1 John chapter 2. We'll begin at verse 18. We'll read through verse 27. Children, or little children, it is the last hour. And as you've heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrists have come. Therefore, we know that it is the last hour.

They went out from us, but they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.

But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth.

Who is the liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.

Let what you've heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that He made to us, eternal life.

I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. But the anointing you receive from Him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as His anointing teaches you about everything and is true, and is no lie, just as it has taught you, abide in Him."

This is the Word of God. Thanks be to God.

Father, we now turn to your Word that you inspired by your Holy Spirit that bears witness to your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, given for the education, the building up, and the equipping of your people. We ask for the aid of the Holy Spirit who inspired this Word to so work in our minds, in our hearts, that as we consider it, we will understand it, and as we understand it, that we will apply it to our lives.

Help us to understand your word, help us to believe your word in all of its purity, and help us to put your word into action in our lives. We pray, O Lord, that you would protect us from deception and that you would establish us firmly in the truth of the gospel. For this, we pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Throughout the history of the Christian church, there has always been interest, or should I say, sometimes extreme interest in the subject of the Antichrist, this opponent of God that the scripture speaks about.

It's interesting because John is the only one who speaks of the Antichrist directly. And he is the only one in this epistle and his second letter that uses the word Antichrist. It's not found anywhere else in the scriptures.

And despite the fact that we identify the writing of Paul speaking about the man of lawlessness and Thessalonians, and also Daniel speaking about the king that would rise up and would be opposed to God, and the explanations of Jesus about false Christs and false prophets, the word Antichrist is never applied to this opponent of God.

So, the term Antichrist is unique to the gospel of John in his epistles to John, the apostle of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So, throughout the history of the Christian church, there's been great interest in who is the Antichrist, and there has been no small number of people that have been identified as the Antichrist.

Perhaps you remember some in your lifetime that have been identified with the Antichrist. If you've lived long enough, or maybe you've heard other things, for instance, in the 20th century, I think that all of us would have no problem in identifying Hitler as an antichrist. He took over the church. He used the church as his own vehicle to oppose the gospel and to oppose God himself, and in using the church itself as an instrument to justify his killing of the Jews. This was Hitler in the 20th century. And there are others who are identified as the Antichrist in the 20th century.

Or we could go back in history. If you go back to the time of the Reformation, the reformers had no trouble identifying the Pope of Rome as the Antichrist. And so, you find that even in the Confessions, the Reformation Confessions written during the time of the Reformation, that the Pope in Rome is the Antichrist.

Now, you can have a little difficulty with that if you identify anti as being against Christ because the Pope in Rome would not have said that he was against Christ. But what the Pope in Rome did say and what the Popes do say, according to Catholic teaching, is that the Popes are the vicars of Christ on earth and that they are here in place of Christ.

The Protestants have always had trouble with this because Jesus has one person here on earth who is taking his place in a way, although he's identified with him, and that's the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, if I go away, that I will send to you the comforter, the advocate. and that he shall be here. And it's the Holy Spirit who conveys Christ to us and who opens the word of God to us and who is the agent of our regeneration, producing in us repentance from sin and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Well, the fascination with the Antichrist began early in the church. But the apostles do not identify a particular person. John does not tell us a particular person, and we'll see how we use it in just a minute. But I want to share with you the one church father that speaks about antichrist.

Now, the others may have reference to it as well, but Polycarp, in his epistle to the Ephesians in chapter six, writes concerning the heresy of Doceticism about the hands of Christ. Now, Doceticism is a heresy that says that God appeared to be a human or that Christ appeared to be a human, but he was not truly a human. In other words, that the word, or however they identified, looked like a human, spoke like a human, talked like a human, but he wasn't really a human. That's one form of it.

Another form of it that we call that Gnosticism, right away, Decepticism though, says that Jesus was a man, a mortal man, just a man like us. But the Spirit came upon him at his baptism and filled him. And of that time, he was the Christ. But on the cross, the Spirit left him. And so, he didn't die on the cross. Just the human Jesus died on the cross. And so, in a way, you see, it's the pictures of, of Jesus is not being a true human and the incarnate God. It's a denial that Jesus is the incarnate God.

