Exposing Antichrist, Then & Now | 1 John 2:22-24

ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church

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All right, Beloved, so as I mentioned, Happy New Year to everybody, and I did also share the sermon notes on Miwi, so if you all want to look that up and share it, feel free to do that.

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I'm going to go through some really good quotes that I want to cover in today's message.

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And one recommendation off the bat that I wanted to make is, you could check out

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Jonathan Edwards' resolutions, his 70 resolutions for the year that he wrote in 1722,

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I believe. You can get that for free from Chapel Library. And this is not meant to be some legalistic burden, as there's a tendency for that to happen, but it could be a helpful and holy motivational reference to us as we begin this new year with these intentions to glorify

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God and to grow more and more. And, you know,

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Edwards himself was vastly disappointed just within a few months of the resolutions, and he had to more than double the size of his resolutions in order to try to keep from breaking his first resolution.

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So, I mean, there's a lot of issues with some of the things behind the way people treat resolutions, so we have to be careful with those things.

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And, you know, he even has one where he says, like, resolved never to laugh on the

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Sabbath or to make anybody laugh on the Sabbath. And it's like, well, you know, it's okay to laugh on the

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Lord's Day. You know, that's not something that you have to worry about. But some of them that did stand out to me as I reread them,

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I thought these were really of note, worthy of note. Number 15, resolved never to suffer the least motions of anger to irrational beings.

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So keep your cool, beloved, especially on social media. That's one that I really enjoyed.

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Suffer no fools. And number 24, resolved whenever I do any conspicuously evil action to trace it back till I come to the original cause, to the root cause, the root sin, and then both carefully endeavor to do so no more, and to fight and pray with all my mind against the original cause of it.

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In other words, know thyself, right, and deal with yourself, your issues.

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That goes all the way back to the series that I preached on knowing your enemy, and particularly the flesh, the world, the flesh and the devil.

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But this is I mean, that's really good stuff. That's a great way to sum things up. And number 25 also was,

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I thought, was very good. Resolved to examine carefully and constantly what that one thing in me is which causes me in the least to doubt of the love of God and to direct all my forces against it.

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Amen. Know that you're saved. Know that you're saved. Why you're saved and be proactive about it.

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Don't wait for something to come upon you. Be proactive and be resolved to not allow anything to shake up the confidence that we have in Christ.

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Amen. So that's some really good stuff there for you all to take a look at and chew on and meditate as we begin this new year.

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And as I mentioned, take that with a grain of salt. Right. Because it can easily lead to a legalistic hill of legality right from Pilgrim's Progress.

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But that's not what it should be. So I want you to saddle up now and put on your discernment caps with me as we take a deep dive into the word of God and into history.

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As we seek to expose Antichrist both then and now.

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Turn back over with me to 1st John Chapter 2. We'll start in verse 18 again to get a context, the fuller context of the passage.

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And we use the Legacy Standard Bible and the New American Standard versions, which are they're all very similar.

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So in 1st John Chapter 2, verse 18, God's word says, Children, it is the last hour.

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And just as you heard that Antichrist, the Antichrist is coming. Even now, many

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Antichrists have appeared already. From this, we know that it is the last hour.

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They went out from us, the Antichrist, but they were not really of us. For if they were of us, they would have remained with us.

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They would have stayed with us. But they went out so that it would be manifested that they all are not of us.

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But you, beloved of God, have an anointing from the Holy One. And you all know.

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No, I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it.

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And because no lie is of the truth. Just like the resolution that we just read.

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Know that you are indeed saved. Who is a liar but the one who denies or rejects that Jesus is the

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Christ? Again, not out of mere ignorance, but of willful intent.

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This is the Antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the

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Son, who everyone and anyone who denies the Son does not have the Father and is therefore

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Antichrist. The one who confesses the Son has the Father also. Now, I want to clarify something right off hand from last week, because I don't want anyone to get the wrong impression about any false parallels between law and gospel on the one hand and Christ and Antichrist on the other hand.

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Because on the one hand, the true law and the true gospel are both good.

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The law is good and holy, just and good, like Paul says. And both come from God.

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Both are from God. And I encourage you to check out the law gospel sermons that I preached on before on our website to get some more information about that, how we distinguish law and gospel.

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That's a very important principle in the Bible and in the

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Reformed tradition. But on the other hand, while Christ, his law, his gospel are all good,

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Antichrist is all bad. Right. He's evil. He's a bad guy.

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And so the law and gospel are both good and both correspond to God and both are of God.

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On the one hand, to his justice and wrath and on the other, to his mercy and grace.

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Right. Law, justice, wrath, mercy, grace, gospel on the other. Antichrist, however, is against God, is completely against God, denies

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God and is an enemy of God and of true faith, of the true law and the true gospel.

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Right. So he's against all of that. And I because I was saying last week, saying that there's law and gospel, there's

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Christ and Antichrist. And I didn't want anybody to get the wrong impression that I meant. Well, the law corresponds to Antichrist.

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That's not that's not at all the case. And therefore, the law, once again, it does not correspond to Antichrist, but instead exposes

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Antichrist as as false, as the man of lawlessness and sin.

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What is sin? Sin is lawlessness. It's breaking God's law. So it is.

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And along with the light of the true gospel, which also exposes Antichrist, false

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Christ, substitute Christ. After all, the

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Antichrist is referred to by God as the man of sin, once again of lawlessness and the son of perdition or destruction.

