I II III John for Beginners, this is lesson number five in that
section and today's lesson the title of it is John's Cover Letter which
is II John. So we're continuing in our series of study on the epistles
of John and today we're going to cover II John.
Before we begin however I want to review the first epistle in order to refresh
our memories as to the context of the letter because all three letters work
together. So the first epistle dealt with the
problem of Gnosticism in the early church.
Gnosticism comes from the word gnosis which means knowledge. In the case of
this teaching however it referred to occult or secret knowledge possessed by
Gnostic teachers. Now Gnostics taught that we are souls trapped in a prison
like material world by an evil divinity and we are kept unaware of our plight by
the carnal seductiveness of this material world only those with the
occult knowledge, the gnosis, of the true state of affairs could transcend this
prison and enter into a higher reality that was the idea of their teaching. They
also taught that the good divinity dwelling above this evil realm would aid
lost souls by sending a messenger of truth to reveal the deception. Now it's a
little bit of an old reference here but do you notice that this is roughly the
plotline for the 2003 movie the matrix? If you saw the matrix
this was the plotline for The Matrix and the star Reeves there he was
the actor who was the one, he was the one sent to reveal the truth that everybody
was living in a deception, material world. So you can see how
easy it was to superimpose this teaching on to the gospel and make Jesus the one
and make Jesus the messenger of truth and they, the Gnostic
teachers, the guardians of the secret knowledge. Kind of you know it was easy
to put one on top of the other, there was only one problem with this however, Jesus
claimed that He was God and inhabited a human body. See that didn't match the
story line, even in The Matrix the actor who played the
one sent the messenger didn't claim that he was divine. Jesus also taught that the
truth is what makes one free but the truth was that we were prisoners of our
own sinfulness and that our freedom from guilt and condemnation was accomplished
through His ministry on the cross and received by faith, not secret knowledge.
We're saved because we believe in Jesus not because we know secrets, not because
we have some sort of insight into some secret or occult knowledge. As a
matter of fact Jesus commanded that this good news be shared with the entire
world not kept secret and the whole idea with the Gnostic teachers is they had
the secret knowledge and you had to kind of jump through hoops you know and
follow them if you wanted the secret knowledge. Well you know Jesus wasn't
cooperating with that, He says go into all the world proclaim the gospel to
everybody well there's nothing secret about that. Jesus empowered every soul to
find salvation from sin not just those who had the secret. He also taught that
material things had no power to defile us, the material world was created by God
who rules over it and it was a good thing when it was
created, and God saw all that he had made and behold it was
very good, Genesis 1:31. So that part of their teaching, that material
world was bad it was all bad that that didn't jive with what Jesus was teaching
with it but the Bible was teaching. Like all heretics the Gnostic teachers tried
to merge their teaching with the gospel and nothing has changed throughout this
centuries. They denied that Jesus was actually God and they said that He was a
you know an apparition of God or that He became human only at the cross but not
that He was God and man simultaneously from birth to the cross and beyond. They
mixed in certain Jewish traditions and food laws and they taught that to be
free from the evil corruption of this material world
you had to practice asceticism, in other words the denial of the flesh. Let's face
it if you have a spiritual teacher that controls what you eat and controls your
sex life pretty much controls you, and that's what they were doing. Laws against
marriage, what you could eat, every cult group they always start there
they always start with prohibitions on what you eat and prohibitions about what
is legitimate sexual expression. Obviously within marriage and so on and
so forth but you know they always try to control those two areas no different
from these guys. Some of them taught the opposite that since the soul is
separate from the flesh whatever you did in the flesh didn't matter and of course
this attitude led to a hedonistic lifestyle and behavior if what I do in
my body doesn't affect my soul well boy I could just you know any any desire my
flesh has I can just give in to it because it doesn't really matter. So
these teachers were having a great influence on the church creating
confusion and doubt among the believers and so in response
to this John the Apostle writes a letter and begins with his eyewitness account
of Jesus, the Jesus who did and said things only a divine being could say and
do, the Jesus that John actually saw and heard and touched in human form, he
begins there. Now in the first epistle we reviewed how John encouraged his readers
to be confident in their salvation without the special knowledge or the
practices of the false teachers, he wrote that there were three ways to
be certain of their salvation: first of all they could have certainty by walking
in the light. I mean they know that they are saved because they live and they act
like saved the people. They can be certain by abiding in love he writes
they know that they are saved because they act out of love in every situation
or attempt to act out of love in every situation. And they can be certain of
their salvation by abiding in faith they know they are saved because they believe
and rely on Jesus not secret man-made knowledge for their salvation. So John's
gospel told the story of Jesus' incarnation, His work on the cross, His
resurrection so on and so forth, John's first epistle encourages his readers to
believe that information, he doesn't repeat all of it in his epistle because
he's given it in the gospel okay. The two: the gospel, the epistle, they work
together to tell us that we will leave our flesh but not through secret
knowledge, we will leave our flesh through faith in Jesus Christ based on
our knowledge of Him and there's no secret about that
that knowledge is available to everyone. All right so there's a little review of
I John okay. So this brings us to the second epistle, this letter, II John
much shorter and covers much the same material actually. What is interesting is
how this letter was used. II John is not a continuation of John's gospel nor
is it a continuation of the first epistle, it's a cover letter that
accompanied the epistle and the gospel. You know those of you who have worked in
offices, you have a stack of information and then you put a
cover letter and say attached you will find you know the statistics for the
last quarter or something like that right that's a cover letter.
