1-3 John - 1st John 5:18-21 Confidence and Certainties of Believers 3

Well, we're going to cover four verses this morning, so it's a little bit more content than normal, and they're pretty long verses. And so, with that being the case, we're not going to be able to go as deep as maybe we have in the past, just because of the sake of the content that we have to deal with.

But we're picking up with a three-part series. of within the First John epistle itself. And it was titled, Confidence and Certainties of Believers. And last week, the prior week, we began to look at those. Last week we dealt with some challenging verses. We'll very, very quickly recap that. But we are wanting to get that larger context of First John in our mind once again, just very quickly, so that we are remembering where where the themes are that we're focusing on. We said that the first epistle of John is an intensely practical letter addressed to Christian readers that warns against the dangers of false teaching. And who were those false teachers? What were their teachings? What were a few of them? Gnostics and Judaism. Okay, and what were the false teachings themselves? What were they saying? You don't get to say that because you just walked in. You didn't even hear half the question.

That's awesome. That's right. They were challenging the incarnation of Christ, weren't they? The deity of Christ. And that's what these folks were dealing with. They were dealing with those that were running around communicating a false doctrine that Christ's deity That was not true. And John calls them antichrists for that. Why? Because it's very fitting. They're antichrists. They're antichrist divinity. And that's what was going on. So we have this warning against false teaching.

We also have so many instances in 1 John concerning the obedience of the children of God. Those that believe in the Son of God, those that are sourced out of God, are going to act a certain way and do a certain kind of living, aren't they? And it's obedient living, it's faith-based living. And for those of us that recognize the grace and the identity truths in the scripture, we run into 1 John and we start saying, wait, hey, is this positional? Is this experiential or conditional?

What's going on? What is John talking about? But John's a very practical guy. He's very black and white, remember? Paul, he likes to deal with the gradients and the grays and the hows and the whys and the whats, and these are the reasons why. John says, nope, here's the truth and this is what it causes. And we're going to see that today in our verses that we're looking at. So nonetheless, the type of obedience or faith that John has been communicating from the very beginning of this book all the way to the very end that we get to today has been the kind of obedience and faith that says, because of this, this is the way it is. black and white. That's John. That's the way he thinks. So we want to keep that in mind.

We also have the love for fellow brothers and sisters, fellowship with the body, and fellowship with the Son of God. We dealt with the fellowship factor last week, didn't we? The idea of praying for those that we see in a sin. And what we're praying for is the life. We talked about that last week. So that's the larger context. We also just brought out 1 John 1, 3, reviewing again what we have seen and heard.

We proclaim, we being the apostles, the band of apostles, we proclaim to you also so that you too have fellowship with us. There was a fellowship with the apostles through the believing of the doctrine that they were teaching and also that fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And so we have fellowship with the body as well as fellowship with the Son. Fellowship being a major part of this book.

So the immediate context of this last chapter that we've been looking at, we said, verse 13, John had just written about God's testimony in 5, 9 through 12, and it aimed to give those believers confidence and certainty to his readers that despite anything that these Antichrists were saying, believers do indeed possess eternal life.

And that the source, being Jesus, was a reliable, divine source. And that in that source, there is eternal life. And you can have absolute, perfect knowledge of that. And John used the word, know. We know. And that was an absolute, positive knowledge.

We're going to see that come up again several times in the verses today. Verses 14 and 15, the one who believes in the name of Jesus Christ has a confidence and a certainty in approaching God in prayer. Requests made in accordance with God's will are heard by him and a believer can be certain of receiving answers to them. We know this. You know this.

And then last week we dealt with 16 and 17, some tough ones, but we can be confident and certain that God will hear our prayers concerning the quest of life for our fellow believers. And that brings us to the passage that we're dealing with today, verses 18 through 21.

And if somebody wants to read, you can read from the board here or from the slide, It says, We know that no one who is born of God sins, but he who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true, and we are in Him who is true, in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God in eternal life.

Little children, guard yourself from idols. Okay, at first glance, just kind of taking in all that you've studied in this class from First John, are there really any new themes here? Can you pick out anything new? The only thing I could see was the idolatry at the very end.

