I John 5:14  And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:
15  And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.
16  If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.
17  All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death.
18  We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.

God gave us His written Word so that we could have confidence in Him. There is a constant reminder in the Scriptures of the importance of having the preserved Word of God. God cannot lie, and He has declared that He will preserve His Word. It is sad that so many people do not believe this promise and yet they claim to know and love the Lord. There is a massive contradiction there, yet those who believe those lies refuse see the problem.
God wants us to know that we can ask anything of Him according to His will, and He will hear us. God makes it very clear that our asking must be according to His will. God wants to bless man. God has no desire to punish man. God demonstrated His plan for man before man fell. He created a beautiful Garden and provided all the good that man would ever need. Man chose to reject that blessing.
God is able to hear us when we pray to Him. In verse 15 we are further reminded of the confidence we can have in Him. Sometimes we order something in this world, and it gets forgotten and it does not arrive. Sometimes the item gets lost in the mail, or it comes damaged. That is never the case when a true saint prays to God and asks for something according to His will. He does not depend on the mail delivery system or some spacecraft or anything else. He does direct people to be a help to other people. In that sense our request may be answered by someone living in some other place. He is able to get His answer to us in His time.
We read of Daniel, in Daniel 10, who needed help from God regarding a vision he had been given. The answer was delayed for three weeks due to another conflict that God’s messenger needed to deal with. That delay was not a surprise to God. It was not a delay that harmed Daniel. It was an opportunity for Daniel to continue to learn to trust God and wait for His time. God may delay an answer to us at times a well. We could become stressed by the delay or we can learn to trust God. We can search the Scriptures and be sure our request is correct and we can learn how to wait on the Lord with confidence.
These cannot just be words coming from my mouth, in this case. They must be words that are backed by consistent actions. I am still learning to wait on the Lord and to trust Him in all things. That is part of being a child of God.
In verse 16 we are again reminded of the responsibility we have toward another brother. The family of God is supposed to be a close knit family. We are supposed to care enough for one another that we want to be a help to each other.
One of the faults in fallen man is that even God’s children will sin. There are some sins that we can manage to keep secret for a time. However, God has a way of exposing sin among His people. He also has a way of helping the sinner to deal properly with his sin. We see here again that the brother who is walking aright, needs to be willing to help the brother who is sinning. Every true child of God will sin from time to time and will need the help of another brother to help him deal properly with that sin.
John was told to write here of the sin that is not unto death. God does not name that sin, but He tells us there is a sin that is not unto death. In Acts 5 we are told of two people, a husband and wife, who conspired to lie to Peter. They did not understand that they were lying to God, the Holy Spirit. God struck them both dead. Peter was not told to pray for them. Their sin was unto death. In Acts 8 we read of a man named Simon, who wanted to buy the gift of the Holy Spirit. He was sinning, but did not die right away because of that sin. He asked Peter to pray for him. He did not want to have the judgment that Peter spoke of. In I Corinthians 11 we are warned that partaking unworthily of the Lord’s Supper can bring death to the guilty person. It does not always do that immediately, but it can do that.
John was directed to tell us that there are times when we will sin and others should pray that we would acknowledge that sin and be forgiven and continue on in life. He also was directed to tell us that there are sins that we should not intercede for a person on. According to God’s Word, He will direct us in knowing which sins not to intercede on behalf of some saint on and which ones we should intercede on.
We see again how necessary it is to walk humbly with God so that we can hear Him. We need that right fellowship with God to be able to discern His will. We do not make up His will. He reveals His will to us in His Word. We need to reject the New Evangelical false doctrines in order to be able to rightly divide the Word of Truth. It is quite possible for us to take a passage of Scripture and come up with the wrong conclusion if we are not walking humbly with the Lord. We need to ask God for the humility that is required in order to walk with Him in that close fellowship that He expects from His child.
In verse 17 we are reminded that all unrighteousness is sin. Once again we see the need to know what righteousness is. If we do not have the sure Word of God, we can never know this. We will thus condone things that are unrighteousness. If a person is truly saved, God will show him what is wrong with his thinking and actions. If the person is truly saved, they have the ability to hear the truth and submit to the truth. The godly brother will be there to help the brother who is committing the sin not unto death.
In verse 18 we see that the saved person cannot live in sin. That is the context of the verses that speak to this issue. The saved person has the indwelling Spirit of God in him and He is the One Who helps to keep the saved person going the right way. We see as well that the saved person keeps himself in the right way. The saved person cannot be a careless person. He cannot make light of sin. He cannot take the common attitude that it is easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission. He wants to do right.
We read further that the wicked one cannot affect the humble child of God. Thus we see again that when a Christian sins, it is because he has been careless in some area of his life. God has equipped everyone of His children with the ability to walk in holiness. He also knows not one of His children will always do that. We can go back to chapter 1 and we see that God made that very clear in that chapter. It is foolish to try to twist things and try to justify our sin. We need to confess our sin and be forgiven. God is gracious and long-suffering. He is also holy and just. We cannot twist His arm and we cannot get Him to approve of our corruption. We are changed at salvation and we need to learn how to walk as changed individuals from the moment of salvation. We need a good local church to help us with this important task.
Pastor Bartel