0:01 Welcome once again to Words of Life. We are studying through the Bible and we have now reached the second letter of John. This is addressed to someone called the 0:19 chosen lady. And John calls himself the elder writing to the chosen lady and her children. Now we don't know whether this is 0:37 referring to a church perhaps. Because at the end of the letter he says the children of your chosen sister greet you. What does chosen lady and chosen sister 0:56 mean? Possibly some church that he was referring to. Maybe he didn't want to mention the name. And he didn't want to mention the name of the church that was greeting them. And the children were the people in that 1:18 church. Anyway it doesn't really matter what it is. But as we look at the content of this letter again you find John emphasizing God's commandments 1:36 and false teachers. It's amazing how much John warns against deception and false teachers after having observed the development of the church for 65 years. False teaching was rampant even in the 2:05 first century. And God allowed these false teachers to flourish. As I said because that is how he was testing his children to see what they are seeking for. And today when he allows false teachers 2:26 to flourish who offer you riches on earth instead of riches in heaven God is immediately able to test out who is interested in riches in heaven and who are interested in riches on earth. When false teachers come and offer you 2:52 physical healing more than victory over sin God is immediately able to find out who is interested in this body and who is interested in their spirit. Even the animals are interested in their 3:10 body. And that's why you find great numbers at healing crusades. If healing was offered to all the animals the animals would also come. Jesus did not seek to draw people like 3:31 that. There is a purpose with which God allows all these teachers. And John says here I was very glad to find some of your children walking in the truth just as we have received commandment from the 3:50 Father verse four. The thing that brought delight to God John's heart was to see God's people walking in truth. Not that they were becoming rich. 4:13 And he says now I ask you lady not as writing to you a new commandment but what we have had from the beginning that we love one another. See such a strong emphasis on this in 4:29 John's gospel and in John's letters. Remember this is the writing of a man who has walked with God for 65 years. And love he sees as the greatest. 4:50 And he says this is love that we walk according to his commandments. And then he stops about deceivers. He says what is the mark of a deceiver? Many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not acknowledge that Jesus 5:10 Christ is coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist. A person who does not acknowledge that Jesus Christ came in the flesh has got the spirit of the antichrist and is a deceiver. Now notice what it says here. 5:33 Jesus Christ not he's not question of people denying that Jesus Christ is God. These deceivers may acknowledge Jesus Christ is God. But they do not emphasize his humanity. That is the spirit of the antichrist. 5:54 That is a deceiver. And that is the reason why many Christians today are also defeated. Wherever you find defeated Christians you will find them emphasizing the deity of Christ but not his humanity. Though theoretically everybody believes 6:17 Jesus Christ came as a man. In actual terms they don't get any practical value out of that truth and so it's almost like denying that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. So in John's letters at the end of the 6:40 first century he keeps on emphasizing this. Why is it so important? See this is how we identify false teachers. Jesus Christ 6:57 in the flesh as a man is our example. Why that's why he's called the word. Like you cannot understand my thought unless I express it in words. You cannot know God unless he manifested 7:17 himself. The word became flesh. So since the word Jesus is called the word we can say that Jesus Christ is our spiritual dictionary. If you want to know what humility is 7:40 don't look up an earthly dictionary for that word. Look at Jesus Christ. That is humility. If you want to know what purity is look at Jesus Christ. If you want to know the right attitude to money look at Jesus Christ. If you want to know how to preach look 8:00 at Jesus Christ. If you want to know how a child should behave in in his home towards his parents look at Jesus Christ. If you want to know how you should relate to women look at Jesus Christ. He is the word made flesh. 8:22 God's word which you can see in his life. In all areas. What is his attitude to sick people? Look at Jesus Christ. So Jesus Christ coming in the flesh is our dictionary. So whenever I see a preacher 8:45 I say I want to compare him with the dictionary. I want to see whether he is following Jesus Christ who came in the flesh. Is he having the same attitude as Christ had? towards money? Is he following the same 9:02 principles that Christ taught? And practiced? If not I reject it. So even though many will say with their mouth that Christ came in the flesh the spirit manifested in their life does not confess that Christ came in the 9:22 flesh. They do not seek to live like Jesus lived. They do not follow the principles that Jesus adopted in his ministry. They just do according to whatever they 9:40 think is the best for the circumstances. So Christ coming in the flesh is our standard. I believe most of the Christians every preacher must be compared with Christ. Why is it he lived on earth as a man? in 9:58 the family money I want to die. In the Christian Army. I will Yes. You can be protected from many things. 10:18 Jesus Christ in the flesh as your standard. So he says in verse 8 watch yourself from these deceivers. Otherwise you can lose what you have accomplished. 10:36 So far. Many Christians have started out well. I don't know if you have a godly life. And then they started following these deceivers. And they have lost what they could have had. Like it says in verse 8 they will not 10:58 receive a full reward. You may not do the things that those preachers do. But if you allow them to influence your thinking and deceive you you are yourself can lose a reward. Further in verse 9. 11:17 Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God. What does it mean to go too far? That means to go beyond what scripture has said. There are so many people who try to analyze things which are not in written 11:36 in scripture. The Bible says the secret things belong to the Lord our God Deuteronomy 29:29. Only the things that are revealed belong to us. We must never seek to analyze things 11:54 which are not written in scripture. There are many theologians who try to analyze the human nature and the divine nature of Christ. They have to follow the principles of psychology then. We know he was fully God and fully man 12:16 and leave it at that. We worship him as God and we follow him as a man. We don't go beyond what scripture says. Analyze questions such as was Jesus able to sin? And what would have happened if he had 12:37 sinned? These are all for foolish theologians to discuss. We stick to what scripture says and don't go beyond that. Anyone who goes too far does not abide 12:55 in the teaching of Christ. It's very easy when you go into all these speculative questions to completely miss God's will in your life. But the one who abides in the teaching has the Father and the Son. Be careful that you don't receive 13:15 anybody into your house who does not bring this teaching. Don't even give him a greeting. I don't even give a greeting or receive him into my house people who deny the deity of Jesus Christ. I will tell you Christian and I like to 13:35 go down. So we have to be very careful about such people like Jehovah's Witnesses for example. And they are so stubborn that they are not even willing to hear what you have to say. In the third letter of John. You want to 13:55 know more than them. The subject is a good elder and a bad elder. He mentions two people here. He's writing this letter to Gaius. And he says here in verse 9 about Diotrephes who is a bad 14:13 elder. And Demetrius verse 12 who is a good elder. So we see here two examples. A good man and a bad man in the 14:32 leadership in the church. That's the main subject here. Now in the second verse he writes. He's just writing a letter to Gaius. I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health as your 14:51 soul prospers. Now this is just a a concern for a person's physical welfare like all of us would have when we write letter to anyone. Now so many Christians have got a 15:08 doctrine out of this verse. That God wants us to always prosper materially and become millionaires. And never never to be sick. I mean when you write letters to people 15:27 don't you sometimes write something like this? I hope you're prospering and you're in good health. It's amazing how people take a verse like this and get a big doctrine out of it. There are many other verses about 15:46 victory over sin. But God has allowed those who want to be blind to those verses to be deceived into this false doctrine. It is certainly God's will that we should have all our earthly needs met. But it's not God's will that all his 16:08 children should be rich. It's it is God's will that we should be generally healthy. But we can't say that everybody who is sick is outside God's will. He goes on in verse 4 to say 16:27 My greatest joy is to hear my children walking in the truth. That is the should be the desire of every spiritual father. Delight should be to see our spiritual children our physical children walking 16:46 in the truth. And then he speaks about people who were traveling evangelists who visited Gaius. He says the way you have helped these 17:05 traveling evangelists is a great testimony to your goodness. Because these preachers these sincere servants of God verse 7. They went out for the sake of the name of Jesus Christ accepting nothing from 17:25 the Gentiles. There is a verse that teaches us that those early disciples those early servants of God never took money from unbelievers. Now today we find so many preachers 17:46 collecting money from everybody. There are people who go with receipt books to every home believer or unbeliever and collect money. Whether nominal Christians or born again doesn't matter. They ask everybody to give money they 18:06 will never find out whether the person is born again. They have public meetings to preach the gospel and then they take a collection there. A lot of people who come for public crusades are not born again believers. If you take a collection there 18:30 how can you fulfill this verse accepting nothing from unbelievers? It's because we are living in a day when people have a complete disregard for God's word. And are only interested in getting as 18:46 much money as possible. That is why Christendom has drifted away from God. You either love God or you love money. And I have to say today's Christendom loves money. And God has allowed it to drift away 19:05 from him. So here are important verses. Those who serve the Lord must be supported by God's people. We cannot preach the gospel to an unbeliever and ask him to put money into the collection back before we preach the 19:23 gospel to him. Here John says I appreciate you guys that you have supported these servants of God because they don't take any money from unbelievers. He takes the example of Diotrephes. 