(Opening prayer)
If you look at the verses, we’re looking at verse 24, which is the one we’re going to start with today. Once again you see John looking at this word “beginning.” Over and over again he keeps talking about that which was from the beginning – that which was from the beginning - that which you heard from the beginning. The false teachers could be looked upon as revisionists. They were to the church in that era like the historians are in our country today. The liberal historians are what we call revisionists. They are attempting to rewrite colonial history and the history of the Constitution because the worldview of the men who wrote the Constitution is so foreign to modern culture. The argument is we can’t understand them so what we have to do is we have to reinterpret and revise what they really meant to say. Either we do that or we have to overtly and very clearly and publicly disregard.
The judicial community is between a rock and a hard place here because they can’t come out and clearly and publicly repudiate the Constitution. But on the other hand, their worldview prevents them from accepting the kind of thinking that went into the Constitution. So that’s why as several legal scholars have said the modern reasoning process, including the that of Supreme Court, is about equivalent to a senior level in high school that has taken two English courses. This is not my quote. This is the law professors that are kind of appalled at the sloppy way that we make judicial decisions.
The latest example of SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) in showing the kind of sloppy thinking was Justice Kennedy’s who wrote the majority opinion on the DOMA decision. The DOMA decision was the Defense of Marriage Act that Congress had passed that defined marriage as one man, one woman. This was booed by the gay community and so the Supreme Court last year – or yeah, I think it was the end of last year. It was before New Years. What they argued was that the government, the Federal Government, can’t define marriage.
What they did, contrary to what you hear, they said, “We’re not attempting to redefine marriage. We leave that to the states.”
So it’s up to the states to do this. Of course the media, the federal judges just started overturning one man – one woman state after state after state because it violated the Constitution. That’s not what the Supreme Court said. Read the decision. The DOMA case didn’t say that the same sex marriage or the classical marriage (natural marriage) was anti-constitutional.
What the Supreme Court said was, “We’re not deciding. It’s up to the states to decide that matter.”
They left it in the hands of the states.
Well, all that to say that in presenting the majority opinion of the court, Justice Kennedy argued that for anyone to be against same sex marriage and the bias of the traditional narrow definition of marriage limited to one man, one woman is only because of animus and bigotry. So here you have the Supreme Court majority opinion judge basically name calling everyone who believed in traditional marriage for the last – what is it – four thousand years. So that’s the kind of poor, sloppy amateurish kind of stuff that goes on in the courts. It’s verbal nonsense.
So Scalia, who was on the majority side of that five-four decision, came back with a scathing denunciation of the majority of judges in which Scalia argued that this court has resorted to poor old name calling that would be found in a schoolyard. Then he went on to say that if the court gets away with this, they can get away with anything. So there’s a tremendous division on the part of the court between these two schools. All that to say is that we’re dealing here with revisionism.
John in this epistle was dealing with revisionists. These people had socially circulated in the city of Jerusalem. They were in the so-called Christian elite and they had the reputation when they went out to visit churches in the countryside that you-ought-to-pay-attention-to-me-because-I-live-in-Jerusalem kind of thing. Then they wanted to sell the Christian communities on a revised version of the gospel. That’s where John called…
That’s where he drew the line in the sand and said, “These people are antichrists.”
We want to remember antichrist means against Christ and the word Christ really means anointed one, against God’s anointed one. They disagreed with this. So we to have two questions we want to ask about revisionism; and they’re pertinent today because we have people even within the evangelical community that are still trying to revise and “make the gospel relevant.”
So first question is when John keeps going back to…
NKJ 1 John 2:7 which you have had from the beginning…which you heard from the beginning.
When he says that, what is he arguing about truth itself? He’s debating these false teachers and revisionists. By his terminology, adhere to that which was:
from the beginning
What is he implicitly assuming about truth? It what?
