He says, I wrote unto the church, but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them,
receiveth thus not.
Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us
with malicious words, and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receiveth the brethren,
and forbidth them that would, and casteth them out of the church.
Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good.
He that doeth good is of God, but he that doeth evil hath not seen God.
And he gives a good example about a man named Demetrius.
But let's stop and focus on this right here, this is pretty interesting.
He says that this Diotrephes doesn't receive them, and he tells us why, because he loveth
to have the preeminence among them.
So his motive is not a right motive, it's not a motive of, I want to be obedient to
the Lord here, and be separated from false teachers.
His motive is not one of, oh man I don't want to be a partaker of some wicked false prophet's
evil deeds.
No, his motive is his own pride, and lifting himself up, and I think that the sin here
that we would point to is the sin of envy.
He's looking at John, and he envies John's power, his accomplishments, his works, his
preaching, he wants to be a big shot.
He doesn't want John to come in and steal the show, he doesn't want people to think
that John, now here's the thing, Christ is the one who steals the show, amen?
He's the one that we all worship, we weren't baptized in the name of John or
Diotrephes, right?
It's all about Jesus, and you know what, John wasn't trying to take anything away
from Jesus though, was he?
But Diotrephes, he has a pride problem.
So he feels like it's a contest between him and John, which it's not, everybody
should all be serving the Lord for Christ's glory, not for their own vain glory, envying
one another and provoking one another.
So the motive is wrong, because what's the motive?
It's his own preeminence.
So the sin of envy is present, and pride in the heart of Diotrephes.
So he has to have an excuse though, for why he's separating from John, right?
I mean he has to give a reason.
So what does he do?
It says he prates against them with malicious words.
So the real motive is his own preeminence is in jeopardy.
And the method that he uses is prating against them with malicious words.
Now what does prating mean?
Prating is similar to the word prattle, okay?
And sometimes when we talk about a baby or a toddler talking or making noises, we say
they're prattling, right?
You heard that term?
Who's familiar with that term?
It's not that common of a term apparently, because I only see about nine hands up.
But anyway, so prating is just babbling.
It's when you're kind of talking nonsense, you're saying things that don't really
make sense.
So instead of Diotrephes being able to get up and say, listen, we need to separate from
the apostle John, because he's living in fornication.
If he said that, that makes sense.
That's not prating.
I mean, he'd say, look everybody, turn to 1 Corinthians 5, okay, it says right here
that if any man that's called a brother is into fornication, that's why we got
to separate from John.
Well guess what?
John wasn't in fornication.
All right everybody, John is selling carved images of the Virgin Mary, you know, he's
into idolatry, we better separate from this guy.
See, he didn't have anything concrete that he could even point to and say, okay,
this is the biblical reason why we need to separate from John.
Here's the list.
It says drunkards and John's drunk, therefore, we need to separate from.
Is that what's happening in the story?
He's maliciously talking bad about John, but it's a lot of just babble, just prating
against him with malicious words.
He can't point to the doctrine of Christ that John's wrong on.
He can't point to it and say, well, you know, here's where John is denying the deity
of Christ.
Here's where John has rejected the Trinity, or here's where John is teaching that, you
know, Christ's atonement is not sufficient, or whatever.
You know, he couldn't point to any damnable heresy.
He couldn't point to any salvation issue.
He couldn't point to any lifestyle issues such as drunkenness, fornication, or covetousness.
No, no, no, he's just separating from him because of the fact that he feels threatened
by him.
Everybody see that in the scripture here?
He says, Diotrophes, who love it to have the preeminence among them receive it thus
not, wherefore if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against
us, again, that's the babble nonsense talk, with malicious words and not content there
with, neither did he himself receive the brethren, and forbideth them that would,
and casteth them out of the church.
So it's not just John that's being rejected here.
It's actually all these other brethren too that have anything to do with John.
He says they'll be cast out of the church.
And he says, hey, beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good.
And then he makes an important statement at the end of verse 11, which is kind of
a theme of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, when he says, he that doeth good is of God,
but he that doeth evil hath not seen God.
What's he saying?
When you look to the preachers and the missionaries and the pastors, you look on their
fruit.
You say, which ones of God?
What's the fruit?
Check the fruit.
The tree is known by his fruit.
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are
ravening wolves.
You shall know them by their fruit.
And that's what John's teaching here.
He's saying, look, you look at their works.
You look at their deeds.
And then look, where people will twist this is they say, well, if you want to know if
Joe Blow is saved, look at his works.
That's not how we tell if people are saved.
But that's how we tell if a preacher is saved.
Because if we look at a preacher or a prophet and we see them producing all this corrupt
fruit and all this bad fruit, what does that say about them?
And then you see another preacher, and he's putting forth all kinds of good fruit.
What does that say about him?