19:50 In verse 9. I want to tell you Diotrephes he He says he loves to be first. He doesn't want to be He wants to be a leader and first and front and before everybody. He does not accept what we say. 20:10 John was an apostle. An apostle is a man who is an elder to the elders. Just like an elder over his local church. The apostle has authority over the elders. And he says they won't accept what I 20:29 say. And for this reason, he says if I come, I will call attention to his deeds which he does. accuses us with wicked words. He does not receive the brothers we sent 20:49 him. And if anybody else receives those brothers, he puts them out of the church. This is happening even today. People who want to be first and who want to exercise their authority as lords There are no apostles to 21:12 guide them. Who will not listen to advice from godly older brothers. We see Diotrephes is even today. he says in verse 11, do not imitate such people who are evil. Because one who does evil has not even 21:30 seen God. The one who does good, In contrast we find another brother, Demetrius. He was possibly an elder, too. And he has received a good testimony from everyone. And from the truth 21:50 itself. And we also bear witness to him. So here were two brothers, Demetrius and Gaius, who were very good examples. And one who was a very bad example. What was it that made Diotrephes a bad 22:08 example? He doesn't say he was committing adultery. He doesn't say he was stealing money. No, he is probably had a very good upright testimony. Many Diotrephes in the world today do have a good testimony. But what is their problem? 22:27 They love to be first. That's what it says in verse 9. And that's a good question you can ask yourself if you are a spiritual leader or shepherd of God's people. Is your attitude to them that of a servant? 22:46 Or do you seek to be like a lord? Do you always want to be first? Are you willing to listen to the others when they speak? Or do you only want everybody to listen 23:07 to you? See, this one-man leadership is never found anywhere in the New Testament. One purpose of this dual leadership is to prevent the dictatorship that 23:24 comes when one man is the leader. Diotrephes was like a one-man leader. I don't know whether Demetrius was his fellow elder. But he would not let Demetrius have any say in things. are many pastors and 23:42 preachers like that today. For name's sake, they say they have some co-workers. are a law unto themselves. They love to be first. And they will not accept any authority over 24:00 them. And if an apostle corrects them, they will not receive that correction. So we see here warnings and good examples for our 24:21 protection. May God help us to learn these lessons. Welcome once again to Words of Life. Today we come in our study through the 24:39 Bible to the book of Jude. We've almost finished studying through the Bible. Now, this is the second last book. And the subject in this small letter is about contending 24:58 earnestly for the faith. As we read in verse 3. And Jude says, "By the way, Jude was also brother of Jesus, just like James. He had watched Jesus' life many years in his home. 25:17 John 7 says he did not believe in Jesus. He also must have been converted after the resurrection. But he doesn't claim in the letter, "I'm a brother of Jesus." He just says, "I'm a bondservant of Jesus." And 25:37 he did not actually want to write on this subject. He says, "I wanted to write to you, verse 3, about our common salvation. I wanted to write to you. In other words, he wanted to write something like Paul's letter to the Romans about the 25:50 gospel. But he says, "While I was about to write that, an urge to write to you about contending earnestly for the faith. So here is another man of God who is writing inspired by the Holy Spirit against false teachers. Against deceivers who are in the church. 26:20 So much of the New Testament teaching is warning us against Warning us against false teaching, false teachers. So that even when he was trying to write 26:38 about the our about salvation, the Holy Spirit said, "No, write against false teachers." And he says, "These people, verse 4, have crept in without being noticed. See, these false teachers don't come in 27:00 openly through the door. They creep in like snakes from under the door. They creep in avoiding the leadership of the church trying to contact people in the church. You got to be careful of any 27:21 who comes to your church and does not seek to identify himself to the leaders and seeks to contact people in the church without going through the leaders. These are the people who creep in. 27:41 And people who preach a false grace. They turn the grace of God, verse 4, into licentiousness. What does that mean? That means they say grace is not something to give us victory over grace is just that God overlooks our sins. 28:03 No, every passage of scripture teaches us clearly that grace is God's help to help us overcome. Romans 6:14 where it says, shall not have dominion over you because you're under grace. Romans 5, where sin abounded, grace 28:23 abounded much more. And through grace we can reign in life. Says in Hebrews 13 that it's good for the heart to be strengthened by grace. It says in 2 Corinthians 12 that grace 28:41 is sufficient to help us in every situation we ever face. 1 Peter 5, God gives grace to the humble. 1 Peter 5, God gives grace to the 29:50 humble. yourself, God gives you grace and he'll exalt you in due time, it says. Exalt means what? He's not going to exalt you to be the president of your country. 