Advocacy of Christ

Introduction: The Offices of Christ as Foundation of Comfort

0:00 A servant of Christ from another generation has written, The offices of Christ, the great mediator between God and man, are the foundation of our hopes and the springs of our comfort and happiness, his priestly office particularly. Now here was a man who wrote out of a cultural setting that could not possibly be more different from ours. He wrote back in the 1600s when men wore white powdered wigs. When they spoke in a language that is almost foreign to us.

0:48 Thee and thou and canst and canst not. Spoke in a day when there were no cars, no jets So many differences And yet he spoke out of deep pastoral experience For he was not a theoretical theologian This man was a pastor who wrote Out of the intimate dealings of God with his own heart and his people And he said the offices of Christ The great mediator between God and man are the foundation of our hopes and the springs of our comfort and happiness, His priestly office particularly.

1:33 And if this be so for the people of God in any generation, how necessary it is for the people of God to understand and to feed their souls upon Christ in his official functions as prophet, priest, and king. In the course of this present series of messages, having focused our attention upon the mystery of the person of the Redeemer, that he is God and man, one person in two natures forever, we are now concerned with contemplating the majesty of his offices as the prophet and priest of his people and king as well. But we've given prominence to the priestly, and I've been encouraged in reading some of the old writers to see that they recognized what is often overlooked by some of the more recent writers, that the dominant emphasis in Scripture is indeed upon his priestly office that there is peculiar consolation for the children of God in the contemplation of Christ, functioning as a priest in the redemption of his people.

2:42 I have suggested that we can take the biblical materials with respect to the priesthood of Christ and conveniently consider them under two major divisions. There are the earthly temporal priestly functions, climaxing of course in his sacrifice upon the cross. And then there are the heavenly, continuous priestly functions, and from the Scriptures we gave a broad overview of at least five of those functions. Now we have gone back to examine those heavenly, continuous priestly functions in some detail.

3:20 For two weeks we contemplated His heavenly function of intercession. The writer to the Hebrews says, He ever liveth to make intercession for us. And it is his activity as intercessor that secures the ultimate salvation of all of the people of God. He is able to save to the uttermost seeing he ever lives to intercede.

3:46 Now today we want to focus upon a second of these heavenly continuous priestly functions of our Lord which are essential to the salvation of his people. And I want to emphasize that again and again. There are no non-essential functions of our great high priest. Every function is calculated to meet a specific need in connection with our salvation.

Advocacy Distinguished from Intercession

4:14 Nothing is superfluous. And so as we move from the intercession, we shall do so to consider what I am calling the advocacy of Christ. Whereas the intercession as a Godward activity has respect to procuring all the needed gifts and graces for God's people, the advocacy has a limited and specific reference to the legal problems arising from the fact of sin in the life of a believer. You remember last week in studying the specimens of our Lord's priestly work, we saw that the priestly work of intercession is a broad ministry.

Legal as Well as Personal Relationship to God

4:59 Within the orbit of our Lord's intercession is that work by which He pleads on the basis of His sacrifice for every gift and grace needed for the ultimate preservation and salvation of His people. However, when we come to consider the advocacy, it is a much more limited sphere of concern. The advocacy of our great high priest has a limited and specific reference to the legal problems that arise from the fact of sin in the life of a Christian. Now if we are to appreciate this dimension of revealed truth, we must understand that man's relationship to God has always been and shall always be a legal as well as a personal relationship.

5:53 You will find no sweetness in the doctrine of 1 John 2, 1 and 2, the passage we shall examine in detail this morning, unless you understand and have a fresh consciousness of this fact, your relationship to God always has been and always shall be not only a personal relationship, but a legal relationship. When God made Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, He was in that sense their father by creation. But He was not only their father, He was their judge. And even when He ceased to be father in a spiritual sense, and they became son and daughter of the devil, they did not cut themselves off from that legal relationship.

6:43 and the scripture teaches us that all creatures are the sons and daughters of God in the sense that he is father by creation. Acts 17. We are his offspring. We sustain a personal relationship to God.

6:59 Because of sin, it is a relationship of alienation. In the language of the book of Ephesians, we are separated, alienated from God. We are dead in our sins. But that personal relationship, albeit a ruptured relationship, is a reality of our creaturehood.

