WWUTT 408 Whoever Confesses the Son Has the Father?

The Apostle John said, Let the gospel that you heard from the beginning abide in you.

If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the

Son and in the Father when we understand the text. You're listening to When We Understand the

Text, committed to the sound teaching of the Word of God. For questions and comments, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

And don't forget our website, www .utt .com. Here's our host,

Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky, and greetings, everybody. I think I'm fighting the beginnings of a cold here, and so I sound a little congested, and my voice is probably going to break in and out, but we'll come back to 1

John 2 as we looked at it yesterday. Verses 18 to the end of the chapter.

The Apostle writes, Children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many

Antichrists have come. Therefore we know it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us.

For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us, but they went out that it might become plain that they all are not of us.

But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I write to you not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth.

Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the

Antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the

Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you.

If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the

Father. And this is the promise that he made to us, eternal life. I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you.

But the anointing that you receive from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you.

But as his anointing teaches you about everything and is true and is no lie, just as it is taught you, abide in him.

And now, little children, abide in him so that when he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink back from him in shame at his coming.

If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.

You know, this is something we're going to get to, I guess, next week, verse 29. But that statement there, everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him, don't read that as everyone who does nice things for other people has been born of him.

That's certainly the way that our culture would want to take that, or a liberal theology would want to interpret a passage like that.

As long as you're doing nice things for other people, as long as you are treating one another with kindness,

I think it begs the question, what kind of kindness are we talking about? I mean, there is an idea in our secular culture that to tell a person that it's okay to be gay, it's okay for a man to marry a man or have sexual relations with somebody of the same sex, that that's acceptable and that's kind, to allow somebody to chase after their passions, or, hey, you can't control who you love, so to just let a person fall in love with the person that they want to fall in love with, that's kind, that's compassionate to appease another's feelings that way.

So whenever we talk about everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him, we're talking about the righteousness of Christ.

It has to be a righteousness that lines up with not only the things that Jesus did, but also the things that he taught.

If it does not line up with the sound teaching of Christ, and it does not match with his actions, then it is not righteousness.

I had a situation that happened to me earlier this week where somebody called me uncompassionate because I told somebody else to repent.

And it was a very even keel repentance. I wasn't shouting at anybody. I wasn't name -calling.

I wasn't putting anyone down. It was very simply, here is your sin. Here is what you are doing that is contrary to the word of God.

Here's how you have lied about your sin. And I'm telling you that you must repent. And if you don't repent and you continue living the lie, then judgment is going to come upon you on the day of judgment.

You will be among those crying out to Jesus saying, Lord, Lord, did we not do these things in your name?

And he's going to say, depart from me, you worker of lawlessness. I never knew you. And because I told this person to repent, they accused me of being without compassion.

Christ called people to repentance. It was the first words in his ministry. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

John the Baptist, when he was in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.

There are people that came out to him to get baptized because they thought, oh, hey, here's the new thing on the scene to give me salvation.

I have to be baptized in water by John the Baptist. And John responded, this is

Luke 3 verse 7, you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath to come?

In other words, he was saying, who told you that you had to be baptized in order to attain salvation? He said, bear fruits in keeping with repentance and do not begin to say to yourselves, we have

Abraham as our father, for I tell you that God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.

Even now, the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree that therefore does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

And this was talking about Christ, who is going to come and judge the living and the dead. So if John the

Baptist would tell a person to repent that way, how can I be called uncompassionate for telling somebody that they needed to turn from sin and follow in Jesus Christ?

So we have this statement that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him, but understand that that righteousness that we are to practice is the righteousness of Christ, not what the culture says is nice or kind, not what liberal theology says is a gospel of good works or a social gospel.

You have to do this social gospel in order to do the things of Christ. But the righteousness that we practice must follow the righteousness that Jesus displayed in his life, that he set an example for, and it also must line up with his teaching.

It's not just about doing the things that Jesus did, but it is keeping with sound doctrine, which

Paul says to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6, produces godliness. You don't do the good things thinking that that is what saves you, but rather you hold true to the true teaching, and that is what produces the godly behavior that all

Christians should display by their fruit, by the righteousness of Christ. And so this still comes back to,

I know that I kind of started with the last verse that we read, but still in keeping with this particular section, for John says that they went out from us, but they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us, but they went out that it might become plain that they're all not of us.

You know, watch out for liberal theologians who like to tell you the reasons why people are leaving your church.

Well, here's the reason why people are leaving your church, and then they go down a list of things that you do, or probably the beef that they have with popular evangelicalism, and that's the things that they're listing as to why people are leaving the church.

John gives us the reason why people leave. He talks in this context about the teachers that turned away from the church and tried to teach their own thing, but likewise the people who leave the church and follow after that false teaching, this applies to them as well.

They went out from us so that it might become plain that they were never of us.

Why does a person leave the church? It's because they were never part of the church to begin with, but you have been anointed by the

Holy one, and you all have knowledge that verse 20 there, likely what John is talking about is regeneration of the

Holy spirit. And we see Paul talk about it this way in Titus chapter three, he saved us.

God saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the

Holy spirit, a heart that was changed and transformed to understand the things of God.

And so it is by the anointing of the Holy one, that washing and regeneration of the Holy spirit that we have knowledge that we now hear the words of God and believe them because we were conditioned by the

Holy spirit to be able to do so. I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it.

That's why John is writing to his, his readers. Otherwise he would be writing in vain.

He would be writing to a group of people. It really doesn't care what he has to say. Cause as we read later on in first John, those who listen to us are from God.

Whoever is not from God does not listen to us. So John is writing to those that he knows are going to listen.

