The Blessing of Apostasy

We continue with the study we began this morning in 1 John chapter 2, 1 John chapter 2. And once again, let us ask the Lord's blessing upon our time. Indeed, our gracious Heavenly Father, we so often come to you and ask for your presence with us.

We so often come to you and ask for the great favor and blessing of your Spirit's ministry amongst us. And we are thankful that you are a kind and gracious Father, for we come before you as a needy people.

We confess that apart from your Spirit, we can do nothing. We cannot understand your truth. What we do here will not last until we leave this room, unless your Spirit writes upon our hearts, your truth opens our minds to understand your Word.

And so we would ask that your Spirit would be with us this evening, that what happens here would be to your honor and glory and to the building up of your saints. We pray in Christ's name. I do not like sermon titles.

As you know, I travel a lot, and one of the things that annoys me to no end is when months before I'm supposed to be someplace speaking, I haven't even started thinking yet. I'm not one of those folks that can come up with a sermon months beforehand, and then months later preach it again.

I've got to work on it the week beforehand, or it's just not fresh, it's just not me. And so nothing annoys me more than when someone writes to me months before I'm supposed to be someplace, and, we'd like sermon titles for what you're going to say.

And I very often have to fight the temptation to write back and say, Are you kidding? I have no earthly idea what I'm going to be talking about three months down the road. And even after preaching a sermon, Jamie will tell you, there's been a couple times I've gone back there, and you take the microphone off and you put it down.

So what should we call that? I don't know. Put the scripture reference. I just, I'm not big on titles. Most of my book titles I didn't come up with either. A couple I did, but most of my book titles, my publishers have come up with.

And I go, okay, whatever. I'm much more of the substance guy than the marketing guy or the titling guy. And so the fact that this morning I announced the title of this sermon is almost as shocking as the fact that Todd and Roxy aren't here.

They're pretty close. They're right around here. About the same level of amazement there. And the title that I gave this morning, if you were not here, is The Blessing of Apostasy. Now that's a really unusual title.

And it was meant to communicate something that I think we do sort of look right past when we look at this text. This morning we looked at 1 John 2 and we particularly focused in upon verses 18 and 19.

Which say, little children, it is the last hour. And just as you heard that Antichrist, Antichristos, one singular, Antichrist is coming. Even now, many Antichristoi, many Antichrists have come. Whereby we know that it is the last hour.

They went out from us, but they were not from us. For if they had been from us, they would have remained with us, but they went out in order that it might be demonstrated, manifest, that they all were not of us.

And we talked about the fact that many of those who enter into apostasy, do so from the pews of the Christian church. That even in this day, these Antichrists who had gone out, and as we read the rest of the chapter we see that they were denying truths about Jesus Christ.

We read all of 1 John, we see that they were sort of influenced by that early form of Gnosticism. They may have denied the physical incarnation. That's why John starts off at the beginning of 1 John, and he talks about the same issues he brought up in his gospel.

The Word became flesh, we handled Him, we saw Him, we heard Him. Jesus' incarnation was real, He wasn't just a phantom, etc., etc. And we see that they denied certain truths about who Jesus Christ was.

But they went out, they continued to call themselves disciples of Jesus, and even though they had been taught by apostles, even though they were in those earliest generations, yet the clarity of God's truth is not going to cause people to not go into heresy.

In fact, as we point out this morning, it is the fact that the Word of God is so clear that men rebel against it. They find in religion a means of filling their own stomachs, of making themselves rich, and very frequently false teaching is a part of that.

Though I hasten to mention that there are men, and even these days women, who are so desirous of religious authority over other people that they will bypass the riches, they'll bypass the houses and things like that because they want that authority.

So just because someone makes a vow of poverty or something like that does not mean that as a result their teaching is necessarily going to be in line with the Word of God. But these men had gone out, they had gone out of the church and were now causing problems from outside because when people leave from a fellowship, when people leave our profession and they go someplace else, there are many people in the congregation that are attracted to them.

I remember some of you, I remember seeing Brick down there sitting over to this side as I recall at a Catholic church in Long Beach. In August of 1990, some of you young folks are going, wow, you guys have been doing this a long time, yes.

