Stay Away From Darkness! Walk In the Light!

Light and darkness cannot coexist in the same spot. Where there is darkness, there is no light.  Even though darkness may surround light, darkness is unable to exist where the light shines. Sin is like darkness. Where sin is, the light of God is not! This makes it impossible for a follower of Christ to walk in light and in darkness at the same time. 

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Transcript

Podcast 59 Transcript

(This is a computer generated transcript of this podcast.  This is NOT a typed transcript and it has not been edited. Expect grammatical and syntactical errors.)

Hello, and good day. I am B. R. Maul, and you are listening to Living God's Way in an Ungodly World. We certainly do live in an ungodly world, and have ever since the beginning of time itself. It didn't take very long for sin to enter this world. But as Christians, the wonderful thing is, we have God's word. And we consult God's word, and through the apostles and through the prophets, he has left us a wonderful book to give us guidance on everything that we need. No, it's not like a manual where we just turn to whichever problem we may be having, and then there's the answer. Better than that. It's a moral compass.

The Apostle John, in his writings, the love that he had for Jesus, it shows. And that's one of the things I like about reading John's books in the New Testament. We are currently in chapter 1, verse 5, and so I will be reading, starting in verse 5, all the way through 10, and then chapter 2, verses 1 and 2. As usual, I will just read straight through, and then back up and we'll break it down. 

1st John 1:5. This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, As He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us in our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, We make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.

John in his first epistle really lays it out for us. What he wants is his brothers and sisters in the faith to truly have joy in following Jesus Christ. And we can have that. What I find interesting is that in the verses that I just read, I counted six of that little conjunction, that word, “if”.  So as I break this down, pay attention to that word, “if” because that word gives us a condition. There's a condition that needs to be met when we hear, “if”, and the powerful thing about this two letter conjunction is that it points to the relationship that we have with our savior, Jesus Christ. I have no doubt that every single apostle loved Jesus. The thing with John, however, is that he wears his love for Jesus on his shoulders.

He doesn't hide it. I mean, there's Peter, whom I'm also looking forward to sitting in heaven with, all of them, and talking, it's going to be wonderful. But Peter, well, he shows his love differently. He's more coarse. And not one to quickly wear his love on his sleeve, on his shoulder, like John does.

So John doesn't shy away from that. And perhaps that's the reason when he's talking in this first epistle of his, that there is a lot of “if”. And this is good because it shows us that this is a two way street. It's not a relationship that, “Oh, okay, I'm born again. There's nothing I need to do because God loves me and he's going to just do everything for me.” No, a lot of what happens in our relationship with God happens in the same instances of how we respond to our relationships here and now. 

Let's begin breaking this down. In verse 5, John writes, this is the message which we have heard from Him, so we being the apostles, and Him being Jesus Christ. And declare to you that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. Remember, beloved, the apostles were eyewitnesses to Jesus. They sat with Jesus, they saw him, and, of course, they listened. A lot. So what Jot is saying then is that here is what we learned from him. Here is the message. And that God is light and that in him, God is no darkness at all. Think about that for a little bit. This concept of light and dark. It's human nature to find it very intriguing. One only needs to watch movies, read books, tell stories, and we are intrigued with this light and darkness. Not so much the physical characteristics, but the spiritual side, and that's what this is referencing. The darkness, the sinful part of nature after it has fallen.

But it's interesting because that relationship parallels what we see with light and dark in the physical world. So we have the spiritual side of things, good and evil, wickedness and righteousness, But then we also have, well, the basic concept, a room is dark, you turn a switch on and now there's light. That concept is really fascinating because they connect the physical and spiritual. And here, God is light and in him is no darkness at all. So there's this pure light. That's what God is, pure light. But if we think about it for a moment, even just a small light, in a very, very dark room, a dark building where there's no outside light coming in at all, and if one has a candle or a lighter, And that candle is lit, or the lighter is turned on.

Suddenly, what we couldn't see at all Now there's form, and we can start seeing around us. And it really doesn't take that much light to be able to see it from a great distance in darkness. That's quite unbelievable. It's remarkable, really, because we can also look at that with our world that we live in, right? There is darkness all around, but when there's good, it stands out. And there's something about that that draws people to the goodness. It's really amazing. 