That's kind of like, whoa, where'd that come from? happens to be very fitting concerning what we've learned in 1st John, and we'll get to that later. But really what we're doing is we're covering content that's already been discussed in the book of 1st John. So basically we can go ahead and close our Bibles and just have time to fill up now. We're going to review. And that's really what John's doing here is he's reviewing the content that he's already laid down for us and he's putting a bookend. to what he's already said, and he's summing it up.

The idea of this inclusio, he's bringing it all together, and it's really clear in verse 20 as we're getting to it. But let's look and see here, what are the repetitive terms that John's using here in these verses that we need to be aware of? Born of God. Okay, we've got Born of God. Definitely got the... We see God, God, God, God, God, God. There's a repetition there. The evil one. Okay, we've got the evil one. Let's start with the very first words. We know. What does he do? He does it again in 19. What about in 20? We know, we know, we know.

And that's the idea, is that John's not leaving any room for gray areas in the mind of the believer. And these believers that were being challenged with, is Jesus really the Son of God or not? You see, these antichrists were deceiving by bringing in the type of knowledge that cannot be known. We can't be for sure about things. Gnostics, that's what they did. They brought in doubt, didn't they? Does John want us or the believers of his day to suffer from a Christian life filled with doubt? He doesn't.

How many of us have dealt with those very things in our Christian walk? So much doubt. Not sure. I don't know for sure. There's a whole world view that doesn't know for sure. What do they call that? We can't really know anything for sure. What's it called? Agnostic. That's right. We don't know.

This idea of knowledge being something that can be absolute and without change is denied very, very much in our world today, too. And it was in John's day. Gnostics were, even whether we can call them Gnostics in the fullness of the sense, they were definitely introducing doubt.

I'm just trying to bring this back to today a little bit for us today because I think that we're in a similar situation with the church. The more I listen to music or even Christian music or read Christian material that's out there, and I know that we may not as a church be as familiar with some of these things, but our friends that are Christians are familiar with these things. These are the things that they're listening to. The books on the bookshelves are the books that they're picking up. And while we may not find a lot of comfort in that material, that is still the material that's shaping the Christian world by and large today. And one of the underlying themes of Christian material, Christian music, just the Christian world out there, is this lack of assurance in a lot of ways. In fact, the mindset of Hinduism, Buddhism, the Eastern mindset that's infiltrated much of the way Christians think today, this post-modernism, suffers from this issue of not knowing for sure. This idea of, ah, it's more of a personal knowledge.

It's what I know to be true. And what you know to be true is true for you, and what I know to be true is true for me. Is that what John's saying here? Not at all. But that is the way that believers, even today, are being convinced that they should think. Because it's an arrogance. It's an arrogance to claim what John is claiming is awfully arrogant, isn't it? John, you're an arrogant apostle. I was thinking, even in open theism, even God's not sure. That's right. They have Him not even knowing the future. I think that's part of it. That's right. No, that's absolutely the case. Absolutely, absolutely.

That is what open theism teaches. And so, if God doesn't know what's happening, for sure, we can't know for sure. Do we ever have a confidence, and can we rest in the Christian faith if we don't know something? There is no rest for those that don't know. So if you take just that one term, we know for sure, and in the Greek it's this positive absolute knowledge, if you take that and twist it up a little bit, you've really, you've taken the whole foundation of the entire content of what the Apostle said, you can have fellowship with this in, and there is no fellowship anymore.

Because you're not believing what I'm believing, I'm not believing what you're believing, And at the end of the day, we've got to find something that we can do together that doesn't cause us to bring these things out. And so what does the church do today?

Kumbaya. That's funny. And you said it with such... Thank you for that. That's right. We focus on something that is experiential, don't we? Experiences are subjective, aren't they? If we've got an experiential, subjective feeling, Who are we to say that you didn't have that feeling and that experience?

And so the last thing that church wants to do today is get into absolute perfect knowledge of something because that is going to cause division and division means that we're not going to be able to gather together and do our thing. And I understand, I understand that, you know, churches want to increase their, and they're not all out to grow in numbers. They really do want to help people, but their thinking is we can't help them with absolute perfect knowledge in every single instance. We're not going to go verse by verse through the Bible.

