Truth: The Test of Christian Hospitality
2 John 9-13
We now find ourselves so privileged as to hear the voice of God by turning to His Word, 2 John...2 John and looking really at the last portion of this very brief letter, verses 9 through 13. And we'll read those in a moment. Let me introduce our fourth and final look at this little epistle by reminding you that we have titled it, "Living in the truth."
Now all genuine and faithful Christians have always understood the Great Commission. All true believers who understand what the New Testament teaches and what Jesus commands know what our duty is, it is to take the gospel to the ends of the earth and to preach it to every creature. That is unmistakable, unambiguous. It is a clear command. It is a mandate. It is an obligation. It is a duty not without privilege, but rather with high privilege but nonetheless a duty. We know we have been told to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. We also know and Christians have always known that apart from the knowledge of the true gospel and faith in the true Christ, no one can go to heaven. That is not a revolutionary statement, that is a fact laid down in Scripture and affirmed by true Christians since the New Testament. Sinners must hear the gospel. They must believe the gospel. And they must embrace the gospel. This clear command understood by all faithful biblical Christians has been maintained through the centuries by all of those who sought to obey the Lord. It is behind all the witnessing and all the evangelizing and all the missionary work that has ever gone on.
Since faith comes by hearing, and hearing only by the message of Christ, we know what we are to do. We are to preach Christ and Him crucified. Time, years, lifetimes, of millions of people have been invested in this, the highest and greatest of all duties. Money, incalculable sums of money has been spent in this effort, teaching, preaching, witnessing, training, strategizing, acquiring languages, traveling, building, establishing, printing, producing media that the gospel indeed might be taken to the ends of the earth to every creature. An unrelenting effort to use every means available and call every Christian to this duty and this privilege. And here we are at a time when we have the greatest means to do this in history, unquestionably. We have the capability virtually to reach the world. We can get there physically faster than ever. We can translate and print material faster than ever with the use of computers. We can mobilize people, train people, and dispense people faster than ever. We can use the media, it's instantaneous whether it's the Internet, or whether it's tapes, or whether it's CDs or DVDs, or videos, or you name it. Never has the church had this capability to fulfill the Great Commission, never to disseminate the gospel to the ends of the earth.
It is astounding to me that just when the church has its greatest opportunity, it has become confused about its message. This is unthinkable. This is unimaginable. Frankly, for me this is inconceivable that we would reach the point, really the ultimate point in all of the history of the church when we can go everywhere faster than ever and get the gospel in the hands of people and now we're not sure what the message is. In fact, the church is confused enough to debate what the message is, to argue what the message is, to tolerate a minimal kind of gospel. The church seems to be embarrassed by its narrowness. It seems eager to redesign it to make it more acceptable. Now that we can reach everybody, we're afraid of what they're going to say when they get the message. All those people who gave their lives for all those centuries, all those people who battled and fought in the hardest periods of the church's history to train and prepare and to learn the meaning of the Word of God without all the tools we have today, without all the endless books and commentaries and resources, all those people who traveled for months and sometimes years, all those people who made sacrifices away from their families, all those people who died from diseases and hard places, all those people who laboriously worked to create languages, ??? the writing and translate the Scripture, all of that effort passed down to us and here we are in the high-tech world, we can expedite all of that like never before and we're not sure, one, what we want to say, and, two, whether or not we want to say it because we're a little embarrassed about the fact that it's going to condemn them.
And in fact, the latest wave is, "Ah, the whole deal might not even be necessary. It might not even be necessary." I can't resist reviewing something I said to you a couple of years ago. This view has risen to the forefront in evangelical theology. This idea, we have these people who aren't sure what the gospel is, we have these people who are embarrassed by the gospel and they're trying to tweak it and take out anything that's offensive. And then we have the people who aren't sure we even need to bother with the gospel. They all call themselves evangelical Christians.
And this last group has come up with a view called "natural theology." And that says that man by his natural reasoning powers apart from written revelation, apart from Scripture, apart from the gospel, man by his natural reasoning powers can discern that there is a God. And if he can discern there is a God, and desires to know that God, God will accept his rational effort to know Him without requiring belief in the gospel, without requiring the knowledge of the name of God, or any of His revelation, without requiring any knowledge of Jesus Christ. Sinners can get to heaven without the Bible, and without the knowledge of the gospel.
Now this has always been Roman Catholic theology, but it's never been Protestant evangelical theology. It was Pope John Paul II who said, "All who live a just life will be saved, even if they do not believe in Jesus Christ." That's Catholic theology. The new Roman Catholic catechism says, "The biblical teaching that salvation only comes in response to faith in Jesus Christ is to be rejected. It is unreasonable and cruel. The heathen are saved if they just live good lives." Well that's Catholic theology and yet I told you a couple of years ago that well-known evangelists have said this, they may not even know the name of Jesus but they know in their hearts that they need something that they don't have and they turn to the only light they have and I think they're saved and they're going to be with us in heaven. Even though they don't know Jesus? Or His name?
This is a sort of natural theology idea that you ascend as high as you can get and God says that's good enough. You sort of crawl up this rational ladder to the point where you believe there's a God.
There's another view that even goes beyond that, it's called the Wider Mercy view. And this view, the advocates of this view say people can actually be saved through nonchristian religions. The first view would say that they sort of have to believe there's a God up there and come to that God. And the second view says and they may be aided by their false religion. Clark Pinnock(?) says, and I quote, "When we approach the man of faith other than our own, another faith, it will be with a spirit of expectancy to find out how God has been speaking to him and what new understanding of the grace and love of God we may ourselves discover in this encounter. Our first task in approaching another people, another culture, another religion is to take off our shoes, the place where approaching is holy. We may forget that God was there before our arrival."
What in the world are you saying? These people who are engaged in non-Christian and false religions know God? That God is speaking to them? And God has been there before we arrived with the gospel? He adds, "God has more going on by what of redemption than what happened in first century Palestine." He does? He has more going on by way of redemption then what happened in first century Palestine? Are you trivializing, minimizing the work of Christ?
You ask, "How can people believe this?" Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by Me." Acts 4:12, "Neither is there salvation in any other, there's no other name under heaven whereby we must be saved."
Then there's that view called trans-dispensationalism which says...Well, God saves people without the gospel by treating them as if they lived in some other dispensation before there was a revelation from God. Sort of pre-Mosaic, or pre-Abrahamic.
Does God save people without the truth? Does God save people without the gospel? Without the knowledge of Jesus Christ? Does He take just whatever they've got to give?
That's not what the Bible teachers. That's not what Protestant, biblical orthodox Christianity has ever believed. And this is such a tragic, tragic moment for us to come to such conclusions just when we have the greatest potential to spread the message. We're not sure what it is. We're not sure we want to offend with it. We're not sure it's even necessary.
Does the Scripture support these concepts? Does it support the idea that you can be saved without the gospel? Let me remind you of some passages briefly. Romans 1...Romans 1, this is a very important word that I'm giving you tonight, very important for us and you'll see its connection to our text. We'll get there. Romans 1:18, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them through reason and moral law. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks. They became futile in their speculations. Their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools."
What happens is, built into man is the reason that would take you to the conclusion there is a God. The moral law that would take you to the conclusion that that God is a holy and just and righteous God and law giver. While that truth about God is evident within us, and verified by the creation around us that there is a great and powerful Creator, even though we know that, where man goes with that isn't where he should. He doesn't honor God as God. He doesn't give Him thanks. He becomes empty in his speculations. His foolish heart is darkened. He thinks he's wise. He becomes a fool. He exchanges the glory of the incorruptible God for an image or an idol in the form of corruptible man, of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Man has ample evidence for God in the creation, but it doesn't lead him to God. It only makes him inexcusable when God judges him. And his problem is back in verse 18, he suppresses the truth in unrighteousness.
