How is it that some remain faithful and others do not? The apostle John by inspiration of the Holy Spirit writes: “if that which you have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, you also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father.”1 John 2:24 Instead of holding the ideas of modern day practices, we who are children of God hold permanently to the doctrines which we’ve learned from the beginning. By obeying, we remain in a living relationship with God. Abiding permanently with the Son allows us to have fellowship with the Father. Because something is new does not make it better!! Seducers newly arisen with ideas of how to win the world by other means than the gospel of Jesus Christ are usually egregious opposers of sacred truth. The great and pernicious lies that the father of lies, are of liars, spreads in the world, contradicted from the first century that Jesus of Nazareth was not the Son of God attested by heaven and earth and hell who was set by the Father to judge the world when He returns. They have Him returning to set up His kingdom, to begin the reign, which finally pacifies the Jews who have been longing for Messiah to come for 4000 years. God promises eternal life to all who remain in the Son. If we do not hold fast to the form of sound doctrine and words, He who claimed to be the resurrection and the life (John 11:25), and given all His children the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and precedents that abides in us, which makes it possible for us to escape dependence on human teachers. The Spirit-led Christians can detect truth and error without aid from any new breed of teacher or any new doctrine. The cry must be: “Stand you in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, that we may walk therein, and find rest for our souls.” Jeremiah 6:16 The priest and the prophet should be our watchmen and monitor but they have dealt falsely, they have not been true to their trust, not told the people their faults and the danger they were in; they should have been physicians, but they murdered their patients by letting them have their will, by giving everything they had in mind and desire without restraint, and flattering them into an opinion that they were in no danger! They boldly reckoned as false friends and flattered them as the most dangerous of enemies so the sinful path went undetected while before God they stood condemned.
How new can something be and come from an old path? How broad-minded can the mind be that has to travel on a narrow path? How often is it recorded that the Lord has changed His mind since closing inspiration around the year AD 80? When Jerusalem of old would not bear to be told of their faults, nor of the danger they were in, God gave them prophets, warning of the judgment that was coming. But the Lord cried: “to whom shall I speak and give warning? Behold, the word of the Lord is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it.” Jeremiah 6:11 The Jews had hardened their hearts, he had antipathy to the preaching of the word of God, to them it had become a reproach, and aggravation, a pestilence and the Jew felt himself wronged and affronted by both, and resented the prophets plain dealing with them as they would be the most causeless slander and disrespect. This “kicking against the pricks” (Acts 9:5), as the lawyers against the word of Christ (Luke 11:45), and thus saying, “Thou reproaches us also,” these reproofs that were counted reproaches, and hated as such, will certainly be turned into the heaviest woes. When it is here said, “they have no delight in the word,” more is implied that is expressed. Could they expect that the word of God a comfort to them?
This anointing, implies the presence of the Holy Spirit, which makes it possible for us to escape dependence on human teachers. Of course John did not want to abolish teachers, he was functioning as a teacher himself when he wrote his book! As we abide in Christ, the Holy Spirit teaches the things the Christian needs to know, and His instruction is always true, not a lie. This our protection safeguards us not only against false teaching but ourselves! What a privilege to be “led,” not escorted, by Divinity!! We are not of those who sin and cannot blush for the evil that we have done, for He works within us with power that makes us be as “the mind of Christ.” We resolve to face our iniquity instead of our God, not maintaining a guilty distance from Him who has proved His love for us!!
