This is how we know that we know him…

1. Expanding obedience, “walk as he walked”
2. Increasing love “in dark, walks dark, covered eyes”
   • Do not love the world
     • Incompatible with love for Father
     • Inpermanent “world with its lusts is passing away”
3. Enduring faith

Children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. By this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. However, they went out so that it might be made clear that none of them belongs to us.

But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. I have not written to you because you don’t know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie comes from the truth. Who is the liar, if not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This one is the antichrist: the one who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; he who confesses the Son has the Father as well.

1 John 2:18–23

Realize the danger

Last Days/Last Hour

• How can that be?
• See, the Bible isn’t true.

John was there when Jesus said…

“It is not for you to know times or periods
that the Father has set by his own authority.”

Acts 1:7

…so it’s most unlikely that he would have presumed to speculate on precisely when the end would come.

Theologically speaking, it is the last hour.

The first coming of Christ inaugurated the new age and settled the doom of the old.

The next great redemptive thing to happen in God’s glorious plan is going to be the coming of our Lord in power and in glory.

Ligon Duncan

What John wrote was true. And it is still true. The fact that 2,000 years have elapsed since he wrote these words does not invalidate his argument or contradict his affirmation.

John Stott

If you look through church history, a few things are consistent: the people of God have always thought that Jesus was coming back during their lifetime.

That’s not to say it’s wrong; that’s the way it should be!

• In Revelation 22, Jesus says 3× “I am coming soon!”

Application Today

The situation in Israel… maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.

These matters of prophecy are very difficult, and people who speak dogmatically about them are just displaying their own ignorance… we must approach a matter like this with humility, with caution, and with reverence, knowing that when saintly, godly, able men have confessed the difficulty, it is clearly not something upon which we can easily and glibly pronounce a final judgment.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Jesus isn’t coming until the gospel goes to every tribe & tongue… and we’re not there yet (Joshua Project: 7,253 unreached people groups)

I’m not on the planning committee,
just the welcoming committee!

All I know for certain is that he said he’s coming soon, we say, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus”, and when he comes, I want to be about the Father’s business, doing what he told us to do.

Antichrist(s)

• literally “against Christ”, enemies of Christ

• in the last days, there will be one single, final Antichrist.

• John’s focus is not on that future Antichrist, but rather the people who are already infiltrating the church with the same spirit as that person.

• Notice that they’re not from outside the church, but inside.
  That’s the way that Satan attacks most effectively.

  • angel of light. imposters & counterfiters

They were teaching that Jesus either (a) wasn’t really the eternal Son of God, or (b) that he wasn’t really human.

Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming; even now it is already in the world.

1 John 4:2-3

The heretics’ theology isn’t just defective, it’s diabolical.

Leaving the Church

They went out from us, but they did not belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. However, they went out so that it might be made clear that none of them belongs to us.

1 John 2:19

• He doesn’t say they’re true Christians who fell from grace.
• He says that when they left, they revealed that they were
  never, ever true believers in the first place.

It’s hard, hurts when people leave the church; even worse when they lose the faith.

• You’ve got to be careful applying this to those who just chose to go to a different church. Every church is not for every person, and that’s okay.
• While it may be true that they left us because they weren’t one of us, this is talking about people who walk away from the faith entirely.

The faith that fizzles before the
finish was flawed from the first.

While it’s a painful realization that these people were not truly following Christ, at least we’re given a means of processing it when it happens.

The Power to Fight the Danger

But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. I have not written to you because you don’t know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie comes from the truth. Who is the liar, if not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This one is the antichrist: the one who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; he who confesses the Son has the Father as well.

1 John 2:18–23

• Not talking about guidance. It’s a knowledge of truth, doctrine, specifically what these people are denying, that Jesus is the Christ.
• Not saying that Christians know everything. Not even all spiritual truth, otherwise what would it mean to “grow in the grace & knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18)?
• Not saying that Christians don’t need instruction. (v27)

Anointing of the Holy Spirit

Any & all Christians know this truth above all else: Jesus
Christ is Lord. He is the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One.

Application & Conclusion.

• Be encouraged: you’re still here!
• Be watchful: the antichrists are already here.
• Be grateful: you have the Son, the Father, and the Spirit.