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05-07-2017
Title: There are dangers out there
Text: (ESV) (Focus: v. 18-23)
STATEMENT: There are dangers out there…
As the Bible shows us, there have been dangers in this world ever since the devil tempted Adam and Eve…
on down through the times of the Old Testament period,
on through the New Testament period,
continuing on through the early years of the church,
as well as on through the Middle ages,
and the Reformation,
and the Enlightenment period,
and on through time to our present day.
The dangers are not just from evil despots
nor tyrants nor killers, nor thieves nor drug dealers…
In fact John is telling the Christians in his day, and as his letter makes this clear…
John is presenting that there are things going on,
real dangers from a spiritual source,
that are at work
trying to steal away the closeness of our fellowship with God…
AND, because we are NO different than those early men and women who followed Jesus,
we Christians today also really do need to be aware of these ever present dangers.
So what John is saying is very important to us Christians today also,
Now, as we know, we also need to always read Scripture in proper context,
and so it is also with this portion we are looking at this morning.
This means that we also need to read on down through the 28th verse as well
in order to get a more accurate view of the subject matter that John is dealing with.
So let’s read, verses 18 through 28, and then we’ll come back and concentrate on .
Then
(ESV)
Now, remembering what we’ve seen so far in the letter of 1 John,
there were some things in the previous verses where John cautions us of...
These are some of the things that not only ‘can,’
but ‘will get in the way’ of solid fellowship with God…
Hopefully you remember those were mainly that:
John told us that IF we don’t obey the commands of the Lord, our fellowship suffers;
IF we fail to love the brethren…
that’s both our LOCAL church family but also, Christians all over the world,
then again, our fellowship with the Lord suffers;
IF we start loving the world more than God…
I.e. if we start to align ourselves more closely with the philosophies, the material stuff,
the ways of the world,
more so than we align ourselves to God and His Word, once again,
our fellowship with Him suffers.
And now, then in this portion of his letter, now John goes on to caution
that EVEN IF we think we have those things under control,
unfortunately, we still will face several dangers…
But these are NOT the dangers that are a result of actions that come from within ourselves…again,
those disobedience things,
That failing to love…
these are things we are directly responsible for,
they are choices we make…
but now John goes and tells us of the dangers that come against us
from the EXTERNAL as well.
This means then that John says that we need to keep our eyes or attention
not only upon our INDIVIDUAL person,
but also upon what may come against us from the enemy outside us…
this is the works of the Enemy who is constantly trying to seduce us away from the truth.
So then here in this part of the letter,
John points out a couple of important things…
So notice first, the ‘issue of Time or WHEN’…
in verse that
John says, 18 Children, it is the last hour
Again, John uses that term of endearment we saw before…
children…
Again, John is expressing his love and concern for these Christians…
he really wants to protect them from the dangers
he knows that are out there lurking about trying to snare them.
Then I want to quickly touch on a phrase that he uses which tends to gets some people all excited…
John also refers to what he says, 18 ….
it is the last hour…
What is this reference to?
Well, some people back in John’s day saw this as John saying
that because Jesus had arisen,
then it’s NOT going to be very long at all before He returned,
so now they felt they only had a few more years left on the earth before Jesus would return.
Obviously looking back in time from our own time in history,
we see that Jesus didn’t return like they had anticipated,
and He still has not yet returned…
Again, what is interesting,
this shows us how susceptible we are to fall into that same way of thinking when it comes to this
‘when is Jesus coming back’ discussion…
But consider this…
Paul had written about this same thing to the church at Thessalonica a bit earlier…
He wrote in , trying to show the people
that there were certain things that still had to occur before
what he referred to as the ‘day of the Lord.’
It’s also why Paul spoke of the
‘great apostasy’
that would be seen first.
As John was saying when he wrote,
Paul earlier was basically saying the ‘day of the Lord’
might NOT be coming as quickly as people might hope.
Putting this into perspective,
Paul wrote 2 Thessalonians around 51-52 AD…
and John wrote 1 John around 85 AD…
30 or so years later…
so the discussion had been going on for awhile.
But we can go back even further in the New Testament,
and the Lord, Jesus Himself,
spoke of not getting caught up in
‘short-sighted thinking’
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