title of the message, Abiding
in the Doctrine of Christ. Abiding. Christ said in one place,
if you abide in me and I in you, and then he said if my words
abide in you, and here he's saying that we abide in the doctrine
of Christ. Now the first part of John's
letter is one of comfort and and encouragement to the elect
lady and her children. He expresses his great joy to
her that he found her children walking in truth. And I guarantee
you it was a great joy to her when she read the letter that
he found them walking in truth. Now in the last part of this
letter, after saying this, after encouraging her and giving her
such warm news, he warns her and her children. No doubt he
warned them when he was there with them and gives her the same
warning. There are many deceivers. He's going to warn them about
the deceivers that have entered into the world. You see, a faithful watchman,
he'll warn as well as comfort and encourage. He'll warn the
sheep. A faithful shepherd will not
only feed the sheep, but he'll protect the sheep from the wolves
and the terrors that are among them. And he says here in verse 7, When I read that, I thought of
the spider that Vicki stepped on the other day. She said, I
stepped on this spider and a bunch of the little ones just were
scattered all over the place. I'm glad I wasn't there. I'd
have had to listen to her scream. But that's what I thought of.
Many deceivers, scattered, are entered And to the world who
confess not, this is how you know, that Jesus Christ has come
in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. It's antichrist, it's the spirit
of antichrist. You know, the word deceiver means
imposter. It means misleader, one who's
a misleader. And it means a rover, a rover. And when I read that meaning,
I thought of Job in Job 1 7. And the Lord said to Satan, Whence
comest thou? And we know he's not asking for
information, he's holding responsible. God holds him responsible. And
Satan answered the Lord and said, From going to and fro in the
earth, a rover, And from walking up and down in it. That's a deceiver. He's a rover. I noticed Satan
left out seeking whom he may devour. He left that part out.
The Apostle didn't. He said he's going about like
a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Satan goes to and
fro up and down walking in the earth seeking whom he may devour
is what he does. He's a very real person. He's
the head of the deceivers. He's the head of them. Now the question comes up again
that I asked, I believe it was last week, in the last Bible
class, Elijah standing there before 450 prophets, and 400
prophets of the growth, can so many be so wrong? If you take 850 and divide it
by 1, you don't even come up with 1%. You don't even come
up with 1%. Listen to 2 Corinthians 11 14
15 and no marvel For Satan himself is transformed into an angel
of light. He's like a chameleon Whatever
color he needs to transform himself to whatever he needs to do he
will Therefore it's no good. It's no great thing if his ministers
also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness They sound so
good They have good things to say, they are very moral law
keepers, law keepers. But he calls them here, they
are ministers of Satan transformed into ministers of righteousness,
self-righteousness, never Christ's righteousness. They are the ringleaders of keeping
the law. They are known, but now listen
here, they are known by what they DON'T confess. I listened to a man some years
ago, and I knew there was a problem. I just knew there was a problem.
And I realized it was in what he was NOT saying. Not in what
he was saying, but what he was NOT saying. And these hooksters here, it's
what they're NOT saying, it's what they are NOT confessing.
They are NOT confessing the true person and work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. They'll use his name, but they
won't preach his true character. They'll use his name. You can't
call yourself a Christian and carry this Bible around and not
use the name Jesus Christ. And it's interesting, most of
them are always just calling him Jesus. They never call him
Lord. They never call him the Lord Jesus. But they don't do that. They'll
use his name, but not his character. And their chief error is in this,
they deny His Deity. They deny the Godhead of Jesus
Christ. That's what they deny. You go
over in the Middle East, they still don't believe He's God.
They still don't believe that. Jehovah Witnesses, they don't
believe He's God. The Mormons, they don't hold
Him up as God. There are many who don't believe He's God. And there are some who confess,
like a track I read while waiting on my oil change this week, I
was reading this track, it's about this young man who had
died, but they said he was saved and he died, and the track was,
Are You Ready to Die? And they had some really good
things in it. Starting out, they had some scriptural things. I mean, it's true. And as it
got toward the end of it, it says that God will save you too
if you'll accept His offer of salvation. He died for you, now
if you accept His offer of salvation, then you're saved. What just
become the Savior? Faith, their faith. They're accepting
Christ as their personal Savior. That just became the Savior,
not Christ Himself. Arminianism has made FAITH the
Savior, not Christ. They've made Christ doing His
part, but the missing ingredient is your faith. There is no missing
ingredient in salvation. Jesus Christ, when He said it's
finished, it's finished. There's nothing missing. Faith
is a gift of God. Faith and repentance is a gift
of God. For by grace are you saved through faith, and that's
not of yourself, it's the gift of God. Paul, I don't know if
it's Paul, but one of the apostles wrote in the book of Acts that
God granted to the Gentiles repentance also, God granted it to them.
My faith is not my Savior. As one man said to me one time,
I know I'm saved because I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior. That's
not salvation in any way, shape or form. The statement, the poison in
that statement is, I accepted Him. In Ephesians 1 it says, He hath
made us accepted in the Beloved. Salvation, Jonah said, is of
the Lord. From Alpha to Omega. Jesus Christ is called the author
of our faith from beginning to end. He's the author of it. Starts with Him and it ends with
Him. But these deceivers, John warns
them and us about, they will not confess the true deity of
the Lord Jesus Christ. If He's God, if that is God Almighty
in human flesh, hanging on that cross, He cannot fail. God said in Isaiah 42, My servant
shall not fail. IF ONE PERSON PERISHES FOR WHOM
HE DIED, HE FAILED! THAT'S THE TRUTH! THAT'S THE
TRUTH! AND YOU'RE DENYING THAT PERSON
IS DENYING THAT JESUS CHRIST IS GOD! HE'S DENYING IT! HE MAY SAY IT IN WORDS, But in
his belief, he's denying the very deity of Jesus Christ, because
God can't fail. Everything, now listen, everything
hinges on Jesus Christ being God. The whole of salvation. Hinges on this man being God,
the creator of heaven and earth. Everything hinges on that. John 10, verse 30 through 33,
I and my father are one. That's what they wanted to kill
him for, what he said. Then the Jews took up stones
again to stone him. Jesus answered them, many good
works have I showed you from my father, for which of those
works do you stone me? The Jews answered him, saying,
For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy, and because
that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. Behold, a virgin shall be with
child over Matthew, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall
call his name Immanuel, which being interpreted, God with us
in human flesh. God's with us. Now John says in verse 8, LOOK
TO YOURSELVES, ELECT LADY, YOUR CHILDREN. No doubt John gave
this to the children. LOOK TO YOURSELVES, THAT WE LOSE
NOT THOSE THINGS WHICH WE HAVE WROUGHT, BUT THAT WE RECEIVE
A FULL REWARD. WATCH AFTER YOUR SOUL. I like
what Bruce says, BROTHERS AND SISTERS. I've got to start using
that. BROTHERS AND SISTERS, LOOK AFTER
YOUR SOUL. Guard your soul. What's the most precious thing
you got? Your soul. What would a man give in exchange
for his soul? Everything. Everybody in hell, that rich
man in hell, he'd give every penny he had, that he had earned
and had while he was alive, he'd give every penny of it to have
one day back here and out of that place. How precious is your
soul? Man, if we really understood that,
we'd be on the edge of the seat grabbing every word. We would,
we'd be grabbing every word if we understood how precious. I can't even put that into words. Be on guard. We are in a WARFARE! Satan's after your SOUL! There's
a real going to and fro in the earth, as I read to you a little
while ago, seeking whom he may devour. But Paul says, Look to
yourselves that we lose not those things which we have wrought,
but that we receive a full reward. Now you'll notice it says reward,
not rewards, plural. There's no plural to rewards
in the Bible. The word reward is used. Do you
know the first time it's used? It's called, I believe Ralph
Barnard called it, the Law of First Mention. The first time
it's mentioned in the Bible, that's the way it's used all
the way through the Bible. God said to Abraham, I am thy exceeding
great reward. Not a mansion, not a cabin up
in the sky, God is. God is. So what's he talking
about here? That we lose not this reward, that we lose not
our soul in the end. Can a believer be lost? Can a
believer lose his or her soul after being saved? No. Well, the short answer is no.
But I say this, if we can depart If we can depart from the gospel
of Christ, we have no hope. If you leave, you never had it.
Paul said, they went out from us because they were not of us. If they had been of us, they
no doubt would have stayed with us. You see, they never had it. It's over in Hebrews. Listen to Hebrews 10, 26. FOR IF WE SIN WILLFULLY, now
that's not talking about doing something you shouldn't have
done. That's doing something like Adam,
on purpose, turning you back on God, turning you back on the
gospel. IF WE SIN WILLFULLY, AFTER THAT
WE HAVE RECEIVED THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUTH, THERE REMAINS NO
MORE SACRIFICE FOR SINS. IF WE CAN DO THAT, IF WE CAN
TURN FROM THIS GOSPEL, and I know a specific person that did it,
Turn their back on the gospel and say, I don't believe that
no more. Turn to Arminianism. There's no more sacrifice for
sins for that person. Because Christ is the only sacrifice.
You're going to another Jesus. That's another gospel. That is
another gospel. There's only one sacrifice for
sin. The Lord Jesus Christ. If we turn from that, to a perverted
gospel, as Paul said, another gospel, there's no hope. There's
no hope. I never had it, never had it.
Paul says in Hebrews 6, 4-6, For it is impossible for those
who were once enlightened, have tasted of the heavenly gift,
and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the
good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, IF, you
see he throws this IF in there, If you've tasted this and if
you were able to actually turn from it, Paul says this, if they
shall fall away, it's impossible to renew them again until repentance.
Seeing they've crucified to themselves the Son of God afresh, put Him
to an open shame, they've turned their back on Him and they've
turned to another gospel. Another gospel doesn't say. And
I personally have never seen anybody come back from that.
I've never seen anybody come back. But what he's speaking here of
is persevering in the faith of Christ until the end. Until the end. And this is the
reward he's talking about. I, God said, I'm your reward. I'm your reward. Don't want to
lose Him. Hebrews 3.6 But Christ has a
Son over His own house, whose house are we, IF we hold fast
to confidence and the rejoicing of the hope, firm to the end. Brethren, we can fall, we can
stumble, we can sin, we can fall in the worst manner, in the worst
way, but I tell you this, if you turn and leave it for another
gospel, there's no hope, because you never had it anyway. Now whosoever transgresses and
abides not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine
of Christ, he hath both a father and a son. Now this transgresseth
here is not talking about the law, we break the law every day.
We break the law continually. Christ kept that law for us,
that's why His righteousness is our righteousness. His obedience
is our obedience. But he's talking here about turning
from the gospel to another gospel. And the person that leaves it,
he said, has not God. Because if you have God, you
can't leave it. You know why? He ain't gonna let you. He is
not gonna let you. He's mine. He's mine. And he won't let you go. Remember
over at Hosea? You know how she left, and when
she grew up and she married, she became a harlot and all that?
But God made a covenant with her. Early on, and God said toward
the end of that chapter or toward the end of that book, I will
not break my covenant that I made with you. Aren't you glad of
that? Well, we break it every day.
We sin every day. But God said, I will not break
that covenant I made with you in Christ. I won't do it. I won't
do it. Now the doctrine of Christ that
he's speaking of here, it starts first and foremost with Jesus
Christ being Emmanuel, God. What did Thomas say? My Lord
and my God. That's who Jesus Christ is. He's
my Lord and my God. That's who he is. We have in
Christ two natures. We have the very nature of God
and the very human nature. He's man. He's a real man. And
yet he's real God, and yet he's one undivided person. And then the doctrine that concerns
Christ has him as a prophet, priest, and king, his
offices. We teach that, we preach that.
He's our prophet. How'd you learn of God? He came
into this world and made known the Father. He's the one who's
revealed, no man knows the Father save the Son. And He to Whomsoever
the Son will reveal Him. He's the Prophet. As I hear I
speak, He said. He's the Priest. He makes intercession
for us. He offered up Himself as a sacrifice.
And He's the King who rules and reigns, not only in our hearts,
but over all of the universe, over everything. He's King. Do
you recognize that? Do you recognize Christ as your
King? He's my King. In my game. And the doctrine of Christ involves
the redemptive work of Christ, His obedience, His suffering,
His death, His resurrection, His ascension back to glory.
We preach this according to the Word of God. And it involves
Him as the judge. You know He's the judge. All
judgment's been turned over to the Son. All judgment has been turned
over to Jesus Christ. Now how do we deal with those
who come to us with another gospel? How do you deal with them? You love them? You love your
enemies? Well, that's not the enemies he's talking about. If there come any unto you and
bring not this doctrine, this gospel, Receive him not into
your house. Don't you open the door and invite
him into your home? Because you just invited Satan
in. That's exactly what you just
did. If you invite him in your home, you invited Satan into
your house. And neither bid him Godspeed.
Don't bid him a good day. Don't tell him to have a good
day. Don't fix a sandwich for him. I know when we hear this,
you think, boy, that's harsh. You know what's even more harsh?
Lying on God and trying to make you two-fold a child of hell.
That's harsh. That's harsh. Don't invite him
into your home, no more than you would invite Satan into your
home. Satan ain't welcome in my home, and neither are his
ministers. See, this is the ministry he's
talking about here. He's talking about those who bring another
gospel. They come to your house and they want it like a Jehovah
witness. They come to your house and they want to talk to you.
That's another gospel that they're talking about. That's not the
gospel of God. Don't tell them to have a good day. And here's
why, here's why, that you don't bid them in or bid them godspeed.
FOR HE THAT BIDDETH HIM GOD'S SPEED IS PARTAKER OF HIS EVIL
DEEDS." Those who wish false teachers
well, who encourage them, converse with them, familiar with them,
friendly with them, instead of reproving them, makes it look like they're all
right and we're all right. He said, you're partaker of their
evil deeds. You're aiding and abetting them.
It's like if someone's going to rob a house and you open the
door and help him, is that what? That's aiding and abetting. You're
going to stand there and hold the door for him. That's aiding
and abetting. You know, we have to be tolerant.
Now listen, We have to be tolerant with one another, don't we? We
have different personalities. We have to be tolerant. We have
to be tolerant with the world. But there's a point where tolerance
becomes acceptance. So we don't tolerate false doctrine,
not even to the jot or tittle. I mean, not even in the least
amount. We don't encourage it. Don't agree with it. That's the truth because people's
souls at stake that they're talking to. They're coming to me, talking
to me about another gospel. Christ said to those Pharisees,
you encompass sea and land to make one proselyte. And when
you've made that one proselyte, you made him twofold a child
of hell. You gave him a false hope, a
false refuge. And now he went from his life of debauchery,
to a life of false religion, false hope. You really got him in trouble
now. The hardest people to talk to and preach to are people who
have a false hope. It's like the Pharisees. They
didn't need Christ. They didn't need to listen to
Him. We don't need your righteousness. Thank you, we got one of our
own. We don't need a new heart. My
heart's all right. I need a new heart. I need God
to save me. I need it. He that biddeth him God's speed
is partaker of his evil deeds, having many things to write to
you. I would not write with paper and ink, but I trust to come
unto you and speak. I like this face-to-face stuff,
don't you? In other words, I'd rather, he's saying here, I thought
of this, if you put it in our day, he's saying, I'm not going
to, I want to speak face to face with you instead of texting you.
I'm going to talk, I wish we could do that more. I wish we
really, you know, I have a lady that writes me about every month. She's up in her eighties. She
sends me a hundred dollars a month. She says, I want to be a part
of your ministry. And she sits under one of the
pastors that I hold as one of the best, the top tier preachers
and pastors in our day. I hold him up there high. And
it's evident by the way she writes, up in her 80s, the way she writes
to me. I told Vicki, I said, isn't that,
it's so full of gospel, it's so full of just gentleness and
sweetness and kindness. And this lady is not rich. This
lady, I know her. I was there one time, and she
fixed a meal for me. And she fixed a rabbit. Somebody
down the road raised a rabbit, and she fixed a rabbit. Sorry,
you have a rabbit? Oh, it tastes good, too. Oh, that was a good-tasting rabbit.
But she sat there and fixed a meal for me like I was a king. And I sat there and ate that,
and she just beamed. And she writes me, and it's so
sweet. But that face-to-face meeting
when I was just sitting there eating with them was just precious. Precious. I wish we'd do that
more often. And then he closes with this,
the children of thy elect sister greet thee. Her sister. How blessed was that family?
God saved her, saved her children, saved her sister, and saved her
children. The children of thy elect sister
greet thee, amen. But listen, abide in the doctrine of Christ.
Stay with it. And if somebody comes bringing
you another gospel, don't bid in God's speed. Just get out
of here. Get out of here. Because that's
Satan. That's the spirit of Satan standing
in your face. after your soul in trying to
destroy the glory of Jesus Christ.