In the sermon 'He Destroys the Works of the Devil' by Scott Brown, the primary focus is on the transformative purpose of Jesus Christ's manifestation as outlined in 1 John 3:4-9. The sermon stresses that Christ came to destroy the works of the devil and deliver believers from sin, which is defined as lawlessness. It emphasizes the need for believers to abide in Christ to overcome the power of sin and highlights the distinction between the children of God and the children of the devil. Brown explains that while believers are not free from sin, their lives are marked by a progressive sanctification that reflects a trajectory away from habitual sinfulness. The sermon critiques heresies that separate righteousness from moral conduct, emphasizing that genuine faith results in a life of righteousness as a reflection of God's love. The preacher also emphasizes the role of the Word of God in combating sin and encourages believers to engage actively in sharing the gospel.

1 John 3, 4-9. Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin. Whoever abides in him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen him nor known him.

Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for his seed remains in him, and he cannot sin because he has been born of God." Let's pray.

Fathers, we've come here and met to worship, we pray that our hearts have been in a place where we can worship and abide in the truth of God. And as we listen more to the written Word of God as it's spoken. And we ask that it would come off the pages as as rama to our hearts and feed us the Word of God. And that we would have the kinds of hearts, the kind of soil available in our hearts that would be able to take and retain and keep the seed, for the seed is good, that we would be able to hear as our masters told us, and that it would bring forth much fruit. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

You know, they say that there are only two things that you can count on in this life, death and taxes. But that's well enough. It's well enough for most people in the world, but for the believer there's far, far more. And this passage contains one of those marvelous things that you can count on if you have been born again, if you have placed your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. And you don't just get death and taxes, you get sin being put to death in your life.

And what a blessing that is. And so John expounds on this here. And he really speaks of why did Jesus come in the first place. You know, if you talk to many people, you think it was for social justice, or for others you might say to spread love so that everybody just loved everybody or maybe to provide an example like there's no example like Jesus. Even the Muslims say Jesus was a good man.

But why did he come? And John gives one of the critical reasons that Jesus Christ came, and that is that Jesus Christ was manifested in the flesh so that he might come and destroy the works of the devil. And so it's such a marvelous reminder for us. You know, when God saves His people, He doesn't just give them beauty for ashes. He doesn't just restore their souls and begins to reclaim everything.

He becomes their physician. And as a physician, He does what all physicians have to do at some point, and that is to destroy. A physician, a good physician has to destroy something that has gone wrong. And when you are born again, you come under the care of the great physician who destroys. And he saves you to bless you, but in the process of the blessing, he has to destroy.

And so he's like that surgeon who has to find that thing that's hurting the patient. And then he finds it and he gets out his cutting tools and he removes it. And he might have to cut very, very deeply. But this is how a physician saves lives, and this is how the great physician saves the lives of his children who are born of him. And you know, the Lord Jesus spoke of this very clearly in Mark chapter 2 verse 17.

He said, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous the sinners. And so in this passage is another disclosure of the love of God and that he destroys the works of the devil. And I pray that it's a means of rejoicing for all of us who know Him and a means of concern for all those who do not know Him. And you can see so far in John how he has been explaining how God is expressing His love.

He gives His Word. He gives the anointing of his Holy Spirit so that his people won't be led astray By the false teachers by the Antichrist He causes them to abide in him. He does so many things to express his love to his children He gives his children the ordinary means of grace in your life through the preaching and the prayers and the fellowship of the saints. And he brings you trouble to drive your sin from you, to bring you to your wits end so you realize you have no hope in this world. He is your only hope.

And God gives so many different manifestations of his love through the apostle John here. Now, That's the essence of what this text is about. Now I want to give you four really critical matters to understand about this text. And the first is that John is giving proofs of God's love. He's still talking about what he was talking about in chapter three, verse one.

Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us that we should be called the children of God. He continues to expound on this manner of God's love. And so he has just, in the previous verse, been declaring that he demonstrates his goodness to his children by purifying them as he himself is pure. So he has just been speaking about this matter of purification and how he would relieve them of their poisons Now he turns to the matter of sin and he defines it he distinguishes between the children of God and the children of the devil and and he explains what God has done to deliver from sin. And he's really on the same subject.

Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us that we should be called the children of God. The second thing that you should know about this text is that John is continuing with the two major themes in 1 John. These themes continue to pop up over and over again, and we see them here. And the first is, behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us. But secondly, John is asking, are you born of God?

