Matthew 24, and what Jesus relates here in this passage has primary reference to the
events that led up to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Matthew 24, and read in verses 1
to 26. And Jesus came out from the temple and was going away when His disciples came
up to point out the temple buildings to Him. And He answered and said to them, Do you not
see all of these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here shall be left upon another
which will not be torn down. And as He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples
came to Him privately saying, Tell us, when will these things be and what will be the
sign of your coming and of the end of the age? And Jesus answered and said to them,
See to it that no one misleads you, for many will come in My name, saying that I am the
Christ and will mislead many. And you will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See
that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end.
Your nation will rise up against nation and kingdom against kingdom and in various places
there will be famines and earthquakes. But all of these things are merely the beginning
of the birth pangs. Then they will deliver you to tribulation and will kill you and you
will be hated by all the nations on account of My name. And at that time many will fall
away and will deliver up one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will
arise and will mislead many. And because lawlessness is increased, most people's love
will grow cold. By the One who endures to the end, He shall be saved. And this Gospel
of the Kingdom shall be preached in the whole world, from witness to all the nations, and
then the end shall come. Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation, which was
spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place, let the reader understand.
Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let him who is on the house top
not go down to get things out that are in his house. And let him who is in the field
not turn back to get his cloak. But woe to those who are with child and to those who
nurse babes in those days. But pray that your flight may not be in the winter or on
a Sabbath. For then there will be a great tribulation such as has not occurred since
the beginning of the world until now nor ever shall. And unless those days have been cut
short, no life would have been saved. But for the sake of the elect, those days shall
be cut short. And then if anyone says to you, behold, here is the Christ, or there He is,
do not believe Him. For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great
signs and wonders so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect. Behold, I've told you in advance.
If therefore they say to you, behold, He is in the wilderness, do not go forth. Or behold,
He is in the inner rooms. Do not believe them.
And reading from verse 36 through 45. And this particular passage of scripture is generally
understood as to refer to the antichrist or the man of lawlessness that Paul speaks about
over in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. So that's Daniel chapter 11 and reading from verse 36.
Then the king will do as he pleases, and he will exalt and magnify himself above every
God. He will speak monstrous things against the God of gods, and he will prosper until
the indignation is finished, for that which is decreed will be done. He will show no regard
for the gods of his fathers or for the desire of women, nor will he show regard for any
other god, for he will magnify himself above them all. But instead he will honor a god
of fortresses, a god whom his fathers did not know. He will honor him with gold and
silver and costly stones and treasures. He will take action against the strongest of
fortresses with the help of a foreign god. He will give great honor to those who acknowledge
him. He will cause them to rule over many. He will parcel out land for a price. And at
the end of the time the king of the south will collide with him, and the king of the
north will storm against him with chariots, with horsemen and with many ships. He will
enter countries, overflow them and pass through. He will also enter the beautiful land. Many
countries will fall, but these will be rescued out of his hand, Edom, Moab, and the foremost
of the sons of Ammon. Then he will stretch out his hand against other countries, and
the land of Egypt will not escape. He will gain control over the hidden treasures of
gold and silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt, and Libyans and Ethiopians
will follow at his heels. For rumors from the east and from the north will disturb him.
He will go forth with great wrath to destroy and annihilate many. He will pitch the tents
of his royal pavilion between the seas and the beautiful holy mountain, yet he will come
to his end and no one will help him. And now continuing our study in John's epistle and
reading now from 1 John chapter 2 and reading from verse 18. John says, children, it is
the last hour, and just as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many
antichrists have arisen. From this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from
us, but they were not really of us, for if they had been of us, they would have remained
with us. But they went out in order that it might be shown that they are not all of us.
And you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. I have not written to you
because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the
truth. Who is a liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist,
the one who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father.
The one who confesses the Son has the Father also. And as for you, let that abide in you
which you heard from the beginning. If what you have heard from the beginning abides in
you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise which
He Himself made to us eternal life. These things I have written to you concerning those
who are trying to deceive you. And as for you, the anointing which you receive from
Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you. But as His anointing
teaches you about all things and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you,
you abide in Him. Well, let us come before the Lord in prayer.
