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The world rejects Jesus and looks for alternative ways to make life work and find salvation from itself. Antichrist is a category, not a person. There is no substitute for Jesus.
Dan:
Hi everyone and welcome to Training for Life Redeemed. I’m Dan. I’m sitting here with my father, Dr . David Jackson <laugh>, and we are continuing to work our way through the book of one John, or the letter of one John. We are up to chapter two. We’re going to go from verse 15 through to 24, and that this section starts off with basically John bagging out the world saying that it’s lustful and we should be like pretty much avoiding it. And I wonder , does that mean that as Christians, should we be separating ourselves from the world? If the world is evil and lawless and all that kind of stuff? Should I be making sure I only listen to Christian music, only read the Bible and not other books? Should I be, you know, isolating myself and homeschooling my children and not letting anyone else get involved with things? Like what does he mean when he talks about all this stuff about the world being the way it is ?
David:
Yeah . When John talks about the world, he used the word in all sorts of different ways, but one of the , one of his references is to the world as the kingdom of this world versus the kingdom of God. So we’re looking at Satan’s rule over the world, Satan’s regime, and everybody who is a descendant of Adam is born dead in sin. And they’re opposed to God and they’re alienated from God. And so, when Jesus comes into the world, he’s introduced the New Kingdom, and we are on Jesus’s side if you’re a believer, which means we’re in a sense at war with the other side. and how do you negotiate that when you’re in the world, but you’re not supposed to be loyal to the world? and that creates massive difficulties. and I , I think in many ways we accommodate ourselves to the world rather than dealing with the difficulties. So John is saying, you know, if you want assurance of your salvation, you got to get up, look in the mirror and say, I really am not conforming to the culture around me. I’m following Jesus. I’m countercultural. and that , that’s hard.
Dan:
And how countercultural do we have to be like <laugh> ? Do I need to, I , I remember when I was at school and a bunch of kids were getting converted and we were going to the local, charismatic church youth group where they were getting , and one of the first things they were all told to do was to chuck out all their CDs of all their music and stuff. Okay . particularly if it was hip hop or anything like that. Like
David:
<laugh> .
Dan:
What do I, when we , when we countercultural, in what sense do we,
David:
Yeah, I think, I mean , the classic example we went to, we went to Greece, we went to a place called Meteora, and there’s this massive great cliff and they’ve built a monastery right up on the cliff and a bunch of hermits who have gone up and lived in caves on this cliff. So you’ve got people climbing, you know , 1500 feet to bring some monk a loaf of bread for breakfast or something, so that he can stay out of the world. And you’re going, well, you’re not a lot of use <laugh>. All these other people have got to risk their life to feed you. that doesn’t earn merit with God. We’re not, you can’t escape the world. You’re in it. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . and God calls his people to be there so that we can bring the gospel and so that we can actually advance. I , I liken it to, to D-day, when the , you know , when the allies landed in France, in 1944 to drive out the Nazis. you have this overlap period. The , the , the rightful government of France has arrived, but they’re not in control yet. They haven’t taken over the territory. We’re advancing as we advance they retreat. And that’s pretty much where we are, as Christians in the world. So it , it’s things like, with school teachers. So you go to a Christian school and you say, okay, over here is the gospel mm-hmm . <affirmative> . And over here is all the KLAs, the key learning areas that kids have to study for their high school certificate or whatever are the key learning areas, somehow neutral. And then we do our Christian stuff over here. You know, your lunchtime bible study group, you got a chaplain, go to chapel, that’s your Christian stuff. And it’s icing on the cake. So to be in the world, to be not of the world, we’ve got to go to our English class, take the, the novels and the poetry and the media and stuff that we’re going to study, and we’re going to open a Bible next to it. And we’re going to critique the whole thing. We’re going to ask questions. Why does the government decide these are the novels we’re going to read. Mm . Why , what what , what are they trying, what’s the message they’re trying to get across? What’s their agenda? <laugh> ? What’s their agenda? Yeah. when you turn on your television and you want to watch, you know, a movie, what’s the message? What are they trying to get across? Why did they write this stuff? you do, history history’s taught from a particular political angle. people had an argument with somebody on a school board about, you know, I just want my teacher to teach maths. Cause maths is neutral and you’re going rubbish. everybody’s sitting in a math class going, oh , what use is this ever going to be, I’m never going to do calculus. little do they know, <laugh> , but maths is not neutral. This is the blueprint of the mind of God as he laid out the design for his creation, we’re looking at, I got a professor that I studied under who calls it, maths says God’s poetry. this, this is, this is the marvel, the wonder of exploring, the orderliness and the, if you read mathematics without God, you’re in a random universe. Maths doesn’t work. There’s, there’s, we’ve got to rethink from the ground up absolutely everything. and that’s what the , the contrast between the kingdom of this world and the lies that the world tells, we are supposed to be training as disciples to discern truth from lie, to see what the agenda is, and to bring the word of God to bear , to counter it, to sit down and open a Bible and say, is that really where you want to go? well that’s exciting. It’s warfare, it’s battle, but it’s an exciting thing. But you’ve really got to engage yourself, in the word of God.
Dan:
Well then you continue reading through this passage. Dad , John’s going to switch over. Well not switch over. You’re going to talk about antichrist. You say the antichrist have gone out from us, the antichrist weren’t ever really from us, but there’s lots of them to start with. Yeah . and you’re going to talk about the fact that this is not the man of law. Lawlessness, <laugh> , I like the bit of the verse 23 or something. It says, whoever denies the son does not have the father, the one who confesses the son. No , I’ve missed it. The one above it. Who is alive , the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ, this is the anti-Christ. And so I like, like that for me is very helpful in explaining antichrist. Cause the liar is the one who says that Jesus is not the Christ. That’s right . If you say Jesus is not the Christ, the word anti means, instead of it means basically if he’s not the Christ and you’ve got to have a different one. <laugh> .
David:
That’s right. So everybody that, I mean, one of the things that the, the fantasies create is that we, we want to imagine how the world is going to end and we’re going to fill it in with all these bits and pieces that we can find in the Bible. And there’s a bit of a tendency, not just a bit of a tendency, we all do this. If you’ve got two things that are you don’t understand and you whack ’em all together and say it’s the same thing, and then we stick it all at the end of the world, that’s the stuff novels are made of and movies. And you can make a fortune, you know, writing that stuff. But when we open the Bible and we look at this, this is a lot more dangerous. he says they weren’t of us because they went out from us. And you look at people say, you know, the church splits and there’s all these, you know why are there so many churches, if it’s the truth and Jesus tells you, the world is going to come in and infiltrate the church. And, but you can’t sustain that. You can’t have oil and water dwelling in the same jar without it separating. so if you are introducing the world’s ideas, sooner or later you’re going to be in tension with the word of God. And that’s all going to bubble to the surface. Jesus, when he was, it was Tuesday night, he was going to be killed Friday morning. So Tuesday night he’s leaving the temple and the disciples say , oh , look at the big stones. And Jesus says, oh , not one of those is going to be left on another. The whole thing’s coming down. Jesus was aware that in 66 to 70 there’s going to be a war. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , the Jews are going to try and bring in the kingdom of God at the end of a sharp pointy stick. And the Romans are going to come in with bigger ones and wipe them all out. Not a good idea. The kingdom of God doesn’t come in through military activity. During that war People are going to be popping up saying, the Christ has come, here he is, follow me. they’ve already had a couple of rehearsals of that didn’t end well. so he’s saying, there’s going to be lots of, lots of alternative Christs, they’ve rejected me as the Christ. They’re going to try and do it on their own. And the result is going to be slaughter. Don’t go there. So that was Tuesday night, having this long discussion. He’s not talking about the second coming. He’s talking about the Jewish War. and, and John is sitting here writing this. And it looks to me like you, you look at the general epistles, Hebrews one and two, Peter, Jude , John James, even they’re aware this war is coming. And they’re saying, follow Jesus. You know, don’t get wrapped up in other people’s battles, when you see these things happening head for the hills. So you can’t do that with the second coming <laugh> . It might work. So the anti-Christs are the people who are setting up an alternative gospel. And they’re already there in John’s day and they’re here today and we need to stay focused on Jesus. Jesus is the Christ. There’s no substitute. So anti doesn’t mean against in English, anti is against in Greek It’s instead of, and we’re not looking for some future, you know, apocalyptic monster. We are looking in our own church for the people who are not following Jesus, who are going to lead us to a different way of salvation. And if you look at church history, this is happening in every generation.
Dan:
Yeah . And, and John gives us the answer in verse 24. There he says, you know, stick to what you heard from the very beginning. That’s right. So going back to the, you know , to Jesus, sharing it, to the apostles, what they’re teaching, because they were the ones who were there with Jesus. And that’s how we avoid being led straight by antichrist or becoming antichrist.
David:
And so when people, commentators, and people commonly identify the man of lawlessness in two Thessalonians with the antichrist, the man of lawlessness in two Thessalonians, Paul is saying, the second coming can’t happen until there’s this great abandonment of the faith. And there’s this man of lawlessness who’s going to come and he’s going to bring great destruction after that. He’s going to set himself up in the temple and make out that he’s God. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . Okay. Now,
Dan:
Through history, there’s a lot of those guys. <laugh> ,
David:
There’s a lot of those guys. But in history, you know, Jesus was talking Jesus at Matthew 24, the second coming cannot happen until this war in Jerusalem happens. And when that war in Jerusalem has happened and it’s finished, then like a thief in the night, I will come when you least expect it. But I , that’s not the , the thief, the immediacy of the second coming is not immediate until after Jerusalem goes down. Well , we know from history it went down. We know who knocked it down. We know that. in AD 130, Hadian come along, there’s another Jewish revolt. He built a Roman temple on the site to Jerusalem, to Jupiter. You’re going, this , this is what Jesus said would happen, man of lawlessness, somebody who throws off God and puts himself in the place of God. Well that happened. And so now we’re in a place where any minute,
Dan:
Yep . Yeah , any minute need to be ready
David:
And you better get the right Christ <laugh> .
Dan:
It’s Jesus, it says He really , Jesus is the Christ.
David:
Right . That’s the one
Dan:
That brings us to the end of this episode. Dad, thank you so much. if you would like to come and grab these study notes and go along with this episode, please head over to trainingforliferedeemed .com/ 94. if you haven’t subscribed yet, hit the subscribe button. Make sure you come back. Join us next week. We’ll be looking at the rest of chapter two and a little bit of chapter three. I can’t wait to get into it.
