Influences by False Teachers?

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That's cornerstonerbc.com. 2nd John, we're going to be reading those 13 verses. And as I said, we're going to be paying more attention to verse 7 through 13. We're going to be considering, brethren, false teachers, false prophets.

But what I want us to do is just try to answer a question from the text that we have before us. And that question is, are we being influenced by any false teacher? That is the question that I want us to to consider individually and also as a church. Are we being influenced by a false teacher or are we being influenced by false teaching? Perhaps.

I want us to consider the answer to that question. I hope, of course, the answer to that question is given by the spirits of God to each one of us. But I hope the truth of the scriptures will guide us as we consider this. So let us read together the word of the Lord. This is the second letter of the Apostle John.

This is the perfect, sufficient, inerrant word of the Lord. Second John, verse one. The elder to the elect lady and her Children who may love in truth and not only I but also all who know the truth because of the truth. that abides in us and will be with us forever. Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.

I rejoice greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we were commanded by the Father. And now I ask you, dear lady, not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments. This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it. Why?

Verse 7, For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh, just as such as one is the deceiver and the Antichrist. Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we or you have worked for, but we may win a full reward. Everyone who goes on ahead or everyone who transgresses and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the father and the son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting.

For whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works. Though, the apostle says in verse 12, though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to come to you and talk face to face so that our joy may be complete. The children of your elect sister greet you. Amen.

This is the reading of God's word. Now, my dear brother and sister, perhaps one of the most important statements by and from the Lord Jesus Christ is found in John chapter 14, verse six. If you remember and you know your Bible, perhaps you remember that the Lord Jesus Christ says there in John chapter 14, verse six, I am the way. the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me." A very powerful statement by the Lord Jesus Christ.

I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me." That statement of the Lord Jesus Christ was a response to a question of one of his disciples, Thomas. Thomas comes and asks this question after the Lord Jesus Christ had been teaching about the destination of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus had been teaching that he's going to the Father, and in his going to the Father, he's going to prepare a place for the disciples. And then he says, and you know where I'm going, you know the way.

So then Thomas says, well, Lord, we don't actually know where you're going. How can we know the way if we do not know where you're going? In other words, Lord, we do not know where you're going. So what is the way? The answer of the Lord Jesus Christ to that question of Thomas is I am the way.

I am the truth. I am the life. No one comes to the father except through me. And as usually the Lord Jesus Christ does, he's not only answering the question that Thomas is asking, but also in his answer, he's teaching the disciples what should be the question that they should have asked. Because instead of saying what the way is, the Lord Jesus Christ answers who the way.

is and the Lord Jesus Christ says I am the way I am the truth and I am the life and no one comes to the father except through me there with that statement the Lord Jesus Christ is setting perhaps one of the most important foundations of the Christian life and that is that genuine Christianity is not about a path Genuine Christianity is not about a way. Genuine Christianity is not about a set of standards that a person can follow so that they can make it into heaven. But at the center of Christianity is a person whose name is Jesus Christ. Everything in Christianity is about the person of Jesus Christ. If we want to be saved, we are to be found in the person of Jesus Christ.

If we want to grow in maturity, spiritual maturity, we are to be in the person of Jesus Christ. Such a powerful statement was that, that I am the way, the truth and the life. But if you carefully go and read the scriptures in the book of Acts, you will realize that way before Christians were called Christians in Acts chapter 11 in Antioch, the Christians, the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, they call themselves the way, alluding to what the Lord Jesus Christ has said in John chapter 14. Of course, the purpose of the Lord Jesus Christ was not to give a teaching so that the disciples will get a name unto themselves, but rather, the purpose of the Lord Jesus Christ was set the foundations of Christianity. And that is Jesus Christ alone is the center and the substance of our faith.

But he did not only say that he is the way. He also said that Jesus Christ is the truth and the life and that the only way to be with the Father in heaven, it is by having Jesus who is the way and in Him we find the truth and in Him we have life. And of course, the center of that statement is that Jesus Christ is a personification of the truth. A biblical Christian is one who has the truth. A genuine believer is one who has had a spiritual encounter with the truth, the truth that happens to be the way to be with the Father, and a truth that happens not only to inform the head, but also to provide life, spiritual life.

So a biblical Christian is the one who has the genuine truth of God. to be a Christian is to have an encounter with the truth. From the very moment of salvation, brother and sister, when a person is visited by the Holy Spirit, the eyes of that person are open and the truth of their spiritual condition is revealed. They did not know that they were dead in their trespasses. They did not know that they were under the wrath of God.

They thought that they were doing the things in the way that they liked them and that they were good in their own standard. But when the Spirit of God comes upon a person and convicts them, there's a revelation of the truth. Not only that they are sinners, but that the only way to be saved is to confess Jesus Christ as Lord. Truth is foundational for the Christian life. Not only in the beginning of your walk with the Lord, but as you are conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, I will submit to you that the more that we are conformed to Jesus Christ is the more that we're growing in his truth.

The more that the truth of God is being poured and given not only into our minds, but into our hearts, the more that we are growing spiritually in the likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ. I would even say that the Christian life is a pursuit. of truth, because that truth is the person of Jesus Christ. So if truth is that which gives me a genuine Christian, and if truth is that which gives me a mature Christian, imagine what the hater of the church will try to do with that truth. Imagine what the father of lies will try to do with that truth.

Imagine with what Satan, who is the father of lies, will try to do with Christians to deceive them in ways away from the way of the Lord to bring truths as if they were truths. But they are not truths because they are lies so that they will not have eternal life, but rather they will have eternal death. And they will not end up with the father in whom we are through the Lord Jesus Christ, but rather they will end up with the father of lies that is Satan himself. Truth is foundational for your life and for your faith. And let me just give you something here, brother.

That truth is personal. Because when the Lord Jesus Christ comes and saves someone, the genuineness of the spiritual condition of that person is according to the encounter that that person has had with the truth of Jesus Christ. Of course, I'm not saying the truth is subjective, and that depends upon the opinion of that person. What I'm saying is that for a person to be genuinely saved, that person has to receive genuinely the truth of God in the person of Jesus Christ. Not blindly inherited from what the church says.

Not blindly inherited from what my fathers have taught me. Not blindly inherited only from what I have heard, because I was born in a Western world in which Christianity is the main religion that people practice. But rather genuine salvation, brother, sister, dear friend and children. It is your individual encounter with the person of Jesus Christ that is truth. And in that, there is much joy, and there is much power.

So Satan will always be in the business, my dear brother and sister, to attack the truth. And the way that you attack the truth is not just simply by presenting you have white, and then you present black. If Satan was going to do that, then it would be very easy for us to discern that this is black, and this is white, and I'm choosing white. The way that Satan does it is by presenting something to us that is so close to white. But now it is very different, difficult to discern which one is the truth of the Scriptures, which one is the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ and which one is a lie.

Because the one that is a liar is interested in not making you aware that he's a liar. Otherwise, you would just simply walk away. The liar wants you to believe that he's telling you the truth so that you will continue to trust the words that are coming from that lying mouth. So Satan is interested, my dear brother and sister, in attacking the church. That's why the apostle calls it in this text, the Antichrist, because he's against the Lord Jesus Christ and against the people of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And the way that he does it is through lies. So I want to see consider from these portion of the scriptures, false teachers, brother and sister, because false teachers are going to be literally instruments in the hands of Satan to attack Jesus Christ and his church. False teachers are instruments in the hands of the father of lies, Satan, that through deception aim to attack Jesus Christ and the way that they attack Jesus Christ by attacking the church. And I want us, of course, to answer a question. Not so much who or what are false teachers, which we are going to consider those things, but I want us to ask ourselves this question.

Are we influenced by false teachers? Or are we influenced by false teaching in general? That is the question that I want us to consider from these verses. And in order to answer that question, I'm going to give you three statements, perhaps, or three ways in which we are going to answer that question, or at least that I desire that each one of us, by the grace of the Spirit, will consider that for your individual and for your personal life. Are we influenced by false teachers?

First, I want us to consider the reality of false teachers from verse 7. In verse 7, the Apostle is going to clearly state the reality of false teachers in the context of the New Testament church. And perhaps we are going to spend most of the time answering that question from verse 7. Then, once we have addressed the reality of false teachers in verse 7, then I want us to consider the warning that the Apostle is giving us as Christians, starting in verse 8. He says, Watch yourselves!

After the apostle has stated the reality of those teachers in verse eight, he says, Watch yourselves so that you may not lose what we have worked for. That warning is extended until verse 11. We're going to consider that warning briefly, and then finally, we're going to consider the traits. or the characteristics of a genuine teacher of God in the life of the Apostle John, when he tells us in verse 12 and 13, the greetings for this church. I want us to consider where the characteristics or the traits in a full in a genuine teacher of the Lord.

May the Lord bless us as we consider the word of the Lord in our faith is strengthened. I hope let us start with the first one. the reality of false teachers. The Apostle John has clearly stated in verse 7 that there is people who he calls deceivers and the Antichrist who are going to be present in the context of the church. And it's not only the Apostle John, the one who states this reality, but both the Lord Jesus Christ and the Apostles state a fact.

And that is that within the context of the New Testament church, there is going to be false teachers and false prophets. If you know your Bible, you can go to 2 Peter 2, verse one and two. And there the apostle Peter tells us something that just as there were false prophets in the Old Testament with the people of Israel, there will be full teachers in the context of the New Testament church. Just as there was with the certainty that there was false teachers in the Old Testament or false prophets in the Old Testament, there will be false teachers in the context of the church. The question when it comes about false teachers, brother and sister, is not a question of if there are going to be false teachers in the context of the church, but rather the question that the apostle present to the churches.

Are you influenced by the teachings of these false teachers? That was the concern of the apostles in the first century. That is the concern of the spirit of God for the church throughout the ages. No so much if there are going to be false teachers, because there will be false teachers, brother. The question is here more are we influenced by false teaching?

And let me submit to you that that question is more relevant to us in the 21st century than what it was to the early church in the first century, just by this simple fact. that when a church was formed in the early church, that church had a scope of influence in their community. And if there was going to be a false teacher or a person that was going to be teaching something contrary to the scriptures, that false teacher will be within the scope of that community. And the scope of influence of that false teacher will only be within that community. And if that false teacher wanted just to go and take his or her full teaching to another place, that person will have to invest a lot of money and effort to take those four teachings to another place.

However, we live in times in which you and I have in our pockets devices that immediately give us access. to a vast amount of Christian teaching and information from all different sorts, from all different types, from all type of people, from different places, from different languages, from all different places in the world, immediate access to a vast amount of teaching. And let me submit to you that by God's grace, there are much of that teaching that is good. And let me also submit to you that there's also much of that teaching that is false teaching. So the question is, are we being influenced by false teaching?

Because the reality is, yes, that there is false teachers in the context of the church. This is the promise that the Lord Jesus has given. Second, Peter, Chapter two on Judy's states the reality that there will be false teachers in the context of the church. So are we? Are we being influenced by false teachers, false teachers that now through the power of the Internet and through the power of communications have a scope that can influence people in places where they do not even live?

Are we influenced by that? And I suppose that by just looking into the text, perhaps we can set the foundations for us to be able to answer this question before the Lord. Now, let me just give you a disclaimer. I'm not going to give you a formula that you can just simply use and apply to any person online. And then you can come with a conclusion that ABCD.

And then you have the answer. Perhaps, yes, this is a false teacher. No, this is not a false teacher. What I want us to do is just simply consider from the scriptures that which are the common traits of a false teacher on, of course, of a genuine teacher of the word of God so that we will be able to discern what is and what is not a false teacher. Pay attention to the first thing in verse seven.

The apostle is going to tell us who are these false teachers. The apostle is going to call these false teachers, first of all, deceivers and anti Christ. He says in verse seven for many deceivers have gone out into the world those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh, such a one is the deceiver and the Antichrist. A false teacher or a false prophet is a deceiver and is an Antichrist. Of course, when we say that he's a deceiver, we mean that he's a liar, that he's an imposter that says things that are not truth.

And when we say that he's an Antichrist, we say that a false teacher is a person that is against Christ Jesus and against the church. If you remember in first Timothy chapter four verse one there, the apostle Paul tells us that the spirit of God expressly says clearly says that in the latter times in the last time there will be people within the context of the church that are going to deviate, that are going to swerve away, and they're going to devote themselves to false teachings or teachings of demons and lies. This is what the apostle tells us that there is a spirit that is going to be operating in certain people that is going to take them to deviate. So when we're speaking about false teachers, maybe your brother and sister were speaking about instruments of Satan, for the purpose of deceiving the church and attacking the Lord Jesus Christ and his bride, the church. But the question that I have always asked myself, and I don't know if this is the question that you have asked yourself, are false teachers aware?

that they are false teachers. I mean, like, do they wake up in the morning and then they say, you know, like, I'm going to do all of these things against the church. I'm going to do these things against Jesus Christ. Are they planning in their secret time how to deceive the bride of the Lord Jesus Christ? Are they secretly planning how to come up with strategies so that they will deceive the people of God?

Let me tell you that answering that question is not that simple, but I have come to the conclusion that there are people who are aware of what they are doing and they're intentionally doing it, but also that there are false teachers who are not aware that they are actually doing it. And of course, the ones that are aware have the intention to come and attack the Lord Jesus Christ as his bride. But the ones who are not aware, not necessarily have the intention in their mind to come to attack Christ and the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me just simply give you two reasons for which I think that not. All four false teachers are completely aware of their ways and just simply by stating the fact of false believers and genuine believers.

You remember Matthew chapter seven verse 21 when these Christians who supposedly Christians have an encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ and they say, Lord, Lord, having didn't we prophesy in your name? Didn't we do mighty works in your name? Didn't we cast out demons in your name? And then the Lord Jesus Christ will come and said, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of inequity."

Now, did these false converts or these false Christians thought that they were Christians? Yes, they were fully convinced that they were Christians. They were claiming the name of the Lord Jesus Christ with truth, at least in their minds, that they had a relationship with the Lord when they say, Lord, Lord. Yes, they were clear in their minds that they were saying, Lord, Lord, did they think that the works that they did, casting out demons and mighty works and prophesying and all of those things, that these were works, genuine works that corresponded to a Christian ministry? Of course, they thought that that was the case.

But the fact that they were fully convinced about something did not mean that they had that something, right? The fact that they were fully convinced in their minds did not mean that that which they're doing was for the glory of God that was genuine or that had the Spirit of God in them. It does no matter what the intention or the awareness of the person is. What really matters is the Spirit of God is inside of a person. So in the same way that false converts can be deceived into believing that they are Christians while they're not, and even arrived that encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ, believing that they're Christians and having now the surprise that they're not genuinely in Christ.

I also believe my dear brother and sister that just as there are false prophets are fully aware of what they're doing. There are also false teachers who are not aware of that. And I think that the apostle Paul gives us a hint into it. If you come with me to 1st Timothy chapter or 2nd Timothy chapter four, I think he tells us something about the nature of those who deceives deceive themselves. 2nd Timothy chapter with three 2nd Timothy chapter three.

