Well, I don't know if your house is anything like our house, but in our house, over the last week or two, large brown paper bags of candy have appeared in our house. Typically, we don't have that much candy on hand, but recently, well-meaning individuals have given to our children lots of candy. And I want to talk for a minute about Kids, how many of you think it's a good idea to take candy from complete strangers? Nobody. That's a bad idea. Why is that a bad idea? Because candy can look very appealing. They often have shiny wrappers. They often look delicious. They often smell chocolatey or caramelly or butterfingery, whatever your preference is. And yet, they could be all those things and yet still be dangerous. I don't hear the stories as much as I used to, but when I was growing up, there were all these horror stories about candy that was given away that was poisoned. And that's why it's always a rule of thumb that you don't eat the candy unless somebody you trust has looked it over, has checked it. That's true of candy, but it's also true about religion. It's also true about spiritual things. The Apostle John is writing this letter to warn Christian people. grown-ups and kids, about the danger of people who what they say sounds really awesome, sounds like candy, but spiritually it's poisonous, false teaching, teaching that will destroy your soul. And He is warning us. He's saying, no, it's dangerous. Don't just eat the candy. Get it checked. Now, you may think, and you've heard some of these words that we read today, this word, the Antichrist and many Antichrists. And you may think that that sounds like something out of a futuristic story, but John is saying to us that not only is Antichrist something coming in the future, but it's something that has already come and is still in the world. And what if it's still in the world today, even in our community, in our society? What if it's still that dangerous? We want to look this morning at what John says to us about antichrists and the danger that they pose, because John is warning us against false promises and those who make them. You see, antichrists, false teachers, they always want to promise that they've got the truth. John is warning us that not all promises are true and not all people who make promises are trustworthy, just like not all candy is safe. not all teaching is safe. Let's look at what John says this morning as he warns us against false promises and those who make them. He's going to start out by talking to us a little bit about the trajectory of history. Trajectory is direction, the direction that history is moving. He's then going to go in and give us some ways to identify what an Antichrist is in any age. And then finally he's going to point us to three things that keep believers safe, even in the midst of all these dangers. Let's look at them then in turn. We'll start by looking at the trajectory of history. Look again at verse 18 and don't pass over any word in this verse. Look at what he says. He says, children, he's speaking not just to the kids, but to all Christians, grownups and kids. He's saying, children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrists have come. Therefore we know it is the last hour." Now twice here, twice the Apostle says that this is the last hour. Now what does he mean by that? What he means by that, this is on your outline kids, you want to write this one down so you can quiz your parents on the way home. What he means is that the current form of human history is drawing to an end. This is something that is not unique to John. This is the insistence of the entire New Testament, many, many places. The New Testament writers are Lord Himself in Matthew 24, the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, the writer to the Hebrews, James the Apostle, Peter, Jude, and 1 John, all warning us that the current form of history, the current form of human history is not going to go on forever, but it is drawing to an end. Now we know that many people, of course, in the world today would just scoff at that and say, the world is not going to end the way you think it is. There's not going to be Jesus coming back. That eventually history is just going to keep going on. The sun will get old. The universe will run out of energy and everything will go dark. Not like you Christians say. And they'll even make fun of us. They'll say, look, John says it's the last hour. How many hours ago was that? 2,000 years is a pretty long hour, buddy. But they're not being fair when they say these things. We all know, we all use time language in a figurative way, many times. How many of you ever heard the expression, well, he's got his 15 minutes of fame? Right? We all heard that expression. Does that mean that the person only gets a literal 15 minutes of celebrity time? Of course not. We use time to mark off periods, not just strict seconds and minutes. Jesus did the same thing. Jesus did the same thing that John did when Jesus said, listen, this is a quote from John 4. Jesus said, the hour is coming and now is here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. Did Jesus mean there was only one hour of time there when he was meeting with the woman at the well and then after that no more worship of God anywhere? Of course not. He's saying the time, the period of time has come. We're