A True Christian or an Antichrist

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Please enjoy the following sermon. Well, if you would, brothers and sisters, if you haven't already, turn with me to 1

John 2. In verse 18, this afternoon, we're going to be looking at verses 18 through 27 as we continue our study in what is nearly the last part of this second chapter of John's epistle.

And before we enter into our sermon for the day, or as we do, we'll read the text.

This is God's word to us. It reads, Children, it is the last hour.

And as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrists have come.

Therefore we know that 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 Spirit, and you have all knowledge. 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 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 has taught you, abide in him.

As we enter into this study of 1 John chapter 2, 18 through 27, we're getting into another passage on assurance.

As we know, John has been hammering this home bit by bit through his first epistle.

And I was reflecting this week on the theme, and on particularly something that Jonathan Edwards wrote in one of his books,

The Religious Affections. In this book, he writes about the importance of each

Christian possessing a steady assurance of their salvation.

That while it is not necessary to be saved, it is a good thing and an important thing. And as he writes on this theme of having assurance of our salvation, he points out that assurance is one of the most hard -won things in the

Christian life. That it is, if I can put it this way, it is a slippery thing. It is something that is hard to take hold of.

It is something that is elusive. And as Edwards goes on about this, he goes as far as to say that all of the powers of hell are working in many ways, but in one way, against the

Christian's sure confidence that he is right with God. I want you to think about this.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, as he was in the wilderness, being tempted by Satan after fasting for 40 days and 40 nights.

How did the devil come to him and with what temptations did he come? Two out of the three temptations had to do with his certainty about his identity and his relationship to the

Father. There, as Christ was being tempted, you'll remember that just moments before that, at least as we are reading it, in Matthew chapter 3, we read that he went into the waters of baptism, he came out, that the

Spirit descended on him as a dove in bodily form, that the heavens opened and there was a voice from heaven that said, this is my beloved son.

And just four verses later, as we get into Matthew chapter 4, what is Satan saying to him?

If you are the son of God, then turn these stones into bread.

If you are the son of God, then come to the pinnacle of the temple.

Let's prove it, demonstrate that it is. As Christians in the world seeking to discern truth from error and that which is genuine from that which is counterfeit, all of the forces in the unseen world are working overtime to sow chaos, to sow confusion and to cause you to stumble.

And many Christians are left asking, how can I be sure that I am saved and that I will be saved on that final day when

I meet the Lord, my God, face to face? And countless books have been written to guide

Christians in obtaining this assurance. I did a Google search this week and I found nearly a dozen titles that all had the same title,

Am I Saved, by various authors. And then other similar titles, Am I Truly Saved, was another one.

Or How Can I Be Sure That I Am Saved? There were two titles by that, published by Ligonier and Nine Marks.

Or How to Know You're Saved. And what I discovered is that there is somewhat of a cottage industry in books about the assurance of one's salvation.

And it is because there is a sea of weary Christians in the world who are prepared to buy those books, who look to those books because they lack assurance.

A sea of weary Christians in the world, a number that no one can count. And perhaps you are one of them.

And you simply want to know, for those of you who are lacking it, it might be the greatest burden that you bear day by day.

Am I right with God? When I come before Him, will

He receive me as a good and faithful servant? Or will He say, depart from me, you worker of iniquity?

For many of you, you simply want to know that you have a sure hope of eternal life, now and in the future, in the presence of your master.

And this again, as we come to 1 John 2, is at the heart of the matter. As he's writing this section of his epistle, we've already heard about the condition of the church leading up to this point.

That some have introduced error into the church. A kind of pre -Gnostic gospel or false gospel that makes little of Christ's incarnation, or little of Christ in some fashion.

That there was a whole group of people, we've been calling them the secessionists, you might remember that title, who had departed from the church.

And so you've got this group of people, likely these churches that were in Asia Minor, we believe, who are in some ways scrambling because they're hearing different things about Christ, things that are confusing.

And they have people who are leaving the church saying, you are not truly a part of the church, we are the church.

And so as John writes to them, these confused Christians, he's dealing with this question, these questions.

Are we true Christians? Are we right with God? Will he accept us? And as John writes to these weary saints, he does this, he identifies two groups.

Those are, those who are, I will say, anti -Christ, and those who have denied

Christ, sorry, that is those who have denied Christ and departed from the faith. And then there is the other group, those who are truly in Christ, those who possess a true knowledge of our

Lord and are abiding in Him. And as John puts this before us today, he puts before us a trustworthy means of determining whether or not we truly belong to Christ.

Whether we are, I was saying to our brother Sam before today, it is quite the contrast, whether we are anti -Christ or whether we are truly in Christ.

One end of the spectrum as far as you can go, and the other end of the spectrum as far as you can go.

And so, I see a couple of puzzled looks. Let me demonstrate this, I hope, from Scripture.

Turning our attention to the text, in verse 18, John begins with this affectionate greeting, my beloved children, or children, it is the last hour.

This is not something that John is doing to patronize, but he is expressing his love and concern for the church.

And he does an interesting thing here. This is why looking really carefully at your Bibles and study can be a really beneficial thing.

In both verses 18 and 19, they are actually framed as a chiasm. A chiasm is a literary device where the theme of the text moves outward and then back inward in a symmetrical way.

If you are familiar with key and if you want to learn Greek, I will put in my plug for our summer study.

Key is one of the letters of the Greek alphabet. You might call it a chiasm or a chiasm. It is half of an

X shape. And we can see it for ourselves in verse 18, where John says, children, it is the last hour.

This is one part of it. And moving out, as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, it's another part of it.

So now that many Antichrists have come, that's another part, and it moves back in. Therefore, we know that it is the last hour.

The last hour, Antichrist, Antichrist, last hour. It moves in and out, both in verses 18 and 19.

And he adds to this, I believe he's trying to get their attention with a striking set of words to grip their attention.

He writes, it is the last hour. For the apostles, everything between Christ's first coming and Christ's second coming was the last hour.

And yet, I think he puts it here to point out, to press us with a sense of urgency in this matter.

As Peter would put it, the end of all things is at hand. Therefore, be self -controlled and sober minded.

Paul says in Romans 13, the hour has come to wake from sleep for our salvation is nearer to us than when we first believed.

Oftentimes, when the apostles are doing this, they're grabbing us by our collar and saying, listen, something is coming.

There is an urgency here. And with our full attention, John leans into this eschatological end times orientation.

And he introduces language that is found nowhere else in our Bibles. He introduces that word

Antichrist or Antichrist, however you'd like to say that. And we find that word here only five times in our

Bibles. And every time we find it, where do we find it? We find it in John's epistles.

We find it here three times in chapter two, once in first John chapter four.

And then lastly, in second John, I believe it's in verse seven. And John is doing two things here.

He is making reference, if we look carefully at it, that you have heard that Antichrist is coming.

So now many Antichrists have come. Firstly, he is making reference to an

Antichrist figure that the church has been told, that they've heard about, that they have heard will come in the last days.

And this anticipation can be traced all the way back into the Old Testament. We find it in Daniel.

Chapter nine is a good place where we would find it. And then we can follow the breadcrumbs, that thread from Daniel to the

Olivet Discourse, where our Lord Jesus Christ was telling his disciples about his second coming in Matthew 24, speaking about the abomination that will make desolate.

And then, as we have been in 2 Thessalonians 2 as a church on our Saturday morning studies, we know that Paul too has made a reference to a man of lawlessness who must come before the appearing of Christ.

That they knew that Christ had not come yet because the man of lawlessness had not yet come. John seems to anticipate that figure.

Now, if you saw this passage this week and you were hoping that it was going to be all Antichrist, I'm sorry to disappoint you.

It's not going to be all that. But what it is, is this. John anticipates that figure. And I believe we have a biblical warrant to do that.

I just don't think that this is the passage to dive deeply into it. But he also wants to do a second thing.

So number one, there is an Antichrist figure, but he wants to do a second thing. And that is something that I think most modern day

Christians would do well to pay attention to. He wants to broaden our definition of Antichrist.

When we hear Antichrist, we immediately think to this end times eschatological figure.

And John is saying, no, there is more to it than just that end times eschatological figure.

