Alright, we're in 1st John chapter
2. I want us to start at Verse 18, which is where we left off
last time verse 18 And we will proceed John says in verse 18
little children it is The last time and as you have heard that
Antichrist shall come even now are there many Antichrists and
whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from
us, but they were not of us, for had they been of us, they
would have no doubt continued with us. But they went out that
it might be made manifest that they were not all of us. But you have an unction from
the Holy One, and you know all things, And I have not written
unto you because you know not the truth, but because you 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 an antichrist that denieth
the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the
same hath not the Father. But he that acknowledges the
Son hath the Father also. Let that therefore abide in you
which you have heard from the beginning. If that which you
have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, you shall
also continue in the Son. In the father and this is the
promise that he has promised us eternal life. We're gonna
stop there I'm hoping we can break into verses 26 through
28 or 29 and close tonight, but we may not last time we We paused
on verse 18. I want to quote it again and
remind you of the emphasis of the Kairos and the Kronos that
John is calling our attention to in verse 18. Little children,
that's the endearment term, technon, little children, those of you
who have grown up enough to take on the likeness of Christ, little
children, So what he's saying is a term of endearment. It's
like the term of the father to his children, little children. And so he's speaking to the believers
who are listening to him, and he's saying, it is the last time. And as you have heard that Antichrist
shall come, even now are there many Antichrists whereby we know
that it is the last time. And last week we emphasized that
the last time that John uses is the term for our, it is the
last hour. And what we stressed with that
idea of it being the last hour is the notion that we are dealing
with a critical crisis element that requires being alert and
being aware and being, um, being cognizant of your surroundings. Again, as I shared with you last week,
the word hour is used in the Old Testament and in the New
Testament. And the time or the word hour
always denotes a punctiliar event that's about to transpire. Jesus said to the rulers of the
church, It is your hour and the power of darkness. This was right
when the rulers were about to take Jesus and crucify him. In the book of Daniel, several
times it uses the phrase, and in that hour, in that hour, they
took Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and cast them into a fiery furnace. And in that hour, they took Daniel
and threw him into Alliance did so an hour which is a smaller
period of time than a day which is a smaller period of time than
a Time we used all three of those concepts to talk about how God
will focus in on an epic the word is Kairos a season a dispensation
a or the character of what's taking place at that time. When
the word hour is used, he is referring about things that are
coming upon you right away. And John is saying this, that
as he's talking to the disciples in the first century, anywhere
from 55 to 65 AD, he is saying that you and I, little children,
we are going through a period of tribulation Challenges that
constitute the apostasy of which you have already been told would
occur Look again at verse 18 Little children it is the last
time and as you have heard that means they have received information,
didn't they? And as you have heard it And
as you have heard that Antichrist shall come even now are there
many Antichrist so in this hour in which the church to which
John is speaking is is they are dealing with many, what? Antichrists. And John says, you
have already been told and you know, because you have heard
that antichrist shall come. This is a doctrine and teaching
of the church of Jesus Christ that is absolutely sure unequivocal. And that is, we all believe in
the fact of an antichrist system and anti-christ entity that would
pervade the world and assault the church. The issue around
anti-christ as a system or anti-christ as an entity is whether or not
we are going to subscribe to the view that Antichrist is a
world-leading power on an individual level like a monarch or a totalitarian
or some religious leader as espoused by your prominent pre-millennial
dispensational systems so that you don't have to worry about
Antichrist until you see him appear. That's a hypothesis held
by the dispensationalists that the idea of an antichrist is
a person that one day we will either recognize because we will
be here or we won't because we won't. And the flaw in that logic
or that reasoning is this, that, uh-uh, uh-uh, no, no, no, no,
no, it ain't time for you. No, you know better than that,
come on, tell me. Come on, no, no, no, no, no, it's time. You
can talk a little later. You can talk a little later.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, We think everything is all right.
So be careful because there are what are called in theology and
doctrine unintended consequences to a view that an individual
will subscribe to that can wreak more havoc than the view itself.
Unintended consequences to a view that a person may subscribe to
that can wreak more havoc than the view itself. I received an
email recently, and I receive emails all the time about this
part of theology. It's called eschatology, end-time
activity. Pastor, can you help me? And
I know it wasn't from one of you in the church here. It was
from a sister from the East Coast who was really trying to be diligent
about where we are in our present generation. And we really do
need to be diligent about where we are, because we are on the
brink of some really difficult times. Pastor, can you help me
understand why so many people believe in a personal individual
antichrist? I don't And I asked her certain
questions critical to our ability to Assess and analyze certain
assumptions I asked her the question I'll ask you to as we work through
this warning that John gives as we continue to deconstruct
the text I What would be the reason for which you would deny
a personal antichrist on a political, religio level? I want you to
think about that when we get to the Q&A, you can ask or respond
to it. What would be your reasoning
for which you would deny the possibility of a personal antichrist
individual of a political, religio nature? are what would be your
reason for embracing a more mystical entity of an antichrist system
that has the capacity to surreptitiously pervade culture and bring people
into spiritual bondage and death. The latter question that I'm
raising is really the position that I espouse. And that is that
what the scriptures teach prominently is that Antichrist is a system
that enters into our world in constant opposition to the kingdom
of God. It is the adversary in a institutional
form designed to oppose the gospel. Now, we can talk about the scope
of that institution. We can talk about the nature
of that institution. That is to say, whether it's
political, or religious or bold. But what I say is that if you
are reading your Bible carefully, you cannot deny that the Bible
teaches a prevailing and constant opposing kingdom over against
the kingdom of God. that when you read your Bible,
the thing you come to realize is that God created this world
and upon giving man authority over it, conflict entered into
this world and a maniacal entity has from the beginning of time
sought to usurp authority over God and all that God has made.
That cannot be denied. When we think about the Genesis
account with the pinnacle of God's creation, mankind, immediately
God's adversary, the devil, sought to topple God's image bearer,
mankind, and take authority over him. And in some ways he did. God had to intervene as we know,
impose his redemption plan, which was not a plan B, it was a plan
A, and thus guide and regulate the unfolding of human history
so as to allow the oppositional forces to play a role in God's
unfolding redemption plan. Did you guys understand that?