Have you really been born again? Have you just put on a cloak of righteousness when your heart actually is still attracted to darkness and you still want to avoid the commands of God rather than run to them? He's continuing to ask these diagnostic questions. He wants you to understand the difference between your outer life and your inner life and how the two are related. And he's really asking in every section, are you born of God?

Are you a son? And because a true Christian has certain marks, he loves the light, he loves the commandments of God. He is being purified and he's just continuing to make these distinctions. Those who are born of the devil and born of God, works of righteousness, works of unrighteousness, the seed of Satan, the seed of God. So he's continuing to make these distinctions.

And then thirdly, in this section, John uses what most people think is confusing language. He talks about a sinner who doesn't sin. He's been talking about sinners who sin and who have an advocate with a father. Now he says that God's people don't sin, and it can be confusing language. But what he is speaking of, and I want to just set this straight right at the beginning so we don't have to revisit it with every manifestation of it, when he says that a believer does not sin, what he is saying is that a person who has a pattern of life and an inclination towards sin is not a Christian.

And he's speaking about the person who just continues to brazenly walk in their sin. That's what he means by that. And so the interpretive key in these verses is really found by understanding the Greek present tenses of the verbs that are here. And he's saying that the true Christian purifies himself. He's not absolutely pure, but he's purifying himself in verse four or in verse three and in In verse six whoever abides him does not sin In other words, he does not keep sinning in verse eight he who sins in others who keep he who just keeps on sinning without any care for it is of the devil and in verse 9 this present tense again appears it sounds like a contradiction whoever has been born of God does not sin well he's talking about this repetitive life of sin where the where the bondage of sin has not been broken.

And then fourthly, he's addressing heresy regarding sin. There are heresies regarding sin. He has been dealing with heresies regarding the person of Christ and the Antichrist. So while there are heresies regarding the person of Christ and the antichrist. So while there are heresies regarding the person of Christ and the teaching of the antichrists, there are heresies concerning the whole doctrine of sin.

And that's why John says in this text, let no one deceive you. Don't let anyone deceive you about sin, because if you don't understand sin you really can't understand what it means to be born again, or really anything else about the kingdom of heaven. And so he's speaking about those or to those who would have a tendency to dismiss their sin, to think it's not such a big deal. Because you have an, as if, because you had an advocate with the Father for your sin, that somehow sin doesn't matter. Sin is your greatest enemy, and the devil is the originator of that sin.

And so he gives in this passage what is probably the most distinctive, clearest summary statement on what is sin. When you walk out of here today, you'll have a very clear definition of sin. John uses just a very few words to define it. So this is sort of the scope of the text in front of us. And what you have in front of you as an outline are five proofs of the love of God, and each one of them help one to distinguish whether they are children of God or children of the devil.

Now, if you've ever read the Gospel of John or much of John's writings in Revelation or really spent time in 1 John. You know this. John is the apostle of love. He can't get over the love of God. He can hardly write anything without somehow referring to the love of God.

And this is true in 1 John as well. And so while you have these sort of threatening principles that hey, if you're not like this, you are going to hell, at the same time, he always places it alongside of the greatness of the love of God. And so I have here five proofs of the love of God. The first is that he delivers from lawlessness, verses four and five. Second, he breaks the power of sin through our abiding.

Third, His righteousness teaches us to practice righteousness verse 7 number 4 He destroys the works of the devil verse 8 and number 5. He will keep his seed alive verse 9 These are all manifestations of the love of God. So follow me in the outline the first point he delivers from lawlessness verses 4 & 5 whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. And you know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and in him there is no sin. Now there it is, there's the most succinct definition of sin in the entire Bible.

Sin is lawlessness, three words. Now you know what sin is, you don't have to be a rocket theologian to figure it out all you need to know is three words sin is lawlessness and So this is a definition of sin lawlessness is is a sin against the law of God. And of course we know that the law of God is summarized in 10 commandments and it is further reduced down to two great commandments of loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself. But he speaks, he uses this term lawlessness, and it's a very interesting Greek term that is this, anomia. Nomia meaning law, ah meaning not.

Not law. I don't like the law. The law does not impinge upon my life. In the same way, an atheist is an atheist. An atheist is a person who says there is no God.

Ah theist, ah nomian, no law. And what he says here is that whoever commits sin, commits lawlessness, and he uses a term here that indicates the customary continuous action that is a pattern of your life. Whoever commits is the person who continues to practice. And you find this very same word in chapter 2 verse 29. You know, we often think about sin in terms of the damage that it does to us and maybe the people around us.

