5 Rock-Solid Truths for an Uncertain Year
Selected Scriptures
Let’s open our Bibles to 1 John...1 John chapter 5. If you just glance at verses 13 to 21, you will recognize the word “know” is there. Verse 13, “That you may know.” Verse 15, “If we know and He hears us, we know we have the requests we’ve asked.” If you drop down to verse 18, “We know that no one who is born of God sins.” Verse 19, “We know that we are of God.” Verse 20, “And we know that the Son of God has come that we might...verse 20...know Him who is true.” This is all about what we know.
You will also recognize that the word “confidence” appears in verse 14, “And this is the confidence...” What is in verse 13, we know. What is in verses 14 through 17 is one subject about which we can be confident. What is in verse 18 we know. What is in verse 19 we know. What is in verse 20 we know. And a final warning appears in verse 21. This is about what we know. That’s why I’ve called it Christian certainties.
Now obviously we live in a very, very uncertain world. We hear this all the time, that these are very unstable times, uncertain times. We struggle against all of the uncertainties that we face. And, of course, since the terrible tragedy of 9-11 a couple of years ago, there is a new kind of uncertainty injected into our daily lives, the fear of terrorism. We are uncertain when we fly. We are uncertain when we are in public places. This introduces to us a new uncertainty. There are increasing uncertainties about walking down the street and just being in a visible place because there are bombings and there are drive-by shootings, and you all know the uncertainties with which we live.
And there are some more common uncertainties. When we buy a car, we are uncertain that it’s going to function well and so we want a guarantee. And the manufacturer provides a guarantee and if he didn’t provide a guarantee we wouldn’t buy the car. And then fearing that we might have an accident for which we could not pay and then get sued, we hedge against that uncertainty by buying an insurance policy and spend our lives pouring a small fortune into the insurance company for something that hasn’t happened. But it might. And when you go to a store to buy an appliance, you are immediately told by the sales person that you need to buy a 36 month warranty, or you need to buy a service guarantee, which is another way of saying this is a lousy product, something could go wrong. And many people do that. There’s uncertainty about our health and so we spend thousands of dollars a year buying either insurance or buying into some kind of a medical plan to protect us from illness and accident and catastrophic issues that might come into our lives physically.
There’s even uncertainty of life in a family. And so insurance policies are basically purchased so that should the bread-winner, the husband, die there’s money immediately given to the wife. Most of you women sitting out there would be far wealthier if your husband was dead than you are now...or certainly many of you.
There’s uncertainty with employment, so we have unemployment insurance...and so it goes. I talked to a professional athlete that when he negotiated his massive contract, it included the provision in the contract that in case of injury or accident that made him impossible for him to play that his complete salary would be paid for the full length of the contract which happened to be five years, and he would receive an additional 200 percent of that contract for his injury. And they signed him, of course.
There is uncertainty about fire and theft so you have a Homeowner’s policy. There’s even uncertainty now about marrying people so we now have pre-nuptial agreements where a partner’s want a hedge against somehow being extorted by the person they’re marrying. And so it goes.
People are so uncertain that they will literally spend huge percentages of their money to cover all of the potential contingencies. And there are other people who will pay large amounts of money to mediums, astrologers, fortune tellers to have some insight into the future, to remove some of the fearful uncertainty.
And I suppose a good question to ask an unbeliever when you talk to one is, what are you absolutely certain of? And, you know, the standard answer is death and taxes. But beyond that, and death might be a good place to stop, but beyond that sort of trite answer...what are you really certain of? You can’t be certain that this planet is going to be here. The second law of thermodynamics tells us that all the material universe is tending toward disorder and disruption. You can’t depend upon anything material, anything physical. You can’t really depend on people. There are no guarantees about how people are going to treat you in the future, even your own spouse and your own family, your parents, your children.
It’s very hard for an unbeliever to answer the question, “What are you absolutely certain of?” And if you can get that person to say, “Well I am certain of death,” you’ve put them in a very, very good position. Well after you’ve died, what then are you certain of? Poses the inevitable question about eternal life.