So we are not surprised that when we go from the Genesis account
of the fall of Adam and Eve, that as soon as we get the Genesis
6, as we're learning in the gospel and sexuality, that the whole
human race is corrupted. That every imagination of the
heart of man is only evil. And when God looks down in his
supervisory role, he says, you know what? The way the human
race is leavening out into a collective group of people who oppose my
truth, I am going to have to intervene and stop the human
race. So he destroys the world in a flood And he starts all
over again, not with a government, not with a political institution,
but with a heterosexual family, which once again underscores
what God constitutes, that primary stewardship of biblical truth
as God created us to proliferate and replenish the earth and subdue
it. Noah built an ark for over a hundred years, which was a
testimony to the whole world of the only way of escape from
God's wrath is through the one door on that ark. And that door
is who? And should the world reject that
opportunity, they would perish under the coming wrath of God,
which had never come before, but was certain to come because
God said it. Noah and his family enter in and are saved. from that judgment, and it's
a picture of the redemption of all who trust in Christ. Is that
not so? The world then is repopulated
under the three sons of Noah, as we know, and the whole world
is filled, and the next thing we know, the battle rages again
just a few chapters later in chapter 10 and 11. Chapter 10
gives us the table of nations. Chapter 11, this whole group
of bandits want to build a tower to heaven in opposition to God. So what does God have to do?
He has to once again intervene, scatter them to the four winds,
destroy their capacity for a one world government, destroy their
capacity for the unification of languages by which they can
all be on the same page everywhere at the same time, and thus hinder
God's objective which was for several thousand years to come
to bring Messiah into the world and redeem us from iniquity.
So you see what God is doing. God is in his sovereignty allowing
this opposition to be in the world so that he might demonstrate
his mercy and his grace and expose us as sinners who by nature are
hostile to God. Now I'm laying this foundation
out so that as we unpack 1st John chapter 2, you'll understand
that John is coming from this same narrative of Old Testament
scriptural truth, which throughout the different epics and periods
of time, God's purposes were constantly being thwarted by
institutions, by kingdoms, by monarchs, by not only individual
rulers, but a whole constituency under them to oppose the revelation
of God. Are you guys understanding what
I'm saying? So Genesis chapter 11 is that archetypal kingdom. And if you guys want to get a
good handle on what's going on in the scriptures, you have two
kingdoms that are constantly at battle with each other. And
you can put them under the rubric of one Babylon, and the other,
Jerusalem. Babylon and Jerusalem, both of
these are ideals. Both of these are ideals. They
are concepts. They are nomenclatures that God
put into the word of God to give us coded understanding as to
how these two kingdoms work. Both kingdoms, Babylon and Jerusalem,
close out the Bible. Chapter 18, the Babylonian kingdom
is utterly demolished. Chapter 19, the bride emerges
to marry the bridegroom. And in chapter 21, the bride
comes down as the Holy Jerusalem to be situated forever in all
eternity with God Almighty. That's the way the book closes.
In other words, Jerusalem wins. It would just simply be required
that we would have to study and work through what those terms
mean. But what the Bible does, because
it's giving you literature and terminology, is giving you coded
language. I am saying that to say this,
that as we think about what John says, you have heard that antichrist
shall come, and we know it's the last hour because many antichrists
have already entered into the world. Here's the context. John
in the year AD 60, 65 AD, which is about the time when these
epistles were written, had seen a proliferation of false prophets
and false teachers emerge after the ascension of Christ, AD 33.
So over the first 30 years of the apostolic age, the apostles
were not preaching the gospel free of any conflict. In fact,
the conflict was growing. Not only was it growing in terms
of people opposing the gospel, but it was growing in terms of
people rising up out of the church turning against the gospel and
the church So I want you to hear what he says again in verse 18
and 19 So we can start working through our outline in the further
parts little children's the last hour you have heard that Antichrist
shall come even now there are many Antichrist and because there
are many Antichrist many Antichrist We know that we are in the last
what? so the sign I'm going to be talking about this on Sunday
is That's one of the signs that we are in a crisis period. That's what the word last hour
means. Are you with me? One of the signs that we are
in a crisis period, and I mean by last hour, I do not mean that
we are talking about the last hour of the last hour of the
end of the world. We're talking the last hour of
an epic. Now we know that because we have
now 2000 years of history. since the Lord Jesus Christ and
since the apostolic writings of which we can go through history
and once again affirm that there have been several epics where
in the church has gone through persecution, apostasy and has
emerged victorious to spread the gospel again. We are however,
in a cycle of time at this present hour that I think is questionable
whether or not we are in a mode of growth and success as a church
worldwide versus a period of stagnation and ambiguity as a
church worldwide. And what I mean by ambiguity
is that there are areas in the church where there appears to
be some vital growth spiritually. But the vast majority of the
church around the world is either stagnated by virtue of political
oppression or by virtue of the seductive nature of this world
system. This is what John warned about
in chapter two, verse 15. Love not the world, neither the
things that are in the world. For whosoever loves the world,
the love of the Father is not in him. That's called seduction.
That's the Babylonian seduction that would stifle the church
from accomplishing its purposes in the world. So there are two
things you and I have to always worry about. Persecution and
seduction. If we are on the side of the
Lord Jesus in spreading the gospel, the two things you have to worry
about, I have to worry about is the persecution that will
come for telling the truth or the seduction that will come
to get to throw you off track. Are you with me so far? It's
very important to understand that you got two temptations.
The one temptation is the temptation of, um, And let's reserve our
amens to the end of the study. The one temptation is the temptation
that comes when you preach the gospel, you suffer for Christ.
You guys got that? You will suffer for Christ. You
get beat down enough for preaching the gospel, you might be inclined
to stop preaching, right? Persecution can do that, it can
wear you down. But the greater seduction, or the greater challenge
that the church has, particularly in a prosperous society that
is very secular in nature, is the seduction of materialism
and carnality and worldliness, causing you to lose your capacity
to be a vital witness. Are you following what I'm saying?
