In the sermon 'The Three That Bear Witness' by Scott Brown, the focus is on 1 John 5:6-13, which discusses the three witnesses that testify to the truth of Jesus Christ: water, blood, and the Spirit. These witnesses provide the foundation for a believer's faith and assurance of salvation. Brown emphasizes the importance of internalizing these witnesses, as they testify to the reality of a believer's transformation and new life in Christ. He explains various interpretations of the water and blood references and argues that they signify both historical events in Jesus' life and broader biblical themes of cleansing and atonement. The Spirit is portrayed as a vital presence that confirms the truth of the Gospel in believers' hearts, guiding them in faith and life. Brown stresses the necessity of certainty in one's faith and urges believers to rely on the solid ground of these witnesses rather than subjective feelings. He concludes by highlighting the transformative power of these elements in providing eternal life and the assurance of being a child of God.

If you would open to 1 John 5, we'll read from verse 6 through 13. This is He who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not only by water, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. And these three are one.

And there are three that bear witness on earth, the Spirit, the water and the blood. And these three agree as one. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater. For this is the witness of God which he has testified of his Son. He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself.

He who does not believe God has made him a liar because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of his Son. And this is the testimony that God has given us eternal life and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.

Let's pray. O Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word, the word of Christ, the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world, that taketh away the sins of the world. Oh Father, we thank you for the Son of God. Lord, we pray that we would receive your word humbly. Father, that you would cause our hearts to receive this word and be changed.

Lord, I pray that you would give Scott the strength. I pray for his back and I pray Lord that you give him the strength to stand. Father I pray that you would cause your word to go forth and do its work. Oh Lord we Thank you for this privilege of having your word and being taught by it. May the Spirit do its work now.

In Jesus' name, amen. John, the apostle, he so very dearly wants his little children to know if they truly believe. And this is the central emphasis of this passage of scripture. He's really asking his little children to examine whether they truly believe or not. And that's why in verse 12 he says, He who has the Son has life.

He who does not have the Son does not have life. And in verse 13, these things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know, those words, that you may know that you have eternal life and that you continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. You know, this whole matter of having life and whether you have it or not is everything that John is concerned about in this passage. But we also know that he's already said this a couple of times before, hasn't he? He's practiced the discipline and the blessing of repetition.

You know, if you ever take a homiletics class in seminary, as some of you have done, such a thing, that you know that every good communicator does three things. They say what they are going to say, and then they say what they say, and then they say what they said. And that's exactly what John does. He continues to loop back and to repeat these things because he desires his little children to understand them in the level of depth that they would have assurance of their salvation. John is a wise and old man now, maybe in his 80s or his 90s.

And his greatest desire is that his little children know who they are and where they have come from. Are they born of God or are they born of this world? And he says, you know, he who has the Son has life. And the question is, do you know? Because you either have the son or you do not.

In the previous text it was very clear. You are either born again or you are not. And you have life or you have it not. You have the Son or you have him not. You are a new creation or you are not.

And John is continually bringing that before his children. Now one of the interesting things about John is that He assumes that they do believe, but he cannot leave the matter to some casual treatment of whether they believe or not. And so he is reasoning with his children so that they would have confidence that they do believe. And so that's really the heart of everything that John says here. And so John is saying, here is how you know that you believe.

And he's been making it very clear with every clause in his letter that it's not what you say with your mouth, but it's who you really are. And is there something real that has happened in your life? Like, do you have fellowship with the Father? Do you really have fellowship with the Father? He says that we have fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.

He's saying that if you have life, then you know that you're forgiven, you know that you are cleansed, you are born again, that you are abiding in Him. He says that if you've been born of God, the antichrist, the false teachers, will not be able to convince you to follow them. They won't be able to because greater is He that is in you than He that is in the world. He will protect you. He will see you through.

He will make sure you don't fall into the hand of false teachers. And that you walk in the light, that you walk in love, that you have life, and that the works of the devil are being destroyed. So John has been explaining what it means to have the life of Jesus Christ in your soul. And in the previous verse he's been speaking about faith. The immediate context is critical that we understand here because in verse 5 he says, this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith.

So he's been talking about how God has planted a seed of faith in those who have been born of him and it's a seed of victory and and it oh this victory overcomes the world so he's been teaching about faith and and so he's been asking is it real faith Is it faith that is overcoming the world? Are you being overcome by the world? Or are you overcoming the world by the power of the Holy Spirit working in you. And he's been talking in verse 5 about upon what your faith is resting. And so now he explains that, what that thing that faith must rest upon.

