I invite you to turn with me tonight to Psalm 115. As we read this psalm in connection with the text, 1 John 5, verse 21. Psalm 115, hear now the Word of God. Not to us, O Lord, not to us, But to your name be the glory because of your love and faithfulness. Why do the nations say, where is their God? Our God is in heaven. He does whatever pleases Him. But their idols are silver and gold made by the hands of men. They have mouths but cannot speak, eyes but they cannot see. They have ears but cannot hear, noses but they cannot smell. They have hands but cannot feel, feet. But they cannot walk, nor can they utter a sound with their throats. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them. O house of Israel, trust in the Lord. He is their help and shield. O house of Aaron, trust in the Lord. He is their help and shield. You who fear Him, trust the Lord. He is their help and shield. The Lord remembers us and will bless us. He will bless the house of Israel. He will bless the house of Aaron. He will bless those who fear the Lord, small and great alike. May the Lord make you increase, both you and your children. May you be blessed by the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. The highest heavens belong to the Lord, but the earth He has given to man. It is not the dead who praise the Lord, those who go down to silence. It is we who extol the Lord, both now and forevermore. Praise the Lord. If you return to 1 John chapter 5. 1 John chapter 5 as we have now made it to the end of our consideration of 1 John. Verse 21 is our text. Let's read together verse 20 and 21. We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true and we are in Him who is true, even in His Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Dear children, keep yourselves from idols. Dear children, keep yourselves from idols. Now, beloved of the Lord, some believe that these words are the very last words of Scripture. That John's letter, this particular letter, was the last part of the New Testament to be written, and therefore the last words of God's Word. Now, given the fact that the whole of Scripture deals with God's history of revelation and redemption, as well, points to the truth of Jesus Christ and His salvation, then this final command in verse 21 is an interesting end. Would be an interesting end. And really, it really does make sense if you think about it. However, it cannot be proven that these are the very last words of Holy Scripture. Yet, the proof is very strong that these are the last words written by the Apostle John of all of his writings. His three letters, his Gospel. The book of Revelation. And again, this may seem like a strange way to end a letter. It's a command. In fact, it's a warning command. Now, we might end our letters something like, well, I hope this finds you well, or take care of yourself, or I look forward to seeing you soon, or maybe, P.S., I love you. In fact, many of the New Testament epistles end with a benediction. Something to the effect, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Paul ends many of his letters with a benediction. And right before that, in his closing, he also makes a request for his readers to greet someone that he knows there for him. And then he puts on the benediction. But in this letter, John ends with this peculiar command. Peculiar, especially since he never mentioned anything about idols before. Or maybe it really isn't all that peculiar. Because it does fit in with his desire that God's people live a life of faith's victory that overcomes the world. And he truly wants them to enjoy that complete joy, which he said was his goal in chapter 1, verse 4. As well as we also noticed last week in verses 18 through 20, John likes to use contrast. In fact, we find that here as verse 21 is really contrasted with what he had just said. God's Son, Jesus Christ, is the true God and eternal life. And in contrast to that are idols. John is very clear that the danger for God's people, the danger that God's people face in this world, in this life, that that danger is very, very real. And beloved, we are not to fool ourselves just because of our profession of faith, just because of our diligence in worship. We are not to fool ourselves into thinking that we know it all already. That we don't need to hear it again. Remember, Christians are sheep. Sheep are loyal to be sure. But sheep are also easily distracted. And God's people, including you and I, need to be constantly reminded of the danger. The Antichrists. False teaching, false doctrines, and yes, idols. Not only are we to know the true God as John has preached throughout this letter, but we must hold on tight to that knowledge and hold on tight to the comfort that in truth God's people cannot be deceived. Yet, we need to be reminded of this over and over and over again. If you don't know the truth, then you cannot discern what is false. And God's people who have been given that knowledge of the truth by God's grace through faith are called to walk in fellowship with God. They're called to abide in Him and to demonstrate the characteristics of the Christian life as we have said before that John has taught over and over again. And one of the keys to remaining in God's truth is right here. Keep yourselves from idols. Satan, with his spiritual warfare, continues to threaten and try to come between God's people and the truth of God. And, beloved, this is true for the most godly of saints in this life. And that's why all of God's people, young or old, infants in the faith or mature in the faith, need John's unexpected call to faithfulness, as we have it here. Again, it's unexpected because when you first read this verse, it doesn't seem to fit. with everything that John has said before, everything that we have studied so far. And I'm stating it in the positive, obviously, as negatively, this is a warning against unfaithfulness. In other words, God's people are to guard what we have been given. And in this brief final