And ask God to be with us as we consider this His Holy Word. Heavenly Father, may Your Holy
Spirit guide and lead us now. Help us to understand these things that the Apostle John wrote under
the inspiration of Your Holy Spirit. May You speak to us. Give us hearts, Lord, to respond
in faith. And may You lift up Your servant to speak Your Word in truth. In Christ's name
we pray. Amen. Well, as you would all be aware, that it
is indeed today Reformation Sunday. That is the last Sunday in October wherein we celebrate
what happened many, many years ago back in the year 1517 when Martin Luther, a Roman
Catholic monk, in protest against error within the church, actually pinned 95 theses to the
door of the Wittenberg Church. In those days you didn't pin the things to a notice board.
You pinned them to the church door and it was sort of public notice. You were going
on public notice when you did that. And so he pinned these theses to the door and all
historians today, church historians, acknowledge that that particular event was really the
beginning of the Reformation. Now there would be many people in the church today if you
said and asked them to tell you about the Reformation, they would say, the Reformation?
What was that? When did that occur? What's that all about? There are many people today
in the church who know nothing at all about the Reformation. And that situation has come
about because there are many people in the leadership of the church today who would say,
well, look, you know, you don't have to worry about the Reformation. Really it was just
an interesting event in history. It really doesn't have any relevance today and you might
as well just forget about it and get on with living in the present. And now weeks of this
afternoon actually addressed something of that sort of problem. And there are those
people who would say, well, you know, the Reformation was unnecessary and so on. But
what I would submit to you is this, that the Reformation was something that was very, very
important because essentially the Reformation was a work of God's Spirit in the church.
You see, essentially the Reformation was a protest against error and there was substantial error in
the church at that time. And I mean substantial and all-embracing because the people in the
church, and I might say that the churches were full, but even though the churches were full,
the greater majority of people were in darkness. And that is because there was a false teaching,
there was a false Gospel being preached in the church and taught in the church. And this came
to a head with a certain character by the name of Tetzl, Johann Tetzl, came to Germany to get funds
for the building of St. Peter's in Rome. There's a great big church building in Rome today. When
Carol and I were in Rome, we went to see it. I didn't get to go in because I was wearing shorts.
Carol was able to get in because she was wearing a dress. Apparently they don't like bare legs in
there for some reason or other. And it just wasn't, we weren't able to get back to the hotel and get
long trousers on. So I stood out and just looked in and Carol went into St. Peter's. But this fellow
by the name of Tetzl was seeking to get money to pay for the building, which is a massive building
in St. Peter's Square there. And what he was doing was selling indulgences. And what that meant is
this. The belief was that your relatives were in purgatory. And if you cared about them, you would
give money to the church and that would release your relatives out of purgatory if you gave money
to the church. And the more money that you gave, the quicker it was for your relatives to get out
of purgatory. And along this line, the church was able to secure quite a lot of money because people
are always concerned about their relatives and doing what they could to secure their release
from purgatory. Of course, none of it you find in the Bible, but this was the teaching that was
going on in the church. Martin Luther saw this going on and he was deeply offended by it. And
that was what his 95 Theses were about. He was saying, look, you don't understand the Gospel. And
Martin Luther himself went through a struggle and God was pleased to open up his eyes to the truth
of the Gospel. Now you say, well, yeah, okay, that's interesting history. But what does it
have to do with us today? And the answer is that there is a substantial movement in the church
today that is going straight back to those same older eras. I only this week received the last
edition of the Banner of Truth and the whole of the Banner of Truth, this Christian publication,
is dealing with exactly the problem of a significant movement in the church today that
is having an impact even in Presbyterian and Reform churches that is moving back to the very
eras that Rome embraced, that Rome embraces, and indeed caused Martin Luther to begin or rather,
