1 John 2 - Warning Against Worldliness and False Teachers

Tom Shrader examines 1 John 2:12-27, giving four reasons Christians should not love the world system: because of who they are as God's children, what the world is, what it does to believers, and where it's ultimately going. He then warns about antichrists and false teachers who arise from within the church itself, emphasizing that believers must test all teaching against the person and work of Jesus Christ.

“The world says your net worth translates to your personal worth, but we are not to love the world because of who we are as part of the family of God.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: 1 John

Recorded: February 09, 1989

Duration: 44 min

Themes: worldliness, family, identity, discernment, materialism, testing, warning, values, new believer, struggling with materialism, facing false teaching, questioning identity, parent, mentor, young adult, church member

Scripture: 1 John 2:12-27, 1 John 4:1-6, James 4:13-17, 2 Timothy 3:1-7, 1 Corinthians 7:31, 1 Timothy 4, 2 Peter 2

Theological Themes: antichrist, false teaching, spiritual warfare, adoption, sanctification, biblical discernment, hermeneutics, eschatology

Full Transcript

Last week, the tape didn't function for verse 15. We spent essentially the entire 45 minutes, which are now somewhere out in space, on 1 John chapter 2 and the 15th verse. John has just said to us, "Do not love the world."

By way of summary, to try to capture that 45 minutes and condense it to five, and also to try to tie together the last three or four weeks, let me give you four reasons not to love this world. Four very simple reasons, and they're all right there in this text that we've been looking at.

First Reason: Because of Who We Are

The first reason is in verse 12 through 14. John says you and I are not to love this world because of who we are. Can I say this to you one more time, and please don't ever forget it? When you come to Christ in repentance and faith, you become one of His kids and you're adopted into His family.

There are two families in the world that are struggling against each other. There's the family of God and the family of Satan, two forces in the world. Some call it good and evil, and there are all kinds of different descriptions, but it's essentially this: there's the family of God and the family of the world, and they're at war with one another. If you come to Christ in repentance and faith, you're part of the family of God.

That's why, when you go into certain churches, you'll walk in and they don't know you from Adam and they'll say, "Hello, brother." You are part of the same family. We know the reality and we know the truth of this. Many of us in this room have closer relationships with people with whom we have nothing in common and maybe we've only met for a half hour, but we're closer to them because of our relationship with Christ than some of our very own brothers and sisters, blood brothers and blood sisters. Because we're part of the family of God.

John delivers a very important message. He said, "I don't want you to love this world." Here's why: first, because of who you are—part of the family of God.

Second Reason: Because of What the World Is

Here's a second reason not to love the world. It's in verse 15. It's because of what the world is. He said, "Don't love this world or the things of this world. If anyone loves this world, the love of the Father is not in Him." James tells us, if you love this world, you are an enemy of God.

When we talk about this world, we don't mean the planet and we don't mean mankind. We mean the world's system, the world's value system. Here's a phrase that I picked up and it just—I'd love to think it was original. I hope it is. It's in my brain. I don't know where it came from, so I'll take credit for it. But here's the phrase that I've been using lately: the world says your net worth translates to your personal worth. The world says your net value is your personal value. How much you have and what you have determines in the world system whether you're of value at all.

The world system is going to respond to those with power, those in positions of power and those with money. It says it's far more important to have wealth than to have personal integrity. The world system encourages that. Oh, every once in a while we crack down and say we don't want you using those steroids and we don't want you cheating, so we'll give you a little slap on the wrist so everybody understands it.

We are coming up to that time. We are now just two months away from that crisis date for all of us, April 15th, when personal integrity really gets placed in the back burner and it's time to do taxes. "Well, I traveled, but I don't have exactly that... oh, it was like 300 miles, that trip down to Park Central and back. So let's just write that 300 miles off. I mean, that's about what it was."

