This will be a short and simple message. The subject is so elemental and obvious that it doesn’t need to be explained. If it wasn’t standing like speed bump in the middle of John’s letter, I’d probably be teaching something else. And again, that is one of the benefits of expository preaching: The preacher can’t skip over subjects which are too obvious – or too difficult – because there they are. And just because we understand what John is saying that doesn’t mean we’d pay attention to it if we weren’t forced to focus for a few minutes. So let’s wipe the dust from our glasses, rub the sleep from our eyes, kick our hearts awake for a few moments and reconsider on our responsibilities toward the needs of others. “Whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowls of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?”
Stepping back before stepping forward, I have a question for you: What would you be willing to suffer for sake of someone’s salvation? Let’s say that you have been praying for your grandson; you have witnessed to him several times. He has thus far, respectfully, or perhaps with disrespect, rejected your efforts at his salvation. Would you be willing to sacrifice your left arm, if that would bring him to his senses and to his knees? Would you be willing to give up your dominant arm, or your eye sight, for his salvation? Let’s say the Lord sent His angel to tell you if you would be willing to die, your grandchild would be saved? You are a saint of God; you have assurance that upon your death you’d be with your Saviour. So you weigh the options for a moment and tell that angel to take your life, if he guaranteed your loved one would be so moved as to repent and trust Christ as his Saviour. Under those circumstances and the Lord’s promise, I would hope the choice would be easy.
Now let’s change the parameters just a bit. Would you be willing to lay down your life for your grandchild who is already a professed believer, but he is living a non-victorious life. Maybe he is not bringing glory to Christ, so that others, but not you, are not even sure he is saved. Maybe he is in poverty through his own foolishness. Maybe he is extremely sick through various sins. Would you be willing to lay down your life for the restoration of your loved one? Again, since your soul is secure in Christ, maybe you’d be willing to make that sacrifice.
Now, let’s change the scenario entirely: Now, we’re not talking about a blood relative, but a spiritual brother. Would you be willing to lay down your life to save the life of a fellow church member; one of the brethren? “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (verse 16). To what extent would you go to be a blessing to another Christian who was in some desperate need? Would you sacrifice a kidney? Would you give him half your liver? How about part of your spleen? Even if that gift endangered your own life?
John makes an argument from the greater to the lesser in these verses. He says, “We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” Then he adds, “How can you agree to that, but you can’t agree to give that brother some of your wealth?” Just as Christ did for us, “we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” “But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowls of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?” There are many Christians who would say they would make the ultimate sacrifice, but they wouldn’t make the smaller. They would be willing to sacrifice a goat to the Lord, but not a prize-winning bullock.
Consider “whoso hath this world’s goods.”
First of all, “whoso” is a word without limitations. It refers to people of all sizes and shapes. It refers to people with great wealth and those with adequate wealth. Despite whatever excuses people might raise against personal generosity, the word in itself stabs a finger at every chest.
“Whoso hath this WORLD’S good…” As John has told us, the world system in which we must live is governed by the god of this world: Satan. But it must be admitted that much of the world’s goods are in themselves good. You may think otherwise when it starts to get old and regularly breaks down, but a car is not in itself Satanic. The electricity running through your house has the potential to kill you, but electricity is not sinfully evil. It takes a daily supply of food to keep us healthy and in good shape to serve the Lord. Food is good. There are lots of worldly things that God has permitted us to have and which we might even amass. But nothing we have is really our own; we are only stewards, and we must learn to share those things.
Remember that God causes His sun to shine on both the just and the unjust. And He doesn’t deal with us after our sins, in the sense of withholding His blessings until we repent. John tells us that we should behave as does our heavenly Father. God is merciful and gracious. He is giving and He has given. So how much of this world’s good do you possess? How much of it are they going to put into your coffin with you when they lay you in the ground? How much treasure are you investing in heaven ahead of your arrival? “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break though and steal.” Oh, I am saving my wealth to become an inheritance for my children and grandchildren. Is that scriptural? That comes close to the philosophy of the miser Christ condemned in Matthew 15.
Notice the word “good.” I wondered about the fact that it is singular, rather than plural in our King James Bibles. But none of my reference materials made as much out of that as I did. They all said that it refer to the “goods of the world.” But there are a number of Greek words translated “good” or “goods.” Some of them are nouns and some of them are adjectives and adverbs. We don’t need to get into them. But this verse, I John 3:17, is the only place in the Bible which translates the Greek word “bios” as “good.” The majority of the time, this word, “bios,” is rendered either “life” or “living.” It could speak of someone’s “livelihood.” The Lord Jesus said of the poor widow who was seen throwing two mites into the treasury, “she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her LIVING.” That could have been “all her worldly goods.” Paul exhorted Timothy to pray “for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable LIFE in all godliness and honesty.”
Would I be incorrect to assume that the “good” to which John refers is not just to “stuff,” like money or houses. This is the stuff which more directly sustains life, like food and medicine; shelter and clothing in cold weather. “But whoso hath this world’s essentials for life, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowls of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?”
