Program Extras

Series: Loving Like God
Dr. Woodrow Kroll
November 20, 2008

Woodrow Kroll: Hello, I'm Woodrow Kroll. And this is the Thursday edition of Back to the Bible.

Tami Weissert: And I'm Tami Weissert. Today we're going to 2 John, and we'll see how some deceivers are out there that are trying to trip you up and steal your rewards. Dr. Kroll, this kind of reminds me of the story of Pinocchio, don't you think?

Woodrow Kroll: Pinocchio?

Tami Weissert: Uh huh.

Woodrow Kroll: Well, I guess there are similarities. Pinocchio had no discernment. He believed everything he heard. He followed a lie. But, you know, that doesn't have to happen to us. There are lots of deceivers today, but we can find out from God's Word how not to be deceived.

Tami Weissert: So, doctrinal deceivers?  

Woodrow Kroll: Lots of doctrinal deceivers. People who tell us one thing, in fact, they may even use the same language we do, but the words don't mean the same things.

Tami Weissert: OK, well, there are a lot of people out there doing that but we have God's Word to fall back on. We have truth.

Woodrow Kroll: Yeah, and that's what we're going to do today. We're going to look into God's Word to find out how we can steer clear of doctrinal error. And, at the same time, love the way God loves. That's what we'll look at today on Back to the Bible.

Well, today, in our study, we come now to the second half of the second little letter of John to his friends. The first half you remember from yesterday's discussion, the letter warns about false teachers coming into the Church. In fact, here in verse 7 he says, "For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is a deceiver and the antichrist."

What he is saying is this false teacher is against the teaching of Christ. The teaching of Christ is that He is God in the flesh. He is God who came to earth to dwell among us and to give His life for us.

Now, John has to continue that warning. We start today at verse 8, second little epistle of John, near the end of the New Testament, at verse 8. This is what he says, "Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward."

Now, I find it interesting that John, as well as Paul and others, talk about needing to be very careful that we don't lose our rewards. Is it possible for us to lose a reward? I mean after all, rewards are not the grace of God's salvation. Rewards are what we do, what we accomplish after we're saved that God finds acceptable, and He can reward us for.

Is it possible after you're saved that you could do certain things, or not do certain things, and as a result lose some reward? Well, it's not only possible; the Bible says that's exactly the way it is.

Here we are in 1 Corinthians 3:15, he says, "If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss." So, it's possible that we can serve the Lord and something will keep that service from being rewardable service. This is all in God's Word. Justice demands that we have to suffer the loss of any potential reward if, in fact, our work turns out to be wood, hay or stubble as 1 Corinthians 3 says.

So, in the context of little John now here, this tiny little epistle, what is it that would cause us to lose our full reward? Remember he's talking about false teachers. And his real concern for the people of the church he's writing to is--that false teachers will come into the church, teach something this is totally contrary to God's Word, suck out of that church a whole bunch of people who will go and follow this false teacher. And what he is doing is he is writing to those who are left in these churches not to believe the things they hear. Because if they believe the things they hear from these false teachers, it will rob them of the opportunity to win a full reward.

See, you cannot live in falsehood, and live in the light of God's Word, at the same time. So, if we're going to live in God, live in Christ, abide in Christ, that's the key for us having a full reward. In fact, the Bible is very clear about this, 1 John 2:28, John implies that some people will be judged unworthy and will lose some reward.

First John 2:28 says, "And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming."

Now, this "abiding in him" is exactly the same term as the fellowship that he talks about in 1 John 3. He comes back to it now in 2 John. And he says, "Look, I have to tell you that if you move out of the fellowship of God's Word, if you move away from the fellowship of believers, you're not only falling prey to the teaching of false teachers, you are robbing yourself of the potential of a great deal of eternal reward."

Now, the way he says it here is, is far more dramatic. He says, "Watch out!" or "Beware!" That's the way this word watch out is translated here when he talks about looking to yourself. He's saying, "You need to be very, very careful."

