The Antichrist Now and Then

We'll grab your Bibles and let's go to 1 John, as John is writing this to the churches. Remember, these books in the New Testament are written to local churches.

And you miss something if you don't think in those terms. But it's absolutely astonishing to me afresh at the wisdom of the Word of God. How it's just as up to date as today's newspaper except it's the truth, not fake news. Do we even get newspapers anymore?

Anybody get a newspaper? I don't know if that does anymore. But it's a figure of speech, all right? It's a metaphor for today's news. But we come to 1 John chapter 2. And he's talking to the church and he's talking about those who fall away and those who fully apostatize and John brings up the truth of the antichrist spirit and the antichrist himself. And folks, there's only two spirits in the world. There's only two. There's the true spirit, the spirit of Christ, and there's the antichrist spirit.

And they're both very alive and they're both very real. And by the way, you are either of one or the other. If you don't know Christ, if you have not turned to him as your Lord and Savior, you are of the antichrist. You say, I don't do evil things. I don't do strange things and bad things.

It doesn't matter. Matter of fact, the antichrist loves to cloak himself in human goodness. He can deceive more people that way, even yourself. So there's only two spirits. If I had to give this a title, and I guess I need to if I'm going to preach it, it would be the antichrist now and then. The antichrist now and then. First John chapter two, beginning in verse 18, going through verse 23.

Children, the older John writing with that affectionate tone to his churches. Children, it is the last hour. And just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now, many antichrists have appeared.

From this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, connecting to verse 18, because they were not really of us. For if they had been of us, they would have remained with us.

But they went out so that it will be shown that they are all are not of us. But you have an anointing from the Holy One and you all know. I've not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the father and the son.

And whoever denies the son does not have the father and the one who confesses the son has the father also. All right, Roman number one, let's talk about the presence of the antichrist and sub point A. Let's talk about the prophecies about the definite article here. The prophecies about the antichrist. Now, first of all, when you talk about the antichrist, that word simply means a replacement for or instead of. He's the false Christ.

He's the usurper. And by the way, as we're thinking about that, what I've often called that satanic Superman, who will one day take his place on the earth and and claim to be the savior and claim to be God himself. As we think about the satanic Superman and we think about how can one man win the whole world and control the whole world? And lo and behold, Al Gore invented the Internet.

At least he says he did. But anyway, what I'm saying is all of a sudden, you and I are experiencing right now today that vast scores of people, at least in their emotions and their thinking, can be controlled by that stupid Internet. Our social media, it's called. So all of a sudden, the technology is just laid before us where a person in one place can have such control or power over things that he could influence the whole world. Of course, now there's going to be satanic power behind it, but don't you dare not believe for one moment. There's not satanic power behind a lot of what we're seeing today.

The notions that people are coming up with. It's what the scripture says when it says this wisdom did not come down from above. It's not heavenly. This is that wisdom which comes out of the earth. It's natural, earthly and demonic. It's the antichrist spirit, but there is a particular antichrist who will be manifested at the last day. Now, let me just read Second Thessalonians Chapter two, verses one through 13.

I think Tim's got this on the screen for you. Paul writing to the church at Thessalonica writes, Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus and our gathering together to him, that you not be quickly shaken from your composure and be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first. And here he is, the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction. Here's what he does. Verse four, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called God or object of worship so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.

Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things? And you know that what restrains him now so that in his time he'll be revealed. So God's just holding him back. Maybe God started to lay some things down to allow for his entrance.

Sure kind of looks like it, doesn't it? Verse seven, for the mystery of lawlessness, notice this is already at work. Only he who restrains will do so until he's taken out of the way. Verse eight, then that lawless one, isn't that interesting that he's called the lawless one? Is there a spirit of lawlessness in our country today? Where do you think that's coming from? It's the spirit of the Antichrist. Verse eight again, then that lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will slay with the breath of his mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of his coming. That is, the one who's coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.

And boy, here's where we are. Verse 11, for this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence, deluded in their thinking. They won't be capable of seeing the truth. They'll be deluded so that they will believe the lie of the Antichrist. Aren't you glad grace intervenes in our hearts and minds and makes us able to appreciate the truth, make us want the truth? That's what the Bible says he does. Anyway, deluding influence, verse 11, so they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth but took pleasure in wickedness. We should always give thanks to God for you, beloved brethren, by our Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning.

Is that not a precious statement? God has chosen you from the beginning. How are you going to avoid the Antichrist and not be duped by him because you're one God chose from the beginning?

Not because you're smart, not because you're perceptive. God chose you to awaken you and enlighten you and give you discernment. That's the only reason we were singing that song that Tom just was saying for us a while ago, and the truth in there was so powerful about God choosing us before the foundation of the world.

I mean, what love is that? Now think about that, God in eternity past who has infinite wisdom and omniscience, knows everything from front to back and beginning to end, and he looks down on the earth and he doesn't just see the potential, he sees you and chooses, I will pour my very infinite powers out to secure that one for me. And in securing you, among other things, he enables you to see through the lies of the Antichrist and the Antichrist spirit.

Interesting. That's what the text says. Verse 13 again, But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren, beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the spirit and faith and the truth. There's about seven sermons in that verse. Well, there is this satanic Superman who's coming. He's not the Christ, he's the false Christ. He is the Antichrist, Christ's adversary. And his core tenet is a twist on the truth because here's what he's doing. The truth is God became man.

That's the truth. That's Christ. His twist, his inversion is man can become God.

He's a man and he'll say, but I'm God. Is that not what we see in the spirit of our world today? I mean, when you hear when you understand the theories behind what we're seeing all over our country today, there's this notion that we need nothing of absolute truth. There's no objective truth outside of us. And what they call critical race theory or intersectionality, among other things, says this. If you're oppressed, then how you feel is truth.

Doesn't matter what objective truth really is. If they feel it and they're oppressed, then their truth and others must hear them and respond to what they request. And that's why you're seeing this domino effect of request after you do this and do this and do this and do this and do this. Or you're racist or something else.

And I think one of the great tragic things, a grave injustice was done to a man in Minneapolis and these anarchists and these Marxists who set themselves up as having wisdom instead of submitting to God, take over the whole movement. And that's all it's always been this way. This isn't something new. It's always been this way. And that's the way the Antichrist works, set themselves up as God, not having to submit to any authority outside of themselves.

The new notion is if I feel, it's real. So every time their emotions change, they can demand something different. They keep moving the goalpost. And we see this over and over and over and over and over again. And so what is the final conclusion? The final conclusion is we've got to burn this whole thing down.

Literally, that's what's being said. We've got to burn this whole thing down and just erase everything that is America. And we're going to rebuild it in the image of Karl Marx. Karl Marx was the chief of those who said man can be God, man can save himself, man can be. It's all the Antichrist spirit. But all of this will culminate in one being at the end of time, the satanic Superman, the Antichrist. Well, John's not necessarily wanting us to pay all that much attention to this one, because the second sub point when I'm talking about the Roman numeral one, the presence of the Antichrist is not the prophecies about him. But secondly, the presence of the Antichrist. You could say the Antichrist spirit in the world right now. So there's all of these manifestations, aspects you might say of what the Antichrist is that's in the world right now and one day it will all culminate in him. As a matter of fact, all these things that reject God and reject the morals of Scripture and reject the truths of God works, God works, all of those things are forerunners, if you will, announcing one's coming who will embody all of this rebellion and all of this godlessness.

But it's in the world today. As I told you earlier, there's only two spirits in the world, the Antichrist spirit and Christ true spirit. Matter of fact, if you would go over to 1 John chapter 4 verse 3. 1 John chapter 4 verse 3. John says again here, And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard that it is coming. Notice what John says now. It is coming and is already in the world.