7:18 But we also have a legal relationship. God is the judge of all men. All men shall give an account to Him. And this relationship of personal and legal dimensions is not canceled nor negated when the grace of God comes into the life of a man or woman, boy or girl.

7:38 When through the grace of God we are adopted into God's family and made His sons and daughters, when we are given the spirit of adoption and are enabled to call upon Him as our Father, and the personal relationship is one of intimate filial affection and love, He is still our judge. He does not cease to sustain a legal relationship to His people, As long as God is God and man is man, the legal relationship is present as well. This is why Peter can say in 1 Peter 1.17, If ye call on him as Father, who without respect of persons judges each man past the time of your sojourning in fear,

8:27 he who is your Father is also your judge. Hebrews 12 underscores the same truth. He says, you've not come unto that mountain that trembled and quaked, etc., but ye are come unto Mount Zion, unto the heavenly Jerusalem.

8:43 Now notice, he says, and unto God, the judge of all, as well as to Jesus Christ, the mediator of the new covenant. When we come to Christ as mediator, it does not cancel our relationship to God as judge. Now you say, why do you underscore that? for the simple reason that in the whole life and mentality of current society, the concept of legal obligations is almost non-existent.

9:11 And because the gospel comes in a setting that bristles with legal demands and obligations, we cannot understand any dimension of the gospel apart from that realization. Our relationship to God is both personal and legal. Now then, when we come to consider the advocacy of Christ, it is an advocacy that grows out of this unchangeable relationship and constitutes a glorious redemptive privilege calculated to vindicate the righteousness, holiness, and inflexible justice of God, while at the same time heaping innumerable blessings upon the head of unworthy sinners.

Context of 1 John 1-2 — Fellowship with the God of Light

9:58 And the advocacy of Christ is calculated to underscore how just God is in the conferral of continued mercy and forgiveness to the people of God. Now that will make more sense, I trust, as we proceed with our exposition of the one clear, explicit passage in all of Scripture which directs us to the advocacy of Christ as a function of our great High Priest. That passage is 1 John chapter 2. 1 John chapter 2.

10:36 Here the clearest, the only explicit passage in which Christ is called advocate. There are several other passages which imply this, which strongly suggest it, but this passage explicitly affirms it. 1 John 2, 1 and 2 My little children, these things write I unto you that you may not sin. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

11:13 And he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sin of the whole world, or for the whole world. The word sin not being found in the better manuscripts. Now let's look at the setting of this statement of John. In what flow of thought did John write, My little children, I write to you that you sin not, but if any man sin, we have an advocate.

11:45 In what context does the advocacy of Christ burst upon the scene in John's epistle? Well, if you'll just look briefly through that very short first chapter, I believe you will catch the thread of thought without too much difficulty. In the first few verses, John asserts the historical validity of the manifestation of Christ. He says, we've seen, we've heard, we've handled the word of life.

12:13 When we talk about Christ and His mission and His work, we're not dealing in dreams. We're dealing in substance. We felt Him, we saw Him, we heard Him. This is reality, substantial, inescapable, historical reality.

12:29 Now he says the purpose for writing to you is this. We're writing, verse 3, that you may have fellowship with the Father and the Son and with all the people of God. And secondly, he says we write in order to increase joy. Your joy, our joy.

12:47 We write that in the context of that fellowship there may be the fruit of joy. Now there's his purpose for writing. He says the foundation of his writing is history. Christ has come.

12:59 We've seen Him, we've touched Him, we've heard Him. Now, having come, here is our purpose for sharing something of His mission. We want you to have fellowship with Him and with the Father, and in so doing, fellowship with us, and the fruit of that will be joy. Now then, in verse 5, He announces the essential revelation made by Christ.

13:22 What is it? This is the message we've heard from Him, The one whom we heard and touched and saw. And we now announce unto you that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. And now we have a problem.

13:39 John, you said you write in order that there may be fellowship, shared life and communion with Father and Son and with all the people of God. Now you say that the message Christ has brought to us is that this God with whom we hold fellowship is essential unmixed moral purity God is light and in Him is no darkness Well, here's the problem. How can we fellowship with a God like that? Well, you say we've got to be brought into the realm of moral purity.