30:08 He's going to exalt you over sin. And over the world. That is what grace comes for. But instead of all this you have all this false teaching about grace where it's just as if God overlooks, you keep on sinning and God keeps on 30:25 overlooking it. You can identify a false teacher by seeing what type of grace he talks about. Does he seek to lead you to a holy life? Is it a holy life which is a result of 30:44 rules and regulations under the law? That's also a false teacher. Or is it a holy life that comes through faith and receiving God's grace? And he warns people about those who 31:04 teach that once you're saved, you don't have to worry about anything. Once God has accepted you, you're okay. And he gives us three warnings. He says, "I want to remind you the people who came out of Egypt were accepted by God and then God rejected 31:24 them." Number one example. So be careful. Don't think that because you're redeemed by the blood of the lamb you will necessarily continue to be accepted by God forever. You have to continue in faith. 31:45 Here God destroyed those who did not believe. And the other Angels were all happily accepted by God in heaven once. But when they went outside their boundaries God punished them. 32:07 Once accepted, but then rejected. He's kept them in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment. And the third example is Sodom and Gomorrah. How God punished them because they continued to live in sin even though 32:27 they were warned. People who took advantage of God's goodness. They are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. What was their They suddenly indulged in 32:49 gross immorality and went after strange flesh. That means it was not just immorality men and women. Men and men. And that God allowed it for a time to hope they would repent, then they 33:07 didn't, he destroyed the whole city by fire. So there is a warning, three warnings given us. And in verse 8 and 9 he warns us about being careful that we 33:29 don't speak evil about authorities. He says, "These false teachers will reject authority." Verse 8. A genuine teacher will always accept authority. If you're a person who has no authority 33:50 over you and you don't listen to anyone then you are in danger of being a false teacher yourself. He says even Michael, who is an archangel verse 9 34:10 when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses we don't know when this happened. See, two people appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus. One was Elijah who never died. 34:29 So his body was not anywhere on the earth. The other was Moses who did die and his body was on the earth. And so whether this was a dispute concerning Moses, we don't know. But anyway, there was some discussion 34:47 there. And Michael does not say "Go to hell" or something like that. He says, "The Lord rebuke you, Satan." See, Michael recognized his position. Only the Lord has authority over Satan. 35:12 So he used the name of the Lord. We don't have authority over Satan except through our connection with Jesus Christ our head. That's why when we rebuke or resist Satan, we say in the name of Jesus. We can't bind Satan today. 35:35 And so many people try to do it. Say, "Satan, we bind you." But he's not bound, he's still roaming around. You can't even bind the demons. Jesus will bind them. In Revelation 20. What we can bind today is only the 35:54 activities of Satan. We recognize our boundaries. Some people are arrogant and don't recognize their boundaries. Here it speaks about people who are like 36:11 unreasoning animals, verse 10. A person who is uncontrolled in his lust. There are many young men like that. Now when you see a number of dogs 36:27 following after a female dog on the road that's the way a lot of human boys are. Chasing after a girl. Even believers. They are like unreasoning animals. No control over their lust. 36:47 And then he speaks in verse 11 three Old Testament examples as a warning. One is Cain. The other is Balaam. And the other is Korah. And these three people had three different dangers. They are warnings in three areas. 37:12 The way of Cain is the way of jealousy. Whenever you're jealous of somebody else who has a better ministry than you or a better house or good looking or a better job 37:29 jealousy can come due to many reasons. And when we are jealous of somebody else it can lead to wrong attitudes just like Cain had towards Abel. And then we can say they've gone the way 37:52 of Cain. So that's one area we have to be careful about. The second is the error of Balaam. Another big danger in the church. And that is the danger of 38:10 preaching for money. Going where you can get more money. Like Balaam went to preach for Balak when Balak offered more money. And we have to be careful about that. 38:31 You don't get led by money, but led by God. Most preachers in the world today are in the error of Balaam. See, if you look at the preaching of Balaam in Numbers chapter 23 to 25 or 22 to 24 and 22 and 24 you don't find 38:55 anything wrong that he said. Everything he said was right. He even prophesied about the coming of the Messiah. And everything he said about Israel was right. Everything he said about God was right. Teaching us that today a false prophet 39:13 like Balaam may have correct doctrine. But they go after money. What a multitude of preachers there are in the world today who are like that. And the third example 39:33 is Korah. And that is a spirit of rebellion against God-appointed authority. God had appointed Moses an authority over Israel. Korah rebelled against that. 39:52 And said, "Who are you to be in authority over me?" And that's the one place in the Bible where we read the earth opened up and people went alive into hell. We read about two people who went alive 40:12 into heaven like Enoch and Elijah. But in Numbers 16, 250 people went alive into hell. Because of rebellion against God-appointed authority. There are three things God hates. 