1st John Overview: Part 2 – Key Themes and Teachings | Puritan Reformed Church

All right, good Sabbath, he has risen. Okay, a few announcements. So first of all, Mr. McNair was examined for communicate membership and passed his examination and is covenanting today. Also, Mr. Ethan Reese took his novice examination and was given a passing with honors.

So congratulations there. Now we will be continuing with First John. We have the overview that we'll be completing this. So you have, hopefully, if you don't have the handout, raise your hand right now if you need a handout.

So we need two up front. And then we will, so we'll have a, we'll also be singing Psalm 86, which is a two-parter. And we'll have a baptism and obviously we'll have the Lord's Supper. And I'm gonna be changing things up just a little bit as the Lord's table gets a little more full.

I'm gonna be sitting down there this time to administer. That way it'll be easier for people to see with the administration. My family will just sit there because that way it'll be easy to have them next to me.

But that way they can see down the line. That'll be easier to see the administration of the elements. So just a little bit of change in how we're sitting. Okay, all right. Then we're gonna begin. Let's begin with a call to worship.

Please stand for the reading of God's word. Call to worship is from Deuteronomy chapter six, verses four through nine. 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. Father, as we come before you, we ask that you would help us to set our minds aright to focus on your worship.

We pray for many that are currently away. We pray for the Shaffers, that you would bless Ariana with recovery from giving birth and help them to return soon. We pray for the Marshes who are at a family reunion and ask that you would cause that to be fruitful for your glory and cause them to be returned safely to us.

Father, we pray that you would bless all of us in the remainder of this Sabbath day to use it well, help us to have our thoughts and words be honoring to you and to be edifying to each other. Pray that you would bless our time of fellowship to follow.

Father, we ask that you would help us to see ourselves rightly, that you'd help us to see sin in our lives and to repent of it and put it off. We ask that you would forgive us for sin. We pray that you would look upon us not only as innocent, but as righteous, and that you would give us your favor based upon the righteousness of Christ.

Father, we ask that you would bless us with illumination to know you more and more and to have the word read and preached and sung to be useful to us, that it wouldn't just be forms that pound on our ears, but that we would see our hearts being renewed.

Father, we ask that you'd help us to be quick to forgive each other, to be a merciful people, to be a kind and generous people, a hospitable people. Father, we ask that you would help us to love justice and mercy and humility.

And Father, we ask that you would bless us to be wise and holy and righteous. We know that we need your wisdom, and so we ask that you would give it to us and make us wise. We know that our desires and affections and goals are off course, and we ask that you would make us holy to be focused upon your glory.

Father, we know that our choices would be foolishness and wickedness were it not for your mercy toward us. And so we ask that you would help us to make righteous decisions. Father, we know that we have curse of strife and toil, and we have the curse of problems of health and death that would come to us.

And so we ask, Father, that you would give to us a prospering and fruitful work, that you would give us peace, and that you would cause us to have good health and long life, and to be fruitful and see the works of our hands established.

We build in vain unless you bless and establish the work. So Father, we pray that you would give these things to us. We thank you for the addition of little ones to our numbers, and we ask that you'd help us to bear with each other's weaknesses.

Father, we thank you for new members. Father, we thank you for causing us to mature. We ask that you would continue to answer these prayers, that you would continue to add to our numbers and add to our maturity.

Father, we ask that you would protect us from the wicked who are powerful, the mighty men of the land that are wicked. Father, we pray that you would cause this effort to amend the Arizona Constitution to include a right to kill children, that you would cause that amendment to fail.

We ask that you would remove the wicked from ruling over us and give us godly magistrates. Father, we pray that you would give to us resources and that you would raise up men fit for public office in the church and state.

Father, we ask these things knowing that you will give to us all good gifts. And so we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

All right, please open your Psalters to Psalm 86. Please stand for the reading of God's Word.

Psalm 86, part one. A prayer of David. Bow down your ear, O Lord, in order to hear me, for I am needy and I'm poor. Preserve my soul, for I am set apart. You're my God. Save your trusting servant. Be merciful to me.

