This will be a short message this afternoon, but not because of anything you are probably thinking. It is not because I preached this morning. Nor is it because you had a big lunch, and I know you’re waiting for a nap. It is not because we have some preparation work to do for tomorrow’s carpet removal. No, this will be short because I couldn’t come up with an exciting outline for the 3 final verses of this text. I am calling this message: “Personal Pronouns and Intensive Prepositions.” But I thought about “Ye, They, We and they.”
I’ll start with a little illustration. I no doubt have the details wrong. But I think it was Sister Tchida who told some of us about meeting a woman back in Kentucky not long ago. This lady, essentially a stranger, said something like: “You are from Colorado. When were you last in Fort Collins?” She had previously spent some time at Colorado State University, or at least in Fort Collins. And she detected from the way Sister Charity spoke that she was from Northern Colorado. Wow! That is amazing! It is not like the Tchidas were from Georgia or New England. I never would have guessed there is a “Fort Collins accent.” Do Brother and Sister Roberts speak a little differently than Brother Doug Brown up in Estes Park? If they do, I can’t hear it.
In our text John essentially says, “There is an accent which belongs to the servants of God.” “We are of God: he that knoweth God HEARETH US; he that is not of God HEARETH NOT US. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.”
For obvious reasons, I am not an expert on what goes on in the other churches in our little city. I have been in only one or two of them on any Sunday, because I am always here with you. But I have been told that the messages in many churches are different from what we have here. Few churches preach God’s Word expositionally, examining entire books over an extended period. Oh, they might study a book in Sunday School, but not preach through them. And I have heard that many churches rarely have anything more than motivational messages. Several of us have seen recently that some churches are more focused on nurturing believers, than on evangelizing and creating those new believers. Then there are some churches which focus on certain themes such as miracles and healing. Despite what people might say, those messages are geared to pleasing the flesh. They profess to glorify God, but as far as they are concerned, the Lord is glorified only if the participants experience miracles. I have been told that many churches focus on philosophy rather than theology. And in speaking with my neighbors, some of the largest churches in town encourage the study of human authors more than they do the study of Him who is “the author and finisher of our faith.” But whether or not what I have just said is completely accurate, even here, people can leave the occasional service thinking, “I didn’t hear the voice of God today.” Every Christian should be able to distinguish the accent of God’s servant. And if I can put it this way, we all should long to hear the accent of home; of Heaven.
“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world.” And those prophets, whether wickedly false or just proficiently inefficient, have their own accent. The worst of the worst “are of the world; therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.” Their churches prosper because those prophets speak in the accent of the world, and the world heareth them.
With that I come to the pronouns which are found in verses 3 to 6: “YE,” “THEY,” “WE” and “HE.”
Actually, the word “he” is applied to three different people, so we could consider six separate pronouns. When John said, “we” in v. 6 he was not only thinking of the saints in general, but of himself in particular. “We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us.”
This may not have been John’s original intent, but it applies nevertheless: The penmen of the Bible: David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Moses and the other prophets and divine poets… Then the apostles and those who chronicled the life of the Lord Jesus… Those men knew when they were speaking and writing the inspired Word of God. Those “holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” They often said, “Thus saith the Lord,” because they knew the Spirit was speaking through them. David said in II Samuel 23:2: “The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue.” You could say that those men spoke with the accent of Heaven. John could say with confidence, “We are of God,” and “you need to listen to what I am telling you.” When the modern day “prophet” – the man who is speaking in the Lord’s Name and sharing God’s Word… When the Bible is at the core of his message, the preacher can say, “we are of God,” and “he that knoweth God heareth us.”
So you are on vacation in an area of the country unfamiliar to you. You went on line and tried to find a church where you hoped to hear the voice of God. After 45 minutes, how can you know that you should apply that message? You will know when you can hear the accent of God. You will know when God’s Word is at heart of the message. Conversely, at home, when you know that God’s Word has been preached, but that visitor didn’t understand the Biblical accent, you might conclude “he is not of God.”