40:35 Especially if they are found among believers. They are jealousy, covetousness, and rebellion. Let's be careful about these things. He says, "These people who preach are like clouds without water in verse 12. They are like wandering stars verse 13. 41:00 And we must not be deceived by them. We must check that these attitudes are not in our own heart. And we must avoid preachers who we sense have got these attitude in their heart. And then he gives us one good example 41:20 from the Old Testament. That was a good preacher, Enoch. This is the one place in the Bible which says that Enoch was a preacher. We know that from the Old Testament he was a man who walked with God. We read that he was a preacher who 41:41 preached judgment on God's people on judgment on the nations of the world. And he spoke about the second coming of Christ. He says, "The Lord is going to come with thousands of his holy ones." He will judge everybody. 42:02 Convict the ungodly of all the ungodly deeds and ungodly way in which they've lived. All the evil things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him. Enoch is the first preacher in the Bible. 42:19 And he preached judgment against sin. with God. The second preacher in the Bible is Noah. About him also it says he walked with God. He preached judgment against sin. 42:39 But here's something common about the first two preachers in the Bible. Walked with God. And they both preached against sin. They didn't preach healing or prosperity. They preached against sin. 42:59 Against sinful speech, sinful actions, and how God would judge them. It's so rarely you hear this type of preaching nowadays. The reason why is because many preachers don't walk with God today. These false teachers verse 16 are 43:21 grumblers, finding fault, and following after their own lust. And they go on flattering people in order to get an advantage from them. But he says, "Beloved, remember what the words you heard from the apostles of Christ." 43:42 I would say in the day in which we are today we're listening to so many preachers, remember the words of the apostles of Christ. The apostles said that in the last days there'll be mockers following after their own ungodly lust. 44:01 These are worldly-minded preachers who don't have the Holy Spirit. And so Jude warns the believers. Build yourself up in your most holy faith. Keep on praying in the Holy Spirit. 44:21 Keep yourself in the love of God. What does it mean to pray in the Holy Spirit? To pray with my spirit would be praying in tongues. Paul said, "I will pray with my mind and I'll pray with my spirit." Paul says, "Pray in the Holy Spirit." 44:45 The opposite of that is praying in the flesh. Praying in the Holy Spirit is praying according to the mind of God. Pray according to God's will. 45:02 Pray like Jesus taught us to pray. Hallowed be thy name. Thy will be done. And give me enough bread to live on this earth. Not make me prosperous and rich and all that. Forgive me my sins. 45:21 Deliver me from evil. That's how a spiritual man prays. Not all believers are praying today for a lot of other things. They're not praying in the Holy Spirit. They're praying in the flesh. Keep yourself in the love of God. 45:38 Means keep yourself in the center of God's love. Be perfectly sure that God loves you. And letting that love flow through you to others. And wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. Then he says about our attitude to other 46:00 people we see around us who are in sin. You seek to save others from the fire of hell. A tree. Make sure that you yourself don't get polluted. When you deal with sinners, make real 46:21 sure you yourself don't get polluted. And finally he says, "The Lord is able to keep you from stumbling. And present you one day faultless before his presence with great joy." The Lord is able to present you 46:44 faultless. Keep you from falling. That is a great promise. And we must claim it. Lord, you have said you can keep me from falling. I can't keep myself from falling. 47:06 But he is able to keep us from falling. Many Christians have just accepted it as a fact that till the end of our life we'll keep on falling into sin. And that is because they've listened to 47:24 so many false teachers. It's something like Peter saying, "No matter how much you ask the Lord to save you, he will not hold you up when you're drowning in the lake. He will allow you to sink to the bottom of the lake." 47:39 If you ask Jesus to save you, he will not save you. I will not save you, matter. He will allow you to sink to the bottom of the lake. That's not what happened. When Peter said, "Lord, save me." 47:59 Immediately the Lord held his hand and prevented him from going in from sinking. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And today if you say, "Lord, save me." He will hold you just like he held Peter. He is able to keep you from falling. 48:22 The reason he does not keep many people is they don't trust him. They don't ask him for help. As long as Peter was walking on the water looking at Jesus, he never sank. That's a beautiful picture of how the 48:42 Lord keeps us from falling. Jesus overcoming gravity and walking on the sea of Galilee is a picture of overcoming sin. And Peter also overcoming gravity is a 48:58 picture that we can also overcome sin. But the moment he took his eyes away from Jesus, the law of gravity took over. The moment we take our eyes away from 49:15 Jesus, we'll fall into sin. That moment if we ask him to save us, give me grace. The Lord holds us. Like he held Peter. He is able to keep you from stumbling. 49:33 He is able to make you stand. And stand day in God's presence. To Jesus Christ be all glory forever. May we proclaim this faith and not allow false teachers to lead us 49:55 astray. God bless you.