Well against the background of living in an uncertain world and living basically with people who are uncertain about almost everything, the Bible is a divine revelation that is filled with absolute certainties...absolute certainties. Let me just suggest a few of them that I jotted down. Numbers 32:23, “Be sure your sin will find you out,” that’s a certainty. Or Psalm 19:7, “The testimony of the Lord, Scripture, is sure.” The Bible is certain.
The consequence of sin is certain. Proverbs 11:18, “To him that sows righteousness assure reward.” Job 34:12, “God will not do wickedly,” that is certain. Isaiah 53:4, “Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.” It is assuredty(?) that Jesus has done that. In fact, in Isaiah 55:3 it speaks of the sure mercies of the Lord. His mercies are certain. John 6:69, Peter said, “We are certain that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” John 16:30, “We are sure that You know all things.” John 17:8, “They have known surely...says Jesus...that I came from You.” Romans 2:2, “We are certain that the judgment of God is according to truth.” Romans 4:16, “The promise of salvation is sure.” 2 Timothy 2:19, “The foundation of God is sure.” Hebrews 6:19, “Christ is a sure anchor in the presence of God.” Second Peter 1:19, “Scripture is a sure word of prophecy.” Revelation 22:20 Jesus said, “Surely I come quickly.”
There’s a few and many, many, many more. We deal in certainties in an uncertain world. That is a problem for our uncertain world, isn’t it? It is an offense to people to say that you are certain about everything. It is really an intolerable posture and position to take. But it is the truth. The Bible is a book of absolutes. It’s a book of certainties. We are certain how the universe began. We are certain how it will end. We are certain why God created and how His purpose in the beginning will consummate in the end. We are certain about why people behave the way they behave. We are certain about what is right and what is wrong. We are certain about the elements that make for good human relationships. We are certain about what is necessary to go to heaven. We are certain that there is a hell and certain about how people get there. We are certain about all those things.
We are certain about God’s promises, certain about His Son, the Savior. Certain about His substitutionary death, His literal resurrection, certain about His Second Coming. We are certain about all these things, absolutely certain.
Now you understand again that is not something that is easily accepted in our society. But we are unique in a world of doubters. God has even given us a guarantee for the truth of His redemptive promise. In Ephesians 1:14 it says, “He’s given as a pledge,” that’s a guarantee, “of our inheritance, the Holy Spirit of promise.”
When you became a believer, you put your trust in Jesus Christ...why? Because you came to the conviction and the belief that all God’s promises were true. Is that right? You came to the conviction that what He said about you is true. What He said about your sin is true. What He said about the judgment you would receive was true. What He said about forgiveness, mercy and grace was true. What He said about Christ was true in the Scripture. You came to the conclusion that all of that was true. And when you believed in the truth of the gospel, embracing all that God has said, you put your trust in Christ because of that belief and God promised you eternal life and to secure that eternal life He gave you a guarantee and the guarantee that He gave you was the Holy Spirit who immediately took up residence in your heart. And that’s exactly what Paul says in Ephesians 1:14, “He is the pledge, the arrabon,” arrabon means guarantee, down payment, deposit, pledge, promise. It’s even the word for engagement ring, the symbol of a pledge and a promise.
God deals in certainties. He has bound Himself by His Word to those certainties and He has guaranteed His Word in the gift of the Holy Spirit whose temple we, as believers, are. And so as we come to the end of John’s epistle, John wants to reiterate for his readers and for us the certainties that are ours in Christ. With verse 12, John ended the formal argument of the book. Verse 12 summed it all up. “He who has the Son has the life,” the eternal life. “He who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.” Remember, this is a book that is intended to distinguish true Christians from false Christians. And John sums it up by saying eternal life belongs to those who have the Son. If you have the Son, you have the life. If you don’t have the Son, you don’t have the life.
