Okay. Dad, if you want to open to some prayer. Holy Father, we just thank you for this evening and the time to stop and just consider everything that you have given us and appreciate your training and opening our minds to the truth that you have for us. And we just thank you and fill our hearts with your love and understanding. In your name we pray, amen. All right, amen. Now, I'm gonna grab a couple of things here real quick. I forgot I was gonna do this at the beginning. You're gonna find that I'm very haphazard in my thought process. You guys can all hang on to these. We've put these together for our people and for, I don't know if you, I know you have one, but you can have one anyways. I brought enough for the whole class. Basically what this is, okay, I use the King James Bible, and it's not out of tradition, it's not out of the history of it, though the history of it is very fascinating to me. I use the King James Bible because of the accuracy of the words in representing what was written in the original languages, okay, and how it translates over quite perfectly, okay? One thing that I always hear as an argument against using the King James Bible is that it's so hard to understand, okay? It's hard to read all the Vs and the Vows. Well, I've got some explanation for that. Firstly, though, I'll point out that back in the mid-1960s, 1970s, that era, when you all were children, that was a time where the fifth grade reading level was the reading level of the King James Bible. The King James Bible is written and is read in the mid-1960s and 1970s on the reading level of a 5th grader. Today, they liken it and it's equated to the reading level of a 7th grader. So we can see the degradation of really the for lack of a better term, the intelligence of the youth in our nation and the education system and such. And so it's really not harder to understand. But what we have lost is an understanding of the syntax, how the sentences are constructed, We've lost how to read the meter and flow of the sentences, okay? Once you get used to that, you'll find that the King James Bible kind of flows off of your tongue. It was written in order to be preached. Okay, that's how God constructed it, put it together. It was written so it was preached. And what I found in using different versions and then settling in on the King James Bible, I found that the King James Bible does roll off my tongue much better as I'm preaching. Okay, just so you got that information, filed it away. But if you look in the front here, I want you to look at the very top. This will help you immensely relating to the these and the thous. In the original languages, in Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic, the pronouns are singular or plural. In English, all we have is you. I could be speaking to an individual today and say you, and it would be just one person. Or I could address the entire group here tonight and say you. So it's more general, and it loses that specific accuracy. But what the King James Bible does is it has all of the singular pronouns. When God or a person in the Bible is addressing a single person, he'll use a pronoun with a T, all right? So, thee, thou, thy, and thine all begin with T, and they are all used in the singular, all right? Does that make sense, all right? In the plurality, you have ye, you, your, and yours, okay? And each of those are used in different ways, showing possessions, showing action, whether it's the object of the action or it's the subject, it's the one receiving the action, okay? And so all of that goes into play there. But what I'd like to do is I'd like to show you how that works. Go to John chapter three with me. We are going to be in First John tonight, and I don't know how far we'll get. And the way that I do these types of studies is it is very open-ended. I have no set plan on how much we're going to get through. And so what that does is it allows the Lord. John is going to be in the New Testament. If you go to the very middle of your Bible, you'll find the Psalms. Head towards the back of the Bible, and you're going to hit some big books, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah. And you can hit the small prophet books, and then you're going to find Matthew. That's the beginning of the New Testament. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and then John. What we're looking for is John chapter 3. When everybody's there, I'll go ahead and we'll get going. I don't wanna leave anybody behind. John chapter three, okay. We're looking specifically at verse seven. The King James Bible reads, marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again. What we have here is a comparison. What I'm showing you is what the original languages would have accurately put forth. Now, if you've got a newer Bible, you'll have the word you in there. Marvel not that I said unto you, you must be born again. Or something to that effect. Am I correct? That's right? Yes. So, marvel not that I said unto thee. Now, what did we just learn? We learned that all those ones that begin with T are singular. All right, so who is Jesus addressing? Well, right now he's speaking to a man named Nicodemus. He's a Pharisee, a ruler of the Jews. This is a man that knew the law inside and out. He was a master of the law of God. He knew that law better than anybody else, but he came to Jesus by night because he wanted to learn something. There was something different about Jesus. He even says here, he says, we know that thou art a teacher come from God in verse two, For no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him." All right? And so, Jesus is having this one-on-one personal conversation with Nicodemus, and he's telling him, that which is born of the flesh, look at verse 6, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Well, why did he say that? Well, look at verse 3. Jesus answered and said unto him, verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. So he's telling Nicodemus, all right? Nicodemus wants to know what this man's all about. Is there something different? And Jesus tells him, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. You can't perceive it, you can't see it, you can't see it at work. Jesus goes on to say further