It's here now. Now he manifests himself in different ways and in varying degrees. Now you have the classic, well I might call the classic cult movement and it's kind of like dominoes, one falls after the other and I don't know, I'm not really up on the latest cults, but you know from time immemorial you have the Jehovah's Witnesses. I like to call them Jehovah's false witnesses because they're not witnesses of Jehovah. They don't even know Jehovah. The Mormons, the Church of Latter-day Saints, these are all of the Antichrist spirit. And then you during the hippie movement in the 60s and 70s, maybe some in the 80s, you had these people called the Moonies. You all remember those?

Some of you old enough to remember the Moonies. And it's just one after this. Somebody will rise up and they're the new Gnostic. Gnostic means we're the elites and we have the insight, follow us. Brothers and sisters, if it's new, it ain't true. This book's 2,000 years old. So every time somebody rises up, aha! We have the insight, nobody has. And that's what's propelling a lot of this lawlessness and rebellion in our country today.

Some people, these university professors who've never built anything, developed anything, made a profit anywhere, get tenure and we pay their salaries to teach our children a bunch of nonsense and evil stuff. Boy, I've got to be careful here. I'll get in trouble. I'll get in big trouble.

Big, big trouble. But these guys, ladies, some of them, rise up, they'll throw something out. And then these people go embrace it like, oh my goodness, God has spoken.

No, you just heard from a fool is what you did. Because it violates the Word of God. There's either it's of Christ and harmonizes with Him and the Word of God, or it's of the antichrist spirit, whether it's in a religious context. And by the way, what we're seeing in a lot of these movies, it's a religion for these people.

They have their own doctrines and positions. And by the way, when it all boils down, I'm going to say this at the end of my message again, when it all boils down, are you listening to your pastor? What's the anti, when you get through all of it, what's the antichrist when he comes? What's he all about? Power and control.

That's it. I don't want Jesus to have power and control. I want to have power and control. What do you struggle with every day? What's your biggest struggle in your life? It's not doing what I preached this morning, gloriously yielding to the yoke of Jesus Christ. Am I the only one that struggles there? No, we all struggle there.

But you know what? When you're saved, you don't like yourself struggling there. When you're saved, you want to be repentant of struggling about that. And you want to realign it to the yoke of Jesus. When the pastor preaches and it shakes you up a little bit, or when you're having your quiet time, or the Spirit of God convicts you about it. We got to constantly put ourselves back under the yoke of Christ. When the antichrist comes, he's going to be about, I don't want anybody's yoke, I am the Christ.

But he's a false liar. And that's what's happening in the world all around us. Now by the way, a lot of this goes on in the church.

And we're going to see that in just a couple of seconds. So there's the classic cult movements we've been around and aware of through the years. And by the way, if you get to really dissecting what these cults teach, they always bring Jesus down from his place of absolute deity. They're kind of like the old Egyptian worshipers when they would have their demigods. The Egyptians had all these gods, and it's true probably many peoples of antiquity. But they'd have these gods that are above man, but not really the one true high god.

They're just kind of gods. And that's where a lot of these cult groups put Jesus. And the official organization, for example, called Black Lives Matter. You read their doctrines. It's just completely anti-Christian.

Now we all agree with that if there's hate and oppression, we stand with that 100%. But I could never, ever see a Christian standing with that organization. There's two different things going on here. That organization is wicked to the core. I mean, they're not hiding it.

I'm not saying we did some investigation here. They boldly proclaim what they are. They're atheists. They do not believe in the family. They believe in promoting every kind of immoral and perverse sexuality.

They believe in Marxism, godless, atheistic Marxism. That's the solution for our country. And I just think it's an absolute, absolute shame that Satan has let groups like that and then all of this Antifa, anarchy group take this day when that's not what this was about. It's just absolutely bad that a good cause and a good reason to make your voices heard has been hijacked by some evil and very bad actors. It's tragic.

It really is tragic. Well, not only the presence of the Antichrist that there's a prophecy of him coming and then there's a presence of the Antichrist in our world today. Let's notice something about the pattern of the Antichrist.