Well II John is a cover letter for I John and for the gospel of John. It
was written to a specific church with the intention of warning about the
things which he speaks about in detail in the first epistle and the main point
of this letter is to warn the church of the great danger posed by the false
teachers and their teachings. John says that they needed to be vigilant in this
in being careful. So here's the outline of this second epistle again in 1
chapter 13 verses, salutation, a commendation of the individuals that
he's writing to, a warning and a brief conclusion at the end. So let's take a
look at the text shall we, salutations that's we said verses one to three so
let's read verse one and two for now it says, "The elder to the chosen lady and
her children, whom I love in truth; and not only I, but also all who know the
truth, for the sake of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever:"
So John is the elder he was old at this time a leader in the church at Ephesus,
the chosen lady and her children are the church. He writes this to
a particular congregation he uses the euphemisms because of the danger of
persecution at the time, so he doesn't use the word church, chosen lady and her
children is a reference to the church. He says that he loves this church as all
those who hold to the truth also love the church.
He loves the church that holds to the truth and all those who hold to the
truth they love the church. The truth of course is the gospel and in this case
the essential truth of the gospel that Jesus is the Divine Son of God and
Savior because that's what you know at core that was the issue these teachers
were denying the central core belief of the gospel that Jesus is divine and
human at the same time okay. So all those who love this truth are loved by John
and by one another because it is this truth that binds all Christians together
in love forever. And you know you've all traveled you go somewhere on
vacation and you decide you and you go to the phone book or whatever online
anyway there must be a church around here somewhere right and so you find a
congregation and you know on Sunday morning you put away the bathing suits
and whatever and you get off the service on a Sunday morning and you go in and hi
you're okay and you know you're there thirty minutes and you got friends for
life it seems I don't know about you people but when Lise and I would travel
and you know go to services wherever we were on Sunday we're almost the last
ones to leave because people would start talking in the foyer after the service
and you know so-and-so you'd find out that you knew people that know each
other you know it's like family, well what is it about that I go to
Walmart the same Walmart you know ten times a week to pick up stuff I don't
feel that, yeah I don't feel that with those people, I go to Kohl's for the
deals they're giving me great deals but I don't feel that feeling.
Why? Well because I'm a customer and I'm treated well like a customer. When we're
in church we're treated like family and and what is the thing that holds us
together? We know without asking the question that the person we're talking
to also believes that Jesus is the Son of God, also believes that when they die
they're going to heaven. Well we don't have to confess that every time the fact
that we're going to take the communion tells us that about us and tells
that about them. That's what we shared that's what he's talking about the
spirit of love even with people you don't know you have an immediate bonding
relationship. Verse 3 he says, "Grace, mercy and peace will be with us, from God the
Father and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love." So he
pronounces a blessing from God and he places the source of the divine blessing
equally at the feet of both God the Father and Jesus Christ, that's
significant.It's one thing to say you know I pray that God blesses you but
when you say I pray that God and Jesus bless you you're putting both of those
on an equal level. So there's some confusion about who Jesus really is and
John settles the matter immediately by referring to Jesus as equal and of the
same nature as God and he asks for three things that only God can give:
grace, a favor a free pass to avoid punishment from sin. Nobody else can give
you that nobody; you can forgive one another offenses that you've
done against each other, so and so I don't know breaks your
if your house knocks over one of your vases or something, oh I'm
terribly sorry and then you know next week shows up at your door with a
replacement vase and you know thank you card and stuff like that.