Let me say it again. The big challenge that we face
in the church, and you're going to see John explain this when
he talks about false prophets, The big challenge that you and
I face is a fallen nature, a sinful body that craves to have its
needs met, even at the expense of the glory and honor of God.
That's the real battle we fight. And so when we talk about the
conflict that the church goes through, it's a conflict of either
suffering persecution at the hands of an ungodly political
institution that overtly opposes the gospel like communism and
socialism and some of his more radical forms. And today in America,
liberalism and progressivism, it is more radical forms. If
you don't know this, you should. because liberalism and progressivism
works on the inside to corrupt convictions about absolute truth
and absolute morals and thus destroy, as it were, the capacity
for the believer to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing
but the truth under the false premise that there's no such
thing as absolute truth. And when you have a majority
of people who have been deceived into thinking truth is relative,
then when you say, thus saith the Lord, the first thing they
say to you is, that's your opinion. And when you get 50 people saying
to you, that's your opinion, those 50 people have censored
you. Are you guys following me? And once those people are moved
into strategic positions of power, like in government, not only
now can they censor you, they can legislate law to oppose what
you're saying as hate crimes or discrimination. And so it
becomes retributive after a while. It becomes something that can
punish you if you stand up and say, I believe that God created
the heavens and the earth in six days. And I believe that
God created the male and female and so on as we hold to biblical
truth. That's a form of persecution
that is already happening to Christians all over America and
all over the world who live in what are called so-called free
societies. But it's not so free that you
can just tell the truth without people opposing your views. Am
I making some sense? Now all of this is an antichrist
system in the spiritual and in the ideological sense. For a
person to oppose God is for them to oppose truth proposition. For a person to oppose God is
not for them to oppose the idea of a God. Let me help you with
that just in case you don't know. This is very important for our
teenagers to get this. A person who does not believe
in the true and the living God, who does not believe that the
Bible is the word of God, can just as easily say, I believe
in God, I trust God, my faith is in God, as a true believer
can, knowing that his definition, her definition, their definition
of God and faith does not even remotely comport with what we
say it is. This is why you can listen to
all of these athletes and all of these stars, even though their
lives are given over to vulgarity and violence, stand up and give
credit to God for the success that they have acquired through
that violence. Am I making some sense? them
using biblical terminology but divesting it of its authentic
meaning, pouring into it really a blasphemous concept, and that
is the God that I serve blessed me to be a whore and profit from
it. That's the euphemism or metaphor and analogy of Revelation 17,
the great whore that sat upon the scarlet colored beast. She
entered into league with the political systems of this world,
and she was blessed. The religious whore in league
with the political whore will always prosper at the behest
of the political institution, so long as the religious whore
does not tell the truth. Are you guys following me? That's
the battle we're fighting. So when you watch a lot of these
secular TV shows or programs and you see people rise up that
you know, if you could see behind the curtains that they have horns
and a tail and their pitchfork is in the back and they stand
up and say, first of all, I want to give glory to God. I want
to give honor to God. Are you following me? I want
to give honor to God. Immediately you say, which God?
I know you're not talking about my God. Because what they're
doing is fulfilling Revelation chapter 13, which says, and it
was given unto him to speak great blasphemies, blasphemies against
God and to wear out the saints of the most high God. And we
get wore out by unbiblical and antichrist teachings and practices
every time we turn around and have to see that stuff. And we
know it's filled with hypocrisy. Am I telling the truth we get
weary with it? This is what Daniel says in Daniel
chapter 7 verses 23 to 25 and they shall I'm sorry chapter
8 Daniel chapter 8 and they shall wear out the saints of the most
high God and they shall trample the truth down to the ground
The whole idea is to just desecrate biblical truth as they continue
making their way through this world so when john says to the
church in the first century this is how you know we're in the
last critical hour of crisis is because there are many antichrists
who have come on the scene now verse 19 is another telltale
sign which will move us into a category of our work where
you see it under the offense of the gospel at some point will
expose the slaves do you see that in your outline Under sonship
and slave, which is in the bull print. The next one is the offense
of the gospel at some point will expose the slaves. You guys see
that the offense of the gospel at some point will expose the
slaves. That proposition is given to you to help you understand
that in the process of apostasy, what occurs is the exposure of
people who had come into the church ostensibly becoming believers
or appearing to be believers, but at some point being deceived
by the Antichrist system and eventually separating themselves
from the church to expose themselves to have been slaves and not sons.
Remember the proposition that I made last week? To abide in
the house forever, you have to be a what? A son. That's john
chapter 8 verse 34 through 36. Jesus says the servant does not
abide in the house forever That's due loss slave. Only the sons
abide in the house forever And what that means in the spiritual
sense is lots of people will come into the church That's the
nature of the mystery of the kingdom of god as we will learn
on sunday and over time as wheat and tares grow together Does
it manifest itself that an individual may be of God and an individual
may not? The individual who is not of
God, and this is part of God's plan, I'm gonna show you this
both through the Old Testament and the New. The individual who
is not of God will most of the time over some period of time
in their ostensive participation in the church, rise up being
offended by biblical truth, being offended by biblical truth, and
then oppose that gospel. They will demonstrate that they
are an apostate. Are you guys following me? They
will demonstrate that over time. And we're gonna see several models
of that, but this is what verse 19 is demonstrating in our text. And here's what it says. They
went out from us. See it? They went out from us. but they were what? Not of us. So this is important for you
to grasp, and that's this. The departure of the apostate,
the departure of the individual who leaves the true, the church,
who leaves the gospel ministry to ultimately prove that he is
in opposition to that apostolic teaching is said by John to have
never really authentically been part of the church. Do you guys
get that? Now, this is critical to understand
in light of the doctrine of salvation and even in some cases, the doctrine
of election, but more or less in the doctrine of salvation,
because there are some people who hold this view that a person
can be saved and over time lose their salvation and thus prove
themselves unsaved. In other words, they can come,
accept Jesus, go to church for a while and profess to be a believer
and then fall away as the language is used and then be an antichrist. Now, a lot of people believe
that because of a very shallow and flawed understanding of the
doctrine of salvation, which is why every year or two, I go
through all of the basic doctrines of salvation in our church over
and over again, because one of the things that has been of an
uncanny evidence to me over the years is how Christians quickly
forget basic Bible truth. We are like wicker baskets. You
pour the water in and you can be sure it's going to drain out
eventually. So that over time, people who have been in the church
10, 20, 30 years often are not able to explain in a concise
and articulate way, what does it mean to be saved? and they
start vacillating and talking in very ambiguous terms or nebulous
terms and are not able to be clear that to actually be saved
is a work of divine grace by which God regenerates you by
his spirit through the teaching of God's word, making you a new
creature in Christ and thus bringing you into a permanent transformed
state. It is a work of God that cannot
be disannulled or destroyed by anyone. What God starts, God
finishes. However, the question is, as
we talk about what salvation is, Are we talking about what
salvation is in the theological and in the biblical sense? Or
are we talking about what salvation is based on what we see going
on in church where people come to the altar, pray the sinner's
prayer, and then some preacher tells them by that prayer, they
are saved. Are you following what I'm saying?