When the Bible is not at the heart of the sermon, it is then that the “we” becomes “they” – our second pronoun. “They are of the world; therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.” From where does the preacher get his authority if it isn’t from God’s Word? Why does his accent prohibit the Christian’s understanding of what he is saying? He may refer to Robinson, Armitage, J.T. Christian or some other historian, but those references need to be only as illustrations, not authorities. He may quote Gill, Strong or J.P. Boyce, but his theology needs to come from the Bible not a theologian. There has not yet been a seminary that has produced a perfect theologian. Again, pray for us who have the responsibility of promulgating the Word of God. It is so easy to pick up the accent of the people around us instead of remaining true to who we are.
In addition to the “we” and “they” we find the “ye.” “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them…” You have overcome those false prophets. Several of us were not born and raised in this church. Nor were we reared in a church similar to this one. Some of us were born and raised Roman Catholic; some of us were Protestants; liberal or otherwise. I might never have heard the gospel if I had continued attending Anglican and Episcopal churches all my life. But God was gracious to me in that He rescued me from some rather soul-damning theology. In my childhood I sat under the ministries of various false prophets. It could be said of me, and of several of you, “YE are of God, little children, and have overcome them…” You were delivered out from under false doctrine and soul-damning lies.
This world is filled with “the haves” and “the have nots.” The Christian is someone blessed with the grace of the Almighty. The Christian has been made one of God’s little children. And the source of that spiritual life is expressed in our next pronoun: “He.” “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is HE that is in you than he that is in the world.”
We are looking at little words this afternoon. Despise not the little things.
In addition to the little pronouns notice the little preposition “OF.”
There are very few words smaller than two letters. In the Bible there are only three that I know: “a,” “I” and “o” – “Unto thee, O LORD, do I lift up my soul.” That makes the word “of” one of the smallest of Biblical words. You may be thinking, “So what? That’s a silly thing to bring out in a Bible study.” Please don’t check out just yet. Since the word is used more than 18,000 times, I didn’t make a search. But I wonder how many times the word is in italics; where it is supplied by the surrounding Greek or Hebrew words? In reality, I don’t care, or I might have spent more time in research.
But in all seven times it is used in our text, the word “of” is emphasized in the original language. For example in verse 4, John didn’t simply say, “you are God’s little children.” What he said was “Ye are FROM God; He is the source of your life.” Verse 5: “They are FROM the world; therefore speak they FROM the world, and the world heareth them.” Verse 6: “We are FROM God. Hereby know we know the spirit which is FROM the truth, and the spirit which is FROM error.”
Go back to verse 4: “Ye are OF God, little children.” Just as no human being is the product of his own desire to live, no Christian has created himself. We may think that after years, months or hours of crushing Holy Spirit conviction, we chose to give up; we chose to repent and to trust Christ. While that is true in a certain sense, in reality, after convicting us, the Lord regenerated us and gave us repentance and faith to trust Him. If we are God’s little children, it is because of the Lord and His grace. “Ye are OF God, little children.” We are from God, having overcome the false doctrines in which we were raised. I was delivered from the false doctrines of my Protestant past. It wasn’t because I thought through all the logic and determined to make an intellectual change. No, it was the Lord who overcame the false doctrine which had been planted in my heart and mind. In the tense of the Greek language, John says, “we HAVE overcome, and we CONTINUE to overcome.” It is by God’s grace and power that we are still being victorious.
On the other hand, there are thousands of religions and false doctrines which are of the world: from the world. If they are of the world, that means their source is actually demonic – Satanic. Satanic? Shouldn’t that make us fearful?
That is where John was going in this scripture. Little children, there is no reason to be afraid of these false prophets and their evil spirit. Beware, yes. Yes, be ready to try the spirits whether they are of God or not, absolutely. But, “ye are of God, little children, and have OVERCOME them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.”
We don’t have to be defeated by any of the foes in this world: sin, false doctrine, addition, depression, grief. We have overcome many things already – through the power of the Lord. And despite whatever Satan and the world throw at us tomorrow, there is victory still available in Christ. Praise the Lord, Christian! Praise ye the Lord!