Let me take you to several other places in the New Testament where exactly the same word is used, and you can see in the context exactly what it means. It means to be awfully careful.

Jim is going to read for us from Mark 8:15. This is where Jesus warned His disciples. Listen to what He says to His very own disciples.

Jim: "And he cautioned them, saying 'Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod."

Woodrow Kroll: Yeah, "watch out" is exactly the same word that we have right here in verse 8 of the little epistle of 2 John. It's also translated that way in Mark 12:38-39. Kearah, would you read those verses for us?

Kearah: "And in his teaching he said, 'Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.'"

Woodrow Kroll: What Jesus is saying is, "Don't be enamored by the flowery prayers of these Pharisees. Don't be enamored by the long beautiful gowns they wear. Don't be enamored by the way they walk through the city with their nose high in the air."

He says, "Watch out for them, because these are wolves in sheep's clothing." And it's exactly the same word that's used here in verse 8. He wants us to be on the lookout for false teachers and not fall prey to the teaching of false teachers.

Very similar expression is revealed to us in another book by John, Revelation 3, "The Lord of Glory says I am coming soon, hold fast to what you have so that no one may seize your crown, may take away from you the crown that you have earned."

Well, losing a reward can happen in one of two ways. Number one, it can happen, we can lose a reward by default. That is to say the Lord gives us an opportunity to serve Him, we don't take it. And by default, we lose our reward.

The second way we can lose a reward is by defect. We can do the service but we can do it in our strength instead of the power of the Holy Spirit. Or we can do it with the wrong motivation. We can do it in a way that does not meet the criteria that God has set up for rewardable service.

What John is concerned here is that these people don't lose any of their reward. They have a complete and full reward. And closely linked to that is the whole context about abiding in Christ.

Listen to this, next verse, 2 John 1:9 says this, "Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son."

Now, this business of going ahead, what is he talking about here? To go ahead, or go before, run beyond, to run ahead of, those are all expressions which say that you are going beyond what was taught to you by the apostles, what you know from God's Word.

This may, in fact, be a little jab at the false teachers, because the false teachers were saying, "Look, John brought you this far but let us take you all the way. Let us teach you things John doesn't even know about."

And what John is saying is, "Here, look: If you run ahead of what the Gospel taught you; if you run ahead of what eyewitnesses wrote down in God's Word and told us what God wants us to know; if you run ahead of that, you're running smack dab into the middle of Christian heresy."

People, who take the words of God, change the meaning of those words, add a little of their own personal doctrine here, and get a little revelation there. And what he says is, you are robbing yourself of the potential for a full reward. Why? Because the longer time we spend in error, the less time we have to spend in the truth. And it's only as we spend some time in the truth, the teaching of Christ, the apostolic teaching of Christ, the teaching the came from the apostles of whom John is one--he says it's only as we spend time in God's truth that we will serve in God's truth.

So, what does this mean for you and me today? It means that the more time I spend in God's Word; the more certain I am that when I serve the living God, I'll be serving Him in a way that pleases Him.

The less time I spend in God's Word, the more time I spend reading other people's books on how to serve the Lord. And the less time I spend in God's Book on what He wants from me, the less apt I am to be receiving a full reward.

Now, that's not to say there aren't some benefits in other people's books. I mean all those of use who write books hope that you get some benefit from them. But the real benefit, the true benefit, the great benefit comes in knowing God. And the more time I spend in this Book, the more I know God.

I, as a follower of Jesus Christ, need to continue in the teachings of Christ that came to the apostles from the lips of the Lord Jesus Himself. And those apostles, eyewitnesses, friends, fellow travelers with the Lord Jesus wrote down the things he told them. I have a copy of those in a language I can understand. And the less time I spend in God's Word, the more time I'm going to spend spinning my wheels doing those kinds of things that don't matter for eternity at all.

Now, this is the great contrast. The contrast here is that those who teach false doctrine pull out of the Church those who are gullible enough to believe false doctrine and are robbed of their rewards.