Because if you are determining what salvation is by that empirical
evidence, you are trapped by empiricism versus biblical teaching. now you are set up to be deceived
because you are under the assumption that those people coming to the
altar are saved because the pastor said they're saved and they said
they're saved but we already learned in our earlier teachings
of first john is that to say you're saved is not the same
as being saved it just means you say you're saved right So
the idea of salvation has to be understood as either theologically
sound in its understanding and therefore consistent with the
nature and outgrowth of a salvation experience, or you and I are
gonna be left up to determine what salvation is based on our
own human experiences. And that's a bad situation. So
what John does in 1 John 2, verse 19, he says this, I want you
to know that the people that leave only appeared to be with
us, but in reality, they were not of us at all. You guys got
that so far? Good, so I'm gonna exercise your
senses on a few of the accounts in scripture that depict people
who are banished, people who are removed, people who are separated
from the community of God all through the scriptures to prove
that they were never of God in the first place. The offense
of the gospel will at some point expose the slaves in your outline
John chapter 13 verse 21 through 27 So go to John 13 21 through
27. I'll use this as a Premise text
and then I'll cite some characters in the scriptures and use their
accounts to to build my argument that when a person is part of
the corporate kingdom of God or part of the corporate church
or part of the outward institution, which is a real and viable institution,
legitimate institution, the kingdom of God, as Jesus said, is always
mixed with wheat and wheat and tears. It's always mixed with
good fish and bad fish. It's always mixed with bad entities
and good entities. That's the way God would have
it down here. But there's very often a harvest wherein God separates
the wheat from the tares or the sheep from the goats or the non-elect
from the elect and makes that distinction. In John chapter
13, this is what we read, verses 21 through 27. Are you there? When Jesus had thus said, he
was troubled in his spirit and said, verily, verily, I say unto
you that one of you shall what? Now watch this. Then the disciples
looked one on another, doubting of whom he spoke. What's the
implication of verse 22? The idea of betraying the Lord
Jesus Christ is a vulnerability with all of us. If the apostles
or the disciples were concerned with that statement that our
Lord made as applying to each one of them individually, they
were merely being honest. That left to themselves, they
had the capacity within themselves to deny the Lord. An honest person
would tell the truth. You remember when Peter made
the huge mistake of saying, I will never betray you. And Jesus said,
boy, in a few minutes, you're gonna betray me three times. As we're gonna learn, if you
and I make it to the end, it's because God kept us. It's not
because we were better than anybody else. Now there was leaning on
Jesus bosom, one of his disciples whom Jesus loved. Who was that?
Simon Peter, therefore, beckoned to him that he should ask him
who it is that he's. Hey, John, can you ask who the
Lord talking about? He then lying on Jesus' breast
said unto him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, he says to whom
I shall give the sop when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped
the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot. the son of Simon. So
who else besides Jesus knew that it was Judas? Jesus gave John
the sign, didn't he? Now notice what it goes on to
say. And after the sock, Satan entered into him. Who is this?
Judas. Then said Jesus unto him, that
thou doest do quickly. Now, no man at the table knew
for what intent he spoke this unto him. For some of them thought
because Judas had the bag that Jesus had sent unto him by those
things which we need up for the feast, or that he should give
something to the poor. Now, I want you to mark the next
two verses. Well, actually this verse. He then, having received
the sop, did what? Went immediately out. And it
was night. I want you to stop right there.
Judas is one of the quintessential marks for us of what it means
to be an apostate, of what it means to depart from Christ,
of what it means to appear to be in the kingdom, but in reality,
not. Judas is a perfect model of a
person who will have all the outward trappings or all the
outward veneer or all the outward appearance of being a true disciple,
but in reality, he was not a true disciple at all. He was an individual
with his own agenda of which, because his agenda was not ultimately
met or satisfied or fulfilled in his relationship to Jesus,
that point in time drove him in that direction where he made
a league, an agreement with the devil to betray Jesus Christ. Are you guys following me? Now,
the way you and I can derive the lesson from Judas, and then
I'm just gonna name some people so we can go on in our text,
is this. Judas Iscariot started off with
the 12, three and a half years earlier. Judas Iscariot was called
by Jesus like the other 11, three and a half years earlier. Judas
Iscariot went about doing ministry just like all the other 11, right
along with Jesus. Judas Iscariot had the benefit
of watching the perfect man, perfect preacher, perfect teacher,
perfect master, perfect sermons, perfect everything done in his
presence, in his observation, just like the other 11. The empirical
qualifications for apostleship were there with Judas. What was
different between Judas and the other 11 is what was taking place
in his heart. See, Judas had an office whose
front door said, Apostle Judas, just like James did, just like
John did, just like the rest of them. Are you hearing me?
He had the title. That's Acts chapter one. It comes
out of Psalm 102. He had the title. He had all
the external evidences. He was even engaging in ministry.
