In this sermon, the preacher discusses the transformative power of the Lord Jesus in one's life. The speaker emphasizes the realization of breaking the Ten Commandments and the resulting fear of death. However, the preacher highlights the relief and freedom found in trusting Jesus as Lord and Savior. The sermon also emphasizes the sufficiency of the Bible for the Christian life and the importance of relying on God in all circumstances.

I'd like to have us sing our little chorus that we're learning. I need some help. Jehovah is one of them. And there are many what they call compound names of God. And this is one of them, Jehovah Tedkinu. It means the Lord, my righteousness. That's what it means. Another one is Jehovah Jireh. Some of you are familiar with that. Where's Jehovah Jireh found? Anybody tell me? What book? Genesis, right. The Lord will provide. The story of Abraham and Isaac up on Mount Moriah. Jehovah Nisi, Jehovah my banner. Jehovah Shalom, the Lord my peace. Jehovah Shammah, the Lord is there. And so forth. There are others. Well, this is a hymn written by Robert Murray McChain. He was a Scottish Presbyterian minister. He died at the age of 29. And his influence still affects Scotland, believe it or not. And he wrote this. And this hymn is kind of the story of his conversion. How he came to know the Lord. It's beautiful. First of all, I'm going to go over it with you. Explain a few things. And then we have a tape of a young lady in her 20s up in the north of Scotland singing it. And I think you'll like it. If you'd like to hum along, if you'd like to sing it along, you're welcome to do it. He says, I once was a stranger to grace and to God. I knew not my danger. I felt not my loathe. This is the unconverted day. Though friends spoke in rapture of Christ on the tree, Jehovah said to you, with nothing to me. That's an unsaved person. The Lord means nothing to him. Now, she's not going to sing the second verse, but it's beautiful. I oft read with pleasure to soothe or engage Isaiah's wild measure. If you read the book of Isaiah, you know, it's just filled with the lightnings and thunders of God's wrath, you know, against the Gentiles and against Israel when they went off into idolatry. So that's beautiful. Isaiah's wild measure and John's simple page. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was with God. You know what I mean? There's a big difference between Isaiah. You say, well, how did he know this? Well, he was brought up in a Scottish home and they knew the Bible. The Bible was read every day in the home. So here, unconverted, he knew the Bible. He knew Isaiah. He knew John. Isaiah's wild measure and John's simple page. But even when they pictured the blood-sprinkled tree, Jehovah said to you, nothing to me. Like tears from the daughters of Zion that roll, I wept when the waters went over his soul. I mean, he's unconverted and he's weeping over the suffering and agonies of the Lord Jesus there on the cross of Calvary. Yet thought not that my sins had nailed to the tree. Jehovah said to you, it was nothing to me. I mean, he knew the story of the crucifixion. He'd known it all his life. And he wept over it, you know, an emotional weeping over it. But he didn't realize it was his sins who had nailed the Savior to the tree. When free grace awoke me by light from an eye. That's beautiful, huh? Something came to bring light into the darkness. Free grace, the story of God's wonderful salvation is a free gift. Then legal fears shook me. I trembled to die. The law began having its effect in his life. The Ten Commandments. He realized he had broken them. He had broken all of them. And he trembled to die. No refuge, no safety in self could I see. Jehovah said to you, my Savior must be. Then what happened? He trusted the Lord Jesus. He trusted him as his Lord and Savior. And it says, my terrors all vanished before the sweet name. Isn't that lovely? The sweet name. I like that. The name of Jesus. My terrors all vanished before the sweet name. My guilty fears vanished. The boldness I came to drink at the fountain. Life giving and free. Jehovah said, can you with all things to me. What a difference, huh? Jehovah said, can you my treasure and boast? Jehovah said, can you? I ne'er can be lost. In thee I shall conquer by flood and by field. By flood and by field. Whether on the land or on the sea, huh? Wherever God leads me, I'll conquer. My table, my anchor, my breastplate and shield. In treading the valley, the shadow of death, this watchword shall rally my faltering breath. For while from life's fever. I think that's beautiful. From life's fever. My God sets me free. Jehovah said, can you? My death song shall be. Here, Robert and Margaret Chene really didn't know the truth of the rapture of the church. That the Lord Jesus was going to come and take his people home to be with himself. They believed that when you died, the Lord came for you. That was their idea of the second coming of Christ. Now I'm going to play it for you. And if you'd like to hum along, it's a very nice tune. If you'd like to hum along or even sing along. Okay. Thank you very much. Now you thought I was never going to get to the word, didn't you? First John. We're going through First