The world system says, "Everybody's doing it." Understand this, men, everybody is not doing it. And it is not right even if everybody does it. The world system and God's system are at war. The world system has an agenda. It's different than God's system. It may overlap once in a while, but they're in conflict ultimately. We are not to love the world because of the world system, what it is.

Third Reason: Because of What the World Does

Here's the third reason, verse 15 and verse 16, because of what the world system does. It lures you. It will kill you. It will tempt you with the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life. The world system is out to get you and to choke you. It will kill you. It will destroy you. It will pull you away from God.

The more you're into the world system, the more you're out of God things. It just gets a hold of you and it pulls you. All of a sudden, you're a person pulled in two directions. Some of the most miserable people I know, and I know a lot of miserable people, but some of the most miserable people I know are those Christians that are pulled in two directions. They have one foot in the world things and one foot in the God things. They're trying to do the Christian straddle and they're going to kill themselves. It is miserable because the world system kills you. That's what it's designed to do.

Fourth Reason: Because of Where It's Going

Lastly, we're not to love the world system because of what we look at today. Verse 17, the world is passing away, and also it's lost forever. Here's the fourth reason we are not to love the world system: because of where it's going. It's going absolutely nowhere. It will destroy itself.

Here's what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 7:31: "Those in frequent contact with the exciting things the world offers should make good use of their opportunities without stopping to enjoy them. The world in its present form will soon be gone." That's a theme all through the Bible. In the book of Proverbs, in the book of Psalms, we hear over and over again, the world's passing away. It's going to be like a flower that withers up one day and dies and is blown away.

Keep your finger in 1 John and head to the left through 1 and 2 Peter to the little book of James.

The Temporary Nature of Life

James chapter 4, verse 13. This is James writing to you and me, and he's saying this. He said, "Come now you who say today or tomorrow will go to such and such a town, spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit." This was obviously written in about 85, 86 when the market was a little better. You could go into a town and make a profit, but these were in the old days. But the word is timeless.

He said, "Today or tomorrow we shall go to such and such a town and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit." Yet you're saying that, but He said, "Do you not know that your life, you don't know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes."

We had a chance last Friday night—we were invited to come to a thirties married couple's Valentine's night and to do a Valentine's night message. I'm not a Valentine's night kind of guy. That's just not my specialty and I'm not good at that. So I put together this message that was okay. It was going, it wasn't that bad. The way I delivered it was bad.

We're driving down and I just said to Susan, "I just don't feel like doing this. I don't want to do this. I mean, this is silly. We're going to talk about silly stuff. I'm not even in a loving marriage. They've got me trying to be cute. That's not me. I want to talk about dying. I mean, I want to talk about that stuff." And she said, "Tom, they did not invite you here to talk about dying. They're trying to have a nice night out. Don't ruin it for them."

So I got up and I started and I had my opening stories and they worked. Then I got into this message and it's going nowhere. Five minutes into it, there's a lady sitting about two tables back and she gets her purse and she flips open her compact and starts putting on her lipstick. So I knew I didn't have her. It felt as though she was speaking for everybody.

So I figure if I don't have them anyway, I'm going to talk about dying. I mean, if I don't have them anyway. So I went into my long thing and I said, "Look, do you understand that you look good now? Look how good you look tonight. Do you know in just a matter of time, we don't know how long, you're going to be dead." When we finished, Susan and I said, "Come on, Susan." And out the back door we went, we got to the car. I said, "Let me just tell you one thing. You get to the bank Monday morning first thing and cash that honorarium check, because once the bank opens, they're going to be in there canceling that baby. So don't let them get away."

The Message We Can't Avoid

But see, I can't help it. I'm hung up on this message because it has such an effect on my life. That's why I love it when we can finally get to it. This world is temporary.

Now here's what James is not saying. He's not saying don't go out and plan. Don't have a purpose for your life and goals. We need that. We need to have goals. We need to have a purpose. We need to have direction. We need to know where we're going.

We need to plan for those times when we'll be retired. We need to plan for those hard times. We need to put money away in the good times. We need to have a plan for a car. We need to have plans. We need to have a plan in our business.