We can forgive each other those things and kind of try to make some kind
of restitution but nobody can say you know what I'm bud we're going to
forgive all your sins, it'll take a couple of weeks but we're going to forgive
all your sins, nobody can do that. Who's got the power and the right to
forgive you all of your sins? Only God. And then he says: mercy,
compassion for our weaknesses and our failures; again only God can do
that. And peace no war no judgment because of our sins peace not between
each other peace between us and God. Again things that only a divine being
can give. So John asks for these blessings on the people from God and
Jesus thus securing a blessing for his readers but also reaffirming the exalted
position of Jesus Christ far above the position given to Him by the false
teachers. You know the false teachers because in some way they always bring
Jesus down, they never bring Him up, they never make Him more exalted than He
already is they always bring Him down just a little or a lot.
You can tell who they are by that type of teaching. He moves on in his letter to
the commendation as I said verse four five and six I think, verse four he says,
"I was very glad to find some of your children walking in truth, just as we
have received commandment to do from the Father." So in contrast to the Christians
who have been deceived or those who are doing the deceiving with their false
teaching, John commends those some of them in that church who were living
according to the truth according to the teaching of Jesus Christ. Once again he
relates the teaching and the revelation concerning the gospel of Jesus to the
Father as opposed to the human concepts being proposed by the Gnostic teachers.
In other words the teaching of the gospel doesn't come from the Apostles it
comes from God and God gave it to the Apostles and the Apostles gave it to the
people; as opposed to the false teachers. He doesn't spell
it out here but you read between the lines these guys we don't know where
they got their teaching from but they certainly didn't get it from God. Verse 5,
"Now I ask you, lady, not as though I were writing to you a new commandment, but the
one which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another." Their proper
understanding of who Jesus really is will be reflected in their lifestyle,
what he talked about in I John. The distinguishing lifestyle of one
who truly understands the gospel and accepts Jesus as the divine Lord is love
because this is the lifestyle that Jesus modeled, He modeled a lifestyle of love
well those who follow Him try to do the same. In verse 6, "And this is love, that we
walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, just as you have
heard from the beginning, that you should walk in it." So John merely summarizes the
entire life and teaching of Christ into one word and that word is love; if you
love God and Christ you will love others you will love self and you will obey
Jesus' commands. He commends those who have believed correctly and have acted
correctly based on their a belief. And again what is not spoken here is that
incorrect belief often leads to incorrect actions; if you believe for
example the incorrect teaching that whatever you do in your body does not
affect your soul in any way shape or form then your actions will begin to
reflect that belief. You will just begin to give in to your flesh and do whatever
your flesh wants. Remember I mentioned to you before
the teachers in the Bible they teach something a particular thing and then
they refer back to it at some point in another epistle or later on in the same
epistle, well they don't go back and give all the information every time they
mention the topic otherwise the Bible would be like a thousand five million
pages long okay, so that's what he's doing here
just making a reference to something he's already taught previously. Then we
moved to the warning now that he's spoken to the Christians who have stood
fast in doctrine and practice he turns his attention to those who are being
swayed by the false teachers. Verse 7 "For many deceivers have gone out into
the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh.
This is the deceiver and the antichrist." So he actually describes the false
teachers by describing the essence of their doctrine and the essence of their
doctrine is that Jesus was not fully human these these false teachers that he
wasn't fully human, He was just a spirit. Since then we've had groups teach the
opposite, He wasn't really a divine spirit He was just human or He was just
spirit for a time. He accuses these teachers of being deceivers not simply
an innocent mistake not simply a lack of understanding or maturity but
purposefully deceiving people with their teachings, that is a strong accusation. I
mean we all make mistakes right you can't you can't study the Bible and talk
about the Bible or even teach the Bible without mistakes or without
maybe it's only superficial what you're teaching you're not getting to the core
of it we all make mistakes hopefully they're mistakes based on misunderstanding
a misreading or lack of maturity but they're not on purpose but he says these
teachers on purpose are doing this for their own ends their own goal. He charges
them with being a pawn of the antichrist which is that force which exists in
the world under many guises with the purpose of defeating the gospel of
Christ and His church.