John. I hope you won't be disappointed that we're not going to be talking about the resurrection. We think about the resurrection every day of our lives. And the morning worship meeting centered on the resurrection of Christ too. Actually, you know, every time you go to sleep, it's kind of a type of death. And every time you wake up, it's a type of resurrection. Isn't it? I don't mean that when you die, you sleep. You don't. The Bible doesn't know anything about soul sleep. If you're a believer, when you die, you go to be with the Lord. If you're an unbeliever, you die, you go to Hades. But God has given us that type. So we should be quite used to it, shouldn't we? Every morning is a resurrection. Okay. First John, chapter 2, verse 18. Little children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many Antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out that they might be made manifest that none of them were of us. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, that no lie is of the truth. Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is Antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either. He who acknowledges the Son has the Father also. Therefore let that abide in you which you have heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. This is the promise that he has promised us, eternal life. These things I have written to you concerning those who try you. But the anointing which you have received from him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you. But as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things and is true and is not a lie, and just as it taught you, you will abide in him. And now, little children, abide in him, that when he appears we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of him. We'll just stop reading there, although we might get further than that this morning. The Background of the Epistle John is writing in the early days of the church, and already the church has been infiltrated by false teachers. In this case, they were false teachers known as Gnostics. They professed to be believers, they professed to know the Lord, but they didn't. They stayed for a while, and then they left the Christian fellowship, they abandoned the Christian fellowship, but they kept spreading their heresies. And this book is written to warn the Christians against false teachings and false heresies. It's written to warn against possession of Christianity. And, of course, you know that the United States today is just flooded by a wave of profession. A lot of people say, oh, yes, I'm a Christian. I talked to two people yesterday on the beach. Oh, yes, they were Christians. They were baptized when they were babies. You know, that made them Christians. And so, in this book, John is giving some tests of reality. He's giving tests by which a person can really know whether he's been born again or not. Whether he really has the root of the matter in him. Now, not that John is looking for perfection, he's not. But he's looking, for instance, for the test of doctrine. Whether you really accept the Lord Jesus Christ as God in the flesh. He's looking for that. He's looking for the test of righteousness. He's looking for the test of love, and so forth. And a test of obedience, too. And we'll see this as we go along. So, this passage starts with that warning. Little children, it's the last hour. Well, it was the last hour then, and it's the last hour now. It's a pretty long hour, you say. Well, it's an hour with this characteristic, called Peter's Antichrist. That's what makes it the last hour. You have to get used to that in the Bible, that when you come to the word hour, it doesn't mean an hour of 24, an hour of 60 minutes, or the day of the Lord isn't a day of 24 hours. They're periods of time with certain characteristics, that's what they are. And this tells you what the characteristics of the last hour are. As you have heard, the Antichrist is coming. Well, we know that after the church has raptured home to heaven, after the Lord Jesus comes and passes his waiting people home to be with himself, a great world leader is going to arise. He's going to pose as the Christ. He's going to be against the Christ. That word anti, that prefix anti, can mean in place of, and it means against. And this Antichrist that will come in the tribulation period, he's against Christ. And he takes that place of Christ. He wants to be worshipped as God. That's what he wants. He wants to be worshipped as God. And of course, he will have tremendous power. He will be energized by Satan. He won't be Satan, but he will be a man who's empowered by Satan. He's called the man of lawlessness. He's a very embodiment of lawlessness. And he'll be able to perform miracles. He'll be able to cause a statue, an image to speak. Things like that. Satanic delusions that many people will, and of course he's the one that will come up with that number 666, and anyone who will not take that number 666 upon himself will be, well, he won't be able to buy food, he won't be able to engage in anything, and many of them will be killed as well. Well, now the Antichrist is coming, but now there are many Antichrists in the world. That's rather interesting. We call these