Sermon Tone Analysis

One of the earliest and most important lessons we Americans teach our children is how to tell time.

This is because we live in a time-conscious culture.

Whereas people in many other parts of the world worry much less about deadlines and dates, we are rather obsessed with time.

Being early is not fashionable.

Being late can often be costly.

The apostle John was also concerned that we know how to tell time.

However, it was not chronological time-telling that concerned him.

It was spiritual clock-watching that he deemed most important.

His interest was not time as man measures it, but time as God measures it.

How God reckons time is an important theological issue that should concern the heart and occupy the mind of every follower of Jesus Christ.

You see, as God keeps time, “it is the last hour” (v.

18).

Time is running out.

Midnight is almost here.

How do we know this?

According to John, unmistakable evidence has appeared: the antichrists have come on the scene!

The word “antichrist” (Gk antichristos) has a way of striking a sense of wonder, amazement, and even fear in our hearts.

And in one sense it should.

Nevertheless, given all the strange and wild speculations that surface when antichrist is mentioned, it is absolutely essential that we have a biblically balanced understanding of who the antichrists are and what the antichrists do.

In our text this morning, John will place before us some important lessons that will equip us to both recognize and defeat these archenemies of the true Christ, our Savior the Lord Jesus.

It is time to get armed for the battle.

Spiritual conflict is inevitable.

Antichrists Attack Christ

The apostle John did not go looking for a fight.

However, he would not run from one when those he loved and cared for were in danger of being lied to (v. 22) and deceived (v.

26).

Once again he addresses his readers as “children” (cf.

vv. 1, 12, 13).

It is a term of endearment and tender affection.

It is also a literary device John uses to introduce a new subject.

Here, that subject is “the last hour” and the appearance of “many antichrists.”

The word “antichrist” means “against Christ” or “in the place of Christ.”

The primary idea in this case is that these enemies are “against Christ.”

Only John uses this striking term and only in four places in his letters (1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 7).

While John appears to have coined the word, he did not make up the idea.

Daniel calls this rival of Christ “the coming prince” (Dan 9:27

Paul calls him the “man of lawlessness” (2 Thess 2:3

John will picture him as the beast from the sea in Revelation 13:1–10.

In this text, John notes several important truths about this spiritual nemesis.

Antichrist Has a Period of Time

John says at the beginning and the end of verse 18, “it is the last hour.”

It is crucial that we understand what this term means if we are to develop a proper eschatology.

Note that John said it was the last hour almost 2,000 years ago.

The phrase signifies the entire period of time between the first and second comings of Christ.

The last hour evokes the sense of urgency in which those who follow Christ must live in throughout any and every age.

We live in a time when antichrists (plural) are active.

This activity will increase until “the Antichrist” comes at the end of the last hour.

Jesus Himself warned us of all of this in Matthew 24:4–5, 24–25.

As the gospel spreads, so will false teaching.

As Christ’s missionaries go out to the nations, so will Satan’s missionaries called “antichrists”!

We are engaged in a global conflict for the souls of men.

Interestingly, there could be no antichrists if there was not a true Christ.

Even their coming is a witness concerning His coming!

Antichrist Is a Principle of Spiritual Error

In 1 John 4:3 the apostle speaks of “the spirit of the antichrist.”

In our text in 2:22, he makes plain what the spirit of antichrist is all about:

they are liars who deny “that Jesus is the Messiah.”

And their strategy is deceptive and seductive.

They do not directly oppose Jesus Christ.

They redefine Him.

They re-imagine Him.

“He is good,” they say, “but He is not God.”

“He may be a son of God like we can be sons and daughters of God,” they teach, “but He is not the Son of God.”

“He may have died on the cross as a martyr,” they affirm, “but He did not die as a Savior.”

The spirit of antichrist always diminishes the person and work of Christ.

It chips away at His deity and rejects His work of atonement.

The antichrist spirit thinks and then teaches incorrectly concerning who Jesus Christ is and what Jesus Christ has done.

The “hub” of Christianity is the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth, the eternal and divine Son of God.

If you get it wrong here, you will get it wrong almost everywhere else.

This is the spirit of the antichrists, and it will attempt to lead you down the road of spiritual error that is a theological dead end.

Antichrist Is a Person of Deception

John makes an important distinction between many antichrists who are already here and the Antichrist who is coming at the end of the age.

Satan’s superman will appear someday.

The Devil’s darling will make a grand entrance sometime in the future.

This counterfeit Christ will come on the scene of world history and, amazingly, the whole earth will marvel and follow him.

Satan will indwell him and give him “his power, his throne, and great authority” (Rev 13:2–3).

The Bible teaches that the nations will even worship him as God (Rev 13:4).

Now you may ask, “When is he coming?

Could he be alive right now?”

Several years ago Newsweek reported that 19 percent of all Americans and 50 percent of those who accept biblical prophecy believe the antichrist is alive today (Woodward, “The Way the World Ends,” 69).

Whether he is alive or not, I cannot, will not, and should not speculate, and neither should you.

That is God’s business.

What I do know is he will come, and the spirit of antichrist is alive and well.

So, be on the lookout for those who attack the biblical teachings about Christ.

They will do you no good.

John then speaks about...

Antichrists Abandon the Church

1 JOHN 2:19 , 22–23

The greatest dangers to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ are always from within, not from without.

Satan is a master deceiver and strategist who knows that the deployment of a spiritual Trojan Horse can do serious, if not irreparable, damage to the body of Christ.

However, once the damage is done, the antichrists will leave the spiritual battlefield taking with them what captives they can.

Eventually they reveal their true colors and allegiance.

Their departure will almost always be painful and the occasion for tremendous grief.

But their exit is essential for the health and vitality of the church.

Alistair Begg says it well:

“There are some who share [for a while] our earthly company who do not share our heavenly birth” (“A Word of Warning”).

You see, their leaving us is a clear sign and certain signal that they were really never a part of us to begin with.

Physically, They Desert the Fellowship (1 John 2:19)

Perseverance is the proof of possession.

Defection from the fellowship gives evidence of a defective faith.

That was certainly John’s perspective.

The contrast between “they” and “us” in verse 19 is striking.