on in another passage that the kingdom of God is within you. So it's something on the inward parts. And so what he's saying is there's people who cannot see the kingdom of God. They can't perceive spiritual things because they must be born again. To have a physical birth is great. That's why you're all here. But he must be born again. It's a spiritual birth, and that's why he says in verse six, that which is born of the flesh is flesh. And that's kind of gonna tie us into when we get into 1 John. Your flesh is your body. It's the squishy part of you, okay? When the Bible is speaking of your flesh, that's your body. When it says the body, it's speaking of the whole thing, your mind, your heart, your bones, your flesh, the body, you know, everything. You know, you think of a dead body, it's the entire person lying there, okay? But he says, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. So there is a spiritual side of you that must be born again. That is a birth that can only come from God. Question did you have any part in your first birth other than you showed up? No Any part of your first birth? Other than you just showed up when you were born. Did you play any part in that other than you arrived? No, your parents had everything to do with that they lied with each other as husband and wife and You were conceived in your mother's womb, and in the fullness of time, according to the time of life, as the Bible puts it, you were born, and here you are. In the same token, there is not one thing that you can do that has any bearing whatsoever on you being born of God, except believe. He calls us to believe, to believe the promises of God. And when we look at the Old Testament in relation to the New Testament, A lot of people will want to try to separate those two. They'll say, we don't need the Old Testament anymore, we don't need the law, we don't need the prophets and all of those things. But the problem with that is, is that Paul said, the law is our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ. So the law was given to bring us to Jesus Christ. That's why it was given. That's why it's still a part of your Bible. That is what God gave you to see your wretched state before God so that you would see you needed to be born again, okay? And so now we're on to verse seven in John chapter three. Marvel not that I said unto thee, he's addressing Nicodemus personally. And he says, marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again. So what is he doing? He's telling Nicodemus personally, Don't marvel at what I said unto thee. Ye, everyone. must be born again, okay? And so that's one case where the these and the thous and the yees and the yours, though they may not be part of our common vernacular, how we talk, it is very important to have those distinctions because it gives more clarity to that passage showing he's speaking to Nicodemus, but he's not only telling Nicodemus he has to be born again, he's now addressing the entirety of mankind. ye must be born again, okay? And so that's one small reason why I use the King James Bible, okay? But as we look at those things and as you hear me speak them and all of that, that might give you a little better understanding, okay? Now, I'm not gonna go through the rest of this paper tonight because we would be here all night. But you can take this and just read through this thing, and look at the different things that I have in here, and hopefully it'll be a help to you in these studies and such. But now, I want us to go, now we're gonna go to another book that is not 1 John. We're gonna go to 1 Corinthians, chapter 14. 1 Corinthians, chapter 14. Oh, you're in 2 Corinthians. Just head back a little bit. Yep. If you find Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and then it'll be Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians. If you've gone 2 Corinthians, you've gone too far. We're in 1 Corinthians 14. What I'm gonna do now is lay down a foundation for why we're doing this study. What is the purpose of doing a Bible study? Is it just to get more knowledge of God? Is it to have some teacher who's got experience in some field of expertise to share that experience? Or is it to be taught by God? I'll present to us tonight that we are here in order to be taught by God. Okay? Preaching has a specific thing that it does. All right? Preaching is very, very important. And there's a reason why we have preaching. And it's not just so we can fill, you know, a 20 minute or a half hour, an hour slot in our services. I want to preach for at least an hour. That's become my norm. Our Bible studies run for an hour. Usually my sermons, you all have heard some of them, they'll be on average for an hour. But I've preached upwards of an hour and a half to two hours before, as the Lord just moves into the thing and just takes us line upon line, precept upon precept, through the scriptures. Okay? And by the guiding of the Holy Ghost, God can teach us. And I'm gonna show you, after we look here, I'm gonna show you a place where your Bible tells you that you don't need me to teach you. Okay? But look at this, 1 Corinthians 14. I want you to start right at verse 22. All right, 1 Corinthians 14, 22. Paul is dealing with the subject of tongues, all right? Other languages. At the time, there were people who did not speak Greek or Hebrew. They didn't have that understanding. And God was trying to prove to the Jews that those people that weren't Jews were able to receive salvation. Because up until this point, salvation was for the Jews. It was through the nation of Israel. If you were going to be right with God, you had to become a Jew. You were what was called a proselytite. All right? And as such, you became a Jew. You were circumcised if you were a man. You had to then partake of all the feast days and carry out the law and all of those things. Well, the Bible says that the righteousness of the law was done away in Christ. All right? If there was any righteousness to be had with the law, when Jesus Christ came on the scene, that was it. It was no more effective. Okay? And so what we're looking at here is verse 22. says wherefore tongues are for a sign not to them that believe but to them that believe not but prophesying