The difference between Judas Iscariot and the other 11, that
Judas Iscariot was called a devil in John 6 verse 67 and he was
called the son of perdition in John chapter 17 around verse
6 through 9 and the son of perdition is another nomenclature for the
Antichrist person of 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2 verses 7 through 9.
So Judas Iscariot helps us understand what it means to be an apostate.
To be an apostate is not like you're a secular atheist or agnostic
who stands on the outside of the church and throws philosophical
and rhetorical stones at the church. That's not an apostate.
That's just somebody that opposes the gospel. Are you guys hearing
me? An apostate is a person who has all the exterior privileges
of the church that anybody else does, only those external privileges
did not result in the conversion of his soul, in regeneration,
in rebirth, in renewal, so that he was authentically born again. And so he just played church. I want you to hear me now. until
it was too hard to pretend. Now, we can sum it up on a psychological
and an intellectual level like this that'll help you, because
I can tell you're paying attention. What is an apostate Christian?
An apostate Christian is a man or a woman or a group of religious
people who have not submitted to the righteousness of God in
Christ. They have not bowed to Christ as truly Lord. In other words, Christ does not
reign as Lord over their heart. They are still governed by their
own willful, volitional drives and passions and desires. They
are still the captain of their own ship. They are still the
master of their own destiny. They are still in control of
their decision-making. only they really want Jesus to
get on their side to approve what they want to do. Are you hearing me? And over
time as they are providentially forced to face the scriptures
that teach that God is sovereign and no human being will ever
twist God's arm and make God their bellhop. Eventually, they
have to give up and stop pretending that they are walking with the
Master. After all, as we are learning about true fellowship
in 1 John, how can two walk together except they be what? Agreed.
See, Judas Iscariot never agreed with what our Master's plan was. Judas' plan, being one of the
Galileans and part of that culture that was very much like The hostile
middle eastern cultures today Very very much a zealot very
much driven by a political agenda to use jesus for his power To
overthrow the roman empire so that judaism can be the head
and rome can be the tail And when judas saw jesus follow this
guys because it's going to help you. This is a paradigm. You
need to hear When judas saw jesus headed to golgotha Rather than
to rome Judas realized that Jesus wasn't going up. He was going
down That Jesus was not building a military army with power and
might to destroy the foes of Rome but that Jesus was about
to give himself up to the Roman Empire and Suffer at the hands
of those religious rulers of Jesus day as a lamb slain to
take away the sins of the world that as Jesus Judas began to
rationalize what Jesus was compelled to do as he got closer to Calvary. He was compelled to explain to
the disciples, you guys don't get it. I am not here to become
a great political leader. You don't get it. I am not gonna
just break out one day as a big dog and have the world looking
to me. You don't get it. I'm not about
to call down a legion of angels and destroy the Roman empire.
You guys don't get it. Where I'm going is to death.
Now that very concept, which we call in the scriptures, the
doctrine of humiliation, the humility of Christ is antithetical
to our nature. The idea of dying for the glory
of God is unnatural to us. Can I get a real witness? Don't
lie tonight, don't lie. And it takes the grace of God
to follow a man to crucifixion. This is why ultimately God had
to show the apostles they couldn't do it either. Even though they
were already born again. Just because you have the new
nature in you doesn't mean you have the ability to do all things.
This is where I don't spend five minutes with these silly false
religions that tell you that you're God and you can do whatever
you want to. You can say whatever you want to speak things into
existence. You can't even speak a headache out of your own head.
Foolish, silly religious folk. Let alone, you can't speak five
cents into your bank account. You can't heal your daughter.
You can't heal your son. You can't fix your marriage.
You can't fix your... Am I telling the truth? Going around playing
church, pretending that you're at the elbow of God and you can
just pull the lever and get blessed. Listen, all of that kind of stuff
is megalomaniac nonsense. And it doesn't actually comport
with the gospel. See, the gospel is about suffering. for the glory of God. The way
God works in the economy of the kingdom to bring men and women
to a knowledge of himself is to qualify his people to suffer. God's economy in the kingdom
of God is to qualify you and me to suffer for his namesake. Did you guys get that? Your strength,
your faith rather, is proven to be strong Not because you
can draw thousands of people to yourself by your rhetoric
and by your your your methods and by your techniques But whether
how much you can suffer for the King and still believe the gospel
Are you hearing what I'm saying? For whosoever is able to suffer
for Christ's sake the spirit of glory rests on them first
Peter chapter 4 Are you hearing me? See, and so what John is
doing is showing us how God in Providence separates the false
from the true by the fiery trials that come. For Judas Iscariot,
he was He stumbled at the idea that the master would die an
ignominious, shameful, scandalous death at the cross because he
couldn't reconcile the glory of the Messiah in relationship
to the humility of Calvary. He couldn't reconcile those two.
That mystery was not revealed to him. That mystery is only
revealed to those whom God has brought near to Christ and showed
them his glory. Are you guys hearing me? The
mystery of humility before honor, brought low before exalted, humbled
before brought to a place of prominence is the gospel. And that concept is only understood
by those who see the person and work of Jesus Christ. And as
Jesus said to his disciples, the disciple is never greater
than the master. You and I will never reach a
status of honor apart from humility. Are you following me? The idea
of being exalted together with Christ and Made to be seated
in heavenly places in Christ and enjoying the honor that comes
with being in fellowship with Christ Requires that you and
I be humiliated with him that we suffered with him that we
be brought low with him that we identify With his ignominy
and the scandal and the shame that comes with Jesus Christ
that you and I embrace the ridicule That we accept the blasphemy
of people against Christ That's what he said If they hated me,
they're gonna hate you. You and I need the Holy Ghost
not to be able to manipulate people into religious liver quiver
shivers, but we need the Spirit of God in order to demonstrate
that we actually love Him who gave Himself for us. Are you
guys following me? See what John is dealing with,
and I want you to see this, is a category of people who left
the church because they love the world. Are you hearing me? That's why he told them, don't
love the world, neither the things that are in the world, because
all that's in the world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of
the eye and the pride of life. It is not of the father, it's
of the world. But they went out from us because they were not
of us and they have entered into the world. Many antichrists have
gone into the what world are you following me? They have gone
into the world So now let's understand what we mean by they have gone
into the world Before we deal with our next point and close.