in that period of time. That's what John is saying here. He's not just some first century bumpkin that got the idea wrong. When he says, this is the last hour, he's saying, we're in the last period of human history. He's not making a chronologically precise calculation. He is teaching us a theological truth that the next big event in human history is the end. That's what he's saying. And this should be a comfort to us. I hope that this is a comfort to us. There's so often, maybe you've had a week like this. We had a pretty busy week in our house. But maybe you've had a week like this where you feel like you're sprinting Monday through Saturday. You get up. You work all day. You go home. And you've got to get up and do it again. You're not getting enough sleep. You're tired. You're fatigued. And you get to the end of the week, and you say, what am I going to do tomorrow? I'm going to do the whole thing over again. You can feel like your life is on spin cycle where it's never going to change. It's just cyclical over and over and over again. And John is reminding us, no. History is moving in a direction. And we are closer to salvation every day than we were the day before. My life is moving in a direction. Your lives are moving in a direction that ought to encourage us and also challenge us to be prepared and to think directionally, not cyclically. And that brings us to the next point, that John says, in telling us that this is the last hour, he warns us that during this last hour there is a period of conflict. He says, not only do you know that the Antichrist is coming, but that many Antichrists have already come. He's telling us, friends, that history's final hour, this period of time between when he was writing, between when Jesus rose from the dead and today, saying that whole period of time, 2,000-ish years so far, and more to come as far as we know. That whole time is marked by a supernatural war. Supernatural war. Again, we know many people in our day, particularly here in the Western world, really scoff at the idea of supernatural. It's interesting though to note how the reactions vary. Sometimes it's very benign, sometimes it's very visceral. If you were to tell a child that there are fairies and that there are pixies and that there are leprechauns, probably even a non-religious person is not going to jump all over your back. They're going to say, oh, that's cute. Who knows? Maybe. Or how many television shows are there about ghost stories and the paranormal? And people are willing to believe that stuff. It's only when you talk to them about, well, there's a God, and His name is Jesus, and that's supernatural. What are you talking about, you idiot, you stupid bumpkin, this dogmatism? People don't have a problem with the supernatural. They have a problem with authority. They don't like it. And frankly, if we're honest, sometimes in our own sins, we don't particularly like the fact that we have to obey God rather than what we want to do. But here's the point for anybody, Christian, non-Christian, does personal affinity, does my personal desires actually dictate reality? Of course not. If I could dictate reality, I could stand on the top of Celebration Hall and jump off and fly. How many of you wish you could fly? That would be pretty cool. It's something that I desire, something that I'd like, but it doesn't make it true. And the same is true when it comes to the supernatural. The fact that Jesus is God is true whether anybody likes it or not. The fact that he's coming back is true, whether anybody particularly cares for that or not. So be warned. Be wary. When people say, oh, no, no, don't worry about that. Give up religion. Give up all that dogmatism. Give up that Christianity. The world's just going to keep going the way it is. That's the first sort of false promise. Those who cry peace, peace when we're in the midst of supernatural war. And remember that if Jesus is the Son of God, it is never safe to be on the side of the Antichrists. And that brings us to the next section. What does it mean? Who is the Antichrist? How do we identify Antichrist? John gives us some really clear words. There are certain things about Antichrist and the man of lawlessness that are unclear, but he also gives us some really clear teaching here. Look at verses 22 and 23. John says, 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, to understand Antichrist, you have to first understand Christ. What does the word Christ mean? It makes sense, right? If you want to understand the opposite, you should understand what it's opposing. What is Christ? What does the word Christ mean? Christ, the word Christ, the title Christ, which is given to Jesus, Christ means the one who fulfills all of God's saving promises. He is the ultimate promise keeper of God. He is the promise bearer. He is the promise keeper. The word Christ is a Greek translation of a Hebrew word that you all know. How many of you have heard the word Messiah? Mashiach in Hebrew. Christ is the Greek translation of Messiah, Mashiach. It means anointed one. Psalm 2, verse 2, why do the nations rage? The people plot in vain. The kings of the earth set themselves against the Lord and against his Mashiach, against his Christ, against his anointed. Christ means one who carries and fulfills the saving promises of God. Jesus