Daily I cry to you. O Lord, rejoice your servant's soul, for unto you, Lord, do I lift up my soul. You, Lord, are good, ready to forgive. Plenteous in mercy to those that call on you. Give ear, O Lord, unto my prayer.

Attend to the voice of my supplications. You'll answer when I call in trouble. Among the gods, there's none like unto you, O Lord. Neither are their works like your works. All nations you've made will come and worship you, O Lord.

They will glorify your name. Part two. How great and how wondrous are you and all your works, for truly, you alone are God. Lord, teach me your ways. I will walk in your truth. O, unite my heart to fear your name.

O Lord, my God, I will praise you with all my heart. Glorify your name evermore, for great is the mercy that you've given me. You delivered my soul out of Sheol. O God, see how the proud have risen against me, and assemblies of violent men have sought after me.

Seek to do my soul harm, and have not set you before their eyes. But you, O Lord, are a God full of compassion. You are gracious and long-suffering. O, plentiful are your great mercy and truth. Turn to me and have mercy on me.

Give strength to your servant. Save your handmaiden's son. Show me a token of the good, that they who hate me might see it and be shamed. For you, Lord, helped and comforted me. All right, so turn back to part one.

We'll sing part one now.

Bow down your ear to hear me For I am needy and I am poor For I am set apart, you're my God Save your trusting servant Be merciful to me daily, I cry to you O Lord, rejoice your servant's soul O Lord, do I lift up my soul You, Lord, are good, ready to forgive Plenty us in mercy to those that call on you Give ear, O Lord, unto my prayer Unto the voice of my supplications You'll answer when I call in trouble Among the gods, there's none like unto you, O Lord Neither like your word, O nations, you've made Will come and worship you, O Lord, they will glorify your name

All right, please be seated. Okay, so we're in 1 John. We got through looking at the prologue and the conclusion, and we looked at them side by side this morning. We also looked at the B and B prime sections, looking at this idea of the true and false testimonies in those sections.

We looked at C and C prime, which had all sorts of linguistic connections with the idea of the keeping of commandments being how we love, the idea of knowing being mentioned over and over, abiding, again, loving, and calling people liars.

And so we were taught all sorts of ways to make sure we could call people liar, right? Nope, you said that, you're a liar, right? So we have that name being able to be used. So this is an apologetic where John is teaching us how to deal with false claims from false prophets and false professors when they bring stuff to us so we can deal with showing people to be false professors, false teachers, and deal with false prophecy.

So we're gonna continue now in section D. So that's page seven of the handout. So we're gonna be looking at page seven. We'll be looking at D and D prime. And so these sections, 1 John 2, starting at verse 12.

We're gonna read through verse 17. I write to you little children because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. I write to you fathers because you have known him who is from the beginning. I write to you young men because you have overcome the wicked one.

I write to you little children because you have known the father. I have written to you fathers because you have known him who is from the beginning. I have written to you young men because you are strong and the word of God abides in you and you have overcome the wicked one.

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world.

And the world is passing away, and the lust of it. But he who does the will of God abides forever. Now the other section, to contrast, when we talk about overcoming, not contrasting, comparing, we're talking about overcoming, Nikeo, which is the root for the brand Nike, Nike is just Greek for victory or conquering, is the word that they're using here for this overcoming.

And so what we find here in D Prime, verses, chapter 4, verses 6 through, sorry, 1 John chapter 4, verses 4 through 6, reads as follows. You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them. We are of God. He who knows God hears us. He who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

Now, what we're given here is this idea in D, when we look at chapter 2, verses 12 through 14, you've got all of these categories of believers, and they're all said to have faith. They're all said to have faith.

It's kind of tautology, right? What do all believers have? Faith. Ha, ha, ha. So to be a believer is to be one who believes, is to be one who has faith. And there's these different levels of maturity.

And so I want to remind you, what does it say of the little children? Well, verse 12, their sins are forgiven for his name's sake, for Christ's name's sake. Okay, so they have the forgiveness of sins with an immature faith, and we see that teaching from Jesus, right?