serveth not for them that believe not but for them which believe and so he's comparing the difference between prophesying and tongues. Between preaching and teaching, and prophesying in this context, is proclaiming the Word of God. And everywhere you look in the Bible, whenever anyone is prophesying, they're giving prophecy, they are proclaiming the Word of God. They're saying, thus saith the Lord. So tonight, technically, what I am doing is I am prophesying. I am declaring, this is what God has said. Okay? Now, we think of prophecy in terms of future events. Okay? And there is no prophecy that's going to happen other than what's contained in your Bible. Okay? You can be sure of that. You can be certain of that. This is the completed revelation of God. There's nothing new that's going to be revealed to you outside of the pages of this book. That ought to give you some comfort because there's a lot of fear mongerers out today that just want to stir up fear in your heart without having any basis of scripture. And we're going to get into that later on in 1 John. 1 John, and John calls it the spirit of antichrist. We'll get into that, but that's in chapter 3 and 4, and later on in chapter 2, but we'll get to that later on. But the tongues aren't for assigned to unbelievers. It's to assign to Jews that do not believe. Okay, so listen. But prophesying serveth not them that believe not, but for them which believe. Look at verse 23 now. If therefore the whole church be come together in one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned or unbelievers, will they not say, ye are mad? And so understanding this, if everybody, if my dad is speaking Spanish, and I'm speaking Russian, and my sister is speaking Swahili, and you're speaking Portuguese, which is close to Spanish, but it's different. and you're speaking Japanese, okay? And everybody has this tongue that they're speaking. Somebody comes in and they either don't believe the word of God or they're just ignorant in it, they're unlearned, okay? In those things, they're gonna say, you're mad. You're mad as a hornet, okay? And mad doesn't mean angry. In the King James Bible, mad is defined as insane, okay? We would use the word insane. Somebody crazy out of their mind, okay? So in the King James Bible, when you come across that word mad, that's what it's speaking of, all right? Felix, the governor, told Paul, much learning hath made thee mad, okay? He was calling him crazy. All right, but here he says, if somebody comes in and they hear you all speaking in tongues, they're going to say you're crazy. Well, let's keep going. But if all prophesy, if all are declaring the word of God, look at this, and there come in one that believeth not or one unlearned, he says he is convinced of all, he is judged of all, and thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest. The purpose of preaching, the reason why I'm doing what I'm doing tonight, is that when the preaching of the word of God is going on, the Holy Ghost is at work. And he goes into you on the inward parts, and he searches your heart. Your heart contains secrets that even you don't know about. Your heart deceives you. Jeremiah 17, nine says, the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it? All right? Your heart, you can't even know you're on heart. But God continues on and he says, I, the Lord, search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings. Okay? And so the Holy Ghost searching your heart, that third person of the Trinity, the Godhead, he's searching your heart and he stirs it up. Think about this, you've ever had maybe a five gallon bucket that you were using, you put it on your back porch and your grandkids or somebody comes and they fill it up with water and put a bunch of mud in it and they're playing in the muddy water and it's all stirred up and it's yucky and it's nasty. Well, your grandkids go back home and maybe you don't see them for a couple of months, but that bucket still sits there. Pretty soon, all that mud and silt and sand is going to settle to the bottom, and that water at the top is going to look clean. It's going to look like there's no dirt in there whatsoever. Now, there might be larvae of mosquitoes swimming around, you know, I wouldn't drink it, but it looks clean. But then the kids come back and they remember, ah, I was playing in that bucket out back. I wonder if it's still there. And then they go out and they grab a stick and they start stirring that bucket up. And all that mud and muck and mire comes to the surface. It's the same thing that the Holy Ghost does to you when you sit under the Holy Ghost-fired preaching of the Word of God. What happens? You ever catch yourself listening to preaching and all of a sudden your mind goes to something that happened to you when you were a child? And you think, well, why did I think of that? Or maybe somebody had betrayed you, and that stirs up within you and you think, boy, my mind is just all over the place. I need to focus on the preaching. That's the Holy Ghost stirring up that muck and mire in your heart. You've got bitterness down in there. You've got hatred. You've got anger. Maybe you stole something. Maybe you committed a heinous crime of maybe gossip, and God is stirring that up in you. You thought I was going to say adultery, didn't you? God considers it all the same. And now you're backbiting against somebody and boy, the preacher's talking about something and your mind just drifts off and all of a sudden, all these memories start coming back. That's the Holy Ghost coming down and shining a spotlight in the dark corner of your heart and saying, that's what you need to deal with. That's the purpose of preaching. That's the exact reason. The Word of God comes to your mind. He's trying to show you those things. There's things that come up, and He wants you to get it right. That's right. He wants you to forgive so that He can forgive you. And so, as that preaching goes on, and those things stir up, even when I'm talking here, if your mind goes to something else, that's not your mind, your brain. The Bible says it's your heart. And it's searching and there's something in there that God is showing you is not right with him. Okay. So that's the purpose of preaching. That's why originally the Wesley brothers, they went into the, you know, the, to the Indians of America and Charles Wesley and John Wesley, and they led those great revivals over in England and preached over here in the Americas. And they went and they preached. And those Indians would sometimes be in agony over their sin for weeks and months because they were just inundated with the wickedness of their own heart. And it would be months before Wesley would say, and there is a savior, Jesus. And the purpose was because they knew Just as the song sings, we used to sing, we still sing it, maybe you remember this from years gone by. Then at last my sin I learned. Then I trembled at the law I'd spurned. Trembling under the law of God, that's what's missing in the preaching today. The law of God being preached and sinners trembling under the weight of that law. That is what God has ordained for people to be born again. They've got to see their guilt. But their guilt against what? Against mankind? Against the things that I've done against my sister or my parents? No. I've offended a holy God. And His law is perfect and right and just and good. Paul says in Romans that the law is good if a man use it lawfully. The law's not a bad thing. God gave it to you so you could see what he has against you, okay, where you have offended him. And so when you're reading the law and it stirs up and your heart rises up against that thing, I don't know if that's right. Just remember, God gave you that to show you what was in your heart, okay? So, But the purpose of preaching is to stir all that stuff up, all right? Now, that's our introduction. I wanna go to 1 John now. So keep heading towards the back of your Bible. You're gonna run through some books. You're gonna hit Hebrews, James, 1 and 2 Peter. You're gonna find 1 John. Another thing I'd like to do is to get us more familiar with our Bibles, okay? I want you to get so you know that thing inside and out. I want you to, so when somebody calls out a book, now I still have trouble, all right? I've been preaching since 2015, even before that, maybe even 2011. I've been a pastor since 2017. I've been pastoring a church as a senior pastor since 2020. And I still have trouble with the minor prophets. All right, all those little prophets there between Daniel and the New Testament. I have a hard time with those, okay? But I'm getting more familiar as the Lord teaches me. But you got the bedpost, don't you? I've got the bedpost, right. If I can find the big parts, I can get to the little parts. That's right. Now that you're in 1 John, I want you to look at chapter 2 and verse 20. And when we get here, as we're going verse by verse through the Book of John, when we get here, I'll explain all this again, okay? I want to explain how we learn the Word of God. You don't learn it from me. You don't learn it from a professor. You don't learn it from commentaries. You don't learn it from man, okay? God is the one that teaches you the Word of God. Look at this, verse 20. It says, Now, the Holy One, in the King James Bible, it's a capital H and a capital O, so it's a title. In the King James Bible, the capitalizations matter. They are very significant. That's how you can dissect the Godhead and discern those different things, okay? Teaching you how to use that thing and showing you, you know, why even more I use it. The Holy One throughout the King James Bible is Jesus Christ. You find him spoken of all throughout Isaiah. You find him all throughout the minor prophets. You find him all throughout that Old Testament. as the Holy One. And then as soon as you get in the New Testament and Jesus goes into the synagogue, there's a man with an unclean spirit. He's got a devil within him, okay? And those devils, those unclean spirits within that man cry out when Jesus comes in. He says, art thou here to torment us? What have we to do with thee, thou son of the Most High God? I know who thou art, the Holy One of God. The devils believe also in tremble, the Bible says. The devils know that Jesus Christ is the Holy One. They know that He's the Son of God. They tremble. They even believe that they're not born again, okay? They have a head knowledge, but they refuse to repent, and there is no salvation for those angels. There is no salvation for those devils. Now, I dealt with a young lady one time, one of our teenagers, when we were working with the youth. And she was maybe 16, 17 years old, had a Catholic background, which doesn't say anything other than she had a little bit of experience with religion, okay? And so she came to me and she said, why didn't God make a way for Satan to be made right with him? That's a very good question. Why didn't he? Well, it's because angels were made higher than people. Okay? You go into the book of Hebrews and it says when Jesus was made flesh, and we're going to get to that eventually tonight, that he was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, that he might taste death for every man. And so mankind is made a little lower than the angels, which means by default, the angels have a greater understanding than we do. They are spiritual beings. They are the ministers of God. But those angels that followed Satan in his rebellion, and it was in full understanding, they understood what they were doing. They followed Satan in his rebellion, Lucifer, and when they fell, they became the enemy of God in their rebellion. Just lay a little understanding there. Now, the Holy One, though, is Jesus Christ, and those devils knew it within that man, and they called him out. They said, you're the Holy One of God. So, all that to say, the Holy One throughout the King James Bible is Jesus Christ. One of my favorite verses, and this has become the theme verse for my ministry personally, is Psalm 40, verse 7. And Psalm 40, the 40th Psalm, is a messianic psalm, meaning it's prophesying of Jesus Christ. Hebrews chapter 10, Paul tells us that. Okay? He quotes the Psalm, says it's Jesus, explains all of that. Maybe someday we'll get into that. But Psalm 40 verse 7 says, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me. What is he saying? Is it just the book of Psalms? No, because Paul quotes it in the book of Hebrews and says it's