men false teachers. We call them false prophets. You know, it's about time we called them Antichrists, because that's what the Bible calls them, Antichrists. And what characterizes them? Denial of the great truths of the Christian faith, that's what denies, what characterizes them. And especially the denial of the humanity and the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what the Gnostics were all about. Some of them denied his real humanity, and some of them denied his absolute deity. And of course, that's the great test, isn't it? The great test, is Jesus God? What thinking of Christ is a test to try both your faith and your scheme. You cannot be right in the rest unless you think rightly of him. And John's going to ring the changes on that as we go along in this passage of Scripture. Even now, many Antichrists have come. John could see California. I mean, the next of Antichrists. The breeding place for false cults. Really? John calls them Antichrists. That's exactly what they are. By which we know it is the last hour. Well, if it was the last hour when John wrote, I'll tell you we're closer to the end right now. And even people of the world are wondering how much longer things can continue as they are today. It's kind of an anarchy of morals in the world today. An anarchy of morals. There are no, everything is relative today. And even great church leaders, great I say it in parenthesis or in italics, great church leaders come across with sayings like this. You can't say that anything is absolutely wrong. It's only wrong if it isn't done in love. That's nonsense. It's John Robinson of the Church of England that said that. Utter nonsense. It's not what my Bible says. It's not what your Bible says either. Okay, how can you detect these people? They went out from us because they were not of us. Now dear friends, when it says they went out from us, it doesn't mean they left Calvary Bible Chapel to go to Fairhaven Bible Chapel or something. It doesn't mean that. It doesn't mean you leave one Christian church to go to another Christian church. When he says they left us, they abandoned the Christian faith is really what it means. They abandoned the Christian faith. Okay, give us a for instance. Well, I just finished reading a book called Finishing Strong by Steve Farrar. The first chapter tells about three men. Three men. One of them was Billy Graham. Another one was Chuck Templeton. The third one, I forget his name, although at the time he was recruited to be the greatest preacher in the United States. He never got to meet. Billy Graham preached the Word of God and has down through the years. Preached the good gospel down through the years, hasn't he? Chuck Templeton was the head of Youth for Christ in Toronto. And a lot of people were saved under his ministry. Somebody said to him, Chuck, you're good, but you'd be a lot better if you went to seminary. And he went to Princeton and when he got out he had nothing. He turned his back on the Christian faith. He's abandoned the Christian faith. Sometimes you'll see him on television with his back to the pulpit and his front to the television camera or something. He's not a backslider, friends. He's an apostate. He never was truly saved in the first place. That's the trouble. He never was truly saved in the first place. How do you know? Just because he says so here. They went out from us because they were not of us. He means because they were never really born again. They were never really saved. They never really embraced the Lord Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. If they had been of us, they would have continued with us. What does that mean? It means that true faith always has the quality of permanence. It doesn't mean that you don't slip. It doesn't mean you don't lap. It doesn't mean that at all. But it means you keep your faith right steadfast to the end. That's what it means. And when a person is born again, he's kept by the power of God, true faith, under salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. It doesn't mean that he has to hold on for dear life. It means that Jesus holds on to him for dear life. That's very comforting, isn't it? Very comforting to me. I tell you, if my continued salvation depended on my holding on, I'd have been lost long ago. I'd have been lost long ago. Thank God it doesn't. He's holding on to me. That's what Paul said. I know whom I believe. And I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. That was the confidence of true faith. And I just wanted to emphasize that. True faith always has the quality of permanence. Now, Abraham was a man of faith. He was a great man of faith. And yet he had a lack of faith and he went down to Egypt. But he came back. He came back. It says a righteous man may fall seven times, but he'll rise again. That's it. That's it. He that shall endure unto the end shall be saved. Why? By his own endurance? No, but just because that's the quality of faith. Enduring to the end. So this is very significant. I'm talking about apostates who were in the Christian fellowship, who masqueraded as Christians. They were what I sometimes call adherents. They took themselves, put themselves in the Christian community, but they weren't