True or False By Andrew Davies

to all of the verses that we read earlier in 1 John chapter 2 verses 18 to 28.
It's a section that holds together and has its own coherence.
Let me put a question to us as we look at the section.
Which do you think is the greater threat to the Christian Church?
Unbelief or wrong belief?
Atheism or heresy?
Put the question in another way.
Which is the greater threat to genuine currency?
Blank paper or counterfeit notes?
Atheism is like a blank sheet of paper.
It's clearly different from the truth.
Heresy is like counterfeit currency.
Much more difficult to distinguish from the genuine.
So we need our wits about us in order to recognize the genuine.
And this is an important matter if we are to have any assurance at all of our salvation.
The existence of so many sects and cults within so-called Christendom is sometimes perplexing.
And confusing too.
People say why are there so many variations?
So many groups, so many interpretations of the Bible.
How do we know what is true and what is genuine?
Can we be sure that there is truth?
It's a vital matter isn't it for our peace and confidence.
Now John is dealing with that question here in these verses.
And he answers the question how do we know what is genuine and distinguish it from what is false by first a negative and then a positive answer.
And I want us first of all to look at the negative and then the positive.
He first of all identifies the counterfeit.
Notice how he puts it in verse 18.
Little children it is the last hour and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming even now many antichrists have come by which we know that it is the last hour.
Let me say one or two things about this whole matter of identifying the counterfeit.
First of all counterfeit Christianity is to be expected.
He is saying that isn't he in verse 18.
You have heard that the antichrist is coming even now many antichrists have come.
So expect antichrists he is saying.
Don't be surprised by the presence of antichrists.
That will prove that it is the last hour.
And of course as many of us will know our Lord Jesus Christ himself told the disciples that very same truth.
In Matthew chapter 24 and verse 5 we are told that he said to them take heed that no one deceives you for many will come in my name saying I am the Christ and will deceive many.
Jesus warned the disciples that that would happen.
And not only did Jesus warn the disciples but the apostle Paul when he gathered the Ephesian elders together and made his farewell speech to them.
He said much the same thing in Acts 20 29 and 30 he said I know this that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you not sparing the flock.
Also from among yourselves men will rise up speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after themselves.
So our Lord warned the apostle Paul warned that there would be counterfeit Christianity.
The apostle John uses the word antichrist.
Now the word anti may mean against Christ.
It can mean that.
I think however it is more likely to mean instead of Christ.
The word anti the Greek preposition anti can mean against but usually it means instead of.
So there will be antichrists.
That is to say there will be Christs who appear to function instead of Christ.
That is to say they offer a very clever alternative to Christ.
In doing that of course they are against Christ.
But they are against him because they are substitutes for him.
They are false Christs if you like.
They are false prophets.
They are antichrists because they are in the place of the real Christ.
And that will be one of the signs of the last age or of the last hour as he puts it.
So here is a demonic strategy to deceive people about the Christian faith.
And the New Testament has a great deal to say about it.
I refer just now to those verses in Matthew chapter 24 later on in that same chapter and in verse 15.
We are told there that this demonic strategy will take the form of great sacrilege.
When you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place.
So there would be this demonic strategy in which the sanctuary would be defiled.
Later on in the second letter to the Thessalonian church the Apostle Paul speaks about this antichrist,
this counterfeit Christianity as a powerful tyrannical force.
The language that he uses is very interesting.
Let no one deceive you by any means for that day will not come unless the falling away comes first
and the man of sin is revealed the son of perdition who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped
so that he sits as God in the temple of God showing himself that he is God.
A powerful tyrannical force claiming to be God and claiming allegiance and worship.
And in the book of Revelation particularly in the central chapters of that book, in chapter 13 I'm thinking of particularly,
this antichristian, this counterfeit Christ, this false Christianity is described as a great influential ideological system.
This is how it's put.
He that is the dragon and the beast was given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies
and he was given authority to continue for 42 months.
Then he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God to blaspheme his name, his tabernacle and those who dwell in heaven.
A powerful influential ideological system.
Now the real danger in all of this and is real is that at first false counterfeit Christianity operates from within the so-called Christian church.
It doesn't operate outside it, it operates within it.
So it's not very obvious, it's not easy to identify.
In first century terms, Gnosticism was the great example of this and the Apostle John wrote the letter as indeed other New Testament letters were written
against the background of Gnosticism which was the first century heresy.
Radical, powerful and almost overwhelming in its appeal to people because it appealed to Greek people
for there were Greek elements in it, to Jewish people because it had Jewish elements and there were Christian elements in it as well.
So it is a kind of amalgamation, a hodgepodge of Jewish, Christian and Greek ideas and therefore influential and powerful and persuasive for all these groups of people.
And John was writing against the background of first century Gnosticism. It's very similar, very similar, markedly similar to New Age philosophy today.
So the New Age is not new at all. It's uncanny how similar New Age philosophy is to first century Gnosticism.
So what the Apostle here is saying very simply is that counterfeit Christianity is to be expected.
So don't be surprised by it. Don't be surprised by Antichrist because Jesus said so, the Apostle Paul said so and here in 1 John the Apostle John is saying so.
The second thing to say by way of identifying the counterfeit is that counterfeit Christianity is bound to be exposed.
Expect it but, expect it to be exposed which is what he's saying in verse 19.
They went out from us but they were not of us.
That is to say they showed their true colours after a while. The true nature of falsehood is bound to show. It becomes open eventually.
They were not really of us says John. They were with us, they were amongst us, they were here in worship with us within the church but they were not really of us.
And they were not of us because they lacked an anointing from the Holy One. In verse 20 he says but you have an anointing from the Holy One.
Now these people were not of us. You have an anointing from the Holy One. So these people didn't have that anointing from the Holy One.
That is to say there was no inward work of the Holy Spirit within them enabling them to confess Jesus Christ as Lord and as God.
It is the anointing of the Holy Spirit that enables every one of us to believe in Jesus.
None of us would be a Christian but for the anointing work of the Holy Spirit. Remember in Psalm 23 the Psalmist speaks about he anointed my head with oil.
And I take that to be a picture of sheep being maddened by flies because flies can get into the ears of sheep and lay their grubs there.
And when that grub begins to grow into a maggot it actually penetrates the brain of a sheep.
And the sheep goes mad, it becomes disorientated. It's a tragic thing to see a sheep that's been affected like that.
They often go round and round in circles because the maggot is now eating away at the brain of the sheep.
And the eastern Palestinian shepherd would anoint the head of a sheep with oil to keep away the flies, to prevent them from breathing their maggots within the ear of the sheep.
And it's a picture really of the Holy Spirit anointing our head with oil of truth.
It's the Holy Spirit who keeps unbelief and all these evil things that would really destroy ourselves away from us.
That is the anointing of the Holy One. And it's He the Spirit of truth and of holiness who reveals Jesus to us and consecrates us to God and seals us and assures us of our salvation, filling us with spiritual knowledge of the things of God.
Now these people didn't have that. They were not of us. They were with us but they were not of us.
And says John, as a result they went out from us because they were not of us. So they couldn't stay, they couldn't stick it.
They didn't really belong. They didn't have this spiritual anointing of the Holy One. So they couldn't live in the presence of truth.
They couldn't stick the truth. The truth annoyed them. It got through to them.
And they were fatally attracted by false doctrine and false views and contemporary opinions.
So they had to jump on the bandwagon of novelty. And they went for Gnosticism. They went for what was counterfeit Christianity rather than continuing to embrace real Christianity through the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
So in the end, counterfeit Christianity is bound to be exposed. Give it time.
And the false will one day be demonstrated to be false. It cannot live with the truth for very long.
And this again ought to reassure us about the validity and the authenticity of the Gospel.
Indeed, very often it's a good thing when counterfeit Christianity exists because it makes people think hard about real Christianity.
And historically this has happened over and over again. In the third and fourth centuries, for example, there were people known as Arians and there were others who were followers of Arius and those who preceded him who denied that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the Son of the Eternal Father.
That was the doctrine of the Trinity and the place of our Lord Jesus Christ within the Trinity.
So the Church had to struggle and to grapple with that error as a result of which it formulated the great Nicene Creed.
And that Nicene Creed is a fence around the mystery. It defends the doctrine of the Trinity against those who will deny the place of Jesus within the Trinity.
So our fathers had to fight for the truth. The presence, in other words, of counterfeit Christianity was a blessing in disguise.
The same thing happened at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 when a great statement was drawn up about the person of Christ and his two natures.
There were people who were saying that Jesus Christ had only one nature, either a divine or a human nature.
There were others who were saying that Jesus Christ was too personal.
And the Council of Chalcedon had to grapple with that problem and they came up with a great statement about the duality or the two-ness of the two natures in the one person.
So the presence of error actually was a blessing to the Church. It enabled the Church to formulate these great statements about the Trinity and the person of Christ which are still invaluable for us today.
And the point is that in the end counterfeit Christianity will be exposed and therefore it's a reassurance to us to realize that this is inevitable and it will continue to happen.
And there's a third thing too about the exposure and the identification of counterfeit Christianity.
Just as we are to expect it, just as it will be exposed, so it can be explained.
And you notice in verses 21 to 23 how John explains it.
He says, I have not written to you because you do not know the truth but because you know it and that no lie is of the truth.
No lie is of the truth.
Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ?
He is Antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.
Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either. He who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
The language he uses is the language of lie, liar, denies, denies, denies.
He's explaining counterfeit Christianity. He's saying it's the lie. It's the liar. It's denying. It's a denial.
This is the explanation of it and there's a double denial here, you notice.
First of all, these perpetrators of this new idea, this counterfeit Christianity, were denying that Jesus is the Christ.
And that meant that they were denying his Sonship. They were denying his deity.
Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? The Christ.
They were denying that Jesus is the Christ. They were not denying Jesus.
They were denying that Jesus is the Christ.
They believed in his humanity. They believed that he was a real person who had really lived and died a real death.
They believed in Jesus, if you like the historical Jesus, but they did not believe that the historical Jesus is the divine Christ.
And therefore is the Son of God sent into the world by the Father.
So they accepted Jesus the man but not Christ, the God-man, the man who had come as the incarnate Son of the Father,
eternal, unchanging in all his glory and in his being as God.
I'm not sure whether the book ever reached Australia but a few years ago in Britain there was a book published called
The Myth of God Incarnate. It was written by some theologians from Cambridge.
They called it The Myth of God Incarnate and there was a very fine reply to it called The Truth of God Incarnate.
A man in Britain who was actually the Bishop of Durham, a man by the name of David Jenkins who for my sins actually taught me in university,
so I knew the Bishop quite well, he denied the virgin birth of Jesus.
He denied the deity of Jesus and he was a celebrated man in all the media.
It's amazing how if somebody denies the truth you immediately get somebody with a TV camera who wants to interview him.
And his views were perpetrated and published all over Britain and I don't know whether it reached Australia as well.
Now, he was denying that Jesus is the Christ.
He's happy to accept him as a man but not as the Christ, the Son of the living God.
That's the one denial.
And the second denial is that he is the Son of the Father.
That's how John puts it. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father.
He is Antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.
That is to say, so intimately linked are the Father and the Son that you cannot deny the one without denying the other.
So if you deny Jesus to be the Son of God you're denying the Fatherhood of God.
Because the Father and the Son exist in a very special relationship with one another and always have ever since.
Well, always, in a sense always the Son of God has been the Son of God.
I know that there was a point in eternity if we are permitted to speak in that way when the Son was set aside for his office as the mediator as Prophet, Priest and King.
But he always was the eternal Son of God the Father.
So to deny the Son is to deny the Father. That is to say it is to deny the doctrine of the Trinity.
And to deny the doctrine of the Trinity is to deny God the Father.
Because God the Father and God the Son are one in being and one in personal nature and one in reality.
Not that there are two persons but you have within the Godhead the perfection of unified personality.
You have three divine persons who nevertheless constitute one glorious personality.
So that to deny the Son is to deny the Father.
And our Lord Jesus Christ came to bring the Father to us and to bring us to the Father so that we might worship the Father and belong to the Father.
So to deny Christ as God is to deny God the Father and the plan of God the Father and the love and the will of God the Father.
So there was a double denial here.
Firstly that Jesus is the Christ and secondly that he and the Father are one in being, in essence and in personal purpose and plan and will.
And that is a very very critically serious matter which as the apostle says explains counterfeit Christianity.
You can always identify counterfeit Christianity by the way it regards Jesus and the place of Jesus within the Trinity.
Anybody who denies that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God is a liar.
Anybody who denies that Jesus is the Son of the Father is denying the Father.
So anybody who does not believe in the full and glorious deity of Christ is in serious error.
And if after counseling such a person and dealing with such a person that person hangs on to that conviction then error becomes heresy.
So we can identify error, we can explain error.
It is against God, it is against Christ's deity, it is against the Trinity, it is against the Godhead of God.
And the Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of truth, he is the one who reveals these things to us.
So a spirit of anti-Christ is abroad in the world and we ought not to be surprised by counterfeit Christianity today.
John is here helping these early Christians and us by implication to identify the counterfeit.
But of course he wants to do more than that.
He wants us also to be able to know that genuinely that is the second thing that he is concerned to do.
He wants to assure, to persuade believers that they really do know God and they really do know Christ as their Savior.
So how do we know the truth?
Well the answer is found in the little word in verse 20, but.
But, it's one of the great biblical words, but.
Do you remember how Paul uses it in Ephesians 2 when he is describing the condition of men and women who are without God and without hope in the world,
under the influence of the God of this world, following the course of this world, the prince of the power of the air,
fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind by nature, children of wrath like others.
He is describing how these people had once been in that condition.
Then he introduces this marvelous word, but, God.
But, when you were in this hopeless condition, but, God.
God stepped in, God intervened, God came down, God revealed Christ.
Now, it's exactly the same thing here in 1 John.
But, so here are these people who have gone out from us because they were not of us.
If they were of us they would have continued with us.
They went out that they might be made manifest if none of them were of us.
You have an anointing from the Holy One and you know all things.
Here is the glorious work of the Holy Spirit in revealing our Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God and as the second person of the eternal Trinity and our Savior to us.
How does he do this?
Well, the Holy Spirit reveals Christ to us first of all in personal experience.
That's the whole point about the anointing.
You have an anointing from the Holy One and you know, you know all things.
He says it again in verse 27, but the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you and you do not need anyone to teach you because the same anointing teaches you and is true.
You have an anointing. Now that's an interesting word because it's the word from which we get our word Christ.
It's the word chrismel, the Greek word chrismel.
And what the apostle is saying is that you have received an anointing from the Holy One, a chrismel,
so that you in a sense are able to identify the real Christ because you have the Spirit of Christ within you and upon you.
You have the anointing. Our Lord came as the anointed one of God, as the Christ.
He is the Christ, but you are yourselves also recipients of this same anointing.
Not that you are Christ, but you have the Spirit of Christ and you believe in Christ and you're consecrated to Christ and you love Christ and you serve Christ because you have this chrismel,
this anointing from the Holy One that enables you to identify the one of whom this anointing speaks and of which it is a part.
So you have this sublime and mysterious and glorious anointing of the Holy Spirit upon your minds and hearts so you know Him.
You know Him. An intuitive thing. It's a spiritual thing. It's an experimental thing.
You know Him. You know Him in a way that is categorical. You know Him in a way that is deeply personal.
You have light in your head and you have love in your heart. You know. And you know because of the Holy Spirit working within you.
Do you remember the words of the children's hymn? Jesus loves me. This I know for the Bible tells me so.
I wonder whether the author ever thought of writing a third verse to that hymn. The Bible is God's word I know.
For the Spirit tells me so. The Holy Spirit tells us that the Bible is true. The Holy Spirit tells us that Jesus is the Christ.
You have an anointing. Have I mentioned before the story? I may have. Forgive me if I have of the two ministers who were away on holiday with one another and they came from mixed denomination of churches
and they were a bit troubled by the fact that when visiting preachers came to their churches during the summer holidays
some of these visiting preachers didn't always preach the gospel and the congregation didn't always recognize that they didn't preach the gospel.
But one of the ministers said to his colleague there's somebody in the congregation who is intellectually subnormal.
But he knows immediately when a man isn't preaching the gospel. And his colleague said well how does he know that?
Well said the minister. He can smell them.
A spiritual sense of smell. Puritans used to speak in that way of the fragrance of Christ. Of the aroma of Christ.
You know. You know. You know when a man isn't preaching the fruit. Because you have the Holy Spirit within you.
You have an anointing from the Holy One. So we know the genuine through the influence and the work and the activity of the Spirit in our minds and in our hearts.
But not only through that. Because on its own that anointing of the Holy Spirit would not be sufficient.
Because there is something else that we need in order to identify the truth. And the apostle tells us here.
It's apostolic doctrine. He says in verse 21 I have not written to you because you do not know the truth.
But because you know it. The truth. He's talking about apostolic doctrine. Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ.
Now that's a doctrine. It's true. Whoever is the son has the father also. He's talking about apostolic doctrine.
Conficed as Son of God. It's the mark of a real Christian.
A deity and who came to do the Father's will. We're glad to do that.
And we know that he is the Son of the Father. That he and the Father are one.
And he who has seen me Jesus has seen the Father. So there's a unique relationship between him and the Father.
And we believe that truth. We believe that apostolic doctrine.
He is Lord. He is King. He is sovereign. He is the one the Father is exalted to his own right hand.
So apostolic doctrine is as vital as is the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
And when John says here you have an anointing of the Holy One and you do not need anyone to teach you.
He clearly doesn't mean does he by that that we don't need doctrine because he's writing his letter to teach them.
The whole purpose of the letter is to teach them.
So he's not saying because you have the anointing of the Holy One you don't need the word of God.
You don't need doctrine because you have this anointing of the Holy One.
He's countermanding that and counteracting that by the very fact that he's teaching them.
But the point is this. That the internal light of the Spirit in our hearts must be accompanied by the external light of the Spirit in the Scriptures.
So we need the double light. The light within and the light without. The light in our hearts and the light in Scripture.
And as we have the Son we have the Father and we confess and believe apostolic doctrine.
And know the truth because we have the anointing of the Spirit and because we have the word of God.
The apostolic doctrine given to us through the Spirit via the Apostles.
Now we know the truth therefore because of this double light. The light within and the light without.
And isn't it a great encouragement this evening to know that if you are a real Christian then you will not be sidetracked.
You will not be put off. You will not be intimidated by counterfeit Christianity.
You will persevere. You will go on believing.
And that is really the way in which John concludes this wonderful little section.
You notice how he puts it in verses twenty four to twenty eight.
He appeals to people. He says let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning.
Let it abide in you. Let the word of God abide in you.
Let it rest in your mind. Let it enter your soul. Let it remain there.
Let the word dwell in you richly said Paul in all wisdom.
Let the word of God penetrate impregnate your soul so that like Spurgeon you're able to say that if you prick me I will bleed the Bible.
My blood Spurgeon said is biblion. So drenched with his mind and heart in the scriptures that he could identify the counterfeit immediately.
The best way to identify counterfeit currency is to get to know the original. To get to know the genuine.
And you will be so familiar with the genuine that you will immediately see and recognize and feel and touch what is counterfeit.
So let the word abide in you. The word. Not mysticism. Not some fancy feeling. Not sacramentalism.
Intelligent faith. The word. Thoughtful doctrinal Christianity. The word. Let the word. Let that word abide in you.
We really do need to think don't we about what we believe. And the word holds us. The word convinces us and assures us and fixes our faith and rivets our attention.
Not abstract subjective speculative mystical ideas. But the word. Let that. 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 sun. And in the father.
And the second exhortation is in verse 28. Now little children abide in him. Let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning but abide in him.
Abide in Christ. Let his words abide in you but you abide in him. Our Lord said the same in John 15.
And where do you want to be if you're a Christian. But in Christ.
Where do you want to go as a Christian but to be with Christ. Abide in him.
Stay in him with him. You don't need anybody else. You don't need another Messiah.
You don't need another savior. You don't need another prophet another priest another king.
You have all you need in him. Abide in him. He is eternal life. This is the promise he has promised us eternal life.
But what more do you need. You have all you need. All I have needed thy hand has provided. So abide in me Jesus said.
And John is saying the same abide in him. So we don't look for another Christ. Some other potentate some other pope some other guru.
Some people do that don't they they run after these these gurus these prophets these cult leaders and know how tragic it is again to discover only last week young people in America committing suicide.
Because they put themselves under the authority of some man who had been totally deceived and thought that he was some other Christ.
No we don't need anybody else. Jesus and all in him is mine.
And that's what John is here persuading us and urging us and pleading with us to do abide in him.
Don't run after anybody else is only in the hiding. I feel myself secure only in the abiding the conflict can endure.
Thine arm the victory gain us or every hateful for thine arm my heart sustains us in all its cares and woe.
So we need no other say than the blessed Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us.
So says John you let the word abide in you and you abide in Christ and to encourage us all.
He says that a true Christian will go on doing that. He says in verse 27 the anointing which you have received from him abides in you and you do not need that anyone teaches you.
But as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things and is true and is not a lie and just as it has taught you you will you will abide in him.
And he's telling us there that we will but it's impossible to belong to Christ and to be his children without going on trusting in him.
You cannot trust him in the day and cease to trust in him tomorrow. You cannot be Christian today and fall out of grace tomorrow.
The anointing which you receive from him abides in you. The Holy Spirit is given to you and is the Holy Spirit given to you tomorrow to be taken away from you the next day.
The Holy Spirit is yours the anointing is in you so you will abide in him. You will persevere to the end because you have the Holy Spirit within you.
And he's permanent he's this heavenly guest who's come to live in our hearts and therefore we are controlled by him and governed by him.
Not by our moods and our feelings not by our passions but a firm and settled conviction that Christ is our savior.
It's like a deep deep river sometimes you see a very deep river and it runs very quietly beneath the surface.
Though the surface may be full of agitation and full of white water nevertheless deep deep down underneath the surface that river flows deeply and remorselessly on.
And in the same way the Holy Spirit's life and energy in our hearts is deep.
And though there may be a disturbance sometimes on the surface of our lives and we may be upset by this and that and the others.
There is this deep river of peace within the soul. How does the hymn writer put it?
We bless thee for thy peace O God deep as the unfathomed sea which falls like sunshine on the road of those who trust in me mixed his metaphors a bit.
But you understand what he meant? There is a deep deep ocean there's a deep deep river of peace within the soul.
And however agitated external circumstances may be we go on we abide we continue.
And we continue until Christ comes because after all the apostle here is speaking about his coming again.
And so he concludes with the words in verse 28 now little children abide in him so that when he appears circumstances may be we go on we abide we continue.
And we continue until Christ comes because after all the apostle here is speaking about his coming again.
And so he concludes with the words in verse 28 now little children abide in him so that when he appears when he comes and appears we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming.
So there's a day coming when Christ is going to return.
And what are you going to do whilst we are watching? Are we going to fall by the way something?
Are we going to find that our salvation has been lost and our soul has been lost when Christ comes?
No abide in him that when he appears we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming.
So we won't hide from him we won't want like Adam and Eve to be hiding behind the trees in the garden.
We shall endure to the end in the confidence that Christ is our savior and the Holy Spirit has given to us to keep us in his love.
This is the way then if I counterfeit Christianity and to distinguish.
And it's a marvelous thing that you and I should believe it all.
Some of us this morning felt that did we not.
As we thought about the 23rd Psalm and the emptiness of not knowing the shepherd.
Did you feel as I felt in your heart isn't it wonderful to belong to the shepherd?
Isn't it wonderful to belong to the shepherd? Isn't it wonderful to be able to say the Lord is my shepherd?
And you see if we now then we will persevere to the end because the work which his goodness began.
The arm of his strength will complete and I to the end as sure as the earnest is given.
So even you and me we can sometimes troubled as we are we shall endure to the end we shall persevere to the end because we have our savior with us.
And the spirit with him.