THE ANTICHRIST
DR. JIM DIXON
1 JOHN 2:18-23
JANUARY 3, 1982
This morning, I want to share with you three messages from John the Apostle. The first message is this: Antichrist is coming. John says, “As you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrists have come.” It was a week ago Saturday that a man named Klaus Barbie was deported from Bolivia and flown to France under military guard. There he is to stand trial for alleged crimes against humanity. The former German SS captain and Nazi Gestapo head is said to be responsible for the deaths of more than 11,000 people. The trial of Barbie is the first trial of a ranking Nazi official since the execution of SS Colonel Adolf Eichmann in Israel after a lengthy trial in Tel Aviv more than 20 years ago. In that trial, Adolf Eichmann had to be kept in a glass cage in the courtroom to protect him from the friends and loved ones of his former victims.
But Adolph Eichmann and Klaus Barbie were merely two small shadows of a far more ominous figure. It was on January 30th, 1933, a little more than 50 years ago, that Adolf Hitler came to power as chancellor of the Third Reich, what Germans today referred to as the power grab, the culmination of a long and treacherous quest for power. On that evening of January 30th, thousands of Nazi storm troopers marched through the streets of Berlin. It was the beginning of a cataclysmic series of events that ultimately would shake the continent of Europe. It was the beginning of a force that 12 years later would lead nations broken in its wake.
Today, many people living in Europe can still remember the brown uniforms. They can remember the red armbands, they can remember the swastikas, they can remember the crazed man standing in front of multitudes as the crowds yelled “Hail Hitler.” They can remember the open graves filled with emaciated corpses. They can remember the tortured bodies literally dangling from hooks. They can remember the millions of Jews incinerated in Nazi ovens and all because of a man who has been called a mesmerizing monster, a man whose twisted obsessions led to a world war that took 50 million lives. Today, many people ask how it ever could have happened, and they wondered if somehow it might happen again.
But Adolf Hitler was not unique to world history. History has seen Atilla the Hun, Genghis Khan, Vlad the Impaler, the Roman Nero, Caligula, the Greek Antiochus Epiphanes, they were all butchers. The Bible tells us that at the consummation of the age, at the end of history, there will come one final hideous ruler and John calls him the Antichrist. The Apostle Paul refers to him as the man of lawlessness, the son of perdition. Daniel refers to him as the little horn, the king who shall do according to his will. The king swollen with conceit. The book of Revelation simply refers to him as the beast, because in the sight of God, he will be subhuman.
So we have this message in the scriptures that at the close of the age, Antichrist will rise to power. He will appear as an angel of light. He will seemingly have global solutions to world problems. He will appear to be a man of peace. But he will crave power. He will crave power politically, socially, economically. He will seek to manipulate people by controlling their capacity to buy and sell through the administration of a number. He will seek to change the times. Daniel says that he will establish a new morality. He will exalt himself for he is swollen with conceit. He will persecute the saints. In his hideous quest or power, he will bring the world to the Holocaust called Armageddon. The Apostle Paul speaks of him when he writes to the Thessalonians and he says, “Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our assembling to meet Him, we beg you brethren not to be quickly shaken in mind or excited either by spirit or by word or by letter purporting to be from us to the effect that that day has already come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come until the rebellion comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition who will oppose and exalt himself against every so-called God or object of worship, taking his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains him will do so until he is out of the way, and then the lawless one will be revealed. But the Lord Jesus will slay him by the breath of His mouth and destroy him by His appearing and by His coming. Now the coming of the lawless one by the activity of Satan will be with all power and with pretended signs and wonders and with all wicked deception for those who are to perish because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved.”
We have this consistent testimony throughout the scriptures that Antichrist is coming. But we should understand that biblically Antichrist is far more than a hideous ruler who rises on the stage of history at the close of time. Sometimes the concept of Antichrist is in the first person, singular masculine gender, he. Other times it’s first person, singular neuter gender, it. Sometimes this concept of Antichrist is in the plural, they. We ought to understand that Antichrist is not only a hideous ruler at the close of the age, but it is a nation and an alignment of nations over which that ruler rules. Most of all, biblically, Antichrist is a pervading spirit, diabolical and evil, having its source in Satan. This spirit of Antichrist has been at work in the world since the beginning of humanity. John says, “The spirit of Antichrist is in the world already.” Paul says, “The man of lawlessness is coming. The mystery of lawlessness is already at work.”
