In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of the Holy Spirit as the ultimate teacher of the Word of God. He explains that while he can provide outlines and definitions, only God can bring these truths to life in our hearts and make them a part of our Christian experience. The preacher also highlights the role of believers in sharing the truth they have learned with others in need. He references the verse from 1 Corinthians 2:9, which states that "no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him," emphasizing the need for the Holy Spirit to reveal these things to us.

Will you turn, please, to 1 John, chapter 1 and verse 3. Last Lord's Day we saw this verse, but only in part. We're desirous this morning of continuing the theme that you might recall what our general thesis was. May I remind you that the fellowship of which John speaks in verse 3 was founded upon certain facts that had become foundational to our faith. The inspiration of God's word, the virgin birth of his son, his sinless life, his atoning death, his bodily resurrection, his glorious ascension into heaven, and the reign and rule that he exercises. That these facts are, without doubt or question, essential for any kind of Christian fellowship. Challenged or rejected, there can be religious fellowship or religious interest, but there can't be Christian fellowship. That the very word Christian means that it is fellowship in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is God, come in the flesh. But John further suggested and stated that this fellowship was not merely in the facts, but a personal relationship with the one set forth by the facts. That Jesus Christ was God, come in the flesh indeed, that he had been raised from the dead certainly, that he was enthroned at the right hand of the Father, but he could be known personally. By one's repentance and faith he would be brought into a vital relationship with Christ, wherein he would have been said to be a new creation having passed from death to life. He thus stated that the foundation of Christian fellowship is not the facts alone, but a personal experience with God through Christ, wherein one knows that he is born again, God himself witnessing to his believing heart. It is thus when you know, by that knowing, that the Holy Ghost, God in his omnipresence, gives to you, spoken of as the witness of the Spirit, that your fellowship with God is commenced, not concluded, but commenced. Now, if you've never had certainty of your relationship to Christ by the Spirit of God, then the level of your fellowship is going to be in the word of God. Allow, and I am not challenging this, that you are delivered from the fear of hell. You have been saved from the prospect of suffering in flame forever. But the grounds of your knowing this is the word of God, upon which truth you stand, certain verses that you've taken, assuring your heart of thus being in Christ. This is good, and I personally would not certainly challenge the validity of your testimony. But I'm saying that the level of your fellowship is going to be simply in the word of God. Now, no fellowship apart from the word of God, certainly with this we cannot be challenged, but if the only way that you know you're a Christian is that you've deduced it from what you've done toward what God said, then this is going to be the level of your fellowship. It will be a fellowship based upon what you have deduced from what God said and in relation to what others have deduced from what God said. But in the book we discover that this fellowship began with a revelation of Christ, not only to, but in. And we find such a verse as this. In the fullness of time God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were under the law, that they might receive the adoption of sons. And since they are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his Son into their hearts, crying, Abba, Father. And thus they have now this interior testimony. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness within himself. And we are thus stating as an axiom of the faith and a foundational aspect of our fellowship that one knows not only because they've read it in the Word and agreed to what is written, but having read it and having submitted and having received it, they've received Christ, for salvation is in a person. Salvation isn't something that a person sends apart from himself. Salvation isn't something the Lord Jesus died to give to people. He in heaven, and you here having salvation, in some extra essence apart from him. Salvation is a person. And this person is Jesus Christ. And thus the word is, he that hath the person hath life. He that hath the Son hath life. The Son is not an extraction of verses about him. The Son is not the sum of all of our verses about him. The Son is a person. He is God, God the Son. And if you're a Christian, then God the Son is in you. And if God the Son is in you, you know you're a Christian because he has spoken to your heart and assured your heart and you have an interior and an immediate awareness of God that enables you to know with a knowing that can't be, you can't be argued out of and can't be denied. You have the witness, the certainty, the knowledge, the assurance within yourself. And this is the foundation of Christian fellowship. The word, yes, but on the foundation of the word, a foundational experience of repentance