Apostates & Apostasy

Apostasy and the Danger of False Profession

If you will take your Bibles, please, and turn with me to 1 John 2. The Epistle of 1 John 2. As we seek to open God's Word together, let us ask the Lord's blessing upon our time together. Indeed, our gracious Heavenly Father, we would ask that you would be with us during this time as we open your Word that we might understand, Lord, that we might apply, Lord, that by your Spirit you would meet with us so that we truly can honor and glorify you, and that we can be edified by the Spirit's work and the application of your Word to our lives.

We pray in Christ's name. Apostasy. It is a difficult word. There are some people who don't believe that those of us who are reformed believe that such a thing exists as apostasy. And certainly when it comes to the issue of Christ's true sheep, we believe that Christ is a perfect Savior.

That He will not lose any of those who have been entrusted to Him by the Father. And that there is not one who has been united to Jesus Christ, savingly partaken of the Holy Spirit as the gift from God, the down payment, as Paul puts it in Ephesians 1 .14, the down payment of God's work in their life that will not eventually attain unto salvation.

And yet, the reality is that we know of apostates. We know of those who once made a profession of faith, and yet today they do not stand with the people of God. How do we understand this? Well, over the past number of months, frequently there have been times in various situations where I have been ministering the Word of God, whether it be in media appearances or debates or whatever else it might be, where the issue of apostasy has come up.

And what I believe about it and what the Bible teaches about it. The fact of the matter is that today one of the greatest apologetic challenges that face those of us who seek to defend the Christian faith in a day of great attacks upon it are the number of apostates who are active in our land.

Think of someone such as Dr. Bart Ehrman at the University of North Carolina. The man is an apostate. He is one who once made a profession of faith and now denies everything that he once said. The media and the people of the world look to apostates as having a special authority, a special insight into Christianity.

But at least Dr. Ehrman is good enough to not call himself a Christian. The toughest kinds of apostasy to deal with and the hardest apostates to deal with are those who continue to call themselves Christians, who have abandoned the faith, and yet for various reasons known primarily only to themselves, they continue in religious garb.

They continue to make religious claims. Many go out and preach false doctrine and false teaching. This is not anything that is new, but in our day and age, it is a true issue that we in the church must face.

When we seek to speak the Word of God in our culture, we have thrown back at us, well, what about so-and-so? What about Bishop John Shelby Spong, who continues to wear the clerical garb, and yet, is there anything in Christianity he actually believes?

There are so many of these people that there are entire denominations that today we would have to identify as being in a state of utter and complete apostasy. The result is great confusion. Great confusion.

There are many people who would say, well, what do Christians believe? Even the Christians don't know. Look at all the different options out there. You can be a Christian and believe almost anything anymore, which of course makes the term Christian somewhat suspect as to what it actually means or how we should understand it.

Apostasy in the Early Church and the Meaning of 1 John 2

Now, while this is a very, very important issue for us today, it's not something that is new to our day. The fact of the matter is, we can understand the nature of apostasy because it has always happened.

Some people like to think that, well, back in the olden days when you had apostles living, things are so much better. Everybody knew what the truth was and there was a united church and everything was wonderful.

Every time I hear someone speaking in these flowery ways about the early church, I just want to ask them, when exactly did this take place? When exactly was this point in time when everything was peaceful and harmonious and all the ladies in the church wore flowers in their hair?

When did this happen? Because I look at the New Testament and from the book of Acts onward, I suppose maybe they might be talking about the first two days after Pentecost. You know, maybe the week after Pentecost.

We've got everything just right there. But if you read carefully, even then there were divisions and difficulties because you know what? None of us are perfectly sanctified. And when you put a bunch of us together, we rub each other the wrong way and there's certain habits that certain people have that we don't like.

And there are tensions and difficulties and we bring our ignorances with us and our traditions with us and there's going to be problems. And it's not long until you have divisions. You have people going out and they're preaching against apostolic doctrine.

And when we get to the time of John's little epistle of 1 John, this is happening a lot. As we will see, there are many who have gone out from the true fellowship and have in essence established competitors.

False religions that seek to continue to use the name of Jesus. Continue to sort of bank on the credibility that comes with the name of Jesus. But they want to deny certain elements of the teaching about Christ.

