Hi there. Welcome back to the podcast
again. This is Wade again.
And like I mentioned before, we are missing a couple lessons in
our First John series from the recordings.
So you'll be hearing in this kind of personal format again
today as we approach the second-half of First John 2.
So First John Chapter 2, we're calling this Part 3 in the
series and 1st John. And so let's jump in first John
chapter 2 and verse 18. This section I set aside in this
lesson because it deals with some, some kind of hot topic or
buzzwords, you might say, of the anointing and the Antichrist.
And I think there's a really beautiful picture of what these
mean and their connection here in in the in the Scriptures.
So let's dive here into first John chapter 2 verse 18.
It says there little children, it is the last hour and as you
have you 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. So this time is crucial time.
As I understand this phrase, the last hour is, is to denote a
time of high importance. It is high time.
It is it is a kind of a crucial, pivotal time here being the last
hour. And Jesus has just completed a
huge work in crushing the devil and the devil's forces through
his sacrifice and through his his work on earth.
And so we have a huge surge from the protagonist, you might say a
huge surge from the good guys. And whenever there is a special
protagonist positive surge, the opposition logically will
respond with all of its efforts. And, and in this crucial time,
the Antichrist, whatever is contrary to Christ, anti against
Christ. That's what we're talking about
here. So there is something that
counteracts Christ that is working hard against what Christ
has done. Now, there are some things about
the Antichrist that I think we can learn very clearly from
this, from this Scripture. People say a lot of things about
the Antichrist. They start connecting all these
passages and they weave this big web throughout the Bible that
I'm not very confident is valid. And you can listen to people
with a lot of opinions on these things with a lot of details.
I have not been convinced when I've heard or read different
studies that people have communicated about the
Antichrist trying to make a lot of cross scriptural connections.
But what I do want to do, I don't feel the need to convince
you that those are wrong. I want to talk about in this
lesson the things we know for sure about the Antichrist.
No matter what you believe about the Antichrist, there are some
things that we need to know from this section of scriptures that
it is clearly talking about in context.
Number one, I think we need to know it's danger.
We need to know what the risk of this Antichrist is.
Number 2, we need to know how to avoid it, how to avoid the
influence, and how to avoid following after whatever this
Antichrist is. And #3 we need to know how to
not be like it ourselves. And I think this passage will
equip us with enough information to do just that.
So to know the danger of the Antichrist, we should know
John's profile. So as someone might be building
a profile and investigation of somebody, I'm going to start to
build a profile of this Antichrist just from the
Scriptures we're considering here in first John.
So the first thing we read is in that passage, verse 18, he says,
as you've heard that the Antichrist is coming.
Even now many antichrists have come.
OK, so the first thing, if we're building our our Antichrist
profile of this individual or this, let me rephrase, not the
individual, this entity, this Antichrist, there are many who
carry the influence and the work of the Antichrist.
So some people really want to focus on this being one person
and I don't see that in scripture.
I see the message of the Antichrist as an entity.
But here it's saying that there are many who carry this
influence and work. Many antichrists have come.
So that's that's number one goes on to say in verse 19, they went
out from us, but they were not of us.
For if they had been of us, they would not have continued with
us, or they would have continued with us.
But they went out that they might be made manifest or made
evident or clear that none of them were of us.
They weren't with us the whole time or they were they at some
point left to distinguish that their identity was no longer
with Christ. So the second thing is we're
building a profile. We now know that they, this
Antichrist started out as Christian.
OK, so that's, that's John's profile.
There's many who carry this work and this entity or these people
started out who are Christian originally verse 20.
But you have an anointing from the Holy one and you know all
things. OK, so here we have that other
buzzword come up of anointing, and I'm going to make a side by
side profile of the anointing. So we're making a list of what
the Antichrist is and we're making a list now of what the
anointing is and that anointing. He just gave us our first clue
about that anointing. He says, but you have an
anointing from the Holy One. Who is he talking to?
He's already said the little children.
Who are the little children? Those are the Christians, the
people that he is looking after and mentoring with his words.
So all of these people, these Christians had it.
