Knowing Christ Pt 4 — Philip Powell

1 John chapter 2. We're doing a series through 1 John and we've been looking at this whole concept of how do we really know that we know Christ? We say, OK, I know Christ, but how do we know that we know Christ?

You know, you might say, well, I know so and so, but do you really know that person? And we may say, yes, I know Christ, I've opened my life to Christ, I've accepted Christ. How do we know that we know Christ?

John tells us that there are five signs here in 1 John chapter 2 that we really do know Christ. And the hub of the passage is the passage that I want to just read to you very quickly. It's verses 12 to 14.

This is the hub around which all of this chapter circulates. And in actual fact, what we have in verses 12 to 14 is the natural division of the chapter. And here John does two things. He explains what he is about to say and why he is going to say it.

Verses 12 to 13, which you compare with verses 15 to 29. And then he recaps on what he has already said and why. Verse 14, which you can compare with verses 1 to 11. So, you have a natural division here.

And this is the hub of the passage. He says, I write, I am going to write unto you little children because your sins are forgiven you for his namesake. Isn't that a marvellous consideration? I was thinking as brother David was sharing from John chapter 6.

Well, I mean, it couldn't be the literal body and blood of Christ that he is talking about. I mean, he is still in his body. And if anybody dies of that group, which is quite likely they would be, and who were believing in him, he is saying in effect that they couldn't possibly partake of the kingdom of God.

Because how could they eat of his flesh and drink of his blood? That is not, even with a transubstantiation idea, which is totally false, I think. But even with that idea, it isn't feasible. It just doesn't make any sense.

Thank God, friends, our sins are forgiven for his namesake. Hallelujah. And he says, OK, I write unto you. Now, I am going to tell you certain things. And the basis of it is that your sins have been forgiven.

And then verse 13, I write unto you, fathers, because you have known him, that is from the beginning. You have been around long enough and some of you may have known him in the flesh. You have known him and you have followed him.

I write unto you, young men, because you have been in a battle and you have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, children, because you have known the father. So, he conditions them in respect of what he is going to say now in the verses that conclude the chapter.

And then he says, I have written unto you. So, he is recapping what he has already written. I have written unto you, fathers, because you have known him from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because you are strong and the word of God abides in you and you have overcome the wicked one.

The First Tests of Knowing Christ

Now, what we have seen is that the whole thing hangs on this verse. 1 John 2, verse 3, which says, Hereby we do know that we know him. As Pastor Bill so well said when we were up at the camp, 1 John is not written to give us eternal life.

It is written that we may know that we have eternal life. And so, there are certain tests here. And again, it comes back to this, how do we know that we know him? And he says, right, there are five things.

We have had a look at four, well, three and a half, haven't we? We still have to have a look at the fourth, second section of number four. The first thing is the question, do we keep his commandments?

Verse 3 to 7. It is no good saying, I know Christ, if you don't keep his commandments. John says, this is how we know. No, this is not legalism. This is just carrying out the normal Christian service.

We actually know that we know Christ, not because we can praise the Lord on a Sunday and raise our hands and have a jolly good time, not because we have goosebump feelings all over our being, but simply because we obey his commands.

That's point number one. And then we ask the question, do we love our brother and sister? That is, the person who is really a part of the kingdom of God, in spite of their peculiarities and their idiosyncrasies.

You know, all the world's okay, except you and me, and even you ain't okay all the time, right? And we're a bit like that, aren't we? We can relate to certain people and can't relate to other people, but we are to love everybody.

And the question is, do we love our brother and our sister? Now, that doesn't mean that we always agree with them. It doesn't mean that we refuse to reprove them. In fact, the parent who doesn't love his child will not chastise his child.

But the parent who does love his child or her child will correct and at times chastise the child. This is essential. And really, it's the measure of our love. And it's our measure of our love, one for another, that we will take reproof and that we will give reproof.

We don't take offence when we are reproved. Do we love our brother and sister? Verses 8 to 11. And then the third question, do we love the world? The Bible says if we love the world, that is the system, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, then the love of the Father doesn't dwell in us.