August of 1990, remember that? I was debating, I was doing the very first debate that I did, about 104 or 105 of them ago now, with a man by the name of Jerry Matiticks. And Jerry Matiticks, one of his claims to fame was he was the first ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church in America to convert to Roman Catholicism.

That was his claim to fame. It's still sort of his claim to fame. He's no longer an Orthodox Roman Catholic. In fact, he's sort of now in a little bit with Mel Gibson and that group of folks that are more Catholic than the Pope is.

But there was someone who went out and, look, most of these people who convert to some other religion, they really like to pump up what they were in their former profession. Jerry Matiticks would talk about how he was this anti-Catholic and then he saw the light, sort of the Apostle Paul conversion type situation.

But it doesn't just have to be that kind of a conversion. I'm hoping to get a chance to debate certain men that are very popular amongst the Muslims who claim to be former Christians. And they like to talk about how they were this type of a minister, that type of a minister.

It's sort of funny to see people say, well, you know, I was a deacon in a church once and now they're an expert on Christian theology or something like that. And you start digging in and one of them was a youth minister.

Well, there you go. That'll make you an expert in the doctrines of Trinity. And they go around and they travel and they speak and it's interesting to see what apostasy does as far as those who convert to these faiths.

But what does that have to do with the blessing of apostasy? Well, that's more in the way of background as to what we were talking about this morning. They went out from us and there's a purpose in the division in order that it might be manifest that they all were not of us.

But if you were listening this morning, if you were listening carefully, and I know that some of you listen very carefully. In fact, the flocks were telling me this morning when I said, who's the sinner?

That their young one put his hand up like this. No, no, you're not supposed to volunteer now. But he was listening and that was a good thing. You know, he was volunteering for something. Who's the liar?

Put that arm down, son. We don't do public confession that way right now, so we want to avoid that. But he was listening and that's a good thing. That's a very good thing. And I didn't see it. It would have been a little distracting.

Who's the liar? No, no, stop that. That's sort of distracting. But if you're listening carefully, and many of you do, you notice I just sort of lightly skipped over something. And I hope you saw it. I hope you caught it.

In fact, I hope some of you were thinking about it this afternoon. What would be the blessing of apostasy? Well, we did sort of touch on part of it this morning. And I pointed out that when you have a church and the leadership remains focused upon God's Word and is committed to God's Word, what's going to happen?

False teachers have to leave. They are going to recognize that due diligence is being taken to make sure that what is being taught is truthful, and therefore they are going to leave. And so there is a blessing of apostasy, and that is the false teachers need to leave.

There needs to be a division between truth and error. If they're allowed to stay together, that's not a good thing. That's not a blessing on a church. Sadly, we see a lot of this in churches today. We often get letters from people looking for sound churches, and one of the things they say is, there's such confusion in the church that I'm in.

Some of the leaders say this, and some of the leaders say that, and we're so narrow-minded, we're no earthly good. So broad-minded, we're no earthly good. Because different things are being said from the pulpit, and the sheep are confused.

They don't know. They don't have guidance. They don't hear the truth. And in our day and age, being very inclusive and very broad-minded, that's what you're supposed to be. I understand when it comes to secondary issues and things like that.

Christian maturity allows for differences of opinion, but when we're talking about the very nature of the Gospel, or who Jesus Christ is, there needs to be clarity. And so there is, in essence, a blessing when you have a church where the truth is so clearly proclaimed that those who deny it, they've got to leave.

They can't stay there. They will stick out like a sore thumb in the conversations, even during the fellowship meal. So there is a blessing of apostasy in the sense that you don't want the reprobate to be so comfortable in a church they can just sit there and peddle their heresies, and nobody's the wiser for it.

My goodness, if someone in any context in this church were to start denying, let's make it something obvious, the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. One of the great blessings of our fellowship is even our young people are going to catch that one.

I mean, they've been raised in their Sunday school classes, and they've gone through the catechism, and they've gone through the confession, and even our young people are going to go, what did he just say?

We know, we believe along those lines, and there is a blessing to apostasy in the sense that if someone's coming along and teaching these things, we're going to recognize that, and that's a good thing, that's an appropriate thing, that's a proper thing.

Any church where people are being raised in the faith, and they're being taught what the truth is, those types of errors are going to stand out very, very clearly, but that's still not the heart of what I want to share with you this evening.

What I passed over very lightly this morning was this phrase in verse 19,. For if they were of us, they would have remained with us. Have you thought about what that means? The blessing for me in preparing for this week, this Lord's Day, has been to consider that phrase.

See, so often, and I've seen this in my own life so many times, there are so many texts of Scripture, doing what I do, that I have to have a ready response for. For example, as I mentioned Friday evening, I was debating a Muslim via Skype on the Aramaic Broadcasting Network, and they took calls, and there was one caller that calls every single time I'm on that television network.

His name's Manu, and Manu calls in, and Manu reads the Bible, specifically to try to find things to trip Christians up with. And so, all of us that are regulars on Jesus or Muhammad or Answering Islam or anything like that, myself, Sam Shmoon, David Wood, Nabeel Qureshi, we all are just waiting for Manu to call in, and you have to just be able to go to almost any text in the Bible and explain to Manu why he just ignored the context of that particular verse.

And that's exactly what took place. And so, you have to be ready for those things, but sometimes when you're thinking apologetically, you'll miss something that's a real blessing, and I can't tell you how many times.

One example, Philippians chapter 2. There's a text that I have taught on so many times about the Carmen Christi there, and yet it was years down the road, very familiar with it, knew about it from an apologetic perspective, but it was years down the road that all of a sudden I was reading it once again, and I had translated this thing, and yet all of a sudden it hit me.

He made himself of no reputation. He emptied himself. That's a reflexive pronoun. This is something Jesus does himself. This is voluntary. I had studied the text many times before, but I had never seen that aspect of it.

That happens. It's going to happen all through my life, and hopefully all through your life as well as you continue to study the Word of God. Well, here's a text like that. 1 John 2 .19 is the classicus locus.

It is the classical text to go through. This and Hebrews 6 in regards to the subject of apostasy. And so your mind is already looking for that, and yet if you stop and think about it for just a moment, for if they had been ex haemon, of us, from us, they would have remained, they would have abided with us.

Have you thought about that? Just that alone. That's the blessing I'm thinking of this evening. How could you have a clearer, more compelling statement of the perseverance of the saints and the fact that it is God's purpose to join all of those He saves to His body?

And that believers want to be a part of the church. I mean, there's no other way to understand what the Apostle is saying. If they had been of us, if they had partaken of that which unites us together as the people of God, they would not be out there doing what they're doing.

There's just so many things that come into my mind as I think about these words. First of all, we have the sovereignty of God. God's sovereignty is right there. God works in such a way that in salvation, He accomplishes such a work that He brings us together, He joins us to the body, and that's where we want to be.

If we want to sever ourselves from the people of God, if we don't want to be where the Word of God is being proclaimed, there's a problem. When the Spirit of God works in the life of a person, we want the Word of God to be shown upon our lives.

We want to hear sound teaching. We want to be around other people who are on the same path and experiencing the same struggles. We want to have their encouragement. And we want to give encouragement to them.

They would have remained with us. Now, if you're visiting with us, I apologize for the next few moments, but a few words in-house here. And if the Lord draws you to be a part of us, that's great too.

But a few words in-house here. One of the thoughts that crossed my mind as I considered this text. We've spoken about it many times. The wisdom of God that is demonstrated in the local church. We are in great danger in this fellowship of not realizing what we have here.

You all know that I'm a little odd in the sense that in fact, on my next flight, I will earn gold preferred status for the first time in my life on U .S. Airways. I wasn't looking for that. I've already flown more than twice the miles this year than I did last year.

And I don't do that to be away from you folks. I really don't. I very deeply appreciate the fact that you all have participated in my ministry. I am pretty much the only Reformed Baptist apologist that I know of.