He said, you know, faith even the size of a mustard seed was sufficient for a prayer that would allow for this moving of mountains. So okay, so that is sufficient for a prayer, and so saved persons have faith, and they're able to, even if you give prayers and have them be accepted in Christ, so we're forgiven for Christ's name's sake.

Also, little children, in verse 13, it says, I write to you, little children, because you have known the Father. So the knowledge of the Father. Now, saving faith is a knowledge of God. In John 17, 3, this is everlasting life, to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ to be sent.

And we think about little children, they are forgiven, their sins are forgiven for Christ's name's sake, and they know the Father. Now let's look at young men. I write to you, young men, in the middle of verse 13, I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the wicked one.

Well, you remember, we were reading earlier, I don't know, I can't remember what I've read to you versus like the dozens of times I've read 1 John in the last week, so I don't know, I'm just going to pretend like I read this to you recently.

Like we read in 1 John earlier, it says that this is what overcomes the world, your faith. And so this idea of overcoming the world, overcoming sin, overcoming Satan, these are all, these are in league, sin, Satan, and the world.

So we could say of the world, of Satan, of sin, whatever, they would all be sort of saying the same thing. So overcoming the world, the faith is what overcomes the world, but it yields a love, it yields obedience to the commandments of God, and as it gives that, as it gives that obedience to the commandments of God, that law keeping, the application of the law is how we exercise dominion.

The application of the law is how we exercise dominion. The law of God teaches us, it's an instruction set for how to exercise dominion. So young men overcome the wicked one by their faith, and then in applying the law more and more, they're having victories in this world, in this lifetime, over the wicked one.

It's also said of young men, at the bottom of verse 14, I have written to you young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the wicked.

One.

So there's this repetition of the overcoming of the wicked one. The victory over the wicked one. Young men learn to do useful work. The glory of a young man is his strength. Now this strength here is a strength more of faith, right, we think about young men generally and the idea of their strength physical.

But here we're talking about their strength of faith, and because of the strength of their faith, once you become a young man, and the novice test is meant to help you to be established as a child to become a young man.

It's meant to go, okay, here's stuff to study, so you can be stable, and you can focus on now contributing, accomplishing significant work, the deploying of your strength. And so this idea of using the strength, and this strength comes from the fact that the word of God abides in them.

So there's this, there's more of the knowledge of God in them than in the little children. Little children have some knowledge of God. Little children in the faith. The young man in this faith knows more.

So how do you grow in maturity? You grow in the knowledge of God. John 17, 17, Jesus prays for the church, and He says, sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth. Okay, so the word of God is truth.

We get the truth from the word of God. We are sanctified by the truth. Sanctification is by the knowledge of the truth. And so we want to know what God's word says, and that's how we mature, we mature as we know the truth.

Our faith gets bigger, right? A small faith believes very little. A big faith believes very much. A cancerous faith is very big, but it has lots of unhealthy body to it. What's that called? That's superstition.

When you believe things that are not demonstrable from the word of God, you might believe lots.

Of stuff.

In fact, all of us have lots of things we believe that we should get rid of. We want to believe what the Scriptures teach, and we want to have our minds be purified of false doctrine. And so, as we focus on having certainty in the words of truth, and we get rid of things that contradict it, and we realize all sorts of false doctrine to put off and throw away, we find that cancerous growths are removed, and healthy growth comes.

So young men have more healthy growth of their faith, have more knowledge of the truth, than little children in the faith. And with fathers, what is said of fathers? First John 2, verse 13, I write to you fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning.

Now, that could be referring to the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit.

Yes.

Right?

That's what it is. The knowledge of God. So fathers know God. That's interesting. The little ones know God, the young men know God, the fathers know God. The little ones have their sins forgiven, and that's where they are.

You become stronger as your faith is increased, and as you have assurance of salvation, it gives you strength to go out and do stuff. And then, there's the fathers. And the fathers know Him who is from the beginning, and then we're told in chapter 2, verse 14, I have written to you fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning.