Is it that gaudy thing that attracts us? Where does the whole principle and practice of the world system fit into our thinking? Do we love the world? And then fourthly, which we looked at, the first part of it last week, do we have the anointing?

Verses 20 and 27 sort of, I suppose, summarise it. Verse 27 says,. But you have an unction, same word, anointing, from the Holy One, and you know all things. Verse 28, And now little children abide in Him, that when He shall appear, we may have confidence and not be ashamed of us.

Verse 27, sorry. But the anointing which you have received of Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you. But as the same anointing teaches you of all things, and is truth and is no lie, and even as it has taught you, you shall abide in Him.

What I've suggested here is that actually this is the test as to whether we share Christ's energy and Christ's life. And we have verses 18 to 27. Now I suppose one would ask, which comes first, the energy from Christ or the life from Christ?

And it raises the issue of the Pentecostal doctrine in respect of the evangelical position, their doctrine. Regeneration. What comes first? The energy or the life? Do we have life? Christ gives us life on the basis of that life.

We get energy to do the work of God. Or does He impart His energy to us which produces the life? It's I suppose the old egg and chicken question and you can never probably totally answer it. But certainly there are two things that are presented here.

Regeneration and the Infusion of Spiritual Life

The first is regeneration which is the theological term that is used for what happens when we become a Christian. It's the infusion of life. Now that life doesn't come from anything that we do. It comes from God.

We cannot make ourselves alive in Christ because we're dead. So there has to be an infusion of life. Regeneration. Great illustration I suppose is when Jesus stands outside of Lazarus's grave and says, Lazarus, come forth.

Somebody said if He hadn't have said Lazarus, everybody would have come forth. But this is infusion of life. Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life. And to Mary and Martha who were alive then, Lazarus was dead.

To Mary and Martha who were alive, He said, he that believeth on me shall not perish but have everlasting life. Now He stands at the tomb of a dead man and He is going to be tested. Something's got to give.

When an irresistible force meets an immovable object, what happens? When life, eternal life confronts death, what's going to happen? Something's got to give. Hallelujah. And Jesus shouted, Lazarus, come forth.

And one day the Bible says, the time is going to come when all who are in the grave shall hear His voice and those that hear, that is hear because they've already heard, will arise to eternal life. Hallelujah.

Wonderful. So there's regeneration, the infusion of life. And then there is empowering. And I think both things are involved in this idea of the anointing. What is the anointing? We talked about it a little bit last week and we looked at it, for those of you who were not with us, from the perspective of the Old Testament types.

Old Testament Types of Anointing

And you remember that the anointing was the thing really which separated. It was applied to objects so that objects became sacred. A rock out there, when Jacob anointed it, it became significant. It became the house of God, the house of prayer.

And whenever he came back there, certain things were quickened within him by God. For example, when he comes back after being 20 years in the country of Laban, God says, you're coming to Bethel, you better clean yourself up.

And it's necessary for us to be right when we come really into the presence of God. This was the house of God for him. And he said to his family and associates, he says, come on, put away all the false gods.

Let's get rid of them. And he buried them, we're told, in the oak tree and he approached to Bethel, the house of God. The place which had become significant because it had been anointed, it was set apart.

That's the first occasion of anointing in the Old Testament. And then of course, you've got the tabernacle and all the articles, everything there was anointed because it was sacred. It was set apart for sacred purpose and sacred use.

There were certain people that were anointed in the Old Testament. Kings were always anointed. Priests were always anointed. Prophets were sometimes anointed, sometimes not anointed. But again, it sets the people apart.

Now, there's one passage of Scripture which talks about the whole of the nation of Israel being anointed. And because of that, God was going to break the yoke that was upon them. We'll look at that in a moment.

But there is this idea in the Old Testament of a separation. And you remember that it comes down to the type of the sinner being cleansed, the leper. And lepers and leprosy in the Old Testament were types of sin and sinners.

And one of the things about the anointing in the Old Testament was it was never to come on the flesh. That's what the Bible says. It must not touch the flesh. The oil must not touch the flesh. And the other thing was that nobody should try to manufacture it.

