Sermon Tone Analysis

INTRODUCTION

We are looking one last time at 2 John

So please take God’s Word and turn to 2 John

Last time we looked at verses 8-9

Today we are beginning our study at verse 10

But so you have the context, I’m going to begin reading at verse 8 down through verse 13

2 John 1:8-13, “8 Watch yourselves, that you do not lose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward.

9 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. 10 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; 11 for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds.

12 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.

13 The children of your chosen sister greet you.”

It is important that we know what we believe

But in order to do this, we need to know what’s in the Bible

There are many non-negotiable truths that we cannot vacillate on

For example:

We cannot vacillate on who God is - He is One but three individual Persons: Father, Son, Holy Spirit

Deuteronomy 6:4 says, “The LORD our God is one LORD”

This is echoed in 1 Corinthians 8:6 and 1 Timothy 2:5.

He is One but also three individual Persons

Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God”

“God” is the Hebrew word elohim which is both singular and plural

The word itself is singular but the “im” ending is plural

So this singular God exists in some form of plurality

We see that in Genesis 1:26, when it says, “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness...””

We also see it in...

Genesis 3:22, “Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil...”

The second thing we cannot vaclillate on is...

We cannot vacillate on the virgin birth

Isaiah 7:14, “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.”

This verse is quoted by Matthew in Matthew 1:23, but with the added definition of Immanuel: “which translated means, “God with us.”

Luke 1:26-27, “Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the descendants of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.”

After Mary is told she will have a child and name Him Jesus, she asks...

Luke 1:34-35 “Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”

The angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.”

The Son to be born is Jesus

We cannot vacillate on the deity of Christ

This is also “an essential and non-negotiable tenet of the Christian faith” (MacArthur)

John 1:1, 14. (“and the Word was God”…”and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”)

Since the Bible teaches that God is One but three individual Persons, Jesus is God as also noted by Paul in Titus 2:13 and Peter in 2 Peter 1:1.

The writer of Hebrews quoting God in Hebrews 1:8, “But of the Son He says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, And the righteous scepter is the scepter of His kingdom.”

The apostle John said in 1 John 5:20, “And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ.

This is the true God and eternal life.”

We cannot vacillate on the resurrection of Christ

Romans 10:9-10, “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”

This is the gospel!

Romans 10:13, “for “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.””

This is a quote from Joel 2:32 where the word “Lord” is the Hebrew word YHWH

We cannot vacillate on the ascension of Christ - Acts 1:9, “And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.”

We cannot vacillate on the return of Christ

John 14:1-3, ““Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.

“If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”

1 Thessalonians 4:16, “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.”

We cannot vacillate on the Scripture being the Word of God

2 Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness”

Exodus 20:1, “Then God spoke all these words, saying,”

We cannot vacillate on salvation, that it is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone

Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

Titus 3:5, “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,”

John says these false teachers vacillated on two main doctrines:

The incarnation of Christ

The Deity of Christ

They said Christ did not possess a body because matter was evil

And since He didn’t possess a human body, He also was not divine

There are false teachers today that attack the Bible by also teaching things that are not true or not mentioned in Scripture and is rank heresy

For example, Kenneth Copeland, and all word faith teachers, believes that all believers are “little gods”

He says, “You don’t have a god in you, you are one!”—

(“The Force of One” Audiotape, 1987)

He also says, “When I read the Bible where He (Jesus) says, ‘I AM’, I say, ‘Yes, I AM too!'”- Crusade Meeting, July 1987.

Both of those statements are blasphemy and a denial of the deity of Jesus Christ

Copeland is also deifying man and making himself a god

This is no different than the Mormons who believe they will be gods

John has already told his readers how they are to respond to “the deceivers” (v.7)

He says they needed to first...

LESSON

I.

By Watching Yourself (v.8)

Don’t be mislead by them

Don’t be sympathetic to them

You must guard yourself

They needed to always “keep an eye on themselves” (Hiebert) so that they didn’t slip up and become symphatizers with these false teachers

The present tense indicates that this was something they always needed to do

If they did not they were in jeopardy of losing their rewards

John says, “Watch yourselves, that you do not lose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward.”

Second, John says they needed to...

II.

By Evaluating What is Taught (v.9)

These false teachers...

They do not continue in the teaching of Christ

The “teaching of Christ” is a reference to the incarnation of Christ

They did “not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh” (v.7)

This revealed they never had God in their life

If you reject this basic non-negotiable teaching, it reveals you were never had Christ

Jesus said in John 8:42, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me.”

1 John 2:22, “Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ?

This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.”

John says if you deny that Jesus is the Messiah who was sent from God, you are antichrist and have neither God nor Christ but...

When you continue in the teachings of Christ, it shows you have “both the Father and the Son”

1 John 2:23, “...the one who confesses the Son has the Father also.”

He says it again in...

1 John 4:2, “...every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God;”

John takes it further by showing us what the incarnation means...