What James is saying is this: write those plans in pencil and understand that you've given God the eraser. You write them, that's good. You do the best you can, that's great, but understand that it's all subject to God and what God has in plan for you. And ultimately, you don't know even if you're going to be here tomorrow or not. You don't know.

Life Is But a Vapor

My favorite illustration of this, and I think it's got to be the most poignant illustration I can imagine, was three years ago when the space shuttle Challenger took off. I remember watching that, that was so exhilarating. I don't know what it would be like to be there, to watch that thing rise and watch the flames come out and watch them go up. At about two minutes and 20 seconds, you can hear mission control say, "Go to full power." You can just see that full power and you can just see that shuttle all of a sudden shoot off. And then all of a sudden, poof.

I thought, life is but a vapor. That's a graphic illustration of all of our lives. If we could timeline eternity, which we can't, this little dot that's hardly visible under the microscope is your life and mine. That's how long we have.

John is saying, "I don't want you to get involved in this world because the world system is going to pass away. It ultimately is going to fade into oblivion." If somehow it survives you, you will pass away and fade into oblivion. Well, you don't fade into oblivion. You'll pass away and you'll spend eternity either in heaven or hell. That's what the Bible says clearly.

Making Eternal Investments

Here's what He's saying. Grab a hold of this. He's saying today you're going to make an investment. Maybe you didn't plan on it, haven't talked to a broker, haven't read the Wall Street Journal, don't have the data in, don't know what Kiplinger says, but you're going to invest today. You're going to invest your time and your energy and your money in something.

Here's what James says: invest it where the return is eternal. Invest it where there's eternal rewards. Now He's not calling us all to quit our jobs. That's not what He's saying at all. But He's saying you go about with the understanding that all this is temporary and the things that I do for God, the time I invest in people, the time that I invest in His work is what lasts. You can do that right in the context of where you are now, wherever you might be.

That's what John is saying. Back to 1 John, He's saying, "Look, I don't want

The Motivation of Eternity

John doesn't want you involved with the world. He doesn't want you to love the world because of four things: because of who you are, because of what the world is, because the world will kill you (that's what it does), and fourthly, because of where the world is going. The world is going absolutely nowhere. John said, "I want you to grab hold of that, and I want you to understand that," and that will give you a perspective in life.

I've never been much of a motivated guy. I've gone to these seminars and I've watched these guys go through their gyrations, and they kind of get me a little jacked up, and every once in a while I'll go crazy and buy the tapes, and I'll throw those tapes in. But my strength seems to come from when I'm listening to these tapes and some sort of an emotional response.

There is the motivation that I found about a year and a half or two years ago that has absolutely jettisoned me. It has absolutely just thrown me forward with drive and determination, and that's dealing with the fact that this life is temporary and I have a finite amount of time. That really motivates me. I don't know how long it is.

Not a day goes by—some of you may think this is sick, and if it is, I apologize to you—there's not a day goes by that I don't think about dying. There is seldom an hour goes by that I don't think about it. I think about it all the time, not out of fear and trembling. I'm looking forward to it. I was hoping it was going to come last Friday night about 7:20. That was perfect for me. I was ready to go because I know absolutely, dead solid sure where I'm going to spend eternity. I'm going to spend it in heaven, absolutely. Why would I not want to go there? I'm excited about it.

But I'll tell you what, until I go there, here's what He's saying: "I want you to work and work and work and work for My kingdom." There's the tension. Whose kingdom are you going to invest in and whose kingdom are you going to build today? Your kingdom or His kingdom? That's your decision. But He's saying, "I want you to make it," and understand you're making the decision, even if you say, "Well, that was sweet, that was a nice message. I'll think about that tomorrow." There's one day that you've invested in the world while you're thinking about it. You're making a decision one way or the other. That's all John is saying in those verses. That's a condensation of an hour of teaching.

The Deadly Attack from Within

Verse 18, John shifts gears. John is shifting gears on us now, and he's going back to his original thought. It's important to set the ground rules again. John is writing a letter to a group called the Gnostics. John at this time is about 90 years old. The church has been alive for about 60 years. It's gone through some transition.

It's been openly and hostilely attacked. They've taken the Christians out, put them on stakes, thrown gas on them, lit them on fire, used them as torches. They've brought them into the Colosseum and let them wrestle lions. They've been openly attacked. The church has been persecuted in all sorts of ways.

But now, 60 years later, John says, "There's an attack coming that's far more deadly than that." You're saying, "How can it be more deadly than that?" John says, "Because it has long-term effects. It's far more deadly. Here it is: It's the attack from within. It's the subtle attack. Not the overt one, it's the subtle one."

Every time the church has been attacked openly and hostilely, it's grown. When the missionaries were thrown out of China about 35 or 40 years ago, they estimated there were about a million Christians in China. Now, no open doors, no Bibles going in, no missionary programs going in, and the estimates now range from somewhere between 40 to 60 million Christians in China. The church seems to thrive under persecution from without. But it dies from an attack within, and that's what John's talking about.

Warning Against Deception

Verse 18 through 27, John shifts gears. Probably the key verse is verse 26. He tells us in a summary way why he's writing this section. He says this: "These things I've written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you." That's where John's approach is coming from. He is coming and saying, "I want to talk to you about those that are trying to deceive you."

Now, deception is a tough thing. It's a subtle thing. John's saying, "You need to be on the alert." He sets the tone in verse 18. Here it is: "Children"—if you're one who marks in your Bible, at least for me, it's helpful to draw a line between that word "children" and the same word in verse 12. It's the same word in the Greek. It means universal—all of you who are Christians, you're children in this context.

He said, "Children, it's the last hour. Just as you heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many Antichrists have arisen. From this we know that it is the last hour." Let's break that apart.

Understanding the Last Hour

First of all, there's a phrase that appears at the beginning and the end of the verse. It's the little phrase "last hour." Here's what the last hour is. That does not mean he is writing saying Jesus is coming tomorrow. He's saying this: We are in the last hour, which is the time between when Jesus left this earth the first time and when He returns the second time. That whole period in there is the last hour.

Now when His arrival is for the second time, we don't know. Anybody tells you they know, you know for sure it's not then because God says nobody knows the day or the hour. But we're in the last hour and we're 1900 years closer to His arrival now than we were when John wrote these words. We're in the last hour.

Now in the last hour, there are going to be some things that happen. Some of you checked out right there. Last hour, important. That's where we are today. There's some characteristics of the last hour and John is saying, "Look, in the last hour you need to understand something."

Man, he's talking right to you and me right now, today. Keep your finger there. We're going to flip again. This time we're going to go to your left, slowly through 2nd Peter, 1st Peter, James, keep moving, Hebrews, Philemon, Titus, into 2nd Timothy chapter 3.

It's a passage that we have been to probably two or three times in the last six months. We go today again to look at it and pull out the condition of the world today. 2nd Timothy chapter 3. Here's Paul writing to Timothy, he said this: "Realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. Children will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy."

He said look, in the last hours here's what's going to happen. Now all of these conditions have been around from time immemorial, but they're going to intensify. People are going to love themselves. There'll be self everywhere. Self esteem will be a big topic.

The Intensification of Worldly Values

And not only that, they're going to love money. They're going to be obsessed with it. It's going to supersede everything else. I sat with a developer one day and this guy absolutely had it in the wheelhouse. He had millions and millions and millions of dollars and I called him up and went to see him because I heard he just bought a piece of land. I said, are you out of your mind or what? What are you doing making that deal? Why risk it all to make that deal?

He said, "I'll make that deal and I'll make that deal work even if it costs me my family and everything that I have." You sick? He's not sick. Here he is, lovers of money and boastful. Boastful are guys that are proud about things that they don't really have. They'll have $30,000 worth of charge cards.

Remember the guy last week that's in financial trouble? He's got $47,000 worth of charge card bills that he's rotating every month at 17%. I said, you need to go get a gun and just a bullet and just end it all. You're dead. And he is, he's hopeless. He really needs Christ. Boastful—he wanted to be somebody and have you think he was somebody even though he wasn't. And they'll be arrogant about it, the nose will go in the air.

The Breakdown of Natural Relationships

And not only that, there'll be revilers, there'll be disobedience of their parents, ungrateful, unholy. "Unloving," verse 3—important to grab that word. That doesn't mean they just don't like people, that means they hate natural relationships. You'll have parents that hate kids and kids that hate parents.

And we see that about once every six months. Time, Newsweek, well the Wall Street Journal about three months ago had an article of these parents that are saying our biological clock is ticking, we're going to have these kids, we've had them, and frankly they're not that important to us. We're just trying to find a place to put them. We're trying to find good daycare. And if we can't find good daycare, we'll take bad daycare because there's no way this kid's going to interfere with our lifestyle. That's what it means by unloving.

"Irreconcilable, you'll never get these people together. Malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God." Now that describes the world and that's what we've looked at before.

Religion Without Power

I want to show you that all this is done in the context of religion. Verse 5: "Holding"—these are the same people—"holding to a form of godliness although they deny its power." He said, this'll be a nation that'll be torn apart, it'll love itself, it'll love money, love pleasure, it'll be bragging about what it really is when in fact it isn't that at all. It'll be arrogant. But here's what's interesting: it'll do all that in the context of religion.

The self-centered, selfish people will have a belief in God. The American public, 96% of them believe in God. 50% of them say they're born-again Christians. There's no way. There's no way, I don't even need a poll. I can just go down to Fiesta Mall today and tell you there's no way. But they hold to that. They hold to a religion, but here's what they do: they deny its power.

Where does the power come from? It comes from the person of Christ. And they'll do all this in the context of religion. That's what John is saying. Now you've got the context. Now you've got the context of what he's saying.

Always Learning, Never Understanding

And here's the whole way that it wraps together, verse 7: "These people are always learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." What's the truth? Well, the truth is Jesus Christ. Man, that's a description of our country today. Self-centered, selfish, we're breaking natural bonds. We've got parents that hate kids and kids that hate parents and husbands that hate wives. We're irreconcilable, and yet we'll do it in the context of religion. We'll go to church.

Now back to 1 John. Now you've got a background. Now you're going to understand exactly what he's saying.

The Coming Antichrist and Many Antichrists

1 John, chapter 2, verse 18. He said, you've heard that the Antichrist is coming. There is one coming, a single person, a single human being, who will be the Antichrist. He will appear in the world scene and the world will flock to him and worship him ultimately as God. He is obviously not God, he's against God and against Christ, and the world will go to him.

I don't know who it is. Nobody knows who it is, and I, every once in a while, get something in the mail or something on the door and they'll say, Bozo the Clown is the Antichrist. I'll say, well, it couldn't be Bozo. It's not Bozo. But there's a single Antichrist coming. Who he is, we don't know.

But here's what John says: even now there are many Antichrists that are here. He's saying there are many who are part of the Antichrist movement. Now, here's what they are—two characteristics. They're Antichrist, they're opposed to Christ. But two, they counterfeit Christ. They may even come in His name. They may come to the door. I want to talk to you about—

Warning Against Antichrists Among Us

Jesus. See, watch out for those guys. Same words, different dictionary. They talk about Jesus. The Jesus they're talking about is not the Jesus that's in here. Totally different Jesus.

Three or four characteristics—three that we'll pick out today—three characteristics of these Antichrists. Not all of them have the same characteristics, but three characteristics that we'll grab today.

They Come from Within the Church

Here's the first one, verse 19: They went out from us. See, these Antichrists were part of the church. These Antichrists may even be the people up front. They may be the guy in the pulpit. They may be the guy in the three-piece suit. They may be the guy in the robe, or the guy in the collar. They may be the guy teaching a Thursday morning Bible study at the Radisson.

You got to watch out. You got to be on your toes and alert. Because they're in the body of Christ, in the sense that they're there and they're operating. They're teaching religion.

Paul says this to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4: watch out for deceitful spirits. Here's what they do—they advocate doctrine of demons. Peter writes this in 2 Peter 2: They will secretly introduce destructive heresies and ultimately deny the Master. He says watch out for these people, these Antichrists.

It's not going to be somebody who gets up and says, "Well, I just want to tell you, this is all garbage and there was no Jesus and this word is a joke and you people are a joke and just sin and do whatever you want." That's not the... who's going to buy into that? Nobody. No. They're going to come in love. They're going to come with a little bit of scripture thrown in. They're going to say, "Oh yeah, yeah, I read the Bible, I read it all the time. Oh yeah, it's really a basis, it's a good book for me."

Wolves in Sheep's Clothing

I want you to understand that this Antichrist movement will start—or part of it will break out—right in the church, right in the churches. Jesus says at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, He said, "I want you to watch out for wolves in sheep's clothing."

You know what that means? That's not some guy who's gone out and got a sheep and gutted it and thrown it over his head and he's got this sheep on his shoulders. That guy would be fairly easy to smell and spot, wouldn't he? That's not a problem.

Here's what He's saying: the shepherd wore sheep's clothing, the wool. And just as in the Old Testament, the false prophets dressed like the real prophets, in the New Testament and today the false teachers will look like and dress like and be in the place of the real teachers. He says, you better watch out for that.

I've got to watch out for that because that's tricky. I mean that's hard to watch. I can get tripped up.

The Danger of Similar Language

I turned on television the other day and there was a man teaching, and I had never seen this guy before. And I mean he is laying this stuff out and I'm listening to him and I'm thinking, "This is really, really, really good stuff." And he prayed a prayer—it was like he had a direct line to God—and he said "Amen" and he sat down and they opened the lights and this guy was in the middle of teaching to the Mormon senate. He was a Mormon, teaching false doctrine cover to cover.

But man, I'm telling you, I couldn't find it in there. Now I didn't get the whole context so I missed the beginning and I missed the end, but I mean he's laying this stuff out and it isn't even close to true. But it's true enough that we buy into it.

I sat down with a guy one day—we spent four hours talking about doctrine. This guy was from a Mormon church. And we got all done and here's what he said. He said, "Listen, we spent four hours at this. Here's my conclusion: you and I essentially are saying the same thing but saying it a little differently."

I said, "Let me ask you something. Do you believe this is the only infallible word of God?" "No." "Do you believe Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God?" "No." "Do you believe Jesus Christ was a created being or did He always exist?" "He's a created being."

And we went through about six of these and I said, "I'll tell you what's scary. We are saying totally different things in very similar language. That's scary to me."

Boy, watch out guys. You gotta watch out. And somebody will just slide that little thing in there and it's there and you don't even know it's there. And they're in you. They'll use the name Jesus. He says, watch out.

I want you to understand something. These false teachers are going to come from within and the first thing you need to do is understand that.

They Deny the Person of Christ

Here's the second thing. The second thing is in verse 23 and this is truly anti-Christ: "Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father. The one who confesses the Son has the Father." Here's the second way you'll know somebody's an anti-Christ. It's so plain—they will deny the person of Christ. They will ignore Him.

Just flip over and we'll be in it in a couple of weeks. Chapter 4, the same verse. Chapter 4, John writes this. Verse 1: "Beloved, do not believe every spirit"—it's the same thing we're saying today—"but test the spirits to see whether they're from God. Because many false prophets have gone into the world. By this you'll know the spirit of God."