I open the line open the floor for questions. I hope you have
some When he says they have gone into the world It doesn't mean
and go with me back to our text. It doesn't mean that they have
left Jerusalem or in our case Asia Minor because John was the
apostle to the churches of Asia, particularly the Ephesus church
and churches around that region at this time when we are told
that they have gone out and many Antichrists have gone out and
they have gone out into the world. It does not mean that they have
left the region. It means that they have taken
on the ideology of the world system. Notice what verses 18
and 19 says. They little children. It's the
last time you've heard that Antichrist shall come even now There are
many Antichrist whereby we know it's the last time they went
out from us But they were not of us for had they been of us.
They would no doubt have continued with us But they went out that
it may be made manifest that they were not all of us You guys
see that they weren't part of us in the first place. They departed
from us because they were part of the world and What that means
is they fully embraced the ideology of the world. They fully embraced
the teaching that all that there is is what we get in this life.
They fully embraced an ideology that says we need to achieve
all that we can acquire in this life. They fully embraced the
lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life.
Now, what I'm sharing with you is going to help you understand
how to deconstruct false prophets and false teachers. False prophets
and false teachers cannot but operate out of a worldly view
of things. Their worldview comes from their
fallen nature. And our fallen nature, according
to verse 15, loves the things of this world. Follow this now. So while they will embrace a
theological construct as an identification or marker of identification.
That is, they'll read the Bible and they'll learn Bible doctrine.
The only purpose for which they are learning Bible doctrine is
to justify their underlying premise of lust of the flesh and lust
of the eye and the pride of life. Are you following me? So that
they will find texts of scripture that will justify opulent lifestyles
on a material level. And they'll say, God has blessed
me. Are you following me? They'll
find texts of scripture that will justify their boastful pride
of life. And remember what we learned
that term, the pride of life meant? It meant the boastful
biographies of the individuals, what they have accomplished in
the world. they'll find a way to justify all of the things
they have allegedly achieved in this life. In other words,
what the carnal false prophet will do is basically affirm all
the things that this world system agrees with, only they'll whitewash
it in religious terminology. Am I making some sense? And when
you're a born again Christian, or when you are a new believer
in the sense that you are seeking to come out of that old world
system that you're part of, immediately when you enter into environments
and communities where people's objective is not the glory of
God and biblical truth, you immediately pick up on the fact that the
carnality that is pervasive in those cultures is the same carnality
that you came out of when you were in the world. Are you hearing
me? It is for this reason that I
warn churches that if your church, philosophically and ideologically,
looks just like the world, you are not a church of Jesus Christ.
I said philosophically and ideologically. I didn't say in appearance. We
don't have to dress like we just got off the Mayflower or somehow,
you know, live in a third world country. That's not godliness.
Comb your hair, put on decent clothes. But what we are talking
about is when you listen to people talk and that the major portion
of their conversation is getting God on their side to get them
something, then we know that they don't understand the gospel.
Or when they are using scripture to justify an immoral lifestyle,
which is prevalent in our liberal progressive culture, that does
not believe in the biblical limitations of the heterosexual model. And
thus are opening the door for homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality,
pedophilia, not pedophilia yet, but transvestism. All of these expressions of an
alternate sexuality or gender are dominant in your liberal
progressive cultures. And they will justify that by
taking scripture and torturing scripture to make it seem as
if scripture either, watch this, either does not have anything
to say to it directly or approves of it. And they will become scholars. going back to the original languages,
culture and history and use their arguments as it were to demonstrate
that the Bible does not speak as specifically and as explicitly
and clear as it does about the moral standards and limitations
that God has set on human race. When you are part of that culture,
in that kind of church, here's what you will see. You will see
a church that looks just like the world, and their theology
will always cater to the way the world is going. Are you guys
hearing me? They will not have a theology
that is Christocentric, cross-centered, and transformational in its assumptions. They will not have a theology
that glorifies the true and the living God in the person of Christ.
They will not have a theology that is cross-centered. They
will not emphasize the person and work of Jesus Christ in terms
of the atonement and its effects. They will not talk about the
cross in terms of justification, in terms of propitiation. in
terms of expiation, in terms of the wrath of God being satisfied,
in terms of the justice of God and the holiness of God being
met and satisfied. They won't talk like that because
they can't tolerate a God who actually punishes sins. So while
they will have a cross up there, it will have flowers on it in
a pretty gown or scarf or blanket draped over it so that the cross
carries no offense whatsoever. Am I telling the truth? The cute
crosses. The cute crosses. These are offenseless
crosses that obscure the message of redemption inherent in the
death of Christ, which affirms the sinfulness of man and his
desperate need to be born again. Am I making some sense? So it
may sound like they are paying allegiance to Jesus but they
have divested him of his essential work. And in divesting him of
his essential work, they have divested the human race of any
real hope for deliverance from their condition. The cross teaches
us what God said was necessary to deliver us from our sin. Are you hearing me? And so what
John is saying also is these folks left us, they went to school,
they bought into the worldviews of this culture. And in some
of your outlines, you have this. These are the outlines that I
brought out today. I'll just state these. This goes
way down after we get into the area of being kept by the spirit,
deniers of the glory of God in Christ, keeping the gospel and
our responsibility. But I'm just gonna share this
portion before I close with some Q and A. down under the seducers
defined and watch out for them. Some of you guys have that in
your outline? Okay, some of you don't because you have your old
outline, but those of you who have the newer ones, here are the categorical
areas in which they seek to draw people away. The era in which
they seek to draw people away are in the area of scripture.