sentence, notice first of all then the true object of faith. Now that's not hard, is it? Very simply, the true object of faith is the triune God. If you recall, John has included the work of the three persons of the Blessed Trinity in this letter. First of all, here in this text, he refers to his readers once again as dear children. That's his term of endearment for those whom he has intimate fellowship with. John knows that together they share that tie that binds them together in Christian love, true faith in the triune God. They are children of God who have been born of God, the Father, For the sake of Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, who is the only atoning sacrifice for their sins and who speaks to the Father in their defense. And John has reminded them that all of this is true for them. It's true in their lives because they have the anointing of the Holy Spirit who teaches them the truth of all things. These dear children belong to the one and only true God for the sake of the Son of God Himself, Jesus Christ. And their faith depends completely on Him. They've been taught the truth of Jesus Christ and they are called to believe that truth. He is God come in the flesh. He is the Messiah. He is the one who alone has accomplished salvation and makes that salvation not only a possibility that we can reach out and grab, but He makes it a reality for these dear children. He is the true God and eternal life, as verse 20 says. To not know and not believe the truth of Jesus Christ is to not be a child of God. It is to not belong to Him. It is to not have the joy and confidence of eternal life. You see, it all rests on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's been John's message throughout this letter. John, we know, walked and talked with Jesus. He listened to Him preach. He was a witness to His amazing miracles. He saw Him crucified, dead, and buried, and rise again, and ascend into heaven. No one could ever, or would ever convince John, they would never be able to convince John, that this Jesus was not who he claimed to be. And that was John's desire for all of God's children. That no one would ever be able to convince them of something different. Stand firm, he says. Keep yourselves from idols. In this unexpected call to faithfulness then, John warns in the second place of the destructive enemy of faith. Now notice, John doesn't warn us to keep from committing sinful deeds or sinful actions. He doesn't warn us not to commit adultery or not to steal or not to cheat or not to use bad language or not to hate or not to do any number of things. Of course, we know that he covered all of that earlier, didn't he, as he spoke earlier about walking in the light and obeying God's commands and walking as Jesus walked. But the greatest enemy to the Christian spiritual life is idol worship. We might say, no, Satan is the greatest enemy. And indeed he is. But probably the greatest, most destructive tool of temptation that the devil uses is to attack the believer's spiritual life through idolatry. He attacks the very foundation of it all. Whom do you believe? In whom do you place your confidence? And of course, we know then that idolatry leads to ungodly deeds and actions. So he didn't have to specifically say, do not commit this or that. What is idolatry? To say it very simply, idolatry is the worship of idols. Idolatry is when anything in our lives occupies the place that only God is to occupy. Commandments 1 and 2 of the Ten Commandments deal with idolatry. Number one, you shall have no other gods before me. Not that there are any other gods. There are none. There are no other true gods. Only false gods. But we are not to put anything else in the place of or even alongside of the true God. And number two says, You shall not make for yourself an island in the form of anything in heaven above, on earth beneath, and the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them. Adding then to the teaching of the first commandment that we are not to worship God in the form of anything, of any creature that He has made. And beloved, our trust is to be in God alone, not in idolatrous things. God is disgraced by idolatry. He is a jealous God who is jealous for His own glory. And to be jealous in the sense that God is jealous means to have an earnest desire for what is yours and to guard it jealously. For example, a husband is to be jealous for his wife in that he is not willing to share her with other men. God says in Isaiah 42, verse 8, I am the Lord, that is My name. I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols. God calls His dear children out of the world, to be separate from the world. That world as described in Psalm 115, the nations of the world, their gods are nothing but idols. Only He is to sit on the throne of our heart and to have dominion over us. But idols seek to dethrone God and they compete with God for the loyalty of our hearts. We might ask, well, what are some idols? Well, we're familiar with the idol worship of the Old Testament. The nations worshipped and served idols in the form of statues, we know, handcrafted, whether of wood or some sort of metal. Even Israel fell into Baal worship. And there were those gods, supposed gods, that were considered to be the gods of the valleys and the gods of the mountains, the gods of the sun, the moon god, the rain god, the fertility god, you name it. and there was a God for it. We know, of course, that Paul brought the gospel of Jesus Christ and the truth of God to the people of Athens who had altars to every conceivable God, even to the unknown God. And John, it is believed, wrote this letter from the city of Ephesus which was drowning in the worship of the Greek goddess Diana. And many craftsmen in Ephesus made their living as well. Much revenue was made through Diana trinkets and other worship souvenirs that were sold and purchased. And we know today that idols can either be something that you can see, feel, or touch, or something