1 John chapter 2, and we're going
to read from verse 18. Little children, it is the last
time, and as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now
are there many Antichrists whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from us, but they
were not of us. For if they had been of us, they
would no doubt have continued with us. But they went out that
they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. but
ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things. I have not written unto you because
ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is
of the truth. Who is a liar but he that denieth
that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth
the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the
same hath not the Father. But he that acknowledgeth the
Son hath the Father also. Let that therefore abide in you,
which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have
heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall
continue in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise
that he hath promised. that he hath promised us, even
eternal life. These things have I written unto
you concerning them that seduce you. But the anointing which
ye have received of him abideth in you. And he need not that
any man teach you, but as the same anointing teacheth you of
all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath
taught you, ye shall abide in him. Amen. May God bless to us this reading
from his word. Towards the end of his gospel,
John, the beloved apostle and the writer of this epistle, wrote
in chapter 20, verse 31, these are written. preceding chapters and all that
were contained in them. These are written that ye might
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing
ye might have life through his name. John is telling poor guilty sinners
condemned by law to die, that there is redemption in Christ,
there is forgiveness in believing, there is salvation by grace,
and life everlasting to be found in the person and work of the
Son of God. That's the gospel. That is the
gospel that we preach. That is the one of whom we preach. That is the message that we endeavour
to declare, as John did in his day, so as all faithful ministers
and faithful believers have sought to declare this truth, that the
Lord Jesus Christ is the Christ, the Son of God. And I want you
to notice this emphasis of John. I want you to notice the emphasis
that he applies to understanding the proper identity of the Saviour. He says, Jesus is the Christ. And that word the, the definite
article, is important because what John is saying is that Jesus
of Nazareth is the anointed, the appointed, the chosen one
of God. Jesus of Nazareth, this one who
lived those 30 years in that relative obscurity, in that little
town in Nazareth, in that little carpenter's shop and laboured
and served. He is the Messiah. That was the point, that was
the emphasis that John was making. He is saying, this one, Jesus
of Nazareth, is the hope of Israel. This one is the Messiah that
was promised. He who was the muse of the Old
Testament prophets and priests and of which all the Old Testament
types and symbols pointed towards and eagerly anticipated. That
this Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ. Furthermore, he goes
on to say, He, Jesus of Nazareth, is a worthy and a fit saviour
for sinners. There is none more worthy than
He. There is no fitter person than
Jesus of Nazareth to be the saviour because He is the Son of God. And these two things are set
forth by John in this lovely little verse at the end of his
gospel where he says these things are written that he might believe
that Jesus is the Christ, or the Messiah, the Son of God,
and that believing he might have life through his name. He is the Son of God. He is God himself, equal with
the Father, holy, eternal, omnipotent, possessing all the attributes
of the divine person, and yet shrouded in human flesh and the
nature of a real man. He is pointing, John is, to Jesus
of Nazareth, And He is saying, He's the Messiah, the Promised
One, the One of whom Moses spoke, the One of whom David spoke,
the One of whom Daniel wrote, the One of whom Isaiah prophesied,
the One that we have been looking forward to all these years. It is this One, Jesus of Nazareth,
and He is the Son of God. Now I suggest to you that these
two titles summarise and comprehend and encapsulate the whole plan
of salvation and the complete covenant of grace. Because every
Old Testament prophecy, every revelation that we have in the
Old Testament from God the Holy Spirit, granted to and revealed
amongst men and women upon the face of this earth, every Old
Testament prophecy runs towards that Jesus of Nazareth. And each one is fulfilled in
him. Every type in the Old Testament,
whether it's the journey of Israel out of Egypt, whether it's the
establishment of the tabernacle, whether it's the form of worship
and the sacrifices or the prophecies that are spoken, every type prefigures
him and all the promises of God flow from him. All that Christ
did and all that was done to him satisfied divine justice,
fulfilled all holiness and worked out the salvation which he alone
could accomplish. There is such uniqueness in this
person, Jesus of Nazareth. the Christ, the Son of God. And the fact that He is who He
is, God the Son, compels the success of His work, the glory
of His accomplishments, and the praiseworthiness of all His achievements. He alone is the Christ, the Son
of God. So that if you believe that Jesus
is the Christ, the Son of God, you believe everything that is
required for eternal life. Let me say it another way. If you believe that Jesus is
the Christ, the Son of God, you have been enabled, you have been
informed, you have had supplied everything that is needful to
enjoy life with God. You have eternal life. That's what those Jews that we
read about in Acts didn't have. They had not been informed, they
had not been supplied, they had not been enabled. But if we believe
that Jesus of Nazareth, this man who lived in that little
village, that little town and laboured with woods by the sweat
of his brow, is in fact the Messiah, the Son of God, then we have
been enabled, our eyes have been opened and our ears have been
unstopped to hear the very truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And you say to me, well, that's too easy. That's too trite. You're saying there that everybody
who says that Jesus is the Christ, everyone who says that Jesus
is the son of God is one of God's elect, is a believer. Listen,
my friends, don't think what I've just said is too easy or
too trite. It is impossible to do these
things except God himself, God the Holy Spirit enables us to
do so. You don't need to be anxious
about who is and who isn't one of the Lord's people. Faith is
impossible without quickening and that is the business of God
the Holy Ghost. Let us be concerned for the well-being
of our own souls. and let us leave up to the Holy
Ghost to deal with the hearts and lives of others. Do I believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God? Do you believe that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the fulfilment of all
the Old Testament promises and the achiever of all the New Testament
accomplishments? When we turn to his epistle,
when we turn to John's little epistle here, we see that emphasis
on the identity of the Lord Jesus Christ continuing. And remember,
we opened our passage today by John addressing little children. He says this phrase frequently
in this epistle. And we remind ourselves that
he is speaking to Christ's little ones. He's speaking to believers.
