Sermon Central
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The Truth Matters! Series
Contributed by Rick Crandall on Dec 12, 2023 (message contributor)
Summary: That's why God... 1. Warns us about antichrist teachers (vs. 18-19, 22-23). 2. Gives us the help of His Holy Spirit (vs. 20, 27). 3. Teaches us about the truth (vs. 21-26). 4. Reminds us how to live a righteous life (vs. 28-29).
The Truth Matters!
Sermon by Rick Crandall
Series: The First Epistle of John
(Prepared December 12, 2023)
MESSAGE:
*Today we live in a post-modern society where many people believe that objective truth doesn’t exist. Matthew Stoll explained that "truth is now considered to be relative to the person. Today, if you told someone that Jesus died for us. You might hear someone reply, 'That may be true for you, but it isn't true for me.'" (1)
*As far back as 1991, George Barna found that only 28 percent of Americans expressed strong belief in 'absolute truth.' And a shocking Barna study in 2020 found that a record low 6 percent of Americans hold a biblical worldview. I hope that survey was wrong. But most people in the United States today are putting their faith in their own opinions rather than the rock-solid truth of God's Word. (2)
*One example was a lady named Sheila. "I believe in God," she said. "I can't remember the last time I went to church, but my faith has carried me a long way. It's 'Sheila-ism,' just my own little voice." (3)
*In the end, that poor woman is going to find out that Sheila-ism has carried her a long way, but it has carried her the wrong way. And I am praying for Sheila and her family right now, because, in the end, Sheila-ism is going to carry her to the last place she ever wanted to be. And that's tragic, but it's nothing new. The last verse of the Old Testament Book of Judges says: "In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes." (Judges 21:25)
*"You can have your truth, and I can have mine." This is the kind of madness that springs up when the reality of objective truth is rejected. I have even seen people try to make the case that 2 + 2 is not necessarily equal to 4. And lots of people reject the truth today, especially the greatest truth of all, and that is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! As Jesus said in John 14:6, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."
1. THE TRUTH MATTERS! THAT'S WHY GOD WARNS US ABOUT ANTICHRIST TEACHERS.
*And we see this warning first in vs. 18-19, where John said:
18. Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour.
19. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.
*This "last hour" or "last time" John mentioned might make us think he was talking about the Lord's return, or the end of the world. But Dr. John Gill explained that the Apostle John was actually talking about the end of the Apostolic Age. You see, when the Apostle John wrote this letter, "all of the other Apostles were already dead. John was the last of them. God's Church was entering a new danger zone because false teachers were rising up against the truth." (4)
*This helps us understand how urgent John was when he wrote this letter, and the same kind of danger is all around us today. That's why God cautions us about misleading teachers. "Antichrists" John calls them in vs. 18. Then in vs. 22-23 John tells us who they are:
22. Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.
23. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
*Church: Anybody who denies that Jesus is the Messiah, the only begotten Son of God sent to earth by the Heavenly Father is a little "a" antichrist. Anyone who denies that God the Son humbled Himself to become a man, then died on the cross for our sins and rose again from the dead is an antichrist. Anyone who denies that Jesus offers eternal life to everyone who will trust in Him as Lord and Savior is an antichrist. Of course, there other ways to be a false teacher, and God warns us about them all.
2. THE TRUTH MATTERS, SO GOD WARNS US ABOUT ANTICHRIST TEACHERS. AND HE GIVES US THE HELP OF HIS HOLY SPIRIT.
*We see this truth in vs. 20 where John said, "But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things." Well, Christians, we aren't know-it-alls yet. The Holy Spirit has a lot more to teach us all. And the next chapter tells us that we won't know Jesus fully until we see Him face to face.