identified himself as the Christ to the woman at the well in Samaria. His disciples recognized him as the Christ. His resurrection proved him to be the Christ. But in the first century, when John was writing these words, there were those who said Jesus was not the Christ. This is who John is talking about, these first century antichrists, the many antichrists that have come. Now, John is not confused about this. He's not confused about the fact that there is a big antichrist coming, but he's warning us now about the many antichrists that have come. Now, who were these people? Verse 22 says, they are those who deny the Father and the Son. They are those who deny that Jesus is the Christ. Antichrists were those who denied that the eternal Son of God became the man Jesus and stayed. They denied the full incarnation of Christ. They would say something silly like this. They would say, well, you know, there is this divine being called the son and there was this man, Jesus. And when the man Jesus was baptized, well, for a short period of time, the divine son came and kind of landed on him and stayed with him. And then through his life, he stayed with him. But then right before Jesus died, he bailed out, got beamed up. But it's not just an academic theory. John calls it the teaching of the liar. Why does he say this? Why is John so strongly against that idea? My friends, do you realize that if Jesus who died on the cross was not also fully God, then your sins are not paid for? Why is that? If Jesus were even a perfect man, a perfect man can only substitute for how many people? In order for that sacrifice to count for all who would ever trust in Jesus, it had to have an infinite value. For it to have an infinite value that the one who died must not just be a man, but also God. And so when they deny that Jesus is the Christ, they are denying the gospel. There's no hope if what they were saying was true. And John says that's why they are anti-Christ. He's not being rude. He's being honest. If Jesus is the only hope and you cut away that hope, you have cut people off from the only hope. eternal life and he says that is why it is the teaching of the liar it is devilish I give you a quote from Leon Morris says the same thing heretics theology is not just effective it is diabolical and he warns us that the way we can really tell where we are with regard to Christianity is in our view of the person of Jesus if you're a Unitarian or you are a member of a group that denies the deity of Christ not Christian There's no hope unless Jesus is the Christ. Unless you believe that Jesus is the God. Unless you believe that Jesus is fully God, who died for your sins, there is no hope. John is not being rude. He's being honest. And the first century antichrists destroyed the hope. They turned people away from the only promise of salvation. Now here's the thing, antichrist is not just something that existed in the first century, even in our day. An antichrist is anything or anyone that turns your trust away from Jesus. Anything that turns your trust away from Jesus is Antichrist. You see, what Paul was talking about in 2 Thessalonians, that there will be a big, big, capital A Antichrist, the man of lawlessness. John is saying that capital A Antichrist has many forerunners, many, many precursors, and they all have this in common, that they want to turn our hearts away from trusting Christ. Why are they called Antichrist? Because they destroy. They turn us away from the promise. If Jesus is the one who bears and brings all of God's promises, and something turns you away from that, then they are turning you away from the promise. They are anti-Christ. It could be a person, it could be a teaching, it could be a thing that's really important in your life. And here's the thing, even the most non-religious people among us trust something. We say this every week when we go onto the campus, when we're talking at DYF. We say it every week. Everybody trusts something. Every life has something at the center. It may be a god in a formal religious sense. It may be a job. It may be a relationship. It may be something about you that you're really proud of. Your achievements, your intelligence, the color of your skin, your history, your money, your power, whatever it is, anything that we trust in at the center of our life is functionally a God. And there are three marks. If you're wondering how do I identify what my real trust is, there are three marks of trust. How do we know what we're trusting? Well, we sacrifice for the things we trust. We serve them and in a sense we submit to them. And John is warning us and the Bible warns us over and over that there are so many counterfeit promises out there. So many. So many things that promise, this will make you important. This will give you meaning. This will fulfill all your hopes and dreams. And you see those things, whatever they are that are making those promises for us in our life, they are playing the role of promise maker. They are playing the role of promise keeper. They are playing the role of Christ. And John is saying that if that thing or that person is not actually Jesus, it is an antichrist. And we need to be aware. It's a good thing. We encourage the students every week as they're walking by at DYF. Whether you're religious or not, just think about, what is at the center of my life? Identify that. It's just part of being a wise human being to know what it is you're living for. And then we encourage them, now analyze it. Ask it the hard questions. Can it actually save me? Can it do the things I want it to do? Because if not, I'm in big trouble. But God wants something better for each of us. Look at verses 25 and 26. This is the promise that He made to us, eternal life. John says, I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. The fact that God is giving us a warning shows us that God is compassionate. Christ Jesus does not want any of us to chase after Antichrist. That's why He's warning us. That's why He's telling even the church. We would think, well, Christians are safe from this. This is written to the church. He's saying, I don't want any of you to be deceived. Don't chase after the false promises. Chase after, rather, the sure promise of eternal life. And we say, okay, well, how do I do it? How can I be safe? You've just told me, and if we think about it, we know it's true that almost anything that I enjoy could become an antichrist. How can I safely abide in the real Christ in the midst of all this? But John gives us three marks, three things, three safeguards, if you will. The first we see in verse 24. He says, "'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.'" You see, the first safeguard against false promises is the Word of God. The Word of God, what we have heard from the beginning. The Word of God anchors us in the facts of the gospel. Give you another big quote from Leon Morris, not going to read the whole thing, but in the center of that quote he says, Christian theology is anchored not only to certain historical events culminating in the saving career of Jesus, but to the authoritative apostolic witness to and interpretation of these events. He's saying facts are facts, and what keeps us in the facts are the record of those facts, the gospel, the written Word of God. So if you want to stay safe from false Christs, false promises, test them all against the Word, because God's book carries God's power, and it has a power to pierce and to convict and to uncover stuff that we thought was perfectly okay for us to believe and do. Hebrews 4.12, the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. And there's a great story, it was published years ago in a magazine called Eternity Magazine, and it was the testimony of a man, his name was Emile Calliet. And Emile Calliet writes this article, and he says, when I was growing up, there was no Christianity, and I was educated, he was a Frenchman, he says, I was educated and went to the secular schools, and I was taught, belief was not part, faith in God, no, none of that. And then he was serving in the war, and he saw friends just shot through and died before him. Because he sees all this, all this terrible stuff in the world, and it certainly just pushed him further away from God. But he got married during an injury. While he was recovering in a hospital, he got married to a young lady, and she happened to be an evangelical Christian. But she had a really hard time being married to him because he didn't want anything to do, no faith in our house. And they had a child. And one day, she's out walking the child. Meanwhile, he had gone back to graduate school and he had been studying and he realized that there was a longing in him for some kind of meaning in life. And so you know what he started to do? He started to take the books he was reading, his philosophy books, his graduate studies books, and whenever he'd find a quote that spoke to me, he would write it in a little like a Moleskine notebook. He's writing his book. He indexes them and he puts them all together and he says, I am preparing the book that will understand me. So all this is going on and one day he finishes the book and he sits down to read it. Finally, the book that understands me and it leaves him completely flat, completely flat. Meanwhile, his wife is taking a walk and she just happens, just happens, right? Happens to bump into a French Protestant church and asks the guy, if he will give her a Bible, the pastor. And so he gives her a Bible in French. And she comes and they meet up in the park or somewhere. And she says, look, I've just been given this Bible. And he says, I've never seen a Bible. Let me read it. He'd never seen a Bible. He starts to read it. He starts to read it. He starts to read it over and over and over again. And he says, through reading the Bible, he met Christ. And he said his testimony was this. The Bible is the book that understands me. This is the book that understands me. The Bible has that power. It can guard us against false promises because it is God's book and it carries His power. Second, second safeguard is the Spirit of God. See, because it's God's book, we need God's help to understand it. If one of you had written a book and there were parts in it that were difficult, the only way for me to understand it would be to go to you and say, tell me what this means. I don't know what you wrote. The same here. We need God's help to understand God's book. Jesus promised, however, that everybody who came to Him and everybody who sought and everybody who believed would receive the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, "'The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.'" And