and faith that issues into an inaugural or an initial relationship with God. But we must recognize that as essential as this is, it is not the finishing point. It's the front door, not the back. It's the threshold and not the finished room. And when you have stepped across this threshold of repentance and faith with the inner witness of the Spirit of God that you are born again, you have been brought into the room of blessing. At this point begins the testimony of 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 9 and on, where we read, I hath not seen, nor e'er heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man the things that God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit. So one aspect of the fellowship that we are to enjoy as Christians is being taught the word by those whom God has given for the blessing and benefit of his children. You see, there are two kinds of preaching. There is the preaching of the gospel to the unsaved, by which they discover how wicked they are and how holy God is, what God did that they might be saved and how they may be saved. This everyone is to do. This you are to do. God's plan and God's purpose was that everyone that is brought into this relationship with him should be a witness to him. The whole concept of a professional clergy doing the evangelizing is Roman in its origin and not Christian at all. The Christian testimony can't be gainsaid, it can't be denied. He intended every Christian to be a missionary. And someone as well said, you're either a missionary or a mission field. I think this is to be accepted also. After that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, ye shall be witnesses unto me. Now to say that he doesn't intend you to be a witness is likewise to say that he doesn't intend you to know the presence and fullness of the Holy Spirit. And therefore we will have to say that the one who said, come unto me and rest, said to the very same people who came and rested, go and preach. And to accept the come and rest to mean me and the go and preach to mean somebody else is intellectual dishonesty. It can't be tolerated by you. You'll have to reject it. The gospel is to be preached by you. You are to be the witness. It isn't to be that we have here an evangelizing center to which the sinners are brought by you to hear how they're going to be saved. I assure you this, you won't succeed in getting them in, by and large, unless their family or friends have come out of courtesy. But the old days when the evangelizing was done from the pulpit in America was in the days when there was no other source of information. Usually the preacher in early America after the Revolution and the pioneer communities had the best education of anyone for all the universities and colleges in this country were established for the express purpose of training men for the ministry, including Harvard and Yale and Princeton. You must remember that. And consequently, the best educated in any frontier community would be the preacher. He would have any letters, so there were no newspapers and certainly no radio or television or magazines. A few small publications, including the original Saturday Evening Post by Benjamin Franklin, just a small gazette that was handed out. A few were printed by hand press and so on, so they were not distributed widely. And Sunday nights, the people would come. There wasn't any other entertainment. There was nothing else doing. And so the people would come. Everybody would come because in the service the preacher would say, and now barge such and such will be landing at so and so and the overland wagons will be bringing, let's see, where they'll be bringing 15 bolts of wool and goods and 20 bolts of cotton goods and five barrels of salt. And he would read the bill of lading for the Conestoga wagons that were coming down from the canal and would bring the goods that would be distributed. And then he would say there'd be a political meeting. All the announcements were made in that service. Arguments were heard concerning various issues. And then because everybody was there, a rousing evangelistic sermon would be addressed to the sinners who were captive and couldn't get away. But it wasn't long until that changed and sinners don't come Sunday nights anymore. It's a little ridiculous, you know. You have the evangelistic sermon Sunday nights when the best of the saints are there and the sinners come Sunday morning. Well, they're clever. They know that this is the time when the people are going to be talking to the saints and so that's that they feel good about that. And so then they don't come Sunday night when the evangelistic... You find how hard it is to get the unsaved admitted unsaved people into the church on Sunday night. And you'll recognize that in America today it is practically impossible to have contact with the unsaved over the pulpit. I was talking with a pastor from Hicksville, Dick Richard Grove, pastor of the First Baptist Church or Baptist Church of Hicksville, Long Island, who has been working with the open-air campaigners and he said in one service with the open-air campaigners on the street, I spoke to more unsaved than I've spoken to in one year in my church in Hicksville. Now, God's intention is for every Christian to be a missionary, not necessarily on the open air as those that are called to this ministry, but there are others that are