That seems to be the heresy that was emerging at the time that John is writing his epistles. It is not in full bloom until the next century. And it continues. We even have a little bit of it even in our day today. It's basically the idea that if you identify the Word as God, that He was just here as a shell, as a human, not that there was a union between the human and the divine. But the doctrine of Christ is that He is fully human, fully man, and at the same time, full deity, fully God.

Well, Polycarp wrote concerning the Antichrist and he agrees with John in his epistle. Here's what Polycarp wrote. And so, notice, I noticed when I read through this, how much the apostolic fathers, as we call them, quote the Bible. In fact, you could construct most of the Bible, especially the New Testament, from the apostolic fathers. But Polycarp wrote the following. For everyone who does not confess that Jesus Christ came in the flesh is antichrist. And anyone who does not confess the testimony of the cross is of the devil. And anyone who perverts the sayings of the Lord to suit his own lust and says that there is neither a resurrection nor a judgment, that man is the firstborn of Satan. Therefore, let us give up the vanity of the crowd and false teachings, and return to the Word handed unto us from the beginning, being sober unto prayer, and persevering and fast in our entreaties bespeeching the all-seeing God, to lead us not into temptation. As the Lord said, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

Do you notice how many scriptures he quoted? He quotes our Lord Jesus Christ himself. And he speaks about the Antichrist as being the one who does not confess that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. That's Polycarp. We're looking at John today. in his epistle, 1 John 2. He begins with little children. Now we noticed the last time that I spoke to you that John interrupted the flow of his letter and addresses three seemingly three groups, although if we look at it carefully, he's addressing perhaps two distinct groups, because all of them are children, because he uses that for the whole body in his letter. For instance, if my little children in 1 John 2, beginning at verse one, my little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin. So obviously he's not addressing himself to infants or to very small ones. He's addressing himself to the whole congregation. And he speaks of them as little children.

We should take some comfort from this. God addresses us as his children. And when we pray what we call the Lord's Prayer, which would be better titled the Disciples' Model Prayer given to them by the Lord Jesus Christ, we are approaching God as our Heavenly Father, and we approach Him as his children. So, John begins this section of his letter with children, speaking to the whole group. It is the last hour, as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrists have come. Therefore, we know that it is the last hour. And looking at this section of God's Word, we have two things specifically identified for us. One is we're told about what time it is, and we're given the reason why we know it is this time.

Now, when John wrote his epistle, that's some 2,000 years ago, that was only a few years, a few decades, after the Lord Jesus Christ himself was here on earth. The incarnate Lord was among us for some 33, 34, or 35 years. We're not sure exactly his age when he was crucified and ascended. But he has died, been buried, raised from the dead, and ascended into heaven. And John was an eyewitness to all of this because he was one of the earliest apostles, disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he was with him to the very end. And Jesus had spoken about the last days, the last times. People had asked him about when is the end coming? When are the last times? And Jesus had spoken about the end times, as we call it. This is the end times, the eschaton, that's based on the Greek word for last, meaning last time.

So, John is officially says, it is the last hour, the last hour. That seems even closer than the last time, doesn't it? It seems like any moment something is gonna happen. Any moment, time will expire. What time is it? Well, John says, little children, it is the last hour. And you've heard that the antichrist is coming, that antichrist, there is no article before it, the, the one could be put place there. You've heard that antichrist is coming. So now, menti antichrist, plural, have come. First, he uses singular, and then he goes to the plural. So now many Antichrists have come. You've heard that Antichrist is coming. So now many Antichrists have come. Therefore, on the basis of this, we know that it is the last hour. We know that we are in the last days. We know that we are in the conclusion of history.

Now, to understand this, we have to go back to what is identified as the last times in the New Testament. Well, the last times began with the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. The last times began when Jesus was announced as the Messiah, when he's reclaimed as the Messiah in the waters of the Jordan. When Christ came and Christ began his ministry, the last times had arrived. So, you see, there's been a course of history for several thousands of years in which God had made a promise about his bringing about a redemption for mankind in the last days. And he brought that redemption to mankind in the person of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. So, when Christ was born and Christ assumed his ministry, then the last times had dawned, the last times had arrived.

