1 John 2, verses 18-23. Little children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many Antichrists have come, by which 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 they might be made manifest, that none of them or of us. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth. Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is Antichrist, who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either. He who acknowledges the Son has the Father also. When Jesus victoriously ascended back up into heaven, after having raised literally, physically from the dead, and after having appeared to hundreds of people who touched Him, who talked with Him, who saw Him eat fish, especially the disciples whom he taught for 40 more days and then led them out to a hill. And as they were standing, watching him, he slowly began to ascend back up into the heavens from where he came. But when he ascended back up into heaven, victoriously, he tripped a prophetic time clock. a clock began to click that was counting down until he would one day return from that heaven to which he ascended. And when he tripped that time clock, there was an hour. And it began to count down from that particular moment all the way to the day that we are sitting now. An hour is a relatively short period of time, by the way we measure time. There are a couple of more measurements that are smaller than an hour. There is a second, and since 1959 there are nanoseconds, or a billionth of a second. But most of the measurements that we put on time are more than an hour. There are days, and there are weeks, and there are months, and there are years, and there are decades, and there are centuries, and there are millennia. And so when John said that there is this last hour in which we now live, he was meaning to impress upon us that this time is very short. No matter how you configure time, if the standard is eternity, for it shall be eternity, then it is always a very short period of time. What is an hour when we've been living for 400 million years in heaven? What is an hour when we've been living a multiplied billion of millennia in heaven? And that's what John wants us to realize. This is a very short time until Jesus is going to come back from that heaven to which He came. And knowing that it is only an hour, we can endure many things. I think if we knew that we only had to suffer this suffering, we could probably suffer through Quite a lot. And if we realize that it's only an hour, we can be very patient. So John says, not meaning technical hour, but relative hour. It is a very short time. Jesus gave a parable in Matthew chapter 20 of a vineyard owner. who went out into the marketplace the 11th hour. There was only one more hour to go in the day. And he said to these people that were just standing around, why are you standing here idle? Isn't that a good question? There's only one more day, one more hour left in the day, and you know that you get paid at the end of every day for the work that you have done that day, for that's how they did things back then. So why are you standing here idle? I know there's not a long time, there's not a lot that you can do, but there surely is less something that we can do. The time to work for the Lord is now. For this is the last hour, John said. There are no more after this. That prophetic hour that was tripped when Jesus ascended back up into heaven was 11 o'clock p.m. And it's been ticking down ever since. And if John could say, nearly 2,000 years ago, that it is the last hour We must be now surely counting the time by nanoseconds. There's just nanoseconds left to go until Jesus returns from heaven to earth. But in that hour, as John reads, and how it is finally ended, there is an antichrist coming and many antichrists now. That hour will finally close with the humiliating destruction of the Antichrist. The Greek prefix anti- means opposed to, or it means instead of, and quite often it means both. Because if a person is opposed to Christ, he no doubt is placing something instead of Christ. Or if a person is placing himself instead of Christ, he is by doing that opposed to Christ. And although there is no specific verse in the Bible that says the Antichrist is coming, John told his readers, you have heard that he is coming. It no doubt was a primary subject of the preaching and teaching of the first century church because there was considerable inspired teaching that there would come in the end age a final world ruler that the world would worship as the Christ, the Messiah, that long-awaited one who will finally shepherd us out of our problems and our difficulties and complexities and will provide for us everything that we need. Daniel mentioned in Daniel 11.36 that there is a king coming, and the king speaks of a strong central government, a dictatorship, That the decision making process has been narrowed down to a very few and even more than that, to a single individual. There is coming a king, Daniel says, who is willful. He's a willful king who will do according to his will. And he will oppose everything that is called God and will blaspheme the God of heaven. That's the Antichrist. Paul spoke of the very same person many centuries earlier, later in 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 4, when he said, there will come a falling away, and then The lawless one, that one who knows no higher authority than himself, who follows no objective standard, but does whatever is according to his own heart. The law of God means nothing to him. It only stands in his way. If it means anything, it only means something to him when he can somehow use it to manipulate and control people. There's coming a lawless one, that son of perdition, who will exalt himself above every god, who will even stand in the temple of God, telling the world, or showing himself, that he is God. He's going to be very popular too, for Daniel, back in Daniel 11.36, when he spoke of that willful king, said, and he shall prosper. And when we read of this same one in Revelation chapter 13, we read where the whole world wonders after the beast. And the whole world worships the beast. But, he will be humiliatingly destroyed. As Jesus ascended up into heaven, he shall be cast down into the bottomless pit. For in Revelation 19 verses 19 through 20 we read about that time when Jesus shall come back from heaven and the armies of heaven will be following him and how he will take this antichrist and will cast him into the lake that burns with fire and brimstone and the smoke of his