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I'm going to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the second letter of John. Second John, there's only one chapter, so Second John, verses 7 through 11 will be the focus of today's message.
It's not correct on the screen, so we can just take that down. The message today is entitled, Standing for Truth Against Heresy. Standing for Truth Against Heresy is the title of today's message and we're going to be looking at verses 7 through 11.
This past week, a very prominent voice on quote-unquote Christian television passed into eternity. Just a cursory look at the statements of this person over the years would show that this theology which was espoused was dangerously incorrect.
She and her late husband used their position of prominence to amass a small fortune for themselves and they would often encourage the very poorest of people to send all that they had and hope that God would bless their offering with greater return.
Anyone well acquainted with Scripture could see right through the facade and recognize the heresy before them. Yet, at her death, there was a loud cry among evangelicals, and that word really doesn't mean a whole lot anymore.
That's why we're reformed evangelicals. We had a qualifier. But evangelical Christians on social media, and that term again doesn't mean a whole lot of people anymore either. Declaring that she was now in glory, walking hand in hand with Jesus, striding down the golden streets.
And now I do not pretend to know the absolute and final condition of this woman's soul. I do not know what happened in the hours and minutes leading up to her death. But I will tell you this, without any shame or without any concern, unrepentant heretics do not go into everlasting glory and peace.
They go into the hell of fire where the worm does not die and where the flame is not quenched. We are commanded to beware of such people. Not to welcome them into our homes. And I would say that that includes welcoming them by way of television.
In our message today, we're going to talk about the dangers of heresy. We're going to talk about the dangers of welcoming heretics into our home and the call of John to not do so. To not even give them a greeting.
My goal for us is to see that one of the ways that we love the truth is by identifying and rejecting that which is false. We've already made the point that 2 John is all about truth. As believers we're to yearn for the truth, love the truth, walk in the truth, understand the value of the truth.
But this theme that the book is about, this theme which undergirds the book is pushing towards a goal. It's been leading towards a very specific instruction. Why is John concerned that we love the truth?
Why is John concerned that we walk in the truth? Why is John concerned that we understand the value of the truth? Because there are people out there who are willing to distort the truth for their own gain and if we don't know what the truth is, we will be taken in by such folks.
And they will be the wolves who come in and devour the sheep. Because the truth is so valuable, we must take care not to be taken in by those who are not in accord with the truth. There is nothing more dangerous to the soul than a heretic.
And John admonishes us today to not give even a greeting to those who pervert the gospel. So let's read together 2 John verses 7 -11, we'll stand. For many deceivers have gone out into the world. Those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh, such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.
Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.
If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting. For whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works. Father in heaven, I pray that you would keep me from error.
I pray that you would open the hearts of your people to the truth. I pray that you would impress upon us all the dangers of heresy and the dangers of welcoming into our homes through whatever medium, those who would proclaim to us something which is unbiblical and ungodly and false and dangerous to the soul.
Father, forgive us if we've done so. Help us to repent of those things. And Lord, for those who've come today who don't know Christ, may we present Christ today. May I present Christ today as He truly is, so that they might look upon Him and believe and be saved.
In Jesus' name, Amen. Those of you who have children have likely found yourselves in conversations wherein you have warned them about potential dangers in the world. We love our children and we pray that no evil will befall them.
So in our concern for their safety, we sit them down and we tell them about the things around them which could pose a threat. We tell them, don't talk to strangers. Because we know there are people who might prey upon them.
We want them to be aware that such people exist and if a person is unknown, you don't know if they're a danger or not, so don't talk to them. They're potentially dangerous. We tell them not to run in the street.
We tell them not even to go in the street without looking both directions. Because a vehicle may be coming, the driver can be going too fast to stop or he might not be paying any attention at all. And as they get older, we sit them down and maybe we watch the news with them.
We watch a story about tragedy with them simply to impose upon them the dangers of the world in which they live. Here is the possible consequences of reckless driving. Here is the potential dangers of using drugs.
And we use these as object lessons for our children. But why do we have these conversations? Well, we have these conversations because we love our children. We want them to avoid as much as possible the dangers which lurk in the world.
And as parents, we want to do everything we can to protect them. But when we come to 2 John, John the Apostle, the writer of this small epistle, has the same concern for those to whom he is writing. This is his family, his church, and he loves them.
He wants them to be safe from harm. So he begins this short letter by exalting the value of truth. But as I said earlier, that is just a setup. The value of truth undergirds where he is going because his main purpose in all of this book comes in verses 7 through 11 because the main purpose of the book is to provide a warning.
He wants the church to understand the dangers that lurk in the world. So we pick up at verse 7. He says, for many deceivers have gone out into the world. The word for there indicates that this is connecting to the previous passage.
The word for could actually be translated because. He's just told us that walking in love means to walk according to the commandments of God. This is another way of saying that to walk in love is to walk in truth because there are many deceivers in the world.
If you walk in love, you must walk in truth because there's many deceivers out there. You see, there's many people who are going to come in and they're going to come without the truth. And if you're not walking in the truth, you won't recognize them.
If you're not loving in the truth, you won't understand who they are when they come. Some people think that the command to love would mean that we're commanded to tolerate every kind of evil. That's not true.
Yet that's what the world wants us to think, that if we're commanded to love, then we're commanded to tolerate all forms of evil. That's not true. The one evil that the church cannot tolerate is false teaching.
The one evil that the church cannot stand idly by and do nothing about is heresy. To walk in truth is to walk away from false teaching. To walk in truth is to turn around and turn your back to the lie.
John Calvin, in regard to this passage, writes this,. This report is introduced in order to give a reason for the earlier exhortation. You need to maintain your love, for there are destroyers of it in the world.
Those who subvert the faith destroy this love. Secure your walk according to God's commandments. He will establish you. Your stability is likely to be tried, for many deceivers have gone into the world.
This is the way John is saying this. He's saying, know this, you're walking in the truth and you must. And you must understand that walking in the truth is going to be tried because there's going to be people who come in with lies and they're going to try to shake you.
But you've got to stand firm on the truth. The word deceivers here is a person. The word in the Greek is planoi. It means a person who causes someone to be mistaken. The person is responsible for causing people to believe things that just aren't true.
The Vulgate, that's the Latin translation of the Greek New Testament, translates it as seductores. Seductores is where we would get the word seducer. John is saying many seducers have gone out into the world.
Many have gone out for the purpose of leading you into that which is false. To seduce you to believe that which is untrue. I remember many years ago, my wife and I were going through the flea market here in town.
And as we walked through, we saw a table with a lady who was handing out litter to her from the Jehovah Witnesses. They were the Watchtower magazine, the Awake magazine, and all the other little pamphlets.
And we walked by and I just continued to walk and the lady walked out. And I don't remember if Jennifer said something to her or if she said something to Jennifer. Jennifer is very good at engaging people, much better than I am often at starting conversations.
And I was walking ahead a little ways and I could catch in my earshot what she was saying. And the lady said, well, here I'd like to talk to you about Jehovah or however she said it. And Jennifer said, no, thank you.
I'm a Christian. I don't believe what you are teaching is true. My husband is a pastor. And the lady said, well, it's OK if you believe something different than your husband. I'll never forget that saying.
Rather than saying, well, let me talk to your husband and see if I might convince him. No. She said, it's OK if you're different. Be liberated. That's what we want, right? Especially the women's lib movement.
Be liberated from him. You don't have to follow him. You don't have to listen to him. Seductores, seducing. See, that's it. That's the kind of thing that might ring in someone's ear. You don't have to follow what your husband says.
You don't have to listen to what he's teaching you. He could be wrong and I could be right. I'm the one with the literature, you see. See, that's seducing. John gives a full understanding of what this is in his very next statement.
He says, for many deceivers or seducers have gone into the world. Those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Now, according to John, in his context, this being the first century church, the one who is the deceiver is the one who does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.
And that is actually a first century heresy. It's referencing a very specific first century heresy. It would later be called docetism. Docetism is the belief that Jesus Christ was not a flesh and blood man like you or I.
But that Jesus Christ was simply a spirit who appeared to be a man. Docetism comes from the word doceo. In the Greek, doceo simply means to appear or to seem to be something, but not really. The idea of docetism was this.
Flesh and the earth and creation is all evil. That which is spiritual is good. That which is worldly or fleshly is all evil and it creates this sort of division. So if Christ came in the flesh, he had to become evil.
So because he can't become evil, he can't have come in the flesh, you see. So docetists made the argument that Jesus Christ did not come in the flesh. And as a result, he didn't die on the cross as we would understand death or any of those other things.
The docetic theology emphasized the divinity of Jesus while denying the humanity of Jesus. Both are essential Christian doctrines. Jesus is both divine as well as human. And the docetists said, no, he is not human, he is only divine.
And though John does not mention docetists specifically, because at this time in history, they weren't called by that name, but it was the same theology, docetism had begun to spread. It's interesting that the big argument today is whether or not Jesus was divine.
But the big argument then was whether or not he was human. Nobody questioned whether or not he was divine, the question was whether he was human. I want to show you something very quickly. Turn over to 1 John.
Hold your places and just turn over to 1 John 2. I'm sorry, 4. 1 John 4 2. 1 John 4 2. By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has what? Come in the flesh is from God.
You see, this is John's concern, both in 1 John and in 2 John and even in the 3 John. There are people who are denying that Jesus has come in the flesh. There are people that are denying that he was a man, and thus denying that he died on the cross for our sins.
They were denying whole tenets about his person and who he was. This is a huge issue for John. It's in 1 John, 2 John and again in 3 John. They're denying the person of Jesus in the flesh. And John tells us plainly in both epistles that to have a false understanding of who Jesus is, and what Jesus did, is to have the theology of antichrist.
Let me say that again. To have a false theology of who Jesus is, and what Jesus did, is to have the theology of antichrist. That's what John says. Read it again. He says, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh, such a one is a deceiver and the antichrist.
And again, we talked earlier about the antichrist as a coming world leader, versus the antichrist or the spirit of antichrist or the theology of antichrist, which is what John is talking about here. And he said there's many of those.
There are many antichrists in the world. Those who would teach falsely about the person and work of Jesus Christ. Do you realize when those sweet young boys and those nice white t-shirts and those brand new ten speeds come rolling through your neighborhoods, that they're carrying the spirit of antichrist with them?
Do you realize when those nice old ladies in their leather bound, new world translation of the scripture in their awake magazine come knocking on your door on Saturday morning, that they're carrying with them the spirit of antichrist?
They are the deceivers. They are those who themselves have been deceived. They are the blind leading the blind. So what does John tell us to do? Watch yourselves, verse 8. Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward.
Very quickly we should note, and I want to make a point, John's not talking about losing salvation here. That's not the point of what he's writing. You cannot lose what you worked for regarding salvation because you didn't work for it.
It makes sense, right? He said if we lose what we worked for, he's not talking about salvation because contextually you can't work for it. The loss here is in regard to what Christ is doing in the church.
I like how the New American Standard Bible renders this. Some of you have an NASB. It says this. Watch yourselves, that you do not lose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward.
Instead of saying what you worked for, the NASB says, you have not lost what we've accomplished. You see, what had they accomplished? Well, they had planted a church. The church was growing. People were being ministered to.
Souls were being saved. There was an active, thriving, living, loving church. And he says watch yourselves, because you know what's going to destroy that church more quickly than anything? A false teacher.
You know what's going to hurt that church more than anything else? If you allow somebody to come in and teach what's wrong about Jesus Christ, that's what's going to hurt that church more than anything else.
All of the good work that had been done in establishing this local church could be brought to an end by a sinister, evil teacher having made his way into its midst. How many good, thriving, biblical churches have we seen destroyed by false teachers?
I can name a couple. I won't. Churches that are seeing souls saved, and yet they are not seeing the false teaching that's coming out and making its way in and destroying the church from inside. The reward here, I believe, is a thriving church.
And loss of that would be a church rocked by heresy. Verse 9, he says, Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.
And interestingly enough, if you look at the word teaching here, and it's teaching in the NASV, it's teaching in the AESV, but in the King James, it says, the word I think is most appropriately, doctrine.
That's a word we don't like to use anymore. It's old hat, old school, but that's what the word is. The Greek is didaksei, which is, it's the doctrine. He says, Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God.
Whoever abides in the doctrine has both the Father and the Son. You understand, beloved, that doctrine matters, theology matters, what you believe about Jesus matters, and what you listen to, and what you let people tell you about Jesus matters, especially if they are teaching you something false.
I don't care how popular they are. I don't care how many followers they have. If they are teaching you something false about Christ, shut them off. Verse 10, If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, what is this teaching in verse 9?
It's the proper doctrine of Christ. If anyone does not come to you, or if anyone comes to you, does not bring the proper doctrine of Christ, do not receive him into your house, do not give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.
Now, the concern here contextually is first century hospitality. You have to understand that it was expected in the early days of the church that the brethren would open their homes to traveling ministers.
They would open their homes to traveling Christians and to missionaries. Traveling ministers would go and get lodging and food from within the church as they went about preaching. And this opened the doors for a lot of false teachers to get their foot in the door, literally.
Because now I make myself an itinerant Christian minister and I just go from village to village taking advantage of people who are willing to give me food and lodging and comfort and respect. And it happened and it went on and on and on.
To protect this lady and ultimately to protect the church, John says, don't greet these false teachers. Now that may sound horribly intolerant in our day, but this is sound counsel from a wise elder. It doesn't take long for a disease, once it's found a way in, to spread.
These men were carrying much worse than a disease. They were carrying the deadly poison of heresy. They mustn't be given an inch because they would surely take a mile. John even goes as far as to say that if we greet them, we are taking part in their evil.
Now this doesn't mean to say hello or something like that. We think of a greeting today. The idea here is greeting them with a positive welcome. Bringing them into the home. Making them part of what's happening.
Welcoming them in. I've heard some people ask the question, well, should I open the door if the Mormon comes to call? I'll say this, it is a conscience issue. Because this is something that I don't think...
Because when I open the door, my reasoning for opening the door is to call the Mormon to repentance. My reasoning for talking to them at all is to tell them about their sin and their need for Christ, their need to repent of the ungodly church that they're a part of.
I don't think God would not want me to do that. When those Jehovah Witnesses come around, I sometimes go out and meet them at the end of the sidewalk. Talk to them right there. But to call them to repentance.
Sometimes it's not a pleasurable conversation. I remember one time I was very, very ill. I had just gotten out of the hospital. And I was home. And I was very sick. And they came to the door. And I wasn't prepared in a lot of ways to have a long conversation, but I didn't know who it was.
I opened the door. There stands two Jehovah's Witnesses. And they began to talk. And I said, stop, are you Jehovah's Witnesses? And they sort of looked at me and said, yes. I said, you are teaching false doctrine.
You are teaching false theology. And I would prefer if you leave my neighborhood. I said, because you are teaching unbiblical lies to my neighbors. Now, you might not think that was very loving, but I told them the truth.
That's what they were doing. You can challenge me later if you want to. But that's how you engage, whether it's with soft loving words or words of a statement of the truth. We need to be honest with them.
I remember my wife talking to a Mormon a few years ago. And they were telling her, we are the same as you. We are both Christians. No, you are not. You believe, as a Mormon, that God was once a man who lived on another planet that surrounds a star called Kolob.
That that man, because of his allegiance to Mormon teachings, died and became a god. And through celestial marriage, has had thousands and billions of spirit children. And those children are who populate this world.
That Jesus Christ and Satan, Lucifer, the angel, are spirit brothers. Jesus is the good brother. Satan is the bad brother. You teach an ungodly, false teaching. Did you know Mormons are the most polytheistic religion in the world?
They believe in more gods than even the Hindus. Because they believe in an infinite amount of gods. There is more in common with Islam than there is with Mormonism. Biblical Christianity has more in common with Islam than it does with Mormonism.
I'm not saying we have much in common with Islam. What I'm saying is we have more in common with Islam than we do with Mormonism. Now you don't like that because the Mormons dress like you and look like you, and they're nice, and they're nice clothes, and they're ties.
But you have more in common with the guy over in Iraq than you do with that kid on the 10-speed. From a theological perspective. But you'll welcome him in. And you won't call him to repentance. Why? Because he looks like you.
John says, do not greet them. Call them to repentance, but don't greet them. I have four points today. So that was all introduction. In your bulletin, I want to just go over the four application points, and then we'll draw to a close.
If you'll turn your bulletin, there's four things that I want you to consider from this passage. Again, this is the heart of the book. This is the heart of why John is writing. And there's four things that he has for us to learn from this.
And I want us to consider four propositions which we can take away from this section of Scripture and apply to our Christian walk in regard to false teaching and heresy. Number one, the most significant heresies distort the person and work of Jesus Christ.
The most significant heresies distort the person and work of Jesus Christ. If you look at the landscape of Christian history, it bears this out. The first 400 years of the church, battles were raged against this subject.
We should be thankful for men like Athanasius who stood against heretics like Arius to the point where there were times when Athanasius seemed like he was alone. Athanasius contra mundum. Athanasius against the world.
But he stood. He stood for the truth of who Christ is. He stood for the truth of what Christ had done. And he won out in the end because truth won out in the end. Though orthodoxy is well established historically, the battle still rages today over doctrine.
Almost all of the battles that we face with heretics and cultists are over the person and work of Jesus Christ. I can tell you that. Jehovah's Witnesses teach that Jesus is a created deity, less than Jehovah, known as Michael the Archangel in the Old Testament.
Mormons believe, again as we said earlier, Jesus is the spirit brother of Lucifer. Oneness Pentecostals deny the Trinity, claim that Jesus and the Father are the same person, denying the distinctions between the persons and the Godhead.
The list goes on and on and on. It's always about Jesus. It's either who He is or what He did or both. And it's almost always both. We can debate many subjects. Let me tell you this. We can debate many subjects.
You can be a Christian and you can have different positions on eschatology. You know what? Are you post-mill, pre-mill, on-mill, pre-trib, post-trib, mid-trib, I don't know-trib, all that stuff.
I don't care. I mean, it matters, but in the grand scheme of things, I'm not going to tell you you're not a Christian because you have a different view of eschatology than I do. We might have a different view of ecclesiology.
I have friends in the Presbyterian church. I have friends in the Baptist church. Baptists are congregational. Presbyterians are Presbyterian, Presbyter-led. You know, we disagree on church government, yet we're still Christians.
Pneumatology. How does the spirit work today? Are we supposed to speak in tongues or are we not to speak in tongues? I think that that can be an issue that can divide people. It doesn't always have to, though.
The question of whether or not the spirit continues to work in miracles today or not, that is a question and is a question up for debate. But it doesn't make me look at somebody and say, you can't be a Christian and believe that.
But I tell you what, when you come across and you say Jesus Christ is not who He said He was and did not do what He said He did, you're not a Christian. Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, two natures and one person.
We call that the hypostatic union. Within the Trinity, there are three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These three persons are co-equal and co-eternal, sharing the single nature of God.
As God is one, we are monotheists. Jesus gave Himself as a perfect sacrifice for sins. No work that we can do will ever add to His finished work. On the cross, He took the sins of believers and provided them His blessed righteousness.
And if we deny these things, we are denying the gospel. And we're not Christians. That part is simple. Again, the most significant heresies are those that distort the person and work of Jesus Christ. Number two, heretical influence can distort an otherwise fruitful ministry.
We see this in verse 8. We must take care not to let false doctrine come in, especially regarding Christ and His work. There is nothing more deadly to the ministry of the church than the poison of heresy.
Churches may thrive on it, grow with it, but all they are doing is filling hell with the souls of its victims. There are churches, one particular one out in Houston, that is a basketball stadium filled with people who are headed to hell.
Because they are not being taught Christ. Neither are they being called to repentance.
They are being told story after story after story about how you can be a better you and have a better life and a better marriage and a better bank account and a better parking space, all of which will burn.
Number three, right doctrine divides the true believer from the false professor. Look again at verse 9. It says in verse 9, everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God.
That is pretty clear, isn't it? Does not have God. This person professes Christ but does not possess Him. One of the first things that we should ask a person who claims to be a Christian, what do you believe about Jesus and what He did?
If you profess to be a Christian, what do you believe about Jesus and what He did? Often somebody will say, well, I am a Christian and we are satisfied. But if we engage the person, we say, who is Jesus?
What has He done? Often their answers will tell us they are not believers at all. If you claim to be a Christian and yet you cannot tell me who Jesus is or what He has done, I would doubt your confession.
Some of you may say, well, I am not a scholar, but you could tell me all the stats of your favorite sports team, how to clean your favorite pistol, and I don't know, thousands of ways to change your oil or your tires or anything else.
But you can't tell me who Jesus is and what He did? Don't use that excuse with me. It doesn't work. If you don't care enough about Jesus to know who He is and what He did, you are not a believer because you learn about what you care about.
Fourth and finally, we must not tolerate or entertain false doctrine. This is the heart of the teaching. And this begins in our home. Parents, grandparents, children, listen to me. We often think Christian programming has got to be better than the world, when oftentimes it is worse because it paints a false picture of Jesus and a false picture of God, and God becomes some type of boyfriend that we are all longing to snuggle with rather than a Lord of Heaven who we need to submit to.
It begins in our home, folks. It begins in our home. Those men coming to our door need to be engaged, but not as brothers as those who have the spirit of Antichrist. And it extends into the church. It begins in the home, but it extends into the church.
You know why the elders look over Sunday school material here? So we don't have nonsense coming into the Sunday school classes and being taught to the kids or to the adults. You know why the elders will challenge me if they think that I've taught something that's slightly incorrect?
Because they know that that's an easily slippery slope, and we'll talk about it and we'll deal with it. And there have been times I've made small retractions. Hey, I said this, I was incorrect. And I don't mind doing so because that is a slippery slope.
That's why we care about what we teach. That's why we stand on the Word of God. That's why we care about what you're teaching your kids at home. That's why we have dads and dudes. That's why we have the women's Bible study because we want you to teach your children right.
So we teach you to teach them. As the body of Christ, we must always be aware for the potential for heresy. I pray every week, God, keep me from error. I don't do that out of false humility. I really don't.
I do it because I'm scared to death. James 3 .1, let not everyone assume to be teachers because teachers will be what? Held to a stricter judgment. Sometimes people think that we're slow moving on certain things.
Why aren't the elders just making decisions left and right? Because we think about what decisions we're making. We pray about them. We meet together. We call council together and we talk and we pray and we read and sometimes we disagree and guess what we do?
We retire back to more prayer and more study. Someone might bring an idea to the elders or a program or a teaching and they want to see a sponsor and that is never taken lightly. The elders are responsible for the spiritual life of the church and by God's grace we will never, ever tolerate false teaching.
By His grace. So beloved, I pray. I pray that you've heard the message today. Watch what you allow into your homes. Watch what you allow into your eyes and into your ears. Watch what you're singing when you're listening to that Christian radio station.
Watch what you're reading when you're opening up that periodical from your favorite Bible distributor. Watch what you're listening to and seeing when you turn on that television and that very fancy Christian station comes up.
Listen to what they're saying and if they're teaching false about Jesus and they're teaching false about His work and what He has done, turn them off. Let's pray. Father, I thank You for Your Word. I thank You for the truth and I thank You Lord for Your call to listen to, to love, and to walk in and to value the truth.
Lord, as we move forward today into our lives may we do so with an understanding of Your call to holiness in every area particularly in doctrine that our doctrine would be in accord with Your Word. In Jesus' name, Amen.