The bottom line is, his unrighteousness, his depravity, his wretchedness negates the possibility of reason leading him to God. His depraved passion leads him to dishonor the Creator, to refuse to be thankful, to develop empty ideas, to end up in the dark, a fool, proud, idolatrous and even wicked. Verse 24 and following, "God gave them over to lusts because...as verse 25 says...they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever.
Natural revelation will only take you far enough to be inexcusable when God judges you. It's not enough to save you, it's only enough to damn you. And to see why that's true, go to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. First Corinthians chapter 1 unfolds why that is so. "No one through the rational pursuit of God who is the Creator can achieve salvation, it doesn't get you there, it just makes you inexcusable when God judges you. And the reason is, you have to go beyond that, verse 18, 1 Corinthians 1, "For the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God, for it is written, 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the cleverness of the clever I'll set aside. Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?'" This is an amazing diagnosis of man. They think they're wise, they're fools. The conclusion of the wise, the conclusions of the scribes or the scholars, the conclusions of the debaters of this age all together, the sum of them is foolishness.
Why? Verse 21, here's the key, "For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom didn't come to know God." There's the bottom line. You can't get there through human wisdom because God determined that that's how it would be. In God's wisdom people can't be saved through their wisdom. "Rather...verse 21 says...God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe." The only people who will ever be saved are those who believe the message preached. And what is the message? Well verse 22, "The Jews asked for signs, the Greeks searched for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. To Jews a stumbling block, to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."
The only way you can be saved is through the message of the cross. That's why in chapter 2 of this same book, verse 1, Paul says, "When I came to you, brethren, I didn't come with superiority of speech, or of wisdom proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified." That's all I ever preached. Down in verse 5, "So that your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God." And that power is released only through the gospel.
So Romans 1 says man by reason only brings himself to maximum culpability. He is inexcusable because by himself in his own reason he will suppress the truth because he is so dominated by sin and he will twist that truth, end up dishonoring God, refusing to be thankful, developing empty ideas, finding himself in the dark a proud idolatrous and wicked fool. And here we further understand that the reason the wisest of the wise and the scholars and the debaters don't ever find God through their own wisdom is because God designed it to be impossible. The only way you can ever come to God is through the message preached. What is the message? We preach Christ crucified. Only the message of the cross can save. And that takes you back to verse 18 in 1 Corinthians 1, "For the word or the message of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God." Man left to himself, left to his own wisdom lowers God, elevates himself, denies the truth, believes lies. And so it is absolutely critical that men never be thought capable of attaining to the knowledge of God through human reason.
In 2 Corinthians 4 and verse 3, Paul says, "If our gospel is veiled...and it is...it is veiled to those who are perishing." Why so? "Because the God of this world, Satan, has blinded the minds of the unbelieving that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God." Double blindness, they're blind by virtue of their nature, and they're blind by virtue of Satan. It is a compounded stone blindness. The highest achievements of human wisdom will be destroyed along with the most meager achievements of human wisdom. The wisdom that is from below, that is earthly wisdom, is characterized in James this way, "The wisdom that is...this wisdom that is from below is earthly, natural, demonic...earthly, natural, demonic." The only supernatural connection you make through human reason is through Satan. No person by natural reason, no person by religious intuition can come to know God and be saved from hell.
Now you're in 1 Corinthians 2, go down to verse 11, let me show you another very important portion of Scripture...1 Corinthians 2:11...well, verse 10, we need that one. "For to us God revealed them....them meaning the things that God has prepared for us in salvation...God revealed these saving realities through the Spirit." Of course, this is in the Scripture, "Where the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God, for who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him. Even so, the thoughts of God knows no one except the Spirit of God." You can't know God's mind, you can't know God's thoughts. You can't read God's mind. You cannot know what God requires through intuition, through human wisdom, through religion. You don't get to God, you get to Satan. The best that men can do cannot reveal to them the mind of God. The only one who knows the thoughts of God is the Spirit of God. Verse 12 says, "Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God that we might know the things freely given to us by God which things we also speak not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit."