I would put it this way, it wasn't exactly Martin Luther who began the Reformation. But I think that
what we have to say is that God worked in Martin Luther in a very wonderful manner. And of course,
many of the other Reformers to lift the church out of error and to bring the church back to
understand the truth of the Gospel. And it shouldn't really surprise us that the church
has this tendency to fall into error. In fact, the very reason I'm mentioning all these things
is because in this Epistle of John, the Apostle John is dealing with error in his day. And there
had been a significant number of people in his day who had been in the church and who had been
led into serious error. And what John does in this Epistle is he writes the Epistle in order
to warn Christians that against these errors, the fact that there's always going to be a problem
for the church in battling against error. But not only does he write this to warn, he also writes
this letter to encourage Christians not to lose heart in their fight against error, because
ultimately the devil can never ever lead any of God's genuine saints away from the truth. That
God's saints, that is those who are genuine children of God, will never ever be ultimately
led into error. They might be swayed a little, but no true child of God will ever be absolutely
and totally led into error. And that's the theme really that I want to take up this evening. So I
draw your attention to what the Apostle John has to say in verse 18. So if you've got your Bibles
there, I draw your attention to what he says in 1 John chapter 2 and verse 18, and I'll read it
to you. These are the words there in verse 18. He says, Children, it is the last hour. And just
as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, even now many Antichrists have arisen. From this we
know that it is the last hour. Now, if you're like me, you would say immediately, you would ask the
question, what precisely does John mean by the last hour? Does he mean that there is only one hour
to go before Jesus Christ is going to return? Does he mean that? Well, obviously, when he speaks
about the last hour, he's not speaking literally. He's not speaking about a literal hour. He's
speaking in a sort of figurative term, that this is the last hour. Now, I think that what you can
say, and I'm quite confident that this is true, that the term last hour is very similar to another
phrase, which is the last days. And you'll actually, if you're familiar with the Bible,
reasonably familiar with it, you will know that the New Testament, quite often the words, the
last days comes up. And the term the last hour and the last days is really just a different way
of saying the same thing. And some people understand the last days or the last hour as
referring to that period of time that immediately precedes the second coming. So a lot of Christians,
if you say the Bible speaks about the last days, they think of that period of time immediately
prior to the second coming. And what I want to say to you is that that's a mistake, because the word
the last days or the last hour actually refer to the entire period of time from Christ's first
coming to his second coming. So the entire age that we're in is the last days or the last hour.
That's really the significance of this phrase here, the last hour. John is not talking about
those days immediately before the second coming, he is not talking about a certain period of time
in his own day, but he's really speaking about the entire period that would transpire between
Christ's first coming and Christ's second coming. Now I'm not about to try to go into depth to prove
that particular point, but if any of you have got any doubt about that, I'd be more than happy to
talk to you, but I'd also encourage you to go to your concordances and just check out these phrases
in the Bible and you will see that what I'm saying is sound and true. So then John is speaking about
the entire period that from his own day right up until the end of the age. And incidentally,
if you just check out verse 28, you'll notice that he is speaking about events that lead up to
the second coming. And what he is saying in this passage is this, he is saying throughout this
entire period, there will be the operation of the Antichrist spirit. He says, children, it is the
last hour and just as you have heard, that Antichrist is coming. Now John, the next question,
the obvious question is, what did John mean by the Antichrist? Did John have in mind a single
individual who is yet to emerge in history just prior to the second coming? Well, I believe that
the scripture does give us an indication that there is this powerful force of evil at work in
the world and may well manifest itself in some specific individual just prior to the coming of
the Lord Jesus Christ. But really what John is speaking about here is not so much a specific
individual as rather a force of evil that is operating in the world, the spirit of Antichrist.
Now you can easily prove that this is the case. If you just open your Bibles to 1 John chapter 4
and verses 1 to 3, let me just read to you what John says in that passage and it makes it quite
clear that he's talking about evil forces, not necessarily one specific individual. In 1 John 4
verses 1 to 3, he says, beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether
they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know
the Spirit of God, every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come into the flesh is from
God and every spirit does not confess Jesus is not from God. And this, note that, this is the
spirit of Antichrist which you have heard that it is coming, and note this, and now is already in
the world. So this force, this evil force was in the world in John's day and he says and it is
coming also. In other words, it will characterise the whole of the age that this is an evil power
and it has behind it one Mastermind. And who is that Mastermind? The ancient serpent who tempted
Eve in the Garden of Eden, none other than Satan, none other than the devil or Beelzebub or the
Prince of Darkness and the other names that he has given in scripture. Now the interesting thing
that you find when you begin to look at the era that John was dealing with in his day and as you
examine cults as they have emerged down through the ages, the interesting thing that you find
about all these cults is that there is nothing new about them. The same old heresies get rehashed
over and over again. I mean the heresy in John's day is certainly repeated in Christian science
because basically the heresy that John was dealing with was a view that all matter is evil.
Well you go and check out the writings of Mary Baker Eddy who was the founder of Christian
Science and you will find that essentially Christian Science has much in common with
exactly the sort of problem that John was dealing with in his own day. A denial that
Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, you find that exactly in Christian Science. A denial of sin,
you find that in Christian Science it was there in John's day. And so there is nothing new about
these heresies. Another feature of this heresy in John's day was a denial of the deity of Jesus
Christ, the denial of his virgin birth. And those are exactly the sorts of things that you find
today in many of the cults. I mean the Jehovah's Witnesses for example, they deny that Jesus
of Nazareth is God in the flesh. They say he is a God but that he is not the God. Well that heresy
has surfaced over and over again. It was there in John's day. It surfaced about 400 years later
or 300 years later with the Arians, a man by the name of Arius who was an elder in the church but
got off the track into this heresy and led many people astray. And today you find it
in the Jehovah's Witnesses. Same old error being brought out over and over again. And why is that
the case? And the answer is because the author of these cults, of these errors that keep on
surfacing, the author of them is none other than the devil himself. Now I mentioned before
that I received the Banner of Truth, this Christian magazine, and it was talking about
a certain error that has surfaced today. Let me tell you a little bit about it. This new error
is known as the new perspective, particularly upon justification, the doctrine of justification.
Its chief proponents are a man by the name of E.J. Sanders, James Dunn and Tom Wright.
Actually, I have a book written by Tom Wright on my shelf. And these people present a new approach
on justification. What they are saying is this. They're saying, oh, well, you know, Martin Luther
really was mistaken. He didn't get it right. He misunderstood the Pharisees. He didn't really
understand where they were coming from. He misunderstood justification. He completely
misunderstood Paul. Here is the way that we should really understand Paul.
Now, when you begin to examine these writings, what you discover is this. You discover that these
people, this so-called new perspective is really nothing other than an old perspective. It's the
same perspective that you find in the Roman Catholic Church, where there is a considerable
misunderstanding of the doctrine of salvation. Not just a misunderstanding, but a heretical view
of salvation. Now, look, I'm not backward in saying this. The fact is that the Roman Catholic
Church today, as at the time of the Reformation, teaches a false Gospel. Basically, the Gospel that
Rome teaches is this in a nutshell. It says that man cooperates with God in his own salvation,
that God does part of the work, but man has to supply his part. And if man doesn't supply
enough when he dies, he'll have to go to purgatory, where he can make up the deficiency
until he has actually worked up enough merit to actually get himself into heaven. That's why the
Roman Catholic Church has this idea of purgatory, because it gives the opportunity after death
of working up further merit so that you can actually get into heaven. They're not saying
that it is all of man's works. The Roman Catholic Church is not saying that. It's saying God has
done something toward our salvation, but man has got to put his bit into it in order for it to
save us. We've got to contribute. Now, the Reformers said, No, Jesus Christ did everything for us
by dying on that cross and living a righteous life, so that in Christ, all my guilt is
transferred to him when I come to put faith in him, and all his righteousness is transferred
over to me. And then I'm accepted by God purely and solely in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And my contribution doesn't establish the ground of my acceptance with God.