And what is the object of your faith? Why is it that you think that you have faith? And so John is making it very clear that faith depends on the testimony of three witnesses. And those three witnesses are mentioned here. There are three things that have happened in history that are the grounds of true faith, of true belief.

These three things, the water, the blood, and the spirit. So the ground of your faith is not not primarily your feelings. The ground of your faith is not primarily sort of the mantra confession that you make or the theological positions that you've taken. That's not the ground of your faith. It's far deeper.

It's far more real. It has to do with water and blood and the Holy Spirit And so John is making this argument for what? What faith rests upon what does your faith rest upon is really the big issue that John is dealing with here You know is the confidence of your faith laid upon the practices of your life, the things you know, the way that you conduct yourself in this world, the discipline, the various ways that you operate in your work, the way that you have your family? Is this the ground of your faith? No, absolutely not.

The ground of your faith is on something far more significant and deeper than that And John is mentioning what they are the only sound basis for your faith is Jesus Christ and his work what he has done and the witness that he has put in the world of the water and the blood and the Spirit of God. This is the ground of faith that John is arguing for. And John wants you to have certainty about that witness in your heart. He wants you to know with certainty that you have the witness, that you've embraced the witness, you've seen it, and it is part of you, of the water and the blood and the Holy Spirit. He desires you to have certainty.

You know, one of the commentators that I read, I forgot who it was, said it's sinful not to have certainty. I don't know if I would go that far, but you can see how much John labors to see that you have certainty in your faith, that you know who you are, you know where you've come from, you've been born of God, and that you have this testimony, this witness that is real to you, and you have embraced it. And so if you believe the testimony, then you will have experienced the blessings of the water and the blood and the Spirit. Because His testimony, God's testimony toward His Son, has actually become your testimony. And when you see these images of the water and the blood and the spirit you resonate with them You say yes, that is my testimony.

It's my only hope It's the testimony upon which my faith rests. It's a solid ground of a testimony. And that's why John says, he who has the Son has life. All of these testimonies, all of these images that he lays before us all have one thing in common they speak of life they speak of real life that exists in your soul and that is being perfected as the Holy Spirit continues to work so the words witness or testimony they're mentioned eight times in these six verses. So, it should be clear to us what John is trying to get across.

He's using these words over and over again in order to help us to understand the focus of what he is saying. And these signs or these testimonies are proofs of the gospel. And these three great witnesses stand as the fundamental witnesses to Jesus Christ, his death and his resurrection and his glorification and what all that means in the life of the believer. And the three witnesses are water, blood, and the Holy Spirit. So the three witnesses are revealed here in verses 6 through 9.

If you have an outline in front of you, you'll see where I'm going. It'll help you track with my progress through this passage. But What we read here is, this is he who came by water and blood. I love these words. This is he who came.

He came. Where would you be today if he had not come? Where would you be? Where would your family be? Where would this nation be?

You know, people are very upset about the progress and the direction of the nation. But Let's ask this question. Where would we be today if the sun had not come? We would still be like the Indians here 400 years ago. We'd be killing each other and putting grease on our bodies to keep us warm and living in tents.

We would have no law, no good law. He came. But you think about that for your own heart. If He had not come, where would you be today? I shudder to think of such a thing.

This is He who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not only by water, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness on earth, the spirit, the water, and the blood. And these three agree as one.

And then verse 9, if we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater. In other words, men will tell you all kinds of things about yourself, but the witness of God is greater. Whether someone says that they think you're a Christian because the way you act is not all that relevant, What is relevant is what God says. And God is saying, these are the witnesses. Man is not the primary witness.

He could be a helpful witness, but he is not the primary witness. God is greater, for this is the witness of God which he testified in his son. So do you see the structure of John's thinking here? He wants us to consider the witness that God has put in the world and that witness is a witness of his son And these three things are the testimonies of his son and the salvation that he brings. These testimonies show the beauty and the power of salvation that is in Jesus Christ.

And the question that John wants us to ask is this, can I relate to that? Is that me? Do I resonate with these witnesses? And have I experienced the power of their witness?" Now there are many testimonies or witnesses to the truth of Jesus Christ. In Acts chapter 1731 we learn that it is the resurrection of Jesus Christ that testifies that he's the Son of God.

