1 John 3:11-24, Part 1

Gideon Levytam: Shalom, Holy Scriptures and Israel is a ministry designed to share with the Jewish people the good news of the Lord Jesus, Yeshua the Messiah, and to instruct Christians on the Jewish roots of their faith.
Gideon Levytam: And now, teaching God's word from a Hebrew Messianic perspective, here is Gideon Levytam.
Gideon Levytam: Shalom everyone. Please open your Bibles. We are studying from the book of First John from the letter that Yochanan, this Apostle, the Hebrew apostle, wrote to the mishpachah, to the family of God. And we are today in the second half of First John, Yochanan, the Igeret of Yochanan.
Gideon Levytam: Please turn to First John chapter 3, and we are reading from verse 11 to the end of the chapter. First John, chapter 3, verse 11 to 24. For this is the message that you heard from the beginning that we should love one another.
Gideon Levytam: Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, that slew his brother, and wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous. Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you, we know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren.
Gideon Levytam: He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
Gideon Levytam: But whosoever hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth.
Gideon Levytam: And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confident towards God.
Gideon Levytam: And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. And this is his commandment, that we should believe on the name of his son, Yeshua the Messiah, and love one another as he gave us commandment.
Gideon Levytam: And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us by the Spirit which he hath given us. I don't know about you, but over the study of the book of First John, of this letter that Yochanan wrote to the mishpachah, to the family of God, there are many, many lessons that I personally can see in my life.
Gideon Levytam: And I'm sure when you study this as well, you feel that there are many lessons that we can learn from this letter that John, Yochanan, had written. I always give some introduction in study of any message and look back a little bit to the previous verses and have some background so we can move on in our study.
Gideon Levytam: In chapter 1 and chapter 2 of this epistle, the emphasis was on the fact that we ought to have fellowship and communion with Yeshua the Messiah in order for us to be able to live the life of the believer here in this world. Now in chapter 3, 4, and 5, the emphasis that Yochanan places is the importance to understand that we belong to the family of God.
Gideon Levytam: We are now part of a mishpachah, a family, a redeemed people. We have been born from above, born again, as Yeshua said to Nakdimon some 2000 years ago, he says, you must be born again, except a man be born from above, he cannot enter or cannot see the kingdom of God.
Gideon Levytam: And every believer in Yeshua the Messiah, we have been born of the Holy Spirit of God into this body of Messiah. And we have these two natures now, not only that we have the Adamic nature, we also have the divine nature, and there is a struggle in the life of the believer.
Gideon Levytam: But because we belong to a family, to a mishpachah, it is so beautiful to see when the family conduct themselves in a way that is pleasing to the Lord. And in a sense to enjoy love and care for each other. In the previous message that we have had, First John chapter 3, verses 1 to 10.
Gideon Levytam: The beginning, if you remember, that John says, "Behold what manner of love the Father had bestowed upon us, that we, us sinners, Jewish sinners, Gentile sinners, we should be called sons and daughters of the Father, the sons and daughters of God." He's saying, you really need to think about this in your own mind, to imagine that God would call us, us who have been sinful and coming from the Adamic descendants of Adam, now God is calling us the sons and the daughters of the Father.
Gideon Levytam: There is never such a love as this, John, Yochanan is saying, when he wrote to these brothers and sisters. And that's why, if you remember in our previous message together, we have this encouragement, reasons to live a godly life and to live a righteous life because the love of the Father for us, verses 1-3, the price that the Messiah paid for us, verses 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in every believer in Yeshua the Messiah, verses 9 and 10.
Gideon Levytam: That's what we had in our previous ministry together. Well, now as he moves along in writing this letter to the mishpachah, to the family, he continued and now he's really emphasizing the importance of love among the people of God. In Hebrew we call the word love, the word ahava, or le'ahov.
Gideon Levytam: It is a beautiful word, something that is not only to say, to speak, to say it in words, but it is practice, something that one will practice in his or her life as believers in the body of Christ, in the body of Messiah. There are three Greek words that are usually been used for the word love.
Gideon Levytam: Basically, two of those words we find in scripture. One of them is the Greek word phileo, which is more or less like a family love, or a friendship love, and the second one, which is a divine love and most of us know that word, the word agape, or agapeo, in the Greek, is a word that really speaks about love that is unconditional.