called to gossip the gospel, others that are called to witness in their homes and in their place where they work and so on. But God intended you to be a witness for it. Now, he gave evangelists and pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints into the work of the ministry. And if I find, as we pointed out in the past, our place there, it is this, the evangelist is the missionary, the church planter, and the pastor is the elder, the multiple elders. In this church there are ten men who are elders and the same word that's applied to elder is the word for pastor and it's the word for overseer. Then there were some of the eldership worthy of double honor, that is freed for the ministry of the word in prayer because theirs was the responsibility of teaching. He said to the elders, be not many teachers for theirs is the greater condemnation and don't seek to be a teacher in that sense. But he said, recognize that he has given some to be teachers and this would be the place where I would find myself and any other one who accepts the name pastor would be in somewhat similar place. But the work of the ministry, he gave evangelists, pastors, and teachers for the perfecting of the saints into the work of the ministry. And the work of the ministry was to be done by the saints that were brought into that place called the end or perfected or teleos, the place of maturity, if you please. So it's my responsibility then, among others, to tell you the heritage that yours in Christ, to instruct you concerning it, to exhort you concerning it. But when I've done that, I recognize there's someone else that must do the teaching. And this is the spirit of God. I can say the word, but only he can give the insight and the illumination that will enable you to understand this relationship with him. And thus in 1 Corinthians 2 we read, I have not seen or ear heard, neither have it entered into the heart of man. And this is all that I can deal with. I can show you through your eyes what's written in the page. I can speak to your ears and communicate the truth. I can try and by every means of illustration and application to give insight to your minds. But he says, I have not seen nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart, the mind of man, the things that God has prepared for them that love him. And if all that you have is what you hear and you haven't heard enough to meet the need. And there is another that will be the teacher that will show you the nature of this fellowship who will take the words. Oh yes, it's imperative that they be written. It's imperative that they be spoken and that they be shared. And this is the fellowship of the teacher and the fellowship of you, of everyone incidentally. For when you have understood truth, then it's your responsibility to share that truth with someone who is in need of it. But there is still the ministry of the teacher that is in conjunction with the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Some months ago I asked the group to buy the book Alarm to the Unconverted by Aline. A magnificent treatise written by one of the great Puritans. And we studied it on Sunday nights for some period of time. But only a few months ago did someone come to me and say, I see, I see now. Well, it's just beginning to dawn on me what Aline was talking about. Well, hadn't he heard? Hadn't what Aline written been clear yet? Hadn't what I'd said about it been clear reasonably? Well, why were they waiting so long to see? Well, you see, it was a matter of insight. And insight hadn't come from eyes and ears. By the same token, a few years ago, we pressed upon the congregation the book The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Neve. And just within weeks, someone said, you know, I read that book once because you said it was good. I didn't think it was so good. And then I read it again because I thought there was something in it that I remembered that I kind of needed. But just, just within weeks, just within days, have I seen what he's talking about? And now it's just changed everything. This is the work of the Spirit of God. Only he can do this. And I can. I can give you the book and try to tell you what it means, but only he can show you. Now do you recognize that it's essential, it's absolutely indispensable then, that this fellowship be on the basis not of what I say, however true and necessary that truth may be. Because then you're having fellowship in a teacher. You're having fellowship in a teacher's explanation, in a teacher's ideas. And this is quite easy. But John didn't say that the fellowship was with him alone. He says, that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you that you may have fellowship with us, and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. It's therefore incumbent upon you, if you want to have part in such fellowship, that you ask the proper one to instruct you in it. Here, for instance, is a choice. On the one hand is a seminary professor, wise, scholarly, devout, and earnest. He has studied well and much. He can parse every verb in the Greek, and he can decline every noun in the Hebrew. And he is unquestionably an authority, and devout as well. And he knows the Lord. And he's written wisely and profitably. But you know, all he has is what he's gotten just by eye and ear and dedicated mind. Now that's good, and it meets a need. But have you ever had