They all had this anointing. OK, now that is supported by
other Scriptures in second John or excuse me, in Second
Corinthians one verse 21, it says now he who establishes us
with you in Christ has anointed us is God.
So he's writing to the Corinthians there.
Paul's writing the letter to the Corinthians, and he has said
they as the Corinthians have been anointed just like Paul had
been anointed by God. So there's an anointing that all
of these Christians have. It's not unique to just a few
select Christians who have some special knowledge.
This is to all Christians. So number one, they all had this
anointing #2 about the anointing is that this anointing
counteracts the influence of Antichrist because in that
verse, So first John 220 said, but against the Antichrist when
he said these people left, that none of them were of us.
Verse 19, verse 20 starts by saying, but you have an
anointing from the Holy One and know all things.
So this anointing is presented as a counteract, counter action
to the Antichrist. And thirdly, on this list of
things we now know about the anointing is it is related
somehow to complete knowledge. He says, but you have an
anointing from the Holy One and you know all things the ESV
says, and you all have knowledge.
So we're going to talk about what that means there and what
it might not mean later on in the study.
But he says there you know all things and or another
translation is and you have all knowledge.
So we'll talk about later. What does that mean?
What is this anointing resulting in complete knowledge.
We'll dive into that later with some more clues.
But the the thing I want to point out here is we now have a
contrast between the Antichrist and the anointing goes on to say
verse 21 of first John 2. I have not written to you
because you do not know the truth, but because you know it
and that no lie is of the truth. Sometimes we can feel like, can
I really know? You know all these high things
of God? Or someone might say, man, this
is just a bunch of religious mumbo jumbo.
No, the writer is writing a very simple letter.
He simplifies. He says don't do that, You know
this, don't over complicate this.
He says I'm not writing to you because you don't know the
truth, but because you already know it.
You already know this stuff and so you're getting the sense that
he's trying to take the eyes of the reader off of some deception
and focus them on something. You guys, you already know this.
He's trying to focus them in on something that they already
know. Verse 22, who is a liar, but he
who denies that Jesus is the Christ.
Christ is is a phrase that means the Messiah.
He is Antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.
Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either.
He who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
I love that last line. Jesus.
Jesus claims us and when we claim Jesus and we follow him,
we get Jesus, but we also get God the Father also is part of
that package deal that we have access to?
Wonderful stuff. OK, so from that section of
verses we now have another thing to add to our list of the
profile of the Antichrist. We know first of all from
earlier there are many who carry the influence and work of
Antichrist #2 these people started out Christian, they went
out from them. Now thirdly on this list, the
Antichrist denies the Son. OK, so denies the Son.
We get some more clarity about that in first John 4.
So skipping to later in the letter it says this, beloved, do
not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they
are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the
world. By this you know the Spirit of
God, every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in
the flesh is of God and every spirit that does not confess
that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God.
Here it is and this is the spirit of the Antichrist which
you have heard was coming and is now already in the world.
So that thing we added to list that the Antichrist or
Antichrist denies the sun and more specifically later in the
letter what that means the Antichrist denies the sun by
denying that the sun came in the flesh.
OK, so how do we know what lines up with God?
If if this Antichrist is teaching something that doesn't
line up with God, how do we know?
Well it says to test the spirits in chapter 4 and it's all about
what lines up with his word. He says by this you know the
Spirit of God and he goes on to re teach what the Bible already
says. So don't be afraid that you need
to have some special knowledge. We can know what lines up with
God's word based on what his word teaches.
OK, so we've we've got to check to see if what people say is
true and we're going to talk about that testing the spirits
in a later lesson in this letter.
But we know that the sun that the the Antichrist denies that
the sun came the flesh contrary to what Scripture teaches.
OK, verse 24. Therefore let that abide in you
what you heard from the beginning.
If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you
also will abide in the Son and in the Father.
So back up. Let's start again that verse.
Therefore let that abide. The phrase let it is, is talking
about a surrender. It's a submission.