So what we can do is we can maybe give them some encouragement and do what we can, given that no one is going to do what we're doing here. No one's going to sit down and have a teacher tell us and work through verse by verse and talk about what is actually being said by the author and what it meant to the original audience. No one's going to observe and interpret and imply and do this whole hermeneutics thing. I mean, who even does herm-a-who?

You know, it's like, what? We don't have time for that. with the technology that we have, everything is immediately within your grasp. Anything that you want to know, boom, and you got it. And that's not the Word of God, it just doesn't work that way.

It takes time, doesn't it, to uncover these truths. And I dare to say that having worked through 1 John, I know that I've been challenged in a lot of areas of my own thinking. And I'm changing in the sense that I'm becoming, hopefully, more in tune with the Word of God and less inclined to my own ideas.

But, in many cases, the ideas that a person brings, especially if they're eloquent with it, are welcomed. And we want those new ideas and that new way of thinking, and that's what postmodernism puts as a real high and mighty and lofty truth about itself, if you can even use the word truth in their worldview. But what I bring up here, and not to get us too derailed, Whether or not you or your family has been affected by the postmodern way of thinking, it is the prominent way of thinking today. Even amongst the Christians that you meet. They are thinking postmodern.

They are thinking in terms of what's true for you is true for you, and what's true for me is true for me. And whether or not you agree with it or understand it, you can't change the reality that that's what they're doing. Most of... Question. Theological School when they're having a graduation exercise and here are the paper seats. It's a fact. It's a fact.

It's a perfect, absolute knowledge fact that you can't understand what they're saying. And do you know that we've used the analogy that post-modernism and this... And we're moving past post-modernism now, as the educated world is saying. We're moving into a, you know, post-post-modernism. They're wanting to continue to go, because post-modern has this idea of not ever arriving. which is the reason why you don't understand what they're saying. And the analogy that we've used in the past is it's kind of like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.

You just can't nail them down. You want them to say, where do you stand on these matters? And it's like they just keep slithering and sliding around. And Christians are doing that too. And they're not doing it because they're a postmodern philosophical person that's really trying to slither and slide and be deceptive. They've just grown up with this way of thinking.

I'm going to read this to you, and you just figure out what it means to you. And they've been taught that way for years now, and they don't know how to even begin to think about absolute knowledge anymore. Because where do you get absolute knowledge? Without the Word of God, we're left to what? Where do we get truth?

That's right. So, the very first verses of the Bible distinguish between the Creator and the creature. And there is the creator's realm of truth and understanding, we call it sovereignty, righteousness, omnipotence, omnipresence. love, joy, I may not start going into the fruits of the spirit, but we've got love, and this God who is, as a creator, is so radically different in terms of the knowledge that He has, and yet He shares it with us, some of it. And for the portions of knowledge that He has shared in His omniscience, we have absolute and perfect knowledge because it came from the Creator. So we have the creator and the creature distinction. If we don't have the creator in our worldview, what is our experience for gaining knowledge? How far does that go? Books that other humans have written, the accumulation of knowledge that man has acquired over the known history, right?

So if you don't have an absolute perfect God who is omniscient, knows all, and actually you need all the attributes of God for even omniscience to work. They all work independently of one another. You don't have just omniscience and not omnipresence. Think about it. How can a God be completely knowing and not be everywhere? You can't, because if God is quote-unquote omniscient, or all-knowing, and yet he's not aware of what's happening over here, that means he can't be knowledgeable about all things, because he's not there. So all the omnis and, you know, what we call the attributes of God are interdependent of one another, and they make up the creator himself. That's what's unique about him. He is all of these things at once, continually. He's never changed being those things.

And he says, I'm going to share with you some information, and I've given the apostles certain information, and this is information that's going against what you're being taught by the antichrists of his day, and in the day of our day, we've got the postmodern thinking that's being slapped upside our heads in every which way possible. And John's still saying the same thing.

We've got a God who has given us absolute and perfect knowledge, and we can know that no one who is born of God sins. So now we're moving into the more specific topic of this lesson. And the idea there with sin, there is a continual action, and it's present. It's an ongoing sin. And what John's saying is that if you're born of God, who is born of God? Who's he talking to? the leaders, and he's saying those that are born of God, they don't sin. They don't keep sinning.

