Monthly Archives: March 2022

A RELIABLE ANOINTING

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A RELIABLE ANOINTING

But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. I do not write to you because you do not know the truth but because you do know it and because He comes from the truth. Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist – denying the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Father has the Son; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also. (1 John 2: 20-23)

How much is packed into these few lines! Just by reading them, one can see that John has spent much time with Jesus.

Who or what was the “anointing”? Jesus spoke in detail about the Holy Spirit before His death. His own title – the Christ – was not His last name but it referred to His office as Messiah, the Anointed One. He promised His disciples that they would receive the same anointing He carried to do the work He did, the Holy Spirit who would come upon them and be in them after He had returned to the Father.

Jesus had and conveyed great confidence in the Holy Spirit to lead His fledgling disciples into the truth. At that point, they had their Tanakh – their sacred writings which told the story of the origins of the world, the birth and call of their nation, its history and the writings of the prophets whom God raised up to call His people back to Himself and to interpret their history in the light of God’s dealings with them.

Their Scriptures had many fingerprints of the promised Messiah. From their understanding of the Old Testament, Jesus gave His appointed servants the apostles, through the Holy Spirit, the authority to interpret and apply His yoke as they invaded the Roman world with the good news of the kingdom of God.

John had heard the words of Jesus, repeatedly, as He explained His role as the Son of God, sent from the Father and in union with the Father. His words echoed the words of Jesus:

Whoever does not honour the Son does not honour the Father who sent Him. (John 5: 23b)

So close was the union between the Father and the Son that they worked together as a unit, Jesus on earth in the flesh as the perfect mirror image of the Father, carrying out His will even to death, and the Holy Spirit on Him to enable Him to function as a perfect man. To deny Jesus in any way, who He was, what He taught and what He did was to nullify any connection with God. Jesus insisted that there was only one way to the Father, the only true God, and that He was the way.

No matter who or what declares that there are many roads to God, Jesus claimed to be the only way. Either Jesus was a liar or those who make the claim are liars. They cannot both be telling the truth.

Whose word do we believe? The word of the proponents of their own religious beliefs or Jesus? What proof do we have that one is a liar and the other telling the truth? Is there any other person who ever lived who had the audacity to claim that he would be killed and then come back to life again? Jesus is the only man who ever said it, and He pulled it off. No one has ever been able to discredit the truth of the resurrection, not even the greatest of legal minds.

And, said John, since the Father and the Son are one, to discredit the one is to discredit the other. To deny the Son is to deny the Father. This is what antichrist is all about. Anyone who rejects anything Jesus taught about Himself and His relationship with the Father – His deity, His humanity, His anointing with the Holy Spirit, His death and resurrection, His union with the Father and His work as the atoning sacrifice for the sin of the world, can be put into the category of “antichrist”. That includes any false religion which elevates its gods above Jesus, or any cult that undermines, alters, or rejects the full revelation of Jesus given to us in the Bible. 

This is not about a future anti-God political leader who claims the right to rule the world. This is about any mind-set or attitude in any person or group of people who elevate anybody or anything above Jesus.

Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage; rather, He made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross!

Therefore, God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2: 5b-11)

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

ANTICHRIST – WHO IS HE?

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ANTICHRIST – WHO IS HE?

Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For it they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. (1 John 2: 18-19)

Who is this antichrist of whom John writes? Is he some powerful political figure around whom the world unites? Is he a person who will arise in the last days at the end of history?

What does John mean by “the last hour”?

“Hour” is a Hebrew metaphor that means “time.” And the Messianic age is the last age before the end of time . . . 

“John’s reference to antichrist in the singular in 2:18 makes us want to imagine a future bogeyman, but John says plainly that the antichrist “is in the world already” and “those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh … is the deceiver and the antichrist.” John’s concerns in this passage aren’t eschatological (concerned with end times) but pastoral. He’s worried that the church he is writing to may be convinced by the proto-Gnostics to deny that Jesus came in the flesh. And if Jesus wasn’t human, he didn’t die and wasn’t resurrected, and that destroys Christianity. It’s a false gospel that damns.

So, what’s John’s real point?