He's not writing a, a letter to pagan unbelievers. He's writing a letter to Christians.

You know, when there are atheists or unbelievers who will say to me, they'll talk to me about the

Bible and just talk about how ridiculous it is. Oh, it's boring. I didn't get anything out of it. It doesn't make any sense.

It contradicts itself, you know, on and on the, the different reasons and excuses they give for why they don't believe the

Bible. I've often responded by saying the reason why you don't understand it is because it's a love letter that was not written to you.

You don't get it because it's not to you. It is to the people of God. And those who understand the gospel, those who have turned from sin and believed the good news that Jesus Christ, the son of God came to earth and died on the cross for our sins and rose again from the grave.

And whoever believes in him has eternal life, will not perish in their sins, but will live forever with him and his eternal kingdom.

Those who have heard that message and it cut them to the heart to the point that they turn from their sin and desire the righteousness of God.

And they worship God because of the gospel that was proclaimed to them. They are the ones to whom the

Bible was written and the rest cannot understand it. Paul talks about this plainly in first Corinthians chapter two, where he says, the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.

But to those of us who are being saved, it is the power of God. That's a, that's first Corinthians one 18.

And then in chapter two, he says that the natural man cannot discern spiritual things for they are spiritually discerned.

So it is the Holy spirit that is within us that causes us to understand the spiritual things of God, because we have the

Holy spirit within us. The spirit who knows the mind of God discerns for us, God's thoughts that are given to us in the scriptures.

We know the mind of God when we read the Bible. So John, again, giving assurance to his hearers when he says,

I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it and no lie is of the truth.

The things that you are believing in are not lies. They are the truth because they came from God, who is the author of truth.

Contrast that with the devil, who is the author of lies and the devil is the antichrist.

And those who are of Satan are therefore antichrists. Many antichrists have come verse 22, who is the liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the

Christ. This is the antichrist. He who denies the father and the son, that is a passage that I've used before with a church, people who attend a church in our community that is known as faith tabernacle.

It is a oneness Pentecostal church. They deny the Trinity of God. They'll say, they'll say that God, the father has a name and his name is

Jesus Christ. You know, that that's false teaching. That is heresy to deny the Trinity.

And John states it plainly here. Why is it heresy to deny the doctrine of the triune

God, that God is one God and three persons or three persons in one God, probably a better way to put it.

God is one God, but he is three persons, God, the father, God, the son, and God, the

Holy spirit. Why is it heresy to deny that? Because of what John says here, this is the antichrist.

He who denies the father and the son, no one who denies the son has the father.

Whoever confesses the son has the father. Also in John chapter 14, yes, the gospel that John wrote,

Jesus said the following to his disciples, and this is in the upper room. And this is that, that passage where we get that famous verse.

I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father, but by me,

Jesus saying to his disciples, let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God.

Believe also in me. In my father's house are many rooms.

If it were not so, what I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go prepare a place for you,

I will come again and I will take you to myself that where I am, you may be also, and you know the way to where I am going.

And Thomas said to him, Lord, we don't know where you are going. How can we know the way? And Jesus said to him,

I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father, except through me.

If you had known me, you would have known the father. Also from now on, you do know him and have seen him.

And Philip said to him, this is verse eight, Lord, show us the father and it is enough for us.

And Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long and you still do not know me?

Philip, whoever has seen me has seen the father. So how can you say, show us the father?

Do you not believe that I am in the father and the father is in me? The words that I say to you,

I do not speak on my own authority, but the father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the father and the father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.

Truly, truly. I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do and greater works than these.

Will he do? Because I am going to the father, whatever you ask in my name, this,

I will do that. The father may be glorified in the son. If you ask me anything in my name,

I will do it. These words that John shared in his gospel, that Christ spoke to his disciples.

If you have seen Christ, you've seen the father. If you are in Christ, Jesus, the father is in you.

And he is very clear that the father and the son are distinct persons.

He doesn't say, I am the father is one or am one. He says,

I and the father are one. And so it is in Christ that we know the father, those who do not acknowledge the father and the son do not have the

Holy Spirit either. Because as John says in first John chapter five, it is the spirit who testifies to the truth.

So it's ironic that it happens to be a Pentecostal group who claims to be filled with the

Holy spirit, who denies that God is father, son, and Holy spirit.

They are the antichrist. They who deny the father and the son, they are not of us.

They went out from us. So it would be plain that they are not really of the people of God.

They are of the antichrist denying the father and the son and the righteousness that they claim that they display by their actions is really a false sense of righteousness.

It is the righteousness that they have made up based on their own doctrines, not according to the things that Jesus actually taught.

Because I come back to you again in John 14, 12, truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do and greater works than these will he do because I am going to the father.

And unlike those who are Pentecostal or heavily charismatic, we'll say that this is talking about the charismatic gifts, speaking in tongues and doing great works of healing and all this other kind of thing.

Not what Jesus was talking about. The greater things than he did that we will do is more works of evangelism going out further with the gospel of Jesus Christ than he even did with the gospel message during his earthly ministry.

He stayed around the region of Judea and Galilee. That's where Jesus was. And yet the disciples were commissioned to go beyond that.

That's what he States to his disciples in acts one, eight, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth far, a farther than the gospel had yet gone up to that time.

And so the disciples did with the Holy spirit within them, proclaiming the gospel message that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but we are justified by his grace as a gift by the death of Christ on the cross and his resurrection from the grave.

So we have been brought from death to life. All those who follow him.

Amen. You've been listening to, when we understand the text of pastor Gabe Hughes, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a new

Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an old Testament book on Friday. We take questions from the listeners and viewers tomorrow.

pick up on an old Testament study. When we understand the text. Amen.