Now this is specifically stated to be the case in the epistle to the Hebrews. I turn to Hebrews chapter one, beginning at verse one. Long ago, at many times, and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world. And then He goes on to ascribe to Jesus a declaration of His nature. He is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of His nature. He upholds the universe by the word of His power. That's who Jesus is. And after making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. Having become as much superior to the angels as the name He has inherited is more excellent than theirs. The reason he's superior to the angels is because he's not a created being. He is almighty God. He is the word made flesh. For to which of the angels did God ever say, you are my son, today I have begotten you. And he makes his angels, his ministers, a flame of fire. But of the son, the father says, your throne, oh God, is forever and ever. Sit in my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your fee, Hebrews chapter 1.

So, the last times began when Christ came. That's the dawning of the last days. Well, the apostles didn't know that the last days were gonna last thousands of years, 1,000 or 2,000 years, and we don't know. Will Christ return now in our lifetime? Well, if he's gonna return in my lifetime, he needs to hurry up. If he's gonna return in your lifetime, maybe you have a decade or two. Okay, but what? Christ is coming. We don't know when he's coming. He could come at whatever time. Because you see, the concept of last times is that it's already started. And so, the last times is running parallel with the life of the eternal life of the son. When it's God's appointed time, he will break through our time. He will be here in his glory and in his power. So, the last times is always imminent. It's always ready to occur. So, we can't put God on our chronology. We can't put God on our time piece. God has his own time piece. And that's why the apostle Peter speaks about a thousand years would be like one day, one of our days to God. He's just using a word picture. He's simply saying God is eternal and God breaks into time according to his own decree.

So, it is the last times because Christ has come. But notice that John uses another phrase. He doesn't say last time. What does he say? He says it is the last hour. So, he's speaking about the end of the end times. And we can speak about the end of the end times, and we can multiply that and speak about the very end of the end times that the events that will occur just as Christ himself is returning to earth. But the apostle John tells us; it is the last hour.

And you know, because you have heard that antichrist is coming, it's future, so now, minty antichrists, plural, have come. And because this is a case, we know that it is the last hour. So, the fact is that there are minty antichrists indicates that it is the last hour.

Where is John drawing this information from? How does he know this? We know that he's by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but it's also founded upon the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ himself. Now we find those teachings of Christ located in the Synoptic Gospels, in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. and we'll specify those chapters for you. We find it in Matthew 24 and 25, in Mark chapter 13, and in Luke chapter 21.

But when we go and read those passages of scripture, we know from the description that is given, and then from the unfolding of the events in history, that Jesus is speaking in one section of it, most of the section of it, about the destruction of Jerusalem that would come as a judgment upon Israel for rejection of him as the Messiah. And that came to pass in history in 70 A.D. So much of what we read there has already come to pass in history. And in accordance with Jesus' own predictions, there were many false Christs after Jesus came. And there continued to be false Christs throughout history.

But even in those first few decades after the birth of Jesus, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord, there were those who claimed to be the Messiah. They claimed to be the Christ. But they were not the Christ. Only Jesus of Nazareth, born of Mary, is the Christ of God. So many Christs did come. Many false prophets did arise. And then there was the destruction of Jerusalem. But that did not exhaust what Christ had said about the last days. Because there are sections of those letters that speak about the final end when the Lord Jesus himself shall come in his body back to earth.

So that's what John has reference to. Children, it is the last hour. And we know it because many unto Christ have come. And they point to the fact that there is an Antichrist yet to come. But we know it's the last hour because Antichrist have come.

Then he goes on to identify who are these people? Who are what is Antichrist? Here's what he says, they went out from us but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us." So there's his answer. The Antichrists are those who have been in some sense associated with the Christian church. They have been associated with the people who are the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Some of them may have been part of congregations. Others of them may have been inquirers, those on the peripheral edge of the faith who had not yet embraced it. But having learned about it, they turned away from it. Or those who have been involved in the congregation have been received as believers, but they have left the congregation. We call this apostasy. They stepped aside from the path. They stepped off of the pathway of Christ.

The reason why, John tells us, is because they did not truly know Christ. They were not truly members of the body. They were not regenerated or born again. This is what he means. They went out from us. So, it says they went out. They were not excommunicated. They were not people that the church put out. They were people who voluntarily left, or they were voluntarily associating themselves with the Christians, but having learned about Christ, they decided that wasn't true. They had their own vision of who Christ is, and so they turned aside. They went out from us. They did not continue either in the life of the church or embracing Christ. They turned away and they went out so that we might know for sure that they are not of us.

