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OK, I want to make this presentation uh about whether or not it's possible to stop singing. I had the misfortune of seeing a video on youtube the other day where they made it into this dramatic gotcha where they took a clip of one of the few people online that I have found that is preaching actual repentance where this man says he's testifying that he has stopped sinning and then they cut to a screen that, that quoted John 18 all dramatically. And then the video ended as if to say this guy is obviously a liar. Um All right, let's, let's start with what Jesus actually said about this. This isn't every quote , but we'll just throw these up John 1415, Jesus said if you love me, keep my commandments, so if it's not possible to keep his commandments, then that would mean that there isn't one person that loves him because if you don't keep his commandments, you do not love him. John 811, this is when the woman is caught in adultery, she's brought to Jesus because the Pharisees want him want to put him on the spot and trap him and Jesus said unto her. Neither do I condemn thee go and sin no more. So it's interesting. He says sin no more. Why would he tell someone to do something that they cannot do in John 514? This is um the man who's laying at the pool for 38 years uh afterward after he heals him, Jesus find him in the temple and said unto him, behold, thou art made whole sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee again. Why, why would he tell someone to do something if it were impossible? Finally in Matthew 548 be therefore perfect even as your father, which is in heaven is perfect. Why would he command you to do something that you can't do? Now, these aren't the only scriptures we're just keeping it there for to make this video shorter. OK. So now this is what's said. Now, let's read what these Yahoos interpret this. They twist it, they, they throw a knife into it and turn it around and slice it up to try to justify the fact that they have chosen to continue to sin and they live in mutually exclusive positions of believing that God has, has all this power, but he can't help us to stop sinning . And that it's possible to believe in Jesus without actually doing what he says. And so I I these people are anti-christ, it's, you cannot, you cannot overstate how much harm these fake Christians cause they are not Christians. They do not actually believe in Jesus because they deny what he has said . And they teach people not to listen to him, not to obey him. And that in doing so they can, they can still somehow please him. It's pernicious. It's terrible. So chief among these offenders and if I had more time, I mean, we could just go through their site and pull up all the garbage that these people say are these got questions, people got questions.org. It's an enormous ministry. Tons of people give tons of money to it. And I wish it just didn't exist. The world would be a better place. It would be much easier to persuade people to be Christians. If we didn't have all these fake Christians floating around spewing out garbage all the time, they, they just like the Pharisees. They don't go in the way and they make it 100 times harder for anyone else to, because every time you start preaching truth to somebody persuasively with positive examples in your own life, they point to these idiots and they say, well, what about these guys? They say they're Christians in XYZ. It'd be better if those people just didn't exist, life would be a lot easier. So if you Google, can we stop sinning? Here's a few quotes you'll get again. There are many more. So I'll give you two from God questions, one from this website redeeming god.com. So they they literally said in saying go and sin no more. Jesus was not speaking of sinless perfection. Ok. Well, what, what was he saying? He, he literally said, go and sin no more. If he meant something else, why didn't he say something else? Later on? In that same article , they say while we are in the flesh, we will still stumble. In other words, it's impossible to actually repent. It's impossible to actually do what God tells us to do. And, and, and insultingly in the, in the same article, they, they quote Paul talking about conforming ourselves to the image of Christ . How can you conform yourself to something that you're not actually becoming? Like, how on earth can these things coexist? It's illogical and anyone with half a brain can see it from 10 miles away. And that's what keeps intelligent people out of Christianity. And it's a, it's a shame because it's exactly where they belong. But these idiots hedge up the way by preaching these moronic self, contradicting ideas and why? Because they love sin more than they love God. And so they don't repent and they teach others that it's OK not to repent. In the words of this redeeming God website. God doesn't care about our sin. Yeah. Right. That's why he came and died to free us from it is because he doesn't care about our sin. How can these people think that they're Christian? Have they ever read the Bible? My goodness. This is why it's better for most people to never set foot in a church because that's how corrupt modern Christianity is. They are least likely to find Christ in a church professing his name than they are almost anywhere else in the world. Because because common sense and logic will lead you closer to God than modern churches. And that's pathetic. And it's because of these people. Now, I I did find one wonderful counterexample which is, which is brilliant to just juxtapose this got questions nonsense. So God questions says in saying go and sin no more, Jesus was not speaking of sinless perfection. And then this other website active christianity.org says, imagine he chose to say go and sin no more because his intention was that we should go and sin no more. Imagine that, imagine that it literally means what it says. Amazing, so good for them. It's these people that are spoken of in many places in the scriptures. But here's one from Ezekiel 3623. I will reveal the holiness of my great name. It's obviously it's the Lord speaking which has been dishonored by the nations. The name that you the believers have dishonored among them. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord because I will reveal my holiness among you as they watch declares the Almighty Lord. This is an end time prophecy. This is one of the things we have to look forward to is that God will crush these corrupt perversions of what he has given us what's said about Him in our day and plainly show that it's all nonsense by giving something better. So just so we can get out vent all this insanity. This is what those people expect you to believe. So they claim to believe in a God who heals the sick, raises the dead and even moves mountains and they don't dispute that he promised his disciples that they would do all of these things and greater because he goes to the father. And yet they do not believe that this all powerful God is capable of leading you out of sin. Somehow he can do all those other things. But no, sorry. There's just nothing he can do. You're gonna be a sinner the rest of your life. That's the best he can do like a like the pawn shop. Best I can do is sim for the rest of your life. Don't think so. Folks in Mark 1123 Jesus said, whosoever shall say unto this mountain be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith. So the problem here is that they don't believe it's possible and of course, they can't do it if they don't believe it's possible and they don't believe it's possible because all these alleged Christians are running around continuing to live in sin, even bragging about how they keep sinning and, and, and thinking that it somehow glorifies God for them to do that and, and saying, yeah, I just keep sinning and every time I ask for forgiveness, he forgives me again as if that's the best he can do. He doesn't just want to forgive you of sin. He wants to make it so that you stop sinning so that you can actually become holy instead of just forgiven. There's a difference . Forgiveness is a blank slate. Holiness is something that's worth something. It's to actually become like him, not just be forgiven by him, but to actually follow him and become more like him. So the doubt is a problem. So there's a famous story about doubt in the scriptures, isn't there, John 20 you read about Thomas. So he wasn't there the first time that the the resurrected Lord came back and they, they told him we've seen the Lord, but he said to them, unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand on his side. I will not believe a week later his disciples were again in the house and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you. And then he said to Thomas put your finger here and see my hands reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe. And Thomas answered him, my Lord and my God. Now if Thomas gets a bad rap for, for, you know, as if he did something wrong here, I personally believe that Thomas was so heartbroken about the, the loss of the Lord that it wasn't enough to overcome his grief. Um Maybe I'm wrong about that. I'm not sure it's super important to the, to the content at hand here. But maybe it is the the point is that some people will believe it's possible to be sinless when someone tells them, it's possible as in the written word where Jesus says, go and sin no more, be perfect and so on. For others, they will have to see this in the flesh before they believe it's possible. So just like Jesus did to provide evidence of his resurrection, he provides evidence of repentance. And so John, the apostle says this and hereby, we do know that we know Him. If we keep his commandments, he that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in Him. But whoso keepeth his word in him verily is the love of God perfected hereby know we that we are in Him. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also. So to walk, even as he walked now this is Old English and whatnot. But if you read this, John is saying, I know Jesus and I live exactly as he would. John is saying I keep God's commandments. I know him. I love him. Do you get that? He? In fact, if you read how the letter opens in first John, he says he's writing the letter to give his witness of what he has experienced himself. And this is why it's so perverted that the first scripture these people go to, to justify what their corrupt belief about not being able to repent is from first John. And we'll get to that in a second, but it's not just ancient witnesses. Here. There are people on the earth today who are demonstrations of sinless. They do what they sincerely believe God would do in their place all the time and they don't do what they believe God would not do in their place all the time. Now, that doesn't mean they absolutely know what God would or wouldn't do in their place all the time. That's a, that's a progressive thing that everyone walks in that path. That's why we're here. We