We looked at all of that. We gave you the Scriptures. And it has symbolic significance with regard to the Holy Spirit. We must not try to produce something which mimics the work of the Holy Spirit. That's where Toronto and Pensacola and all of that stuff was so foreign because it was a human effort to try and produce something.

And with so much that's going on in the Pentecost, the Charismatic Church today, it is really an attempt to reproduce what only the Holy Spirit can reproduce. We must not do that. We must not try and mimic it or manufacture it.

And we must not allow it to come onto the flesh so that when you get men who are parading themselves and they're always attracting to themselves, always, some of them, they're preaching themselves, that you know that they are not specially anointed by God.

They cannot be because there's only one that should be prominent. And his name is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the preeminent one. It's one of the great tests. The oil was never to come on the flesh. When the high priest was anointed, as we saw, the oil came down on his hair and it went down over his beard and it went down his garments.

It never touched the flesh. It went right down to the foot of his garments. It was not to touch the flesh. And so, how does it work then when you come to a person who is a sinner who is anointed? Well, you have the great type in the leper.

The leper, when he was cleansed of his leprosy, he came to the priest and the priest took some pigeons or some doves and he killed them and he took the blood of the pigeon or the dove and he put it on the right tip of the right ear of the leper and upon the thumb of his right hand and upon the great toe of his right foot.

The extremities of this man. The blood came. And then he took the oil because the oil is symbolic of acceptance. Coming back in. Now, becoming part of the family of God. And he takes the oil and the oil goes precisely on the blood.

It doesn't touch the flesh again. It touches the blood. It's a beautiful picture of the anointing of the Holy Spirit. It comes down where the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ has been applied and can only come on that.

Otherwise, it's coming on the flesh. But it doesn't come on the flesh. It comes upon the blood. In the cross of Christ our glory, towering all the wrecks of time. Praise the Lord. I will ever tell the story of my blessed Saviour divine.

Hallelujah. I think I quoted to you last week what was C .H. Spurgeon's secret to preaching. He said, I take a text and then I make a beeline for the cross. Hallelujah. And that's what it is. And so we glory in Christ.

It's the blood and the oil comes on the blood. Well, we saw all of that symbolism. Now, there is two aspects to it with regard to the anointing. There is the regeneration, the infusion of life. Only the Holy Spirit can bring life.

Pentecostalism, Evangelicalism, and the Baptism of the Spirit

But there is also the empowering or the equipping for service. And here we have the big divide between Pentecostalism and Evangelicalism. On the part of the Evangelicals, they say there's only one baptism.

The Pentecostals would argue that there are two baptisms. In fact, I believe there are five baptisms. That will really confuse you, won't it? So, if you wonder what I think about that, well, it's written in that book that we wrote some time ago, Pastor Morgan and I co-authored.

Although we're each responsible for our own section, so I won't implicate him in my conclusions. But I did a synopsis, which is right at the end of the book, on Pentecostalism versus what we call Biblicism versus Cessationism.

And in that, I outline what I see in respect of the five baptisms in the New Testament. But I suppose you could take the idea of two, which we'll look at in a moment. It raises also the issue where lots of Christians say, oh, well, I've got everything in Christ.

If I've got Christ, then what want I more? That's fine, yes. Okay, we've got Christ. But the question is, do we have everything potentially or do we have everything actually when we have Christ? That's the big question.

And I think Martin Lloyd-Jones put it so very well once when he confronted a whole group of people who basically were saying, I've got it all. Got it all, he said. Then why in the world are you acting as you are acting?

And I suppose that can come to us all. That big challenge, that big question can come to evangelicals. It can also come to Pentecostals. Do we claim to have the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Then why do we act as we act?

Why are we not seeing more results? Why is it? I mean, it's an honest question, isn't it? A question to me, a question to all of us. Why? Why? If those men in the early church turned the world upside down, why?

It raises the issue of, is it potentially? Okay, yes, in Christ we have it all. That's fine, no problem. I have Christ, want I more? Yes. But all the outworking of it, the development of it, it raises the issue of progression and crisis.

This is one of the big issues. I like the comment, and you may have heard me quote it because it's one of my favourite quotes, of Campbell Morgan, who said, in all the ways of God, there can be discovered the unvarying method of process and crisis.