“The false teachers had been part of the Christian community, but because of their heresy, they withdrew — further demonstrating their error and worldliness. They couldn’t remain where the true gospel is taught, and therefore shouldn’t be allowed any influence. (John will have more to say about them throughout the book).”

http://oneinjesus.info/2011/04/1-john-218-19-the-last-hour-the-anti-christ/ (retrieved November, 2015)

The Apostle John is the only Biblical writer who used the term “antichrist”, and he used it to refer to a group of false teachers, arising from within the church, who denied the humanity of Jesus. “Antichrist” in the original Greek, was not preceded by the definite article, “the”. John was not writing about an individual who was still to come but a “spirit” or mind-set of error and false doctrine which operated in the minds of some who were bent on perverting the truth and drawing believers away from Jesus.

This same “spirit” has been and is still active in the world today. People who claim to be followers of Jesus but believe and propagate anything that deviates from the truth of Scripture manifest the spirit of antichrist. There are many so-called “Christian” cults which fall into the category of “antichrist”.

Jehovah Witnesses deny that Jesus is God; Mormons claim that the authority of their Book of Mormon overrides the authority of Scripture and that, therefore, what their book says is the truth above the Word of God; Roman Catholicism denies that Jesus was true man – it claims that Mary was immaculately conceived and did not have the nature of the rest of humanity – therefore Jesus was not born in the likeness of Adam. If Jesus was not true man, He cannot be the Saviour of mankind. The modern movement called “the New Apostolic Reformation” claims that its leaders have the authority of the Biblical apostles and prophets, – and so we can go on. 

John’s point was than any person or group of people claiming to be Christian but believing and propagating anything that contradicts the revealed truth of Scripture about the deity or humanity of Jesus and teaches their false doctrine as an authoritative substitute for the truth, is “antichrist”.

What is the proof of their falseness? They claim exclusivity and have no fellowship with true believers.  

This is how we know it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For it they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.

The church has, in the main, been fooled by equally false teachers from within who believe that “the Antichrist” is some future powerful and evil figure who will arise from an anti-God nation to claim the right and power to rule the whole world. There is nothing in the Bible that authenticates this teaching. It is a subtle ploy of the devil to lull believers into complacency, and to keep us from being watchful of what we believe and who we follow.

Millions have been sucked into believing these false doctrines and following their proponents without doing what the Bereans did:

 Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. (Acts 17:11)

There is no excuse for ignorance!

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

TROUBLED AND TRANSIENT

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TROUBLED AND TRANSIENT

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For everything in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life – comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever. (1 John 2: 15-17)

The word “world” is used in different ways in the Bible. It is sometimes used of the geographical planet on which we live, sometimes of the people of the world and in this case, of the corrupt world system with its ungodly ways, pleasures and allurements to sin.

“When we are told not to love the world, the Bible is referring to the world’s corrupt value system. Satan is the god of this world, and he has his own value system contrary to God’s (2 Corinthians 4:4). First John 2:16 details exactly what Satan’s system promotes: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life. Every sin imaginable can be summed up in those three evils; envy, adultery, pride, lying, selfishness, and more spring from those three roots . . .  

“In general, the term world in the Bible refers to the evil system controlled by Satan that leads us away from worship of God. John Calvin said, “The human heart is an idol factory.” We can make idols out of anything. Any passionate desire of our hearts that is not put there by God for His glory can become an idol (1 Corinthians 10:31). Loving the world is idolatry (1 Corinthians 10:7, 14). So, while we are commanded to love the people of the world, we are to be wary of anything that competes with God for our highest affections.”

http://www.gotquestions.org/do-not-love-the-world.html (retrieved November, 2015)

There are several reasons why we should not “love the world”, that is follow the ways of the world rather than walk in the ways of God’s Word.

Firstly, God’s family held great promise until they showed their true colours when the opportunity came. They were lured into idolatry with the Midianites in the desert, disregarding God’s marriage covenant with them and worshipping false gods and doing the disgusting things associated with the worship of idols. They embraced the filthy ways of the idols they worshipped and became like them.

