Turn now to the reading of God's Word. If you would turn with me to the epistle of 2 John. 2 John, and this evening we'll be looking especially at verses 7 through 13. However, for the sake of context, I would like to read the entire letter. I'll be reading from the New King James Version, as is my custom, so that will account for some of the differences with the Pew Bible. Here now the reading of God's holy word. The elder to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth. And not only I, but also all those who have known the truth, because of the truth, which abides in us and will be with us forever. Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. I rejoice greatly that I have found some of your children walking in truth as we received commandment from the Father. And now I plead with you, lady, Not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. This is love, that we walk according to his commandments. This is the commandment that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it. For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Look to yourselves that we do not lose those things we worked for, but that we may receive a full reward. Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house, nor greet him, for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds. Having many things to write to you, I did not wish to do so with paper and ink, but I hope to come to you and speak face to face, that our joy may be full. The children of your elect sister greet you. Amen. Ascends the reading of God's word, let's pray together and ask for his help. Father in heaven, help us as we now come before you to hear you speak to us through your word. Give us eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to understand that we might receive Christ's come in the flesh. And that we might follow what it is that you have called us to do. To your glory. Give us hearts, O Lord, to understand the greatness of your riches, of your power toward us in Christ. We plead with you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. I wonder if you have seen that popular video that has gone around a couple of years ago of a couple of zookeepers in China who donned panda outfits in order to feed the little baby pandas to try to rehabilitate them. It's kind of a strange sight, actually. On the one hand, the baby pandas are, of course, very cute, but on the other, it's rather odd that we would see a grown adult, a grown man or grown woman, dressed in a panda costume in an effort to get these little panda babies to eat. These zookeepers have to deceive these little pandas into thinking that that's their mother or father. And so they dress up and it seems to have worked rather well. But what we have here in this text is not cute at all. There's nothing cute about wolves in sheep's clothing. Those zookeepers are attempting to save these little baby pandas, but what we encounter in Second John is something very different from that cute and odd image of zookeepers in panda suits. There are false teachers who have gone into the world, and they haven't just gone into the world, They are knocking on the doors of the first century church. 2,000 years later, false teachers, deceivers, and antichrists are knocking on the doors of our homes and even our church buildings. And they ask, would you like to hear something new? This is a danger that we face even today that we, together with the Christians 2,000 years ago, still continue to face today. And they don't have good intentions like the zookeepers trying to feed cute little baby pandas. They are trying to deceive you and take you away from Christ. If we are to gain one thing from our passage this morning as we consider these dangers that John is warning this congregation about. Christian, it is this, those who love in the truth must hold fast to the truth and distinguish truth from error. I'd like to say that again, Christian, those who love in the truth must hold fast to that truth. and distinguish the truth from error. And we'll see why that flows right out of this letter by following three points. The danger of deceivers. Secondly, the danger of dullness. And lastly, defense against deceivers. So firstly, we begin with the danger of deceivers. Look down at your Bibles at verse seven. John writes, for many deceivers have gone out into the world. Now as we transition from verses four through six and into verse seven, we may have a little bit of a question about why John says here four. Very often in Paul's writings, we should ask the question, what is therefore therefore? Well, in this case, I think that kind of a question is warranted. Why does John say for here? This for, what can be translated as because, is causal in its nuance. In other words, there's something that happens in verses four through six which makes sense of the danger of verse seven. Why should the Christians love one another in the truth? Why should the Christians walk in love in the truth? In other words, in Christ, in his spirit, in the true faith, why should they do this and walk in the commandments of God? Why? Because many deceivers are gone out into the world. This colors the way that we understand the call to love one another. One of the reasons why John calls us to love one another is because there is a present danger of deceivers who have gone out into this world. This threat of deceivers is not a small matter. John, who wishes to be present with this church, with her children, feels the need to write and to warn about this to them. And so he puts this little letter in writing. But not only that, we can see that this threat is dangerous, truly dangerous, and no small matter. by the fact that he says not for a deceiver has gone out into the world, one particular individual, but many deceivers have gone out. There are not just a few threats here and there. This is pervasive in the early church. And it's dangerous also because these false teachers they might look and sound holy. Very often, heretics don't have a red H tattooed to their foreheads. Very often, they look orthodox and they sound orthodox. The Apostle John, in his first epistle, is writing to a church and he notes the way that these false teachers were living, what the claims were that they were making. In chapter one, verses five through 10, these false teachers, these heretics who had gone out and were denying that Jesus is the Christ, were claiming a hyper spirituality. They claimed that their way was a way of no sin, that they had no sin, that they had not sinned. They had reached a state of perfection even. And these are people, of course, that would have been known by the early Christians, perhaps even respected, who had fallen into these errors. And so we see that the deceivers are dangerous because they are many, but also because very often they are attractive, they are slick, they seem holy. And as the Apostle John remarked in his first letter also, At one point, many of these who had gone out into the world, had gone out into the world having left the church. What does 1 John 2, 19 say? That they went out from us. They weren't from us, or if they were from us, they would have continued with us. So these deceivers, they know orthodox lingo. They know how to talk the talk. They know how to be convincing. They seem holy. They offer something different than what we received. And so this is something that colors the way that we understand the calling of the Christian to love one another in truth. Loving the truth comes from the truth. Christ who lives in us by his spirit and flows out of that relation of union with Christ so that we do love each other in the truth. But there's an additional reason why we ought to love each other in the truth. Because there's a dangerous threat encroaching upon the sheepfold of Christ. And so what is it that these dangerous deceivers teach? What is their doctrine? Look at your Bible at verse seven again. For many deceivers have gone into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. We know in the early first century and well into the second century that the heresy of Docetism was particularly something that threatened the early Christians. And docetism comes from the Greek word doceo, meaning to seem. The idea of docetism is that Jesus only seemed to be a human being, but he was really a spirit. This seems to be the particular heresy that John in the early church is writing against. He wrote against this in 1 John 4 verses 1 through 6. There apparently were people who were going about who were not confessing that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. And so the heresy, the dangerous heresy, is a denial of the full humanity of Christ. But it's not only that, it's also a denial of the deity of Christ. For we see that the heretics in 1 John, which were going around in Asia Minor, They were those who were rejecting that Jesus of Nazareth is the real Christ. 1 John 2, verse 22. And John felt the need, of course, to stress in 1 John 5, verse 20, that the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, is one person. He is the Son of the Father. And in this passage in 1 John 5, verse 20, He calls Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, the true God and the eternal life. And so some of these heretics may have been denying the identity of Jesus Christ as the eternal life who was eternally with the Father, the true God who was together with the Father, who entered into history and became a true man. true God and true man, one person forever. But it's not only that these heretics were denying the true Christ or had a false Christology, but this phrase, Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, doesn't just refer to the incarnation, but the purpose of the incarnation. For why did Jesus come in the flesh? to deal with our sins. 1 John 2 verse 2, he is the propitiation for our sins. He is our advocate in our nature. 1 John 2 verse 1. Indeed, he is the son of the father who came to redeem us, to win for us grace and mercy. And so this is the heresy that was going around and this heresy and the groups of heresies associated with the rejection of the message that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh pervades America today, doesn't it? Jehovah's Witnesses say that Jesus is a creature, not the true God, as John says, but merely a lesser deity. There are even revived Gnostics among us in Southern California who are saying that Jesus is merely a Christ spirit and that Jesus the man was merely a man and the Christ spirit assumed him and then left him. One of the tenets of second century Gnosticism. We have of course the heresy of Mormonism which denies the co-eternality and co-essentiality of Jesus with the Father. That there is one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three persons and one God. But there is also the subtle denial of the message of the gospel among so many other groups. That Jesus Christ would come in the flesh to deal with our sins fully and finally at the cross. that Jesus Christ would come in the flesh to be our righteousness in our place. Roman Catholicism rejects that teaching by claiming that the righteousness of Christ as he lived on the earth and lived for us is not enough. That the propitiatory work of Christ given for us in the flesh is not enough, but that we must add something to it. In this sense, the Pope of Rome shows himself to be a deceiver and the Antichrist in rejecting the very reason why Jesus Christ came in the flesh in the first place. But I want you to notice something subtle about this passage that makes the deceivers that much more dangerous to us. It's very easy for us on pen and paper and to take a look at documents to see whether it is orthodox and lines up with the holy scriptures about who Christ is and what he's come to do. But notice how he says this about the deceivers. He says that the deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. On the one hand, they don't profess openly that this gospel of Jesus coming in the flesh, the eternal son of God, becoming a man to die for us and to rise from the dead, they don't openly profess this. However, they also aren't necessarily openly denying it. They just don't come confessing it. This is how subtle this heresy is. This new thing. that's coming into the churches sounds good, but it's not confessing Christ come in the flesh. It doesn't have as its heartbeat this doctrine of the incarnation and of the gospel. They come not confessing this, but in not confessing this, these deceivers want you to be enamored with something other than Jesus. By coming into the midst of the churches and trying to convince them of something else, of some new doctrine which amounts to the denial of this truth, they're really trying to pull Christians away from adoring the Lord Jesus Christ, exalted over all. Trying to get you and pull you away to something else. Oh, how similar. are our own temptations to sin. Could the deceitfulness of these wicked false teachers, think about it. These false teachers are offering something new, something that pretends to be better than the gospel of Christ. But when we face temptation to find our joy, our rescue in something else other than Jesus, We find that the face is very similar to that of a false teacher. Perhaps we look to substances for joy, for escape, for salvation. As if those things, those masteries over us, give us what we need. We run away from Christ, perhaps, and fall into those temptations. to fall into that. Or perhaps it's esteem by others. We think that if we are just simply liked by other people and that we allow that desire to be liked by other people to consume us, perhaps we think that gaining the esteem of others is the true thing that can give us real love, real truth, real deliverance, real happiness, real blessedness in life. And so we're tempted to run after that. rather than running after Christ, who makes us accepted in him and gives us his body, the church, as a community. Perhaps it's angry outbursts. We run to the temptation that if we outburst in anger at something that is irritating us, that it will make us have what we want when we want it. When we elevate these desires to the level of God, and we give in to those temptations, we must recognize that those sinful temptations sound a whole lot like false teachers who are offering another doctrine. And so you must recognize Christian doctrine matters. There's a connection between what we profess and how we live. For the false teacher remarkably looks a whole lot like sinful temptation. in the way that he or she conducts himself or herself, offering something other than Christ for our rescue. But we also see the deeds of deceivers in this text. These deceivers are set in contrast to the Christian life. We see in verses four through six that what it is to be in Christ is to have the truth in us, producing in us love that is in the truth for one another that looks remarkably like the Lord Jesus' love in laying his life down for the saints. But John called us to love each other because of the threat of false teachers, and that shows us there's a contrast between this. False teachers do not walk in love in the truth because they don't have the truth abiding in them the very source of holiness the very source of true christian love many deceivers are gone out into the world who do not confess jesus christ is coming in the flesh this is the deceiver and an antichrist look to yourselves that we do not lose those things we work for but that we may receive a full reward and then he says here in verse 9 Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. These false teachers don't just bring a theory into the churches. They bring ungodliness. For if they have not God, then they have not the truth abiding in them. And if they have not the truth abiding in them, then what is only produced from that in life is spiritual death as we saw this morning. Christology is not merely some theoretical thing just out there. This is life and death. Confessing the truth about Jesus Christ, believing on him in your heart, means that you will be transformed in Christ. But going after another Christ, another doctrine, which is no true doctrine at all, will only give you death. And this is why these deceivers are so dangerous, because they want to lead you away to a life of death. They show themselves to be apart from Christ, and we know, Christian, that there is no salvation outside of Christ. So be on your guard. This brings us to our second point, the danger of dullness. A second danger that we might not immediately catch on to as we read this text. But there is another danger in this passage besides those from outside who would try to lure you away from Jesus. It's a danger within you of growing dull, of getting spiritually sleepy. John says in verse eight, look to yourselves. He calls these Christians to watch themselves