March 10, 2014
I John 5:18-21
(All scripture is from the New King James Version unless otherwise indicated.)
We have finally reached the end of John’s Nose! And John’s Nose! makes quite a point at the end! Well, anyway, this is the last blog of John’s Knows! And the featured scripture is I John 5:18 through 21:
We know that whoever is born of God does not sin; but he who has been born
of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him. We know that
we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.
And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us an understand-
ing, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His
Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. Little children, keep
yourselves from idols. Amen.
We covered this first mention of John’s Knows in the blog of February 12 – John’s Nose! – IV. Briefly, since God is totally holy and sinless, the new nature He imparts by His Holy Spirit to the one who comes to Him by faith believing, is also totally holy and sinless! As John wrote in I John 3:9: “Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.” All sin comes out of the old nature, which we retain until we are taken from this world! The battle between the new and old natures is one we must fight and win as obedient Christians throughout our entire mortal life! (see Romans 7:14 through 25; 8:5 through 14; Galatians 5:16 through 25; Colossians 3:5 through 12).
The second of John’s Knows is in verse 19 and deals with being absolutely sure of two things:
• “We know that we are of God….” – In John’s Nose! – X from February 26, we summarized three things which prove “…we are of God….”: loving one another, God’s perfected love in us, and His indwelling Holy Spirit! If your life is characterized by these three thing, then you are of God !
• “We know that…the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.” – Back on May 13, we examined this know in the blog, Know Your Enemy! – IV. Here is what I wrote:
When Satan tempted Jesus (Matthew 4:1-11 and Luke 4:1-13) one temptation is
recorded thus in Luke 4:5-7:
Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the
kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him,
“All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been
delivered to me; and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if You
will worship before me, all will be Yours.
It was true that Satan had authority over all the world. He still does. You see, the
first Adam had, as it were, delivered all the dominion God had given him over all
creation (see Genesis 1:26, 28) unto the devil when he obeyed him instead of God.
Now the tempter was offering basically the same deal to the Second Adam, Jesus.
Yes, Jesus would then have authority over all the kingdoms of the world. But what
the evil one neglected to tell the Lord was that such dominion would be under the
authority of Satan! The devil would then be above God!
The point of this is that the offer which was proffered unto Jesus would not have
been a valid temptation if the devil did not own and have control of “…all the
kingdoms of the world…”! Just look around at the mess the world is now in – Syria,
Kiev, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, the struggles within our own country….
If God was in direct control of “…the kingdoms of the world…,” I would think He
was a pretty poor God! Yes, He is in ultimate control, and He allows Satan to
temporarily rule. And until God takes over again direct control, the world system
will continue to be in a mess!
The final know of John’s Knows is in verse 20: “…the Son of God has come, and has given us an understanding….” We can know and understand the truth – the truth being personified in Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, and the truth of what He has revealed to us! That truth is put forth by God Himself in the Bible! So, as Paul said in Colossians 3:16: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly….”
Don’t let anything divert you from knowing this truth! Anything that gets in the way of God and His revealed truth is idolatry. That’s why John closed his epistle with verse 21: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.”
Amen!