[MUSIC PLAYING] The Bible from 30,000 feet,
Soaring through the Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. Look at you. You're here. You're at church. It's Wednesday night, and we're
almost done with the Bible from 30,000 feet. Man, it took a long
time to get through it. COVID sort of took
a chunk out of it. But we're back,
and in a few weeks we'll be done with the
book of Revelation. We'll take the
book of Revelation in two separate weeks
so we can kind of go a little deeper than
just skimming over it like we do all these books. But tonight we are in
the book of I John. If you turn in your
Bibles to I John, we're going to look at this
comparatively short epistle of John, not as short as his
next two, but short enough. And we'll look at it from
a 30,000 foot perspective. So we kind of get the thrust
and theme, not all the verses. I know this is some of
your favorite territory in scripture. So sorry if I don't cover
all your favorite verses. But I think that
you'll get a handle on why and how, why it was
written, how it is laid out, et cetera. Let's pray together. Father, we look to
you to learn, to grow, to grow in grace, as
Peter said, and knowledge of our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ. We are reading the
words of a man who walked so closely with
Jesus while on Earth, and so as your spirit filtered
truth through his pen to us, we get a very unique
understanding of who Jesus was, what truth is, what
is expected of us in a relationship
with you, what you do in that relationship with us. And I pray, Father,
that we would grow, all of us,
every one of us, whether we have just started
our relationship with you, or we've been at it for years. Speak to us that you
might work through us, in Jesus' name, amen. I suppose that to
have on your resume, I was one of Jesus'
closest buddies would be pretty special. John was able to have
that on his resume though he didn't have a resume. We know that he was one of
Jesus' closest associates. There was always this not only
group of apostles, the 12, but this group of 3, apostles
that were in on certain things that Christ did that the
others were not in on. And that was Peter,
James, and John. And Peter, James, and John were
there when Jesus, for instance, healed Jairus'
daughter, the ruler of the synagogue in Capernaum. He brought Peter,
James, and John in that room, aside from
the rest of the crowd, aside from the apostles. And Peter, James,
and John were there when Jesus raised
her from the dead. When our Lord left
Galilee and went north up to Caesarea Philippi,
and he asked, who do men say that I am? Who do you say that I am? He then took Peter, James, and
John up onto a high mountain where Jesus was
transfigured before them with Moses and Elijah. They heard things and saw
things the others did not. In the Garden of Gethsemane
when our Lord went to pray, Peter, James, and
John were with him for that most intimate of
encounters with the Father. So they were apostles
but they were very close. John had the unique privilege
of being at the cross with Jesus, not only at
all of those other things, but not even James and Peter
were at the cross like John was. At least the scripture
doesn't say James was there. It says most of
them were hiding. We know Peter ran away. But John was there
at the crucifixion when Jesus gave Mary his mother
to the charge of this apostle to keep and to care for
until her dying day. We know that John and James his
brother were sons of Zebedee. Zebedee had a fishing business. They were blue collar
workers like Peter. Though they were
sons of Zebedee, Jesus gave them an
interesting name, Boanerges, which means Sons of Thunder. Not sons of Zebedee,
but Jesus sort of in a playful manner
but to prove a point, called them Sons
of Thunder and that is because probably
an incident that takes place in the
Gospel of Luke chapter 9. When Jesus is on his way to
Jerusalem and the scripture says he has set his face
steadfastly to go to Jerusalem. And the people in Samara-- who didn't have
friendly relationships with Jerusalemites-- when they saw that Jesus
was intent on just going through Samaria, but really have
his focal point at Jerusalem, they took umbrage to that. And so because they
weren't well received, it was the idea of James
and John to nuke the city. They came to Jesus
and said, Lord, would you like us to call
fire down from heaven and destroy this
city like Elijah did? Now, we don't know
that they even had the power to call
fire down from heaven, but they were anxious to do it. The fact that they
were anxious to do shows me that really
was the default personality of James and John. Now, I'm bringing
that out because John is called the apostle of love. That's what he's
nicknamed because he writes so much about love
in this epistle especially. And so there you have the
apostle of love saying, Lord, do you want us to call
fire down from heaven and nuke them, destroy them. It would be so fun to
watch them sizzle and burn, ah, the apostle of love. Now, that was John's
default position. This is what John has become. He has walked with the Lord. And by this time
he is quite old. It is believed by many
scholars that I John is the last book of the New
Testament to be written. Chronologically, it is the
last in the order of books that John wrote it after
Revelation, the Revelation because it deals with
eschatological events and time events, its placed at the
end and appropriately so. But it is believed
that I John is the oldest, written
around 100 AD just after the
book of Revelation. When you get to be
100 years of age, your personality is
tempered, hopefully. You don't want to be a
