Welcome to the Covenant of Peace radio broadcast, the teaching ministry of Pastor Blair Bradley. This program is dedicated to bringing you the glorious truth of God's Word, one verse at a time. We are living in powerful days, and we are seeing tremendous changes in our lives, our culture, our nation, and in the Church. So now more than ever, we have a great need to exercise spiritual discernment and to know what the Bible teaches about the important issues that we all face today. So let's join Pastor Blair as he continues our study on the Word of God. Welcome again, my beloved in Jesus Christ. We're continuing our verse-by-verse journey through the epistle of 1 John, and today I want to continue to look at what John taught about the test of truth. So let's turn in our Bibles and read 1 John 2, verses 18 through 27 again together. 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. 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 all are not of us. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. 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. 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. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father. The one who confesses the Son has the Father also. As for you, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you will also abide in the Son and in the Father. This is the promise which He Himself made to us, eternal life. These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you. As for you, the anointing which you receive from him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in him. Now on the last broadcast, we were going over the three points that John is making in these 10 verses, realizing the danger, the ability and the power that is given to us so that we may realize the danger and the way to fight against the danger. And on the last broadcast, we were looking at the first point, and I want to continue that today. So in order to understand just what danger John is talking about, we need to read verses 18 and 19 again together. 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, 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 all are not of us. Here in verse 18, the Apostle John is passionately warning the Christian church about the danger of divinely inspired truth being lost, stolen, twisted, changed, or altered by these many antichrists who moved into the church to preach and teach deception. And he says that the very fact that many of these people are alive and well and are operating inside the church, that this fact proves that they were living in the last time. Now, on the last broadcast, we were looking at the first group who qualified to be what John terms here as Antichrist. The Judaizers were a group of men who were inside the church during the time that John and Paul were yet alive. who began to teach that in order to be a good Christian, Gentile converts had to first become good Jews by keeping the Sabbath and the ceremonial and dietary laws of Moses. These Judaizers were the forerunners of the modern day legalists who teach that in order to be saved, a person must do good deeds or keep church sacraments or be baptized or perform some other work, which in effect causes them to believe that through performing these actions, they become good enough to earn salvation. On the last broadcast, I showed you that the crux of the matter with these antichrists is over the issue of righteousness and just whose righteousness makes a person fit for heaven. The Judaizers taught that a person can better himself or develop his own personal righteousness to the degree that it becomes good enough for him to enter into heaven through those works. John, Peter, Paul, James, and the others taught that a man can never improve his own personal righteousness to that degree through any human effort. The apostles taught that a person is saved by grace and through faith without any human work at all. But the Judaizers were playing on the fallen nature of man, which always thinks that we need to do something to earn God's favor. These two views of salvation are diametrically opposed to one another. There is no middle ground between them, no common ground upon which the two sides can agree. They are opposite views of salvation that cannot be reconciled, and one of these views is biblical and the other is a lie. And since we're not talking about making pancakes, but we're talking about how a lost person is justified before God, we need to get this right. Because if we get it wrong, if we believe or teach wrongly about salvation, we are dooming souls to hell. If salvation can be earned, if that is true, if eternal life can be paid to us like wages as a result of something that we do, if it is true that we, if we keep certain laws or sacraments, or if we're baptized, or if we speak in tongues, or if we take communion, if it is true that the act of our doing these things is what causes us to be righteous enough to go to heaven, then we are left with some very important questions to answer. If it is true that salvation can be earned by anything that we do, then why in the world did Jesus come to the earth and die? I mean, if all of it takes is for us to be saved, is for us to do something, why did God go to all the trouble to wrap himself in human flesh and come down and be born of a virgin and live as a human being 33 and a half years on the earth and then die and rise from the dead? I mean, if Jesus was born in heaven, why didn't he just come down on Friday as a full grown man and die that night and go back up to heaven on Sunday? Why 400 Old Testament prophecies about Jesus? Why did Jesus have to live a perfectly sinless life? Why was it important for Jesus to be tempted in every point like we are, yet without sin? If salvation is only a matter of willpower, if all that we have to do to be saved is make up our minds to do right and shun the wrong, then why in the world was Jesus arrested and brutally beaten and crucified? You see, what the Judaizers taught involved a lot