torment shall rise up before God forever and ever. This last hour that John speaks of will close with the humiliating destruction of this Antichrist. But from that time when Jesus victoriously ascended into heaven, and that time when the Antichrist is humiliatingly destroyed in the lake of fire, the time which John calls now, even now there are many Antichrists, there will be many Antichrist, and the word Antichrist, as you read there, is plural. That is, they are of every kind, and they are of different varieties, and it doesn't matter which age that you are in. They are many. Many is the same word that Mark used in Mark chapter 5 verse 24 to describe how many people were following Jesus. On a certain day, Jesus went out to heal a man. And John said that a great multitude followed him. And then he describes and gives us a picture of how many people that there probably was. And they thronged about him. There are antichrists thronging everywhere. An antichrist is one who opposes Christ. An antichrist is one who places himself instead of Christ. And these antichrists are everywhere. In particular, they have three very ugly and distinctive traits. We read in verse 19 that one of them is abandonment from historic biblical Christianity. They went out from us. Oh, they sat at our feet and we taught them. And there was a day when everyone believed that they were a part of our number. Everyone believed that they were Christians. Everyone believed that they were prophets. Everyone believed that they had the Holy Spirit. Everyone believed that they were believers in Jesus Christ. But they have abandoned historic, biblical Christianity. They've taken a different direction, no matter what they call it. They can call it a new perspective if they want, but it's still the same thing. It is an abandonment of what the apostles taught. They can call it further insight if they want, or they can say that this is a new vision and a new dream, whatever they want to call it, it's nevertheless the same thing. Anyone who formerly seemed to preach and teach, or to claim to believe the Bible, but now rejects it in any of its fundamental positions and doctrines, is actually opposing Christ, or is setting themselves up instead of Christ. Demas was an anti-Christ. Paul told Timothy that Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world, and has departed to Thessalonica. They have abandoned the faith. And a second characteristic that John describes here in verse 22, that's denial three times. In verses 22 and 23, he uses this word denial. Who is a liar? But he who denies that Jesus is the Christ. He is Antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. For anyone who denies that Jesus is the Messiah is in fact also denying the Trinity. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either. The word denial is used very generally here. It's difficult to determine which perspective John means for us to take it because probably all of these three usages apply. The word denial means to contradict. Anyone who contradicts the teaching of the Bible is an antichrist or They desert, as mentioned earlier, they went out from us, or they renounce. They no longer believe it is true. No matter how they say they came to that position, that some church did them wrong in times past, and now they're turning their back on everything that church taught them, if it was a good church. Or their Christian-professing father or their Christian-professing mother did not live like a Christian. Or, you know, in my life, I was a Christian at one time, but I found out there's a lot of hypocrites that call themselves Christians. And so I renounce it all. Now, the problem isn't that you renounce something that you formerly believed. The problem is you never really believed it, and you have imbibed the spirit of Antichrist. It is opposing Christ. Who is Jesus when he says, who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? Jesus is God manifest in the flesh. Hebrews 1.8. Your throne Oh, God is forever and ever. There is not a single prophet in all of the history of the Bible that would ever accept someone calling them God, but Jesus Christ accepted it. Because in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory. Whatever teaching, or from whatever position, or for whatever reason, a person denies that Jesus is God, or an institution, or a denomination, or a church denies that Jesus is God in the flesh, John is saying to us, that is an antichrist. That is one who is opposed to Jesus. Jesus is the unique and only Savior of the world. Peter was preaching to the great multitude in Acts chapter 4 verse 12. He said, there is no other Savior. There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. We must be saved. Before we leave this life, we must be saved. We are not born saved. Things are not okay going along as we are. As Jesus said to Nicodemus, you're a very religious man. You teach in the seminaries, and everybody looks upon you as being a man of God. You've lived a moral life, but you are a Pharisee, and you try to jot every I, and you try to cross every T. Nicodemus, I know that you have a physically committed adultery, and I know that you're always in the temple worshiping, and I know you've memorized many, many scriptures, but you must be born again. This is an absolute necessity, and there is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved than Jesus Christ. There are not other ways to get to heaven. Jesus is not one among many. He is not even the best of several different ideas. And anyone that believes there's another way to get to heaven, this is antichrist, John is saying. Jesus is the king of the universe. 