Well, that's just the exact same thing that was before. And how is that different from the little ones, because the little children have known the Father. Okay, well, so the fathers have an increased knowledge of God.

And when you have repetition in the Bible, what does that mean? Emphasis.

Right?

But normally on the right syllable. So emphasis is given when you repeat. And so we have fathers know God, fathers know God. In other words, they have a deep knowledge of God. So, you want to mature in the faith?

Grow in the knowledge of God. One of the ways you show a love for God is by showing that you want to keep learning.

Right?

If we love God, we're going to love the truth, because the way we possess God is by possessing the truth. So the knowledge of God is going to be a thing you chase after if you love God. So, verse 15, do not love the world or the things in the world.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Okay, remember Jesus saying you need to hate basically everything and love Him. Like, you've got to hate Father and Mother, and it's like, whoa.

But I asked this earlier, we were told to love them, to honor them. Well, it's not literally to hate them. The idea is a comparison of value. Which thing do you see as more valuable? Are you willing to lose even family for the sake of the glory of God?

Do not love the world. Be willing to give up the world. Jesus literally was offered the world by Satan, and he gave it up out of love of the Father. And I then received it, right? When you seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, you get all the other stuff, too.

So you don't actually lose. It's an order of priority, and it's an order of what you're getting. You seek the kingdom of God. You seek God. You value God above everything. And you don't view these things as the good.

You view them as things that you can use to honor God with. So you still have the definition of how you use the world and the things in the world to glorify God. So what do you do with your reputation?

You use it to honor God, and you spend it to get other people to learn about God. What do you do with your property? You use it to honor God, and you spend it to cause an increase in the knowledge of God.

What do you do with your pleasures? You use them as strengths that are meant to help you, and you share them lawfully, like food and hospitality. You use those things to seek to beautify the truth. Authority is not an end in itself.

You use authority to honor the Lord. And strength or power is not an end in itself. You use it to honor the Lord. None of these things are bad to have, but they all have to be used in a way that honors.

The Lord.

So the love of the world is placing the world or the things in it as more valuable than.

God.

When money is worshipped, you call it mammon. So making any of these things into your God, into the thing you value highest. So do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. So it's coming from the alliance of the wicked, Satan, the world, and the flesh, as opposed to the alliance of the righteous.

Christ is the king of the church, the church as opposed to the world, and the spirit as opposed to the flesh. And so the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, the lust of the flesh has to do with making pleasure the good.

The lust of the eyes has to do with acquisitiveness, wanting to get stuff, making money your good. And the pride of life is about power, thinking, I can do this, I can make this happen, I can do it all, I can have it all.

That idea of thinking that you have the power to do stuff in yourself. Pleasure is not the good. Money is not the good. Power is not the good. You should ask yourself, which of those things are you most drawn to?

Are you most drawn to pleasures? Are you most drawn to power? Are you most drawn to money? If you are most drawn, if you have the lust of the flesh as an overwhelming temptation, desire for pleasure, physical pleasures, then what you need to do is to think upon, meditate upon the right use of pleasures and their wrong use and how they're ultimately dissatisfying.

This philosophy is called hedonism, when you think that pleasure is the good, worth chasing. And it's important to think on this, when you make pleasures your God, if you don't get them, if you don't get the pleasures you want, you just find yourself angry, frustrated.

Why don't I get this? And if you do get them, you find that getting those pleasures all the time, they start to become disappointing. It starts to be a thing that isn't as exciting as it once was. And you have to get more and more of it in order for it to have the same level of effect as the previous times.

And so, it consumes your time and resources, it becomes less enjoyable with more, and you become bored. So the hedonic paradox is the paradox that if you can't get the pleasures, you're frustrated. And if you can get the pleasures, you get bored.

Pleasure makes a bad God. The lust of the eyes with property, seeking money. By the way, with pleasure, people who are priestly, who are particularly drawn to beauty, who are particularly drawn to relationships, pleasantness, that type of personality set tends to have more of a struggle with the lust of the flesh.

The lust of the eyes tends to be a problem for the prophetic. Money is something that, if you're intellectually inclined, if you're focused on truth, money is something that it's very easy when you're cynical to just go, well, whatever.

People are terrible. Everything's the worst. If I just have money, meh. There's a sort of cynicism about money and the ability to make stuff happen and thinking that relationships don't really matter and power doesn't really matter, that the way you can really have your ability to be left alone to do what you want and think about what you want is just have a lot of money and then you can use that money to get what you want when the time comes.

The lust of the eyes, wanting to acquire, wanting to have all the resources, that idea that money solves all of the problems, when money becomes your god, it becomes disappointing because you find that you can't really get everything you want with the money.

It still requires enormous amounts of work. In fact, the reality is that oftentimes you can be very wealthy, pay for all the pleasures you could possibly want, and you can't enjoy them because of the stress and anxiety of things.

The more you have, the more you're worried about people trying to take it away. The more you're worried about people using you, the more you have difficulty trusting.

It.

It kind of has this isolating effect sometimes. So unless you use money to serve other people and view it as instrumental for the glory of God, the money becomes a sort of prison and you put your trust in it and it disappoints because you can lose it.

And with the pride of life, with power, you think, I can just domineer, I can make this stuff happen, I can just push through, I can make it work. I have me, I'm competent, I can make this stuff happen, until you can't, until thing after thing after thing falls apart and you can't make it happen, you can't get the thing done, you can't will it to happen.

And so the pride of life, that you think you can make things happen, you can do it, you can push it through. That power tendency, for those who are kingly, who really focus on getting stuff done, wanting to make it happen, the pride of life is a great danger.

These are temptations. We must look to God to bless the lawful use of pleasures. We must look to God to bless property and establish the work of our hands. We must look to God to give power and to be our Savior and to be effectual.

Thinking these things are the good is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world is passing away and the lust of it, the desire for it is itself even perishing. But he who does the will of God abides forever.

Now, in D prime, the counterpart here, verse 4, chapter 4, verse 4, You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are of the world, therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them.

So false professors, false prophets, there's doctrine that's presented that's worldly doctrine. The world hears its own, but we're not of the world, we're from God. Our spiritual life comes from God, and he who knows God hears us.

Here's the church, but here's the apostles, the apostolic deposit. He who is not of God does not hear us. The message of the church, the apostolic deposit, is rejected by those who are not of God. It's rejected by the world.

By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. The spirit of truth is what God has revealed, and when people teach what God has revealed in his word, that is a spirit that we should test and find true.

When a spirit is teaching, a prophet is teaching, things that are contrary to or outside of the word of God, we should find that spirit to be a spirit of lies. John tells us to call people liars a lot, apparently.

He says, that person's a liar, that person's a liar, that person's a liar. He's showing us how to tell. Our overcoming the world is by overcoming false doctrine, and this is what overcomes the world, faith in true doctrine.

So page eight, part E, its counterpart, E prime. This is going to deal with apostasy and antichrist and knowing the truth. E, chapter two, verses 18 to 27, little children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now, many antichrists have come.

So this is back in the first century, and it's called the last hour. Last hour of what? Last hour of the old covenant. Antichrist is coming, and antichrist has already come, and spirit of antichrist is in the world.

Those are all things that are being communicated there. Now, spirit of antichrist doesn't mean a disembodied spirit. We're supposed to test the spirits, and that's being said of prophets. So we're dealing with antichrist, the particular antichrist, which again, I think, is dealing with Titus being the man of sin who goes into the temple, and that carrying through with the office of Pontifex Maximus through emperors and being dealt with.

We also have the various ways that there are antichrists. Antichrists are those who oppose Christ, who ape Christ, steal his offices, go into the church and try to speak lies, false churches. This idea of false prophets speaking against the truth.

Little children, it's the last hour, and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. So a bunch of antichrists were coming in that time because it was prophesied that a bunch of wicked false prophets opposing the true Christ would come at this period, wrapping up this great persecution that was occurring in the first century.

Verse 19, they went out from us, but they were not of us. So they were people who had been a part of the visible church, but they were not elect. They had been a part of the visible church, but they were not elect.

They went out from the visible church, but they were not of the elect. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. So the elect persevere. They don't persevere if they're not elect because they were never believers.

They were never really believers. But they went out that they might be made manifest. That idea of manifest, making things plain, making things known, making things visible, showing stuff. That is a theme over and over again in 1 John.

This idea of making things seen, making it visible, making it understood. That none of them were of us. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. Remember Jeremiah 31, how it talks about in the New Covenant there won't be any need for teachers anymore?

This is an appeal to that language. John's applying it to first century Christians. You have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth.

So notice this. They have integrity. They know that no lie is of the truth. In other words, they believe the law of contradiction. No lie is of the truth. Also, they know the truth that's been revealed in the Scriptures.

They believe the prophetic Word. They believe the apostolic deposit. They believe the Word of God. How do they know all things? We talked about that before. It's not that they have omniscience. It's that they have the whole counsel of God revealed to them in the Scriptures, and they have the Holy Spirit who has anointed them to have knowledge.

He's illuminated them. He's given them the new birth. He's caused them to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So this anointing from the Holy One is their illumination. It's them being given knowledge.

Verse 22. Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? That's a denial with the mouth, a denial here, false doctrine. That person's an antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either.

He who acknowledges the Son has the Father also. This would be a big problem in the first century in the church. You'd have lots of people claiming to be believers in the doctrine of the Old Testament, and then denying Christ.

And you go, no.

They don't have the Father if they don't have the Son. If they reject the Son, they reject the Father. If they believed Moses, they would believe Jesus. Verse 24. Therefore, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning.

This doctrine from the beginning, this is sort of a pun. From the beginning, the doctrine that's been revealed, but also from the beginning of the messianic ministry and the apostolic ministry, the doctrine that was given before.

Remember in Galatians when the Apostle Paul talks about how they should believe the gospel that he first delivered to them? And then he's shocked. He says, you know, how are you so soon departing from the gospel that I delivered to you?

This new fake gospel comes to you and you abandon the true gospel so quickly? And so the receiving of the apostolic message at the beginning of the apostolic ministry in the early times, whenever these people received this message.

And since John was an apostle to the Jews, right, he was one of the 12, and we're talking about people, Judeans and Jews in other parts of the diaspora, be receiving these things and this would be people who are likely to have been hearing the message early on because they were either in Judea during the ministry of Christ or because the apostles went to the Jews first and then to the Greeks as they went out throughout the Roman Empire, at least earlier on in their locality.

Therefore, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. The word of God has been true from the beginning. The word of God has had a consistent base and been building on itself from the beginning.

And the apostolic ministry came and very early there were heresies of people trying to pull people away. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father.

And this is the promise that He has promised us, eternal life. So being careful to hold on to the doctrine that came from the apostles as opposed to invented doctrines. Verse 26, these things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you.

But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you and you do not need that anyone teach you. Well, why are you writing the letter then, John? Well, the point is not that there's no utility in human teachers, not that there's no utility in the writing of Scripture, but that the Holy Spirit is the true teacher and these are means that are to be used and we should realize that the Holy Spirit will preserve us and we don't need to worry that we could lose or lose our faith.

We just need to do the next duty. We need to be concerned to deal with whatever falsehood is in front of us at that time. But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you and you do not need that anyone teach you.

Now, one of the things here that we need to be aware of is people who claim to have special doctrines that are not in the Scriptures. They want to be teachers because they say, well, we have, you might have the Scriptures but there's extra stuff.

The extra stuff is something that is what Gnostics provided, this idea that there was a secret knowledge, a special knowledge, and it was something that maybe might be sold. We live in a day of social media gurus who sell knowledge.

And this would have been a time where there were sort of, you know, Roman Empire gurus going around saying, I have, you know, 12 rules that will make it so you can properly deal with such and such and for this fee I will go through it with you and a series of lessons to do that.