still true. What book then is he talking about? Well, it's all 66 books of this Bible that I'm holding in my hand. Okay? In the volume of the book, which means in the length of it, in the breadth of it, in the height of it, that's how you measure volume, on every page, in every line, it's written of Jesus Christ. Meaning, if you know what to look for, you can find Jesus speaking or it speaking of Jesus on every single page. in every single book, in every single chapter, because this whole thing is about Jesus. That's the theme. It's Jesus. He is the word. We're gonna look at that in a little bit. But, you have an unction from the Holy One, and you know all things. Now, your Bible might say anointing. Does it say anointing there instead of unction? Okay. The word unction is only used one time in the King James Bible, which makes it significant. There's a few words like that. And my method of Bible study is I'll take a word and I'll follow it through the entirety of the Bible. And I'll look every place where that word is. And I'll see what God is saying about it. How he uses it. And it gives me a better understanding of how God defines that word. But unction is only used once. So how do we know what that is? Well, go over to verse 27. Look at this. He says, but the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you. Ah, okay, so it is an anointing. But why does it say unction? Why in the King James translators, having a perfect understanding of Greek and a perfect understanding of English, being guided by the Holy Ghost, why did they choose the word unction? Every anointing, if you follow that throughout the Bible, every time something is anointed, There is oil or something that is put on the outside. Oil is poured over Aaron's head, and it runs down his hair, down his beard, and on his garments, and hits the ground. Never once touches his flesh. It wasn't supposed to touch his flesh. There's teaching in that, but we'll pass on from there for right now. When the furniture of the tabernacle was consecrated, all the table of showbread, and the brazen altar, and the golden altar of incense, and even the tabernacle itself, it was anointed with oil, but it was on the outside. The oil was applied to the outside. But this unction is different. It's an anointing, and it's the only anointing on the inward parts. It's not on the outside, it's on the inside. Look at how it's written in verse 27. But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth where? In you. It says it abideth in you. And it's the only place you're gonna find an anointing that's on the inside. And that's why God signified it as being an unction. Now this anointing, is the Holy Ghost. It is that third person of the Godhead, and it comes from Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the one doing the anointing, but he uses the Holy Ghost, and he anoints you on the inside for a reason, to know all things. That's present tense, meaning if you are born of God, and you have the Holy Ghost within you, you already know all things. You know everything. Now I see some of you ladies here tonight, that might be a very good comfort to you. Hey, I know everything, that confirms it. See, my husband should have listened. No, that's not it at all. What this is, is you have living within you the one who knows all things. And when you read out of the Word of God, and He begins teaching you, it comes to you as almost a realization of, oh yeah, that's what that is. It's more of a recognition of something that you already know, rather than learning something brand new, okay? Now, we'll read all of verse 27, and I'll give you an example of that. But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you." Now, there it is. You need not that any man teach you. You don't need a teacher. You don't need any man to teach you the Bible. All you need is God. Now listen, but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, even as it, that anointing, on the inward parts, hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. Now there's more that we're gonna dig into that when we get there in chapter two, okay? But this is what I want you to understand. If there's any understanding you get out of this, it's not coming from me. I'm not teaching you anything. If you're learning anything on the inward parts, and it's more than just a head, oh, I know that then. And it hits you on the inward parts in your heart, and you say, that's what that is. That comes from God. Jesus put it this way to Peter. Peter asked his disciples, he said, who do men say that I, the son of man, am? And a couple of them spoke up and said, some say you're Elias, or one of the prophets, And he says, but whom say ye that I am? Peter speaks up and he says, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus then says, blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. Okay? Flesh and blood had not taught him. A teacher had not taught him that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. That is a realization that can only be taught to you by God himself. And Jesus called him blessed because of that. Okay? And so anything that you receive on the inward parts and it's understanding, God is the one that did that, not me. not your pastor, not your teachers, not the visiting preachers, all right? All the way back in the time of the circuit-riding preachers, when these churches were established here in this valley, they understood these things, and they knew they could speak all they wanted to, but if God didn't do a work, it was gonna be worthless. And it's the same thing here. If God doesn't step into these sessions of teaching and preaching, it's all gonna be for nothing, okay? Now, consider this. I'm gonna speak to you a sentence in Spanish, okay? A sentence in what? Spanish, okay? Does anybody here understand Spanish? a little bit got a little bit of understanding well that's that's counting in japanese so that's good that was that was one two three four in japanese so very good but now listen i'm going to say something in spanish and then let's say something in english yo necesito ir al supermercado hoy necesito Mmm, un perro. Y un perro es brown. Now, I just said, I need to go to the store. At the store, I need a dog. It's the only thing I could think up at the time. And the dog is brown. Now, you didn't understand any of those other words that I said, but when I said brown, your ears perked up because you recognized the word brown. Now, you knew the word brown because you learned it. Your heart speaks English, okay? You dream in English. You think in English, all right? You talk to yourself in English. You don't talk to yourself in Spanish. Someone that grew up in a Spanish-speaking country talks to themselves in Spanish. All right? It's an interesting thing to think about. God speaks to your heart in English. Okay? And you recognize the word brown because that's what you spoke. You knew that. That recognition is the same thing when God teaches you one of those things that he says you already know. Okay? You recognize it. Oh, I know that. Okay? So, now that we've gone 45 minutes, we only got 15 minutes left, we're gonna hit 1 John 1. So, I'm gonna try to keep these things right at an hour, okay? Now, if conversation and questions come, and you wanna go a little longer, I'm good with that, but I don't wanna beleaguer it, okay? I don't wanna wear you out. And so, 1 John 1, this is the first epistle general of John. Now, Edna, right? Yes, she had asked at the beginning before we started, now is this John? Is this John the Baptist? Is this the same John that wrote the Gospel of John? It's not John the Baptist, it's the Apostle John. He wrote the Gospel of John, he wrote 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, and he wrote the Book of Revelation. The full title of the Book of Revelation is, I've got it here, this is how it was originally written and translated over, The Revelation of Saint John the Divine. Okay? So that's revelation, actually the title of it. So, but 1 John 1, we're gonna jump right on into this. He says this, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the word of life. I'm gonna pause there, because there's an awful lot we need to unpack in this. Now, you might not think that, because this is just one verse. But consider this. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard. Now, he's talking about we. Who's the we? It's the disciples. John is including himself in those disciples that followed Jesus, culminating in the 12 apostles, those 120 in that upper room, the 500 that had followed him throughout his ministry, okay? But they knew Jesus. Now, what did they hear of Jesus? What did they literally hear? Well, his words. They heard the breath coming out of his lungs, rattling across his voice box and his vocal cords, his tongue forming and his lips forming to make syllables, which were words, That is what they literally heard, okay? He says, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard. Then he says, which we have seen with our eyes. Now, what did they actually see? They saw Jesus. They saw his flesh. They saw his- And what he did. They saw what he did, too. Very good. All right? But in context, it says, that which was from the beginning. Now, what he did was not from the beginning. But it says, which we have heard, which was seen with our eyes. They saw his flesh with their eyes. We've never seen the flesh of Jesus Christ, but what we see is the Word, which is Jesus Christ. John 1 says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Verse 14 says, and the Word was made flesh. and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory, the glory as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." Okay? That is John chapter 1 and verse 1. What John is relating to us here is that the voice of Jesus Christ and the body of Jesus Christ was from the beginning. How could that be? Because he was flesh. He was born of the Virgin Mary. He was made into a human. His flesh was God. Go to John, keep your place here. Go to John chapter one. We're gonna do turning from time to time, and it'll help you get more familiar with these things, but John chapter one, you're gonna go back towards the front of your Bible, I'm gonna look at John chapter one. You might say, you know, what was the body of Jesus made out of? All right, we have in the different gospel accounts that the father, Mary was overshadowed by the father, that baby Jesus, he was conceived of the Holy Ghost, okay? Now, we know Joseph was not the father of Jesus, but God, the father, is the father of Jesus. And so how did the embryo of Jesus get in Mary? By the Holy Spirit. By the Holy Spirit. By the Holy Ghost, that's right. Now look at this. John chapter one and verse one. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Okay? Now go down to verse 14. And the Word was made flesh. The Bible literally tells you what the flesh of Jesus Christ is made out of. It's made out of the Word of God. Now, the Word of God is eternal. The Word of God was from before the beginning. The Word of God has always been and will always be. And here's another place where, in the King James Bible, it distinguishes between something being everlasting and something eternal. When something is eternal, it has no beginning and it has no end. That can only apply to deity. That can only apply to God. Has no beginning, has no end. Just always has been. and always will be. When something is everlasting, it has a beginning point, but then it lasts forever. It's everlasting. Okay, does that make sense? And therein we see in John chapter three, since we're right here in John, go over to John chapter three again. Look at verse 15. It says, we'll start at verse 14, just for the context. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Now verse 15, we're looking at John chapter three. Oh, we're right back in first time, over in John. Yeah, I'm sorry. John chapter three. I'll wait for you. Oh, we're on the same. Yep, John chapter three, same book, but just chapter three. You can tell I just got this. That's all right. Now turn one more page, because we're gonna be at verse 14. Very good. All right, got it right there? 14, yep, John 3, verse 14. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. All right, we see that eternal life. And then verse 16, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. There's a shift there. That everlasting life is that life that begins when you're born of God. And it never ends. Once you have everlasting life, you can never end that life. When you've been born of God, you cannot be unborn of God because it is an everlasting life. But consider what it says in verse 15. It says they should not perish, but have eternal life too. Now, how is that? Well, that eternal life is Jesus Christ, okay? Hopefully you still have your place in 1 John. I want you to go back to 1 John, and we're gonna look at chapter five. 1 John chapter five. In verse 10, 1 John 5, verse 10. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. Now I wanna pause here for just a second. I said the word believeth, okay? And it's there in John chapter three as well. Another argument against using the King James Bible is all the eth words. And there are some, I'll admit, are hard to say, okay? I understand that. But that E-T-H ending on a verb is very important. Because there are other places where the word believe is used. So what's the difference between believe and believeth? That E-T-H ending, and it's in that pamphlet that I gave you, denotes something that is an ongoing action. It doesn't just happen one time. It has an ongoing action. It fills that future tense. Now there are places in the King James Bible where it'll have past tense, present tense, and future tense as well. But the context will show you that. But here we're looking at this and it says, he that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. And there's the difference between the devils which believe and tremble, and someone that believeth and is born of God. The devils believe, but they don't care about God. They have no concern whatsoever for God. But somebody that believeth, it's not gonna end. Somebody that is born of God doesn't believe when they were a child and when they get older, I don't believe that anymore. I've heard that from people before. Yeah, I used to believe that stuff. I don't believe that anymore. It's not that they lost their salvation. It's not that they are backslidden. It's that they never were born of God. They may have believed in their head something that someone told them, because they trusted the person that told them, or whatever it may be. I mean, my wife, for quite a long time, believed that oatmeal cookies had spider eggs in them. Because her dad told her that. For a long time, she would not eat, and she still doesn't like them to this day. She believed that, but now she knows better. Okay, she knows there's no spider eggs in oatmeal cookies. All right? Hopefully anyway. But some. Yeah. So somebody that believed when they were younger, but they grow up and they say, nah, I don't believe that anymore. They were never born of God. They do not have the Holy Ghost living in them, they don't have Jesus Christ living in them, they don't have God the Father living in them. Their spirit was never placed in the body of Jesus Christ in heaven, and those doctrines we'll get into as we go through these studies. They don't have the full assurance of faith that the Bible promises you, and a full assurance does not doubt. Okay, that's where believeth comes into play. It's a surefire thing, and you know it, and there is nothing that can change your mind on it, because God is the one that taught you that. Okay, see how this all ties together? See how it all pulls together? And so looking at this, remembering, we looked at in John chapter three, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. We're looking at that eternal life. Let's continue in verse 10. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. He that believeth not God hath made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. Now, what is the record that God gave of his Son? It's the Word of God. It's the Bible. This is the record that God gave of his Son. And he says, in the Bible itself, if you do not believe these words, we're calling God a liar. We would never dream of calling God a liar. But when you read something, you say, I don't know about that. You're calling God a liar, because this is the record that God gave of his son. Because remember, Psalm 40, verse 7, lo, I come in the volume of the book it's written of me. Jesus Christ is in this entire book. Now look at verse 11. And this is the record. So what does that record state? that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. This life is in His Son. So whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. What is that eternal life? It's Jesus Christ himself. That is where salvation is found. It's not found in works. It's not found in keeping your nose clean and doing things right. It's not found in how much you attend church or how much you read your Bible or how much you give to the poor. It's not found in any of that. It's a person, and his name is Jesus Christ. That is salvation. That is eternal life. Now continue, verse 12. He that hath the Son hath life. He that hath not the Son of God hath not life. Very simple. You either have life, you have that eternal life, you have Jesus Christ, or you do not have Jesus Christ. It's one or the other. You're not working your way there, you're not middle of the road, it's not, well, maybe I'll get there someday. No, you either have him or you don't. You either have Jesus or you're lost. And so, going back to 1 John 1 and verse 1, we looked at the fact that Jesus Christ is the Word of God, okay? Jesus Christ is the Word of God. His body, which is being described here, that which we've heard, which we've seen with our eyes, which we've looked upon, and our hands have handled, I mean, John, the one who wrote this, laid his ear upon the breast of Jesus Christ. Now, I've laid my head on my father's breast many times. You know what I heard in there? His heart. I heard his heart beating. If my son were to come right now and lay his head on my chest, he would hear my heart beating. Do you know what was beating through that heart and through the veins of Jesus Christ? The blood of God. When John heard The blood of God pumping through those veins, he heard God, okay? That is God's blood. Acts 13, we'll go there sometime, not tonight, but Acts 13 very clearly shows that the blood that was in Jesus Christ is God's blood, because he says he bought them with his own blood. God did, all right? So