14:09 We've got to be brought into the realm of light. Certainly we can't expect God to bend His character in accommodation to darkness. Yes, precisely so John says in verse 6, if we say we have communion, fellowship with this God, and yet we walk around in the realm of darkness, moral impurity, and sin, and evil, he says we're liars, and we do not the truth. He says, I write that you may have fellowship with God.

14:37 That God is a God of light. If you're walking around in the realm of darkness, you're a liar if you say you have communion with that God. Someone says, all right, John, but how in the world can we then, if all by nature are sons of darkness, how can we? He says, God has made wonderful provision for that fellowship.

14:54 Verse 7, but if we walk around in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus' Son goes on cleansing us from all sin. Verse 9, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. You see what John is saying? There is provision for personal, intimate communion with God.

15:20 The relationship of a believer to his God is a personal relationship. He takes the term koinonia, which means sharing. There is shared life. There is shared perspective.

15:32 There is shared joy. And he says the wonderful provision for sinners is to be found in the blood of Christ and in the way of righteous forgiveness, verse 9. Now someone comes along and says, Oh, but I can have fellowship with God in the realm of light, and I don't need the blood of Christ, or I don't need just forgiveness. John deals with him and calls him, in verse 8, If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us, The person who says, I can have fellowship with God with no felt necessity for the blood of Christ and just forgiveness.

16:09 John says of such a person he self-deceived. The truth has no saving residence in his heart. And then furthermore, there's a person in verse 10 who says, he's not sinned. He's gotten beyond the state of sin.

16:22 Therefore, though once he may have needed the blood of Christ, though once he may have needed continual forgiveness, He no longer needs it if we say we have not sinned. We make him a liar and his word is not in us. Now, do you see the drift of John's thought? He says, I write that you may have fellowship with God.

16:42 Well, what's he like? He's a God of light. And if he's a God of light, then anyone who says he has communion with him and walks around in the darkness is a liar. On the other hand, those who feel their need of cleansing need not despair.

16:55 In order to secure that fellowship with him, there is the blood of Christ and there is just forgiveness. And the person who says, well, I can have fellowship without it, he's a liar and the truth is not in him. He is self-deceived, the word is not in him. But then comes someone and says, oh, but wait a minute, wait a minute.

17:13 You mean fellowship with God must reckon continually with the reality of sin? There is no hope for such deliverance from sin, this side of glory, that we can come to a place where we'll no longer sin? Is sin to be an inevitable ingredient of that fellowship? If so, why bother?

17:38 Why bother? Or someone else might say Well wonderful If provision is made for just forgiveness And all you need to do is confess Well that's sin that grace may abound Or you may have someone else who says Well if that's true Why struggle If sin that opened up the wounds of the Savior Is to be my constant companion How can God be so merciful is to forgive again and again and again and again. You see, it is the anticipated objections and perversions of the teaching of chapter 1 that caused John to pen the words of chapter 2. Now see if they make sense.

The Anticipated Objections Answered by Chapter 2

18:22 Let's look at them. My little children, having written these things to you now about the God of light and who can have fellowship with Him and who does not and who cannot and the provisions made, my little children, I write these things. And now he answers the first objection, that ye may not sin. I tell you that there is wonderful provision for sin that you may not sin.

18:50 And that's the genius of the gospel. The provisions of the gospel received in the heart are the greatest antidote to sin.

19:03 It is not the terrors of the law that constrain us to holiness. It is the sweetness of the gospel Why? Well, remember our reading in Mark's gospel In order that John could write The blood of Jesus God's Son cleanses from all sin In order for John to write God is faithful and righteous to forgive In order to provide a righteous forgiveness What had come to pass? The agonies of Gethsemane, the throes of Golgotha, the pain and the grief of the shrouded heavens and the Father's hidden face.

19:50 And when that discovery is made of the way of gospel forgiveness, it never becomes the occasion of a light treatment of sin. The more I understand of the infinite grace and mercy of God in providing forgiveness for sin, the more I hate the sins that demanded His agony. The more I hate the sins that opened up His wounds. The more I have a living faith in the wonder of forgiveness, the more I'll be filled with shame and self-reproach for the reality of my sins.

20:27 And so John says, the true intent in writing these things is not that you may sin with a high hand, but that you may not sin.

20:38 But then he says, if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father. He first of all deals with the problem of presumption and says, I write that you may not sin. in the heart of a true child of God says, O God, with all my heart, that's my goal. There is no sin with which I will strike a peace tree.

