"Jesus and (John's Epistles)" Pastor Doug Batchelor

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[Music] [Applause] [Music] watching [Music] is [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] full salvation [Music] oh [Music] foreign [Music] come to me [Music] father in heaven we thank you so much this morning that through you we are free and i pray that you will give us the courage to shout from the hilltops or wherever we are that you are coming again soon and father i just pray that we will each be ready for that day that we'll put aside the things of this world that are holding us down and that we will be free in you and that we will be ready to meet you in the clouds of glory i pray i'll be with each one who is joining us this morning and thank you so much for each person that can be here and those who are joining us from wherever they are we thank you so much i pray with you'll be with our speaker this morning that you'll give him a message from you for us as we open up your word and study together in jesus name amen at this time our lesson study is going to be brought to us by our senior pastor here at sacramento central church pastor doug batchelor all right let's go ahead and get into our study lesson number one in our new quarters series of lessons dealing with jesus and the johannine or johannine letters it basically means jesus in the letters of john now we're not talking about the gospel of john john wrote the gospel of john the three letters of john and the book of revelation this is not john the baptist this is john the apostle he was the younger brother of james he was a fisherman they were friends of peter and andrew and it is possible that they were even related to jesus some have wondered if john and james mother was a sister or at least a cousin of mary and i think i went into that a little more in another sabbath school lesson why some scholars wonder about that now we're dealing with the three letters that he wrote to the church in this study today and principally letter number one but we're going to have our memory verse our memory verse together please first john 4 14. this is the new king james version in your quarterly say it with me and we have seen and testify that the father has sent the son as savior of the world he's talking about their personal firsthand witness we have seen now as we go through our lesson today this is really an introduction to the letters and so we're going to talk a little bit about the history hey for one thing when you say the name john you know you've got the johannine or johannine uh in your lesson title here it comes from the hebrew word which is yah nin coming from the word yahweh excuse me it's a greek form of the hebrew name meaning yahweh has been gracious or merciful so that's what john's name means when you name your son john it means yahweh has been gracious or merciful and first thing we want to understand as we dive into this lesson who wrote it to whom did they write it and so we're going to get into that now from whom and to whom the author and recipients of the letter all right it's generally believed that the letter of first john and second and third john was written by the apostle now if we're going to examine this letter there's two ways we look at it you look at the evidence on the outside external evidence and the evidence on the inside and based on the external evidence it's widely believed by the early fathers of the church that john the apostle the fisherman is the one who wrote it and by the way john was probably the youngest of the apostles that jesus chose some have said that he may have been 15 16 years old when he began to follow he was part of the inner circle of jesus leadership so often when jesus did something it says he took with him peter james and john have you sometimes wondered why didn't say peter james their brothers or peter and andrew were brothers and then james and john one time when it talks about the sermon on the mount it says those four the four fishing brothers peter john james and andrew but so often it's peter james and john why just the three of them they ended up becoming sort of the inner leadership of the church one time john and james came to jesus and they said master we desire and their mother came to help him out could be another reason she was a relative when you enter into your kingdom i like to request that my two sons sit one at your right hand and one at your left she was thinking about securing their position in his new cabinet and jesus said you don't know what you're asking are you able to eat the um food that i must eat and drink the cup that i must drink you can be baptized with my baptism and they said oh yes lord we're able and he said you will indeed and it's interesting that of the twelve apostles james was the first to die a martyr's death not talking about judas because he sort of forfeited his apostleship and john was the last and the only one to die of natural causes probably the letter of john as near as they can tell was written somewhere between 68 69 bc just before the destruction of jerusalem the church fathers believed it was authentic it's referred to by polycarp who actually knew the apostle john in the beginning of the second century it's quoted by papius also by arrhenius origen says in his writings john besides the gospel in revelation that he wrote has left us an epistle of a few lines grant also a second and a third for not all do allow these to be genuine so in the first century or the second century some were beginning to question the authenticity of second and third john but there's plenty of other support for those and we'll get to that later all three epistles were received by athanasius by cyril of jerusalem by epiphanists by eusubus and he says besides his gospel his first epistle is universally acknowledged by those of the present time and by the ancients but the other two are sometimes contradicted in other words there were some who questioned second and third john as i said written