You cannot afford to be nice. [I Jn 2]

I do not think any part of this passage is preached much today. Unusually, I am writing this backwards. And it is because of the beginning of the passage. John writes to children, fathers and young men.

And, to the horror of the fallen modern reader, there is an expectation that the young will overcome their desires and be pure, that the older men will teach correctly, and that children will receive salvation. You cannot disavow the statements here, which praise being a man in the church. That praise being strong, That praise those who attend to the word of God, and not whatever today’s fifteen minutes of hate is about.

And then we are told, to the horror of the advertisers and marketers who seem to be filling my inbox and social media, that we are not to love the things of this world. Be they our lusts, our covetousness (of the next new thing, or gear acquisition syndrome, or our wish to be seen as good people, to be nice.

You cannot afford to be nice and be true to the gospel.

I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake. I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one.

I write to you, children, because you know the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

(1 John 2:12-17 ESV)

We love the world too much and we have fallen into the currency of the world, trying to appease the politically correct, and trying to be nice. For we think of ourselves as good people. But when we do this, we feed our power (which we call self-esteem) and the desire to be seen as good.

And this does not work. A commentator, Brown, said this a couple of days ago, and there is more truth in it than error: this fellow Presbyterian would happily co-sign it.

I currently attend a Presbyterian church and am amazed at the lack of theological knowledge among the supposed elders and leaders. In my view these are dangerous people that can lead many astray. The Presby church has great doctrinal statements of faith yet many seem to have no knowledge of these and will look at every new idea and “ism” that comes along. The preaching is often flimsy and there was even a statement recently that the subject was hard and the preacher struggled with it – the lack of effort was obvious. If that was the case why not ask someone who has more experience – they are out there, or look up Spurgeon and his ilk. There seems increasingly to be no real understanding of the power of God and the fact of the victory of the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ. Where is the Gospel message?

There seems to be a consistency in revivals and that is the realisation of that great question when confronted by sin – “What must I do to be saved?”

A good friend, a retired Anglican minister, blames the charismatic movement for the decline from the 1950’s and 60’s where some real growth was appearing. The “experience” type service came along and many flocked to it. It was a shadow of reality and my friend believes it was Satan posing as light that was behind it. The music, the drumming – always in the background, until we give in a pretend to be saved while looking forward to another fix next week. No room for quiet contemplation of our condition and the security of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

I would never call myself an elder: I lack the qualifications. I’m lay. But… that does not mean one should have one’s brain switched off. That does not mean that one does not spend time in the word, at times parsing the text carefully. That does not mean we do not think carefully, at times correcting the preacher (in private) or, if that is not acceptable, asking the difficult questions in public.

For the gospel may be simple but the application of it is hard. Without the spirit of God, it is impossible.

[And many Pentecostals and Charismatics would agree with the comments about the experience service. There are many deceivers and snakes, and they are not all among the Tent Revivalists and Holy Rollers.]

So we should not measure our worth ny what people say about us: they will praise you and they will condemn you, at times in equal measure. Nor should we measure these things by the number of toys we have, or the clubs we are accepted into, or our approval by those who choose what is socially or politically correct.

We need to consider if we have overcome this world, and if we influence those around us for good: by what the consequence of our presence results in others.

And this will mean we have to hate evil. And the world is evil, and has never approved of that.

Do not appease the world. Do not seek its approval. Do not be part of the elite that control the systematic oppression of the righteous, and do not be like them.