Gideon Levytam: Love that does not depend upon the performance of another, it is an unconditional love. And so when we read in John chapter 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son," we know very well it is an unconditional love that God set upon every human being that is born into this world, unconditional.
Gideon Levytam: And therefore he sent the Messiah, Yeshua, to die, to pay the price on the tree, that whosoever among the human race in this world that only will trust in him and accept Yeshua the Messiah, he or she will have eternal life and everlasting life, because accepting the work that Yeshua the Messiah have done for us.
Gideon Levytam: But now he is leading on to a love that ought to be practiced among the mishpachah, the family of God. And often time, brothers and sisters, we know that in the body of Messiah, many times why we are so divided and the sheep are scattered is because love in practice is not being evident among the people of God.
Gideon Levytam: I wouldn't say not at all, but in many ways, in many times in the history of the church, it was not evident. And when it is evident, it is beautiful to see that those who belong to Yeshua, those who are disciples of Yeshua, by practicing love toward another, they really are showing that they are truly disciples of Yeshua the Messiah.
Gideon Levytam: So, let's look on together to these verses, verses 11 to verse 24 in this passage that is before us. Bible teachers have suggested that there are four levels in which people live here in this world. And you and I have to ask ourselves, in which level do I fit in?
Gideon Levytam: There is the lowest level of life in which people live today, we can see it in the first of few verses. And at the end, there is what you might say a higher level of living that a believer, a Christian, a Messianic follower ought to live in. We will see this at the end of this chapter.
Gideon Levytam: Look at the beginning in verses 11 and verse 12. We have the lowest way of living, which is a life that is been influenced by Satan himself. Look, he began by saying here in verse 11, he says, and this is the message that you have heard from the beginning that we should love one another.
Gideon Levytam: But then he adds in verse 12, Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And why did he slew his brother? Wherefore did he slew him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother were righteous. Now Yochanan begin by saying in verse 11 that there is a message that was given by Yeshua the Messiah to all those who are belong to him.
Gideon Levytam: And that message, we're reading in verse 11, this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Now, every time you hear that word from the beginning in the epistle of John, in the letter that Yochanan wrote, that epistle make a reference always to the incarnation of the Messiah.
Gideon Levytam: When God became a man. When God, the son, entered humanity in the city of Bethlehem, when he was born to the virgin Miriam, and he began, he entered into this world, and he became a man. When we read in First John, that expression, you heard from the beginning, that is the beginning of the incarnation of the Messiah, when God took union humanity, and in the person of the son, he became a man through the virgin Miriam in the city of Bethlehem.
Gideon Levytam: And you remember when he became a man and he lived here among his own people Israel, our own nation Israel for 33 years, just before he went to the cross, to the altar, to pay for the sin of this world, he said to these Jewish disciples in the upper room in John chapter 13, verse 34 and 35.
Gideon Levytam: He says those words to them. And I'm reading those words. And a new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another as I have loved you. That you also love one another, and by this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one towards another.
Gideon Levytam: You see in the upper room, Yeshua was anticipating to go to the tree. He was going to pay for the price of the sin of this world. He was going to become the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of this world. And just before he went to this cross, to the Roman cross, to the altar.
Gideon Levytam: He was talking to his 12 disciples there in that upper room and he's saying to them, "Listen, by this shall every one will know that you really belong to me, if you have love one towards another." So this is the message that they have heard from the beginning. That beginning is the incarnation, the time that he entered into this world.
Gideon Levytam: And he now is speaking in view of the building of the body of Christ, the church, and he's saying, "Listen, all men will know that you belong to me, by the way that you conduct yourself in loving one another." And that's why he continued here now, and John is saying now in verse 12, "Listen, since you have heard this from the beginning that you are to love one another, let me show how you ought not to conduct yourself towards your own brethren, your own Achim, your brothers and sisters in Yeshua the Messiah." Don't be like.
Gideon Levytam: And he takes us all the way back to the book of Bereshith, the book of Genesis. And he's saying to them in verse 12, this is John, Yochanan is writing, and he says, "Don't you have that kind of love towards one another as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and he slew his own brother." And why did he slay his brother?
Gideon Levytam: Why did he murdered and killed his own brother? Because his own works were evil and his brother's works were righteous. Now you know very well, brothers and sisters, that the first person that was born into this world through a physical relationship of a husband and wife, namely Adam and Eve, Adam and Chava, was Cain.
