“25 “All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” John 14:25, 26, NIV.

“20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. 21 I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. 22 Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist--he denies the Father and the Son. 23 No-one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also. 24 See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is what he promised us--even eternal life. 26 I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. 27 As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit--just as it has taught you, remain in him.” 1 John 2:20-27, NIV.

                    Here are two interesting passages.  I want to start with John 14:25-26.  Jesus is giving his disciples a crash course to encourage them when he is gone. 

                    Notice what the passages says, “26 But the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” John 14:26, NIV.

                    One problem with many people is that they look at a passage and immediately go to application.  They look at this and say, “The Holy Spirit will teach us all things and remind us of everything Jesus said.”  But that is not what the passage says. 

                    I ask you, “who is the you?”  Are we the “you?”  No, the disciples are the “you.”  we could read it this way, “26 But the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach the disciples all things and will remind the disciples of everything I have said to them.”

                    What has Jesus taught you directly?  What words have come out of his lips and onto your ears?  I will say for myself, the only words I have heard are the words the apostles said about Jesus in the New Testament.  I have never heard Jesus speak directly to me in an audible voice. 

                    If so, then the Holy Spirit would have nothing to remind me of.  But what about the disciples?  Unlike us, they met Jesus face to face.  They heard him speak, read his body language and saw the results.  If I were to ask you, “Do the disciples have anything in their memory banks that the Holy Spirit can remind them of...”  you would say, “Yes.”  They spend over three years walking and talking with Jesus.

                    This passage is special for the apostles.  As they aged, they would not forget the words of Jesus.  Why?  The Holy Spirit would remind them of what he said. 

                    How good a job did the Holy Spirit do?  Pretty good.  He pricked the memories of the apostles in such a way that we got the New Testament.  Read the accounts and you have some minor variation in the words they might have used, but I am sure that Jesus did his messages several times in different places, so that should not surprise us.

                    That is the power of the Bible.  We believe that the Holy Spirit prompted the memories of the writers of the New Testament in such a way as that what they wrote was true and accurate and conveyed what God wanted it to convey. 

                    This passage is not meant to give us personal confidence in our ability to remember the words of Jesus, this passage is meant to give us confidence in the written, authoritative, inerrant word of God.  The apostles were the ones who received the promptings of the Holy Spirit in such a way as to give us a Holy Bible.

                    But what about us?  That is where this second passage is so important.         “20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. 21 I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. 22 Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist--he denies the Father and the Son. 23 No-one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also. 24 See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is what he promised us--even eternal life. 26 I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. 27 As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit--just as it has taught you, remain in him.” 1 John 2:20-27

                    Have you every turned on the TV or seen an ad about “an annointed preacher” is coming to speak.  I am not questioning the truth of that statement.  But if I read this passage right, every Christian is anointed from the Holy One.  

                    It’s like the word “saint.”  The Catholic church has taken that term and they use it to describe the “super-Christian.”  They look at someone who served God and did miracles and was a step above the ordinary Christian.  But the Bible says that a saint is anyone who has received Christ.  Paul writes to Corinth, a church that struggled with pride, jealousy, division, wrong doctrine, wrong priorities and many other problems.  But he writes at the beginning of 1 Corinthians. “1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, 2 To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ--their Lord and ours:” 1 Corinthians 1:1, 2, NIV.) A saint is not a super-Christian.  All Christians are saints.

                    So it is not the super-Christian who is anointed.  All Christians are anointed.  Am I reading this right?  Are you anointed?

                    The word “anoint”  literally has the idea of “smear” or “rub”.  This passage tells us that every Christian is anointed by God.  Every Christian is anointed by God with the Holy Spirit.   “24 Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.” 1 John 3:24, NIV.  It is the Holy Spirit with which we are anointed.  In the Old Testament kings would be anointed with oil, but in the New  we are all anointed by the Holy Spirit.

                    With the Holy Spirit within us, notice what happens. 27 As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit--just as it has taught you, remain in him.”  It is the Holy Spirit that teaches us all things. 

                    You might say, If that is so, then we don’t need to Bible.”  No, the Holy Spirit teaches you the meaning of the Bible.  He helps you understand what it says.

                    You might say, “If the Holy Spirit teaches us then we don’t need a pastor or a preacher, we will learn from the Holy Spirit.”  No, the Holy Spirit works to confirm the words o the pastor and to alert you to the truth or falseness of what is being said. 

                    So why does the text say that “you do not need anyone to teach you?”  The purpose of this verse is to give you confidence. 

                    Let me approach it like this.  Can you read the Bible and understand it without me?  The answer is, “Yes!”  Why is this so?  Because the Holy Spirit helps you understand it.  Does the verse mean that we should not listen to anyone else?  No.  If so, John didn’t need to write what he did.  They would have known.

                    In this passage, John is dealing with an early form of Gnosticism. Gnostics believed that there were several intermediaries between God and man.  The closer one got to God, the more secrets were disclosed.  Therefore, only the special people could understand spiritual truth.

                    But John is telling us that we are on a level playing field.  If you study the Bible the Holy Spirit will help you understand it.  You don’t need a special teacher because you are incapable yourself.  Teachers can help, but you can go into the word yourself.

                    When you open your Bible and read it and study it and memorize it and meditate on it, the Holy Spirit teaches you what it says.  He makes it clear. 

                    In fact, what he is trying to say is that the Bible is not a book only for the experts.  Get into it for yourselves.  Read it, understand it.  The Holy Spirit will teach you.

                    This balance is found in the book of Acts. “11 Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” Acts 17:11.

                    Who were they to say that Paul was right or wrong?  The fact is that they were as anointed as Paul.  And when what Paul said was right, the Holy Spirit in them was in agreement with the Holy Spirit who directed Paul to speak. 

                    What was the common ground?  What was the arbitrator of any debate?  The Word of God.  The Bereans examined the scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.  They had the anointed one of God within them and he was the one who confirmed to their heart that what Paul was saying was true.

                    This has happened several times this morning.  What I am saying and what you are seeing on the pages of the Bible are the same.  You find yourself saying, “That’s what the Bible it teaching.  The apostles remembered what Jesus said because the Holy Spirit reminded them.  We have an inner voice that tells us that what we read or what we hear it true.”

                     I ask you, what is this inner voice?  What is this voice that confirms that what you hear is true?  It is the voice of the Holy Spirit.