And then John summarizes His purpose in verse 13. “These things I’ve written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God in order that you may know that you have eternal life.” This book was written to give you assurance. Chapter 1 verse 4 says, “These things we write that your joy may be made complete.” The only way you’ll have complete joy is to have complete assurance of your salvation. Chapter 2 verse 1, “My little children, I am writing these things to you that you may not sin. If anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” He says I’m writing so that you may have full joy, full joy related to the fact that you always have an advocate who intercedes even when you sin so that you can know that you are saved. I want you to have joy. I want you to have holiness and confidence in His intercession. And I want you to consummately to have the assurance that you may know that you have eternal life.
That is the most important certainty, to know you have eternal life, to be certain you have eternal life. All through the epistle he’s been giving tests...tests that identify the true and the false believers. There were false teachers among these believers. There were anti-Christs among these believers. There were spiritual fakes and phonies and deceivers among these believers. They were insecure, as believers tend to be when they’re not well taught, and so John gives tests, doctrinal tests, the test of understanding a true view of man as sinful, the test of understanding a true view of Jesus Christ who He is and why He came. Those are the doctrinal tests. The moral tests have to do with obedience to the Law of God and to Christ and love for God and not the world and love for others. And we’ve gone through all of those various tests.
And believers who read the epistle are like us, study the epistle, come to the conclusion that they pass the test. They believe the right things about themselves as sinners. They believe the right things about Jesus Christ, the Savior. They manifestly obey the Word of God, that’s the direction of life and demonstrate love for Him and love for others. John says here that’s why I’ve written this. I want you to know. I want you to be certain. I want you to be confident.
Of course the Roman Catholic church says nobody can ever know if they’re saved, nobody can ever know if they’re going to go to heaven until after they die. Which would be to completely discard this entire epistle.
By the way, the word “know” appears 39 times in this epistle. I counted them just to be sure, I think that’s accurate, I may be off one or two. Thirty-nine times in this epistle and seven of those times in this section. Our faith is not a hope so, it’s a no so. It’s not wishful thinking, it’s not pie in the sky. God has spoken and what God has spoken is true. And if we know what He has said, then we know what is true. We don’t speculate. We don’t hope. We are certain.
I remember years ago when I was writing a book on the Charismatic Movement, I was talking about the danger of thinking that God gives new revelation, that God speaks. And I read a book written by a Charismatic leader and in it he said this, “When someone in our congregation stands up and says, ‘Thus says the Lord,’ we know that either he is representing what the Lord has said or he’s not.” Now that is not helpful. That’s why we don’t turn to that because there is no criteria by which to know. We know what God has put in His holy Word.
Listen to Job. Job in the patriarchal era, way back before Moses, therefore before the writing of the Pentateuch, before there was any Scripture in anybody’s hand, Job the righteous man says this, Job 19:25, “And as for me, I know that my Redeemer...what?...lives and that at the last He will take His stand on the earth, and even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I will see God whom I myself shall behold and whom mine eyes shall see and not another.” I know my Redeemer lives, I know that He will stand on the earth in the last days and set up His eternal Kingdom, I know that after this body is dissolved, I will awaken to see God with my own eyes. That’s a lot to know. Before there was written any Scripture, I know...said Job. Maybe the oldest book in the Old Testament.
In chapter 42, Job answered the Lord and said, “I know that You can do all things and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.” He had a sound doctrine of eternal life, resurrection. “In my flesh shall I see God.” Bodily resurrection, an eternal Kingdom and he also had a sound understanding of the absolute sovereignty of God. One might say that he was a pre-Abrahamic Calvinist. He knew.
The Old Testament is filled with such statements of absolute knowledge. I wish I could take the time. Here’s what the Psalmist says, David in Psalm 20 verse 6, “Now I know that the Lord saves His anointed. He will answer him from His holy heaven with the saving strength of His right hand.” David said, “I know my God, here’s the prayers of those that are His and He answers...He answers.”