because there is an ever-present threat of these deceivers actually leading people away. Now, of course, this does not mean that we can lose our salvation. Remember what John said, that the grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, and that when we have the truth abiding in us, he will be with us forever. All of those who believe on Jesus will always be with Christ forever. He secures us. The real danger of dullness is the danger of a false conversion, of thinking that you are in Christ when actually you have not trusted in Jesus. to something else other than Christ. And so there is an implicit application in our text. Look to yourselves, examine yourselves to see whether you are truly in the faith. John calls them to look to themselves that we do not lose those things that we worked for, that we labored for, that we may receive a full reward. John the Apostle, as an apostle, as a preacher, an elder in the early church, labored for this congregation or group of congregations, that they would be a faithful church on earth, that they would be a faithful church. And he desires that he not lose this reward. And this reward has puzzled commentators. And there have been several different ways of looking at this. I think perhaps the best way of looking at this is seeing it as the reward on the last day that God gives to his saints. As we see in passages like 1 Corinthians 3, as we see the straw is burned away, but that gold or silver or bronze or what have you remains. This is rewarded by God in whatever way that looks like in the consummation. And John does not want to lose this, but I think part of the reward that John is thinking of are these Christians themselves. Remember, he loves them. And remember his desires in verses 12 and 13. He doesn't want to just write with them and be done with this warning. He wants to be with them. He wants to speak face to face. And this imagery of speaking face to face is Very close, intimate imagery. In fact, this is picked up in the Old Testament in the book of Numbers when God describes Moses as speaking with him face to face. This is the language of intimate communion together. And so John calls them to look to themselves, to examine themselves, to see if they're in Christ because he wants them to be in Christ and he wants them To be with Him, they in a sense are His reward, that His joy would be full with them. Nevertheless, this danger of falling away, of growing sleepy in the faith, of thinking that you are in Christ when you really are not, is a present danger. We must be sure, make our calling, and election, sure, but we can have confidence that everyone who looks to Jesus in faith can know that they are in Christ. For what does John say in verse 9? He who abides in the teaching or the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. If you confess Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. And you believe that in your heart. Jesus, the eternal son of God, took on flesh, died for your sins, rose from the dead. Paul says in Romans 10, you will be saved. You will not be put to shame. And John tells us here that if you abide in this doctrine, If you persevere in this doctrine and you don't go after the false Christs, so-called, but you keep to this faith, you have the Father and the Son. They are yours. He is yours. This one God. So examine yourself. Awake. Watch your selves. But don't just watch your own self. Don't just examine your own heart. Notice that this, in verse 8, is in the plural. He doesn't say, look to yourself. He says, look to yourselves. This means that as you are living in love, as you are seeking to love one another as Christians in the body of Christ, that you have a calling to take care that you watch one another's doctrine. This doctrine matters. It's not the stuff of nerdy theologians in Escondido. This is the stuff of life and death, and we have a calling here to ensure that we are together abiding in Christ, that we are confessing the truth. And an implication of this is that we Christians, we need to know God's word. For how can we look to each other in order to protect each other from evil deceivers and antichrists? if we don't know what God says about himself? How can we watch over each other's lives and share with one another what God says about himself, what he calls us to believe about himself, what he calls us to do if we don't know this word? And so I commend to you, Christians, as you seek to look after one another, as you seek to love one another, study the word of God. Study it diligently. Let it be on your mind day and night. But there is in this text a third and final point, a defense against deceivers. We're not only told that we ought to look to ourselves, but we are given a defense. The Apostle John tells us in verses 9 through 11. Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house, nor greet him. For he who greets him shares in his evil deeds. defense that we have against deceivers we've already alluded to, we must distinguish the truth from error. And we do this by our confession of Christ, by knowing the Word of God, but we also distinguish the truth from error by not receiving false teachers in the way that he says this here. He says, do not bring them into your home, don't receive him into your house, nor greet him. And now there's been some debate about how precisely to apply this text. After all, if we took this at face value, we might conclude that we cannot even say hello to somebody who isn't a Christian. But we know that that's not what the Apostle John is saying here, because the rest of the New Testament shows us very clearly that we are indeed called to engage with an unbelieving and even a hostile world with the message of Christ. We are indeed called to share Christ Jesus come in the flesh with a world that does not receive him. Think about passages like 1 Peter 3, verse 15, where Peter writes this, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and always be ready to give a defense to everybody who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. So we know that the scriptures don't call us to have an absolute silent treatment toward unbelievers. That's not what John is getting at here. So what exactly is John saying when he calls us not to greet that person or to receive a false teacher into your home. I think we get a couple of hints at what he means by the way that he puts things. We saw in verse 10, if anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, the idea behind bringing this doctrine is the notion of carrying almost. You can use this verb in the Greek to carry something or to bring something with you. In other words, what John is describing here is the intentional not carrying this doctrine. And so what we see is the idea of those who are rejecting this, who are coming to them, is that they are coming with the intention of spreading falsehood. So that's one clue as to what John means here. But the other piece to the puzzle about what John means is not only that these false teachers are not bringing the doctrine of Christ, but it says here, if anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house. Now, we have to remember, Christian, that in the first century, they didn't have church buildings like we have today. The churches met in homes. And so what it was for a false teacher to come explicitly not carrying the truth and to knock on the door was to seek to gain entrance or to have a voice in the church. This is what John is talking about here. Not giving the opportunity for false teachers to spread heresy in the church. And so the application of the text essentially would be to not invite people who are known false teachers into pulpits or into Sunday classes or the like. But we also see a final hint in this. John calls them not to greet that person. And in the first century, to greet someone is not merely to say hello, although sometimes it is that. Very often, extending Christian greeting was, in a sense, an extension of acknowledgement that this person is one of us. So when John says here, you don't receive him into the church, you don't greet that person, he's calling us to make a distinction between us who hold to the truth and those who do not hold to the truth. In no way does this prohibit us from speaking with unbelievers. Rather, we ought to speak with unbelievers. However, we ought not to give credence to false teaching in our churches. We ought not to extend fellowship where there is no true fellowship between us. And so this text calls us to distinguish the truth. To not only know the truth, to be able to distinguish it, but also to not associate yourselves with false teachers and teachings, to not give legitimacy to heresy to those who would lead you astray. So this is one of the defenses against deceivers that John gives to the churches, that we would be guarded against this. But there's one final defense against the deceivers. And we saw it in the beginning of this letter in verses four through six, but we see it again in John's attitude in verses 12 through 13. John called us to love each other because it's honoring to God, because it's what God in us, the son by his spirit produces in us, love. But he calls us to love each other in light of this threat. If you want to be protected from false doctrine, if you want to be protected from being led astray into heresy, love one another. Get close to one another. Watch each other's lives. Be involved in each other's lives. Seek to be face-to-face as much as you are able in this 2020 coronavirus existence. Send each other emails. Call each other. See how everyone is doing. Make sure that we are abiding in Christ, that we are growing in Christ. As we love one another, as we seek to be together, we find a defense against heresy. Because heresy doesn't produce Christian love. But being in Christ produces Christian love. And so we find a defense against this in that we will be able to spot false teaching a mile away by what it produces. And we will know that we are in Christ by our love for one another. So as we conclude this evening, thinking through this little letter as John closes, wanting to be with this church, wanting to speak face to face, wanting to have complete joy together with them, I hope we've seen from this passage that Christians, as those who have loved one another, as those who love one another in the truth, that we must hold fast to the truth and that we must distinguish truth from error. This is our calling from this text. And may God keep us from damnable heresy. May God keep us from false doctrine and keep us in his son just as he has promised. Let's pray together. Father in heaven, we thank you for this little letter. Lord, we thank you for its warning to us. That we not fall asleep, but that we ever be watchful over our own souls, over the souls of one another. Father, we ask that you would keep us in Christ. Help us, oh Lord, to abide in this doctrine Do not turn to the right or to the left, but to always and ever be enamored and adoring our Lord Jesus Christ who has come in the flesh. Keep us, O Lord, guide us, fill us, O Lord, with love that we might overflow with love toward one another, which honors you. Give grace to us, O Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen.