if you'll take your bibles now
and turn back with me to first john chapter two and birth eighteen i guess my studies in revelation
prompted this message where we've been talking about
the judgment of god been talking about the salvation of God's
elect. And so I prepared this message
and I titled the message, The Last Time. The Last Time. Now there's no way to be sure,
but I believe that we're living in the last days of the last
time. In our text, John plainly tells
us that this is the last time. There'd be no doubt about that.
Little children, this is the last time. Be no denying that. Now time in the scriptures has
a definite mark on society. All, if you've read through the
Bible, you're very much aware of that. Time has set its mark
upon the population of this world upon society. There was a time
before the flood of Noah. It was a time. It was different
than the time after Noah. It was different than the time
after Israel. It was different than our time. It was a whole
different time. Do you know that men before the
flood enjoyed longevity of life, and their average lifespan was
over 900 years. There's a lot of generations
in our family in 900 years. 900 years. Think about it. Adam was 930 years old when he
died. Seth lived 912 years. Enos lived 905 years, and Cainan
lived 910 years, and Methuselah, the oldest living man of all
time, lived 969 years. And Noah lived 950. So their
average lifespan was well over 900 years. You think about that. After the flood, men's life fanned
dwindled down to less than a third of that, around 300 years. And then there was a time between
the time of the Ark of Noah and the manifesting of the city of
Babylon. What happened in Babylon? There was a collective effort
made by men and put in motion to try to build a way into heaven
other than the promise and grace of God. They set out to build
a tower into heaven. And Babylon has pictured false
religion from that day to this. But to stop them in their effort,
God confused the languages and they couldn't understand each
other. And so they just left and went their various ways and
So become all these different languages that we have today. And then there was a time between
the confusing of the language in Babylon to the giving of the
law and establishing of the nation of Israel. It was quite a time
went between those two. And began with the calling out
of Abraham. and so on until God delivered
them out of Egypt and called them to be a nation. And then
over in the book of Matthew, we're talking about times and
their impact upon society. Over in the book of Matthew,
the Holy Spirit tells us this when he goes through the genealogies
of Christ. He said that there was 14 generations
from Abraham to David. And there was 14 generations
from David until the carrying away into Babylon, and there
was 14 generations from then to the coming of Christ. 14 generations. But any way you want to look
at it, we're living in the last time. Not gonna be another time. This is it. This is it. How do I know that? Listen to
the text. As you have heard that Antichrist
should come, even now there are many Antichrists, now listen,
whereby we know that it is the last time. I know that there were false
prophets in the Old Testament. And I know that these false prophets
prophesied strange things and strange gods, that they had no
interest in Christ. But there could be no Antichrist,
strictly speaking, until Christ was manifested in his life, death,
and resurrection. And there would be no need of
an Antichrist until the resurrected Christ began to be declared to
me. What is an Antichrist? Men are
looking for Antichrist today. They're talking about Antichrist.
Hollywood made five or six movies about it, maybe more. What is Antichrist? Well, it's
a spirit and attitude which opposes itself to Christ, number one. But in Easton's Bible dictionary,
he says Antichrist is a rival Christ. It's a rival Christ. It's another Jesus by another
gospel. And Vine and some of the other
notable dictionaries all agree with him. Paul wrote to the Galatians
and said this. He said, I marvel that you're
so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of
Christ unto another gospel. which is not another but some
trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. That's
Galatians 1, 6, and 7. In his letter to the Corinthians,
he said they're gonna come and they're gonna preach another
Jesus by another spirit through another gospel. It's a rival Christ. Antichrist
is a rival Christ. It's the preaching of a rival
Christ. It's that spirit and attitude which is anti-Christ. That is Christ as he's testified
in the word of God. Christ as he's declared in the
gospel of God's sovereign grace in Christ. That's anti-Christ. And John said there's many already. Many already. And some of them
originated with us. They went out from us. They heard
what we had to preach and they twisted it. They distorted it. They changed that image of God
in Christ that was manifested. All of the apostles warned of
false prophets who would come and corrupt the doctrine of Christ
by preaching a rival Christ. One that's contrary to the Christ
of God. Peter said they would quietly
and unnoticeably bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord
that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
And in the prophecies of Christ, a man was foretold that would
come who was both God and man in one person. That's the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's both God and man in one.