He says, the process is slow and difficult to watch in its progress. But the crisis is sudden and it flashes with a light which shining back upon the process explains it and forward indicates a new line of action which after all is simply the continuity of that which has preceded it.

It's a very powerful quote. If you think about all the implications of it, it says a lot. But in essence what it's saying is, in the Christian life, we have process and we have crisis. Now, I think that is so and I think on that basis, we can justify the Pentecostal doctrine that whereas we come into Christ and we have His life, there is far more.

And so, He leads us along in the process. But then suddenly there comes a crisis. You might call it the baptism of the Holy Spirit or you might call it a filling of the Holy Spirit. I'm not too concerned about the terminology.

What I am concerned about is the experience that we may have the fullness of the Holy Spirit. As I've said before, I think Martin Lloyd-Jones had a closer and a clearer biblical doctrine than probably most Pentecostals.

And he wasn't a Pentecostal though he was not adverse to the Pentecostals and he associated with us in England. And you know, many of our brothers in the Pentecostal fellowship thought so very highly of him.

And I think he had the truth more where, you know, you tend to shut everything off in a crisis experience and say, well, I've had it or I've got it. And Martin Lloyd-Jones says, well, you look at those early people in the Acts of the Apostles.

They were filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. But then some weeks later, you find that it reads, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit again. And they still press on and then they're under pressure and persecution.

The Church’s Need for Holy Spirit Empowerment

And friends, it's going to come. Mark my words. It will come. Somebody's just written to me from New Zealand, our webmaster, and he says already they can see the pressures there in New Zealand. It's becoming illegal to correct your child, to smack your child.

And it's going to be monitored. And it will be illegal to read certain passages out of the Bible because it's being considered and being termed hate literature. And New Zealand and Australia are in the forefront now of the test that is going on.

That's what all this business is about with the vilification and they're going to have the thing in New South Wales. Already it's in Queensland. Don't think it's not here. It's slightly different, but it's mirrored.

There is a mirror of the law that's already in Victoria in Queensland. Big Brother is watching and when it gets into the wrong hands and that manipulative thing, and mark my words, the Muslims have incredible wealth and they're paying their way into positions which will control the affairs unless God intervenes.

And I believe the time is for us to speak up now. We may not be able to speak up without facing penalties and possibly imprisonments soon. While we have opportunity, we have to speak up. And I've said it before and I say it again, but the thing that I feel is the biggest threat is not Muslim, it's Roman Catholicism.

That's what's happening and it's like a big archway that's controlling and just bringing everybody into that one-way system. And there is a time, there's a need now for us to rise up and to be energised, empowered by the Holy Spirit.

So, what we're talking about here creates the divide between Pentecostalism and Evangelicalism. It creates the divide between true and neo-Pentecostalism, which is really false Pentecostalism. Groups grew up around the idea of the empowering of the Holy Spirit where they came to the position and you know what I'm referring to here.

I think Mr Longfield was the leader of the group here in Australia where they basically said that unless you speak in tongues, you're not a Christian. Now, that is cultish, that is wrong. It mixes up the work of the Holy Spirit to bring us to Christ with the work of the Holy Spirit to cause us to have supernatural manifestations.

And of course, not all people who speak in tongues are energised by the Holy Spirit. It can be many other manifestations. But that was one of the things. And then now the new thing that's come into the neo-Pentecostal thing is the question of mammon or God.

What are we aiming for and who is the one behind it? Are we serving in the energy and power of the Holy Spirit or are we marketing and getting our results by marketing geniuses or by those who have studied that sort of methodology?

And that really is where we're at right now in the Pentecostal situation. There's also the issue of how we are driven, whether we are driven by the Holy Spirit or we are purpose driven to pick up Rick Warren's concept.

And all of the churches are going down that track. Now, obviously, we need a purpose in life. I was listening to a tape. I won't tell you who it was because, well, no, I won't. It might spill out somewhere along the line.

But I mean, the whole thing was just crazy. And I think where it was spoken at a very, very high conference, very top Pentecostal conference, but it was talking about the voice came over all the time.

