Antichrists in the Assembly, Part 2

We know Jesus by his title, Christ.

But what does that designation mean? What does it mean that Jesus is the Christ? Jesus is the Christ.

What does that mean? It means that he's the last prophet who speaks for God. He's the last priest who offered sacrifices for the people.

And he's also the last and the coming king. So to deny that Jesus is the Christ, the anointed one means that you're denying that Jesus is God's final prophet, final priest, and coming king. Jesus is the Christ. That truth is what Stephen was just describing. Because Jesus is the Christ, we as his followers give him our faith and allegiance.

We give him our loyalty. But you know, there's also counterfeits that we need to be on the lookout for. There are those who claim that life's answers lie elsewhere and that our hope is found in something other than Jesus. Have you ever met someone like that? Have you ever heard a teacher or read a book that offered hope outside of Christ? Have you encountered an antichrist?

Stay with us as we explore this important topic right now. John is describing that kind of person, that antichrist spirit who is against the gospel, against the church, against Christ, but they didn't start out that way. In fact, John informs us here they were actually members of the church at one time or another. But now thirdly, he tells us that they eventually abandon the fellowship of the church. Verse 19 continues, look there, they went out from us, but they were really not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have remained with us. In other words, they left us. Now again, let me take a little left turn here and tell you that don't make the mistaken conclusion that John is telling us that as long as someone stays in the church, they're saved.

Is that what he's saying? Church membership is not synonymous with being a Christian. Every local church is a mixed multitude. What John is simply saying is that those who are against Christ, antichrist, they might start out by showing interest in the church, but they can't stand the church eventually over the long haul and leave it. In other words, if a church is going to glorify Christ, if a church is going to expound on the truth of Christ, if a church is dedicated to worshiping Christ, somebody who comes into the church and really doesn't want to glorify, study, or worship Christ will eventually say, I don't really like this place.

I need to find something else a little more comfortable. And this is what's happening, especially in the American scene. We have what one author called in the church today a tourist mentality that is of grave concern. The author goes on to write, you enter that country as a tourist, you pay the fees, the airport, you get your passport stamped, exchange currencies for what works in that country, visit a museum or two, sample the cuisine, exchange pleasantries with the natives, purchase a little something to remind you of your visit, and then you're off to another city or country. Your heart wasn't changed in any significant way by your little visit, but it wasn't meant to be changed. You're a tourist. You're just visiting.

You weren't planning on changing your citizenship. So here's the church. The author makes the analogy. On any given weekend, tourists can be found in the church. They pop in for an hour, enjoy the scenery, sing a few songs, listen to the natives talk, sample the local coffee, purchase a book or CD to remind them of their little visit, and then off they go. Their hearts were not changed in any significant way by their visit. But then again, they never intended to be changed. They are tourists.

And then they're off the next Sunday. Perhaps it's a different locale, more accessible, maybe more interesting, maybe shorter lines, perhaps less demands on their lives, and they'll visit that site for a little while until something else attracts their attention and they're off and running again. How do you view the church, by the way?

Are you a tourist or a resident? Every church experiences it, especially those that preach and teach the Word of God and call people the holy living. He adds some positive encouragement to the church that has lost these apostate members. Because whether you lose individuals because they're apostates or they just leave for other reasons, that hurts, doesn't it? The church body is pained by that.

Not just those who leave over doctrine, but for whatever reason. And having passed over 26 years, in fact, even now, the church this size, nearly every other week, someone tells me they're moving out of town and they come up and they shake my hand. And I say, well, praise God. And in my heart I go, I'm going to miss you.

It could be for anything. Some have told me I found a new job, it's an hour away, I found a new home, it's in a different city, I finally found a good preacher. Who preaches longer messages, yours are too short. Okay, I'm making that part up.

Hurts. But for whatever reason, the church body has to recover from that, that loss. And so in the case of these apostates, John is encouraging the flock, he writes in verse 19, the latter part, they went out so that, passive voice, it would be shown that they all are not of us. In other words, it's referring to God. God is actually revealing that they were not part of you. In other words, by God's grace, he removes them from the assembly without the church having to remove them, which is another unique, painful experience, right?

And here's the encouragement. Encouragement implied is that they might have remained in the assembly longer than they should have and eventually brought great harm to the flock by their unbelieving, anti-Christ attitude. Although they might never say it that way, that's how they would conduct their business. And the lives that they would influence would be hurt, damaged, offended. John effectively says then, God is protecting the flock this way.