Let, let this thing happen. There is a tendency when things
get hard to look for other solutions, other answers that
people may provide. When you struggle with your
faith, you might want to look around and and when things
challenge you, you might want to say, man, there must be an
answer somewhere else. But part of the message of this
letter is to not get too quick to look elsewhere for answers,
sometimes in the middle of a trial or a challenge or someone
challenging their faith like we're reading about in this
letter. He says let that abide in you
that you heard from the beginning.
Let let it sink in and meditate on the things that you've
already learned. These early Christians were
facing false teachers, people who are trying to deceive them,
as we're later going to learn, as we today face difficulties,
confusions, questions in our faith.
John's message is to listen what the Master has told you this
whole time. When we have doubts, it's common
to want to throw out everything we already know because we need
to reboot, we need to reset. That's how it works.
When you are challenged in something, it can make you
question everything you think, and sometimes that's a good
thing because you need to reevaluate, but other times it
can be harmful because you can throw out things that you are
established and that are already true.
So part of John's comfort is to establish and stay and settle in
the things that you already know.
Don't. Don't let these false teachers
pull you into thinking everything you think about your
faith is wrong or it's false because they are providing a
challenge. Don't let them do that to you.
He says stay with what you've learned the whole time.
Don't be disillusioned and wonder May my whole foundation
is off because that happens with all with all of us.
I think we run into challenges with our faith and it can feel
at times like man, I'm questioning this and makes me
question everything. Go back to what you know for
sure. Focus on the truths that you are
confident in from God's Word and you can deal through.
Work with those things you have questions about, but don't throw
out the baby with the bathwater. Don't throw away all the things
that you have made progress in and have learned and have become
established in. It's usually or often I might
say it's often an issue of working through a current
circumstance and turn to the source of the truth for those
specific questions we have first Peter 119 has some some
comforting advice in this. It says there.
And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do
well to heat as a light that shines in a dark place, wherever
your dark place is, until the day dawns and the morning star
rises in your hearts. Don't give up on truth.
Let truth have its way, and though those things might come
up to detract from your faith and challenge you in your faith,
there's going to be a light that dawns.
The sun is going to come up on the darkness, and if you're
holding on to what's true even in the darkness, you'll make it
through the night, and that light will rise on your faith
and hope will come alive like it never has before.
Don't forget the things you already know.
That's what John is telling them.
As a side note, as he's just told us, let that abide in you
that you heard from the beginning.
If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you
will abide in the in the Son and in the Father.
A side note of that. May we learn to abide in the
peace of the Son and the Father. Relax and enjoy.
Sometimes we can make it harder for so much harder than it
really is. Now, I'm not saying relax and
and do whatever you want. I'm saying maybe we as
Christians sometimes need to learn to to enjoy and relax and
to take peace. I was wisely told by another
teacher when I started teaching high school, that teacher told
me be comfortable because if you are come because if you are
uncomfortable, your students will be uncomfortable too.
Spiritually speaking, if we want to help others feel the joy and
the love in Christ and and take away some of the negative
narratives we can acquire as Christians or or members of the
church, we have to start here. We have to start with the
attributes that make us different, the peace that
surpasses understanding, with the joy that fills our hearts.
Sometimes we need to remember to abide in the peace and the joy
of the Father. Maybe sometimes we don't make
others feel and enjoy peace and joy.
You know, people were trying to actively convert to the faith.
Maybe sometimes we don't make them feel that or learn that
peace is because we don't feel it ourselves.
It can feel like we are the only victim in a crime of a living
anxious, angry, lacking peace, lacking hope, not living the
abiding joy and peace. It can feel sometimes like we
are the only victim in that if we live a life.
That is characterized by those things, but but others are
affected because we are robbing others of an example that would
show them Christ and what it means to walk in the light and
the warmth of His light. It's not a victimless crime when
we neglect abiding in the peace of the Son and the Father.
So sometimes we need to learn to smile, relax a little bit, enjoy
our life. So back to the context.
So you just said let that abide in you, what you heard from the
beginning. So let's remember he's talking
about an anointing that will counteract the spirit of the
Antichrist. And he's and he, he's using this
statement to use the anointing to counteract the Antichrist in
the way that you are letting things abide in you that you've
heard this whole time. That is the counteracting
influence. So we learned from Romans 10/17
that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
So as we build our definition of this anointing, it's related to
complete knowledge. But he just said that he says
let that abide in you what you heard from the beginning.
