2nd John: Deceivers & The Love of God - Puritan Reformed Church

Listen, we have a council meeting about 15 to 30 minutes after the church service.

We have the teaching today on 2 John, so we'll be reading that.

We'll also be reading from Exodus 4, and we'll also be singing

Psalms 1 and 101. We'll sing them in the reverse order of that, 101 first.

And then I have an announcement from the

Rodriguez family. They are expecting another baby, the older Rodriguez family.

There are a couple generations from now, there will be so many Rodriguez families that we won't have any way of distinguishing.

We'll have to use number sequences. It'll be good. May nations come from you.

All right, let's begin with a call to worship.

Please stand for God's word. Our call to worship is from Deuteronomy chapter 6, verses 4 through 9.

Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the

Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which

I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.

You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.

You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. You may be seated.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we ask that you would bring glory to your great name, that you would cause the worship of you in this place and at this time to be honoring to you, that you would cause our minds to be renewed after the image of Christ.

Father, we pray that you would build up this church to have gospel offices and ordinances properly and maturely in use.

And we pray for the church throughout the world that you would cause the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ to be manifest in the church with doctrine, worship, and government according to what

Christ has appointed in his word. Father, we ask that you would cause us to know your will and to do it.

We ask that you would cause us to obey you promptly and sincerely as the righteous angels obey you in heaven.

We ask that you would cause our hearts to be rightly ordered and for us to desire holy things.

Father, we ask that you would give to us the things that are needful for our duties, that you'd give us our daily bread, that you'd help us to perform our duties as individuals before you and interacting in voluntary agreements, that you'd bless us in households to see our houses well ordered and supplied.

We ask that you'd bless the church to have all useful goods and to have them in abundance and to put them to good use, not simply burying talents in the ground.

Father, we pray that you would give to us resource for Christian magistrates, that we might see wickedness removed from the thrones of power and that we would see rule being exercised by godly men.

Father, we ask that you would look upon us, not based upon our own merits, but based upon the forgiveness that we have in Christ to be innocent.

And more than that, that you would look upon us as righteous by his perfect obedience and fulfilling of the whole law.

So, Father, we ask that you would forgive us for Christ's sake and see us as righteous for Christ's sake and that you would help us to be quick to see our own sinfulness knowing we have been forgiven much, and so we ask that you would help us to love much, and so we ask that you'd help us to forgive each other our debts.

Father, I ask that you would help us to interpret each other charitably, to overlook offenses where we can, and to rebuke things that are settled malice or cankered corruptions, and that you would help us to repent as things are brought to us, that you would cause quickness of forgiveness to be given at repentance, and,

Father, we pray that you would help us to remove sources of temptation in our lives and to order the world by work of dominion to see

Christian culture manifested, and we ask that you would help us to use our time, our space, and our talents well, and that you would deliver us from the power of darkness and cause us to not be subject to Satan's kingdom, to not be subject to the world, to not be subject to the flesh, but that the

Spirit would reign in us, that grace would be manifested powerfully, that you would cause the church to subdue the earth, and that you would cause the reign of Christ to overbear the reign of Satan and his dominion.

Father, we thank you that you have bound Satan and that you continue to push back and bind his various minions, and we ask that you would increase the rate of that work being done.

We pray these things knowing that you have all authority and power to grant, and that because you seek your glory and will not share it with another, we expect you to answer these things, to show the truthfulness of your word and the power of it, and to bear testimony to the greatness of your own name.

And so we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our mediator. Amen. All right.

So please now open your Psalters to, or open your Bibles to Exodus chapter 4, and stand for the reading of God's word.

Deacon Schaeffer, please come forward. After that, Deacon Rodriguez will read

Psalm 101. Remain standing after this reading.

Exodus chapter 4. Then Moses answered and said, but suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice.

Suppose they say, the Lord has not appeared to you. So the Lord said to him, what is that in your hand?

He said, a rod, and he said, cast it on the ground. So he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses fled from it.

Then the Lord said to Moses, reach out your hand and take it by the tail. And he reached out his hand and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand.

That they may believe that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the

God of Jacob has appeared to you. Furthermore, the Lord said to him, now put your hand in your bosom, and he put his hand in his bosom.

And when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous, like snow. And he said, put your hand in your bosom again.

So he put his hand in his bosom again and drew it out of his bosom, and behold, it was restored like his other flesh.

Then it will be, if they do not believe you, nor heed the message of the first sign, that they may believe the message of the latter sign.

And it shall be, if they do not believe even these two signs, or listen to your voice, that you shall take water from the river and pour it on the dry land.

The water which you take from the river will become blood on the dry land. Then Moses said to the

Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.

So the Lord said to him, Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind?

Have not I, the Lord? Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.

But he said, O my Lord, please send by the hand of whomever else you may send.

So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and he said, Is not Aaron the Levite your brother?

I know that he can speak well. And look, he is also coming out to meet you. When he sees you, he will be glad in his heart.

Now you shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth, and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and I will teach you what you shall do.

So he shall be your spokesman to the people, and he himself shall be as a mouth for you, and you shall be to him as God.