Comment
It stays the same. Two plus two is four. That worked out for the Babylonian astronomers and it still works out for NASA – strange thing. So truth – if we are going to talk about truth - we’re not talking about something that changes. So you can’t have truth and something that changes. Truth doesn’t change. Now we have additions to truth or we find some things that we thought were true that weren’t true. But, truth doesn’t change. Truth is enduring. So that’s one fundamental notion.
Then in 2:22-23 which we finished last week, what is the implication of verse 23? Look at verse 23 and think of it in terms of your neighbors, of the school, of the social groups that you are in. Look at verse 23. How does verse 23 collide with our culture today? Anyone?
Comment ..recently denied the option…
The option of praying in Jesus’ name, we talked about that last week. Going along with that – yes, Linda.
Comment …bring in Jesus…
Okay. What we’re saying here is this that if you look at verse 23 and read it – just read it - I mean this is not high tech stuff here. What John is saying is if you do not recognize that God is in Jesus - that Jesus is God the Son; you don’t know God the Father. It’s that simple.
Here in Maryland we’re facing with the episode that’s been in the newspaper headlines about... What was she? The county executive? Who was it that was? The County Commissioner of Carroll County got up in a public meeting in defiance of the judge. She prayed deliberately in the name of Jesus Christ and said, “I’m willing to go to jail. So go ahead judge and put me in jail.” This is a legal confrontation now.
Now what I think she should have said, and of course we can all Monday morning quarterback after it. When we’re not in the hot seat, it’s very easy to say what we should have said. But I think that what would have been wise is deliberately attack the judge and simply say that the judge so-and-so has instructed me to pray in the name; but we can’t pray in our county council except in generic deity accepted by judge so-and-so. But since I don’t think judge so-and-so is a theologian he is not qualified to define the nature of God. Therefore I will pray in the name of the historic God of Western civilization, the God Man Savior Jesus Christ. See that would have been a complete statement because it would have exposed the fallacy in the judge. You can’t be neutral.
See the judges have this fiction that there is some sort of a generic deity called god and that the Buddhists believe in god, the Islamic god believes in god, the Christians believe in God. The Jews believe in God. Who’s that? Who’s god? It’s easy to defend this because all you have to do is read a Muslim theologian and ask the Muslim theologian the nature of Allah. Ask him if that nature that you guys in the Muslim community are saying, that the Koran is saying- is that the same as the New Testament deity? Any scholar will say that there’s a generic deity. Of course, they’re different. So the judge is silly. He is an amateur playing with words. But unfortunately his way of thinking permeates the culture.
I’ve had friends who have dear friends who have dear friends in the Muslim community. When they say that their Muslim friend that we believe in two different gods, they really get mad. At the time, they don’t understand their own Muslim theology. There is no such thing as generic deity. That’s the fallacy by the way of arguments, the proof of existence of God arguments, because all you’re proving is existence of God arguments ultimately is a generic deity.
So the issue is you got to pick your god. That becomes very uncomfortable for people to have to choose between one god or the other. They don’t like that choice because that is a choice that divides. We all want to be part of a unified community. So the moment you bring this topic up it becomes a hot button. You have to be careful about this. Understand that when you bring it up, you’re walking on a minefield that is liable to blow up in your face. That’s okay. Just understand you’re on a minefield here.
So the issue there in 1 John is very straightforward. He says:
NKJ 1 John 2:23 Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father…
I mean nothing could be clearer than that. Now behind that assertion - it’s not just bigotry. It’s not just narrow-mindedness. Behind that statement is what truth? What truth about God in the New Testament lies behind that statement so that John has that background truth and then he brings this application? Verse 23 is an application of a more basic doctrine. What’s the basic doctrine? Trinity. So the trinity underlies verse 23. So verse 23 is not some nasty barb. It’s not some bigoted statement. It’s just no more different than if you jump out the third story window, do you go up or do you go down? Is that a matter of a Gallup Poll? No. Are you being bigoted because say if you go out a third story window, you’re going to go down? That’s just the nature of truth. So verse 23 is not bigotry.
So now let’s take 24 to 27, actually not 28 and let’s look at it. What I’ve done on the slide here is I’ve tried to give you a sense of the flow of the Greek. Greek is a different language than English. In Greek the emphasis instead of underling and italics, it’s word order that you look for when you first learn how to do Greek.. The first thing they say is, “Well, what’s the word order?” The word order kind of gives you a sense the most important words come first. So when you look at the translation – that’s all sloppy translation. It’s not a finished product like your Bibles. If you read your Bibles in verse 24 whatever version you have, I’m reading the New King James.
NKJ 1 John 2:24 Therefore let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father
NKJ 1 John 2:25 And this is the promise that He has promised us -- eternal life.
Okay, 24. John does this twice in verse 24. So look at the structure in the sentences. What word comes first in the two clauses? Look at this.
And you, what you heard from the beginning, let it abide. In you, let it abide. If in you it abides, what from the beginning you heard and you and in the Son and in the Father will abide.
This is bumpy translation but look at the first sentence here. Then look at the resultant clause in the second one. Here’s the first sentence. What force do you feel if you follow those words one after another? What’s John emphasizing? Remember before in the previous text there’s been three groups – the apostles, we; the false teachers, they; and you. Who’s the you? The people that are listening to this epistle, the people to whom John is writing. So there are three groups so you kind of have to watch your pronouns here.
Okay. So now if he’s emphasizing in this verse “and you”, what’s he subtly saying something about here? He’s addressing the listeners; and he’s saying now you in contrast to who?
Comment The false teachers
Yes, they the false teachers. So he’s separating the two groups. He’s saying, “Now you, what you heard from the beginning, let it in you abide.”
See what he does again here. It says, “Let it abide in you,” in English which is better English. This is not good English here; but again I’m doing it so you can catch the force of things. In you, let it abide. So he’s got you – you – and then there is an implicit you in the verb there. Now 3 times in one sentence - it can’t be more clear what he’s trying to say.
“Don’t be like the false teachers.” Then he goes on and says, “If in you it abides.”
Then he has a clause. What is it that we’re talking about abiding? What from the beginning you heard. That’s what you want to let abide. Now what is what you have heard from the beginning? What is he talking about there in that clause?
(Comment) Paul says…as you have learned… like we were with you...truth…Christ
Nate’s bringing up Paul. Paul said the same thing, kind of thing. He said, “We were with you. We told you all this stuff.”
By the way, what Nate just brought up about Paul and what you’re seeing here, what does that tell you about church life in the first century? What were they having problems with right away? Apostolic generation. What was that?
Comment Revisionists
Revisionists – they had people going around, non-apostles, violating apostolic dogma. This happened right away. So the very fact that you’ve got these warnings in the New Testament should sharpen us. I mean good Lord we’re 20 centuries later and we get discouraged by the revisionists. We ought to be encouraged that, “Oh yeah, this is you know situation normal all fouled up.” This has been going on for ages and ages and ages. Since it has been going on for ages and ages and ages, what in the final analysis does this encourage? What does this encourage us or warn us to do? You’ve seen stuff like this. See what Nate is talking about with Paul. What is the action, what is the response Paul and John want us to do? To persevere in the truth. To persevere in the truth though, you gotta know the truth. So you have to have the truth available. This is why we translate the Bibles into people’s heart language because if a church exists in a culture where they don’t have the Bible in their own language; this happens. So this is why Bible translation is so important to the gospel.
All right. Now let’s continue.
NKJ 1 John 2:24 …If…
Now we have a contingency – an if clause. If this, then that. Okay. P implies Q.
NKJ 1 John 2:24 …If in you …
That is – what from the beginning you heard and you and the Son and in the Father will abide.
Now why there’s an “and” in there I’m not sure in the Greek why it’s “and” and not “then.” Anyway, it’s following here. You and the Son and the Father will abide.