We can find, you'll remember from our study in 2 Thessalonians, Antichrist figures throughout our

Bibles. We see it in the serpent and the seed of the serpent, in Pharaoh, in Nebuchadnezzar, amongst others.

We can track these Antichrist figures through church history, coming after Daniel's prophecy,

Antiochus Epiphanes in 167 AD, when he went into the

Jerusalem temple and slaughtered a pig and sacrificed it there on the altar, making at least a partial fulfillment of Daniel.

We can see it in the Roman general Titus, who destroyed the city of Jerusalem and made the temple desolate by not leaving one stone on top of another.

Even our Reformation brethren, you'll recall, and as we go through our second Baptist Confession study, you'll see this.

They saw the Pope as being the Antichrist, the man who took his seat in the

Roman Catholic Church and who perverted the Gospel for the better part of a thousand years. Now these,

I do believe, I'm inclined to believe, are Antichrists. Here, John would share this view and would add that not only is there that final

Antichrist in the future, not only are there those that are in the past, not only are there those that are in the scriptures, but there are those who are in the midst of the church today, who he would say, in verse 23, have denied

Jesus and they reveal themselves to be Antichrists. Now John may have shared a definition of the

Antichrist, one that I found in a lexicon this week in my studies, where it reads, Antichrist is the personification of all that was opposed to and contrary to the role and ministry of Christ.

Everything that is opposed to Christ, whether one figure or many. So for the remainder of our time, it's a long foundation -setting time here, for the remainder of our time, we're going to look at what differentiates a modern -day

Antichrist from a modern -day disciple of Christ.

One who possesses Christ and one who opposes Christ. So it's a two -point sermon, but in kind of a puritanical fashion, there's three points in each of the two points.

So I commend the outline in the bulletin in case you're inclined to get lost in it, but I'll try to be very explicit as I lay it out.

So the first group that we find are these. Number one, the deceivers, the deceived, and the deception.

Those who are Antichrists on the far end of the spectrum in the wrong direction.

Antichrists have not only lived in the past, not only live in the future. Some of you think that Antichrists only exist in end times fan fiction, maybe written by Tim LaHaye or someone like that, but they exist and operate in the church today.

And in fact, Paul speaks, he gives another definition of an in -the -church Antichrist in Philippians 3 in verse 18, where he says,

For many of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ.

This is what we speak about when we talk about those who may be in our midst, who may come to be in our midst at one point or at some point in the future.

Those who walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. And John gives a lucid description of those who are these

Antichrists today. Beginning in verse 19, he points out that they are those who depart from the faith.

So point one, sub point one, they depart from the faith. In verse 19, 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.

As John begins his description of these individuals, we see that one of the cardinal attributes of those who oppose

Christ are those who jettison themselves from the life of the church. Here John takes an aim at these secessionists.

We've been talking about them now several times. Here they are now full bore. We see them for all that they are.

And he takes aim at them, those who have become captivated by a different philosophy about Christ.

And bringing that to the church, they find that it is not widely accepted. And therefore, they leave the church with that philosophy.

They do what Proverbs 18 .1 tells us many people of this mind will do. Those who seek their own desire, isolate themselves.

We've seen this with our own eyes, have we not? Those who seek their own desire, isolate themselves.

They departed from the faith first, and they depart from the church along with its sound judgment.

And John tells us that these individuals, this is an important passage. I was having a conversation with someone just recently about the visible church and the invisible church.

And he said, there is not a single text in scripture that teaches a distinction between the visible church and the invisible church.

1 John 2 .19 teaches that. John is not saying that these people were believers, being members of the visible church, and then lost their salvation.

And now they are unsaved. They went from a condition of salvation to non -salvation.

But what John tells us is that they proved by their departure that they were never saved to begin with.

That though they belonged to the visible church, they did not belong to the invisible church.

They proved by their departure that they were never saved. He says, if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.

But they went out that it might be plain that they are not of us. Their departure from the church was, we could call it an unmasking of sorts that revealed their true character.

They were not Christians, but anti -Christians who could find no place in the midst of God's people.

Now, when I was a child, maybe if some of you were like me, you liked to play with magnets.

