Praise God! A favorite hymn for sure.

Thank you so much for listening! It's incredible that He chooses to be so considering who we are. What great love!

Thank you brother!

Love you too Travis. Thank you for your encouragement and faith. The scars tell the story, a finished work to be believed.

The context of John 14:24 bears in mind two things. Most directly John 7:16 and the many other statements Jesus makes in the gospel of John about his purposes, His teaching, His works not being His own. His words are in perfect unity with the Father both in current teaching as the incarnate Christ and in connection with the Law. That leads to the second and deeper context, that to obey Christ is to obey the Law because His teaching is that which affirms and fulfills the Law (Matt 5:17, Matt 22:37-40) and to live as Christ ultimately fulfills the law as He fulfilled it in spirit and in truth. Remember as the Living Word (John 1:1-4,14) literally all the Words of scripture Old Testament and New are Christ's as much as they are the Father's (John 7:16, 24) and as much as they are the Spirit's (John 16:15, 2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:20-21). The fullness of the godhead is affirmed as the author of the scriptures. There is more to this but I hope that helps.

Thank you Tina! What a blessing to hear your encouragement! I guess God had you ahead of the curve on all this remote preaching huh? I pray you are doing well even in the midst.

This comment is greatly appreciated, though received with personal sorrow. As a pastor I am still learning, discerning preaching through the Word and though it has been years since this was preached I had many regrets with how I went through 1 John, some passages more than others. I had not felt like I had preached error but did not feel like I was able to get at the core of the passages like I wanted to many times. I did interact with the nature of Jesus Christ and with the necessity of identifying Him as fully God and fully man as part of discerning the Spirit but clearly not in a full manner. One of my aims in preaching through the Epistle, aside from the great truths it holds, was to force growth in my preaching and to avoid preaching only what I or others liked and come closer to what God truly had for us. I would sincerely ask for grace in that. I am sorry however that this bothered you so much. These sermons are only up in the hope that those who would listen years on would be encouraged by something in them. Your reaction is the exact opposite of that and causes deep regret. Feel free to message me if need be. I would appreciate the personal conversation. Thank you for listening and interacting.

@@centerchurchofthebrethren8715 Hi, i am sorry that this hurt your feelings. It sounds like you take pastoring very seriously which is very important and valuable. That, in itself, is awesome, whether or not a sermon or video helps an individual like they had been looking for. What my issue is that i need help literally identifting spirits of God or the devil that literally verbally speak to me. I have been demonized and confused for several years by demons claiming to be God or Christ. I have experienced such a wide variety of manifestations from evil spirits that my one remaining way to identify who is who has been to ask them if they confess that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. Recently demons have confessed that very thing to me so i dont know how to determine who is who and its caused much pain. Maybe i am not to take the verse literally, to ask them if they literally confess that jesus came in the flesh. But i dont know how else to interpret that verse. My confusion is compounded by the fact that the only time i felt certain that it was actually Jesus acting in my life and interacting with me over a period of months that that time period was first set off by me asking a loving voice that spoke to me if it confessed that jesus came in the flesh and it said yes twice. After that for several months all sorts of examples of perfect timing and circumstances happened for me and this was all initiated by that voice speaking to me. So when demons can now identify themselves to me the same way it has thrown me for a painful loop. Scripture seems to be defied.

Michael, I'm sorry to hear of this struggle and I have prayed and will pray for you. To clarify, demons do know who Jesus Christ is and that He came in the flesh. James speaks to this in chapter 2 of His epistle. In verse 19 he says "You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe and shudder." They know His nature and character, that Jesus Christ is God in flesh just as they do the nature of the Father and The Holy Spirit as one. In Acts, considering the sons of Sceva, in chapter 19 starting in verse 11 men are trying to cast out demons in Jesus' name and the demons respond in verse 15, "Jesus I know, Paul I recognize, but who are you?" The demons know who Jesus is. They confessed Him regularly in the gospels, they just reject Him as their Lord. They'll speak whatever they please to throw you off. The passage we are dealing with in the video and here now is saying that if they cannot even confess Christ in the flesh then they absolutely do not know Him at all or are lying spirits. If it denies the nature of Christ, it is therefore antichrist. Yet it goes beyond this. I dealt with the text as I did in the sermon because it goes beyond just that question to testing whether what is being said in any manner conforms with God's revelation in scripture of Himself, His character and His will for our lives. Are the voices in our lives telling us to do what God would tell us to do, things according to His nature and His revealed Word? That is why I suggested the various tests I did and tried to give applicable examples. It is difficult though and I understand the struggle, believe me. I hope some of this helps. I will pray regardless and again will thank you for interacting with the video and with me. It's greatly appreciated.

@@centerchurchofthebrethren8715 First, thank u for praying for me! I appreciate the help! I am doing much better now. I hope ur doing well too. It sounds like theres some technicality described in these verses to me where the demons cannot confess that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. The way the verses are written, that is certainly exactly what it is saying to me. It is written like the evil spirits cannot literally confess verbally that jesus christ came in the flesh. Do you think that's accurate? Why or why not? I thought the purpose of this was to make it so that you can have a way to discern which spirit is speaking to you when you are unclear and may have no other way to know. My problem is that evil spirits have literally verbally confessed that jesus christ came in the flesh, which threw my world upside down and topsy turvy. I have seen all sorts of manifestation of the enemy in my life while being a christian and needed a way to discern which spirit is from God and which from the devil because the enemy has imitated God many times to me and lured me into false messages and confusion thats not from God. So I need clarity and a clear way to know who's who. The reason I'm doing much better now is because i got some very good news from God but in the end i cant tell who the messages are from because the enemy has given me good messages before, only for me to realize later that it was the devil tricking me with a bait and switch technique where he baits me into trusting and believing him only so he can switch to being evil once he has me snared and tied up in his lies.

Thank you brother! Miss you and your family greatly!

Thank you for the words Travis! You are a great encouragement. I appreciate and thank God for you!