You want to know the acid test? Here's the bottom line: "Every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. And this is the spirit of the anti-Christ. Of which you have heard that is already coming and is now already in the world. You are from God, little children, and you've overcome them. Because greater is He who is in you than he that is in the world."

He said here's a mark of the anti-Christ: He's going to deny Christ.

The Danger of Over-Studying False Doctrine

We have some friends right now that are studying two or three of what I would call cult religions. And they're really into this stuff. I mean, they are studying it and studying it and studying it so they can refute the doctrine and so they can point out the errors. And that's okay, I guess, if you're called to be that. But I'll tell you

Refuting False Doctrine Through Christ's Person

How do you refute false doctrine? You take them to the person of Christ. That's how you refute the doctrine. Everything else is speculation. Everything else you're going to get tied up.

I had a guy tell me the other day that Saturday morning when the knock came at his door, he said, "I said okay, come on in, let's talk." He said, "Five minutes later, they had me tied up in my spiritual underwear. I thought I really knew this stuff, and I mean, they got me so flipped around and sideways I didn't know what they were talking about."

I said, "You don't need that. Here's what you do. You say, 'Who is Jesus Christ?'" See, that's what Christ said. Remember when He was walking along with the disciples? He turned around to them and said, "What's the Gallup poll say that I am? What do the people in Jerusalem say that I am?" They said, "Well, some say you're a prophet. Some say you're Elijah. Some say you're John the Baptist."

And then Jesus asked the question that screams through 2,000 years of history. He said this: "Who do you say that I am?" See, there's the acid test. What do you say? Who do you say that I am? That's the answer to the question. That's the doctrinal answer to what it means to be a Christian.

The True Identity of Christ

Who do you say He is? A good man? Wrong. A prophet? Wrong. A role model for life? Wrong. He's all of those, but they pale in comparison to what He really is. He's God come in the flesh to live a perfect life, to die on the cross to pay the price for your sin and mine. Now, if you get any answer other than that, it's over. That's how you know.

He's saying, "Look, there's some characteristics of these antichrists. They're going to be among us and leave." Here's the second thing: They're going to deny the Master. They're going to deny Christ. In fact, they're going to tell you that you can be like Christ.

The Deception of New Age Teaching

I don't know if you know Shirley MacLaine—and Shirley MacLaine is just one isolated example. We were in the bookstore the other day. I love to go to bookstores; I just feel smart walking in these places. There's a whole rack—one, two, three, four racks of New Age books. They're just garbage. I mean, there's nothing in them other than maybe to start a fire or kindle some wood. I don't know what value they are. They may make you feel good, but they will not deal with the problems of your life because there's no power in them.

Here's what Shirley MacLaine says, and that's the basic message of all that. She says, "Here's what you need to do. You need to stop and chant, 'I and God are one. I and God are one. I and God are one.'" I'm not much of a chanter, but it would go like this: "I and God are one." As you have that communion with God, she changes the verses. Here's what she says now: "Okay, now you've reached that state. Now here's what you say: 'I am God. I am God. I am God.'"

Man, that is sick. You are not God. You are a weak, helpless human being. The power and the value that you have is anything that God gave you. That's where your value is. But boy, they're right there—they'll deny the Master.

The False Promise of Self-Transformation

They don't just deny the Master. There's got to be power somewhere, so they transfer it. They say, "There's power. The power's right in here. You've got the power to change yourself."

No, you don't. You don't have the power to change yourself. You may have the power to change your habits, but see, here's what you need: You don't need to be changed. You don't need to be rehabilitated. You don't need to be reformed. You need to be transformed. Only God can do that when you come to Christ in repentance and faith. Boy, is that clear?

The Danger of Deception

Here's the third thing you'll know about these antichrists. It's verse 26—the verse that we read to start with. They're going to try to take you down with them. They're going to try to deceive you. They're going to have a counterfeit ministry. They're going to change the names to protect the innocent. They're going to be moving things around.

What they're going to want to do is come under false guise and begin to mess around with God's Word. An article in Newsweek last week about the church and the feminists showed how they want to take God's Word and say, "Well, here's what it is. God isn't—God is a spirit. He's not a man. He's just a spirit. So we can all worship God no matter who she might be."

Well, the problem with "who she might be" is that in the original text it's the male gender and it's God the Father. You can't even allow a subtle change of God's Word.

The Importance of Accurate Translation

Dr. John MacArthur was in town last week and he told a great story. Some Bible translators went into the woods down in New Guinea, and they were translating the Word of God. They started with the Gospel of John. The problem is they got to where it said Jesus is the Lamb of the world, and the problem was there were no lambs. These people didn't know what a lamb was.

All they had around that would relate was a pig. So they said, "Behold the pig of the world," or "Behold the pig of God who takes away the sins of the world." All of us, I think, deep down inside would say we've got to applaud that because what they tried to do is make the scripture relevant.

Here's what happened. About 20 years after that, along came some people with new translating techniques—better translating techniques—and they began to translate for these people the entire Old Testament. I want you to understand something. You and I go to the bookstore and we're puzzled by the translations. This tribe that MacArthur was talking about—they had the Gospel of John, the Book of Acts, and I think it was Romans. That's all they had translated. But now they had

The Subtlety of Deception

John and the New Testament: behold the Lamb of God. Now they came in to translate the Old Testament. The problem is this: in the Old Testament a pig represents a curse. And they're sacrificing not pigs but lambs in the Old Testament. So now they go to the people and say, "Well, all we got to do is we got to change this. It's not the pig of God, it's the Lamb of God." And these people said, to their credit, "No, no, no, this is God's Word. We don't want you messing around with it. Don't be changing pig to lamb on us."

See how subtle that is, no matter what the intention is? Boy, you can't mess around with the Word of God. And that's what He's saying. He says watch out for those that are going to deceive you. Watch out for those that try to counterfeit it. Watch out for those that try to make it look like something it's not.

How Can We Discern Truth?

How do you do that? I mean, this stuff is so subtle. How in the world are you ever going to pick up—there's so many nuances. I mean, this stuff, some of it takes a lot of work and it's hard. How are you going to do that? We're going to give you next week some practical advice on how you can tell what is true, but let me be some encouragement to you. You've got within you the Holy Spirit who will guide you and direct you and help you see truth for what it really is.

John's Two-Part Warning

We said at the beginning of this book, 1 John could be written with one giant warning label across it. And today He's warning you and I. He's saying this: I want you to understand two things. One, don't love this world because of who you are and what it is and what it's trying to do to you and where it's going. But He said secondly, watch out for those who will try to trick you, that will really openly lie to you. But any good lie has to be wrapped in a grain of truth—a little bit of sugar helps the medicine go down.

He says watch out for them. They might even be in your church, in your pulpit. They might be here teaching on Thursday morning. He said you better get a hold of this Word and you better understand that that person needs to be teaching the whole Word of God and better be acknowledging Jesus Christ as the master. And watch out, because he'll be right there with you, and he's not there with no agenda at all. He's there to trick you and take you with him.

Next week: the positive side of this coin.

Let's pray. Father, thank You for Your Word. Help us understand that it is true and it is real and it cannot be altered and it should not be changed. Help us be men that are committed to You. Help us be men who have come to the realization that You and Your Word are true and You will last, and the things of Your economy are what last. Father, today help us invest in Your kingdom and Your empire.

Father, we love You and we want to grow with You. That means time in Your Word and time with our brothers and sisters in Christ, times in prayer. We ask You over this next week, Father, to use us in a special way and to make Yourself so clear to us that we just can't help but acknowledge Your working in our life. Thank You for the group and what You're doing in the group. Thank You for the size as it begins to grow, and Father, thank You for the life change that's taking place in here. Help us continue to grow, and Father, help us as we correspond to Your will. Father, change our lives. Watch over us, guide us, and bring us together next week, Lord. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.