21:04 There is no sin over which I will write, leave this alone with reference to God. There is no sin, be it the most secret, hidden sin, or the most overt sin to be seen by the world concerning which a true Christian does not say, O Lord, I would have it nailed to the cross, I would be done with it.

21:27 And you see, that person with that attitude has a problem, not the problem of presumption, but the problem of despair. Because although in a sense he accepts as the standard of God for his life every day, the first part of the verse, These things I write that you may not see. Though he begins every day with the prayer, if not the exact words, This is the spirit of his prayer. Oh God, lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil.

22:00 Though that's his intention.

22:03 Sin is an ugly, perpetual, heartbreaking reality to this one who with everything within him would not sin. And what's his problem then? Not presumption, but despair. He feels, how can it be?

22:18 I've had to go to God a thousand times with that same thing, that same sin of mind, that same sin of disposition, that same sin of the lips or of the hand or of the eye, of the mouth, of the feet. How can it be? Surely God must be disgusted with me. Surely God must somewhere say, I've had enough of it.

22:42 You've come again and again and again and again and again. Oh, dear child of God, listen to the text. These things I write that ye may not sin, and if any man sin. And if any man sin.

22:59 But you see, the problem is complicated because sin in the sight of God is not one whit less heinous in the life of a believer than in the life of a non-believer. In fact, it's more heinous. When you read in the Old Testament of how God indicts the nations for their sins and how He indicts Israel, the indictments to the privileged nation of Israel are always more scathing than the indictments to the nations. Sin is still heinous in the sight of God.

23:32 It is blameworthy before the law of God. It is defiling to the conscience, crippling and defiling to the soul. So what can be done for the sinning saint? God's answer is the sinning saint's advocate.

The Meaning of Advocate

23:48 And that's where we want to rivet our attention this morning. Do you feel now the drift of John's thought in this letter? My little children, if any man sin, here's the answer. Child of God, there is but one answer to that problem of the defiled conscience, conscience, the crippled and defiled soul, that sense of discouragement and despair.

24:14 And here is the answer. We have an advocate. Well, the first thing we've got to do then is ascertain what does it mean to have an advocate. What does the word advocate mean?

24:26 Well, in Scripture, the word is used with reference, of course, to the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the paraclete. Etymologically it simply means, that is, the root meaning, the substance out of which the word was built, to be called alongside to help. And in secular usage it was used on occasions to describe the function of what we would call in the twentieth century an attorney. One who is called in to plead the case of another. Now what is it in this case? Is Jesus simply described as our helper?

25:05 Or is it our helper with the overtones of an attorney, one who's pleading our case in the light of the law? Well, look at the setting. Notice, it has to do with the problem of a believer's sin. If any man sin, we have an advocate.

25:25 It has to do with righteousness. Jesus Christ the righteous. it has to do with making satisfaction to the law of God. Verse 2, He is propitiation.

25:39 So the setting is strictly legal. A believer's sin, a righteous advocate, and a propitiation made. All of those terms point in the direction of legal concerns. They point us not to the household, but to the court of heaven.

The Nature of the Advocacy: Righteous and Propitiation

26:01 So when Christ is called Advocate, the thought of John is one in which he is being described as our attorney in God's courtroom. Now secondly, what is the nature of his advocacy?

26:18 Well, his advocacy is determined by the two things that are said about the Advocate. Look at them. He is called righteous and he is called propitiation. We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ.

26:33 Now think of all the things John could have said. The Holy One, the Righteous One, the Loving One, the Meek One, the Gracious One, of all the glorious attributes of our glorious Savior, John takes just one and says, the Righteous. Now why do you do that?

26:52 Why do you do that? Because that is precisely what a sinning saint needs to have. He needs an advocate whose advocacy is based upon perfect righteousness. An advocacy that will not misstate the case, that will not seek to bend the law, that will not seek to bribe the judge.

27:14 He needs an advocacy that is absolutely righteous. One commentator has remarked on this very thing in the presence of the righteous judge. and at His righteous bar, Christ thus appears for us, not to bring us off by some cunning sleight-of-hand maneuver, not to get the better of strict justice by some manipulation of the law of God or some appeal for pity, but to have the whole controversy with the sinner sifted to the bottom all the hidden causes of the offense laid bare and every just demand and outstanding claim met and all relating to our right standing adjusted.