more than simply squabbling over whether the Sabbath is still viable or not. This heresy, if left uncorrected, would eliminate the need for grace. If all we need to do is develop a strong willpower in order to be saved, then why would we need grace, or mercy, or faith? Also, if the Judaizers were right, then what about the fall of Adam in the garden? If a sinful man, if a lost and sinful man has the ability to simply do good by and through his own human volition, where did man get that ability since that ability was lost to him by the fall? You see, man didn't just lose his immortality and become mortal as a result of what Adam did. It involved a lot more than that. Because it is true that in the loins of Adam rested the entire human race. So when Adam sinned, we all sinned with him. When Adam fell, every human born of woman since that time also fell even before he's born. You see, we don't become sinners simply because we do something wrong. Most people believe that, but the Bible doesn't teach that at all. We are sinners at the very moment of our conception. Because it is the nature of sinful rebellious fallen Adam, and not the nature of God that is imputed to us at the very instant we are conceived in our mother's womb. So we are conceived as falling human beings, and we are born as enemies of God, completely and utterly separated from God with a nature that operates in open and hostile rebellion to God at the very moment we are conceived. This is called the doctrine of original sin. And although this biblical truth has gone out of fashion recently and has fallen on hard times in our day, it is nevertheless divinely inspired truth that we must understand if salvation is to be properly understood. Now, most of us were taught that original sin only means that we are born with the sinful nature of Adam, but that we are not personally guilty of any sin until we actually act on that sinful nature and do something wrong ourselves after we reach the age of accountability, which is said to be somewhere around the age of 12. But this is only partially true. Original sin does teach that every human being born after the fall does have the sin nature of Adam. And that as we grow, we all will eventually personally act on that sinful nature and we will commit sin. And at that point, we will be personally guilty of the sins that we have personally committed. But we got to understand beloved that the doctrine of original sin teaches a whole lot more than this. This biblical truth says that in addition to having the sin nature of Adam, we are also personally guilty of the sin that Adam committed in the garden 6,000 years ago. So the guilt of Adam's sin is imputed to us at the very moment of conception. And in effect, we are all born sinful and guilty. King David knew this to be true when he wrote in Psalm 51 5, Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin my mother conceived me. The result of this being true is that we don't have to personally do anything to deserve God's wrath against our sin because we are already guilty before we are even born. This causes all men to be guilty before God and also helpless to correct that problem on their own and in desperate need of a savior even before they're born. The Judaizers of 2000 years ago, as well as the legalists of our day, hate this doctrine of original sin because this doctrine states that since we are fallen sinful human beings, that we do not possess the ability through our own efforts to correct that problem ourselves. In fact, since we are lost at birth and since we are fallen at conception, this lostness and this fallenness is so pervasive and affects every aspect of our lives to such a degree and is so utterly and totally in its effect on us that unless and until God sovereignly changes our nature by a supernatural miracle of the new birth first, We do not even possess the desire to love or to serve God or to care anything about God. Original sin teaches that because the fall of Adam was entire and total, and that because the fall affected every area of human existence, that no lost person has the ability to fix himself by and through anything that he initiates and that lost man doesn't even have the inclination to even want to love and serve God. That is how fallen, fallen man really is. And because that is true, then salvation becomes wholly a sovereign work of God without respect to any work by any human. And therefore, no man can boast about anything that he did to earn salvation. All glory and all praise for salvation goes to God alone. So for the Judaizers to teach that fallen men can simply utilize his own so-called free will and conjure up love for God on his own and that the desire to serve God out of himself makes the whole case for what it means to be fallen, null and void. So the apostles fought against the Judaizers by writing verse after verse of inspired divinely revealed truth that salvation was a merciful act by a sovereign God to undeserving centers. That is brought about not through any human effort, but by grace alone through faith alone in the finished work of Christ alone. And John says that if anyone teaches anything about salvation, contrary to that. They are antichrists. Well, I've got to stop right here, but please join me again on the next broadcast as we continue our journey through the epistle of first John. May God help us all. Dear friends, if this radio broadcast of line-upon-line, precept-upon-precept teaching of God's Holy Word is a blessing to you, will you prayerfully consider supporting us financially? We want to increase our exposure here on the Gulf Coast through more radio stations and through the Internet. Would you pray about coming alongside of us and help us do that, to God's glory? For further information about how you can partner with us in seeing the gospel triumph in our area, or to receive a copy of today's broadcast, go to our website, www.covenantofpeace.net. Until next time, may the peace of God keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.