Let the Record Show

In other words, God the Father has brought forward these three witnesses to substantiate his own declaration that Jesus is the Christ.

So here's what's happening. He's bringing forward these witnesses, and now he's saying, these three are all part of my testimony that Jesus really is the Son of God. So John is saying, listen, if we would believe the testimony of mortal men, how can we resist believing the testimony of an immortal God? The Bible gives clear testimony about Jesus Christ. Scripture tells what Jesus accomplished in the past, what he's accomplishing in the present, and what he'll one day accomplish in the future.

The Bible answers questions like, who is Jesus? What did he say? What did he do? Why was he crucified? Where is he now?

What does he expect from his disciples? Thankfully, it's all written in the record of God's word. Stephen is in a series called Without a Doubt.

Today he continues through that series with this message called Let the Record Show. Several years ago, a state review board approved a new set of textbooks for the statewide public school system. It wasn't long before a group of parents became alarmed at the information that their children were bringing home and having to learn, so they conducted their own evaluation. When they wrapped up their review, they had found more than 200 errors in one history textbook alone, including some major blunders as in Napoleon actually winning the battle of Waterloo instead of losing Harry Truman dropping the atom bomb on Korea and not in Japan. They also misspelled a number of names, one of them which led them actually down the wrong path.

They had General Douglas MacArthur leading the anti-communist purge in the 50s rather than Senator Joe McCarthy. Well, at any rate, the parents demanded action and the education board decided to form a committee and do their own review, which they did, and they found even more errors. The parents, who never really did stop looking, found some more as well.

When it was all tallied up, there were more than 5,200 errors. So when the parents demanded the textbooks be recalled by the publisher, the publisher refused and their spokesman argued that, quote, except for the errors, these were the finest textbooks they had published to date, end quote. Now the truth is, we're given to believe whatever we might see in a textbook. I don't know about you, but when I was in middle school, if my history text had said that Napoleon won instead of lost, I would have memorized that. I would have missed an interesting man whose biography I've read.

I read about MacArthur's life, not McCarthy's life. That's where parents play a role that's critical. Parents who watch out for the minds and the hearts of their children and parents who care are prone to evaluate, aren't they? They're prone to critically think through these topics and these trends, these textbooks that come home and things their children say, their teachers say.

Good for you. It struck me while studying this particular passage that John the apostle views himself as a parent. He's a concerned father. In fact, if you, for the sake of time, don't do it, but if you slipped over to his third letter, you'd find him saying, you know, there's no greater joy in my life than seeing that you, the believer, my children, he calls us, are walking in the truth. Like a concerned parent, this apostle wants to make sure that we're getting it right, and he finds his deepest joy in his children, in the faith, the believer, who ends up walking in the way of the truth. Because it really is going to matter.

Whether Napoleon won or lost, it is important to get that right, but that isn't going to determine your eternal future. The truth that John immerses us in will. John wants us to have confidence in the truth that he's presenting. He doesn't want us to have any doubts that we're hearing truth ultimately from God, which is why he substantiates his letter as we've learned with what we could call divine footnotes. He's always putting in evidences of this is true because. He will, in this text that we're going to study, he'll use a word over and over again that has helped me as an expositor identify a theme.

He repeats a lot of information, and yet he changes his words, his words every so often, and he does this here. We end it at verse eight, and so I want to begin at verse nine of 1 John chapter five. And beginning at verse nine and going through to verse 11, seven times you're going to find this word Martireo in the Greek language. It could be translated in your Bible testimony, witness, derivatives of that, witnessing or testify, and even the word record.

This is the record. This is the witness. In fact, you could begin circling at verse nine, the different times that word will show up from verse nine to verse 11. That's the theme of his thought. He's repeating that word, not because he doesn't have access to a thesaurus, but because the Spirit of God is saying, I want you to emphasize the record. Let's go back to the record. Let the record speak for itself. That's what John is going to be saying.

Now, before we dive in here, you're at the right place. Before we get here, I want to remind you that John is writing to a mixed audience, certainly a Jewish audience, who were trained to evaluate someone's testimony. They would have been the kind of parent to evaluate a textbook that came home. One thing they held to was the need for substantiation. In fact, in a Jewish court setting, Jewish law required the presence of two or at least two, if you could, three reliable witnesses would be wonderful.

It goes back to the law of God through Moses in Deuteronomy 19, verse 15, where he said, by the mouth of two or three witnesses, a matter is confirmed. And by the way, the Jews didn't allow just anybody to show up and say, I'll be one of those three. They wouldn't allow any number of people to present testimony. They wouldn't allow anyone with a criminal record, no matter what your personal testimony of integrity might be in your current lifestyle. If you had a record, you couldn't testify in court. If you had any kind of financial indiscretion in your record, you also would be viewed as untrustworthy and you couldn't testify in court, which took care of tax collectors and custom officials.

Anybody that showed up in court as a witness and perjured themselves, that was punishable by death, which kept that to a minimum, if you can imagine that. You really wanted somebody well connected in John's world to give a testimony, to go on record. John is leading us then to that very point so that our hearts can be cleansed of any doubt. Look at verse 9. He says, if we receive, and the implication of that condition is, and we will, if we receive, and we will, the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater.

