Having been guilty of this infinite folly, the whole course of his backslidden life must be that of a fool, in the Bible sense of the term. Walk in the light. It amounts to calling God a liar. the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”. His state of mind will make multitudes of things crosses that in a Christian state of mind would have been pleasant in a high degree. Verse 8: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” The claim to be without sin is self-deception. If we are not walking in the light, we have no warrant for believing that our sins are covered. Our goal of ultimate and eternal joy is secured in God because there is no darkness in God. They will endeavor to justify themselves, will neither read nor hear that which will rebuke their backslidden state, and they will become deeply prejudiced against every one that shall cross their path, who shall reprove them, accounting him as an enemy. God condemns him. You can see this if you reflect for a moment on the value of light. Our great joy is that our sin is forgiven in Christ. We jump at the opportunity to get chummy wi… God is against him, and he is against himself. In sum, then, the on-going cleansing of the blood of Jesus in our lives refers to two things. (1) It refers to the justifying effect of Christ’s shed blood blotting out all our sins and giving us acquittal and eternal acceptance with God. Who is the “one another”? If he prays in secret, in his family, or in public, he knows he is not sincere, and feels condemned. Walking in carnality and spiritual darkness results in a bad influence on others, and this can have eternal consequences. His appetites and passions, which had been kept under, have now resumed their control, and having been so long suppressed, they will seem to avenge themselves by becoming more clamorous and despotic than ever. And what John says here is not that it immediately drives out all falsehood and sin. Light is the promise of hope and joy. What he says is that when the truth enters in, its light reveals sin! He is the pathway to perfect and eternal joy with no disappointments. If this were not an apostle talking, I can imagine someone today saying, “Do you have to use such inflammatory words when you warn people about error?” John evidently felt that so much was at stake the language, “You make God a liar,” should not be softened into something like, “You displease your heavenly Father.” I’m not sure the Scriptures should be adjusted to our emotionally fragile age. But our newness consists in this: that the true light is shining in our hearts revealing the dreadfulness of our remaining sin and the abundance of God’s grace. Darkness is full of threat. Paul addresses walking in the Spirit with a capital “S” which means that the word Spirit is a proper noun meaning this is God the Holy Spirit as we can tell in Colossians 1:9-10 “And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of … Please apply the blood of Christ to this my sin and count it among those which you forgave when he died for me on the cross.”, But if that is too complex, I am sure the Father would gladly receive the words, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”. 20. "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.”. There is no help for him, unless he returns to God. Who has not observed this of backsliders in heart? Everyone who loves the world more than God is in the dark. . Consequently, his cares will be multiplied, and come upon him like a deluge. The backslider in heart will be full of his own troubles. And God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we deny our evil, we call him a liar. perish, are condemned already, will not see life and will suffer the wrath of God.Jesus himself gives many descriptions of the consequences of rejecting God’s salvation. So verse 5 is the theological foundation. If he performs any duty that he calls religious, it is rather as a slave than as a freeman. . The backslider in heart will be full of his own perplexities. Having forsaken God, he will be sure to have much to irritate him. They will be filled with their own prejudices. The reason the Son God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. 3. or []; Gk. And our great grief is that so much of this very sin remains and defiles. When it comes to interacting with the world, we are not forbidden from making friends with those who are still enslaved to sin; rather, we are forbidden from acting in ways that displease God. The vexations of his backslidden life will make him nervous and irritable; his temper will become explosive and uncontrollable. The first picture of God that John wants to put before us is this picture of God as light. Consider Lot. The animal appetites and passions will burst forth, to the astonishment of the backslider, and he will probably find himself more under their influence and more enslaved by them than ever before. It is arrogantly doing what God says not to do. If he neglects or refuses to pray, he feels condemned. What does it mean to be cleansed from all sin by the blood of Jesus. The backslider in heart will be filled with his own lustings. Does it mean that as we walk in the light, the blood of Jesus keeps us from sinning? Instead of that sweet peace and rest, and joy in the Holy Ghost, that he once experienced, he will find himself in a state of unrest, dissatisfied with himself and everybody else, his feelings often painful, humiliating, and as unpleasant and unlovely as can be well conceived. He is the deliverer from all dark dangers and obstacles to joy. It encourages lukewarm church-goers that they are safe from God’s wrath because of some inherited mental assent to the love of God. Mistakes in business, mistakes in forming new relations in life, mistakes in using his time, his tongue, his money, his influence; indeed, all will go wrong with him as long as he remains in a backslidden state. But when the light goes on, he sees that the warm, soft fur is the underbelly of a horrid, man-eating monster; and the hard, cold edge is the sword of the majestic Christ ready to save. He regards his possessions as his own, his time as his own, his influence as his own, his reputation as his own. … All gracious affections, which are a sweet odour to Christ, filling the soul of a Christian with a heavenly sweetness and fragrancy, are broken-hearted affections. , 3:18, 3:36 tell us that those who will not believe in Jesus will. But let’s review its meaning. Verse 9 we have already discussed in connection with verse 7. my boy, but if you walk on, the light will shine to the end of your journey." Application: Walk in the Light (verses 6–7). They are often peevish, censorious, and irritating, in all their ways. The condition for cleansing in verse 7 is walking in the light. By his words he will involve himself in many difficulties and perplexities, from which he can never extricate himself until he comes back to God. 13:10-13). phos []).The literal contrast between metaphysical good and evil, God and evil forces, believers and unbelievers. Oh, how I wish I could get every person to read the sixth sign of grace in Jonathan Edwards’s Treatise Concerning the Religious Affections entitled “Gracious Affections Are Attended with Evangelical Humiliation.” These thirty pages of profound biblical and psychological probing of the heart of the true saint turn most contemporary talk about Christian self-esteem into the cotton candy chatter that it is. You don’t even get to first base in true knowledge if you leave God out of account. The backslider in heart will be full of his own delusions. Ours is simply to listen and submit to the word of God. Again, he is in bondage to God. Remember the picture of the man in a dark room. This is the very opposite of what it means to have fellowship with God. John shoots down the first error in verses 6 and 7, and then shoots down the second error in verses 8–10. Coming to God is not like buying an IBM Personal Computer. English Revised Version His truth is bright and hopeful for all who come to him. He came not only to justify but also to sanctify. 2. That’s the overall structure of the paragraph: Now let’s go back and unpack some of its meaning. He has no heart to consult the interests of the Church, or to labor for its up-building, and yet he is under covenant obligation to do so, and his reputation is at stake. Now we have asked two of our three questions of verse 7. That is, there are no lurking shadows in God. From Aretha's 3rd Original Gospel LP- 'One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism' (1987)Actually Starts around :50 sec.Testify if need be :) Being a professor of religion, these things will be all the more noticed, and of course bring him all the more into ridicule and contempt. Verses 6–7 are the practical application. Here is one of the most beautiful paragraphs I have ever read outside the Bible. He has fallen out of the Divine order. How to Walk with the Lord. 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