What Paul is saying is this, we have to have words from God brought to us by the Spirit to know what God thinks, what God wants, what pleases God. You can't know God through human wisdom. You can't get there. Only the Spirit of God knows the mind of God. You are dependent upon the Spirit of God conveying to you the words of God, not in words taught by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit. And that's what the Bible is, it is words taught by the Spirit. It is combining spiritual realities with spiritual words.
But you know what? Even if you have that, even if you have a Bible, verse 14 says, "The natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, they're foolishness to him and he can't understand them because they're spiritually appraised." You can't get there, listen to this, you can't get there through human wisdom. You can't even get there through divine revelation as a natural man. Not only with Natural Theology, Wider Mercy, Trans-Dispensationalism, or any other term, not only will they not get you there, you can't get there on your own even with this...because your mind is so darkened by sin, compounded our blinded by Satan, and naturally do not accept the things of the Spirit of God.
You see what the Bible teaches is absolutely the opposite. You can't get there by your own wisdom, your own intuition, your own insight, your own rationality. You can only get there by the revelation of the Holy Spirit, and you can't even get there by the revelation of the Holy Spirit on your own. Man in his natural capacity-no hope, no hope. The Holy Spirit has to go beyond the Scripture and illuminate the soul, right?, and awake the dead and regenerate the corpse.
Look at Acts 17...Acts 17, I'm preparing you for a eureka when you hit 2 John, it's all going to be clear. Acts 17, Paul's on Mars Hill. He stood in the midst of the Areopagus, I've preached three several times, it's quite an experience. He said, "Men of Athens," in fact I preached on this very text, "I observe that you're very religious in all respects. You're a very religious group, this is the religious elite of the great city of Athens where the most erudite and brilliant people were. And this is the philosophical ground, the high ground, the high place where the philosophers and religionists gather. You're very religious in all respects. While I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with the inscription, 'To and Unknown God.' What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you." Here's your problem, you're worshiping the God you don't know because you can't know Him. So I'm here to tell you about Him.
"He is the God...verse 24...who made the world and all things in it. Since He is Lord of heaven and earth, doesn't dwell in temples made with hands. Neither is He served with human hands as though He needed anything since He Himself gives to all life and breath and all things." Your whole religious thing has got it all wrong. You've got all these temples, He doesn't need that. You've got all these people taking food to serve these imaginary gods, He doesn't want that. He is the God who gives to all life and breath and all things, He gives, He doesn't need. "He made from one every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and boundaries of their habitation that they should seek God if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him though He's not far from each of us." This is the dilemma the sinner has. He reaches out in his rational mind to that Creator he knows is there, that moral Lawgiver he knows is there, and he gropes to try find Him. And he's not far away because verse 28 says, "We're actually living and moving and existing right in His presence."
What do we conclude? Verse 29, "That the divine nature is gold or silver or stone, some image formed by art and the thought of men?" Verse 30 describes this as the times of ignorance. Forget all that. All that religious effort going on to the epitome of human culture in Athens, the pinnacle of Greek learning, all of that ended up in ignorance. And verse 30 says, "God is now declaring to men that all men everywhere must repent." Whatever your religion, turn from it. It's taking you in the wrong direction. That's the point. You have to repent of your religion. God isn't going to say, "Ah, you're going down the right path, you're nearly there, just another step." He says, "Repent of it all," which means to turn and go the other way. "You're going entirely in the wrong direction and you better repent because God has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom He has appointed having furnished proof to all men by...what?...raising Him from the dead." It was the resurrection that proved that Jesus was the Savior. It was the resurrection that proved He was God.
And so what does Paul say on Mars Hill? "Oh, you guys are doing really well." Does he get up there and say, "Oh, hey, guys, what's God been saying to you lately? Has God been here before I arrived?" He says, "Whatever it is that you believe in, whatever your religion, repent, turn around and go the other direction, go in the direction of that man." And you can believe that this isn't the whole sermon. He told them who that man was. "In the direction of the Lord Jesus Christ who is the Savior and the Judge as proven by His resurrection from the dead." We know Paul said more because verse 32 says, "When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, they began to sneer and others said, 'We'll hear you again concerning this.' Paul went out of their midst but some men joined him and believed...and believed." The full message of Christ was there and it was given. Some believed.
Natural reason is incapable, natural reason is ignorant. Natural reason is idolatrous. Natural reason is hopeless. You have to repent of it.
First Corinthians chapter 10 takes it a step further. If you want to know where people get without the gospel, this is the last word on it. First Corinthians 10:19, Paul says, "A thing sacrificed to idols," talking about pagans who gave their offerings to idols, something that had gone on through the centuries, is an idol anything? What are you doing when you do that? What are you doing? There's no god there because there's only one God. So this idol that you think is God, like the people down at the other end of the block who bring food and put it at the foot of the feet of the fat Buddha, who is that? There is no god Buddha, there's only one true and living God. So the thing sacrificed to that god, what is that? Who is that god? What are they really doing? Verse 20, "I say the things which the Gentiles, which the heathen sacrifice, they sacrifice to...whom?...demons...demons, not to God." You can't get there by human reason. You can't get there by the wrong religion. All you end up with is demons and Satan. No one comes to the true God through human reason, no one comes to the true God through human wisdom, no one comes to the true God through false religion, no one comes to the true God apart from the message of the cross. The church has always known that.
And there's another reason why it can't happen. Romans 3, I keep thinking of other passages, pardon me, Romans 3:9 and 10...well, verse 10 would be enough, "There's none righteous, not even one. There's none who understands, there's none who seeks for God." That's enough, isn't it? Whatever they're doing, they're not seeking the true God. Whatever they're learning they don't understand what they need to understand. And however good they are, they're not good enough. So if you can't be good enough and you can't really understand, and you're not really looking for the true God, why would you think God would save you? It's just the opposite. They're not seeking God. They've turned aside. Even that which they knew about God they rejected, Romans 1. "They turned aside. Together they've become useless. There's none who does good, there's not even one. Their throat is an open grave. With their tongue they keep deceiving. The poison of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their paths. And the path of peace have they not known. There's no fear of God before their eyes. Therefore...verse 19...we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified." You can't make your life right with God by any kind of religious action. You can't get there from there. No one gets to God on his own because he can't.
Now, 2 Thessalonians 1, and this is the last one and then we'll go to our text. Second Thessalonians 1 and verse 7, the middle of the verse. It talks about when Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire. It's talking about His return. And verse 8 defines this very clearly. "He will deal out retribution, or punishment, to those who do not know God." And then a modifying, equalizing phrase, "Who do not know God," or another way to say it, "Who do not obey...what?...the gospel of our Lord Jesus." You don't know God if you don't obey the gospel. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction.
Now do you understand why I'm so passionate about this? We only have one message. Here we are at the greatest point in church history in terms of being able to deliver that message and we don't know what it is. Or we think people might be offended by it and so we want to change it. Or the easy way out, ah, they don't need it anyway. Any effort to confuse the gospel, any effort that ends up with an embarrassment about the gospel, or any effort that says you don't need the gospel doesn't come from God, does it? It comes from the enemy of men's souls.
Now, please turn to 2 John. This passage has to be added to the list I've just given you. Second John 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."
Can it be any more clear than that? Even if you deviate from the biblical teaching of Christ, if you do not abide, remain in the teaching of Christ, you do not have God. This seals the case. Salvation, knowing God, having God requires the truth about Christ being believed. Now this brief letter to a Christian lady and her children is a call to all Christians to live in the truth. And I've sort of poured my heart out on these last three and then this message, telling you that there's nothing more important than the truth and we're all in a battle to fight to protect it. Both 2 John and 3 John emphasize the central