Gideon Levytam: He was the first person that was born into this world, of course, after him, Hevel or Abel, you will say in English, we call it Hevel in Hebrew, then his brother were born. They were the two children, the first children upon the face of this earth. Here is Adam and Eve, and their own son Cain, and his own brother Abel.
Gideon Levytam: You would think there would be such a harmony among this little family. They began this new world, and even though Adam and Eve had been chased out of the garden of Eden, they began this new world as a family, only four souls upon the face of this earth. But you can see how sinful sin is.
Gideon Levytam: Because by the way, Cain, in Hebrew we call him Cain, not Cain, but Cain, Cain was thought by his mother Chava that he actually will be the promised Messiah. In Genesis, chapter 4, where we read this earlier, we read in Genesis chapter 4, and Adam knew his wife, and she conceived and bear Cain, and she said, listen what she said, "I have gotten a man from the Lord." If you knew the Hebrew text, she actually said, "I have gotten a man even Jehovah." Kaniti ish et Yehovah in Hebrew.
Gideon Levytam: In other words, she was saying, "I have gotten this promised Messiah." Because in chapter 3 and verse 15, there was a promise of the coming of the Messiah, the seed of the woman. And so when Chava gave birth to Cain, she was assuming that he will be that promised Messiah.
Gideon Levytam: But of course, beloved brothers and sisters, we know very well that when she conceived and bare this man by the name of Cain, it was not the seed of the woman, but it was of the seed of Adam. And it was because of his disobedience, Adam had plunged the whole human race into sin.
Gideon Levytam: What we find out that the descendants of Adam, including you and I, all have inherited a sinful nature. And therefore this man by the name of Cain was not the Messiah. He was a man that was born a sinner. And what we really learn here from verse 12 that you, brothers and sisters, Achim ve'achayot, you ought to love one another because you heard it from the beginning, from the very lips of Yeshua the Messiah and those that preached the word like the apostles, he said, "You ought not to love one another in a way that Cain conducted himself towards his very own brother." How did he do?
Gideon Levytam: He says here in verse 12, "Cain who was of that wicked one." And what happened? That wicked one is a reference to Satan himself. In scripture, we find many times this expression, that wicked one. He is that wicked one, this evil one, the murderer that murdered from the beginning. [Gideon Levytam: And so he's saying, "Don't love one another the way Cain did towards his brother, because what happened, he end up slaying his brother." And why did he slay him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother was righteous. In other words, let me just say that that exists often time in my heart and in yours, is the thought of envy and jealousy.
Gideon Levytam: In Hebrew we call it kina. Kina le'kanot. When someone is envious over one another. This is jealousy and envy. So really what happened? If you remember, both of them were approaching God. Both of them you might say were religious people. The one came to God on the basis of the offering of the sacrifice and the blood was shed.
Gideon Levytam: The other one came to God on his own merit. You see, beloved brothers and sisters, Cain was not an atheist. He believed that there is a God existing. He was a religious man. But he was coming to God on his own terms and not on God's terms. And we read this in Genesis chapter 4, just earlier, that both of them approached God because they were instructed by their parents.
Gideon Levytam: The one came to God on the basis of the instruction that God gave to Adam and Eve, the other one came to God on his own merit. And when God accepted Hevel and rejected the offering of Cain, Cain was mad. Cain was angry. And Cain actually was envious and jealous over the fact that his brother was accepted and he was rejected.
Gideon Levytam: If you look in a dictionary, the word for envy or jealousy is really the same in the Hebrew, simply mean kina. What is a kina? What is jealousy? What is envy? Envy is a feeling of discontentment and covetousness over another's advantage and success.
Gideon Levytam: When we see somebody who is being successful and we are not, and someone else an advantage that we don't have, and we begin to desire that and seek for that by all means, it leads often time to a terrible thing to be done. In a case of Cain, it's led to a murder.
Gideon Levytam: The only thing that he could have done, beloved brothers and and sisters, when God said to him, "Cain, why are you angry?" And Cain's face was fallen. He was angry with God because God had accepted Hevel and rejected him because he didn't bring a blood sacrifice. So he was angry with God.
Gideon Levytam: So he couldn't take his anger upon God because God is greater than him, so he took his anger upon his brother. And he end up killing his brother, murdering his brother. And when God asked him, "Cain, where is your brother?" You know, he lied. And he said, "I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?"
Gideon Levytam: And God had to tell Cain in chapter 4, he said to him, "Why you are angry, Cain? Why is your countenance fallen?" Verse 6 of Genesis chapter 4, "If you do well, shall thou not be accepted? If thou doest not well, sin laying at the door and unto thee shall be his desire and you shall rule over him." And Cain talked with Abel his brother.
Gideon Levytam: And it came to pass when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and he slew him. And the Lord said unto Cain, "Cain, where is your brother?" And he said, "I know not. Am I my brother's keeper?" And he said, "What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood cries out from the ground. And now thou art cursed from this earth which has opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thine hand." And ultimately, God judged Cain.
Gideon Levytam: And you know, beloved brothers and sisters, we read in Genesis chapter 4 and verse 16, Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and the Bible never, ever show that Cain ever returned to the presence of the Lord. He turned his back on God. So now John is writing to the family. And he's saying to the brothers and sisters, to the family, to the children of God, and he's saying, "Listen, brothers and sisters, you are to love one another because you have heard this from the beginning from Yeshua the Messiah, and don't live this kind of lifestyle to end up hating your own brothers and sisters." And that's why he's saying in these verses, "Don't be like Cain." You see, he's writing it to believers.
Gideon Levytam: And it is possible for a believer who is not judging himself or herself to come to the extent that when we allow the flesh to take its course, that hatred, envy and jealousy coming against believers that produce divisions and friction among the people of God. And this is the lowest level of living here in this world.
Gideon Levytam: It's really a murderous type of living, hating everyone on every hand. And that's why Yochanan is saying, "Listen, this kind of lifestyle ought not to be found in you. Don't be like this man by the name of Cain." You know, I want to read another verse in Proverbs chapter 27 and verse 4.
Gideon Levytam: King Solomon said about envy. He says, "Wrath is cruel. Anger is outrageous. But who is able to stand before envy? Who is able to stand before envy?" This is the lowest way of living here in this world, it's really an influence of Satan. In 1 John chapter 3 and verse 12, he's saying that the one that is living like this is influenced by Satan himself.
Gideon Levytam: And I read again this verse 12, "Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one," namely Satan himself. So that's the lowest way in which a person can live here in this world. Hateful, resentful, dissatisfied, constantly fighting and hating others and so on, this is a terrible condition to be in.
Gideon Levytam: Believers in Yeshua the Messiah who are part of the family of God are to never arrive to such a state. Here now let's move on then, in verse 13, 14 and 15. Here's another, you might say, low level of living here in this world, which is a bit higher than the lowest one, but it's still a sad condition to find a person living in such a way.
Gideon Levytam: This is verse 13, 14 and 15. It's not so much one that had been needing physically to kill someone like Cain have done so, but here is another who are doing that, but he does it in his or her heart. They might have not done it physically, but have done it in our hearts.
Gideon Levytam: This is a danger that we are finding ourselves as well. Look at this verse 13, 14 and 15. It says in verse 13, "Do not marvel, brethren, when the world hate you." Don't marvel when the world hate you. Why? Because the world hated Yeshua the Messiah. That word for world is cosmos.
Gideon Levytam: And in this context it has to do with the evil system in this world. He says, "Brothers and sisters, don't be surprised when the world, this evil system here in this world, hate the believers. They have hated the Messiah, they will hate those who follow the Messiah." This is verse 13.
Gideon Levytam: But then he's saying in verse 14, "We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren." I'm reading verse 14, "And we know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death." Now, if I would have write this verse, I would write, "We know that we passed from death unto life because we have done many good works, or we have achieved a lot as believers, or maybe because I'm a good preacher, or I'm a good Bible teacher, or I'm a good Sunday school teacher, or Sabbath school teacher.
Gideon Levytam: I pass from death unto life because I go to church meeting. I pass from death unto life because I have attend a meeting, a congregation. I sing to the Lord. He doesn't say those things. He says, "The evidence that we passed from death unto life is because we love the brethren." See, how do we test, how do we show that we have really passed from death unto life because we now become children of God.
Gideon Levytam: The proof of it according to this text is not what we have achieved, not how many time we go to a church or congregational meeting.
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