Tom Mason

Last week we started with 2nd John, the first four verses, and more particularly the five times that the word truth is used in those four verses.

So today we want to start with 2nd John, and we're going to start with verse 5, and it reads as follows, Now I ask you, lady, not as though I was writing a new commandment, but one which you have had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to his commandment. This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, that you are to walk in it. 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. Watch yourselves that you do not lose what you are accomplishing, but that you may receive a full reward Anyone who goes so far and does not remain in the teachings of Christ does not have God. The one who remains in the teaching has both the father and the son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house and not give him a greeting, for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds. Though I have many things to write to you, I do not want to do so with pencil and ink, but I hope to come to you and speak to you face to face, so that your joy may be complete.

The children of your chosen sister greets you. As we look at these verses and think about what it is that they mean and how it is that we will apply them to our hearts, let's look at verses five and six.

Now I ask you lady, not as though I was writing a new commandment, but one which you have had from the beginning, that we love one another. The writer is saying you can go back in the Old Testament, as far back as you want to, and you will read that we are to love one another. Look at Deuteronomy 11.1.

Moses is writing to the children of Israel, and when you think of Deuteronomy 11, you must remember that it follows what we have as chapter 10, and chapter 10 is the time that Moses is instructed to bring new tablets to the mountain. Remember, he broke a set of tablets. Now bring the new tablets to the mountain, so God can rewrite what he wants to say. And here he says in chapter 11, verse 1, you shall therefore love the Lord your God, and always keep his charge, his statues, his ordinance, and his commandments.

He said you should always do that, talking to the people of God. And when you and I, as people of come to this point, we need to understand that that's what we are called to also. In the New Testament, when Jesus was on the earth, the Pharisees, in their usual way of trying to test him, so they sent one of their lawyers to him, and they said, and I quote, teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law? And he said to him, you should love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

He was quoting to them Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 5. Then he went on to say, this is the greatest and foremost commandment. The second one is like to it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Now again, he's quoting Old Testament, Leviticus 19, 18. And then Jesus would say, on these two commandments depends the whole law and prophet. On these two commandments, one, that you love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul. And the second, that you love one another as you love yourself.

When you love God in the proper manner, and when you love each other in the proper manner, you have fulfilled the whole law of God. It makes it very, very simple. As Christians, you and I must love one another. Then he, John, would go on in his writings, and then he would say this, back to second John.

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 are to walk in it. W-A-L-K, walk. When we see this word in the New Testament, it could describe simply a person walking, as it does in Matthew chapter 4, verse 18a, says, now Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee. Same word that John would use here, that says, you and I are to walk in it. So what does it mean? It means the way you conduct yourself. By the way, think of this, when you and I are walking, we're conducting ourselves in a manner that we won't walk into another person.

Matter of fact, if we do, we would say, excuse me, what was not intended to do. So when we live our lives, we are to conduct ourselves in a manner that is worthy of Christ. He says, here we are to walk in this manner. In verse 6, he uses this word twice, that we are to walk in the way that God would have us to walk. It seems to me that John is trying to connect two words that he doesn't necessarily use here, but he wants us to understand them. Those two words would be love and obedience. Because if you say that you love God, the next thing that should be seen is obeying God.

People will say to me, you know, I love the Lord, but I don't go to church. Well, that's a command that he has commanded us. So how is it that you love him and you don't follow his commandments? Look at 1 John chapter 2, verses 4 through 6.

1 John chapter 2, verses 4 to 6, the one who says, I have come to know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word in him, the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in him. The one who says he abides in him ought himself to walk in the same manner as he walked. We ought to look at Christ's conduct and see how much of that conduct is in us.

Notice how he starts off here. He says, the one who says I have come to know him. Now today we might have different terms, you know, we might say I'm a Christian, I'm a believer, I'm in Christ, whatever we, that's all he said. If you claim to be in Christ, he says, and you have come to know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him. Now that's the Bible saying that that person is a liar and the truth, that's not the preacher, that's the Bible saying. If we say we have come to know him and does not keep his commandments, we are liar and the truth is not in him.

