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THE ANTICHRIST SPIRIT (AND ITS CHRISTIAN SUPPORTERS)
Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. [1John 2:22]
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RIDDLE ME THIS
It is said that there are three major monotheistic religions in the world: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Two of these deny that the Lord Jesus is the Messiah. A faction of one of these has formed an alliance with one of the deniers. This same faction hates the other denier. What is this faction?
Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; 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, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us. [1John 2:18-19]
This is one of those passages that is subjected to a strange anomaly inherent within the minds of some believers, that of the past being projected onto the future. It is something many Christians and prophecy teachers are prone to, in that they read such passages as if they refer to present times. They don’t. This passage was written almost two thousand years ago and must only be seen in those terms.
The author of this epistle explicitly states that it is the last hour. He says it twice. These are the only times in Scripture this three word phrase appears. Some versions say the final hour or the last time. That is, way back then, in the mid-first century, it was the last hour. In the mid-first century many antichrists had already appeared and the coming of another was imminent. His arrival was just about to happen and was almost upon them. At the same time, way back then, many former believers had already left the fold.
ONLY 120? WHAT HAPPENED TO THE THOUSANDS?
As I have written here many times, it remains amazing to me that the Lord Jesus was only able to gather a mere 120 people for the original Pentecost. I highly recommend the following article: Bizarro Christianity—It’s Much Worse Than You Think (Part 1). It contains the following statement:
“Perhaps this is why the Lord only managed to gather a mere 120 people for the original Upper Room Experience. Keep in mind, the Lord Jesus was not some podunk rambling rabbi but GOD. He had preached to tens of thousands at a time, but many of these were not sincere. He did every major miracle you can imagine, preached powerfully, taught a perfect and pure message, and then, amazingly, offered Himself up as a perfect sacrifice on our behalf, ROSE FROM THE DEAD, and still only managed to convince a mere 120 people to go to the upper room for ten days and await Pentecost! That’s astonishing, especially in light of today’s easy-believism.”
This fact reveals that there are only very few who are in it for the long haul and really interested in the truth, and will remain with the Lord through thick and thin and much persecution. Most will leave Him and betray Him, just as those did whom John refers to. The same phenomenon has happened throughout Christian history. The majority always falls away into untruth and unbelief, creates counterfeits, and embraces those who hate the Lord.
“But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him. And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.” As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore. So Jesus said to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?” Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.” [John 6:64-69]
It happened throughout the first century. Just as followers of the Lord left Him and walked away on several occasions during His ministry, the same thing happened afterwards. The apostle Paul predicted it would happen in the Ephesus area when he addressed the Ephesian elders in Miletus. That original generation of real believers knew they would have to work overtime and make as big an impact as possible in the very beginning because the enemy would strike back, and that, of course, happened just as Paul said it would:
“Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears.” [Acts 20:28-31]
These are serious charges that Paul made in advance, exactly as the Lord did, especially when He prophesied the fate of Judea and Jerusalem. No one during His time could ever have imagined that the temple would be destroyed as would be Jerusalem, and that what was left of the nation of Israel would be no more forever. But it happened. And the same thing happened to His Community, in that savage wolves came in among them and men arose speaking perverse things. The Lord’s Community itself stayed intact and pure but many left. Many disciples were drawn away. Many made alliances with unbelievers and Lord Jesus deniers. The ones who left could no longer handle being real followers. They showed the lack of love of the Lord by embracing substitutes and counterfeits or running off into oblivion.
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 in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. [1John 4:1-3]
THE FATHER AND SON ARE INDIVISIBLE
Judaism does not confess that the Lord Jesus is the Messiah. Islam does not confess that the Lord Jesus is the Messiah. Whoever denies the Son also denies the Father. This means whatever god these people are serving, it is not the God of the New Covenant Scriptures.
Yet, many Christians are confused on this point. They have been taught and apparently believe that it is possible to somehow serve God and be in relationship with Him while also denying the Son. The Scriptures obviously refute this. The Father and Son are indivisible. Whoever trashes the Son is trashing God. Whoever denies the Son is of the spirit of the antichrist.
For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves, that you do not lose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward. Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting; for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds. [2John 1:7-11] [1]
© 2018 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved.
[1] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
The Christian-Muslim Hate Fest (Part 2)
SWORDBROTHERS
“And I say unto you, you must encourage the Zealot Party among your people to rise up against the Arab occupation. You must also arm yourselves and go forth into the world and kill all those who stand in the way of establishing this gospel of peace. War is what we must have to defeat the heretic and those who fight against my movement. It is common sense that no one will listen otherwise or get the message. Our interests are at stake throughout the world and we must defeat the pagans who will fight our cause.
“Then we can make the necessary peace to spread the gospel. War is our friend in bringing people the good news.”
But then a Zealot spoke up and said, “It is not in our Law to go all through the world and fight, but we must only fight for our homeland, the land God has granted to us as His chosen people.”
“Woe to you! For you think the gospel can somehow be spread without war and murder. You think we can somehow preach the message of peace without fighting against the evil people who hate us and hate our cause!
“Woe to you for thinking that the message of love for all others can be spread without killing those who get in our way and refuse to release their territories for our purposes! We are the ones who are right. All these others in the world are heathens and defiers of our good and honest principles.”
“But sir,” spoke one of the disciples, “How can we love if we kill?”
“It is a fact of life that we must kill or be killed,” he replied. “Otherwise how can we love?”
Then the Zealot said, “Now you are even confusing me…”
“Woe to you! For do you not know that stoning sinners is a fundamental part of the Torah? Do you not know that we must stone those who resist the way of light? How can we have a peaceable and holy community if we allow resisters to exist and fight against us? All who dissent against my holy way must be eliminated. Otherwise evil people will overrun the world and make it impossible to spread the way of peace and allow for the establishment of economic markets that benefit our people.”
“What?!…”
“THIS IS WHAT! Eternal war means eternal peace. Killing sinners is the way of God. Kicking people out of our fellowships who refuse to toe the mark and believe like us is the way of spiritual unity and love. Have you not heard? Love means death for all who rebel. Love means removing all those who are different. Love means blowing the hell out of anything that stands in our way. Love means transforming all people into slaves with no rights to walk as they should. This is the love of God!”
“You know, You have convinced me,” replied the Zealot. “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition! Kill the heretics! Destroy the dissenters! YEE HA!”
American Christians in general insist that Muslims are all about murder and terror and decapitation and killing their enemies with a desire to establish an Islamic Caliphate and rule the world. While I do not disagree with this in general terms in that there is an obvious movement among Muslims for such, and while I know the evidence for Muslim hatred and persecution of Christians is equally obvious, I think many Muslims would rather distance themselves from these strict precepts and find a way to live in peace with some semblance of personal freedom. It is not so much that they want to deny their faith, it is that they want the same thing the peoples of the free world possess. They are seeing that personal liberty is good, though perceived as incombatible with the heart of Islam.
Today, all the Islamists acknowledge that the freedom enjoyed in the West is a hundred times better than in the Islamic countries. [Saudi Scholar ‘Aql Al-Bahili]
But they also see that much of what passes for “Christianity” is hypocritical to the core.
Real Christianity is spreading steadily in Islamic countries through a remarkable underground cell movement, but American Christians either don’t know this, do not care to know it, or resist it. It has largely been censored by our censored mainstream media.
We had the same attitude immediately after World War II when General Douglas MacArthur essentially begged for Christian missionaries to Japan. But Americans in general so hated the Japanese they denied them the Gospel. They didn’t want the “dirty rotten” Japanese to be saved. It was a perfect time of openness toward Christianity for Japan, which MacArthur knew. But the Japanese were denied the opportunity of the Gospel, not only by the American people, but by the American government and the vast majority of American church leaders. There is much blood on their hands as a result.
Of course, if America wants to do the same thing the purveyors of an Islamic Empire want to do, such as invade sovereign nations militarily, set up puppet leaders, kill hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians (like the elderly, the women, the children, and the babies that made up most of the 120,000 Japanese killed immediately by the two atomic bombs dropped on their country), then it is a different story. The overseas Islamic enemy is seen by most American Christians not as potential partakers of the Gospel, but as evil ragheads bent toward our destruction who should be eliminated.
There are many fewer Christians in Iraq now than there were before the Iraq War, for example. The US war with Iraq did not make the country safe for democracy, and certainly not for Christianity. Instead, it created a much worse situation for Christians there and decimated the Christian population, many of whom have fled the country and continue leaving as they are able. Iraqi Christians had more numbers and freedom under Saddam Hussein. Yet, the United States is now on board to attack Iran in the not too distant future and continues to support the possibility of Israel using nuclear weapons against Iran if “forced to.”
Suffice it to say, there will be many war-first American Christians at the Judgment seat of Christ with a lot of explaining to do. And for all those who insist that loving our enemies is a wimpy attitute, these must also believe that the Son of God was the greatest wimp of all time.
© 2012 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved. [Part 2 of 2]
The Christian-Muslim Hate Fest (Part 1)
Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani
The rhetoric against Islam has been growing louder recently. Some of our guys burned some Korans by mistake, apparently, and the usual ultra-overreaction among Muslims has transpired. (But it’s okay for Muslims to burn Bibles.)
Every time this happens it reminds me of what Jewish non-believers did in reaction to the teachings of Jesus and the apostles. There were so many incidents in which those Jewish non-believers went stark raving crazy and instantly wanted to kill and maim and butcher and slander and what have you. They eventually had their way against the Lord. They were responsible for killing many followers of Jesus in those early days. The Gospels and Book of Acts are filled with such incidents. The Lord called the ringleaders children of the devil, and He meant that literally.
