ARE YOU AN ANTICHRIST?

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

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. 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.

1 John 2:18-19

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

During His ministry time on earth, Jesus was all about making disciples. Through His coming, born to a virgin named Mary through a divine conception initiated by God, He was the impetus and initiator of salvation, the One who was the prophesied Messiah, the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world (John 1:29).

Given that every created human from the beginning of mankind was a sinner who fell short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23) and was therefore in the crosshairs of God’s judgment with a sure destination of Hell, Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection ushered in a chance for every single person to find pardon and atonement from sin, rescued from Hell and given a place forever in the glorious Kingdom of God (aka Heaven). All one needed to do was believe in Jesus as Savior.

Since that time, there have been those who have chosen to believe and others who have chosen not to. And this is really as simple as it gets when it comes to a person’s eternal future. It’s either Hell or Heaven, a matter of choice as we saw in yesterday’s message from the verses preceding our passage for today. Jesus also had something to say on the subject as we see in His words from Matthew’s gospel:

“Whoever is not with Me is against Me, and whoever does not gather with Me scatters.” 10:30

These words serve to not only reinforce that there are only really two options in life as to the eternal destination of a person, being with Jesus and gaining heaven or being opposed to Him and gaining Hell, but also aiding us in understanding our verses for today as we continue to look at the words of John as found in the second chapter of his first letter. There he writes:

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. 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. Vv.18-19

Here we find the word “antichrist” used in two contexts, present/plural and future/singular.

In regard to the latter, we know the Antichrist, also referred to as the Man of Lawlessness, is a powerful false prophet/Messiah who will come onto the world stage in the end days seeking world domination with a goal of destroying Israel and all Christian believers (Daniel 7 and 9, Mark 13, 2 Thessalonians 2, and Revelation 6 and 13). We know that this Antichrist will be utterly conquered and cast into Hell with Satan at Jesus’ second coming (Revelation 20:10).

As for the antichrists that John mentions in the present tense, they simply represented anyone who opposed Jesus, those who were anti-Christ. In other words, antichrist is a synonym of someone who doesn’t believe in Jesus, those who have chosen to not be with Him.

This tells us that there have been many antichrists in the history of mankind and indeed, there are still many today and still many to come in the future until the day Jesus returns to judge all creation. The main question, born from this Word of God, is simple.

Are you an antichrist?

If you’re a believer in Jesus, the answer is an obvious “no”. You have chosen to be with Jesus, the Savior of every sinner who believes in Him.

If you’re not counted in this number, if up to now you have chosen to oppose Jesus, then today is the day you can change everything for yourself, cancelling your reservation in Hell while booking everlasting life in Heaven.

All you need to do is believe in the One who loved you so much, He was willing to be crucified in your place, dying to atone for every sin you have or will commit so you might be saved from the penalty of Hell.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.