In Acts chapter 2 verse 22, we learn that it's the miracles and the signs and the wonders that have testified that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And here we find a fulfillment of what John said in his gospel in John 5 37 where Jesus said, the Father testifies of me. And here these are the ways that God the Father has testified that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Now, what is a witness? Now, this is something that particularly younger children need to understand.

Like when it says, these are the witnesses, what is a witness? And I hope you parents somehow teach your children what a witness is. Because that's really the whole heart. You can't really understand this passage unless you understand what a witness is. Now I'll give you an illustration of that.

Let's say you were me yesterday. And when I was walking beside a lake, and I looked into the lake, and I saw a great disturbance of water, there was something there. Now, I know that when I see that in a lake, there are only a few things that it could be witnessing to, because that movement of water is a witness. It shows that something is going on. And in the lake that I was walking by, it could be a turtle.

It could be a fish. Or it could be a muskrat. But I couldn't tell which one it was. Sometimes you can almost tell what it is under the water by the way the water is disturbed. But there was a witness to something.

Something was there That made me see that something was underneath it and that's really what these witnesses are about There is something that you see in the water and in the blood and and in the spirit You see those things and they bear witness to something else something real something great that that that has happened and You know sailors understand this very well. Maybe you've heard this statement from sailors who understand what it means to be a witness to certain phenomena in the sky. If you're sailing in a ship around the world, you look at the sky to navigate. And so sailors would say red sky at morning, sailors take warning. Red sky at night, sailors delight.

Because those skies bear witness to something. They tell you something about what is, and that's what a witness is. And that's exactly the kind of witness that God has given in the water and the blood and in the Holy Spirit. You are seeing a witness of something that is designed to draw you into belief so that you may have life, so that you might have that same life. What you see on the surface, you enter into the life of what's really there, because you have seen a witness of it.

And so, you know, John is speaking about these witnesses that are proofs of salvation. And if you see these things in your life, then it bears witness that you are a child of God. So John is speaking about this witness. The first witness is the witness of water. There are various ways that men have interpreted these verses.

The water, the blood, and the spirit. Some have said the water and the blood refers to these two things. The water at Jesus' baptism and his bloodshed on the cross. Others have said, no, no, no, no, it's not that at all It's the water and the blood that Jesus came by in his birth In other words that he is a man that the water and blood testified that Jesus Christ was real. Because there was a heresy that was being taught that Jesus wasn't real, that he was a phantom.

And so some say, no, John was saying, no, Jesus is real. He's a real person. He was born with water and blood, just like every person is born with water and blood. He was the God man. So some say, no, he's arguing for that.

Others say, no, no, no, it's not that at all. It's that Jesus, when he was on the cross, He was pierced through by a spear of a soldier down below. And you remember what came out? It was water and blood, because when someone dies in crucifixion, one of the signs of death is that water, Water comes up and it rests over the heart. So that when Roman soldiers would do to testify whether a person was dead, is that they would pierce him, and if water also came out with the blood, It was a sign that he was dead.

So some say, no, no, no, the image is that, no, Jesus Christ really did die. He's not like what the Muslims say, that he never went to the cross. He's not like the Mormons say, that he never went to the cross and died. In other words, there are various ways to interpret the water and the blood. And now this passage doesn't identify precisely in clear terms so that we know exactly which image He's referring to.

My view is that he is referring to the whole testimony of water throughout the Scriptures. He's referring to the whole testimony of blood throughout the Scriptures. And he's referring to the whole testimony of the work and the power of the Holy Spirit in all of scripture. So that's the way I see it now. And I was very comforted in this view when someone recommended to me a sermon by Charles Spurgeon who preached on this text, and that's how he treated it.

So that's what I'm gonna do today. So while it is true he was born of water and blood in his birth, and that testifies that he was a man, it is true that he was pierced in his side and he was dead and the water and the blood came out. Those things are absolutely true. And I think you can preach each one of those in truth and have sound doctrine. Either one you choose, you're going to end up with sound doctrine.

But water and blood and the Spirit always testify to something in Scripture. And I want to give you five uses of water in the Bible. And there are more, but I'm going to isolate this down to this testimony of water, because it is water that testifies to salvation in Jesus Christ. And God has been so kind to lay out before us in this world so many testimonies, so many things that will remind us of Him. Whenever you see water, you're seeing a testimony because water means something in the Bible.

And like for example, water was used in the ceremonial law. The first use of water that I would just identify was of the Old Covenant sacrifices where water was used in the tabernacle and then later on in the temple sacrifices for sin. And for example, a bird would be slaughtered and it would be washed with water and there was water and there was blood in the Old Testament sacrifices. But the water in the Old Testament sacrifices was a prefiguring of Christ. It was a testimony of Jesus Christ that Jesus Christ's water cleanses.

And water is symbolic of cleansing. The high priest was always washing with water because it symbolized purity, that a priest must be pure. The washing by water of the priest was symbolic of Jesus Christ, the perfectly pure Son of God. The old covenant priests in the type of Christ washed in order that when Christ would fulfill all the law, everyone would see how Christ fulfilled all purity. He was the perfect, pure Son of God.

He never sinned. Jesus never broke a single law of God. He was perfectly pure. And so the Old Testament use of water in the tabernacle and the temple was a figure or a type of Jesus Christ. You can read of this in Leviticus 8.

You can read of this in Exodus chapter 29, where you have all of these elements brought together. The blood, the water, and the Spirit. All these things are brought together in the Old Testament sacrifices because they are prefiguring Jesus Christ as the water of life. In the cases where water is used, it always speaks of the cleansing that results from substitutionary atonement. And this is why there is so much water and there's washing.

And water speaks of Jesus Christ. Water from the rock in the Old Testament where Moses struck the rock was a prefiguring of Jesus Christ. Moses struck the rock and God provided water for the people out of that rock. And the Apostle Paul makes this very clear in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse four. He said, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them.

That rock was Christ, and it was the water that came out of the rock. And that's, you find David repeating this same principle when he speaks of, blessed be my rock, He's my rock. And he speaks of this matter of water as well. And that's why the Lord Jesus Christ, when he was on the Sabbath, and he in John chapter 737, he said, whoever believes in me out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. This he spoke of the Spirit who is to come.

And So you have these images that teach us about what happens to you when you are saved. And that is that you have water, you have living water, and it's water of life that just continues to bubble up. It never runs dry. You may turn down the volume by your worldliness or something like that, but that water will never run dry. And it's the water of life.

It keeps on flowing. Now the second use of water is the use of water in the birth of Jesus Christ. And we've already spoken of that, but this is, I believe, a critical understanding of this passage of scripture that that not only is is Jesus Christ proclaimed as living water He's also proclaimed as He being a man. He was both God and man. One of the most difficult things for any of us to understand is the doctrine of the incarnation.

How can you have God and man together? It's a mystery. You will not be able to get to the bottom of understanding it or explaining it. But there is this use of water in birth. And you are born again by water and by blood.

To be born again is a little bit like a birth of water and blood. And then the third use of water is in the water of baptism. Water, of course, was used in the baptism of Jesus Christ. And the Father speaks to His Son at His baptism, and He bears witness to the truth of His Son. And He says, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

So this is the use of water in baptism and is John referring to this particular thing? He most likely is because my sense of this passage is he's speaking of this matter of water and the waters of life that flow to the believer. And then the fourth use of water is in his crucifixion, the water and the blood flowing from his side. And we love that song, Rock of Ages, that Augustus Toplety wrote. And he takes this meaning of the water and the blood from the cross.

And he writes, Rock of Ages cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee. Let the water and the blood From thy riven side which flowed be of sin the double cure Cleanse me from its guilt in power. And so he speaks of the water and the blood as the double cure and It's it's it's it's legitimate to understand the water and the blood that way He's speaking of what what theologians called double imputation that that our sins are laid upon the unblemished Lamb of God, and he takes his sins upon himself. He takes upon God's wrath that we deserved. But he not only justifies us by his blood, He also makes us pure.

That's that's that's the double imputation of the life of Jesus Christ He takes the punishment for your sin and then he cleanses you all your life long as he sanctifies you That's the double cure Save from wrath and make me pure. That's the power of the blood of Jesus Christ. He doesn't just save you from wrath, He makes you pure. Some people think God only saved me from wrath, I don't need to be pure. Well, that's a false gospel.

You are saved from wrath and made pure. That's a testimony of the true gospel. And the Bible speaks of this so clearly. Peter speaks of it in 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 24. Speaking of Jesus, who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness, by whose stripes you were healed.

That's double imputation. It's justification and it's sanctification. The blood represents that and the water represents it as well. And so when we sing Rock of Ages We're not just, we're just not asking Him to save us from our sins and our guilt. We're also, we're also testifying that He's making us pure, and that's the double cure for sin.

