Solomon pegged it.  “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.”  Every generation claims to have found something new about the human condition.  We give it a new name, new jargon. But all that’s new is the label. 

In our contemporary, hyper-divisive public discourse the pundits have coined the phrase “fake news” to describe reporting that lacks editorial scrutiny but brims with bias and anger.   My generation called it spin, but it is hardly new.  “Fake news” is as old as The Fall.  Satan, the Father of Lies, was its first reporter.

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” -Genesis 3:1-5

Fake news is never harmless.  By labeling lying as  ‘fake news’ or ‘spin’ we lose a sense of caution, thinking we can isolate or tame it.  Or that it is not a threat.  But our fearful, deceitful hearts drink in lies like the earth takes in rain. And those lies become a deadly toxin that deceives us and tempts us to echo the voice of our Enemy, saying, “did God actually say?”  Or Pilate’s plaintive words, “what is truth?”

All untruth is dangerous, but none is more deadly than lies about God’s holy nature, our sinful condition, and how sinful men are reconciled to a holy God.  In their New Testament letters, the Apostles were constantly refuting lies and silencing liars regarding these precious truths which are at the heart of our faith. 

Liars were always troubling the church, stealing the hope of the faithful, pointing them away from Christ.  The Galatians were troubled by legalism.  The Corinthians by a denial of the Resurrection.  The Thessalonians were told they had missed the return of Christ.  The Hebrew Christians worried that they should return to the once for all finished Old Covenant sacrifices.  The Colossians were deceived by the lure of mysticism.  And the churches of Revelation by the threat of persecution. 

In Ephesus, John’s beloved “little children” were being told that fellowship with God was possible without confession, repentance, and the shed blood of Christ.  And that Jesus was not really who and what the Apostles had said he was.   They had a “new word” from the Lord and led many away from the communion of the saints who had “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”  They offered a Christless Christianity.  A Christianity that made no spiritual and moral demands on them.  They could know God and continue to live as they always had.

Nothing is more deadly than a Christless Christianity.  Yet this lie persists to this very day.  The same lies and liars are alive and well today, declaring the fake news that there are multiple ways to God.  And that we are not really all that bad.  That God does not judge us for our sin.  In fact, our sin is just dysfunction, poor decision making, or the understandable outcome of our difficult experience.  Or perhaps it is just who we are.   So, there is no need for all that talk about the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus, no need for us to trouble ourselves.  After all, “did God really say?  Surely we will not die!”

John’s response is immediate and decisive.  In a letter with no niceties, no greeting, no personal notes, the Apostle gets right to the point to expose the deadly fake news of the ‘anti-Christs’ who are troubling the faith of his beloved congregations.    And in doing so he speaks to us in our day to expose the same fake news.

Join us as we examine 1 John 1:5-10 and refute the most insidious mantras of Christless Christianity while rejoicing in the grace of God given only through the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ.  We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube.