2nd John chapter 1 and verse
1. The elder unto the elect lady
and her children whom I love in the truth and not I only but
also all they that have known the truth for the truth's sake
which dwelleth in us, and shall be with us for ever. Grace be with you, mercy and
peace from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the
Son of the Father, in truth and love. I rejoiced greatly that
I found of thy children walking in truth, as we have received
a commandment from the Father. And now I beseech thee, lady,
not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we
had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this
is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment
that, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in
it. For many deceivers are entered
into the world who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in
the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Look to yourselves, that we lose
not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive
a full reward. Whosoever transgresseth and abideth
not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God. He that abideth
in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the
Son. If there come any unto you and
bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither
bid him Godspeed. For he that biddeth him Godspeed
is partaker of his evil deeds. Having many things to write unto
you, I would not write with paper and ink, but I trust to come
unto you and speak face to face that our joy may be full. The
children of thy elect sister greet thee. Amen. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. Well, it's good to see those
who've been able to join with us, perhaps a little more recently. Hello to Amberley. Good to see you today with Chloe
and Justin there together. Lovely to have you all the way
from Alaska. And good to have the church joining
with us as well from Great Falls. It's lovely to see you and to
have you join here today in the preaching of the gospel. And
there's a good number there at church, so it is great to have
you with us today. I have seen some of the weather
forecasts that have been pretty dire, so good to have you all
there. I trust in safety. There's something very lovely
in John's description of this person to whom he writes this
little epistle. She is called an elect lady and
John rejoices together with others whom he says know the truth. at the grace that this dear woman
exhibits in her life and the love that she has for gospel
truth. The term that she is elect is
a statement about God's choice of her as one of his people. election in scripture and its
good friend predestination is a frequent theme and subject
in the Word of God. so frequent indeed that one might
imagine that there would be no grounds for opposing the scripture's
teaching of election or indeed of denying the Bible's clear
testimony regarding God's sovereign good pleasure in choosing whomsoever
he will to receive his blessings and his grace. Indeed, it is
an obvious consequence of the very nature and attributes of
God that he should reserve to himself the choice of whom to
save, because he is all-knowing, he is all-powerful, he is all-wise,
and he is all-holy. We read a little bit on one of
the hymns that we had today about the potter and the clay. That
is taken from Romans chapter nine. And I don't know that there
could be a better analogy given to us of the way in which God
in his majesty, in his holiness, and in his dominion, in his sovereignty,
and in his omnipotence, could manage the affairs of this world
other than as the one who directs all things according to his will. And yet sinful man will neither
have God's rule nor acknowledge God's dominion. And in a sense
we ought not to be surprised when God's choice and God's will
and God's purpose and God's work is at every point opposed and
exchanged for man's choice and man's will, what man calls free
will, for man's purpose and man's work to such a degree that men
become gods in their own eyes, masters of their own destiny,
and ultimately their own saviours, with God downgraded to an assistant
in the matter of securing eternal life and enjoying everlasting
glory. That is the religion of the world. That is the theology of fallen
creatures. That we have the power, we have
the ability, we have the propensity in our own strength to secure
God's good pleasure and gain for ourselves. Oh certainly,
with a little bit of help from God along the way. but making
that help decisive upon the grounds of our own will and our own desires. This is the religion of the world,
and it is contrary to the religion of the apostles, to the religion
of the scriptures, and to the doctrine of Christ and the gospel
of salvation. election and predestination is
God's choice of certain individuals in his Son for the certain accomplishment
of their salvation and glory. Turn with me in your Bibles please
to Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians chapter 1 because I
want you to just read a couple of verses there that speak to
us very clearly about the testimony of the Scriptures concerning
election and predestination. Look at verse 3 in Ephesians
chapter 1. The Apostle Paul writes, Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. How has God done that? According
as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
himself according to the good pleasure of his will. to the
praise of the glory of his grace wherein he hath made us accepted
in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through his blood,
the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace."
Clear, emphatic testimony from the Apostle Paul, from the Word
of God, where the Will of God in election and predestination
is taught for what it really is. And here is a woman, an elect
lady. one who by electing grace was
a partaker of these spiritual riches, who had received not
out of her own free will, not out of her own goodness, not
out of her own desires, not out of her own abilities, but at
God's behest, at God's choosing, the grace whereby she was made
a child of God. She is an elect lady and thereby,
by the work of the Holy Spirit, she trusted in the blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ, that blood by which we are redeemed. She rejoiced in the forgiveness
of her sins, and she evidenced faith in Christ in her life. She lived and she walked in the
truth and in the love and in the peace of God in Christ. And not only her, because John
in this little epistle goes on to say that he has met some of
her family. And he says, I rejoiced greatly
that I found of thy children walking in truth. So he's writing
to this elect lady and her children, so she still has some children
living with her it appears, but he writes of other children that
she has and that he has found them walking in the truth. Now, we might just mark upon
this note that he says that he rejoiced greatly that I found
of thy children. So this suggests to us that not
all of them, but some of them were walking in the truth. And perhaps that is something
that the people of God have had to deal with and wrestle with
all of history. There are many examples in scripture
of men and women, believers in God, who knew the worry and anxiety
of wayward and rebellious offspring. Adam did, Job did, Isaac did,
David did, And all of these men and many others like them had
cause to weep for and because of their children. And we ought to remember as we
come to these scriptures and we read these narratives and
these accounts of the lives of the patriarchs and the prophets
and men and women in the days of the Old Testament and in the
New, that they were people of like passions as us. Have you ever wondered about
the anguish that Adam and Eve felt as they cradled the body
of their dead son and looked into the face of his murderer. But God be praised that he brings
grace to some of our children. God be praised that he is pleased
to call our children by the gospel and bring some at least into
a blessed relationship with Christ. It is so glorious, it is so delightful
for men and women when our natural sons and daughters become our
spiritual brothers and sisters. These, we are told by John, were
children walking in truth. Perhaps they were guided by their
mother's influence. Perhaps they were helped by their
mother's example. Surely it was much to their mother's
delight that they walked in truth, being quickened by the Holy Spirit. They were obedient to the gospel
call. But let us note this, that it
is they who walked in truth. It is they who exercised faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that reminds us that faith
is personal. Mothers and fathers would believe
for their children if they possibly could, such is the love that
we have for them. but it is they themselves who
must walk in truth, being quickened by the Holy Spirit. What of you,
my friend? Have you seen your need of a
saviour? Have you seen your need of the
Lord Jesus Christ? Do you know that you are a guilty
sinner before a holy God and that there is nothing in your
life Nothing in your works, nothing in your will, nothing in your
good intentions or desires that will in any way ingratiate you
towards God, but that He must be merciful to you. Oh, that
He would be merciful to you. And oh, that you might find in
the Lord Jesus Christ, by that precious gift of regenerating
grace, faith, to walk after his example. It is a joy to meet
the Lord's people who walk in truth and to find that passion
in the hearts of men and women who desire the things of God
as we do. It brought joy to this old man's
heart when John encountered these children of the elect lady who
walked in the truth. He discovered that they were
children to his friend. and he wrote this letter to her
to speak about meeting with them. May the Lord grant that we are
a force for good in the lives of our children and our grandchildren,
that we might, by our example and our influence, teach them
of the things of the Lord like we teach them to fish and we
teach them to bake and we teach them to be good citizens. May
we teach them the things of the Lord and may the Lord be merciful
to their young souls. May we teach them to worship
and bring them under the sound of the gospel and the reading
of the word and show them the burden of our hearts for the
salvation of their precious souls. And may the Lord grant that they
too walk in the truth as it is in Jesus. their young hearts
touched in their tender years by the spirit of power. John
goes on to mention deceivers and antichrists And he has mentioned
these before in his first epistle, which was a general epistle,
this being more of a personal letter. And we mentioned them
also at that time in 1 John. But we are reminded here that
there are many of them. In verse 7, he speaks of the
fact that there are many of these deceivers. We've heard that. and their abundance is to our
danger. We must beware, as John encourages
this elect lady, this believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, to
beware not to be deceived by the subtlety and craftiness of
false teachers. Antichrist. Their message is
designed to deceive. Their message and their teaching
is smooth. It is infectious. It is easily received. It is melodious to the ears of
natural men and women. It puffs us up. It raises our
esteem and estimation of ourselves. And it is a delight to listen
to very often. It doesn't rub our noses in our
own inability. It doesn't expose to us the depth
of our depravity. It doesn't show the impossibility
of us doing anything to save ourselves and reveal that our
righteousnesses are filthy rags. It is designed to deceive and
therefore it deceives many and the Apostle John writing to this
dear lady says, be aware, be careful that it doesn't rob us
of those things that are our right and those things which
are our comfort in the Lord Jesus Christ. And the touchstone that
the apostle brings to the attention of this dear lady is the teaching
and the preaching of such people. And he says, if their teaching
and their preaching is not consistent with the doctrine of Christ,
That's a really lovely phrase. It is not a common phrase in
the Bible. It's used only a couple of times,
really. And here is one of those occasions,
or indeed two of them. I think it's used in one other
place in scripture. But here, in this little verse
here, we're told about the doctrine of Christ a couple of times.