The false prophet and the false teacher will work feverishly
First of all, to tell you that this book does not mean what
it says, okay? In other words, there has been
a labor for the last 150 years, some say longer, of undermining
what we call the authority of scripture. Undermining the authority
of scripture. This is part of what is called
liberal scholarship. In the liberal scholarship arena,
They labor to prove to you that it's all right to read the Bible
as a set of morals and quaint sayings and phrases, you know,
on a philosophical level. But do not take the Bible seriously,
because from Genesis to Revelation, it is filled with a plethora
of errors and falsehoods for which you cannot really trust
the Bible. Some of you may have heard my Monday show two weeks
ago where a lady called and tried to get five minutes of a conversation
just to spout her liberal progressive views and say, well, you know,
the men, and then she said it twice, the men, this is how you
know she's a feminist, the men, you know, they were just men
who wrote the Bible. And immediately I had to stop
her right there. Cause once you are demonstrating that type of
prejudice and assumption, on the authors, human authors of
scripture, it tells me that you have been deceived by scholarship
into believing that God has allowed those men to spout error and
falsehood in the scriptures. And once we allow for that assumption,
we may not, under all logical circumstances, believe anything
that the scripture teaches. If I accept the assumption that
one part of the scripture It's filled with an error. I'm talking
about a legitimate error. I may not believe any other part
of the scripture. Are you hearing me? That's what
we call logic. I don't have the right to argue
that Revelation is flawed, but Genesis is not. Or Genesis 1
is flawed, but Genesis 5 is not. Or Genesis 19 is flawed, but
Genesis 32 is not. If Genesis 1-1 is flawed, Genesis
1-1 to Revelation 22 and 21 is flawed. Are you hearing me? If part of the book is flawed,
the whole book is flawed. Am I making some sense? This
is where people have to have a very good understanding of
logic, because in this postmodern age of relativism, people can
tell you stuff that if you don't follow it through deductively,
you will buy it and it will begin to unravel your whole premise
for being a Christian. You don't know it, but it will.
And the next thing you know, you're part of that group that's
going to church. That doesn't bring your Bible.
Because all the preacher is doing is giving you a show. with a
little anecdotal story and is never seriously exegeting the
scriptures, demonstrating the faithfulness, the infallibility,
the verbal plenary nature of scripture, how that the scripture
is a continuum of truth. When we humbly approach it, it
solves its own problems if we would humble ourselves before
the truth of the living God. Are you guys hearing what I'm saying?
But people come to the scriptures on the high horse of human intellect
and try to find flaws in it and then argue. See, there's a flaw
there. No, the flaws between your ears is called a Charlie
hearts in your brain. Are you guys following me? But
see, we're so arrogant. We don't have Charlie horses
in our brain. Our brains are impeccable. Our brains are perfect.
Our reasoning is flawless. It's God's book that's messed
up. Now, I'm sharing this with you because probably all of you
have been in these kinds of environments where people have had a low view
of scripture. And be careful, kind begets kind.
A little leaven leavens the whole lot. Whole lots of folk go to
church every Sunday. never ever seriously opening
the book to see what thus saith the Lord. Their whole engagement
of worship is the entertainment level and the ability for that
preacher to, as it were, mesmerize them with a feel-good emotional
sermon that may be anecdotal in terms of practical how-tos
or some kind of psychological babble. Our churches are filled
with it. So in your outline is scripture
that we can air in. We'll come back to this next
week. We can err in wrong hearing. Wrong hearing. This is what Jesus
said in Matthew chapter 13. Be careful how you hear. For
with what measure you hear it will be measured unto you. Now
watch this. The reason why I use that term wrong hearing, I'll
expand on it next week. There are people who are given
over to torturing the scriptures and making false allegations
against scripture, right? This is what Jesus meant in Matthew
chapter 22, when the Sadducees, who didn't believe in the resurrection
from the dead, came to Jesus with the hypothetical story of
the seven men with one wife. Whose husband shall she be in
the resurrection? And Jesus says, you do greatly
err. You do greatly err. You do greatly
go astray. not knowing the scriptures, nor
the power of God. These were supposedly the theologians
of that day. Are you guys following me? But
they pretended to believe in the doctrines of scripture. A
lot of your churches are like that today. They pretend to,
but this is how you know a person doesn't believe that book. Are
you ready? Cause they don't teach the doctrines that are in that
book. You go to a church and you're there for 10 years and
they don't teach hell and the judgment and the wrath of God,
and what actually was accomplished at Calvary Street, the incarnation,
the need for regeneration, the doctrines of grace, they don't
believe them. Are you hearing me? And so not
only are they torturing the scriptures, but then they're setting people
up to not be able to hear properly. You remember that moment when
you had come out of that false system of religion, and God allowed
you to hear truth for the first time, and it blew you away that
somebody was so crystal clear in the teaching of the word of
God, that it not only humbled you, but it affirmed you because
you thought you were going crazy in that wicked, foolish church
you were in. So wait a minute now, is it just me? Or did he
just twist the scriptures? And then everybody in the church
trying to justify the preacher when he's twisting the scripture
week in and week out. And then finally you hear somebody
saying it as plain as day. And you read your Bible and say,
my goodness, he just said what he said. Right? And you realize that they had
messed up your hearing. They had taught you how to listen
to Aaron. See, the hearing ear and the
seeing eye, we know God makes that. Proverbs 2012. God makes
the hearing ear and the seeing eye. He gives that to his elect,
but he gives that to his elect through faithful teachers. Somebody
has to drop the plumb line straight. In order for people to see the
truth without a straight plumb line, you don't know if that
edifice is being built just so ever slightly in error. Because
everybody's walking like this. How you doing, sister? There are many more. I'm going
to take those up next time. Let's talk. Anybody got any questions,
any issues, any challenges? Here we go, G, over here. We'll
take a few minutes to talk, and then we'll close in prayer. It's
good to see you guys out these nights. I'll tell you, we've
been having some great Thursday night classes, and I know the
turnout on Thursday night has been a challenge for some of
us to be able to come out Thursday and Friday is really difficult,
but I'm glad you guys are making it. My prayer is that before
God wreaks judgment on this nation, that he would grant the church
a revival. It was not uncommon long ago for the people of God
to meet every day to hear the word of God expounded. is very
uncommon today for people to sit under sound teaching. Who
has the mic? OK, my brother, put it to your
mouth. Praise the Lord, Pastor. Yes. As a new believer, I started
a little group at lunchtime at my work. I would buy them lunch,
bring them in. We would go to the back of a
warehouse where there's nobody there except one person. We only
get 25 minutes, and I We throw a CD, we eat, we pray a little
bit, and that's it. My foreman came to me, he said,
came from corporate, came down, down, down, down, said that we
can't play movies or play CDs. What can I do about that? And
it's only once a week or once every other week. It's not unlawful
for you to do that. You're going to have to fight
it. Before you fight it. Well, they're not liking me no
more. I understand that. Before you fight it, I would
ask whether or not those guys who are willing to listen would
find another time to do it outside of the job. OK? Before you fight it. There are
times to fight battles like that and times not. If we can have
an alternative time for the gathering, I would do it. OK? Especially
if they're becoming hungry for the word. You have a constitutional
right, but I would save that for another battle. Is that okay? All right. Another question. Pastor, if you will, I'd like
for you to speak just a little bit on carnal Christianity and
backsliding because I know, you know, in the years that I spent
in church, you know, it had me so confused as a new believer. You know, when you look around
and see, how the church is operating and all the carnality and all
the mess that goes on. And yet, you know, I got this
hunger for the word and I'm reading the word and I'm seeing, hey,
this, how can this be? It's not jiving with me. And
I was like, so, you know, they legitimize it by all of these
false, you know, categories of Christianity, you know? So you
could just speak a little bit to that because they truly believe
it and it's confusing. Any other questions? Okay, good.