And you shall take this rod in your hand, with which you shall do the signs. So Moses went and returned to Jethro his father -in -law, and said to him,

Please let me go and return to my brethren who are in Egypt, and see whether they are still alive. And Jethro said to Moses, Go in peace.

Now the Lord said to Moses and Midian, Go, return to Egypt, for all the men who sought your life are dead.

Then Moses took his wife and his sons and set them on a donkey, and he returned to the land of Egypt. And Moses took the rod of God in his hand.

And the Lord said to Moses, When you go back to Egypt, see that you do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which

I have put in your hand. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go. Then you shall say to Pharaoh, Thus says the

Lord, Israel is my son, my firstborn. So I say to you, Let my son go, that he may serve me.

But if you refuse to let him go, indeed, I will kill your son, your firstborn. And it came to pass on the way, at the encampment, that the

Lord met him and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son and cast it at Moses' feet, and said,

Surely you are a husband of blood to me. So he let him go. Then she said,

You are a husband of blood, because of the circumcision. And the Lord said to Aaron, Go into the wilderness to meet

Moses. So he went and met him on the mountain of God and kissed him. So Moses told

Aaron all the words of the Lord who had sent him, and all the signs which he had commanded him.

Then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the children of Israel. And Aaron spoke all the words which the

Lord had spoken to Moses. Then he did the signs in the sight of the people. So the people believed.

And when they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel, and that he had looked on their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshipped.

Please open your Psalter to Psalm 101. O I will sing of mercy and sing of justice too.

Yes, unto you, O Lord, I will lift my voice in song. The perfect way,

I will walk. When will you come to me? I will walk within my house with true integrity.

I'll not allow the wicked to stay before my eyes. I hate the works that come from those who have turned aside.

They will never cling to me, nor will a twisted heart stay near to me, for I will not know the wicked ones.

He who slanders his neighbor, I will then cut him off. I will not suffer those who look down with a proud heart.

My eyes are on the faithful, that they may dwell with me. He who continues to walk blamelessly will serve me.

He who works in deceit will not dwell within my house. He that tells lies will not keep position in my sight.

I will destroy the wicked from throughout all the land to rid the Lord's city of all those who do evil.

All right, Psalm 101, a Psalm of David. O I will sing of mercy and sing of justice too.

Yes, unto you, O Lord, I will lift my voice in song.

The perfect way I will walk, when will you come to me?

I will walk within my house with true integrity.

I'll not allow the wicked to stay before my eyes.

I hate the works that come from those who have turned aside.

They will never cling to me, nor will a twisted heart stay near to me, for I will not know the wicked ones.

He who slanders his neighbor, I will then cut him off.

I will not suffer those who look down with a proud heart.

My eyes are all that they may dwell with.

He who continues to walk blamelessly will serve me.

He who works in deceit will not dwell within my house.

He that tells lies will not keep position in my sight.

I will destroy the wicked from throughout all the land to rid the

Lord's city of all those who do evil.

Please remain standing while we read 2 John. So please open the scriptures to 2

John. All right, now, just so you know, for the majority text, there is one change in this book from what you have laid out in the

New King James there. In verse 3, it says, grace, mercy, and peace will be with you in the

TR. In the majority text, it has us there. So we'll be reading it with the word us there.

The elder, to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth, and not only

I, but also all those who have known the truth because of the truth, which abides in us and will be with us forever.

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us from God the Father and from the

Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father in truth and love. I rejoiced greatly that I have found some of your children walking in truth as we receive commandment from the

Father. And now I plead with you, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have heard from the beginning.

Sorry, that which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. This is love, that we walk according to his commandments.

This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it.

For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh.

This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Look to yourselves that we do not lose those things we worked for, but that we may receive a full reward.

Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have

God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the

Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house, nor greet him.

For he who greets him shares in his evil deeds. Having many things to write to you,

I did not wish to do so with paper and ink. But I hope to come to you and speak face to face, that our joy may be full.

The children of your elect sister greet you. Amen. You may be seated.

All right, last opportunity. Anybody need a copy of the handout that doesn't have it? Okay. So, 2

John. We know the Apostle John wrote the book of John, which we've just gone through.

He wrote the book of 1 John, which we completed last week. So now we're in 2 John. You can probably guess where I'll be preaching next week.

So, as we consider 2 John, we start off and he calls himself the

Elder. Now, we know John is an apostle. In the church, higher offices contain lower offices.

So every apostle is a prophet, is an elder, is a deacon, is a voting member, is a communicant member, is a baptized member.

And so, John is writing as an elder, and what he's doing with that is he is giving to us an example of how elders should behave.

How he's addressing is addressing as an elder. And so it gives to us an example for right government by elders, which is a continuing office.

The office of apostle, prophet, evangelist. These were extraordinary offices where revelation was given, new words from God given to the church for the completion of the scriptures.

The office of elder is an office that continues, and the job of the elder is to preach the text that was delivered to the church.

That has been completed. And so this letter is showing us an example of the duty of elders, where John is operating with sort of his elder hat on.

There's nothing here besides the writing of the letter as scripture itself. His function here is an example for elders.