The contrast is--those who stay in the Church, those who continue in the doctrine of Christ have significant rewards at their availability. Now, the choice is yours. I mean you can follow false teaching, and remove yourself from the Church, and, and reduce the amount of rewards you have the potential of winning. Or you can hang out with God's people and believe God's Word. And in the process serve Him in a way that proves to Him, and to you, that you deserve a full reward.

Well, that's his warning against people failing to abide in Christ, stay in Christ. He's also going to give us a warning about aiding and abetting these false teachers. When I come back, we're going to look at the next verses, 10 and 11 and following, to find out what it means for you and me to aid and abet the enemy; to aid and abet those who teach false doctrine. How does that impact your life? We'll find out in just a minute.

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Woodrow Kroll: Well, we've come in our study of this little second epistle of John now to verses 10 and 11. And these verses are very pointed, and they're the kind of things that we don't often hear in the 21st century church.

Let me read the verses first of all. "If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching [the teaching being the teaching John gave them of who Jesus is and why Jesus is important]. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works."

Now, you understand, of course, that the early days of the Church they didn't have huge cathedrals or beautiful buildings the way we do today. They had houses; they met in people's homes. And when he says, "Do not receive them into your house," I think he's talking about the house church here. "Don't receive him into your congregation."

What he is saying though is, if the only way to deal with the teacher who is a traveling teacher and comes by the local church meeting in a house, the only way to deal with that person is when he arrives, and he announces to you what he wants to teach, when you know what he wants to say is contrary to God's Word, you don't let him in the door. You don't give him the opportunity. This is not a discussion. This is, "Thus sayeth the Lord," and as long as we are willing to discuss false ideas without the benefit of having the truth and knowing what the truth is, we will fall prey to false ideas every time.

So, he says, believers must not even give a hearing to such a person. Don't let him talk. Don't let him express his opinion. Show him the door and shut it behind him.

All right, verse 11 is a very sharp reminder whoever greets him takes part in his wicked deeds. This is the biblical teaching of separation, a concept we haven't heard a lot about in the last several decades. In fact, the 21st century church knows almost nothing about this concept. There are some who may take the concept of separation to far in one side, and some would take it too far on the other side.

But I got to tell you, if you think it's OK for you to hang out with any false teacher you want to, watch any television program you want to, send money to any TV or radio person you want to--if you think that's all right, you need to read 2 John again. And besides that, you need to read 2 Corinthians 6 as Franklin is going to do for us. Because 2 Corinthians 6:14-15, clearly delineate we are not to be a part of false teaching. Listen to this.

Franklin: "Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? And what agreement hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?

Woodrow Kroll: Look at those contrasts: light-darkness, Christ-Belial, Christ and the spirit of antichrist, a believer with an infidel (one who does not believe).

You can't simply throw us all together and expect us to accept everything everybody has to say, because I'll tell you what: Everything that everybody has to say is usually not true.

And so what he is saying here is this: "You, as a believer, need to be discerning enough to know when a false teacher comes to your church, or to your house, or onto your laptop. You need to be discerning enough to be able to hit that button and get out of there quickly. Why? Our responsibility is not to even give a place, not to give a hearing, not to give an opportunity for people to express their false doctrines.

Now, I know, it's seems terrifically rude to turn people away. And the reason we think that way is we have been taught for so many years that loving like God loves means we love everything. We just treat everybody kindly and, and we don't treat false teachers any differently than we do those who teach the truth.

That's not what John said. John is very clear here that it's much better to turn away a false teacher, and be faithful to God, than to bring that false teacher in and open yourself up to the potential that you will fall prey to a doctrine that is not of Christ.

The door has to be closed to these people. Their teachers have to be opposed by us. And that's not always easy to do. But you know what, there's a difference between showing hospitality to a stranger whom you might have the opportunity to win to Christ, and showing hospitality to a false teacher who is not there to dialogue with you, but is there to instruct you in a false teaching.

There is a huge difference between someone who just doesn't agree with you, and someone whose purpose in coming to you is to cause you to lose your faith and to join them.

God does not say we're to shut the door to anyone who disagrees with us. He does say when a false teacher comes, and you know that teaching is false, your responsibility is to shut the door and double bolt it. That's not a lack of Christian charity. That's a way to show you love the way God loves. Because while God loves false teachers as people, God does not love false teachers as teachers.

And He does not love false teachers because of their teaching. And if God is saying to me, "Shut the door and don't give them an opportunity," I can't come back to Him and say, "Well, Lord maybe in our discussion the Spirit of God will come and enlighten them, and." Listen, that doesn't happen.

The chances are, unless you are ready to defend your faith, and that person is already being worked over by the Spirit of God, the chances are, your discussion will end up either in a draw, or they will win that discussion.

So, it's not rude for us to shut the door to those who want to come into our house so that they can rob us of our faith. That's not being rude, that's being biblical. And that is not something you're going to hear in many, many church circles today. Because we are so willing to let everybody come in and say everything they want to say in the hopes that over the course of time we'll be able to change their thinking.

It's the rotten apple in the barrel syndrome. When false teaching gets into the Church, the Church doesn't correct false teaching; the Church generally falls prey to false teaching.

So, what he's saying here is pretty evident. And his benediction is quite the thing. Notice the last two verses of this tiny little epistle of 2 John. He says, "Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead I hope to come to you and talk face to face, so that our joy maybe complete. The children of your elect sister greets you."

"I'm writing to you [and again the word you is plural there, not singular,] I'm not writing to you a person, elect lady, I'm writing to you the church. I am writing to all those believers. And I'm writing to the children of all those believers. And the children of your elect sister greets you [that's probably another church where John is at the time he's writing his epistle]" (paraphrase).

And what he's saying to them is, "I want all of you to know that doctrinal impurity is serious business." Thirteen tiny verses--we could spend a month on these 13 verses. We've spent just a few minutes today and yesterday. Well, I'll be back in just to minute to wrap up the study for today.

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Well, Dr. Kroll, we've been hitting on this very hard this week, this idea of false teaching and deceivers. But it kind of seems to me like, as I look around that we've become very, very desensitized to this whole concept of doctrinal purity. And then people kind of coming in and negating that.

Woodrow Kroll: Yeah, yeah and the reason why John writes three tiny little letters is because he didn't want the people under his care to become desensitized like we are in the 21st century.

I mean the kind of thing we talked about today, you can go to any of the great evangelical churches in the land and probably not hear that in a year's time. And in some churches never hear that. And the reason is this: We've become so inclusivistic in the 21st century, we want everybody to come to us.

The fact of the matter is--the church was inclusivistic at all, it was exclusivistic. It says, "You come in, you learn God's Word, and you go out and win the world." And, I think, what John would say, if John were living today is, "Look, what you don't realize is when you invite everybody in, you invite all their quirky theology to come in as well. And you won't recognize they've taken 50 people out of your church because you don't know they're there anyway. And what your going to find out eventually is you caused those people the potential loss of reward because you, as a church, did not stand up to false teaching. We have to stand up to false teaching.

Tami Weissert: Now, we're not done because tomorrow we're going to stay on this topic, and we're going to look specifically at some people that are deceiving. This is obviously a very serious subject matter.

Woodrow Kroll: Yeah, it is and it sounds like we're playing a broken record here, you know. Because we keep coming back to the balance between loving the way God loves and being careful of false teachers.

Well, the reason it sounds like a broken record is John has come back to it a dozen times in 1 John, and now again in 2 John.

Tomorrow we're moving to 3 John. And we're going to look at a fellow by the name of Diotrephes, and another by the name of Demetrius, the double D guys. We'll look at them tomorrow here on Back to the Bible. I hope you'll plan to join us. Thanks to all of you for being a part of our discussion today, and for you at home for joining us in our study room too. God bless you. I'm Woodrow Kroll. Have a good and godly day.