The Antichrists Are Here

Introduction

I want to start with a couple of quotes today that I think will set the tone for what I am going to talk about…

We must not get so busy counting demons that we forget the holy angels.

Billy Graham

And this one from CS Lewis…

“There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”

C. S. Lewis

I grew up in a time when people had an unhealthy obsession with the End Times and the AntiChrist. It seemed like every book that came out was about the end.

And while it got people to read their bibles, the problem was they would have their bible in one hand and the newspaper in another and that led to all types of errors and problems.

In fact, one of the best selling books in Christianity when I was kid was “88 Reasons Why Christ is Coming Back in 1988.”

While that’s a funny example from back in the day, today we are not really any better, we’ve just removed Jesus from the equation. Today, it’s not so much trying to guess when Jesus is coming back, today it’s simply Chicken Little run amuck. Everywhere I turn, I’m getting bombarded with the “End is Near” talk. American has fallen. We are in a constitutional crisis. They are trying to destroy our democracy.

And maybe they are or maybe its just hyperbole, either way, we still have an obsession with the End. Today, my goal is to try and give you a more balanced perspective on how to look at these subjects and by more balanced I mean, the biblical perspective. The bible gives us a clear picture of who the antichrist is and why it’s important that we know about him.

So let’s turn to 1 John 2. The words will be on your screen and I have loaded fill in the blank notes into your app.

Main Text

1 John 2:18–27 ESV

Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he made to us—eternal life. I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him.

Let’s talk about this context for a moment, because here’s what we have to do whenever we look at a biblical passage, and especially a tough biblical passage…we need to ask the question, how did the people who this letter was originally written to interpret this? How did they understand it? Or, how was it originally received by them?

Now if we you were with us when I started this series, you will remember that I told you that one of the reasons John writes this letter was to address a false teaching that was rooted in Gnosticism, that was already starting to catch on as the early church started to grow.

This Christian Gnosticism, at least this early form, promoted one big heresy. It was that Jesus was most certainly God, but he did not have a body. He wasn’t flesh and blood. I talked about how this is opposite of our current culture, which says Jesus may have been flesh and blood, but he most certainly wasn’t God.

People didn’t have a problem believing in God back then, they had a problem with the idea that God would become a man. Why would he lower himself in that way? In that time arose teachers who said, that’s impossible, what really happened was Jesus was God, but he wasn’t a man.

John is writing to address that problem and in today’s text, he tackles it head on. He warns us of what he calls the AntiChrist. So we need to ask the question…

Who Is The Antichrist?

Now, I promised last week that I would tackle this question. I want to let you know, I know exactly who it is. While you may have been duped by the Left Behind series or Hal Lindsey or Jack Van Impe when you were younger, or by some slick Youtube personality today trying to convince you that Obama, Trump or Putin is really the antichrist, never fear. I have the exact answer today.

You ready for this? The AntiChrist is the one who denies God. That’s literally what the Bible tells us. 1 John 2:22–23 “Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son.”

Now, there is more to it, but this what the Scriptures teach us. The antichrist is someone who denies Christ and specifically someone who denies Jesus came in the flesh or with a body.

2 John 7 ESV

For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.

How many of you know this? The Antichrist is not mentioned in the Book of Revelation, at least not by that term, nor is he mentioned in Daniel, Matthew 24 or any other place. This is it, 1st John and that one verse I just read from 2 John.

Some people connect the idea of antichrist to those other passages, and perhaps they are right, perhaps they are wrong, but either way, this is the only place this term is used in the ENTIRE bible. I think that’s important. Sometimes people get carried away talking about this, so I just want to look at this and think let’s just take the Bible for what it actually says today. Is that ok?

So with that said, who is the antichrist?

The Antichrist Opposes Christ

This is literally what the name means. It’s anti-Christ. Anti- annointed one. Opposed to Christ. It means he works against, he is opposite of, he usurps Christ. That’s what the name means and its a description of his primary role, which is to oppose or deny Jesus.

Now this is a person or a spirit, John uses the term both ways and furthermore he notes that its not just one antichrist, but many. He says many have already come into the world. So it’s not just one man at the end of time, but there are many during John’s time and I believe there are many alive today. That’s not to say there can’t be some sort of major antichrist figure at the end of time, but that isn’t clear from what our text is saying.

In this passage we are given three keys pieces of information about the antichrist and I think if we look at this, we can clearly see who John is calling the Antichrists in this passage.

Three Keys To Understanding The Antichrist

1. They Were Alive When John Wrote The Letter.

He says many antichrists have come. That means they were already alive, already opposing Christ during the life of the Apostle John.

Most Christians have failed to understand the importance of this. Too often we are looking at some future evil, rather than the evil that exists in our world today. John is trying to get his people to understand these people are alive and well and they are opposing Jesus right now.

2. They Were Members Of The Church.

This may be controversial to you, but the Antichrists John is talking about came out of the church. They oppose Jesus and his church, but they were once associated with it.

In Verse 19, John says they went out from us, meaning they were apart of the local assembly of Christians. These were what we would call church folk.

He also says they were not of us. That means, it’s possible for you to go to church and not be a Christian. In fact, it means you could be an antichrist.

John says that if they had been actually Christians, they would have remained apart of the body. They would have continued with us, but they went out.

He says that the purpose behind this was that because they went out, or they left the church, it should be plain to us that they were never truly apart of it.

This is true for us today. Some people come in and say they love Jesus and then they leave and it’s evident that they never really met Him.