He writes to the elect lady and her children. And I have wrestled in the past with how to read this.

But basically, historically, the people that say, this is talking about the universal church, that's the elect lady, the church is being addressed.

There's the idea that it's a particular church that's being addressed. And then there's the idea that this is a particular

Christian woman. And then there are various speculations as to which particular Christian woman.

I don't think that it has been made plain to us which particular Christian woman. And so that is not information that we need to understand the letter properly.

I do, however, want to point out two reasons why I do not believe that this is the universal church or talking to a particular church, but instead is written to a particular individual

Christian woman acting as the head of her house because she doesn't seem to have a patriarch in the house to lead the house.

So this is a woman who is either a widow or something to that effect.

Now, first of all, it is not the universal church because if you go to verse 12 or 13, it's verse 13 says,

The children of your elect sister greet you. Okay, there is one universal church.

And so it's not like the universal church and the other universal church. So if we're talking about the universal church, we are either talking about the universal invisible church or we're talking about the universal visible church.

In either case, it doesn't matter. The universal visible church is not a specific organizational institution.

It's all those who profess the true religion and their children. And so the elect lady is not the universal church because the elect lady, if it were the universal church, would not have a sister.

Some people have tried to suggest that this is the elect lady as the

Jewish church and then there's the Gentile church. But that would rend into what

God had made one with the tearing down of the veil and the wall of separation.

Sorry, the wall of separation, not the veil. The veil is irrelevant to that analogy. The wall of separation between Jew and Gentile.

Now, a particular church, you go, okay, well, here's the elect lady, a church, and then here's the idea of another church.

You don't find that elsewhere in Scripture, so it would have to be a place where there's an ambiguity. This would be the place that would institute that meaning.

So this is a particular Christian woman. And the idea is that this particular

Christian woman has a standing in the church where she is loved by all others.

How is that? Some people have tried to say that it's perhaps Mary, the mother of Jesus, or that there's some sort of perhaps it's the woman who anointed

Jesus' feet because it said that the work that she did would be remembered wherever the word goes forth, those types of things.

Trying to say this is a woman who has to have general renown. I don't believe that that's the case. I think this is the point that all

Christians have a duty to love all Christians. There's an order of love. You have those that are closer to you in terms of your responsibilities.

And so you love those that you have a duty to first. You love them to a higher degree than you love those that you have secondary duties to.

Right? So the people in your own church, you have a duty to care for them in terms of works of ministry before those in a neighboring church.

And those in a neighboring church before those who are outside of, for example, a regional presbytery.

Right? The closer you are in connection, the nearer the duty to yourself. There's an order of loves.

So order of loves goes inside of covenant institutions. You have a duty to care for yourself, then for your family, and then you have a duty to care for your church.

And then you have a duty to care for the broader church. And then you have a duty to care for those who are in your covenanted national, your civil sphere from the closer to the farther away.

So those are the orders of love. So she is an object of love of the whole church insofar as she is not known by people as an individual.

She's an object of love as a person who is a part of the church. And this is how we all are.

Now why do I think this? First of all, the duty of love is emphasized in 2 John, and it was emphasized in 1

John. In 1 John, there was this idea that the love of neighbor, that if you don't love your brother, brother, the fellow church member, neighbor being the broader individual, just human beings generally, you have a duty to apply the law generally.

And then you have a duty particular to those who are brothers. And if you don't love your brother, then why should anybody believe that you love your father?

That was the argument in 1 John. So this idea of the love going to her from the church,

I don't think makes it, requires that she's a particularly prominent individual who is necessarily individually famous.

So I believe this is an individual Christian woman, and I don't know which Christian woman it is. So to the elect lady and her children, when you read this as written to an individual woman, it helps to draw out a number of doctrines.

The title lady is the

Greek word curia, which is the feminine form of curiae.

Curiae is commonly translated Lord and frequently used to refer to Jesus. The term curiae is a frequently used term for master of the house, and curia for the lady of the house.

So in English language, we think of master and mistress, or lord and lady. In Latin, you'd have dominus for the head of the house, and domina for the lady of the house.

In Greek, you'd have curiae and curia. So this is an office of a woman.

Now first of all, the head of the house, the man, is the master of the house.

If there's a husband in the house, he is the head of the house. In the absence of a man in the house, the woman of the house bears a burden to lead her house.

But she does not take on public authorities. She doesn't become a voting member of the congregation. She doesn't take on civil authorities.

But she has a responsibility to lead her own house. And her leadership in her house is not to be usurped by church officers.

Church officers are to take special care for the orphan and widow. And there should be special care to make sure to provide representation in the public spheres, like the public courts of the church or the state.

The church should provide that. In the event of poverty or need for care, it's especially good to come under the care of a family member, a brother, a brother -in -law, a father going to an uncle, whatever.

It's a cursed condition to have no male head of house. But that cursed condition does not negate the fact that sometimes people are stuck in that cursed condition for a period of time.

Like Naomi. In the case of Naomi and Ruth, Naomi was the head of her own house.

And Ruth stayed with her in her house. And so they're both having had lost husbands, continuing to work together.