that you can't. The late Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote of idols, anything that holds my life and my devotion, anything that is central in my life, anything that seems to be vital, anything that is essential to me, an idol is anything by which I live and on which I depend. Anything that moves and rouses and attracts and stimulates me is an idol. An idol is anything that I worship, anything to which I give much of my time and attention, my energy and my money, anything that holds a controlling position in my life is an idol. It about covers it, doesn't it? It's pretty plain. From my car, to my bank account, to my physical appearance, to my job, to my popularity, to my goals, to my ambitions, to my grades. To sports, to my hobbies, to myself, to my whatever. You fill in the blank. And this again is true whether we are young or old, rich or poor. Paul says in Philippians 3 that for some their belly, their stomach is their God. In Ephesians and Colossians he says that for some covetousness is their God. You see, not only can money be a God, but a lack of money can be a God. always worrying about not having enough, being obsessed with coveting. Anything that would keep us, beloved, from the closest fellowship with and usefulness to our Lord is an idol. Of course we know what idolatry is. We can define it. We can even recognize it, right, in the lives of others. But can we recognize it in our own lives as well? One minister writes that often we are even guilty of asking God to participate with us in our idolatry against God Himself. Listen to what he says. Our syncretism, that is the blending of worship, is so subtle that we use Christ to keep our idols. We set our priorities for our personal goals, our image, our families, and our future plans. Then we not only ask Christ to bless them, but help us achieve them. We keep Christ in the idol polishing and maintenance business. Now, beloved, it's not that some of these things are wrong in and of themselves. Not at all. But they can quickly take on a place in our lives that they were never meant to have. There is debate about what kind of idol worship John is talking about here. On the one hand, I believe John is simply saying that any kind of idol worship is off limits for God's children. Keep yourselves from idols. He says it very generally. But on the other hand, I believe that John may be warning us of a kind that we would not think of so quickly, especially as we consider the context, what he has written. Remember, his focus has always been on the truth of Jesus Christ. He warned against the Antichrist, those who reject Christ, those who have a wrong view of Christ. For example, when they say that Jesus is not the Christ, that He is not God coming in the flesh. You see, to fall away from the truth of God is idolatry. To deny the truth of Jesus Christ is idolatry. It puts man in the place of God because man says he knows better than God who God is. Having a false conception of God, turning Him into something that He is not is idolatry. To say that I have to do something to earn my salvation because Jesus' blood and righteousness are not enough is idolatry. To say that God is love in such a way that certainly He would never allow innocent people to suffer in this life or that He would certainly never send anyone to be punished in hell is to have a wrong view of God. To throw away His justice, His holiness. That is idolatry. Many have stripped God of His sovereignty by saying, for example, with regard to September 11 in the World Trade Center. You all heard it, I'm sure. Where was God when that happened? Where was He? And others have tried to answer that by saying something like, well, for years we have been removing God from our classrooms and from our courtrooms and from our lives in so many different ways. And well, He just decided to give us what we wanted. And He turned His back and walked away. And as well-meaning as that may sound, beloved, it's still idolatry. To treat God as if He has nothing to do with many of the world's events, with natural disasters, and that He can't do anything about any of the bad things that happen in life. But also to say that God is concerned only about my Sunday and not my Monday through Saturday is idolatry. Any idea of God that is different than God's revelation of Himself through His Son, Jesus Christ, or His revelation of Himself in His Holy Word is idolatry. Even worship that is according to our own tastes and our own desires that is not consistent with what the Bible teaches is idolatry. Anything that is not in harmony with who and what the Lord Jesus Christ is, is idolatry. Not simply a big old statue standing in the corner. The examples are endless, congregation. And Satan wants nothing more than to drive a wedge between us and the truth of God through our Lord Jesus Christ as taught in His Word. Whatever it takes to steal even a moment of our loyalty, a split second of our loyalty away from God, Satan will use. And that's why this unexpected call to faithfulness also includes the conscious fight of faith. Dear children, keep yourselves from idols. You see, John points out the active responsibility of God's people here. We are called to be actively obedient. Maybe you have heard the phrase, and possibly even used the phrase at times, let go and let God. As if we just throw up our hands about our problems and just let God deal with them, and we don't give Him any more consideration. Indeed, the Bible says we are to cast our burdens upon the Lord because He cares for us. But to let go and let God, as so many people use that phrase, that's not biblical. It's not correct. God's people are equipped by the power of the Holy Spirit to work when it comes to exercising faith, even when dealing with the tough situations of life. Equipped by the Holy Spirit to be responsible before God when it comes to obedience. The Bible calls believers to watch and pray, to actively be on the lookout for the schemes of the devil. We are to guard that which we have been given, namely the truth of Jesus Christ and all that the Scriptures teach. Paul said to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6, verse 20, Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge. And he says to the Philippian believers, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Yet to both Timothy and to the church in Philippi, as Paul makes it clear that the believer is responsible before God to work at the Christian life, at the same time he makes it clear that God is sovereign over all. And he is the one who enables the believer to do what God calls him to do. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Why? How? For it is God, Paul says, which works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose. And then in 2 Timothy 1.14, he says, Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you. Guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in you. In the strength of the Holy Spirit, we are to keep or guard ourselves from the dangers of the devil who wants to strip us of the truth of Jesus Christ and of the comfort of our salvation and of the knowledge, that blessed knowledge of our eternal life. You see, guarding, keeping ourselves from idols is consistent with what John has said. Walking in the light of God's truth. Having fellowship with Him. Walking as Jesus walked. Loving our brothers and sisters in Christ. Beloved, how do we keep ourselves in this way? Well, it begins by maintaining a right relationship with Jesus Christ. Knowing that He is the only Savior and that He's my Savior. That I belong to Him, a body and soul, in life and in death. And therefore, I do not have to take Satan on one-on-one. Because Christ has already rescued me from the clutches of Satan. I am victorious over Satan in Christ Jesus. And beloved, we are called to remember that we are God's people, purchased by the precious blood of Jesus, and we are no longer of this world. But we are of God, born of Him to a living hope. But we must also remember the nature of idols. Psalm 115 does a good job, I believe, reminding us of that. They're good for nothing. They're a nuisance. They very clearly seek to strip us away from God. And although Psalm 115 seems to speak of the idols that we read about in the Old Testament, like Dagon, the idol in the time of Samson, idols made of silver, gold, metal, wood, whatever the case, that looked like some sort of a creature, crafted with man's hands, with the idea of man. Yet I believe in that psalm. The psalmist also reminds us that all kinds of idols and all idolatry are good for nothing, dangerous. completely meaningless. They can do absolutely no good for anyone. They only serve man's destruction by taking man away from God and by taking the place of God. And we must remember, congregation, that idols are not worthy of our allegiance. They have done nothing and can do nothing for us to earn our trust. Only God is worthy of our allegiance because of everything that John has taught us in this letter, what we know from Scripture. And therefore, we are then to also remember the truth about God. We are to remember God's amazing grace in saving that saved wretches like each and every one of us. We deserve nothing but eternal torment, but God of His own goodness and love satisfied His own wrath, His own anger against our sin. And He freely gives to us eternal life through His Son, Jesus Christ. And He has given to us, beloved, the privilege to walk with Him, to talk with Him, to be His children, and to spend eternity in His holy presence. Do we need any other reason to keep ourselves from idols? The truth of God, you see. is to be before us constantly. Again, even the most godly of saints. We need to hear it over and over again throughout our lives. That's why we all need the constant study and preaching and meditation of God's Word. We never all grow that need. Beloved, may we in this place have been blessed and continue to be blessed by the teaching of the Word of God here in 1 John. Indeed, in all of Scripture. but here in 1 John. And may God continue to strengthen our faith and increase our assurance of salvation because of what we have learned and what we will learn, the Lord willing, throughout our lives. May it be His purpose to bring some here to true faith for the very first time through what we have considered together over the past year. And again, what we will consider. Because apart from Him, one is not His child, but belongs to the devil. And will suffer the devil's eternal punishment. But those who belong to God are His children. His children for the sake of Jesus Christ. They believe in the name of the Son of God and they know that they have eternal life. And therefore, beloved, walk in fellowship with the true God who alone gives you life. Trust only and always in the Lord Jesus Christ by whose blood you are forgiven. and by whose righteousness you stand in the presence of God's favor. And as you go forward from this day on, dear children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen. Shall we pray? Father, we thank You again for Your Word, for Your instruction, for Your warning. For we must confess that we know, we experience in our lives so many things that seek to draw our attention and our allegiance and our trust away from You. But remind us, Father, daily, by the power of Your Holy Spirit, remind us what it is You have given to Your people through Jesus Christ our Lord. A gift that cannot be matched. A gift so wonderful, so free. A gift that will not perish or spoil or fade. A gift that is eternal. And may that be our glory, O Lord. The fellowship and the relationship we enjoy with You through Jesus Christ, our Lord. And Father, we pray that You would keep our eyes away from falling astray, from looking after others. And may we constantly give to You all the praise and the honor and the glory because you alone deserve it. In the name of Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.