VanRyn, Carroll: Week Of Meetings-1995-05 ~ 1 John 1:1-4

Three Thursday nights, we'd speak on some portions from the first epistle of John. I don't know if you ever heard about the man that went to visit at a home, and he knocked on the door, and a little boy came to the door. He said, is your father home? And the boy said, no. And he said, well, is your mother home? The little boy said, no. And so the man thought maybe he ought to explain, so he said, I'm your, your uncle on your father's side. And the little boy said, well, I'll tell you this, you're on the wrong side. And I want to tell you tonight about being on the right side. You and I are on the father's side because we're loved by the Son, and we're on the right side. I want to read the first four verses of the first chapter of the first epistle of John. 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, for the life was manifested, we've seen it and bear witness and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us. That which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write unto you, that your joy might be full. Years ago, I heard of a preacher who spoke in a passage, the same passage over and over, many times. And one man who'd heard him speak on that same passage eight or ten times once said to him, why do you keep preaching on that passage? And the title of his message from the Word of God was, you must be born again. That's what the Lord said, you remember, to Nicodemus. He said, why do you speak on it so often? And the man's answer was, because you must be born again. Now that's a truth that's absolutely necessary to the person who's never put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal savior. It is not sufficient to turn over a new leaf. It is necessary that you be born again, and it's a personal message. He said, ye must be born again. It's not for your neighbor. Dave Nicholson told me one time he made a mistake. Somebody asking some of the young people to speak because it was a certain problem they felt with one of the elders, and he said he hesitated to do it, but as he studied his message, he felt that he could bring that in. And so on Sunday morning, he brought it in, and this elder was sitting in the front row, and every time that he mentioned something in connection with this, this elder shook his head. Yes, sir, yes, sir. So afterwards, when he was going out the door, he said to Brother Jabe, I'm sure glad you spoke in that message. There's a number in this assembly that needed that message. He missed it himself, but you got to remember that the gospel is for you personally. Ye must be born again. If you never accepted Christ as your savior, we're told in Ephesians that you're dead in your sins. Now, if I were to call you up and say, Mr. So-and-so has cancer, you might say, well, how sick is he? But if I called you up and said he was dead, you wouldn't say, how dead is he? You see, when you're dead, you're dead. There's nothing you can do about it. You can jump up and down on a dead man's chest, and he can't return it. I remember when my mother passed away, when we were seeing her for the last time before they closed the coffin, as the, at the end of the funeral, my dad leaned over and he kissed her, and he said, I know you're not there, but I want to kiss you one more time. And that was true. She wasn't there. She couldn't receive the kiss. She was gone. She had been gone for several days. She'd been in the presence of the Lord. And you see, when a person's dead, they're dead. There's nothing you can do about it. So God says you're dead in your sins, but you can be alive unto him. It isn't turning over new leaf, it's getting new life. Now, just as this is necessary to the unbeliever, so that I think, think the teaching of First John is to the believer. Here we learn of a personal relationship that you and I can have with our Lord. It's a relationship that comes from knowing him, from knowing the Lord. You see, when you know Christ, you know everything you need to know. That's all you need to know. It doesn't mean you want to, you don't want to learn more about him, but when you know Christ, you know everything you need to go to get from this world to an eternity of bliss. And as you know him, you wanna know more about him, and that relationship allows you to learn just how wonderful he is. And John, I love John in this epistle because he says, you know, we know, but he says not only do we know, but we know that we know. And that's wonderful, isn't it? You know, sometimes you know something, you don't even know that you know it. But you know, it's wonderful when you know, and you know that you know it, and that's what John says. And John says in his writings, and Paul says in his writings, I think that when you read them, they tell you that the peace, the happiness, the joy, the security of the Christian is in direct relationship to their knowledge of the Lord Jesus. The more you know about him, the more peace you have, the more satisfaction you have here in this world. Not about his ways or things about him, not his commandments, not his word, although all that is good, but to know him. Our brother A. P. Gibbs, in his book on, on the Lord's Supper, talks about somebody who would get a letter from the, the, uh, we'll, we'll say in the case now, would get a letter from Mac, um, can't think of his la- McLarty. Mac McLarty, who is Bill Clinton's best friend, and one of, he for a while he was his, his assistant. He's got a different job now, but he's his best friend for years. See, and if you got a letter from him and said, now look, I'd like you to come and have, have a meal with me in Washington, DC, and I'm just having thirty or forty people in, and I'm going to tell you things about Bill Clinton that nobody has heard, things from my personal experience with him. Why, you'd think that would be a wonderful experience if you happen to be a Democrat and like Bill Clinton, you'd think that was a great experience. The President of the United States. But if in that same mail you got a letter from Bill Clinton and Hillary that said, we're going to have a little party of thirty or forty five, and we'd like you to come and and dine with us. Which one would you take? Would you go to hear somebody tell you about Christ? Would you hear to go, go to hear somebody tell you about him, or would you come into his presence to get to know him? And that's exactly what the Apostle John wants us to know. You see, when you read in Philippians, Paul says that in the first chapter, uh, the first verses of the third chapter, he tells you what a great man he was from a natural point of view as a Jewish leader. He'd had the best teaching. He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees and so forth. But he said, I counted it all garbage, all dung, it says, on that day in on the Damascus road when I met Christ. And he says, and now thirty years later, my purpose is that I might know him. He had served him for thirty years, and my dad told me that after sixty seven years of studying God's word an average of four hours a day, not what others wrote about it, although he did that too, but the word itself for an average of four hours every day for sixty seven years, he said, I feel like I know almost nothing about the wonder of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the Apostle Paul says, that I may know him. You know, years ago, my son, uh, has a little boy. He's now uh eleven or twelve. but at the time he was four and a half, going on five years of age, and my son's in-laws came to visit, and he took them up in the mountains to the Will Rogers Memorial, uh, meal up there. And some of you know who Will Rogers was. He was very famous humorist in America years ago. He was killed in an airplane crash with his good friend, but any rate, they have this, this memorial up there. And as the woman was showing them and telling them, the guide, she said to my son's father-in-law, said, maybe you knew Mister Rogers because he went all over the country. And before he could answer, my little grandson, four and a half years old, he said, I know Mister Rogers. He comes right on after Sesame Street. He knew Mister Rogers. He was so proud that he knew Mister Rogers. Are you proud that you know Christ? Are you and I proud when somebody says something, do you say, I know Christ? He's my Lord and my Savior. Are you and I proud to speak of him? The hymn writer says, occupied with thee, Lord Jesus, I am blessed. All thy ways and thoughts about me only trace me for stories of the glories of thy grace, of thy grace. As you and I look back to John's writings in his gospel, we see it pictures for us the heart and the life of God. We see that it pictures the eternal life that was with the Father and is manifested in the Son. The life that was always with the Father. It was never seen by man until the Lord Jesus came into this world. I heard a story of a little girl whose mother had just kissed her goodnight and pulled up the covers, and the little girl said, would you leave the light on? And the mother said, you don't need the light. The angels will take care of you. She said, I don't want the angels. I want somebody with a face. And you see, man said that, didn't he? We want somebody with a face. We want to see God. And so God sent his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, into this world to manifest the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He came, and he shows to you and I Fa- God's love and his grace and his mercy. And now in this epistle, we see that eternal life that was only in Christ now can be seen and communicated in you and I. And that's the wonder of it. You see, when you put your trust in Christ, now you're able to manifest Christ. Christ was the only one when he came to this world that could manifest the Father. Now we can all manifest the Father as we manifest the Lord Jesus Christ here in this world. As you and I read the writings of Paul in the epistles, our hearts are thrilled with the wonder of the promises that the Apostle Paul tells us that God gives to you and I as his children. And, you know, it's very easy for us to be occupied with the promises, and we should be. We should be somewhat occupied with the promises that God has given us. We should lay hold on the things that God tells us he'll never leave us or forsake us. He tells us he's coming again. He says I'll meet your need. He tells us that you and I can come into his presence moment by moment, and we have all these wonderful things that were promised. But you see, the Apostle Paul after, I mean the Apostle John, after outliving all of the other apostles by approximately thirty five years, way up in his nineties, They'd all gone to glory in one way or another, mostly by martyrdom, as we know. And the apostasy had begun in the church. And the Apostle John is saying in this epistle to you and I, to really have a blessing and to be a blessing, I want you to be occupied not with the blessings, but with the blesser. Not with the promises, but the promiser. And in these last days, and he spoke of them as last days, you and I, he