Verse six, if we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. I think that's an unfortunate effect that we are seeing in Christians today. Well, maybe it's not even Christians, because if we're not practicing the truth, as John is saying here, I guess we need to question whether or not a person really is a Christian. And in the world that we live in today, it seems like that's a bad thing to do. “Who are you to question me?” Well, we're told to do that in God's word.

So beloved, when it comes to somebody who claims to be a Christian, if they claim they are born again, if they claim they are following Jesus Christ, you have every right to question and they should be questioning you. It's how we hold each other accountable. Because if we say that we have fellowship with him, and yet walk in darkness, in other words, a person who is going to church, and they say, “Yeah, I love Jesus,” but they're walking in darkness, they are walking in sin. Well then, it says here, that's a lie, and the person does not practice the truth. And the enemy, Satan himself has a lot to do with this. I have no doubt in my mind whatsoever. He is, after all, the father of lies. And he loves to whisper, even in the ears of the children of God, “Oh, you can still do this and you can still do that. You can still keep your old ways, and still listen to God the Father.” But we can't do that. We can't walk in darkness, and be in the present, and still listen to God the Father. of our holy God that is light. It is impossible. 

Verse 7, But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. So walking in the light, being in the presence of God. And how do we do that? Beloved, we walk in the presence of God every time we open up His Bible and we're reading it and we are listening to the Holy Spirit as we read it, guiding us, showing us what it is that the Lord wills us for our lives, what we're doing right, what we're doing wrong, what we should be doing, what we shouldn't be doing. That's what the law does. The law, like a mirror, shows us what is wrong. Any filthiness that may be upon us, we can see that with the law. But we also get the joy of reading about His grace, being reminded every day that we read God's word, how much He loves us. John also says we have fellowship with one another. So, as we walk in this light, together, we have fellowship with one another. You may be thinking, well, okay, what about if I walk in darkness sometimes? You know, I can still have fellowship, right? I mean, God knows that we're not sinless, that we're still in flesh. So, if I just walk in the darkness, and then I come out of that darkness and then go back into the light.

You know, I can still fellowship with my brothers and sisters in the Lord. If that's the kind of thought that may be going through your mind, I suggest you have a good sit down with the Lord, pray to Him, and ask Him to reveal anything that's in your heart that is getting in the way of your walk with Him, because we can't do that. And when we are walking in the light, the desire of darkness goes away. The stronger the relationship you have with God, beloved, the more you don't want to go back to your old ways. You don't want to be in the darkness anymore. Just like those who are in darkness, they don't like the light. And that's why there's those who, they don't want to talk about Jesus. They don't want to talk about heaven, or hell, or salvation, the afterlife, eternity. They don't want to talk about that stuff. Because that stuff is getting too close to the light. But when we're walking in the light together, we can have fellowship with one another. Because we don't have any darkness that's separating that.

And that doesn't mean we're sinless, and we'll get to that in just a few moments, but it does mean that we can overcome that sin. And that's where that fellowship comes into, because yes, when we come together, we hold each other up through the help of the Holy Spirit. Because Jesus uses the body, His body, the body of Christ, the Church is another way of putting it, to do His work here on earth. Why He chose that way, I don't know, but God has chosen that after Jesus ascended into heaven, the Holy Spirit descended and now makes Himself a counselor and the guide as He seals the children of God as they are born again, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin. So when we are walking in that light, we'll repent. When we do something that aims to that darkness, when we're walking in that light, we don't want to go down that path. We don't like that dark alley, and so we quickly repent. And of course, Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. 

Verse 8. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, in the truth is not in us. There are churches today, and there have been throughout all history, that teach that we, as Christians, once you are born again, that you can actually reach the state of perfection on this side of the grave. That the presence of sin can be ejected out of an individual. If you are attending a church that teaches that, my advice is get out, run, do not ever return to that church if the teachings there is that there's some way to be sinless on this side of the grave.