In Psalm 56 verse 9, similarly, “They my enemies will turn back in the day when I call. This I know that God is for me.” Isn’t that great? I may have enemies. They may attack me. But God is on my side. “In God, therefore, whose Word I praise, in the Lord whose Word I praise, in God I have put my trust, I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?” And there is a confidence in God’s absolute power, omnipotence. These are just highlights.
Psalm 119:75, “I know, O Lord, that Your judgments are righteous and that in faithfulness You have afflicted me.” I know what You do is right and sometimes you bring suffering because You’re faithful to me. Faithful? Yes, faithful to bring the necessary suffering to perfect me. So the psalmist says that, I know. You do what’s right even when You allow suffering, Your purpose is to be faithful to make me what I need to be.
Psalm 135:5, “For I know that the Lord is great and that our Lord is above all gods. Whatever the Lord pleases, He does in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all depths.” Anywhere in the universe I know, says the psalmist. God does whatever He wants.
In Psalm 140 verse 12, “I know that the Lord will maintain the cause of the afflicted and justice for the poor.” I know, he’s saying, that God is compassionate.
Now, let me just give you a little exercise. As you read through your Bible from place to place and time to time and day to day, just see how many times you find somebody say, “I know..I know.” Here’s something else Paul said, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me.” That’s a certainty, right? Romans 7:18. I know that. Or 2 Timothy 1:12, “I know whom I have believed and I am confident that He is able to guard what I’ve entrusted to Him until that day.” That is I know my Lord to whom I’ve committed my life will keep me...I know.
So here John closes his epistle. Oh that’s just sort of footnote. As he closes his epistle, he uses the word “know” seven times...six of the seven it’s oida, a form of oida, which is a reference to absolute knowledge, not something learned by experience...positive, absolute knowledge known not by our experience but by divine revelation.
So here we are as Christians living in a world of absolute certainties. This is a great crescendo of this magnificent epistle. You pass the test, you pass the doctrinal test, you pass the moral test, you are the real Christians and you know.
Now he’s going to close with five things we know. I’ll give you one tonight. It’s a good one. Be content. That leaves four for next time. Number one, we know we have eternal life. We know we have eternal life.
Look at verse 13, “These things I’ve written to you.” What do you mean, John? What things?
The whole letter...the whole letter. How do I know that? Well there are a number of indications. One, he shifts from the third person in verse 12, “He who has the Son has the life, he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life” to the first person, “These things I have written.” Which indicates that this is not in the flow of thought. He’s not simply saying...What I’ve just said in the prior verse. But rather, there’s a shift all together out of the third person of speaking to them to a self-proclamation to his purpose. Plus, “These things I’ve written to you that you may know” introduces all that is about to follow, all of which is the conclusion, all of which is about what we know. So clearly this literally refers to the whole epistle which then launches him in to all the things that we who do have the Son know for certain. This is also good parallel to the gospel of John.
When John wrote his gospel, 21 chapters, he came down in to chapter 20, the end of the chapter, the last verse of chapter 20 and he said this, “These things have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.” That sweeps back over the whole of the gospel of John, everything from chapter 1, “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God. All things were made by Him, without Him was not anything made that was made,” all the way down, “And the Word became flesh,” and all through those 20 chapters, everything so far has been written that you may believe. All the “I am” sections, all the miracles of Jesus that are recorded in the gospel of John, all intended that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And that believing, you may have life, eternal life in His name. The gospel of John was written, follow me, the gospel of John was written so that people might believe and be saved. The epistle of John was written so that the saved might know they’re saved. The gospel of John has a message of salvation. The epistle of John has a message of assurance.
And so, the parallels as he gets close to the end of the gospel, he says this has all been written that you might believe. And here as he gets near the end, this has all been written that you who believe might know that you have eternal life. The first one was to bring you to belief. And this one is to eliminate any lingering doubt.