Wherever we see fornication, wherever we see adultery, wherever we see immorality, there is the mystery of lawlessness. There is the spirit of Antichrist. Wherever we see atheism, wherever we see secular humanism, wherever we see determinism, there is the spirit of Antichrist. Wherever we see a preoccupation with self, wherever we see egoism, self-exaltation and pride, there is the spirit of Antichrist. Wherever we see a movement towards one world government, wherever we see a movement towards global centralization of power, there is the spirit of Antichrist. Wherever we see a denial of the deity of Jesus Christ, wherever we see spiritual apostacy, either in the context of the institutional church or outside of it, there is the spirit of Antichrist.
So we have this message from John, Antichrist is coming, the enemy of the world, the enemy of Christ, the enemy of the Christian. He is a hideous ruler to come, an alignment of nations of pervading spirit that is at work in the world already. But we have a second message from John, and it is this: as Christians, as those who belong to Jesus Christ, we do not need to fear Antichrist nor the spirit of Antichrist. We do not need to fear, says John, because we have been anointed, we have received the anointing.
Now, many biblical scholars see here a reference to the holy scriptures. They see a reference here to divine revelation. They see a reference to the word of the Gospel given an entrusted to Christians. But most biblical scholars, and I think rightly so, see a reference here to the Holy Spirit himself. He is our anointing. Every one of you who believe in the name of Jesus Christ today have received the Holy Spirit within you. You have been anointed by the Holy Spirit and you need not fear.
This last week, Barb and I received a phone call from a good friend. I should explain something. This good friend loves to phone people up and pretend like he’s someone else. He fakes his voice. Some of you know him, but he’ll go nameless this morning. He loves to phone his grandmother and he pretends he’s someone else. His grandmother works at a Christian bookstore. He called there and he asked for a book that doesn’t exist. He asked for a book called Jesus in Your Back. He explained that this is a new concept that Christ comes into your back and becomes the backbone of your life. And his grandmother began to look for the book, but he’s always calling our house and he’s pretending that he’s someone else. Well, this particular night, Barb and I were gone and the children were home. Heather and Drew were home with a babysitter, and the phone rings and Heather answers the phone. Now you need to understand that Heather does not normally answer the phone. It’s kind of an intimidating experience for her. She feels a little insecure anyway when she picks it up. So she picks it up and the voice at the other end of the phone says, “Heather, this is God.”
Now, Heather is just stunned and she comes unglued and in her excitement and in her disbelief, she just drops the phone and she runs out of the house to a neighbor’s house and the babysitter wonders what’s going on. Well, now Drew, our little five year old, he likes to get to the bottom of things. So he goes over and he picks up the phone. He says, “Who is this?” And the voice says, “Drew, this is God.” Drew says, “Ah, come on.” He says, “God doesn’t talk over the telephone.” The voice on the other end says, “Well, how does God talk?” And Drew says “In prayer,” which I thought was a pretty good answer for a five year old.
But wouldn’t it be neat if God talked to you over the telephone? If when you felt like you were in darkness, if you were confused, you didn’t know which way to turn; if in those moments when you were lonely or those moments when you feel tempted the telephone would ring and it’d be the Lord Jesus. And He’d say, “Jim, here’s what I want you to do.” Or He’d have a word of encouragement or cheer. But you see, the Bible tells us we don’t need God to speak to us over the telephone because God has already established a means by which he speaks to us. He speaks to us in the person of His Holy Spirit. When you are born again, the Holy Spirit comes into you. When you read the Word of God, the Holy Spirit speaks to you. When you pray, the Holy Spirit communes with your spirit, giving you guidance and encouragement.
When you are with other Christians, the Holy Spirit speaks to you through them. When you hear the Word of God preached or when you hear the Word of God taught, the Holy Spirit speaks to you. He guides you. Jesus said, “I speak these things to you while I am still in the world, but the comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will guide you into all truth and He will bring to your remembrance the things which I have spoken to you.”
