Many Anti-Christs in the World

We know as we study the Bible, we of course learn about Jesus Christ, we study about Him, we learn the type of man that He was, and there's other people that we come to know, and I guess consider friends, if you will, as we read through the Bible as well. We're always appreciative of the faith that the men displayed, and we know that in the early New Testament times, there were some trying times and some persecution that those people went through as the various Roman emperors came into power, and depending on what their opinion was of the church, they could create some harrowing times for people. One of those people is the Apostle John, and the Apostle John is an interesting man. He was a very loyal man right to the end, but we meet the Apostle John as Jesus Christ called him back in the Gospels that we learn, and then we see him all the way at the end of his life, down in 90 and 95 AD, when Jesus Christ passed on to the angels, it says, in Revelation, who then passed on the revelation of what would be in the end time to John. And during that 60 years, if you will, John remained very faithful, quite true to Christ. Now, we see that in his writings, and we see in him a man who was faithful during his life, and a lot of things that he did shows why God would have entrusted him with that message at the end of time. It was John who was the only Apostle that was there at Christ's crucifixion. The rest of them disappeared, but he was there right by, right there at the site of the crucifixion. It was to John that Jesus Christ entrusted his mother and asked him to take care of her.

It was John who wrote the Gospel of John, and he wrote that according to the commentators around 60 AD. And he wrote that for a purpose of showing the deity of Christ. The other Gospels showed the actions of Christ and what he did, and John wrote a Gospel that would show that he was the Son of God, and he focused in on the miracles of Jesus Christ and the I AM statements that we're familiar with. I AM the way, the truth, the life. I AM the resurrection, and so on.

In fact, at the end of John, let's turn to John 20, he gives us the reason that he wrote that Gospel.

In John 20 and verse 30, he says, "...and truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name." So he tells us why this book is written, and as you read through the Gospel of John, it absolutely corresponds to the other Gospels, but you see the picture of Jesus Christ in it. And you see a man who in 60 AD, 30 years, approximately after Jesus Christ was crucified and ascended into heaven, still remembering, as inspired by God, very clearly what happened during his life. Very clearly what happened on that night, that last pose, the Passover that he was there. You see a man still very loyal to Jesus Christ, to what he stood for, and what the example that he was following.

Now, history says that sometime before 70 AD, when the temple was destroyed, John moved out of Jerusalem and went over to Ephesus and began working with the churches there.

And then later on in his life, around 90 AD, he wrote three Epistles to the churches that were there. Three Epistles that we can learn a lot from because as you look at 1, 2, and 3 John, and then Revelation came after those, he was writing to a church that was beginning to have some controversy, and having some challenges made to it. Things were happening in the world that John was addressing to the people.

And as you read through the first Epistle of John, you see a man that in 90 AD, 60 years, after he was baptized, and I'm roughly speaking here, and this is assuming that it was in 90 AD, or in that time frame, a man who was still loyal to God, who still it was crystal clear. And when you read his words written 30 years after he wrote the Gospel of John, that was written 30 years after he walked with Christ, you see a man who hasn't lost it, but a man who has grown.

Nothing about John changed. He remained true to Christ right until the very end of time. Let's look at 1 John here and just read through some of the verses. And as we read through some of the verses, think about the Gospel of John, and you're going to see some similar verses here, or similar phrase of the theology that John used back then that shows he didn't change in any way. He still believed and was following the same truth that he was taught. 1 John 1. Let's begin in verse 5.

1 John 2. Let's begin in verse 6. Words that we would repeat and that we could say exactly today in the message to you and that we do say.

Chapter 2. My little children, these things I write to you so that you may not sin.

Here's a purpose for the book. There's something happening in the book. It's something happening and he's writing to the churches. Be aware of some things and as we go through this, you'll see a few of the warnings that John gives the people of that time that apply to us as well. And he says, if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. And he himself is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the whole world. Verse 3. Now by this we know that we know him if we keep his commandments. So 60 years after Christ was crucified and ascended into heaven, John was still saying, this is how we know God. If we keep his commandments, we know him. And of course, if we don't, then we are fooling ourselves.

So here we have an apostle who lived to 90 and 95. I think the commentary say 98 AD is when he died 60 years. Long time after Christ died, he is still following the same path that Jesus Christ did. And he's writing to his church, the churches that he pastors, admonished them to do the same things. Verse 4, Jesus says, I know him and doesn't keep his commandments is a liar. And the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in him. He who says that he abides in Christ ought himself also to walk just as he walked. And we know how Jesus Christ walked. We have the gospels that adequately describe how he walked, that he was perfect in all of his ways, that he kept the law of God. And that in his writings in this first sermon on the Mount, he said things like, don't think that I came to destroy the law and the prophets. I didn't come to destroy, but I came to fill them up or fulfill. And he said, not one jot or one tittle will pass from the law until heaven and earth pass away.

And he meant exactly what he said. And John repeats it here, still steadfast in the calling that he had. Let's move over to chapter 3. Chapter 3, verse 1.

Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God.

60 years after Jesus Christ, he still knows, and he knows more fully, that that was what God has called us to. That if we walk in him, if we allow him to abide in us and we abide in him, that that's what our destiny is. Therefore, he says, the world doesn't know us because it didn't know him. There's a gulf of understanding. They don't understand the truth of God. They can't understand it today because God hasn't opened their minds to it. Beloved, he says in verse 2, now we are children of God and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And everyone, he says, who has this hope in him purifies himself just as Christ is pure.

You don't see John compromising with any of the law. You don't see John saying, well, it's a difficult life and the world around us wants to do things a different way.

He says the same thing, that the Bible is clear throughout. We walk in light and we allow God to purify us, to keep revealing our sins and weaknesses to us that over the course of our lifetime, if we want what God has called us to, we become pure and we grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. And then he says something in 90 AD that the world would want to kind of ignore many of the religions in the world today. Verse 4, whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness. Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness and sin is lawlessness.

And you know that he was... I think I read this originally. First verse says, sin is the transgression of the law, doesn't it? In your King James versions there? Sin is the transgression of the law. The law is still there. Sin is still defined in 90 AD, 60 years after Jesus Christ died by the apostle who walked with him for three and a half years. Sin is the transgression of the law. Verse 5, and you know that he was manifested to take away our sins and in him there is no sin.

And that's our goal as God works with us, as he cleanses us. Not because we'll ever come to a point of purity, but because he leads us to that. Whoever abides in him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen him nor known him. Whoever continues in a life of sin hasn't seen him and he hasn't known Jesus Christ. Sin transcribed or defined as transgression of the law.

Keeping his commandments, John says. Verse 7, little children let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous. He whose pattern of life is they know the law of God and they abide by it. Every single one of those commandments and every single one of the principles that Jesus Christ gave to us. He who sins is of the devil. For the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. The only way any of us ever overcome our own nature. The only way any of us ever overcome and are able to live by God's law and understand it is by the Spirit of God that he gives us.

Verse 9, whoever has been born of God does not sin. Or I noticed that some of the newer translations you know capture maybe the concept of this verse a little better. Whoever is born of God does not practice sin because we all sin. We all make mistakes. We all have to go before God and we all have to repent of what we do. But he who is born of God does not practice sin. He doesn't continue in sin. He doesn't consistently do the same thing over and over and over. Except as we have those sins that do so easily beset that we have to constantly be aware of. Whoever has been born of God does not sin for his seed remains. Christ's seed remains in him and he cannot sin because he has been born of God. And again, he cannot if his will is set that he will follow God, that he will be led by his Holy Spirit, and that his pattern of life will be righteousness, adhering to the law of God. Verse 10, and this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest. Whoever does not practice righteousness, and righteousness is defined as keeping God's law, is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.

So Christ, who was the perfect example of keeping and living the law, who was also the perfect example of the love and compassion and mercy that he wants all of us to develop. We keep the law, but we also become people who love and have an outgoing concern for other people, who look out for the needs of others, who bear with one another, who pray for one another, who see the need of another, as John will say here, and we won't read those verses again that we read last week, who pray when they see the need, fulfill that, and show that they have the love of God, not only by the commandments that they keep, but also that outgoing fruit of the Spirit love, agape love, that is in us. In verse 11, for this is the message that you heard from the beginning, he says, from the time you came in the church, this is the message that you heard.

Nothing has changed. This is the message you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, and then he goes back to Cain, not as Cain, who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. Why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother's righteous. There wasn't a meeting of the minds because Cain was led by a different spirit than Abel was. And so, when God calls us, we have the Spirit of God. The world can't understand what we do and why we do. They can't understand why we are assembled together here on a seventh day Sabbath. They can understand why we believe that the law of God is still to be obeyed today because it hasn't been given to them.

But as we go on here in the book, we're going to see that something was happening in the world at that time that prompted John to write this book. Before we go to that, though, let's look at verse 22 of chapter 3. Whatever we ask when we talked about prayer and answers, prayer, the keys to it, we read this verse. Whatever we ask when we receive of him, because we keep his commandments to do those things that are pleasing in his sight.

And this is his commandment, that we should believe on the name of his son, Jesus Christ, and love one another as he gave us commandment. And I'll read verse 24, then I'm going to go back to a word here in verse 23. Now he who keeps his commandments abides in him, and he in him. And by this we know that he abides in us by the Spirit which he has given us.

Now when we read the word believe in verse 23, and we read the word believe so many other places in the New Testament, you know, we have a word believe. I believe it's going to rain tomorrow.