I mean, you didn't know it. You would never have imagined in a million years that that person never believed, but thank God they left on their own. Maybe they were convicted over something. Maybe they thought the church was too narrow or too intolerant or maybe they believed that the church took scripture too seriously or whatever.

And I've gotten letters on all of these issues. But now that they've left, the good news is they cannot influence the assembly, the beloved, the flock in the wrong way and in the wrong direction. One author, pastor, called this loss to membership blessed subtraction.

Now again, let me make sure I cover this point. Is everyone who leaves the church to be considered an apostate? No. If we see someone wane or someone leave or disappear, are we to assume that, well, they're just not a Christian?

No. Otherwise, the writer of Hebrews would, again, not have encouraged those who genuinely believed in Christ to remain fervent in their commitment to the assembly, the accountability of shared partnership, love and good works, which is provoked as you can no longer be isolated, but you are invested in a body. I've always loved that telling incident in the ministry of F.B. Meyer, the British pastor who pastored in London in the late 1800s, who once visited one of his church members who had just kind of disappeared, stopped coming. Meyer was concerned and decided to visit him. He stopped in one cold night to see him and was invited in. He and this gentleman sat by the open fireplace to keep warm and they talked about different subjects, just sort of small talk. Meyer had prayed that he would be able to communicate his concern of this wayward sheep and the thought occurred to him. He simply reached for the tongs and took them and removed a hot coal from the bed of coals that were shimmering red hot there in the fireplace and with his tongs he grabbed just one of those coals and he pulled it forward and away from the fire and onto the hearth and then without saying a word just settled back in his chair. For several minutes he and this man sat there watching, just watching the coals and the fireplace remain hot and bright red and they watched this solitary coal grow dark and cold. Without Meyer saying a word the silence was eventually broken by this man who obviously got the analogy he looked over at his pastor and simply said I'll be seeing you this Sunday.

And that's a backslider. In fact John Phillips another British expositor said that someone who is wayward if you dig into their heart sooner or later you will find Christ and they are miserable in that state. You dig into the heart of an apostate and you will not find Christ and they are happy that they have finally escaped. That's who John is talking about here and notice the distinguishing marks even the digression of their abandonment of Christ. First they've been around since the beginning of the church. Secondly they've even joined the membership of the church, many of them. Thirdly they or many of them eventually abandoned the fellowship of the church and now fourthly and this is really clear they ultimately reject the core doctrines of the church. Look down at verse 22. Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ?

John would not be appreciated in this day and time. Who is a liar? Who is the liar? The one who denies that Jesus is the Christ. The anti-Christ deny that Jesus is the Christ. Christos.

Christ. That's the Greek equivalent to Messiah. Both words mean anointed in the Greek language and the Hebrew language. In the Old Testament prophets were anointed to speak for God. Priests were anointed to offer sacrifices for the people of God. Kings were anointed to rule on behalf of God. So what does it mean when it says that Jesus is the Christ?

What does that mean? It means that he's the last prophet who speaks for God. He's the last priest who offered sacrifices for the people, offering himself unto God the Father. And he's also the last and the coming king who will rule over the world. So to deny that Jesus is the Christ, the anointed one means that you're denying that Jesus is God's final prophet, final priest and coming king.

So that's pretty serious. You're effectively saying, you know, those angels got it wrong. Somehow they picked up the wrong lyrics as they chanted in the sky to the shepherds below, for unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior who is Christ, the Lord, the anointed one. And John, by the way, is effectively, probably more than likely, attacking a heretical teacher named Syrenthus. Syrenthus was teaching during the days of John that Jesus was just an ordinary man upon whom this Christ spirit condescended, happened during his baptism.

Remember that dove? That was the Christ spirit. And the Christ spirit empowered this normal man until he got crucified and then the Christ left him, in fact, on a hillside watched him die. John is more than likely attacking this heretical teacher directly and he just about names him, although he doesn't, when he says with quite a bit of passion and a lot of righteous indignation, who is the liar out there but the guy who is saying that Jesus is not the Christ?

And everybody knew who he was talking about. They not only deny that Jesus is the Christ, but watch this in verse 22. This is the antichrist, the one who denies the father and the son.

What's he saying? Well, these two sub-points here are, in effect, what they're denying. Number one, they deny the deity of Christ as the anointed Messiah. And then they deny the divine equality between God the Father and God the Son. This is the antichrist, the one who denies the father and the son. That is, the divine equality between God the Father and God the Son.

And you know what? Your minds are probably already racing ahead of me because isn't this the very rejection that underpins so many false religions today? Denying the divine equality of father and son?

I mean, just look around the globe. You've got Islam, Judaism, Mormonism, and the Jehovah's Witnesses, and on and on and on. They reject that. Jesus isn't the incarnation of God. He's just a normal man, a normal prophet, and a long line of others, or whatever. So they reject that Jesus is equally divine with father and, of course, with spirit. And John makes it very clear.

Did you notice? You can't have God the Father without God the Son. Look at verse 23. Whoever denies the son does not have the father, right?

Don't miss that. And the one who confesses the son, that is, the one who agrees with what the Bible says about the son, has the father also. In other words, you cannot belong to God the Father if you reject God the Son as the anointed, sovereign, Messiah, prophet, priest, and king. Maybe you've noticed, haven't you, that there are a lot of people out there in the world who want God but do not want Jesus, right? They want to pretend, in fact, to worship the same God that you and I do. But they'll say to you, well, Stephen, the only real difference between us is your view of Jesus. And if you drop that, we'd get along really well.

And they're right in many ways. But John is saying here, so there can't be any misunderstanding, you reject Jesus as divine Messiah, and you don't get God the Father either. So go ahead, as we've watched our world again, invite the world to pray to God.

The latest tragedy of the bombing in Boston. Go ahead and invite the world to pray to God. The next natural disaster, we're going to be praying to God for you, the world will say. We all need to pray to God. Just don't pray in whose name? Jesus.

Leave him on the curb. We're going to get along just fine if you leave him out. And John says if you leave him out, you don't get God the Father, because God the Son and God the Father are equal in their divine essence. I'll never forget, as a young pastor, in fact, this is about 25 years ago, I can still remember, being invited to pray on the steps of the town hall, all the clergymen from the county were coming and they had invited a few of us to pray.

I guess I was the young guy, so I was the token minority there, I was 29 years old. I can remember getting up on the platform, just in time, I was running late, got there, and all the clergymen were there on the platform. And I walked in on their debate as to whether or not they should mention Jesus in their prayer. Should they pray in Jesus' name?

These were Protestant guys, most of them. I can still remember where I was standing. I can still remember the hair on the back of my neck standing up in anger. I didn't think this was the time to call down fire from heaven, or at least try it. I was tempted to try it. But I did make up my mind to do a couple of things.

Number one, never to go back to that nonsense again. In fact, that's why we host a National Day of Prayer here and will again. Secondly, I decided that when it was my turn, I was going to mention Jesus as many times as I possibly could. And then when I got to the end of my prayer, I was going to say, in Jesus, I was going to draw that out, in Jesus' name, amen.

So there'd be no question, and they never invited me back. Listen, you don't get God without Jesus, for in Jesus dwells all the fullness of deity, Colossians chapter one. One day, we're going to see, not an invisible Father, not an invisible Spirit, we're going to see the fullness of deity embodied in Jesus Christ. So without him, you don't have God.

Before we leave this paragraph, let me make two applications, and they're even going to have some sub-points too to further confuse you, but let me give you the first one. First, live with a sense of spiritual discernment. In other words, be wary of anti-Christs.

They're proliferating. Be on the lookout for untruth. Anything that denies the full, divine essence and glory of Christ is anti-Christ. And John provides two safeguards to make sure you stay on track.

And let me give them to you. The first safeguard is the Holy Spirit. Go back up to verse 20. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. In other words, when it comes to the truth of Jesus Christ as the Messiah, the equally divine God the Son, John says, you have received an anointing, a charisma, the Greek word, literally an ointment, figuratively used to refer to the Holy Spirit. You have received the indwelling Holy Spirit, and you know the truth because of that about Jesus Christ. You know that he was more than a moral man and a good teacher and a prophet or whatever.

No, you know the truth about him. By the way, you notice in this text, John is not saying that only pastors or preachers, those with doctorates or those with seminary degrees or televangelists or charismatic second blessing believers or mature believers. They get the blessing. They get the charisma.

No, did you notice in that text? You all, he's from the southern part of Galilee, you all got it. It's impossible for you to be a believer without the Holy Spirit. So if anybody asks you, have you been anointed by the Holy Spirit, you can say yes.

And they'll say, I thought you went to Colonial. Then you can explain it to them, how every Christian has received the charisma. It's a safeguard against error. And we'll talk about him later in this letter as he teaches us truth. The second safeguard is not just the Holy Spirit. The second safeguard is the Holy Scriptures. Verse 21, I have not written to you, there it is a reference to revealed divine, divinely inspired Scripture.