When I was a kid, we would always have magnets around the house. Our children even now have magnets. I confess, I still enjoy playing with magnets.

And one of my favorite things that I have liked to do is you get two magnets. Those of you who have done this, you know this.

And you hold the two poles together, the ones that don't go together, and you push them in and you try to get them just together in place.

And the challenge becomes, can I work against the irresistible repelling force of this magnet to put the two together?

This is a picture of those who are opposed to Christ in the midst of those who love

Christ. That you can, if you work really hard with a weak magnet, push the two together for a time.

But they would just as soon shoot across the room as they would stay together, even in the weakest of magnets.

That it is possible for someone who opposes Christ to be in the midst of his people for a time under great duress.

But after time, they will depart. They must separate. They repel one another.

Brethren, I ask you, have you not seen this with your own eyes, for yourselves?

That we have seen, even in the short life of this church, people who, upon falling away, what always accompanies that is a departure from the midst of the people.

It is as if they cannot remain among us, lest they come under conviction, or lest they be encouraged not to seek their own desires, or lest they be admonished not to believe that which is false, that which is untrue, that which dishonors

Christ. Have you ever seen someone apostatize, who did not first seem as if the church meant nothing to them at all?

Do you not sense even some of those traces, the traces of that repelling force in you when you are wandering, unrepentant, and giving yourself over to some secret sin?

I've been a believer for 20 years, nearly 20 years. I know what it's like to wake up on Sunday morning, bitter, holding onto my sin, wanting nothing to do with the assembly of God's people, because I know with it, it's going to bring conviction.

There's nothing in my soul that desires it. We find even the traces of this in our rebellious state when we fall into this kind of sin.

This is why, as your elders, we will approach you if we begin to see a pattern of this in your life.

It is not because we want to stroke our egos with a full room. It's not because we want to put pants in seats.

It is because we know that when people fall away, what often accompanies that falling away from the faith in Christ is a falling away from the assembly of the church.

I ask you, does this describe you? Are you growing in a way that is distant from the church?

And more alarmingly, are you feeling quite comfortable about that? That you can be away from the people of God for a week or two weeks or three weeks, and actually this feels kind of normal.

Let me be, let this text be the alarm bells ringing off that those who fall away are those ultimately who learn to despise the church, who learn to treat the church lightly, who like one magnet held against another with the same pole shoots away.

And contrastly, for those of you who love Christ, like two magnets in their natural configuration, it is hard to keep them apart.

The soul of the imposter is at best indifferent to the church, and the soul of the true believer is at best unstoppably affixed to Christ's people.

Brethren, this must be the norm in our lives and in our hearts. Not indifferent, not distant, not disinclined, but affixed unstoppably to Christ and his church.

If this is a description of you, praise God. And if it is not, let it be an occasion for repentance.

Now, there is another attribute that John gives us for those who are antichrist. Not only do they depart from the faith, depart from the church, but they, verse 22 and 23 tell us, they deny the faith.

Forgive me, I'm just going to hop over a couple of verses. We will come back. Verse 23, who is the liar?

But he who denies that Jesus is the Christ. This is the antichrist who denies the father and the son.

No one who denies the son has the father. Whoever confesses the son has the father also.

Here we see a denial of who Christ is in his very person.

He is, in some respects, satanic, just as we see in the wilderness as Christ himself is being tempted by Satan.

A denial of who Christ is as the living son of God, as God incarnate, truly

God, truly man. John Stodd, as he comments on this, he says, the antichrists, he uses that in the plural, probably taught, as some later

Gnostics certainly taught, that Jesus was born and died a man. Listen to this and tell me if you hear anything wrong with this.

That Jesus was born and died a man and that the Christ, by which they meant a divine emanation, was within him only during his public ministry, descending upon him at his baptism and leaving him before the cross.

Have you not heard people say exactly that? That's what, at least in part truth, what most

Muslims believe today, that there was something in him that was special, but it was not ultimately

Christ on that cross. He writes, they made him a mere man who, for a brief period, was invested with divine powers or even adopted into the

Godhead, but they denied that the man Jesus and the eternal son were and are the same person, possessing two perfect natures, human and divine.

In a word, they denied the incarnation. And this is something that will always happen.

We have seen it in a situation that is relevant to us, that error always goes after Christ, that Christ always becomes the subject of confusion.

It might be born out of an ill or errant understanding of the word of God. It might be born out of an ill or an errant understanding of the nature of God, but it will always attack the person of Christ.

Matthew Henry says, the great and most hurtful lies that the father of lies spreads in the world usually are falsehoods and errors relating to the person of Christ.

In recent weeks, we have been going through the doctrine of Christ in our systematic study on Thursdays, and I commend it to you.

And one of the things that we have discussed at length is the fact that Christ possessed two natures in full, and that both natures were necessary for accomplishing our redemption.

That it was necessary that Christ should be truly God, and so he was.

And that it was necessary that Christ should be fully, truly man, and so he was.

That we needed a man in our place as our great high priest who would go before us and make atonement for our sins, and that we needed a

God who we learned the word supererogatory this week. His supererogatory sacrifice, meaning his power, what he possessed as God himself, only that could pay for all the penalty of man's sin, all men.

So some will ask, how is it that Christ's suffering on the cross, how is it that that one man's suffering for an afternoon in the sun, how does that pay for the sin of all mankind?

It is because it was God on that cross. God and man. And John makes a sobering statement in verse 23, that no one who denies the

Son has the Father. Dear ones, this is why we must have a biblically robust, informed

Christology. Some have said of me, and it's true at times,

I'm sure of it, any criticism leveled against us is usually true, at least in part.

Some have said that my preaching is too theological. Let me just say, though, that we cannot play it fast and loose in our understanding of who

Christ is. We must know who our Savior is in the deepest and most significant way.

I'm going to comment on this more, so I'm going to resist the temptation to continue. But Jesus Christ must be man.

He must be God. He must be exactly what the scriptures say He is, and He must be that to us.

In Hosea, we're told in chapter 4 and verse 6, my people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge.

And there are people destroyed continuously today for a lack of knowledge.

Scripture says that of elders, of those who shepherd the church, that they should pay careful attention to themselves and to their doctrine.

Let me just hold up a mirror and say the same to you. Pay careful attention to yourself.

You may not be teaching, but pay careful attention to yourself and your believing. What is it that we believe?

We must have a developed sense of discernment in us, lest we be taken or become one of these antichrists.

And then to continue, so we see that they depart the faith, they deny the faith.

Thirdly, of those who are antichrists, they try to deceive the saints. If we jump to verse 26,

I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you.

Do you believe that? That there are actually people today who exist, who believe that which is false of Christ, and they're not going to accidentally deceive you.

It's not as if they're just going to catch the edge of you as they go about doing their thing.

But there are people out there today who are actively trying to deceive you.

How many of us live with that knowledge alive in our minds day by day and moment by moment?

That there are people out in the world today with seared consciences, who would not bat one eyelash at the thought of taking you from a place of right understanding of the gospel, and dragging you through the mire until they would deliver you over to the very gates of hell with your soul lost for all of eternity.

He writes, they are trying to deceive you. Perhaps one of the most vivid illustrations that I can find scripturally is in Acts chapter 20.

As some of you know the scene for our men in the institute, you're well acquainted with Acts 20, aren't you? And we know that in Acts chapter 20, the apostle

Paul is standing before the Ephesian elders, and he is giving them their last exhortations as he's likely not to see them again.

And from a pastoral theology standpoint, if you have any inkling or any desire towards pastoral ministry, read

Acts chapter 20. It is mandatory reading several times over to pay attention to all the flock of God that Christ purchased with his own blood.

But as Paul is warning them in Acts 20 and verse 29, he says this, he is looking to the elders of the church in Ephesus.

And he says this, I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and from among your own selves, and not just people from the outside, but you yourself, among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw disciples away after them.

Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears.

Do you have your radar on for such people? Would you be described, but by the latter part there in verse 31, that we are to be alert, and to be alert at all times.

What's interesting about this is that years later Paul is writing to Timothy, in his first epistle to Timothy, Timothy was likely in Ephesus.

And he says in 1 Timothy 4 and 1 and 2, now the Spirit expressly says that in later times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared.

That there are in the world the teaching of demons that people would would hoodwink you with.

Martin Luther said, he said those who teach new doctrine rarely return.

They rarely come back. And then another added, and they are not content to rush into error by themselves.

Their goal is to bring as many as they can with them. Do you live with that knowledge day to day?

Or are you a person, I might ask, who believes something that continuously you're being told by your fellow church members and your fellow elders or elders in the church that this is error and this is dangerous and this is concerning and you're saying, not only will

I hold to it, but I will share it and I will spread it. There are people today who call themselves

Christians and they will try to deceive you. And I'm going to warn you about something.

Oftentimes when we talk as Christians about the internet, we talk about the dangers of pornography.

How many Christians today get all of their theology from the internet? This is one of the reasons why the local church is so important, because you can be here and you can live life with your brothers and sisters.

And this is not to discount sound preaching that we find online. I think most of us, if we're honest, we would say that we have arrived at some of the convictions that we have that are biblical because God blessed us with people in the algorithm who taught truth.

We praise God for that. But equally so, how many people are online who are preaching and teaching doctrine?

And not only are they talking heads, but they are people who have been put out of the church, people who are not qualified to teach, people who have no sound understanding of doctrine.

It frankly amazes me at times that so many people do get their theology strictly online.

We must get our theology from the Bible, tempered by historical theology, testing our conclusions with those who have studied these texts before us, tempering these conclusions in the ethos of the local church.

So that deals with those antichrists, those who depart from the faith, denied the faith, and who seek to deceive.

Now we'll look together at those who are what I'm calling, number two, the believers, the true believers, their anointing, and the true confession.

Excuse me. We'll read verses 20 and verse 27 first, and we see one of the first attributes of these believers who are anointed and possessing the true confession in verse 20, and then we'll read verse 27.

But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge.

Or to skip it along to verse 27, 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, is true and is no lie, just as it has taught you, abide in him.

Here we see another word that is altogether exclusive to John's letters. Antichrist is one of them, and now this word anointing, the

Greek word chrisma, a word that appears only three times in our

New Testaments, every time in this passage, once in verse 20 and twice in verse 27.

What does it mean that we have been anointed? It means that we have received a supernatural blessing or endowment.

We have been equipped by the Holy Spirit for the Christian life. MacArthur comments on it.

It was too good not to quote. He says that God has given us in his Holy Spirit a supernatural lie detector, something of a mechanism within us to help us to discern truth from error.

And we're told that we receive this from the Holy One. In his Gospel, in John chapter 6, in verse 68 and 69,

John identifies this Holy One as Jesus the Messiah. How often have we thought of this, that when the

Lord saved us, he not only grants us eternal life, right standing with him, a spirit dwelling in us, a spirit sealing us, but a spirit equipping us that we would know truth from error, that we would possess the knowledge that we need, the illumination that we need to read

God's word, to understand it, and to profit from it. In 2

Corinthians 1 .21, we see this confirmed. And it is

God who establishes us with you in Christ, Paul says, and has anointed us, different word but same concept, and who has put his seal on us and given us his spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.

He has put his seal on us and given us his spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. If we were to look at verse 27 in 1

John 2, but the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you.

Some will look at that and say, well then, why is there a man at the front of the church teaching at the moment, if we have no need for teachers?

Why do we come to this assembly? And one of the principal things that we do, really the prime thing that we do, is hear the word of God preached.

Some will say, and I'm sure some of you have met some of them, who will say, I do not need the church.

I do not need elders. I do not need older, mature believers who will guide me and instruct me and teach me.

I have the Holy Spirit, and that is all that I need. How many of you have heard something along those lines?

Is that what John is saying here? To speak plainly, it would be schizophrenic of John to write to these churches in Asia Minor to teach them that they have no need for a teacher.

Here, John is not nullifying the Spirit -empowered teaching that we find in the local church.

Such a statement would go against the very words of Christ. You might recall in the Great Commission when he tells his apostles, and us by extension, go into all the world, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

Such an instruction would go against the words of Christ. It would go against the words of Paul, who in one of his letters tells

Timothy to preach the word with complete patience and teaching. What John is addressing here, rather, is a slavish dependence upon human instruction, especially instruction that runs counter to that which is plainly understood by the

Spirit -illuminated minds of believers. Case in point, the

Jehovah's Witnesses and the Watchtower Society. If you were to drive down White Avenue this week, or down Jasper Ave at some point, you will come across two well -dressed people who are flanking a literature stand filled neatly with colorful publications that they are seeking to distribute.

If you're in that role, you're not just a Christian disciple, you are referred to as a publisher.

You are taking their publications, you are publishing them into the world. The reason why they have these publications, the reason why these people are called publishers is because they believe that these documents that have been prepared by the

Watchtower Society are needed to rightly understand the Word of God. That they are dependent upon this human organization in order to understand their

Bibles before them. One expert on cult says, Jehovah's Witnesses strongly believe in the exclusivity of the

Watchtower Society and consider it to be the only source of God's truth. They believe that reading the

Bible alone is not enough to gain the knowledge of God. In order to progress spiritually, one must be in contact with the

Watchtower Society. Witnesses are expected to follow the Society's guidance as if it were the voice of God.

And this, I can say from all of my encounters with them, is exactly true. That they will never receive a piece of literature that you try to give them.

But if you receive the literature that they go to give to you, that they believe that they have won in this because now you are receiving what is needed to discern the truth of the

Bible. This is exactly what John is speaking against. You have no need that anyone should teach you.

No one needs to come beside you where it says in Scripture that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

And no one needs to have another man come beside him and say, it doesn't mean what it says.

This is what it means. But rather, as spirit -illuminated believers or spirit -filled believers with illuminated minds, we can come to the text of Scripture and we can appreciate its perspicuity, its clarity, that God has made it clear for us to understand.

And then he says, John leaves us with this succinct summary at the end of verse 28, we are to abide in him.

This must be the preoccupation of the regenerate man or woman, abiding in Christ as the spirit of Christ teaches us all things.

And there's a second part to those who are true believers, and we see it in verses 21 and 23, that they confess the true faith.

True believers confess the true faith in verse 21. 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.

Or in verse 23, no one who denies the son has the father. Whoever confesses the son, confesses the son has the father also.

For those who are true believers, you possess the truth, as he would say it, because you know it.

John has this confidence about those who are truly believers because you know the truth and because no lie is of the truth.

And then moreover, that we confess the son. A true

Christian confesses the son and in confessing the son has the father also.

Now, I spoke a little while ago about getting our theology off the internet, just the lowest hanging fruit, whatever

YouTube shorts or Instagram feeds us. Dear brethren, the true

Christian, the true believer in Christ is not content to live off the secondhand gleanings of others, but desires to study the word of God for himself.

The true Christian, the true believer in Christ cannot live on TikTok sound bites or on another man's labors.

But the true Christian, the true follower of Christ is a student of Christ and a student of the scriptures.

We must know the truth for ourselves. We must find it in God's word.

We must find it in Christ's church. And we must believe with all of our hearts and confess it with our mouths.

Our Lord Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the father but through me.

If we are to come to the father and to be well received by him, we must come to him through Christ.

And we have, or we must, as I've already said, know that Christ. This might be a great time just to encourage you, dear saints, do not please.

I know we make a big deal, I think, of preaching and I preach maybe too long at times.

And so you might be tempted to think that this is where you get your information, your knowledge, your transformational knowledge of scripture.

This is one source of that knowledge. But each Christian must have a relationship with God and a relationship with your

Bible where you are a student of this book, where you're not expecting one man.

We have a vocational elder. He is going to study the Bible for us, may it never be.

But that he brings the word of God on Sundays, and I will bring the word of God every day of the week, including

Sundays, that I will know this book for myself. As your elders, we would encourage you, we'll give you a list of books.

Say, I would like to study the doctrine of Christ. I want to know it better. You come to us.

If you've been in my study, you know I love to read. I will give you a list of books that I think would be just appropriate for where you are, that you might know these doctrines better.

Go to a website like Tim Challies and read some of the books that he recommends.

Pick up some of those. By Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology. We won't agree with everything in that book, but the things that we agree with, we agree heartily.

Go and study God's word for yourself. Write it down in your Bibles. Write it in a journal.

Get to know God in his word. And then, true believers, they abide to the end unto eternal life.

This is my last sub -point. They abide to the end unto eternal life.

Verses 24 and 25. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you.

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

Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he made to us.

Eternal life. As John says, what you have heard from the beginning.

He's leaning on language. Look with me at 1 John 1 and verse 1. That which was from the beginning, what we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life.

What is he talking about? What is it that we have heard from the beginning? It is

Christ and his gospel. It is Christ and what he has done for us.

It is the greatest truth worthy of all of our time and attention and study. It is that unadulterated, that beautiful, that glorious, that wondrous, awesome is not too great a word, gospel.

He is speaking about the truth concerning Christ and what he has done for us, for the true believer in Christ.

You will not only abide in this as a means or through a manner of discipline, but you will abide in this truth because this is the greatest treasure of your souls.

That God created man. And when God created man, oh, we know.

We just studied Genesis. He created us good. And when man and woman were created, we were very good.

And we walked in fellowship with God. We had perfect communion with him.

The communion that we have longed for every day since the fall, we enjoyed in that garden. And man looked at God and spurned him and grieved him and sinned against him.

And the penalty for that sin is death. And we rightly deserve that penalty.

And when God found us in that estate, we were brothers and sisters in Christ, dead in our trespasses and sins, abiding in that death.

And Christ, seeing that we were neither righteous nor good, went to that cross to die in our stead, that we might be reconciled to him, that we might be reconciled to the

Father forever. That Christ became, we spoke on this on Thursday, our penal substitute, paying our penalty on that cross in our place, taking that role of passive obedience on the cross, his active obedience, bringing to us the imputed righteousness of God in him.

And when we were dead in our trespasses, though Christ died for us 2 ,000 years ago, when we paid no regard to it, because God looked at us before the foundation of the world and chose us as his elect, he called us effectually to himself, that we might be right with God forever.

And he gave us a new birth. He made us new creatures in Christ. He filled us with his spirit.

Christ is not finished his work still, but ever lives to make intercession for his people.

And when we go to be with him, we will see him and we will be like him for the true

Christian. We don't deny our faith. We don't depart from our faith. We don't spurn

Christ. We love Christ and we treasure him above all things. There's nothing in heaven that we desire besides him.

There is nothing on earth that we desire but him. There is nothing greater than him.

And as one brother said, the ultimate test of true Christianity is endurance, that we will endure in that love for Christ.

You want to know if you are an antichrist, as John is speaking of, or you are a true believer, a disciple in Christ?

It is because you abide in him. To the end, we have seen it for ourselves, have we not, saints?

There have been people in our midst who have not done this. There may be people in this room who in 20 years or 30 years or 50 years, we will say of you what became of that man or woman.

Might it never be, but we must hold fast our confession of Christ to the end, so that if the

Lord grants us a deathbed, we are on that deathbed treasuring Christ.

Or if the Lord should take us in a moment, we would be taken trusting in Christ.

This is what it means. This is what grants us that assurance that our hope is not in ourselves, but in Christ.

And the end of that, in verse 25, this is the promise that he made to us.

Eternal life. The one who endures to the end will be saved.

Hebrews 3 .14, for we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firmly to the end.

John 5 .24, truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.

He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. Truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the son of God and those who hear will live.

For the father has life in himself, so he has granted the son also to have life in himself.

So I pose the question to you, what best describes you? Are you an antichrist?

On the verge of departing from the faith, eager to deny the faith, eager to share that error?

Or are you one who's seeing Christ? He has become altogether lovely to you, that he is your only hope.

He is your confidence to the end. You have that spirit of Christ in you as a seal, as the guarantee of your inheritance that is to be revealed in its time.

Oh brethren, might it be true of you that for each of you, for all of you, for me, that the second would be the case.

Let us press on then to know this Christ and to hold fast to him. Let's pray.

Thank you for listening to another sermon from Grace Fellowship Church. If you would like to keep up with us, you can find us at Facebook at Grace Fellowship Church, or our

Instagram at Grace Church, Y -E -G, all one word. Finally, you can visit us at our website, graceedmonton .ca.