“Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. {19} They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. {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.”

It makes no difference what you believe, just as long as you’re sincere!”

That statement expresses the personal philosophy of many people today, but it is doubtful whether most of those who make it have really thought it through. Is “sincerity” the magic ingredient that makes something true? If so, then you ought to be able to apply it to any area of life, and not only to religion.

• A nurse in a city hospital gives some medicine to a patient, and the patient becomes violently ill. The nurse is sincere but the medicine is wrong, and the patient almost dies.
• A man hears noises in the house one night and decides a burglar is at work. He gets his gun and shoots the “burglar,” who turns out to be his daughter! Unable to sleep, she has gotten up for a bite to eat. She ends up the victim of her father’s “sincerity.”

It takes more than “sincerity” to make something true. Faith in a lie will always cause serious consequences; faith in the truth is never misplaced. It does make a difference what a man believes!

• If a man wants to drive from Chicago to New York, no amount of sincerity will get him there if the highway is taking him to Los Angeles.
• A person who is real builds his life on truth, not superstition or lies. It is impossible to live a real life by believing lies.

God has warned the church family (“little children”) about the conflict between light and darkness (1 John 1:1-2:6) and between love and hatred (1 John 2:7-17). Now He warns them about a third conflict: the conflict between truth and error.

Before John explains the tragic consequences of turning from the truth, he emphasizes the seriousness of the matter. He does so by using two special terms: “the last time” and “antichrist.” Both terms make it clear that Christians are living in an hour of crisis and must guard against the errors of the enemy.

We are in the “last time” as it speaks of the Christian age. Since the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God is doing a “new thing” in this world. All of Old Testament history prepared the way for the work of Christ on the cross. All history since that time is merely preparation for “the end,” when Jesus will come again.

God is not limited by time the way His creatures are. God works in human time, but He is above time. 2 Peter 3:8 tells us that “a day is as a thousand years” to the Lord. According to that principle, Jesus hasn’t been away from the earth as God Incarnate but 2.5 days…and if he doesn’t come for 5,000 more years, it would still be only a week?

The second term, “antichrist,” is used in the Bible only by John (1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 7). It describes two things:

1. a spirit in the world that opposes or denies Christ
2. the false teachers who embody this spirit.

The “spirit of antichrist” is behind every false doctrine and every “religious” substitute for the realities Christians have in Christ. That prefix anti actually has a dual meaning. It can mean, in the Greek, both “against” Christ and “instead of” Christ.

Satan in his frenzy is fighting Christ and His eternal truth, and he is substituting his counterfeits for the realities found only in Jesus.

This passage explains that there are two forces at work in today’s world: truth is working through the church by the Holy Spirit, and evil is working by the energy of Satan.

The key question for a Christian is: Who is Jesus Christ? Is Christ merely “an Example,” “a good Man,” or “a wonderful Teacher”; or is He God come in the flesh?

The great assertion of the faith that sets a Christian apart from others is this: Jesus Christ is God come in the flesh (1 John 4:2).

To confess that “Jesus Christ is God come in the flesh” involves much more than simply to identify Christ. The demons did this (Mark 1:24) but it did not save them.

True confession involves personal faith in Christ—in who He is and what He has done.

False teachers will often say, “We worship the Father. We believe in God the Father, even though we disagree with you about Jesus Christ.” But to deny the Son means to deny the Father also. You cannot separate the Father and the Son, since both are one God. Jesus says, “I and My Father are One” (John 10:30).

He also makes it clear that true believers honor both the Father and the Son. {23} No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.” If you say you “worship one God” but leave Jesus Christ out of your worship, you are not worshiping according to what God requires.

There are many who are denying Jesus Christ.

• They are denying His deity: that He is the Son of God who came out of (ek) heaven, out from the spiritual world and dimension into this world; who came through the womb of a virgin as the God-Man to save the world.
• They are denying that He is the sinless Son of God who lived a perfect and righteous life and thereby secured the ideal and perfect righteousness for man.
• They are denying His death and resurrection: that He died as the perfect sacrifice for man’s sins and that He rose from the dead to conquer death for man.
• They are denying His Lordship: that He is truly the Son of God who ascended into heaven and is now seated at the right hand of God as the Lord and God of the uerse.
• They are denying His return to earth: that He is coming again to execute judgment upon every person who has ever lived upon the earth.

Where do antichrists come from? Note exactly what John says: “They went out from us, but they were not of us.”

Shockingly, they come from within the church. False teachers are teachers within the church; they hold positions of leadership within the church.

It is interesting to observe that antichristian groups rarely try to lead lost sinners to their false faith. Instead, they spend much of their time trying to convert professing Christians (and church members, at that) to their own doctrines. They are out to “seduce” the faithful. The word “seduce” carries the idea of “being led astray.”

This also occurs when there  is a ‘split’ in a congregation over matters of opinion.

Satan is not an originator; he is a counterfeiter. He imitates the work of God. For example, Satan has counterfeit “ministers” (2 Cor. 11:13-15) who preach a counterfeit gospel (Gal. 1:6-12) that produces counterfeit Christians (John 8:43-44) who depend on a counterfeit righteousness (Rom. 10:1-10).

In the Parable of the Tares (Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43), Jesus and Satan are pictured as sowers. Jesus sows the true seed, the children of God; but Satan sows “the children of the wicked one.” The two kinds of plants, while growing, look so much alike that the servants could not tell the difference until the fruit appeared! Satan’s chief stratagem is to plant the counterfeit wherever Christ plants the true. And it is important that you be able to detect the counterfeit and separate the teachings of Christ from the false teachings of antichrist.

By the way, how does one determine if something is counterfeit? You compare it to the original!

We are warned against letting any man be our teacher, for God has given us the Spirit to teach us His truth. This does not deny the office of human teachers in the church (Eph. 4:11-12); but it means that under the guidance of the Spirit you must test the teaching of men as you search the Bible for yourself (cf. Acts 17:11).

Why are some Christians led astray to believe false teachings? Because they are not abiding in the Spirit. The word “abide” occurs several times in this section of 1 John, and it would be helpful to review:

• False teachers do not abide (“continue”) in the fellowship (1 John 2:19).
• The word (message) we have heard should abide in us (1 John 2:24).
• The anointing (the Holy Spirit) abides in us, and we should abide in the Spirit (1 John 2:27).
• As we abide in the Word and in the Spirit, we also abide in Christ (1 John 2:28).

We notice this word abide earlier in John’s letter:

• If we say we abide in Christ, we should walk as He walked (1 John 2:6).
• If we love our brother, we abide in the light (1 John 2:10).
• If the Word abides in us, we will be spiritually strong (1 John 2:14).
• If we do the will of God, we shall abide forever (1 John 2:17).

A believer must allow the Spirit of God to teach him from the Bible. One of the major functions of a local church is the teaching of God’s Word (2 Tim. 2:2; 4:1-5).

Why does God give us the Holy Spirit? One of the major reasons is to teach us all things. This was the glorious promise of Jesus Christ.

“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:26).

God gives the truth to the believer. He gives us the truth in two ways.

1. God gives us the truth in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the truth. He declared this emphatically: “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).

As Jesus Christ says in John 14:6, “I am the way [to God], the truth [of God], and the life [of God].” The truth is found in Jesus Christ. True believers know this.

God gives us the truth in the Word of God, the Holy Scriptures or Holy Bible. Jesus Christ Himself and Scripture declare:

“If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32).

As someone has put it, to deny that Jesus is the Christ is the master lie, the lie par excellence; the lie of all lies. To deny Jesus is indeed the master lie, for it is to lose entirely the faith and the knowledge which he alone makes possible.

A few years ago I began to notice a word that kept popping up. This word can have several meanings, I guess, but it seems to be used primarily to end discussions. At first, I thought it was used only by teen-agers, but I have since heard it on the lips of people of all generations. Increasingly, it is used to say, “It doesn’t matter enough to talk about any further.” The word is “whatever.”

• A parent says to a child, “You should do this!” and the child replies, “Whatever.”
• A teenage girl encourages her friend to “do the right thing” in a situation, and the answer is “Whatever.”
• Two adults argue over politics until one of them has had enough, so he shrugs his shoulders and says, “Whatever.”
• On a more significant level, “whatever” can mean that truth does not matter to people. It can communicate that you are entitled to your view of truth, I am entitled to my view of truth, and we can assume that we are both equally right.
• In the United States, “whatever” is more than a cultural fad; it is a one word indicator of the way a nation is thinking.
  What do you think about my evaluation of this interesting word? Did I hear you say, “Whatever” ?
  John and Jesus challenge the spirit of “whatever.” His message is bold, and His claims cannot be ignored. In the end, you may respond to Him with a joyous “Yes!” or a defiant “No!”–but He will not allow you to answer, “Whatever.” When it comes to Jesus, “whatever” is not an option.

1. S. Lewis: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His  claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg–or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

What does all of this mean for us today? First, for those who have grown up in the Christian faith, it forces us to move beyond the “Jesus was a nice man” phase of our own spiritual development. As my children grew up, I wanted them to be impressed at an early age by Jesus’ kindness and gentleness toward children and people who are hurting. Having such a picture of Jesus is good. However, if my children never grow beyond that picture of Jesus, if they never realize that Jesus was not only gentle but also bold and demanding, then their faith will fail to mature. Jesus claimed to be “I am.” The old saying is true: “Either Jesus is Lord of all, or He is not Lord at all!” To the man or woman who still attends worship services but is not living as a Christian Monday through Saturday, this meeting with Jesus is a call to make a decision. Each of us must stand on the side of faith or on the side of disbelief. What do you think about Jesus? Was He a blasphemer? Was He a liar? Was He a lunatic? Is He Lord? You must decide! “Whatever” is not an option!