28:03 This is to be done without any compromise or subterfuge upon the terms and according to the principles of perfect righteousness. righteousness. What is the nature of Christ's advocacy? It is a righteous advocacy. It has the law on its side. And secondly, the nature of his advocacy is seen from the fact that John says in verse 2, he is propitiation. He who is the advocate is the propitiation. Now notice John does not say He made propitiation. That's true. We've examined text in which it is said Christ made propitiation. But here, He is called propitiation. Why? Because the Attorney

28:52 is in Himself the embodiment of all the virtue of the work that He did upon the cross. And here you see the relationship between the earthly and the heavenly ministries, the once for all suffering and the perpetual work of the great High Priest. At God's right hand He is to the Father what the rainbow is with regard to that covenant made to all men. God says, when I see that sign in the sky, I'll remember my covenant.

29:24 When God beholds His Son, who is the embodiment of all the virtue of His death upon that cross, The advocate then can plead as no other advocate pleads. What happens in a court of law here in our own county? If a criminal or someone has been indicted for a crime, he secures the services of an attorney. Now what will that attorney do in the court of law?

29:51 Well, he will perhaps seek to plead the innocency of his client. He will gather all the information and will seek to convince a jury and a judge that he was not really guilty of the crime for which he was indicted. Or he may say, yes, he's committed the crime, but the circumstances were such that the crime is not what you've said it is. Yes, he killed someone, but he did it in self-defense.

30:17 Therefore, it should not be murder in the first degree. It should be manslaughter. Or, what he may do in the third place, if all the evidence comes in and there is no way to plead the innocence or the excusability, he may then appeal to the mercy of the court for a relaxation of the law. But you see, our attorney doesn't do that.

30:39 Before he takes our case in hand, he gets us to admit our guilt.

30:45 And worse than that, he goes into court and says, my client's guilty.

30:51 Yes, he does. And furthermore, he says, the circumstances, rather than neutralizing or lessening the guilt, Only increase it. My client has received mercy. My client has been brought out of darkness into marvelous light.

31:06 My client has been made an heir of heaven and a joined heir with myself. My client has been given the gift of the Holy Spirit. My client has been given a thousand motives to love and serve the living God. My client's sin is aggravated sin.

31:22 It's sin not only against the law, but it's sin against light and privilege and grace. Who would want to go to court with an attorney like that? Who says my client is guilty? Furthermore, all the circumstances, rather than neutralizing or extenuating his guilt, only increase it.

31:40 And thirdly, we've got a client who says, whatever I do for you, I will not do it at the expense of tarnishing one bit the full justice of the law of the court. an attorney who says, more than the good of my client, I'm determined to uphold the honor of the judge's laws. Now, who would like an advocate like that?

32:03 His shingle wouldn't be up very long. But thank God, we have a high priest who functions just that way. Yes, he does. He is the righteous one.

32:16 Therefore, he cannot deny that the client is sinned. In fact, he will not take any client except the one who does confess his sin and acknowledges his guilt and owns it in the presence of the Father. Ah, but you see, the key issue is this. He is propitiation.

32:37 And what he does is not to plead something in the client that ought to move the court to be favorably disposed. He turns all of the attention of the court away from the client upon himself. And in the language of Wesley, There for me my Savior stands, shows his wounds, and spreads his hands. And the Lord Jesus calls upon the judge to turn away from the client.

33:11 And he says, Holy Father, righteous Father, I am advocate on behalf of that sinner. And Father, I remind you that when I went into Gethsemane, when I went to Calvary, when your wrath broke upon me, it was for every sin of my client. Oh, my Father, I am propitiation. Your wrath has been expended upon me.

33:35 I plead the forgiveness and the release of my client, not at the expense of justice, but on the grounds of justice. Think of it! Think of it! On the grounds of justice!

33:49 And what does verse 9 of chapter 1 say? He, the Father, is faithful and righteous to forgive. it would be unrighteous for God to deny the appeal of the Advocate. Because the Advocate appeals on the grounds of perfect righteousness.

34:14 Think of it. Whoever heard of court proceedings like that?

The Amintas Illustration and the Blood That Speaks

34:21 There is a beautiful illustration of this very thing. in a story that comes out of the days of the Greek Empire or Commonwealth.