a heart need that couldn't be met by a Greek verb? Have you? Have you ever had a hunger and a burden in your heart that just didn't seem to be satisfied by a Hebrew noun, and you needed to know the Lord? Now, if you want to have fellowship with verbs and nouns, go to him. But here's something that just doesn't seem to be met by a verb or a noun. It's got to... He can tell you the tense, but you're too tense to enjoy his tenses any longer. There's just too much problem in this for you to submit to it. Well, on the other hand, this auntie down in Georgia lives on a side street, little, never paved it. No... Just, just... That's all. Just a sand street in Georgia. And all the other houses are on picket fence and vines growing on the gate. And you know, if I've got a hunger and a burden, and it's a choice between my seminary professor friend and auntie, you know where I'm going to go. I've told you, haven't I? I'm going to go down and swing that little picket fence and go up and sit down on the porch, because she's usually seen there with her Bible in her lap and a great big glass in her hand, and she's got one tooth in her front, and she'll just keep rolling her tongue around it. Don't know where the others have gone, but one's left, proves she had them. And she sits there with that one tooth and this glass, and all she can read is just the Bible. She said the Lord taught her, and she isn't going to waste his gift on anything less than his book. And so she just sounds it out, syllable by syllable. And when she gets enough so that she can chew on it, just a word or two words or a clause or a verse, then she'll sit back and fold her hands. She'll say, Oh, Lord Jesus, you know, I'm just a poor old ignorant woman, and I haven't had no learning or education, and I don't know what that means. And would you teach me? And then he takes that verse and he ties it in with this verse, and he takes those two and he ties it in here, and he takes those three and he ties it in there. Pretty soon she said, Well, I bless the Lord. Well, I see. I see. Because something has come to life in her heart. Now, I'll go and sit down, as I say, on the porch and put my head against the post and look up into her face and say, Annie, what's Jesus been saying that'll meet the need of a hungry heart? And she's going to take bread that's fresh out of the oven of God's grace and share it with me. Because, you see, she has a teacher, and the teacher is the Spirit of God, the same teacher you can have. And so, you see, I have not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the mind of man the things that God hath prepared for them that love him, but God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit, by his Spirit. And the Spirit of God is going to be the teacher of the saint in the things of God. Now, if my professor, with all of his Greek verbs and his Hebrew nouns, will rock back in his chair and close his eyes and say, Lord, I thank you that you've given me these tools, but now teach me what it means, I'll get far more from him than I will from her. But if he's just going to give me what he has gleaned, and she's going to give me what he has breathed, only that which has in it the breath of life. Do you see? And so it is with you. It isn't just what you hear over the pulpit, it's what you do with what you hear. If something is stated about a privilege of a Christian, a privilege you have and enjoy, and you say, well, well, I wonder when God's going to hit me with that. Well, my friend, he isn't. You say, well, I'll just listen and agree, and maybe sometime God will get good-hearted and he'll just hit me with a bolt of lightning and he'll bring this. He won't. He won't, because the scripture says, give attendance to reading, study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, and then it says, meditate in these things. And meditation is the rumination of truth. It's taking it out of your memory and chewing it over and thinking about it, and finally the Spirit of God can dissolve it down to the place that he can join this to that and those to the other until there's something that'll feed your heart. You don't go to the kitchen and take and eat, as the recipe says, half a cup of flour, so you sit there and spoon up, then it says half a cup of, you don't eat that way. You put them together until there's something come out of it that's palatable and digestible and it meets your need, and all that's there is there. And so it is that you have the truth tied together and blended together and put together until it becomes a palatable, digestible truth that he builds into your Christian life and experience, and then you go and say, this is what the Lord has done. This is what the Lord... I can give you outlines. I can give you definitions. But you see, only God can quicken outlines and definitions until they become part and parcel of your experience and your fellowship is with him and not with me. How easy it is to set up a formula. I've been criticized because they said, you've talked about a life in Christ, but you haven't showed us how to get... I've showed them how to get in. I haven't gotten in for them, that's all. You have to go alone. It's like saying, now there's the tunnel, and at the other end is the Lord, and if you'll go through that dark tunnel on your hands and knees, he'll meet you. And when you... And then someone says, no, I want to meet him here. Well, I'm sorry. I told you where the tunnel is. I can't go through it for you. I've been through it, but I can't go through, see? You've got to go through alone. But when you come out, there's a smile on your face, and a light in your eye. And someone says, wasn't the Lord wonderful to so-and-so? He was, but wasn't she wonderful to the Lord? She took his truth and believed he meant it when he said it, and sought him with a whole heart and an open mind, and gave him thanks for what he was going to do before he'd done it, and rested and rejoiced and received from him more than that which the Spirit of God had shown her was her birthright in Christ. And this is the privilege of the children of God. So now there's something there. You've had fellowship with him. It isn't just fellowship about him. It's fellowship with him. And this is what we must see, that this is the fellowship not only on the basis of what the Word says about God, but it's a fellowship with God. This is union with him. Vile, constant, experiential union with the Lord. And you are to be conducted into this union by teachers who explain to you as best they are able with mere words, which they've arbitrarily added to their vocabulary and are equally arbitrarily using. Every word can be debated. It might be a better one could be employed. And so it's also an arbitrary matter as to whether you understand what the speaker meant to convey with the word. Words are a very, very poor way to communicate. We ought to develop something absolute like numerical symbols, you see. If we could just talk in algebra, it would be wonderful. So then there would be no question as to what we meant. But as it is, we have to talk in words which have definitions and areas instead of points of meaning. And the consequence of this is many times there isn't communication. But oh, it's marvelous, just wonderful to find someone that's made his way through the fog of semantics and met the Lord and comes out with a glow of heaven. And you may say he may talk about it entirely differently and may not be able to express it the same way, but there's something that's happened. And this becomes instantaneous. This becomes an immediate arrival at a place and point of fellowship because you've met him. Has this happened to you? Is God making truth real in your life, in your experience? Well, someone may say, well, there's something that I haven't seen yet, I haven't experienced yet. Well, that may be true, and obviously it is for all of us. But one thing I want to caution you, dear heart, don't you ever neglect what God has done in anticipation of what God is going to do. If God has spoken to your heart one little teeny bit of truth that he's quickened, be rejoiced and be exceedingly glad. Don't you pass that off and don't you minimize it because that is like the first step up the stairs. And if you neglect something, you don't know but what that something is essential to something further on. And so you should be so grateful to the Lord. Has he spoken to your heart? Do you know with that inner knowing you've passed from death to life? Oh, how grateful you should be. Has God shown you something? Whatever the Lord has shown you, let this be treasured by you. Whatever God has said, let this be held by you. Oh, do not, do not in anticipation of something that seems more wonderful tomorrow neglect or forget what God did yesterday. It will paralyze your relationship with him because if it was important enough for him to do yesterday, it's important enough for you to appreciate today. And it'll become the foundation on which you're going to step further into himself. Now we see three things. First, the word tells us what is ours and the Holy Spirit tells us how what is ours is to become ours. But the matter then becomes your responsibility to lay hold of truth, to take it, to treasure it, to love it, to meditate upon it. And realize that truth is not an end in itself, but it's but an unfolding of him. And the end of your desiring is not an experience but a relationship with him. And he wants you to want him for himself. Not for some gift, not for some other means. He, I think we've made a mistake. I'm sure I have, many of them, but one particularly when I've tried to exhort people to understand that this relationship with God called the fullness of God in Ephesians 3 is the relationship that was experienced by Phinney and Moody. And you see we're sort of getting endorsers for the word of God when we talk that way, but unconsciously we're sort of saying to people if you have what we're talking about you'll become like Phinney and Moody. And that isn't so at all. When you have everything God intended himself to be to you, you know what you're going to be? You're just going to be you in the right relationship with God. You won't be a Phinney or a Moody, you'll just be you. That's all. You'll just be the you that God intended you to be, the you that by his grace you can be, the you that you ought to be. But you're going to be you in a full, full, wonderful fellowship with God. You may still have the same job. People next to you won't notice anything's happened, but you'll know. There'll be joy and peace in his presence. It isn't going to mean that you're going to have a halo on your head or a light in your face that people will have to turn away when they see you, as they did in the case of Moses. It's just going to be that you're going to be where he wants you. You see? We've got to understand that God has some things that are important to him too. And we must deal with this matter of using God as an end to some other means, to some other end. He must be desired for himself. That fellowship of which John speaks is fellowship with the Father, not for the sake of the John or the sake of the people to whom he writes, but it's for the sake of the Father as well. Maybe the Father wants you to know him in his fullness because there's going to be arising from the altar of your heart an incense of worship that will satisfy him and glorify him, and not a soul anywhere around is going to smell the fragrance. But after all, this is between you and the Lord. And if he's satisfied, that ought to satisfy you. That ought to be enough for you. And the idea is that God is going to have to give you some evidence that he's satisfied with you so that others will become satisfied with you is impossible. He sent his Son, who had the fullness of the Spirit of God without measure and miracles without number. And do you know what they said about him? Beelzebub. Don't think for a moment that your unsaved neighbors, your unsaved friends would believe if there was something done. You say, well, if we could just see this dead person raised, or we could just see this blind person with eyes open, if we could just see this, then so and so. It wasn't so! When the Lord was here, they crucified him in the midst of those that were the living testimony of his power. Now, God's going to fill you with himself, not for any byproduct, but just so that he's satisfied with you and you're satisfied with him. And that ought to satisfy you. That ought to be enough. And you ought to recognize that God has something that's very precious. You see, he is love, and he's loved you from eternity past. And when there wasn't anything lovely about any of us, he loved us. Isn't that wonderful? He loved you when he knew the very worst there ever is to know about you, about me. And then he died out of longing for you. He died out of love for you. And now that you've heard of his death, he loves to be longed for, and he wants to be wanted, and he waits to be sought. Oh, what I'm trying to press upon your heart is that you see God for himself and not any byproducts. That he becomes the glorious end of your being and not some means. And this is going to do so much to help you in your relationship with him, when you understand that. That your fellowship is with the Father, not so that anybody else will know about it, but so that he'll know about it, and he'll be satisfied. Isn't it strange, after Pentecost, you only find four or five people mentioned in the New Testament? Someone says that after Pentecost, everyone was like Peter. There was only one Peter in the group. We never hear of Mary, the mother of our Lord. She was filled with the Holy Ghost. We never hear of her preaching. We never hear of any. A hundred and twenty people, and we only hear four or five of them. You see, they did what he wanted them to do, but he gave evidence by this that everyone that satisfies him isn't going to satisfy the populace. And you ought to long for the Lord, not for any other thing than just what he wants in you. And so fellowship with the Father on the basis of the Word, taught by the Spirit, sought by you for no other end than that he becomes satisfied with you and see in you of the travail of his soul, and he be satisfied. Then, having fellowship with him, there's the grounds now for fellowship with others in him and with him. You can have fellowship now in your hunger. There are many here that are in that state, and you can have fellowship in what he's done for you, and fellowship in going on year after year in enlarging, expanding relationship with the living God. Hear it again. That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you that ye also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. Let this be true of us. Shall we bow in prayer? Our Father, should there be those among us this morning who do not know him whom to know is life eternal? Might this be the day when throwing down the arms of warfare with which they've been in battle against thee, the living God, they sue for peace. At the nail-pierced feet of thy Son surrender all they are and have to him and receive him as Savior and as Lord. Grandfather, that thy children that know that they've been born of thee shall also know that there are rich blessings thou hast prepared for them that love thee, and with all their heart shall seek thee, not just to have for themselves, but that if it was important enough to thee to provide, then there must be something in it not only for us but for thee and for thy sake to want all that thou hast intended and provided. Grant, our Father, that as a people we shall understand that the true fellowship that we seek is fellowship that is first with the Father and with the Son, Jesus Christ. Lead us on, therefore. Let the instruction and the exhortation of the morning be remembered and become profitable to the hearts of thy people and early bring us into all thou hast for us because we ask it in the name and for the sake of our Lord Jesus. Amen. Let us stand for the benediction. Now unto him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us. Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.