There's a basic pattern here that I want us to look at. Look at verse 19. Interesting, Paul jumps right to the specific local church. They went out from us. Who's the they? The Antichrists that are already in the world. People who are of the Antichrist spirit were in the local church. Then he says, but they weren't really of us. Or if they'd been of us, they would have remained with us, but they went out so that it would be shown that they all are not of us. Then verse 20, he says, but you, he's talking to the saved remnant in the church, you have an anointing from the Holy One and you all know. He said, you've been really converted and you see the truth.

That's why you didn't fall away. And I've not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it. And because no lie is of the truth. Let me just give you three outlines here, three points under this pattern of those with the Antichrist spirit. And this is in the context of a local church, OK? First of all, they always desire to sway the church.

They always come in and they want to move the church off center. Now they're not usually going to come in and just stand up and say, look, I want you to know Jesus is not divine. I want you to know that the atonement is not essential.

Jesus didn't really die for our sins. They're not going to stand up and say that. They just want to sway the church. Just start moving them off center of the gospel.

Brothers and sisters, listen. What we absolutely always have to be is gospel centered. We're not music centered. We're not this centered. We're not that centered.

We're not youth groups centered. We've got to be gospel centered. And they always want, I can't tell you the times through the years, I've had people come to me and I think they were well intending.

They didn't wake up the morning and say, I want to be evil today. But they would come and say, pastor, we need to do this or pastor, we need to do that. And while the things themselves weren't necessarily wrong, but it was getting the church off center.

Getting us to make a big deal out of things the Bible barely even mentions. Church, you need to listen to what I'm saying. There's wisdom in what the word of God is telling us here. Well, listen to these verses. Acts 20, verse 17. Paul says from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and he called to him the elders of the church. So Paul is at toward the end of his ministry. He has a great heart for the church at Ephesus, as we've seen going through 1 Timothy. So he calls these elders and then Acts 20 verses 28 through 31. He tells them, be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the flock of God of the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. Knowing, I know, Paul's not saying this might happen, he's like John. John said these folks left out of us because they're not of God. Now Paul says this is something I know. Verse 29, I know after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.

And Paul says it's worse than that. Verse 30, after my departure I know that from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things to draw the disciples away, to move them away from sound doctrine. The truth of Christ and salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone. To get them to follow them.

So what does he say? This is the antichrist spirit. They want to move the disciples away from the truth to follow, quote, their doctrine. They've decided themselves what's more valuable than God's word. Or it's their spin or their twist on the word of God.

Their misuse of the word of God. So verse 31, he's still exhorting his elders. Therefore be on the alert. Remember that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one of you with tears. Well, John is saying there's only two spirits.

They, all they did was expose that they're of the antichrist spirit. Now, I want to be cautious here because I think there is a balancing truth here. Good brothers and sisters can get off track for a while. Did you hear that phrase? They just can't stay off track. Good brothers and sisters, for too long they said, wait a minute. This isn't right.

This isn't solid. And they're drawn back. And thank God for that. Aren't you glad you can come back? Do we not come back?

Do we not have to repent and come back to God? Well, they sway the church. They try, their desire is to sway the church.

That's part of the pattern. Now, number two, they desire to play in the church. I could, if I and me, 25 years ago, brother Steve, 25 years ago, brother Tim, brother Matt, 25, Matt, you're too young. You're not as young as you used to be, by the way. You're getting old.

You acted old a long time ago, but now you're actually getting old. But 25 years ago, if we had sat around and said, what's the goofiest, craziest, silliest, most nonsensical circus you could put on in a church? If we did that, we couldn't match what's going on in churches.

I mean, if we tried to figure out the most outlandish nonsense in the world, we couldn't match. I turned on the television this afternoon and Ed Young Jr. is on there. You ever seen Ed Young Jr.? His daddy was president of the Southern Baptist Convention. And this is his son. And I didn't watch much of it because I've listened to him a few times before.

And the only thing I thought of, it reminded me of flannel graph from Vacation Bible School. And all this big stuff up here, all this beautiful visuals, and I'm not saying all that's bad, but the notion is we've got to treat people like they're little babies and they can't get anything. If we don't keep it entertaining, they're not going to come. That's true. Unless the Holy Spirit apprehends their heart and gives them hunger for the truth, then they'll come.

