One of the Apostle John’s favorite instruments in teaching is the use of contrasts.  He also uses repetition as another major instrument for teaching in this epistle.  In the passage we are looking at today, John combines both of these instruments to help teach us concerning either the verification of a believer or the identification of a false believer, or a false teacher. And the two principles that John is going to contrast here are love and hate. John presents love and hate as polar opposites, not only in emotion, but in thinking, and in action.  What John is going

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The section of scripture before us today is one of the most difficult in John’s epistles, if not in the entire New Testament.  Just a cursory reading of this text seems to cause all sorts of conflicting interpretations, and seemingly contradictory interpretations.  I heard someone quote John Knox as saying to Mary Queen of Scots that if you read the Bible and think you find a contradiction, then keep on reading and sooner or later you will find another passage that explains it quite satisfactorily.  So in dealing with some of these statements by John we must compare scripture with

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John has several reasons for writing this epistle, which is actually a letter, to the churches.  Back in chapter 2 vs 26, he mentions one of the most pressing reasons for writing them.  He said in vs 26 “These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you.”  Now we learned that “they” refers to false prophets and false teachers who John calls antichrists.  These are people who have come out of the ranks of the church, who claimed superior knowledge of spiritual things, but who are teaching doctrine which is the opposite of Christ’s

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Last week, we looked at the previous passage of John’s message, which was not to love the world, nor the things of the world.  And we learned that the world was not speaking of creation, nor of the people of the world, but he was speaking of the world system.  We learned that this world system is orchestrated by Satan, to deceive the people of the world, to mislead them, to hold them captive by it’s deceptive philosophies, until it eventually leads to their destruction.  We said that the world system is in opposition to the heavenly system.  The divine

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Last week as we looked at the preceding verses, we talked about spiritual maturity. After our new birth, when we are born again spiritually, John described  three stages of spiritual growth which he titled as little children, young men and fathers.  And what we determined last week was that the goal of spiritual maturity is to become like Jesus Christ.  That is what spiritual maturity accomplishes in our lives.  We grow spiritually to become conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.  That process of becoming like Christ is what the Bible calls sanctification.  Sanctification is becoming more like Christ.  Sanctification is

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What John has been teaching up to this point is that a life of sin and new life in Christ are incompatible.  He says in chapter 1 vs 6 that you cannot walk in darkness, that means walk in sin, and say that you have fellowship with  God.  He also makes it clear in the next verse that fellowship with one another is predicated on being right with God. Now that is the positive perspective, being right with God is being in fellowship with God and with one another.  From a negative perspective, John says that sin breaks fellowship with

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