Or sadly, they go out to in essence establish ways of making themselves rich by feeding off of the sheep. Yes, it was happening even back then. It may have been a little bit more difficult when you didn't have a television ministry to do it, but it was still taking place.

It was still happening. So if you turn with me please to 1 John 2, specifically we'll begin with verse 15. 1 John 2, beginning with verse 15, where the Apostle says, do not love the world, neither the things that are in the world.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Because all which is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the foolish pride of life is not from the Father or of the Father, but from or of the world.

Let me just stop right here because this is going to become important when we get into this next section. Let me go ahead and introduce this now so you can see it as I'm translating the text. We have a, you can see right, this is pretty unusual for us to have visual aids.

Most of you know that I probably have digital projectors hung up if I had my brothers. But right over there we have an exit sign. Now ours doesn't glow and it's not real pretty and stuff like that. And I really wonder how long it's been there.

But in fact, as you can tell, it's written in Old English. It's been there so long. And we've got another one over here. Exit. Now we all know what that means. And when we go into the Greek New Testament, we have a preposition, ek, or if it's used a certain context, ex, which is the derivation of where we get that going back through English and Latin and so on and so forth.

And in the Greek language, ex can mean out of, but it can also mean of in the sense of belonging to. So in John chapter eight, as I recall, you have the phrase of those who are ex-theu, they are of God, hear my words.

Those who, the NIV translates it, belong to God, who are of God's people. Now through this text, we're gonna have this term, for example, right here, is not ek the father, is not from the father or of the father, but is from or of the world.

So when you hear me rendering in that two ways, you will know that we're dealing with that specific preposition. That's gonna become very, very important in verse 19. Back to verse 17. The world is passing away and its lusts are passing away.

But the one doing the will of God abides forever. Children, it's the last hour. And just as you have heard that antichrist, singular, is coming, even now, many antichrists, antichristoi, many antichrists have arisen.

They have come. And by this, we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, X, but they were not X us. They went out from us, but they were not from us. For if they were from us, they would have remained with us.

But they went out in order that it might be shown it might be demonstrated, it might be made manifest that they were not all from X us. And you have an anointing, a chrism from the Holy One. And you know all things.

I'm not writing to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it and that every lie is not of the truth. Who is the liar? But the one denying that Jesus is the Christ. This one is the antichrist, the one denying the Father and the Son.

Everyone denying the Son does not have the Father. The one confessing the Son has the Father also. Now, John is writing to a congregation and here you would think that as long as true apostles continued upon earth that there would be great unity.

Here is one who walked with Jesus. Here is one who was on the Mount of Transfiguration. Here is one who heard Jesus preach the parables. He saw Lazarus come out of the grave. But you see folks, we need to get away from the idea that the reason that there are false teachers is because there's something unclear or difficult to understand about God's revelation.

That's not why there are false teachers. So many push us into thinking that, well, you know, if the Bible is just more clear, if it was written like an encyclopedia, if it was like Google, why isn't there a goggle, you know, or a goddle?

You know, we can just put our questions in and poof, we have 148 ,000 options right there in front of us. Isn't that what everyone wants the Bible to be? If it was just more clear, we wouldn't have so much confusion, wouldn't have false teachers.

That's not the case. There were false teachers during Jesus's ministry. There were still Jewish exorcists running around even during Jesus's ministry, even when the apostles were alive. You have Bar Jesus in the book of Acts.

You have Simon. There were false teachers even in the presence of authorized messengers of God. And as Jesus himself warned us, he taught us in Luke chapter 16, look, they have Moses and the prophets.

If they will not believe them, they will not believe even if someone rises from the dead and tells them. It's not the Bible's fault that there are false teachers. In fact, it is the clarity of divine revelation that excites in the hearts of reprobate men a desire to pervert God's truth.

Have you ever thought about it that way? You see, the clarity of the word of God is vitally important for the creation of heresy. What's heresy? Heresy is a perversion of the truth. You don't know the truth, because you can't come up with heresies, can you?

It's not that the message of the scriptures is unclear. I mean, think of the most basic message of the Bible, the fact that there is one true God, creator of heaven and earth. There are 14 million people whose names are on the membership rolls of the Mormon church today.