Then they'll come. And by the way, here's what's happening. And folks, I'm not exaggerating, these big churches that do these fantastic stage productions every week, they're spending tens of thousands of dollars sometimes a week just for the stage settings. I mean, he last year before the March Madness, you know, back when we had sports in America, remember that? Athletics and stuff? For March Madness, he had a basketball court built. It was nice.

I saw the video of them building the thing. We could have supported 25 church planters for a year with what he put in that basketball court. Now again, not all this is always wrong, but here's what's happened. They've moved over to where church has got to be cool, neat, fun, funny, trendy, whatever. They want to play in the church. The Antichrist spirit always wants to play.

Now, hey, are you listening to your pastor? I like to play. But there's times to play. And when you're in the only place God's ordained on earth as the primary means to change men's hearts and save their eternal souls, we don't need to have it centered on play.

Do you understand what I'm saying? But that's their push. They'll always be pushing in that direction. Their desire is for the church to provide for their fleshly desires or at least accommodate their fleshly desires. I hate to bring up again, but when these denominational leaders come out with stuff like the homosexualities only whispered about in scripture, what the president of the Southern Baptist Convention said, what kind of ungodly, ridiculous, what in the heaven's name is he thinking?

I have some disagreements with some of the men that I admired 30 years ago in the Southern Baptist Convention, but I guarantee you the Jerry Vines, the Adrian Rogers, the Bailey Smiths of their day would have stood up and said, what are you doing? I mean, it's just, look, what else could you be doing when you say that other than telling folks, I want you to be a little more comfortable in your sin? Folks, what folks need to be taught is to be uncomfortable in sin. Sin kills. The wages of sin is death. I cannot minimize your sin and love you at the same time. That can only be the Antichrist spirit. I don't know if this guy's of the Antichrist, but he sure was listening to the wrong spirit when he said that stupid statement. I hope he hears this. He don't listen to me.

He's too cool to listen to me. They want to play in the church because they view grace as a license to sin. Jude 1 4 says they turn the grace of God into lasciviousness.

They turn grace into, hey, we can all sin and it ain't no big deal and we're all free. Yes, you're free. You're free to obey God. You're free to strive for holiness and love each other enough not to help each other sin, but to help each other live holy. That's the freedom we have. We're freedom from the bondage to our flesh.

Well enough on that. They desire to sway the church. They desire to play in the church. See, they won't stay in a true church.

They will not stay in a true church. I was talking to Brother John O. Sims of the Shelbyville Mills Baptist Church in Shelbyville, Tennessee. Y'all have heard of Brother John O., haven't you?

And he helps me and I help. I had a question to ask him and he said, Brother, tonight I'm dismissing two men from the church. One of them was an active deacon.

And he said, you know, it's interesting that he looked great for a while and then boom. The truth came out. He said, Brother, I've always told you a true church is a great clarifier.

It exposes, it clarifies what's really there. Now don't get nervous on me. Quick, come to church. If you're humble and you're a repenter of the junk in your life, then you're on track with me and the rest of us. But it's when you start saying, I don't think it's bad anymore. I don't think it's sin anymore. I'm going to embrace this and treasure it.

I'm not going to fight anymore. Somebody asked me one day about a certain... They said, can a man commit this sin and be a Christian?

That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. We all commit sin as Christians. And they asked me, can a man commit this sin and be a Christian?

I immediately said, I want to know if he's in the fight. I want to know if he's humbled and broken by it and repented of it and wants help with it. Well, they're not going to stay in a real church because they love the world.

Isn't that what? Now in the context, look at verse 15 of 1 John chapter 2. Verse 15 that flows right into where we are and I do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the boastful pride of life is not from the Father, but from the world.

So what's he saying? That's the antichrist spirit in the world. What's it do? It makes you want to make the center of your life the fulfillment of your lust. It is so degrading. It's beneath the beast.

It's beneath the beast of the earth that we now have, even among the so-called intellectuals of our day, the notion that your sex drive defines rather who you are. That is so bizarre. That is so ungodly. That is so beneath the dignity of human. Now the sex drive is a wonderful good gift from God.