But the chief problem with sin isn't that it does damage us, and it does. The chief problem with sin is that isn't that it's bad for people, and it is bad for people. The chief problem with sin is that it is rebellion against Almighty God. That is the big problem with sin itself. And you know, there are various helpful definitions of sin and the fall.

If you go to our church's confession, the Baptist Confession of 1689, turn to chapter 6, and you could read a very definitive statement about the fall of man. If you go to chapter 19 on the law of God and compare the two, you'll run into language to help you understand how to think about the law of God. In chapter 19 of the confession, in section 6, it speaks of the law of God as a rule of life informing us of the will of God that directs us, that binds us, that discovers sinful pollutions in our hearts and lives. It helps us to examine ourselves, to bring conviction, to bring humiliation, to help us to hate sin, and particularly to show us how much we need Jesus Christ, how much we fall short, how we need His obedience as the substitute for our disobedience, because we have broken all the laws. And I think James is absolutely right.

If you've broken one law, you've broken them all. You know what that means? Every single person here has broken every law of God before they came here today. And our only hope is that we have the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ. His law keeping is the basis for our acceptance before God.

And He is the only one who can save us from our sins. But God has given us His law to expose our sins so that we would flee to Him, that we would make a quick path to Jesus Christ, to first of all, to hate our sins, because it's contradictory to His righteousness, and also that we might reform our lives, and finally that we would trust in Jesus Christ's atonement for our sins, which is our only hope. No person ever has been able to keep the law. You remember that great story of the rich young ruler? He said to Jesus, I've kept all of them.

Jesus said, well, actually you haven't. And the Apostle John is making this very clear that sin is lawlessness. Now, I think that it could be helpful to review in your own mind even the Ten Commandments because the Ten Commandments do summarize all the various sins that are lawlessness. They're sort of top-level statements that speak of all sin. You know, the first commandment is that you shall have no other gods before me.

That nothing else takes the first place in your life. And in the second commandment, you shall not make for yourself carved images or any likeness of anything in heaven. He's really speaking about your vision of God. What kind of God do you have in your mind? You know, people say, well, I like to think of God as the man upstairs.

Well, God is different than that. And so what the Lord says is don't use images of man. Don't use any kind of images. Use the Word of God to show who he is. And the third commandment is taking the name of the Lord your God in vain.

And you know people think this is really just consumed in matters of swearing or using God's name as a swear word, but it's far deeper than that. It's actually misrepresenting God by your life or by your words. The fourth commandment, keeping the Sabbath holy as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days shall you labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord." And then he makes it very clear what you should do on the Sabbath day. One of the real problems with the Sabbath that even those people who even are here, all of us will break the Sabbath a number of times.

Our minds will wander. We will drift from his delights from time to time. So, God calls us to keep his commandments. Then you have in the second table of the law, the first table of the law speaks of responsibilities toward God. And then in the second table of the law, beginning with the fifth commandment, speaks of responsibilities toward man and what sin against man is.

And the first is honor your father and your mother as the Lord your God has commanded you. It has to do with honoring those who are an authority. Have you ever dishonored authorities that you have been put in your life? The sixth commandment is thou shalt not murder, taking matters into your own hands. You know, we had people yesterday, we're desiring to preach the gospel to women who are getting an abortion, who were destroying the image of God through murder.

And they were there to call out against the sin, that perhaps some would hear the voice of God and they would see God's mercy toward them and they would be saved. You know, Jesus took the sixth commandment and the seventh commandment and he did an exposition on it in Matthew chapter 5, and he said, you know, the sixth commandment isn't really fulfilled just when you stab someone, when you kill someone. You murder people all the time, you know, when you speak evil of them or you hate your brother. Murder is far greater than actually stopping someone's heart from beating. Murder begins in the heart and it has to do with hatred.

He does the same thing with the seventh commandment, you shall not commit adultery. And he's really upholding the character of God as pure and protecting marriage. But the Lord Jesus said, you've heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you, whoever looks at a woman to lust for her in his heart has committed adultery." So the Lord Jesus explains the law by doing exposition of the law, making it very clear that the laws of God go deep into the heart. These are not wooden laws.

The law is living. It's not wooden at all. It goes into your innermost being and is designed to capture everything in your heart. And the eighth commandment, you shall not steal, speaking that God is really your provider and the ninth commandment you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor and the whole sacredness of the truth and how how harmful it is for us when we lie to ourselves and to others and might even try to lie to God how ridiculous is that and then the tenth commandment you shall not covet your neighbor's wife. And he speaks of this matter of desiring something of your neighbor and then as a result of it becoming bitter.

