1 John chapter 2. We'll start our study tonight
in verse 21. 1 John 2 verse 21. John writes, I have not written
unto you because you know not the truth. but because you know
it and that no lie is of the truth. These letters that John
writes are like the letters that Paul and Peter wrote. They're
not written as evangelistic messages, but as words of teaching and
instruction and encouragement to God's people. You look at
the beginning of each of the epistles, the writer is clear
about who he writes to. Usually it says something to
the elect of God, to the children of God, to the churches there. This is written to believers,
those who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. But John says here, I've
not written unto you because you know not the truth, but because
you know it. You know the Father, because
He has revealed to you that He is the Father of truth. You know
the Son, because Christ Himself is the truth of God. I am the
way, I am the truth. You know the Spirit, who is the
Spirit of truth. and the gospel, which is the
word of truth. You know the scriptures, which
are the scriptures of truth, and from which the truth is preached
and given unto you. You know. I write unto you because
you know not the truth, but because you know it. And you see, God
gives His people encouragement from the Word of God. I've heard the illustration used
many times that rat poison is 98% good food or the rats wouldn't
eat it. It's the 2%. of the poison that
kills them. And I don't disagree with that,
but it seems to me that sometimes the lie is so mixed with an element
of truth that it is difficult to discern. But it seems to me
today, and I don't know if it's just because the Lord has revealed
the truth to me and to you, but it seems to me today and even
in the days of John that those who were against Christ were
quite evident. We must always remember nothing
false, nothing deceptive, nothing compromising concerning the things
of Christ is the truth. Anything preached that points
men and women to the works of the law, it's antichrist. It's against
Christ. That's what that word means.
Anything taught that causes a man or a woman to look within themselves,
For salvation is against Christ, and it's Antichrist. We don't
look within ourselves. Our hope is not within ourselves.
That's where my condemnation lies. I look withinside, and
I see, like Christ said concerning the Pharisees, a beautiful sepulcher. Oh, we dress up and make it all
pretty on the outside, but on the inside, it's a dead man's
bone. Anything that tells sinners that salvation is in any way,
shape, or form dependent upon them, the sinner, is against
God. He's against Christ. He's against
the spirit and against the scriptures. And John says that's Antichrist. If these folks had not already
known the truth, then there really wouldn't have been any reason
or need for John to tell them about the Antichrist that would
come. But he warns them, you know the truth. You know how
that according to the Scriptures Christ died. You know that according
to the Scriptures how He rose again. And there's going to come
some that trouble you and tell you that somehow or another Salvation
is more than that. You need to do something. The
works of the law. You need to keep days. You need
to abstain from certain food. You need to do this. You need
to do that. We're not under the law, friends. Oh, what liberty
there is in Christ. And John warns them of these
Antichrists. Those of you that were here last
Wednesday, I found this quite interesting. I posted some of
the messages, if not recently, pretty much all on what's called
Sermon Audio. posted last week's message and
I'm titled it, Many Antichrists. That just seemed like the right
name for it. That's what we were talking about.
John said there are many antichrists. And the fellow that monitors
that called me and he said in two days that message has had
like 65 to 70 downloads. Do you know why? Because it was
about antichrists. It wasn't people tuning in to
hear the truth about Scripture. Men's ears are tickled by hearing
things about Antichrist and the end times and all that. And I
just said that to say what a sad state things are in today, that
men care nothing about the Lord Jesus Christ and His redemption
for sinners, but they want to hear something about the Antichrist,
something about end times, something about things that really won't
concern a believer. I know that Christ is coming
again. I know that we're in perilous times, but I'm in His loving. I'm not going to worry about
it. I mean, it doesn't take much to turn on Fox News or any other
news in the morning and just hear nothing but bad news. And
as I said Sunday, as Scott Richardson once said, I haven't heard any
bad news since I heard the good news. I'm just not, I am not,
by God's grace, that's in God's hands, isn't it? That's in God's
hands. What am I going to do about it?
I'm not going to worry about it by His grace. Anyway, not
to get off on that tangent, but John here is saying that to know Christ is salvation,
as we'll see in the coming verses. And the more that we're reminded
of God's truth, the more settled we are in God's truth. The more settled we are in God's
truth, the more resolved and more determined we become to
hear it more and more. Tell me again about how Christ
died for the ungodly. That's what I want to hear. Tell
me, what was that again you said about how Christ came in the
world to save sinners? That's a believer's desire. And
faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by what? The Word of
God. That's how our faith is increased. It's by hearing again
and again and again that wondrous story of the Lord Jesus Christ
and how He saved sinners. Tell me the story of Jesus right
on my heart every word. Tell me that story most precious. That's what the songwriter wrote.