Well, I'm not going to stake my life on that or anything. But we use the word believe in a different sense than the New Testament does. The word that's translated here, believe. The Greek word for believe in so many places here in 23 and most of the places in 1 John is the Greek word pistoio. P-I-S-T-E-U-O. And let me read from Vine's expository dictionary what this word believe means. So when you see this word believe in your reading, you think closely about what it means because it has more of a meaning than what our word believe that we use loosely today is. Vine's dictionary says this, the main elements in faith in its relation to the invisible God as distinct from faith in man are especially brought out in the use of this noun pistoio and the corresponding verb which is the same word. These elements are included in the meaning of that word. One, a firm conviction producing a full acknowledgement of God's revelation or truth. A firm conviction knowing that you know, believing it with all your heart. And it's not just someone's opinion but it is a real belief that you hold close to you. Second, a personal surrender to Christ. When we know the truth, we yield to Him. We allow Him to lead us. So we know that we know and we know that when we learn these things it's contrary to our nature it's by the Spirit of God that we're able to yield. And three, a conduct inspired by such surrender.

Prominence, they go on to say, is given to one or other of all these elements according to the context. All this stands in contrast to belief in its purely natural exercise which consists of an opinion held in good faith without necessary reference to its proof. So when we read the word belief, it's something we absolutely know to be true. Something that's not an opinion, not just our idea, it's the truth. As God says, it's the truth. There's a firm conviction that we have. When we know the truth, we must follow the truth. And it includes our personal surrender to God.

Because if we don't surrender to God, if we don't yield to Him, if we don't submit, and we don't have that attitude, we won't be following Him. We won't be allowing Him to make the changes in our life and to give us the knowledge and to give us the ability to do what He wants us to do.

So we read about believe, and as we read, believe, and talk about it today, remember that meaning of it. And when you read in the New Testament, keep that in mind. Now John, as he's writing to his church here, 30 or maybe churches, some commentaries say this was addressed to more than one, as he's writing to the church, but he's certainly writing to us today too. The words that he said, I could get up here and I could just read the words that he said to him, then it would be a good sermon. Because you know what? The words that he said back in 90 AD are the same words that we would say and that apply to us today. But as he's talking here, there are some things that come up and that you can see beginning in verse 4, there's a challenge that has come to the church. And in chapter 4, he gives us one of two warnings. The other one is back in chapter 2, but let's look here in chapter 4. He says in verse 1, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

So what he sees is there's challenges to the church. People are listening to things of people that they may trust and they're not testing the spirits. Do they know what God would say in this instance? Do they understand what the truth of God is? Can you discern what is of Christ and what is not of Christ? What are his words? What are his attitudes? What are the things that he would do? Test the spirits. In verse 2, he says, by this you know the Spirit of God.

Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. Every spirit that says, yes, Jesus Christ was God, he was born of flesh, he died that our sins may be forgiven, he was resurrected to eternal life. Every spirit that says that, that has the full understanding and belief of who he was, believe. But if they say something different, don't believe it, because that spirit is not of God. It's absolute truth that Christ came to earth, was born a human, lived and died a perfect life, and was resurrected. And because of him, we have forgiveness of sins and the hope of eternal life. An absolute truth that all of our lives and all of the world's plan hangs on. What was happening, according to the commentaries, around this time was there was a new, I'm going to use the word heresy, going around the nation or the area at that time, called Gnosticism. And I'm not going to go into the huge definition and discussion of Gnosticism. First, I would bore you to death. Second, you would, you know, if you're interested, you can go online and read all the things. But Gnosticism, there's two main points, and one that John is talking about here. Gnosticism believed that ultimately it's your divine, your knowledge, that you get with the Holy Spirit, and there's an elitist approach to it. Your knowledge you get is the thing that's going to save you. The second thing they believed is that everything material and everything physical was evil, and everything of the Spirit was good. So that they would say, or they say, Jesus Christ could not have possibly been in the flesh because the flesh is evil. So he couldn't possibly have been a human being, that the Spirit of God came upon this man known as Jesus Christ, and he dwelled in him at that time. But it really wasn't Jesus Christ who gave up being God, who really was a human who lived in his life and in that body for 30 years before his ministry and three and a half years after that, that that couldn't have happened. So you see what John is addressing here, because people were beginning, really? Did that really happen? Did that man, Jesus Christ, really have lived a perfect life? I mean a perfect life in the way you really define perfect? Did he really give up being God? Did he really come down and live as a human? All those lives and all those years. And so people were beginning to question that, and that was beginning to happen to the church as people, well, did he? Or is this a better explanation? Is this really what happened? Now we know, we absolutely know, and I hope everyone in here has absolutely no doubt who Jesus Christ is and what he did. But we can take what John is saying here and apply it to our lives today as well. This we know, and there's many people out there in world religions who would, who absolutely agree. Jesus Christ was the Son of God, born as a human, etc., etc. Today we might have other heresies that go around. Heresies such as Jesus Christ came to do away with the law. When he died, he nailed the law to the cross. That's one that we hear around the world today, isn't it? We don't have to keep those holy days anymore. God replaced those holy days with Christmas, Easter, and these other things, as in he mixed his truth with paganism or error.