Because even John is saying, if we say that we have no sin, so if there's somebody who is declaring the fact that he or she has arrived at that destination of being sinless, we're John says they deceived themselves, and the truth is not in them. In past teachings, I've covered what apostasy is and backsliding, so I won't get into that now. But to me, an apostate is the most scariest place to be, because these are people who truly believe in their minds that they're heaven bound, but it's for the wrong reason. It's not because of the blood of Christ. It's not because they repented. There are many who want to get into heaven without having to repent because that's very uncomfortable. But that's the only way to do it. And there certainly is no possibility of becoming sinless on this side of the grave. 

Verse 9, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Oh, that's one of the beautiful characteristics of our Lord. As we walk in the light, we're still going to stumble and we are still going to sin. And when we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. As soon as you repent, beloved, it's forgiven. I don't want to get into the topic right now about if we are indeed born again and our sins have been washed away, well, then why do we need to even confess them? That's a whole other teaching. But what I can say about that is, yes, the blood of Christ has indeed washed away our sins from yesterday, today, and tomorrow. With this whole relationship that we have with our Heavenly Father, even though we are forgiven of that, it's for our own good that we go to Him and repent. Not so He won't leave us, but that we won't distant ourself because we continue to sin, and then we get to a point where we're not feeling that repentance. That goes away, and that can be very dangerous, and that's when a Christian can start backsliding. But He does that. The power of just repenting and speaking to our Father, and he is very quick.

He doesn't hold it against us. He doesn't remind us, “Oh, well, I don't know. Now, just, you know, last week you said the same thing. I suppose I'll give you one or maybe two more chances. But then after that….” No, He forgives and He's quick for that. 

Verse 10, if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. So now that's a little different than saying we have no sin. Back in verse 8. That's claiming that we have reached a spot where, yeah, now I no longer sin. I mean, I'm good. I've walked with the Lord. I've read the Bible enough times and that's it. I don't sin anymore. So that's what that was. But verse 10, if we say that we have not sinned, so now just not wanting to admit to it. The Holy Spirit is convicting you, and you do know that you sin. But then maybe there's that justification that comes in. Well, you know, I mean, Lord, I'm just kind of weak. You know that. I mean, you know, I didn't mean it. It's really not repentance, is it? It's not a confession. It's kind of dancing around the sin. And we don't want to do that either. 

Chapter 2, John writes, My little children, these things I write to you. So that you may not sin. Oh, see, now we're getting into an area, really, that you may not sin. Hmm. So it is possible to not sin. Yes, it is. Is it possible to be sinless? No, not yet. That'll be glorification, beloved. Just wait. That'll be upon glorification. I do like how John in this epistle writes, my little children, because he was old at this time when he when he wrote his epistles. But these things I write to you, he says, so that you may not sin. Because that is possible. Because the Holy Spirit is dwelling in us. So it's possible to overcome the sins. What is the problem is where we fall short is our selfishness arises, and when we give into that. Well, even though we have the ability not to sin, it's in those moments we choose to sin. We're not slave to sin, that's for the unsaved. And we can all look back at a time when we weren't saved and truly understand what it's like to be slave to our sin.

If anything, it's the polar opposite. Those who don't have the Holy Spirit in them are slave to sin because they're not slave to Christ. For those who are still slave to their sin, they just keep doing it and every once in a while you're able to kind of jump out of it and say no, no. But the temptation continues and quickly overruns the individual. But it's when we have the Holy Spirit in us that now as we were walking in the light, as we are no longer in that darkness. And we can see the path that we're walking on. We're not committing that sin or variation of sins over and over because he has given us strength. He has given us the know how through the Holy Spirit. But we, because we are still in our flesh, and flesh and the spirit, as we know, are fighting one another. Well, there's times that we as Christians decide to give in for whatever reason. Maybe anger, maybe hurt, maybe loneliness, I don't know. I mean, we all have different reasons at different times, but that's what happens.

But for those walking in the light, who are born again, well, we quickly repent and we're back on that path following our Holy Father. John says, and if anyone sins, see there it is, I write to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father. That advocate? Jesus Christ, the Righteous.

We have one big advocate. Letting God the Father know, “Father, I paid for that. No longer have to be paid for. I paid for that one.” I love that. Jesus Christ, the Righteous. The Righteous. When we are walking in the path of righteousness, as a Christian, you can just feel it. It feels right. It feels good. Because we are not walking in that darkness where we don't know what we're walking on or who we're walking on. We don't see what makes us stumble in the darkness. But no, when we are walking in the light, when we are living a life of righteousness, it's a whole lot different. Can you feel that? Can you look back, beloved, and look at a time in your life where it just was darkness?