And they seek out the care of a kinsman redeemer, Boaz. And he ends up marrying

Ruth. And that's how he provides care there. The Apostle Paul says for young widows that they ought to marry.

So those are the ways that we look at that. But then there's the widows that are older, that are on the roll, that meet character qualifications, that could potentially receive help.

So we don't know if this woman is poor or not. There's nothing here about having received any sort of diaconal care of this being a widow on the roll.

She has children, and some of them are walking in the truth, we find out. And if that's the case, guess what they're doing?

They're making sure to provide for that widow mother if she needs it. That would be a part of walking in the truth.

So she does not seem to be a woman who is in need of diaconal care. There's no mention of it. She has children that are walking in the truth.

That is not brought up. So this is a widow, perhaps, who is in a situation where she is dealing with things as the head of her own house.

The elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth, and not only

I, but also all those who have known the truth. His loving in truth, what does it mean to love in truth?

It means to be loving truly. So true love is defined by the law of God.

When you love a person in truth, you're loving them without hypocrisy, but you're also loving them in a way that is according to truth.

You are seeking their actual good according to the means that God has appointed in his word.

Verse 2, because of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever.

There's a love for them, for the lady and the children, because of the truth which abides in the church and will be with the church forever.

In particular, the elect. There's those who are in the visible church, who are outwardly professing the truth for a time.

They can give a false profession and then fall away. But there are those who have the truth, who are elect, and the truth is in them.

And the truth will be in them forever. It cannot be lost.

Now notice these are her children.

They're her children. The elder here does not usurp in and try to come and say they're our children. The elder here does not try to make a claim about the direct authority and ownership of these children by the church.

This is a recognition that there are distinct spheres of authority. In this letter, we have the individual addressed individually.

We have the household addressed as a particular institution. We have the church addressed as an institution. We do not have the state addressed, though there are implications to the state.

So we find these distinctive spheres, and children being responsibility in the household.

One of the reasons we avoid age -segregated ministries is because what happens there is the church, without the mediation of the parents to guard them and teach them and care for them, or women without the husband present who potentially have some officer interacting directly with those family members without the ability to address it.

Husbands have a duty to guard their families. Now in hospitality, which is private ministry, you do all sorts of stuff.

You can invite your young man, you invite a bunch of young men over. Your young man, you invite a bunch of young ladies over.

I'll be talking to you. But if you're a young man and you're inviting young men over, great.

If you're having, you know, if a wife wants to invite over a number of women or whatever, that's fine.

That's hospitality. It's distinct from the ministry of the church. And so that idea that the church is a limited government.

Almost everybody here goes, yeah, limited government's great, big government's bad, low taxes, let's do the thing.

Right? I'm for it. There's a danger of big government in church, too. If the church steals the responsibilities and authorities of the household and the individual, that is tyrannical church government.

The regulated principle of government that says the church should do the things that God has given it authority to do and not more, not less, helps to protect.

Many of the issues of tyranny are simply the bleeding of spheres together. Properly defining the spheres helps to avoid tyranny and also helps to avoid anarchy.

You know, it's kind of fun, for example, you talk about the state, you can say, you know, it's fun to say, you know, taxation is theft. Well, some taxation is theft.

The Bible gives authority to the state to tax. But it also says in 1

Samuel chapter 8 that taxation of 10 % is a curse from God for having centralized monarchical government.

Because that's an abandonment of the order that God has given. So taxation of 10 % or more is a stealing of claims that God says, well, you give me 10%.

You give the king 10%. Who do you think he is? God? So 10 % as a tax rate is supposed to be a thing that is tyrannically high.

And that's the type of thing that when you try to steal rights from people, you create tyranny.

When you say that I have the authority as a state to do the things that the church does to extract 10%.

Or as a household does, you know, a father can order his children to do work. The state tries to order you to do work, that's slave labor.

Those things, the stealing of authority by different institutions is a lot of how tyranny happens.

When the state is run by a king who says that my children inherit the throne, that's a mixing of the household with the state.

So with the church, if you mix the household and the church and take away the rights of householders, that's a tyranny.

If you take away the responsibilities and rights of individuals, that's a tyranny. So being careful to have the church do what it's supposed to do and not more.

So her children is a little word, her, that helps you to see this recognition that the elder acknowledges, even in the absence of a father here, that there's authority of the woman as the mistress of the home, the curia.

Now, when we think about where governments get their authority from, there are six answers historically.

I've written them out for you at the bottom of the page. Where do they get their authority from? Nothing. What's that called?

Anarchy. There's no authority because it's from nowhere. Authority doesn't get from any place, so therefore there's no authority.

Make sense? It's anarchy. Where does authority come from? How about the barrel of a gun?

That's Mao's theory. Barrel of a gun. That's realpolitik. That's power makes authority.

That's might makes right. That is not the teaching of the Bible. The Bible limits power and tells those who could abuse to not abuse.

You say it's from nature. There's kind of four ways you could interpret that. One is by observation through empiricism.

You look around and try to say, oh, I can look at this, and because of that, you know, therefore we ought to do such and such, and governments have this authority.

The oughts are things you don't find in observation of nature.

Feelings. You might be a sentimentalist or romanticist and say that the feeling is what guides me to know what's right and to know what authorities are given to what government.

That's a type of natural law that is irrational, not found in scripture. Reason alone.

You have the issue of if you're just thinking logical categories of the laws of thought, you're not going to be able to arrive at conclusions.

You're going to simply have A is A, either A or not

A, not both A and non -A. You have to start plugging stuff in from somewhere.

Or you could say that there's the nature of things as they're defined by God, and that might give some sorts of rights or authority in some cases, but that would be sort of the same thing as appealing to divine law.

So that's the last one. That's the right one, by the way. So number four is voluntary contract is where governments get their authority.

That's called social contract theory. We can often confuse that with the biblical or Protestant view of covenant theory.

Covenants are imposed by God. We don't get necessarily the ability to say no.

You don't get to say no, I don't want Adam to represent me. God made Adam.

He made him as a representative for the whole human race, and you are guilty in Adam, and there's no opt -out form.

I don't want any of the cookies. Thank you very much. Don't track me, and don't give me Adam's guilt.

Not an option. It wasn't given to you. It is imposed upon you. God gives covenants, and you are obligated to be a part of them.

You are unavoidably a part of them. Voluntary contracts are things that can be entered or exited at will.

Covenants can only be exited with cause. Covenants can only be exited with cause.

So sometimes in America we'll talk about a social contract theory, and we kind of mean a covenant theory, and sometimes we mean literally a contract.

Just a contract, not a covenant. A covenant is a bond in blood, sovereignly administered.

It's given by oath. It has life or death implications in blood, and it's sovereignly administered.

It's imposed by God, and He defines the administration. He defines how it works. Then there's divine appointment without limit.

You might have heard about that as divine right, the divine right of kings, the divine right of government. That's absolutism, and that's one of the dangers that you find in England, in the

English Reformation. You have the king of England claiming the church is a department of the state, one of those things where you're mixing governments, and so there's that big danger there.

So what you have is divine law where God gives covenants. God is the source of law. It comes from scripture.

It is limited according to the principles of what can be demonstrated explicitly or by good and necessary inference from the scriptures.

That's the divine law source for authority. All authority for the individual, for the household, and for the church and for the state come from the word of God given to us in the holy scriptures of the

Old and New Testaments, and that helps to protect rights. But it also gives authorities and responsibilities to officers.

Now, an officer is to show love for the sheep, and he's to love in truth, and that love includes teaching, caring for, going to look, dealing with issues of discipline, dealing with mercy ministry, and there's also hospitality there.

This letter, one of the weird things about it, one of the reasons there's an inclination to interpret the elect lady as the church universal is because these epistles after Paul, the letters that are written in the

New Testament that are typically in the order of things put after the Pauline letters are called general epistles.

General epistles. An epistle is an instructing letter, and general meaning like it's to the church generally.

And so trying to interpret the elect lady as the universal church is partly an effort to try to like make that fit.

You know, this is a letter to the church in general. That's a part of the desire for that. This is certainly an epistle that's written for the instruction of the whole church throughout the world, but it's not in its initial writing to the church.

It's written to a particular letter, to a particular lady. And one of the values here is this demonstrates how elders are supposed to interact not only in their public functions, in public ministry like right now how

I'm preaching to you from the public pulpit that is under the government of the church, but also communication aside from that.

You know, phone calls, emails, hospitality, that type of communication to individual households, not just the public communication.

Private counseling or conflict resolution help. Catechizing in private. Those types of things are private ministry that elders ought to seek out.

And I think the fact that that's so labor intensive and it requires individual care for people and households is one of the reasons why

God instituted in Exodus 18 one elder per ten households because there's a lot of time that needs to go into that.

Go to page 2 of the outline. So all who know the truth love her and her children.

We've already talked about that. Verse 2, love because of the truth that abides in us. God is talking about the apostles of the church.

Because he calls himself an elder, I'm going to suggest to you that he's talking about the truth abiding in the church. Talking about this amongst believers as opposed to the apostles particularly.

Obviously, the church receives the truth through the apostolic deposit. The scriptures are the source of that truth.

But the true church is that church which, the visible church anyways, is that which professes the true religion in their children.

And the invisible church are those who believe the truth or who will be caused to believe the truth in the future.

So point 7, the truth will be in the church forever. There's no possibility of losing the truth if you have the truth.

Verse 3, grace, mercy, and peace will be with us from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the

Son of the Father, in truth and love. So grace, mercy, and peace. Normally grace in scripture is one of two meanings.

When you see grace mentioned, it's either talking about the attitude of God as demerited favor or it's talking about a gift from God that's a spiritual gift for empowerment or sanctification.

So I believe here the term is referring to the gifting for empowerment.

The reason I believe that is because he modifies it as being in truth and love.

And you don't need to, it would be sort of a tautology, you don't need to say that God's demerited favor towards you.

Is in love. Because if he is favoring you, he's loving you. Right? Does that make sense?

So I think this is the usage here we're talking about is the gifting of empowerment.

So spiritual gifting. So John is praying the blessing of spiritual empowerment and then when we look at mercy, we're not talking about his mercy of forgiving sins.

That's normally the way the word is used. But in sort of the idea of a, you use the word mercy to refer to mercy ministry or the reprieve of temporal judgment.

So what John is doing here, and he also interestingly in 3rd

John does this similarly, in 3rd John he prays for health. It's a temporal blessing, right?

He prays for health. In 2nd John, he prays for them to have spiritual empowering and then with the mercy he's talking about reprieve from temporal judgments and then with peace, you can talk about peace with God, but the idea here is that there's peace in terms of having freedom from strife and poverty.

Now, the other meanings of these, the demerited favor of God, the forgiveness of sins, the peace with God, all of those things are implicit here as well when he says, in truth and love.

And so the reason I'm telling you that I think these more narrow temporal meanings are here is because the in truth and love adds meaning.

It's not simply a repetition of meaning. Because you can get spiritual giftings like Judas and not have the love of God.

Judas went to hell. You can get reprieve from temporal judgment and live in luxury and avoid people conquering you and go to hell.

You can not have strife and have everybody speak well of you and go to hell.

The in truth and love are God seeking your good eternally, everlastingly, as well as giving blessings that are temporal.

So John is praying here, may you have spiritual empowerment. May you be relieved from temporal judgments.

May you have peace and not strife. And may this all be given to you and to us, the church, from God the

Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father. May it all be given to us in truth as a sign that actually chords with reality and in love.

Instead of us being fattened up like calves for the slaughter, or instead of these temporal blessings being given to us so that they're just coals being poured on our head, may we receive these temporal blessings and may they be signs of the actual love of God.

Do you see what a magnificent blessing that is to have said over you? May the Lord give you all the good stuff in this life and may

He also seek your everlasting good. John knows a good benediction. Verse 4

I rejoiced greatly that I have found some of your children walking in truth. Some people read this and when they see some, they say, oh, that means some of them weren't.

Real quick. If somebody says to you, some A is B, does that imply that some

A is not B? It does not. That is not a valid inference. Just because John says he sees some of her children walking in truth, that does not mean that all of her children were not walking in the truth.

At least some were. So I rejoiced greatly that I have found some of your children walking in truth as we received commandment from the

Father. And now I plead with you, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another.

So he's rejoicing in seeing some of her children walk in the truth and they're walking in a manner that accords with the standard given in the

Scriptures in terms of their outward blamelessness. Verse 5, And now I plead with you, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another.

So what he's doing right now is he as an elder is pleading with her to govern her house in such a way as to accomplish a certain goal.

He's addressing her as being the head of a lesser government. The government of her household.

And he asks her to love, to apply the law of God.

He says it's a new commandment, and he also says it's the commandment from the beginning. And we saw this in 1 John. What's John doing there?

He's saying this commandment was a commandment from when Adam was created. It's also a commandment that was received from the beginning of Jesus' ministry.

And I believe it's referencing back to Adam as the beginning, not to this idea of just the beginning of the apostolic ministry.

But this commandment is a commandment from the creation of the world, and it's been made new in Christ.

Remember, Christ shows us the love that we are to have for each other with even greater clarity, with more detail.

Verse 6, This is love that we walk according to His commandments.

And so again, love is being defined for us here. Walking according to His commandments.

This is the commandment that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it.

Love commands us to seek the good of our neighbor.

It also, when we have the love of God, it's a commandment to seek the good of God. The object of love is defined for us in the law.

Commandments 1, 2, 3, 4, they teach us to love God. Commandments 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, they teach us to love our neighbor.

So the object of love is defined by the law. The goal of the law, the goal of love, is with God to show

His glory, cause Him to be known, and to be shown. With our neighbor, the goal is to cause them to grow in the knowledge of God and the consistency of applying that knowledge.

And here's the thing. We're tempted to do all sorts of pragmatic things to convince people to be better. But the law of God restrains us from inventing means to seek each other's good.

The law of God tells us how to seek each other's good. And the law of God is a sufficient means by giving us principles and heads of doctrine to know how to seek each other's good.

The law of God is a manual of love. A manual of dominion. It is a manual that is sufficient to show us human nature and what we ought to do.

So this commandment to love is the commandment to apply all of the commandments and to walk according to those commandments.

We're to walk in them. Page 3. Verse 7.

For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh.

This is a weird transition. For many deceivers have gone out into the world.

Why go from the commandment to love neighbor to the issue of deceivers?

When we think about false doctrine, when we think about the first commandment, to know and acknowledge God, the love of God requires us to oppose deceivers.

But also, there's a concern that deceivers would deceive human beings. God's not going to be deceived.

It's dishonoring to the Lord for false doctrine to be preached and not be opposed. But people are the ones who are deceived by false doctrine.

And so the love of neighbor includes fighting false doctrine. For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess

Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. The coming of Christ in the flesh, the incarnation, is something that is a key doctrine that represents the whole doctrine of Christ here.

So in other words, the denial of the doctrine of Christ. The doctrine that He has revealed in His Word. Some people want to limit this to just literally antichrists have to deny

Jesus Christ came in literal, physical flesh. Other people want to say, well, it's Christology. The doctrine that shows that a person's a deceiver is a doctrine of opposing or bringing doctrine contrary to what

God has revealed in His Holy Word. The doctrine of Christ is the doctrine contained in Scripture.

It is the mind of Christ. Many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess

Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.

Look to yourselves that we do not lose those things we worked for, but that we may receive a full reward.

Remember, an antichrist is one who is against Christ. And the word anti means opposed.

It's against. But also, generally speaking, the word anti is to be opposed in a way so as to ape the authority or position of Christ.

So especially those teachers that would come and pretend some sort of connection to the

God of the Bible and bring some doctrine denying truths of the Bible. That is antichrist.

Looking to yourselves, this is a reference to individual government. We must govern ourselves.

We must govern ourselves well. And when we do not govern ourselves well, in the household there's corrective measures, and in the church there's corrective measures, and in the state there's corrective measures.

And these measures, when there's a lack of self -government, result in the use of other authorities to restrain and to correct.

Look to yourselves that we do not lose those things we worked for.

There's building. There's work that's been done. There's edifying. There's doctrine that's been attained to by the church.

There's growth in outward holiness and confession by individuals. Households get put into order.

Look to yourselves so that you don't lose the things that we worked for, but that we may receive full reward.

When you preserve the things that have been worked for, when you guard what's been attained to, you're also guarding the rewards that will be given.

If you build and then just allow to be destroyed because of negligence and neglect, the rewards that are given on the

Day of Judgment are lessened. The enjoyments of blessing in this life are lessened. So when

John is praying earlier on, may you have spiritual empowerment when he says grace. May you be spared from temporal judgments when he says mercy.

May you receive peace as opposed to strife. What he's saying is may the stuff that you receive as blessing continue, and by neglect, do not lose it.

And he's asking that God would use those things for their ultimate spiritual good as well, including rewards on the

Day of Judgment. Not that we earn standing before God by our own righteousness. We're righteous in Christ, and then, mercifully, our good works are accepted in Christ so that we are then rewarded for those good works done in faith according to God's Word.

And so, look to the things that are under your own authority. Look to yourself that you might receive full reward.

That you might not lose the things that have been attained to. V. 9, whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have

God. So notice, the doctrine of Christ there, that broader term. Earlier on, it talks about denying that Christ came in the flesh.

And here now, this term, the doctrine of Christ, is being used. So the earlier one, which is more narrow, is referring to a particular heresy of that time.

And this broader one here helps us to understand how to apply this throughout time. The doctrine that comes from Christ.

We must abide in the doctrine that comes from Christ. And those who transgress and do not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have

God. Remember, 1 John talks so much about the evidence of a profession and the evidence for prophets as to whether they're true or false.

This is one of those. Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have

God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the

Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, what doctrine?

The doctrine that comes from Christ. Which is the whole Scriptures. Remember, anybody that tells you,

I just believe the red letters, they don't believe the black letters or the red letters. They're just liars. Remember, that was a lesson that John taught us.

All of the words of the Scriptures are the words of Christ. He has delivered them.

They are God -breathed through His prophets. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the

Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, doesn't bring the doctrine of Christ, do not receive him into your house nor greet him.

This is a commandment from a church officer to governors of households. You must not welcome into your house and extend hospitality to false prophets, to antichrists, to deceivers, to preachers of false religion.

You must not let them in. You must not extend hospitality to them.

Because when you do, you help them along and you participate in their sins. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him.

Greeting. Greeting. Not just hospitality.

Not just sharing a meal. Greeting. Extending the right hand of fellowship.

Hugging. Giving a holy kiss. You're all just doing it all the time. Walking around giving everybody holy kisses.

Stop it! Stop giving all those holy kisses to all the false teachers. Okay. So. Extending the right hand of fellowship.

Embracing. Calling blessing on. Greeting. These are things you may not do.

False teachers and deceivers. Why?

Verse 11. Because he who greets him shares in his evil deeds. You become one who is supporting those evil deeds.

You become one who is connected by your greeting. You take on that curse. If you violate this command, you share in his deeds.

And thus you share in his curse. Temporal curses come on those who support false teaching.

That's the general tendency. And it's unloving.

It's hateful of your brother. And it dishonors God. Verse 12.

Having many things to write to you, I do not wish to do so with paper and ink.

But I hope to come to you and speak face to face that our joy may be full.

One of the things to do when you're ministering to people is to know which things should be communicated in writing, which should be communicated in person.

What's the priority that has to be done? And this idea is of great value to both kinds of communication.

It's very valuable to write. Very valuable to pick up the phone. Very valuable to meet in person. All these things are valuable. And so John sees value to the different ones.

And meeting face to face is a place where you get to enjoy each other's blessings more fully.

It increases joy. So the children of your elect sister greet you.

I'm sorry for the typo of having that empty point down there. The children of the elect sister greet you. Amen. And this idea that there's another woman who is elect, and she has children.

And those children are passing along greeting to the elect lady. Now, that passing of greeting, those niceties, hospitality, niceties, kindness, greeting, calling blessing, signs of fellowship, the right hand of fellowship, embracing.

These are things that are of great value.

And holy kiss. Again, remember, I've encouraged fathers, give a holy kiss to your daughters. You know, they're appropriate places.

We have a culture that's a weird culture. So things like kissing are awkward and odd in lots of places for us now.

That's because of the problems of our culture. So what do we do? We help the next generation in little acts of kindness and love in our own homes.

You know, a kiss on the forehead, a kiss on the top of the head, caring for your children that way. Mothers, do that with your sons. Do this kind of thing.

These kindnesses, these acts of love that help to give the proper types of signs of affection. All of these things add up and build culture.

Customs and artifacts build the space for us and make it so that there are habits of behavior.

And what we want to do is have artifacts and customs that are honoring to the Lord and to use those and to have them be a part of what we have in hospitality.

And we have to be careful to avoid idolatry. We don't have images of God or of Jesus, but we have things like the writing of the word on the wall, the beautifying of space, all of these things, artifacts and customs, and the speaking of face to face, the having of hospitality.

This is a part of what builds the culture. This is showing ministry and the example of elders. Elders must be hospitable.

That's one of the requirements for the office. And that gives the example of caring and interacting in the private sphere.

That's private ministry. Each of you, in your own house, has a duty to engage in ministry and hospitality.

Edifying each other, talking about things, using your goods to bless each other. You have a domain there.

And children, learn to help your parents in that ministry. Does that work?

So with hospitality being so emphasized here, when we talk about not receiving people into the house, it's a big deal.

It's a big deal to not receive people into your house. You're saying, I'm not going to give you hospitality. So we think about those that we're to exclude.

The doctrine of Christ is the doctrine contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments by explicit statement or by good and necessary inference.

Good and necessary inference means syllogistic reasoning, like we see in the

Bible, where Jesus is arguing from premises to conclusion. You can also see immediate inference.

There are immediate inferences that are valid. Those are good inferences, and they are valid inferences.

They're good and necessary. It's a conclusion that's unavoidable, that you can't reason to anything else.

It would be impossible without causing Scripture to contradict itself. That's what necessary means.

It's good and necessary. But when we just kind of make up doctrines, we have a pretended use of logic that goes beyond good and necessary inference to bad and unnecessary inference.

Bad and unnecessary inference. So those are the things we use. We must care about this.

And the things we look at with teachers, the most basic doctrines are, what's truth? How do you know?

John 17, 17 says, this is truth. What is he talking about?

Your Word is truth. Sanctify them by your truth. Your Word is truth.

And he's talking in the context about the messages received from the apostles given to them by Christ, given to the church.

What's real? God and His decrees and what He's made. What's good? Well, God is the good.

What He commands is good. And so we are to seek His glory because that's how we increase our possession of Him, by knowing

Him more fully. These things are the most basic doctrines. And when a false gospel is given, when these basic things are contradicted, these are the things that have to be used for teachers.

Now this is distinct from anything about church discipline for particular offenses or whatever. He's talking about how do you deal with false teachers.

And there are other verses that deal with matters of church discipline besides that. So I stand open now for comments, questions, objections from the voting members, those with speaking privileges.

Mr. Rodriguez. Yeah, so the civil magistrate,

Deuteronomy 13 describes how to deal with that. So it deals with, you have those who come in as false prophets, and the magistrate is to execute them.

You have those who seek to cause people to leave the covenant and to apostatize, and you have, again, the magistrate having the same role there.

And then you have sections of the nation that seek to secede and break the covenant with God, and you have the duty there to deal with them as being in rebellion and to wage war there.

So Deuteronomy 13 is the principal text that deals with false prophets, those that encourage apostasy, and seceding portions of the country that reject the covenant.

And so Deuteronomy 13 is the passage that addresses the magistrate's role in dealing with those things.

Does that answer the question? Okay, great. All right, let's pray.

Father, we ask that you would bless the teaching of your word, that you would cause the knowledge of you to increase.

We ask that you would cause this text, 2 John, to be imprinted upon our hearts, and that you would cause us to interpret it well and wisely.

And we pray all this in Christ's name, amen. Please open your psalters now to Psalm 1.

Please stand. Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, and sits not with the scornful man.

But he delights in the Lord's law, meditates on it day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams that brings forth his fruit in season.

His leaf also will not wither, and everything he does prospers. It is not so with the wicked.

They are like chaff blown away by wind. Therefore, when faced in the judgment, the ungodly will fail to stand, nor will sinners stand up among the assembly of righteous ones.

For the Lord knows the righteous way, but the wicked way will perish. Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, and sits not with the scornful man.

But he delights in the

Lord's law, meditates on it day and night.

He is like a tree planted by streams that brings forth his fruit in season.

His leaf also will not wither, and everything he does prospers.

It is not so with the wicked.

They are like chaff blown away by wind.

Therefore, when faced in the judgment, the ungodly will fail to stand, nor will sinners stand up among the assembly of righteous ones.

For the Lord knows the righteous way, but the wicked way will perish.

May the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.