We are continuing in our study of 2 John today.  Last week we looked at the first four verses, in which the word truth is used five times. The importance of the truth is the theme of this epistle.  As we continue in our study of the remaining verses, you will notice that we no longer see the word truth.  But nevertheless, the truth is still the focus of the passage, it’s just referred to in different ways.

For instance, starting in vs five John refers to the truth as the commandment.  God’s commandments are truth.  He is not merely talking about the 10 commandments, but about all the commands of God, all the word of God, the truth of God.  

Then in vs 7, he speaks of deceivers.  To be a deceiver is to be someone who speaks the opposite of the truth, or who subverts the truth.  You must have a standard of truth in order to determine if someone is a deceiver. 

Then in vs 9 John speaks of the teachings of Christ.  Well, Christ taught the truth about God.  He said He was the way, the truth and the life. To speak of Christ’s teaching then is just another way of speaking of the truth.  So the thrust of the epistle is the importance of the truth.  And I think ultimately he is writing to the church to defend the truth. John just refers to the truth in a variety of ways so that we understand the full scope of what constitutes truth.

So this little epistle is about the truth.  It’s about defending the truth, living in the truth, as he said in vs four, walking in the truth.  Jesus said that we are to worship God in spirit and in truth.  Jesus said that the word of God was truth.  And Paul said that the church is the pillar and support of the truth.  So John writes here to a particular church and the congregation of that church, whom he calls the chosen lady and her children.  He uses a euphemism or an indirect way of addressing the church in order to perhaps protect them from undue persecution.  But he writes them a warning to defend the truth, to uphold the truth, to abide in the truth in light of the deceivers that are working to destroy the church.

John is reaching the end of his life, probably in his nineties at this point.  And like Peter and Paul who have since died, he recognizes that in the life of the church since Pentecost, there are many deceivers, many antichrists that have risen from among the ranks of the church, whose diabolical goal is to destroy the church.  

Paul spoke of that happening many years previously as he was leaving the church at Ephesus, which John was now the pastor of.  Paul said many years earlier, in Acts 20:29 “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock;  and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.”

And John sees that very thing happening.  He has already written in 1 John 2:18 “Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour.”  And he says virtually the same thing in this letter to this church in vs 7, saying, “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ [as] coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist.”  The deceivers are those who have subverted the truth about Christ.

So in vs 4, which we looked at last time, John said he rejoiced to see that some of the lady’s children were walking in the truth.  He’s referring to some of the congregation of this church.  That’s the goal of our instruction, that a believer walks in the truth.  To walk refers to a lifestyle, to your manner of living.  To live in accordance with the truth.

Jesus said to the Father concerning His disciples in His prayer before His crucifixion, “Sanctify them in the truth, Your word is truth.”  Sanctification is the progression of our walk with Christ.  To walk in the truth speaks of the process of sanctification.  And sanctification is an essential part of our salvation. Heb. 12:14 says, “Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.”  Sanctification is the process of living holy lives, being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.  Sanctification happens as a result of, and following our justification. In the full scope of salvation, we are first justified, then sanctified, and then glorified.  All three elements are essential to salvation.  Sanctification is our walk in the truth.

John says though, in order to walk in the truth, we must love in the truth.  He says in vs5 and 6, “Now I ask you, lady, not as though [I were] writing to you a new commandment, but the one which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, that you should walk in it.”

Notice the sequence.  John says we must walk in the truth.  Then he says we must love one another.  And then he says love is to walk in His commandments.  So to walk in the truth is to walk in love, and to walk in love is to walk in the commandments.  That’s an echo of what Jesus taught in John 14:15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”

This is critical to understand; you cannot separate obedience from love. You cannot say “Oh, how I love Jesus,” and not keep His commandments.  John said back in 1John1:6  “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and [yet] walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.”  You cannot say you love God, you have fellowship with God, and walk in sin, or not walk according to the commandments.  If you say that, you are lying, and you do not practice the truth.  There it is again, the correlation of truth with the commandments, the teaching of Christ.  The idea of practicing the truth is the same as to walk in the truth. It doesn’t mean you are perfect, but it does mean you get better at it with practice.

But on the other hand, he adds to that principle in the next verse, 1 John 1:7, “but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”  Notice the sequence there.  If you walk in the Light, that is you walk in the truth, then you have fellowship with one another.  In other words, walking in the truth produces love, or fellowship with one another.  It’s interesting, that he doesn’t say that walking in the truth produces love for God, but he says that walking in the truth produces love for one another.  We show our love for God by loving one another, and we love one another by keeping His commandments.

That indicates that love is not a sentiment, it’s not a feeling that you have towards someone, or an attraction that you have, but love is a commitment to obey God by serving others.  I conducted a marriage ceremony yesterday, and I was reminded in the vows that in marriage we do not just make vows to one another.  But we make a vow to God to love one another with a sacrificial, serving love. That’s why the marriage vows are binding for as long as you live.  Because you made a vow to God, which is not predicated on how you feel now, nor on how you may feel 30 years from now.  But it’s a vow to obey God which is to love one another until death brings separation from that vow.

Now back in our text, John says that the command is not new, but it is old, one we had from the beginning. What is he talking about here?  Well, Jesus answers that in His response to a lawyer who asked him what was the greatest commandment.  Jesus said in Matt. 22:37-40 ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”  

So these two commandments, given hundreds of years before, were the summary of all the commandments.  All the commandments hinge on loving God and loving your neighbor.  So as Paul said in Romans 13:10, “Love does no wrong to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”  And he said in 1Cor. 16:14 “Let all that you do be done in love.”  Love is the result of walking in the truth, of walking in the commandments.

So, John admonishes the church to walk in the truth, and then love in the truth, and then his final point, guard the truth, or defend the truth.  This is a vital function of the church, to guard the truth, to defend the truth.  Because the truth is and always has been under attack since the beginning, and that attack continues today.  In fact, I would say that the truth is being assaulted more today than ever before.  In the past, it was pretty much a front on attack.  But today, it’s much more insidious than that. It’s a flank attack or even an attack from the rear. The attacks against the truth today are camouflaged as being sensible, as being relevant, as scientific, as more contemporary interpretations of the truth.  And instead of many attacks coming from outside of the church, they are coming from within the church.

John starts this admonition with a warning; vs 7, “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ [as] coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist.  Watch yourselves, that you do not lose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward.”  

Back in 1 John 4, John said in vs 1, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”  These false prophets John calls deceivers, antichrists who are filled with the spirit of deception and who seek to destroy the church.  When I speak of the church, I’m not speaking of an institution, but of the Christians that make up the church.  And these false prophets destroy the church by undermining the truth.

Notice that John says there are many deceivers.  Not just a few. I would dare to say that the majority of the mainstream churches today have gone so far astray from the truth today that it is unlikely that anyone in their congregations can understand enough truth to be saved.  Satan has skillfully infiltrated the church pulpits with pastors that have abandoned the authority of scripture, they have abandoned the doctrine of absolute truth; they have abandoned the principle that there is no other way to be saved than through Jesus Christ, they have abandoned any teaching about sin, they have abandoned the inerrancy of scripture in regards to creation, or the doctrine of the judgement of God upon sin, and about hell.  They preach another Christ, another gospel, which is really not another gospel at all, but the doctrine of demons.  That’s why John says they have the spirit of antichrist.  

Antichrist means another Christ. A Christ who didn’t come as God in the flesh to die for sin as a substitute for sinners, to pay the penalty for the judgment of God. But a Christ who just set an example for how we are to live.  The false prophets of John’s day were saying that Jesus wasn’t God, but that He was just a man upon whom the Spirit of God came at His baptism, and left when He died upon the cross. If that were true, then Jesus was not God incarnate, and He could not atone for sin, and He could not accomplish forgiveness for our sins. But false prophets offer many varieties on that false doctrine.  But the end result is they diminish Jesus Christ and His gospel, and subvert the truth so as to lead people in destruction.

John says to the church, “watch out for yourselves.”  Don’t be duped, don’t be deceived by the reasoning of false teachers. This is not just some theoretical exercise, but false teachers and false doctrine is dangerous to you and to your loved ones.  John says if you fall prey to it,  It’s possible to lose what you have accomplished, to lose your reward.  Now he isn’t talking about losing your salvation here.  Salvation is not a reward for our behavior, but it’s a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.  Salvation is by grace, and therefore, according to Romans 11:29,  “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” If God gave it to you, He isn’t going to take it away.  

So then what is John referring to, when he says you might lose your reward? I believe that it means you lose the reward which God will give for those works of righteousness which we have done for the kingdom of God.  The Bible teaches us that there are rewards in heaven for the things we have done as Christians for the kingdom of God.  But if you become duped by false teachers and adopt false teaching, you stand to lose out on your reward because you will be found to be following a doctrine that retards your sanctification and consequently makes to no effect your work for the kingdom.  But there is a reward for those that walk in the truth and fulfill their stewardship as servants of Christ.  Jesus said in Rev. 22:12 “Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward [is] with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done.”

So we have been warned to guard against deceivers, to beware of false prophets because they are working to destroy the truth.  That truth John correlates to the teaching of Jesus  Christ.  It’s what in other places is referred to as the apostle’s doctrine.  It’s the gospel of Jesus Christ.  And that means all of the apostle’s doctrine.  Not just a segment of it, or cherry picking bits and pieces of it that you like, and discarding those you don’t.  But the acceptance and belief in all of Christ’s teaching.  That is the truth.

John continues his warning about abandoning the truth in vs.9, 2 “Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son.”  I think that when John says here “anyone” or in some versions, “everyone”, I believe he is referring to those false teachers he spoke of in vs 7.  He is describing them as someone that has gone too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ.  They have left the path of truth, and taken off down a rabbit trail that may seem to be connected to the truth, but in fact is a diversion.

What he says is the way you can know if someone is a false prophet, is an antichrist, is whether or not they abide in the teaching of Christ. If they don’t abide in Christ’s teaching, then he says they are not of God, and you should not listen to them.  Think of the cults for a moment.  All the major cults either add to the scriptures, or they add to the gospel of salvation, and they usually add another apostle, who they won’t admit has the same authority as Peter, Paul and John, or even Jesus Himself, but in practice they give this person even greater authority to define, and determine what scripture is really saying.  People like Joseph Smith, who started the Mormons.  Or Mary Baker Eddy, who started Christian Scientists.  Or Ellen White who started the Seventh Day Adventists. Or Charles Russel who started the Jehovah Witnesses.  All of these people’s writings are prodigious, rivaling scripture. And their disciples consider them to be of the same authority as the scriptures. 

But according to John, we can know that they are false by the fact they don’t abide in the teachings of Christ. But those who abide in the teachings of Christ, John says, have both the Father and the Son.  You should remember what Jesus said concerning His teaching – that He spoke the things from His Father.  In John 8:26, Jesus said “I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me is true; and the things which I heard from Him, these I speak to the world.” And in vs 28  Jesus said, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am [He,] and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me.”  So there is no disparity between what the Father says and what Jesus says.  If you abide in His teaching, then you have both the Father and the Son.

John feels so strongly about the truth, he feels so passionately about the deceivers who are trying to subvert the truth, that he says we should have nothing to do with them.  We should avoid them, abstain from their teaching, and abstain from fellowship with them.  He says in vs 10, “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into [your] house, and do not give him a greeting.”

In the early church, they usually met in one another’s houses.  There were no church buildings such as is common today.  So John is saying if someone comes to your church bringing a teaching that is not in accordance with Christ’s teaching, then don’t even let them in the building.  Don’t give them a platform to air their deceit. Don’t welcome them into your house.

See, there is a limit to love. Love must be in the truth. Love doesn’t accept everything and everyone that comes down the pike when such people are really deceivers who are trying to destroy the truth.  Love is jealous of the truth.  Love guards the truth, defends the truth.  Love does not give place to that which will hurt the child of God, which deceives the Christian, which defrauds the church of her reward.  There is a time and place to be vigilant, even to be militant for the sake of the truth of the gospel.  Love doesn’t mean we accept those false teachers and give place to them.

You know, there is a place for righteous anger.  I get angry at the false teachers which proliferate the so called Christian television stations.  I get angry because they are able to come right into the living rooms of people’s homes and far too many naive Christians welcome them with open arms and naively accept their false teaching.  I get angry over that.  I’m sure some of you think I shouldn’t get angry.  But I think Jesus got angry and yet did not sin.  He got angry at the deceitfulness that was going on in the temple, which was the house of God.  He said you have made my Father’s house a den of thieves.  And He took a bullwhip and cleaned out the temple and kicked over their tables and chased them out.

Paul spoke to Timothy about false prophets and deceivers who he said they were to avoid.  2Tim. 3:6-8 “For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.  Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these [men] also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith.” 

Now I think Paul is not denigrating women there, but using a metaphor for spiritually weak people in the church, who allowed false teachers into their homes, who may have sincerely had a desire to know the truth, but were unable to do so, and in fact were deceived because they were learning from false teachers who were opposed to the truth. And so I think we are justified in feeling some anger towards those people who put a stumbling block before others, who prey on the weak.

But of course, when we call out these false prophets,  we risk being accused of being unloving.  I saw a story the other day on the news about a father whose son came home from school and said that a man had approached him at the bus stop and did some things that made him feel uncomfortable.  And so the father staked out the bus stop the next morning.  The man in question jogged by the bus stop at his usual time, and stopped to speak to the young boy, and reportedly touched the boy inappropriately. This jogger by the way, was one of the pastors of a local church.

Well, when the father of the boy saw this man touching his child that way, he took off and tackled this guy and from the looks of the photo, he permanently rearranged the culprits face.  Now you may not think that was very nice.  But I happen to think that is what love looks like.  That father loved his son so much that he would take whatever action was necessary in order to assure that this creep would never get the chance to take advantage of anyone again. Now I am not advocating violence against false teachers, however I am advocating that we avoid them like the plague, that we do not give them any platform, not even extend to them a Christian greeting, lest we find that we share in his evil teaching of subverting the truth, and putting a stumbling block before the naive.

So in this little letter to this unnamed church, John wanted to make it clear that the truth is essential, that walking in the truth is the means by which we show love for one another, and that the defense of the truth is critical to the life of the church.  He goes on to say that there are other things he wants to tell them, but he will wait until he sees them face to face.  These things he wrote about he felt were too critical to wait, but the rest he will tell them when he comes, so that their joy may be full.

