John speaks quite often to the Gnostics of that particular day; remember, the Gnostics believed that Jehovah was an inferior god, therefore being made of matter inferior to this nebulous God of light, through which they would receive all kinds of special revelations beyond the Word of God.  So, you see, John making statements about this, “Well, wait a minute,” in his first epistle, “…God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).  Amen?  “Anybody that will not confess that Jesus has come in the flesh,” he said, “is to be refused as a teacher or someone that you would fellowship with” (1 John 4:3, 6).  The incarnation, though our natural minds cannot comprehend it, is so very clear in the Scriptures.  Why are people so opposed to Emmanuel?

You can talk about God, and people don’t get weird because there are many gods in their minds.  You can go back to the polytheism of Greece and Rome where pagans worshipped all of these deities.  There’s only one God.  Amen?  He makes it very clear that there’s no one besides Himself.  So, God, then, taking flesh upon Himself, made, then, that the only way to reconciliation or to salvation.  Thus, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one can come to Father but by me.”  Amen?  Why?  Because this is God in the flesh Who became that eternal sacrifice.  He fulfilled that that was typified in the day of atonement.  You remember, on the day of atonement, those two sacrifices were brought; one was killed and offered up to God, and the other one had the hands of the priest laid upon it and was sent out into the wilderness.  Aren’t you glad our sins have been sent out as far as the east is from the west?  Praise God.  Aren’t you glad that our sins have been cast into the sea of God’s forgetfulness?  Praise God.  Aren’t you glad that by the blood of Jesus, Colossians tells us that the handwriting of ordinances that was against us has been blotted out (2:14)?  We are justified, pronounced righteous with the righteousness of Jesus Christ and that alone; amen?

So, there is no record of sin any longer in our lives.  How did Jesus seal this in the hearts and minds of humanity?  By being raised from the dead.  All of these other gods—Christianity stands unique—all of these other gods, all of these other prophets, are silent.  Aren’t you glad this morning that our God talks to us?  Amen?  Paul says to the Corinthians, “Don’t follow these dumb idols,” and we’ve shared before, that doesn’t mean stupid.  “Oh, that’s so dumb,” we are not talking about that; they have no capacity to speak.  They have no mind; they were created in the image of man.  They were created in the image of fowl and of animals.  And our God is alive, and He speaks to us, and He commands us to be sensitive, to be prayerful.  Men ought always to pray, that doesn’t just mean to articulate petitions.  Prayer is practicing the presence of God, that’s the definition of prayer.  Christ in us, the hope of glory!