born again. How to distinguish between the phony and the true, the mere professor and the real possessor of Christian life, between the one who is genuinely born again and the religious activist. He says the key is, "every one who does right is born of him." Surely there is someone in this congregation who says, "Ah, that's what I've been waiting for. I have thought all along that this whole business of doctrine and belief was secondary, that the real test is a life. The man who is helpful, honest, and kind, and does the right thing, that is the man who is acceptable, that is the important thing." Well, if you are thinking that way it reveals that you are a victim of the folly of incomplete truth... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 30 Jun 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0150.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0150.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 18 of 35 (Jan 29, 1967) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "What Shall We Be?" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 1 John 3:2-3 DATE: January 29, 1967 "Beloved, we are God's children now, it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And every one who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure." (1 John 3:2-3 RSV) The theme that holds our attention through this section of John is that of maintaining righteousness, the problem of acting out of a love which is fair to everyone concerned -- that is righteousness. Human love is often very horribly unfair. It is often partial to favorites. It can be prejudiced against certain colors, other castes, or other levels of society. It can be smothering, so that the person loved feels deprived of individuality. It can be wholly unfair, and therefore is unrighteous love. But true love, God's love, as we have been learning, is righteous; it is thoughtful, it is courteous. It bears the cost of pain and heartache itself. It satisfies justice, it is careful to do the right thing. In the eyes of a stuffy, respectable, self-centered world, anyone who acts with that kind of love is always a little suspect. They appear to be slightly mad. Thus, John says, the world will not recognize us if we act this way, just as they did not recognize the Lord Jesus when he did. Because we act differently they regard us as rather foolish, ignorant, certainly slightly mad. This has been most evident this week at Berkeley where hundreds of students have been speaking to thousands of others there about their faith in Christ, in an open, fearless witness. The reaction of many has been that these Christian students are a bit off, they are not quite all there. As someone of the Campus Crusade group put it, "We're all nuts, but the difference is, we Christians are screwed onto the right bolt." That is a recognition that there is something mysterious about true Christians that makes them act differently. As Henry David Thoreau put it, about another matter, "If I do not seem to be keeping step with those about me it is because I am listening to another drum beat." That is what Christians are doing, walking to another drum beat. It is that which makes us act a bit different. That mystery is evident in these opening words of Verse 2, "Beloved, we are God's children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be..." The emphatic word is that sentence is the word now. It is the first word in the Greek structure, and that is always the most emphasized word in a sentence. "Now we are the children of God." Eternal life belongs to us now. We are not waiting until we die to get it, but we are born again right now. We have the life of Jesus Christ in us now. We are the heirs of all God's glory and promises now... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 7 Jul 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0151.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0151.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 19 of 35 (Feb 5, 1967) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "The Greatest Revolution" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 3:4-5 DATE: February 5, 1967 As we begin this fifth biennial Missionary Conference with its theme, "Across the Street and Across the Seas," ordinarily it would be expedient to interrupt our studies in the Epistle of First John and bring a special message in line with the missionary thrust. But I shall not do that largely because the passage at which we have arrived in John's letter offers an ideal text for a missionary conference. I am sure that is more than mere coincidence. We are looking at First John 3:4-5. These two verses give us the most penetrating analysis in the whole Bible of the reason for human distress and darkness. They also declare in one mighty sentence the answer of God to this human distress. Thus, they describe the message which for 1900 years has laid hold of hearts, both young and old, and compelled them to go out across the street and across the seas in the name of Jesus Christ. "Every one who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin." (1 John 3:4-5 RSV) Now I would suggest to you that Verse 4 is a more profound identification of the source of all human heartache and misery than all the psychological books that have ever been written. "Every one who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness." Very recently, Billy Graham was invited to speak at the National Council of Churches Conference and said these words. "We stand at the heart of a world revolution. Our world is on fire and man without God cannot control the flames. The fires of greed, hate, and lust are sweeping uncontrollably around our globe. We live in the midst of crisis, danger, fear, and death." There is not one among us who is not aware of the accuracy of these words. But what is the reason for these conditions? Why this unprecedented crisis on a worldwide basis in human history? The answer is one word: Lawlessness! There is a spirit of revolt abroad. These are revolutionary times, in the truest sense of the words. There is a widespread universal refusal to acknowledge authority in our day. There is a determination to please self at all costs, to do "what I want," regardless of what anyone else wants. Therefore, the major characteristic of our day is this word of this ancient text -- lawlessness! Lawlessness, both as a principle and as an activity, i.e., a lawless attitude within every heart, resulting in lawless acts by every person. That is the Biblical picture of humanity. Now, do you challenge that? Let me say it again. A lawless attitude within every heart, resulting in lawless acts by every person. Do you deny that? Are you mentally saying to yourself, "But I'm not lawless. It's all right for you to talk about others this way, but don't talk about me. I'm a law-abiding, respectable person. I'm not lawless." I am not referring now to violations of the law of man when I use this term, just as the Scripture does not refer to violations of man-made laws such as traffic ordinances, etc. I suspect, however, that many of us would hesitate to be examined too closely even in this area. But I am speaking of law in its widest sense, law as an expression of the nature of things. That is, after all, what laws are. They are an expression of reality... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 14 Jul 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0152.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0152.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 20 of 35 (Feb 19, 1967) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "The Mystery Of Righteousness" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 3:6-7 DATE: February 19, 1967 It is my great hope that there is coming to all, as we study together in First John, a growing awareness that every Christian must be a revolutionary because Christ is a revolutionary. God does not like the status quo. He is grieved and hurt by racial hatred, by war, by poverty, by unhappy homes, by human strife. God is a revolutionist: he is determined to protest these conditions, whenever and wherever they occur. But more than that, he is determined to correct them, to deliver men from them. Speaking generally, it would not be wrong to say that God is in full sympathy with most of the goals of the radical groups that exist today. He sees clearly the same things against which they are protesting. But there are two things that mark the difference between God's revolutionary methods and those of the radicals: First, God thoroughly understands and identifies the underlying cause of these problems. He names it for us. We saw it last time in Verse 4 of Chapter 3 of First John: Lawlessness! That is the problem: a revolt against reality. It is not economic distress, it is not class warfare, it is not pressure politics behind the problem of human strife and unrest. All of these are symptoms of an underlying cause. The underlying cause is, simply, man rebelling against the laws of his own being. That is the problem. It is civil war in the heart of every man, both that of the radical as well as the respectable. In other words, men have already caught the disease they are trying so desperately to cure. The second thing that marks the difference in God's approach to these problems is that he has, himself, already done the only thing that can be done to correct this. In the mystery of the cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, he has provided a means by which to break the grip of this lawless principle upon human beings, and to permit us to become gripped, instead, by the more powerful principle of love -- and all this done in the person of Jesus Christ, his Son. This is what John declares to us in the verse we looked at in our last study, "You know that he appeared to take away sins [or lawlessness], and in him there is no lawlessness." (1 John 3:5 RSV) Well, what is in him, if there is no lawlessness? Obviously, the trouble with us is lawlessness. We do not like something, and so we do not do it. Even though it is the right thing to do, even though we know it is for our best interests, if we do not like it, we do not do it. So we are lawless, whether we are respectable in other areas, or radical. This is the problem. But "in him there is no lawlessness." Well, what is in him? Love. In him there is love. We have learned in Romans that love is the fulfilling of the Law, that when someone acts in genuine love he fulfills all the Law there is to be fulfilled. This explains the link between love and righteousness. Here is another one of the great terms of the gospel, righteousness. Anyone who fulfills the Law is righteous, and since love is the fulfilling of the Law, therefore, righteousness is love behaving... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 21 Jul 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0153.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0153.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 21 of 35 (Mar 5, 1967) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "The Mystery Of Evil" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 3:8 DATE: March 5, 1967 We come now to a passage of very great difficulty to many, but one of extreme value to us, especially in this day in which we live. The business of preaching is largely to reveal how the conditions which we face daily are being created by profound and fundamental causes that can only be seen through the window of the Word of God. We cannot understand life as it is being lived today with the problems you and I are facing unless we view it through the insight and revelation of the Scripture. The business of preaching is to make this revelation so clear that all can see how to apply them to life, and then to declare the great remedy, the only one which can ever permanently change the conditions in which we live. This week the papers have been full of an appalling condition in one of our local high schools, where scores of high school young people have become involved in the practice of using such drugs as marijuana and LSD. Many in our community have been shocked by the revelation of what is going on. Yet those who work with high school young people know that this is nothing new. It is present in every high school in this area and is spreading widely, not only in California but across the nation. It is part of the greater picture of an increasing moral collapse in our day. The most appalling thing to the authorities who are attempting to deal with this problem is that nothing they do seems to be able to stem the tide of this spreading evil. They once thought these things were only a manifestation of youthful folly -- just the normal exuberance of youth, the desire to step over the traces and try out new experiences. Therefore, the authorities felt that all that was needed was simply to explain the dangers to our young people, help them to see that there were problems involved, and as soon as they were educated enough about the evils and dangers of these things, this would all stop. Thus, a few years ago, teams of men were organized to go around to high schools and explain to our young people the possible deteriorating effect of these drugs upon their health and upon their moral lives. But I was interested to note this last month or so that many of these teams were disbanded because they found the young people were greeting their educational efforts with contempt and disdain, and were laughing at them. Instead of decreasing the traffic in drugs, these efforts were actually increasing it by making youngsters more desirous of experimenting along these lines... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 28 Jul 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0154.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0154.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 22 of 35 (Mar 12, 1967) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "When the Spirit Says No" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 3:9 DATE: March 12, 1967 We come now to one of the most difficult verses in Scripture, "No one born of God commits sin, for God's nature abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God." (1 John 3:9 RSV) From time to time I run into someone who says he has gone beyond the ability to sin. He has arrived at what he calls sinless perfection. Obviously, these would be very difficult people to live with, but they are around and you may meet them from time to time. If, in trying to deal with them from the Scriptures, you should quote a verse like First John 1:8, "If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us," they, relying upon the tactic which all cultists use "if they persecute you in one verse, flee into another," will turn to this verse in First John 3 and read to you, "No one born of God commits sin; for God's nature abides in him, and he cannot commit sin because he is born of God." There, they say triumphantly, God's Word itself says that it is possible, even necessary, for a real Christian to come to the place where he cannot sin. So, through the centuries there have been many differing interpretations of this verse. It is a bit difficult, and many commentators have labored to explain it. Because I want to be as helpful as possible in these studies in First John, I would like briefly to mention these interpretations to you, lest you run into one some day. They boil down essentially to seven views of this verse: First, there is the view I have just mentioned; those who feel this verse teaches that a Christian cannot commit even one single act of sin. These people almost always teach that this follows a crisis experience in the Christian's life which they call by various terms, usually sanctification. A Christian passes through a time of crisis, faces himself and his whole sin nature, and the whole thing is settled, the sin nature is taken away, and from that time on the Christian cannot sin. It is a kind of religious "sheep dip" experience, where one goes through and comes out cleansed on the other side, so there is no further possibility of sinning. I have already dealt with this in essence. John says in this same epistle, certainly with no intent to contradict himself, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves," (1 John 1:8a RSV). Those who hold this view are clearly self-deceived... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 4 Aug 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0155.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0155.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 23 of 35 (Mar 19, 1967) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "One or the Other" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 3:10 DATE: March 19, 1967 n this powerful first epistle, the Apostle John follows certain great themes which we have been tracing through the letter together: First, there was the theme of maintaining fellowship with the Son of God; following that, the theme of maintaining truth in a confused and deluded world; and now we are completing the theme of maintaining righteousness amidst a very wicked world. There are two themes to follow these, those of maintaining love, and of maintaining assurance. But today we shall take the final word in the series on Maintaining Righteousness, Verse 10 of Chapter 3. This concludes the section that begins with Verse 29 of Chapter 2. In this section the apostle has briefly put the whole matter of maintaining righteousness into one verse, Verse 29, Chapter 2: "If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that every one who does right is born of him." (1 John 2:29 RSV) He says that the secret of doing right is to possess and experience within yourself the life of the Righteous One. There is only One who is righteous, or who ever has been righteous, the Lord Jesus himself. His life must be lived again in you in order for you to be righteous. There is no other basis. No flabby substitutes, no sleazy imitations, no cocky parodies, no grim copies, no slimy counterfeit, will be accepted. There is only one basis for righteousness and that is to reproduce, in the plan and purpose of God and by means of the Holy Spirit, the life of the Son of God in you. Nothing else than that is righteousness. Now in the verses that follow (just briefly to recapitulate here), we see the effect of Christ's life in three dimensions: As to the future we are given a hope that purifies us. We look on to an event that is coming, more certain than anything that is happening in our world today, the return again of Jesus Christ. As to the past, we learn that the Son of God came into our hearts to remove lawlessness, the spirit of rejection of authority. That takes care of the past rebellion of our life. And, As to the present, he is come, John says, to deliver us from the works of the devil: from murder, from lying, from destruction, these things that always follow the lawless attitude of the devil. The way life works is always a mystery to us. We do not even understand the workings of our own bodies. There are strange things going on within us even now that no doctor fully understands. Doctors know a great deal more about our bodies than most of us do, but even they do not know very much. The realm of their ignorance is tremendous, as anyone knows who has been sick for any length of time. The doctor cannot put his finger on what is wrong. Doctors themselves confess that this often is a difficult thing, and that they know very little about the functioning of the human body, compared with what they would like to know... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 11 Aug 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0156.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0156.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 24 of 35 (Apr 23, 1967) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "The Path Of Love" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 3:11-18 DATE: April 23, 1967 One of the most emotion-charged times in my recent trip to the Holy Land was to come around a corner of the Mount of Olives and catch a first glimpse of the city of Jerusalem. We spent a week in Jerusalem (on the Jordan side). Our hotel was located right on the Mount of Olives, commanding the most spectacular and dramatic view of the entire Old City lying beneath us. We arrived there in the evening and the next morning I was up early to go out into the brilliant sunshine and stand there on the Mount and look out over that city with its ancient wall and the temple area directly below, and the warren-like streets filling the area beyond the temple wall. From that vantage point I could see all the historic spots of Christian interest. My mind went back to the time when our Lord sat on the Mount of Olives and looked out over that stubborn, recalcitrant city. Tears came welling up into his eyes from a bursting heart, and he cried, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you would not!" Matthew 23:37, Luke 13:34 RSV). The most compelling emotion I experienced while looking out over that city was the awareness that came drifting across twenty centuries, of the compassion and love of the Lord Jesus Christ for that city. The love of Jesus Christ! It has been the most compelling force in all history. The Apostle Paul could write to his Corinthian converts and say, "The love of Christ constrains me," 2 Corinthians 5:14 KJV). It drove him out into all the cities of the ancient world. Throughout the twenty centuries that have followed, the love of Christ is the one force that has succeeded in breaking through the hard crust of human hate and suspicion. Time and time again it has melted the cruel, arrested the rebellious, and changed the implacable. Years ago, in Virginia, I met an old man who was the rector of an Episcopal church. He had been converted in D. L. Moody's meetings in Cambridge, England. When Moody came to the center of English culture and education in Cambridge, the students were very much in rebellion against him. They felt he was a backwoodsy American who could not even speak the English language properly -- and he couldn't! They were affronted by the idea that this coarse, crude, vulgar American should be asked to speak to the cultured students of Cambridge. The man I met in Virginia was one of those students opposed to Moody. A band of them had agreed that, when the meeting began, they would break it up with catcalls, hooting, and mockery, and refuse to allow Moody to continue with his message... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 18 Aug 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0157.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0157.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 25 of 35 (Apr 30, 1967) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "The Course Of Hate" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 3:11-18 DATE: April 30, 1967 We are engaged now in studying, through the eyes of John, the beloved apostle, the two most powerful forces at work in the world today: love and hate. We have already looked together at the path of love. John has traced it for us as to its origin, its essence, and its evidence. Today we shall take the same passage, but now follow the course of hate. As we meet, there is a very bitter and ugly war raging in the Far East. On both sides, the fine strong bodies of young men -- and all too often the bodies also of women and helpless innocent children -- are being torn by bullets and bombs, are being horribly burned by flamethrowers and napalm, and left to rot and decay in the hideous odor of death. Twice in this century the world has been engulfed by a tremendous cataclysm of hate and evil, of darkness and death, and the sickening horrors of war. Yet the forces that are at work that produce these modern slaughters are no different and no more violent or awful than those that were present in a meeting of two brothers in a field long, long ago, when one suddenly took his ax and with one swift blow caved in his brother's skull and crimsoned the earth with his brother's blood. That is the scene John sets before us in the third chapter of this letter, beginning with Verse 11. The ax of Cain has now become a hydrogen bomb, but the motivation that sets either on its deadly swing is always the same. If we understand the act in the field long ago, we will understand the reason for the wars and the rumors of wars of our own day. John traces for us the intertwining of these two forces, love and hate, beginning with... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 25 Aug 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0158.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0158.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 26 of 35 (May 14, 1967) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "The Christian's Tranquilizer" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 3:19-20 DATE: May 14, 1967 In the letter of First John we are now examining the theme of love which, as you recognize, is unquestionably the most talked-about subject in the world today. In the beatnik brothels of Haight-Ashbury it is perhaps the most popular word in the hippie language; the jargon of psychologists and psychiatrists is certainly replete with references to love; and from Hollywood we encounter their version of love in enormous quantities of technicolor and stereophonic passion. Thus, this is easily the most talked-about subject in all humanity. Yet it is easy to see that, though the world continues to talk about love, it actually grows increasingly more loveless. The less we know of love, the more are inclined to talk about it. In this passage in First John, the third chapter, we see that John is contrasting the themes of love and hate. Hate is self-centeredness; love is self-giving. Hate originates with the devil; love comes only from God. Hate results in deception and destruction; love results in helping and healing. These are acts, and this process exemplifies the evolution of all action; first is born passion, the attitude, the thought, and then follows the act. Love, when it has conceived, brings forth help and health; hate, when it has conceived, brings forth deception and death. Now, in the rest of the chapter, the Apostle John is stressing the importance of the act, or deed, of love. Love must issue at last in something you do, or say. It must be more than simply a warm thought of the heart, or an intended or imagined act. But as John now will tell us, when love becomes a deed, it does three very valuable and important things for us... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 1 Sep 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0159.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0159.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 27 of 35 (May 21, 1967) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "Power In Prayer" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 3:21-24 DATE: May 21, 1967 In our last study together in First John, Chapter 3, we looked at the problem of an accusing heart, i.e., a condemning conscience. What do you do as a Christian when your heart condemns you? As we saw, the usual result of a condemning conscience is a tendency to ignore God, to keep in the shadows and to distrust his love, to criticize his people and in many ways to manifest the fact that we have lost contact with the God who indwells us. The answer, as we saw in First John 3:19, was to reassure our hearts by a deed of self-giving love: "Little children, let us not love in word or speech," says John, "but in deed and in truth. By this we shall know that we are of the truth, and reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us," (1 John 3:18-19 RSV). We are to give ourselves to someone who is in need or help another in his problem, repay good for evil, or give back kind words instead of caustic, sharp ones. The result, John says, will be a sense of reassurance. If we are really in Christ, rivers of love and peace will begin to flow out from our hearts again, and it will be impossible to remain condemned. That reassurance, as we saw, is the first result of the practice of love. There are two more results that follow in this section, beginning with Verse 21 to the end of the chapter, and it is this passage that we take now: "Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as he has commanded us. All who keep his commandments abide in him, and he in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit which he has given us." (1 John 3:21-24 RSV) You will notice that this is the other side of the case. This is the situation when our hearts do not condemn us. Here is the one who has solved the problem of a condemning heart, has resolved his situation before God, perhaps by the exercise of some gracious loving word or deed, and thus has received the assurance that he is "of the truth," that he is "in Christ." If your heart does not condemn you, then what happens?... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 8 Sep 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0160.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0160.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 28 of 35 (May 28, 1967) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "When Unbelief is Right" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 4:1-3 DATE: May 28, 1967 Anyone who knows anything at all about Christianity knows that it puts great stress upon believing. Not believing myths and legends, as many seem to think, but believing facts. Faith is not a way of convincing yourself that something is true when you know it is not, as someone has defined it, but faith is believing something that is true. In order to be a Christian you must be a believer, because from faith comes life, strength, peace, and joy, and all else that the Christian life offers. But, that being true, it is equally true that every Christian is also called to be an unbeliever. There is a time when unbelief is the right thing and the only right thing. The very same Scriptures which encourage us to believe likewise urge us not to believe. In fact, they not only urge us, they command us not to believe. This is no contradiction, any more than to say that in order to live it is necessary both to inhale and to exhale. These are contradictory things: You cannot inhale and exhale at the same time, but both are absolutely necessary to maintaining life. You cannot inhale unless you exhale, and you cannot exhale unless you have inhaled. It is the same with this matter of belief and unbelief. You cannot believe truth without rejecting error. You cannot love righteousness unless you are ready to hate sin. You cannot accept Christ without rejecting self. "If any man come after me," Jesus says, "let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me," Matthew 16:24, Mark 8:34). You cannot follow good unless you are ready to flee from evil. So it is not surprising, therefore, that the Scriptures tell us we are not to believe, as well as to believe. This is what John declares in the first three verses of Chapter 4... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 15 Sep 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0161.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0161.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 29 of 35 (Jun, 1967) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "God Is Greater" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 4:4-6 DATE: June 28, 1967 Some months ago I received a letter from a friend of mine, a man with whom I once shared wonderfully deep and precious moments of fellowship together. In my opinion he had evidenced in his life a keen insight into the understanding of Scripture. We enjoyed talking with each other about the things of God. He was trained in the same seminary that I attended. Yet this letter brought deep sorrow to my heart because in it he renounced his Christian faith and declared that he was forsaking both the Christian ministry and the Christian church, no longer having any confidence in its message or in its power but was himself abandoning all pretense to Christian testimony. Now what had happened to a man like that? How could this occur with one who understood so thoroughly the essentials of the Christian message and had come into contact with a living Christ? The only explanation is that he had failed to heed the admonition we have been looking at in John's gospel. He failed to "test the spirits, whether they be of God or not," as John exhorts us in the opening verse of Chapter 4: "Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits ... whether they be of God." Then he goes on, as we saw last time, to give us the test, the measure, by which we can tell truth from error in this mixed-up, confused, bewildered world in which we live. That test, as we saw, was two-fold: It was, first, an acknowledgment of the historic incarnation of Jesus Christ -- the fact that the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, the Holy One of God, described in glowing terms in the Old Testament, had actually come into human history, come as a man in the flesh; that, in a word, Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ. This is the test. But, further than being acknowledged as true, it must be confessed. John uses this word. He says, "he who confesses Jesus Christ," (1 John 4:2). By that special word confess he means "he who lives on this principle," he who reflects it in his thinking and has committed himself to it and launched out upon it in his life, that is the one to listen to about the things of God. There is where religious truth comes from. Now, in the section we take now, beginning with Verse 4, John continues to unfold certain factors at work in this whole matter of truth versus error. How important these are today you well know who are aware of the confusion that exists everywhere... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 22 Sep 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0162.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0162.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 30 of 35 (Jun 11, 1967) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "Love Made Visible" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 4:7-12 DATE: June 11, 1967 Who will deny that love is the dominant theme of the age in which we live? Everyone talks about love, though not everyone practices it. A kind friend sent me a recent survey conducted by a team of professional pollsters, asking the question, "What do people love the most in life?" Categories were children, animals, God, the United States, their enemies, and themselves. It was discovered that 92% of the people said they loved children, barely edging out God at 86%. The United States, surprisingly enough, came third at 75%; animals were fourth, at 66%. Only 33% would acknowledge loving themselves (fifth place), and only 20% confessed to loving their enemies, all of which probably reveals that Americans love surveys most of all, and understand themselves least of all. The Christian faith has always emphasized preeminently two very important things -- truth and love. Jesus Christ himself was the preeminent expression of both of these -- truth and love -- held in perfect balance. He was fully the expression of truth, and fully the expression of love. Therefore Christianity, which is but the expression of his life in the world, is, to use that wonderful expression of the Apostle Paul, to be an experience of "truthing in love." That is the literal rendering of the phrase which Paul uses in Ephesians, translated in our Authorized Version, "speaking the truth in love," (Ephesians 4:15 KJV). Literally it is "truthing in love," living the truth in love. This is what Christianity is to be. Now, we have studied, from time to time, the tactics of the devil in this modern world by which he seeks to overthrow and disrupt Christian faith. We have discovered that one of the most commonly employed tactics of the enemy is simply to overemphasize a truth, to make it a half-truth, or a completely distorted aspect of truth. This is what the devil does in this matter of truth and love. All he needs to do in order to distort Christianity is to produce the one without the other. Any survey of our present world will indicate how successfully he has done this... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 29 Sep 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0163.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0163.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 31 of 35 (Jun 18, 1967) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "Love's Accomplishments" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 4:13-21 DATE: June 18, 1967 This week an editorial caught my eye as I was reading through the paper. The heading said, "Love Menaces The City." It struck me rather forcibly that love should ever be considered a menace. This week in Tampa, and in Cleveland, and in other cities, there has been violence in the streets menacing the life of a city, but in San Francisco it is love that is a menace. In the editorial there were quotations from Dr. Eric Hutchinson, who is professor of chemistry at Stanford University, who was discussing the situation in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, and the hippie society there with its emphasis on love. Among other things, he said these perceptive words: "The proclaimed doctrine of the hippies, that they turn away from a hateful, unloving world and establish their own society of love, as they call it, seems to me has to be either selfish, materially erroneous, or completely hypocritical. I think it is selfish, in the sense that it is no great problem to love those who share the same viewpoints and habits as oneself. It is a greater sacrifice and constructive tolerance, to love those whose point of view is radically different. "To escape the responsibilities of loving those whom we do not like by alienating oneself from the rest of society and entering a self-made ghetto, strikes me as being about the most ignoble form of self-centeredness that one could conceive -- quite the opposite of the society of love. It is in fact the worst kind of childish, sulky withdrawal from a society that one cannot control and that one is unwilling to convert." Those are unusually keen insights into the character and nature of love. It is easy to love those who love us, and who share the same viewpoints that we share. But that is not really love. This is the very thing that John has been pointing out, this is not true love. Yet we stand in great danger of reflecting the same attitude toward the hippies that we deplore in them. If we withdraw ourselves from any contact or concern about them, because of their unusual habits or bizarre forms of dress, we are displaying the same lovelessness, the same inability to love those who do not correspond to what we like, as they do, and that is not what love is... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 6 Oct 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0164.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0164.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 32 of 35 (Jun 25, 1967) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "We shall Overcome" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 5:1-6 DATE: June 25, 1967 After many months of our study together in the First Epistle of John, we are drawing toward the close of this brief letter. In this section we come to the last theme which John discusses. I have oftentimes pointed out that the chapter divisions in the King James Version (and subsequently all other versions) are quite often very poorly placed. Many times I have indicated that a chapter division ought to be ignored; that it does not represent a break in thought. But it occurred to me that perhaps it would be good to recognize a chapter division that belongs in its place. This is true of the fifth chapter. Here is a proper break in thought. Lest I seem to be against all chapter divisions, I want to make that point clear! In this last chapter the apostle is discussing the fifth of the series of themes that he has taken up in this epistle. There was a time when I considered the Epistle of John to be almost impossible to outline, until I saw that John is discussing various themes which very intimately tie together. Then, to my amazement, I found that John is one of the most logical and orderly of the writers of Scripture and that this letter is a beautifully-orderly presentation, when once the key to it is discovered. John has brought before us, First, the theme of fellowship of Christ, maintaining fellowship; then maintaining truth, maintaining righteousness, maintaining love, and, now, he concludes with the theme of maintaining assurance, or confidence. The relationship between these five themes is very important. It is instructive to note that the first of these links with the last, i.e., fellowship with Christ ends in assurance or confidence. You will note that confidence is the kind of life that all men today are looking for. Which of us does not desire to be an adequate person, confident, self-assured, poised; able to cope with life? This is the image of humanity that is idealistically present in every human heart -- we each want to be this kind of person, and this is exactly what Christianity is designed to produce! To me, the glory of our Christian faith is never that it is religious, but that it is so gloriously secular. It is designed to produce life, to fit us for living, and thus to be the kind of person that God intended man to be when he made him in the beginning -- confident, able, adequate. Now the secret of that confidence is fellowship, thus joining these two themes together -- the first and last. Fellowship is the sharing of the life of Jesus Christ. We shall see more of that as we go on in this passage. But this also explains the three intermediate themes that John discusses. This confident life will be manifest in a three-fold way: as truth, as righteousness, and as love. And there you have the exceedingly orderly division of the First Epistle of John. These three form the test of authentic Christianity: truth, righteousness, and love. John says three specific times... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 13 Oct 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0165.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0165.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 33 of 35 (Jul 2, 1967) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "Why Do We Believe?" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 5:6-13 DATE: July 2, 1967 We are approaching the close of this little letter of the Apostle John, whose task was the calling back of the church to foundational things. He is John the Mender, who, when the Lord Jesus called him to the ministry, was found mending his nets. He concludes this letter with certain final notes of positive conviction. The last few verses repeat again and again the little phrase, we know. It is that note of positive assurance that is always a key mark of true Christianity, quite in contrast to the spirit of the age in which we live. Christians are to be dogmatic about certain fundamental things because they have found him who is the truth. We know certain things and we are to say them forthrightly, unabashedly, without any sense of shame and hesitation. Now we do not know everything, and if we give the impression we do we are distorting the faith. But there are things we know -- certain essential facts of faith. In the early days of Mt. Hermon there came out from the East a well-known Bible teacher named Dr. Joseph Conrad. He rather startled the audience at Mt. Hermon in one of the summer conferences by saying something like this: "Dear friends, I want you to know at the very beginning of my ministry with you that I am not dogmatic about the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ. I am not dogmatic about the bodily resurrection of Christ, nor am I at all dogmatic about the substitutionary atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ." At this point an unbelieving gasp went up from that conservative audience. But then, marshaling all his forces with great intensity, he said, "No, I am not dogmatic; I am bulldogmatic!" There is something of that note of intensity conveyed to us by the closing notes of John's letter. "I am bulldogmatic," he seems to be saying, "about certain fundamental issues." Now as you know, the spirit of our age is that nothing is certain, everything is tentative. We are told we cannot know anything for sure. Unfortunately that spirit has permeated the Christian church, and we find men standing in pulpits and declaring such nonsense all over our land and the world, in the name of Jesus Christ. According to Philippians Wylie, we Americans are rapidly becoming a "nothing" people, "a generation of zeros," because we do not believe anything. We do not think anything can be believed. This is the fundamental philosophy of the age in which we live. Yet strangely enough, with this most unreasoning inconsistency, the very same people who teach this kind of philosophy, oftentimes turn around and accuse Christians of exercising what they call "blind faith," i.e., faith without any basis in fact. They charge us with accepting the Scriptures by an act of will. That we simply choose to believe them without any reasonable evidence for it. They say to us, rather condescendingly at times, "I would love to believe like you do, but I simply cannot." By that they imply that they cannot so divorce their will from their reason and act so unreasonably as to believe a thing without any basis in fact. I hope you recognize that all of this argument is so much eyewash... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 20 Oct 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0166.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0166.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 34 of 35 (Jul 9, 1967) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "Praying Boldly" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 5:14-17 DATE: July 9, 1967 It certainly is not an accident that John closes his letter with an emphasis upon the subject of prayer. He has been writing about the life of Christ -- the only life that can truly be called a Christian life. That life is characterized by truth, love and righteousness, and prayer is the perfect expression of all three of these: Love is prayer's motive, Truth is its expression, and Righteousness its goal. There is a deep-seated instinct for prayer buried within each human being. Given enough stress, given the right circumstances, it will come out. That is why it is said, "There are no atheists in fox holes." Under the pressure of danger there is a deep-seated desire in man to cry out to God for help. I remember hearing of a sea captain who described the violence of a storm by saying, "God heard from plenty of strangers that night." Perhaps there is no aspect of Christian faith that is so puzzling to many as that of unanswered prayer. Almost all the problems in prayer are a result of ignorance of the nature of prayer. Prayer is a mysterious thing to many, and, because they do not understand it, they make experiments in the realm of prayer. But these sometimes do not turn out, and many have lost faith in prayer because, not having a proper understanding of the nature and purpose of prayer, their prayers have gone unanswered. They conclude that prayer is a failure, and God himself is a failure. I wonder what would happen if you or I were called upon to operate the tremendously powerful instrument behind Stanford called the linear accelerator, this mighty nucleus smasher, the most powerful instrument of its kind in the world? I have never been in the control room of this particular instrument, but I have been in the control room of its predecessor, a much smaller instrument and I watched its operation. It seems to be a very simple matter: All one does is to sit there and press buttons. It all looks simple enough. But I have enough knowledge of the power of that mighty instrument and what could happen if it were misused to not care to take the chance of operating it myself. If you or I were called upon to operate it, what havoc we would create in very short order by our ignorance of the power and potential of that great machine. Yet it looks so deceptively simple. This is the way it is in prayer. Prayer is a simple thing. It does not appear very difficult or complex and it is available to the simplest of people. Even children can pray, and pray very successfully, very effectively. Yet the understanding of the nature of prayer is infinitely complex and requires some considerable knowledge before prayers are answered regularly. In this closing section of his letter John gives us certain basic, general principles about prayer... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 27 Oct 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0167.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0167.mp3_guid1A Ray Stedman Life By The Son - Message 35 of 35 (Aug 6, 1967) (The following podcast (audio file) is also available on www.RayStedman.org) TITLE: "Christian Certainty" SCRIPTURE: 1 John 5:18-21 DATE: August 6, 1967 Perhaps the most striking thing about the close of First John is the threefold occurrence of the phrase we know in the last three verses. Verses 18, 19, and 20 of the fifth chapter all begin with those words, we know. That is a phrase that has a bite to it in these days when we are told that we cannot know anything for sure. There is a quiet ring of assurance about it; especially when you discover that the apostle uses a word in the original Greek which refers not to knowledge gained by experience, but to an inward learning process. It is precisely that kind of knowledge to which the Apostle Paul refers in First Corinthians 2 when he speaks of a hidden wisdom from God which is not available to the world in general but which is imparted to those who are taught by the Spirit of God. That is the kind of knowledge John is talking about here. This knowledge is the secret of Christian poise and the unshakable patience which Christians ought to be manifesting in any situation, a secret hidden reservoir of knowledge. That is one of the great things about Christianity. Christians know secrets that other people do not know. Because they know them, they can act differently in a situation than others. They can react differently to what happens to them. It is this kind of knowledge that John refers to here. I remember reading that one of the colleagues of England's great Christian prime minister, William Gladstone, once said of him, "I don't mind that Gladstone always seems to have an ace up his sleeve; what makes me angry is his maddening assurance that it was the Almighty who put it there." Is this not often the reaction of many toward Christians? It is because Christians are relying upon a secret hidden wisdom, imparted by the Spirit of God. John says that true Christianity creates three great certainties, and with these three certainties he closes this little letter. The first of these... (Please visit the Ray Stedman Library Web Site at www.raystedman.org for a full transcription of this message.) Sat, 3 Nov 2007 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.raystedman.org/1john/0168.html http://www.raystedman.org/mp3/0168.mp3_guid1A