1. Today is Father’s Day and so it is appropriate that I preach a message geared towards fathers.
2. I thank God for godly mothers, but a church cannot survive without godly fathers.
3. There are churches closing down all over the country, because there are not enough good men to keep the doors open.
4. Let me say this right at the beginning that the term “fathers” in verses 13 and 14 should not be limited to men who have fathered children.  In this context, John is addressing mature men, men who have been saved for some length of time. Perhaps most of them have children, but not necessarily all of them.
5. And while this is a Father’s Day message, I hope to have something here for everyone: “little children” (2:12, 13) and “young men” (2:13, 14), and everyone else as well.
6. John is addressing believers in their various stages of growth. 
7. So my message this morning is not just for fathers, though I do want to have a Father’s Day emphasis. 
8. So let us ask the Holy Spirit to teach us all something this Lord’s Day.

1. THAT YOU WALK IN THE LIGHT (1:7)
2. THAT YE SIN NOT (2:1)
3. THAT YOU LOVE NOT THE WORLD (2:15-17)

I. THAT YOU WALK IN THE LIGHT (2:8-11).

1. In the Bible, light is the emblem of truth, and darkness symbolizes error.  Light represents holiness, and darkness is a picture of sin (2:8-11; cf. 1:5-7).
2. Light represents knowledge, especially knowledge of the Bible and spiritual things, since light reveals.  Darkness represents ignorance “under which the natural man labors perpetually” (CHS).
3. FB Meyer said, “Men are apt to say that they have fellowship with Christ and yet continue to walk in darkness…They do not realize how much darkness is still in their lives.”
4. Many people say they are Christians, or that they are saved, born again, etc.  John says, “He that saith…” (I John 2:4, 6, 9).  It is one thing to say you are saved, it is quite another thing to walk in the light.
5. John says, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth” (I John 1:6).  The biggest problem in America this Father’s Day is that the majority of fathers are walking in darkness and their children are following in their footsteps.
6. Our special speaker spoke about how some dads have a problem with their temper and then their children do too, and their children too, etc.
7. Many dads skip Sunday School and so their kids skip Sunday School.  Dads skip church and so the kids skip church.  Or perhaps Dad or Mom send the kids off to S.S. and church, but children are not stupid, and if Dad does not go to church or Sunday School, they conclude that it must not be all that important.
8. Dads use bad language and then the children pick it up and repeat it.  Dads listen to worldly music and so do the kids.  My earliest childhood memories are of a little radio in my parents’ house playing worldly rock music – back when I was a toddler!  So guess what followed?  My siblings and I got hooked on rock music at an early age.
9. Thank God, I was delivered from it, but my siblings still listen to it (and their children do also).
10. Dads sit around watching all that trash on TV and so will the children (I John 1:6).
11. In 1972, the late George Carlin said there were “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.” When his seven dirty words were broadcast over the radio, it led to the Supreme Court case (FCC vs. Pacifica) that affirmed the authority of the FCC to enforce the broadcast decency law.  Today, six of those seven dirty words have aired unedited on broadcast TV during primetime viewing hours. 
12. Parents Television Council President Tim Winter recently said, “Our research is shocking and especially troubling to parents.  Not only are harsher profanities like the f-word and s-word airing during hours when children are likely to be in the viewing audience, but they are airing with greater frequency…Broadcast standards have become so permissive that the term is now an oxymoron.”
13. In the Bible, darkness represents sin. Sexual immorality and immodest dress, crude talk, drinking, drugs, rebelliousness and rock music – these things are all part of the world of darkness.
14. Fathers, if you want to be the kind of man God would have you to be you need to get out of the darkness.
15. If you are saved, then God has called you out from the darkness (Eph. 5:8; Col. 1:13).
16. Unfortunately unsaved people are very comfortable in the darkness.  But Christians should not be. J. Vernon McGee gave a good illustration of this.  He was out hunting and it started raining hard so he ducked into a cave.  It was pitch black in that cave but that did not bother him at all. But after a while he got cold so he gathered together some leaves that were on the floor and started a fire.  It was then that he noticed that there were lizards, snakes, and all sorts of unfriendly creatures crawling all over the place – so he ran out of there quickly.
17. His point was this: he was quite comfortable in that dry cave until he saw the light.  Then his eyes were opened to the reality of the situation.  Likewise, multitudes of people today are comfortable in darkness because they never hear God’s Word, and they never see the light.  They need to have their eyes opened to the reality of the situation.
18. “The entrance of thy words giveth light” (Ps. 119:130).
19. Fathers, are you walking in the light or you walking in darkness?  If you are walking in the light, then you will “have fellowship” with God’s people (1:7).  Are you part of this fellowship?  Will you be back here tonight as we worship God and we fellowship with one another?
20. “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (I John 1:7).
21. God not only forgives sin, He also cleanses us from it. This cleansing from sin is a promise of God, and is a matter of faith.
22. Both forgiveness and cleansing are through the blood of Christ (1:7). The blood breaks the power that sin has in heaven to condemn us, and the blood also breaks the power of sin in the heart to hold us captive.