Jesus spoke of false christs and false prophets who would come into
the world with the purpose of deceiving the saints in the name of Jesus, imagine.
People have a hard time believing that someone who is supposed to be a
'religious person' a Bible teacher or an evangelist or
something like that would actually on purpose deceive people but we've seen a
lot of that haven't we? So by referring to the deceiver the
antichrist John is pointing to the source or the
power behind these lying spirits and prophets and that is Satan himself, he's
always the source of the lie all the time. I've said to you many
times what you're what's going on in your brain and that that self-talk
that's going on always ask yourself who's talking to me? Is this the Lord
talking to me or is this the evil one talking to me? And he calls them
the antichrist the spirit of the antichrist. Well when I see a
movement whose goal is to take prayer out of the schools, who's leading that
charge? Jesus? No. When I see a movement that says we're not going to pray
anymore we don't want the Bible to be used anymore who's leading that charge?
I won't start naming names of organizations that we know in this world
but just take a look at the purpose of their organization and ask yourself if
what they're doing is tearing down the kingdom or limiting the
kingdom or limiting Christianity you know who's behind it and the problem is
people who are in the power of the antichrist many times don't even know
that, they don't even realize it themselves. So in verse 8-9 he goes on he
says, "Watch yourselves, that you do not lose what we have accomplished, but that
you may receive a full reward. Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the
teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has
both the Father and the Son." I've had people say to me well how could you Wow
you know how can you say that Christians are the only ones you know that are
going how can you say such a thing you know I'm a what about those and I won't
even name the religion okay what about those millions and millions of people
you know who believe this thing over here and they're sincere about it? And I
said yeah I said well I have one question for you do they believe that
Jesus is the Son of God? Well no they don't they actually reject that idea,
well okay read II John and. I may go before God to be judged as we all will
but I don't think I'll be judged incorrectly for having said publicly
that the Bible teaches only Jesus is the Son of God and only through Him we can
have salvation yeah you know beat me up kill me do whatever you want I can't
change that truth and even if I denied that truth it would still be true, that
would be on me.
Some people wonder why isn't the church growing? Well you know
how can we make the church grow well we need to get serious about getting that
message out.
So the warning here is couched in terms of what you gain or lose by being
careful not to be deceived if you remain faithful to the gospel of Christ then
you keep your reward which is eternal life and your relationship with the
Father and the Son; if you fall away from the teaching then
you risk your reward and your relationship. This is a good answer to
those who claim that doctrine is not really important or essential I've heard
that a lot of that well doctor not important as long as you love
you're a good person, there are a lot of good people who will not have eternal
life. To have wrong doctrine and practice of Christianity can lead to the loss of
faith and consequently to the loss of reward. This is exactly what John is
saying here, exactly what he's saying be careful you lose the true gospel well
then you lose the relationship with God that the true gospel gives you. Verse 10
and 11, "If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive
him into your house, and do not give him a greeting; for the one who gives him a
greeting participates in his evil deeds." A practical addition and way to
implement the warning; he's given them a warning and now he's given them a way to
implement that warning. Now in those days the offering of hospitality to strangers
was an important social practice more so than today especially for Christians it
was a sign of Christian love and faith and maturity and it was also a way of
providing support for preachers and teachers in the church who at that time
circulated. Very few churches at that time had their own full quote
full-time preacher they circulated, they went from church to church to teach
and to preach and so the offering of hospitality was a way of supporting
these men who were going from place to place. Today we call it circuit preaching
but that's what they were doing. So John says that one was not bound to
offer hospitality even to a teacher or preacher
if that person did not maintain a proper teaching of the gospel. The
basic teaching for a soul salvation John says on the contrary to discourage him
by denying him hospitality, don't even greet that person he says. Now
this seems harsh but understand that the false teachers were sowing seeds of a
souls destruction with their doctrines they had to be stopped and this was one
way that they could be stopped. So John warns the brethren not to allow
false teachers the opportunities to set up a base for teaching other people in
their homes because that's how the teaching was done. You know we have a
'program' sometime you know how searches or a small group that's it we
have small group programs a lot of churches have those you know members
meet in homes during the week fellowship teaching encouragement but in the first
century that was like the mainstay you know the most of the churches were in
homes and so you welcome the teacher or the preacher and you offered
him hospitality and then he taught your house church.
The two of those things went together so when he says don't offer them
hospitality at the same time they would be then denying them the opportunity to
teach the church that was in their house a very practical approach. He concludes
by saying that even to offer the usual greeting, the hope that all is
well or that God will bless their efforts was not to be given unless they
offer any type of encouragement to these people. This is why I don't feel any
guilt in refusing money to religious causes who don't honor Jesus as Lord nor
do I allow any group or person into my home to teach a promote an idea that
disclaims the position of Christ, no thank you Jehovah Witnesses you
believe Jesus is an angel of some kind no thank you Mormons yeah have a nice
day goodbye. I don't even debate them don't even debate
nope. Conclusion verse 12-13, "Though I have many
things to write to you, I do not want to do so with paper and ink; but I hope to
come to you and speak face-to-face, so that your joy may be made full. The
children of your chosen sister greet you." So John ends on a personal note that is
more fully explained in his third letter which we're going to do next week. The
problem in general has been addressed: the issue of false teachers and their
teachings, how to respond to these. A more personal problem exists in this church
involving certain individuals so John says he would rather deal with these
issues in person and not in writing and he closes with a final greeting from the
church where he is based which is Ephesus. We don't know which particular
congregation that this letter went to but it's pretty general and it
can be applied in a general way. Alright a couple of lessons that we can take
away here number one doctrine is important, I mentioned that already.
Incorrect teaching and understanding can cause us to lose our salvation so it's
important for leaders elders teachers preachers to be on guard at all times to
have a correct response to these things, to reprove those who teach and promote
false ideas, Romans 16:17. You know not all doctrine is equally important of
course, some people think well while we're
having worship and praise some people think well let's
clap hands we're enthusiastic other people feel well we ought not to
do that during worship okay, the correct answer to that is not as important as,
who is Jesus? That's my point that I'm making. There's a correct answer to all
the issues okay but not all teaching is equally important all teaching is
equally from God we must obey all teaching even Jesus said that
you should have concentrated at the important things he said including the
smaller things. So we don't deny the smaller teachings are the less
important teachings we need to have those correct as well but we know there
are more important teachings especially those surrounding our salvation, doctrine
however is important. Number 2: doctrine guides actions, what you do is based
largely on what you believe, many who do not act like Christians usually lack
proper teaching and understanding that's why they act the way they do. And then
number 3: doctrine decides discipleship.
I said before lots of nice people reject Jesus lots of nice people
reject Jesus. In Montreal I think Hal remembers the AV company that came to
set up our projectors and screens in the church in Montreal
was a Muslim we tried to find a company he had the best price he was willing to
come out and set everything up for us a turnkey operation, very friendly
guy nice you know we didn't talk about religion I mean it's in the church I
knew he was a Muslim and he obviously knew I was a Christian, he did a
good job we paid him promptly, a nice business transaction, nice guy good
guy, but I don't think he's going to heaven because he's a nice guy.
You can have a friend or you can have a family member and you can have a
relationship with that person you can love that person absolutely but the one
thing you can't have if they're not Christians you can't have fellowship
with that person. I love my mom she's passed many many years but I love my
mother as we all do and we had a lot of conversations and things like that and
you know she was a very good very good woman worked very hard but she was not
interested in religion she was never interested in discussing anything about
the Bible about Jesus nope so the thing we couldn't have is
fellowshipped well you never sit around and you know discuss the Lord and his
word and how the spiritual life was going that that was taboo couldn't talk
about that. So sometimes that's difficult for us as Christians and I need to kind
of emphasize the idea that it is okay to you know some people said well I you
know if we if they can't be Christians and I can't have any relation no of
course not you have family you have friends at work
co-workers partners you know whatever who are not believers that doesn't mean
you cannot love them you cannot have a friendship with them some kind of
relationship with them a work relationship or you know you guys bowl
together or golf tee or whatever you know it's just you can't have fellowship
together that's it's a dimension of your relationship that you can't have. Now if
if your love for that person over time begins to kind of break them open to
perhaps wanting to hear the gospel that's marvelous because you have an
opportunity then to add a dimension to your relationship which will make it
even that much more satisfying okay. All right so let's see what we got all right
reading that'll take you all of about two minutes there you go you can
do the assignment between the bells okay but we will do III John and then as I
mention our last class for this quarter we'll do Philemon
also, one chapter book and we get all these short epistles
done this quarter. All right thank you very much for your attention.