My contribution as living for Christ is the outworking. It is the result. It is not the
actual cause of my salvation. That is the teaching of Scripture. But this new perspective
is going straight back into the era of Rome. And if you know anything about it,
you know that what I'm saying is true. Now, it is important that we realise this fact as Christians,
that there is, in fact, a sinister power of evil at work in the world that is very persuasive
and very, very powerful. It was very persuasive and very powerful in John's day,
because many of these people that John knew and other members in that church knew, they had
fallen away from the church. As Paul says in 1 John 2.19, they went out from us, but they were
not really of us. For if they had been of us, they would have remained with us. But they went out
in order that it might be shown that they are all not of us. So he says, they went out from us.
And so these were people that the people in the church knew. They had been members, and they had
been perceived to be genuine Christians at one time. But they had been deceived. They had been
drawn into these eras, and they had actually fallen away. You see, it was a very, very powerful
influence. And people in the churches were succumbing to this influence. You know, we just
received recently note of a particular church in America, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church,
one of their elders was apparently up on a charge of actually embracing these new perspectives
that I spoke about, that he had fallen into error. And the tragedy is that he was brought
up on this charge, and the church actually acquitted him, because it's gone soft on the
truth. Now, if that church really loved that elder, they would have disciplined him. They
would have said, what you now hold is a lie. You are to repent from it, and you're turned back to God.
But apparently, they didn't do it. And there are problems in the church, because you see,
these are powerful influences. And it's very easy to be taken in by them. And some of the
leaders of these new ideas are very, very influential people. They seem to have an ability
to influence people and to get large amounts of people to follow them. You go and check the story
of people like Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon cult, or Charles Taz Russell, the founder
of the Jehovah's Witnesses. And what is staggering is that these men seem to have an ability
to be able to promote their error and be able to get people believing it. They made lots of money,
and they became very influential. And I mean, how Joseph Smith ever did it, the man was a
half-wit moron. I mean, he really was. You just have to read his story. And it is difficult to
believe how a half-wit like Joseph Smith could have ever started off a cult that is now five,
I think, something like seven million Mormons in the world. And it's hard to believe that so
many people could be deceived by a half-wit like Joseph Smith. How do you explain that?
And the answer is because these doctrines are doctrines of demons, that Joseph Smith was
moved and led by evil spirits to do what he did. And people get caught up in these.
You know, I remember, I was out in the country, and some people in my congregation said that
their daughter was caught up in the Jehovah's Witnesses. And they said,
Would you go and speak to her? I said, No worries. I'll go out there. So I go trotting out to this
farm. And I spent half the night, I mean, I didn't get home until about three o'clock in the morning
or something. And I went there armed with all my arguments. And I thought, I'm going to really
smash these arguments of these Jehovah's Witnesses. Well, I came back, I have to admit,
with my towel between my legs. I brought every argument that I knew, and it didn't get anywhere.
It was just like water off a duck's back. And I wasn't able to, it seems, have much
impact upon these people who were thoroughly entrenched in the Jehovah's Witnesses era.
And what it did make me realize is this, is that Satan is like a big spider who builds his web.
And, and people are like flies that get caught in it. And outside of a gracious work of God,
actually breaking the grip of that net upon them, these people will never ever
be brought out of their era. It needs a supernatural work of God to deliver them.
Now, we might well ask the question, how is it that people who are in the church can actually
be led away into error? How do we explain that? Does it mean and should we believe
that that genuine Christians are able to be stolen away by the devil and led into error?
And John has an answer for us in this regard, because he says in verse 19,
they went out from us, but they were not really of us. Now, what John is saying is this,
that these people, yes, they left, but the fact that they were led into error,
and they are now clearly caught up in that error, absolutely. He says, what that really teaches us
is that they were never really of us. He says, I go on, for if they had been of us,
they would have remained. So these people went out. Why did they go out? Well, they went out,
because they were never genuine Christians in the first place. Let me just draw your attention to
verse 20. Because John says something very significant in verse 20. He says, and now he's
speaking to the Christians who are in the church. He says, but you have an anointing from the Holy
One, and you all know. Now, it makes it clear in the next verse that what he means by you all know
is that you all know the truth. You haven't been led into error like they were. Why is that,
says John? Because you have an anointing from the Holy One. And you might say, well, what does John
mean by this anointing from the Holy One? And this is where it's always a good thing to go to
other parts of the Bible to answer a question like this. And if you go to second Corinthians,
chapter one, verses 21 and 22, that's first second Corinthians chapter one, verses 21 and 22,
you will read this. Now he who establishes us with you in Christ, and anointed us is God.
So there Paul says the one who has anointed us is God. And then he tells us what the anointing is,
who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit. So this anointing that the Apostle John is speaking
about in 1 John 2 20 is an anointing that God does. And it is an anointing with the Holy Spirit.
What you can say, in other words, it is the baptism in the Holy Spirit, is the reception
of the Holy Spirit whom we receive when we become Christians. Bible makes it quite clear
that when we become Christians, the Holy Spirit comes into our life. And what John is saying is,
look, the reason that you didn't get led into error is because you have this anointing. You
have the Holy Spirit in you. And because the Holy Spirit is in you, He looks after you and
make sure that you don't fall into major error. Now, that's not to say, of course, that Christians
couldn't be led away into error for a little while. Sometimes we are, we might be in a rather
poor state spiritually. And we might listen to a good argument. And we might momentarily,
or we might even for a period of time be led into some sort of error. But if we have the
Holy Spirit in us, we will never be led into such serious heresies that would cause us to
lose our faith. Because Paul, because John is saying here, that's absolutely impossible.
The reason that they were led into serious error is because they were never ever born again. They
hadn't received the Holy Spirit. If they had the Holy Spirit, if they had really been of us,
they would have remained. The very fact that they went out proves very, very clearly that they were
never really of us in the first place. Now, I draw your attention to another very important statement
that John makes. For he says, for if they had been of us, they would have remained. In other words,
the thing that you can say about people that are genuinely born again is that they will remain
essentially on the straight and narrow. They're not going to be moved aside and left in the dark.
Just read, I think it's very instructive to read Pilgrim's Progress. John Bunyan picks this up.
Here's Pilgrim on this journey. And there are various problems along the way. And he goes off
on this tangent. And he goes off on that side road, and so forth. But ultimately, he ends up
at the Celestial City. And that is true for the Christian. Yes, we might go off course a little
bit. But if we are true, we will remain on the straight and narrow, because the Holy Spirit is
there to protect us. And my thoughts now go back to what I was speaking about this morning in
Romans chapter eight, that there is this unbroken chain, that if God foreknew us, that is if He
loved us before time, He also predestined us, He also called us, He also justified us,
and He will most certainly glorify us in the future. There's an unbroken chain. And it begins
with God loving us before time. And it ends up with our glorification in heaven. In other words,
you could put it this way. If we are among the elect of God, then God wrote your name and my
name in the Lamb's Book of Life before the foundation of the world. And absolutely nothing
in this world can blot your name out of the Lamb's Book of Life, if God wrote it there,
right at the very beginning. No matter how persuasive an error may be, no matter how great
these errors are that are always coming, and we're always fighting against them, no matter
how great they are, because we have the Holy Spirit, we will never ultimately be led into
serious error, but rather we will be kept on the straight and narrow by the operation of God's
Spirit within us. So really, what John is saying in this epistle is this, essentially, yes, the
Spirit of Antichrist is at work in the world. And this Spirit of Antichrist is a very powerful error.
It's a great force, and it will keep on pushing out the same basic errors.
And yes, many people who profess to be Christians in the church will be seduced and will fall into
these errors. But don't worry, because if you've got the Holy Spirit in you, if God has really
anointed you with His Holy Spirit, there's no way in the world that the devil's going to get you.
There's nothing in the whole world that can separate you from God, because God loves you and
He loves you from the foundation of the world, and He will make sure that you stay on the straight
and narrow. Satan is not ultimately going to get you. Now that doesn't mean that you can say,
oh, well, I can rest back and I don't have to worry about anything. No. But this is an
encouragement that we don't need to be overcome, but rather keep on persevering, knowing that
Jesus Christ will never desert us, and that if we look to Him, He will keep us from error.
Well, we're going to turn to our concluding hymn, the hymn 507, I'm not ashamed to own my Lord.