In this Internet savvy generation the term “firewall” is not only common vernacular but also an essential component for the proper functioning of your personal computer. To ignore a firewall’s value, is to put yourself at risk of losing all that is dear to you on your hard drive. Literally, hours and hours and mounds and mounds of important information and data can be lost if you fail to maintain an adequate firewall as part of your standard equipment. To keep your head in the sand will not help you if a virus attacks your system. It cares little about your knowledge base, your good intentions, your busy schedule or the value of what is at risk of being lost. Therefore, ignorance and being too busy is no excuse against it and of no help if you are attacked.
A firewall is usually defined as a system that enforces an access control policy between two networks. I wonder dear Christian are you applying your own access control policy between you and the network system of the world today? The actual means by which a firewall accomplishes control varies widely, but in principle, the firewall can be thought of as “gatekeeper” who on one hand exists to block unwelcome traffic while on the other hand allowing traffic deemed acceptable to enter your network. The most important thing to recognize about a firewall is that it implements an access control policy. However, if you don’t have a good idea of what kind of access you want to allow or to deny, a firewall really won’t help you no matter how effective it may be. You see, the Internet, like the spiritual realm, is plagued with those who enjoy the electronic equivalent of the thief who comes only to steal and kill and destroy everything dear to you.
However, when a firewall is used properly, it keeps unwelcome thieves out of your network while still letting you get your work done. In a sense, your personal firewall can act as your corporate ``ambassador’’ to the Internet.
Some two thousand years ago, the Apostle Paul and the Apostle John had the same principle of a protective firewall in mind when it comes to discerning truth and proper spiritual growth. The Gentiles in Apostles’ day, like the unsaved today, were walking in the futility of their minds by having their understanding darkened. The sin infected Gentiles had a virus that excluded them from the life of God because of their ignorance and the hardness of their heart. In their busy after the world attitude, they became slaves to sin. They had become callous and given over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. Need you look beyond your local TV station to see this is true today? But the Apostles proclaimed the Christian’s way of life is to be different. The Apostle Paul told the Christians at Ephesus: “But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus,” (Ephesians 4:20-21)
Your life as a Christian is to be different from those in bondage to the world. Paul is saying you must burying your old, dead selves to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4). It is a dramatic spiritual change that may bring a time of difficult adjustment. Ingrained habits and attitudes may hang on like withered leaves in autumn. But to overcome sin, you must remember that it is no longer your master (Romans 6:1), and you are to refuse to let it reign in your lives (Romans 6:12). Instead, Paul says you are to offer yourselves to God as “alive from the dead” (Romans 6:13). As you take these steps of faith, you will learn to see Jesus more clearly.
But what did Paul mean by the phrase, “…just as truth (or in accordance with the truth that) is in Jesus? I believe Paul is answering the question, “How do I know what is being spoken is true? After all, the Apostle John says there are many antichrists in the world. So, how do you know what is the truth? Paul says to the churches at Ephesus, it starts for the Christian by learning Christ – not learning about Christ but learning Christ – there is a significant difference. This learning Christ starts by burying the old life and hearing Christ speak through His Holy Word and The Holy Spirit. Then, upon hearing Him, you must willingly obeying Him. An example of this type of hearing is given to you in Acts 16:14 where the same Greek word is used for “hearing”: “A woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening; and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul.” The formula hasn’t changed. As the song says, “Trust and obey for there is no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey.”
Jesus made a significant statement in John 7:17: “If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself.” Jesus says this person will know of the teaching whether it is truth or not. So the Christian must make a deliberate intent of giving attention to what is being taught from the Word of God in order to absorb its meaning. But how do you know which interpretation is right about a passage in the word? Well, the answer is found in 1 John 2:26-27 for it reveals to you your firewall against deception:
“26. These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you. 27. As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.”
The word “deceive” carries the idea of “being led astray.” The Bible warns you this will happen to you if you remain ignorant of the Word of God and fail to put God’s protective firewall in service. Listen to Paul’s words in 1 Timothy 4:1: “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and teachings of demons”. Like viruses on today’s Internet, Satan’s chief strategy is to plant the counterfeit wherever Christ plants the true. He wants to mix the tares with the wheat. Therefore, it is important you are able to detect the counterfeit and separate the teachings of Christ from the false teachings of the world. This is in a sense your access control policy between you and the network system of the world today.
The Apostle John underscores three ways you can use God’s firewall for protection. First, REMEMBER THE ANOINTING OF GOD ABIDES IN YOU. Know your position in Christ. Each believer has experienced the anointing or the unction of the Spirit. First John 2:20 says, “But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know.” The Holy Spirit is the one who teaches the believer truth. He serves as your gatekeeper and should be your guide into all truth Christ reveals to your heart. Jesus made this clear in John. 14:17: “that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”
Listen again to 1 John 2:27: “As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.” The “anointing” John describes is especially designed to meet the problem of uncertainty in the face of the many deceitful and deceptive concepts that are in the world around you and infiltrating the church today. It is your protective firewall against spiritual viruses that want to destroy your operating system for Christ. Therefore, “How do you know what is the truth? How do you know which interpretation is right about a passage in the word?” The Apostle John says, you have an anointing, which abides in you for that very purpose. It is a spiritual hearing and eyesight; it enlightens and strengthens your ears and eyes of understanding. The Spirit of God wants to guide you into all truth and raise your antenna when it recognizes error if you will tune in and activate the firewall. This anointing of God contains “no lie,” because “the Spirit is truth” (1 John 5:6).