And Mormonism says that's false. And yet, right now, probably within a couple miles, one way or the other from here, I honestly don't know where the closest ward chapel is. But within a couple miles, one way or the other, from our spot right here, we would go over today, and you could watch people walking into a building, carrying a big, thick book, and one of those books they're carrying is the Bible, which says there's one true God going into a religion that says there are many gods.

So it's not a lack of clarity that's the issue. False teachers arise for many different reasons. What's one of the first reasons? Well, we saw it right there in verse 15. Love the world. Love the world.

You say, well, wait a minute. If they love the world, why don't they just go out and live like the world? Well, as we discover on a fairly regular basis, can anyone even think of a calendar year over one's entire lifetime when you have not heard about some scandal relating to some religious leader?

One just broke this week. And being involved in sexual sin, being involved in stealing from the church or whatever, love of the world does not just simply mean going out and loving the things of the world and abandoning everything that has to do with religion.

Religion can, in certain circumstances, be a wonderful way to get hold of the things of the world. All you've got to do, like I said in Sunday school, is turn on the channel between 20 and 22, and you will see people staying up there, abusing the text of the Word of God, preaching out of Psalm 69 that you're supposed to give $69.

As our dollar becomes more and more worthless after Psalm 150, what are they going to do? Inflation might cause the need for a new revelation or something, I don't know. But they're there and they're doing their thing, and they've got huge ministries and big buildings and big budgets.

Loving the world doesn't necessarily mean you're going to stop being religious. Do not love the world, not the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. We think of those who have gone out because the sacrifices that God was calling them to make to continue in their place of service were too much.

Too much. There eventually came a choice between love for God and love of things, love of the world, and that can take so many forms. Love of the world is not just the big boat or the big car or the big house or the Gucci shoes or bags or whatever those things are.

I don't know. That's not the only form of love of the world. You can love what the world thinks about you. There are so many people in our society where their greatest God, they stare at in the mirror in the morning.

And they are so concerned about what others will say about physical appearances. What other people will say about so many other aspects of our life. So concerned about the world. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the foolish pride of life.

It doesn't come from the Father, it comes from the world. And the world gets hold of somebody. And we get hold of that desire and we nurture it and it grows and we hide it from the light of the word of God and from the light of the Holy Spirit.

And it grows bigger and bigger and it takes over. And there comes a day. And normally we hide this from people in the church. We know how to act very Christian, don't we? But there comes a day when it becomes so large we make a decision.

I'm going to pursue this. And the tension is too great. I have to give up one or the other. And this is where my love is. And you have apostasy. And people who were once sitting right next to us, gone, gone.

Now the foolishness of this from John's perspective, I'm not focusing upon this so much this morning, but it is something to keep in mind. The foolishness of this is the temporality, the temporal nature, the temporary nature of anything in this world.

It's going to pass away. You can't, as they say, take it with you. And it is foolishness to set your heart upon that which will not last. When you set your heart upon something like that, what are you absolutely setting yourself up for?

Disappointment and heartbreak. Disappointment and heartbreak. When you fall in love with the things of this world, they will pass away. If you fall in love with your athletic prowess, guess what? You're going to turn 40.

Ask Brett Favre. Ask Michael Jordan. Ask Lance Armstrong. I've been talking about this a lot recently. Isn't it interesting how people who excel and become so accustomed to hearing the applause of the crowds, they can't get hold of the fact that you know what?

You lose that ability over time. Some of you know who Lance Armstrong is. Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France seven times in a row. No one had ever done that before. I know a little about the Tour.

It's the toughest thing you could ever do. Three weeks of the most incredible, grueling athletic competition in the world to even get through the thing. I mean, dogs run into the peloton and people crash and they break bones.

Even to get through it seven times is amazing. To win it seven times is absolutely outrageous. And he went out on top. Retired. Everyone could say, best cyclist in the world. Then I started hearing rumors.

He's coming back. I went, oh no. It's just like Michael Jordan. Went out on top and then he comes back.

Hey, still good, but it's bad. You know, time.

The verticals, shorter. It happens. He comes back and gets third place. Third place in the Tour de France is great. I think he was 38 this year. And he's retired again. And right now a lot of people are going, Brett Favre should learn from this.