genuine. They were fakers. They were phony as a three dollar bill and they left. And they're leaving. Once again, I want to say, they didn't leave for one Christian church or another. No, no. They left. They abandoned the Christian fellowship and they proved that they weren't genuine. None of them were of us, he says. I want to tell you, John paints with broad strokes, doesn't he? As either black or white with him. You have an anointing from the Holy One and you know all things. Well, this requires a little bit of explanation, doesn't it? A lot of the things in this chapter really require explanation. You have an anointing. The anointing there is really the Holy Spirit. And I think it's the Holy Spirit, especially in his teaching ministry. There are many ministries of the Holy Spirit. But John is thinking especially of the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit. And when a person is really saved, when a person really comes in repentance, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit comes in and dwells in him, and that believer gets a capacity for discerning between truth and error. It's not something you go to seminary to get, a Bible source. It's built in when you get saved. An ability, not perfect, an ability to distinguish between truth and error. And so John says to his readers, you have an anointing, you have the Holy Spirit. And you don't need anyone to teach you. What does that mean? It means we don't need teachers? Of course we need teachers. If you turn back to Ephesians chapter 4, let's do it. Ephesians chapter 4, it distinctly says that we need teachers. The risen Christ at the right hand of God gave gifts to men. Verse 11, it says, And he himself, this is the risen Christ at God's right hand, gave some to the apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. This is a gift that Christ gave to the church, teachers. Well, how do you reconcile those two statements? John says you don't need teachers. And Paul says in Ephesians 4, Christ gave you teachers. Well, what it means in 1 John chapter 2 and verse 26. You don't need teachers like these apostates. You don't need teachers like these Gnostics. You have the Holy Spirit of God, and you have the Word of God. That's all you need. To discern the falseness of what they are peddling to you. You do need teachers. Thank God for teachers. But we don't need teachers like these men. You see, they came in and they said, You know, what you have is good, friends, but we have deeper mysteries, and you'll never be fulfilled until you're initiated into our deeper mysteries. John says, Nonsense. You have everything in this Word that's necessary for life and godliness. That's true. You have everything in the Bible that's necessary for life and godliness. And the Holy Spirit teaching you, and he often teaches you, true men. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it. And no lie is of the truth. No lie is of the truth. They came peddling lies. And they know that no lie is of the truth. It doesn't square with the truth. I mentioned before that truth is static. Truth is the same forever. They have the same Bible that they had in 1611. Different translations, but that doesn't affect the truth of the Bible. The translations don't affect the truth. Truth is permanent. But these people, their teachings were always changing, and they didn't even agree among themselves. Who is a liar? Here it is. Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? I mentioned to you before that one of the great tenets of Gnosticism was that there was a difference between Jesus and the Christ. Jesus was just a mere man. And the Christ was a power that came upon him from heaven. It came upon the man, Jesus. But Jesus wasn't the Christ. And that power came upon Jesus, that spirit came upon Jesus. At his baptism, when he entered the public ministry, and it left in the Garden of Gethsemane. So Jesus died on the cross, they say. But the Christ didn't die on the cross. See, it was a denial of the identity of Jesus and the Christ. I'm so glad that in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures. You know, I'd hate to hold error because the Bible will back you right into a corner if you hold error. It'll back you right into a corner every time. You say something like that and you turn to the Bible and there it is absolutely refuted in words that cannot be misunderstood. Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures. Now, in that statement, Jesus is the Christ, you have the humanity and the deity of the Lord Jesus. And this is brought out very beautifully in this epistle. The humanity, Jesus, the man, Jesus. You know what I mean? He was a real man, we read that in chapter 1. We saw him, we heard him, we handled him. He was a real person, real humanity. And then, of course, the Christ means the anointed one of God. That's what it means. So you have this humanity. You'd think that verse 23 was kind of a duplication of that, but it isn't. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either. He who acknowledges the Son has the Father also. Notice, in verse 22, you can't have the Son without denying the Father. Verse 23, you can't have the Son and be a child of the Father. Different. Denial, having. Deny, have. You can't deny the Son and be the child of the Father. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either. He's not your Father. He who acknowledges the Son has the Father also. When you trust Christ as your Savior, you can look up at the face of God and call him Father. But not if you don't trust the Lord Jesus. Therefore let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. Well, the beginning, their first contact with Christianity. When they first heard the gospel preached. The same message hasn't changed one bit. Hasn't changed down to the present hour. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. Plead to them. Stand fast in the faith. Don't budge. People will ridicule you. They'll say you're narrow-minded. Many ways to God. No, there aren't many ways to God. Jesus is the only way to God. This is the promise that he, I think he there is Christ, has promised us eternal life. My, that's really wonderful. It's enough to boggle the mind, isn't it? Enough to blow the fuses of your mind to think that God has promised us eternal life through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you. Those are the Gnostics. Those are the false teachers who try to deceive you. But the anointing, here it is again, the anointing which you have received from him abides in you. The Holy Spirit, he doesn't come and then leave. When he comes, he stays. He's with the believer forever. This is a little different from the way it was in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, the Spirit of God came upon people, but left people too. That's why David prayed, take not thy Holy Spirit from me. We wouldn't pray that prayer today, would we? Take not thy Holy Spirit from me, but he never does. He abides with us forever. The anointing which you have received from him abides in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. Well, here we are again, the same thing. Anyone like these Gnostics. You do need godly men to teach you. You need men who teach from the Word of God. Some of our interns were over at our funeral the other day in San Francisco. And the cleric who was in charge met them. And they were with Jim McCarthy, one of our teachers, one of our colleagues. And this cleric said to our interns, he said, don't believe everything he tells you. One of the interns spoke up and said, we believe everything he tells us if it agrees with the Bible. Good answer, huh? Good answer. He said, we believe everything he tells us if it agrees with the Bible. That's it. The Bible is the test. It's our authority. And we stand true to it, though the earth may tumble. The anointing which you have received from him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you, but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things. All things? Well, all things that are necessary for the Christian life. I think that's marvelous that within the confines of this book, from cover to cover, God has given us all that's necessary for this life and for entrance into eternal life as well. There's no book like the Bible, is there? I've read an awful lot of the books of literature, but they never did for me what the Bible has done for me. This is a great book. I don't know that I told you, but we used to have a missionary from Canada. Don knew him. His name was Silas Hawks. And before he was saved, he was a circus clown. And he sanctified it for the Lord. And he was a great open-air preacher out there in India. And he put his hat down on the ground. His hat down on the ground. And then he'd start yelling. He'd be jumping around, jumping around the hat and say, It's living! It's living! And a thousand people would gather. He'd pick up the hat and there was his Bible. And he'd give them the gospel. We don't have many men like that today. I call them God's irregulars. They're the ones that get the work done for God. We're too regular. That's the trouble with us. He used to do that. Don Robertson, he could tell you some fantastic stories about this dear man. He was an embarrassment to the Christians. He was. He was so irregular. But, after all, I'll give him credit. He was a circus clown. And he just was able to use that. He had no fear of man, whatever. And I want to tell you the people of India loved him. It wasn't so much loved up in British Columbia. But over there in India, they absolutely loved him. They did. Okay, just by the side. As the same anointing teaches you concerning all things. Not all things absolutely. Not the laws of physics and all of that. But all things that are needful for you as Christians. The way of salvation. The way of the Christian life. Everything that you need. As I said before, everything that's necessary for life and godliness. And is true and is not a lie. Just as it's taught you, you will abide in Him. What did he say? Go on for the Lord. That's what he's saying. You've got the proof in the Word of God. Stick to it. And go on for Jesus. Then he says, And now, little children, abide in Him that when He appears, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming. When he speaks little children, he's talking to all believers. You're here today. You're a believer. Talking to you. The whole family of God. The word you is understood there. And now, little children, you abide in Him. There's something written to you. What does it mean to abide in Him? It means to obey Him. One of the synonyms for abide is obey. It means to walk in fellowship with Him. It means to stay close to Him. It means to confess and forsake your sin as soon as you're aware that it has come into your life. Abide in Him. That when He appears. This refers to the rapture. When the Lord Jesus comes from heaven, the dead saints are raised, the living saints are caught up to meet them in the air as they go off to the Father's house. John 14, 1 to 6. That when He appears, we may have confidence. We there. Well, it refers primarily to the apostles. John and the other apostles. And when he's saying, look, we've been teaching you the word of God. Abide in Him so that when the Lord Jesus comes and we stand before the judgment seat of Christ, we the apostles may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him that He's coming. It could also mean we, us too. I won't limit it just to the apostles. It could mean everybody. All God's people. But I think primarily it shows you the importance of follow-up work. To lead a person to the Lord, you don't leave him there. You follow him up. As the brethren do in this assembly, thank God for it. They don't just let people flounder. They give them instruction in the word of God and practical Christian work as to the word. So this is a very, very important verse. Now, little children, you abide in Him so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming. Now, really the next verse properly belongs to the next chapter. You know that the chapter, the verses and chapters aren't part of the inspired text. They were added later. But I really believe God superintended them just the same by and large. So, if you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him. Him, the Father. This is one of the tests of life. It's the test of righteousness. A Christian is a person who's righteous. What do you mean righteous? He's the one who does the right thing. Well, let's think about that for a minute. I think of some of your neighbors. Some of you have real good neighbors. I mean, when you go away, they watch your house. Sometimes, if you're older and you can't do it, they'll mow your lawn for you. They'll come over with bakery goods for you. I mean, they're just nice people to have as your neighbors. I can think of some unsaved people who act more righteously than Christians. Some Christians that I know. How do you reconcile this? It doesn't mean just acting righteously toward one another. It means acting righteously toward God. That's different. Those people, they might have that aspect down here on earth, but what is their attitude toward the Lord? You say, what do you mean? Well, what does the Lord want them to do? Remember when the Jews came to Jesus and they said, what good work must we do that we might work the works of God? Jesus said, this is the work of God that you believe on him whom he has sent. And you can't be righteous toward God until you trust Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. You can't be righteous to God. That's the right thing to do. The first right thing you can ever do as a sinner, the first right thing you can ever do as a sinner is put your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus. Repent of your sins and put your faith and trust in him. I heard a wonderful definition of repentance. I read it this week. I hope I won't shock you. I wouldn't say it if we were all eating, but it's good. Repentance is the vomit of the soul. Does that say anything to you? It does to me. Repentance is the vomit of the soul. Do you know what the drive heaves are? Well, in repentance all of that rottenness comes to the surface. You realize what you are before God. That's terrible. That's terrible. That's what makes you in a hurry to trust Christ. Because you know that nobody like that could ever go to heaven unless their sins were forgiven. Don't forget that definition. I guess you have to be careful before you quote it. Now I might hear about it afterwards too, but that's okay. It's a good definition of repentance. The vomit of the soul. The dry heaves of the soul. And if you don't know today what that means, give God a chance. Ask Him to tell you what it means. Ask Him to convict you of your sins. Not just the deeds that you've done, but the evil in the heart, you know. Quite an experience. If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him. And remember when you read it, righteousness first toward God, then righteousness toward your fellows. Then of course, 59, behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God. This verse is linked with the expression in the previous verse, born of Him. And John is just kind of blown away by the thought that we should ever be called children of God. He finds that amazing. He finds that wonderful. It's not something that he takes for granted. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God. Therefore the world doesn't know us, because it didn't know Him. Our time is up. Matt's going to lead us in closing hymn, and we'll start chapter 3, verse 1, Lord willing, next Lord's Day. Shall we pray?