(1 John 2: 18-20) “Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This how we know it is the last hour. 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. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know all things (the truth).”
Last month the seventh Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions was held in Kazakhstan’s capital Nur Sultan. A total of 100 people from 50 countries, including Pope Francis, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmed El-Tayyeb, and Israel’s Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau, participated in the congress. In the two-day congress, participants focused on the role of religious leaders in a post-pandemic world.
Back in February 2019 we saw the signing of the Document on Human Fraternity by Pope Francis and Grand Imam Ahmed Al-Tayeb further cementing an interfaith conglomeration after which the vision to build the Abrahamic Family House immerged, a structure being built on Saadiyat Island, the cultural heart of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates which will see a Mosque, a Synagogue, a Church and an interfaith education centre built supposedly as a symbol of unity between those of different faiths.
While we see this amalgamation of ‘faiths’ coming to the fore we have also seen the growing incoming tide of Ecumenism throughout Christendom. Multitudes of professing Christians across the spectrum of Protestant denominations are quite in favour of Ecumenical and interfaith worship, a growing trend within wider Christendom today.
When the apostle John wrote his first letter he mentioned that Satan would manifest his spiritual deception in three ways. He writes about the antichrist, many antichrists and the spirit of antichrist. While the apostle John relates this work of Satan to the first century it is prophetic in its application to every age of the Church, but specifically related to the last days. As John writes; “Dear children, this is the last hour;”
After the ascension of the Lord Jesus the apostles and those over whom they had spiritual oversight lived in the expectancy of the Lord Jesus’ Second Coming. This was and has always been the blessed hope of the faithful Body of the Messiah down through history to the present day. New Covenant Bible believers do not live for this world but for the world to come. While we live in this world we are not of this world knowing that we cannot love God and the things of God, while at the same time loving this world and the things of this world. We know that if anyone sets their hearts on loving this world and the things of this world, that the love of the Father is not in that person even though outwardly they might profess to be a believer (1 John 2:15).
John also calls them “dear children” because as a loving spiritual father to them he knew that they were all subject to spiritual deception if they did not stay watchful in spiritual matters. As the elect community of believers they were not above being spiritually seduced as our Lord Jesus spoke about in Matthew Chapter 24. In His discourse He mentions wars, rumours of wars, nation rising against nation, kingdom against kingdom, earthquakes, famine and disease once, but mentions spiritual deception four times.
We are living in a time when apostasy is happening at a rate unprecedented in past church history. The Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions and the Abrahamic House of Interfaith unity are just the outward visible manifestation of this growing apostasy within wider Christendom and in Israel’s religious communities, an apostasy which is being manifested today in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders which are opening up the way for the revealing of the Antichrist also called the man of sin (2 Thessalonians 2:9). Even the very elect are in danger of being spiritually deceived and many are already being deceived (Matthew 24:24).
Let’s very briefly look at the three conspicuous features of Satan’s agenda keeping in mind that his strategy is to derail and destroy our faith as New Covenant believers who know that the Lord Jesus is the only way, the truth and the life, and that no one can come to God the Father except through Him (John 14:6).
(Vs.18) “Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This how we know it is the last hour.
1. The Antichrist
In the time of John the apostles expected that the antichrist would come and that the revealing of this man of sin or lawlessness (Torahlessness) would occur at the very last hour just before the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus. Paul writing his second letter to the Thessalonians told them that last great end-time apostasy would open the way for the revealing of the man of sin. If the faithful Body of the Messiah was no longer on earth, having been raptured as the proponents of the pre-tribulation rapture teach, then why would Paul have even mentioned it if the faithful Church was no longer here?
The word antichrist itself has two shades of meaning in the Greek language. It means “against Christ” and “in place of Christ.” Satan has firstly to turn people away from the true Christ as revealed in God’s Word, and to replace Him with a false Christ. Satan is not concerned about the unsaved as they belong to him already. The ones that trouble him the most are born again, blood redeemed, blood washed, Spirit-filled Bible believers who know how to resist him with the power of the blood, the Word and the Spirit.
We know from God’s Word in both Testaments that the antichrist or the man of sin will come and that the end-time apostasy will pave the way for his coming, and that because of the increase in lawlessness many will fall away from their faith in the Messiah (2 Thessalonians 2:9) (Matthew 24:12). If these were not true believers then what would they be falling away from? Matthew also says “He that has endured to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:13).
As New Covenant believers we are saved now, but in order to stay saved we must endure to the end, a stark reality facing our beloved brothers and sisters being terribly persecuted in the Islamic world today and one out of which the Islamic antichrist will immerge centre stage in world affairs. Of course we also see the terrible atrocities being perpetrated against our fellow believers in other non-Islamic countries such as in China and North Korea.