II. THAT YE SIN NOT (2:1a).

1. The Bible teaches us that God has made a provision for sin (I John 1:9; 2:2b).  But this does not mean that we should accept sin as a normal part of the Christian life (cf. 3:6, 7).
2. There are church members (not just in our church) who sin with impunity, and they make excuses and say, “I’ll confess it, God has forgiven me, I’m already saved, etc.”  But God says, “Little children, let no man deceive you…” (3:7).
3. Many people have been deceived into thinking that struggling with sin is normal Christianity, when according to the Bible revival is normal Christianity.
4. Ephesians 3:19 says, “that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.”  Not – that ye might be filled with sin and shame and bitterness and despair.
5. “He that committeth sin is of the devil…” (3:8); and “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin” (3:9).
6. Many deceived individuals have reinterpreted this to mean, “He that committeth murder is of the devil” or “He that robbeth banks is of the devil,” etc.
7. Do you recall what our Lord said to the impotent man, “Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee” (John 5:14).
8. Our Lord said to the woman taken in adultery, “Go, and sin no more” (John 8:11).
9. Every Christian should carefully study Romans chapter 6. 

• “We are dead to sin” (6:2)
• “We should not serve sin” (6:6)
• We must reckon ourselves “to be dead indeed unto sin” (6:11)
• We must not let sin reign in our mortal bodies (6:12)
• Sin shall not have dominion over us (6:14)
• We are no longer the servants (slaves) of sin (6:17, 20)
• We have been “made free from sin” (6:18, 22)

10. I Corinthians 15:34 says, “Some have not the knowledge of God.”  That is why many people (even many Christians) have such a weak, careless attitude towards sin.
11. That is why we have revival meetings. We need to wake up out of our spiritual slumber: “Awake to righteousness, and sin not” (I Cor. 15:34).
12. One of the things brought out during our revival meetings is we should not doubt the Word of God.

• “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).
• “I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest” (John 4:35).
• “And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive” (Matt. 21:22).

13. But there is a tendency to dilute or change the Word of God.  “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not” (I John 2:1).

III. THAT YOU LOVE NOT THE WORLD (I JOHN 2:15-17).

1. Worldliness creeps into churches in many different ways. It is more than just keeping the rock music out, as important as that is.
2. It is more than just keeping the dress standards right, as important as that is.
3. It is more than getting rid of the bad attitude, and wrong thinking, and compromise – as important as that is.
4. It is more than getting rid of the beer and cigarettes, and TV, and all the worldly garbage that would destroy your soul, and destroy your health, and keep you from effectively serving God. 
5. It is being separated from the world and being separated unto God.  Beloved, it is doing the will of God (I John 2:17).
6. Are you doing His will?  Jesus said, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matt. 7:21).

CONCLUSION:

1. Spurgeon said: “You can drive the swine and the sheep together side by side; they come to some mire, and they both fall into it, and both stain themselves, but you soon detect the difference in nature between them, for while the swine lies and wallows with intense gusto, the sheep is up again, escaping as soon as possible from the filth.”
2. This Father’s Day, this Lord’s Day, let us determine – all of us, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, children, and adults – let us determine that we will walk in the light, and stay away from the devil’s pigpens.