probably about 6869 a.d where was it written or where was it written to in the latin version when you read first john many people don't know i didn't know until i started studying this that first john was formally called the epistle of saint john to the parthians now who are they uh par um parthian is a region in northeastern iran and if you read in acts chapter 2 verse 8 maybe i'll have someone do that for me we're on microphones we've got microphones poncho has a microphone there we got one on this side you've got one here brad all right who will look up for me acts chapter 2 verse 8 and 9. then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language partitions medes elamites residents of mesopotamia judea cappadocia pontius and asia all right in acts chapter 2 when the holy spirit's poured out it names 16 different language groups of those groups the first one mentioned is the parthians and so this is believed by some is a group to whom john was writing his first letter and so the the external evidence is very clear that this was written by john it's accepted widely in history there's a lot of books that some have contested but this is not really one of them and furthermore you look at the content now for internal evidence matter of fact i'm going to do something i've not done before just uh i want to have a little more class interaction do you mind bertie come up see if you can squeeze out and um oh who i need another volunteer would you be willing to read something for me i'm going to give you what to read you can set your bible down here all right come up here tell me your name again george i was going to say that that's right all right birdie all right uh tell you what birdie see there's two columns here you get to be the gospel of john on the right you get to be first john now one of the ways we find out who wrote oh you guys need microphones hey you know yeah you can talk into my cheek here all right let's get the other one there we go a little detail all right so what we're going to do is we're going to look at content in first john in emphasis in first john when i ask you i'll say i want you to read the first box in first john and then i want you to read what john said in the gospel of john okay all right regarding the word of life becoming flesh what does first john say 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 very good now what does the gospel of john say about that john 1 1 says in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god john 1 4 in him was life and the life was the light of men john 1 14 and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory the glorious of the only begotten of the father full of grace and truth all right you notice a comparison there it emphasizes in both first john the gospel john it's the same author saying the same thing jesus is the word of life we saw him we touched him personal testimony all right what does first john say about keeping my word but whoever keeps his word truly the love of god is perfected in him by this we know that we are in him okay what does the gospel of john say john 14 23 jesus answered and said to him if anyone loves me he will keep my word and my father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him all right you see the the synergy there that they match each other same authors same thoughts same emphasis all right abiding what does first john have to say about abiding he who says he abides in him out himself also to walk just as he walked all right now what does john say in his gospel about abiding 15 4 abide in me and i in you as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine neither can you unless you abide in me does that match same emphasis okay love one another do we find an emphasis in first john what does he say for this is the message that you heard from the beginning that we should love one another and how does john put it in his gospel in 1334 it says a new commandment i give to you that you love one another as i have loved you that you also love one another now we're just touching on some of these let's do one more there's like 20 that i could go through here jesus is the light what does it say in first john again a new commandment i write to you which which thing is true in him and in you because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining and you wanted to go and read first john 2 10 also he who loves his brother abides in the light and there is no cause for stumbling in him all right what's some of the emphasis of the gospel of john in light 1 5 and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it 1 9 that was the true light which gives light to every man coming into the world and 11 10 says but if one walks in the night he stumbles because the light is not in him okay let's do one more first john what does it say about children of god behold what manner of love the father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of god and the gospel john 1 12 but as many as received him to them he gave the right to become children of god to those who believe in his name do you see a harmony between the authors here the internal evidence that they're similar thank you very much george and birdie i'll let you keep those yeah if you want and by the way there's a lot more there we didn't read them all so what the scholars have done is they've gone through the gospel of john they've gone they've gone through first john and they just see this is the same fella who has got the same emphasis the same language the same uh loves of um truth and so uh based on the internal evidence the historical the external evidence we know that the first john was written by the same one who wrote the gospel of john all right let's get back to our lesson here and i like that and i want to thank them for doing that that we were able to get a little back and forth so you could see that you could also see it through second and third john but uh we just wanted to use first john today um one reason it sometimes is hard to identify john in his letters he is the most selfless of the apostles meaning that he never refers to himself somebody read for me john 13 23 and i think i may have given that to somebody hold your hand up if you got that verse john 13 33 hold your hand up i gotta see no who will who'll read it for me then now there was a leaning on jesus's bosom one of his disciples whom jesus loved who is that leaning on jesus bosom that jesus loved who is it it's john who wrote that book why doesn't he say i am i was leaning on jesus bosom all through the book he refers to himself as the one whom jesus loved very selfless he doesn't refer to himself he wants everything to point to christ and so you know that's one thing you reason you got to do a little homework a little detective work when you're looking at first john and the gospel of john is because john's not waving a flag with his name on it he's waving a flag with jesus name on it and so you do a little comparison and then you can find out who the author is now we're going to talk in the next section here about what you know we talked about whom we talked about when we talked about to who now we're going to talk about what what is the content of his epistles when you think about john he's often called the apostle of what the apostle of love yes and he said yes says so much about love and the statement god is love brethren love one another so much of that is in the writings of john but it might surprise you that john is also an apostle of law he had a lot to say about doctrine and theology and very strong contrasts were made by john in his writings let me give you an example of a few of those if you look in first john chapter 1 verse 6 it talks about the contrast between light and darkness now there's uh you know a boldness in what he says if you look in first john 2 18 and 2nd john 7 he talks about christ and antichrist i mean would you say they're opposites look at the contrast there in first john 2 verse 4 he talks about truth and falsehood we'll say more about that in just a minute truth and lies big contrast he says you know he doesn't go for the gray areas as some do he says things are black and white truth and falsehood christ and antichrist you're with me or you're against me and then if you look in first john 4 verses 4 and 5 he talks about being in god or being in the world says you can't love both if you look at first john 4 verse 6 you get the spirit of truth and the spirit of error and so this is just a small sample of the contrasts you're going to see in the writings of john the letters of john between right and wrong truth and air he draws some very bold stark lines of doctrine in his letters now if you look for instance in 2nd john chapter 1 and i'll read this for you verses 1 to 4 and it ends up being half the book it's a short letter john the elder to the elect lady and her children i'll talk more about this later but who is the elect lady some have wondered well you know maybe he's writing to a household like lydia had a household and there was some lady in the church but most scholars believe he's referring to the church as a lady isn't john also the writer of revelation where he portrays the true and the false church as two women you got the lady in revelation 12 who is the bride of christ and then you got that lady in revelation 17 who's the antithesis of that she is the um the great babylon so he's writing to the elect lady the saved or called the elect in the new testament he's talking to the church and her children the church and her children so that's what it's talking about by the way does babylon have children too babylon and daughters whom i love in the truth now notice the word truth there and not only i but also those who have known the truth because of the truth which abides in us there's a word abiding again will be with us forever grace mercy peace will be with you from god the father from our lord jesus christ the son of the father in truth and love i rejoice greatly when i found some of your children walking in truth look at that in truth the truth the truth in truth in truth what's the emphasis of that letter is there a point that he focuses on yeah it's the truth now that's interesting i was just listening to a tape actually by josh mcdowell yesterday where he was talking about how they interviewed a lot of young people over the course of a few decades about whether or not there is absolute truth and many people used to say there is absolute truth but as time has gone by and there's so much relativism and people are saying well you know that may be true for you but this is true for me and your religion will lead you to god it's your truth and my religion is my truth and it'll lead me to god and there's all this relativism and there's no absolute truth and people have become more and more wishy-washy about are some things absolutely right and wrong you're considered intolerant if you say to somebody this is the truth you shouldn't say it like that that's that's not loving you're supposed to say well i sort of believe this might be right and what you believe is right for you and and there's no right and wrong because people don't want to call anything sin everything wants to be perspective but according to the bible and according to the letters of john there is a truth and there is light and there is right and there is darkness and there is antichrist and there is wrong and he makes it very clear that you can't live in this gray area he says we've got to walk in the light and so this is another point we're going to find as we look at the letters of john is that he speaks in these very strong absolutes you know these letters became very precious to me one time when i was a a baby christian and i was doing a bible study with somebody who was saying uh you know we're saved by grace now we don't need to keep the law that you know the law has been nailed to the cross and that means that we don't need to keep the ten commandments anymore that's the old letter and and i didn't know what to say he was pulling out these scriptures and i was just a baby christian and i'm flipping through my bible and praying and all of a sudden i opened up first john and i was surprised at how much he had to say about the law and the commandments of god and i started reading and you know i'd always thought all those are the those are the love letters but they really have quite a bit to say any man who says that he loves him and keeps not his commandments as a liar well that's not very tolerant to say things that way but this is that by the way not only was he called the apostle of love jesus didn't call him that jesus called james and john sons of thunder i remember this is the the brothers that said lord give us permission we will call fire down from heaven on the samaritans and so he did have some very strong opinions and you'll find that out as we read on in the letters so we read that there and then someone read for me john the gospel of john chapter 8 verse 32. we just talked about the emphasis of truth john 8 32 and you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free all right there again you see the synergy between the gospel of john and second john now the emphasis on truth all right john 14 6 and we've got that over here go ahead let's read that for me john 14 6 jesus said to him i am the way the truth and the lie no one comes to the father except through me okay and then i think right we're still on the same side here john 18 37 or is that you ray you've got that over there i don't know that they're set up for you here so tell you what i'm going to read something for you second john 1 5 and 6 and now i plead with you lady now again who's the lady speaking to the church i plead with you lady as though i had as though i wrote you i'm sorry and now i plead with you lady not as though i wrote you a new commandment but that which you've had from the beginning that we love one another this is love that we walk according to his commandments and this is the commandment as you have heard from the beginning that you should walk in it so look at how he's mingling the truth and the commandments and love all right now i want to read john 18 37 right you ready pilate therefore said to him are you a king then jesus answered you say rightly that i am a king for this cause i was born and for this cause i have come unto the world that i should bear witness to the truth everyone who is of the truth hears my voice all right so look at the emphasis he has on truth you saw it there in the letters of john you see it's the same emphasis in the gospel of john john's the one who wrote these statements about jesus and then of course pilate asked that question he didn't wait for an answer what is truth so jesus said there was absolute truth pilate said what the people are saying today can anyone really know what the truth is i mean you know how often if we thought something was true when we were deceived and so you can't really be sure of anything there's a let me talk about that for just a moment more there's a period of time when you first come to god and you're studying the bible that's called a settling into the truth what that means is that you're growing and you're putting your roots down and i believe that when you first come to christ and you're reading the bible that you need to have the clay a little softer in your mind there's a lot of conceptions i had when i began to read the bible about what the bible said and as i read more i said oh i've got to adjust that that's not right for instance when i first started reading the bible i had come out of eastern religions i believed in reincarnation i actually thought the bible taught reincarnation because after all talked in the bible about a resurrection isn't that a reincarnation it's at least one and so i came to the bible with this idea that these people in the bible had been reincarnated and and i as i read on though i thought that was truth i had to say oh i'm way off on that and so i learned there's a lot of things i'd been wrong about and so my mind as i read the bible i realized i needed to keep some water in the clay that it didn't set up too fast because there was a lot of things i was wrong about but then after a while you can't always be reevaluating your foundation you need to let the concrete set at some point and say i have been through the word several times and when it comes to these foundational truths i am settled into the truth i am willing to die for the truth because at some point christians need to be willing to die for what they believe right if you're unsure of what you believe then are you going to die for it see what i'm saying you've got to know that some things are true and they're immovable truths and you need to be settled into those truths you don't want to always be walking around and double checking um just went on a camping trip with the boys and some friends had a truck and a trailer loaded with all kinds of gear and riding toys and and really loaded too driving oh six seven hours out into the desert long ride rough roads when we first loaded up we were on dirt roads all this gear you tighten everything down i just heard on the news yesterday that there was a traffic problem on 80 because someone lost some camping gear and the commentator says they're going to be real disappointed when they get to camp um we didn't want to be disappointed so what we did is when we first started down this bumpy road we stopped we got out we walked along around the low we cinched a few things down we checked to see if things were going to blow out or bounce out then we went on down the road a little while later when we stopped for gas we walked around the load one more time but you don't want to stop every 15 feet after that and look at your load you want to make the trip right and some people are continually walk they stop they keep stopping and walking around they're the load and they don't get to go anywhere somewhere along the way you can't keep checking the foundation you've got to say all right i've got the foundation right it's square it's set up now it's time to move on and keep building and there are certain truths that are unchangeable truths that once you nail them down you need to move on you need to be able to defend your faith you need to be able to say no matter what the whole world says no matter what the whole world does this is what the word says this is what i believe to be truth and i'm going to take a stand for it i'm willing to die for it so you want to settle into the truth and john believed that he believed that you've got to know what the truth is and then you've got to be willing to defend it and take a stand for it all right in second john 1 7 jesus says many deceivers john says actually many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess christ as coming in the flesh this is a deceiver in an antichrist so a special message or emphasis that john is dealing with was a theological problem in his day that people were saying well if jesus rose from the dead it wasn't really a physical resurrection or they were saying uh yeah god came but you just you know he wasn't a real being you just thought you saw him and uh it was an apparition it was an epiphany that all these people had and john is saying no i am an eyewitness and i saw him and i handled him keep in mind also what's happening john is the last apostle alive by the time of john there were not too many disciples left i'm not even talking apostles i'm saying even disciples they were he outlived most of them because he started young and i remember reading about when the last civil war veteran died and it was before i was born but what that was like you know right now the last world war one veterans are dying i don't know if there's any left um john was the last of the apostles and there were very few disciples because he lived up to about a hundred and so he saw heresy coming into the church about was jesus real and he really fought that and he said i touched him i saw him we handled the word of life we know that he was real i leaned on his bosom and so he uses all this language to try and illustrate that it wasn't a theory it's not a fable it wasn't an illusion he wasn't an apparition or a ghost or a spirit god came in flesh and so that's a very important emphasis in his in his letter the other emphasis that you find is about love this is not in the bible but one tradition says that as john got old and he was teaching the people he got to where he could not stand up and preach anymore and then he became more and more feeble and they got where they would bring him up on the platform and they'd carry him up on a gurney and he would say my little children love each other and that would be the extent of his sermon then they'd carry him off and you know someone in the congregation would shake their head and say oh poor old fella's losing it now and others would say no he's not he's just realized look i can't say much what's the most important thing that i can say to them and really he had it right because the whole gospel is summed up in two problems we've got one is loving god and the other is loving each other that's why john emphasizes those two great commandments and also paul does the whole gospel is summed up in loving the lord loving your neighbor and so you find a big emphasis on that matter of fact i think i've asked someone to read john 13 34. who has that hold your hand ups if you've got that verse that we gave out on a piece of paper john 13 34 right here okay let's get you a microphone and uh while you're getting set up for that let me read john 15 12. this is my commandment that you love one another just as i have loved you how does jesus want us to love each other as he loves us who here thinks they can love anybody the way jesus loves i can't even hardly like some of you i love you the way jesus loves come on fess up i don't don't you sometimes struggle just liking the brethren let alone loving them i mean sometimes we feel like we have to endure each other and jesus is saying not only do we have to love each other we've got to love them the way he loves them how is that possible only if he's in us if we have his spirit in us we can love each other the way jesus loves us all right now i gave you john 13 34 why don't you read that for us a new commandment i give to you that you love one another as i have loved you that you also love one another wow that's a pretty tall order isn't it that we love each other the way jesus loves us how can that happen you know one thing that comes into my mind is the parable of the unmerciful debtor i often think about that you know in matthew 18 it tells a parable about a king that finds one of his servants that squandered his money so that he has lost 10 000 talents for phenomenal sum of money that's so it's like you know bail out size figures 10 000 talents the talent was like 56 to 75 pounds and if it says ten thousand talents it could have been silver it could have been gold it's an enormous amount of money and he's lost it the king forgives him that same servant goes out and finds a fellow servant that owes the equivalent of like forty two dollars takes him by the throat throws him in prison to be tortured for forty two dollars that he hasn't paid and the king then calls in that wicked unmerciful debtor and he said look i forgave you that great big amount because you asked me to i freely forgave you shouldn't you also have had mercy on your fellow servant desired pity on you and the lord is telling us in that when we look at the cross that's the great debt that god has forgiven us that's the debt like between the distance between the earth and the sun is 93 million miles takes about eight and a half minutes for the light to travel from the sun to earth going at the speed of light and god is willing to forgive us that distance but we sometimes aren't willing to forgive each other one inch match up an inch to the distance to 93 million miles and you say wow god's a lot more forgiving than i am when you stand in the light of the cross and you see what jesus has paid for your forgiveness it makes it easier for you to love and forgive others you know i've had a special prayer on my heart lately i see a lot of my problems are summed up in not loving jesus more and i just pray i see lord help me love you better because i know if i love him better then i'll obey him better he said if you love me keep my commandments if i love him better i'll love you better if i love him better i'll love what he loves right sometimes i'll go out to eat with karen and she'll want to go to her favorite restaurant which is not necessarily my favorite restaurant but because i love her i say i want to go to your favorite restaurant you know what i mean and so you learn when you love someone you learn to love what they love even though it might not be your first pick when you see how much jesus loves the lost you become mobilized to reach the lost because he loves them and you love him and so so many of our problems revolve around just loving him better that would help us love each other and that's why john made that a special emphasis this is my commandment that you love one another just as i have loved you now we've talked a little about the who and the what now we're going to talk about the why in our time that remains the purpose of writing these letters someone please read first john 1 verse 4. first john 1 verse 4. all right you've got that right here let's just while they're finding that for you i'm going to read first john 2 verse 12 to 14. i write to you little children because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake i write to you fathers because you've known him who is from the beginning i write to you young men because you have overcome the wicked one i write to you little children because you've known the father i've written to you fathers because you have known him who is from the beginning i've written to you young men because you are strong and the word of god abides in you and you have overcome the wicked one now isn't it interesting that he writes his other letters to the elect woman but when he addresses individuals in the church it's always in the masculine context fathers sons little ones it's it's really all talking about the young men the children what does he mean by that well it's possible when he says little children these are people who are converted from his influence when he talks about the young men there are people who have been in the faith for a while and they should be strong and out doing the evangelism when he talks to the fathers he's talking to contemporaries who maybe also went all the way back and and knew the the times of jesus and those events some of the fathers were still alive in 68 a.d when he wrote this all right first john 1 4 i believe you're going to read that for us in these things we write to you that your joy may be full what is the purpose of this uh letter the writing so that our misery might be full you know even when you read james and he says cry howl and weep let your laughter be turned into mourning and you think wow is that the purpose of a letter but you read on he says humble yourself that the lord may lift you up the goal of humbling ourselves is ultimately our joy i mean where are we going as christians ultimately is it a is it a funeral or a feast he's taking us to a place of rejoicing we're going to talk about that in our message a little later and so he's writing to us that our joy might be full if you want more joy read these letters by the way in this next quarter study first second third john you can read all of that about 20 minutes it won't take you very long and so i'm hoping that at some point it'd be nice at the beginning it'd be nice if we did it several times along the way sit down and say all right i'm going to read the letters of john it's not hard and you can get through it pretty quick and just get your mind wrapped around what the emphasis is as we go through this study all right first john 5 13 talking more about what the purpose is who will read that for us i think i've given that out to somebody got it right up front here this thing i have 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 so another purpose of the letter is that their joy might be full that they might know that they've got eternal life i thought you weren't supposed to know that you have eternal life isn't it sort of arrogant to say i'm saved well it can be uh you don't want to say that with the attitude like peter said though all men should forsake thee i'll never forsake you he was trusting in himself and he failed um but if someone comes to you and says do you know the lord i believe that christians are supposed to know that they have eternal life meaning they not that they can't fall see the difference but you ought to know that you have it first of all if you have no assurance of salvation can you be happy can your joy be full if you have serious doubt are we supposed to live by faith or by doubt did jesus talk as though believers can know that if they continue to follow him that they've got eternal life let me tell you one reason i think this is so important part of righteousness by faith is i believe that you can maintain a godly life because you believe you have eternal life if you doubt that you are saved it's easier to sin if you believe that you have been given eternal life and your sins are forgiven you don't want to get back into that mess why would you gamble eternal life for sin if you've got it but a lot of people doubt that they've got it and so i think that we ought to have an assurance but not an arrogance or a recklessness where you're tempting the lord and saying i'm saved and i can't be lost that's the difference so when some people say i'm saved they're saying it like people who believe in predestination once saved oh he saved i can't be lost you shouldn't say it like that but people who have accepted jesus that believe their sins are forgiven that have new life he that has the son has what he's got life can you have assurance of salvation yes and that's why you can rejoice in the lord and so he talks about that he wants us to know that and have that another reason he writes to us is to warn us about the antichrist power now typically when people think of antichrist what book in the bible do they think of revelation and who wrote revelation john the apostle same one how many times does the word antichrist appear in the book revelation none not once it really surprises people when you tell them that because you hear so many people talk about the antichrist in revelation it's true the character of antichrist is in revelation but the word antichrist is not in the book of revelation you read about the millennium in revelation but the word millennium is not in revelation and you read about the bible in the bible but the word bible is not in the bible did you know that that's right so uh it's a latin word that means assembly of books the book of books um antichrist is found in the letters of john not in the book of revelation so one of the reasons that he writes to us is to warn us about the dangers of the antichrist for instance first john 2 18 little children it is the last hour and you have heard that antichrist is coming even now many antichrists have come by which we know it is the last hour i could take a long time and talk about john writes about the imminence he always writes that the end is at hand even when he he ends revelation he says i come quickly even so come lord jesus because he's talking about it it's happening right now had the antichrist already begun to work in john's and when you think about the shortness of life and the deceptions of the devil it is the last hour for every generation and so he was warning them about that he also says there in first john 2 verse 22 who is a liar that's not very tolerant but he that denies that jesus is the christ he is antichrist who denies the father and the son another example first john 4 verse 3 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 antichrist which you have heard was coming and is now already in the world so antichrist in summary is an opponent of the messiah or the anointed anti means against christ the anointed or the messiah he it's the power that works again against christ when you say antichrist you're really talking about the great controversy between good and evil so john's description of these antichrists includes the following one they have faulty understanding of who jesus is that's what the devil wants to do and you find that in the gospels of john two they have no relationship with the father or the son three they are liars uh these references the antichrist refer primarily to the false teachers who had left the church and were promoting heretical doctrines so antichrist describes anyone who denies the truth about christ and seeks to deceive others concerning him i want to say that again the antichrist we always think about the antichrist is this this rosemary's baby concept i'm not recommending that but before i was a christian that was a movie that came out about the devil having intimate relations with a human she gets pregnant and this antichrist is born half demon half human you know there's people who believe that they're people who believe in genesis chapter 6 where it says the sons of god saw the daughters of men they that demons had intercourse with humans and that's why you had giants i've never heard of anything genetically working like that that's absurd the sons of god they are the descendants of seth intermarry the daughters of cain and that's all that's talking about so the antichrist is not this half human half devil it's telling us that the antichrist describes anyone who denies the truth about christ and seeks to deceive others concerning him so how long has the antichrist been around is he just a last day character or all the way right after christ ascended to heaven the spirit of iniquity already began to work to deceive about jesus mission and ministry and to cause that confusion finally jesus in the epistles of john jesus is the center of the book christ is always pointing to jesus that he had come in the flesh it says by this you know the spirit of god every spirit that confesses that jesus christ has come in the flesh is of god now that wasn't meant by john to say that the litmus test for anybody in any church is all you've got to do is say this special abracadabra i believe jesus came in the flesh and automatically you're authentic because can the devil say that are there false churches that do say that jesus came in the flesh no he was just saying that dealing with the deceptions and the false theology that was coming into the church in those days you could pretty quickly identify the false teachers by the ones who are denying that jesus came in the flesh he didn't mean that that was the only litmus test that you were to apply over time i've heard some churches interpret it that way john chapter 20 verse 27 28 remember when he said to thomas reach your finger here and look at my hands reach your hand here put it into my side he was saying touch me feel me i'm real a spirit does not have flesh and bone as you see that i have then he ate in front of them and there's quite a bit more i i know i'm gonna have time to get to some of these other points i had to leave out today because we've run out of time but as we close i want to remind our friends if you missed it along the way we have a free offer it's called the faithful witness ask for offer number 104 and or you can even just go to amazingfacts.org we'll send that to you call the number we'll 1-866-788-3966 that to you hey i think we've gotten an adequate introduction to the letters of john i'll say more than i may have left out in future lessons god bless you friends thank you for studying with us and god willing we'll study again together next time

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Length: 50min 41sec (3041 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 01 2021