And it means Christ's teaching. It's the teaching that Christ
taught. It's the doctrine of Christ.
It's the doctrine that he declared to his apostles, and his apostles
have declared as they went out into the world preaching the
truth as they received it from their master. That doctrine of Christ is the
doctrine that Jesus Christ himself received from his father and
so it has a divine origin. The father teaching us about
salvation by grace, not of works. So here is God's covenant plan,
here is God's eternal plan to save some of the fallen race
of man by his mercy, his grace and his goodness. And he designs
a way of salvation. He comes himself in the person
of the God-man into the world and he causes this message of
his own way of salvation to be publicly declared and preached
in the world. God's message of salvation, Christ's
message to his apostles, Christ's message to the world by those
who were his disciples. And abiding in the doctrine of
Christ is believing his truth. Believing the things that Jesus
Christ declared both of himself, of his work, and of its consequences. I sent out a little note yesterday
speaking about some of the aspects of the doctrine of Christ and
what it means, and you can always refer to that again. But it speaks
to us of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, that he is the
Son of God, which has been high on John's list of priorities
as he has been writing these little epistles, that the Lord
Jesus Christ is Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God. That he is truly
God in himself, and yet there is that union of the two natures,
the divine and the human nature, in the one person. It speaks
of the offices of the Lord Jesus Christ, the covenant responsibilities
that he undertook. that he is mediator and messenger
of that covenant of grace between God the Father, God the Son and
God the Holy Spirit, that he brings its benefits to men and
women, that he stands within it as their surety and substitute. That he comes to his people as
a prophet declaring the purpose and will of God, as a priest
to intercede for us, and as that mediator who stands before his
Father on our behalf, interceding for his people. That he is king
and ruler in his church. It speaks to us about the incarnation
and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ as a child, his obedience
in his life to make him a worthy sacrifice of his sufferings and
his death and his resurrection from the dead and his ascension
into heaven and his intercession there seated at the right hand
of God on behalf of his church and people. It speaks to us of
the honour that he has there in heaven but of the fact also
that he is going to come again. He will return in judgment. It
speaks to us of peace and pardon by his blood, of atonement by
his sacrifice, of justification by his righteousness, and of
a full and complete salvation that is obtainable only in him. This is the message of God, the
gospel of God. And as the Lord Jesus Christ
declared that gospel of God, so it became the doctrine of
Christ. John gently brings this lady,
this elect lady and us who read these words under the obligation
of maintaining these important matters of truth. This lady had
to realise the importance of the doctrine of Christ. She is
to be attentive and she is to be methodical even critical of
who she hears and what she hears. So John writes to this lady. It's just a little letter. We
may say it's the smallest of the scriptures, although that
can be argued about and debated, whether you want to count verses
or words or whatever it might be. That's not to the point. John tells us he has lots to
say to this lady. Verse 12, he says, lots that
I want to write to you, but I won't do that now with pen and ink,
with ink and paper. I'm not going to do that right
now. He said, but this one thing I have to tell you, be careful
that you maintain the doctrine of Christ. Be careful that you
hear the doctrine of Christ. Failure to uphold this doctrine
in our congregation, in our midst, in our hearing, in our hearts.
Failure to preach and maintain these doctrinal truths while
claiming to be a believer will be to our harm. And failure by
any Christian Pretender, claiming to be a pastor or a preacher,
is rather a deception and antichrist. If a preacher does not and will
not preach the doctrine of Christ, does not and will not preach
free sovereign grace, then, says John to the elect lady and her
family and to us, We must withdraw from him because he will rob
us of the blessings of grace. He will rob us of comfort and
peace in believing because he will cause us to look elsewhere
than to Christ for salvation and for full redemption. John
says to the lady, don't have anything to do with such deniers
of the doctrine of Christ. Neither bid him Godspeed. So verse 10 says, if there come
any unto you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into
your house, neither bid him Godspeed. Something that this little verse
allows us to be rude to Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons. Well,
I'm not suggesting that you let those folks into your homes and
into your houses when they come door to door knocking on your
door and wanting to teach you their doctrines and their heresies. But let us not restrict ourselves
to a few Aryans and Unitarians and heretics. We as the people
of God, as the elect of God, as believers in the Lord Jesus
Christ and as proclaimers and maintainers of the doctrine of
Christ, we do not support any ministry that is not founded
upon the doctrine of Christ. We do not legitimise free will
teaching of any kind, neither with our presence under it or
by permitting it to be proclaimed from our pulpit. We do not encourage
it. We do not support it. We do not
respect its promoters. The doctrine of Christ brings
the message of life. And we cannot be eager for our
children and our friends and our neighbours to be saved by
grace and at the same time be careless about whether or not
we are supporting and maintaining the doctrine of Christ. This
is the message that brings life to spiritually dead souls. This is the message that brings
comfort to the weary, to the tried, and to the downcast sinner. It is the pearl of great price
that once we have found it, once we have discovered it and gained
it, we will not easily let it go. And yet, and yet, Paul tells
us in his letter to Timothy, a young preacher, a young man,
he says in 1 Timothy chapter four, verse one, now the spirit
speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart
from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines
of devils. This shows us whether it's Paul's
letter to Timothy or John's letter to the churches or to this lady
in particular, this elect lady. that the apostles were anxious
about this matter. They were anxious about the fact
that there was false teaching, doctrines of devils, antichrist,
doctrines that were opposed to the doctrine of Christ coming
into the churches and coming into the lives and experience
of the church and the people of God. Let us beware of this
important matter. John goes on in his comments
and his letter ends with a lovely greeting from this elect ladies,
nieces and nephews. So there is a family dimension
and relationship dimension in this little letter, which is
really quite lovely. and there is an elect sister
and her children are being drawn to this elect lady's attention. So these nieces and nephews,
they greet their aunt and we're told that John has a desire to
visit this lady personally. We don't know where the lady
lived and we don't know where John was when he wrote this letter. So we don't know how far he would
have to travel in order to be in the company of this lady. Perhaps it was many, many miles. But it is lovely to see how warm
this social relationship is that existed between brothers and
sisters in Christ, though they were separated by distance. And perhaps we have a sense of
that when we share together, even if it is remotely, that
there is this union that exists, this fellowship in which we engage
together because we value and appreciate the doctrine of Christ
and the fellowship of the saints in these heavenly matters. strong
spiritual bonds in these truths which the Lord has committed
to us. I don't know if John ever managed
to fulfil his desire to travel to meet this lady. As I say,
it may have been a very long distance and it is likely that
John, when he wrote this, was a very old man. It's many years since this letter
was written. And now we do know that these
two, this apostle whom Jesus loved and this elect lady, have
indeed met face to face. If not upon the face of this
earth, then in the presence of their Lord and Saviour. and I
am looking forward to meeting them both someday also. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us and encourage our hearts in this little letter of 2 John. Amen.