But you see, there's just something about the foolish pride of life. We don't want to give it up. We become so enamored with what people say about us and the praise and the applause and the paparazzi or whatever else it might be.

Oh, and you might say, well, I'm not a Lance Armstrong. I'm not a multimillionaire. We all can do that on our own scale. I think that's why God allows our bodies to slowly start deteriorating. That's His way of going, hey, yo, eternity, here it comes.

Are you thinking? Are you thinking about what's eternal? Are you stuck on what's right here? It's so foolish to fall in love with that which is going to simply disappoint you. But when your heart is set upon God, Christ, His gospel, things that are eternal, well, the one who does the will of God abides forever.

Antichrist, Apostasy, and the Spirit of the Age

That's the promise of verse 17. So now, the important part of our thinking today. Verses 18 and 19. Verses 18 and 19. It's very important to see. False teachers. False teachers had gone out from the church and they are called antichrists.

He says, you have heard that antichrist singular is coming. Now, only John uses this term. I mean, people make movies about it and all the rest of this stuff. And there's this fascination about the antichrist.

And right now, there's probably some guy on a Harley within two miles of here, the 666 tattooed someplace. And it's really cool and all the rest of that stuff. But only John makes mention of this. And it's interesting that he says, the antichrists, plural, they're already here.

So what's an antichrist? Well, it's fairly straightforward. Anti is anything opposed to. Anything opposed to Christ. One who stands in opposition to Christ. And there have been antichrists from the days of the apostles to today.

Now, the reformers, pretty much universally in their day, saw the antichrist singular as the Pope in Rome. And we can understand that. They're being persecuted by that man. They're under a death sentence by that man.

They go into those lands. I mean, a tremendous story of the number of missionaries that were trained in Geneva, who upon their training went straight south into Italy to try to seek to bring the gospel and martyr after martyr after martyr.

And when you know martyr after martyr after martyr has died at the hand of the Roman system, it's pretty easy to see how the Pope could be identified as the antichrist, the singular one. But even at that time, there were some Christians that said, oh, I'm not sure there's this religion.

There's this religion called Islam. Islam, which is on the rise, which was knocking on the door of Europe at that time. And there was an idea that these are antichrists, certainly. And so there's always been speculation.

I'll date myself. When I was a kid, it was Henry Kissinger. You know he's still around? He looks just like he did when I was a kid, which is frightening. That might have something to do with it, because the beast, it doesn't age or something.

I don't know. I read that somewhere, but it's a possibility. I don't know. Scary, isn't it? And I remember in my church, someone found out how you could add up Kissinger's name, and it came out as 666.

And thankfully, we've found papyri since then that give the number of 616, so Henry's off the hook. Anyway, there is always speculation, and if you want to sell a book, that's the way to do it. But the fact of the matter is, there have been antichrists in every age, and we need to recognize that.

If we're always looking to the future, we're gonna look right past all those who stand against Christ today. And folks, there are legions of them. And many of them are religious. Many of them are religious.

Now, notice what it says. They went alethon. They went out from us. Now, it's interesting. John could have, because, you hear that Greek term, ex-alethon. There's the X. There's exit. There's X right there.

But he even uses the preposition separately. Ex-haemon, from us. That's how he starts the sentence. From us, they went out. So he emphasizes this. The specific antichristoi, antichrist, that he is referring to, were quote-unquote apostates.

They were former Christians. Now, can you imagine the difficult situation that this church was in? I mentioned this on Wednesday evening for those of you that were there. It would be like people leaving our fellowship.

I'm not gonna pick on anybody because everybody's gonna look at that poor guy in a strange way if I did. But let's say there's an imaginary person, member of the church for 10 years. And they've done some teaching.

They've had sort of a position where people look at this person as having some knowledge of scripture. But then he starts teaching some strange things and the elders meet with him. And lo and behold, on one of those difficult Sunday nights, we get together and we have had to say, this person has left the church.

This person is teaching false doctrine. Be warned of this person. And we find out that just up 12th Street here, they found one of the many buildings that are available in our recession-laden country.

And they've started their own church. And maybe you might start getting some emails because they have all of our emails. And you might even get a phone call. Hey, come on up and see what we're doing at the new Phoenix Church of Joy.