I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, because no lies of the truth. Look down at verse 24, as for you, let that abide, that written word abide in you, take up residency inside of you, which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning, that is the beginning of the church age, abides in you or takes up its residency in you, you can rest assured you have taken up residency in the Son and in the Father. And so guess what the promise is to you. Promise is, verse 25, eternal life. If the word which I've written to you finds a home in you, you've got a home with God.

God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. Back to the points of application, the first application I wanted to leave you was to live with a sense of discernment, be wary of antichrist. Secondly, live with a sense of spiritual anticipation. Be ready for Jesus Christ. Be ready.

I mean, he began this whole discussion not with, oh, I'm so sorry for you people, how tough it must be. You got to slug through this. No. It's the last hour.

Is that great or what? In the meantime, as we're waiting for Christ, be careful, be alert, be aware, but be ready. And listen, if the antichrists of our world are passionate to deny Christ, shouldn't we be passionate to reveal Christ? If the antichrists of our world are committed to ignoring the church, are we eager to be involved in the church, to worship in the assembly of the church? If the antichrists are determined to dishonor the character of the Christ and to kick him to the curb, how passionate are we to say, no, no, no, no, and bring him as it were up and honor him?

If the antichrists are committed to undermining the belief that Christ will one day return for his bride, are we equally committed in anticipation of his soon coming? And we live with a sense of maybe today. I close with this. Robbie Robbins was an Air Force pilot during the first Iraq war. He flew 300 missions. War ended. He was given a surprise permission to immediately pull his crew together and the head of most of the troops fly directly back to the States in honor of his 300 missions. They flew across the ocean to Massachusetts and then had a long drive to western Pennsylvania. They drove all night, he and his buddies, and when his buddies dropped him off at his driveway around 730 that morning, there was a big banner across the garage door that said, welcome home, daddy. And he stood out there and just for a moment he thought, how did they know? I didn't call ahead. Nobody called.

None of my crew. In fact, we had not expected to leave so quickly and here we are. Robbins related in an interview. He said, when I walked into the house the kids were just about dressed for school and they screamed, daddy! Came running to me. Susan my wife came running down the hall. She looked wonderful, hair fixed, wearing a crisp yellow dress and I asked her, how did you know? Through tears of joy she responded, we didn't know. But once we'd heard the war was over, we knew you'd come back.

One of these days and we knew you'd try to surprise us. So we've been ready every day. It's great theology. May the Lord find us faithful, wary, alert in our discernment and anticipating his soon coming to gather his family to himself. In the meantime, delighting as an assembly to worship as we have done again this hour, the last prophet, the last priest, the coming king.

That was Stephen Davey and a lesson he called Antichrist in the Assembly. Wisdom for the Heart is a ministry of Wisdom International. From time to time Stephen sends articles and updates about the ministry. Would you like to be on his list? Would you be interested in receiving occasional text messages from Stephen? We'd like to be able to communicate with you by text from time to time. Of course, once you've signed up you'll be able to send Stephen text messages as well.

He'd enjoy hearing from you. Go ahead and grab your phone because you'll need it to sign up. Signing up is very easy. All you have to do is send a text with the word wisdom. Here's the number. Send a text to 833-676-4051. Your message to us should just be the one word wisdom. Again, our text number is 833-676-4051 and your first text to us needs to be the word wisdom. Once you've signed up and you're in the system you can text Stephen anything you want, but to get signed up it's just that one key word.

Please do that because we want to make sure we can communicate with you effectively. In addition to equipping you with these daily Bible lessons, we also have a magazine that we publish. Stephen deals with a different topic each month and helps you better understand what the Bible says and how it applies directly to your life.

For example, some past topics have included such things as how to forge friendships, what can we know about angels, demons, and the spirit world, how can we have a biblically based marriage, what is church discipline all about and church restoration and how should it be used, and much more. The magazine also has a daily devotional guide that you can use to remain rooted and grounded in God's word every day. A new addition to the magazine is a journal. The journal gives you the opportunity to take some notes as you listen to the wisdom journey or wisdom for the heart. We call the magazine Heart to Heart. This is a resource that we developed for two reasons. We use it to show our appreciation to all of our wisdom partners. We also send three issues of Heart to Heart magazine as a gift to everyone who asks. We'd like to send it to you if you haven't seen it yet. You can sign up for it on our website. Go to wisdomonline.org forward slash magazine. That's wisdomonline.org forward slash magazine. Steven has one more lesson to go in this current series. We're going to start that lesson next time. Be sure and join us back here at this same time right here on Wisdom for the Heart.