Walking In The Light

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Walking In The Light
1 John 15-9

• Do You KNOW You Are Forgiven?

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1 John 15-9

• This is the message we have heard from Him and
  announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him
  there is no darkness at all.
• If we say that we have fellowship with Him
  and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not
  practice the truth 

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1 John 15-9

• but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in
  the Light, we have fellowship with one another,
  and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from
  all sin.
• If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving
  ourselves and the truth is not in us.
• If we confess our sins, He is faithful and
  righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse
  us from all unrighteousness. 

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Walking in the LightTwo Positions

• 1. Some take the position that the Christian who
  lives a humble, penitent and prayerful life,
  making a sincere effort to obey God at all times,
  although he may sin, is forgiven even as he
  sins and therefore stands in Gods grace and
  remains in the light and in fellowship with God.
• Labeled Continuous Cleansing

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Walking in the LightTwo Positions

• 2. Others teach that each time one commits sin he
  ceases to walk in the light, breaks his
  fellowship with God, falls from grace, and is
  therefore lost until he recognizes such sin,
  confesses it to God, and prays for forgiveness.
• Labeled Sinless Perfection

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My Conviction

• Both of these positions are extreme, and teach
  dangerous error.
• Position 1 Minimizes Need For Repentance
  Opens Door To False Doctrine on Fellowship
• Position 2 Provides No Assurance of Salvation
• The truth is a balanced combination of the two
  based on the plain revelation of God.

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Walking in the LightContinuous Cleansing

• 1. Some take the position that the Christian who
  lives a humble, penitent and prayerful life
• is forgiven even as he sins

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Continuous Cleansing and the Unity in
Diversity Movement

• Mike Willis, Guardian of Truth, December 3, 1992
• The doctrine of continuous cleansing has never
  been formally defined, to my knowledge. However,
  it may be summarized as follows. According to
  this doctrine, the blood of Christ cleanses an
  individual even as he sins. The sins of a
  Christian, committed in sincerity, ignorance,
  piety, weakness of the flesh or anything else
  besides highhanded rebellion are forgiven by
  Christ without the recognition of those things as
  sinful or the repudiation and cessation of the
  practice. In other words, there is continuous
  forgiveness for continuous sins as long as they
  fall into certain categories as defined by
  various interpreters.

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Continuous Cleansing and the Unity in
Diversity Movement

• Mike Willis (continued)
• The argument goes something like this Are you
  saved? Is it possible that you may be committing
  a sin of which you are presently unaware? If you
  are saved even though you are committing a sin of
  which you are unaware, is it not possible that
  members of the Christian Church who are unaware
  that using mechanical instruments of music in
  worship is sinful are also saved? If both are
  going to be saved in heaven, shouldn't they
  fellowship each other on earth?

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Continuous Cleansing and the Unity in
Diversity Movement

• Mike Willis (continued)
• The assumption behind this argument to justify
  broadening the base of fellowship is that a
  person can be saved while continuing in the
  practice of his sin so long as he is good, honest
  and sincere.
• He is said to be saved because the blood of
  Christ continuously cleanses him of the sins he
  continues to practice when he prays for God to
  forgive him of his sins.

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Walking in the LightSinless Perfection

• 2. Others teach that each time one commits sin
  he
• is therefore lost until he recognizes such sin,
  confesses it to God, and prays for forgiveness.

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What Happens When I Sin and Dont Know It?

• Dont Realize I Have Sinned
• Ignorant, Untaught in Some Area
• Not As Sensitive To Sin As I Should Be
• Sins of Weakness

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How Can I Know I Am Saved?

• If sin separates me from God (and the Bible says
  it does), and if repentance and confession is
  necessary for forgiveness (and the Bible says it
  is), then how, without perfect knowledge, can I,
  on a day to day basis, have any assurance of my
  salvation?

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The Big Question

• WHAT HAPPENS, in Gods scheme of things, when one
  who is trying to live the Christian life, and is
  walking in the light SINS?

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The Big Question

• J.T. Smith, Torch Magazine, Sept. 1988
• The only way I would be able to answer this
  question would be to give you Gods explanation
  if He had explained it which to my knowledge He
  hasnt.

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Things God HAS Said That I CAN Explain

• I. Sin separates us from God.
• Isaiah 591-2 Behold, the LORDS hand is not
  so short that it cannot save nor is His ear so
  dull that it cannot hear. But your iniquities
  have made a separation between you and your God,
  and your sins have hidden His face from you so
  that He does not hear.