I mean, that's just what it says. And there's been a lot of attempts to try to understand this from different angles like, oh, this is just talking about position. But the truth is, is that for those of us that are born of God, when you when you place your understanding of absolute and perfect knowledge in the hands of the creator himself, He tells you what is true, even about yourself now. Your own experience is not what tells you about yourself. And when we think about condition versus position as a believer, that's one of the things that I think is critical to growing in your walk, is that it's not simply the fact that You understand how you're supposed to live. It's actually what God has said is true of you dictates your experience, rather than what you experience yourself. Because you don't have the perfect knowledge of who you are.

Only God can tell you your position in Christ. Are we seated in the heavenlies? Does anybody feel like they're seated in the heavenlies? They feel like it. You don't feel like it. The only reason you know that to be true is because God said it is true. And so we hang our hat experientially on what is true positionally, don't we? That's the only way that we can see the experience of not sinning in our life. It's when you take by faith what the Word of God says absolutely.

It's not a, I think that you're not going to sin. It's that you don't sin. Question? I was going to say, I think over time, a mature believer, maybe up until the point where they die, they might be the most mature they could be on this planet. And so they might, if they looked at their lives, and they could see, well, yeah, I'm sinning a lot less, but they probably won't even think about that, because they're focused on Christ, so it's not an issue.

I think the idea of having no sin, it's just, we know it's impossible for that to be accomplished. It is impossible. The issue is not that, and John makes clear that if you say you don't have sin, you're a liar. So we know that John is not expecting for us to be in a position where we say we don't have sin. He's saying that those who are born of God don't continue to sin. You know, actually, Wheat's translation I thought was helpful here. I'm going to paraphrase it. Everyone having been born in God does not continually sin.

There's actually a negative in there that is not well translated, I don't think, by the American standard. I found it kind of interesting. So actually, that does help that you don't continually sin. To me, it helps me kind of grasp that. That says that as a born-again believer, As an unbeliever, you continually sin. That's your state of being. As a believer, he's kind of giving you what you don't continually sin, which is actually good news. It's kind of a strange way to look at it, but that's why I think he's conveying it, it seems like. I think so.

It's too bad they didn't bring that negative across a little bit more forcefully. in the American Standard, it is there. Yeah, the New American Standard is a little weak in that way. Some of the other translations have that continuous action a little bit more clear.

We could say habitually, we could say continually, and if you remember back to my first time in this class, I really struggled with this. I really struggled with it. And having taken some time to work through this, Vern helped me recognize that we can't escape the fact that this is a present ongoing situation of sin.

But what we don't want to get into is, well, what does habitual or continual mean? But it means habitually, continually, always, continually, no matter what, this is what you're doing. Is that a believer's life? Never is that the constant state of a believer's life.

Because 1 John 1.9, what does it say? What do we say? It's a confession verse. It's a getting back in fellowship verse. Have you ever experienced getting back in fellowship as a believer?

Therefore, you don't continue to sin. That's not your state of being. If you have confessed your sin, found yourself getting out of a habitual sin, if you jump right back in it, is it continuous? It's actually not. You broke the continuous strain that exists for the unbeliever because they can't stop. There is no 1 John 1 9 for an unbeliever. They're always in a state of sin.

But for the believer, in fact, the very moment you come to know the Lord, that very instance of faith, It is a beginning point of being perfectly in the condition, both experientially and positionally, without sin. What do you do the next few seconds? You probably sin. And what do you do? You grow in the knowledge of the Word of God and you start to learn what it means to get back into fellowship.

But this is not a law thing. This is a state of being thing, and it's positional and it's conditional. I don't think that we can differentiate them, and I don't think John allowed for us to do that. Now, that was tough for me. It was really tough for me, and I think it was tough for some of the others in the class, too.

But John's just saying, hey, if you're born a God, you don't continually habitually sin. Does it mean that you don't have a habitual sin in your life? No, it doesn't mean that. It means that you're not continually in a state of sin without any instances of confession and fellowship with the Lord. That's what we do. Do you have, as a believer, is there any way to escape the conviction of the Holy Spirit of sin and the grieving of it? You can do it by hardening your heart. You can. I mean, you can do that.

But to say that to say and John, I think John's really what what what sin do you think John has in mind as he's talking about this stuff? Is he getting real broad and trying to encompass everything, or is he really trying to deal with the reality of there's these guys that have been saying that Christ's deity is not the case. And let me tell you guys, the ones who are born of God, they don't continue to do this stuff. And I'm not saying that he's limiting to sins to that, but that's the context. They're not going to keep doing this. If they're born of God, they're not going to keep denying the divinity of Christ, the deity of Christ, and they're not going to go out there and teach people that Christ is not the Son of God. If you're born of God, you just don't continue to do that.

That's included in what he's saying, and I think that it's ideal to keep in mind the context of what John's been teaching so that we don't get on this idea of, well, he's continually sinning and I'm going to go fruit inspecting every believer that I have a relationship with and find out whether or not they're born of God, because that's not what's going on here. But we know, and it's 18, 19, 20, we talked about that, John is encouraging that certainty in our minds and he was affirming that anyone born of God is a person whose inward nature is inherently sinless.

Okay, so we know that that's the case as well. Any questions about this term before I move on to the next one? I've put some verses in here that also talk about our true self and our position because, why do I bring that up? Only when you know about your position will your condition fall in line. Your condition can't be anything in terms of real life. And I believe that the word real life is a better label for the positional you than it is the conditional you. You know, we always talk about the real life. Well, the real life is really the way our position is before the Lord. That's the true us. So for the sake of time, because I got off on a little bit of a tangent there, there's some verses here that have to do with the position of our true self.

Can someone just read Ephesians 4.24 for me? We'll just do one. and put on the new self which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. That's you. And that was done the moment you believed. It's not an ongoing thing. It's something that happened. Putting on the new self happened the moment you became a believer.

And that is you now. And so we know that from other portions of the scripture, John doesn't clarify a lot of the positional perspectives. That's Paul's job. John's job is to, black and white, right upside the head. Don't forget, this is who you are. And you don't do that. You know, sometimes that's what we need. I talked about how as a child, it's like, no, don't touch that. I'm not gonna tell you why. The answer is no, don't. You know, that's how John, he teaches us. Paul's like, don't touch it.

Here are the reasons why. This is what will happen if you do it. I used to do it too, and I was the worst of them, and I'm burned all over the place. That's the kind of experiential explanation that you get from Paul. John's black and white, don't do it. This is not what you do. This is not how you live. This is not who you are. You're sourced out of God, as we'll see. So the second part of that verse, but he who was born of God keeps him.

Does this have anything to do with assurance and confidence? This is big in assurance and confidence. You can hang your hat on this. Because the new man in Christ possesses this sinless nature of the indwelling Christ, John could say that Christ keeps him from sin. The more you understand who you are in your perfect nature, the more that will conditionally be experienced. It's Christ doing the living because you understand your position in Him.

Question? of us who listen a lot to talk radio, at some point sometimes the announcer gets a little freewheeling and you realize that's not who I am and I don't care to listen to that point of view. Click. Yeah, sometimes we have to stop listening. Because we're trying to perfect the old man, and we're getting in law rather than in grace.

And so, definitely, this perspective is not well known or well studied. And the evil one does not touch him. So not only are you kept, and I'm obviously having to move a little bit more quickly, I'd love to camp out more on these verses and these terms and words. But the second part of 518 there talks about, and the evil one does not touch him.

So we have the idea that, who is the evil one? Satan. And these are anti-Christs that were communicating that Christ was not divinity, or rather he was not deity. Same thing. And he says, in light of this false teaching, that's not how we behave, that's not how the Son of God, or I'm sorry, those who are born of God behave. And there is no way whatsoever that he who is born of God does not have this guardianship of the Son. And not only is there this guardianship, but the evil one can't even touch him. Is eternal life in view here?

Has John already mentioned that term in the first part of the verses he has? And he's going to mention it again. But we see here that Satan can't touch him. Evidently John restated this fundamental truth because people normally behave in harmony with what they believe themselves to be. If Satan can affect you, you're going to think about that. John's saying, he can't even touch your position. He can't even touch your eternal security in the Son of God. He can't.

And once you get that nailed down, you're moving on. You're moving on from the mother's milk of the Word of God to the more advanced truths of the Word of God, the more positional stuff that Paul talks about. But you've got to have this down first before you can even start to get into Paul's teaching and understanding.