the blood of God is eternal. When did they see the blood of God? when he was hanging on the cross. That's when they looked upon him. Isaiah 53, one of the most recognizable descriptions of Jesus Christ in Old Testament prophecy. Isaiah 53 says, and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced. They pierced him, his hands and his feet and his side, and they looked upon him. And herein again is another reason why I use the King James Bible, because those things are connected in that phrase, looked upon, okay? They looked upon me whom they have pierced. And here he says, we have looked upon him. Speaking of the Son of God, the Jesus Christ of Old Testament prophecy, written in the entire volume of the book, okay? Question, what is the gospel? Anybody can give me the definition of the gospel? Commonly, it's the good news, right? That's usually what we say, it's the good news, okay? Well, 1 Corinthians very clearly defines it in chapter 15, that it's the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ according to the scriptures, okay? That's in there, according to the scriptures. Well, what scriptures are being spoken of? Is it Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? No, those really weren't even written at that time. They were being compiled, they were being written at the time that Paul wrote that thing. But he's talking about the same scriptures that he told Timothy, young Timothy. He said, and that from a child, thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation. Those holy scriptures is the Old Testament. Did you know that you can be born of God just by reading the Old Testament? Now there's a lot that is completed and fulfilled, and everything is given clarity and fullness with the New Testament. But Paul's job, he was the apostle to the Gentiles, okay? Anybody here know for a fact they have Jewish blood in your lineage? Jewish blood? Do you have Jewish relatives at all? Nobody? So we are all of Gentile lineage, okay? Paul's job, was to explain the Old Testament law to us. All right, so when you get into the books of Paul, Romans, all the way through Hebrews, all of those When he talks about blood, when he talks about sacrifice, when he talks about an offering, he's speaking of something in the law. He explains all of that, okay? And here, what John is doing is he's again going back to that Old Testament prophecy, and he's talking about the body and the blood of Jesus Christ. And it says here, that which was from the beginning. Jesus Christ's blood is eternal blood. Never had a beginning. never will have an end. Jesus Christ's flesh was made out of the Word of God. It tells us that in 1 John, or in John 1, verses 1 and 14. That is what they looked upon. That is what they saw. That is what they heard. They saw, heard, and looked upon the eternal Word of God. Okay? And this is where he is starting here. Because he says, and our hands have handled of the word of life. And I'm gonna close it down there. We went through an awful lot. A lot was foundational, okay? I laid an awful lot down as far as understanding of where I'm coming from, why I teach the way that I do, some of why I use the Bible that I do, okay? And then from there, we built line upon line, precept upon precept. That is a principle in the Word of God. All right? And it says line upon line, line upon line, precept upon precept, precept upon precept. And then it says here a little, there a little. And the reason it is is because a precept in the Word of God is something that you can take and it says, okay, this is a principle, it's a precept, and I can apply that throughout the whole Bible. One thing we did that with tonight was the Holy One. That is a precept that you learned. The Holy One in the King James Bible is Jesus Christ from Genesis to Revelation. I'm not sure if the Holy One is in Genesis, but the entirety of the book where it is used. All throughout that, that is a precept. And it must be precept upon precept. They're building blocks. All right? And what it is, you're not building a wall. You're not building something that is blocking you in. You're building a tower so that you can see farther, so you can get a greater understanding and a better view of what's around you, so that you can understand deeper what God is saying, and you'll be able to see farther than what you could before. And so that's what we did tonight. That's what we'll continue to do. Any comments? I mean, we'll close it down here. We've gone through quite a lot. I don't want to spin your heads too much. But any comments or questions? Anything that popped in your mind? Anything at all? And there's nothing wrong that you can say. There really isn't. I think you opened our eyes. I mean, jumping back and forth is a little bit hard, but I think going from one part of the Bible all the way to the back of the Bible, and it's the same thing, even, you know, it's like, yeah. Yep, that's the purpose of it. That's why God gave us a Bible, so that we could do that. So that we could do that. Yeah. Very good. Well, I'll go ahead and I'll close in prayer, and then we can wrap it up and do whatever else we want to do. So, Father, I thank you for this night. My God, I thank you for the things that you showed us. Lord, I pray that you would indeed teach us these things. Seal them in our hearts, oh God. I pray that Satan wouldn't come and snatch the seed away. But Lord, that you would continue to reveal yourselves through the volume of this book. I pray that through this study, we'd get a greater understanding not only of the book of 1 John, but the subject of the book of 1 John, who is the word of God, Jesus Christ himself. My Lord Jesus, I thank you for the things that you have taught us. I thank you for the Holy Ghost on the inward parts that illuminates these things and gives us understanding to it and inspires that understanding in us, turns the light of that lamp up in our hearts so that we can see you better. We thank you for all of these things, Lord. And I pray that you just continue to bless and be with these folks as we're apart. And Lord, I do pray that you'd bring us back again safely the next time. In Jesus' holy and precious name, we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen.