Do You Know and Speak the Truth?

This sermon can be watched or listened to at www.templebaptistchurch.ca!

What are some common words to convey urgency? Maybe the phrase, “Help, I think my spouse is having a heart attack!” That seems to bump you up in the line at the ER. According to www.theecommerceexpert.com, there are some words retailers use to create a sense of urgency: “LIMITED TIMEONLY,TODAY ONLY, HURRY,ACT NOW, RUSH IN, LAST CHANCE, DEADLINE, FINAL CLOSE-OUT, GOING OUT-OF-BUSINESS, ONE DAY ONLY, NEVER AGAIN, CLEARANCE, DON’T DELAY, NOW OR NEVER, DON’T MISS OUT, OFFER EXPIRES, ONCE IN A LIFETIME, PROMPTNESS BONUS, PRICES GOING UP”[1] All these ploys by the advertisers are effective. I know that a few of these words or phrases have worked on me in getting me into a store. Just this past Friday, we rushed out the door to go to a liquidator to purchase a sectional that we have been looking for a long time. It was an incredible deal and when we called ahead of time, the liquidators said, “Things go quickly here.” They were right! Hundreds of people were scrambling to gets deals. Words can create a sense of urgency in my life. How about you?

And yet, having a heart attack or getting the best deal may not be the most urgent thing in your life. I think the greatest need for urgency is to know the truth. If you think about the situations I have already mentioned such as a potential heart attack, it is more important to find out the truth then maybe even calling for help. Why? Because without the truth you might be calling to the wrong source for help! For example, maybe the heart attack is actually a less threatening anxiety attack that only an echocardiogram can reveal? If you are struggling with anxiety, it is real and debilitating, but you don’t want a doctor to start cutting on you when you don’t have a physical problem with what we might call the hardware of our body. You need a counsellor not a surgeon. Or what if those hot deals at the store are cheap because they are cheaply made and not worth very much? Knowing the truth will keep you from wasting your money.

Today, I want to convey that the urgent and constant thing you and I need to pursue is the truth. This is exactly what the Apostle John also wants to convey in 1 John 2:18-24. Millions of people today are dying, not for the truth, but without it.Are you one of them? Let’s find out from 1 John 2:18-24! Read 1 John 2:18-24!

The Apostle John starts this section of his letter in 1 John 2:18 with a term of endearment – “Children, it is the last hour.” As a parent, I have learned that most children need prodding and struggle to sense the urgency of the moment. Kids struggle to wake up, make their bed, get dressed, eat breakfast, and brush their teeth all in time for school or even church. You may have even witnessed that this morning before you arrived. Much of the stress in our family is due to a lack of sharedurgency.One family member expects to be on time or a little early, the other family member is event-oriented and will get there when he or she can.  This creates a lot of stress because one is trying to move an immovable object.

But what moves people is danger. Danger creates a sense of urgency. Let’s say you discover some secret that threatens the very viability of your marriage or family. That secret causes you to drop everything and seek the truth. You leave work, school or the sports field to deal with the danger. My friends, our church family needs to become more aware of an imminent and present danger. I am not trying to scare you, but here is the truth as stated in 1 John 2:18, “The antichrist is coming.” Some of you may think that this isn’t a big deal because the antichrist has been a threat to the church for the last 2000 years and the church has prevailed. We are still here. To ascribe to such a false sense of security is misguided and I confess I have at times been lulled into such thinking. After being your pastor for nearly 6 years, you know that I am not an alarmist. So hopefully you will believe me today. I believe as Dr. Paul Benware, my New Testament Professor at Moody Bible Institute, taught me over 20 years ago, “Satan is not like God and knows everything. He does not know the day or hour of God the Son’s return to earth, so Satan always has to have his man at the ready to oppose Jesus.” This explains why there has always been a man who has such influence over the world that they could have been the Anti-Christ. It may not be helpful to name these people of history or the present, but the one that stands out that was a potential Anti-Christ was Adolf Hitler. If you ever saw footage of one of Hitler’s speeches, you saw how he could rally men and women to his evil cause just by his fervor. I get nervous whenever I see a man with such a following, whether in the political or religious arena. People will follow whoever promises them relief from their sorry lives.

But what makes me more nervous is the little anti-christs. Some of these are close by and possibly even sitting next to you. 1 John 2:18-19 makes it clear, “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.” Here is how Daniel Akin both summarizes this verse and warns us, “The greatest dangers to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ are always from within, not from without. Satan has his Trojan horse.”[2]The Trojan horse (pic) reference is to how the ancient Greeks after much time of trying to besiege the city of Troy finally made a large wooden horse and left it as a gift to the Trojans. As the myth goes, the Trojans then brought the wooden horse into their city not knowing that the Greek hid soldiers in the horse to come out and attack the city of Troy from within. And this is where we get the term Trojan horse. It is even used in computers when there is lurking virus within your computer ready to destroy your files. My friends, there is a truth not emphasized enough in our modern day churches and I think it has been masterfully used by Satan to undermine our ministry. It is a Trojan Horse within the church. So many people say they have been burned by the church. They trusted those in the church to love and care for them and instead they have been hurt. If that is you, what if all those who have hurt you are not actually the church, but moles planted by the Devil? What if they are like the Greek soldiers hiding in the Trojan Horse? What if they are tares sown by Satan and not wheat? (Matthew 13:24-30) What if they are antichrists?

We should be far more afraid of the little anti-christs than one described in some End Times novel or movie. Depending on your view of what will happen in the End Times, you don’t have to see the antichrist. If you believe that Jesus will come back and take His Church to heaven before the seven years of tribulation, the antichrist is just an enemy you have nothing to worry about. And if you believe you are going to go through the Tribulation, then you also have nothing to worry about except for being faithful to Jesus. The worst that the Antichrist can do is kill you. But in doing so, he is doing you a favour because he is sending you straight into the loving arms of Jesus.

I believe one of the key lessons from this passage is the call to endure. It is a key word in this passage as it is used 4 times in verse 18-24 either translated “remain” or “abide.” The second part of verse 19 is really helpful in testing ourselves to see if we are of the Faith, “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 are not of us.” Remaining is an indicator of true Christianity. Sticking with the people of God through the hard times reveals whether you are truly saved. That is why I love you who have stayed at Temple so much. You have stayed when we were in debt, when we were in decline and suffered the loss of many people, when your children left because of the hyprocrisy and legalism, when your leaders fell morally, when we were sued, and when we lost our Academy to just name a few struggles we have faced in our history. You have proven true and are experiencing the harvest of not giving up (c.f. Galatians 6:9). As Daniel Akin says, “Perseverance is the proof of possession. All true believers endure to the end.”[3]Or as Warren Wiersbe has said, “One of the evidences of a true Christian life is a desire to be with the people of God.”[4]And Richard Lenski has said, “To remain is salvation; to go out is damnation.”[5]Now I am not talking about people who got a job transfer or moved away, but those who have abandoned the church altogether. Going to church doesn’t make you saved, but it is one of the proofs you are saved. Think about it! If you don’t want to be with God’s people now, why would you want to go to heaven when you will be surrounded by them?

So how do you remain? Seek Jesus, the ancient Truth, urgently and constantly!Or to make stick in your minds: Seek Jesus urgently and constantly! If you do seek Jesus urgently and constantly, you will receive an amazing anointing! Check out verse 20 to see what I am talking about: “But you have an anointing from the Holy One and you all know.” In other words, you know that you have the Holy Spirit poured into your life. Think of anointing as in ancient Israel, when a new king was installed, they were anointed with oil (c.f. 1 Samuel 10:1; 16:13; 1 Kings 1:39). The anointing of oil symbolized God’s Spirit coming upon this person and it is also conveyed the warding off the kingdom of darkness. This person belongs to the kingdom of light. Now-a-days, we belong to the kingdom of Jesus who has poured out His Holy Spirit on us. It is better than the oil of the Old Testament kings because the Holy Spirit stays with us permanently.

And as Jesus promised in John 16:13, “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth.” Truth is what helps you remain. Truth is what is the dividing line. Listen to 1 John 2:21, “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.” That last phrase seems redundant. Which is why I think the New English Bible is helpful and explains the ending phrase, “Lies, one and all, are alien to the truth.” You cannot walk in both truth and lies. As the saying goes, “Truth and time goes hand in hand.”

In his excellent book Discipling Nations,Darrow Miller explains truth, “God’s truth is logical and is internally consistent and true to itself. It is rational. God’s truth is also empirical. It is self-evident. It can be demonstrated and is true to what is. It conforms to reality. And God’s truth is moral. It is true to the way things out to be … Truth – objective truth – exists because God exists.”[6]In fact as German lawyer Udo Middelmannreminds us, “Christianity is true even if you don’t believe it.”[7]Christianity is true because God exists and is revealed as Truth through His Son Jesus Christ!

This is why the Apostle John makes the Truth very personal. It is ancient and an agent. In other words, lies are delivered by someone – an agent! Lies are very personal! When you are lied to, it feels like a slap in the face because the liar has broken trust. Lies are so personal that they have a personality. They are Satanic. Jesus calls Satan “the father of lies” (John 8:44). And this is why the antichrist embodies deception and lies. 1 John 2:22 makes this abundantly clear, “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.” Are you an antichrist because you deny God the Father and God the Son? “As the gospel spreads, so has false teaching. As Christ’s missionaries go to the nations, so has Satan’s missionaries called ‘antichrists.’”[8]Cults chase Christ-followers for converts. We see this broadly all the time in our culture. Many have bought into the lie of the antichrist. Nietzche bought into this lie, hook, line and sinker when he said, “There are many eyes, therefore, there are many truths, therefore there is no truth.” In other words, for the atheist, truth is in the eye of the beholder.The problem with the eye of ANY beholder is that their sights is limited.

Is truth in the eye of the beholder or is Jesus Himself the Truth to behold? The late Bible Scholar F.F. Bruce once said, “Over 2400 years ago, the ancient Greek Philosopher Plato made a distinction between those lies which are errors of fact and the mortal disease of the ‘lie in the soul.’ Denying that Jesus is the Christ is a lie in the soul.”[9]Why? Because it isn’t just like taking a test and getting one of the questions wrong on the test. The question of who is Jesus is the entire course and final exam rolled into one! As verse 23 declares, “Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also.” You do not have God in your life if you do not have Jesus!

So I hope this message has created a sense of urgency to embrace and proclaim the truth of Jesus Christ to others. We must continue to abide in the truth! I close with 1 John 2:24, “As for you, let that abide in you which you have heard from the beginning. If what you have heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father.” Maybe you have started to drift away from the Truth of Jesus Christ, which you heard from the beginning? You have drifted towards being antichrist. You might be saying Jon, ‘I’m no antichrist!” But are you doing things that are against Christ? Are you opposing His redemptive plan in your life and in other’s lives? Today, come back to the Truth! Seek Jesus urgently and constantly!

[1]Source: http://www.theecommerceexpert.com/creating-buyer-urgency/. Accessed July 26, 2018.

[2]Daniel Akin, Christ-Centered Exposition – 1, 2 & 3 John (Nashville: Holman Reference, 2014), 50.

[3]Akin, 51

[4]Warren Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary – Volume 2(Wheaton: Victor Books, 1989), 498.

[5]Richard H. Lenski, The Interpretation of the Epistles of St. Peter, St. John and St. Jude(Columbus: Wartburg Press, 1945), 429.

[6]Darrow Miller, Discipling Nations(Seattle: YWAM Publishing, 1998), 86-95.

[7]Miller, 102.

[8]Akin, 49.

[9]F.F. Bruce, The Epistles of John (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1970), 73.

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