cantankerous 100-year-old. There's nothing worse. So Boanerges, Mr. Nuk'em has
now become the apostle of love. God has tempered him. God has changed him. And he writes this
beautiful epistle. Now John refers to
himself, though he is called the apostle of love,
he calls himself the apostle that Jesus loved. He refers to himself, I'm
the apostle Jesus loved. Now I think people
misinterpret that. They think that he is bragging. I'm the guy he really loved. I'm one of the
three special guys who got to hang out with him. And those two, Peter and James,
well, look at Peter, he failed. But I'm really the
one that he loved. Not so. I think when John said, I'm
the apostle that Jesus loved, it was out of sheer gratitude
and amazement, like, look, he knows me. He knows I'm the Son of Thunder. But he loves me. And he experienced on a
personal level in a way not to diminish but
to demure himself, he just said, instead
of naming himself, I'm the apostle
that Jesus loved. And I loved that about him. Now, John writes five books in
the New Testament-- the Gospel of John, I John, II John,
III John, and the book of Revelation, five books. 20% of the New Testament
is written by John. The one that wrote most
of the New Testament is-- not Paul. If you do a word
count, it's Luke. If you tally up the words in
Luke and Acts, it's about 27% of the New Testament or 28%. Then Paul weighs
in just under Luke. And then John is at about
20% of the New Testament. So it was a trick question. Sorry I kind of did
that on purpose. Now, it begins by
saying, "That which was from the beginning
which we have heard, which we have seen
with our eyes, which we have looked upon,
our hands have handled concerning the word of life. The life was
manifested--" et cetera. It's not a normal introduction. It doesn't even
say John wrote it. The reason we believe
John wrote it is twofold. Number one, history, all the
old early church fathers, Irenaeus, Eusebius, Tertullian,
all give credit to John for writing it. So that tradition goes way back. And second, style, John
had a very colloquial easy Greek writing
style very similar is this layout and language
to the Gospel of John and to II and III John. In fact, when you or if
you ever take New Testament Greek classes, I
John will be the book that you first study because
it's the easiest Greek to read. And so John writing just
in a very simple way writes this book. Now, I mentioned that he was
old probably when he writes. He writes from a very
tender point of view, like you would expect a dad, or
better yet, a grandpa to speak. He talks about God
being the Father. He uses that term 13
times in 1 John alone. God is our Father. He speaks to the church
not as the church, not as believers, but as children, or
little children he calls them. Two different Greek words,
"teknia" and "paidia." which refers to
ages of children. He uses those terms 11 times. And then one of
John's favorite words is found in this book,
beloved, beloved, or loved ones you might say. He loved to call the church
little children or children or just loved ones. There is a beautiful
tradition that says when John got quite old we
believe he died and was buried at Ephesus that the
apostles around him, or the church leaders
in Ephesus around him carried him from church
meeting to church meeting, to different congregations. Because he was old,
I mean 100 years old, you can't ride a bicycle
or run down the street, you have to be carried. So he was carried. He was feeble. And congregations would swell
because the last living apostle John is going to come and
speak to our church today. He's our special guest
speaker so these places would be packed in anticipation. And John would be lifted
up, face the crowd, and say this, little
children, love one another. And that's it. He was done. Not a 30-minute sermon,
not a 45-minute sermon, not an hour sermon
like that Skip guy. Just one sentence. So you see the
older I get, there's hope that I'll get
shorter not longer. John just said, little
children, love one another. And on one occasion
somebody complained, I think it was one of
the other leaders said, how come we cart you around
and that's all you say, little children
love one another. And John said, if that's
all they do, it is enough. That is the Lord's command. And if that only be
done, that is enough. So the apostle of love, little
children love one another. So think of it this way. Paul writes to the church,
John writes to the family. Speaks to fathers, children,
but from God the Father to the children of God. Now, let me tell you about
the outline of this book because it's one of
my favorite parts. I have found it
impossible to outline. I John defies all
normal epistlatory-- if there is a word, I think
that is an adjective-- ancient or modern outlining. And I remember reading
through I John. And I would read a section. Then I read a little more. And it's like, well,
he just said that. And it's like he
repeats themes over. And I thought, well,
maybe he's just old. But wait a minute, this
is by the Holy Spirit. So this is divine scripture,
so why the repetition? And I discovered the answer
to it in a little book by Richard Lenski,
who by the way is probably the best
exegetical New Testament set of commentaries you can buy. If you ever find Lenski in
a used bookstore, get him. That's where I bought
mine in a used bookstore because I'm a cheapskate and he
was like $10 for the whole set. So the New Testament
scholar Richard Lenski says this, "I have never found
the like--" of like I John-- "I have never found the
like in all of literature. No poetical composition
approaches this--" that is, this book--
"in structure. It is constructed according to a