I’m sure many of you have heard of the ancient Vikings. The Norseman, who more than a thousand years ago navigated their ships, called the long ships, navigated them through the fjords of the coastlines of Scandinavia. But they actually took their ships beyond the Atlantic to the new world. They took their ships to the continent of North America. Historians now believe that Leaf Erickson, the Viking Explorer, actually brought his Viking ships to the new world 500 years before Columbus discovered America in 1492. They had no compasses. How did they find guidance? Every one of those Viking ships had a cage. And in that cage they had ravens. The Vikings knew what scientists and ornithologists are just discovering today, that ravens have an ability to see and sense what human beings could never see and never sense. When the Vikings were lost, lost at sea and they didn’t know where land was or what direction to go, they would open that cage and they would release the ravens, and they would go into the sky and in whatever direction the ravens went, the Vikings would follow.
Now, of course, as Christians, we are not guided by ravens, but we are guided. The Bible says by the dove of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit sees and senses what we in our finiteness, what we in our humanity could never see, could never sense, and the Holy Spirit guides us. Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit also empowers us, empowers us for ministry in this world of darkness. When Paul went to the Corinthians, he later wrote to them, he said, “When I came to you, I did not come in lofty words of human wisdom, but in the demonstration and the power of the Holy Spirit.” You see, the Holy Spirit is the source of power in the life of the Christian, “dunamis,” dynamite.
He is the source of power and He is also our security. Paul wrote to the Christians in Ephesus and he said that they “had been sealed with the Holy Spirit.” That the Holy Spirit was the seal of their salvation and “the guarantee of their inheritance.” When you are born anew, the Holy Spirit comes into you and seals you for salvation. So we have this second message from John: we need not fear Antichrist or the forces of Antichrist because as Christians we have received the anointing, we have received the Holy Spirit within to guide us, to empower us, to seal us for salvation.
John says, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, for many false prophets have gone forth into the world. By this you know the spirit of God, every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. Every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God. This is the Antichrist of which you heard that it was coming and now it is in the world already, but you are of God and you have overcome them because He who is in you is greater than he is in the world.” The Holy Spirit is in you as your anointing.
We have this third and final message from John, and it is this: in this world where there is this great struggle between the forces of light and darkness in this world, where there is this great struggle between the forces of Christ and Antichrist, as Christians, as those who take the name of Christ, we are called to live in the world, but not to be of the world. John says, “Do not love the world or the things that are in the world, for if anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passes away and the lusts of it. But he who does the will of God abides forever.”
The Greeks used the word “kosmon” to express this concept of world. They used it in many ways. Sometimes they used the word kosmon to refer to the world of the creation, to plants, to animals and to people. In this sense, God loves the world. God loved the world so much, the Bible says, that He gave his only begotten Son. But sometimes the Greek used this word kosmon to refer to the world of iniquity, the iniquity that was in the creation, the sinful, fallen ways of man. In this sense, we are not to love the world, nor are we to be of the world.
Now, when you think of a people who are not of this world, who do you think of? Maybe you think of angels or in a more earthly sense, perhaps you think of people who have separated themselves from other people, people like the Amish who have established their own culture. Or maybe you think of monks who live in monastic seclusion. But you see, God rarely calls us to adopt lifestyles that separate us from people. Indeed, God has called us as Christians to go into the world, to go unto people and to share with people the love of Jesus Christ. He’s called us to go into the world and share the good news of the gospel of His Son. He has not called us to be separated from people, but He has called us to be separated from sin.
Our Lord Jesus himself associated with publicans and sinners, but He did not sin. So this is the calling we have in Christ, that we would be in the world, but not of the world. That’s a difficult calling.
When I was in college, I had a friend who was a genius and he was older than I was, but he was very young in Christ. He became a graduate doctoral student at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He had a desire to minister to the students there. This was in the 1960s where a lot of college students were, I suppose, sometimes referred to as hippies. There was a significant counterculture movement in Goleta at UCSB in California. This friend wanted to go there and he wanted to minister to those groups of people. I didn’t hear from him in months after he went to school there. Months passed by and I never heard from him. So finally, I drove over to the university and I looked him up.