34:33 It is said that there was a certain man by the name of Amintas who appeared as an advocate for his brother, Eucullus. His brother was strongly accused and very likely to be condemned to die.

34:48 Amintas wanted to plead on behalf of the release of his brother. and Mimzes was well known and loved by his countrymen it was known that in a certain battle he manifested great valor on behalf of his country and in the midst of a certain battle he lost his right hand and when the time came for him to appear before his fellow countrymen who held the destiny of his brother in their hands or I should say in their vote he came into that assembly The life and death of his brother hanging in the balances. And you know what he did? He came into the court and simply did one thing.

35:30 He held up the stump of that arm.

35:34 And said, on behalf of my brother. You know what the court did? Released his brother.

35:43 Out of regard for him, they released his brother. What does Christ do in the court of heaven? The Scripture tells us Ye are come unto the blood of sprinkling That speaketh better things than that of Abel Christ's blood speaks in heaven Not audibly and vocally But as that man simply raised The stump of an arm And it spoke eloquently To the hearts of his countrymen So our Advocate Presents before the Father His blood his death, his sacrifice, and it prevails. Well, very quickly, having looked at the meaning of the word advocate,

The Object of the Advocacy: With the Father

36:31 the nature of the advocacy, bound up in the two things, he is righteous, he is propitiation. Notice what John says about the object of the advocacy. We've already assumed this, but I want to underscore it because John is careful to do it. We have an advocate where?

36:47 With the Father. Towards the Father. In other words, the advocacy of Christ is focused upon the Father. Oh, what consolation!

36:58 He doesn't say we have an advocate with God. We have an advocate with the Father. And he uses the indefinite description. He doesn't say we have an advocate with our Father or His Father, but the Father.

37:13 Think of it. Our advocate is related to the Judge. He is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And everything that the Father has given to the Son to do in a way of redemption, and all that the Son has taken upon Himself to do, comes out of the context of that perfect union in the will and love and purpose of the triune God.

37:41 Christ could never make a plea that the Father could deny. But thank God it's our Father And in the language of Matthew Henry He who was our judge in the legal court The court of violated law Is our Father in the Gospel court The court of heaven and of grace He is the Holy Father He is the righteous Father That's why Christ must still be advocate You see now why I introduced the thing with saying The legal relationship is never cancelled by grace What grace does is to wonderfully adjust that relationship so that God, His judge, is no longer terror to us, but is the very foundation of comfort.

The Accusers: Sin, Satan, and Conscience

38:30 Someone says, Pastor, if there is an attorney, there must be accusers. Who are they? Well, our sins in terms of the law are our accusers. Our sins cry out as violations of the law.

38:44 Should there not be judgment? Christ is our advocate, says, yes, there has been judgment. I was swallowed up in judgment for those sins. There is now a just basis for those sins to be pardoned.

39:02 In Revelation 12.10 we read that Satan is the accuser who accuses the saints day and night before God.

39:12 Can we imagine that accuser? You remember we got a picture of his activity in the book of Job. He goes before God and says, Are you not the just God of the universe? Have you not said to the soul that sin if it shall die, the wages of sin is death?

39:28 Have you not said that you are purized and to look upon iniquity? You will by no means clear the guilty. Look at that sinner. He's violated your law.

39:37 I've tempted him. I've seduced him. And he's fallen prey to my seductions. that caused him to violate your law in thought, in word, in deed.

39:46 How can you be God and not judge him? How are the accusations of Satan, which according to the language of Revelation are given day and night before God? Who silences them? Our advocate.

39:58 Our advocate says, Shut your mouth, accuser. I died for those sins. My blood was spilt.

40:11 Your power over my children is broken.

40:19 And of course there is the accusation of our own consciences. Our consciences which feel the smart of our sin. If any man sin, and as a believer the conscience is sensitive to dimensions never known in our state of unregeneracy. Oh dear child of God You will never know the rest of conscience within Until you rest in the advocacy without That which silences the law And silences the devil Can pacify the conscience of a believer But you'll never have the conscience pacified If you look within first You look without And conscience gets pacified In its train

Application: Never Beyond the Need of an Advocate

41:05 If any man sin, we have an advocate. Child of God, how are you to think of your blessed Redeemer? If old Clarkson was right, John Owen's successor, and that was the man whom I quoted at the outset, that the knowledge and contemplation of Christ in His offices is the ground of all consolation and the source of all comfort and joy. How am I to think of my Lord at the right hand of the Father I am not only to think of Him as interceding but I am to conceive of Him as my advocate particularly when I sin And there I want by the grace of God to drive home the truth to the conscience of every believer

41:57 Look at the text. If any man sin, we have an advocate. You will never get beyond the need of an advocate. it because John says we have an advocate. John, you need an advocate? You leaned on Jesus' bosom.

42:20 You walked with him three and a half years. You had an intimate access to him known by no other of the twelve. John, you were there on the day of Pentecost. You received that mighty baptism of power. John, you saw the spread of the gospel. John, you're the one who will be favored with that vision of Christ in the Isle of Patmos. John, we have an advocate. John says, yes.

42:47 He puts himself right in the hopper with all the rest of the little children. Think of it. Here's a mighty apostle, and he's writing to little children, little babies, and he said, if any man sin, we have an advocate. Here's an apostle who says, I need an advocate as much as You need one.

43:03 That's why we don't pray to the saints.

43:07 They needed an advocate just like we do. They're no more saints than we are. Child of God, you will never get beyond the need of an advocate. If you say you do, then you've gone beyond the Apostle John, and anyone who goes beyond the Apostles Paul and John and David in their experiences, David not being an apostle but an Old Testament saint and prophet.

43:29 I'm scared to death of any promised experience that gets you beyond David, Paul, and John. I'm scared to death of it. It was one of the things that kept me in the days when I was exposed to teaching on the Christian life that promised a level of sanctification in which you could be delivered from known sin. The only way I could find to be delivered from known sin was to harden my conscience so I knew less of what sin was and I knew that wasn't scriptural.

43:55 No, no, you'll never get beyond the need of an advocate child of God Because you'll never be beyond sin And the moment you say you're having fellowship with God That no longer needs cleansing from sin And a just forgiveness God says you're self-deceived and you're a liar Now that's strong language But it's directed at all forms of semi and full perfectionist teaching it leads to self-deception and calls God a liar. The child of God, listen. Though you never get beyond the need of an advocate you can never put yourself beyond the activity of your advocate.

44:41 Look at the text again. If any man sin we have an advocate. Now, the limitation is, of course, the any man is the man described in the context. His heart is set upon walking in the light.

44:56 It's not every Tom, Dick, and Harry that's made a decision and is living like the devil.

45:02 If someone says he's in Christ and is walking in darkness, John says he's a liar. The any man is the person whose heart is set upon walking in the light, whose heart is set upon sinning not, whose heart is set upon confessing sin. And John says, if any man of that quality and caliber, if any man sin, he doesn't say a little sin, a big sin, a planned sin, a surprising sin. He puts no qualification upon it.

45:36 If any man, that is any man, woman, boy or girl who has the root of the matter in him, if he sins, he has the activity of an advocate on his behalf. If any man sin, we have an advocate. Child of God, you see the folly of trying to rationalize about the extent of your sin. How much better to come and say against thee and thee only have I sinned and done that which is evil in thy sight.

46:07 And am I speaking this morning to someone who through the deception of the devil has actually for a time turned your back upon Christ and His Word and His truth, almost hoping you could put yourself outside the orbit of what one author called the hound of heaven. Oh, dear friend, it is not likely that the terrors of law will break you, but perhaps a look from your advocate will break you as it did Peter. He cursed and he swore and he said, I do not know the man. But the Scripture says Jesus looked upon him, and he wept bitterly.

46:48 Oh, could it be that the Savior looks this morning upon someone who has the root of the matter in him or in her, but you've grievously sinned. You have sinned to the place where your conscience, you feel, is on the border of being absolutely seared. You feel the inward sting and pain and the shame. Hear the word of God this morning.

47:13 If any man sin, we have an advocate. Oh, dear child of God, held in the present grip of a spirit of backsliding and dullness and insensitivity, your Savior is not as you are. and as the accusations of the enemy come to the presence of God as no doubt they did during that period when David after his wickedness went a period of close to a year with no confession and no repentance can you imagine the din of the accusations of the devil before the face of God that's the man after your own heart that's the sacred singer of Israel that's the writer of the songs

47:59 that will become the songs of the church through the ages, and the accusations were held.