would encourage us to have our hearts fixed on Christ. The giver is greater than the gifts. The Father and Son are both far greater than the benefits that Christ secured for us. And he said, our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ, and these things write we unto you that your joy might be full. I think the apostle had another purpose as well. You see, when I'm occupied with the Lord Jesus Christ, I'll find that I'm doing for others, and I'm not so worried about what's happening to me. It takes my mind off of myself, and it puts him, puts it on him. So in John's gospel, we learn that eternal life, pure, unchangeable, and necessary, dwells in the Son of God. John one four says, in him was life, and the life was the light of men. And now, because of the work of Calvary, the believer can have eternal life. John three sixteen tells us. John three fifteen speaks of it, and there it says eternal life. John three thirty six speaks of it. And in the sixth chapter of John, you remember that the Lord turned to the disciples when some had, had taken his words and turned and left, and he turned to the disciples, said, will ye also go away? And you remember what Peter said, to whom shall we go? For thou hast the words of what? Of eternal life. And so we see those words. And in this second verse it says, for the life was manifested, we've seen it and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us. You see, when God made Adam, he breathed into him the breath of life, it says, and he became a living soul. I'm one of those who believe that the Lord got right down on the ground, and he formed Adam of the dust, and he leaned over and he breathed into him, and it says he became a living soul. But he didn't have eternal life from creation. Eternal life comes by faith. And John shares this wonderful truth in the Gospel of John. That's why I believe so many people have been saved just from reading the Gospel of John, because it speaks of Christ as that eternal life. It tells us that God can now give us eternal life because Christ died. As we've reminded you already, because he literally, physically paid the price, God can save us, not only because of his mercy, because of his justice as well. And that's the subject, really, that's covered in these first two verses. The first two verses is really a capsule. It's a capsule of the Gospel of John, and the apostle tells us the glorious truth that you and I have eternal life. He explains that God has been seen walking in this world in the person of his son. He tells us these great truths that he might encourage our hearts and guide our lives. Now, it's been suggested that the apostle writes this epistle for at least four reasons. In the first ver- chapter here, in the third verse, it says, that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that you might know that ye also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ. So he wrote this epistle that you and I might have fellowship with the Father and with the Son. In the fourth verse, he said, these things write we unto you that your joy may be full. So he writes them that our joy might be full. In the second chapter, in the first verse, he says, my little children, these things write unto you that you sin not. And if any man sin, you have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. So he mentions that he writes it that the believer may not sin. When the believer realizes the wonder of the place into which he'd been brought, he will not or should not sin. And then over in the fifth chapter and the thirteenth verse, we see the fourth reason that he says he writes this. These things have I written unto you that believe in the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe in the name of the Son of God, that ye may know. You see, we have the knowledge and assurance of the present possession of eternal life. Christ manifested the moral nature of the character of G- God, and John would have us manifest it too. And it is that that we have fellowship with the Father and the Son. We walk in light, and we're told, and that's not how we walk, that's where we walk. We walk in the light as he is. We walk in fellowship with him. You remember the Lord asked Peter, uh, in that twenty first chapter of John, he says, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? And he said, care for the lambs, feed the lambs. He said, do you love me? And when he answered in the affirmative again, he didn't use agape love, you remember, but he said strong affection, he used phileo, and he said, I have strong affection, and he said, care for the sheep. And then thirdly, he said, Simon, son of Jonas, and you remember it says that he was disturbed that the Lord had asked him a third time. And he said, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? And he said, Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee, and he said, feed my sheep. See, you can't feed God's sheep unless you're, you're feeding on the Lord yourself. Can't feed his sheep. It's not possible for you to feed the sheep of God, to really feed them. The- that's the mature sheep it's speaking of, unless you are getting something yourself. So the first thing that we mentioned was fellowship with the Father. Secondly, that our joy might be full. And you and I have been made for God. We were made for joy. We were made for happiness. Sorrow came in because of sin, but God didn't bring in the sin. Many people today blame God for bringing in the sin, but God didn't bring in the sin. Man brought in the sin, as we know. And then thirdly, that we sin not. And you and I, how can we manifest God if we're sinning? So it should cause us, when we realize that we want to manifest him, that we should sin not. And then fourthly, we can have the knowledge and assurance of the present possession. We can say with the apostle, I know whom I have believed. We can say with him again, forgetting those things which are behind and looking on to those things which are before, we press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. I know that eternal life because I know him. Eternal life is not in creation. Eternal life is not in keeping the law. The eternal life is not even in the scriptures. Eternal life is in a person. It's in the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember that verse in Isaiah nine six says, unto you a child is born. That speaks of the, of the, uh, humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Unto you a son is given. That speaks of the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it says, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, the Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Have you ever wondered why it speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ as the everlasting Father? God is the Father, Christ is the Son. Why does it say the everlasting Father? The reason is that in Old Testament times, they spoke of Abram being the father of faith. They spoke of Jabal as being the father of those who live in tents and so forth. It was the one who brought it into being, and the Lord Jesus Christ is the one who came to introduce everlasting life and make it possible for you and I. So he's the father of everlasting life, and you and I have everlasting life because of the work and the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the apostle would have us know that it's now in us when we believe in Jesus. The Lord Jesus, I mean, eternal life is not something that we believe, but it's a present reality. It's ours. I have eternal life. I have the very life that the Father has, the very life that Christ has already in me, the moment I was saved. That part's never going to get any better. I'm going to get rid of the old nature one day when I see it. I'm going to get a new body, but the eternal life that I now have is the life that God has, and you and I need to realize this. It should cause us to trust him. It should cause us to yield our will to him, and that's what the Apostle John is trying, I believe, to teach us as we look at this epistle. You'll notice as you read the word of God that the writers of the two New Testament did not speak of going to heaven. What they spoke of was going to be where Christ is. The hymn has it right, where Christ is, 'tis what? Heaven, 'tis heaven there. I want you to notice the first words of the chapter. It says, that which was from the beginning. Now, you remember back in Genesis chapter one and verse one, it says, in the beginning, and that takes us back to creation. It takes us back to when God created the heavens and the earth. It says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. God doesn't explain it. He doesn't apologize for it. He doesn't detail. He simply says it. You can believe it or not believe it. You know, many people like to believe in evolution. Some folks years ago used to ask, Dad, do you believe in evolution? And Dad always said, well, some of my relatives might have hung by the neck, but none of them ever hung by the tail. He didn't believe in evolution. And you see, the thing is, I don't believe in evolution, and people say, why not? Because God says it. In the beginning was the word. God, I mean, in the beginning, it says God created the heavens and the earth. He doesn't justify it, he just says it, and you and I, by faith, believe it. Some fella told me recently, he said it, they think they, they found, I think it was false, but he was telling me, I think they found the ark, and now we'll be able to prove Noah's ark. Well, did you need to have Noah's ark proved? I never needed to have Noah's ark proved. God said it, and that was sufficient. I didn't need to have all of that. But at any rate, God said in the beginning. And then it says in John one one, John's gospel, it says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Now that in the beginning went way back before the other in the beginning, went way back. It says God is from everlasting. Before anything ever was, God already was. Nobody knows when God began. God began somewhere before anything else began, and that's what we know. And then our text says, that which was from the beginning, and this again is a different meaning. In our text, it means when Christ came into the world in incarnation, when he came to bring light in the beginning, in the beginning, or that which was from the beginning, I should say, which we've heard, which we've seen with our eyes, and so forth. You see, our Lord Jesus Christ did an amazing thing when he came in this world as a babe. I like to remind you of the fact that for thirty years, nine tenths of his life, he lived just like you and I. He went to work, went to work every day. He was a baby, he was a, he was a toddler, he was a, he was a boy in the house. He went and helped the father eventually and became a carpenter himself. Only three and a half years did he preach the gospel. For thirty years, he lived just like you and I did. He was born of the Spirit, born of a virgin. It says in John one fourteen, and the Word became flesh. It says was made, but became is better. Our Lord wasn't made anything. He became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And it's to this thought that John directs this first verse. The gospel was written that we might believe in him, knowing that he died for our sins, and the epistles are written that we might live as he did. And John, in these two opening verses, summarizes the life of Christ as an example for us. He's not only our savior, but he's a living, breathing, glorious example of God's love and grace to us. A glorious example of the manifestation of that here in this world. And John says that was his claim, and that was what he was, for we saw him and touched him. Bill McDonald in his book says, I'm glad that my knowledge of eternal life is not built in the speculations of philosophers or even theologians, but on the unimpeachable testimony of those who heard, saw, gazed at, handled him in whom it was incarnate. It's not merely a lovely dream, but a solid fact, carefully observed and accurate- accurately recorded. He says four things. He says we have heard. You see, you can hear without seeing somebody. You can hear somebody can call around the corner, you can't see them at all, but you can hear them. And most of us heard about him before we knew him. You remember John, I think, was one of the two that heard John the Baptist say, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. You and I, I would say most of us probably at least heard about him from parents, from Sunday school teachers, from preachers, from counselors, long before we heard him ourselves, long before we had a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And so you and I should want to tell others because that's the way we learn. And then secondly, it said seen with our eyes. See, John saw him as he began his public ministry, and John bear record, record. He said, I saw the spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it bowed upon me. He was quoting what John the Baptist has said. And he said, I, John the Baptist said, and I knew him not, but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizes with the Holy Ghost, and I saw and bear record, and this is the Son of God. Not only did they see Christ speak, but they saw him as well. And you know, it's a wonderful thing to see Christ in his eternal, in his eternal life. You know, I can tell you, I've been a number of places. You've been places I haven't been, but I've been like the San Francisco and Niagara Falls and the Redwoods, and I can describe those to you. I, I could do a fairly good job describing them, but it's not like being there. It's nothing like being there. And John said, not only have we heard him, but we've seen him. And so it is in your life and mine. We first hear of him, and then we see him, and we see the Father. We have fellowship, as that third verse says. Why? Because the Lord said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. Disciples said, show us the Father. And he said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. And so he displayed as man what eternal life is in the blessed and perfect life that he lived here in this world. And John says, we've seen him, and by the Spirit, you and I have seen him as well by faith. And then John said, looked upon. You remember the story of when John and Peter came to the grave? It said that John outran Peter, and it says when Peter came, I mean, when John came to the grave, he, the, the tomb, he looked in and he saw the linen clothes. And then it says that Peter came and he went in, and he saw the linen clothes with the napkin for the head separate. And then it says that John came in and he saw and believed. And there's three different words used for those three words to mean to see. You see, you and I see. You're looking at me, but if somebody were to ask you afterwards, what was he wearing, what color eyes he have, what color hair he has, you may not remember because you're looking at me, but you're not looking at me. You see, there was a man years ago in, in Miami, and his name was Professor Stu- Seward. We used to love to go down when we were kids, and he'd get some man in the audience, he'd say, do you have a watch? Say, yes. How long have you had it? uh Twenty five years. He said, put your hand over your watch. He said, is the watch square or is it round? Does it have Roman numerals or Arabic numbers? Does it have them at all twelve places, or does it, does it have something else at the, at the 12 and the 3 and the 9 and the, and the six? He said, does it have a sweep second? Does it cover the whole watch? What color is the watch? Is it gold? And most people couldn't answer correctly, not even ten percent of the questions, and he'd ask thirteen or fourteen. You know why? They look for the time. They never look at the watch. In our tire business years ago, a man came in, bought some tires, he said, I bet you're glad we ca- I came in, and I said, why is that? He said, because, you know, you just being new in business, you probably appreciate the business. So we've been in business for four and a half years. Why do you say we've been new? He said, no, you haven't. I had to show him my license to prove I'd been in four and a half years. He said, I come this way every day to work and have for the last ten years, and I never saw it. We had tires all over the roof and piled up around. Never saw it. I said, when did you realize that you needed tires? He said, last night when I came home, I noticed that one of them was bare. See? So then he began to look for tires. And that's what it means. He said he saw. And John came and he looked in and he saw that, that the Lord was gone. But Peter came in, and Peter noticed something that John had not seen. He noticed that the napkin that had been wrapped around the head, they used to wrap you just like a mummy, you know, they wrapped the daddies the same, but they wrapped everybody that way, and they used to put these, these, uh, napkins about the head separately. That was the last thing they wrapped so people could see. And when they went in, the body shape of the Lord was still in that. The Lord had just come out. He hadn't cut it to get out. He hadn't unwound it, but so that people would know he was gone, he t- they'd taken the covering about the head, and they'd put it separately there. And when John came in and saw that, and that's the third see. See, see now Peter saw, and he noticed things that John hadn't seen, but now John came in, and it said he saw, and what, and he believed. You see, he saw with understanding. And that's what you and I need to do. That's what John is talking about here. He said he looked upon him. John was one of those who loved the Lord, but he never spoke of that. He said, I am the disciple whom Jesus loves. You see, he points out from his writing his cre- keen interest. You remember what it says of Mary, the mother of the Lord Jesus? It said, it said she pondered all of these things in her heart. She contemplated the Lord Jesus, and I believe that was true of John. I believe that's one of the reasons that the Lord took John when he healed Jireh's daughter. He took John into the Garden of Gethsemane. He took John up onto the Mount of Transfiguration. And John saw all of these things, and he looked, and he thought about who he was. And Paul, in his writings of the, speaks of the glory given to our Lord because of his works. And we know he's going to be glorified in the coming day because of the accomplished work. But John speaks of the glory of his because of who he was, the only begotten Son of God. He looked upon him, and was not only what the eyes saw, but we might say what the mind and eye and heart conceived from what was seen, and it thrilled John, and he would have a thrill, you and I. And then it said fourthly, in the hands of Handel. The apostle would have us know that God, in manifesting the Son, exposed him to all the senses, heard, seen, handled. And John said he's still awed by it as he looks back over the years. And I wonder if you and I are thrilled as we read the word of God and see the person of the Lord Jesus Christ manifested in the words. Are we thrilled by it? Do we handle of the Word of Life? Do we make him real in our lives? If it hasn't been so, if that hasn't been our lot to be so thrilled, we can do nothing about yesterday, but we can do, as Paul says, forgetting those things which are behind. Don't sorrow for that you can't do anything about. But he said, I press toward the mark. You can do something about today and tomorrow. You can make Christ real in your life. Remember the words of the Lord to Thomas after his resurrection. He said, handle me and see. Reach hither your fingers and behold my hands and thy hand and thrust it into my side. And be not faithless, but believing. You see, it's only through the death and the resurrection that you and I can have fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, blessed are those that have not seen and yet have believed. So you and I live in that wondrous day when we have a man on the throne. John and you and I look forward to seeing him and be like him. The Lord is going to come again. That's what, what's the hope and the, and the security of every real Christian. We're looking forward to the time when he's going to come again. It's the motivating force for purity in your life. Because we know that's true, he says, be pure. Purify yourself even as I am pure. May God help us to realize the wonder of these truths and do what John suggests. We often don't hear his word. Let's hear his word. We often really don't go into the word to see him. Let's go to see him, and let's handle him. Let's touch of the things that the Lord offers to us. And may we also, may we also, um, he realize the wonder of looking upon him, truly seeing him who loved us and gave himself for us. May God bless these thoughts to your hearts from this lovely little first epistle of John. We'll give you a few thoughts on the second chapter and the first words of the second chapter next Wednesday, if the Lord be not come. We thank thee, our God and Father, for the privilege of looking into thy word. We thank thee for the wonder of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. We know, our God and Father, that with our finite minds, we're not able to comprehend all that we would like to, but by faith we can enter into these wondrous truths and make them our own and live in the joy and and bliss of of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ while we walk through this world. We look at the trials and the problems of this world, and there is nothing alongside the light and glory of the person who loved us and gave himself for us. May God bless these thoughts to our hearts. Be with each one here. We pray that each one that's old enough knows thy son as their savior, but if there be one here who's never put their trust in him, may they realize that these things are true, that they're of value, and and they shall never know real joy in this world, and they'll never know real joy in the eternity to come unless they put their trust in him, whom to know is life eternal. We ask it now, giving thanks in his worthy and precious name.