And that darkness was heavy. There were times where you don't even know which way you're going. It's so dark. And when we would see a glimpse of light, some goodness being done, some goodness being spoken, oh, that light, it can be just so tempting, you want to just reach out and grab it, but at the same time, when a person is walking in darkness, there's that fear of that, well, what if that light gets too bright and then people can see me for who I am, and I can see me for who I am? Wasn't that a horrible place to live? I am so glad that that is far behind me. And that walking in light, it's, well, lighter. It's just amazing to have God, Jesus Christ, my shepherd, leading me. He leads me down the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. 

And then there's verse two, the last one in the reading. And He Himself, that's Jesus Christ, is the propitiation for our sins. And not for ours only, but also for the whole world. That word propitiation, that's pretty powerful. It's one I had to look into and memorize, and I even write it down in several places in my Bible so I don't forget it. But that propitiation, there's a couple of meanings there for us.

The first is atoning Sacrifice. That's the Lamb of God. He was the atoning sacrifice. No more sacrifices ever again. So that did away with the sacrificial system of having to spill the blood of animals to temporary get the sins of people from one stone leap to the next stone as you kind of hop from one to another. So that's it. I mean, atoning sacrifice, the Lamb of God, one and done. But the other definition, I think I understand this one a little more, just personally. And that's regained God's favor for us. A propitiation regains, or gains, favor from someone or something, but In this case, being used as Jesus Christ that has regained God's favor for us, because at one point, Adam and Eve had God's favor, but now, after losing it, Jesus Christ has regained God's favor for us.

Isn't that wonderful? You should certainly be able to sleep better every night knowing that no matter what happens as a born again believer, as a child of God, you're heaven bound. That's where you're going. Jesus said, I'm going to prepare a place for you. And are you excited to see that place? What that's going to be like? I think about it. I get excited and I don't even have a good enough imagination to wrap my mind around what heaven is going to be like. I know that being in the presence of God Almighty in my glorified state is going to be amazing, but I just can't fathom it. It truly is remarkable. I should also include that John did say, and he himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.

I understand some people get caught up in these kind of verses and point to it and say, yeah, see, he regained God's favor for all of us. It says right there for the whole world. We always have to check the Bible with the Bible. And we know. that one must confess with their mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in their heart. The Heavenly Father raised Him from the dead. 

Well, did you catch all of those ifs? Before I close, I'm going to read this one more time and I'll emphasize the ifs. You can count with me if you want, I believe there are six in what we read today. Verse five, this is the message which we have heard from him and declare to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, We have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, we He is faithful, and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And he himself is the propitiation for our sins. And not for ours only, but also for the whole world. 

Those ifs, those little conjunctions, well that means we have a responsibility. There's things that we do, if we go one way, well the results are that. But if we go the other way, the results could be this. So this or that. And that's part of that relationship. And remember, beloved, that relationship comes as you read his word. I encourage you to do that every day. Pray to him each and every day because praying to him is also that part of that relationship. Meet with brothers and sisters as often as you can.

Rejoice in what Jesus has done in your life and weep with one another, laugh with one another. Amen. Amen. But be there as brothers and sisters in Christ. In this world that is ungodly and continues to push God further and further away, we as His children need to focus all the more on the love that He has for us and take our focus from what the world is trying to offer us, trying to entice us away from Him. Oh sure, there's some fun movies out there, there's some other books out there, but many of them are ones that as Christians. Let's just stay away from it. Don't give the enemy, don't give Satan, leverage. No. Embrace your time with the Heavenly Father. There's a lot of wholesome things to read and to watch and to listen to.

And worshiping him is one of those great things to do. Well, thank you so much for joining me. I look forward to the next time. Feel free to get a hold of me on my website, BRMALL. com. There's a place there where you can email me if you have any questions. There's a P. O. box. I would love to have you write to me, and I'll respond.

That's what this is all about. If there's anything I can help you with, please let me know.

And until next time,

God bless.

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