This is God lying in that manger, In him dwelleth all the fullness
of the God, he is bodily, and here he is lying in a mansion,
working in his father's carpenter's shop, confounding the priest
with his knowledge of the scriptures. This is the God-man. This is
the God-man. Isaiah said, for unto us a child
is born, unto us a son is given. And the government shall be upon
his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor,
the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. And from these prophecies he
was sought after by Satan through human means to destroy him. You know the story. before the
coming of Christ, how Herod wanted to kill all the Jewish babies. He didn't hate Jewish babies,
he hated the thought of a rival king. And he wanted to destroy
Christ. And it was the working of Satan
in him. He sought to destroy the same
thing. He sought to destroy Moses, who
was a picture of the coming Redeemer, the same way. His mother put
him in an ark of the bulrushes and sent him down that river
and the providence of God sent him to Pharaoh's house who wanted
to kill him and made his daughter raise him, the deliverer. And so it is at the dawn of the
gospel age, Satan through human means did everything in his power
to destroy the name of Christ proclaimed in the gospel. So
that deceived men and women would miss Christ altogether, He'd
set before them a rival Christ. This is the work of Satan. And
this has been Satan's aim from the dawn of the Gospel age and
even now is being manifested in a universal fashion. Now in
the book of Revelation, chapter 20, back toward the end of the
book in verse three, it speaks of Satan being bound by Christ
for a set amount of time, 1,000 years. And at the end of that
time, he must be loosed, it says, for a little season. He's bound. How do I know he's bound? Because
the gospel has free course. Ain't nobody out here with torches
getting ready to burn our building down. There's nobody out here
with guns gonna shoot us when we go out the door. We're not
bound, Satan's bound. Satan's bound. We're able to
preach the gospel and the Holy Spirit works among men and women,
convincing them of sin and of righteousness and of judgment.
Satan's bound. The Lord Jesus Christ came down
and bound him. And he's bound all during this
gospel age until right at the end of the time. And then he
has to be loosed again. for a little season. Our Lord Jesus Christ, by his
death upon the cross, defeated Satan and bound him with a great
chain. And he goes on to tell us that
God's purpose in this binding, it was so that the nation should
not be deceived by him anymore. And this thousand-year binding
is represented by the thousand-year reign of Christ and his church.
In other words, he's talking about the age in which we live,
from the coming of Christ until his coming again. And Satan could
no longer, in a universal fashion, deceive the world as he once
did. But just before the end, it says
that Satan must be loosed for a little season. I'll preach
you what you're trying to say. I'm laboring to say to you today
that there's never been a time in the whole of the 2,000 years
since Christ died. Never been a time in that 2,000
years since Christ died that Antichrist has been so prominent
in the world. How prominent is he? Almost universal. almost universal. Now, if the last time is evidenced
by the coming of the Antichrist, which was preached to the church
by God's apostles, how much more is our time evidenced by the
preaching of this rival Jesus? Well, how do I know? How do I
know what is this Antichrist and how is he revealed? How am
I to know where Antichrist is. How would I know what he is?
And where he is? How is he evidenced in this age? Let me give you four things. Men are Antichrist, first of
all, in their preaching. They'll come, Paul said, preaching
another Jesus. another gospel. He established
those Galatians. Paul would never have left those
churches in Galatia until they were established. He didn't just
pop in and have an altar call and so many came forward and
then he left and went somewhere else. He stayed there and he
preached to those people until they were established and then
he left. And he went on his way, on his
missionary journey to establish other churches. And what happened
in Galatia? Some men came in preaching a
rival Jesus. And he wrote this book of the
Galatians to the Galatian churches, and the very first thing he tells
them, he said, I am amazed that you're so soon removed from him
that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel. Now he said, I don't care if
I come, or an angel from heaven come, anybody comes unto you
preaching another gospel, let him be accursed. Men are antichrist. Turn with
me over to 1 John chapter 4. Turn just a few pages over. Chapter
4. 1 John chapter 4 verse 1, Beloved,
believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they
are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the
world. Hereby I know you the Spirit
of God, every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come into
the flesh is of God. Not just that he came or that
he came and become a man, but that he came as he was prophesied
to come. And he become a man according
to why he was prophesied to become a man. He become a man to be
a representative of men. He took not on himself, he tells
us in Hebrews chapter 2, the nature of angels. He didn't come
to save angels. He took on him the seed of Abraham.
He become a man to redeem men. That's why he become a man. Now
if a man knows the truth, when he preaches Jesus Christ, he
preaches God come into the flesh in this man to save men. to see to it that all his sons
receive their inheritance. He did what he was prophesied
to do, and having justly and righteously saved his people,
he ascended back into glory to be the testator of God's redemptive
will. Salvation, my friend, is an accomplished
work, and it was accomplished by our Savior, who bore our sins
in His own body on the tree. He put away our sins. Can you imagine? I still know about them. He don't. He put them away. He put them
away. He said, there are sins and iniquities
I will remember no more. You've had little spats and things
with people before, haven't you? You've got crossways. Uncles
and aunts and friends and whatever. You've got a little crossways
with them. But you loved them. And in time, I forgive you. Let's be friends. OK. You have
another spat. What happens? Everything they
did the first time, it's right there. It's right there. You're ready to just wear them
out. God said, I remember your sins and iniquities no more. No more. I deal with you in strict
righteousness and justice, which was established in the Lord Jesus
Christ. To preach the gospel is to preach
the victorious, all-sufficient Savior and reigning King of Zion. It's to preach a salvation that
saves. What good is a salvation that
don't save? Way back yonder in the book of
Isaiah, our Lord said, here's how you're going to know false
prophets. They pray to a God who cannot save. Well, what's
going on today? What's going on all around you
in Antichrist religion? They're praying to a God by their
own confession who can't save. What good is a salvation that
can't save? It's a salvation that saves,
a redemption that redeems. Their redemption don't redeem.
God's redemption does. He's our redemption. And they
preach a justification that does not justify. To preach Christ
is to preach the whole counsel of God, Acts 20, verses 20 through
28. He'll tell you what that counsel
is. It's to preach Christ. In Him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily, and everything God meant to manifest, He manifested
in the person and work of Christ. So to preach a Christ contrary
to the Christ of Scripture is Antichrist. How are they Antichrist? They're
Antichrist in their doctrine. Don't be afraid of that word
doctrine, it simply means teaching. Their doctrine is contrary to
the testimony of God. I've got no use for a doctrine
that's contrary to the word of God. First John chapter five verse
nine, he said, if we receive the witness of men, in other
words, you got a man up here this morning talking to you.
Now, if you receive my witness, the witness of God is greater.
So go in here and say, is that really what that says? Hmm, that
is what that says. That's what he's saying right
here. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is
greater, for this is the witness of God which is testified of
His Son. He that believeth on the Son
of God hath the witness in himself. He that believeth not God hath
made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave
of His Son. And this is the record that God
hath given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Listen to this. This is in the
book of 2nd John, in verse 9. He said, Whosoever transgresseth
and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, now listen, hath not
God. He that abideth in the doctrine
of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. Can a man have a false doctrine? Can he be out here preaching
another Jesus and be sin of God and be blessed of God? Not according
to John, he can't. He said he doesn't have the son
and he doesn't have the father because he abides not in the
doctrine of Christ. And then he tells them, don't
you even bid them God's feeds. When you know who they are and
what they are, don't say, well, the Lord bless you. Don't say
that. You become partakers of his evil
deeds. So how are these false prophets
and their followers Antichrist? Well, they're Antichrist in their
preaching. And they're Antichrist in their doctrine. And thirdly,
they're Antichrist in their faith. They believe in a rival Christ,
another Jesus, who's a perversion of the truth. Brethren, true
saving faith rests in Christ, who is God our Savior. It rests
in Him. How does it rest in Him? How
do we rest in Christ? Well, this morning I talked to
you about the judgment of God. And these things are horrific
the way they're set forth all through the scripture, but especially
in the book of Revelation. God just seasons this world in
an instant. Just season it before you can
think, before you can act, before you can say anything. Season
this world in judgment. Time's up, time's over. I remember one time my sister and my oldest brother
put her up to it. She loved to paint and had a
fire plug outside the house, and my oldest brother snuck out
and got some of this glow-in-the-dark yellow paint. Gave her a paintbrush and opened
paint, told her to paint that fire hydrant. And she was out
there just painting. Or he was. He was out there just
painting away on that fire hydrant. And my sister was standing there
watching him, wanting to help. And he happened to see Daddy
come. And when he did, he handed her the brush. When Daddy come
around the corner, there she was with the brush. That's how
fast, even faster than that, that judgment's going to come.
And here we are, guilty. Guilty. Guilty before God. What will you do? What will you
do? That's why he tells us now, and
the Lord told him, don't you hurt anything until I've sealed
all my people. Well, we rest in Christ toward
that judgment. He bore my judgment. I believe
that. I rest in that. Rest in that. He's my righteousness. Before
God, I'm gonna go up before the judge and stand before the judge
and fully expect in my heart for him to say, well done, thou
good and faithful servant. Not because I've done well, but
because I stand in the righteousness of his son and have no flaw. That's what it means to rest
in Christ. And we need to preach Christ in such a way that men
rest in Christ. But this rival Christ, you can't
rest in him because he really hadn't done anything. He made
a down payment, but he handed you the note. What kind of salvation is that? What do you mean rest? I mean
to rest from all my works and labors and to make myself acceptable
to God. I rest from all that stuff and
rest in Him. According to Ephesians 1, 6 it
says to the praise of the glory of His grace wherein He hath
made us accepted in the beloved. Now listen to me for just a minute.
All of the church of God in Christ was fully justified by the life
and death of their head and their representative, Jesus Christ.
God chose us and in that eternal election, he put us into a perfect
union with his son. He put us, he chose us in him,
according to Ephesians chapter one, he chose us in him before
the foundation of the world. He didn't choose us, He chose
us in Him. That is, by way of an eternal
covenant union with our Lord Jesus Christ. His physical body,
when He was made a man, manifested that eternal union. He come down
and become one with us. We were in Him as He obeyed the
law of God perfectly. We were in Him as He paid the
awful price for sin. We were in Him as He satisfied
divine justice. And then when God raised Him
from the dead, He raised us up with Him according to Ephesians
chapter 2. And when He sat down at the right
hand of God, we were seated with Him in the heavenlies. That's
what I'm talking about when I'm talking about resting in this
union with Christ. He's all our salvation, and to
rest in Him is to be persuaded that He's able, sufficient, and
faithful to accomplish everything that He was ordained of God to
do. The faith of God's elect reveals
to us the whole character of God, His love, His kindness,
His mercy, and His grace. but also his wrath and his justice
and his power. All of this he displayed with
Christ on the cross. And this eternal life begins
here with the giving of faith in the new birth and it grows
in grace and knowledge and it'll be perfected when we get to heaven. As we're unable to know, the
scripture said, as we are known. Antichrist faith rests in man. It rests in man's will, man's
works, man's purpose, and man's desires. True faith rests in
God, God's purpose, God's way, God's means, God's Son, and has
no confidence in the flesh. A man told me one time, he said,
you have to keep on keeping on. Well, I couldn't keep on keeping
on unless he preserved me by spirit. And then lastly, men are antichrist
in their ways. The way of salvation is sovereign,
unchangeable, eternal, and irresistible grace. By grace are you saved
through faith, that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. And you
know in every aspect of salvation, he uses that term grace. Every
aspect of it. He said where sin abounded, grace
did much more abound. What was it that overcome sin?
The grace of God. That as sin hath reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign. Now we're talking about this
work of God reigning in the heart. How does it reign? Grace. The way of salvation is the way
of grace. It was an election of grace that
chose us. We have redemption through His
blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His
grace. We're seated with Him in the heavens. It says, by grace
ye are saved. And by grace you're saved through
faith. We're said to grow in grace.
And Peter prays for grace, now listen, to be given to serve
God acceptably. What does it take to serve God?
Grace. Grace. And this grace is said
to be given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. And so
it continues to be given. But the way of Antichrist is
all man. Man's decisions, man's so-called
free will, man's wisdom, understanding, man's determination, and man's
strength, and man's glory. Everything he does is for his
own glory. He's not worried about how God
views him, he's worried about how folks down at church views
him. The mark of Antichrist is sealed
in their foreheads according to Revelation with the number
666. The number six is the number of man. So what's he saying?
Man, man, man. And just as God's people are
sealed in their foreheads, he's talking about through the knowledge
of Christ with a hard understanding, even so men are sealed in their
unbelief And everything that's there is man, man, man. A preacher, why are you telling
us all these things? First of all, so that you'll
know your adversary when you hear him. You quit giving everybody that
holds up a sign and says, I'm saved, you'll quit giving them
the benefit of the doubt. You'll listen to what they got
to say. I want you to be able to recognize the false from the
true. There's enemies. These men, the
scripture said, are enemies of your souls and they serve their
father, the devil. Nothing but destruction and misery
can come from your association with such people. Our Lord looked at the Pharisees
and even His disciples still held renown for those Pharisees
because of their religious station and all these things. They still
held respect and honor. He said they're blind men and
if the blind lead the blind, where are they going to go? They're
going to fall in the ditch. They don't know where they're
going. They're going to walk right off the Secondly, I'm telling you these
things to prove your election of God. God's elect have received
the truth of the gospel, which is none other than which nobody
else can receive. If you care to, you can read 1 Corinthians
2, verse 14. But it says there that natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for their
foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they
are spiritually discerned. God's elect are the only ones
who can hear. Why do you preach to everybody?
Because I don't know who God's elect are. God will single them
out. He'll point them out. He'll draw
them to himself. Our Lord said this to the Pharisees.
He said, all which the Father hath given me will come to me. How do I know who God's elect
are? They're all gonna come to Christ. So I just keep preaching
Christ. And then he said this to the
Pharisees. They said, if you be the Christ, tell us plainly.
He said, I told you. And I tell you why you don't
believe, because you're not of my sheep. As I said unto you,
my sheep hear my voice. and then thirdly i'm saying these
things to you to encourage you to get more involved in the ministry
of christ which is the only means by which satan can be defeated
in his power and then lastly to motivate you
to have a burden for the lost souls of men you know how the
gospel came to you the first time uh... you know why because Somebody
was motivated with a burden for souls. So much so that they sold
out so they could preach to you. And they preached to you, and
God called you, and God saved you. Huh? That's why I'm saying these things
to you. A burden for souls don't just drop out of heaven. It comes
through an understanding of what's going on and a waking up to what
time it is. What time is it? It's the last
time. Well, how much time's left? I
don't know. I don't know. Generally speaking,
over the whole world, I don't know. But I tell you, my time's getting
short. And your time, even if you're
young, is nothing but a vapor. You'll discover that in just
a few years. I don't know how much time's
left, neither does anybody else, but this much I know, it's the
last time and it's the last days of our lives. And I'm preaching
these things because I pray that our Savior calls the reality
of what I've said this morning to come into our hearts and make
us, there's so many things to distract and pull and push, but
when it comes down to the nitty gritty, this is it right here. This is it. It's the most important
few hours of your life when you come in here to hear His call.