" 21 I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth. 22 Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. 23 Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also."
Allow me to begin by saying that All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. All of it is profitable for our instruction, and our understanding of divine truth. It is an understanding that changes the lives of those who will believe.
We live in age where people reject the idea of absolute truth. It is often said, "I have my truth and you have yours." The idea that something can be true for one person and not for another is not new.
In John 18, Jesus said "Jesus answered, “My kingdom is
not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants
would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as
it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.” Therefore Pilate said to Him, “So You are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” Pilate *said to Him, "What is truth?"
It is considered to be arrogant to say that you know the truth and that others who do not share your same view do not. There is a prevailing intolerance in our society that anything is absolute, especially truth. This prevailing tenant of postmodernism has tragically invaded the church. After all, what could be more arrogant than for one man to stand in the pulpit and claim that he is proclaiming the truth? The spirit of Pilate is alive and well today, echoing the age old question, "What is truth?" And, it is growing louder and louder.
We live in a day that not only denies truth, but is against truth. We live in a culture that is tolerant of everything, except the truth. They are defiant and intolerant of anyone who claims to know the truth. It is a deliberate, and an intentional rejection of the truth of God. And, it has been this way since the very beginning.
Since the Garden of Eden, when the serpent posed the question to Eve, "Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?" Satan knew very well what God had said. He came to dismiss the truth of God. The original sin was a rejection of God's truth. From that day until today, man has been deciding for himself what is true, in defiance of the truth of God. Apart from being born again, every generation since has attempted to suppress the truth of God, and has exchanged the truth of God for a lie. I believe that the destruction of any nation, the deterioration of society, begins with the rejection of truth.
The moral decay of a society begins on the inside, only the truth of the Living God can save our nation and our world. We need to return to the truth that God sent His Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sin.
Interestingly enough, a study of the world’s great civilizations, noted that every nation had an average cycle of 200 years. This study looked at nations that had came into prominence and then vanished into obscurity. Surprisingly, each one of these nations went through the same sequence of events. Each of these nations had gone from spiritual faith to great courage, from great courage to liberty,
from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from
selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to
dependency, and from dependency into bondage again.
I believe this is exactly what is occurring in America today. Because we have rejected the truth, there is no longer a moral compass. All that we see occurring today in our nation, can be traced back to the point of departure from the truth. Only the God of truth can keep you from believing a lie. God's patience for justice will not endure forever!
II Peter 3:8-9, Peter tells us "But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance."
Let us pray
Heavenly Father,
Father, as always, we thank You for Your Word. Thank You for the affirmation of the truth that salvation is only possible in Jesus Christ.Lord, we pray for those who are being drawn away from truth, being lead into defection and apostasy. May they cry out with a penitent heart and ask that You would grant them forgiveness. Our hearts grieve for those who are mislead by the lies and deception of demonic doctrine, we pray that You might be gracious toward them. We pray that today would be that day, they would come to know the truth and they would acknowledge Christ as Lord and Savior. Lord, we pray that You would bless this message it goes out around the world and that Your will would be done in and through those who receive it.
We pray this in His precious name
Amen
Today's Message: Fight For The Truth
If you know anything about the Word of God, you are familiar with the word antichrist, a word that evokes the image of a vicious beast who arises at the end of human history and is empowered by
Satan and dominates the world and forces everybody to worship him. Who will massacre people all over the world who confess Christ and the Jewish people. We think of the greatest enemy that the gospel will ever know.
You don’t have to wait to run into Antichrist. We can see it everywhere in our world today. The only Antichrist is not the one that’s coming at the end of human history. Antichrist is in our governments, our schools, our places of works, our seminaries, our churches and our homes. Anyone who denies the deity of Jesus Christ and that He is the Messiah, is antichrist. Bound in the name of Christ, is the anointed King, the sovereign Lord.
If you do not confess Jesus is who He says He is, as has been revealed by Him and in Scripture; if you do not make the right assessment of Jesus, if you deny that he is God in human flesh, you are not of God and you are antichrist.
Truth does not come from this world. It does not arise from a society or a culture. Rather, truth comes down from above, from God Himself, God, Who is truth and Who reveals His truth to us. God is the Author of all truth because God is truth. Truth is the definitive standard by which everything else is measured. Truth never changes.
Romans 3:4 says "Let God be found true, though every man be found a liar."
There isn't any middle ground to the truth, you are either on the side of truth, or you stand upon lies.
In Matthew 12:30, Jesus said "He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters."
Jesus said "I am the way, the truth and the life." You are either for Christ or you are anti-Christ. There is in our society, a great conflict between the truth and lies.
Open with me your Bibles to I John chapter 2. As we continue in our
study, as we noted previously, we've come to a section of God's Word that runs from verses 18 through
27. In verses 18-20, John shows that to avoid spiritual deception, you
must
develop discernment with regard to people. In verses 21-23, he shows
that you
must develop discernment with regard to doctrine, especially, the truth
about Jesus Christ. And, in verses 24-27, he
shows that the means of developing such discernment is to abide in the
Word and in the Spirit. Today, we will be looking at verses 21-23.
I invite you to follow along with me as I read, the entire passage to refresh our minds, and set the text the text, while we prepare our hearts for what the Spirit of God has is saying to each of us. Listen for the voice of our Lord.
"Children,
it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming,
even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist,
the one who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does
not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also.
As for you, 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. This is the promise which He Himself made to
us: eternal life. These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you. As
for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and
you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches
you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has
taught you, you abide in Him."
Satan hates God who judged him and sentenced him to a lake of fire. Satan's goal then, is to sow lies in the minds of men and women, so that people won’t believe God. He has even infiltrate the church and try to replace the truth of God with lies. In fact, he works very hard to sow lies in the church. Lies sown among believers, those who were committed to the truth, are intended to lead them astray, away from the truth of God. Therefore, in every church, there are true believers and there are the deceivers.
In our study of this wonderful epistle, John has been offering tests, tests to determine whether someone is a true Christian. Not only by what they believe, but by how they live. John has been pointing out all through this epistle, that true Christians are known by their doctrine and whether or not they live in obedience to God's Word. They are known by their behavior, by their obedience to the Word of God and they demonstrate spiritual love toward others. They do not, however, love the world. There are the people within the church who obey the Word of God and love others and there are people who do not.
II Corinthians 12 says, that God would allow error to come into a church to be sown among believing people. It is happening today, through books written, through magazine articles, through internet sites, through television, and through radio.
Try as I might to be a kind person, counterfeit Christians cannot receive my kindness. I cannot wish them well, I cannot say anything kind to them, in fact, I’m only left with one thing to do and that is to confront them.That is to say what is true of Christ, what is true of the true gospel, that Jesus Christ is God incarnate, He is God in human flesh. The most kind thing I can do, is speak truth to them, and pray that they would receive it.
Verse 21, John says "I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth."
Our beloved Apostle John believed in absolute truth, and that you can know when you’re right and others are wrong! John tells us that we can recognize those who have been seduced by the spirit of antichrist, if persecution comes because of Christ, if the Word of God is continually being taught, they will leave the fellowship. The spirit of the antichrist cannot abide in the truth. As we learned last time, John was concerned that his readers would not be shaken in their faith by the falling away of those who were formerly in the fellowship.
To be clear, just because a person remains in a Bible believing church doesn’t mean that person is saved however, it does demonstrate an evidence of salvation. When you possess the Spirit of Truth, He will diligently lead
the yielded believer into all truth and confirms in the believer that he is saved. How reassuring it is that we as believers, because of the anointing of Holy One, which is Christ, know the truth. Jesus Christ is the absolute truth of God.
People who fabricate their own version of "truth," are opposed to Christ and are opposed to God's truth. If you deny the truth about Jesus Christ and yet claim to know God, you are merely deceiving yourself. The most dangerous lies, the most vicious, are the ones which contain an element of truth. At the end of verse 21, John makes a very powerful statement, "because no lie is of the truth." I love that.
In verse 22, John boldly proclaims that antichrists are liars. No matter what else they may proclaim, if they err on this most essential of all truth, they are a liar. "Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son." There isn’t any other truth to know.If you have the Scripture, you have what has been revealed. You are not deceived, you know the truth. If you are a Christian, you have a built-in lie detector. It's called the truth!
If someone comes along and says Jesus was a great prophet, but He was not the Son of God, you know that's a lie. If someone says, Jesus was not crucified, He did not die on the cross, as Islam says, you know that's a lie! I don't care what religion it is, no lie is of the truth. They may start denying the virgin birth and end up denying the Word of God. Anything other than the truth, is contradictory to the truth. Those who know the truth, revealed to them by the Holy Spirit, taught them by the Holy
Spirit, who is the anointing that the Lord Christ has given them, they
can see error for what it really is, a lie.
Verse 23, "Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also."
The word confess is "homologeo," which means to align with, to speak the same thing. It means
agreeing with what the Bible teaches regarding the unique Sonship of Jesus, He is the Messiah, the Savior of the World. The One and only way to heaven. Apparently the antichrists in John’s day were claiming to have faith in God while denying Christ. Many today call themselves Christians, they claim to believe in God, yet they deny that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. They deny that Jesus is God incarnate. They deny the Trinity. John firmly asserts, this is impossible.
agreeing with what the Bible teaches regarding the unique Sonship of Jesus, He is the Messiah, the Savior of the World. The One and only way to heaven. Apparently the antichrists in John’s day were claiming to have faith in God while denying Christ. Many today call themselves Christians, they claim to believe in God, yet they deny that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. They deny that Jesus is God incarnate. They deny the Trinity. John firmly asserts, this is impossible.
In Closing..
While we should do all that we can to preserve the unity of the body of Christ, there is no room for compromise on the core beliefs of Christianity. Whatever contradicts biblical truth is by definition false. If we compromise truth to appease a heretic, we compromise our own salvation, which will lead to our spiritual demise. We must compromise on what the Bible clearly says is truth. We cannot be tolerant of error. We cannot compromise on what Jesus clearly and unashamedly affirmed, the utter exclusivity of Christianity. Instead, we must expose these heresies and oppose such false teachings so that the weak among us do not succumb to their deceptive teachings.
In Acts chapter 4, Peter boldly exclaimed "And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved."
The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword,
able to pierce the division of soul and spirit and to expose the
innermost thoughts of man. God the same yesterday and today and forever. What was true over 2000 years ago, is true today because God never changes. Society may try to redefine morality, culture may try to reclassify right and wrong, but from generation to generation, the truth never changes.
Paul sums it up in II Corinthians 6, "Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God."
That is the exclusivity of the gospel.
May it be so..
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
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