This is the answer for people who ask about whether we can lose our salvation. It’s not a matter of us losing what God has already been secured for us. Jesus died for us and he is the one that saves us, we can’t change that, so once you are saved you are forever saved. BUT, according to this passage, if you are truly saved, you are going to continue with Jesus and his church. This is why John says in verse 24 let what you heard in the beginning abide in you, if it does then you will continue to abide in the Son and in the Father. If you were once a Christian, but now you deny Jesus, you aren’t saved.

3. The Antichrist denies Jesus.

This is a primary descriptor of who the Antichrist is. He is the one who denies Jesus. The context to this remember is that the people who were denying that Jesus came in the flesh, that he was 100% human like you and I. Yet, there were people teaching that he was only God.

He is a liar. Notice that John ties being a liar and denying Jesus together. This key to understanding what John is actually getting at here, he is concerned for his people. He wants to keep them from being deceived.

The Big Idea

This brings me to the big idea. Why is John actually writing this? What is his purpose in giving us information about the antichrist? Why spend his precious ink on this subject?

Fortunately he tells us in 1 John 2:26 “I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you.” In other words, this is a current deception, in their current time and it’s incredibly important that they understand there are people trying to lead them astray.

Do Not Be Deceived!

John is concerned his readers were being deceived. Now the English dictionaries basically define deception as getting someone to believe something that isn’t true for personal gain. In other words, I trick you into buying some oceanfront property here in Clayton. Salt Life baby.

That’s deception. Now, this word in the Greek, here gets a little better picture into what John had in mind though. It’s the Greek word PLANAO. It means to be led astray or to wander without purpose.

That gives us some insight. One of the enemies big tricks today is to get us to wander without purpose. There are so many people in today’s society that have no purpose, no drive, no initiative, no plans. In fact, if I’m honest, a lot of days, I can easily slip into that category.

I wake up and I’m not necessarily in a bad mood, but I’m not in a good one either. I’m just coasting through life. I get my work done. I meet with people. But deep down, I’m just not motivated and I’ve lost my sense of purpose.

Now, I typically snap back out of this rather quickly, but sometimes it takes a while. Now, I know I’m probably on the light end of this spectrum. Some of you may be dealing with a terrible depression right now. Some of you may be fighting your own demons.

How Does He Do It?

Now you may be asking how the enemy deceives us? In John’s day, it was done through syncretism. This is the practice of combining two beliefs into one. Remember the context, John fighting against a Christian form of gnosticism. Gnosticism is the belief that spiritual things are good, material things (think the body) are evil. They took some of that thinking and combined it with Christianity - which came out as Jesus as a spiritual being, not a flesh and blood person.

The enemy does the same thing today. Syncretism is running rampant in our society. We think we can mix all types of beliefs with Christianity. Some of these are fine beliefs on their own, but the moment we try to mix it in with the gospel, we’ve created a false gospel and false gospels do not save people. We reject or deny Jesus when we create a syncretistic Jesus. It’s a false Jesus. It’s an antichrist.

Today, both political parties try to use Jesus for their own ends. They mix their party platform and try to sprinkle some Jesus on top of it and get you to buy it. It’s deception.

How does the church do it today? The church does it by taking the cultural practices of the world and trying to make them fit inside of Christianity. It’s churches with millionaire pastors who function more like CEOs than shepherds. Its found in church services that feel more like a night club (think dark lighting, smoke machines and TedTalk) rather than a holy place where God is worshipped.

Syncretism is also common today. People see no problem embracing, for example, biblical doctrines on Christ and salvation and also accepting such things as abortion or homosexuality, even though the Bible is clear on those issues.

Grant R. Osborne

But all that is things outside of us, let’s make it personal. How do we personally engage in syncretism? Let’s think back to the reason John writes this letter, it’s because people some 20-40 years after Jesus lived are debating whether he actually had a body or not, if he was actually flesh and blood. They believed he was God, but they could not accept he was man.

We believe the opposite.

We engage in this from the opposite side but its just as deadly. We believe Jesus historically existed. We have no problem believing he was a man, but we do not worship him as God. We will not bow our knee to him.

Functionally, we do not believe that Jesus rose from the dead. We don’t believe he walked on water. We don’t believe HE IS ALIVE TODAY! But you say, I believe those things. Then why don’t you act like it?!?

We don’t pray for other people because we don’t really believe they will be healed. We don’t evangelize because we don’t believe people to be damned to hell. We don’t love our neighbors because we don’t believe we will be held accountable.

On the flip side of this, we live our lives as Christians not truly believing that God actually does love us. We live in shame and guilt. We hold on to our bitterness. We live a life with no purpose and no power.

We syncretistically have combined the world’s naturalistic worldview with the historical person of Jesus and all we have is a feel-good religion that has no power! This is the spirit of the antichrist. It’s deception. We’ve made it a religion when its supposed to be a relationship!

Conclusion

To close this out today, what do I want you to know and what do I want you to do? What do I want you to know? I want you to know that there is an enemy out there trying to rob you of your faith. There is an antichrist spirit in this culture that is trying to deceive you and get you to turn your back on Jesus.

His big encouragement to us was to let what we heard in the beginning continue to abide in us. Hold on to what you have heard. Keep the faith, he says!

What do I want you to do? If you are coming in and you either don’t know Jesus or you are wavering in your belief, let me encourage you today. He is here. He is alive. He wants to meet with you this morning.

If you are battling deception, please let someone know and we can pray with you. If you are struggling with doubt, that’s ok, but let’s pray about it.

If you are here and you have combined the world’s culture with Christianity. You just realized you are struggling with syncretism, repent. Change your mind. It’s not too late to change your mind and worship Jesus in spirit and in truth.

Let’s stand and sing.