Then the fifth use of water is for refreshment. And this is a very prominent theme in scripture. Do you remember how many times when we were in Isaiah we ran into water, the refreshing of water. Remember the jackals? They're in this bombed out city.

They're in these ruins and there's this arrow snakes and all these bats, all these despicable animals, and it's just this picture of desolation, and there the jackals are there, and the ostriches are there, these difficult animals to be around at all. And what happens? Water. Water starts flowing around them. And then they have grass.

And what you have is the despised animals, and The animals are people in Isaiah, the despised people of this world. They have water and they have grass and they're completely transformed. And they're no longer living in a bombed out city with no water and no grass. They have water to drink. They have grass to eat.

The happiest jackals and snakes you've ever met transformed on that day when they drank of the waters of life. So water is used in Isaiah over and over again. That's why in Isaiah chapter 12, verses three and four, Isaiah says, therefore, with joy you shall draw water from the wells of salvation. And in that day you will say, praise the Lord, call upon his name, declare his deeds among the peoples. This is the water of refreshment.

This is the water that washes over you and you're set free and you have never been happier. And the Bible has much, much to say about water from Genesis to Revelation. Finally, in Revelation 21, we find this testimony at the very end of the testimony of scripture where the Lord Jesus says, I will give the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. Is anyone thirsty? Let him come to me and drink.

That's this fifth use of water in the Bible. And so when John says he came by water, there's a whole wonderful meaning. There's this presence of the water, but there's so much that's under it testifies to something far greater. The water is such a beautiful image. Jesus said, he who drinks of the water that I give him will never thirst again.

And how Anyone who really has turned to Jesus Christ understands that. That's why when you read Psalm 46 where David says, there's a river, there's a river Whose streams shall make glad the city of God The holy place of the tabernacle of the Most High God is in the midst of her She shall not be moved. God shall help her just at the break of dawn. Help from the water, from the water of Jesus Christ. So it's a testimony, it's a witness of something so wonderful.

And so these five uses of water in the ceremonial law, in the sacrificial system, in its presence in birth, in its presence in baptism, in the crucifixion, and in refreshment. What does water mean? Water means something. Whenever you see water, think of Jesus Christ and the waters of life. The greatest tragedy that can happen in anybody's life is to be found a fulfillment of what Jeremiah said when he said they have forsaken the fountain of living water.

Don't forsake the fountain of living water. There's water there. And if you're a jackal and you are a jackal, you need this water. So that's the water. The whole imagery of the water is in the blood.

And here in the blood, it's more obvious here because blood has been used in Scripture to explain justification, the devastating nature of sin and that something must die in order to cause forgiveness and for the clearing of a conscience. And so blood is symbolic of the sacrifice for sin, that sin is so bad it requires a substitute. You can't get yourself out of this sin problem. You can't. You'll never work your way out of it.

You can't get good enough to work your way through it. You just cannot do it that's too deep, it's too pernicious. It's part of your very soul. And so you need a substitute. You deserve to have your blood shed for your sins.

But that's not the end of the story because God gave his son. And by the way, God has always given sacrifices for his people. You know, this is why David said, purge me with hyssop. He's talking about a branch of hyssop being dipped in blood. And he was really referring to what happened in the Passover, where a lamb was slain and a branch of hyssop was dipped in the blood and it was spread across the doorposts of the lintel of the house.

And the death angel passed by those houses that had the blood. That's the whole picture. That there is blood that causes the death angel to pass you by. It's the blood of Jesus Christ. And that's why John said, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

He was speaking of the blood. He was speaking of the testimony of the blood, the blood of the lamb, the blood of bulls and goats, the blood of a bird, and now the blood of the spotless lamb of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who secured our justification. It's interesting in that passage in Psalm 51 where David says, Purge me with hyssop, he speaks of the water, the blood, and the spirit all in that one same place, because it's the whole doctrine of salvation that's embedded there. And so he's speaking of the blood of Jesus Christ. Now, the blood of Jesus Christ is the most precious gift that the Father has given to the Church.

This is why we are so delighted to celebrate the Lord's Supper weekly, because we glory in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. It brings us to ourselves to really understand who we are. And it shows us how much we're loved by God. That He would do such a thing. That He wouldn't punish you.

He would punish his son in your place by his blood. The blood of Jesus Christ is the most precious commodity in the Church of Jesus Christ. There is power in the blood. We love to sing that song. It is the shed and the sprinkled blood of the Lamb.

And it really all began in Exodus chapter 12 in the Passover where the blood was spread across the doorposts. The writer of Hebrews speaks of it in Hebrews 9, and He explains the whole fulfillment of the ceremonial law in Jesus Christ and how Jesus Christ purifies and remits sin by His shedding of His blood on the cross. And that's why the Lord Jesus Christ Himself in Luke chapter 22 verse 20, He said, This cup is the New Testament. Can you finish the statement? The New Testament, the New Testimony, the New Witness.

It's a witness. It's the new witness in my blood. This cup is the New Testament in my blood. And so when John is talking about the blood he's talking about this this testimony of God's Compassion toward mankind in his hopelessness that they could they could not atone for their own sins They couldn't get themselves good enough they couldn't shine themselves up enough to be acceptable before God, that they needed a substitute. And God provided that substitute in Jesus Christ and in Christ alone.

You know, there was a fad, you know, for many years in evangelicalism where pastors didn't want to talk about the blood of Jesus Christ. They wanted to talk about, you know, kind of, you know, things are a little bit more, a little cooler, you know, something that's not so gross, you know. In doing such a thing, they rejected the gospel of Jesus Christ because the blood of Jesus is the most precious thing to the church. It's not gross. It is your only hope.

And then he speaks of the Spirit. It's the water, the blood, and the Spirit. And the Spirit of God, of course, is presented all over the Scriptures from the very beginning where the Spirit of God was moving across the waters. And all throughout Scripture there's this testimony of the Spirit. In the New Testament it's very clear that the power of the Holy Spirit is found in particular functions.

The instruction of the Holy Spirit, the comfort of the Holy Spirit, the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the illumination of the Holy Spirit. The fact that the Spirit is like wind, it blows wherever it wishes. The wind of the Holy Spirit can blow anywhere it wishes. You know, whenever we gather together as a people, my prayer is, oh Lord, let your wind blow. Let your wind blow somewhere in this congregation today where there's an unbelieving heart or Let your or let your wind blow where there's Confusion or where there's discouragement Lord let your wind blow through this place the wind blows where it wishes And some are converted and some are comforted.

Some are convicted of their sin. Some are brought to their knees. Some are brought to tears. Some are brought to joy inexpressible. This is the power of the Holy Spirit in a church.

You always pray that God would be so kind to let his wind blow mightily, that he would actually favor this place. This is one of the joys of a father. He can pray and say, oh Lord, favor my family. And then people in the church can say, Oh Lord, favor our church. Please give us favor.

Let your wind blow. Let us not have a dead religion here. Let us have life, life and joy and expressible And the power and the joy of the Holy Spirit, the guidance that's there, everything of the Holy Spirit, Lord, pour out your Holy Spirit upon us. That is the prayer of your pastors. Absolutely it is.

It's our most urgent and ardent prayer that God would pour out His Spirit. Our life is completely dependent on the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, without me you can do nothing. Nothing. Do we understand how dependent we are on the Holy Spirit?

You know, we often speak our own words and not the words of the Holy Spirit. Everything born of the Spirit, this is the glory of the gospel and it's real. It's not a phantom. The Holy Spirit is a person. It's not a force.

He is a person who actually works. He is a person that moves among his people. He's a person that lives inside of his people, and he is a person that moves among his people. There are many images of the Holy Spirit in Leviticus chapter 2 and Exodus 30, Psalm 89 verse 20. The Holy Spirit is such a precious gift to the church.

I like how Calvin explains this. He says that when John speaks of the Spirit, he's speaking of, quote, how the faithful know and feel the power of Christ because the Spirit renders them certain and that their faith might not vacillate. And he adds that a full and real firmness and stability is produced by the testimony of the Spirit. So I pray that there's a very rich and thick testimony of the Holy Spirit today. And you know what the Spirit of God does and is.

The Spirit of God is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. You can always know when it's the Spirit of God and when it's the Spirit of the devil. When you lose those things, you have lost the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit can walk right out the door of a church and you can always tell a joyless church, a loveless church is no church at all. And so these witnesses testify.

Can you relate to them? Can you relate to the water? Can you relate to the blood? Can you relate to the Spirit? If you can, then be certain that you know Him.

Don't rest your faith on your feelings. Rest your faith on the solid ground of the water and the blood and the Spirit. And Then John speaks of the result of believing the witnesses. He says, he who believes in verses 10 through 12, he who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself. He who does not believe God has made him a liar because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of his son and he's talking about this testimony of the water and the blood and the spirit and this is the testimony that God has given us eternal Life and this life is in his son he who has the son has life Those are the most important words in the text I think and then those that follow he who does not have the son does not have life Remember John is wanting you to know whether you have the Son.

If you have the Son, glory in Him. If you do not, run to Him. Think of what you are losing by losing the testimony. So John wants his children to know if they believe. He says that there are certain things that happen when you believe.

I've identified three of them. First of all is that you have a witness in your heart. You know in your heart. And John has turned from external witnesses, the blood and the water. And now he's turning to internal witnesses.

It's the internal witness of the Holy Spirit. The conviction that you have partaken of the water and of the blood and of the Holy Spirit and Because there's something that happens to you when you're born again There's an inner witness and you know that you know that you have eternal life. You know that you have Christ You understand that there was a time that you did not have Him, but now you do know that you have Him. You might not be able to say exactly when it was, but there was a time when you were made a new creature. There was a time when you passed from death to life.

There was a moment in time. It's difficult sometimes to know exactly when that was. But the question is, where are you now? Do you know? Maybe you don't know everything about the past, but do you know who you are now?

Do you have assurance of your salvation? That's the critical question. That's why he says, and this is the testimony that God has given us eternal life and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life. You have this internal witness that you have the life of His Son.

And then refusal to believe means that you're making, you're calling God a liar. You dismiss the Word of God. You dismiss Jesus Christ. You're making him a liar. He's laid out these testimonies, and you say, those are lies.

The blood is a lie. The water is a lie. The spirit is a lie. It's not real. It's fake.

That's making God a liar. And so, you know, what does it mean to be a Christian? Everybody has a salvation plan. Everyone has a salvation plan. What's yours?

John is wanting you to make sure that you understand that your salvation plan is a good one, that it actually is effectual. But what does it mean to be a Christian? I was reading just this week, a research organization came out and said that 70% of the people in America say that they're Christians. But then they said, well, but only 30% of those go to church. But then only 7% of those actually have Christian thinking.

They think Christianly about things, and they have Christian convictions, and they have a Christian kind of a lifestyle so but what does it mean to be a Christian is it 70% of America I don't think so it's a much smaller subset But John wants you to know what subset you're really in. Are you part of the broad? Yeah, I'm a Christian. I believe in Jesus. Or I'm a Christian, but institutional religion, I don't know.

I can just as well worship God, you know, fishing as I can in church. I'd rather be in a lake fishing thinking about God than be in church thinking about fishing. You know, That's evangelicalism for some. They'd really rather be somewhere else. But to the unbeliever, the Bible is a dead book.

To the believer, it's alive and there's nothing comparable to it. Do you remember how your whole view of the Bible changed? How it began to convict you? How it was such a testimony of love? How you could not believe the wisdom?

How it pierced your heart? How it comforted you? How it cleared up your cloudy thoughts? How it made you into somebody you could never be on your own, give you thoughts you never could have had on your own. And this is what happens when the Word of God is read by a true Christian.

And, you know, how do you, the internal witness is critical. It's not the only witness, but it's a critical one. You know, have you ever been comforted? Have you ever been taught by the Lord? Have you ever found yourself in despair?

And He has lifted you out of your despair. Like David, I sought the Lord and He heard me and delivered me from all my fears. Or, you know, have you ever been hard-hearted and God softened your heart? This is the witness, this is the internal witness of the Holy Spirit. Have you ever been rebellious and then God turned your rebellion into quietness and submission and you repented and it felt so good.

Have you ever been in a really dark time and then he shined the light into that darkness and you knew, you knew what you were supposed to do and The darkness fled away. How many times does that happen to you? These are the inner witnesses of the Holy Spirit how many Times have you found rest for your soul Has He ever turned your mourning into dancing? Has He ever seen you dragging and then you find yourself walking and leaping and praising God? Has that ever happened?

This is the witness of the Holy Spirit. This is the internal witness of the power of God in a person's life. And that's why verse 10 says, he who believes in the Son has the witness in himself. And this, as Jesus said, this is eternal life, that you may know the only true God and Jesus Christ Whom he has sent this is eternal life that you might know it's the internal witness And you know can you say Christ lives in me Can you say I've been born again? Can you say I am his and he is mine?