And then he closes his letter by saying, 2John 1:13  “The children of your chosen sister greet you.”  I think that is merely the way in which he references the people in his church who are sending their sister church their greetings.   And I am sure that the Spirit of Truth, writing through John, speaks to our church the same things, that we should walk in the truth, love in the truth, and defend the truth.  Let us be on guard against deceivers who are preying on the church and distorting or subverting the truth.  

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with my history, I grew up as a pastor’s kid. I actually was born during the time my dad was in Bible college and he became a pastor shortly thereafter.  So consequently, I spent most of my early life in church. I grew up hearing the gospel, the stories of the Old and New Testament, singing the hymns, participating in some sort of church service at least three times a week, and sometimes more.

But when I was about 21 years old, I left home, pretty much abandoned my faith, and ran as far away from my upbringing as I possibly could.  The result was that I reached a point when I wasn’t sure what I believed anymore.  During those years I had also been exposed to certain doctrines  from churches which called themselves Christian, but which were in opposition to a lot of what I had been taught growing up, and the result was I was very confused.

When I finally came to my senses, to use a phrase from the parable of the prodigal son, I surrendered to the Lord one evening in a garage in Redondo Beach, California.  I had been wrestling under the conviction from the Lord all day, and finally came home to a party going on in my apartment, which I had no interest in joining in, so I went down to the garage and shut the door and tried to pray.

At first it seemed that my prayers bounced right back at me off the ceiling.  They didn’t seem to go anywhere.  And at that moment fear gripped my heart as I thought perhaps I had gone too far, and God would no longer hear me.  Desperate at that point, I cried out to the Lord in earnest, crying out loud, “Lord, have mercy on me! Please hear me!”  I knew I had gone astray.  I needed to be saved from my sin, delivered, cleansed, restored.  And God heard me, and He cleansed me, He forgave me, He renewed a right spirit within me.

I prayed a lot of things to the Lord in that garage, but one thing that was foremost in my prayer that I remember clearly, was saying to God that I wanted to know the truth. I  didn’t care if the truth was different than everything I had learned growing up in the church, but I wanted to know the truth, and I said if God would show it to me, then I would be obedient to it.

Well, after I finished getting right with God in the garage, I went upstairs to my room, and I found a copy of the New Testament and opened it to the gospel of John.  I read the entire gospel in one sitting.  Not that big of a feat, by the way.  You can read  it through in a couple of hours or so. 

And towards the end of the book I came across a particular verse which seemed to answer my prayer about knowing the truth.  It’s in John 16:13  “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.”  Later on, I found another verse speaking of that same principle in 1John 2:27 which says, “As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.”   

Now let me make it clear that those verses are not saying that we don’t need to hear the preaching of the gospel, or to attend a Bible study, that we don’t need to be taught anything.  It’s not saying that.  There are a lot of scriptures instructing pastors to preach and teach the church. But what they are saying, is that it’s possible to know the truth.  The Holy Spirit, which John calls the anointing in 1 John 2, is given to us so that we might know the truth.  God wants us to know the truth.  The truth matters to God, and the truth is essential to our salvation and sanctification. 

It should be patently evident, that not everything you hear in the church today, or read in some Christian book, or see or listen to on Christian media, is the truth. John spent quite a lot of time in 1 John warning us that there are antichrists in the church, false teachers in the church, that deceive, that twist the truth, pervert the truth, and obscure the truth.  So we must be discerning, and we can be discerning by the Spirit of Truth who is in us, who will guide us in the truth as we are obedient to the truth.

So God confirmed to me through scripture that I could know the truth.  It may take perseverance and obedience to learn the truth, but God wants us to know the truth. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life.  He said you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.  So it’s critical that we know the truth.  Jesus also said, “God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”  In His high priestly prayer Jesus prayed to the Father, “Your word is truth.”  He also said He would send us the Spirit of Truth to guide us in the truth. So we cannot be saved without knowing the truth, and we cannot worship God unless it’s in accordance to the truth.  Adherence to the truth must be paramount in the Christian life.

So the truth must be of paramount importance in the church.  I started this church out of a passionate desire to proclaim the truth.  There are a lot of churches out there, but I felt a need to start a church that is founded on the truth and does not deviate from it.  My calling to preach the gospel is due to the conviction that I had that the truth needed to be proclaimed in a direct, and unequivocal way. 

One of the verses that I based my calling to preach upon is Paul’s admonition to a young pastor named Timothy which is found in 2Tim. 2:15 “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.”

So the scripture is the source of absolute truth. And through the guidance of the Spirit of truth we must study the word so that we might know the truth. There is no other reliable source of absolute truth.  And that means that the source of truth in preaching is the truth of the word of God. That means that the foundation of the church is the truth of the word of God.  Paul said in 1Tim. 3:15 “but in case I am delayed, [I write] so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.” That means that the basis for Christian fellowship is the truth of the word of God. You know, a lot of people put their desire for fellowship at a higher premium than their desire for truth. But there can be no unity without unity in the truth.  Our fellowship is to be based on a common belief in the truth.

Now all of that is perhaps the longest introduction to a message I have ever given.  But John has a lot to say about truth, and particularly in this little epistle of 2 John, we see a great emphasis on the truth.  For instance, just in the first four verses he mentions truth five times. Altogether, John speaks of truth some 37 times in his writings.  So truth is important to John, it’s important to God, it should be important to the church,  and the truth’s essentiality is the reason for this letter.

As we look at this letter, we see that the writer identifies himself only as the elder.  And he writes to the chosen lady and her children.  The conservative view is that ancient Bible scholars have always attributed this letter and the next letter as from the apostle John.  John would have been in his 90’s at this point.  He is the last living apostle.  It’s possible that the term elder is indicative of his age. But it’s also probable, and more likely, that he uses elder as a title, which he has not only over the church in Ephesus, but over the church at large. He obviously considers himself the elder to the lady he is writing to, and she is obviously not in his church in Ephesus.  So more than likely it is a term that has superseded the term apostle, since his apostleship is not in question by this point, and furthermore, he is the only one still living.

So it’s well accepted that John is the author.  What’s not so universally agreed upon is who is the chosen lady.  There is a lot of debate on this point.  Some see her as an individual lady who he is familiar with, who has children that he knows, and who is well loved by the churches. Others see the phrase “chosen lady” as a reference to a particular church.  John is writing at a time of persecution of the church, and so he may be deliberately disguising his name and the name of the church in order to avoid persecution.  I guess I tend to lean towards the idea that he is writing to a church.  Though in the next epistle, he writes to an individual man by the name of Gaius, so it’s possible that he is writing one letter to a woman, and another letter to a man, but in both cases, the letters have a broader audience than just the recipient.  But I suppose that it’s best to look at it from the perspective that he is writing to a church and her children would refer to the members of that local body.

Now there are four points that I think John makes concerning truth in the opening four verses of this passage.  And the first point he makes is that the truth unites us.  I have already alluded to this principle which is found in many places in scripture. It is the truth that unites us. Look at verse 1. “The elder to the chosen lady and her children, whom I love in truth and not only I but also all who know the truth.” 

What John is saying there is that our commonality is the truth. Our unity, our fellowship is not based on a denomination. It’s not based on some perception of spirituality. Our connection to one another is based on a body of truth, the word of truth, the revealed truth. It is the truth that unites us. As Christians, our common denominator is that we hold to the truth taught by the scriptures.  There are certain doctrines that must be held in common for us to have fellowship with one another. True believers are linked not by an organization, not by some nebulous testimony to Christ or God, but by a common knowledge of and belief in the truth of the gospel. John says the basis of their relationship, the basis of Christian love, is the truth.  Without that shared truth, there would be no relationship, no fellowship, no unity, no love for one another.