So the things that that is filling them with knowledge is
things that they have been hearing.
So complete knowledge, whatever it is, has to come from hearing
verse 25. And this is the promise that He
has promised us eternal life. These things I've written to you
concerning those who try to deceive you.
So as we build the the profile of the Antichrist, we have
another thing to add to the list.
The Antichrist lives in others through deception.
So he's writing to us concerning those who are trying to deceive
us. So that's how the Antichrist
works. The Antichrist lives through
deception. Verse 27.
But as the same anointing teaches you concerning all
things, there it is again the contrast between the Antichrist
and the anointing verse 27 But as the same anointing teaches
you concerning all things and is true and is not a lie, and just
as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.
So this anointing, as we go back to our definition of the
anointing, it teaches complete knowledge because he says there
this anointing teaches you concerning all things.
So this anointing teaches complete knowledge.
Now here's where maybe we can start to ask some questions.
Is this knowing all things, a miraculous complete knowledge?
Is it getting knowledge from God that you have an anointing and
so you have some miraculous ability, a miracle ability to
have knowledge of everything? Well, we have to remember a
couple things from other scriptures.
Sometimes it helps to rule out other things.
To clarify, in First Corinthians chapter 12 we learned about how
miracles worked and the and what we learned from First
Corinthians 12 is that only some had this.
Not everyone had this miraculous knowledge.
So there was bits and pieces of a group of people who had
miraculous knowledge. So if we go back to where we
started this conversation, we learned that every Christian has
this anointing. So the kind of miraculous
knowledge of God's word that is taught in First Corinthians 12
says that only some people have it.
So now we we know that these two things aren't lining up.
Not everybody had miraculous knowledge.
Some people had gifts in this area.
Some people had gifts in another, and not everybody had
miraculous knowledge of God's Word.
So that's First off. In First Corinthians 12:00 we,
we learned that in First Corinthians 14, we learned that
only part of God's Word was revealed to the people who did
even have miraculous knowledge. So let's say you know you are
you are person #1 and that person #1 did have some
miraculous knowledge from the power of the Holy Spirit.
They knew things about Scripture miraculously.
Well. First Corinthians 14 teaches us
that that person didn't have complete knowledge of God's
Word. They didn't know it all.
They had a piece of it miraculously.
Now they can learn more of God's Word by study, by asking
questions, by being taught, by reading the letters from the
apostles. But they didn't miraculously
just have all the scripture knowledge of God's Word in their
head. So they were told to one by one
share their prophecy. They were told to take turns
sharing what God had given them to teach.
OK, so when we consider this this anointing, it now does not
fit into the criteria of miraculous complete knowledge.
This anointing does not mean that some people or all these
Christians had complete knowledge of God's word by
miracle, right? Because that's been disproved by
First Corinthians 12 and chapter 14.
OK, so the next question does this anointing that makes us
know all things is that the Holy Spirit giving us direct
knowledge, just popping information straight in our head
from the Holy Spirit? Well, that is not a pattern that
is given in Scripture. The Holy Spirit would then that
would be a hotline of God revealing his word.
Like I just get to, you know, I get to tell people that God told
me this. God told me that.
And we all know that there have been people who have said things
that God told me this and it was a complete lie.
So if we can just all say, you know, God told me this, that's a
hotline for God's Word. And that is not a pattern in
Scripture. So the Holy Spirit giving direct
knowledge is is not really the pattern.
Let's look at Romans 10. Romans 10 tells us the pattern
in verse 14. It says, how then shall they
call on him and whom they have not believed?
And how shall they believe in him on whom they have not heard?
He says they need to hear it first.
And how shall they hear without a preacher?
They need to have somebody to teach them.
Verse 15 and how shall they preach unless they are sent?
Goes on to say verse 16, But they have not all obeyed the
gospel for Isaiah says Lord, who hasn't believed our report?
Who's believed our teaching? Verse 17.
So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
So if we're wondering, you know, is this anointing the Holy
Spirit just popping knowledge in people's head.
That's not really the pattern for how knowledge is passed on
in Scripture. So I think here's where we can
build that anointing profile a little bit.
Nor anointing is where the Holy Spirit teaches us complete
knowledge that sets us apart. So in light of the Gnostics
believed often times that they had some special knowledge.
Now, if these people literally knew all things, if these
Christians he's writing to literally knew all things, like
this was a miraculous knowledge, why would John even be writing
to them? Because they already had
miraculous knowledge. I don't think that's the case.
I think that's why John is writing the letter to them,
because they don't have complete miraculous knowledge.
Now in light of this special knowledge, you know, because
getting it from the Holy Spirit through some mystical things
sounds, sounds kind of special. Would it be cooler or more
exciting if I had some miraculous special knowledge as
opposed to something that I've learned from God's Word or by
somebody teaching me plainly from scripture?
Would it be cooler or more exciting if I had some
miraculous knowledge? If God wants to anoint me
through reasonable means like His Word, shame on me.
If I look down on that. If I think that God's way to
communicate and annoyed me with with His Word by his Holy Spirit
is from people teaching me his word or me reading his word, If
I look down on that, shame on me.
If God chooses to work in my life, that's his.
That's his decision. And may I not think, oh, it
would be better if I got taught this way.
You know, if I got some poof special knowledge sitting in my
living room without doing any reading or just popped into my
head, I shouldn't look at that like that's any better than the
way God taught me, the way God teaches me through His word.
Now I have to ask myself, if I do think it'd be cooler to get
some special miraculous knowledge from God directly, why
would it be cooler? I would argue that it's because
of selfish desire, because when it would be rare, right, It
would be rare. It would be unheard of if you
got some special knowledge from God.
Rarity is all based on I have something and other people
don't. That that's what makes fancy
things so important to people is because not everybody has it.
Not everybody drives a Lamborghini.
If everybody drove a Lamborghini, it would not be
that cool. But because they're rare, man,
it's cool. And so it's, it's for it's can
be a selfish desire to be above someone else.
And so may I not look at it like, oh, I didn't get some
miraculous knowledge. That's not as good as if, you
know, I just got some knowledge from reading God's word.
May I not look down on God's Word that way, because to prefer
something else than what everybody else gets would be
kind of a selfish desire. Now, maybe it would make me feel
special, right? If God gave me miraculous
knowledge, I might feel special. He gave that to me.
If I can't read the scripture of all God did for me and feel
special. If I can't read scripture and
get that, it's a focus issue and I would soon dull to a special
message, right? If God popped some special
message miraculously in my head, I would get dull to that sooner
or later. That wouldn't be cool anymore.
I would need something else to make me feel quote UN quote
special. I can feel special by reading
God's word, by studying and learning what He did for me.
And man, you can't be more special than having someone
sacrifice their child for you. So let's sum up the anointing,
the Gnostic view. The Gnostics did have a view of
anointing like they had some special knowledge and the
anointing is to work against. And so in light of that, that
that Gnostic view, there is the true Christian anointing which
is from the Holy Spirit. Now the anti Christian
principles were against the anointing and these Gnostics
said they had a higher knowledge, they had something
special from God that other people didn't have access to.
Well John's response to this anti Christian idea and this
higher knowledge quote UN quote that the Gnostics had.
John's response in my own words is these guys say they had this
special knowledge, don't listen to them.
You all have all you need. That's what I believe the
anointing is. He's saying you have everything
you need. You are being taught by the Holy
Spirit himself now. It doesn't have to be mystical.
However, the Holy Spirit was teaching them during this time.
However, the Holy Spirit is teaching us today.
We are anointed by the Holy Spirit.
Now maybe we haven't talked about the word anointing enough.
So I'm going to do an extended cut on anointing for a second.
And if if that's a little too you don't want to go into that
rabbit hole, that's fine. Maybe Fast forward a few
minutes, but looking at Scripture anointing in
Scripture, where do we read this?
Well, four times in Scripture it refers to how God anointed Jesus
with the Holy Spirit and Luke 4, Acts 4, Acts 10 and Hebrews one,
we learned about how the Holy Spirit anointed Jesus.