The more resolved and determined we are in the things of Christ
who is truth, The more faith that we have, growing in grace,
growing in faith, God teaches us to live by faith. How does
a child of God live? We live by faith and faith alone. And faith has an object. It's
not blind faith. It's faith in Christ. That's what the Apostle Paul
said in Romans 1. He said, I'm not ashamed of the
gospel of Christ. It's the power of God unto salvation. Who's it the power of God unto
salvation for? To every one that believeth. To the Jew first, to the Greek
also, and therein You know, sometimes little words, Ray and I talk
about this, sometimes you read over a scripture and you don't
pay much attention to certain words. That word, as I studied
this week, just popped out to me, therein. Salvation is in
the Gospel. For therein is the righteousness
of God revealed. How is God's righteousness revealed?
Therein the gospel, therein is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live
by faith. When I get up in the morning,
I don't know what the day is going to bring. I don't know
that it couldn't be my last. There are a lot of people that
woke up this morning that will never see, never saw the sunset
tonight if it's dark yet. I must live by faith. I must trust God that all things
are working together for my good, and if this is my last day, so
be it. My faith is in Christ. I have
a good hope, as long as I don't look in here and look to Him.
And we know from our study in Romans and from the gospel preaching
that you've heard for years, this is how God reveals His righteousness. That's what Paul said in Romans
1. God reveals His righteousness in the preaching of the gospel.
And the righteousness of Christ comes to us. How? By believing that Christ was
made to be sin for us. He became what I was that I might
become what He is. It's by believing in Christ.
That's what faith is. The power of God unto salvation
is to everyone that believeth. Not the whole world. The whole
world doesn't believe this. Abraham believed God in what?
It was counted unto him for righteousness. Never forget that faith is not
blind. As I said, it has an object that
it must look to. And that's He who is high and
lifted up. Do you see Him there? That's
where your salvation is. Galatians 3.22 says, But the
Scripture hath concluded all under sin. That takes in every
one of us here, every one who's ever been born of a woman. concluded, all understand that
the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given. There it is again. There's that word. Given to them
that believe. It's given. It's given. Oh, how we love that word. How
we love the fact that salvation's a gift of God. It's not by works. It was by words we'd be boasting
about it, patting ourselves on the back, telling everybody how
wonderful we were. And that's what a lot of people
do. And I suppose that I harp on that so much because that's
how I was raised. I was raised in a church that
said you need to take a step. Jesus Christ has taken his step,
now you need to take yours. I'm dead. I can't take a step. There's people that I love who
are in hell right now because they believed a lie concerning
the gospel. What is it that we know? Paul
said in Acts 13, he said, Be it known unto you therefore,
men and brethren, that through this man, has preached unto you
the forgiveness of sins through this man. And that's what I want
to concentrate on tonight. First, before I get to that,
at the end of verse 21, John says, and that no lie is of the
truth. Now the Arabic version reads,
and that every liar is not of the truth. John refers to the Antichrist,
all that oppose Christ. As we said, that's what that
means. When he proclaims that no lies in the truth. These men
were lying about God, lying about Christ. They were trying to add
something to Christ's sacrifice to His precious blood, the same
as they were bothering the church in Galatia. We studied through
that book, and we saw that they tried to burden men with, well
now, you know you've got to be circumcised. That's adding something
to what Christ has done, and that's a lie. That is a lie. Anything that is opposed to the
free, sovereign grace of God in the Lord Jesus Christ, it's
a lie. It's against Christ and it's
antichrist. Preaching the true gospel is not the fact that men don't
say something wrong, it's that they say something right. Right
about Christ. Those of whom John mentions,
they have a flagrant contradiction to the truth. A flagrant. Those of you that like basketball,
there's something in basketball called a flagrant foul. And all
that means is it was intentional. It was on purpose. And that's
what these Antichrists were. It was intentional and on purpose
that they divide the body. of the Lord Jesus Christ. They
tried to interject in something other than the free grace of
God. What is a liar? Well, you ask
a small child that most of the time. Well, that's somebody that
lies. But by the inspiration of God through the Holy Spirit,
John asked in verse 22, he said, who is a liar? And then he answers the question.