When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the desert; when I saw your ancestors, it was like seeing the early fruit on the fig tree. But when they came to Baal Peor, they consecrated themselves to that shameful idol and became as vile as the thing they loved. Hosea 9: 10.

Secondly, we must not follow the ways of the world, because they are an insult to the God who bought us and made us His own. We are His sons and daughters, bought back from the slave market of sin at great cost. As His children, we are to reflect His nature to the world. God is holy love. He cannot have anything to do with what the world system represents. It is under the control of the god of this world. When we follow the ways of the world, we step back into the enemy’s camp and become enemies of God again.

Thirdly, the world and its ways are transient. God has reserved the devil and all who follow him for the Day of Judgment. He has appointed His Son, Jesus, as king on Zion, His holy mountain (Psa. 2:1-12). The nations were given to Him, and He will sit in judgment over them and destroy everything that opposes God, including the devil and the world system he controls.

Then the end will come, when He hands over the kingdom to God the Father after He has destroyed all dominion, authority, and power. For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. (1 Cor. 15: 24-25)

It is foolishness to invest one’s whole life in that which opposes God, makes one filthy and will pass away when Jesus comes to set up His kingdom on earth. As much as Satan would dearly love to be God and take the Father’s place on the throne of heaven, he has already been exposed and defeated by Jesus through the cross.

Evil and the evil world system based on selfishness and greed, will collapse, and pass away. God alone is eternal. Whatever He has created that bears the stamp of His nature and that functions in harmony with His ways, will be indestructible when the judgment falls, and the fire destroys everything that is combustible.

For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what had been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved – even though only as one escaping through the flames. (1 Cor. 3: 11-15)  

A great shaking in the natural and spiritual world will expose the things that are transient and passing away, and reveal what is eternal, and will last forever.

At that time His voice shook the earth, but now He has promised, ‘Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.’ The words ‘once more’ indicate the removing of what can be shaken – that is, created things – so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our ‘God is a consuming fire.’ (Heb. 12: 26-29)

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

STABLE IN A SINFUL WORLD

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STABLE IN A SINFUL WORLD

I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of His name. I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, dear children, because you know the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one. (1 John 2: 12-14)

I’m not quite sure what John’s reason was for singling groups of people out and for repeating what he had to say to them. Perhaps they needed encouragement because of the particular issues they faced at their time of life. We need to examine the circumstances of his readers since their lives were always in great peril as believers in Jesus who had to swim against the current of Jewish fanaticism and Roman antagonism because they refused to bow to Caesar as Lord.

In the overwhelming tide of idolatry in the Roman Empire of that day, there were pockets of people all over the empire who had renounced the worship of idols for the truth that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and that He died for their sins. The worship of idol gods entailed the offering of sacrifices, temple prostitution and sexual promiscuity, all in the name of “worship”. The lives of their devotees were riddled with sinful practices while the children of God were called to live holy lives, separated from unclean things in the midst of the evil all around them.

John, then, reminded the “children”, most likely not literal children, but those who, through faith in Jesus, had been adopted into God’s family and were therefore no longer a part of sinful society and the world system, that their sins had been forgiven. For the believer, sin wasn’t just violating the customs and practices of society around them or the gods they worshipped. Sin was anything that fell short of God’s perfection and holiness. It was not their worship or their sacrifices that brought them forgiveness of sin, but the death of God’s Son who gave His life for them.

It was important that they keep this fact in mind in the face of the false beliefs of their neighbours and the hostility they faced for daring to put their faith in a Jewish rabbi who was crucified as a criminal and whom, they claimed, rose from the dead and was alive in them. In the face of the filth of the world around them, their sins had been forgiven.

Who were the “fathers” John addressed? Were they the literal fathers? Were they the “fathers” of the flock of God’s people? It doesn’t matter. John knew that they also needed encouragement. Their sins were forgiven – they knew that – but, more than that, they knew the Father. What does it mean to “know” God? Not intellectual knowledge or even casual acquaintance. This was about knowing the Father intimately like sons who spend time with, have fellowship with and live in submission and obedience to their fathers because they love them.