Of course, what has often been lost in the conversation is the fact that our Lord Jesus had a perfect Jewish ancestral pedigree, as did all the apostles and every single member of the early community of saints. I remember the humorous anecdote of a friend after his Bible study. He overheard the conversation of two ladies brand new to the preceding knowledge:
“How could Jesus be a Jew when His mother was such a good Catholic?”
They were all Jews (Yes, including Mary). The Lord’s community was a purely Jewish movement then; there were no Gentile converts to the Way of the Lord for about seven to ten years after the Resurrection. Claims of anti-Semitism against the Jewish religious idiots who were responsible for all the carnage are therefore completely disingenuous. The greatest obstacle and problem the apostle Paul ever had, of course, were not Roman government authorities or crazy Goyim, but unbelieving Jews who considered followers of the Lord the vilest creatures on the planet.
This is how many Americans view Muslims. They see them as vile perpetrators of an evil false religion responsible for the deaths and mutilations of thousands. I am certainly not here to defend Islam. Islam in general hates Christianity. It hates Christians. One may not see this underlying hate until something is done to bring it to the surface. The guy in Florida threatens to continue burning Korans as a way to bring attention to the plight of persecuted formerly Muslim Christians in Iran and elsewhere. Conversion to Christianity is anathema to Muslims and those who are doing it are paying dearly. We in the West have concentrated our efforts in this area on the Iranian Christian leader, Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, a former Muslim who remains under a death sentence for converting to Christianity. But there are a great many Muslims who have decided to follow Jesus, certainly in the hundreds of thousands and most likely more.
Rather than attack Islam, I think the better thing to do is shine a light on Christianity. Most “Christians” are not real Christians, and this is why a mere cultural war between these two religions will go nowhere and never has. Real Christianity transforms hearts. Real Christianity is a wholesale turning away from all that opposes the Lord. It is a one hundred percent embracing of Him, all He stands for, and all He teaches. When the early converts actually obeyed the Lord Jesus regarding their conversions and discipleship, incredible things happened. The Book of Acts happened. Miracles happened. They were filled with the actual Spirit of the Lord Jesus and began doing what He did.
Most Christians do not do this. Most Christians do not want to do this. Rather, they find a way not to do it. They find a way to make fun of it, and discount it, and reject it.
The Koran contains many passages about killing infidels and etc. But at least the strict practitioners of Islam actually do what the Koran commands them to do. Can Christians say the same? Do Christians really believe and practice what the Bible teaches?
Of course not. If all Christians did, the effort against Islam would not be fought with weapons of war and hateful rhetoric. This obviously does not mean we should not defend our country! It does not mean we should not fight for freedom. But the Lord stated very clearly that the highest form of freedom is spiritual freedom. He also taught us that we should fight for the liberty of whosover wants it, in that the kingdom of our Lord Jesus is for everyone, regardless of nationality. If we practiced real Christianity, we would not see Muslims as evil incarnate. We would see them the way the Lord sees them, the way He sees us, as those in need of life. That’s what the preaching of the Gospel is supposed to be about, right? Go into all the world and make disciples? Preach about the Lord and the way of salvation for all?
This is exactly what is happening in Muslim countries. Pastor Youcef found salvation after his family was witnessed to by former Muslims who had found the Lord, after they had been witnessed to, etc. Indigenous Christian ministers fighting an underground spiritual war in Iran and the Muslim world are not fighting against Islam; they are fighting against the same forces all real Christians fight against.
But unreal Christians fight in the natural. Rather than love our enemies, as the Lord directly commanded, and which results in salvation for our enemies, false Christians spew hate and wish violence against Muslims for their hateful and often murderous ways.
What self-respecting Christian would ever even think of sharing heaven with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
I seem to recall something in Scripture about a certain future apostle who hated Christians and wanted to kill them all. What ever happened to that guy?
Have we forgotten what the Lord Jesus said as He hung in excruciating pain and abject misery on the cross?
“Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” [Luke 23:34]
Have we forgotten what Stephen said as big jagged rocks hurled like baseballs were tearing his flesh and shattering his bones?
“Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” [Acts 7:60]
Ask yourself what it was that had so incensed the murderers of our Lord Jesus and Stephen. Ask yourself what Pastor Youcef thinks about Muslims even as he sits in jail, separated from his family, with a death sentence hanging over his head. Is he possibly embarrassed by the activity and beliefs of faux Christians who act not from love but hate?
The more fake Christians shine a light on the unchristian dictates of Islam, the more God will shine a light on the unchristian dictates of fake Christianity.
And He said to them, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME. BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.’ Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.”
He was also saying to them, “You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.” [Mark 7:6-9] [1]
The tradition of the unrepentant Jews was in part a murderous tradition. How is it any different from the murderous traditions of unrepentant Muslims and Christians?
© 2012 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved. [Part 1 of 2]
[1] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