But he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ. He's antichrist. That denieth the Father and the
Son. In verse 33, Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the
Father, but he that acknowledge Acknowledgeth the Son, hath the
Father also." God and the Son are so much one, that when you
dishonor one, you dishonor the other. When you reject one, you
reject the other. And when you trust one, you trust
the other. Deny Jesus as the Christ. You
know, we can deny the things of the world and it will benefit
us. but to deny that Jesus is the Christ is to eternal damnation. Jesus is the Christ. He is the true eternal Son of
God. And he that honors the Son also
honors the Father. Now I've thought about this a
lot over the last couple days and I You know, we hear that name synonymous,
Jesus Christ. But it's though John here makes
a distinction. He says, Jesus is the Christ. And so that calls me to dig a
little bit further. Jesus is the very Christ. and true Messiah, spoken of by
the prophets, typified in the sacrifices, looked for by the
Old Testament saints. You see, Christ, He fulfilled
all the prophets, the types, ceremonies, sacrifices. He's
a God-man. When the Gospel first speaks
of Jesus, it says, And I shall call His name Jesus, and He shall
save His people from their sin. When it calls Him Jesus Christ,
that says He did save His people from their sin. He's our sin
offering. He's our atonement. And anyone
who denies this is a liar and he's Antichrist and does not
know the Father or the Son. Now listen and follow me on this
and try to understand what I'm saying. It doesn't matter if
you think Jesus was a good man. That's not the issue. It doesn't
matter if you think he was a miracle worker. He was. But that's not
the issue. It doesn't even matter if you
think he was a prophet or a great teacher. He was. But that's not
the issue. And listen, before you throw
anything at me, hear me out. It doesn't even matter if you
think he's the Son of God. Many people profess to believe
that he's the Son of God. Well, Jesus is the Son of God.
And yet, they deny that he was the Christ. Now how's that? How's that so? Well, they might
call Him Jesus Christ, but they deny it by what they truly believe. To say that Jesus made salvation
possible, that is to deny that He's the Christ. It is. To say that Jesus is patiently
waiting for you to make a decision and come by your free will, that
is to deny that He is the Christ. To say that Jesus, or that you
must add something to your own, of your own, to salvation, that's
to say and deny that Jesus is the Christ. So you can say he's
the son of God, but do you believe he's the Christ, the Messiah? You know, I didn't know this.
The name Christ is exactly the same word as Messiah in the original
Hebrew. Same word, Christ, Messiah. The name Christ especially and
particularly means the union of both natures. Now here's where
the rubber meets the road, friends. In the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ, it means that He was both divine and flesh. He was both. When we speak of
Christ, it doesn't mean the Son of God only. It doesn't mean
the Son of Man only. Both includes, but it includes
both natures. Both. He's God. He's man. He's a God man. He's both natures in one person. He's the glorious head of His
body, His church, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all. And I suppose a clear understanding
of the person of Christ is first and foremost essential, the essential
truth that God reveals to His people concerning His divinity
and His manhood. It's to see Him as God and it's
to see Him as man. Now some parts of God's Word
speak of Christ as God. and deity. And there are other
scriptures that speak of His manhood, His earthly walk, His
fleshly taking on flesh upon Himself. But where we miss the
boat, and where many miss the boat, I won't say we do because
by God's grace we believe this, but where many miss the boat
is when they don't see Him in the scriptures that refer to
Him as both. Jesus is the Christ. He's the God-man. He's the mediator
between God and man. He's God and man in one person. Now if you would turn with me
to Colossians. I want to show you this. Colossians
chapter 1. This is all good. I mean, I hate
to even start in verse 15 without reading the verses before it,
but for sake of time and proving my point, let's look
at verse 15. Speaking of Christ here, he said
in 14, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness
of sins, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn
of every creature. for by him were all things created
that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible,
whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers,
all things were created by him and for him." Now, let's don't
read over that too fast. And once we really look at it,
how plain it is. How can it be said of the Son
of God as God only that He was the firstborn of every creature. Also, how can it be said, when
speaking of Him as man only, that all things were created
by Him, that are in heaven and in earth? Creation can belong
to none but God, is that right? Right there in verse 15, He's
the image of the invisible God, and yet He's the firstborn of
every creature. He's a God-man. He's God in the
flesh. When we read the whole passage
as the Apostle Paul intended it to be read, with our eye on
Christ, as God and man in one person, the truth is evident.
Jesus is the Christ. Look at verse 17. And He is before
all things. That's God. And by Him all things consist. That's God. And He's head of
the body, the church. That's man. Who is the beginning,
the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He might have
the preeminence." Friends, He has the preeminence. And that
word, don't let that throw you off. It's not a hard word. It
just means superiority. He has the superiority as both
God and man. That's right. That's our only
hope of salvation. It means that Christ is God and
Christ is man. That means Jesus is the Christ.