1 Timothy 6, verse 15, Paul said, Blessed is that only potentate, the king of kings and lord of lords. He is the king of every king who's ever lived. He is the king of every king who's living now. He's the king of every king who shall ever live. He is the Lord of Lords. He's high above them all. He rules the universe. He sits on the right hand of the Father at the throne of heaven. He makes his decrees and the world spins. He is involved in the governments of men and in the affairs of global relationships. And we must acknowledge him as the only king of this world. The Antichrist will claim that he is finally the king of this world. And all authority will be put under his feet. Entire nations will give up their sovereignty so that he can provide and guide for them. That's the Antichrist. But there's already many Antichrists in the world. They have an objective, and they're feverishly working for it. They are all striving together to bring to pass, to usher in the age of the Antichrist. And there are many of them. And whoever denies that Jesus is God, or that He's the only unique Savior, or that He is the King of the universe, is an Antichrist. And the third characteristic that John gives us, he says, again in verse 22, who is a liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ. They lie. It is not that they are confused about what the Bible teaches. They know what the Bible teaches. and they willingly reject it. And that makes them a liar because they are willingly denying what is obvious truth. Unless you are blind, or unless you are determined not to bow the knee to this only King and Lord, you will grasp after things that are not true. You will believe things for which there is no evidence. In fact, you will believe the total absurd That's what they do. They are liars, and you can't trust somebody who will lie about the most important, yet about the most evidential of realities and subjects. But as John tells us here, Christians already know this. Verse 21, I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it. Christians know these, and we thank God that we know these subjects and that we know these. We know them from the Bible. But we have an anointing from the Holy One. We know it from our heart. It's as though we can almost feel the depravity that we live among. It is almost as though we can sense it all about of the error and of the darkness that we live in. There's not a Christian anywhere that has trouble with these ideas. Anyone that struggles against and anyone that denies these realities are showing something very seriously flawed about their soul. We read where Jude said this morning to us that in the last days, mockers will come. Christians know these things and thank God that we do. It's because God has taught us these things. It's because God has opened up the Bible to us, or we would not understand them either. And we are in the great minority of people that do believe these things, particularly as the nanoseconds count down till that moment when the Antichrist is revealed. For we read in Revelation 13 that the whole world will wonder after the beast, and that they will all worship the beast. Oh, we're in a very small minority. The Christians do know these things, the purpose for John writing this to us, purpose for God inspiring John to include it in the inspired text and why God has preserved this for all the ages to read and why we are reading it this morning is not to inform us that we are Christians of some new idea that we just never gotten before is to remind us of something. As Jude said, I found it absolutely necessary to call you to remembrance that there shall be people that shall creep in secretly and deny the Lord who bought them. Peter told us that in the last days, as there were in his days, and as there were in days previous, there will come false prophets who will deny the Lord who bought them, And multitudes shall follow them, and Peter said, and they will exploit you with deceptive words." You see, this is why John is calling us to remembrance. It's because Christians can be influenced by them. Christians can be too accepting of them. There was a time when Paul went to Philippi, and there was a woman who followed him about everywhere that he went and said, these men are servants of the Most High God who showed to us the way of salvation. And that was the truth. It's exactly who they were. They were servants of God and they were revealing God's way of salvation. But she was possessed with a demon. And Paul did not make use of her testimony. Paul did not give her the opportunity to get into the pulpit and share her testimony with people. No doubt, because she was possessed with a demon, she lived a despicable life. There no doubt were many other things that she proclaimed, too, that were not biblical. Paul, the scripture says, was very annoyed with her and stared at her and said to the demon, come out of her. We have to be very careful of Christians, that these demons, these antichrists are not a part of what Jude says, your love feast. They fellowship with you and you accept them as though that they are one of you. And this is why John is writing this. It's not that I'm writing to you something new, but I have to call you to remembrance of something that you already know. John later in another epistle, and the next one after this, as a matter of fact, said in 2 John chapter 9 and verses 9 and 10, whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house, nor greet him, because if you do this, you are partakers with him of his evil deed. Oh, he might be a very fine sounding preacher, and he might be saying many other things that you believe can help you in very practical matters. Or this person might even assent to some of the great doctrines of the Bible. But if they deny that Jesus Christ is the Messiah and the only unique Savior of the world, That He is the King of the universe and every knee must bow to Him and every tongue must confess to Him. That is the spirit of the Antichrist. John gives us three pertinent and urgent facts that we must remember about Antichrist and that we must be very clear and strong about. Again, in verse 19, and that is that none of them belong to us. They went out from us, but they were not of us. Their origin is not our origin. They are like those ones that Jesus spoke to and he said, I know you, you are of your father the devil. And as your father the devil will do, so will you. There is a different spirit that birthed them. They are tares mixed in among the wheat. And although they may agree to Many other things, they are not of us. They are not even a little finger of that mystical body of Christ. They are not even the most unnoticed little instrument in the grandest of bands. They have nothing to do with us whatsoever, and we must not accept them as though they are. We must not just simply excuse these despicable errors. Though they say other good things. Though they appear in many other forms, in many other ways, to be a sheep. They are wolves in sheep's clothing. You know that thorns do not spring from a fig tree. And you know that a clear, pure spring does not spout out polluted water. We must never accept them. And secondly, He reminds us in verse 21 that no lie is of the truth. Verse 21, I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it and that no lie is of the truth. This is not a different aspect of the same thing. We