How wonderful it is to know this. As I said earlier, it must be sad to be a Roman Catholic. It must be sad to live your whole life caught up in a system and the more devout you are, the more you give to that system, and be told incessantly and constantly that one thing you can never ever know is where you’re going to go when you die. Talk about frustration. Talk about disappointment. Talk about beleaguered people. I can’t imagine anything worse than going all the way through your life with some kind of loyalty to that system, never ever knowing or even being able to know whether you’ve qualified to go to heaven. We can know.
People who have no interest in religion or very minimal interest in religion generally say, “Well I hope I’m going to heaven, I think I might be good enough.” You know, that’s a question you really ought to have some certainty on because eternity lasts a long time. I mean, just kind of going around and taking a cavalier approach in life, “Well I think I’m going to heaven, I think...you know, when things all sort of wind down, I’ll probably be good enough to get there,” you know, you need to do a little better than that because of what is at stake. Can you know? Of course. John says that’s why I wrote this epistle. Measure yourself against the tests. Do you believe in Jesus Christ? Do you understand your own sinful condition? Are you manifesting day in and day out the evidence of a transformed life by virtue of your love for God? Your love for others? Your hatred toward the world? And by a manifestation of your obedience?
If that’s the case, if you pass the test, verse 13 says, “You may know that you have eternal life.” You may now know that you have eternal life. When I die, I’m going to heaven. If people say to me, “When you die, are you sure you’re going to heaven?” Absolutely...absolutely. I always think about what Larry King said to me off the air, he said, “Do you have any fear of death?”
I said, “I have no fear of death.”
He said, “You don’t have any fear of death?”
I said, “Well, you know, I have a normal antipathy toward pain and so I would like to minimize my pain in dying, that’s just kind of a normal thing. But death itself? No, I don’t have any fear of death.”
And he said, “Well how is it you have no fear of death?”
I said, “Because I know exactly where I’m going to go. I know exactly where I’m going to go. I’m going to go to heaven.”
“Are you sure you’re going to heaven?”
“Absolutely sure.”
And, of course, he said to me, “I wish I had that faith.”
Well that faith comes by hearing the message of Jesus Christ. These Christians to whom John wrote had been shaken by false teachers. They had been shaken by antichrists. They were insecure. They had therefore lost their confidence in ongoing forgiveness. They had lost their joy. And so John has gone back and said, “Look, examine yourself. If you’re walking in the light as He is in the light, then you’re in the fellowship. If you’re confessing your sin, then you’re the one whom He’s forgiving.”
Look at your life, if you’re obeying the commands of Christ, if you’re loving God, loving others and not loving the world, if you’re confessing Jesus as God, if you’re practicing righteousness, if you’re experiencing the internal confident witness of the Holy Spirit, then you can be sure. You can be sure.
And so, the first certainty is that you have eternal life. Now I don’t need to spend a great deal of time defining for you what eternal life is. In the simplest sense, eternal life means living forever with God. It means living forever with God in His glorious, wonderful heaven. I mean, that’s what it means.
But there’s a lot more to it. For example, go down to verse 20, the last statement. It speaks of Jesus Christ, this is the true God and eternal life. So eternal life is living forever with God, listen to this, possessing the very life of God that was possessed by Christ Himself. Reenter into the very life of God. In some ways we inherit His perfect, sinless, holy, righteous life without becoming God. I guess you could say, I don’t know, it’s a good illustration, we’re like a lightbulb. We contain His life like a lightbulb contains light. The bulb isn’t light. The light comes into the bulb and illuminates. So His life will be transmitted to us, it’s already been transmitted to us although the light doesn’t shine very brightly because the bulb is still dark. It’s not pure crystal transparency because its darkened by our fallen flesh in which we still live.
I guess you could put it this way. The light is on but what the world sees is dim. Some day when we leave this mortal flesh and enter into the glorious manifestation of the children of God, we will become absolutely transparent, crystal-clear bulbs through which the power of eternal life will flow to radiate throughout all eternity.
In John 17, that great High Priestly prayer that Jesus prayed, and the third verse, He