This does not mean, of course, that Christians can never go astray, because they do. Remember ignorance or being too busy to take action is no defense against the spiritual viruses seeking to bring you down today. You must as Paul says, “learn Christ” by hearing him and being taught in Him with an intent to obey. “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15)
When a Christian does go astray, they do so either because they have been ignorant of the protective firewall the anointing provides, or are resistant to the teaching of the Holy Spirit within. They are not abiding in the Spirit or remaining in fellowship. That is why it is possible to be a child in a family and yet be out of fellowship with one’s father and with other members of the family. But when you firewall is activated, it means that under the guidance of The Holy Spirit, you test the teaching of men as you search the Bible for yourself (Acts 17:11). Paul communicated the same idea in Galatians 1:6-9, where he warns against going after a new gospel, and emphasizes the importance of continuing on in the original gospel that he taught.
With regard to the Word, you are told to “let” the word of God abide in you, i.e., let it possess you, let it take over in your life, dwell in your heart and grip you. This requires a continual coming to the Word. But with regard to the Spirit, John says, He abides, He is there already if you have received Christ. True Christians have an inward confirmation of the divine truth which the Holy Spirit has imprinted on their minds and hearts. The anointing is a seal to the truth and doctrine of Christ, since no one can give that seal but God. The Apostle Paul speaks of your protective firewall this way in 2 Corinthians 1:21-22: “Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.”
A second way to use God’s firewall for protection against deception is to REMEMBER THE ANOINTING TEACHES YOU. The Spirit is the Teacher God has given you. Not only is God’s protective firewall a “gatekeeper” to keep out unwelcome teaching but also the teacher to admit God’s truth to your heart and enlighten you with spiritual understanding. Jesus said in John 14:26, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” Listen again to verse 27: “As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.” At first glance, this passage of Scripture seems to contradict other passages in the Bible. You know there are teachers, provided by the Holy Spirit. There is also a gift of teaching. How then could John say, “you have no need for anyone to teach you?” The explanation lies in the level at which this kind of teaching takes place. You know that in literature it is common to use the eye and the ear as metaphors for an inner comprehension of the mind. There are actually three levels of seeing and hearing possible to a human being. First, the eyes and the ears are physical organs designed to see and to hear. Now as physical organs they sometimes malfunction and you have to provide help for them, glasses or contact lenses for the eyes, or hearing aids for the ears.
But the soul has organs of sight and of hearing, as well. You speak of “seeing” something, by which you mean that you have understood it, or grasped it, intellectually. Or you hear something, by which you mean that you have heeded it, you have responded to it. Thus, you have heard with the mind and the emotions, the soul. When your firewall against deception is activated, you may sense something is wrong about a thing you hear. You don’t know quite what it is but you know it is there, and you say, “It doesn’t sound right to me.” You do not mean that there is something wrong with the decibels reaching your ears, you mean there is something wrong with the logic of it. You experience this negatively when you hear or read a foreign language you have never learned. You hear the words or you can see the letters, but you do not know what they mean.
There are eyes and ears of the spirit by which you may gain certain flashes of insight and thus come to a full understanding of a truth in relationship to other truth. You see the whole thing clearly without the necessity of reasoning it all out. These are the eyes and ears of the spirit. You may have been instructed before you were anointed but now there is nothing in comparison to the way the anointing teaches you. Job 36:22 says, “Who teacheth like him?” You see an example of this type of teaching in Matthew 13 where our Lord is giving the parables of the kingdom. In verse 13, he says, “This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.” Do you see the three levels there? Seeing (with their physical eyes) they do not see (with their mental eyes), and hearing (with their physical ears) they do not hear (with their mental ears), nor do they understand, i.e., it does not reach the level of the spirit where they grasp the full meaning of the truth in relationship to themselves and the world around them).
In Matthew 13:16 Jesus says to his disciples, “But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.” But he does not go on to say, “Blessed are you, for you understand, for they did not understand.” They did not grasp. They had not yet received the Holy Spirit and they did not understand his full meaning although they knew intellectually what he was talking about. Listen to what Paul prayed in his great letter to the church at Ephesus: “I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power.” The operation of the Holy Spirit is required to understand, to grasp the immensity of these tremendous things, to be thrilled and gripped with the excitement of what God has set before you. This then is why you do not have any need of human teachers.
At this level, only God can do this. Only the Spirit of God can touch the human spirit and give insight to it. That is why at this level no human being can help you, although the Holy Spirit will often base his teaching upon the word, which the human teacher brings. There is a clear example of this in Matthew 16 when our Lord asked his disciples, “Who do men say that the Son of man is?” They named various ones, and then He said, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Now Peter had been observing the Lord, but he was puzzled by Him, as all these disciples were. But when Jesus asked that question, “Who do you say that I am?” suddenly it all came clear to Peter. He saw it in a flash, in a sudden grasp of truth, and he said, “Why, you’re the Christ, the Son of the living God.” The Lord Jesus said to him, “Peter, blessed are you!” (Because God had done something for him.) You didn’t learn that by flesh and blood. You didn’t reason that out, you didn’t amass all the evidence and come to a reasonable conclusion as to what I am—but my Father has revealed it to you.” That is the anointing, the teaching of the Spirit.