Consider this brother’s “need.”
In I Kings 17, God sent a famine into Israel, and He sent Elijah into the wilderness beside the brook Cherith. After a few weeks, Elijah might have said, “I need some books to read. I need a companion to talk with.” He might have said, “I need a BBQ grill and some hamburger.” But actually, because he had the Lord, all he really needed was that little trickle of water and a few ravens with a door-dash business.
After a really hard day, or a particularly bad week, you may say “I need a vacation.” But you aren’t going to get that vacation, and as has happened in the past, you will survive. A vacation is not an absolute necessity. But after a week in the desert with nothing but stale water and no food, a meal becomes a genuine need. No one needs a new cell phone, a 2026 pick-up truck or faster internet service. But a brother might need a new transmission for the old pick-up he must drive to work and to church. And he might really need a refill on his heart medication. He probably doesn’t need a nice big fruit covered cheese cake, but he might need eggs and bread. Every situation and every need is different. But real needs need real solutions.
And by the way, that brother in Christ may not be the sort of person to broadcast his need. He might say to some of the brethren, “Pray for me…” But while trusting the Lord, he probably won’t have his hand out, palm up, saying, “I need $300.”
And this brings us to the word “seeth” – “whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth this brother have need…” This doesn’t speak of an accidental glimpse, or in the course of glancing around, this need pops out. This Greek word is also translated “beholding” and “perceiving.” John is suggesting that we pay attention to the brethren around us, learning to see the signs of need. This “seeing” involves actual looking. It is not something which can take place in most places. It is hard to determine who really needs help when you’re in the grocery store, but there are occasions. And just because someone is shabbily dressed doesn’t reveal much. I think that John was probably thinking about the context of a church. But in those churches which are so large and so busy it is impossible to get to know one another, seeing the needs of others can be a difficult as it is to see it out on the street corner. When one of your children is sick, other members of the family can “see” it without a word being spoken And the same is true when a church is truly a family as it should be. “Whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth this BROTHER have need…”
We need to open our eyes and train our hearts to recognize when our brothers and sisters in Christ have needs. We need to pray for the Lord to give us the insight to recognize true needs. It is love which empowers our eye-sight, and which opens our hearts and our hands or wallets. When our hearts are open our hands have a hard time staying shut. “What doth it profit, my brethren? To say to the needy soul. Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?” I can’t visualize how megachurches can say they are filled with love, even if many of their messages are filled with syrupy, soupy sermons on the subject.
Consider the shut-up bowels of compassion.
The word “bowels” reminds us that different cultures have looked at the seat of human emotions differently. The ancient Assyrians and Babylonians considered the liver as the central organ of the soul, and it was linked to feelings of happiness and emotion. They might have said, “I love you with all my liver.” Classical writers, like Plato, might have said, “I love you from the depths of my belly.” The Bible at times suggests that everything begins in our metaphorical heart, like verses 19, 20 and 21: “Hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things…” Not surprisingly, the word “heart” in these verses is,“kardia.”
But the word “bowels” in verse 17 is a word which most experts link to “the spleen.” I’ve given this lesson the title: “The Quarantined Spleen.” “But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth this brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion (his spleen) from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?” Admittedly, this word is never translated “spleen” in the Bible, but it is in classical literature. Ninety percent of the time in God’s Word it is rendered as we have it here: “bowels.” But obviously it is not referring to physical intestines or other organs. And I can see Tyndale or King Jame’s translators struggling with Luke 1:78. When Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, was given the opportunity to praise God and to prophesy, he spoke of the future relationship between his son, the Lord Jesus, and God the Father. He said they were “to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins, Through the TENDER MERCY of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us, To give light to them that sit in darkness.” In that verse “bowels” is properly translated “tender mercy,” because that is what it means. And to speak of the “spleen of the Lord” or “the bowels of God” just seems out of place somehow.
“How dwelleth the love of God in him?”
John’s point is that some professing Christians see and know that their brethren have needs, but they shut their eyes and close up their hearts to those needs. Like a well-skilled pastor, he wants to rip the hide off those hard-hearted people. But instead, he more mildly says, “I’m not sure that person possesses God’s love.” The word “dwelleth” is often translated “abides.” “Does God’s love abide in the heart of the stingy miser?” God’s love could be interpreted as the absence of God’s love toward the man – salvation. Or it could be the lack of God’s love within the backslidden Christian to share with others. Either way, it is not a good testimony or condition.
Of course, it cannot be debated that God loves His people. And in His sovereignty and omnipotence, He not only provides our needs, but often He abundantly supplies. Why does He give? So that we might be made rich? He gives to us, testing us, to see if we’ll share with others.
Going back to those “bowels.” The human spleen is an important organ. If it is damaged in an accident, the patient will die without immediate help. In the sight of God, a healthy spleen does its job by giving to the rest of the body. So the question for us is this: How healthy is your spleen this evening?