We are the little children as we have realised and recognised
the true identity of Jesus of Nazareth. And John in the verses
before us today is about to introduce us to Antichrist. So he has identified us as the
little children who know the Christ and now he is about to
introduce us to Antichrist. That is the spirit and indeed
personification of opposition that characterised the end of
the apostolic era. John is coming to the end of
his life. He says it's the time. It's the time of the ending of
the apostles' time on earth. It's the time at which we live
in today as John writes. And I suggest to you that this
spirit of Antichrist, this personification of opposition that was there
at the end of the apostolic era, at the end of John's life, has
been with us ever since. It is an attitude in the hearts
of natural men and women of antagonism towards the Lord Jesus Christ
and towards his church and people. And John is informing and forewarning
and preparing the church for the sad fact that deceivers and
liars and false teachers and wolves in sheep's clothing are
both now and will continually challenging and harrying the
Lord's little flock. John's telling us what is going
to happen. that these will come in and strive
to deny the simplicity that is in Christ and the gospel of God's
sovereign grace towards his people. Now it is only the Apostle John
who uses the term Antichrist in Scripture. He uses it twice
in chapter two, the chapter that we are in today. He uses it once
in chapter four, and he uses it once in his second epistle. First John, second John, third
John. So he uses it in the first epistle
and in the second epistle, but he's the only one who does. Now
others, commentators and writers, they have applied that title
Antichrist to the little horn that is spoken of by Daniel,
the false Christs that are cited by the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew's
Gospel, the man of sin that is revealed by Paul in 2 Thessalonians,
and the beast that John again speaks about in the book of Revelation. and of course others have identified
others also. You'll know perhaps that the
reformers who brought in the reformation and the return and
recovery of gospel truth, they identified the papacy or the
Pope of Rome as being the Antichrist and that is written about in
many of the old church confessions of faith. And all of these may
be fitting but we would be wrong to restrict the description to
one person or even one particular category of people. Because John
tells us quite explicitly, even now, even in this last time that
he's speaking about in these verses, are there many antichrists? So John is telling us that these
antichrists are with us then and now. Now I want to take a
moment here to say something which is important and I trust
something, I hope something that is also memorable to you because
I want you to remember what I'm about to say. because I think
it will give you a lot of comfort when you read the scriptures
on your own or you hear other sermons being preached. John, particularly, and the apostles
in general, they do not tell us these things, things about
the Antichrist, for example, in order to scare us. There is
no purpose here to frighten the children, little children. John's not writing to frighten
us. His purpose is to explain, to enlighten, and to prepare
the church so that we are not thrown into confusion when strange
and inexplicable stuff happens. But we have a confirmation granted
to us at those times of strange and inexplicable things, disappointments,
heartaches, challenges to our faith. We have confirmation granted
to us that the Lord is in control so that our faith might be strengthened
and our joy increased. So here what I'm saying, John
warns us and prepares us about difficult things so that our
joy might be increased. How does that work? I tried to
think about an example that would be meaningful to us. And I came
up with this, whether this works or not, we'll just have to leave
to your reflection. But should we be afraid of a
scheduled fire alarm practice? When we hear the alarm going
off during a scheduled fire alarm practice, we ought not to be
afraid. Now that siren might scream in
our ears and the noise seemed to shake us and go all the way
through us. But the very fact that that is
a scheduled fire alarm practice ought to reassure us. Each three
of those words or phrases ought to reassure us. It's scheduled. It's planned. It's a fire alarm
to warn us of the fact that there is danger or there could be at
other times. And it's just a practice. Therefore
we are reassured when we hear a scheduled fire alarm practice. We're not frightened. and that's
exactly what John is doing for us here. Let me give you a few
passages and I'm going back to John's gospel to give you these
because I think that this proves the point that we're making.
In John chapter 14 verse 29, John says this, he's speaking
about the Lord. And now the Lord says, I have
told you before it come to pass, that when it is come to pass,
ye might believe. So the Lord was telling his disciples,
telling John, telling the apostles, before it came to pass, so that
when it came to pass, they might be reassured, they might believe,
they may be confirmed. John chapter 15 verse 21. But all these things will they
do unto you for my name's sake because they know not him that
sent me. They're going to do terrible
things to you. They're going to hurt you. But
they will do it because they don't know me. I'm telling you
these things before they come to pass so that you may believe. John 16, verse four, but these
things have I told you that when the time shall come ye may remember
that I told you them. John 16, 33, these things I have
spoken unto you that in me ye might have peace. In the world
ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome
the world. So John is telling us these things
so that when they do happen, we will remember that God's in
control. He told us this would happen.
This is all part of the plan, all part of that which he is
working out in order to achieve his purposes. Now John identifies
Antichrist with four signs. And he says, remember when you
see these things happening and believe. So let us just think
briefly about what these four signs are that John gives us
with respect to Antichrist. The first thing is this, they
went out from us. So Antichrist is going to go
out from us. You know, it can be one of the
most disheartening things when we see people that we thought
were believers falling away, when we see lives being shipwrecked
for whom we had hope that they were indeed members of the fellowship
and of the elect of God. But what John is telling us here
is that they went out from us. Antichrist goes out from us.
Antichrist is a religious professor, familiar with the language of
the Bible, familiar with the doctrines of Scripture, the content
of the Word of God, but desiring to undermine that truth with
the things that he or she now says. They have departed from
the apostolic faith and they have set up opposing structures
of their own. Now I'm not talking about leaving
a particular pastor or leaving a particular church, a particular
congregation, but these are they who have left the truth of the
gospel. They've left the revelation of
the gospel, the apostolic revelation. They've left the solid foundation
of scripture truth to concoct another way, another theology. And that's the point. They went
out from us with all our language, with all our doctrine, with all
our teaching. They went out and they have concocted
another way, Antichrist. The second thing he says is,
they were not of us. They were never regenerate. They were never born again. Oh,
they may have made a profession. They may have been baptised.
They may even have been preachers in our pulpits. They talked the
talk and they walked the walk for a considerable amount of
time. But the root of grace and genuine
faith was not present in them. Their religion was an act. It
was a vehicle for their gain, for influence, for prestige. It was antichrist, using Christ
for his own fleshy end. Third thing that distinguishes
Antichrist is that this is all ordained to happen. It's purposeful. God willed it to be so. This
is the purpose of winnowing the church of false doctrine. You know what winnowing is? It
was historically when the people had threshed the corn and then
they had the corn and the husks, they would throw it up in the
air and the wind would blow away all those husks and leave just
the solid wheat, the grain that was valuable and useful and that
was winnowing. And that's what this is. It's ordained by God to blow
out false doctrine from the church. that the church might be made
manifest and evident, the true gospel might be seen for what
it is, and that they who teach false doctrine may be revealed
as not being of us. And John says, listen that's
not you. None of the little children are
like that. The little children, they stay
founded upon Christ. They cling to the gospel because
they have an unction, he calls it. It's as if they've got an
anointing by God the Holy Spirit. They have been born again. They
have been made Christs. They have a Holy Spirit indwelling. They have a called and quickened
spirit. They're possessors of the new
birth. and the elect persevere in the
truth because they have heard it and received it and proved
the power of the gospel. But Antichrist, and this is the
fourth one, Antichrist denies the gospel. denies that Jesus
is the Christ, the Son of the Father. And that's what we read
in verse 22 and verse 23. They deny this. They say, no,
that is not the case. Look at verse 23. 1 John 2 verse 23, Whosoever denieth
the Son, the same hath not the Father. But he that acknowledgeth
the Son hath the Father also. Let that... I meant to read 22,
sorry. Who is a liar but he that denieth
that Jesus is the Christ? He is Antichrist that denieth
the Father and the Son. And then verse 23. Whosoever
denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father, but he that acknowledgeth
the Son hath the Father also. So here John is telling us that
this is what distinguishes between those who are in Christ and those
who are contrary to Christ or anti-Christ. reminding us again, these are
written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the
Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his
name. Now that doesn't mean that we
never make a mistake, we don't get things wrong, we don't have
wrong ideas, we don't grow cold sometimes in our spiritual life.
There's good reason for John to call us little children because
in very many ways we're immature and childish about the things
that we receive and the things that we are taught. But there
is all the difference in the world between those who are children
and those who are not. Between the tares and the wheat,
between the goats and the sheep. And you can't make one of the
other. It seems that even before the
passing of the apostles, way back in that time of the Acts
of the Apostles, heresies were coming in about Christ's person,
about his nature and about his work, denying that Jesus of Nazareth
was the Christ and denying that he was the Son of God and denying
that all of the things that he accomplished was as revealed. This was breaking out in the
churches and John plainly states that denying Jesus Christ, whether
it's his humanity or his divinity, whether it's his purpose, whether
it's his work, whether it's his success, whether it's his triumphs,
whether it's his present ministry, his future glory, that's antichrist. Misrepresenting the nature and
extent of the redemption is antichrist. Refuting Christ's sovereignty
is Antichrist. Twisting his words to say something
contrary to what he said is Antichrist. Misusing his gospel is Antichrist. Antichrist is neither Christ
nor the Father living in him. And one cannot deny one and acknowledge
the other. Jesus Christ is the son, if you
have a son you must have a father and so by denying the son they
deny the father and the truth is not in them. So what's John's
message to us today? What is he saying to you and
to me today? Well, he's saying this, surely.
He's saying remain faithful to the gospel. He's saying abide
in the truth. But even better than that, he
is saying that the truth will abide in you. The gospel keeps
you. And this is the great encouragement
and comfort that we find in the epistle of John. He says, let
the truth of the word of God dwell in you. It's already there,
don't kick it out. Stay put in the true gospel that
saved you in the first place. Hold on to those things that
you have learned and received. Now that doesn't preclude us
from deepening our knowledge or our understanding being enlarged
and growing. that our experience of grace
and truth might not be enhanced. Indeed, little children must
grow. It's essential that there is
a deepening of these truths. The person may be saved out of
freewillism and work salvation. will never be saved out of free
grace. The elect abide in free grace. It's in us and we cannot give
it up because we've learned the truth and we have the Holy Spirit
dwelling in us. So 1 John chapter 2 verse 25
says, And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even
eternal life. We have eternal life at the promise
of God. Eternal life isn't conditional
upon our abiding in the word and in the gospel. Eternal life
is a free grace gift from God. It's unchangeable. It's irrevocable. It's a promise to all the elect
in Christ. Our Lord Jesus Christ is coming
back soon and when he does, he will usher us into the joyful
experience of everlasting glory and it will simply be a continuation
of that everlasting life that we now possess in believing that
he is the Christ, the Son of the living God. and its possession are unbreakably
entwined. Yet too, the promise that unfolds
in time is the outworking of those gospel guarantees. In 1
John chapter 5 verse 1, we'll come to it in a few weeks, God
willing, the apostle John says, Whosoever believeth that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God. Romans 10 verse 11, Whosoever
believeth on him shall not be ashamed. Acts chapter 10 verse
43, whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins. John 3 verse 15, whosoever believeth
in him should not perish but have eternal life. The promise of everlasting life
comes with these gospel guarantees. We're born of God, we'll never
be ashamed, we have remission of sins, we will not perish. These are for our comfort and
for our encouragement. Verse 26 and verse 27 wraps up
our thoughts for today. John says, I write concerning
them that seduce you, or who try to seduce you, the antichrists,
of whom, says John, even now there are many, those who deny
that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, the Christ, and that
he is the Son of God. John says, In verse 27, but the
anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you. It just does. The little children
have that unction, that anointing, that Holy Spirit, new life abiding
in them. And abiding means it stays. God's elect have the spirit of
grace from Christ and it will abide. Those who believe the
gospel believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and
all that that entails, they shall abide in Him. There's no question
and there's no doubt. So John tells us, ye need not
that any man teach you, but as the same anointing teacheth you
of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it
hath taught you, ye shall abide in Him. Now he's not saying that
we don't have any need of teaching at all, that's foolishness. We
ought all to be students of the word of God. but we have no need
of teaching that will draw us away from the simplicity that
is in Christ. No need of doctrine that denies
the person and nature and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. No
need of antichrists that undermine and contradict the gospel of
free and sovereign grace. The spirit of truth witnesses
with us that we are the children of God. The spirit of truth witnesses
with us if what we are hearing is truth or not. Let us shun
antichrist. Let us shun whatever shuns our
Lord and cleave to that which is good. May the Lord bless these
thoughts to us.