Lesson for August 23, 2020
The Book of III John
Chapter 1:1-15
Verses 1-8
“The elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth. Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers. For I was very glad when brethren came and testified to your truth, that is, how you are walking in truth. I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth. Beloved, you are acting faithfully in whatever you accomplish for the brethren, and especially when they are strangers; and they have testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God. For they went out for the sake of the Name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore, we ought to support such men, so that we may be fellow workers with the truth.”
John was writing this letter to a local church through Gaius who was most likely a leader in the that church. From John’s wording in this letter we know that he was the spiritual father to many of these believers. His greatest joy was hear that those who he had either lead to Christ or mentored in doctrine were continuing to walk with the Lord. John commends these believers for their Christian service and support of those teaching the truth of God’s Word. They were supporting missionary activity and John encouraged them to continue to do so.
However, like the book of II John, there was a problem that John had to address. One of the apostate false teachers who John names had been causing problems, rejecting accurate doctrine and refusing to fellowship with those who taught the truth. He was causing divisions within the church and he needed to be stopped. John addresses this problem in verses 9-12.
Verses 9-15
“I wrote something to the church; but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, does not accept what we say. For this reason, if I come, I will call attention to his deeds which he does, unjustly accusing us with wicked words; and not satisfied with this, he himself does not receive the brethren, either, and he forbids those who desire to do so and puts them out of the church. Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God. Demetrius has received a good testimony from everyone, and from the truth itself; and we add our testimony, and you know that our testimony is true. I had many things to write to you, but I am not willing to write them to you with pen and ink; but I hope to see you shortly, and we will speak face to face. Peace be to you. The friends greet you. Greet the friends by name.”
Writing something to the church may be another indication that both the books II John and III John were written to the same church and Diotrephes was a follower of the apostate teachers. Diotrephes rejected the truth of the apostles and pastors who ministered to this church and was blatantly opposed to not only their teaching, but to them personally. He had been verbally attacking and accusing the apostles and influencing other believers to reject them. Diotrephes was a troublemaker and John was calling him out. John calls the work of Diotrephes evil and warns these believers not to imitate his evil. It is similar to what he told the believers in II John when he said not to be participants in the evil of false teachers.
Demetrius was most likely going to deliver this letter to Gaius and the local church. Therefore, John was commending him to them so that he would be accepted by all. By commending Demetrius, John was putting his personal stamp of approval on him and his trust in him to make this letter known. It was John’s desire to come to this church personally and speak to Diotrephes “face-to-face.” John may have been kind and gracious, but he was a defender of the faith and obviously had no problem in confronting this troublemaker.
Biblical apostasy is defined as a believer or unbeliever who deliberately rejects or distorts the revealed truth of the Word of God. Biblical heresy is defined as a believer or an unbeliever who rejects or distorts the truth of the Word of God as a result of being deceived by Satan or his ministers. Antichrist is defined as anyone who assumes the identity of Christ or opposes Christ. The spirit of antichrist is, therefore, anyone who lines up in opposition to Christ. Some people err from the truth due to ignorance, which is not an excuse. (Galatians 1:6-9; II Peter 2:1-22; Jude 1-25; I Timothy 4:1-16; II Timothy 2:24-26; 3:1-7; 4:1-4; I John 2:18-22; II Thessalonians 2:1-12; Acts 19:1-7)
The first test of apostasy, heresy or the spirit of antichrist is the clarity of the Gospel message. Those that distort the Gospel can be, even without knowing it, apostate, heretical and antichrist. In Galatians chapter one Paul tells us what the fate should be of those that preach different gospel. He says that they should be accursed, which means to be destroyed. Paul is not saying that these people should be sent to Hell. He is using a metaphor meaning that they should be stopped from preaching a false message. The message, of course, is already accursed. The Bible tells us to test the spirits of men. The best test is what they say about salvation and eternal life. (Galatians 1:6-9)
The Gospel is not: “turn from sin,” “do penance to atone for your sins,” “make Jesus your Lord,” “invite Christ into your heart or life,” “commit your life to Christ,” “give your heart or life to Christ,” “repent of your sins” (which they say means to feel sorry for your sins), “be water baptized,” “join a particular denomination” or any other form of human works. Those that preach this are at best ignorant of the truth and at worst apostate. In either case, they are enemies of the Cross of Christ and it would be better for them to accursed or destroyed. It is a serious matter to God to distort the truth of the Gospel. It would be better for the believer to be destroyed and be taken to Heaven now, rather than to stand before Jesus at the Judgment Seat of Christ and explain to Him why he distorted His Gospel. (Philippians 3:17-19; Romans 14:10)
The Gospel message is faith alone in Christ alone. Faith is non-meritorious; all the merit is in the object of our faith, Jesus Christ. When a person realizes that they cannot work their way to Heaven by good deeds and they change their minds (the true meaning of repentance) about Christ and by faith accept His substitutionary spiritual death on the Cross as the payment for their sin, God gives that person the gift of eternal life (salvation). (John 3:16,17,18,36; 6:47; II Corinthians 5:21; Romans 5:8; Galatians 2:16; Ephesians 2:8-9; I John 5:13)
The second test of apostasy, heresy, or the spirit of antichrist is the doctrinal accuracy of the message. This is where it takes a greater amount of doctrine in the soul to discern the false from the true. Only through spiritual growth can a believer avoid being deceived by these false teachers. There are some obvious signs that a preacher or teacher is presenting false doctrine. For example, the motive of most false teachers is to seek fortune, fame and power. There are some ministers, however, that appear to be sincere and appear to have correct motives but have allowed themselves to be deceived. Both are still teaching false doctrine and are enemies of the Cross of Christ. (II Timothy 2:25-26; II Timothy 3:1-7)
We must keep in mind that Satan and his ministers of darkness present themselves as “ministers of righteousness” and “angels of light” but are instead “wolves in sheep’s clothing.” One of Satan’s greatest counterfeits to the truth is emotion. Though a wonderful gift from God, the misuse of emotion leads to all kinds of false teachings. The most obvious one is displayed by the Charismatics or the Pentecostals. They replace the true ministries of the Holy Spirit with emotional experience. The ministries of God the Holy Spirit are not seen or felt, they are simply facts stated in God’s Word for us to believe. (II Corinthians 11:13-15; Romans 16:18)
Though these false teachers often use Biblical phases, passages and Christian-sounding words, they distort the truth by taking passages out of context, ignoring dispensational truth or in some cases changing the meaning of God’s Word to fit their particular teaching. In some instances, they even accidentally present truth. Satan is the great counterfeiter. Therefore, what his ministers teach is mixed with a small amount of truth in order to look like the real thing. Beware… you must always evaluate the message in light of the truth of God’s Word. (II Peter 2:1-22)
A primary distortion that we see today is the misapplication of spiritual gifts. We have studied spiritual gifts in the past and you will recall that certain of these gifts were temporary. When these temporary gifts are being taught as valid for today, we have false teaching. The reason that God gave certain men in the first century these temporary gifts was for evangelism of Jews from many nations, to confirm their divine authority for the formation of the early church, to detect heresy in the early church, to confirm the truth of the Gospel and to teach doctrine not yet a part of the Canon of Scripture. Remember, they did not have the completed Canon of Scripture as we do today. God’s Word is very clear, and it should be obvious to the advancing believer, that those that “use” these temporary gifts have rejected truth. It must be pointed out, that if a person has the will or the desire to know doctrinal truth, God will provide it. Therefore, if a person does not have doctrinal truth, it stands to reason that they do not want it. (I Corinthians 2:9-12, 13:8-10; Mark 16:20; Jeremiah 29:13; John 7:17, 14:26, 16:13; Acts 17:27; Romans 1:18-25; II Peter 3:9)
Temporary gifts include:
- Speaking in tongues- the ability to speak a known language not previously learned.
- Interpretation of tongues- the ability to translate these known languages.
- Healing- the ability to heal at will, regardless of the other person’s faith or lack of faith.
- Miracles- the ability to perform miracles at will.
- Faith- companion to healing and miracles involving the faith of the person with the gift not the one receiving the healing or miracle.
- Discerning of spirits- the ability to detect heresy in the church
- Knowledge- knowing Bible doctrine not yet in the Canon of Scripture
- Apostleship- men with divine authority over several churches
- Prophecy- foretelling or forthtelling events or doctrines not yet recorded in the Canon of Scripture
Practice of any of these temporary gifts or assigning to oneself the title of apostle or prophet (or prophetess) should raise a “red flag” for the advancing believer that these people are apostates or heretics.
The third test of apostasy, heresy, or the spirit of antichrist involves the motive of the preacher or teacher. This, of course, is very difficult to determine since we do not have the ability to read a person’s mind. We can, however, compare the fruits of their labor with the truth that we find in God’s Word. “By their fruit you shall know them.” Fruit is tantamount to production. There are two kinds of production, human good and divine good. You must know the difference. Quite often what is proclaimed to be divine good is in fact human good. We know from Scripture that all human good is wood, hay and straw and will be burned up at the Judgment Seat of Christ. It has to do with the person’s spiritual status and motive. Good done by a believer under the control of God the Holy Spirit is divine good and is rewardable in eternity. Good done by a believer that is being controlled by the sin nature (with its accompanying wrong mental attitude) is human good and not rewardable. Therefore, in the Christian Way of Life, attitude is everything. Wrong attitude equals wrong motive. Right attitude equals right motive. (I John 2:18-22; I Corinthians 3:11-15)
We will be able to discern this wrong motive from the false teacher only if we have developed our spiritual I.Q. through the study and application of Bible doctrine. When the motive for doing “God’s work” is to gain favor, wealth, notoriety or power, it is wrong. Even when the motive is pure, God’s work must be done God’s way, or it is still wrong. In the Christian life, the end does not justify the means. We are told to separate ourselves from these false teachers. This means we should not acknowledge them, fellowship with them, be on television with them, send them money, participate in their programs, attend their churches, attend their meetings or conferences, or in any way condone what they are doing or saying. (II Corinthians 6:11-18; II John 9-11)
You may recall the story about Adam and Eve. One sinned deliberately and the other one was deceived by Satan. Apostasy and heresy were introduced into the world. Adam deliberately disobeyed God and chose Eve over God. Eve was deceived into sin by distorting and adding to God’s Word by the influence of Satan. The result was the same for both of them, spiritual death (separation from God). Fortunately, they both chose the salvation solution provided by the same One Who had walked with them in the Garden and taught them the Word of God daily, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Apostasy and heresy are serious matters to God. (Genesis 2:16-17; 3:1-13)
There have always been false teachers around. However, the Bible tells us that as human history continues and we draw closer to the Rapture of the Church (resurrection of all believers to meet Christ in the air), false teaching will increase. I believe we are seeing a lot of what the Bible predicts as we get closer to this event. It is, therefore, our responsibility as Christians to be aware of these false teachers, identify them and have nothing to do with them.