So, the Antichrist have never been true believers because John says, they went out from us, but they were not of us. They didn't truly belong to us, for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. And there's two teachings of the Christian faith that are found in these few words. One is the doctrine of the visible and the invisible church. That is, that God knows those who are truly His. And though there is a visible structure or visible organization, so I mean spiritual structure, not physical structure, though there is a organization called church or churches, not everyone who are in those churches necessarily belong to Christ, have necessarily embraced Christ.

There may be several reasons for this. One is that they may have been born of Christian parents or a Christian parent, and they are involved in the life of the church from childhood, but they've never embraced the faith for themselves. And so until they have repented and believed, they are not therefore of Christ. They're in the church externally, but they're not in the church internally. There are others who have come and associated themselves with the church, who come and have made a profession of faith. They've said, I'm a Christian, I want to be a Christian, but they have never truly embraced Christ. And the proof of this, John says, is that they did not continue with us.

So, you have a structure that is an organism, a body of believers, noted to be believers, but not all who are in it share the internal spiritual life through true repentance and faith. They've never been regenerated. And therefore, you have the church externally, and you have the church internally. The church internally is that church which belongs to God. They are his elect. They are of Christ. So, we have a mixed body. That's what the nature of the church is. We have a mixed body. Ideally, there should be no mixture. But because of what I've said, there is mixture.

Okay, the second doctrine that we find here is the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. The perseverance or the preservation of believers. Preservation is from God's perspective. Perseverance is emphasis on God working in and through us, working out our salvation. He says, they went out from us, but they're not, were not with us, were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would have continued. So, continuance is the mark of true believers. Now this is found in other passages of scripture. We call them the warning passages in the New Testament. Warning passages are there as a means by which God himself keeps us in the faith. We are warned, but those who do not continue; those who leave and stay out have never been regenerated. They did not continue; they did not persevere because they did not have true faith, internal faith. For if they had, they would have continued with us.

Now, this does not mean that believers may not have periods in which they have backslidden in their life with reference to God. But even if they backslidden, they have retained belief in God and in Christ. And Christ brings those who are his own back to him, or in severe cases, he judges them with physical death. found in 1 Corinthians 11.

But now the apostle makes a distinction between those who left us and us; we who remain. He says, but you, this is a plural you, but you have been anointed by the Holy One and you all have knowledge. You've been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge.

When we speak about the anointing, this should bring to our mind Christ, because Jesus was anointed as the Christ, as the Messiah. This occurred, again, at his baptism. Baptism is very crucial in the life of the church. It's crucial in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, because Jesus was anointed to be baptized. with the Holy Spirit at the time of his baptism in the Jordan when he assumed his ministry as the Messiah. He received the Holy Spirit without measure. That's what the scriptures tell us, the Apostle John himself. And so, he's anointed by the Spirit. It's the Spirit himself who operates through and in the Lord Jesus Christ in his ministry. Jesus said, for instance, if I, by the Spirit of God, cast out demons, then who do your people cast them out by? Jesus is the one who was anointed.

Now, anointing carries with it also the idea of official office. For who was anointed in the Old Testament? Well, the kings were anointed to be king. We see that, for instance, in David, God's chosen king. And Samuel came and dumped a whole urn of oil on his head and anointed him as the king of Israel. He was anointed. The prophets were anointed with the Holy Spirit. I don't know if they were anointed ever with oil. They might've been. But the priests were anointed with oil, especially the high priests, which is our pattern for the Lord Jesus Christ. So, Christ is our prophet. as our priest and our king was anointed with the Holy Spirit. Well, we share in his anointing. That's what John is speaking about. But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge.

Now, again, when John writes these words of warning about the Antichrist and about the struggle with sin in the life of Christians and points out the signs of those who belong to Christ and those who do not. He uses very stark contrast, light, darkness. He doesn't talk about gray, truth, error. He doesn't talk about a mixture. He doesn't talk about ignorance. He says either truth or lie, truth or falsehood. Light or dark. Righteousness or no righteousness. Those are the terms in which John writes. And because we know, in fact, John recognizes the fact that Christians still sin, because he points out in chapter one, what we call chapter one, that if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. So, John is a realist, although he also is a poleminist. He is real about things, but he does point things in very sharp, contrast.

Well, you've been anointed by the Holy One and you all have knowledge. He doesn't mean that we have all the knowledge that we need or knowledge about everything there is to know. He's speaking about the knowledge of God, the knowledge of God in Jesus Christ. So that's the knowledge that he's speaking about. And he says, "I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it.” And because no lie is of the truth. Now, you know the truth.