2. Many antichrists
John also mentions that “many antichrists have come.” For the first century Body of the Messiah the Roman Caesars were all antichrists taking upon themselves a form of deity to be worshipped. As history progressed the Pagan Roman Pontiffs was replaced by the Roman Catholic Pontiffs who continued to persecute faithful New Covenant Bible believers as history shows.
The papacy itself is antichrist. The Pope is called “the Vicar of Christ on earth” and Roman Catholics believe that what he says about the Bible and how he interprets it is accepted as the truth. The Roman Catholic Church teaches another gospel which is another subject for another time. There is only one Vicar of Christ on earth and that is the blessed Holy Spirit of truth, not error, and the Papacy usurps this role of the Holy Spirit. Ecumenism like interfaith at its very core is the very spirit of antichrist which always begins with the Church. And so we read…
(Vs.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.”
Undoubtedly these John writes about were once part of the assembly of believers but at some point decided that they no longer wanted to be subject to the apostle’s doctrine which at its centre taught the divinity of the Lord Jesus and that salvation is only found in Him and in no other. These people who left were into a form of mysticism called “Gnosticism” which today would be part of the new age thinking, post modernism and existentialism, more so of those within wider Christendom who are pre-occupied and fixated with all kinds of questionable manifestations, miracles, signs, wonders, subjective dreams, visions, personal prophecies and who are teaching things that should not be taught.
These Gnostics, from which we get the word “knowledge” claimed to have extra supernatural revelation or innate inner spiritual knowledge that went against and beyond apostolic doctrine and authority and against the faith once delivered to the saints. It was of course occult in nature. The many antichrists initially were associated with the believing community in John’s time and are an infestation within the wider Body of the Messiah today showing by their unbiblical doctrines and practices that they do not adhere to apostolic doctrine which we have in the Word of God.
The canon of scripture is complete and those who add to it or take away from it are showing that they are no longer part of the faithful Bible believing community. These antichrists claim to hold to the truth of God’s Word but misuse it to bolster their own heretical views such as the Jesus died spiritually heresy, which at its core attacks the deity of the Messiah, another topic for another time.
These “antichrists” are manifested in the hyper faith, money loving, Kingdom Dominion proponents with their Gnostic doctrines and emphasis on miracles, signs, wonders, manifestations and especially on money. Whether it is the emphasis on interfaith, Ecumenism, manifestations and unbiblical doctrines and so called spiritual experiences of one sort or another it is all the spirit of antichrist. Every antichrist is liar because they deny that Jesus is the Messiah and also deny the eternal relationship that has always existed between the Father and the Son (1 John 2:22).
(Vs.20) “But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know all things (the truth).”
The blessed Holy Spirit Himself is the Spirit of truth who goes forth from the Father and who leads us into all truth and will never endorse unbiblical doctrine and living (John 15:26; 16:13-14). We are told in the Bible that “the sum of God’s Word is truth.” It does not contain the truth but is the absolute truth from Genesis to Revelation! That truth was fully manifested visibly in the Lord Jesus who is Himself the Eternal Word of God incarnate in a flesh and blood body (1 John 1:1, 14-15) (Colossians 1:15-19). If you have been born again by the Spirit of God then you have within you the anointing that will teach you what you need to know for life and godliness and enable you to discern truth from error. Of course to do this we also need to be grounded in the Word of God.
3. The spirit of antichrist
(1 John 4:2-3) “This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come into the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
The spirit of antichrist at its core denies the deity of the Lord Jesus and that He is the only way of salvation (John 14:6) (Acts 4:12). It denies the eternal relationship the Son had with the father and that the Lord Jesus as the living Word of God took upon Himself a flesh and blood body (John 1:14). The fact that we see the rapid rise of interfaith and ecumenism is the spirit of antichrist preparing the way for the coming of the Antichrist himself.
Added to this, the Jesus died spiritually doctrine of the hyper faith money preachers actually denies Jesus’ divinity when their heresy is examined in the light of scripture but this is a separate subject in itself. In his Second Epistle John tells us not to associate with those who claim to be Christians but do not hold to the teaching of the apostles as we have clearly set out in the New Testament. We are not to welcome them into our homes, our fellowships or into our pulpits because of the deadly spiritual nature of heretical teaching (2 John 1:7-11).
John also writes “You dear children are from God and have overcome them (the antichrists within and without Christendom) because He (the Spirit of Jesus) who is in you is greater than the he (Satan) who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).
As New Covenant Bible believers let us press on to know the Word of God because it will prove to be a lamp to our feet, a light to our path and keep us from sin and spiritual deception and error, and on the narrow path that will lead us into our eternal reward. We know that He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world. Well may those into interfaith associations, ecumenical and Gnostic experiences, and doctrines of devils link arms as they all waltz together singing merrily down the yellow brick road of religious euphoria and humanism but at the end of that yellow brick road they are destined to meet someone far more sinister and deadly than the Wizard of Oz!