We're a small group, but we've been able to have a pretty major impact. And I'm very thankful for that. And I couldn't have done that without the support of this congregation. When I travel, not only do I get to see what's out there, I get to see that there are churches like ours all around this world.

There's a tremendous encouragement in singing the same hymns, in seeing the same kind of worship, the God's Word-centered worship that we have here is taking place all across this land and this world during the course of this day, especially in our fellow Reformed Baptist churches where we have such a tremendous spirit of harmony.

It is so wonderful to walk into pulpits in other lands, in Italy, and in the United Kingdom, Scotland, in Australia. I may get a chance to go to Singapore next year. I'll be down in Lima, Peru in just a few weeks.

And to walk into pulpits and know that there is this harmony, this unity, this love for the Word of God, hunger for the Word of God, it really helps to explain why so often in the pastoral prayers I pray for the church all around this world because I've seen Christ is building His church and the same Spirit that is here and makes us hungry for the Word of God is all around this world.

And it is a supernatural thing and I've seen it. But I've also been to a lot of places where there just wasn't the same type of harmony and focus upon the Word of God. We have a tremendous blessing here.

And if you've grown up here, some of you young folks, you've grown up here, it's very easy for you to just figure that that's just the way it is and to not realize the blessing that we have here. But if I may just say something to our folks, there is a tremendous blessing and encouragement to myself and to Don Fry to look out there and to see you all.

Some of you have been here longer than I have. Not many of you, but some. And we being good Reformed Baptists tend to sit in the same spots. So I can sort of look. Now, George is throwing everything off because George used to be down here and now George is back there.

So the entire feng shui, the entire room has just tipped back that direction. But we missed Rick when he wasn't here. And I'm not sure where the flockers are. Do they have nursery tonight? Okay, they got nursery.

But it's always good to know that Codex Ricotonius is right back there and that's not Ed, that's his Bible. And we've got the Callahans back there and they're pretty much in the Callahan row there. And I could start going through the whole list of where everybody sits.

But when I look out there and I see the Escobitos and I see the Broyles and I could go through the whole list and I could name everybody. But I look out there and I see you and I see you regularly and I see you paying attention and I see you wanting to know what the Word of God says, there is a tremendous encouragement to press on in the study of the Word of God.

To press on. We're going to continue the study through Hebrews. This isn't a signal that I've given up on Hebrews. I'm just scared to death because Mr. Callahan told me that he's expecting in the next sermon to hear everything he's ever wondered about the New Covenant and the relationship with the Old Covenant answered in one sermon.

So I'm scared to death. So I'm not sure when I'm going to get back to it, but we're going to keep trying. We're going to keep plugging on it. But I hope you all realize the tremendous blessing that we have to be in this place and to be taught by one another and to learn from one another and to see that Word abiding, remaining.

When you see someone... Now, I've been here for 21 years. There is an encouragement in my life to see Jim Callahan, to see the Ricketts, to see the Broyles, to see the Escobitos, to see that continuation, to see Brick like this for a while, but he was back.

To see the folks who've been here for a long time, but then to see the folks that haven't been here as long, and yet, you see that hunger for the Word of God and you see that continuation, that abiding in the Word, desire for God's truth, that to me is part of the ministry we have to one another.

And please, my brothers and sisters, do not underestimate the means that God uses to encourage you in godliness. That's one of the ways. And because it's not necessarily flashy, and because we don't necessarily hype it up or anything else, it might be easy for us to overlook it.

But may I just simply say thank you who are here, who listen, who showed a desire to understand the Word of God. I thank you personally for your encouragement to me. And I hope as you hear of opportunities we have to speak in other countries, in other places, that you realize you have had a major part in that.

You're abiding. Now, I'm not patting you on the back because what's the only reason that any of us abide, remain in the fellowship? That's the nature of saving faith. That's what the Spirit of God does.

That's how God is glorifying Himself. Titus 2. Jesus Christ is purifying for Himself a particular people who are zealous for good deeds. The reason that we abide, the reason we remain is because God is glorifying Himself.

The Father has given a particular people to the Son. The Son will save them perfectly. It's all to God's glory. We can never sit there and pat ourselves on the back. And yet, the great blessing that we have is that we get to see God's perseverance.

God's abiding with us in giving us that kind of faith that remains and abides. If they had truly partaken of who we are, if they had truly partaken of the Spirit that unites us, that causes our hearts to love Christ and His Gospel and His truth, if they had truly partaken of being a part of the body and seeing that each one of us serves in the way that God has ordained through that gifting of the Spirit, not everyone's called to do what I do, but there are things that the rest of you do that I can't do.

We are a body. And as that body, we are fitted together by our Lord to accomplish what He calls us to accomplish. If they had truly been of us, if when they had prayed the prayers, they had truly entered into that desire to worship God and to be conformed in His image and to know His truth, if they had joined with us in seeing that the ministry of the Word is the central aspect of our worship, if they had truly been of us, then they would have remained with us.

They would have abided. I know that's not good English, but that's the term. They would have stayed in the fellowship because there's something about the body. I mean, let's face it, it would be pretty unusual right now if my hand jumped off the body and ran up the middle aisle.

That's not normal. Parts of the body don't just simply go off on their own direction. And yet, that's what apostasy would involve if they were truly a part of the body. But they were not, if they had been.

There is something about being united to Christ, truly loving His truth that would keep anyone from departing from that place where the truth is proclaimed. And so, what do I mean by the blessing of apostasy?

A. There needs to be a division. There needs to be a division between truth and error. You cannot mix the two together. And God is not honored when His people, out of some mistaken commitment to some kind of ecumenical open-mindedness, are willing to forfeit His truth just simply so as to not offend somebody.

God is offended in that situation. So, A, the blessing of apostasy, the division needs to take place when it has to do with the very definition of the faith itself. But B, in the second place, the blessing of apostasy is that in the description of apostasy here, we have one of the greatest statements of the unity of the true body of Christ.

In this world, the visible church will have great tribulation, persecution, and yes, experience apostasy. But the promise is, the invisible church, that body of the elect will persevere. They would have remained with us.

Christ will not fail through His Spirit to cause His people to continue to love the truth and profess that truth. That is a tremendous blessing. Oh, there are passages that say it in a very positive context.

John 10, John 8, Philippians 1. There's so many we could go through. But sometimes, sometimes truths shine the brightest against the darkest background. And here the apostle is addressing a people who are struggling because of people who have gone out from them, and they're concerned and they're hurt.

And there are feelings of hurt when someone leaves the fellowship. We all feel rejected in a sense. And there's concerns because they're attracting people and they may be pulling more people out. But the confidence that the apostle expresses is not a confidence in those people themselves.

It's a confidence in the work of the Holy Spirit, in how He forms the body. What unites all of us is a supernatural thing. The Holy Spirit dwells in all of us. That's why it goes on to say, you all partake of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit dwells in each of us and causes us to cling to and hunger for His truth. And that unites us in a way that the world can't understand. And it unites us in a way that false teachers cannot destroy.

That's a tremendous blessing found in a text that normally we look to only to explain something that normally is a very negative word. Apostasy. But even in explaining something as negative as that, we find God's truth.

We find God's promise. We find God's... May we, in the coming days, once again give thanks for the Lord has given to us the freedom to worship. Like-minded believers committed to God's truth. Committed to the belief that when God's word is proclaimed, Christ's sheep are fed and His people are conformed to the image of Christ.

And in all of that, God is glorified. Let's pray together. We are truly thankful, our triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that you have decreed the Gospel from eternity past. You have accomplished it in the incarnation, the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit.

And that you have promised to build your church. And that you have continued that process right through to this day. We are thankful for all you have done for us. We are thankful for those who have gone before us.

We are thankful for the Apostle John and those in that church to whom he wrote the testimony that even they give to us. We are especially thankful for your Word, which shines a light for us and helps us even to understand difficult and sometimes negative things.

Lord, when we see apostasy around us, when we see those who once professed the name of Christ denying that name, may we remember this text and may we hear, especially in light of this evening, the promise.

If they had been of us, they would have remained with us. This is a testimony to your power. It is a promise of your grace. We thank you for it. We pray in Christ's name.