OK. And in Luke 4 verse 18, it says
the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to
preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the
broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and
recovery of sight to the blind. So that is a piece of how the
anointing happens there. I'm not going to go through and
read all those. That was just one in that list
of the Holy Spirit anointing Jesus.
But other uses of anointing in Scripture.
We read about anointing priests and kings in the Old Testament
with oil, for example, in Second Samuel 1 verse 16 and Exodus 30
verse 30. It was a process of setting them
apart. So anointing in the Old
Testament set people apart as different.
We're we are marking them as something special and different
kings and priests right in in Exodus 30, verse 30, it says
anoint Aaron and his sons and consecrate them so that they may
serve me as priests. And he goes on to say, you know,
if if anybody else don't make any other thing like this, don't
replicate this, If anyone does something similar to this and
tries to kind of make their own anointing, he says let them be
cut off from the people. So this anointing was serious
because it has an important role.
And that should make us feel special because we consider that
we are anointed by the Holy Spirit.
What an honor. We are anointed with great
intention, with great authority, and great individual
acknowledgement of our role and value in God's service.
OK, now let's talk about some more reasons.
And the anointing was used. It was used in medicine.
People were anointed with oil in Luke chapter 10 verse 34.
So you would take a, an oil, you would rub it on someone for, for
medical uses. You know, you take the extract
of the plant. We use essential oils today for
medical things. You rub peppermint on the bottom
of a baby's feet and they start to feel better.
There's all kinds of things we do with oil to anoint and, and
to rub on. It's for healing and medicine
and Jesus uses and the word anointing, the Bible uses for
Jesus's anointing of the blind man's eyes with spittle as he
mixed it with with dirt in John Chapter 9 verse 6.
So kind of a way to summarize the word anointing.
It's to smear something on. Jesus smeared the spittle on the
eyes of the blind man. It was oil smeared on in
medicine. It was smeared on in the act of
anointing the kings and the priests in the Old Testament.
We are healed by the anointing of God's word just like they
were in medicine with the anointing of oil.
We are set apart as Christians and identified as workers for
God and we are Kingdom of priests today.
We are anointed and set apart by God's Word.
So as I summarize the anointing, I'm going to put it this way.
We are set apart or anointed by a supernatural teacher and
supernatural teachings. The ultimate teacher is the Holy
Spirit who inspired the words of scripture that were from the
beginning. These words give us what we need
to overcome the anti Christian ideas that would hold us back.
So there's the contrast between the Antichrist and the
anointing. OK, hopefully that wasn't too
hard to communicate over over just audio.
I know it maybe help a little bit to have some visuals in
front like a PowerPoint, but hopefully that was OK.
So the Antichrist, let's summarize the Antichrist now in
the profile of the Antichrist. The Antichrist started out
Christian denies that the sun came in the flesh, undermining
God's word by saying they had some higher knowledge of, of
Scripture. They had their own quote UN
quote anointing from the the Antichrist that we know that we
have as Christians, a true anointing.
So the Antichrist says there are there are many, though there are
many who carry the influence and work of the Antichrist and it
lives in others through deception.
OK, So that's kind of the profile of the Antichrist that
it's a danger. That's how we need to avoid it.
We need to avoid its influence and I'm not going to go past
that, the context of first Sean to talk about these things.
But to end this study in a positive note, I want to go back
to verse 25 because verse 25 said something super
encouraging, he said, and this is the promise that he has
promised us eternal life. God has promises for us that
will change our life, you know, change our perspective on the
world we're living in and how we see it.
He says he's promised us eternal life.
The the concept of eternity is hard to wrap my mind around.
I love the analogy that I was told from a young age that stuck
with me and and I was taught that it that eternity is like if
you took a a bird and that bird. Picked up a grain of sand on the
beach, and that bird proceeded to fly the miles and miles and
miles and thousands of miles all the way to the moon.
And that bird dropped off that grain of sand at the moon, and
it proceeded to make the long journey, miles and miles and
miles back, flying all the way back to Earth, where it picked
up another grain of sand way back to the moon, dropped it
off, came all the way back, picked up a third grain of sand,
flew all the way back to the moon.