Many of the world's religions would have you believe that, and that's a danger if we believe that.

Some would say, it's wrong. It's even wrong to worship God on the seventh day, even though that's one of his Ten Commandments. It's wrong, because in the New Testament they would say that Christ changed the day to the first day of the week, even though there's absolutely not one Scripture anywhere in the Bible that would indicate that. You could name others that you hear as well, but over the course of time here, beginning with this concept of Gnosticism and then continuing down through our time, you see the attack of who Jesus Christ is, what his message was, what he stood for. We even have some in the world today that say Jesus Christ really wasn't God before. He was a created being, and when he was born, that's the first time he existed.

That's a concept I've heard not too long ago, actually, from someone who had called in, and they can't get past it. But it's error. It's absolutely wrong. In all the cases, it's denying that Jesus Christ is who he was, that he stood for what he stood for, that he said what he said, and that he expected us to live our lives patterned after the way he lived, not the way after a man or someone else does. So here we have John facing that and seeing in the church this growing notion of Gnosticism. Jesus Christ didn't really come down and live as a being, so John is countering that, and he says, be careful of what you're listening to. Test the spirits. Know the Bible. Believe, not just an opinion, a belief deep in your heart, deep in your soul, that you know what you know and that you're led by the Spirit, and that you can discern when something is not right, not of Christ. And then he says, in the next sentence there, going on in verse 3, a word that has captured the imagination of so many people. He says, this is the Spirit, referring to not trusting that Jesus Christ is really God, this is the Spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming and is now already in the world. Well, as he gets into this Spirit of the Antichrist, and John is the only one who uses the word Antichrist. It literally comes from the Greek word, the two Greek words, anti, which means exactly what we use it for in the English language, against or as opposed to, in Christos, which means Christ or Messiah. Again, Vines says that Antichristos combines either, combines against Christ or instead of Christ, assuming, it contains the two, that the meaning is one who, assuming the guise of Christ, opposes Christ. So, John here points to a future time, an Antichrist, that's going to shake the world and going to be notable for his stance or opposition to Jesus Christ and what he stood for, but he says it's already in the world. It's already in the world. Because you see, what he was beginning to see with Gnosticism is there was an attitude of Antichrist, a spirit, an attitude that would take the truth about Jesus Christ or the truth of Jesus Christ, the truth of the Bible, and begin to preach or teach against it and say, it's not so. And John said already, in the world, we see the spirit of Antichrist. So, here's a man, 90 AD, walked with Christ for three and a half years, knew him very well, stayed with him through the crucifixion, was entrusted with the book of Revelation, the end time book, was remained loyal and steadfast to God right until the very end of his days, kept practicing the same things that Jesus Christ practiced him. And in the face of this growing ideology here of Gnosticism, he's encouraging the church, keep your eyes on God. Know that you know the Bible, know what's in the Word, and don't allow a spirit or an attitude that opposes Christ or opposes what he stood for to pervert the truth that you know. And he talks about he talks about the spirit and that this false teaching that was coming in the church is the spirit or the attitude of Antichrist, literally against Christ or teaching something different than what he stood for and certainly what the Apostle John here clearly in his three epistles and the gospel lived all the day of his life. Let's go back to 1st John, well, we're in 1st John, Chapter 2. And we see the other place that he uses this word or introduces the concept of against Christ, against him. Verse 15. And again, he begins it with another warning to the church.

Don't listen or don't fall prey to these false doctrines that are coming out there. That would pervert what you have learned, as he says, from the beginning and what you've been doing from the beginning. In verse 15 of Chapter 2, he says, don't love the world or the things in the world. And as he looked around the church, maybe he saw people who were getting a little too comfortable, compromising a little bit, really paying attention and how nice the world was. And certainly we can fall prey to that today because the world is an enticing place. It's got a lot of interesting things. If we allowed ourselves to, we could fall right back in. So he says, don't love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Well, it doesn't mean we don't participate in the world, that we don't enjoy the things that God has given us, but that isn't our priority. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, all those things are not of the Father, but is of the world.

And the world is passing away, and the lust of it. But he who does the will of God abides forever.

He who does the will of God abides forever. You love the world, you perish with the world. You do the will of God, you abide forever. Little children, verse 18, it is the last hour.

John said that in 90 A.D. as he looked at what was happening to the church at that time and what society was doing in response to the truth of Jesus Christ, because Satan is always alert. Satan is always there, always ready to put a thought into someone's mind that would cast doubt on whether the Bible is true, on whether Jesus Christ was really the Son of God, of whether when he prays and he said, not one shot or one tittle passes from the law until heaven and earth pass away.

