1st John 2:18-29;
3:1-3
1st John 2:18-29, “Little children,
it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come,
even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the
last time. They went out
from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they no doubt would have continued with us:
but they went out, that they
might be made manifest that they were not all of us. But ye have an unction from the Holy One,
and ye know all things. I
have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because
ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth. Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father
and the Son. Whosoever
denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father, [but] he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the
Father also. Let that
therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning
shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father. And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life. These things have I written unto you concerning
them that seduce you. But
the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need
not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of
all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught
you, ye shall abide in him. And
now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may
have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming. If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that
doeth righteousness is born of him.”
1st John 3:1-3, “Behold what manner of love the Father
hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because
it knew him not. Beloved,
now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall
be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for
we shall see him as he is. [cf.
Revelation 1:13-16] And
every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is
pure.”
“We are in 1st John chapter 2, and we have come to verse 18. We have been with our section where John is telling us not to love the world. “For all that is of the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, is not of the Father.” And the world is passing away. “Little children” he begins, verse 18, “it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist should come, even now are there many antichrists. Whereby we know that it is the last time.” Now some are going to say, ‘Well John wrote that 2,000 years ago, and how could he have thought it was the last time?’ Well it is in the sense of it, it is the last times, and the way he’s using it is true. It is the “era” between the first and second coming of Christ, when the Holy Spirit has been poured out upon the church, and because of that, it is an era when there is a particular kind of warfare against Christ and against the church that has never happened in ages past. Because Jesus Christ is known now, his people are indwelt by him, the Scripture now is complete and is open to us. So there is a particular kind of assault that we come under that no other age of his people have come under. And he says what characterizes this age ‘is that antichrist will come and even now there are many antichrists, and because of that we know we are in the last of times.’ This is the last “era” before ‘the day of the Lord’, before he interrupts human history. Now John uses this term “antichrist” in three different ways. He uses it to describe a spirit or an attitude, a world flavor as it were, towards the things of God, there is an antichrist spirit or attitude, or an antichrist motivation behind much of what goes on in the world. And certainly again, that is true. As we look at Islam, again, as I say this I am not belittling any individual who is a Muslim, I am simply saying that in Islam, because Mohammed had no success with Jews and Christians, he called them “the people of the Book” because they had the Scripture, ah, there is an antagonism there. In fact, on the Dome of the Rock Mosque in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount, around the top of that mosque in Arabic it says “God is not begotten, neither does he beget”. And to the Muslim the idea of Jesus being the Son of God, God begetting offspring is ridiculous, it’s ludicrous. So there is a very formidable force in the world today, and there are different sectors in Islam. But that is basically “anti”—which means in the Greek against or instead of or in place of—it is antichrist and anti-Semitic. There are the forces of Marxism and Communism and ideologies that men hold that are godless that are certainly forces to be reckoned with in the world that are antichrist and anti-God. There are, across our own land countless times when we hear the rhetoric of mocking Judeo-Christian ethics, making fun of the fact that we want to raise our children with particular morals. That kind of thing is throughout the media today. And again, by the way, I believe that all of this is very well engineered and deliberately brought upon us by an ultimate conspiracy, and that is by Satan and his hordes. That behind every other lesser conspiracy there is this greater conspiracy that continually seeks to blur any of the lines of absolutes, of right and wrong. In fact it has come to the point, as Isaiah says, ‘No longer is there no longer any right and wrong, but we’ve come now full-circle to the point where ‘right is wrong and wrong is right.’ So there is, in the sense, that spirit of antichrist. Then he uses the idea of antichrists, plural, in regards to false teachers, pseudo-prophets, false prophets, more than once he uses it in that sense too—that any false teacher, any heretic, any false prophet is an antichrist. And there were many antichrists gone out into the world, even in his day. And then it is also used in the ultimate sense of “the antichrist”—singular. All of the antichrist atmosphere and spirit and false teachers, the proliferation of false teachers foretold by Jesus in Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21 [also Matthew 10], by Paul in 1st Timothy chapter 4, 2nd Timothy chapter 3, Peter in 2nd Peter chapter 2—all of that ultimately will culminate in an individual. Antichrist, the spirit of antichrist will be personified ultimately in a person who will be a world ruler, and he certainly will be against Christ. That’s one of the definitions, we see Satan’s tactics in that attitude of being against Christ in our society, in the world. But he will also be instead of, taking the place of Christ, in that the world will look to him as a messiah, as a deliverer, he will be a political genius and so forth. So what John is saying, ‘we know this is the last days, we know that antichrist, the antichrist will come, but that even now there are many antichrists, and because of that, it identifies this age, that this is the last of days,’ he says to us. “They went out from us” speaking of the false teachers, the antichrists, “but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us. But they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” (verse 19) So Paul, if you remember, and this is much later, in Acts chapter 20 as he is with the elders from Ephesus on the beach at Miletus, and he is weeping and speaking to them and bidding them farewell as he moves towards Jerusalem, knowing