keep learning, but in any moment they're doing exactly what they believe God would do in their place. That is the gospel. That is the point that you can't separate it from anything else in it. It's the path, the gateway is forgiveness. That's how it starts. But the path after that is a path of holiness. It's a path of increase as you learn more about God and the whole time you're walking aligned perfectly with how he would act in your place as far as, you know, he doesn't want you hanging out at the gate for the rest of your life. That's not the point. That's not the point. You can't get abundance in a blank slate. He wants to fill the chalkboard with himself. He can't do that if you're erasing it every day or once a week or however often. So there are people like me who publicly state I have stopped singing. It is possible you have the witnesses in the flesh just like they did back then you have them today, you search the internet, you'll find these people. You can be sinless. So let's get into how they twist first John 18. It says if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And the truth is not in us. And this is the gotcha. Oh And this is the problem with quoting single verses and not actually reading the scriptures yourself to know better. You, you every one of you should have enough knowledge of what the scriptures say. And don't say that if someone tries to pull this on you, you can just catch them right away and call them out on him. I already read you one passage from First John that shows abundantly what he was trying to say, OK, we're going to read some more. The fact is that we're reading a text that was written a really long time ago in a different language and maybe two languages from what we have it in today, you, you have to be a little more sophisticated than just sort of trying to pattern match what your pastor told you or what your parents raised you with to some single scripture that's like the only one, you know, that that doesn't cut it. So here's the surrounding text and you can see a pattern here of what, what John was trying to build with this. He says, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And the truth is not in us, ok? If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Ok? That, that's cool. That's we're, we're able to be forgiven great. And then in verse 10, if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. And now we have a parallel because verses eight and 10, they they are structured the same and, and they deal with similar topics. If we say that we have no sin versus if we say that we have not sinned, right? And so we deceive ourselves, we're lying to ourselves versus we make him a liar. And it's the truth is not in us versus his word is not in us, these are really important and, and you could, you could preach a whole sermon just on these three verses because they're so rich and beautiful in, in terms of what sin means, what confess means. That's all these English words are hollow compared to the original meaning of the, the older text cleanse. Um So, so in Greek clans and purge are the same word, same meanings or uh I'm sorry, they're not the same meanings, but they're the same word . And so you can get different meanings depending on what sense of the word you use. Confess. Confess is a very deep rich word. It means much more than just to say, oh, I'm a sinner. That's not what confessing your sins means. It's much more than that uh faithful. Just those are rich words much richer than in English. Um So, so sin itself, let's just take a quick second on that. So you realize John was a Jew, he really knew the law of Moses because he lived it his whole life, right? It was his culture, it wasn't just his religion, it was also his culture. And, and under that law, there were sacrifices for what today we would call sins of, of uh commission sins that you. Well, actually, this is the wrong distinction, knowing sins, so sins, you do willfully and sins of ignorance, right? There were, there were sacrifices for both of those and that's an interesting thing because in, in modern Christian culture. No one talks about sins that you commit innocently. What would that mean? That's a deviation between your behavior and God's behavior in a way you don't know. So God exists far beyond as much as we know Him right now and it doesn't matter who you are. That's true because the only way to know Him fully is to be exactly like him and I don't know anyone like that except for him. So there's a, there's a separation between everything you know about him and how he actually is. And that gap is sin. But it's sin that we're forgiven of because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ fly. When we talk about sin today, we're talking about willful disobedience from God as far as we know Him, right? But anciently sin involved both things and they were very much uh uh equally spoken of equally addressed and you had to go do sacrifices for both. So Jesus was the sacrifice for both. But the part about the part that addresses our ignorance that's taken care of the question remaining is what do we do about accepting his sacrifice for the parts we do know about. And, and that's where modern Christians tend to live there, constantly hitting the reset button. I'm asking for forgiveness. I'm asking for forgiveness . But Jesus stands at the gate and he calls us into the path and he says, let's move beyond this. Let's OK. Forgiveness. Great. Your past is taken care of. Let's talk about your future and Christians only face behind and say, you know, I'm gonna keep living in my sins and keep asking for forgiveness and that's just gonna be the rest of my life isn't my life great because getting forgiven is a wonderful thing. It is wonderful. Yeah, it's incomparable though to becoming more like him. So let's read what else John said about this and it just becomes so clear that what they're trying to shove into those words is not what he meant. First John chapter three verses three through six and every man that hath this hope in him purify himself even as he is pure. How can you purify yourself even as Jesus is pure, if all you're doing is constantly sinning again and asking for forgiveness. That's not what Jesus did verse four, whosoever committed sin transgressive. Also the law for sin is the transgression of the law. And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins and in him is no sin, whosoever abideth in him sineth not whosoever sineth hath not seen him, neither known him. Now, remember John proudly and boldly said, I have seen him in life and in death, I have seen him. He's resurrected, he's alive today. I've seen him and he says, I know him. I've, I've touched him, I've handled him. So he says at the beginning of this letter. So John is saying I abide in him and I do not sin. And if someone sins , they haven't seen him and they don't know him because if you have, you wouldn't do that. That's what he's saying. So verse five, if you took it alone, you could say, oh, well, he was manifested to take away our sins just means forgiveness. And in him is no sin. Who knows why that's in there. But in context, this is very clear. If you have hope in Jesus, you will actually purify yourself. You will cease to sin even as he ceased to sin. And you will learn more about Him, even as he learned more about the father and lived exactly everything he learned. So taking away our sins doesn't just mean forgiving us, purging us of sin. It doesn't come back when you do it the way you're supposed to do it. It doesn't come back in you. There will be no sin. Another chunk here from first John 38 through 10. He that is very strong. Ok. This cannot coexist with the meaning. These fake Christians want you to get out of first John 18. He that committed sin is of the devil for the devil sineth from the beginning. For this purpose. The Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin for his seed. God's seed remain in Him and he cannot sin because he is born of God. In this, the Children of God are manifest and the Children of the devil, whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither. He that loveth not his brother. I mean, how could he say this more clearly, more boldly if you are still sinning, you are of the devil. And the whole reason John uh Jesus came was to give you a way out of that. He says manifested. It's such an interesting word. It means to demonstrate the whole reason Jesus came, was to demonstrate sinless. And if you're born of Him, what it literally means is you have adopted His example. And if you're living in that example , if you're aligning everything with God's purpose, you can't sin. It's literally the the the opposite of the definition of sin. You're completely aligning yourself with God. And that in this, the Children of God are manifest. So Son of God was manifested to destroy sin with his example. He says this is the opposite of sin. Come follow me and the Children of God are manifest because they say follow Jesus and I'm doing that too. So we're all in this in one example. So align yourself as we're aligning ourselves to Jesus as he aligns himself to the father. And anyone not doing that verse 10 is not of God. So coming back to this passage, we started on in first John 18, this is how I think so. So for better or for worse, the writers of the scriptures, they didn't write things in a way that was completely idiot proof. Now, it's pretty good the way it is. But still people manage to twist it and pervert it and make it into a train wreck. So if we were to try to idiot proof this passage so that people that got questions, couldn't get it wrong. Even people who got questions could understand it, then this is the way maybe we would do it if we say that we are already exactly as God is, we deceive ourselves . And the truth is not in us. If we adopt whatever we learn about God, as soon as we learn it, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to purge all unrighteousness from us. If we say that we have not sinned in the past, we make him a liar and His word is not in us. I believe this is much closer to what John intended based on everything else he said than what these folks insinuate with their interpretations of the text, the covenant, the new and everlasting covenant, just like all covenants, it has conditions, has promises and it has conditions. The promise is eternal life. The condition is actually also the promise because eternal life is to become like God and that's also the condition they're one and the same to adopt everything we know about God. As soon as we know it into our lives fully with all of our heart might mind and strength. That is the covenant. And if you're doing anything else, you're not in the covenant, you can't be, they're mutually exclusive. So I, I hope this helps you. Absolutely have the power to stop sinning. God has given it to you. He never commands you to do something. You don't have the power to do. He gives you the power. So be perfect even as he is perfect . That is the message.