Now I would like to turn to the
passage of Scripture that was read for us
by Mr. Lowe a little earlier on, in
1 John, chapter 2, verses 18 to 29.
We turn to this passage for the third
time.
John is here, you will remember, applying the
third of his tests to those who are
somewhat heretical, to say the least.
They have left the fellowship of the Christian
church, and John is eager that the Christians
should know their spiritual status and standing.
And so he has been referring to certain
tests that may, and indeed ought to be
applied in such a situation.
He began in this rather large passage, he
began here by sharing with the readers of
his letter his understanding of the times.
It's very late, says John, it's the last
hour.
Then he proceeded to unmask these awkward people
who have left the Christian church and brought
into existence an opposition.
He is unmasking them and he designates them
as antichrists.
You mustn't play with these people, says John,
you mustn't toy with them.
You must have no fellowship with these.
These are not Christians that have gone wrong,
these are enemies of the Christ.
They have the spirit of the great antichrist
who will come in the very last time.
And because of that, you must be very
careful, they are antichrists.
And now before he leaves this passage and
completes the application of this third test, the
test of truth, the test of belief, he
comes to undergird the faith of the faithful.
And that's what we're going to look at
today.
And there are two main things that are
brought together here, two main threads, two main
truths.
The first is this, John reminds the Christians
of their relation to the Holy Spirit.
And the second, he reminds them of the
fact that they have in their possession the
word of God.
Now how very simple, and how very familiar,
but how unutterably important.
No man in a pulpit can say anything
more important to his people today than this.
If you're a Christian, you have been anointed
of the Holy One, the Holy Spirit.
And if you're a Christian, you have in
your possession God's own truth.
So that by the anointing of the Spirit
which you have, and the truth of the
word which you possess, you have the capacity
and you have the resources to fight on
all hands against Christians who would have an
influence upon you that would slacken your spiritual
pace, or against heretics who have opened up
another show down the street and who are
opposing some of the main tenets of your
Christian faith.
With the Spirit of God within you and
the word of God that you know, says,
John, you don't need anything else.
Now that's my message this morning.
May the Lord help us to extract it
from here as briefly as we can.
First of all, the apostle reminds them of
their relation to the Spirit of God.
Now let me read verses 20 and 27.
But you, says John, have been anointed by
the Holy One, and you all know.
Come back to that in a moment.
Then verse 27, the anointing which you receive
from Him abides in you, and you have
no need that anyone should teach you, as
His anointing teaches you everything, and is true
and is no lie, just as it has
taught you, abide in Him.
Now fundamentally what John is doing at this
point is this.
He's reminding his first readers of the time
when they became Christian.
Whatever language you use to describe becoming a
Christian for the moment, that's what John is
getting at.
The time when they came to Christ and
the response of that was this, they were
anointed with the Holy Spirit.
We don't use this language very ordinarily, but
this is biblical.
You see, Jesus Christ is the Messiah.
Messiah means the Anointed One.
We read in Acts chapter 10 and verse
38 that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with
the Holy Spirit and with power.
He is the Anointed One.
We read in the epistle to the Hebrews
that God did not give the Spirit to
Him by measure.
Now you put those two statements together, God
anointed Him, and not with measure, without measure.
No man has been filled with the Spirit
as Jesus was.
Let's take that in for a moment.
No man has known the fullness of the
Spirit perpetually and abidingly as Jesus did.
Now, when you become a Christian you come
to Christ.
Not only do you come to believe on
Him, but you come to be incorporated into
Him as a branch into the vine.
That's His own beautiful picture.
Now what happens?
What happens is this.
As the branch is incorporated into the vine,
to change the metaphor, the sap of the
vine penetrates and percolates the branch.
It is endued.
It is anointed.
It shares, to change the metaphor again, in
the anointing of the head.
The head of the body is anointed beyond
measure.
When you become a Christian, you share in
the anointing of the anointed.
So that if any man have not the
Spirit of God, he is none of His.
You're not a branch of the vine.
You're not a member of the body of
which Christ is the head unless you yourself
have been anointed.
It is part and parcel of the experience
of becoming a Christian.
Now that is basic to what John is
saying here.
You, he says, have been anointed.
In other words, if you come really to
a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, the Messiah
has breathed His Spirit into your heart, you
have the anointing.
That's the fundamental.
That's the base.
Now arising out of that, and this is
almost as important, John speaks, first of all,
of the universality of that.
He stresses it.
Now he stresses it because of the circumstances.