You've got to be eternally secure in the Son of God. Because if you're not secure, and we all know that eternal security as a fundamental understanding of a young believer has everything to do with how that Christian might or might not grow. If you're fearful of this position, then you're not going to be able to grow in the truths and in the identification truths. You're not even going to get to that stuff because you're constantly worrying about whether or not you're in or out, in or out. And John's trying to warn that, or maybe not even warn, at this point, more encourage and create confidence and understanding that that's not the case.

We know that we are of God, verse 19. Again, a regenerate person's new nature is inherently sinless. We've talked about that already because God's seed is in him. God has made an investment in you. You are sourced out of, we've talked about that, the ek, being out of, born out of, sourced out of God. God's made an investment of you. His seed is in you now in the sense that We talked about in 3.9, that was I think one of the verses, if I don't remember, at least it would have been had I been here. I would have dealt with it then, I think it was later on down the road. Where is our citizenship? Where is our certainty? So he goes to who you are and your position and then he shows you the other side of it.

In the previous verse it was, you're guarded and held secure by the Son of God, Satan cannot touch you. You are born out of, you are sourced in God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. Is that where you are? Are you in the power of the evil one?

So I get a little bit put off with too much talk about the evil one and about Satan's influence on our lives. You know, that's not in Scripture. The whole worrying about Satan tempting us and doing all this, I mean, the demonic factor of an influence on a believer's life, how much is that talked about in Scripture?

I mean, if this whole slide, or screen, thank you, represented all the knowledge of the New Testament concerning who we are in Christ from the Grace New Testament perspective. How much of it would be, you think half of it would be about the demonic influences on us? A quarter?

It's like this. And yet so many people are caught up with that. John's like, no, the whole world lies in the power of the evil, and Satan can't even touch you. Done deal, we're moving on. Let's wrap up what I've been trying to say in this whole verse. I think you have to have an understanding of your position, because we can get caught up in the things of the world and get scared, but the idea of our citizenship is in heaven is reassuring. Absolutely. And that's the confidence that John wants you to have, even today.

In light of what they were dealing with, we're dealing with similar situations. You can't know for sure. Satan's going to do this and do that, and here's all the different... No. John says the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. We're distinct from that world system. That's the system that Satan controls.

That's the situation that every unbeliever finds himself, but we're God's children. And in 5 chapter 5, 9 through 13, which was the verses previous to these, this is the situation. You're God's children. You're born of God. Born of God. Out of God. Source of God. That's not where you are. You're not in this system.

The system that our unbelieving friends find themselves in is not the system we're in. We're not in that way of thinking. And if you are, then you're inconsistent with what is true about you. And that's probably the best thing that we can do for our believing friends that are being influenced by the world systems, to say, it's spiritual insanity. You're not understanding who you really are. It's an identification problem.

And these verses touch on it, but they don't go into all the ways that a person can better understand who they are in Christ. That's not what John's job is, remember. So we'll just keep it simple. We'll keep it black and white and move on as well. 520. And we know that the Son of God has come.

Were they dealing with that? They weren't sure. Right? That's what these Antichrists were teaching. He says, no, we know with absolute perfect knowledge the Son of God has come and he has given us what? We need understanding. We're not meant to not understand stuff. This idea of, we can't really know. This postmodern perspective of Christianity is not what John was advocating at all. We can know for sure because God has sent his son and he has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true. Notice that the understanding is not just an intellectual knowledge. What's the purpose of that understanding?

Focused on the person of Christ. We may know him, beholding him through the word, which is what we're all about. It's about the truth absolutely, perfectly known and made known and understood so that you can have a relationship with him. A fellowship with him. And that it can be intimate. And that understanding is designed for intimacy. I think that's pretty cool.

That's a big issue for me because I get intellectual about things a lot. And sometimes I miss out on the realization and it takes me four or five times before I get to the point where I'm like, oh, wait a minute. I'm not dealing with the grievances here. I'm actually coming into a better acquaintance with a person. And that person is the one who has given me the eternal security that I'm sourced out of. And I'm given understanding.

I don't have to walk around not knowing. who he is and who I am. I've met so many people that walk into the philosophical college teaching setting, the classroom, and they walk out and they're so depressed because they don't know who they are, where they came from, why they're there, and that's the point of the class.

What is truth? How can I know it for sure? What is right? What is wrong? All these philosophical questions. We can't know for sure any of these things. John says, nope. Our eternal security, who we are, we know that. Where we came from, we know that. How we were to live, we know that. What is truth, we know that. Philosophically, we should be at peace. And that's a great thing, because the world is not at rest at all with those things.

You brought up post-modernism. I know some people who are involved in this emergent church movement, and to me, observing on the surface level, to me it looks like an idolatry of philosophers. They're following different philosophers who have these ideologies that It's about knowing them, it's not about knowing Christ. They totally missed the point. I agree. I think, you know, there's two different ways of looking at truth.

A lot of times we can look at how it's mistreated in our experience today, and the Emergent Church would be an example of that. I try to touch on those things, but I try not to go into great depth with them very often just because we need to recognize it. But what we really need to do is hone in on the Word of God and behold Him through it. And so that's where the Emergent Church is missing out, for sure.

But there's so many things that we could say to guard ourselves from the idolatry of the Emergent Church. I believe it is an idolatry. And it's funny that John sums this thing up in that same way. So interesting you brought that up, but it is an idolatry. And it's moving away from the Son of God, which is exactly John's point. And it was exactly the Antichrist's problem of his day.

We have spiritual understanding through our anointing with the Holy Spirit, 2.20. 1 John 2.20 talks about that. whom Jesus Christ sent. And we can look at that verse, we're not going to, but the Spirit, the Son, there's instances in the scripture where we recognize that God sent those persons of himself in order to bring understanding to us.

We're not meant to live in the dark. The fuzzy-headed you know, I don't know where I'm going, what I'm doing, why I'm here. That experience is not intended to be the case for the believer. It doesn't mean you can't have questions, but it does mean that the Word of God has answers. I really believe that. I think that's what John's trying to drive home.

And we are in Him who is true, in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God in eternal life. Consequently, we can come to know God intimately and can abide in God and in His Son, Jesus Christ, who is the true God in eternal life. The full title, His Son, Jesus Christ, appears only at 1.3 as well as here in the epistle providing bookends. He started out in chapter 1, verse 3, His Son, Jesus Christ, and here he brings that back. It's all about the views of Christ and how that influences your fellowship, your love for the brethren, your love for the Lord, and these issues of love and fellowship are tied to an understanding of His Son Jesus Christ. And we're in Him, we're in Him who is true, we're sourced in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. Again, he brings up this idea of eternal life, and that it's sourced in God, and we're in it.

Little children, guard yourselves from idols. Beware of the imitation. That's right. And I know that I worked quickly through those verses, but it's not new information at this point. And so we can stand on it. If we were dealing with the verses from last week, we might need to go at it a little slower. But we can cover four verses in this way because this is not new for us anymore.

John's just reminding us it's repetition. It's who you are. It's where you're sourced. It's what is true. And finally, he wraps the whole thing up with a warning. Little children. Has the word children been used before? It has. It has. At all phases of growth, at some point we sometimes find ourselves acting like kids. That's right.

I wonder, and I haven't thought of this, it just occurred to me now, I wonder if the issue of idolatry is closely related to that level of maturity in the Christian world. I don't know. It was a thought that occurred to me, but I think the title, Little Children, Guard Yourselves from Idols, is appropriate in light of the fact that these believers were dealing with one of the most fundamental truths of who Christ is. And so, if they're struggling with this knowledge, They would be quite young in their understanding, wouldn't they? Potentially. It would seem to be the case with his title here, Little Children. But nonetheless, there is a family. There is a sense of, as an apostle, John is wanting to... We're talking family here now. Guard yourselves from idols. How do you guard yourself from an idol? We've got five minutes. And what idols do you think John had in mind here?

We've already kind of mentioned it. Let's keep it in context and not get too far out. But at the same time, where's the application here for us to do today as well as what is the saying? A factor of truth versus lies. So an idol could be a lie, I guess. I think that's contextual too, because he's been talking about what we know and what we understand and what we know to be true. So truth as a subject has very much been in the context of this last part of chapter 5.