There, the Apostle is speaking to Timothy as a true teacher of God, comparing and warning him against the false teachings that exist. So then, in verse 8, let us just read from verse 12, just to make it shorter. 2 Timothy 3, verse 12, it says, Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Verse 13, while evil people and imposters or deceivers, in other words, evil people and imposters will go on from bad to worse. Where am I?

Deceiving, and pay attention to that, and being deceived. deceiving and being deceived. Let me submit to you, my dear brother and sister. I'm here, I'm speaking from an experiential point of view, not by God's grace, not in my Christian life, but in the past when I was dating my sins and I had trespasses. Lies have a power that is so deceiving.

that you can arrive to a point in which you know that you're lying, but you make that lie now just to be the truth. And you think up to yourself that that is actually now truth, and then you feel okay bringing and manipulating people and others into that lie that you actually know very in the depths of your soul that they are lies, but you have convinced yourself that they are truth, and now you're okay just to utter them from your mouth. as if they were truths, brethren." This is the power of Satan. Remember that Satan is the father of lies.

And I've said to you in the past, brethren, that the fight that we have here, it is a fight between truth and lies. And the power of lies is that lies deceive even the minds and the intentions of people. So, brethren, what a fearful thing it is to fall in our own ways and into our own hearts. False teachers are deceivers and anti-Christ that are opposed to Christ and to his church. But Apostle is going to tell us something more interesting.

If you return to the passage that we have before us, he's also going to tell us that these deceivers have gone out into the world. You see that verse 7 verse 7 for many deceivers have gone out into the world. Actually, that expression that we have there in verse seven is a very Apostle John expression. He's the only one that speaks this way, that these people have gone out into the world. That expression is so John that we know that the author of 1st John and 2nd John is the same author because because of this expression.

Because the other instance in which the apostle is going to use this expression is in 1st John chapter 4. So if you come with me, then we will understand something about these false teachers. 1st John chapter 4. We have said the false teachers are deceivers, imposters, antichrists. That sometimes they are aware that they are, sometimes they are not aware that they are.

But the apostle also tells us that these false teachers have gone out into the world. And if we go to 1st John chapter four, there we have this truth that says, verse one, beloved chapter four, beloved, do not believe every spirit. but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. Now pay attention to this expression here. For many false prophets have gone out into the world by these, you know, the spirit of God, every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.

This is the spirit, pay attention, of the Antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Once again, the apostle has stated that there are two spirits, the spirit of God and the spirit of the Antichrist. And in the apostles and the true prophets, the true teachers, the true pastors, the spirit of God is operating so that they speak the words of God. On the other hand, we have the spirit of the Antichrist, which is the spirit of Satan. And this spirit of Satan is operating now in these false teachers.

And these false teachers are called the Antichrist. You know how people speak about the Antichrist is coming? The Apostle tells us that false teachers of false prophets are these Antichrist, that they are already in the world. But the Apostle tells us that they have gone out into the world. What Apostle refers is that these people were in the context of a church.

And when he says that they have gone out into the world, that these Antichrists were in the church, and now they are no longer in the church, but they have left the church, and they have departed from the genuine spiritual church. That point, the Apostle makes it clear in 1 John 2, verse 18. If you come with me, I'm just simply showing you the verses so that we can continue from here. 1 John 2, verse 18. Here, the Apostle John is speaking about these false teachers, false prophets that have gone out into the world.

When he says that, he means that these people were in the church. Now, verse 18, it says, Children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard, that Antichrist is coming. So now many Antichrist have come. That is the same language of 1st John chapter four.

Therefore, we know that is the last hour. Many antichrists have come. Therefore, we know that is the last hour." Now pay attention to verse 19. They, referring to those antichrists, they went out from us, but they were not of us.

For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out that it may become plain that they all are not of us. Now the apostle is going to tell us something fearful about false teachers. And the false teachers are not, they are not raised in the school of, in the seminary of false teachers. Or that the false teachers are not prepared in the school of Satan against the church.

But rather that false teachers and false prophets start within the context of the church. And brethren, as I am saying that, with the many hairs that I have, they just go up. Because this is really fearful, because apart from the grace of God, you understand that apart from the grace of God, I can be speaking to you today as one who is a man of God. And I can be very well next month or next year be speaking to you as one who is an instrument of Satan. If it's not because of the grace of God that sustains us and that keeps us and that directs us.

If it's not our trusting and our belonging in Jesus Christ, brethren, you think that there is difference between the false teacher and us? I mean, from the point of view of sin? There's no difference, brethren. We're all the same. We all have lies.

We all have hearts that are hardened. We all have seen within us the only difference. that is present between a child of God and a child of Satan is the grace of God that has come to rescue the child of God to direct him to the person of Jesus Christ. So if we think that there is something good in us that sets us apart from those people, then we are not in the right place, brethren, because we are to think in the grace of the Lord. And this is to give us much reverence.

Because, my dear brother and sister, and God forbid, we can be now or someone among us now, someone among us now could be a future instrument of Satan to attack Christ and to attack his church. Brethren, that's why we ought to pray. That's why we ought to intercede that the Lord will protect us from ourselves, that the Lord will protect us from our own hearts, that the Lord will protect us from our own nature, that the Lord will protect us from our own imaginations, that the Lord will protect us from our own desires, that the Lord will protect us from what we want to do for us and that always, Every day He will point us to the Lord Jesus Christ and to show us the chasm and the separation that exists between us and Him, and that is only filled by the person of Jesus Christ, by His mercy and by His grace. Because in the moment that we think that we are good enough, in the moment in which we think that we are the ones that can escalate and close the gap between man and God, then, brother and sister, we have made ourselves prideful. And every step that we take from that moment, it is a step that we take in the flesh and not a step that is going to lead us to the father of life with whom there's no variation or shadow of turning.

But every step will lead us to the father of lies, the one that takes your soul and destroys it. It is the grace of the Lord, is the grace of God, the one that sustains us. That also teaches us, brother and sister, that the way that we protect ourselves, it is by knowing Christ Jesus and his will. The way that a church protects herself is not by having a pastor or two pastors or three pastors that have learned and done all of these things and that they know the scriptures in a particular way. That is not the way that the church protects herself.

The way that the church protects herself is when everyone in the church. It is walking before Christ Jesus and learning the words of the Lord. This church is not protecting by having sound doctrine from the pulpit. We only do this one hour every Sunday. The way that the church is protected, it is by having Christ Jesus inside of you.

in your hearts, in your minds. And that's why discipling one another, growing in the truth, it is mandatory not only for your growth as an individual, but for the protection of the church. Because in the moment in which any of us, or a fraction of us, deviate from the ways of Jesus Christ secretly in their hearts and in their minds, that is a door that has been opened for sin and Satan to enter, not only into those people, but into the church, into the local church, brethren. That's why we need to love one another. That's why we need to pray for one another.

That's why we need to intercede for one another. That's why when someone is down, we need to help them up, not criticize them and not judge them and bring them up in the love of the Lord, because that is the protection that we have for Christ, for the church in Christ Jesus. But thirdly, and very importantly, let me just submit this to you, brethren, that even though it is painful, the Lord will purify his church. Right? Even though it is painful, because when those people in 1 John chapter 2, they went out of us and they left the church, don't think that just because they were false teachers that everyone was happy that they left the church.

Don't think that just because this is the will and the decree of the Lord that the church did not suffer, did not experience difficulty by the going out of those people that were not part of the church. But even though it is difficult, Brother and sister, the reason why there will be false teachers in the context of the church is because God wants to purify his church. God is almighty and all powerful to create a church in which false teachings cannot make it into into the church. God is almighty, and he's sufficient just to save peoples and to bring safe Christians and bring them into a place where No false teaching will come through the doors. No false teaching will come through our minds.

No imagination will enter into our hearts. He is powerful to do so. But the reason why the Lord has decreed and allowed the false teachers will be in the context of the church, brethren, it is to purify the church. There is a terrifying, oh, powerful verse, depending on the mood. you can come to first Corinthians chapter 11.

And there's a powerful verse that speaks to us about what happens when these situations take place in the context of the church. First Corinthians chapter 11 and by no means I'm going to be able to finish what I was going, I was supposed to say. So let's say, let's see how we progress from here. So first Corinthians chapter 11 pay attention to these brethren. First Corinthians chapter 11, Verse 19, we could read the context.

Let's just read from verse 18. 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 18. For in the first place, I said first Corinthians, right? First Corinthians, thank you. For in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you.

And then we say, wow, that is so sad. There should not be divisions among us. And of course, there should not be division among us. And then he says, the apostle says, and I believe it in part. Verse 19, and this is the scary verse, at least to me.

For there must be factions or divisions among you, in order that those who are genuine among you might be recognized." Oh, brother, what a terrifying truth. There must be factions and divisions among you, in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. might be identified. Was that coming out of those antichrists difficult when they came out of the church in Ephesus there in 1 John 2, verse 18 and 19?

Of course, brethren, that it was painful for the people that were there in the context of the church. They might be people that have spent years together and loving one another and their families. They might be people that have spent a lot of time together. But the Lord is the one that builds the church, even through our sufferings and even through our difficulties. And when the Lord wills that he's going to purify a church, of course, I'm speaking about false teachers here.

He will remove them and take them out of the context of the church. So the apostle says, for many of these deceivers have gone out into the world where they belong. where they belong, because it's the spirit of the world that is speaking in them and through them. And it's the grace of the Lord that has been manifested to the church so they will be revealed and they will be expelled or removed or taken from there. What a fearful thing that is.

But let us return to our text, and now let me just show you now what false teachers actually teach. I have shown you who they are. They are deceivers and antichrists, right? Sometimes they are aware, sometimes they are not aware. I have also shown you the origin, at least, of these false teachers.

They are formed within the context of the church. That is fearful. That's why we ought to be thankful for the grace of the Lord. Now let me just show you a little bit about the teaching of these false teachers. The apostle is going to tell us a very specific case that the church was going through.

In verse seven, it says, For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus in the flesh. Now, the situation that the church was going through, both the churches in second John and the churches in first John, was a very specific situation. There was a group of people that were denying that the Lord Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. And while this is a very specific and while this is a very particular situation for that church, that is very likely the Church of Ephesus, I think that there are many principles that we can derive from it, especially when you carefully study the first letter of John, which is the first letter that we just finished like a couple of months ago. Let me submit to you that the false teaching that was happening in these churches comes down to two levels.

These two levels are not going to be every single false teacher in the New Testament, but at least it's going to be the false teachers that were present in 1st John and 2nd John that gives us a big perspective of many false teachers. It comes down to two things. The false teachers of the time of John, that are the many false teachers of our time, will deny two things. First, who Jesus Christ is, or they will change that, who Jesus Christ is. And secondly, and I think that this is one very important one that many times people do not pay attention to, what Jesus Christ does in the life of a genuine Christian.

Okay, the main heresy, if you want, or the main deception that Apostle was fighting in 1st John and 2nd John was this, who Jesus Christ is and what he does in the life of a genuine Christian. There were some people that were saying Jesus Christ did not come in the flesh. Yes, he's God, but Jesus Christ did not come in the flesh. And those people that were saying Jesus Christ did not come in the flesh because he did not come in the flesh. He's not like one of us.

And because He's not like one of us, you cannot expect that we'll live like He lived, because He's not like one of us. That was the heresy that was taking place, which is clearly stated by the Apostle if you return to 1 John 2. Come to 1 John 2. Let us just see those two components of the heresy of these false teachers. 1 John 2, pay attention to verse 21.

First, who Jesus Christ is, verse 21. I write to you 1st John chapter 2 verse 21. I write to you not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it and because no lie is of the truth. Verse 22. Who is the liar?

But the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ. This is the Antichrist, he who denies the father and the son. No one who denies the son has the father. Whoever confesses the son has the father also. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you.

If that what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too also will abide in the son and in the father. And this is the promise that he made us eternal life. Very similar language he gives us in 2nd John chapter one verse nine, where he says that he who abides in the teachings of Christ abide both in the son and both in the father. These people were denying the character of Jesus Christ. They were changing the character of Jesus Christ.

They were saying he's God, but he's not men. The only thing that I'm just going to say here, my dear brother and sister, because we could go into a big world of things that we could say about this. Let me just submit this to you. We need a savior that is both God and men. If anyone comes to us and says that Jesus Christ is not God and men or men, then that is clearly a false teacher.

We need a Savior who is God and man, so that by being God and man, He can first absorb and receive the fullness of the wrath of God that we deserve, so He can fully pay for the price of our sins. The size of my debt is not about the size of my sin, but the size of my debt depends about the size of the person against whom I have sinned. Because I have sinned against God, then my debt is infinite. So I don't have in me what is required to pay for my sin. I need someone of infinite worth to pay for my sin.

So I need that Jesus Christ is God himself of infinite worth so that he can take and absorb the fullness of the hell that I deserve. The reason why hell is eternal, it is because the person cannot even of themselves fulfill the debt that they have before God. So they have to pay it for eternity because they cannot repay the debt that they have before God. But when a person believes in Jesus Christ, we need him to be God. Because if He is God, He fully satisfies the demands of God, and I can be completely forgiven.

But I also need that Jesus Christ is man, because I need Him to take my place. I need Him to be my vicarious atonement upon the cross. I need Him to be like me, because when He is like me, He does not only condescend to be like me, but very graciously and gloriously, I go up to be with Him And in Him, I take a place that no other creature deserves, seated at the right hand of the Father of the Majesty on high, to have communion with God forever and ever. And the only reason why that happens is because Jesus Christ is both God and men. But secondly, and perhaps more importantly for the Apostle John, please pay attention to this, brethren.

We're going to finish very soon. Just please pay attention to this. It is not only the heresy of what Jesus Christ is or who he is, God and men. There were people in the church in Ephesus that they were denying what Jesus Christ actually does in the life of a genuine believer. So they were basically saying, because Jesus is not man, He did not come in the flesh, we cannot be like Him.

So they were saying, you can go and live your life in sin. It actually does not matter. You can actually just go and do unrighteousness as you want, because you cannot expect that a Christian will be like someone because that someone is not like us. He's God. He's so apart from us.

Stop demanding from us that we will be like God. We cannot be God. because they were denying that Jesus Christ had come in the flesh. So the Apostle John is very concerned, not only with the heresy of who God is, or Jesus Christ is both God and men, but also the application of what Jesus does in the life off. I Christian come once again to 1st John, and I will show you that we could read chapter three for the whole thing.

But let me just show you that from 1st John, Chapter two, verse 29. 1 John 2 verse 29. If you know that he's righteous, then the apostle says, if you know that he's righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him. The apostle says. We know that if you have been born of God, then that means that you are going to practice righteousness to be a son of God.

In other words, to be in the person of Jesus Christ. We know that if you have been born of God, then you are going to practice righteousness. Pay attention to verse chapter three, verse four. The apostle will make it more clear, and then I will briefly explain and move on. Three, four.

Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared in order to take away sin, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in Jesus keeps on sinning. No one who keeps on sinning has either seen Jesus or known Jesus.

Little children, he says in verse seven, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he is righteous. Why does the apostle say that? Because the false teachers were trying to deceive the Christians in the church, that they they could say that we are Christians, but we are not living like Christians. We we can say that we have been born of God, but we can live continually in our lives of unrighteousness.

So the apostle says, This is a heresy. This is an error. Jesus Christ, his son, the son of God, is both God and men. And because he's got a man when he saves a person, that person is transforms. He completely transformed.

That person becomes a son of God. He's no longer a son of the devil. And the evidence that you are son of God. Verse 10 is that you will do righteousness and that you will love the brothers and sisters from verse 11. It starts his exposition about what it is to love the brothers.

and sisters, we need a Savior that is men so that in saving us, we can become like Him. We need a Savior that is God so that in saving us, we receive the Spirit of God in us because there's absolutely nothing in us that is sufficient to make us righteous or to make us love one another. But how are we going to distinguish them? These false teachers give me seven minutes, and I promise that I finish. I'm not going to finish with my whole sermon.

But brethren, how do we how do we know then? How do we know who is a false teacher? How do I distinguish a false teacher? How can I actually come online and see you a person somewhere and then distinguish that a person is a false teacher or there is a genuine teacher? Well, I have told you who a false teacher is and where they come from and the false teaching, you know, Jesus denying who Jesus is and what he does.

But let me just take you through three tests that the scriptures gives us. These are not mine. These are tests that the scripture gives us that will allows us at least to see who a false teacher is. And I will conclude with that because I'm not going to be able to finish what I had planned to say. three tests that the scriptures gives us.

The first test is going to be the test of the scripture and doctrine. If you come with me to 1st John, 1st Timothy, chapter six, there we have the first test that we can apply because you remember in 1st John, chapter four, we're called to test the spirits. That's why I'm calling it a test, right? So 1st Timothy, chapter six, this will be a first test, the test of the scriptures or the doctrine. If you go to 1st Timothy, chapter six, verse Three.

There we can see the test for a false teacher. Who is a false teacher? A false teacher is the person, of course, that is going to bring us was going to give us a teaching that is contrary to the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ, right? That is perhaps obvious. A false teacher is a person that is going to give us or bring us a teaching that is different to the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Pay attention to verse three of Chapter six. It says, If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy. and for quarrels about words which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain. The first thing that we ought to pay attention to, it is about the teaching that the person brings, of course.

If the doctrine of that person does not correspond to the teachings of the Scriptures, then, of course, that is going to be, by definition, a false teacher. But how we do determine that, right? If there are so many teachings, there are so many people saying so many different things, it's very difficult. But let me just simply submit to you this, that the way that we identify that which is not is not by carefully studying that which is not, but rather carefully studying that which is true, right? So just as when you go to the bank and then it happens in Colombia, it doesn't happen here in Australia, but they check all of your notes so that they will see if they are fake or they're not fake.

So the best way to do it is for you to know that which is true, because when you know that which is true, you're able to identify that which is not. But do let me please and allow me with the grace of the Lord to give you at least a standard just to see and identify in a person how they treat the Scriptures and how they relate to doctrine. If you come to 1 Corinthians chapter 4, if you come to 1 Corinthians chapter 4, there the apostle is going to tell us something very interesting about the heart of the apostle Paul when he's actually treating the scriptures and he's treating doctrine, something that is only given by the spirit of the Lord and that is not produced by men himself or a woman herself. 1 Corinthians chapter 4. a second Corinthians chapter 4, sorry, 2nd Corinthians chapter 4, 2nd Corinthians chapter 4.

The Apostle Paul is going to give us an insight into how he understands and how he treats the scripture. And I think that this is a very important thing for us to see and try to find in other people, at least those who profess to be teachers. 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 verse 1. Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, the apostle Paul says, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced these grateful and hard underhanded ways. Once again, verse two.

But we have renounced these great disgraceful. underhanded ways. Pay attention to this. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's Word. But by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God.

Now, I know that this is a difficult statement, perhaps, with the words that the apostle uses there. But what he's saying there, the apostle, what he's saying there is we commit ourselves to submit to the scriptures and not to use the scriptures in a cunning way to make them say what we want them to say. The apostle says we submit. entirely to the Word of God. And the way that we present ourselves before you, brothers and sisters, is as the Word of God calls us and tells us.

We are tempted, perhaps in our flesh, to come with cunning devices and to present the Word of God to you in a different way. But we submit ourselves entirely to the Word of God. What a person believes of this book, brethren, it tells you much of their teachings. What a person believes of the Word of God and how they relate to the Word of God, it tells you a lot from when they're actually getting their teachings. If a person is not willing to be challenged because they are always right, that person is taking their teachings from their own interpretation.

But if a person is always willing to be proved whatever the Scripture says, because my intention is to know what the Scripture says and not to be right, then that shows you that the heart of that person is submitted to Christ and to His Word and not to his preference or her preference or her interpretation of the Scriptures. Because one of the problems that we have in the flesh is that we always want to be right. But brethren, as Christians, we are not to pursue to be right. We are to pursue to be in alignment with the will of the Lord. And if in that process we are proved to be wrong a thousand times, may it be.