So, John is writing to confirm them in the truth. He's not writing to alarm them, although he is writing to warn them. There's a difference. To alarm someone means I want to scare you because I want to scare you into something into obedience. But that's what John's doing. He's not threatening them with the loss of their salvation. He is writing them because they know the truth, as opposed to those who know and follow the lie. He's drawing a clear distinction between those who left and those who remain.

Now, when he speaks about the anointing, John is simply echoing the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ that he himself recorded in his gospel. Now, I can't tell you if John wrote his gospel, but it's assumed that he wrote his gospel before he wrote the epistle of 1 John. I think that is to be the case. And in John chapter 14, he wrote about what he's writing about here, what he has reference to. Here's Jesus, his own statements to the apostles in the upper room a few hours before he is betrayed and led forth to be crucified.

Jesus says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. The specific commandments, he says, is the commandment to believe in him, the commandment to love one another, the commandment to love God with all of our heart, soul, and mind. Our commandment to love and follow him is our Lord and master. If you love me, you'll keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father And he will give you another helper, another comforter, another advocate to be with you forever. Even the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him, but you know him for he dwells with you and will be in you.

Then he speaks in verse 26, but the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. And in John chapter 20, after the resurrection, we read of the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Jesus appears to the disciples on the evening of that first day. This is the second appearance, I believe, or it may be the first. On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked, where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them. And he said to them, peace be with you. And when he had said this, he showed them his hands in his side. And then his disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. And Jesus said to them, Shalom, peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I'm sending you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, receive the Holy Spirit. And then he says, if you forgive the sins of any, they're forgiven. And if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld. And how do they do that? They do it through the proclamation of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, as you see unfolded in the Acts of the Apostles.

So, what is John writing about here? Well, he's saying that you have been anointed by the Holy Spirit. That's the same anointing the Lord Jesus has, and with that spirit that he had, he shares that spirit with us. He poured out the spirit upon his disciples on that day of resurrection when he spoke those words, but then it comes again to the greater body and to them again in a more full and demonstrative way on the day of Pentecost. That'll be another sermon another day. Okay? But you've been anointed by the Holy One.

Because you've been anointed by the Holy One, you have all the spiritual knowledge that you need about who Jesus is. You know God. You know the Father in Jesus, His Son. Now, I write to you because you know the truth. I want to confirm you in the truth. encourage you in the truth so that you will not be deceived and so you can stand against false doctrine.

All right, then he goes on. I write to you because you know the truth and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar? So, First of all, he talks about the children. You're the children and you should know what time it is. What time is it? It's the last hour. How do you know it's the last hour? You know it's the last hour because many antichrists have come claiming to be the Christ. You have the appearance of many false prophets and false Christs. Therefore, we know it's the last hour. It's the eschaton of history. We're in the last era of human history.

And these people who are antichrists and false prophets, they went out from us because they were not of us. For if they had been a part and parcel of us, they would have continued with us. Because the mark of a true believer is continuance in Christ. That's what he's saying. But they went out so that it might become plain that they're not of us. Because you have the anointing by the Holy One. So, they didn't have this anointing. You have this anointing of the Holy One, and you have knowledge of who the Father is and the Son. That's the knowledge He spoke about. That's the joy He's speaking about.

In 1 John 1, He begins His epistle with these words, that I've written these things so that our joy may be full, and so that we may have fellowship with the Father and the Son." Our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. So, you have this anointing. You are in the body. You are continuing in the truth because you know the truth. And no lie is of the truth. So now he's going to say, well, then who's a liar? Who's a liar? Well, he identifies. The liar is the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ, that Jesus is the Messiah.

Now we have to be careful here. He's gonna explain this more, but I wanna go on and put it out for you. The word Christ is the word, Messiah. That means the one promised from the beginning. confirmed by the prophets throughout the Old Testament, the Messiah, the one who's coming in accordance with God's covenant promise and who by his own actions will redeem the people of God. Now, the liar is the one who denies that Yeshua, that is Jesus, the one born of Mary, is the Messiah. One who denies this is an antichrist. There are those who claim that Jesus was a Messiah, but that he does not have divinity. In other words, their concept of Messiah is minus God, minus deity. But he's saying that the concept of Messiah is given to us in God's word in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New is Jesus as the Christ who is the Word become flesh and who dwelt among us. Remember that John opened his gospel with that declaration of the incarnation. The Word, who is with God from all eternity and who was God, became flesh and tabernacled. He tended among us. He became one of us. That is, he became a full human being without losing deity.

