Sunday, January 06, 2013

[Matt's Messages] "This is the Last Hour"

1/06/2013 02:50:00 PM , , 0 comments


“This is the Last Hour”
Essential Christianity: 1 John
January 6, 2013 :: 1 John 2:18-29

This is a good place to begin a new year. This is the first Sunday of 2013.

It’s a new year, and it is the last hour.

In our passage for today, John says, “This is the Last Hour.”

King James, “It is the last time.”
We might say, “It is the end times.”
“This is the last hour.”

It’s always good to begin a new year by thinking about the end of the world and the return of Jesus Christ.

Have you noticed that everyone is talking about the end of the world these days?

There was the Mayan Calendar last month. A couple of years ago it was Harold Camping and his billboards.

I went to see a movie over the Christmas holiday, and 4 out 5 of the movie previews before the feature presentation were about the end of the world.

Everybody seems to be thinking about it these days.  Christians included.

Well, John was thinking about it, too. He is, after all, one of Jesus’ disciples who heard Him deliver the Olivet Discourse recorded in Matthew 24 and Mark 13.  And he was there when Jesus ascended saying that it’s not for us to know the times or dates of His return.  And this John is, after all, the one whom God will use to write the book of Revelation.

And this John said “This is the last hour.”

Three questions to answer and apply to our lives today:

How Do We Know This is the Last Hour?
What Do We Have in the Last Hour?
What Must We Do in the Last Hour?

“This is the last hour.” That’s what John says.

John believed, rightly, that he was the living in the end times.

And so are we.

Often we talk about the end times as if they haven’t come yet.  But the Bible teaches that the end times, the last days, began when Jesus was resurrected, and they will continue until Jesus Christ returns.

Now, of course, someday, we don’t know when, there will be the last of the last days, the end of the end times.

But the last hour has begun, and we are living in it.

How do we know?

Well, John says so, and he tells us how to recognize the last hour.  V.18

“Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour.”

How do we know?

We know because many antichrists have come.

Have you heard that word “antichrist” before?

“Anti” as a prefix means either “instead of” or “against.”

So, anti-christ can be someone who is a false christ who steps into Christ’s rightful place pretending to be Christ.  “Instead of Christ.”

And/or antichrist is someone who is “against Christ.” Opposed to Christ. Christ’s enemy.  I think that both meanings are true of antichrist, here, I think the “against” option is foremost.

“Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour.”

Jesus had said that there would come a time after He had returned to His Father when false prophets would stream into the church and try to turn people against the real Christ.

And his apostle John says just a few decades later, “It’s already happening. We are in the last hour.”

John’s readers had heard that there was going to be THE antichrist with a capital A. That’s probably the “Man of Sin” talked about in 2 Thessalonians, and probably also the person called “The Beast” in the book of Revelation.

Strangely enough, this is the only place in the Bible where the word “antichrist” appears.  The concept is in many places, but here is where we get the word.

They had heard there would be the Antichrist, but even now many antichrists (little against-christs) have come. And that’s how we know that it is the last hour.

And those little against-christs are still among us today–everywhere there is opposition to Jesus.

John, apparently, is talking about a specific group of false teachers who had been hanging out with these true Christians but had recently left. V.19

“They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.”

Now, that’s a little bit of a tongue twister, but the basic idea is obvious. These antichrists had been hanging around, but when they took off they showed their true colors.  Real Christians stick with Christ and His Real Church.

Knowing that these antichrists have shown up on the scene tells John that we are in the last hour.

Now that is a little scary, isn’t it?

We’ve all read in our Bibles about what is going to happen in the last days, and there is a lot there to be nervous about. The emphasis here is that there are false teachers who want to lead us astray.

Are there false teachers today?  Ones that try to infiltrate Christian groups?

You bet there are.

This is the last hour.

But John doesn’t want to scare us.  He wants to encourage us in the last hour.

So, in verse 20, he begins to tell the true believers all of what they have in the last hour that makes the decisive difference.

What Do We Have in the Last Hour?

#1. AN ANOINTING FROM THE HOLY ONE. V.20

“But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.”

Don’t be scared. Yes, it’s the last hour, but you have an anointing from the Holy One!

Now, what does that mean?

It sounds good!  But what does it mean?

Well, we know that physically, an anointing is having oil poured on your head to mark you off as special, holy, and blessed.

But this isn’t talking about literal oil. This is an anointing “from the Holy One.”  It is a spiritual anointing.

In fact, it is the Holy Spirit anointing.

Here’s my best stab in defining what this is:

This anointing in 1 John 2:20 is a blessed gift from God for all true believers of His Holy Spirit energizing the gospel in their hearts.

The anointing of 1 John 2 is a blessed gift from God for all true believers (He says, “you have it” of His Holy Spirit energizing the gospel in their hearts.

I think that it’s a fulfillment of what Jesus promised in John 14:26.

Where Jesus said, “...the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”

“But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.”

That makes you a worthy recipient of this letter. V.21

“I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth.”

You have this anointing from the Holy One, and out of that comes the truth.

Jesus said, “...when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.”

Now, this word “anointing” in Greek is CHRISMA.

And it’s from the same root as CHRIST. Because Christ is the Anointed One, the Messiah, the Anointed One.

And now He has given us His anointing.

Don’t be afraid of the last hour. 
Do not be afraid of antichrists. You have a CHRISMA from the Holy One.

And all of you know the truth.

#2. WE HAVE THE TRUTH.

“I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth.”

Because we have the Holy Spirit who has energized the gospel in our hearts, we have the truth, and no lie comes from the truth.

Isn’t that good news?

Isn’t that a great way to start a new year? Being reminded that we have nothing to fear because we have the truth.