John goes so far, he goes so far. Look at what he says in verse 27. "'The anointing that you receive from Him,' he's talking about the Holy Spirit. He's saying, "'The anointing that you receive from Him abides in you. And you have no need that anybody should teach you. But as His anointing teaches you about everything and is true and is no lie, just as it is taught, you abide in Him." Now, what's John saying? Is he saying that we don't need to have churches? We don't need to have pastors? We don't need to have elders or Sunday school teachers? Keep in mind that John who wrote these words is himself an apostle, and as he's writing, he's writing to do what? He's not denying that there's an office of teacher or that there's any value in teaching, but what he is saying is this, that the Holy Spirit is powerful enough that if you had only the Bible and the Holy Spirit, you could still understand enough to be saved. The Holy Spirit can illuminate the word without any other help in order to teach you what promises are true and to help you and guard you and protect you at the essential level. from false teachers, false promises, false Christs. It's like the confession of faith said, not everything in the Bible is absolutely clear, but the things that are most necessary for salvation can be understood by the Word with the illumination of the Spirit. The final safeguard, and this is one that I don't know that we necessarily see as clearly. We may not pick up on it, but it's there. Look at verse 19. He's speaking about the false promisers, the Antichrist. They went out from us because 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 are all not of us." John is saying that the third safeguard against false promises is the church of God. Isn't it interesting that these heretics, these false teachers, excommunicate themselves They weren't doing this to be nice to the elders of the church. They weren't saying, well, look, we're false teachers and we really would like to make it easier for you at the session. So, hey, we'll just leave. No. They couldn't, they left the church because they couldn't stand it. What happens in church? Bunch of people getting around the word of God and talking about what Jesus said. Well, these are anti-Christ. They don't want that. They want to go on to special knowledge and special revelation. And I've got these new ideas. And whenever you bring them back to the word, they say, ah, it's passe. We need to move beyond the Bible. They couldn't stay in the church because of what happens there. They got to go. Not just that. Not just that, there's one more thing. But before we go to that one more thing, Kids, think about this. We're talking about checking your candy to make sure it's safe. Brothers and sisters, think about this. Who better to check your ideas about what the Bible is saying than other believers? Right? You're reading the Bible and you think you've come up with an insight that nobody else has ever come up with before. Chances are you're nuts. Chances are you're crazy. But the way to be sure is to ask other Christians. Talk to your brothers and sisters. Talk to your elders. Talk to your pastor. Get a good study Bible and see, has anybody else ever thought this passage means this? And if not, there's a tiny percent of a chance that you might have discovered something new, but the overwhelming chance is it's bad candy. You shouldn't eat it. God gives us the church as a gift. False teachers can't stand it, but Christians love the church. And the final reason why the church is a safeguard against false Christ is not just because of what happens there, but because of who is there. When Christians gather together in the name of Jesus, who's there? Jesus is there. And who do antichrists hate most? It's in their name. They hate Christ. They can't stand it because he's there. And for our own benefit, this should be such a comfort. Who better to scare the antichrists away than Christ himself? And so we end with encouragement today. The best defense against a false promise is to know the true promise. The best defense against false Christ is to know the real Christ. You know the real Christ through His Word, through His Spirit, and through the church. And I know that sometimes it can be a real struggle to get your Bible out to read. It can be a real struggle to want to come to church. Sometimes it's a real struggle for pastors to want to come to church, honestly. But remember, when we come to the Word, when we ask for the Spirit's help, when we come to church, we're coming through these things to Christ, the real promise keeper. Amen. Let us pray. Our God, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You that You care enough about us to warn us, but not every promise is true and not everyone who makes it can be trusted. We thank You, God, for the warning, but also for the reality that You are the One who makes real promises, eternal life. And You are the One who has proven through the death and resurrection of Jesus that You are able to keep those promises. So give us the wisdom, please, to cling to Him and help us to use these safeguards, the Word, the Spirit, and the Church. Keep us safe into the end in a world full of false and counterfeit promises. Keep us in Christ, we ask in His name, saying together, amen.