God cannot cease to be God, but God can take to himself humanity and join his divinity with it. And that's what happened in the incarnation. That's what Christmas is about. We are having a festival of celebration and joy because God has sent to us the Messiah. who has done all that needs to be done to bring us to God so that we can know Him in the forgiveness of our sins and with the gift of eternal life and eternal fellowship with God through all eternity.

But there is a liar. The liar are those who deny that Jesus is the Messiah. Now, this liar is the Antichrist. So, the liar is the Antichrist. Well, how does he define Antichrist? He says the Antichrist is the one who denies the Father and the Son. Now, before this, he's just spoken about Jesus and he's spoken about Christ, but here he introduces us to the word, the Son, the Son. He who denies the Father and the Son, distinct and yet one. He goes on; no one who denies the Son has the Father.

So, the Messiah is the Son from all eternity who takes on humanity, who becomes a human being. We confess these great truths in the creeds specifically the Nicene Creed, but also in the Apostles' Creed. And the reason for the creeds is because it distills for us the theology of the Bible in these phrases that helps us understand the relationship of the Father, Son, and Spirit as one God. But the Son is the one who became flesh. The son is the one who in his humanity is the Christ. The antichrist is the one who denies the incarnation. They deny that Jesus is the eternal son. And anyone who denies the son is in a sense denying the father. So, there's no one who denies the Son has the Father.

You cannot deny the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ and have God as your Father. So those religions that have come out of Christianity or who assume to be a part of Christianity but are not, why? Because they do not have the true God. The true God is the one who is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. No one who denies the Son has the Father. You cannot know God the Father without God the Son. You cannot know the Father God without the Son who is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the way. He is the truth. He is the life.

So, he goes on. Who's the liar? Well, the liar is the one who denies the incarnation. Now, the incarnation is extremely important because unless God took on humanity, mankind could not be redeemed. So why did Jesus come in the flesh? Why did the son become or come in the child, Yeshua, son of Mary? He came so that he could offer his human life, his human flesh for the offering for our sins. It's his unique nature as the divine and human one. two natures in one person that enabled him to bring about our redemption through his atoning death on the cross. And that's what Peter says in 1 Peter 2 and verse 24. And that is expounded for you in this book. that we've mentioned, the gospel according to Christmas. So I urge you to get your copy and another one to give away for your household so that it can be a message that will help you understand more the meaning of the birth of Christ and also as an instrument of evangelism for others who do not know what the true meaning of the birth of Christ is all about.

So, who's a liar? The liar are those who deny that Jesus is incarnate. Now there are groups that purport to be Christian in some way, the Unitarians, for instance. They deny the deity of Jesus Christ. He was only a man. Islam is a great heresy of Christianity. And let me explain that. Islam could not exist unless the Christian faith existed prior to it. The reason for that is because at the heart of Islam is a denial of the deity of Jesus Christ. They assume or state that Jesus was only one of the line of prophets, of which Muhammad is the last. So, they are deniers of Jesus as the Christ. They deny the deity of Christ. They deny the incarnation that makes them fit this category.

Other groups that have arisen, and they do not see the distinction that's present. So, the Jehovah's Witnesses would fall in this category. They deny the deity of Christ, therefore they deny the incarnation. They do not believe that God became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth. They believe he had some kind of special status as a created God, secondary God, not the true God. Therefore, they go into this category. Or Mormons who have a multiplication, they have three gods, not one. And so, we could go down the list of other false religions, some of whom claim to be associated with Christ, but they are not. Why? Because they deny the very deity and humanity of Christ in one person. This is the liar. This is the antichrist. No one who denies the son has the father. On the reverse side, whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.

Do you want to know God? Then you know Him through and in Jesus Christ. If I want to know the Father, then I come to the Father through Jesus the Son. This is the pattern. We know God through the incarnate God, Jesus of Nazareth, our Savior and our Master and Lord. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.