Now, that doesn’t mean that we know everything and everything figured out.  That’s omniscience and it belongs to God alone.

But we know the gospel and we know the outline of how the gospel changes our lives. 
And we know the storyline of the Bible and how we fit into that storyline.

And we know what God has promised and that He always keeps His promises.

We have the truth.  And no lie comes from the truth.  V.22

“Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist–he denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.”

Here’s the truth.  Jesus is the Christ. The man Jesus is the Annointed One promised in the Old Testament and presented in the gospels.

He is the Son of God, and He is God the Son.

Anyone who dies this is antichrist. 

They may or may not be THE antichrist, but they are anti(against)christ if they deny that Jesus is the Christ. If they deny the Son.

This is important.  There are many groups out there that deny that Jesus is the Christ and that Jesus is the Son of God and that Jesus is God the Son.

And those groups have the spirit of antichrist.

Those are lies, and if anyone tries to feed them to you, they must be resisted.

A few months after Pastor Mark Petras went to our Crossroads Church Plant in Altoona, he discovered that they had a man who was attending their church who did not believe that Jesus was God the Son. He said that he believed the Bible, but he denied the Son.  And Pastor Mark and the other elders of that church plant had to put him out of the fellowship because he was believing a heresy and was imbibing the spirit of antichrist.

The same antichrist doctrine is present when someone just wants to believe in God but not believe in Jesus.

We are not Godlians. It’s not enough to just believe in God the Father. V.23

“No one who denies the Son has the Father...”

But here’s the flipside:

“....whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.”:

#3. WE HAVE GOD THE FATHER.

Because we have the truth, we HAVE God the Father.

So, don’t be afraid. Yes, we live in the last hour, but we have God the Father, and that’s having everything!

I love that phrase, don’t you?  “....whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.”

We belong to Him and He belongs to us, and that’s everything!

Here’s the truth to take in to 2013. You have God the Father.

You have His annointing.
You have His truth.
You have Him.

And of course, that means that you also have His Son and His Holy Spirit!

You have everything!

In verse 24, John begins to turn the corner and talk about how we should live in the last hour, but he’s got one more thing to say that we have.

#4. WE HAVE ETERNAL LIFE.  V.24

“See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is what he promised us–even eternal life.”

We have eternal life.

So there is nothing to worry about.

There is nothing in the end times for us to worry about.

What’s the worst that the end times can do to us?

Pain?
Torture?
Death?

So what? We have eternal life.  God has promised it.

And God always keeps His promises.

Does that mean that we should seek suffering and death.  No.

But we have nothing ultimately to fear from it.

Because we have eternal life.

We have an anointing from the Holy One.
We have the truth.
We have God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit.
And we have the eternal life that He has promised.

What more could we need to get through the last hour?

We have everything!

So, what must we do in the last hour?

#1. REMAIN IN CHRIST.  V.24 again.

“See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father.”

That word remain is the same word that Jesus used in the gospel of John chapter 15 when he gave the illustration of the vine and the branches.

Remain. Abide. Stay. Live. Stay connected.

In v.24, it’s to the truth. Stay connected to the gospel “what you have heard form the beginning.”

And if you do that you remain or abide or stay in the Son and in the Father.

Don’t stray from it. V.26

“I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray.”

Those false teachers from verse 19.  They didn’t stay. They didn’t abide. They didn’t remain. They were antichrists.

Don’t join them. Don’t leave the Truth.

Remain.  V.27

“As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit–just as it has taught you, remain in him.”

Remain, remain, remain.

The anointing remains, that blessed gift of the Spirit energizing the gospel in our hearts, that remains.

So that we don’t need anyone to teach us.

Now, that doesn’t mean that we don’t need teachers. John is teaching here, after all. And the Bible says that teachers are God’s gift to the church. I’m teaching right now.

But you don’t need me, ultimately.  I am not the mediator between you and the Lord.

Jesus is. And through His Spirit you have everything you need.

Through His anointing, you have the gospel to apply to all of life.

And that anointing is real, not counterfeit.

It has steered you right so far, and it will continue to do so.

So remain in it.

Remain in Christ.  V.28

“And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.”

The word “continue” is the same root word in Greek as remain. 

Continue in Christ.

Abide in the truth, the opposite of what the false teachers did. Stay steadfast. Persevere. Stick with Christ. Don’t be led astray.

Continue in Christ. Remain in Him.

Why?

“...so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.”

That’s what I want to be. Confident and unashamed when Jesus returns.

Will He return in 2013?

I don’t know. “This is the last hour.”

And we’re 2,000 years closer than when John said that in 1 John 2:18.

The question is not will He return. He will.
The question is not when will He return. He doesn’t want us to know.

The question is will we continue in Christ, will we remain in Him, abiding in Him so that we are confident and unashamed before Him when He comes?

That’s the question.

And if we are that, then we will do what is right. V.29

“If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him.”

If we remain in Him, then we will do what is right, because He is righteous.

If we bail on Christ, it very well may show that we were never Christ’s in the first place.

But we if we do what is right and remain in Christ then it will show that we are have been born of Him.

Have you been born of Him?

John said in his gospel, “To all who received Christ, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.”

Born again.  Born of God. Born by the power of Christ.

If you have not been born of Him, then we invite you to trust in Christ today.

Believe the gospel. Allow the Holy Spirit to energize the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection on your behalf in your heart.

Receive the anointing from the Holy One. Believe the truth.
Get the Father. Receive eternal life.

And if you have all of that, don’t worry about the end of the world!

This is the last hour, but you have everything you need for it.

Just keep going.
Just keep connected.

Just remain in Christ. Connected to Christ.

So that when He appears we may be confident and unashamed before Him at His coming.


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Messages about Essential Christianity
1. A Letter Arrived from John

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