In times of distress, in times of problems,
in times of danger, in times of heresy,
when some young Christians are trying to stand
on their two feet, spiritually and morally, countering
this influence and that influence.
You know the tendency, don't you?
Oh, I feel so weak.
I need something extra.
And this is the time when young Christians
tend to look for something which they say
they haven't got.
And the tendency at this point is to
look for this experience or that experience.
And John knew that.
Now look, he says, You have been anointed
by the Holy One, and notice, and you
all know certain things.
I want to underline that word, all.
Some of the translations, unfortunately, put it the
other way around.
They say, like the King James, and you
know all things.
Now that's not what John said.
No Christian knows everything.
No one is omniscient, only God.
You don't know everything.
I don't know everything.
I'm sure I don't.
There is no man, there is no woman,
there is no Christian, however mature in our
church this morning, who knows everything.
John didn't say that.
What he did say is this.
There are certain things that every Christian knows
because of the anointing.
And basic to that, of course, is the
truth that Jesus is the Son of God.
When Simon Peter acknowledged Jesus to be the
Messiah in Caesarea Philippi, Jesus counted, Blessed art
thou, Simon Barjona, flesh and blood did not
reveal this to you, but my Father which
is in heaven.
He knew.
And every Christian knows that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God.
You know, you all know.
You all know certain things just because of
this.
But now, equally important is this, the perpetuity
of that.
Look at verse 27.
The anointing which you received, says John, abides
in you.
You see, some of these young Christians might
say, yes, yes, I know, I know, John,
I know, I did receive something.
And I was so different.
And it was very wonderful whilst it lasted,
but I don't any longer have the same
kind of feeling.
I'm not living on that same plane consciously
at any rate.
But now, says John, all right.
I want you to know, he says, that
the anointing which you received from him abides
in you.
My good friend, you and I need this
every day of our lives.
We need to be reminded of this.
The Holy Spirit that the Father and the
Son have sent as the paraclete to the
church abides in the hearts of his people.
Jesus said that, you remember him promising the
Spirit to his disciples.
I will pray the Father, he says, and
he will give you another counselor or another
comforter to be with you forever.
Forever.
Even the Spirit of truth.
That is John 14 and verse 16.
You see, it was so different with the
incarnation of the Son of God.
He came down to earth for a period,
then to leave, to ascend, to go back,
as he said, to my Father, to return.
But, says Jesus, the Spirit, the other paraclete
who's coming to take my place, when he
comes, he will abide with you forever.
Now, my good friend, you and I need
this this morning, as much as the readers
of John's epistle in the first place.
You need to know that the Spirit of
God who's come into your heart, the anointing
which you've received, is with you forever.
Oh, many things may have happened to make
you cold, to make you doubt.
You've almost thrown in the sponge as far
as within you, as far as you yourself
are concerned.
But, says John, he is still there.
And then we come to the crux of
the matter.
What is the ministry that he performs?
You have no need, says John, that anyone
should teach you, as his anointing teaches you
about everything, and is true, and is no
lie.
Now, let's get hold of this.
By his anointing, the Holy Spirit teaches Christ's
people everything they need to know.
You don't need that anyone should teach you.
Now, you've got to take that in its
context.
Some people would make John contradict himself here.
Actually, John is teaching them in writing, so
they do need teachers.
The Apostle Paul says that the Holy Spirit
endows some people with a gift of teaching.
What then did John mean?
What he means is this, of course.
Take it in its context.
You see how these heretics have gone out
from the church.
Some of them were very clever people.
Heretics generally are.
They generally are.
In all the cults, you will find geniuses.
Judged according to the level of the flesh
and of natural ability, you will find great
men in all the cults that are worth
talking about.
But now, if they've gone out then from
a community of Christian men, the Christians might
feel, well, if they've gone and if they
believe other things, how are we going to
cope without them, some of the more knowing
and the more clever ones?
And don't forget, the word gnostic means knowledge.
They claim to have great knowledge.
They could always talk about their knowledge.
So what is the church going to do
without these people?
Now, says John, it's all right.
You don't need anyone from outside.
You don't need any heretic to teach you
in Christian things.
You as a Christian community, you are self
-contained.
You don't need the liberal of the world.
You don't need the man from outside.
You don't need the heretics.
You don't need any of them.
So, he had the anointing.
And the anointing will give you teachers.
And the anointing will give you disciples, men
and women who are prepared to be taught.
You have to have the two, of course.