But whoever keeps his word in him, the love of God has truly been perfected. How do you know a person is a Christian? You see God in them, you see Christ in them, you see them living out what it is that he's been called to live out. The one who says I have come to know him ought to walk in the same manner as he walked. How's your walk? How's my walk? I had the privilege of serving with Art McLean here at this church. Some of you will know him. As Art got older, sometimes we'd go off to another place and Art would say, hey Tom, could I ride with you?

I loved those times. I'd just get in the car and shut up and listen to Art. Art was concerned about sin in the life of Christians and guess what he was most concerned about? Sin in his life. Not somebody else in the church, but sin in his life. He says, Tom, he says, you know when I was a young teenager, he says, men told me dirty jokes. He says some of those dirty jokes still come to mind today. Art was well up in his 80s and that just bugged Art. Why? Because he wanted to act in the same way that God acted and he did and that's what you and I are called to do.

In the Gospel of John, chapter 14, verse 15, John is quoting Christ here. Christ says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments.

You see those two words, love and obedience? They are connected here and when we see them, we are to understand that that's who we are as Christians. We are to walk as he walked, to do the things that he has called us to do. Then we come to verses seven and eight, which says, for many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, but this is, excuse me, this is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves that you do not lose what you have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward.

Now John here is talking to believers. He's not talking about a loss of salvation here, but he is talking about a diminished in your reward. So he says, I want you to receive a full reward when we get there. Let's look at the top of the verse, verse seven.

For many deceivers, that word for could be translated because, because it's explaining to you why what I just said is so true. And what is he's talked about? He's talked about truth, first four verses.

Now he's talked about loving one another and he says, the reason you want to do this is because many false prophets or deceivers have gone out into the world. John wrote this around AD 90 to 95. When you think of that and think of today, now read that with this in mind, today in mind. For many deceivers have gone out into the world. And by the way, the going out isn't, they didn't go out from the world. They went out from what is called the church. People that you would have thought would have known better.

He says they went out from the world and yet this is what we see from them. Paul would write around AD 65 in first Timothy chapter four verses one and two.

He says, but the spirit explicitly says that in the last times, some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons by means of hypocrisy of lies seared in their own conscious as with a branding iron. When you talk to these people who have been deceived by this, you get to see that mark of that branding iron because they are stuck with this. They believe this. You cannot pry them away from this. He says, that's what you're faced with. By the way, for those of you who are from the country and you've seen a cow or horse be branded with a hot branding iron, it is a signal that is put into the skin that is there for as long as that person is for that horse or cow is alive.

That's what he's saying has happened to the false teachers. They were once with us and they sung out the same hymn books that we sung out of and then they walked out of this place and they went on to believe something else and that's what he is telling us. Why would Paul use the phrase, some have fallen from the faith? He here is pointing out that these people came from a place which we would have thought they would have known better. These people would have come from the Christian church where one would expect that they would know the truth, but they did not know it.

Why didn't they know it? Because of their own personal belief and thought. You've met many people like that. You go to share with them about the Christ and they tell you, I don't believe that. I was sharing with you last week, Donald, I met this guy and his wife up in Oregon. He's on his way to a cancer hospital. He's in his 80s. He's getting ready to die. He already knows that he can't live forever and I mentioned Christ and he says, oh I don't believe in him. Now he blamed the Catholic church, but it's not the Catholic church fault.

He doesn't believe because of what's in him and so that's what you see. That's what comes your way. That's what happens to us when you see this and we need to come to know this. Let me point out some examples for you that you and I both are familiar with.

In 1517, Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of the church. Why? Because he was so fed up with the Catholic church and what it is that they believe. So he walks away, saw what we call Lutheranism or Evangelicalism. Believing that everything is about Christ and his death on the cross for us and that we could do nothing to earn that. They had a little saying back in that day. When the coin in the copper will ring, the soul from purgatory will spring. There is no purgatory by the way. There is none, but they went off to believe that.

So he would come out and he would speak against us that they might come to understand that there is a Christ who went to the cross, who died on our behalf and he and he alone is where we ought to place our faith. And now Catholicism spread throughout the world. Talking to a guy, he told me that the Catholic guy told me that the priest was the mediator between him and God. So I asked him a question, how many priests are there? He said, oh I don't know. He said, let's just say a million. I said, I love your number.

Now let's go to the scripture. First Timothy chapter 2 verses 5 and 6. By the way, whenever you read verse 5, always include verse 6. Paul says, there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. Verse 6, who gave himself as a ransom for all the testimony given at the proper time. I asked him a question, which one of those priests gave himself as a ransom for you? He says neither. Okay, now let's go back and look at that same number you gave me, one million.

Let's read this again. For there is one God and one mediator. It doesn't say there's two mediators, it says there's one mediator between God and men. And then Paul names the mediator for us, the man Christ Jesus. So I said, guys, what do you think? He said, well let me tell you something.

The priest really isn't the mediator, he is the helper. Now remember he has never mentioned the helper before, but now he's mentioned the helper. So I said, okay, then let's identify one thing. Jesus Christ is the mediator. He said, yeah, I agree with that. So let me say something to you.

Do you believe that the mediator ought to be able to pick his helper? He says, yeah, I do. Okay, then let's go to John chapter 14 verse 25 and 26. Jesus says, these things I have spoken to you while I am abiding with you, but the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I have said to you.

I point out to here, notice he says the helper, doesn't say the helpers, he says the helper, and then he names him the Holy Spirit.

So Jesus is the mediator, the Holy Spirit is the helper, therefore you have nothing to stand on. You have to be, as a Christian, equipped with the truth. You don't have to know everything that they know. You don't need, that's not important. What you need to know is the truth, the truth, so you can share the truth with them. I was talking to a young lady the other day that was raising this church and now living in Alabama. She's the head of Starbuck. They built a brand new store for her. She's the head of that store.

She says, they had me training the other day on how to pick up county fed money. I said, I can tell you something about the training and I wasn't even there. She said, what was that? I said, they didn't show you one county fed bill. She said, you're right and I came home wondering why. I said, because they wanted you to know the true bill. So when you know the truth of scripture, you don't have to worry about what anybody else knows. When they come to you with it, you will know the truth and you will share that truth with them.

Those are the things that you want to do. Back in 2016, one of our Supreme Court justices died, Anthony Scalia. He died on February 13th. His son is a Catholic priest in the Catholic church. On February 20th, 2016, by the way, that's seven days later. Just wanted to put that math in there for you. That's seven days later. The son stood on public TV and declared that he was releasing Scalia from purgatory so he could go to heaven. Now, I want to ask a question. If you have that power to release a person from purgatory to send them to heaven, why would you wait for your father seven days before you did that?

That just bugged me. Now, the fact that it was done on national TV, I thought was bad enough. But here's a guy who waits seven days of his death in what he would consider torment and he releases him. By the way, I said to you earlier, there is no purgatory. So, if you need to be released from something, you're not going to be released from that. You're going to be there for eternity. And so, if Scalia needed to be released from that, Scalia's still there. So, just keep that in mind. Now, you will see people who came out of the good churches and then started these organizations.

As a matter of fact, Jehovah's Witnesses are one of those, where they came out of a good charge. Russell came out of a church and then went on to establish the Jehovah's Witnesses. And now, they are spread around the world and they have the lie. We, Donna and I, on our vacation stopped at Multnomah Falls, beautiful waterfall. You can walk up, walk across a bridge and be right in front of the waterfall. Guess who is there with their literature? The Jehovah's Witnesses. Passing out literature just to deceive many.

I was at a donut shop down here in Covina a couple of weeks ago and there was two Jehovah's Witnesses sitting outside. So, I asked them a question. I said, are you guys here? Do you guys want to learn the truth? You know, they gave me three answers and they never said yes or no. So, every time they would give me an answer, I would ask the question again. So, the third time, I said to them, since you don't want to answer the question, let me answer it for you.

The answer is no, you're not looking for the truth. Because see, had they been looking for the truth, then we could have sit down with the Bible and share with them the truth. That's that seared in their conscience with that burnt iron. That's why Paul calls you and I and John called you and I to know the truth and to preach this truth that all might come to know him. In Ephesians chapter 4, verses 17 to 21, Paul would write, so this I say and affirm together with the Lord that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is within them, because of the hardness of their heart, and they having become callous, have given themselves over to sensualities for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.