There's a proper way to use it, but this whole thing of now, it's like when you meet somebody, they got to tell you if they're trans or bi or whatever the words mean. It's ridiculous. We're made in the image of God. We're not a bunch of alley cats. I can't say that anymore out of respect for alley cats.

Dogs and skunks and turtles don't do that. Brothers and sisters, it's the truth. It's the truth. Who else would inspire that but the antichrist spirit? Are you with me, church? When that satanic serpent man takes the stage and leads the world, he'll make everybody feel like they're right with God and they can indulge in every defiled lust that floats across their fallen wicked heart, which is what our quote leaders are telling us we ought to do today.

Sad, sad, sad. One day they're going to lock me up for doing this. If they don't lock me up, they'll lock Matt up because I'll be in heaven. But one day they may. One day they... I believe the church is next.

Are you hearing me? That's why so many of these churches are already embracing this nonsense, so they will be left alone. I may kick and scry and cream and scream and beg and get in the fetal position like Jim Baker when they came after him. But listen, I've already determined I'm not changing. I'm not changing. I mean, I didn't bring anything into the ministry.

I was just broke and had as much of nothing as a man could possibly have. And I may have to leave out that way in a jail cell. But I don't know. I'm not changing God's truth.

It just is what it is. And I believe some of you will come see me in prison. That's what Jesus said, didn't he? He said, if you're really a Christian, you'll come see your brother if he's locked up for the faith.

I don't think it's happening tomorrow. But the dominoes are falling, are they not? We'll come to church and be encouraged. Romans 3, the profession of those with the Antichrist spirit, they do have a doctrine that comes out.

Now, here's what I want to tell you. They don't start out with this doctrine. They don't start out saying this. But this is where they always end up. Are you hearing me?

They don't start out like this, but this is where they end up. Look what he says in verses 22. Who is the liar? That's got to be the Antichrist spirit because he's the liar. Christ is of the truth. Who's the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ?

This is the Antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. So he says, ultimately, they just reject God. And of course, they reject God's way of salvation, His Son, Jesus Christ.

They don't start out saying that, but that's where they end up. You see, by rejecting the sound doctrine of the Word of God, they always ultimately have to get rid of Jesus because the biblical Jesus contradicts their viewpoint and their philosophy. People don't actually reject the Bible because, quote, they find contradictions in the Bible.

Have you heard that by the skeptics? Well, the Bible just contradicts itself. They don't reject the Bible because they find contradictions. They reject the Bible because the Bible contradicts them. You either come to this book humbled as a repenter or you reject the book.

There's only two things. There's no other way to embrace what the Scriptures teach. The full and final manifestation of this singular Antichrist that he's coming in the future will be that he rejects Christ and places himself in the place of Christ, which means he also, as our text says here, says that he rejects God the Father, who sent the Son, Jesus Christ. So he is the final climactic, ultimate expression of the Antichrist spirit.

It's trickling all around us right now. Today, there are those who verbally claim Christ, but in their heart, they reject him as Lord. And those are the ones John's talking about when he said they went out from us because they weren't really of us.

They said it right. They seemed sincere. And one of the startling things to me was how many people looked so solid for so long, only that when the curtain was pulled back, it was a sham. Now look, a lot of people have left our church and God's sent them other places and they love the Lord and they're solid people.

Listen to what I'm gonna tell you. A whole lot more than we would probably like to admit are of the Antichrist spirit. That's why they didn't stay. There's both groups for sure. They're not gonna submit to the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture, so they inevitably have to deny the Jesus of Scripture, his deity.

They will end up denying the Trinity, the Lordship of Christ, and of course, also that means they deny God the Father. One, because I've been interested in what's going on, I've done a lot of reading. I told you I had, what, 10 pages of notes I didn't even use this morning. But one of the things, and by the way, I'm not picking this out because it's about black people. I'm picking this out because this is a really interesting topic right now. And back in, I guess, the 50s or so, out of Central America came what was called Black Liberation Theology. And Black Liberation Theology, I think it was later named Black Liberation Theology after it was embraced by more liberal pastors in America. And in Black Liberation Theology, the brothers would have started out saying, oh, we believe that there's sin, and we believe you have to believe on Jesus.

That's all right. We believe that, and we know that's the main thing, but your salvation has to be worked out in social justice issues. If you're not really involved in lifting up the oppressed, good thing, by the way, we should always stand for the oppressed and to lift up the oppressed. But they kept going, and they kept going, and they kept going. And pretty soon, now this is actually in their written doctrine, they will tell you, you must view the gospel and view the Bible and view Jesus through the lens of helping societals oppressed. It becomes the one interpretive tool that decides all truth. And so they go on and on and on, and finally everything is what became called the social gospel. Everything is about fixing the ills of society. There's one problem with that. If fixing society's injustices and oppressions is the core or a key element of the gospel, both the apostle Paul and Jesus Christ left the earth as a failure.

You tell me they didn't have the power to do something about it? You know why? Because God was not primarily interested in your external condition. He's interested in your internal liberation over the burden and the stronghold of sin in Satan's dominion.

Because if He can get you there, He can get you free no matter what your condition on the outside. And so slowly the Jesus of the Bible got in the way of their philosophy. Slowly the doctrines of Scripture begin to get in the way of their philosophy to fix the evils of the world.

And by the way, they're right about it. And that's the way Satan always is. He takes a good thing. That's a good thing to care. That's a good thing to be concerned about the poor.

And we should do that. But see, Satan's craft deploys to get you so emotionally wrapped up in that you twist to where you no longer, in your philosophy of what good in Christianity is, you no longer fit Christ in the teaching of Scripture. You've gotten out of balance. And that's where we are today. The biblical Jesus and sound biblical doctrine is now in the way of so many who started out on somewhat of a solid path. One of the horrid grandchildren of this movement that started out as liberation theology became in America black liberation theology. And by the way, white liberals, skin color's not the issue here.

It's just what it was called. One of the horrid grandchildren of this movement is the Black Lives Matter movement. That's how far it's come to where they, they don't make any claim to theism in any way. They've gone, I mean, the whole purpose and meaning of existence is to dismantle everything we know and rebuild this utopian culture based on Marxism.

Here's my question, time out. Maybe you are sincere, but how can I trust you're so wise and able to get this done? With all due respect, I don't think I'm gonna follow you that way. There's only one I'm gonna follow like that, and when he comes back, Jesus Christ, then I'll give that kind of devotion to his wisdom.

But until that, I'm gonna be skeptical of everybody else. All of that is the antichrist spirit, and it's ruining church after church after church after church. And the reason why I keep making a big deal out of all this stuff we're hearing in Baptist life, folks, it's just so sad that every carnal, faddish wind that blows, Southern Baptist run out there and try to prove to the world, oh, we're with you, we're with you, we agree. Their motive is if we go out and do that, we'll get more of a hearing and we'll get more people saved.

Well, there's some good in that, but looking at the results over the last several decades, it ain't working. I don't know if you've heard this slightly, but the Southern Baptist conventions in serious decline, and we've done every fanciful gimmick in the world to, quote, grow our churches. But what I'm doing tonight, thus saith the scripture. Well, John says, look, church, there is a satanic superman, the antichrist, and he's coming. He will embody all of this error in himself when he comes.

But before that, even in your churches, your local churches, they're gonna be those of the antichrist spirit. But I love what he says here. He says, but that's not you. I know you know the truth. I know you are not of the lie. His saying is be discerning, be mature, and stay the course.

So can I just close with this appeal? What spirit are you of? I'm not asking you are you a nice guy.

I'm not asking you are you a respectable lady. What spirit are you of? Have you been saved? Do you know that Christ is your Savior and your Lord? Oh, dear friend, you must receive Christ. You must. Because that's the only way to uproot the old antichrist spirit and that wrong thinking and have the true salvation you must have to make it all the way home to heaven.