Or something like that. Of joy and happiness. That seems to be real popular these days. We have a latte bar in the back and you always want a latte bar. And we have some great teaching and why don't you come and visit?

Now everybody would find out about it eventually. And there'd be some chatting during the, after the hymn singing during the fellowship meal about what was going on. And that's what's going on here. These people went out.

And very often, apostates know how to look more successful than the truth. Apostates know how to build a big church by tickling the ears. They themselves have had their ears tickled so they understand.

And so this is a situation that John is addressing. They went out from us. Now this evening, I'm going to present a sermon to you with the most unusual title you have ever heard. You writing this down, Jamie?

Okay, good. The most unusual title you've ever heard. Tonight's sermon is titled The Blessing of Apostasy. That's what it's called. The Blessing of Apostasy. But I'm sorry to give you a little preview right now.

I'm awful glad they went out. Because when they stay in, the people of God suffer. You see, they went out because the leadership of this apostolic church would not allow them to stay. And they knew it.

They knew the leadership would never allow their teaching to come from the pulpit on a Sunday morning. And so they went out. You know the difference? The difference between a living church and a dying church is when that balance shifts to where the false teachers now outnumber the godly and they take control.

And the false teachers are allowed in and the truth is shut out. That's when a denomination becomes antichrist. That's what's happened to the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. That's what's happened to the Episcopal Church in the United States of America.

And there are many Episcopalians who agree with me on that. But they're now in the minority, not the majority. The tipping point has been reached. The leadership opposes Christ's truth in the gospel. But in this situation, the apostle and those he's trained, the false teachers know we're gonna have to go out.

If we wanna have followers, if we wanna have freedom to teach, we're going to have to go out from where the truth is being spoken. But notice what it says. They went out from us, but they were not of us.

They were not from us. They went out from us, but they were not from us. You hear what he's saying? They may have looked like us, and they may have talked like us, and they may still look like us. They may still talk like us.

They may still sing some of the same songs. They may still use the same language. As I've said many times, heretics are gonna try to look like the people they're trying to deceive. A heretic's not gonna walk in here wearing a clown nose and pink and polka dotted satin shorts with a little horn going, eh, eh, eh, listen to what I have to say.

He knows that's not gonna get him anywhere. He's gonna try to fit in. He's gonna try to look like the rest of us. They looked real, but what John is saying is they were not real. They were not of us. Now, every time the issue of apostasy and apostates comes up, and I mention this text, very often if it's in an interview situation or if it's in a conflict situation where someone's criticizing my belief in the perseverance of the saints or something like that, they'll say, oh, that's really not an answer.

What you're saying is they went out from you because they weren't really Christians. Well, that's very convenient. Well, that's also very biblical because that's exactly what John is saying. They went out from us because they weren't of us.

And eventually, if you're preaching the truth of God and you've got reprobate people in the congregation, that truth of God should eventually cause them some problems. I mean, if you can stand behind a pulpit and preach and preach and preach and the non-Christian in the audience is never phased, then either you're letting everybody sleep through the sermon or you aren't exactly getting the points of the Word of God that you need to be getting to.

And a direct assertion is made in the text. Notice what John himself says, and he doesn't want us to miss this. He says, if they were of us, if they really partook of the nature of what it means to be a Christian in the body of Christ, well, they would have remained with us.

But they went out in order that it might be manifested. It might be shown. It might be demonstrated. And then this last phrase can be translated that they were not all of us, so every single one of them, or they were not completely of us.

The point is, there was a demonstration being made. You see, there are many people. This is the same author. Same author, John, who wrote John 17. There's so many people today. They'll take us over to John chapter 17.

It says, see, we all need to be one. You people, you dogmatic reformed types, you're sowing division in the body. We all need to be one. We need to set our differences aside and hug and sing kumbaya together so the world will know that's not what John 17 was about.

And the same guy who wrote down John 17 right here said there is a purpose in this division. And the purpose of the division was to demonstrate that these antichrists are not truly of us. We make a strong distinction.

You deny Jesus came in the flesh. You deny that He's the Christ. Well, you don't have the Father or the Son. That's what he says there at the end. It was a doctrinal division. You want to deny who Jesus is?