So the first thing that happens is that you have an internal witness. The second is that you prove God to be true. You're proving God to be true. You're agreeing with God. That's what confession is.

A confession is agreeing with God. You say the same thing that God is saying. When you say, I do not believe, you're saying, I do not agree with God. And you prove God to be true. And then the third thing is that you have life.

You have life. Those three things, those are the results of embracing the witnesses and being a child of God. And then the third category of thinking that John brings to us is in verse 13 itself, this very last verse. And he speaks of the assurance that you have in believing the witnesses. So first of all he tells you what the three witnesses are, then he tells you what happens to you when you believe in those witnesses, and then thirdly, he gives you a sense of the assurance that you have.

Verse 13, these things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God." Now, the purpose of John writing this is so that you would believe and that you would know that you would believe and he's saying it's normal for a person to know in the same way that the martyrs knew when they died they knew why they died they They believed to such an extent that they were willing to go into the flames and not deny their faith. They knew. Belief in the name of the Son of God. And this is assurance of eternal life, that you may know that you have eternal life. John is concerned that you know, do you know, do you know?

That's the question John's asking in almost every line of this section, beginning at the very beginning of chapter five. Do you have eternal life? You know, when I was first converted, one of the most memorable parts of that is I had this great sense that somehow I had stepped into eternity. Did you have that? That you realized that you had already stepped into eternal life.

The only thing that had to happen is that you had to die. Other than that, you've got eternal life. In some ways, it didn't really matter what happened to your body, you're going to go into eternal life. You have it now, there's just one little thing to negotiate. What's my death going to look like?

Well, God's going to take care of that. That I'd already passed from death into life. I had such a realization of that. And such a happiness to know that for me it was just a step. I was just going to step into the next world to know that you have eternal life.

And so he gives you perseverance that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. So he gives you a sense that you have eternal life and that you are continuing in His name. That's the perseverance of the saints. The Bible says that God will preserve His saints. He'll see you to the end.

He'll get you there. He absolutely will. You don't need to worry about it. He'll take you there. So you can know if you're in Christ.

Who is he to you? John asks the question, do you love him? Do you hate your brother? Do you love the light? Do you love his commandments?

Do you see your unworthiness? And you recognize that he Who says he has no sin is a liar. Do you see that your eternal destiny rests on these witnesses? This is the heart of the matter. You know, has he charmed your fears?

Has he bid your sorrows cease? Is there music in your ears? Did his blood make the foulest clean? Is he the refuge of your weary soul? Do you glory in your Redeemer?

I'll tell you what the water has been to me. I love to think of my baptism. I remember the water washing over my whole body. I remember thinking about it and then having it happen. And I was very well aware of what my baptism was.

It was a symbol of my being washed, cleansed. I felt, you know, I felt clean. I did. You know, I'm a person that likes to be in the water, so water is big for me. You know, what was the blood to me?

When I was converted, I didn't feel the anger of God toward me anymore. I Felt his love In my heart and I remember coming to church and singing of the love of God and I was so taken by the love of God and they were all experiences of the love of God. And that's probably why when I would sing to my children, I would always sing them songs of the love of God. Every song I sing to my children, if you look at them and analyze them, they all speak of the sweetness, of the love of God, the kindness, the mercy of God, because that's what the blood of Jesus Christ has accomplished. You are saved from wrath.

There's no more wrath forevermore. Never. No more wrath. You know everyone has preferences of the kind of songs they like to sing. I like to sing the songs of the love of God.

And I've seen His love. I see it every day. And I've never been able to escape it. I've known His love in my very, very darkest hours. They haven't really been that dark compared to other people, but they were my dark hours.

And I've always known His love, always. It's never departed from me. His love is really all I've ever needed. I have felt his discipline and have known his discipline, but I always knew that he was disciplining me and his love. It wasn't his wrath.

What does the Spirit mean to me? A comforter? A teacher? If I've ever known a truth, I've always known that it did not come from me. It came from the Spirit of God, from the Word of God.

Well, there are three that bear witness. Water, the blood, and the Holy Spirit. This is He who came by water and blood. Jesus Christ, not only by water, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is the truth.

Aren't you glad that he came? Let's pray. Oh Lord, we thank you for how you have testified of your mercy in your son and how you have caused sinful, profane human beings to be able to be partakers of your nature. Thank you for showing us the water and the blood and your spirit. Thank you for all of what you've done for us.

I pray that you would give us such a day of rejoicing on this day of delight. Amen.