Okay, let’s reverse the sentence. What is the implication if you’re not abiding in the Son in the Father? Going backwards to the protasis clause. The implication would be that you haven’t abided in what you’ve heard from the beginning. This is the whole thing about the adherence to apostolic teaching and our source of apostolic teaching is the Bible. So here’s the prominentcy of Scripture that your success as a Christian in walking with the Lord is dependent on adhering to the Scriptures. So you can’t be saying you have this great deep relationship with the Lord - which mysticism always tries to do this.
“We go into all these mystical things and we feel good.”
The question isn’t what we feel. The question is whether we’re adhering to the apostolic teaching. That’s the issue – because it’s destructive and that gets back… Finishing up this section now up to verse 27. What John is warning him is that if you guys don’t listen to what I’m teaching you, what I taught you, what the other apostles have taught you; your spiritual life is going to go down the tubes. It’s going to always have to be that way.
That’s why he says, “I don’t want you listening to the revisionists.”
What the revisionists ultimately will do in your Christian life is you will go down the drain. You cannot tolerate these people teaching you stuff and expect to live and walk with the Lord. It’s an either-or. So that’s why I think John is making such a big thing about this.
Conclusion of verse 24 – you – you – you – you – you -you. Look how many times it’s in there. Now when you look at that, you really get the force of what he’s trying to do. You can almost hear him raise in his voice when he writes like that. .
Okay. Now let’s move on, verse 25. In verse 25 we have:
NKJ 1 John 2:25 And this is the promise that He has promised us -- eternal life.
Now at the beginning of John I warned you about something. We had four or five lessons back in those days. I said that when you approach this epistle and John’s writings in general, there’s a traditional reformed Protestant way of looking at this kind of literature. That’s 16th - 17th century theology. Since then as we thought deeper about literal interpretation, we’ve come to a more of a dispensational view of how to read the text. Here’s the difference and I think on your outline I have a chart – 16th - 17th century. Do I? Okay. We’re going to skip about the justification of the Bible because I don’t think we have time. I’ve been through that before.
Skipping down to 2:25 - abiding - this is the Greek word meno, m-e-n-o. Abiding is interpreted differently with these two different traditions. Abiding in the 16th 17th century reformed covenant theology and 18th century Arminian theology is talking about salvation, that abide is a synonym for belief. Are you keeping on believing? Or in the Arminian theology it would be you stopped believing and you’ve lost your salvation. So those two, the covenant and Arminian theology have taken that. Now the reformed which you see down here - not sure of your salvation until you persevere to death. That was the second-generation reformers reacting to Trent.
So let me give you a couple of minutes of history here. The original Protestant writings from John Calvin institutes - Calvin wrote as though faith, the noun faith, was assurance – that they’re synonyms. There is no difference. If you believe something is true then you have assurance it’s true. That’s the way it was.
Then the Roman Catholic Church raised all kinds of flags and said, “Oh, oh we got a problem with the Protestants.” Here’s what the Catholics objected to. They came back with something called the Council of Trent. At Trent, they literally damned. That is they put anathema on anyone who would teach that you are justified completely in Jesus Christ at a point in time. You cannot give people assurance of their salvation because they argued, if somebody is assured of salvation, then there’s no incentive left to live the Christian life. So Protestants by their Doctrine of Justification completely at a point of time; what they’ve done is open the door to licentious living. So that was the argument of the Catholic Church. Then the reformers, they (this second generation now) had to respond to this stuff because they were teaching licentiousness.
Unfortunately in the way they handled it was they said, “Well, if you say you believe in Jesus Christ and then you fail, that suggests you never believed genuinely in the first place. Well, that could be. That’s true in many cases; but if you make that an absolute thing that any failure in the Christian life makes suspect your original faith in Jesus, what have you done to assurance? What’s the logical conclusion? You don’t have assurance because you can’t be assured that you won’t fail until all the way you get to the end of your life and you die. So that leaves you in a problem here. Where it really creates a problem is you have a person, a Christian, struggling with a deep seeded sin issue. Take homosexuality. Take a drug addiction. How is a counselor supposed to deal with somebody like that if they’re not sure they’re saved? Assurance of salvation is the only way you can counsel somebody out of the problem. Yes, you want to make sure they genuinely believed. Of course! You want to make sure they’re clear on the gospel. Yes. But if they’re not assured they’re saved in the first place, they can’t be assured the Holy Spirit indwells. They can’t be assured of the fact that He is going to abide with them; He is going to empower them; He is going to energize them. So you have a problem there. The point is that this kind of theology leaves you hanging.
That’s why around…Darby got involved in dispensational literal interpretation. Down through the 20th century Dr. Chafer (founded Dallas Seminary) wrote a book He That Is Spiritual. Dr. Chafer went around with C. I. Scofield, Evangelistic Missions. He had to deal with real people. He wasn’t out in the classroom now. He was dealing with people, real people. What they realized was the Reformation did wonderful things in clarifying the gospel and how you’re saved and what Jesus did on the cross. Excellent! We’re not changing that. What the Reformation did not have time to do...it did not have time to do a lot of things. It didn’t have time to clarify eschatology. It basically kept Roman Catholic eschatology amillennialism. It basically kept infant baptism. It kept all these things because…I mean Luther and Calvin only had a generation to work in. You can’t expect two guys to totally reform the Christian faith in one generation. So this is not a slam on Luther and Calvin. They did great things in areas where they worked, but there was still unfinished business. One of the areas of unfinished business is how do you live the Christian life. What are the specifics of the Christian life? This came to fruition in America because of the revivals in the 1800’s.
People said, “Gee, now I am a Christian. What do I do? How do I walk with the Lord? What are the specifics?”
So making a long story short and the right side of the chart basically (we just basically summarized) once genuinely believed…so there still can be false profession. I’m not denying there can’t be false professions. But if you genuinely believed, your rewards (and this is where the emphasis should be), your rewards are contingent upon your deeds. It’s not true that every Christian is going to be wholly successful in the Christian life. It’s not going to be true. We have to face that. We can redeem the time; but while we’re out of fellowship we’re wasting the time. If we’re going to be judged how many minutes, how many days, how years we had after salvation that we could have done this, we could have that, we could have done this, we could have listened to the Lord more carefully and done this and so forth and blah, blah, blah.
“Gee maybe 40% of the time I was walking with the Lord. I lost 60% of the time of my life.”
So there’s a sobering side to this thing. John is going to talk later in the epistle as well as James and others.
At every communion service we do this. I Corinthians 11, what is the admonition that every pastor reads before we partake of communion? Let you examine yourselves lest what? What does that passage in 1 Corinthians tell about the congregation at Corinth?
NKJ 1 Corinthians 11:30 For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep
Medical problems – weak, sickly, die. Now are we saying all disease is caused by personal sin? No. But we are saying God uses that to discipline believers. The final discipline is physical death. He doesn’t want to be embarrassed so He takes them out. This is a side of deity that is not really brought out because if you bring this side of the whole Christian life out, now you’re dealing back with a holy God again. People find it difficult - if God is gracious, why would He kill believers? For the same reason He killed people in the Old Testament. So there’s that side of this. So what John is arguing here is and you’ll see it come out when we start the first verse in the next verse next section.
What he’s saying is, “Look folks, we’re talking serious business. I’m not taking the curriculum of the local Sunday school here. I’m talking about what you do with the Word of God in your life.”
So now we come down to verse 26. He promised us eternal life. The idea there is that eternal life to John - remember we went through this lesson two or three. Eternal life the way John speaks of it is a little different than eternal life the way Paul speaks of it. When Paul uses the term eternal life he’s usually talking about phase 3 or glorification. When John uses eternal life he’s talking about phase 2 or sanctification. He’s talking about enjoying the relationship we have with God because eternal life, as verse 2 says in chapter 1, is that this is the sort of thing that the trinity had going for all eternity - a wonderful, loving, personal relationship. We can be brought into that circle of God’s fellowship when we walk with Him in the light. That’s the sharing of eternal life. Enjoy it now.