You can get ready to go over there. My sister is asking about
terms like carnal Christianity and backsliding before you go.
So as I had said earlier, what false churches do is they take
legitimate terms and pour into them wrong definitions. So with
a backslider, the term is only used in the Old Testament. It's
not used in the New Testament. The term is used concerning national
Israel and you'll find that well, it's used in the Proverbs as
well But it's used with regards to national Israel and a backslider
is an ox or a heifer That is designed to be driven in one
direction But the more you try to drive it in that one direction
it pushes back on you that's what a backslider is and God
called Israel a backsliding heifer in Jeremiah 3 and whose backslidings
continued until he destroyed her. Even though he called her
to return, she never returned. Return, return unto me, O backsliding
heifer, and I will be a husband unto you. She never returned. So when people use the term backslider,
and it's in the book of Proverbs, a backslider in heart will be
filled with his own ways That's a very dangerous term to identify
yourself with because it means that you are unregenerate, that
you're not born again, that what you are doing is having pretended
to be a Christian, you are gradually now rejecting the truth incrementally
more and more as it were submitting to some carnal passion or lust
that has betrayed you for not being a Christian. And the danger
of people assuming that a backslider can actually be saved is the
assumption that that backslider can keep living like hell and
die living in that state and go to heaven. Remember what I
said? Era can create the kind of unintended
consequences of which the unintended consequences are worse than worse
than the original era. So if we are building a theology
that basically says if they made a decision at the altar Accepted
Jesus got baptized had their name signed on the ledger and
yet nothing else in their life gave any credible evidence of
being authentically born again Basically, we are giving people
a license to sin Without any evidence of authentic genuine
conversion. Are you hearing me? and it becomes
basically sort of a prohibition on self-examination or the examination
of the members of the church or inquiry into the credibility
of the witness. Don't question whether or not
they're lost. You might, however, accept the
fact that they are backsliding, but don't buy into the possibility
that they are lost. The scriptures would more quickly
assume a lost estate when a person is acting like they're lost,
then the scriptures would assume a saved estate though the person
is acting like they're lost. Are you guys hearing me? If you're
going to be honest with scripture and let scripture speak to you,
you know what scripture would say? You better examine yourself,
whether you be in the faith or not, whether Christ is in you
of a truth, except you be reprobate. And that is if you don't have
the capacity to determine whether or not you are authentic Christian,
you're reprobating your mind. You're not qualified to make
that assessment. And then the scriptures would
say you better make your calling and election sure you better
add to your faith virtue to your virtue knowledge to to not your
knowledge difference to temperance self-control and after self-control,
uh, brotherly kindness and after brotherly kindness charity because
Faith will bear the accompanying fruits of faith when christ is
in it. You see the issue is whether or not christ is in you If you're
saying christ is in you and we went through two months now of
these profound Propositions abiding in God God abiding in us Christ
abiding in you You're talking about omnipotent God being in
you Are you guys hearing what I'm saying? Listen? Here you
are walking around with the God of the universe in you And you
telling people you and God are one and God's in you and you're
living like hell Do you understand how blasphemous that whole notion
is? I? Can I share something with
you before I go to our next question? If a person is truly born again
and are trapped by a carnal sin, they will be the first to tell
you, don't you tell me that I'm saved because they won't play
with it. Are you hearing me? A true believer
will not go around audaciously saying, I'm saved. I just got
a problem with fornication or adultery or homosexuality. No, a true believer will say,
I don't know if I'm saved. A true believer will. A true
believer will say, God may have left me. A true believer will
say, I'm probably suffering the wrath of God. Are you hearing
me? See, if you're miffed at what
I'm saying, it's because you're not reading your Bible. When
you read your Bible, believers who find themselves in these
kinds of pits talk as if they're not saved. They give God the
glory. Go through the Psalms. David
says, I'm like a dead man out of mind. I'm like a dead man out of mind.
God has left me and I don't know where he is. God's abandoned
me. God's left me to my wicked ways.
Sin has dominion over me. See, they're not playing games,
reassuring you that they're saved. They're being honest. They're
being honest. Are you hearing me? I told you
honest person don't go to hell But they're not gonna sit around
and justify the hypocrites in the church Who want to try to
find a covering for you? Listen the covering works if
you confess your sins You know, I ham and J fat. I mean J fifth
and shim went back and covered their daddy daddy as we learned
last night But that wasn't because Noah was hiding his sin Noah
acknowledged his sin God gives a covering to sinners who acknowledge
their sins if you don't Confess your sin, you will not prosper.