And the one that denies that is Antichrist. Now someone once
said that our Lord was as much God as if He were not man and
as much man as if He were not God. And all that means is He's
100% God and He's 100% man. There's none like Him. And in all things, Christ has
a preeminence. We rejoice that He's God, but
we rejoice that He's man. He was made under the law that
He might redeem us who are under the law. In the fullness of time,
He came to redeem us from the curse of the law. He has a preeminence. Now what about man? Does man
have any preeminence, any superiority? Look over at Ecclesiastes. I
never read this scripture before. Just ran across it today when
I did a search on that word preeminence. Look at Ecclesiastes chapter
3. And I made a statement before
that man is no more than an animal, and I almost regretted saying
it because I said, I don't know other than I know by experience
that it's so, but I don't know that I have scripture to back
it up. But Ecclesiastes chapter 3, look at verse 19. Ecclesiastes 3, 19. For that
which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beast. Even one thing
befalleth them. As the one doth, so doth the
other. Yea, they have all one breath. And look at these next words.
So then a man hath no preeminence above a beast. for all is vanity. I found it. Outside of Christ,
we're no different than a beast. You want to talk about depravity?
I don't have to look far to talk about it. I've experienced it. I know what it is. The sons of
fallen men are no better in the eyes of God than a beast. But
salvation is not in man. Salvation is not in anything
good that I've done. Because I've done no righteous
works. There is no righteousness in
me. My salvation is because of Jesus
Christ, the God-man. the God-man. That's what Solomon
said, that a man has no preeminence, no superiority above a beast
for all is vanity. Now, in closing, look at the
Gospel of John chapter 1 with me. The Gospel of John chapter 1. In verse 8, it tells us that
John was sent to bear witness of that light, speaking of Christ. In verse 9, that was the true
light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. And he was in the world. Friends, he was in the world
as a man. And the world was made by Him. There He is as God. And the world knew Him not. He
came into His own as a man. And His own received Him not
as God. He told them time and time again,
plainly, I am the bread of life. I am the bread of life. They
had made him mad. Picked up stones to kill him.
Then they'd ask him again, if you're the son of God, tell us
plainly. He said, I told you. He wouldn't listen. I am the
son of God. I am the bread of life. I am
he that came down, come down from heaven. He came unto his
own as a man, and his own received him not as God. But as many as
received him, received him as God. One day he said, y'all going
to leave me also? He had just told them that he
was the bread of life. And he said many left him and
didn't follow him no more. And he looked at the 12 and he
said, you going to leave me too? And old Peter, he said, where
else would we go? They didn't receive Him as God. They received Him not, verse
11, but verse 12, but as many as received Him as God. To them
gave He power to become the sons of man. And here's the key, friends. Right there, that means as a
man and as God. even to them that believe on
His name, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of
the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." And verse 14,
and the Word was made flesh. He made a man. And He dwelt among
us. And we beheld His glory, the
glory as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and
truth. And there we see Him again as
God and as man. He's only begotten of the Father.
The word begotten means born of. Born of. Look at Hebrews 1 and I'm done. Hebrews chapter 1. I want you
to see the importance of Christ. Jesus is the Christ. Look at verse 3. There again
speaking of Christ. Well, it's not going to hurt
to read the first two verses. God who at sundry times in divers
manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets.
But he hath in these last days spoken to us by, and notice that
word his is italicized. To read that correctly, hath
in these last days spoken to us by Son, by Christ, whom he
hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds. There he is as God. Here, look
at verse three. Who being the brightness of His
glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding
all things by the word of His power. How did He do that? As
God. When He had by Himself purged
our sins. How did He purge our sins? He
did as a man. He sat down. on the right hand
of the majesty on high. Now let me ask you, who was it
that purged our sins? It wasn't the Son of God, only
as God. It wasn't the Son of Man as a
man only. It was the God-Man. That's who
purged our sins. Jesus is the Christ, friends.
If you deny that, you can't be saved. Jesus is the Christ, the
Messiah. It says Christ is Christ. That is God and man and one person. And it's essential. absolutely
essential to salvation that Christ should offer Himself as a sacrifice
without the shedding of blood. What does the Scripture say?
There's no remission. No remission of sins. Hebrews
9. May God enable us to see Him that way. Oh, how many people
say Jesus is the Son of God. but deny that He is the Christ.
May God help us to see that He is Jesus Christ the righteous.