NKJ 1 John 2:26 These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you
Now this is about the third or fourth time the apostle has told us why he’s writing this epistle. So it’s clear from here he’s talking about the false teaching. Now he makes another statement. This is the last verse in this section. Now he’s talking about what he talked about in verse 20. Remember? In verse 20 it was another one of these “and you, you have an anointing of the Spirit” and “you know all things.” Remember we talked about the text problem there meaning the Holy Spirit indwells and the Holy Spirit gives a resonant sense that this Word of God is true. So it’s not the case where we can just look at the Bible. We have to also have to have the Holy Spirit to open our eyes.
Think about the two disciples on the Emmaus Road and the expression “He opened their eyes.” These two guys are going down the Emmaus Road. Jesus is walking with them and teaching them the entire Bible. You talk about a tape recording that would be a best seller. Try thinking about that one. Jesus walked for I don’t know how many miles with these guys; and they don’t get it. This is Jesus right with you. Resurrected Jesus Christ walking with them; and it never clicks with them because they are trying like this. They’re trying to think through. They’re angry because of what happened at the crucifixion and all these things going through their mind. Here’s the Lord not two feet away talking to them about the Word of God and “how it all speaks of Me.”
Then it says – then the Lord opened their eyes. Now if you and I were those two disciples, wouldn’t you feel a little stupid? Here’s the resurrected Jesus. He’s been walking with you two or three miles - probably for an hour telling you at least about the messianic prophecies. Then all of a sudden – hum. That’s Jesus Christ. Just think of the embarrassment - how you would have felt if you had gone through that experience. That’s the sort of thing the Holy Spirit does is that He’ll teach us and teach us, then all of a sudden He opens our eyes to something. That’s part of the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit. Okay.
And you
There we go again. See. He’s emphasizing again. Here’s the sequence.
And you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you and no need you have that one should teach you.
Again this is sloppy English. This is not a polished translation. I’m just trying to go through it to give you a sense of the flow of the text. So here we go with pronoun you, second person. And you - so it’s very clear he’s talking about the people who are listening to the pastor or elder reading this epistle to them.
And you, the anointing
Now that’s his word. That’s by the way the same word for antichrist, except it’s prefixed by anti. Christos is anoint. You know we’ve gone through several times the richness of this word anoint. It means God has chosen somebody. He’s picked them out. Here’s the anointing. It’s the idea the Holy Spirit has chosen. God has chosen us and therefore He has indwelt us with the Holy Spirit.
And you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you,
You noticed the lack of an imperative here. Now in verse 24 abide is an imperative.
Let that which you heard from the beginning abide in you.
That’s a choice we have. There is no such choice in verse 27 is there? It’s just a statement. This is a declarative sentence. It says the anointing abides in you. We’re not commanded to make the anointing abide in us. The abiding is in us.
…the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and no need you have that one should teach you.
What do you suppose that’s a slam at? You have to keep the context in mind here; otherwise you can misinterpret this. What did he just say in verse 26? “You don’t need these guys,” is what he’s saying. You don’t need some revisionist who comes in here and decides he’s going to change the whole Christian faith. You’ve got the abiding Holy Spirit. He testified to the Scriptures when you first believed in Christ. That’s why you believed in Christ, if you genuinely believed because the Holy Spirit opened your hearts to the message of the gospel. So if that’s the case, then He’s already taught you. You don’t need someone else to teach you. But it’s the same anointing.
Now watch the construction in this sentence. There are two teachings occurring here. See if you can spot the difference.
NKJ 1 John 2:27 ,,, but as the same anointing teaches
Watch the tense of the verb.
you concerning all things, and is true,
I forgot the “it” there.
and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.
Teaching is used two different times with two different tenses. Now that’s interesting. It’s saying the Holy Spirit teaches us. He’s constantly teaching us. He’s also saying “He taught you” - past tense. So now let’s think about truth and laws of logic here. The fact that the verb teach has two tenses says what about what the Holy Spirit has taught you in the past and what He is teaching you in the present? It’s consistent. Exactly. There’s a logical internal consistency to the Spirit’s teaching. He doesn’t teach you one day one thing and teach you the next day another thing. There’s a consistency of teaching here. That’s the signal of truth. This is why the Scriptures… We didn’t have time this morning but on your outline you’ll notice before verse 25 in your notes I have all that justification of why the Bible supports laws of logic and the Bible supports the concept of knowledge and truth. You can’t just assert something is true like you’re taught in public schools. In public schools you’re never really exposed to a justification of why something is true. You are just told to believe it for the test.
Yes Paul.
Comment It would appear to me that justice is… It really refers to salvation...teaches refers to sanctification…that you grow in Christ, grow in our faith, grow in our knowledge and our application of it as wisdom. Accepting Christ by faith at salvation… It’s not one time. So it explains to me you can be saved and still do certain things you did before… You don’t get everything at one time.
Comment
What Paul is bringing out is that the teaching doesn’t stop with the gospel. The teaching continues in your Christian life; but it’s consistent with the gospel. It’s not departing from it. See, that’s the revisionists. All these people had become Christians apparently so they knew the gospel. These revisionists had to somehow work their teaching so it didn’t look like it conflicted with the gospel but yet it was conflicting with the gospel. Paul was basically going back to what Nate tpointed about earlier. This is the kind of thing Paul was doing . Look you’ve learned Christ so walk consistently with that. There’s a consistency involved in this.
This is something in our day we have to heavily weigh on. That’s because in our time a characteristic of American culture presently is a despair over the fact and almost a depression that reasoning, proper reasoning, can’t resolve basic major issues. People have given up. There’s a whole spirit out there.
“We can’t reason through things. So we’re just going to have to resort – you know, get along.”
This is what’s going on in the courts. This is why you have judges come up with this absurd idea of a generic deity and so on. People have thrown up their hands.
“We can’t reason these things through. They are too big for us.”
Yeah, they are to big for us; but the One who is controling history has spoken to us and He’s given to us a manual. It’s the Bible. Try reading it.
Our time is fleeting here so let me…I’m emphasizing what Paul just pointed out. Here are two verses and I put them in your outline. 1 Corinthians 2:15 and Hebrews 5:12-14 - both of those verses speak to the fact that we have to grow in the Christian life and we have to go back to the Word of God. The Holy Spirit in Hebrews 5:12-14 is talking about that how we need to have our hearts opened to the Word so that we can grow. So the conclusion is:
“On the basis of your present position,”
He’s addressing these people.
“Childlike”
There’s a childlike aspect of the Christian life. Our sins are forgiven. We know the Father. There’s the father like aspect of the Christian life where we understand our Savior is the one who is the Creator of the world and we know Him who is from the beginning - the real beginning, the beginning of all beginnings. We understand the Jesus is the Son of God who is YHWH of the Old Testament. We understand the warrior mentality, that we have overcome the world by our faith. There’s a hostile world out there. At the point, the fact that we have become Christians we have become insurgents, spiritual insurgents against the evil civilization. They recognize it. They really do. This is why Christians can expect of have opposition. It’s not that these people hate us in a real sense. It’s they are deceived into hating us because they’re angry that if we are walking with the Lord, we are reminding them of the fact that they have to come to terms with their God and Judge. That is very, very uncomfortable as any of us who have become Christians later in life remember how it was like to be a non-Christian. You want to be polite and courteous, but you want to kind of stay away from that one.
“So you must love the Father. The world and the flesh outlook and self confidence…”
“This is the final age”
Remember this is the last hour.
“Final age of mortal history so you must adhere to the original apostolic revelation and the reject false teaching against Christ.”
We’ll have some Q&A before we start next section next week.
(Closing prayer)
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