different and a higher method." When you think of I John,
think of it as spirals. So John covers a
few truths that form basic Christian belief, then he
circles back over them again, widens out his swath
the second time around, covering the same subjects
but from a little bit different angle with a
little bit different feeling and adding a few details,
then he does it a third time, then he does it a fourth time. There are four spirals or
revolutions in this book. So that is what he does. And it's important
because you're going to read things
and think, well, he just said that back there. Ah, but he said it
differently back there. So he covers the truths, covers
them again, covers them again, covers them again. That's how he writes the book. So you can't think of it in
logical left brain one, two, three, four. You have to think of it
in terms of a flowing spiral, or revolution. This book is truly
revolutionary. We'll get to the
book of Revelation. This is the book of revolutions. And so not only is it a book
of revolutionary outlining, it will revolutionize your life. It will revolutionize
your relationship with God and with people
and with holiness. So he covers all of those
themes but in that manner. Let me tell you, and I know,
we haven't even started yet. And believe me, I'm going to
cover the whole book tonight. And I'll explain it
as we go through. But there is something
that is on his mind as he writes tenderly
to the family of God. There is a false
doctrine that is starting to grow inside the
congregations of 100 AD, and that is called gnosticism-- G-N-O-S-T-I-C-I-S-M, gnosticism. It is essentially the belief
that the material world is evil. The spiritual world is good. It derives its
thinking from Plato, platonic thought, a
philosophical dualism in which the material world is evil. The spiritual world is good. Everything material is bad. Everything unseen
spiritual is good. Therefore it denied
in some cases that Jesus had a physical body. In other cases, it ascribed
a physical body, but not the deity of Christ. And I'll explain
some of the nuances because it is sort of hard
to nail down gnosticism. It had different branches to it. I'll share with you a couple
as we go through this letter. John has this in his mind. They generally denied that Jesus
Christ had a body of flesh, was a real person. They had an idea that
he was a phantom. One branch of gnosticism
said that Jesus appeared to have a body but
didn't really have a body. And so when he would walk,
he would not leave footprints in the sand, that you
could go up to him and sometimes he looked like he
was a real person, other times you could like push
right through him, all sorts of fanciful ideas. All of that was gnosticism. And with that came a denial
of biblical revelation. So notice how he
begins the book. "That which was from the
beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our
eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled
concerning the Word of Life." A pause for a moment. To John the apostle,
Christianity was not a second hand experience. Christianity was not a
class or course in theology. It was to him a first
hand experience. He had a personal encounter. He lived for 3 and 1/2 years
with Jesus Christ in the flesh. He heard things. He saw things. And he uses that terminology. All of his senses were
employed, touch, sight, sound. So far from Jesus being
not real, being a phantom, he was real. We handled him. We heard him. We saw the miracles
in which we did. We heard his sermon on the mount
and the upper room discourse and the olivet discourse. And then not only does he
say we have heard and seen, but he says we have looked upon. You see that term in verse
1, looked upon, "theaomai" is the Greek word. "Theaomai" is where we
get our word theater. It means to gaze intently for a
prolonged period, or to study. We studied Jesus. We gazed upon him. How interesting it would be as
one of the apostles listening, watching miracle after
miracle, message after message, then suddenly it dawns on
you one day, this guy is God. This is God. And what that means,
just the understanding of the incarnation, we've
handled the Word of Life. Now interesting, just a
quick, quick, quick, quick. If this is the very last
biblical book written, it's interesting to compare it
with the first biblical book written, "In the
beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." And this one, "That which was
from the beginning," speaking of Jesus. So however old you think
the world is, thousands of years, millions of
years, billions of years, wherever you put your pole down,
your stake down, whether you're a young earth adherent
or an old earth adherent, go back trillions of years if
you want to, put your peg down, Jesus will walk out of
eternity to meet you there. He was from the beginning. And he realizes he
was the eternal one, and we saw him, we heard
him, we handled him. He is the word of life. "That life was manifest. And we have seen and bear
witness and declare to you that eternal life which
was with the Father and was manifested to us, that
which we have seen and heard, we declare to you that you also
may have--" notice the word-- "fellowship with us." one of
the key themes of this book. "And truly our fellowship
is with the father and with his son." Go down to verse 6, "If we
say that we have fellowship with him and walk in
darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light
as he is in the light, we have fellowship
with one another and the blood of Jesus
Christ his son cleanses us from all sins." Fellowship is one of the key
themes in the New Testament. It means partnership. It means communion or community. We have something
in common with God. And we have something in
common with other believers. That's why the family
theme is so prominent here. God is our Father. And if he is my father,
and he's your father, that makes you and I
brother and sister. So we should treat each
other with that same kind of tenderness and care, "Little
children, love one another." I think one of the weak
links in the church is fellowship, true
fellowship when it comes to ministering to one another. That's why we place an
importance on home groups, breaking up the large family
into small units where there can be sharing,
receiving, prayer, taking care of
needs, physically, et cetera, accountability,
that kind of thing that you can't just get by
being a part of an audience experience, the body of Christ
in fellowship one with another. Verse 4, notice,
and you're going to see this throughout
the book, he says, here's why I write this book. And there's five different
reasons he writes this book. Here's one of them. "And these things we write
to you--" here it is-- "that your joy may be full." Now, John said that,
but you know what? John heard that first from
somebody else who said that. He's just repeating what
somebody else said he was in the room when it happened. That was Jesus. At the last supper when
he gave that discourse called the upper room discourse,
Jesus said these words to them. Now, I'm reading out
of John 15 verse 11. John wrote this as well. He was there. He recorded it. Jesus said, "These things
I have spoken to you that my joy might
remain in you--" listen-- "and that
your joy may be full." The very next
chapter, chapter 16 of John verse 23, "In that
day you will ask me nothing. Most assuredly I
say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my
name he will give you. Until now you have asked
nothing in my name. Ask and you will receive
that your joy may be full." So John says, one reason I
am writing you this book is I want you to have
fullness of joy. The world is searching for joy. What the world is searching
for, Jesus promised you have. You can have. The gospel produces joy. Now, a Christian without
joy is a little bit of an enigma to me. Oh, we all have bad days. Sometimes we give off the
air, the idea, the message that following Jesus is
just well, it's a bummer. Look I'm suffering. I'm a Christian, but
life is really hard. And the world is bad. But I'm going to get
through it and die and go to heaven after that. Really, that's
all you got going. You're just going to grin
and bear it and die and go to heaven. That's your only hope. Billy Sunday used to say, if
there is no joy in your life, there's a leak in
your Christianity. Is there a leak in
your Christianity? John had fullness of
joy, and he suffered being exiled to Patmos. He suffered the threat
of being boiled in oil. And I believe he
had fullness of joy. And he writes that we also
might have fullness of joy. Now, I'm going to take
you over to chapter 2. "My little children, these
things I write to you--" here's another reason he
writes this book-- "these things I write to
you that you may not sin. And if anyone's sins--" I'm
glad he said this next part-- "if anyone sins--" shoo,
yeah, because the first part he wrote, John, sorry too late. I'm writing that you don't sin. OK, now what? So he wrote this part. "And if anyone sins,
we have an advocate--" a lawyer, a defense
attorney-- "with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And he himself is
the propitiation-- the atoning sacrifice
for our sins-- "and not for ours only but
also for the whole world. By this we know that we know him
if we keep His commandments." And he says, I'm writing
that you don't sin. And he'll say this a few
times in this epistle. He'll circle back through
that spiral outline. It doesn't mean
you'll never blow it, you'll never ever fail. It doesn't mean that at all. It means that your lifestyle,
your day-to-day practice won't be governed by sin. You won't practice
it as a lifestyle. It will diminish as
you walk with the Lord. It was Dwight Lyman Moody,
pastor and evangelist from Chicago who said, he
pointed to his Bible and said, this book will
keep you from sin. But sin will keep
you from this book. So get into this book because
it is a good deterrent from sin. "These things I write to
you that you sin not." Paul said in Romans
chapter 6, "The old man has been crucified with Christ
that we might be servants--" or slaves-- "to Christ and not
to sin any longer." Now, go to chapter 3 verse 4. I'm following a thread here. "Whoever commits sin
also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness." Now, would you agree
that the idea of sin seems a little out of
place in this modern day and age in which we live? It certainly is not a
popular idea or concept. If you mention sin in
a conversation at lunch or at the office, they'll
probably say, what did you say? Could you remove your
mask so I can hear? Did you say the word, sin. Because it's such
an outdated idea, nobody really believes
that it's possible to sin. The general idea
for most people is there really is no higher
being above us to which we are accountable. And if there is no higher
being, because they say the idea of God is
invented by people to deal with their guilt
nature and guilt complex and the idea of sin is an
unhealthy, unrealistic, antiquated paradigm. And the view today is
a mechanistic view. You just live and you
breathe and you die, and you make the best of
between birth and death. But there's really no
God to which you will be accountable for eternity. So the idea has just
sort of been written out of our culture, whether it's
the philosophy of Charles Darwin with his
evolutionary theory or BF Skinner's
behavioral psychology. I read a little article
in Psychology Today that called guilt, the idea
of guilt a wasted emotion. You shouldn't feel guilty. Why waste your emotional
bank on the feeling of guilt. It's a wasted emotion that tends
toward just self-deprecation. Well, let me tell you
why people feel guilty. And people do feel guilty. I've been in the
ministry long enough, you don't have to go very deep. People feel guilty. People feel guilty
because people are guilty. It's a conscience
that God put in them. He put a stamp in
them that people know, I need to deal with this
idea of falling short. You know, you can
try to deny it all you want but all have
sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. There's something that most
people know deep inside, even though our culture
tries to wash that away. Now let's keep going here, after
verse 4 of chapter 3, verse 5, "And you know that he--" Jesus-- "was manifested to
take away our sins. And in him there is no sin. Whoever abides in
him does not sin--" does not continue to
practice that lifestyle-- "whoever sins--" in a
practice or a lifestyle-- "has neither seen
him nor known him. Little children, let
no one deceive you. He who practices
righteousness is righteous just as he is righteous. He who sins is of the devil. For the devil has sinned
from the beginning. For this purpose,
the Son of God was manifested that he might
destroy the works of the devil. Whoever has been born of God
does not sin for his seed remains in him
and he cannot sin. In this the children of God
and the children of the devil are manifest. Whoever does not practice
righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does
not love his brother." Now, the Bible not only in
1 John but in other places, makes a distinction between
sin singular and sins plural. Sin singular is the root. Sins plural is the fruit
of that twisted root. So we have a sin nature. We are sinners by birth,
by nature, and by choice. But we make the choice
largely because of our nature. David said, I was
conceived and born in sin. So the Bible acknowledges
that all of us are born into that problem
caldron called sin, singular. And then to prove
that, we commit sins. That is the fruit of it. But in Christ, we are
given a new nature though that old root is still
in the ground, the old sin root. God by his spirit enables us
to bear the fruit of the Spirit and not practice those sins, not
be controlled by that nature. Now, it's not easy. There's a battle
Galatians tells us. But it is possible. And John says, it's mandatory
that as a practice lifestyle sin less and practice
righteousness more. That's another theme that
he circles back and around through this book. Now I want to look at another
theme, another thread. Go back to chapter 2 verse
18, "Little children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard
that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists
have come by which we know it is the last hour." Verse 21, "I have
not written to you because you do not know the
truth but because you know it and that no lie is of the truth. Who is a liar but he who
denies that Jesus is--" the Messiah-- "the Christ." He is attacking gnosticism. "He is antichrist who denies
the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the son does
not have the Father either. He who acknowledges the
son has the Father also." Verse 26, "These things
I have written to you concerning those who
tried to deceive you. But the anointing which
you have received from him abides in you. And you do not need
that anybody teach you. But as the same anointing
teaches you concerning all things and is
true and is not a lie, and just as it is taught
you, you will abide in him." Now go to chapter 4, it circles
back through that idea again. Verse 1, "Beloved, do
not believe every spirit but test the spirits,
whether they are of God. Because many false prophets
have gone out into the world. By this you know
the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses
that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit
that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come
in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit
of the antichrist--" which you have already
heard, or "which you have heard was coming and
is now already in the world. You are of God little children
and have overcome them because he who is
in you is greater than he who is in the world." Now John, though
tender, though speaking to "paidia" and "teknia,"
little children and children, speaking of God the Father,
this beautiful family tone, at the same time is not
only pastoral but polemical. He gets a little
bit feisty here. A little bit argumentative. One of the reasons he
writes this book is to instruct and
to warn believers against this insidious
new and growing and very popular from the
Greek philosophy way of thinking known as gnosticism. I mentioned that it
had its roots in Plato. You probably know
that Plato taught this philosophical
dualism, the material world versus the spiritual world. OK, so I'm not going to
get too deep in the weeds here because we still have
II John, III John and Jude. With Jude especially, it
talks a lot about gnosticism. So let me just tell you a
couple little facts, OK? Again, I don't want
to get too deep, but I'm going I'm
going to give you two divisions of gnosticism. Because anybody who tries
to explain or understand even gnosticism is
sort of like trying to nail down a flopping fish. It's very difficult. It
was a growing belief system that morphed and changed
and had peculiarities depending on where you went
and what time frame you're dealing with. It really didn't get fully
developed until post New Testament era, OK. But there were two main
branches of gnosticism. One is called
cerinthian gnosticism. And the other is called
docetic gnosticism. I'll explain. Cerinthian gnosticism
means it came from a dude by the name of Cerinthus. That's all. That was his name, Cerinthus. He lived in Ephesus
when John lived there. He was the mortal enemy
of John the apostle. There's even a
story that John was going in Ephesus to the public
bathhouse which, by the way, if you go to Ephesus
today you can still see. And he was going there to hang
out and do the bathing ritual. And he noticed that
Cerinthus was inside, so he grabbed the person
he was with and said, let us flee from here less the
bathhouse fall to the ground because Cerinthus the
enemy of truth is within. So he formed one
branch of gnosticism. We call it cerinthian
gnosticism. Cerinthus taught that Jesus
was the son of Joseph, but not the Son of God. So he denied the
deity of Christ. He was just a human. He was not God in human flesh. Cerinthus taught that the
divine Christ's spirit did enter Jesus at his
baptism and lasted with him for 3 and 1/2 years. But then just prior to
his death on the cross that Christ spirit left,
that divine Christ spirit left so that Jesus
died as a man. So he wasn't God
though he possessed for a time the divine spirit. It's a bunch of mumbo jumbo. The second branch of gnosticism
is called docetic gnosticism. And that is the
docetists, the idea there is a Greek word that
derives the term docetic which means to appear or seem. So if I were to give it
to you in our vernacular, I would say
appearism, or seemism. It is the belief that
Jesus was not physical, the opposite of
cerinthian gnosticism that Jesus just
appeared to be physical. He seemed to have a body. But he really
didn't have a body. Why? Because the gnostics thought
the material world is evil. And that kind of
being would never have a real fleshly body because
the material world is evil. So it just appeared
that he had a body. Now, this particular
form of gnosticism became really wacky because
it had a moral component. And here's the moral component. If only the spirit world is good
and the material world is evil, that means my fleshly
body is a necessary evil. It traps my spirit within me. The goal in life is to
be able to kind of escape this prison that the body
has held my spirit in. So if the material world,
including my body is evil, it doesn't matter what
I do with my body. As long as my spirit is intact
and holy and healthy, good. But I can fornicate
with this fleshly body. I can commit crimes
with this fleshly body. Because the body doesn't matter. That's the warped thing that
happened with gnosticism. Now, all of these
ideas were very attractive to certain
people at that time. By the way, it's still
attractive to people today. And I'll explain at the very
end of this book as we close. But that is what he
is writing against, as you can see by this language. Verse 6, "We are of God. He who knows God, this
is chapter 4 verse 6, he who knows God hears us. He who knows not of
God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of
truth and the spirit of error." So he says, look,
test these people. Don't just take their word. They might sound smart. It might sound really appealing. But check it out, test it out. And I always tell
people to do that. I don't care if the guy's
wearing a collar, black robe and a white collar
and special vestments or he's a preacher
on TV, and he's got a Southern accent and
a slicked back hairdo. Acts 17:11, the
Bereans were more noble than those of
Thessalonica in that they received the word of God
with all readiness of mind but searched the
scriptures daily to see if these things be so. I love it when people say, hey,
I'm looking at the scripture and that's not what I read. Well, good, let's now
dialogue about that. You always want to
check out the preacher against the Word of God. And don't just believe the
preacher or the teacher or the evangelists
or the ministry. But test the spirits to see
whether they are of God. And he gives those tests. Now, in verse 11 of
chapter 4, actually I'm going to take you back there. I'm going to show
you another thread. Go back to chapter 2, remember,
we're doing the spiral thing, and I'm just touching on
a few of these threads. So chapter 2, verse 3, "Now by
this we know that we know him, if we keep His commandments." Look at verse 5, "But
whoever keeps his word, truly the love of God
is perfected in him. By this we know
that we are in Him." Go over to chapter 4
verse 2, "By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that
confesses Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God." Now, verse 11, "Beloved,
if God so loved us, we also ought to
love one another." There's the apostle
of love speaking. "No one has ever
seen God at any time. If we love one another,
God abides in us. And his love has
been perfected in us. By this, we know that we
abide in Him and he in us because he has given
us of his Spirit. And we have seen and
testify that the Father has sent his Son as
Savior into the world. Let's follow this language down,
go over to chapter 5, verse 13. "These things I have written
to you who believe--" he's telling us
another reason now why he wrote the book--
"these things I have written to you who believe in the name
of the Son of God that you may know--" you see the
emphasis that I'm giving in all of these readings? It's know. He's writing so
you have assurance so that you understand
your security. And I my security. "These things I've
written to you who believe in the
name of the Son of God that you may know that
you have eternal life and that you may
continue to believe in the name of the Son of God." Now, this is the confidence
that we have in him that if we ask anything
according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he
hears us, whatever we ask we know that we
have the petitions that we have asked of him. Now, I know you
don't have access to it right now unless you
went on to your smartphone and googled it. But don't do that
right now please. But there is a translation
called the Wuest Translation of the New Testament. You have heard me refer
to it over the years. It's written by Kenneth Wuest. And what he does is
he is a Greek scholar, was a Greek scholar. He takes the language
of the New Testament and expands it, so that
we can understand it. So the way he translates
these verses is, "I'm writing this to you
so that you might know with an absolute certainty." So I want you to have assurance. I want you to be
certain that you belong to him, that
you are a child of God, that you have salvation. This was revolutionary to me. I never thought it was
possible to actually know that you're going to heaven. Before I share my
experience, I found that to be true whenever I
share the gospel with a Muslim. Because of their doctrine
called abrogation that Allah abrogates
truth that is, he says something but
might change his mind at a future date and
say something different, or amend what he is going to
say or just cancel it and say something different,
a Muslim never knows where he or
she is with Allah. They hope for the best. They hope by their good deeds
and in keeping the five pillars of Islam that they'll make it. But they're never sure. But I grew up never being sure. I remember as a young
student in school, and I went to a Catholic
school early on, I wondered about heaven. And I was starting to
search the things of God. And so I went to
a priest because I had all sorts of questions. This sort of led up to my
conversion in the early days. But I went to a
priest and I said, OK, so am I going to heaven? And he goes, I can't answer
if you're going to heaven. I can't tell you that. I said, well, can I be certain? Is there something
I can do to know? How can I know for certain
that I'm going to go to heaven. And I'll never
forget his answer. He said, you can't
know for certain. He says, there is
nothing in our teaching that says you can know. Now, you can hope for the best. And you can do the right things. But the only way you'll know
for certain is when you die. And I remember, I
mean, I was just a kid. I'm no theologian. But I said something
that's quite obvious. I said, isn't that a little too
late to find out I was wrong? And he never answered
that satisfactorily. But that sort of
bothered me a little bit. Because I was hoping. But I never thought
you could know. Then when I did come
to Christ at age 18, and I started reading
the scripture, imagine my delight
when I found this text. You can know for certain. So you might die of COVID 19. I don't know, this thing might
come back and kill us all. So. I mean, did you ever think
you were going to escape alive out of earth. The last time I checked, every
human being who's ever lived dies, right? I'm not trying to
make light of it. But I know where I'm going. OK, and I don't want to take
it too much further than that because I
understand there are sensitivities and
sensibilities that people have. But I'm ready. Now, this Sunday, I'm
going to officially be in the high risk group. Bring it on. OK, so running out of time. We're in chapter 5. Without giving them all to
you and going back again, John gives you in
this book five tests that you can know
for certain that when you die you go to heaven. That'll be your homework
to chase those down. Now, let me close
with this thought. That sort of covers the book. We covered the main
themes of the book without reading
all of the verses. Sorry if we missed
your favorite verse. But did you know that there
is something known today as Christian gnosticism? It's made a resurgence. And you may not know about it. Some of you may know about it. But there is an idea of
Christian gnosticism. What is Christian gnosticism? First of all, it
doesn't exist literally. It's impossible to be a
Christian and to be a Gnostic. By the way, gnosticism
the word gnosis, or gnosis in Greek means knowledge. They believe the only way
you could truly be saved is by getting this special
knowledge that only they have and they can give you. And you believe that stuff,
but we're the real smart ones. So that that's the
idea of gnosticism. But there is this
idea, now, you can't be a Christian and a Gnostic
because the term Christian and Gnostic are by definition
mutually exclusive. But the thread of this began-- those of you who are
psychology majors, you know the name Carl Jung
and Jungian psychology. And Carl Jung is
sort of the father of Western modern gnosticism. He was a Swiss thinker and a
philosopher and psychologist. And he was hoping that
eventually the Western world would begin to
embrace gnosticism. And so, I'll tell you
who this appeals to. This appeals to people who
like to fancy themselves as being highly intellectual. And they want a
spiritual experience but outside of the ordinary,
because they're just too smart. They're just smarter
than everybody else. But they want this
spiritual experience. They want to say, I'm not really
a Christian, but I'm spiritual. So threads of this
show up in something called theosophy, another
one, the teachings of Elizabeth Clare
Prophet with the Church Universal and Triumphant,
Rosicrucianism, all of that has its stem from
Jungian psychology and would be considered
kind of a neo-gnosticism. And the reason it got
popular again is in 1945-- I think it was 1945. It might be 1845, but
I think it's 1945, they found the
Nag Hammadi texts. And that's an
archeological dig they found in Egypt in a little
town called Nag Hammadi. And so it's called classically
the Nag Hammadi texts. Because they found
it in that town. It's like if they
found it in Rio Rancho, it's the Rio Rancho text. So they found the
Nag Hammadi texts. The Nag Hammadi texts were
ancient Gnostic manuscripts that go way back. And so they started uncovering
them and translating it. And I get questions
about a number of books that come from that. What about this writing
and that writing? And so there are even places
where they have meetings. This is pre-COVID when people
were meeting more regularly. But they would have meetings
and read some of the Nag Hammadi texts, the Gnostic texts to
get off into this weird idea. It's goofy, but
it's popular, and it does make its occurrence. And enough said about that. Little children,
love one another. I say that as an
old man to you now. Little children,
love one another. John closes his book by saying
this, I love this last verse. I just don't want to pass
it by, "Little children, keep yourselves from Idols." Amen. Father, we thank you
for this incredible man named John, a son of
Zebedee a Son of Thunder, an apostle of love. The one whom Jesus
specially loved. And he felt that love and
was amazed by that love. Also Lord, a
fighter, one who grew to be about 100
years of age, who suffered persecution, who
suffered threats, who suffered the antagonism of false
prophets, who suffered being put on an island in the
middle of the Aegean Sea called Patmos, and then
coming back to Ephesus and living out his last days. Thank you, Lord,
for his influence. Thank you, Lord,
for his tenacity. Father, I pray that
we as your children would glorify Jesus, the real
Jesus, the Jesus of the New Testament. Glorify you father,
we as your children. We live to please you, and we
want to deepen our relationship with you. Strengthen us, Lord, strengthen
your church in these days, in these last days. Help us to know truth, to
love truth, to speak truth and to never leave the truth. Lord, I thank you
also for those who are watching online right now
and listening on the radio. Far, far, far, more are tuning
in who aren't present here in this building, or even
outside our facility. Thank you for that
technology and that reach. I pray, Lord, that
you would strengthen their families and their lives. I pray if anybody's
watching or anybody's here who hasn't said yes
personally to Jesus, would say yes to Jesus tonight,
that they wouldn't rely on a secondhand experience. But they would have
firsthand personal encounter with the living Christ, the
one who is risen from the dead and ever present to help them. If you have gathered
here, or if you're watching by television or
internet or listening by radio, you can make a
commitment right now. And your life can change, and
you can live with an assurance that when you die, you will
be directly in His presence. You will go to heaven. It's one step, all you
have to do is turn to him. He's done all the
heavy work for you. You don't have to
make a pilgrimage. You don't have to say a
certain formula of prayers. You can just say yes to the
One who did the heavy lifting by dying on a cross. If you're willing to turn
from sin and turn to Him, you could do it right now. I'm going to lead you
in a prayer in a moment. But if you with
your eyes closed, if you're in this
auditorium, and you've never personally said yes to
Jesus, or maybe you've walked away from him, and
you need to come back to him and you're willing to
do so, would you just slip your hand in the air. Just slip it up and keep it up. God bless you and you. Right in the middle to my left. Anyone else, raise that hand up. To my right, thank you for
those hands in the balcony. God bless you. Father, thank you for these. Strengthen those who here
are making that commitment. Those outside perhaps, those who
are tuning in by other means. Wherever you are, if you
raised your hand here, or you're outside these walls,
say this right where you're at. Say, I'm a sinner Lord. I admit it. Forgive me. I believe in Jesus. I believe he died for me. I believe he died for my sin. I believe he rose from the dead. I believe he's alive right now. I turn from my sin. I turn to Jesus as my Savior. Help me to live
for him as my Lord. It's in his name I pray, amen. Would you stand to
your feet please. We're going to sing a song. I'm just so glad you
raised your hand. I'm going to ask
those of you who raised your hands after the
service to come forward. There's a room right over here
to my right, to your left. We're going to keep distance
and do all the protocols and be safe. But if you prayed
that prayer, we want to put something that's
disinfected in your hands. It's been cleansed. But it's the Bible. It's the Word of God. It's some literature that
will cleanse the inside of you more than even the outside. But we want you to step
through those doors and let us give you that if
few raised your hand here. If you are watching or listening
by radio and other device, would you call or
would you text. If you have a phone,
text 505-509-5433. Text that, text the word saved
to that number, 505-509-5433. Text the word saved. If you're on your computer,
if you're not already at this website, go
to calvarymm.church and on the upper right
hand part of your screen, there's a little tab
that says know God. Click that. We'll be in touch with you. Let's worship. For more resources,
visit calvarymm.church. Thank you for joining us for
this teaching from The Bible from 30,000 feet.