Did he really mean that? Well, we believe it and the Bible says it, but Satan is always there to cast out. Little children, it is the last hour and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many Antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour.

So he sees this spirit, he sees this Gnosticism, he sees these things happening in the world and he says, you know, it's time. Now the world is attacking, if you will, in a polite sense of the world, Jesus Christ, but really attacking him and attacking the belief in him. And as he saw that, he thought, this has to be the end of time because the world is turning against Jesus Christ. And in John's mind, how could you even possibly doubt Jesus Christ, a man who he had seen right through everything he did and knew who he was? And John was firmly convicted in him. And as we look down of history from 90 AD to here in 2014 AD, we see that the spirit of Antichrist has come up time and time and time again in one form or another. The world is bent, it seems, on opposing Christ, not yielding to what the Bible says, finding every reason to disobey it and not follow what God has to say. I see an exception, I skipped, I'm going to go back to it a little bit here. I'm going to get to the slides here in a minute. And as we do that, I, you know, was thinking about how the world is today and this concept and this attitude of Antichrist, beginning here with this idea of Gnosticism. But over the years it has taken form and many in the world today believe or follow religions that are really against the attitude and against Christ. So I want to have you look at a few of them here today. One of them that's in the news all the time anymore and rarely for anything good is the religion of Islam. Islam has 1.6 billion people worldwide who follow that religion and identify themselves as Muslims.

Now the religion of Islam did not exist in its form today before Jesus Christ.

It's based on Prophet Muhammad and what he said. And you know if you've read the book Middle Eastern Prophecy or if you've listened in sermons that the people of the Middle East have claimed Abraham as their father and indeed they are the descendants of Ishmael. Jesus Christ's coming, Jesus Christ's life, was a monumental event on the face of the earth, okay, in the history of mankind.

Islam says this. This comes from the islamguy.com. Muslims believe that Jesus was not crucified.

It was the plan of Jesus's enemies to crucify him, but God saved him and raised him up to him. And the likeness of Jesus was put over another man. Jesus's enemies took this man and crucified him thinking that he was Jesus. Now does that sound like what John was talking about in 1 John 4?

Not really Jesus Christ. It was someone they just thought they were crucifying Jesus, but it wasn't really him. Now this is from their holy book, Quran 4, I guess it would be verse 157. And this is a direct quote from the book that they said, it's referring to the Jews, they said in boast, We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the messenger of Allah. But they killed him not, nor crucified him. But so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts with no certain knowledge, but only conjecture to follow. For of a surety they killed him not.

So did they cast doubt on whether Jesus Christ is the Messiah that the world was waiting for, that he is the Savior? Yes. In the same line that John was talking in 1 John 4. And 1.6 billion people believe that. 1.6 billion people have that in other verses in their holy book that say Jesus Christ was not the Savior we're waiting for. And they adhere to a man by the name of Muhammad who spent his life and a lot of his time refuting that Jesus Christ was the Messiah we were waiting for. And 1.6 billion people today in that religion we would have to say, using the word, is anti-Christ. Denying who Jesus Christ was, denying that he is the Savior, and casting doubt on his person. Let's look at another one. Hinduism, we're going to talk about Buddhism, and there's a whole lot of Eastern religions we could talk about. Hinduism and Buddhism did exist before Jesus Christ. And there are somewhere around 1.5 billion people, probably more than that, that adhere to these ideologies. Hinduism is mostly in India. Buddhism is in China, but has adherents around the world. Hinduism did exist before, but let's look at some of the things that are written about Hinduism and what it believes. Many Hindus say you are religions as one whole religion. The reason for this is the notion that Hindus don't believe that Hinduism is a religion in the first place. There is no one main prophet, no main scripture, no date of when the religion was created, and no scripture uses the word Hindu.

People who follow the Hindu faith don't generally preach their religion as the one true religion over other religions. It's generally taught that if one can find another path that works better, then it's fine to follow a different path instead of the Hindu path. Now, that sounds like what Jesus Christ would have said. If you can find a better way to salvation, follow it. Or did he say in the Bible, there's only one way and only one name by which salvation comes. And that's by the name of Jesus Christ and everything that he stood for. But a billion people, primarily in India, believe this. Now, this comes right from the Indian nation of India. Their council was trying to define the relationship of Hinduism to their government. And this is how they define them. I've just picked out some of the keywords that they used. And when they defined the Hindu religion, one, they said, Hindu thinkers and philosophers are the sole foundation of Hindu philosophy.

They rely on what man says. The great thinkers of their religion, that's who they rely on. Does that sound like the religion that Jesus Christ would have us believe? Or do we believe the word of truth that we prove? Second, they say, the truth is many-sided. You've got to know all the views of it because there's many sides to the truth. And my truth may be different than your truth. And therefore, they come to the conclusion there's different paths. Does that sound like the Bible and the truth of Jesus Christ? No. There's one truth. Sanctify them by your truth, Christ said. Your word is truth. They believe in rebirth and pre-existence. You've heard of the reincarnation that the Buddhists believe in. The Hindus, the Shinto's, the other religions over there believe the same thing. Four, the means or ways to salvation are many. And I have some notes up there on scriptures to refute that. We know there's not many ways to salvation. And five, unlike other religions or religious creeds, Hindu religion is not tied down to any definite sit of philosophical concepts as such. It's whatever you believe, whatever fits the moment, do that.

And if any of us have that belief, then we better be going back to the Bible and realizing what Jesus Christ said. And a billion people on earth believe that today. We would have to say that's an anti-Christ message. And yet so many in the world deny Jesus Christ and believe this instead. Buddhism, you know, the internet says 350 million. Some estimates go up to half a billion people. Here's what their key beliefs are. They don't believe in a creator God.

They believe that the earth always existed and always will. It's the eternal that we worship. Not God, we worship the earth. And that life regenerates itself with reincarnation.

And so they believe when you die, you are born again as something or someone else.

And in that way, the earth keeps regenerating itself. Now Psalm 14, 1 says it's a fool that says there is no God. And yet here, a half a billion people believe that today. The other thing is you look through Buddhism and see what they believe. And they have an eightfold path to eightfold path that has some, you know, nice sayings in it. They believe in total self-reliance and that you search for the divine in yourself. If you look into your own mind, you have the answer to perfection. You have the answers. You just have to search in your mind. Now, what does the Bible say? Of our own mind, Romans 8, 7, the carnal mind is enmity against God. We can't know the things of God except the Holy Spirit is in us. And if we just rely on ourselves, I think Jeremiah 17, 5 there, talks about if we rely on ourselves, we will certainly fall. If we rely on our own thinking, we will never be in the kingdom of God. We will never be. Yet, so many people, and even here in the United States, will adhere to these principles and say, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. Let's explain our existence without God. It's an anti-Christ message. Let's go to another well-known religion that's very well represented here in the United States. That's in the news often with Pope Francis and his speeches and his travels. Catholicism. 1.2 billion people identify themselves as Catholics today. What does the Catholic Church believe? Now, they do believe, they state, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that he was God, that he was born as a human, that he lived his life, he died. We would agree on that point perfectly. But that's where we differ.

Because Jesus Christ in his life said, follow me. We're told, well, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 1, imitate me, Paul says, as I imitate or as I follow Christ. We follow his example. He left the perfect example to us. He inspired the Bible that says Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever. The way he lived then is the way he expects us to live now. And in Malachi, I am the Lord your God, I change not. And yet the Catholic Church, in response to very clear commands of Jesus Christ and his statements in the Sermon on the Mount and all other places where his words are spoken in the New Testament, don't follow that. They would instead say, well, Jesus Christ did away with the Seventh-day Sabbath. He expects us to keep the Lord's day Sunday instead, without any biblical proof. No statement. And you cannot read the Bible from cover to cover and ever come up with the conclusion that the Sabbath was changed. Impossible to say that the Sabbath was changed. And yet the Catholic Church did that. The Catholic Church and the Council of Nicaea, I've written some scriptures down there that would say that would support that. When the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, it was a telling time in the Catholic Church. They did, they changed from the Days of Unleavened Bread and Passover to Easter, mixed a pagan festival with the truth of God. In direct contrast to what the Bible would say, as God has meaning in the holy days that He said to keep forever, and they made changes in the calendar. So rather than keeping God's calendar that goes from a month of Abib in the spring through the rest of the year, they decided that the calendar should begin in January 1st. And they've tried over the years to change the day of weeks. They've changed the numbers of days in a month. They changed the calendar of God to fit the purpose that they want. Now in Daniel 7 and verse 25, let's just go there. We've read that before, but in Daniel 7 and verse 25.

Speaking of the end time, as you read here down through to Daniel 7, speaking of the the beasts that will appear on the earth that correlate to Revelation, let's begin in verse 23.

Well, there's your definition of Antichrist.

Because it's God who sets the times and law, not man. And yet you have a religion that has changed times. And in that same Council of Nicaea, the nature of God was discussed. And eventually the theory, or I guess the hypothesis of Trinity, was introduced. That again changed the nature of God from Jesus Christ and God the Father to add and take the Holy Spirit and make it a person rather than the power of God, which again can't be supported from Scripture. And so you have 1.2 billion people who subscribe to a religion that has changed the law of God and that has changed the concept of God. And then we have Protestants who would be the rest of the people who identify themselves as Christian and 900 million in the world identify themselves as that.