Because if the Lord shows me that I'm wrong 1,000 times, every time that He shows me that I'm wrong, He's bringing me into alignment to His will. Brother and sister, we are to examine what is the intention, the connection, the relationship, the desire of a person to the words of the Lord. Those people that say, I believe, my opinion, my interpretation, this is what... and they take from tradition and for things instead from the Scriptures. Brethren, this already tells you something about the heart of that person towards the Scriptures.

Second, and I will do this in three minutes. The gospel, it is not only the scriptures, brethren, it is not only the scriptures, but a person, the gospel. I remember these very early in my life when I was just learning the scriptures. I came to this conclusion. The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is that which brings together all the doctrines of God.

I cannot understand any doctrine of God apart from the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ, His life, His death, His resurrection, His enthronement in heaven, His second coming, His victory is that which allows me to comprehend absolutely every other part of doctrine. So that every other part of doctrine that is contained in the scripture, it is pointing to Christ. It is cohesively united in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And eventually, if I have understood it correctly, will lead me not to be prideful in my understanding, but will lead me to be on my knees crying because I've seen Christ Jesus.

to wanting to be like Him, to live for Him, and to communicate of Christ to others so that He will be exalted and know my words and my intellect of the things that I teach others. The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is that which gives the framework to truth. He is truth, and it's in the message of the gospel that we can see the Lord Jesus Christ. And then thirdly, for all of them, I had scriptures that we were going to read, but we don't have time. You can go to 2nd Corinthians chapter 11 for that.

But thirdly, and finally, brother and sister, the relationship of that person to the church, right? You cannot have a true teacher. You cannot have a genuine preacher. You cannot have a genuine pastor that is not in love with the church. Right?

Christ Jesus came to this world to give his life for the church, for the bride. And he knows all of our mistakes. He knows all of our sins. He knows all of our shortcomings, past, present and future. But yet he came and he died upon the cross.

If the spirit of Christ is in a person who professes to be a preacher, teacher or a prophet of God, then eventually, of course, that person needs to produce the same fruit. That is to love the church, to love the church, the Apostle John, in a sacrificial way, right? Because biblical love, it is a sacrificial way to give, not expecting in return, to give for the sake of the glory of God and the person of Jesus Christ and for the church, a person that is within the context of the brothers and sisters, Chapter 1, verse 20, the brother will explain it perhaps in the future. Those who are devoid of the spirit, those who are false teachers are those who cause divisions. And that word there in Jude means that those who are separated, those who cause divisions among the people.

1 John 2, verse 18 and 19, they went out of us because they were not of us. Those who do not have the spirit of God and profess to be teachers of God, they do not love the church. They see the ministry as a means of gain, 1st Timothy chapter 6. They see the ministry as a means for women and sexual immorality, 2nd Peter chapter 2. They see the ministry as a means for power.

They see the ministry as a means to be on top, 2nd Peter chapter 2, also in 1st Corinthians. This is what false teachers do. They are lovers of themselves. They might be deceived into thinking that they are proclaiming the truth, but they are lovers of themselves. The true trait of a preacher or a prophet of God is that the Spirit of Christ is in that person.

And just as the Spirit of Christ should be in that person, brethren, the Spirit of Christ should be in each one of us. Now, let me just finish, and I did it under an hour, very good. Now, brethren, let me just finish with this. The pursuit of truth is one that is personal. I'm not saying that you have the ability to define truth.

The truth is Jesus Christ. But for you to grow in truth, you are the one who has to grow in truth. My mission and my role with each one of you, it is to allow you and to help you to build in your vessel truth. At your pace, and as you see Christ Jesus, I don't want anyone should come and impose to you truths so that you absorb them and you take them in a religious way. Because when you take beliefs and things into your brain into a religious way, this is not going to empower you when you have to love one another, brethren.

This is not going to empower when you have to forgive one another. This is not going to empower you when you have to encourage one another. This is not going to empower you when you have your phone and then you have things that you should not see and to put your phone away. This is not going to empower you to use the time in the way that you are supposed to use it. This is not going to empower you to be like Christ Jesus.

The pursuit of truth is one that is personal and it's individual. Christ should be real to each one of you because you have genuinely come to the encounter of Christ. You have really been with Him and His Word. Not because the church has believed that God is a Trinity and then you just automatically say, God is a Trinity. Not because the church has said that God is, that Jesus Christ is God, and you automatically download in your hard drive that Jesus Christ is God.

Brethren, you have the Word of God, and then you have the Spirit of God built in your vessel because God is faithful that He gives truth when you seek Him in prayer. And when you seek Him through the Word of God, He's faithful to provide to your soul what you need. And when He provides this little, brethren, this little, with this little, with this little, with this little, with this little, with this little, with this little, He becomes the strength that you need to love that unlovable person 2 years down the track. He becomes the strength that you need to forgive that person six months down the track. He becomes the strength and the power that you need to forbear and to leave one or two or three years down the track conformed to the image of Christ, not here, but in the heart.

And the more that we grow in our understanding of Jesus Christ, The more that we will be able to know whose voice is not Christ, because the sheep of the Lord Jesus Christ, they hear his voice. And when they hear his voice, they follow him. And then we will be able to tell the difference between the voice of Jesus and the voice of those who are not Jesus and to follow the one who loved us and gave himself for us. Amen. Let us pray.