I love people of purpose. I love people of purpose. I want a church of purpose. But you see, if you just get the purpose, really what you're doing is you're turning the whole thing on its head, which is what this Gospel does, this Gospel of prosperity and so on.

And the whole thing of the church of Jesus Christ has to be effective in eternal terms. It has to be motivated and energized by the Holy Spirit. We have here the key to the pursuit after truth. The anointing that is spoken of here, it says it teaches you all things and you know all things.

The Anointing, Truth, and Victorious Living

One man has expressed it as an instinct for truth. But it's not only an instinct for truth, it is an instinct for truth and for righteousness. The two things. Christ is truth. John 14 verse 6 says, I am the way, the truth and the life.

To love Christ is to love truth. You can't say you love Christ if you don't love Christ. You can't say I don't love Christ and then not care about doctrine. It's impossible. To love Christ is to love truth.

2 Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 10 brings this out. It says there that the Antichrist will come and it says he will come with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish. And then it gives the reason.

Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved. Jesus said, He that hungers and thirsts after righteousness shall be filled. So there is this love for truth and this is part and parcel of this energy of life that Christ gives to us both in the area of salvation and in the area of service.

The anointing is the key to victorious living. One of the most misunderstood texts of the Bible and most misquoted in Pentecostal circles is Isaiah chapter 10 and verse 27. Look at it with me, will you?

Isaiah chapter 10 and verse 27. Verse 26 says, And the Lord God of hosts. Go back to verse 24. Therefore, there says the Lord of hosts, O my people that dwell in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrian. They are going to go into captivity, but he says, don't be afraid of them.

He shall smite you with a rod and shall lift up his staff against you after the man of Egypt. You will become enslaved and so on. For yet a very little while and the indignation shall cease and mine anger in their destruction.

And the Lord of hosts shall stir up a scourge for him according to the slaughter of Midian at the rock of Horeb. And as his rod was upon the sea, so shall he lift up after the man of Egypt. In other words, God refers to what he was historically and what he'd done historically.

It's been said that if you don't know history, you're destined to repeat the mistakes of history. And what God is doing here is giving them a history lesson. And he said, when you were in a past before, who was your answer?

Well, what was the solution? Was it your own strength or what was it? And he refers to these incidents where God divinely intervened. And then he says in verse 27, and he shall come to pass in that day.

There is a day of the Lord. There's a day marked by the Lord. We spoke a few Sundays ago about when the hour was set or the time had come. God has a timetable. God is sovereign. He's in control. And it came to pass, shall come to pass in that day that his burden, the oppression of the Assyrian upon you.

Now, this is where Pentecostals make the mistake. They insert the little word by there. The yoke shall be destroyed by the anointing. They say the anointing destroys... No, no, no. The anointing does not destroy anything.

It says the anointing shall be destroyed because of... The yoke shall be destroyed, sorry, because of the anointing. The anointing... And now here is the symbolism which comes forth into the New Testament.

All of God's people were anointed. All of Israel. They were under the anointing of the high priest. It came down over his head, over his hand, came down. Our great high priest, it comes down over Christ and it comes down over the body and we are all anointed.

That is the thing that Marks are belonging to him. We are a separated people. We belong to him. And there comes a time in the purpose of God when God looks down here in the Assyrian-Israeli conflict and he looks down and he sees that the Assyrian is in the ascendancy and Israel is being dominated.

But what is the difference? It's the anointing. Israel is anointed. The Assyrians are not. Israel is anointed. They have been marked out by the anointing as God's special people and now it's God's timing.

And so he looks down and what does he see? He doesn't just see the Israelis struggling. He just doesn't see the conflict. He sees the anointing. And he sovereignly and supernaturally moves in and he destroys the yoke of the Assyrians because of the anointing.

Can you see the difference? Now when you think of our Lord Jesus Christ, let me ask you, was he anointed supremely? Was he anointed all the time? Absolutely. Was he anointed when he was hanging on a cross and crying, I thirst?

Most definitely. Why is the yoke not being broken? Because there's something else in the purpose of God. When is the yoke broken? He looks down and when he has fulfilled the redemption of the humankind, God moves in and breaks the yoke.

And the yoke is broken because of the anointing. Take any prophet in the Old Testament and you'll have the same picture. Jeremiah was known as the weeping prophet. He says, I sobbed my heart out, my eyes overflow with tears because of the sins of my people.

Was he anointed? Yes. Was he anointed when the king put him in the pit? Yes. Was he anointed when he was standing in the pulpit and proclaiming? Yes. You are anointed. If you belong to God, Christ, you are anointed.

I know there are degrees of anointing. There are degrees of anointing because the anointing relates to our regeneration. Let me just run down to a few verses here now. Jesus speaking about the Holy Spirit in John chapter 14 says that the Holy Spirit is coming.

The Holy Spirit as Comforter and Spirit of Truth

That is, He's coming in a new dimension. It doesn't mean that He's coming to the earth for the first time. He's already there in Genesis chapter 1. It doesn't mean that He's only going to come upon people for the first time.

The Holy Spirit came upon Gideon in the Old Testament. Holy Spirit came upon Samson in the Old Testament. But He's coming in a new dimension. That's what He's talking about. John chapter 14, He says, If you love Me, keep My commandments.

And I will pray the Father and He will give you another comforter. They know something about the life of Christ. Christ says to them, You are clean through the word that I've spoken unto you. You've had an experience.

But there's something deeper. And in that experience, the Holy Spirit has been with you. Verse 17. And I will pray the Father. Verse 16. And He will give you another comforter. That is a comforter that is like Me.

That's that word another. There's two words for another in the Greek New Testament. One means another of the same sort. Another means another of a different sort. This word here He is using is the one of the same sort.

He says another comforter. The one who is like Me. Christ is gracious. It says of Him that a bruised reed He will not break. And smoking flax He will not quench. Until He has set judgment in the earth.

One of the great hallmarks of the Holy Spirit at work is a sense of reliance upon God. A sense of relaxation. A sense that all is right. You don't, we are not running here, there and everywhere. Trying to solve the problem.

There's a rest. That's what Jesus said. Come unto Me and you'll find rest. And the Holy Spirit is like that. This is where you know when the Holy Spirit is at work. When things are aggressive and controlling and all of that.

It's not the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ. John said, Paul said if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he doesn't belong to Him. That is if he doesn't have the disposition of Christ. If he doesn't manifest something of the nature of Christ.

Ministers that are controlling and churches that are controlling. Manipulative. They're not like Christ and they don't therefore have the Holy Spirit. It's very simple. Very simple. Another comforter.

One like me will come. And then he says this. Even the Spirit of truth. Next to the term Holy Spirit. Most frequently used term about the Holy Spirit is Spirit of truth. He is the Spirit of truth. He's not the Spirit of error.

So when false stuff comes up. You know that it's not coming from the Holy Spirit. He is the Spirit of truth. And you will relate to that truth. You will have an instinct for truth. Because the Holy Spirit has come upon you.

There will be an attraction for it. There will be an instinct within you. Just like the homing pigeon has an instinct to go to where he belongs. Just like the animals and the creatures of this world have instinct.

God has built it into them. So that when we come into the kingdom of God. He has given us an instinct for truth. People say to me can the elect be deceived. Because it says that if it were possible. Well it says if it were possible.

It doesn't say it is possible. It says if it were possible even the elect shall be deceived. Well I've determined to be elect not to be deceived. And you can be elect not to be deceived. There's an instinct for truth.

It doesn't matter if they're falling on the right or on the left. There's a passion within you. There's a heart for truth. There's an instinct for truth. That doesn't mean that we may not go off course sometimes.

But there's something that we know instinctively that it's not right. Somewhere along the line. It may take a while for it to come. But ultimately it will come. Because of the instinct for truth. Even the spirit of truth.

And he says the world cannot receive him. Because it does not see him. That is it does not with its spiritual eyes perceive him. Neither knows him. But you know him. He's talking to his disciples. You know the Holy Spirit already.

That's what he's saying. You know him. Because he dwells with you. He's there with you. But there's going to be an experience where he's going to come into you. John chapter 20 verse 22. The day of the resurrection.