Sermon Tone Analysis

1 JOHN 2 - TESTING POINTS (2)

 

You look through the strong bars of the lion enclosure and there sitting in splendid laziness is the  finest lion you’ve ever seen.

He looks so gentle and cuddly with his great paws stretched out in  front of him, his big brown eyes, his huge mane just inviting you to run your fingers through it.

That strong back just waiting for you to stroke it.

As you’re lost in these appreciative thoughts you  see your two year old daughter inside the enclosure zipping across the grass in the direction of  the lion.

He, in the meantime is licking his lips.

One of the hard parts about being a child is having to learn how dangerous things are that look  quite good fun.

And grown ups can be such alarmists and spoil sports.

Don’t touch, don’t climb,  don’t run, don’t pick that up, don’t go there, don’t play with him, don’t talk to strangers.

Sometimes, now and then, occasionally, these alarmists turn out to be right.

And you have to  hope that you’ve learned what they’re trying to teach you before it’s too late.

C.f.

talking with paramedic about my not wearing a crash helmet on my push bike.

I went out the  next day and invested in one - I haven’t been on my bike since without wearing it.

I'm trying not to  care when my Christian brothers and sisters laugh at me wearing it.

“If you were seriously brain  damaged in hospital & I said you could get it put right for £45, would you think it a good deal?”

Why not do it beforehand?

*1 John* was written by a caring spiritual father.

His spiritual children were in deadly danger, they  couldn’t see it.

The peril was wrapped up in such a nice package that they couldn’t see that they  were in danger of losing not their physical life, but their eternal life.

I likened it last week to drinking  the spiritual poison of the false teachers.

See *2:28* ...... *3:7a*.... *4:1* Deception.

It looks good, but it’ll kill you.

It’s got big brown eyes, a cuddly  coat, a gorgeous mane, but it’s deadly.

1.

WHY POISON’S NICE

 

John, the apostle, the spiritual Dad, uses some pretty strong language to describe the people  who are bringing this spiritual poison into the life of the churches - */liar, antichrist, lawless,  children of the devil, false prophets, idol worshippers/*.

You’d think that you could spot these  men a mile off with those little horns poking up through their hair, the three pronged devil fork in  their hand, the smoking sulphur on their breath, and the yellow devil eyes that look like the eyes of  a snake.

Why they only had to walk through the door of the church and you could smell them.

But that’s not the case.

Jesus calls them */wolves in sheep’s clothing/*.

At first you can’t tell them  apart from authentic Christians.

They have good manners, sweet smiles, and they speak with  great courtesy.

It could be that pair of good-looking, clean cut American Mormons who teach that  you can’t be saved without Mormon baptism, the Mormon bible and the prophecies of Joseph  Smith.

Or it might be that Oxbridge educated vicar who teaches that everyone will be saved, that  there’s no such thing as a virgin birth really, and that you don’t really need to be born again in  order to enter the kingdom of God.

They speak so warmly and invitingly about their beliefs.

They  seem so persuasive and sensible.

The Apostle Paul spoke of these same people as */deceitful  workers disguising themselves as apostles of Christ ... even Satan disguises himself as  an angel of light, and it is not surprising that HIS ministers also disguise themselves as  ministers of righteousness/* (*2 Cor.

11:13,14*)

 

The apostle John has written these 5 chapters in great alarm to his spiritual children not because  these false teachers are so deplorable, but because they’re so believable.

Look at *Galatians 1:6/ -  deserting, turning to/*.

How can this stuff work?

The answer is - it */scratches where we itch/* - *2 Tim.

4:3* - */the time will  come when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will  accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires/*.

False teaching scratches us  where we itch.

It gives us knowledge without holiness.

It assures us of salvation without  obedience.

It helps us to treat sin lightly.

It makes salvation easy.

It offers us salvation on the  strength of human performance.

It tells us we have no need to worry, God is so merciful that it’ll  be alright in the end no matter what kind of person we are.

It tells us we can neglect the hard  work of prayer and Bible study, and still pretend that we are pleasing God as his children.

It can  encourage us to think that because we do some religious things then God will be impressed with  us.

That’s why it’s nice and attractive to us - it’s so in tune with our sinful, fallen nature.

Sinful, fallen  human nature tends to have a religious bent.

It tends to come in two guises, two extremes - either  it says you can earn God’s salvation by being very religious; or you don’t need to bother earning  salvation because God gives it to everybody anyway.

There’s something in both those extremes  that appeals to human nature.

It scratches the itch - there’s something I can do to save myself; or  there’s nothing I NEED to do to save myself.

38 times in this short letter John uses the word “*knowledge*”.

These nice men had come saying  that God had given them knowledge.

God had spoken to the apostles - OK - but now he had  spoken to them.

They were walking in the light of God’s truth; they had the secrets of God’s  revelation.

And they were scratching people where they itched.

They were saying you could be in  a right relationship with God without being serious about holiness and obedience.

You could enjoy  the lifestyle of the world around you without worrying too much about whether it was leading you  into lust and spiritual compromise.

You could have your cake and eat it.

Enjoy the world and be  right with God at the same time.

There’s something about that which appeals to our human nature.

I’ve seen it again and again  during my ministry.

Young Christians, middle-aged Christians, even senior Christians swallowing  the lie, that you could maintain fellowship with God and live a life of growing disobedience at the  same time.

I could take you to Tyneside and to men who were amongst the most serious and  intelligent young Christians I have known.

Men who were well versed in the Bible, who read  Puritan books, could talk movingly about the teachings of John Calvin, who admired the  evangelistic passion of Dr Martyn Lloyd Jones and George Whitfield.

Men who would take me to  one side after a service or a church meeting and point out the places where I had not been quite  careful enough about the Biblical text.

Some of those men are far from Christ now.

At some point  they began to drink poison.

The bottle was labelled - knowledge without holiness.

Enjoy  Christianity without the hard work of godly living.

Christian activity without Christ-like godliness.

What’s happened.

A flock of Christ’s sheep have been scattered to the four winds.

It’s so  dangerous, but it looks so nice; it’s so appealing to our fallen human nature.

In a congregation like this, it’s almost certain that there are people here who are drifting into this  kind of spirit.

Day by day, you’re living without a heart desire for holiness.

Is it the burning passion  of your heart to grow in likeness to Jesus Christ.

Do you live with a seeking heart; do you plead  with God for the life-changing influence of His Spirit; do you come like a hungry child to feed on  the Scriptures.

Or are you living a careless, indifferent, compromised life, but somehow trying to  persuade yourself that you’re spiritually all right.

You’ve got *knowledge* after all.

You know about  the Lord.

You know a lot of the Bible.

You know the things you’ve been taught over the years.

It’s  just that you aren’t working it out at the moment.

Holiness is OK for those who have time for it.

Holiness is OK for people like ministers.

After all you’re serving the church, in the set-up team, in  the sound, in the youth work, surely that counts for something.

You may have swallowed a lie.

You can justify it all ways up - but it’s still a lie.

But this idea that holiness is an optional extra, that  you can justify your slackness because after all you’ve got knowledge, is such nice poison.

But why is this so important?

Why make such a song and dance about these things?

 

2.

WHY HOLINESS IS NECESSARY

 

And I mean *necessary* as in “It is necessary for me to have electricity to switch on a light”.

Or  “It’s necessary for me to have lungs to breath”.