God Has Given This Testimony
“God Has Given This Testimony”
1 John 5:10-13
That We May Know:
That We May Believe:
I’m using the Word may because that is the expected result of the testimony God has given to the whole world. God wants all people to know and believe His testimony regarding His Son. So, He provides exactly what is needed for each and every human being.
I only met Dorothy one time while Bonnie and I vacationed in Florida a few years ago. So I can tell you very little about her life. Certainly, there was not time to get into the deeply personal aspects of religion while I was with her. In fact, to do so would have been entirely inappropriate to the reason for the visit.
But I do know someone who knows Dorothy better than maybe Dorothy even knew herself. When Beatty Bernard asked me about having this memorial service she said she had much that she could tell me about her step-mother. And I’m sure she could. But not even Beatty can know a person as well as God who peers into the depths of the human heart and knows all.
Even the spiritual nature of the written word carries God’s authority to judge and forgive. And, everyone who peers into it looks into the very heart of God.
That’s what we may know. Through the inspired Word of God we may know God’s intention for us. And, in the Eternal Word made flesh, we can see God’s heart for us clearly demonstrated on the Cross and in the Empty Tomb.
To put it on a personal level, God sends His Holy Spirit into human existence so that we may know. But, even more, that we may believe.
Everything that God finds in human existence is judged by His Word. It is a personal judgement that everyone must endure. What does God find in our heart and in our mind, today? This very minute?
Does He find knowledge of the Holy One? Does He find faith in the Holy One? May it truly be so among us. God has given us His own witness and testimony in the person and work of Jesus Christ. And, this revelation no one can live without.
When the Christ of God becomes incarnate in human flesh there is a stirring and shift of the entire forces of good and evil. Jesus explains when He says, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from Heaven.” Satan’s spark is only momentary while the light of Christ remains eternal.
Every human being who is touched by that light is given the life that goes with it. No wonder those who receive that light in faith are enabled to say with the apostles, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” You see, if Christ lives in a person, judgement has already passed.
The benefit of that light is spoken by Jesus Himself when He says, “I tell you the truth, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not be condemned, he has crossed over from death to life.”
And so, my dear friends, in a Christian memorial service we memorialize life—not death. We memorialize the life of Christ in all who died believing on the name of the Son of God. For even while they were living in faith, they were winning the victory over sin, death, and the devil, in Jesus Christ.
I do not know whether Dorothy believed or not. We must all leave that to God’s judgement. But I pray that it may please the Almighty God to give each of us knowledge of His Holy One and faith to have Him in us. Amen.