I was amazed to find that he had not only entered their world, but he’d become part of their world. He’d begun to take drugs. He’d begun to go to bed with women on campus. By the end of the year, he was actually living in a tree. I suppose that was the ultimate countercultural statement. But it is a difficult thing, a very difficult thing to enter a world and not become part of that world. Yet we have this calling in Christ and it is very serious. It’s a serious thing to take the name of Christ and then to compromise yourself with the ways of the world.
The story is told of a man who was brought to trial before Alexander the Great. This man had committed certain criminal acts. When he came before the Great Emperor, Alexander the Great said, “What is your name?” The man said, “I’m called Alexander.” The Emperor said, “Either change your behavior or change your name.” He said “You cannot bear the name of Alexander and live as you have lived.” Now, of course, Alexander the Great did not have the power or the right to dictate who could bear his name, but Jesus Christ does. The title “Christ” is a title given to Jesus of Nazareth. It is a title given to the Son of God. The title Christ means the Anointed. When you take the name of Christian, you are sharing the title of Jesus Christ. That is a very serious thing. We are to be in the world, but we are not to be of the world.
Louis Evans Sr., one of the founders of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, a man who is pastor of the 8,000 member Hollywood Presbyterian Church, loved to tell the story of a British missionary. This British missionary lived in a very remote tribal section of Africa. Once, Louis Evans Sr. and some of his friends were trying to find him, and they found this British missionary on a Friday night in a small hut. They were amazed when they went into the hut and they found the British missionary dressed in formal attire and they found a formal place setting. The man was eating a formal meal in the midst of a tribal primitive area. They said, “What are you doing?” The British missionary said, “I’m a citizen of the British Empire. Every Friday night, I do this. No matter where I live in the world, I never want to forget who I am.”
Well, Jesus Christ does not want us to forget who we are. We are citizens of a heavenly empire. We are aliens and exiles on this earth. Our distinguishing mark, our distinguishing characteristics have not to do with the clothes we wear, but it has to do with the way we live. We are called to be in the world, but not of the world.
Biologists tell us of an insect that can be dropped into water and not be touched by the water. The water does not penetrate to the insect’s life. The reason is because this particular insect is enveloped in a bubble and it has its own atmosphere and it is safe and it is secure and the water cannot penetrate it. Now the Bible tells us that as we, as Christians, go forth into the world, we can have the same security and the same confidence. We can be enveloped in the atmosphere of Christ if we are spending time as Christians, if we are spending time daily in the Word of God. If we are spending quality time in prayer, if we are spending a great deal of time in fellowship with brothers and sisters with Christians who truly believe in Jesus Christ, if we are hearing the word of God preached and taught, if we are communing with Christ day by day, if we are really rooted in the Word of God, then we can go forth in the world in power. But too many Christians go into the world in weakness and they fall.
The Apostle Paul wrote to the Christians in Ephesus and he said, “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the full armor of God, that you may be able to stand against all the wiles of the devil. For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, put on the full armor of God that you may be able to resist in the evil day and having done all to stand. Stand, therefore, having girded your loins with truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness and having shod your feet with the equipment of the gospel of peace. Besides all this, taking the shield of faith with which you are able to quench all the flaming darts of the evil one and the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the Word of God. Pray at all times in the Spirit, making prayer and supplication. To this end, be alert and persevere, making supplication for all the saints and also for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly and proclaim the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains.”
You see, the Apostle Paul knew that he was in a struggle. He was in the midst of a struggle between the forces of light and darkness, in the midst of a struggle between the forces of Christ and Antichrist. He wanted the Christians of Ephesus to know that. So John writes this letter to us. He wants us to know first of all, that Antichrist is coming. Now the spirit of Antichrist is in the world already, the great enemy of Christians. But He has a second message and it is this: as Christians, we don’t need to fear. We don’t need to fear the Antichrist. We don’t need to fear the spirit of Antichrist in this age or in any other because we have received the anointing. We have received the Holy Spirit to guide us in the darkness, to empower us for ministry, to seal us for salvation. Finally, He would remind us that we are called as Christians, living in this time, called to be in the world, but not of the world. We are aliens and exiles on this earth. We belong to a higher kingdom. “You shall be holy for I am holy, says the Lord God Almighty.” Shall we pray.