So guarding yourselves mentally from believing certain things, definitely what the Antichrist were teaching. I think a way to guard would not necessarily be to focus on the negative thing, the lies. Like you said, you kind of know it and you understand it a little bit, but you don't focus on it. You focus on the truth. You focus on Christ.

Have you ever met somebody that focuses so much on what is not Christianity, Apologetics can have a tendency to do that to a person. I'll have to say that I've been in that boat before, where I've been so concerned about understanding what is not true, just because I just wanted to know it better than even the unbelievers themselves knew what they believed. You know that tends to be but what you end up finding out is that's not what God intended at all And I think you're right. I think that it is a focusing on truth from a counterfeit perspective Idolatry has to do with counterfeiting right and you mentioned I can't remember the term that you used but it was along the lines of counterfeit What imitation what makes an idol a good idol I It looks almost, but not quite like the real thing.

And it seems to work alright. And I'm sure what the Antichrists were saying then sounded like it worked okay. Man, I don't have any problem putting some of the proponents of the Emergent Church in the same boat today. I don't have a problem with that, personally.

You could put men in place. Idol could be a man. Could be a man. It could be men that are giving God's Word, but you're focusing on this guy. He delivers it really well. I'm going to focus on this guy. This other guy over here, he's not so good. I'll just focus on him. The Lord wants us to focus on Him. Yeah, I think for sure. Not on men.

That is definitely something that John had in mind here. We could put the term idol on so many different things. And we each know how that personally touches our mind and our experience in terms of what we idolize. But I think John had in mind very obviously through the epistle itself, there's a set of teaching and there's some folks that are doing it. And they're trying to draw you into their system and where they're sourced out of. They're sourced out of Satan, they're sourced in the world. And they're trying to draw your mind into that, guard yourself from it. And today, it's slick too. And it's even more slick. Maybe it's not more slick, I shouldn't say that, but it sure is tough to differentiate sometimes what a person is saying.

How are you going to differentiate that counterfeit? And this is what my point was going to be. If you take a dollar bill, and you take a counterfeit dollar bill, are they going to look the same? If you get far and you look at them, are they going to look the exact same? Yeah. You have to inspect closely.

But if all you have ever done is study counterfeits, how are you going to ever know what the real true bill looks like? So if you major in this role of life where you're analyzing counterfeit all the time, you're never going to know, you know, what the true bill looks like. The way it's not that you know, that we sit and study the counterfeits all the time. We study the one true, all the intricacies of the true authentic bill.

And then whenever we see the counterfeits, like, no, it doesn't line up. I've never heard of it before. I don't know what you're talking about with this emergent stuff, but it doesn't line up. I don't know what you're talking about with the next movement next week or the next week or the next week, what these guys are going to change to as they lose steam in these other areas.

But when you're focused on the Word of God and the truth and the knowledge and the security that you have in that, then this idolatry becomes easier to recognize and you can guard yourself from it. And I think John wants us to know that, absolutely, positively know that we have our security in the Son of God and that His keeping and guarding us is something that should be focused on. And as the last very small part of this entire letter that we've been studying, is to discard yourself from that. Keep yourself from that idolatry.

Well, you get to do a summary coming up. That's true. And then we've got to move on to 2nd and 3rd John the rest of the year. That's right. So we'll rely on Roger to tie it all together. Take all these loose pieces and puzzle pieces that each teacher has presented. I think, interestingly, we've done, we've all experienced some pretty neat stuff as we've worked through this. So, sure, I'm thankful to be able to work with you guys and teach, and your questions have definitely sharpened me and caused me to think. So, thanks for letting me kind of come in midstream here and be a part of... You're not done, Jim. You have a couple more classes before that. Yeah, but... It's been fun.

Let's close in order of prayer. Lord, we're just so thankful for your plans and your perfect work in our lives and how without understanding in so many things we can come back to your word and we can have understanding. We can be sure what you've said positively, beyond a shadow of a doubt, we can place our assurance in what you have told us, and that translates to who we are. And we can be sure that we are, your children, eternally secure in your hands, and that the other system out there has nothing and can do nothing to harm that, change that. We are in your hands. And Father, we just thank you so much for that truth. Thank you for the Just the opportunity that we've had to work through your truth this morning and how it's changed and hopefully refined our thinking regarding this subject of truth and relationship to you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.