Now, John uses more than one title to refer to these people, the antichrists. I point you to 2 John 7. For many deceivers, have gone out into the world. Who are these deceivers? Those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ, Jesus the Messiah, in the flesh. No, such a one is a deceiver and the antichrist. Notice the key word. Those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is a deceiver and the antichrist.

One of the early heresies in the church was a heresy of what we call Gnosticism, hidden knowledge. They separated flesh and spirit. And though they had a Christ, he was not a Christ in the flesh. They separated it out. So, the flesh of Christ was of no regard to them. But Jesus is the Christ who came with flesh and blood of humanity. And in the flesh and blood of humanity, he made the atoning sacrifice. In the flesh and blood of humanity, now made immortal; he rose from the dead. With the flesh and blood of the immortal body, Christ ascended into heaven. And there he remains. There is a man on the throne of heaven. There is a man beside the Father in the throne on heaven. It is Jesus Christ, our Lord.

This is why Jesus is the object of the worship of the Christian church. We worship the Father through the Son, and we worship the Father in the Son. And it's all by the power of the Holy Spirit. Whoever does not confess the coming of the Messiah Yeshua, Messiah Jesus in the flesh, is a deceiver and the antichrist. So according to the apostle John, the antichrist are those who deny the deity and humanity in the one person of Jesus of Nazareth. This is why the incarnation is so central to the Christian faith. And it's why the Nicene and the Apostles' Creed, the major section of those universal creeds, deal with the incarnation. Because it's the incarnate Lord who must and who did make satisfaction for the sins of sinful people.

Now, he goes on; whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. So, this is what he's telling our response should be. He's writing them, I write these things to you because you belong to God truly, because you know the truth and you have the anointing of the Spirit of God. And I write these things to you because there are people who are trying to deceive you. Verse 26, I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. So, he's writing this to give them the ammunition they need to combat heresy as it arises in the church.

Let what you've heard from the beginning abide in you. Well, what had they heard from the beginning? Well, they heard the gospel. They heard what John wrote in John chapter one of his gospel and what John wrote in his epistle. See, it all goes back to that prologue. That which was from the beginning, which we've heard, which we've seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and touched with our hands concerning the word of life, that life was made manifest, and we have seen it and testified and proclaimed to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifested to us. How? In the Son, Jesus Christ.

So, he writes these things to us to warn us and to equip us to combat heresy. Look, people are out to deceive you. And when people leave the church, when they leave the church, not because of moral failings and not because of being excommunicated. He's not talking about that. People who voluntarily leave the church because they say, I don't believe that. I don't believe that which you are now teaching or have taught. I don't believe that. I believe this or that about Jesus. That's who he's talking about. These are people who leave the church and then try to deceive people in the church. They try to bring followers after them who get enlightened, as they would say, about who Jesus is.

I'm writing these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. Why? So that you, having the anointing of the spirit that you've received from him who abides in you, will be able to withstand them in the truth that you know. The anointing of the Spirit of God using the Word of God teaches us everything we need about the truth of who Jesus is. This is no lie, but it is the truth, just as you've been taught. So, abide in Him.

What must we do with these truths that I've spoken to you about today? We must abide in them. To abide in the truth means to continue in it. to continue in the faith, continue in the truth. And how do we do that? Well, we do that by teaching it and being taught it over and over again. We should never tire of hearing the gospel because the gospel is our life support. It is our life means. It is how we have eternal life. We must abide in the truth of who Christ is. Abide in Him. This is the true doctrine. As we abide in Him, we grow in Him. And as we grow in Him, we become more and more mature reflecting Him. And our witness to Christ becomes greater and more effective because the words that we say are backed up by a life of devotion and love to God, to His people, and to the truth that's found in Jesus Christ.

By this, John will write in chapter 4, you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the Spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming and now is in the world already.

To go back to the beginning. We shouldn't spend a whole lot of time speculating on who the Antichrist might be. The Antichrist, if there's such at the very end of the age, a particular person, not a movement, but a person, because it will be evident when it's present and we will know it and we will be equipped. God has given us the equipment. It is the Word. It is the truth. It's the Spirit that resides within us.

And as we are needed, we must be willing to be martyrs for the truth. That's what the witness is, is one who believes the truth, who confesses the truth, who abides in the truth, and who will die for the truth. And the truth is what? The truth is who? Jesus Christ, our Lord, true God and true man, our prophet, our priest, and our king. To him be the glory, both now and forever. Amen.