But you did not learn Christ in this way. If indeed you have heard him and have been taught in him, just as truth is in Jesus, that in reference to your former manner of life, you lay it aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lust of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and in truth. Paul says don't walk as the Gentiles walk. Remember the Gentiles still walk in that way.

He said don't you walk in that manner. Don't you walk as they walk. They are, they have this greed within them that they just want to sin more and more and more, and he says it's a sin with greediness. If you ever seen a greedy person, they can't get full. I don't care how much you feed them. That's what he's talking about here. They're so sinful that nothing will satisfy them. Look at the evening news, and you don't have to go any further, and you will know what it is that I am talking about.

He brings this out, but he didn't tell us as Christians we are to take off the old man and put on the new man who is made in Christ Jesus. Why? So when people see us, they will see Christ walking around in you. These are the things that he is calling us to do that we might come to know. So when they come and knocking on your door, you want to give them the truth. By the way, the only person that teach at my house is me. So when they come to my door and they want to read me something, I tell them no.

Don't read me anything, but let me ask you a question, and I start with them asking them questions, and I will ask them questions.

Then when they tell me, well I'll come back and see you later on, I tell them you guys are the biggest liars that I have ever seen, and then they are shocked. And they say, what do you mean? I said, because I can't tell you how many who promised to come back and no one has ever showed up again. Now if you told me that, I don't care how many of you didn't show up. I would show back up again, but they don't. They don't come, and I just said okay, just let it go, but I want you to know when they come to your door, stop hiding in the house.

Stop pulling the curtains down like you're not home. Go to the door, tell them the truth, so they will at least know the truth. Paul would go on and warn people in Colossae. He said, let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and worship of angels, taking his stand on visions that he has seen inflated without cause by his fleshly mind. That's all these people are doing. When they come to your house, they're telling you about some vision they've seen or what the truth that they have, and they don't have any truth, and you want to say to them, I have the truth and let me share it with you.

He goes on in verse 19 of Colossians and says, and not holding fast to the head from whom the entire body being supplied and held together by joints and ligaments grows with a growth which is from God. You and I as Christians, we hold on to the head who is Christ, and he teaches us how it is that we are to live and the things that we're to do, and as we are taught, then we go out and we do those things. That we might come to know this God more and more, and that we might be able to share him with more and more people.

Every time we have the opportunity, we are to take that opportunity and share him. Now let's move on in 1 John chapter 2 to verses 9 through 11. Anyone who goes so far not to remain in the teachings of Christ does not have God. Now I'm going to stop right there. Anyone who does not remain in the teachings of God or teachings of Christ does not have God. I don't care how fancy they dress up. I don't care how good they look. I don't care how pleasant their message is. They do not have God, and that's the thing that you and I must understand.

Why? Because we then need to share God with them. He goes on to say the one who remains in the teaching has both the father and the son. Now when we remain in the teachings of God, we have both. We have the father and we have the son. In verse 10 he would say, 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. Now that word greeting there is just saying hi. Okay, don't even say howdy to them. Okay, that's what he said. Now if you take this and think of what Gaius did over in 3 John, how Gaius would bring people who was following Christ, bring them into his home, and then he would equip them to get to the next city.

This is what he's talking about. Don't give them a greeting. Don't give them anything. I had a lady in my class next door a month or so ago, and I was talking about Jehovah's Witnesses, and notice when I mentioned the word, she held up her hand.

She says, by the way, when they come to my house, I give them a drink of water. I want to make them as comfortable as I can. Says, you don't want to do that. She said, what? You don't want to do that. Here's the verse right here to tell you not to do that. Do you know what it says at the end, in verse 11? For the one who give them a greeting participate in their evil deed. I told my class, I said, now if one of them pass out of my driveway, yes, I'll call 911. Am I going to give them a drink of water?

No. Okay, because I don't want to help them in any way to get this false gospel out. We have the truth, and we have to get the truth out. By the way, there's nobody else getting the truth out, only Christians. Now notice I didn't say only Christ community church.