See, he's moving from a lesser to greater argument. If we would believe the testimony of reputable witnesses, if we would take to heart and trust the record of a witness in a court, of a law, of a man or a woman, how much more should we believe the testimony of God? I mean, how trustworthy a witness can you get?

How clean of any past indiscretion could you find to give a record on behalf of whatever it is that they are defending or attempting to prove? What about God who cannot lie? Notice the last phrase of verse 9. God has testified.

Here's his record concerning his son. God has, perfect tense, testified. In other words, God has placed himself permanently on record.

Write this down and I'm not going to change. It's permanent as to the authenticity of Jesus Christ being God, the Son, the true Messiah. If you were with us in our last study, you might have remembered even to this day the three witnesses that John brings forward, the water, the blood, and the spirit. Now what he does here in verse 9 is he effectively tells us that these three witnesses of water, blood, and spirit are actually part of God's testimony concerning Jesus. In other words, God the Father has brought forward these three witnesses to substantiate his own declaration that Jesus is the Christ.

So here's what's happening. God is fulfilling his law all the way back to Deuteronomy. He's bringing forward these witnesses and now he's saying these three are all part of my testimony that Jesus really is the Son of God. So John is saying, listen, if we would believe the testimony of mortal men, how can we resist believing the testimony of an immortal God? You can believe him.

He always tells the truth. And certainly this truth is going to matter because it's going to determine your eternal destiny. Now he goes a little further in verse 10. Notice the first half of that verse. The one who believes in the Son of God has this record, this testimony in himself.

It's interesting. What is he referring to here? Well John is referring not to an immortal record of God's testimony but an internal record of God's testimony through the Holy Spirit who indwells the believer. The testimony of God is inside you as the temple of God's spirit. In fact Paul would write to the Corinthians that apart from the Holy Spirit, you can't believe the Holy Spirit must open your eyes for the natural man that is the unbeliever can't receive the things of the spirit of God because he considers them foolish.

They're foolishness to him. But we can know them because they are spiritually discerned and we have the spirit within us. In fact, one of the wonderful testimonies then, one of the wonderful evidences that Jesus is the Son of God which ought to remove all doubting is that internal witness of the Holy Spirit that confirms in your heart Jesus is the Son of God. The gospel message which for the world is entirely external. Historical facts are there.

They can evaluate it. But for the believer, it isn't just external facts. It is experiential truth. We have internalized the truth in the person of the spirit who bears witness then with our spirit by his illuminating ministry and indwelling ministry that this testimony of God resonates with our spirit and we sit here. Perhaps if you're a believer, you're all saying the same thing then you would say, yes, I know it's true. You say, but how do I know I'm really indwelt by the Holy Spirit?

I mean, is it something you have to feel? What if I do doubt? What if there are times when my faith is strong and at other times my faith is weak?

Well, welcome to the church for one thing. But secondly, John isn't leading you here to evaluate how you feel. How you feel is going to be up and down and all around the mulberry bush. It's going to be affected by your emotions.

It's going to be affected by conditions. He's not asking you to evaluate how you feel. He wants you to evaluate your response to the objective record of God concerning his son, the record you have in your lap, the record you're hearing from the preaching of this pulpit ministry. John is simply and squarely asking, do you believe the record of God? And in that little quiz, he actually gives you a multiple choice opportunity which in middle school I really appreciated.

And in this case, it's only two possible answers which really is wonderful. Notice the last part of verse 10. The one who does not believe God actually makes him out to be a liar because he has not believed in the record that God has given concerning his son.

Okay, there's the pop quiz. Which one are you? Are you the one who believes the record of God concerning Jesus or are you denying the record of God concerning Jesus? Maybe you're sitting in your seat saying in your heart, you know the record of God about Jesus isn't probably all that significant as Stephen is delivering it and I'm not really buying into it and I'm not really convinced that he is the only way to heaven. He's the way, the truth, and the life and no one comes to the Father by him. I'm not sure I buy into this thing about him being God the son, God incarnate, deity equal in essence.

Okay, you came to the right place. But I have to tell you John says if you end up with that on your record when you stand before God, that's tantamount to calling God a liar. John in his soft pedaling way just kind of calls the shots, doesn't he? You're effectively walking up to the witness stand and pointing your finger in the face of God the Father and saying you are not telling the truth, right?

Well, let's just call what it is. He's either telling the truth or he's lying. I can tell you where you want to be when you stand before him. It will not be to call him a liar. It will be to have believed the record of Jesus Christ. Do you believe this record about Christ? Let's go back even a little further in your own personal life.

Do you believe the record of God about who you are? About where you came from? There's an interesting subject today. It's always been an interesting subject. In fact, as I considered this issue, it occurred to me again that by the year 1808 there were at least 80 theories of origins cataloged in our world. 80 theories of origins. In fact, they go all the way back to the fall of mankind, whenever mankind decided to try to come up with a way to avoid the fact that they might stand before a God who might not appreciate being called a liar. So let's come up with something else. By 1808 there were at least 80 theories.