These readers were fathers because they were mature believers who were not troubled or thrown by the ungodly society around them. They had long since been weaned from the world and its allurements. Their faces were towards God. They enjoyed fellowship with Him, which meant more to them than fellowship with the world. Idols no longer held them in fear. They had tasted the goodness of God and the joy of living under His authority in His kingdom. They were comfortable and secure in the love of God and content to keep trusting Him in the face of severe trials and the constant threat of death.

And what of the young men John addressed? These were the ones who were of the age to serve in the military. Perhaps John saw them as the “soldiers” in the army of God who had learned to overcome the enemy and were called to stand guard over the people of God. Perhaps they had done time in the Roman army, protecting the borders of the empire, and preserving peace and stability in its colonies. From their military experience, they knew what it meant to keep the enemy at bay.

However, they also knew that soldiers in the army of God were not to fight – Jesus had already overcome the enemy. It was their task to stand – to identify the enemy’s subtle tactics and unmask him by exposing his lies. Their weapons were not of the world but spiritual, faith as a shield and the sword of the Spirit – truth which would reveal the devil’s lies and leave him naked and defenceless.

They knew that the battle was not in their circumstances but in their minds. The devil tried to lure them back under his authority by sowing the lie into their minds that he was in charge, but they would use the truth of God’s word to expose his lies and neutralise his power over them.

Unlike the idols of their day who were no more than an expression and extension of the worst of human nature, John’s readers knew that the forgiveness of their sins was real, that they had come to know the Father intimately and that they had the weapons and the knowledge and experience to overcome the enemy within.

We face the same enemy who uses the same tactics. Therefore. We fight the same battle with the same weapons and can enjoy the same victory as John’s readers.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

HATRED IS DOING NOTHING

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HATRED IS DOING NOTHING

Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. Anyone who loves his brother or sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. He does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded him. (1 John 2: 9-11)

Isn’t it strange how many of us have moved the goalposts to soothe our conscience so that we don’t have to do anything about the rifts and schisms we are part of in our families or in the church family, but John is very clear about the standards within the family.

What are darkness and light and what are the implications of “walking in darkness” or “walking in the light”? Darkness is essentially the absence of light. Light reveals and makes visible what is there. When a light is turned off or a lamp extinguished in a room, everything that the light revealed is no longer visible. It is still there but it can’t be seen.

Before we came to faith in Christ, Jesus said that we were in darkness, walking in ignorance of God and His ways. Ignorance, for example, is a form of mental darkness. Our minds have not been informed. Unbelief keeps us in spiritual darkness. Everything we can know about God has been revealed but we have not received it and therefore remain ignorant about Him, His requirements for us and the life He promises us when we return to Him.

True light is to be found in God and in His Word. Paul said that what can be known about Him has been revealed through creation, but people deliberately choose to ignore what creation is telling them and choose to believe their own lies. David was conscious of the unceasing voice of creation, calling out the greatness and the glory of God in silent witness, day and night.

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the end of the world. (Psa. 19: 1-4a)

Wilful sin keeps people in darkness. Although they have the voice of creation and the voice of conscience, they choose to remain in the dark because they love their sin.

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. (John 3: 19-20)

It is easy for believers to sit back and think that we are okay because we believe in Jesus. We are not in darkness any longer. But Jesus warns us, “Not so fast!” From His perspective, walking in darkness is as much about not doing the right thing as it is about doing the wrong thing. We can congratulate ourselves because we don’t hate our brother or sister, either in our natural family or in our Christian family, but what to we do to show our love to them?

How many times did Jesus fall foul of the Pharisees because He healed people on the Sabbath? On one occasion, He released a woman from a disabling condition that kept her bend over and unable to look up for eighteen years. The synagogue leader announced to the people:

‘There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.’  The Lord answered him, ‘You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?’ (Luke 13: 15-16)

For Jesus not to do anything for her just because it was the Sabbath was as wrong as doing something wicked.  

To John, then, walking in darkness by hating one’s brother or sister was as much about ignoring their need as it was about actively holding grudges against them. In chapter 3 of his letter, he spells it out quite clearly.

If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. (1 John 3: 17-18)

When we choose to ignore a need we can do something about, we are as much in darkness as the pagan who bows down to an idol and calls it “God”.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.