Protestants do read the Bible more closely than the Catholics. Told you as first 10 years of my life we never opened the Bible when I was growing up. We just simply relied on what the priest said. It was when we came into church and we started reading from the Bible, my parents, that was a brand new concept to us, to read and see what the Bible said rather than listening to just what the priest said on Sunday.

The Protestants just subscribe also to the same theories that the Catholics did. While they claim to read the Bible and adhere to the truth, they have followed the principles of Catholicism. They follow by the same calendar. They follow the same holidays. They follow the lead right out of God's Sabbath into a day that he did not ordain as the Sabbath day.

And so as you look at these religions, you think, are they teaching the thing of God? Or have they been interesting ideologies that have come upon the earth to take people away from the truth of God, create doubt about the word of God, and then people follow those concepts.

Let's look at Judaism, always in the news. 14 million people say that they are Jews and subscribe to the religion of Judaism today. And all you have to know is that Judaism doesn't believe that Jesus Christ was Messiah, that he was just a great man. They deny the power and they deny that Jesus Christ was the Messiah. So if you believe their religion and what they believe, you would be leaving a message that is not, or that is opposed to the gospel of Christ.

And then there's somewhere around 1.1 billion people on earth that would call themselves atheists, or they have no religious affiliation. Either they declare there is no God, which is very easy for us to make the determiners of that, or they're just not interested in religion. They could care less, whether there's a God, all they care about is what is going on in the world around them and what they can get out of it. 1.1 billion people say that. So if you add all those numbers up, it comes up to somewhere around 6.2 billion people.

The other 800,000 would be those other little religions around the world that add up to things that many of them would fall into the Eastern religions, but some into America as well. I will go into the details of those. But you see where this began in the Gospel of John, with a message or attitude or spirit of Antichrist that John saw upcoming, that he saw happening, and he thought, ah, they're perverting who Jesus Christ was.

They're telling people something different than what they believe. Look where it has spread. We live in a world that is full of an Antichrist message, that either denies that he was the Messiah or that preaches something different than he did. John thought the time of the end had come because this concept of Gnosticism was there, and it was a dangerous concept. It was a heretical concept, and people were apparently beginning to doubt. Today it's mushroomed into that such a significant, well, really all the world has that message except the people of God who are led by his Spirit who believe that every word of the Bible we live by.

Now next week, not in the sermon but in the group afterwards, I'm going to have some more slides that pertain to this. We'll go into the discussion on it or some questions and whatever on how that is impacting the world today. But I want to give you a flavor of where this concept of Antichrist is. It is alive and among us today, and yet the Bible says there is a figure coming that will be known as the Antichrist, someone who will stand, as we read under Daniel 7.25, and he will declare himself against God or as God. We'll talk a little bit about that more next week after the potluck.

But, John, let's leave that for now. Let's go back to what this means for us today. Because you can say that's great. I knew that the world had an Antichrist message. I knew that they weren't following God's will. But what does that pertain to us today? What does John say in this and what does he say to the people of the church at that time that he would want us to pay attention to? Let's go back to 1 John. Actually, let's go back to 2 John. 2 John is a book that we don't turn to very often.

It's again written by John about the same time as 1 John. Let's just read through the book since we have not. It's only 13 verses.

It was always God's plan that we love one another, that we have the outgoing concern for one another, that we identify each other's needs that were there to serve, that were there to help.

It was always his intent from the beginning that we keep his law and obey it implicitly.

Even back in Leviticus 19, it says, Love your neighbor as yourself. Love your neighbor as yourself. Israel never got it. Even when Israel was obeying the commands of God, they didn't get that part of it. But we better get that part of it, that we obey God, but we also care for one another and had that agape, outgoing concern for one another. This is love. He says in verse 6, that we walk according to his commandments. Pretty crystal clear.

This is the commandment that, as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it.

Don't stray. Don't listen to those others. Don't allow doubts to come in your mind. Believe the truth and continue walking in it. For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. That's that apostasy message that's out there. That was there at that time. We can replace for today whatever the concept is that's in the world today that's against the message of Christ or against Jesus Christ himself. Many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist speaking against God. Look to yourselves that we do not lose those things we worked for but that we may receive a full award. So he's cautioning her. Don't let go of the truth that you know that you've heard from the beginning. Continue walking in it. Don't let someone else steal your crown, Paul would say. Keep walking because if we err from the path, if we deter from the path, we can lose salvation. One of those other things that we could say that's out in the world today. Once saved, always saved. Not supported in the Bible at all. And John says it here. Don't lose the things you work for but that we receive the full reward. Eternal life is a gift from God but he expects that we are living the life that he called us to and living the life that Jesus Christ lives in us. Verse 9, whoever transgresses and does not abide to the doctrine of Christ does not have God. Whoever doesn't follow and live his life the way Jesus Christ did, they don't know God. A theme that he re- we read in 1 John. A theme that we have in John, the Gospel of John, that Jesus Christ himself is, if you love me, keep my commandments.