are not just simply discussing the same subject simply from different viewpoints. It's not possible for you to get bananas from a tomato plant. It is not possible for someone who has been born of the devil and whose fundamental doctrines are in error to preach any truth whatsoever. We must not accept him. It says in verse 23, quite frankly, whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either. He who acknowledges the Son has the Father also. They not necessarily deny God. They may not necessarily deny some great undeniable truth about God, that he exists, that he is almighty, that he is omnipresent everywhere at all times, that he is omniscient, that he knows everything that ever has happened, that does happen now. He knows every possibility of any arrangement of things. He knows what could happen. He knows everything that we think and everything that we've ever thought. He is God. But they deny the Father and the Son. They deny that Jesus Christ is of equal importance with. They deny that He is in the same standing with the Father, the Creator of the universe. And this is antichrist. If you turn to Acts 13, verse 6, we read about another incident that happened in Paul's ministry. We read that when they had gone through the island to Paphos, They found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew whose name was Bar-Jesus. That's getting really close, is it not? He's a prophet. Oh, not a real prophet. But he had a lot of people fooled. And he was a Jew. His name was Bar-Jesus. He was with the proconsul. So he had a very important position, a man of renown. Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man. He was accepted by the intelligentsia. You know, all the smart people believe this way. This man called for Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God, but Elymas, this sorcerer of whom Luke was referring, but Elymas, the sorcerer, for so his name is translated, withstood them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith. This is an antichrist. He is opposing the gospel. And though it may not be as blatant as what this man was doing, everyone who opposes the gospel is, in fact, seeking to turn away people from eternal life, from the worship of the one and only true God. Herein lies the greatest danger and why we must never accept them and be very clear and firm about it. And so how did Paul relate to this man? Did Paul understand where he was coming from? Did Paul just say, you know, he's really mistaken? You know what we really need to do? We just need to give him a group hug and show him that we don't mean any harm whatsoever. You know, if we just teach him, he's going to come around. You know, if we accept him into one of these, as a matter of fact, let's give him a position teaching Sunday school, because if he's doing all of that, then he'll change. And this will have such an influence upon him that he'll turn out a lot better. How did Paul relate to him? Then Saul, who is also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said, O fool of all deceit and all fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease perverting the straight ways of the Lord? And now indeed the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you shall be blind, not seeing the sun for a time. And immediately a dark mist fell on him, and he went around seeking someone to lead him by the hand. Then the proconsul believed when he saw what had been done, being astonished at the teaching of the Lord." Paul took a very decided, Paul took a very firm and a very clear stand against this Antichrist. It sounds very strange, I know, in our present day, that we do not accept every teaching and every religion and every lifestyle on equal footing. It sounds very strange for us to say that there is such a thing as evil and that there is no place for some ideas within this world and among humanity. That they can only do harm to people. It sounds very strange in our world for anybody to be opposed to almost any idea unless it comes from the Bible. That's what Paul did. And notice the effect. Then the proconsul believed. You know, it's a good thing for Sergius Paulus that Saul, Paul took a very firm and decided stand against this Antichrist. Paul did not want there to be any confusion in the minds of people, whether it was a demon spirit woman following around saying that this is a good thing, they're the servants of the Most High God, and they show to us the way of salvation, or whether it is an obvious opposer to the gospel. He didn't want there to be any doubt in people's mind that there is a clear line of demarcation between us. that there is a great gulf fixed between us, that they cannot come to us, and neither will we cross that gulf and go to them. And this is why John is saying, I know you know these things. I'm not writing to you anything new whatsoever. And that's why Jude said, I found it so very important to remind you of things that even Enoch, the seventh generation from Adam, preached about because Christians can be influenced by them, and we do irreparable harm to the minds and souls of those caught in that middle ground, those that are perhaps struggling one way or the other, those people like Sergius Paulus that just need to hear the gospel truth. intelligent people will accept the gospel if we present it clearly and uncompromisingly, and we do not need the help of the unbelievers to promote it in any way whatsoever. We must not be accepting of anti-Christian thought in any way, shape or form, whether it's a school, a church, an institution, a government, television preacher, or an individual in our own personal lives. Because among these many antichrists, there are those kind, too. There are those kind that are like this bar Jesus that perhaps are the most dangerous of all. You know, we know them personally and we listen to them and they talk with us and we talk with them. But the whole time. They're turning us away from the gospel. The whole time they are, in fact, opposing the gospel. Oh, you know, I would never go to a church that denies the fundamentals of the truth, or I would never go to a university whose mission is to corrupt the gospel. Oh, I would never vote for an antichrist. But what about that individual in your life? It's putting that little bug in your ear. He's turning you from the truth. That's what John's talking about. We must be very decided and firm and clear. It is scriptural. It is inspired writing that we do not accept the spirit and the thought of the Antichrist. Let's close in prayer.