You want something that doesn't belong to you but that God has actually given to someone else So these these are the ten commandments this These commandments reveal all the various sins that John is referring to here sin is Lawlessness and sin is is an attitude toward the law of God. There are people who claim to be Christians who hate the law of God. And you have to ask whether they can possibly be Christians if they hate the law of God. Sin is lawlessness. It's onomia.

If you say there is no law then you really are saying that Jesus Christ is a liar himself It's living independently of the law of God. It's rejecting the authority of God. It's denying the right of God to rule your life. And it's living as if your own ideas are superior to God. This is the essence of sin.

It breaks the law of God. Now, it's sinful to hate the law of God. If you bump into someone like that, you should turn to this verse. Turn to 1 John chapter 3 verse 5 and help them understand the nature of the law of God. Now, sin is harmful to us.

It really is a plague in our hearts. It causes such sicknesses of our soul and turmoil. It blinds us. It disables us. It imprisons us.

It diverts us. It distorts us. It clouds everything. And it wearies us. It burdens us.

This is what sin does. And Jesus Christ has come to deliver us from our sins because sin is lawlessness and you know the Apostle Paul said to Timothy, he said the law is good if one uses it lawfully, 1 Timothy 1 8. The Apostle Paul said to the Roman church that the carnal mind was at enmity against God for it is not subject to the law of God." In other words, if you're not subject to the law of God, you are carnal and you are at war with God. So I don't think we should somehow accept this version of Christianity that does not appreciate the law of God. David I think is our greatest example outside of the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

Oh, how I love thy law. It is my meditation all the day." And we should also recognize just how dangerous it is to reject the law of God. In Matthew chapter 13, in the parable of the tares, he speaks of this great danger the lawless are in and he's talking about how the wheat and the tares grow together and they'll be but they'll be gathered together and burned with fire at the end of the age in Matthew 13 41 and he says that the Son of Man will send out his angels and they will gather out of his kingdom all things that offend and Listen to this and those who practice Lawlessness this very same thing It is this lawlessness for which the judgment of God on that last day is arranged. But then he says that he will cast those who practice lawlessness into the furnace of fire and there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. And then, he says, and perhaps this will be fulfilled in our hearing, then the righteous will shine forth like the sun in the kingdom of their father.

He who has ears, let him hear. And so the law of God is a critical matter for the revealing of sin, because sin is lawlessness. Now, there is a heresy regarding the law of God, And the Galatians experienced the trouble of this heresy, and the Galatian heresy was that in order to be justified, you had to keep the law. And so this is why the apostle Paul says in Galatians 5.4, you had become estranged from Christ. You who attempt to be justified to the law, by the law, you have fallen from grace.

How do you fall from grace? By having any thought that you can be justified by any work of the law. And so then he says that Jesus Christ came to take away sins. He says, and you know in verse 5 that he was manifested to take away our sins and in him there was no sin. So do you see the the language here?

Sin is lawlessness. Jesus Christ is taking away sin. So Jesus Christ is the means of of rescuing us from our lawlessness. That's the essence of his logic here, and that Jesus Christ is trying to take away sin. And there is only one refuge from the wrath of God, and that is Jesus Christ.

He came to take away sin. Now this whole idea is found in many places in the Bible. An angel appeared to Joseph in a dream, and the angel said to him, his name, your son, will be called Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Even the angels understand this. John the Baptist recognized this at Jesus' baptism in John chapter 1 verse 26 where He said, behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world.

The Apostle Paul recognized this, declaring it in 1 Timothy 1.15, where he said, This is a true and faithful saying, that Jesus Christ came to take away sin. And this is the common theme of the Bible. Paul uses the language in Colossians chapter 1 verses 13 and 14. He said that Jesus delivered us from the power of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins." And so the entire mission of Jesus Christ was to take away sin. And then we learn later on to destroy the works of the devil.

And, you know, he who knew no sin was made sin for us. The writer of Hebrews says that he was holy and harmless and undefiled, and that is the means of our atonement and his means of taking our sins away. Now, there are two ways that Jesus Christ takes away our sins. And of course, the first is by his appearing through his substitutionary atonement. The Bible says that he wiped out decrees against us and that he, it's very clear that he is fulfilling Genesis 315, that the seed of the woman will prevail, the seed of the woman will destroy the seed of the devil and that he covered our sins, he buried our sins, he pushed our sins as far as the east is from the west and again you know back to the sentence structure and the language that John uses, he uses what is called an errist subjunctive, which means once and for all, to take away our sins once and for all.