Some churches have teachers, but they haven't got
listeners who are willing to be taught.
They have men with itching ears.
They listen, but they will not be taught.
Some people have listeners, but they have no
teachers.
John says, you're a listening people.
You're willing to be taught now.
He says, you don't need to worry that
these folk have gone out.
The Holy Spirit, the anointing, will teach you
all things you need to know.
You're self-contained because you have the Father
and the Son and the Spirit and the
Word.
My good friends, this is something for us
to know.
I look at some of you this morning,
and you've left little Christian communities, perhaps in
distant parts of the world, I think, for
some of our missionaries.
Isn't this a very precious truth?
If we have the anointing of the Spirit,
then He is able to give the gifts
that are necessary for the building up of
the saints until we all come in the
unity of the faith and of the knowledge
of the Son of God, Ephesians 4, unto
a perfect man.
I will build my church, says Jesus.
We don't depend upon men who are cultured
according to this world.
God supplies the anointing and the need of
His people.
Now that's the first thing.
John reminds them of their relation to the
Holy Spirit.
And I trust that you and I don't
need any further application of that this morning.
Christian, look into your heart.
Though you and I may have grieved Him
many a time, He is still there.
Maybe this morning, honor Him and look to
Him to guide us and to teach us
and to perfect in us what God by
His grace has begun.
That's the first thing.
The second is this.
I don't know what's happened this morning, but
the clock's gone all haywire.
However, here we are.
The second is this.
And after the annual meeting, I'm trying to
be brief, as you notice, but I've got
to hurry.
I'm under law these days, not under grace.
Well, now, a little bit of law may
do us good.
What is the second main strand of truth
woven here?
Well, it's this.
The apostle reminds them of their possession and
knowledge of God's truth.
Now, if I were to stop at this
point, it would be the most dishonorable thing
to the God of the Word and the
Word of God.
It is not all the truth to say
to Christians you have the anointing of the
Spirit.
It is true.
But John says you need something else as
well as the Spirit.
My, that sounds like heresy.
You know, it isn't.
It's Christianity.
You have the anointing.
You have the Spirit.
He says, well, all right, full stop.
We don't need any more.
Wait a minute, says John.
You do.
Now, what's he saying?
Let me read three verses, 21, 24, and
25.
I write to you, he says, not because
you do not know the truth, but because
you know it and know that no lie
is of the truth.
Then we come.
Let what you have heard from the beginning
abide in you.
If what you have heard from the beginning
abides in you, then you will abide in
the Son and in the Father.
And this is what he has promised us
eternal life.
How can I summarize that?
Along with the anointing of his Spirit, God
has given his redeemed people his truth.
His truth.
Now, by that, John means fundamentally the truth
as it was revealed in the Lord Jesus
Christ and taught to the twelve apostles, who
in turn passed it on to the churches.
But as a matter of fact, that truth
includes Jesus Christ's view of the Old Testament.
So many things that he taught were based
upon the Old Testament.
And he said, I am not come to
destroy the law or the prophets, but I've
come to fulfill.
So that as a matter of fact, when
John is speaking here of the truth, though
he is thinking first and foremost of what
they heard from the beginning from the apostles,
that included a view of the Old Testament.
So that it all may be summed up
in terms of what you and I have
in our Old Testament and our New.
We are not wrong if we equate the
truth with what is incorporated into the Old
Testament Scriptures and the New Testament Scriptures.
Jesus Christ taught the truth.
He was the personification of the truth.
And yet in prayer to his father he
said, thy word is truth.
There's the word of Scripture and the word
which he himself was and taught.
All these wrapped up into one bundle comprise
the truth.
Right.
Now will you please notice a principle here
before we attempt to address ourselves to the
details.
And it's a very important principle.
We've hinted at it.
The Holy Spirit could, if he so chose,
do everything for us directly as individuals without
the Bible.
What I'm saying is that if he chose,
he could.
You see, he communicated truth to Moses and
he communicated truth to the prophets and they
were able to write it down.
Now, if he chose, he could do exactly
the same thing with every Christian.
If he chose, I underline that.
He could call every Christian individually and say,
look, you don't need a Bible but I'll
talk to you and I'll reveal to you
my truth.
He could if he chose.
Do you notice that's not the way that
the Holy Spirit has chosen.
What he has chosen to do, his method
is this.
Not to communicate truth to every Christian in
the church directly as he did to Moses
and the prophets and the apostles.
But he has brought into existence a body
of truth.
The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.
So that here we have an objective point
of reference.
The Word, the truth.
Not a hunch that we may have within
us, but the objective truth.
And the Spirit's method is this.
It's to anoint us with the ability to
know and to understand and to believe and
to obey the truth.
But the truth is in the Word.
You will know why I get a little
bit edgy when I hear Christians talk an
awful lot about, say, the Lord told me.
The Spirit said to me.
Now, I know we can do that.
But if I hear a Christian talk consistently
on that level, as if the Lord was
communicating with them just as he did with
Moses, just as he did with the prophets,
giving them some new revelation, ah, there's something
unwholesome there.
That's not his method.
His method is he's given us the truth.
And by the endowment of the Spirit, he
tells us to search the Scriptures.
And he tells us that all Scripture is
given by inspiration of God and is profitable
for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction
in righteousness.
So that our business is to employ the
anointing and its gifts to search the truth.
Of course, you can't be lazy if you're
a Christian.
Because searching the truth of God is not
a lazy business.
It'll get you up early and it may
keep you down late.
See, it's so much easier to say, look,
I'm having an experience of the Spirit and
then I know what's right.
It always leads men astray if it's diversed
from the truth of the Word.
This is the objective point of reference.
We are not dependent, then, upon a subjective
experience of the Spirit, precious as that is
in itself.
And my good friends, there is nothing more
wonderful than the peace of the Spirit in
your heart.
And the joy of the Spirit in your
soul.
And the fruit of the Spirit in your
life.
And the gifts of the Spirit that he
imparts.
Please, please don't let's be misunderstood.
But the Spirit has brought the Bible to
birth as he brought Jesus to birth.
And the Word is the sword of the
Spirit.
When the Spirit is working to deal with
sin and Satan in your life and mine,
he takes hold of the Word and he
uses it like a sword.
That's his weapon.
Oh, this is most important.
Now, you have the endowment, he says, and
you know the truth.
Very well, then, what about the heretics?
You can face them all.
There's no reason why you should cringe.
There's no reason why you should fear.
You have it.
Two or three words, very simply, very briefly.
John reminds these early Christians that they have
both the subjective prerequisite and the objective essential.
The anointing of the Spirit and its influence
within.
The word of truth and its guidance outside.
John assures them that they know God's truth.
And he's able to do that for this
reason.
He had received the truth from Jesus Christ
himself.
You remember how this epistle started?
It's a remarkable beginning to an epistle.
That which was from the beginning.
Which we have seen with our eyes, which
we've touched with our hands and have handled,
he says.
Oh, we knew him, the word, the life
itself was manifested.
And we were with him and we touched
him and we handled him and we listened
to him.
And we're committing and talking and giving over
to you what we heard and received from
him.
He knew the truth.
As it was embodied in Jesus, as it
was given by Jesus.
Now, John knew that these Christians had received
the truth.
He knew that what they believed was consistent
with that.
It wasn't anything new.
There are always innovators in the church.
Do be careful when you see somebody coming
into the church.
He wants to change everything.
Now, some things need changing from time to
time.
But you find some people, they want to
change everything.
They're just plain innovators.
Sometimes it's because they've lost the sense of
the Spirit's anointing.
Sometimes it's because they've lost a sense of
truth.
And they want to change things.
You know, it's like children wanting something new
all the time.
Give them a nice toy to play with,
and the little kid, he wants a little
toy, something quite inexpensive maybe, but something different.
There's that about many Christian people.
Give them different toys every Sunday, different toys
for every day of the week, and they'll
dance and they'll enjoy it.
But the stale diet that God has provided
for His people in and throughout this world,
they cock up their noses at.
Now, this is sad.
It says, John, I write to you not
because you do not know the truth, because
you know the truth.
So don't think of leaving the truth because
the heretics have gone out.
Don't think of entertaining some novel ideas just
because these clever people have got novel ideas.
I tell you, he says, you not only
know the truth, but you know that there
is no lie of the truth.
God's truth is self-consistent, and anything that
is contrary to it is a lie.
Then this, John announces what they must do
with the truth, which they know and which
they have, if they are to mature as
Christians and to overcome in the world.
And he puts it very simply.
To have the truth is not enough.
They must know its contents, and then they
must even go beyond that.
How does John put it?
Well, he puts it like this in verse
24.
Let what you have heard from the beginning
abide in you.
Truth, first of all, requires access.
Don't we know what this is?
Someone was confessing to me recently that he
long listened to the preaching of the gospel,
and it was always a battle.
As he listened, he said, I was always
trying to keep it at arm's length.
I wonder whether there's someone here this morning
in that category.
You're prepared to listen, but you've got your
armor on, and you say to the truth
of the word of God, all right, I
like listening to you, but don't come under
the skin.
You must receive the word, it must gain
access, get right in, into the mind, into
the heart, into the soul, into the depths.
Then, says John, it must abide.
It must abide there, stay there.
That is, it must not be harassed, it
must not be overridden.
It must not be frustrated by ideas that
are alien to it.
You mustn't allow any philosophy to come in,
or any idea to come in that would
try to dislodge the truth.
Keep them out, says John.
Let it abide in you.
And I suppose a good translation of that
word abide is to be at home in
you.
Paul says the same thing when he prays
for the Ephesians who are already Christians, that
Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.
But Christ is in.
What do you mean, Paul, when you say
that Christ may dwell?
What he means is that he may be
at home there.
He may be free.
Let there be no one trying to dislodge
him or upset him.
Let him be at home in your heart.
Let the word of God rule in your
heart.
Let it abide.
Now, notice this.
As it abides, it becomes active.
Now, this is what proves the word of
God to be the truth.
Let it abide in your soul, and it
will become active in this sense.
It will always lead you to a greater
knowledge of God the Father through God the
Son.
It will always lead you into battle with
sin and battle with Satan, but will always
keep you in fellowship with the Father and
with the Son.
If what you heard from the beginning, says
John, abides in you, then you will abide
in the Son and the Father.
You have come to know the Lord Jesus
in all his greatness and glory, and coming
to know the Son, as such, you will
know the Father.
Can you see how the Christian experience is
self-authenticating?
Having the Holy Spirit's endowment within, having the
truths of God in our hearts, now, by
the Spirit, we must let the word which
we have received abide.
And as it abides, it acts.
How does it act, says someone?
Well, the psalmist will tell you that.
Thy word, he says, have I hid in
my heart that I might not sin against
thee.
I've hidden it within.
I've got it in my soul, in my
subconscious, says the psalmist, even if not in
my conscious thought.
It's there, and I find that when sin
comes, it somehow rises up a standard of
rebellion.
Do you know that?
Jesus did in the desert.
When Satan came three times over, do you
remember, he said, it is written, it is
written.
What is that?
But the word hidden in the heart, rising
up a standard of rebellion against evil.
The word abiding in him.
Paul speaks about the same thing in Colossians.
Let the word of Christ, he says, dwell
in you richly.
As you teach and admonish one another in
all wisdom, and as you sing psalms and
hymns and spiritual songs, let it dwell in
you, because as it dwells, it will become
active.
And in so doing, we enjoy what he
has promised us, as John says, eternal life.
And this is what he has promised us,
eternal life.
Now, as this goes on, says John, what
you will discover is this, that the life
of the ages, which in fullness you can
only have when you go to be with
the Lord, and are out of this body,
but you already have it.
And though living here upon earth, you have
the life of heaven in all its expansiveness,
and in all its glory and its wonder,
you have it right here and now in
the soul.
In other words, you're exploring eternal life.
And what about the heretics?
And what happens is this, you become less
conscious of them, and more conscious of Him.
Hallelujah.
My dear Christians, can you see the clarity
of the Apostle's thought?
You have the anointing, believer.
Are you a Christian?
If you're not a Christian, then I bid
you turn from your sin this morning and
come to the Saviour.
Let Him be your Lord, let Him be
your Master, let Him give you the life
of the ages in your soul, let Him
save you today.
You'll share His anointing.
With His anointing in your heart, and the
truth in your mind, and in your possession,
you have the key to a life of
victory over all.
Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gifts.
Yes, in the plural, even though they're one.
For the word of truth is the fruit
and the gift of the Spirit.
Let us pray.
Father, Thou knowest how similar or dissimilar our
experience may be from that of these ancient
Christians addressed by the Apostle long ago.
We ask of Thee that the relevance of
that word written by the Apostle to them
may be unquestionably appreciated by us, so that
in our day, in our age, whatever happens
round and about us, we may know that
we have, in the Spirit and in the
Word, all that we need.
For they bring us to an ever-deepening
knowledge of Thy Son and of Thyself, and
thereby to an ever-deepening experience of the
everlasting life which Thou hast given us in
Thy Son.
Oh, lead us by the way, we pray,
to Thine everlasting glory.
Amen.