We have no fellowship with you. Oh, but I think Jesus is a great teacher. That's not enough. Well, I think Jesus was a plan in God's mind from eternity past. Not enough. They went out from us so that it might be made manifest.

That they were not of us.

You see, the great confusion in the world today is what's a Christian? And so much of the Christian church will not stand up and say this is Christianity and that is not. This is truth. That's error. The very mindset of postmodernism that we experience in our culture today which denies the existence of objective truth is itself a manifestation of the spirit of antichrist.

How can you have one, the Savior, who says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me, the most non-postmodern statement ever made by anybody. How can you have Him and have someone come along and try to create a religious system around Him that has some type of, well, you have your truth and we have our truth and your truth is precious to you but our truth is precious to us and everything's fine and wonderful and that's okay.

Clearly, the spirit of antichrist is all around us. And obviously, our first and foremost desire should be, Lord, let me not partake of that spirit in the way that I think. We are surrounded by so much in our day.

We have so much more access to information than any generation before us. And all that means is the world has much more opportunity to conform us to its way of thinking. And so they went out from us in order that it might be demonstrated that they were not of us.

The division is necessary. The division is necessary for the ministry of the church and the proclamation of the gospel to this world. And it is necessary for the church to stand up and say, this is the core.

This is what defines our faith. And therefore, those who are gonna deny these things do not stand with us. There is a division. The same apostle who talked about unity based on truth in Jesus' prayer in John 17, here tells us there comes a time where there must be that division.

They must go out. They must go out from us. Now, one of the standard elements of false teachers when they go out is they always claim to have some new revelation. Not just in the sense of the Book of Mormon or something like that.

Some special insight, you know, biblical numerology or whatever else it might be. You know, the church has always gotten it wrong and I'm the first one that's come along that's gotten it right. That's what these other verses are about.

You have an anointing from the Holy Spirit. I'm not writing to you that you don't know the truth because you do know the truth. The Spirit has testified to you these things are true and these guys very often will think, well, I have a special line to God.

And see, the point of what John's saying here is, no, all believers possess the Spirit of God. Nobody has the Spirit of God in some way where they get to tell you and you're sort of subservient to them.

That's his point here. You know these things are true because you possess the Spirit of God. You have an anointing of the Spirit of God. You know what the truth is. You know when the Word of God is being rightly handled.

That's a mark of a child of God. I've often said that I truly believe that part of the work of the Spirit of God in regeneration is granting to someone a love for and an obedience to the Word of God. When I see someone who can look at this and go, well, you know, I don't know.

You know, it's written so long ago and we have so many more insights today. And you know, I read a psychologist who thought this or you know, this, that, or the other thing. I'm concerned if that person calls himself or herself a Christian.

The Word of God and the Spirit of God work together to edify and to grow the people of God. And so what do we have here then? We have the direct assertion that there are those in the external body, in the church, I can't see into your heart, you can't see into mine.

And for a period of time, they can be in the fellowship of the church, but the root of the matter is not in them. See, we've been seeing this in Hebrews. They partake. They may even experience moral reformation as part of being around the people of God.

There's benefits from being around the people of God, benefits of hearing the Word of God spoken and learning about the law of God and any reprobate person, any person without the Holy Spirit who still recognizes just for myself, if I follow the Word of God, if I follow God's law, I might live a better life.

There's these benefits that come, but the time comes when the Word of God and the Gospel grates upon them and God's restraint upon them is lifted and they go out. These are the same type of people that Paul talked about in Galatians 2.

Galatians 2, when he talked about the false teachers that had snuck in and he calls them pseudedelphoi, false brethren. False brethren. They had snuck in amongst us to spy out our liberty, which you have in Christ Jesus.

False brothers. That means when they walked up to you, they gave you a big old hug.

How you doing, brother? You staying firm in the Lord? They were false, brother. And what's the measure? How do we know? This didn't satisfy me when I was younger. But as I've gotten a little older, it satisfies me now.

You find out over time. You find out over time. He who endures to the end shall be saved. It's not my endurance that saves me. If I have saving faith, it endures. And just as I learned when I came here for the first time, nobody tried to drag me into church membership.