You can do the research. Theories that we came from seaweed. Theories that we were birthed out of battles between gods and goddesses. Theories that we descended upward from animals. And even more recently, a theory that I certainly hadn't cataloged as a 25-year-old about to enter the ministry because I'd never heard of it and had never conceived of it, and yet it's probably one of the most popular theories today and it has a growing following among our young people and it is this view that life on Earth began by aliens depositing life forms which then evolved. You simply evolved from some prehistoric matter left here by space travelers from another galaxy.

I hadn't thought of that one 25 years ago. In fact, I had a student come up to me after one of the services that, you know what, one of my classmates was saying the same thing, convinced that we are nothing more than an experiment by aliens from another galaxy. Ask kids on the street and you'll find that this is a growing view of growing popularity. Why do you believe what you believe? What's the ultimate source of your fundamental beliefs about who you are and where you came from and where you're going, which is John's great passion for us to know without a doubt by taking us to the objective record of God's word, which then strengthens your faith. By the way, why is it that the vast majority today of college students are abandoning the faith of their fathers during their freshman year? As soon as they clear out, they're abandoning the faith of their fathers.

If I could just read the book that's just talking about the phenomena which is occurring. People are scratching their heads trying to figure out why. I think the answer is really simple. It was the faith of their fathers. It wasn't theirs. It isn't theirs. What about yours? Is it the faith of your parents right now? Is it the faith of your past? Maybe you're here trying to reclaim what it means.

Is it personal? Paul would write to the Romans, be fully convinced in your mind as you take it and critically evaluate this textbook. It's been the most critiqued text on planet earth and it has stood the closest inspection. This is the time to stay alert.

You're entering a world or you're in it right now that will criticize the record of God's testimony more than it will ever critically evaluate its own. This is the time to evaluate the textbooks, the trends, the teachers, the topics. What travels across your desk or boardroom table, the philosophies of life, the path and the pursuits of those around you, the values of your neighborhood. Stay alert.

Stay alert like never before and constantly go back in your mind and your heart to the record of God. I got to tell you, I have discovered something about growing older that I don't like. Not that there's anything that I like about growing older, but I've told Marcia, you know, there's something going on. It seems that my automatic pilot is beginning to lose its edge. In other words, you know how it is you'd be driving down the road and five or 10 miles down the road, you have no recollection of where you came from. Is that happening to you too?

You might not want to agree. You're growing older if it is, but at any rate, you have no recollection. Actually, it's a good thing because your unconscious, subconscious mind is actually driving. It's alert. The older I get, that automatic pilot is wearing out and I have to stay more and more alert. Can't daydream, sing rather poorly with the radio, talk. In fact, it's so funny if Marcia will say, look there and I'll look there, I just immediately go into another lane and I don't know what's happening to the automatic pilot, but I'm losing it.

And evidently, it's only going to get worse. Because I've seen some of you driving. I read some time ago the rather humor story about two elderly women, elderly as in much older than me. They were out driving and Millie, her name was Millie, driving and her friend and the passengers seat and they came to an intersection and there's a red light and Millie just drove right straight through it. Didn't even pause, didn't even slow down. And her friend thought that that was odd. Maybe I missed it. Maybe it wasn't red after all. Didn't say anything. Came to another intersection, light was red and sure enough, Millie barreled right through it. Didn't even slow down. Her friend is getting a little nervous and wondering, should I say anything?

Well, maybe then again I didn't see things correctly and maybe I'm missing something. And after a while, they came to another intersection. Again, the light was red and Millie just went right through it.

Didn't even pause, didn't even slow down and finally her friend said, I got to say something. She spoke up and she said, Millie, do you know you just ran through three red lights in a row? You're going to get us killed. Millie said, oh my, am I driving? I'm not there yet.

But it is getting worse. I guess that's where you end up. You don't even know you're behind the wheel.

Moral of the story is you're behind the wheel. Stay alert. You better think critically and you better tie your thinking skills back to objective truth by the most reliable witness of all, the one who has seen everything. Omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God. And what is the record of God regarding his son? Look at verse 11. The testimony is this. In other words, here it is, plain and simple, that God has given us eternal life. We're going to deal with that phrase when we get to verse 13.

But I want you to notice the tense. He has already given us eternal life. You're not waiting to get eternal life. You're waiting to get an eternal body. You have through Christ now eternal life. This is the promise of God and the promise of God never wears thin.

It never goes away. It always comes true. Which is why John effectively writes God the Father has provided a testimony, a permanent record. It's on file. You can evaluate it.

You can test it. You can observe the prophecies. You can see them coming true in the person of Christ in his first advent.

And prophecies about his second advent are going to come true as well down to the very last detail. John is saying let the record speak. Let the record speak. This message is called Let the Record Show. I hope it was a blessing to you. If you tuned in late and missed part of today's message, you can go back and hear the whole thing. We've posted it to our website, which you'll find at wisdomonline.org.

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