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Things God HAS Said That I CAN Explain

• I. Sin separates us from God.
• One sin separated Adam and Eve from God (Gen. 3)
• Nadab and Abihu were struck dead for their sin in
  offering strange fire (Lev. 101-2)
• Uzzah was put to death for touching the ark when
  the oxen stumbled (2 Sam. 66-7)

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Things God HAS Said That I CAN Explain

• II. We can be justified absolved of ALL guilt.
• Romans 51-2 Therefore, having been justified
  by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord
  Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained
  our introduction by faith into this grace in
  which we stand and we exult in hope of the glory
  of God.

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Things God HAS Said That I CAN Explain

• III. A Christian can live every day with the
  assurance of salvation.
• 1 John 513 2 Timothy 46-8

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Things God HAS Said That I CAN Explain

• IV. We must be holy like God.
• 1 Peter 114-16 As obedient children, do not
  be conformed to the former lusts which were yours
  in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who
  called you, be holy yourselves also in all your
  behavior because it is written, You shall be
  holy, for I am holy.  

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Things God HAS Said That I CAN Explain

• V. When we become aware of sin, we must repent
  and pray for forgiveness.
• Acts 822 Repent therefore of this your
  wickedness, and pray God if perhaps the thought
  of your heart may be forgiven you.

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Things God HAS Said That I CAN Explain

• VI. David requested to be forgiven of secret
  faults.
• Psalm 1912-13 Who can understand his errors?
  Cleanse me from secret faults. Keep back Your
  servant also from presumptuous sins Let them not
  have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless,
  and I shall be innocent of great transgression.

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Psalm 1912 Albert Barnes

• Who can understand his errors? In view of a
  law so pure, so holy, so strict in its demands,
  and so extended in its requirements asserting
  jurisdiction over the thoughts, the words, and
  the whole life who can recall the number of
  times that he has departed from such a law? Who
  is there that can understand his own errors? Who
  can number up the sins of a life? Who can make an

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Psalm 1912 Albert Barnes

• estimate of the number of impure and unholy
  thoughts which, in the course of many years, have
  flitted through, or found a lodgment in the mind?
  Who can number up the words which have been
  spoken and should not have been spoken? Who can
  recall the forgotten sins and follies of a life
  the sins of childhood, of youth, of riper years?
  There is but one Being in the universe that can
  do this. To Him all this is known.

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Psalm 1912 Albert Barnes

• Cleanse thou me from secret faults The word
  here rendered secret means that which is hidden,
  covered, concealed. The reference is to those
  errors and faults which had been hidden from the
  eye of him who had committed them, as well as
  from the eye of the world. The sense is, that the
  law of God is so spiritual, and so pure, and so

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Psalm 1912 Albert Barnes

• extended in its claims, that the author of the
  psalm felt that it must embrace many things which
  had been hidden even from his own viewerrors and
  faults lying deep in the soul, and which had
  never been developed or expressed.

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Things God HAS Said That I CAN Explain

• VII. Jesus taught His disciples to pray forgive
  us our debts (Matt. 612)
• The publican was justified when he prayed
• God, be merciful to me a sinner (Luke 1813)

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Things God HAS Said That I CAN Explain

• VIII. God is patient and wants all men to be
  saved. 2 Pet 39 1 Tim 24
• Ask and you will receive, seek and you will
  find, knock and the door will be opened for you.
  - Matt 711

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Things God HAS Said That I CAN Explain

• IX. We are to pray without ceasing. 1 Thess.
  517
• We pray knowing that our fellowship with God is
  conditioned on repentance, confession of sin, and
  prayer for forgiveness.

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Bible-Based Conclusion

• Whatever you learn from Gods word that convicts
  you of sin, give the sin up.
• If you know of any sins you have committed but
  have not repented of, repent of them and ask God
  to forgive you.
• Ask God to forgive you of any sin of which you
  may not be aware.

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• J.T. Smith, Torch Magazine, Sept. 1988
• Now, if you have done these things, if my
  understanding of the things I have presented is
  correct, you are forgiven of every sin, whether
  of ignorance, willful, or caused by weakness of
  the flesh. If you died now, this instant, would
  there be any sin on your

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• J.T. Smith, continued
• record? No! When you are justified you are
  absolved of all guilt of every sin! And if you
  continue to practice the above mentioned things
  that brought about your justification by Gods
  grace and the blood of Christ, you can remain in
  that justified condition.

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Bible-Based Conclusion

• We will be forgiven of our sins when we repent of
  known sins and confess them, and ask God to be
  merciful to us as sinners and forgive us of sins
  of which we may not be aware.
• Thus we can be justified, live justified, and die
  justified.

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Have You Obeyed The Gospel?
Hear The Word (Rom. 1017) Believe That Jesus
is the Son of God (Acts 837) Repent of Your
Sins (Acts 238) Confess That Jesus is the Son
of God (Acts 837) Be Baptized for the
Forgiveness of Sins (Acts 238) Having Become A
Christian, Live Faithfully Until You Die (Rev.
210)