If you love me, keep my commandments. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. Verse 10, if anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, don't receive him into your house nor greet him, for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds.

So he's saying if someone comes knocking on your door, lady, and they want to talk to you about a God that's different than the God that you know. They want to talk to you about a truth that's different than the Gospel you received from the beginning. If they want to talk to you and put doubt in your mind about something that you know is the truth of God, don't entertain them.

Don't listen to them. Don't listen to them. Now, I don't have very many people anymore come up and knock on my door. I want to talk about a doctrine different. When we first moved in, well, for a few years after that, we would have some people come and knock on our door. We didn't entertain them, but when we started offering booklets to them about why the Sabbath day, they stopped coming after a while and very well so. Only one would ever accept the booklet, by the way. The rest of them refused it, so we refused their literature as well. But you know, I read this and we live in a world that's different because different than John did. If John was writing this today or we were someone was writing it to a church today, we might not say, you know, they have to come to your door because there's a whole lot of other ways that they can come into our house, aren't there?

We got a TV that I could spend all day listening to other doctrines, and I can listen all day to preachers that would preach a message that's different than the truth. I was watching something not too long ago, and a commercial came on and I flipped the channel because I didn't want to hear the commercial. And there was a name when I looked at the guide of a televangelist I'd heard of, but I'd never seen him talk before, and I thought, oh, I've heard his name. Let me hear what he's saying. And as I flipped on, he was giving a pretty good sermon. He was talking about the Sabbath day, what a blessing it was to people, what a wise God gave people a Sabbath day, how on that Sabbath day we worship God, we don't work, we do the things that God said to do, and how Jesus Christ himself said, you know, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. And he was talking about the Jews a little bit on how they made the Sabbath the burden. And as I listened to him, and I thought, hmm, is he going to say that we keep the Sabbath because he was very geared? I could repeat his words here, but then he took an enormous leap. He goes, but of course, in the New Testament age, we don't keep the Sabbath day anymore. It's obvious, he said, in the New Testament that God wanted us to keep the first day of the week. And I thought, it's obvious, it's not obvious, and I've kept the clip, because I'm tempted to play it back for him and show him, it's not obvious. He never turned to one scripture, but then he went into on how, you know, something has changed. But as I listened to that, I thought, well, there's people listening to this and think, oh yeah, it was a good idea, good idea, the Sabbath, but we don't have to keep it now, for absolutely no reason and not one proof. Now, if I listen to that all the time, if I invite that into my home, it could mess with my mind if I started paying attention to it. And I know some listen to it, and I'm not saying not, but I sure hope when we do, we're grounded in the truth and going back to the Bible and knowing what is true and not allowing these things to affect us.

The Internet is full of messages. The Internet has all sorts of things. You can line up anything you want on the Internet before. I could come up with every idea of prophecy. I could come up with every idea of anything you can name. And they may be interesting to read, but if we let them mess with our mind and if we're not grounded in the truth and we don't go back to the word of truth, which we are based in, they can cause problems. John might say, don't even allow those things in. Keep your eyes in the Bible. Keep yourself in the truth. When you know the truth, live by it.

And don't be entertaining strangers and those who would be bringing a different doctrine to you.

And it's something that we could learn today as we apply the principles of John into our lives.

Back in 1 John 2, he gave us the other warning that we spoke of in 1 John 2 and verse 15. As he introduced the concept of Antichrist in verse 18 here in this chapter, he begins it with, don't love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him, all that is in the world. Now, when you think on these things, the lust of the flesh defines a lot of what the world is about. The lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father, but of the world. We have to be careful. We live in a world, and Christ in his final prayer said, I don't take them out of the world, but I pray that you keep them from the attitudes and the concepts of the world. We have to know who we are. We have to be grounded in the truth. We need to have that relationship with God led by his Holy Spirit, and we need the contact and the company of each other that a wise and loving God gave us. So at least once a week, we're together with people of like mind, ways to guard ourselves against the spirit of Antichrist, and keeping ourselves on the path that God called us to. Let me end in 3 John. We hit first. Let me get one verse in 3 John that I'm going to conclude here for today. 3 John 11. The third epistle of John is also interesting as you read through it. You see where he is talking to someone who has stayed with the church, but then he identifies someone there who has left the church for his own reasons. In verse 11, he says, Beloved, do not imitate what is evil. Imitate Christ. Follow him. Don't imitate what is evil, but what is good. He who does good is of God, but he who does evil has not seen God. So let me leave that there today. And then next week, after the potluck, I'll go into some more slides. We'll talk a little bit more about this briefly, and then we'll go into the group meeting.