Eternity. Is as if that bird flew all the
way to the moon. And dropped.
Off the entire planet Earth on the moon transferred the.
Entire. Earth over to the moon.
That is just the beginning. Of eternity Think.
About how long? How many?
Years it would take to to just transfer a handful of sand from
from a local beach here in California, just a handful of
sand would take, I'd have to imagine, thousands of years.
Much. Less the entire.
Coastline of California, much less.
All of the the landlocked states of the United States, much less
the entire depths of the ocean, all those miles and years of
flying back and forth that is just.
The beginning of. Eternity.
The Bible. Says God has put.
Eternity in our hearts. We have a concept, but we can't
wrap our minds around it and. He has promised us eternal.
Life. A life that will never end.
A life that you you consider that it's unfathomable.
And yet, that's just the beginning.
Of what's coming after this. Brief vapor of life that we are
living in He. Says he's promised us eternal.
Life. Now let's focus on that word.
Life you. Know we don't really truly.
Experience true life here on earth for the most part when.
You read the Bible, true. Life is free from death, and
every single thing we've ever been through in this earthly
life had. Kind of a background of.
Death. You might have wonderful
moments. In your life.
But there is. Something hanging over you of.
Death in the good times, you know that they're not always
going to last. In the smiles.
There are there is sorrow for some in every circumstance in
life you may. Have had something good.
Happening, but there were also things around that event that
were not so good. Around the birth of my.
First child, one of the best days of my life.
It was came shortly after my father-in-law had had almost
died. Had a had a life.
Altering. Health crisis.
And it even in the good time, there was something so severe
and tragic and scary that there was, it was a big, it was a big
time. Life is full of.
Moments that are good and around it there are still things that
are the stain, the sting of sin in life and the.
The pains that come. Along with even the good things
in life, I almost. Think about it like a.
Like a, Like a. Sock when you if you.
Ever, ever been hiking and walk through through the brush, you
come out the other side and you have all of these, these burrs
in your sock or, or foxtails in your sock and they, if you sit
down and take time to pick them all out, your sock was full of
hundreds and it took so long to remove all those thistles and
burrs. I think sometimes life is.
Like that, if you really sat down and looked at your life,
you'd be able to say, well, I picked that one out.
There is a there's a problem there and there's a problem
there. There's a problem there even
though there's good things happening.
You could pick out all of these things in the sock of your life.
Even in the good times. And so I I said all that to say
this we don't truly know what true life is every.
Bit of life we've ever. Experienced has had some death
in it. Because of the curse of.
Sin. I can't imagine a life.
Where there's no pain. Where you are at a.
At a birthday party and the grandparents are there and you
don't have to have that feeling in the back of your mind of this
is special, wonderful moments, but but those grandparents
aren't always going to be there. Sometimes in the positive and.
The happy there are sadnesses. We don't know what true.
Life is really like. But there's going to come a day.
Where there will be true life, and you and I have experienced
beautiful pieces of life that are snippets and excerpts and
just a taste of the good that is to come.
Because everything in. Heaven and in life, in life, in
true life in heaven, is going to be free from the burdens and the
pains that detracted from life's pure joys.
So. It says this is the.
Promise that He has promised us eternal life.
It's going to be forever and it's going to be something
that's better and beyond anything that we have ever
experienced in this life. Combining all of the good
memories and separating them from anything negative.
It's going to be good. I can't quite fathom it, but
it's going to be good. And so to conclude this.
Study, May we hold on to God's word and may we follow Him
closely and walk in the light and avoid the influence of anti
Christian ideas. And remember that we are
anointed by the Holy Spirit that teaches us truth, that we don't
have to fear what others would teach.
We don't have to fear Gnostic teachings or any other teachings
that would detract from the message of Christ, but the we
are taught from God himself and we can believe and have faith in
him. Finishing up in verse 28 and now
little children first John 228 abide in him that when he
appears we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him in
his coming. If you.
Know that he is righteous. You know that everyone who
practices righteousness is born of Him.