the bonds and affliction await him. He says “I ceased not to warn you by a space of two to three years, day and night, that after my departure grievous wolves will creep in, not sparing the flock, and that men would arise out of your own midst, drawing disciples after themselves.” So John says that, there have been those by this point, somewhere 90 to 100AD, there were already those who rose up in the middle of the church, and then divided off portions of the flock after themselves, and began to teach doctrines that put either their insights or their teaching or some Gnostic form of heresy or some other thing in place of, instead of, the Christ the Bible has presented. [Ministers and pastors must be very careful not to do this.] Jude said as he wrote, that he wanted to write to us in regards to our common consolation, but the Spirit moved him that he had to write that we would have to defend the faith that was once delivered unto the saints. So immediately the Christian faith came under attack. [And these early churches were much different from what you might expect in their days of worship formats and customs. The early Churches of God were in many cases observing the Seventh Day Sabbath and Holy Days of Leviticus 23 out of custom, voluntarily, in the Asia Minor area under John’s jurisdiction. See http://www.unityinchrist.com/history2/index3.htm and http://www.bibarch.com/The First Christians/ChristiansRomWld.htm for some very interesting articles written about this period of early church history, written by a Christian archeologist/historic research writer. So be sure to log onto and read these well-written articles to give John’s letter the proper historic background in which is was written.] And people, as Paul writes to the Galatians in 1:6, he says, ‘I’m so surprised that you’re so soon removed into another gospel, another of a different kind.’ And then he says, ‘no it’s not another gospel, it’s the same Jesus, but it is a deformed gospel.’ And the word is “to bring something alongside.” [this had nothing to do with the voluntary choice of ‘days of worship’, which Paul legislated about in Romans 14]. And even as today, many false teachers like to bring alongside of Jesus healing or prosperity or holy laughter or all of these things. Paul said ‘Anybody who does that let anathema, eternal damnation, be pronounced upon them. You read it in Galatians 1:6. I didn’t say it, Paul said it. If you have an argument with him, hopefully you’ll get to see him face to face and talk to him about it--not my idea. But there were those early in the church, and it is a purging thing, by the way. It will happen here, it’s interesting, if persecution starts, and if the Lord tarries it will, and if people have to die and shed their blood for their faith in Jesus Christ. One of the positive side effects of that perilous kind of existence is all the phonies leave the church-- [emphasis mine, editor]--all the guys that are in the church to get the money out of your wallets with all of their special tapes and special books and special insights that you need to have, or else you’re a second class Christian. Once people start shedding their blood for their faith, they [the phonies] seem to dissipate and move on. But here is John, saying that ‘they have gone out from us, thereby identifying the fact [that] they were never really of us in the first place.’ And sadly I think some of us who’ve been with the Lord for a number of years have even seen those who at one time seemed to have strong ministries. Jim Jones started in Yreka California with a ministry teaching the Word of God, staying in the Scripture and slowly started to weave in with the Biblical teaching the things that God was speaking to him, ‘God was showing this to me’ etc., and started to become the central part of the message instead of the Scripture, and certainly ‘went out from us, letting us know that he was never of us, in the beginning’—manifesting that he was an antichrist. [I don’t believe Jim Jones was ever a part of Calvary Chapel, Pastor Joe is just using Jones as an example of a ministry that did appear to be strong in the Lord, and his usage of the term ‘with us’ is used in its general sense of ‘us, the body of Christ.’] Here is our safety, in verse 20, “But ye have an unction”—that’s King James, it should be “anointing”, it’s the same word down in verse 27, it says, “…but the anointing you have received”, same word. “But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things.” Now take note of this. In verse 19, “they”, that’s them, whoever they are, “they went out from us, but they were not of us, for they, they, they, they…you see it all the way through verse 19. Now the contrast in verse 20, “But ye”—different category, those of you that are born ones of God—“You” he says “have an anointing from the Holy One”—Jesus, God—“and you know”—absolute knowledge—“you know all things.” So, here is our safeguard, that you, plural—now this is not just some people that have an anointing. We hear a lot of people in the church talking about “the anointing”, “that guy is so anointing”, “oh that sister is so anointed”, “what an anointing”. And I understand what they’re saying when they say that, “the anointing.” In the Old Testament we certainly see kings and prophets anointed with oil, which was only a symbol of the Holy Spirit, and God’s anointing on their life. But it tells us, you, plural, all have an anointing from Jesus Christ. In fact, the word is “christa’ where we get Christ from, and the term “Christians” means Christ-like, and Christ in the Greek means “the Anointed One.” So just as Christians we’re all anointed of God. Don’t let anybody tell you that there is someone more anointed than you are. You are the anointed ones, and if someone has a ministry that God called them to, that doesn’t mean that they are more anointed than you are in any way. What that means is they have more to give account for when stand before the Lord. And maybe they haven’t been as faithful in that public ministry God’s given them as you have as being a mother or father, or a carpenter. You may get greater rewards in that day because God will reward us according to our faithfulness and not according to the results of any ministry that he gave, because he does the work. I tell you, when I come in here now, I just feel like a spectator, I feel like I’m kind of scared, I stand on the sidelines and think ‘Lord, what in the world is going on around here? Where are all these people coming from?’ I feel disassociated, because he is doing it, because he is doing it. And all of us are his anointed. I’ve got four at home, children, and I don’t love one of them more than the others. And they’re all different, and they all have different ages and different make-ups, and able to contribute different things and to wreck other things, you know, they’re all different. But one is not more anointed in my eyes than the others. They are all mine. And we are the anointed, and we have—and it’s in the perfect tense—and still possess—it isn’t like we work ourselves into this anointing, ‘I’m going to huff and puff and blow this anointing down, you know, I’m going to work this anointing up, you know, I’m going to fast, I’m going to be driven with oil, this is gonna freak them out.’ No, you have and are still in possession of the anointing you received from the Holy One when Jesus Christ moved into your heart and put his Holy Spirit on your life. Yes, I think we should continually seek him for his filling and for his blessing. I’m not belittling that. But the tenses and the word forms John is using here tells us that all of us are God’s anointed. And we still have the anointing that we had when we got saved, God’s anointing is on our lives. And it is through that anointing that we know all things. And again, if I say that to you, how many of you here this evening know everything? [Let’s] see your hands, please. Come on, don’t be a chicken! You know, that’s the reason you didn’t raise your hand, because you know all things, and you know what would happen if you did. [laughter] No, look, there is, in our lives, Jesus says in John 14 when he tells us about the coming of the Spirit, he says “The Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” “The Holy Spirit, when he comes, will not testify of himself, but will take the things of Christ and show them to us.” And here’s the idea, again, there are certain things we have learned in life through our senses, but there is another experience we have had when we were saved, being washed and cleansed and then indwelt by God’s Spirit, and in that experience we have realized things, we have come from darkness to light, we have been enabled to see things in the Spirit that we did not see before. [cf. 1st Corinthians 2:9-12.] Before I was a Christian, I wondered how long this whole evolutionary process took place. You know, how long did it take, for after my great, great grandmother who was pond scum got struck by lightning and turned into a salamander? You know, how long did this all take for my family to get here. I used to think about those things. And where is mankind going, Gee, I hope we sure, all these SALT treaties and nuclear test ban treaties, I hope we work all this stuff out, and you see the sci-fi movies that a thousand years from now we’ll all be these guys with little arms, little skinny arms and giant heads, we’ll have evolved and we’ll be real smart and all live in peace. But you know, man, when you get saved all that goes out the window. Doesn’t it? You know exactly where we came from, and you know exactly where we’re going. You know who the Lord is, you know what truth is, you know what error is, you know what a lie is, you know what deception is, you know what Satan is. When we get saved we know we didn’t come from monkeys. We know where our future is. The most brilliant minds in the world are still working with DNA and still trying to figure out how this process took place. They’re still trying to figure what kind of a future man has. Where did he come from? You guys know all that stuff. If they’d only come ask you, they’d be much further ahead. And the idea is, in the framework of this oedus, this knowledge that was imparted to us when we were saved, it wasn’t something we learned—as Christ comes into our hearts and we see the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, we are brought then from darkness into light. And we realize, my God all this is true. Lord, so many years I ignored you. You know, when I first got saved I thought ‘Lord, my poor parents, I drove them out of their minds for 22 years, these poor people. Help me make friends with them, get to know who they are, talk with them, listen to them, thank them for feeding me.’ You know, I got saved, I look around and thought, ‘Boy, I was in oblivion, I was in another world.’ And he’s saying that here. ‘There are many antichrists, and the world is scheduled to be deceived, but you in contrast to all of this deception have an anointing from the Holy One and by that you know all things. You are in his keeping.’ And there is a safety system, a keeping system, a sealing of the Spirit upon your lives until the Day of Redemption because of the work of God in your life. He says, “You have an unction from the Holy One, and you know all things. I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth.” (verse 21) He says, ‘This is the whole reason I’m writing, not because you don’t know, but because you do know the truth, and no lie is of the truth.’ Verse 22, “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.” Now we have an interesting verse here, by the way. ‘Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ?” And we’ll talk about that more as we get to the fourth chapter. But then he says “He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.” It takes us, I believe, to an interesting verse in Daniel chapter 11, verse 37 when in Daniel we hear, speaking of the Antichrist when he takes his place as a world dictator—“Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god. He shall magnify himself above all.” [Focus on] “He shall not regard the God of his fathers nor the desire of women.” That is one reason that we think that he is possibly of Jewish heritage “he will not regard the God of his fathers, or the desire” not for women, it isn’t the desire for women. Some seem to think well this means he will be a homosexual. No, I don’t know that. But I don’t believe that’s what it’s saying. In a Hebrew context what it’s saying is “he will not regard Yahweh, the God of his fathers, and he will not regard the desire of women”—in the Hebrew culture it was a curse to be barren because every woman desired to give birth to the Messiah. And I believe what it’s saying in Daniel is, and I think this verse answers it, ‘he will not regard God the Father or God the Son”. And look what it says here. It says, “He is antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son.” [i.e. Jesus, Yeshua haMeshiach was “the desire of all Jewish women”, they all desired to give birth to the Meshiach, Messiah.] “Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father. But he that acknowledges the Son hath the Father also.” So, we hear these people say ‘I believe Jesus was a great teacher. I believe he was anointed and he spoke great things,’ or ‘Yes I believe Jesus was of the ascended masters’ you know. Or ‘I believe Jesus was an avatar,’ or ‘I believe he was a great guy or a good carpenter’ or whatever. People have all these non-biblical ideas about Jesus and love to put him in a soup-pot with all of these other, you know, ascended masters, great teachers, spiritual personalities. The Bible is telling us clearly that Jesus came into the world, and just by that statement, and John will say ‘He came into flesh.’ And in his gospel he says “The Word was made flesh”, literally “became flesh” of his own will. And all of those places insinuate a pre-existence, that he came into flesh from somewhere else. All of those Greek terms imply pre-existence. And the idea is, Jesus is God, he pre-existed his physical state. And anybody who denies that he is Messiah, that he is come in the flesh, that he became flesh, is antichrist. “Whosoever denieth the Son the same hath not the Father.” Any Jesus we talk about has to be the Jesus of the Bible. And if you tell me ‘Well I don’t necessarily believe he was born of a virgin, you know, I all that stuff…I don’t necessarily believe the resurrection, you know that’s a questionable.’ You know, let me tell you something, you take away the virgin birth and you take away the gospel. You take away him dying on the cross for the sins of the world, you take away the gospel. You take away the resurrection, you take away the gospel. You take away the return of Christ, you take away the gospel. [And that is why pre-millennial interpretation of prophecy is so important, because it is about the very return of Jesus Christ to set up his Millennial Kingdom of God upon this earth—that is a part of the gospel. It is not all of the gospel, but it is also a vital part of it. Amillennialism seeks to do away with that portion of the gospel.] Don’t tell me you believe in the same Jesus I believe in—unless you believe that he pre-existed, that he was born of a virgin, that he died on the cross for our sins, that he rose again the third day, that he ascended and he’s coming back soon—now we’re talking about the same guy. Now we’re taking about the same guy. If you don’t believe in that Jesus you need to check out your heart—because what Jesus do you have hope in? If he was just a great teacher, his death meant nothing. But if he was born of a virgin, if he was God come in the flesh…you see, if he was just a perfect man and he died on the cross, then maybe God in heaven would say ‘OK, we’ll trade his life for one other life. He was perfect, and when I weigh it in the balance, he didn’t deserve to die, so we’ll take one person who doesn’t deserve to be forgiven and we’ll make the exchange. He was the perfect man, so we’ll forgive one sinner.’ But if he was God, and Paul says ‘we see God in Christ on the cross, reconciling the world to himself.’ Then his death paid for the sins of all men, in all time, and it’s sufficient for the sins of the whole world—when the Creator gave his life and subjected himself to his own sinful creation—to assume those responsibilities of our rebellion and sin and died in our place. That’s the Jesus that the Bible speaks of. [For a complete study on the first coming of Jesus, Yeshua, and who he is in the Bible, log onto http://www.unityinchrist.com/prophecies/1stcoming.htm . Especially if you are not sure about just who Jesus Christ, Yeshua haMeshiach was and is. This study shows almost all the Old Testament prophecies about Jesus and their fulfillment in the New Testament, listing almost all of them, thus identifying Jesus and who the Bible says he is. If there is any doubt in your mind about who Jesus is, you need to read that study.] “Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father. And this is the promise that he hath promised us,”—prosperity, just confess it, blab-it-and-grab-it, it-is-yours, name-it-and-claim-it, create-it-by-your-speak. I’m glad that’s not true. You know how many knuckle-heads there’d be in traffic if that was true? People would drive around with big knuckles on here heads, that would be for me if I could create things while I was speaking [laughter].—“This is the promise that he has promised us, even eternal life” (verses 24-25). And John says that in his gospel, you know, “that in him we have authority, whose sins” he says “you forgive”. The idea is, those men would write the New Testament, and you have the same authority this evening, you have the authority to say to someone “If you will repent of your sins and ask Jesus Christ to forgive you, you will have eternal life.” That is tremendous authority. You do not have the authority to say ‘You will always be healthy, you will always prosper, you will never have any problems…’ This is not heaven, this is earth. He came to save us out of this situation, because it is often filled with suffering and hardship. But you can say to any individual in any condition anywhere in the world “If you will accept Christ as Savior and repent of your sins, you will have eternal life.” This is the promise that we have from him. The promise, singular, “even eternal life.” “These things have I written unto you concerning them that would seduce you.” (verse 26)—and try to tell you all kinds of other promises come with the bargain. “But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.” (verse 27) Now, what it is saying here, is he’s writing to them as children, he’s always speaking to them in the plural, what he’s saying is, to the church, that God’s anointing is abiding on us, on you plural. And the tenses are ‘You are not continually in the condition of needing that any man can be continually be teaching you.’ The idea is, ‘The manifold wisdom of God is placed within the church.’ We don’t have a need to go to the world and have scientists and psychologists and all of these people teach us what the story is. We have our own Chuck Missler’s and our own Gail Erwin’s and our own Wilder Smith’s and our own pastors and our own home fellowships and our own puppet ministries and we have inside the church the manifold wisdom of God. We don’t have to go to the world to find out what the story is. And that’s what he says here, the anointing that you have from the beginning as a church, plural, it abides on you and you don’t have the need that any man teach you anything. “But as the same anointing teaches you all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it”—or “he”—“hath taught you, you shall abide in him.” What a great comfort. ‘Even as this anointing has taught us everything, we shall abide in him.” Verse 28, “And now little children, abide in him”—born ones, again, those who have been given birth, the new birth, born-again—“abide in him.” Reason? “That when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.” Notice, “when he shall appear”, John, 90 years old says “we”, personal pronoun, includes himself, what that meant: Is that he expected that the Lord could have come in the time that he had remaining on earth, because he included himself in the statement. What that means is that all of the apostles and those who walked with Christ and the early church leaders believed in an imminent return of Christ. They believed that he could return at any moment. John will tell us, as we begin the next chapter, “Any man that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure.” It was a great purifying factor in the early church. So John now includes himself. Paul in 1st Thessalonians chapter 4 say “Then we shall be caught up to meet him in the air” including himself, expecting that. Again, in 1st Corinthians 7, telling the single men to stay single because the Lord was coming. The church would have died out in the first century if we’d have listened to him. But expecting, “Little children abide in him, that when he shall appear, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming.” (verse 28) It’s an interesting word “we may have confidence”, it is literally “freedom of speech”, but it was taken from the Roman court. And the idea is, there was a person who was guilty, and when that person was guilty in the Roman court, he did not have this word applied to him because he was guilty. But there were those who were taken to Roman court who were not guilty of what they were accused of, and they had great freedom or boldness of speech to defend themselves because they were innocent. And here he applies that word to believers “that we should abide in Christ, that when he appears”—it could be at any time—“then we will have that freedom of speech as those who are innocent before him”---washed in his blood, not in our own work. Not of our own strength. But listen, this is very important. Because you know, if you’ve been walking with the Lord any time, you have those days, you have those times, you may have a month or six months or a year where you backslide, you fall back into sexual sin, you turn away from the Lord, and you live in a condition where you’re saying ‘Boy I hope that he doesn’t come tonight. Lord, please, help me.’ And there is such desperation and misery in that condition. And John is saying ‘Live in such a way where you’re abiding in him, that when he appears, whenever it might happen, we may have confidence, we may have boldness at his appearing, and not shrink or be ashamed before his coming.’ That’s the sense that he says, ‘not be ashamed before him’, and it is literally “not be ashamed from him” is the sense in the Greek, drawing back. Now I want to say something. If you are in that condition, if you are smokin’ dope, goofing off, snortin’ coke again or crack, or you’re living in sexual sin, you have turned away from the Lord, you’re drunk, you’re gambling—you know, I don’t have to identify it for you. Do I? You know you, as good as I know me, so I know what pickle you’re in because I know what pickle I’m in, I live with me everyday. I get up and look at this in the mirror, and say ‘Oh Lord.’ And it looks worse in the morning. [laughter] Hair sticking up all over, and your face is kind of squashed and you have to wait for it all to settle and get back in place again. But the idea is, here we are in this verse. We didn’t plan to be here tonight. We started teaching through the Bible in 1981. And we come to this verse tonight, and if you are sitting here in this condition of being away from the Lord or being backslidden, then if the shoe fits, wear it. If that is putting pressure on your heart, I’ll tell you why, it’s because the Bible says “that God loves the backslider” are you listening?—“God loves the backslider, and promises to heal us of our backsliding.” So if you are here this evening, and you are living in a particular way, that if Jesus were to come before this study was over you’d feel like you’d have to shrink back from his coming, you would be ashamed because of some way you’re living or something going on in your life—tonight is the night for you to get all that straightened out and put it behind you. Tonight is the night for you to turn back to him. He’s not waiting with a stick to club you. People are like that. And because people, at different times in your life have been waiting with a stick to club you, you think he’s like that. He’s not. You came to him empty-handed in the beginning with nothing, he has never expected anything of you more than that, except to come to him unworthily and drink freely. And he will then do the work in you, and clean up your life from the inside out. [How is the new covenant defined? What makes it different from the old? In only two places in the Bible God defines precisely what the new covenant is, and it has nothing to do with which set of laws given in the Bible one chooses to follow (OT 10 Commandment law of God or NT Law of Christ). It is simply stated in Jeremiah 31:31-34 that God will write his laws upon the hearts and within the minds of his people, the House of Israel and the House of Judah at the 2nd coming of the Messiah. In Hebrews 8:6-13 the apostle Paul quotes Jeremiah 31:31-34, showing it also applies to believers in the church age as well. In the new covenant the major responsibility and muscle-work for a believer’s obedience comes from God and not the believer. That is the essence, the heart and core of the new covenant as opposed to the old covenant.] But what he asks from us is our hearts. If one of my children at home do something wrong and get in a position and turn away and think that I no longer love them, it is heart-breaking, because I love them unconditionally. I may have to deal with them for what I believe is their benefit, but my love is unconditional. And wherever they go and however far away they get, and whatever depths of sin they may enter into, my arms will always be open to them. And Jesus told us that when the prodigal came back to the father’s house, he found the father, and Jesus is portraying God running to that individual with his arms outstretched, falling on him, kissing his neck and receiving him back. If you this evening have been away from Jesus Christ, I pray that this study gets planted deep within your heart, because God the Father loves you, has paid a price for you, you are blood-bought, and he desires you to turn back to him and once again renew your fellowship and your walk with him—not because you deserve it, you don’t—but because Jesus paid the price, and because he’s made you his child, and his love is unconditional toward you. And we have all, I have been, in my Christian experience, at times and in certain days, thinking ‘Boy I hope he doesn’t come now.’ But my deflections are short-lived now. Five minutes at a time, half-hour at a time, maybe if I have a big argument with my wife—and I don’t really do that, I’m just trying to make you feel better [laughter], about your marriages. You know, possibly for an hour I may think ‘Oh Lord, don’t come till I make up.’ But I know earlier in my Christian experience there were those times when I turned away longer when I struggled, coming out of the lifestyle I came out of. Maybe you’re going through that. Or maybe for some [other] reason, some disappointed individual in the church has turned away. You know, learn something from that. Jesus is not a member of the church in the sense that all of us forgiven sinners are. And if you have gotten your eyes on man and gotten disappointed, you’ve learned an important lesson. Get your eyes off men and put them on Jesus. And if you do, you will find him with his arms outstretched waiting to receive you back again. But he asks us to abide in him, so that “when he appears, we might have confidence…” And the great thing about living without compromise, as best as you can, giving your life to Christ, is it is a struggle, but it at least leaves you in a place where every day you say [or can say] ‘Oh Lord, I hope you come today.’ ‘Oh Lord, get me outa hear.’ ‘Oh Lord, I want to slug this guy, but I know I can’t do it Lord. I am struggling Lord, I want to walk with you, come today, please.’ ‘Oh Lord, please, get me outa here…’ You can at least live with looking forward to seeing him, with looking forward to being delivered from this world, with looking forward to the sound of the trumpet and the voice of the archangel and Christ with a shout, you can look forward to that if you enter into the battle and struggle and you give yourself to him. If you’re living in compromise, it says right here, that’s why John’s telling us to abide, then we end up living shrinking back at the idea of his possible return at any moment. Verse 29, “If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him.” We know that he is righteous, then if we are born of him, if he’s given birth to us, we also then should be righteous.
1 John 3:1-3
1st John 3:1-3, “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God”—and it’s daughters too, by the way, I don’t want to leave anybody out—“…that we should be called the children of God, therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew not him. Beloved now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every person that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” “…has this hope in him,” not himself but in Jesus. And by the way, it’s emphatic here, and it is in the plural, and it is “Behold ye” which is an unusual voicing in the grammar, “Behold ye”, and it’s in the tense of “you all, continually be considering this”. Of all the things that fill our minds, I can’t believe the Eagles won today 5 field goals. If it wasn’t for the kicker they still wouldn’t have scored. You know, those kind of things I can help consider them, ‘Ah, get that out of their, I want to think about spiritual things.’ But it says, of all the crazy things that fill our minds, the cat just peed in the basement again and the whole house smells, you know, or the baby just, you’re out in company and messed his pants, and you know, the ceiling’s dripping. The other Sunday morning I got up and wanted to study and the ceiling was dripping and I wanted to study and there’s the ceiling dripping. We again have this rule that important things in life are rarely pressing, and the pressing things in life are rarely important. The things that eat us, ‘Ah, I got a flat tire…’ or this has happened, a fender-bender, you know, the phone’s not working, the tree branches fell down, pulled down the wire, the ceiling’s dripping, the cat threw up, you know, all of this stuff that consumes us is rarely important—we’re caught in it. The important things, though, are rarely pressing. ‘Ah, I’ll read the Bible to the kids tomorrow.’ ‘Lord, I’ll have morning devotions with you tomorrow.’ That’s why he’s saying that we should continually be considering this, and what he tells us to consider ‘the kind of love the Father has for us, that we should be called his children.’ Literally, it is, from what country, we would translate that “Behold how foreign God’s love is for us, that we should be called the sons and daughters of God.” Just consider how foreign that love is. And again, the New Testament writers had the luxury of using certain words when they spoke of love. Eros is a word we get erotic from it, that is used in the New Testament that speaks of the pleasure that a husband and a wife enjoy physically in their relationship, eros. Philio, we get Philadelphia from that, city of brotherly shove [laughter], we have our church here on Philmont Avenue, the mountain of brothers, Philmont Avenue. Philio is a fondness, where you just kind of hit it off with someone and you’re buddies with that person. And you will find that within the body of Christ, you are not going to be buddies with everybody. The Bible tells us that we have to agape’ everybody, we have to love them with a divine love, but we’re not gonna be buddies with everybody. Certain people you just think ‘Well, I gotta love ‘em.’ Don’t you? Don’t you think that? ‘Gotta love ‘em. We’ll never be buddies.’ And sometimes it’s tough if somebody decides to be your buddy and you haven’t decided the same thing. [laughter] You know, the Bible describes us as a body, you know, the leg bone’s connected to the ankle bone and all that stuff. And certain parts of our body are buddies. Even though our body has to love the whole body, my big toe is never going to be a buddy with my ear. You understand. So philio is another word that’s used. And sometimes it’s used of Christ, we should be fond of him, love him as a brother, remarkably you’ll find that in the New Testament. But then of course there’s the word agape’ which we know, it’s a divine love [could be termed as a genuine outgoing concern for others that transcends mere brotherly love]. We know that it is a love that often is a decision, not a feeling, it is something that we do in obedience, we put it into practice sometimes, very practical without feeling. And because of that, even our understanding of agape’ is lacking. As best as we are to love one another, and the Bible says “by the love we have one for another all men will know we are his disciples.” But it is really when we consider God demonstrating that agape love, that divine love, that we really see how wonderful it is. And John says “Consider how foreign the agape love of God is towards us, that we should be called his children.” It is more foreign than any other kind of love, it is so foreign it is beyond human understanding. In other words, we’re never going to have a situation, imagine the Serbs and the Croats, they just laid down their arms and said ‘You know, I don’t know why we’re fighting, this is so silly, we really think so much of each other, let’s just surrender to each other and we’ll love you and you love us.’ No, it’s never going to happen there. And yet the Bible says that God loved us when we were yet enemies, we were at enmity with him. It [agape] must be more foreign than human countries then, it’s beyond human, it transcends natural love, it is so foreign, this love, that God set it on us without expecting anything back. It isn’t because there’s something in us that’s lovable. He didn’t sit on his throne in heaven and say ‘Oh, I’m just dying to go down there and be crucified for them, they’re so cute, look at them.’ [laughter] You understand, when you fall in love with someone, or even if you become buddies with someone, you become buddies with a guy that likes to fish and you like to fish and he likes to collect what you like to collect and he likes the teams that you like, and he likes to travel where you like to travel, you talk to that guy and you become friends, and you think, ‘Man, that is a smart guy.’ Or when you fall in love with somebody you want to get engaged to, there is something in that individual that draws your love, that elicits your love. And because of how they are, and who they are, for some reason, you’re able to set your love upon them, and usually it has to do with what you’re getting back from them. [i.e. filling each other’s emotional tanks, what makes a marriage work. To learn more about this, log onto http://www.howmarriageworks.com/.] But God loves us, and it isn’t because there is a single thing in us that drew his love. There is no thing in us that elicited his love. He didn’t look down from heaven and find something in us. He loved us because he loved us. There’s no reason or rhyme to it. He loved us because of his own nature. God is love John tells us. And because of his very being, because it is his very character that is foreign to any kind of human kind of love we know, because all human love has strings attached. Doesn’t it? Even, again, when you got married and people came to your wedding shower, and they give you things like German shepherd lamps, you know, and you say ‘That’s nice, isn’t it honey, what are we gonna do with this, keep it in the closet for 20 years, we can’t give it away because my grandmother will ask about it. The day we give it away…wait till she dies, and then we can get rid of it.’ Because there’s strings attached. People give you stuff with strings attached. And the amazing thing with God’s love, there’s no strings attached to it. That is why we struggle with it. We either receive it, or we don’t enjoy the beauty of it. We either, like Peter, get out of the boat and walk upon the water, we receive it in faith, or we never ever enjoy it. We will still be Christians, we will still be forgiven, all of those benefits will be there for us, but we will never enjoy them unless we receive them on the grounds that God says he gives them to us. And again, the difficult thing about that is, there is no standard. Every human we’ve ever been involved with has injured us in some way. In human love, even with a wife or a husband or a child, the amount of love you’re going to share with that person is directly related to the amount of vulnerability you are willing to accept in your life. And when you make yourself vulnerable, when that person decides they don’t want to marry you or don’t want to go out with you anymore, they don’t love you anymore, you can be crushed. You can be crushed. Again, Marge Caldwell, when she was here, and I encourage you to get her tape, it’s called Mountains and Valleys, great tape. You will laugh, you will cry. Marge in her seventies, talked about growing up in her home, her father was an alcoholic. Being small children, she said I remember going to bed at night, putting the pillow over my brother Johnnie’s head and over my head because we’d hear my mom screaming as my dad was beating her downstairs. She said, when we got to be 14 or 15 years old, we used to see here with the black eyes, and we understood then what was going on, and we used to beg her, ‘while dad’s at work, let’s leave, let’s pack up, we don’t need anything, just take the car, we’ll go.’ Just being bitter at their mother, ‘Why do you stay with this man?’ And having her mom say ‘Honey, I believe some day Jesus is going to save your father. And when he does that, I don’t want to be somewhere else. I want to be right here, I want to be in the front row.’ And how 30 years later, that man came to Christ. But she said, finally, she was getting out of that house, she was engaged, and she said, finally we’d be able to say grace at the table, no one will mock us or scream at us or make fun of us, marrying a Christian man, first in his class at university, had the wedding dress. Two days before the wedding, gets a call from the emergency ward, he’s dead at the hospital, died of an aneurism or something. And she said, after that, as a Christian, I went into great depression. And she said, in those days, when you got depressed, you didn’t go see someone, you got put somewhere. And coming through all those difficulties, as she ends the tape, remarkably, and she’s in her seventies, and she said, and she talked about God’s love all through the tape, she said ‘This spring, I lost my best friend, my 45 year-old daughter died of cancer this spring.’ And yet she talked about God’s love. And she said, ‘All of this pain and heartache in my life has brought me to a place now where I go into the hospitals in Houston and Dallas, and they let me come in Carte Blanche with my Bible and talk to teenagers that have tried to commit suicide. And they let me walk right in and minister to them. And she said, the other week I walked into the room and there was a young girl, 17 years old, tried to kill herself. And she said, when I came in the room she said ‘Who are you?’ She said, ‘My name is Marge, honey.’ And she said, ‘Why are you here?’ And she said, ‘Well I’m here to tell you that Jesus loves you and that I love you.’ And she said, ‘You don’t love me, you don’t even know me.’ And she started to scream at her, and she said ‘Oh, I do love you, because of Christ, Christ loves you too.’ And she said, ‘Please don’t tell me that Jesus love me.’ And Marge said, ‘What are you talking about?’ She said, ‘Do not tell me, ever, in my life, that another person loves me—because every time I have believed that, my life has been crushed. Do not tell me that Jesus loves me. I’m in the hospital now from trying to commit suicide, and if you convince me that there is someone else who loves me, and I find out it’s not the way you say it is, it will drive me over the edge. Please, don’t tell me that Jesus loves me. I’m afraid you might make me believe that. And if it’s not true, it will kill me.’ And of course, Marge is persistent, and that girl is born-again and involved with an active ministry now. But many of us are like that. We have so many wounds and so much baggage that we are really afraid, because all the love we have experienced in our lives has been so conditional, and when people who have told us they love us, family members, wives, fathers, husbands, mothers, whatever, and we have done one little thing wrong, all of a sudden all of their venom has come on us or all of their abuses come on us, and all of a sudden here’s Jesus telling us that he loves us with a foreign love, so foreign that it’s origin is not only outside of humanity, not only outside of this universe, it transcends the dimension that we live in, it is the origin of all love, and the reason that any other love exists is because of the love that he has and the love that he is. And it is not measured by any standard that we have ever known, and it is the one love that we can cast ourselves upon and never be disappointed. And how many of us still are afraid to believe this evening that he loves us more than we love our own children. That he loves us with a foreign and unconditional love. I pray, if you are struggling with that assurance, that this evening, at the end of the evening as we worship, that you would ask Christ to give you that assurance—that in all of your imperfection, that he loves you. You know, some people think Jesus is like Santa Claus, and ‘he’s watching us, makin’ a list, checkin’ it twice, gonna find out who’s naughty or nice.’ And the truth is, Jesus watches us as his children because he loves us so much he can’t take his eyes off of us. “Behold all of you, continually, consider this, how foreign is God’s love, that you and I with all of our problems and hang-ups and baggage should be called the born-ones of God.” And it isn’t just called, it’s named—the idea is, we are named now, amongst all of his creation, the born-ones of God. That is our name now, we are the children of God. “Because of that, the world does not know us.” It didn’t know him. Don’t be discouraged because your relatives say ‘What!?’ ‘God spoke to you today? We’ve been a little worried about you anyway, you go to church Sunday morning, you go to church Sunday night, you go to church Wednesday night, Christian bowling leagues, we were worried about you anyway—now God’s talking to you?’ ‘Is is alright if we nail you in your room for awhile, you’re fine.’ It says ‘Because it does not know us because it doesn’t know him.’ John says “He came into the world and the world knew him not”, “he came unto his own” the Jews “and his own received him not. But to as many as received him to them he’s given the power to become the sons of God.” That he walked in the midst of his own creation and his own creation didn’t recognize him. The reason that he came that way is so that he could be with us, Emmanuel, God with us. He could have come and glowed [like he will at his 2nd coming]. When you listen to John the Baptist say in John chapter 1 around verse 32 “I would not have known him, except the one who sent me to baptize him said ‘the one you see the Spirit descending upon him as a dove and abiding upon him, that is he who baptizes with the Holy Ghost and fire.’” John the Baptist said ‘when I looked out in the crowd, if Jesus Christ, if this was 2,000 years ago and Jesus was here this evening sitting in a crowd, you could not pick him out.’ You know, it wouldn’t be ‘there’s the guy glowing in the back. See that little glow that guy’s got. Turn out the lights, quick, we’ll find him. [laughter] He’s the one that’s lit up.’ Or, ‘Look at the one who’s floating off the ground there.’ Or as soon as you hear this guy talk to you, you hear classical stringed instruments in the background, you hear accompaniment, you know. There wasn’t any of that like in the movies. And that’s why he came and was born in a manger, in a stone feeding trough, that’s why he came as the lowliest of men. He came because he wanted to be approachable to everyone of us with all of our pain and all of our hang-ups and all of our selfishness, he came that way so that none of us would stand back and say “I don’t want to get near him, he glows, if I get too close I might get struck by lightning or something.” No, he came the way he came, so that every man in every condition could walk up to him and say, “Heal me, heal my son, take away my leprosy if you’re willing. Lord have mercy, come quickly, my daughter is dying.” And there was no thing about him that would dissuade us. Isn’t it interesting now how afraid we are sometimes to ask him. Well, you know it says ‘don’t be discouraged when people don’t believe that you’re God’s children, because they didn’t recognize him either.’ “Because it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear we will be like him, because we will see him as he is.” (verse 2) And the idea, it says in 1st Corinthians 15, “In a twinkling of an eye we shall all be changed, in a moment”—in an atomos in the Greek, the smallest measurement of time. In the blink of an eye, which is one fifty-fifth of a second if you’re interested. Before we can be embarrassed, everything we are embarrassed of will be gone. It isn’t that you’re going to be in an argument, and suddenly be caught up there in the middle of it all embarrassed. The idea is, corruption will put on incorruption, mortal will put on immortality, in the twinkling of an eye, and at the speed of light we’ll be changed, and there will be nothing in us that draws back or is ashamed. “It hasn’t yet appeared what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is”—we’ll be able to stand in his presence. If we’re able to stand in his presence, that means that everything that cannot be in his presence will be removed from us. [Now that’s a deep thought.] Consider what kind of foreign love that is. [Also, when John wrote this he had not seen Jesus in vision, as he is now, on the Isle of Patmos. He only knew what Jesus looked like as he was when he was with him, as a human being. So John is saying “it doth not yet appear what we shall be [like in the resurrection]: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” John and the other’s had not seen Jesus as he is (with the exception of Paul, but Jesus was so brilliant in front of Paul on the road to Damascus that Paul really couldn’t tell what he was looking at). In Revelation 1:12-18 John saw Jesus as he is, in his glorified state. We shall be like that in the resurrection. That is what John is saying here. And Jesus has now shown us in Revelation 1 what he is like, and what we will be like in the resurrection. Pastor Joe missed this observation, even though he got into 1 Corinthians 15. Just thought I’d add this, as it is appropriate to the passage. So to see what Jesus is like right now, and what we will be like in the 1st resurrection because John said “when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is”—look up and read Revelation 1:12-18.] “And every man that has this hope in him”—in Jesus—“purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” (verse 3) Now here’s the interesting thing, none of us can purify ourselves. But it indicates that if your hope is in Jesus (Yeshua), that it becomes a purifying factor in your life. You know, if your hope is to retire at 30 after you make your first million, if your hope is in getting this new car, this new date, getting this new house, getting this new job, you will be disappointed ultimately in all of those things. It says “If your hope is in him, that it will purify you, even as he is pure.” Because if you’re living every day saying “come Lord Jesus, come today”, you know that you have to be in the light, you have to be honest about your weaknesses, you have to be continually confessing, you have to stay “prayed up”, you’re asking him daily to cleanse you, to lead you, to fill you [with the Holy Spirit], to walk in his presence. If we have our hope in him, we purify ourselves, just by that, even as he is pure. Consider what foreign love that is. If you’re here this evening and you don’t know Christ as your personal savior, you can know him, but the idea is, are you afraid to know him? This is how much he loved you. The Bible says they stripped him naked, that is after the Bible tells us they beat his face so bad that he was not recognized as a human being. The nice pictures we see of Jesus with a crown of thorns and one drop of blood running down his cheek has nothing to do with reality. He was beaten so bad he was not recognized as a human, his beard was ripped out of his face Isaiah tells us. The flesh was ripped off of his back by the cat-of-ninetails. He was brutalized, he was spit upon, for you. God is not going to prove that he loves you in any lesser way. Throughout the New Testament, this, in this is the love of God manifest, that he sent his Son into the world—1st John 4:9—to die for our sins. I encourage you this evening, before you leave. You need to ask Jesus to forgive your sins. Look at this room full of people. Is everybody nuts and you’re the only sane person? Look at this conglomeration of people that would never ever hang with each other unless something supernatural [happened]—I mean, there’s cool people, square people, fat people, thin people, old people, young people, black people, white people, Indians, Asians, look at this room! There is no reason in the world that we should be together. It is supernatural. It is because we have the most important thing in our lives in common—that is we have met the risen Christ. And you need to do that before you leave here this evening. He died for you, he loves you. I encourage you, before you leave, come down here, we’ll pray with you, we’ll give you a Bible, we’ll give you some literature to read. We don’t want your phone number, we don’t want your address, we’re not gonna hock you for anything, you know, we don’t get a commission on the sale. Our minds are blown [away by all of this] and our lives are free, and you need to be free. If you’re here this evening, and you have never really been able to receive his love, even as a believer, you have not enjoyed the freedom that he wants you to have, the assurance that he wants you to have, as we stand…why don’t we all stand, and as we worship I want you guys that have struggled with assurance just to ask him to bathe over you, to cleanse you, and to touch your life, and to encourage you. Those that are backslidden, that are not looking forward to his appearing because of the way you’re living right now, tonight is the evening, turn your life around. You’ll find him with a very foreign love, waiting for you once again to turn to him that he might wash you and cleanse you and just recharge your batteries and blow your mind afresh.” [transcript of 1st John 2:18-29; 3:1-3 given by Pastor Joe Focht, Calvary Chapel of Philadelphia, 13500 Philmont Avenue, Philadelphia PA 19116, © Calvary Chapel of Phila. 1996] |