To be honest, I get a little exasperated with some Christians who seem to have this insatiable desire for fellowship at the expense of truth.  They may come to our church, they at least tacitly acknowledge that we teach the truth, they seem to appreciate that.  But then they go to other churches, other “Bible studies”  or whatever you want to call them, for the sake of fellowship.  But from the little I know of a lot of such groups or churches, they don’t hold to the same truth that we hold to.  They remind me of the warning that Paul made concerning the latter days, in 2Tim. 4:3-4 “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but [wanting] to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires,  and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.”   We need to have a greater desire for the truth than a desire for fellowship, especially fellowship with those who don’t teach sound doctrine, who have turned away from the pure truth of the word for doctrines designed to please people. For teaching that tells you what you want to hear, rather than what you need to hear.

So John says it is the truth that unites us, that we have fellowship in. Secondly, John says that the truth indwells us, in verse 2. He goes on to say about the chosen lady, “whom I love in truth, and not only I but also all who know the truth for the sake of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever.” We’re not only united by the truth, we’re indwelled by the truth. The truth abides in us and will be with us forever.

Back in 1 John chapter 2 vs 20, which I quoted earlier, John says, “But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know.  I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth.” So you can know the truth because the Spirit of Truth has come upon you.  If you are a Christian, then the Spirit of Truth dwells in you, to teach you, to guide you in the truth. 1Cor. 2:12 says, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God.”  That’s the Spirit’s primary purpose, is to guide us in the truth.  He has revealed the truth primarily through the scriptures, and then He gives us insight so that we can understand the scriptures.

This is a very critical passage in which Paul explains how we are indwelled by the Spirit of truth so that we might know the truth.  1Cor. 2:12-16 “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God,  which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual [thoughts] with spiritual [words.]  But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.  But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one.  For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ.”  We are indwelled by His Spirit, the Spirit of truth, so that the truth of Christ is in us.

And by the way, the indwelling of the Spirit is not some sort of second blessing that you have to seek, you have to have some ecstatic experience in order to receive.  You receive the Spirit upon conversion, at salvation.  Paul says in Romans 8:9, “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.”  So if you’re saved, you have the Spirit in you.  If you don’t have the Spirit, then you are not saved.  You receive the Spirit instantly upon salvation.

So how important is the truth? It is the source of our salvation, it is the source of our fellowship, and it is our abiding confidence. Notice John says there in vs 2, “for the sake of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever.”  The truth will be with us forever.  1Peter 1:25  says,  “BUT THE WORD OF THE LORD ENDURES FOREVER.” And this is the word which was preached to you.” I believe that’s a reference to the fact that the truth is eternal.  It will never pass away, or become irrelevant.  It is eternal. And so the truth is with us forever.

But vs 2 also indicates that we can put our complete trust in the truth of God’s word.  God’s word will never fail.  His promises are going to be fulfilled.  We can trust in the truth of God’s word as if our lives depended upon it.  Because our lives do depend upon it. Our eternal destiny depends upon it. And God has written it down so that we might be even more certain of it’s truth, and of it’s fulfillment.

Jesus said in[Matt. 5:18 “For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” The truth abides with us forever.That gives us confidence as we live our lives here on earth.  God’s word never fails.  

That confidence in the truth of God is saving faith, by the way.  We’ve talked recently about what is involved in saving faith.  How much faith do we need – faith in what exactly – what constitutes saving faith?  Well, saving faith is not a deeply held wish, or even a fervently held belief, but it’s trusting in the word of God.  Trusting in the promises of God.  That’s what it means to believe in Christ for salvation.  Believe what He has promised.  Believe in the promises of God. That’s saving faith. And that’s why knowing the truth is so important. Because we need to believe the truth, what the Bible declares is truth.  Not just what we want to be true or hope is true. But you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

That leads us to the third point that John makes regarding truth, and that is that truth is the source of blessing. Vs. 3, “Grace, mercy and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.”  The blessings are grace, mercy and peace.  Thats a common New Testament benediction used by a number of the apostles. But that doesn’t mean that we should gloss over it.  These are real blessings for the believer that come through God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Son of the Father.  I want to point out that in this statement John presents Jesus Christ as God, as being on the same level with God.  That was one of his major points in the first epistle of John, to establish the deity of Jesus Christ. And John does so here without fanfare or explanation.  But even so it’s a great statement of the deity of Christ. 

Now as to these blessings – grace, mercy and peace.  To the carnal mind they may not seem like too much to be rejoiced over.  We love to talk about how God blessed us with a new job, or a windfall of money, or some new possession that we can enjoy.  But these are spiritual blessings.  And sometimes we tend not to think of them quite so highly as we ought.  But let me remind you that grace is the means by which you were saved.  It’s not by your own merit, but by the gift of God that you were made righteous and declared holy unto the Lord. There is no other means by which we are saved than by grace. Grace is a gift of God, and as such a great blessing.

Mercy speaks of not getting what we deserve.  Grace is getting what we don’t deserve, which is life, which is righteousness, which is an inheritance in heaven.  But mercy is not getting what we do deserve, which is death. The wages of sin is death, and we are all sinners. Christ paid our debt to sin, so that we might be free. Mercy speaks of forgiveness.  Forgiveness is a great blessing.

And then peace.  Peace means peace with God.  We who were enemies are now made His friends.  Even more than friends, we are adopted into His family.  We have peace with God.  He is on our side.  He is not against us, but God is for us.  Peace with God, a very great blessing. And John says these blessings come through the Father and the Son, “in truth and love.”  These blessings could only be realized as we come to know the truth of the gospel.  Only as we worship God in spirit and in truth, can we realize these blessings of salvation.

And love speaks of the great love which the Father had for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  This is love, that Christ died for sinners so that they might be forgiven and receive life in Him. That is the truth about the love of God for us, which makes all the blessings of God possible. 

The final point is found in vs 4. We said that truth unites us, indwells us and blesses us. Truth also controls us. “I was very glad to find some of your children walking in truth, just as we have received commandment to do from the Father.” Now we are taking it to mean that in this church John found some of them walking in the truth. To walk in the truth is to be obedient to what God says in His word.  It means the same thing as walking in the Spirit, being guided by the Spirit. To walk in the truth means that you are obedient to the truth shown by the Spirit, and then you continue to be obedient as He reveals more truth. It’s continuing in the truth.

Notice John says to walk in the truth is the commandment from the Father. It simply refers to the idea of a believer who confesses the truth of God’s word and then lives in harmony with that word. Everything he says or does portrays a life that is governed by God’s truth.  To walk indicates action, it indicates application.  It means living out what you have been shown to be true.

But notice what did John say he found? Some of your children walking in truth. That’s probably a universal appraisal of the church.  Unfortunately, not all who believe are walking in the truth.  Some people in the church are sporadic walkers at best. They walk for a while and then they get distracted.  They become interested in something else that distracts them from their devotion to the Lord. Or some may have been walking at some point, but they no longer walk in the truth.

I’d guess that in the life of the church, about only half of the people at any given time are actively walking in the truth.  I think lethargy, and laziness, and complacency are more the order of the day for a lot of people.  And that should be a scary place to be.  It’s kind of like working out, trying to stay in shape.  You have good intentions, you start off on some new program, and you’re all gun ho for a while.  Then you start getting distracted.  You start making excuses why you don’t need to work out today.  And before you know it, you’re out of shape again.  And that makes it twice as hard to get back into shape, doesn’t it? It’s harder than ever to get back in the routine of going to the gym, and the workouts seem so strenuous that you end up giving up. 

That’s what happens when we stop actively pursuing our walk in the truth.  When we stop coming to church on a regular basis.  We start skipping devotions.  We make excuses why we can’t go to Bible study or attend some special event at church. And sooner or later, without realizing it, we are backslidden.  We have abandoned the truth for a lie.  We think we can live without abiding in Him, without walking with Him, without walking in the truth.  We fall for the lie of the devil. 

John said I was happy to see some of your children walking in the truth.  Any pastor, any elder of the church is  happy to see his people walking in the truth.  Because  they know when a person stops walking in the truth, it’s like walking down hill.  You find it easy at first, and then you start picking up speed, and then before you know it, you’re falling head over heals, and end up bruised and broken.

 I urge you today to examine your walk in light of the truth which we have been preaching today, and see if you are abiding in the truth, and the truth is abiding in you.  If it is not, then I urge you to call on the Lord to forgive you, to restore a right spirit within you, and cleanse you from all unrighteousness, so that you might be brought back into fellowship  with Him. 

We have finally come to the last message in the book of 1st John. I’m a little saddened by that. John has a unique style of writing, and a particular message which is absolutely essential to the Christian life. His whole epistle is a series of dogmatic declarations concerning how we may know that we have eternal life. And that theme is summarized here in these last verses by a series of doctrines which he says enables us to know that we are born of God.

The theme of the entire letter was summarized in vs 13, which says, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.” We can know that we have eternal life, by faith in, by believing in the name of the Son of God. To believe in the name means that we believe in the entire ministry of Jesus Christ; that He is the Messiah, the incarnate Son of God, who came to earth to live without sin in order to be our Savior, who died for our sins upon the cross, so that we might have our sins forgiven, and be given His righteousness, and be born again of His Spirit who lives in us. That is what it means to believe in the name of Jesus.

Then John said that another way we know that we are born of God, is that He hears us when we pray, and He answers our prayers that are in accordance with His will. Being the children of God is evidenced by the fact that our Father listens to our prayers and answers them. That’s a particular privilege of being a child of God. The unsaved person does not have that assurance.

Now as we come in our message today to verse 18, John gives us yet another assurance, another principle by which we can know that we have eternal life. He says in vs18 “We know that no one who is born of God sins; but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him.” Greek scholars tell us that the proper translation of the word “sins” is to read it as continues in, or practices sin. John isn’t saying that a Christian never sins. He said back in chapter 1 vs 8 “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.”

So the point is not that we never sin, but that he who is born of God does not continue in sin. He doesn’t practice sin any longer. Sin no longer has dominion over him. He is not under the power of sin. Jesus died on the cross not only to purchase our pardon for the penalty of sin, but also to deliver us from the power of sin over us. In our natural state we were enslaved to sin, but in our new life we are set free from sin. So we no longer practice sin. As John said previously in chapter 3 vs 9 “No one who is born of God practices sin.”

In other words, the Christian life is incompatible with sin. A Christian has been given a new nature, the nature of the Spirit within him, and so he practices righteousness. He is no longer controlled by sin. As one theologian said, “A child of God may sin, but his normal condition is one of resistance to sin.” So we can know we are born of God because we have a new nature that does not practice sin any longer.

Now that is true because of the next phrase in vs 18, because as John says “He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him.” He who was born or literally, begotten of God keeps him. John is speaking of Jesus Christ as the One who keeps the person who is born of God. Jesus prayed on the night before His crucifixion, in the gospel of John 17:12, 15 “While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled. … 15 “I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil [one.]”

So the Lord Jesus, the good Shepherd of the sheep, keeps His flock, and protects them from the evil one. The evil one is, of course, Satan. How does Christ keep us? What does that mean? It means that He keeps us from falling from grace. Jude says, in Jude 1:24-25 “Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present [you] faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, To the only wise God our Savior, [be] glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.”

Jesus said in John 10:28-30 “and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given [them] to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch [them] out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” So you have a double guarantee that no one, not even the evil one, can snatch them out of the hand of God. Jesus keeps those who are His.

Jesus keeps us from the evil one. Satan cannot touch us without God’s permission. We need not fear the devil because greater is He that is in us, than he that is in the world. Now for those of us studying Job on Wednesday nights, we know that God did give permission to Satan to touch Job, but God did not allow the devil to take his life. Satan had said to God, “Have You not made a hedge about him and his house and all that he has, on every side?” That is, I believe, the normal situation for the one who is born of God. God has a hedge of protection around us. Satan cannot touch him. He has to get permission.

You might remember that Jesus speaking to Peter said that Satan has demanded permission to sift him like wheat. And on that occasion God obviously gave the devil permission to tempt Peter. And Peter gave into that temptation and denied knowing Christ. But even though Peter fell, yet Christ sustained him. He kept him and came to him after His resurrection and restored Peter to full fellowship.

So Christ keeps us from the controlling power of sin, and the condemnation of sin, so that we who are born of God cannot continue in sin. We know that we are safe in the arms of Jesus from all attacks of Satan to try to take us from our position as a child of God.

John then states another thing we can know in vs 19, that we can be assured of. Vs19 “We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in [the power of] the evil one.” John repeats a similar statement that he made back in chapter 3 vs 2, “Beloved, now we are children of God.” We have been given new life from God, born of His Spirit, so that we are now the children of God. We belong to His family. We belong to the kingdom of God. Such a tremendous privilege we have, to not only belong to the kingdom, but to be the children of the King. And we know that God is sovereign over all the affairs of men. We have the power and authority backing us of the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords and we are His representatives on earth. We belong to Christ.

But John contrasts our security in Christ with the fact that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. The world speaks of the opposing kingdom. The kingdom of this world, whose ruler is the evil one, Satan. Don’t misunderstand something, Satan does have a certain amount of power and authority. But its not equal to the power and authority of God. God has allowed him a degree of power and authority over the world for a limited time and in a limited capacity.

If you remember when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness by the devil, the scripture says the devil took Him up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment’s time. And the devil said to Him, “I will give You all this domain and its glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore if You worship before me, it shall all be Yours.”
Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD AND SERVE HIM ONLY.’”

Notice that Jesus didn’t rebuke the devil for lying when he said that the kingdoms of this world had been handed over to him. I think that is true. But Jesus, as the Son of God, knew that it was God who gave him that authority, and that the devil’s dominion was only for a short time. Jesus said in another place that the devil is the ruler of this world, but that one day he would be cast out. Paul in 2 Cor. 4:4 calls him the god of this world. From the account of Genesis 3, we know that by deception Satan took control over this world. So the whole world lies in his power. But Satan knows that his time is short before Jesus comes back to claim this world and vanquish him forever.

The world worships the devil, though they may not realize it. They bow before the idols that he has set up in the world system which seek to captivate people by empty promises of peace and prosperity and happiness. The devil has so orchestrated the course of this world as to take advantage of man by lies and deceit and enslave him to trying to find in satisfying the lusts of this world. And as such it is what the Bible calls the dominion of darkness. It’s populated by people who are attracted by the bright lights of this world, but the result is that they are blind and they cannot see that the real light of the world is Jesus.

But we are the children of God, and we belong to the kingdom of light. Paul said in Colossians 1:13-14 “For [God] rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

That leads us to the third thing that we know. Look at vs 20; “And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” This is the last time John writes, “we know.” I think there are 33 references to the word “know” in this little epistle.

This time, however, John wants to remind us that God became incarnate, became flesh, and dwelt among us that we might know God. God revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. Hebrews 1:1 says that “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

We could not know God unless God revealed Himself to us. And John and the other apostles teach that God revealed Himself perfectly in Jesus Christ. He is the radiance of God’s glory, and the exact representation of His power. If you want to know what God is like, then look at Jesus. As Jesus said to Philip, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.”

But in contrast, Satan doesn’t reveal himself as he really is, does he? He is a liar, and the father of lies. The Bible says he masquerades as an angel of light. He pretends. He deceives. But Jesus is the truth. And John says that He has given us understanding. How does that work? I will tell you how. It is through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is our teacher. Back in chapter 2, John told us that the anointing, that is the Spirit, teaches us the truth. He says in vs 27 “As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.”

You know, there are a lot of misunderstandings concerning the Holy Spirit that are being taught in some of the churches out there. A lot of them teach that the purpose of the Spirit is to give us a feeling, an experience, by which we can validate our Christianity. And as a result they only seem to be concerned with the showy gifts of the Spirit.

But Jesus said that the Spirit’s primary purpose was to glorify Him. He said in John 16:13-14 “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose [it] to you.” So the Spirit’s primary function is to reveal the truth to us, and help us to understand the truth of Christ. The Spirit of God has inspired the word of God, so that we might know the truth. And then He gives understanding to the child of God, that they might grow in the knowledge of the truth.

John says that in addition to learning to know God, “we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ.” In other words, we have fellowship with Him through His Son Jesus Christ. We abide in Him, and He abides in us. As Jesus prayed in the upper room before His crucifixion, John 17:20-21 “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, [are] in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.”

Now practically, how do we experience this oneness with Christ? I believe it’s by the word of God and the Holy Spirit. We read the word, study the word, believe the word, and act in accordance with the word. And the Spirit of God in us helps us to understand the word, and to obey the word. That’s what it means to abide in Him, and He in us. To walk where He leads, to walk in the Spirit and by the Spirit. And it’s also how we grow in the knowledge of God. That’s why we place such a premium in this church on reading and studying the word of God. There is no other way by which we can grow in our relationship with God, and grow in maturity in our faith.

Notice in this closing statement, John declares the deity of Jesus Christ. He says “we are in Him who is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.” This is the basis of the gospel, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Without faith that Jesus is God in the flesh, we cannot be saved. He can give eternal life only if He is eternal, if He is immortal, if He is God. There can be no atonement, no forgiveness, if Jesus was not God. Only God can forgive sins. Only God can make atonement for the sins of the world.

The other night at Bible study we had a discussion about what kind of faith do we have to have to be saved. What do we have to believe to be saved? Because the Bible says that the devils believe in God and tremble, yet they are not saved. People in Christ’s day believed that He was a living, breathing person and they saw Him die on the cross, yet they were not all saved. So what constitutes saving faith?

Well, I alluded to the answer earlier when we talked about believing in the name of Jesus. To believe in the name of Jesus is to believe all that His name represents. All that He taught. All that was prophesied of Him and which He fulfilled. We were talking about Job the other night, and what he believed about God, and how little revelation he had received, and yet how deep was his faith.

We have been given tremendous revelation. We have been given 66 books containing God’s word. Job had none. We have been given the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. He is the greatest revelation. And we have the testimony of many, many eyewitnesses to Him, and practically all that He did and said recorded for us. So we who are given much, much shall be required. But at the very least, to be saved we must believe that Jesus is the Christ, that is the Messiah, the fulfillment of all Old Testament pictures and symbols and prophecy. And that He is the Son of God. That is He is deity. He was in the beginning with God, and He was God.

Then we have to believe in the finished work of Christ in His ministry on earth. That He lived a perfect life, to be our example, and to be our Savior as the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. He came to earth to die for my sins. And by trusting in Him and all that He is, and all that He has done to redeem me, I have forgiveness of my sins, and receive the Spirit of God in me as a deposit on eternal life. We need to believe all that. Because all of that is incorporated in the fact that Jesus is God and eternal life is in Him.

There is one last sentence with which John closes this epistle, and at first glance it may seem out of place. It seems disconnected with all that has previously been said in this passage. But when you think about it, John has been making a contrast between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness. He has been contrasting the kingdom of God’s Son, and the dominion of the evil one.

So now at the close, I believe he is merely extending that contrast by showing that while we worship Christ, the Son of God, the true God, yet the world worships idols, they worship false gods. And so John warns us to stay away from the idols of the world, because they are the means by which Satan controls the world.

Now what is an idol? Do people really bow down to idols today? Do they have little statues on their mantle that they light candles to, and say prayers to? Well, maybe some people do that sort of thing. But I believe most of the idols of the world we live in are a little more subtle than that. The devil is good about disguising his idols so that they don’t look like idols. Idols may look like a career. Idols may look like a savings account. Idols may look like a vacation home. Idols may look like a beautiful woman or a handsome man. Idols may look like sports or entertainment stars, or movie stars.

John lived in Ephesus, one of the worst cities in ancient history in regards to idol worship. There was the temple of Diana which sat on a hill overlooking the city, which employed prostitutes, priests, craftspeople, vendors, and all sorts of officials who promoted worship of the false god Diana. She promised fertility, prosperity and all the carnal pleasures of the world that were attractive to the people. And so John was well familiar with the evils of idol worship.

But today we can worship the false promises of our idols as well as the idols themselves. And the world system that Satan has orchestrated has an idol to fulfill every desire of the flesh and the mind. So we have to guard against that strategy of the devil which seeks to turn our affection away from God, and turn it to this world and the things of the world.

Paul identifies idolatry in Col. 3:5 “Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.” I think he is saying that all of those things amounts to idolatry. Christians are susceptible to idolatry as well as the unsaved. So as Christians, Paul says we must mortify the flesh. Put to death the things of this world. Consider them as dead. And look to that which is life indeed.

But for the unsaved who may be hearing the gospel this morning, who are perhaps worshipping the god of this world, the things of this world, striving to find fulfillment in tangible, temporal things which are passing away, I would like to close by asking you a question from Mark 8;36 which records the words of Jesus saying, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? For what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”

Jesus gave His life so that you might be forgiven for your sins and receive everlasting life. Trust in Him as your Savior and Lord that you might be saved from the system of this world which seeks to keep you in bondage to sin and it’s penalty, which is eternal death. As John said in chapter 5 vs 13 “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.” Turn to Jesus today and receive eternal life.

As we enter this last section of chapter 5, John is summing up all that has been said up to this point in what you might call the epilogue.  John’s style of writing is one where he uses repetition to teach us certain doctrines and principles.  And each time he repeats a principle, he usually adds some new dimension to it.  But now that he has reached the conclusion, he makes his final statements regarding these reoccurring themes.

Probably the most frequently repeated principle that John makes is the assurance we can have of our salvation.  Not only has he explained the means by which we might know that we are saved, but he has shown the evidence of salvation, so that we might be fully assured.  And also the other aspect of that was to reveal those who were not really saved, but who may have claimed to be, but they were actually false prophets.

This has really been the central theme of the epistle – how to know that you are saved.  John states this concept of salvation several different ways.  For instance, in chapter one he referred to it as having fellowship with God.  In chapter two he said it was to know God. At the end of the chapter he refers to it as abiding in God.  In chapter three, John refers to salvation as being the children of God, or born of God. In chapter four he says we are from God, or of God.  And in chapter five he calls our salvation the life, or eternal life. All of those terms are used to describe  our salvation and he uses them interchangeably and repeatedly throughout the epistle.  All of them speak of some aspect of our salvation.

The other much repeated principle he teaches frequently is that we may know.  John uses the word know around 33 times in this epistle.  He wants us to have assurance of certain truths, certain principles.  And the most essential principle that he is concerned about is that of our salvation.  He wants us to have assurance of our salvation.  So repeatedly he has given us assurances or evidences or tests that we might know that we are saved.  John believes that we might know that we are children of God, not that we might hope we are, but that we might know it and have any doubts or uncertainty about our eternal life settled here and now.

So now as he concludes this epistle, he says in the 13th verse; “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.”  I have referred to this verse at least a dozen or more times since we started studying this epistle. And yet like John, I realize that repetition is an aid to learning.  And furthermore, some of you may not have been here for some of our previous teaching.  So at the risk of repeating myself, I want to briefly expound on the major points of this verse, for the sake of greater assurance to those who have already heard, and the benefit of those hearing for the first time.

John’s summary statement says he has written these things.  These things refers to the entire letter up to this point.  But the main point that he is making is that faith in Jesus Christ, or to believe in Jesus Christ, is the essential key to the assurance of our salvation.  There is salvation in no one else.  Peter, preaching in Acts 4:12 said, ”And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”

But when the apostles speak of the name of Jesus, they do not mean merely saying the name, or believing that simply repeating the name Jesus has some magical power.  But to believe in the name of Jesus Christ is to believe in the full revelation of the Son of God.  That full revelation then includes His deity, His work, His ministry, His teaching, His word, His work of atonement, His life and death and resurrection and ascension into heaven to sit at the right hand of the throne of God.  All that the gospel teaches concerning Christ is included in the name of Jesus Christ.

So to believe then does not merely mean that we believe that Jesus lived and died 2000 years ago. Or that He was a good teacher, or a rabbi, or a prophet.  But as Peter said in Matt.16:16 in answer to Jesus’s question, “whom do men say that I am?” Peter said, “You are the Christ the Son of the living God.” To believe that He was the Way, the Truth and the Life.  And that the words He spoke were truth and life.  To believe that He bore our sins on the cross and died in our place, that we might receive forgiveness of our sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

That belief is the means by which John says we may know that we have eternal life.  And as I have said almost every week, eternal life is not just life that never ends, but it’s the life of God in us.  It’s spiritual life. It’s fellowship with God.  As the wages of sin is death, so righteousness is life.  And the righteousness we receive from Christ gives a life that will never pass away.  This body will one day pass away, but our soul and spirit will not pass away, and at the resurrection will be joined to a glorified body just as Christ has, an immortal body that will be forever with God. Life with God is eternal life.

And we can be assured of eternal life because of His promise to us.  John said back in chapter 2 vs 25 “This is the promise which He Himself made to us: eternal life.”  Jesus promised eternal life to those who believe in Him.  For instance, Jesus said in John 11:26 “and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”  Jesus promised eternal life, and we can have assurance because of His promise.  God cannot lie.  His word endures forever.  His promises never fail.  And He gives us the Holy Spirit as a deposit on the fullness of that promise.

Now that leads John to assure us of another promise we have from Christ.  And that promise is that He hears us when we pray, and He will answer our prayers.  The fact that God answers our prayers is another assurance by which we know that we have the life of God.  John said back in chapter 3 vs 21 “Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God;  and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.”  Notice John says we have confidence when we ask of God.

So building upon that principle John reassures us of our salvation by the promise that God will answer our prayers.  He says in chapter 5 vs 14 “This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.  And if we know that He hears us [in] whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.”  Notice, John uses the same word, “confidence” in regard to prayer in this verse as he did back in chapter 3 vs 21 which we just read concerning receiving what we ask of God.

What he mens is that because we have eternal life, the life of God in us, we have the confidence, literally, the freedom, to approach the throne of God in prayer at anytime.  I remember a famous photo of the President John F. Kennedy in the Oval Office.  The Oval Office is probably one of the most restricted areas in the world, and yet in this photograph you could see the President’s young son playing under the desk.  That young boy had the privilege of being the President’s child, and so he had unrestricted access to his father.  We have that kind of confidence with our Heavenly Father, to come to Him in prayer at anytime.  That freedom to come in prayer to the Father is an assurance that we are a child of God.

Not only do we have the privilege, we have the freedom to ask for whatever it is that concerns us, because we know that our Father hears us. John says if we ask anything according to His will He hears us.  To hear us, means that He will grant our request.  But notice that there is one caveat.  The caveat is that we ask according to His will.  So this is not a blanket promise that if we ask anything at all, we will get what we ask for.  Many of the false teachers on television teach a name it and claim it type of so called faith that is based on a wrong understanding of this verse and others like it. They teach that if you have enough faith, God is obligated to answer your petitions in the way that you want them answered.  The only condition in their minds, is your faith, or lack of faith.  They teach that if you aren’t healed, or you didn’t get that new job, or whatever,  it’s due to your lack of faith.

But John is clearly saying that the condition for a child of God receiving what you ask for is not faith, but is whether or not it’s God’s will.  Even Jesus, the Son of God, understood that His prayers were contingent upon it being God’s will. When He was in the Garden of Gethsemane, He prayed, “not My will, but Thy will be done.”  And we know that God did not answer His prayer to let the suffering of the cross pass from Him.  So if God didn’t answer even Jesus’s prayer, then we should know that God will not answer every prayer we make if it is not according to His will.

Jesus, when He taught the disciples to pray,  said pray in this way, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  The Father knows what is best, not us.  We often pray not knowing what God’s will is.  We cannot possibly know what God’s will is in every situation.  So as much as possible, we study the word of God that we might know the will of God, and then we can know how to pray in accordance with His will.  But there are some things we can’t always discern from scripture as to whether or not it’s God’s will.  So we pray anyhow, “if it be your will, then grant me this thing.” And then we need to be satisfied with the answer that we get.  

Not every prayer that we pray receives the response that we want. So we should be ready to accept a negative answer and understand that God knows that which is good for us and good for the kingdom of God, much more than we do with our limited understanding.  Even what sometimes seems to us to be not so good in the short run, may be good for the purposes of the  kingdom of God from an eternal perspective.  And that also means that timing is God’s prerogative.  God will answer us in His timing.  So we need to be content not only with His answer, but with His timing. 

Now having said that, I don’t want to negate the confidence that we are to have in regards to our prayers being answered.  The principle is that a further assurance of our salvation is that we have our prayers answered.  So God wants to answer our prayers.  The problem usually  isn’t that God doesn’t want to answer them, but the problem is our prayers are asking for the wrong kind of things.  We aren’t asking for things to advance the kingdom of God, to further the purpose and will of God, but instead we are asking for things to satisfy our selfish pleasures.  James said in James 4:3 “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend [it] on your pleasures.”  He says in that passage that we are too consumed with the lusts of the world, rather than being concerned about the kingdom of God, and so our prayers are not answered because they are not things concerning the purposes of God.

So we are not to pray just for our personal needs or desires, but we should pray for the kingdom of God.  And one of the things we should be concerned about is the spiritual life of our brothers and sisters in the Lord.  That’s been a prime subject of John throughout most of this book, that we should love one another.  And there is hardly any measure of love greater than to pray for one another.  To pray for one another is an act of love.  

John then says that as members of the family of God, we should pray for one another.  And especially we should pray when we see a brother or sister committing a sin. So he gives specific instructions to that regard in vs 16; “If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not [leading] to death, he shall ask and [God] will for him give life to those who commit sin not [leading] to death. There is a sin [leading] to death; I do not say that he should make request for this.”

John has had much to say on the subject of sin in this epistle. He has spoken of it in every chapter. He’s made it clear that sin and the life of Christ are not compatible.  Sin has to be dealt with, it has to be confessed, we need to be cleansed from sin. John said in chapter 1 vs 9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  

But there will be times when a Christian, who is known by the fact that he doesn’t practice sin, does indeed fall into some sin.  John says in the verse immediately following 1:9 that “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.”  But there is a way to deal with sin in the life of a Christian, and that is to confess it, and be cleansed from it. 

But John speaks here of a sin which is practiced, which is not confessed, which is held onto, which is cherished, which is rebellion against God.  And he speaks in that context of a sin unto death. Now understand that he is not talking about the so called “unpardonable sin.” That’s a different subject for a different sermon.  But he’s speaking of unconfessed sin in the life of a brother. In other words, a Christian who has fallen into sin and refuses to ask for forgiveness. 

Notice first of all we are instructed to pray for a brother that sins.  We often do not know the extent of the sin.  We don’t know the heart of the brother who sins.  We can’t be the judge and jury of someone who has fallen into sin.  Our first instinct should be compassion.  It should be fear.  We should pray for that person who has fallen into sin.  And according to the template for prayer previously given, God will answer our prayers.  John says if he has not sinned a sin unto death then God will give him life.

Now this life that God gives him is not eternal life.  It’s not “the life.”  If this man is a brother, then he already possesses that life from God and that life is eternal.  It cannot pass away.  But what John is referring to is not spiritual life, but his physical life.  John is saying that there is a sin not unto death, and a sin unto death.  There may be a point when God decides to take that person’s life because they continue in persistent, rebellious sin and they are unrepentant. And so we pray that God will give them life.

But in the case where God has decided to take such a person, then John says that it’s not going to do any good for us to pray for that person’s life, because it’s the will of God to take his life. Now for a lot of you here this morning, this is perhaps a shocking, upsetting principle that you would maybe rather not believe is true.  But nevertheless, John is laying out a Biblical principle of how God sometimes deals with erring Christians.

I say it’s Biblical, because there are a number of examples in scripture that we can see God doing that very thing.  The most famous of course is that of Ananias and Sapphira, whom God struck dead in the middle of the church service. Their sin was they lied to the Holy Spirit by claiming to give an offering that they really did not fully give.  They wanted to be seen to be generous and giving, but in fact had lied about how much they had received  for their property. Now that sin of lying about their offering doesn’t seem nearly bad enough in my estimation to be worthy of death.  But I believe God wanted to set an example right at the beginning of the church, that the gifts and the offering given to God are holy unto the Lord. So God took them because He wanted to make the church realize that He was holy and He was not to be lied to. 

The Apostle Paul also referenced a severe punishment leading to death for those who willfully sin against God and do not repent.  He spoke of judgment for coming to the Lord’s Supper with unrepentant sin.  Paul said in 1Cor. 11:29-32 “For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.  For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. (sleep there is a way of speaking of death for a Christian) But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged.  But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world.”

One last reference I’ll give to that principle is found in the statement of Paul concerning a person in the church who had unrepentant sin.  He said, in 1Cor. 5:5 “[I have decided] to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” In other words, the man was saved, but his flesh was destroyed, yet in his spirit is saved.

I want to stress though what I said when I began this subject, that is that God sometimes brings judgment to the point of death for the unrepentant believer.  I happen to think that for the most part, mercy triumphs over judgment.  Thankfully, God doesn’t always strike dead the Ananias’s and Sapphira’s in the church, but rather, He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.  I think if God struck down Christians every time they sinned, then it would be no time at all till we had no Christians left in the church. 

But I will say that in the wisdom of God, there are times when it seems that His will is to remove a person who is willfully sinning for reasons that we don’t always understand.  One possible reason might be that such a person is putting a stumbling block before to other Christians.  For the protection of the greater church, God might take one away who is being a stumbling block. 

I will say this, by the mercy of God, most of us don’t get what we deserve. You know, there was a time in my life when I was a young man that I had stopped living for the Lord and started living to fulfill the lusts of my flesh.  Over the course of several years, I went further and further from the Lord.  It was not apparent to anyone that I was a Christian, and I will confess that after a few years I started doubting my own salvation.  

I had a close friend that I had gone to Christian high school with.  He had grown up in a Christian household like me.  And like me, he too had gone astray from the Lord.  His name was Ivan.  He was from a wealthy family, I was not.  But otherwise, we were pretty much the same.  He was no worse a sinner than I was. I was no angel.  I remember one night we were driving back from a vacation at the beach, and he began to unburden his soul.  He talked about how guilty he felt about things, and how he sometimes wondered if he was even saved.  I was so far away from God I didn’t feel comfortable even talking to him about it too much.  Eventually, I managed to change the conversation and we talked about how he was going to start a new job in a couple of weeks as an airline pilot, and how cool his new job was going to be. 

That night we each went our own ways. I went back to Atlanta and continued living a life of partying and living in sin. Ivan started his new airline job.  And then a couple of weeks later, I got a phone call from another friend who told me to turn on the television.  There was a new story on tv about a terrible plane crash.  Ivan had been on a training flight at his new job, and for reasons that are still unknown, there was an explosion in mid air and  the entire flight crew were killed in the crash. 

I’ve often wondered if maybe God took Ivan in order to turn me back to the Lord.  I don’t really know. I know that Ivan wasn’t any worse than I was.  But God in His wisdom gave me mercy and yet took my friend. I  believe that tragedy did eventually serve to turn me back to God.  But we don’t always understand God’s ways of accomplishing His purposes.

What John is saying is that when it comes to answered prayer, there are times when God won’t answer our prayers, even when it seems like He should. We have to trust God in such situations, and pray not my will be done, but thine.  And then John reiterates the principle of sin.  He says in vs 17, “All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not [leading] to death.”  And I think that’s the prevailing principle. Yes there will be times, I think rare times, when God will take the life of someone who is persisting in sin.  So there is a sin unto death.  But the prevailing principle is that  all unrighteousness is sin and there is a sin not leading to death. God does’t strike dead everyone that sins. But yet at the same time we recognize that He is able to do so, and He is justified in doing so.

We have a recourse for sin, which does not lead to death, but leads to life.  And that recourse is found in 1 John 1:9 which we quoted earlier.  Let me restate it again in closing;  “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Listen, I can assure you that the prayer of repentance is a prayer that God always answers.  He hears our confession and forgives us, and cleanses our unrighteousness so that we might be restored to full fellowship with Him.