It's that act of substitutionary atonement where one is made righteous. This is the first way that God has taken away our sins, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And he has taken it out of the way having nailed it to the cross having disarmed principalities and powers he made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them he said that in Colossians chapter 2 verse 13 Well this is how he has taken away our sin. Isaiah says that he took our sins off our shoulders and put him on the shoulders of his son. Thomas Manton, the English Puritan, said that he dissolved, he freed us from the wrath to come, because we were justified by faith.

And as a result, we have peace with God, not by works of righteousness, lest any man should boast. But According to his mercy, he saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he has shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that by being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The Apostle Paul said this to Titus in Titus chapter 3 verses 5 through 7. Peter says, he bore our sins on his own body on the tree that we being dead unto sin may be made alive unto righteousness." So he takes our sin out of the way through his substitutionary atonement. And secondly, he takes our sin away through breaking the power of sin over us and giving us victory over sin in the duration of our lives, that He would untie the cords of sin, that He would make them void over time through this work of what we call progressive sanctification.

There's this progressive step-by-step process that God has his children on, where he is purifying him as he, Jesus Christ himself, is pure. And because the one who has no sin dwells within you, he begins to capture areas of sin within you. And he is innocent and harmless and he comes into the life of the believer. And his innocence, his harmlessness, his sinlessness begins to take over over time. And so this is the way that we are purified over time because Jesus Christ never sinned.

There is a person living inside of you who has no sin and he speaks to you and he works in you. He implants his righteousness and it grows. Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven, it was like a mustard seed that grows. He says it's like leaven that just continues to expand. This is what's happening inside the believer.

This is the work of progressive sanctification. So there's a work that's finished, it's done, it's a work of righteousness. You are made righteous and holy, and positionally, judicially, in the sight of God, you are made righteous at the same time you are in progress for that great day when you will completely be made righteous. And so this first proof of the love of God is he delivers from lawlessness. This is what God has done.

And the question should always be asked, have I been delivered from this lawlessness or do I still love lawlessness? If you love lawlessness, you should question whether you are a Christian. And then the second proof of his love is that he breaks the power of sin through our abiding. And this sort of expands on what was just said in verse 6, whoever abides in him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen him nor known him." Now, at the outset of this verse, I just want to say John is not teaching sinless perfectionism.

He is not teaching that being born of God causes you to never sin again, as some claim today. This doctrine was promoted most widely by John Wesley that you could, you know, find yourself in a state of sinlessness in this life. There are people today who claim that they haven't sinned in several months. But in doing such a thing, they've really ignored what John has already said. You have to understand any particular verse in its context, and scripture should interpret scripture.

John has already made this very clear in 1 John 1, 8, where he said, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. He's already said that. So what John just said in this verse, verse six, can't contradict it. And he has already said, if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. What John is actually teaching here is that if you claim that you're sinless, you're a liar and you are sinning.

It's sinful to claim that you're sinless. John has already made that very, very clear. 1 John 1 8 and 1 John 1 10. But what John is saying is that if you are a child of God, that your pattern of life is no longer towards sin. It has to do with the manner and the trajectory of your life.

And that's what he's speaking of. But there's no middle ground. There are either those who are born of God or those who are not born of God. I like how Charles Spurgeon explained this. He said there are no betweenites.

There are only sheep and goats. And you're either in one camp or another. And we should always be very careful not to flatter men on their way to hell. A true Christian is in a struggle with sin. Their sins grieve them.

They hate their sins and they feel the same way that the apostle Paul expressed in Romans chapter 7 where he said, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? And there really are only two places to abide. Either you are abiding in Him or you are abiding in your sin. And John is making this distinction. And if you abide in Him, there's an intimacy and a friendship with him.

But there is not a friendship and intimacy with your sin. You've not made peace with your sins. And even a verse like this should just help us to ask ourselves, have I made peace with any sin? Have I made it a friend? Am I cultivating it?

Am I treating it nicely? Or am I mortifying it to bring up those famous words of John Owen? Do you mortify? Do you make it your daily work? Be killing sin or it'll be killing you.

The Christian is the person who's killing sin. He does not abide in his sins. And that's why John says in 1 John 1 8, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And then he says that whoever sins has neither seen him nor known him. Now he is speaking about habitual unconstrained sin.

This is the person who keeps on sinning. It's interesting when Jesus Christ was talking to Nicodemus in John chapter 3, when he said, you must be born again, he says, you will not see him unless you're born again. You cannot see him. Remember in just a few verses back in chapter 2, John, he talks about this thing that happens to you where you see his righteousness. You see it and it is attractive to you and you want his righteousness and then he gives you his righteousness.

When you see his righteousness and you desire it. And so this is, he speaks of, if you have this life of habitual sin, you haven't seen him, you haven't been born again, And you haven't known Him. You do not know God. And the seeing and knowing is critical to being a child of God, to be born again. And the question is, have you seen him?

Do you know him? And he's speaking of the habitual pattern of sin. Now, it's very clear that He cannot be talking about perfectionism. I'm reminded of that great verse in Ecclesiastes chapter 7 verse 20 where Solomon says that there is not a just man on the earth who does good and does not sin. In other words, you'll know just men in this world and you'll see that they sin.

This should not surprise you. But that's not what John is talking about here. John is talking about men who have a habitual pattern of sin and they love their sin. Solomon is talking about the good man who does desire the good of God in the world and yet he is still a sinner. And so he makes this distinction.

So the second proof is that he breaks the power of sin through our abiding in him. You know, you'll notice John is still not done with the doctrine of abiding in Christ. There's more to it. There's been a lot so far, but there's more ahead. The third proof of his love is that his righteousness teaches us to practice righteousness.

That's verse 7. Look at that with me. Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous just as he is righteous. Now, John speaks much of righteousness, he uses this word regularly, and he is speaking those, he's really speaking to correct those who believe a heresy about sin.

And the heresy is that a man can be righteous and still live in sin. That's the heresy. And this was the message of the Gnostics. The Gnostics claimed that what you did in the body didn't matter as long as your spirit is right. And John is correcting this heresy.

That heresy is alive and well today. You can observe this heresy in many places. One of the places you hear it most commonly is when you go to a funeral. This heresy shows up at so many funerals and you're sitting there at this funeral and a man has died. The man divorced his wife, he's been unfaithful, he neglects his family, And one night he goes out and he gets drunk and he gets in a wreck and he dies.

And there's a funeral. And the preacher stands up there and says, oh, he's looking down on us today, rejoicing. When he was six years old right here in this church, I remember the day he accepted Jesus. I remember he came down, he wept, he cried, he was sincere. But there was no external manifestation of his love for God.

But the heresy is alive and well, and I expect it will continue to be alive and well. This is why when you go out witnessing today, everybody's a Christian. Everybody at some point saw Billy Graham on the television or something. They were somewhere where they in their heart, they or they did something and their hand went up, but their lives never changed. And so we live in a time where this doctrine is very critical.

And Christians need to be very clear about the doctrine of regeneration. What does it mean to be regenerate? And John is making this argument here. And righteousness is conformity to Jesus Christ. That's what righteousness is.

And of course there are two kinds of righteousness. There's moral uprightness as one kind of righteousness, and then there is the righteousness that comes from justification. Those are the two different kinds of righteousness that the Bible speaks about. And he's not speaking about the righteousness that is by faith. He is speaking about the tangible expressions of righteousness in a person's life, that repentance inwardly always has fruit outwardly.

You know, you can walk up to a blueberry bush or an apple tree and there is, there's an apple, it's beautiful fruit. There's the outward manifestation, but that fruit would not be there unless there was sap inside that tree, unless there was life, unless there was something feeding that branch to cause that apple to grow. And that's the exact same situation that we are in. If there's sap, there will be apples, but if there's no sap, you won't see any apples. And that's why the Lord Jesus Christ said, a tree is known by its fruits.

And so we cannot only judge ourselves according to our hearts. We must examine our hearts, but we must also examine who we really are in our lives, outwardly. And so this proof of the love of God, His righteousness teaches us to practice righteousness and he does not want you to be deceived. He does not want you to embrace this heresy regarding sin. And then fourthly, he destroys the works of the devil.

Now, when we get to this verse, verse eight, I think we get to the heart of this text. Or at least it seems to me to explain all the things that John is saying around it. He destroys the works of the devil. Now John, in order to explain this, he goes back to the beginning of the world. He goes back to the entry of sin in the world through the devil.

And so he says, he who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning." So he opens with that, and then he says, for this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. And again, you have this two-sided coin that John is continually bringing. You have those who are of the devil, of the devil, and you have those who are of God born of God born of the devil no between nights no in-between ease in the world everybody is either one or the other and so he is speaking of those who are of the devil in verse 8 and they have their heritage in the one who sinned from the beginning. And again, he goes back to this matter that root reveals fruit, or root produces fruit. And he was a slanderer from the beginning, and he was a hater of the law of God from the beginning.