I said only Christians. Christians around the world are getting the truth out. We are God's plan A, and he doesn't have a plan B. Now I don't know if that bothers you as much as it does me, but it keeps me on my knees. It keeps me looking for a way to share this gospel with someone because God doesn't have a plan B. He is looking for you and for me to get the word out to others about him, and one of the largest mission fields out there comes to our door, and we want to close the door and pull the shade down and pretend we're not home.

If anyone does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your home or give him a greeting. When they come and they want to tell you something, don't even listen.

Share with them the truth of the scriptures that they might have an opportunity to listen. Paul says, I'm sorry, John says here, he says, I'm concerned that you won't get a full reward. Now notice he's not talking about a loss of salvation here.

A Christian cannot lose his salvation, but you can have a reduction in the reward because you have believed something or you didn't do something that you have been called to do. So John is saying, I want you to get that full reward that you will not lose anything. Yes, you'll be in heaven. That's never the issue, okay, but I want you to be in heaven fully rewarded, and as he walks us through this passage, he's helping us to understand that, that we would come to know that these are the things that he is calling for us, and then he closes verse 11 by saying, the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds.

Notice he doesn't have a problem identifying their deeds as evil, because they are doing something. He just wants you to understand that their deeds are evil, and when you help them to get to the next house, then you are helping them. By the way, I've had them to come to my house speaking Spanish and ask me, can you point out your Spanish neighbors? No, I will not, but I will share the truth with you. Well, no, we're just reaching the Spanish people, so we don't want to talk when they walk, they're walking out of here.

I don't give them anything to help them in any way. Do I know my Spanish neighbor? Yes, I do. Am I willing to point them? I know I am not. Why? Because I have the truth, and then we need to stick with that truth. And then in verse 12, John would say, though I have many things to write to you, I do not want to do so with pencil ink, but I hope to come to you and speak you face to face, so that your joy may be made complete. Now, when I first read this, I was thinking, man, that's a great biblical saying right there, but this was not a biblical saying.

This was commonly said, commonly written in the letters that was written of that day, but it's the way a person is saying, I have much more to tell you than I've told you in this letter, and I would like to come to you and sit down, maybe over a meal, just in your presence, and share with you the things that I have to tell you. By the way, Chuck Swindoll was the first person that I heard call second and third John postcards instead of letters.

And matter of fact, in my study, the Greek words were about 300, and they would actually fit on one parchment page. So the only letters in the New Testament that way. But when we see this, he says, I have some greater things that I want to tell you, but I don't have the time to tell you now, but I want to sit down face to face. Then he brings us to verse 13. The children of your chosen sister greet you. Now, I haven't dealt with this, what I believe on this chosen lady and the children and chosen sister and all of that.

So I'll just tell you now, I believe this is the church. I do not believe this is a personal letter. And one of the reasons is verse 13, because see, if I assume that it's some woman that he's writing to up in the first part of this, now I have to make a second assumption, well, who is this chosen sister here?

But if I assume that he's writing to the church, and therefore the children of the church would be the people he's talking to would be you and me. When he says here, the children of your chosen sister simply would be the church that he was in. Now that's where I'm at. That's what I believe. I'm not trying to force that on you. I'm just telling you why I believe what it is that I believe. The children of your chosen sister greets you. By the way, in that day, it would have been on John's behalf, a smart thing not to identify the two churches, because of all the persecution that was going on in the world against the church.

But notice what he is saying. I want you to understand the truth. I want you to know that we are to love one another. And the reason I want you to know that is because many false teachers have gone out into the world. Matter of fact, this word that deceiver is out is a word that actually means a wanderer. People who are just wandering in and among you. What most of you won't realize, but that's where we get the root word. That's where we get our word planet from. Because see, the old astronomers, they would observe the sky religiously.

And all of a sudden, here come one of these starlight things come wandering in and stay there for six or seven months. And then it's gone, doesn't come back and come back next year, some other time. So they call them wandering stars. That's what God is talking about. We get our word planet from that. Why? Because these false teachers, they just go out wandering through the streets with that false gospel, spreading it around. He says there's many of them that are out there. But I want you to be faithful to the truth and to know the truth.

So when they come to your house, they will get the truth. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your time in the word. We ask that we would have been faithful to it. And then now we would go out and put into practice those things that you have taught us. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.