Christ Helps Us Group Work: What is hindering you from going to the next level in your life? What THINGS do you need to deprioritize in order to get closer to Christ? 1 John 2:17 And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever. When a bank is breaking, smart people do not deposit in it. When the foundation is tottering, intelligent builders do not proceed. Concentrating on this world is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. So wise people do not live for a world that is passing away. If we know this why do we continue to live for this world? But he who does the will of God abides forever. It is the will of God that delivers us from the temptation of passing things. Moody, the great evangelist, and is inscribed on his tombstone: “He who does the will of God abides forever.” What are your thoughts about this statement? 1 John 2:18 Little children, it is the last hour; 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. Another test of those who are in the Christian fellowship is the test of doctrine. The subject is introduced by a warning addressed to those who are babes in Christ against false teachers. Those who are young in the faith are especially susceptible to the lies of the Antichrist. John’s readers had been taught that an Antichrist would arise prior to the coming of Christ and pretend to be Christ. Just as coming events cast their shadow before them, so prior to the rise of the Antichrist, many antichrists appear.These are false teachers who offer a false christ and a false gospel. It is remarkable that the day in which we live is characterized by the existence of many Christ-denying cults, and these all bear testimony to the fact that the coming of the Savior is near. 1 John 2:19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us. These false teachers were professing Christians who once associated with the apostles. However, in heart they were not really one with true believers, and they showed this by going out from the fellowship. If they had been of us, they would have continued with us. Here we learn that true faith always has the quality of permanence. If a man has really been born again, he will go on for the Lord. It does not mean that we are saved by enduring to the end, but rather that those who endure to the end are really saved. The false teachers went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us. 1 John 2:20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. But this raises the question: “How can a young believer know what is truth and what is falsehood?” The answer is that we have an anointing from the Holy One, and … know all things, and this anointing refers to the Holy Spirit and is from the Holy One, the Lord Jesus Christ. When a person is saved, he receives the indwelling Holy Spirit, and He enables the believer to discern between truth and error. When John tells his young readers “you know all things,” he does not mean this in an absolute sense. It is not that they have perfect knowledge, but rather that they have the capacity to recognize what is true and what is not. Thus the youngest, simplest believer has the capacity of discernment in divine things that an unsaved philosopher would not have. The Christian can see more on his knees than the worldling can see on his tiptoes. In the physical realm, when a baby is born, he is at once endowed with all the faculties of the human race. He has eyes, hands, feet, and brains. He never gets these later. Although they grow and develop, the whole person is there at the first. So it is when a person is born again. He has at that moment all the faculties that he will ever have, although there will be endless possibilities for developing them. 1 John 2:21 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. John did not write because his readers were ignorant of the truth, but rather to confirm them in the truth that they knew, and to remind them that no lie is of the truth. The Gnostics were teaching doctrines that were contrary to the word of God, and therefore they were lies. Their principal lie, the very basis of all their teaching, was their denial that Jesus is the Christ. *** MacDonald, W. (1995). Believer’s Bible Commentary: Old and New Testaments. (A. Farstad, Ed.) . Nashville: Thomas Nelson.***