He hated the authority of God. He wanted to cultivate his own pride and his own insolence. And anytime you see those kinds of things in your life, you know exactly where those things came from. They came from the devil. But then he says that Christ came for a particular purpose.

For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Now this to me is the most exciting thing you can possibly read of, and that is that Jesus Christ is all about destroying the works of the serpent in your life. Now there are three phases of this destruction because he is, God is a destroyer. The Son of God is about destroying something. We shouldn't think of him wrongly.

He's not just gentle Jesus meek and mild. He's a destroyer, and he's going to destroy and is destroying the works of the devil. He does it first of all through justification, by disarming the tentacles of that monster. And then secondly, he does it through sanctification by removing those tentacles one by one. And then thirdly, in glorification when he brings about a complete restoration and you even have a new body and you can't there's not a tentacle within a billion miles of you because all the works of the devil have been destroyed those are the three phases of it but here's here's what he's saying when people turn to God things change there's a transformation He destroys the works of the devil and you can see this at the time of you know Every revival that you ever study you see the radical transformations happening in in homes and in communities as a result of a revival You know Jonathan Edwards speaks of the changes that happened in his town when there was a revival in 1740 and very quickly about 300 people from that town were converted And he says this, there was scarcely a single person in town, old or young, unconcerned about the things of the eternal world.

They were, their minds were upon heaven and They brought to end their sinful practices. Things changed in the town. And all kinds of things that were normal had just ceased. And they were replaced by prayer and meditation and filling the house of God so that they could hear the preaching and be with the people of God. That's what happened.

And there was a sense of their miserable condition as sinners and their desire to taste of the kingdom of God. One of the most interesting things that Edwards says is that it happened greatly among those who were from 10 to 14 years old. God really touched the young people during that revival. There was a spirit of meekness and modesty and diffidence and low opinion of themselves, quoting him. It's because things change.

He does destroy the works of the devil. He does destroy your pride. He does destroy your lust. He does move you along a trend line to make you holy. He destroys the works of the devil.

How wonderful that is. What a great proof of the love of God that he would destroy the works of the devil. You know, you might just think about how that's happened in your life. Where would you be today? Where would you be?

I shudder. I shudder to think of where any of us would be had not Jesus Christ started to destroy the works of the devil in our lives. Think about the relationships you'd have today. Would they be different? Think about the condition of your body.

Do you think Maybe there might be effects of sin on your body somehow, had Jesus Christ not drawn you to himself. It's an astonishing thing to think of the destruction of the works of the devil. We look at our lives and we see how short we fall and it grieves us. It really does. But think of what it would be like if he hadn't rescued you in the first place.

What doesn't seem so astonishing really is when you look at it. What has he rescued you from? There are all kinds of researchers that research sin and what it does to you. You know, I think it's probably true that the researchers who report that the average age of a homosexual with AIDS is 40 years old. It's the average lifespan.

If you don't have AIDS, it's like 41 or 42. Sin messes with you. Sin destroys you. And when you turn to Jesus Christ, maybe you don't feel this dramatic, wonderful, amazing, shocking thing happen in your life, but what's happening is that you're being sanctified. God is destroying the works of the devil progressively as you turn to him and it just shows what a blessed thing it is to turn to him because he progressively as he has taken up residence in your soul he begins to to cleanse you and he and He purifies you as He Himself is pure, because a pure one has entered your heart, and His Spirit cries out, Abba, Father, you have the means of purification, and you have the means within you that is a destruction to the works of the devil.

The great physician is in you and he's cutting He's destroying inside of you, but what a pleasant destruction it is It's a destruction that heals when he when he pierces you with the sword of the spirit He pierces you deep, but when he pulls it out, you're healed. This is his work of cleansing. It's such a marvelous thing that God has done. So, Let's turn to some applications to this. What are you supposed to do in the face of words like this?

And the first thing that I would like to encourage us to consider is that we would rejoice that we would behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us that We would be born again that we would see his righteousness and we would somehow Incomprehensibly we would we would want it and then and then he would enter in And he would begin this work of sanctification in our lives. And how kind he was to break your peace. He broke your peace through the consequences of sin. He showed you how terrible you were. He broke up your peace and He made you fall down and cry out to God for mercy because of your despicable nature And all the despicable things you did and he did he did that So that the power of sin would be broken and no longer would you be broken by sin He breaks the power of sin by seeing his righteousness.

And this is the whole work of God, to break the power of sin, to destroy the works of the devil. You know, there are so many, so many places we could go to illustrate how he breaks the power of sin through some of the most seemingly weak ways. Think about how he broke the power of sin in your life. How did it happen? You know, Mike and Paul and I were at a conference and we heard a man tell a story from the revival in Korea called the Korea and Pentecost and the author tells a story of how it was that that Korea became a place where the gospel is preached all over the place and I believe he said that that Korea sends more missionaries into the world second to America.

I don't know if that's exactly right, but you're talking about, there's been a transformation there, and he talks about how Christianity arrived there. And In the 19th century, a man showed up, a German missionary, and he was ejected from the country. 33 years later, another 25-year-old missionary from Wales came up into Korea on a boat and the boat was being attacked and the tide went out and the boat was stuck on the rocks and the locals came and killed everyone. But there was that young man, while everybody else came to shore fighting and shooting, he came to shore with Bibles and books, And he dumped them on the shore and he was clubbed to death. And not very long after that, one of the men who was responsible for his death, in an act of pride, he took the Bible and he pasted the pages of the Bible on the inside of his house in order to boast about what he did to those Christians who came in to destroy their religion of Confucianism.

And so he pasted the Bible on the walls of his house to boast, and in reading it, he was saved. And the first church in Korea started in his house. You know, you never know what the smallest act of preaching the word of God can do to destroy the works of the devil. You never know. That man's preaching was rejected, and he was clubbed to death, and he left Bibles on the beach.

That's all he did and you never know what God will do to destroy the works of the devil. You know when you share the gospel with your friend, you know the the men that went out to preach yesterday. Hey, you know what? They preached and there was, was there any response? Well, you know, I don't know, I don't see any person in here today that has come from as a result of their preaching and they're being rejected over and over and over again.

But you never know what can happen by the preaching of the Word of God. The Word of God is powerful. It's sharper than any two-edged sword, and it destroys the work of the devil, and you never know how far it's going to go or where it's going to go because the wind blows where it wishes. We have a responsibility to destroy the works of the devil by the preaching of the word of God, by speaking of it, having it hidden in our hearts, sending men out to go out and preach, bringing people into our homes, sharing with our coworkers. They may reject it.

All they may have is a boast of how they shut you down. But the word of God lives. The word of God is unstoppable. The Word of God is powerful. But we destroy the works of the devil by the means of the Word of God.

And we should be very, very careful to pray for one another that we would be messengers of the Word of God. This is how God destroys the works of the devil through his word. Every week we have men go out to preach. We should be praying for them. We should be lifting them up like never before.

You might think, oh, they're fruitless. How come there's nobody here from all their preaching? Well, you don't know who's going to be in heaven. But at least there's somebody testifying in this world that Jesus Christ is Lord and that His word is life. And you never know what someone might do when they go back into their room at night and they heard six words from a preacher on a street you never know.

And you won't know until you get to heaven. Here's what I expect will happen. We'll get to heaven and we'll say, why did I say all that street preaching was worthless? Why did I say that? Look at all these people.

All these people who heard something and went to another city and they could never find that man again. They didn't know. So I think we should just be very careful to recognize the power of the Word of God. And then finally, Do you see how God has delivered you from sin? Do you see how He's changed your nature?

Do you see how the power of sin has been disarmed? Do you see the tentacles being pulled off one by one? And if so, rejoice. Rejoice. Your reward in heaven is great.

He delivers you from lawlessness. He breaks the power of sin through abiding in Him. His righteousness teaches us to practice righteousness. He destroys the works of the devil. He will keep his seed alive.

That's the final, final proof. He will keep his seed alive. And again, you know, God just promises that what is born of him is eternal. He keeps the seed alive. He prophesied this in Genesis 3 15 and now expounds upon it here in the first century church.

He will keep his seed alive. And so I just pray that God would give us as a result of going through these words, he would give us such a sense of the greatness of the love of God, that we would continue all day long, beholding what manner of love the Father has given unto us, that we should be called the children of God. Would you pray with me? Oh Lord, we thank you for this rescue, we thank you for this destruction, we thank you that you are destroying things in us, but what a pleasing destruction it is. Oh Lord, I pray that you would reveal to anyone who does not know this in their heart who has not turned that you would show them and that you would you would give them grace to flee to you that they would see your righteousness and that they would be born again amen Thanks for watching!