48:06 What kept God from vindicating Himself at David's expense? There was an advocate pleading His cross. The priest forever after the order of Melchizedek! and then that intercession secured the ministry of the prophet that was used of God to break his heart and to get him back into the way of righteousness ah but someone says that kind of teaching will lead people my friend listen if you take God's truth and mix the poison of the devil's logic and damn yourself that's your problem that God's people at times need to know the very truth that I'm seeking to articulate this morning.

48:52 If any sin, we have an advocate. And say if we sin just once, twice, if we sin a short time, long time, if any sin, we have an advocate.

Warning: The Horror of Judgment Without an Advocate

49:07 But what a frightening thing to have no advocate. My friend, your relationship to God is a legal relationship and He doesn't ask you to vote on it.

49:17 By virtue of being His creature, He's your judge.

49:24 And you're going to stand before that God. And all the claims of His holy law upon you will be articulated in court.

49:35 What are you going to say when your own conscience, made utterly sensitive and awake by the realities of the day of judgment, when your own conscience will thunder in your ears with such power and eloquence that you dare not open your mouth and all the indictments come in.

49:56 The soul that sinneth it shall die.

50:01 And you look around at the face of angels and wonder, will one of them come to plead my cause? You may look around at the face of your friends and companions in sin and say, will one of them come to plead my cause? But my friend, what can they plead?

50:17 There's no thought that you can bribe the judge. No thought that you can stack the jury.

50:25 No thought that you can shift the evidence you're in the presence of God.

50:32 My friend, you may think yourself very smart to live without this advocate. But what will you do when it comes time to die? and to go to judgment without that advocate, then what will you do? Come on, man, woman, boy or girl, answer me.

50:51 Not verbally, but in your mind and heart. What then will you do when you face death and judgment and you have no advocate? No advocate. Nothing but sheer, unmixed law and justice to break upon your head.

51:10 in the fury of Almighty God.

51:17 Do you see why the people of God say, for among other reasons, take the world, but give me Jesus?

51:28 What is it if for His sake we should be maligned and castigated and treated as the off-scouring of the earth? if we must trample lust and passion and ambition underfoot, if there were no consolation to being joined to Christ, but the consolation of knowing in that day I'll have an advocate to please my cause, would it not be worth sailing through a thousand bloody seas to have him plead our case in that day? Would it not? Child of God, would it not?

52:09 Oh, may God give you to see that to live and to die without an advocate is to be guilty of moral insanity.

Closing Prayer

52:22 Child of God, you have an advocate. Don't live as though you didn't. He never takes a vacation.

52:30 Court is never in recess. so the advocates there day and night as our great high priest he's there he's there just peace righteous forgiveness thank God for the ministry of our blessed high priest let us pray

53:02 Our Father, there are times when we feel utterly swallowed up with the sense of our own inability to grasp the wonder and the glory of the provisions of grace. Why Lord, why, why should you make such glorious provisions for sinners? We cry with the hymn writer, Whence to us this waste of love? Ask my Advocate above, see the cause in Jesus' face, now before the throne of grace.

53:49 How we thank you, blessed Lord Jesus, for the depth of your love Having loved your own, you loved them to the end But we thank you that your cross in the agony and shame of those events Was not the termination of your acts of love We thank you for the love that moves you now Not only to intercede, but to be our advocate Oh, Lord Jesus, we praise you this morning We love you and in moments such as these we feel that had we a thousand hearts We could give them without reservation to you We feel the resolve in our hearts to turn from everything That would erode our love and devotion to you

54:37 When we catch a sight, just a little glimpse of your glory We feel that we could suffer, bear reproach, hardship being disowned and defamed. And yet we know so quickly those resolves can be neutralized by the pressure of the world in our own indwelling sin. And again we must acknowledge that we need our advocate. O Lord Jesus, receive our thanks.

55:11 And Holy Spirit we praise You for ever revealing such wonderful things concerning the Savior. We therefore magnify You, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in the Trinity of Your being, in all the glory and privilege of the salvation wrought by You. Receive the praise we offer. May the benediction and blessing of Your presence rest upon us and abide with us as we leave this place.

55:40 Hear us, O our God, as we come in the name And with conscious trust in the present activity of our great Advocate Even the Lord Jesus Christ Amen