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Right. And as the lawless one, he is against the law of God and against the gospel of God by attempting instead to substitute and counterfeit them.

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He is anti in the place of Christ. Deception.

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And we've been covering as well. Why is this the case? You know, why does Antichrist try to imitate

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Christ? Why does he do that? Well, the simple answer is because of satanically deranged, jealous pride.

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Right. So that's easy enough. That's what the devil is.

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The devil is. The devil does. But it's also to undermine and to reject

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Christ, therefore, because of his jealousy and deranged pride. And it is to undermine and reject

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Christ and to destroy his people and his church. Right. So that's his agenda.

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And this is this is big picture stuff here. So I'm trying to get us to back up, get a bird's eye view of the forest and understand what's what's going on, what

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God's working in this divine drama, as well as the devil's the antagonist of the play.

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This is straight from the devil's own playbook. Right. There's nothing new under the sun.

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And again, I refer you back to the series that I preached on, knowing that your enemy on the devil, this is exactly what the devil has done all throughout.

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Ever since he fell from heaven all throughout covenantal history, he seeks to corrupt what is good and what comes from God by mixing it, by perverting it, corrupting it with lies and deception.

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Often times, just like the lie he told Eve, the very first interaction with men got man, mankind.

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I know better than God. And you can, too, if you eat the fruit that he said not to eat.

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Right. We all know the rest is history, as they say. And just like he also tried to corrupt the true seed of the woman prophesied in the announcement that God made in Genesis 315, with a false seed of the

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Nephilim. Right. He tried to corrupt that seed and prevent the Messiah from coming.

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And also by disguising himself, right, disguising himself as an angel of light and his false antichrist prophets, teachers and ministers as agents of righteousness.

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Right. Second Corinthians 11, 12 through 15. So we are not to be deceived by the devil's devices.

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We need to be fully aware of these things. For many deceivers have gone out into the world, both into the church and into the world.

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And those who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist.

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That is what characteristic, a key characteristic of antichrist and the antichrist.

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Second John seven. Right. And remember, again, the importance of William Tyndale's admonitions of how it is impossible, impossible to preach

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Christ except thou preach against antichrist. That is why we are endeavoring.

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And that's why that's why the Apostle John is repeatedly, all of the apostles repeatedly warned against antichrist deceptions.

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And of the importance also of discerning Christ versus antichrist, true versus false religion by testing the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets, many antichrists have gone out into the world.

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First John four, one. Right. Remember, just because someone claims to have faith, to be a

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Christian, to be a prophet or a pastor or whatever, does not mean that they actually are.

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They could be, in fact, antichrist. So and you'll see, you'll know by that spirit of religious

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Pharisee, pharisaical deceptive hypocrisy. These beloved are once again important.

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Big picture, big picture doctrines that encompass the whole counsel of God. And also, you'll find how

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Christ, as we've seen already throughout these weeks, Christ and antichrist foil, they foil each other.

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In other words, then it's to enhance by contrast. They so utterly contrast themselves.

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They serve as foils. In the sense that one

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Christ is a direct contradiction of the other antichrist.

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And now, as we continue this divine drama of redemption and of judgment, judgment of antichrist and set the stage for antichrist to appear.

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Ask yourself another major. And we would affirm that he already has appeared.

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Right. And and therefore ask yourself another major question in order to wrestle with these important matters.

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If you were the devil, OK, devil's advocate. Right. As they say, what would be the best way to oppose, undermine and attack

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Christ and his sheep? Think about this carefully, OK? And remember, once again, this series on knowing your enemy.

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We need to know his playbook. And and if you find you will find all throughout

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Scripture that the devil seeks to be an imitator.

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A disguiser, a poser. The devil is a poser, a clever, deceitful, effective one at that.

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So we can't mess around with the devil like he this guy has been. He's had thousands of years of practice of how to take advantage of us.

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Right. So we can't mess around. He is so effective, in fact, that you will find all throughout the

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Internet churches. One example is Gavin Orland. I saw a video that he recently came out with called

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Are Catholics Christians? Why Protestants can say yes in all capital letters.

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I'm like, what? So I'm like, OK, maybe he is. He's using clickbait, right? Maybe he's saying, well, not really, but maybe not really.

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And then I'm sorry. I'm sorry to say that that wasn't the case. He said no.

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Yeah, that's what he meant. And on the contrary.

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OK, just to be up front. On the contrary, Protestants must say no.

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Catholics are not Christians. And we must understand this in 2025.

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Amen. We need to know because the Antichrist deceptions are only going to get worse. They're only getting worse.

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And this this was a very misleading video. And it is a failure to properly distinguish

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Christ versus Antichrist. And their respective gospels, because they're not the same gospel.

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Right. And remember, what does Paul say? Is there another gospel contrary to the one that we have delivered to you?

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No, there's only one gospel. And of course, Gavin didn't bother to, quote,

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Canon six of the Council of Trent, the Roman Catholic Council of Trent, where they condemn the true gospel of justification by faith alone, apart from works of the law, nor any other heretical dogmas that Rome has declared since the

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Reformation. Like papal infallibility or the Marian dogmas of Mary's sinlessness and all of those things.

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Mary's Assumption and all that stuff. That's from the 1800s. Again, has

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Rome gotten better or worse since then? You know, to refresh your memory,

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Canon nine of the Council of Trent on justification says, if anyone says that by faith alone the impious is justified, so as to mean that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, let him be anathema, let him be condemned.

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This is an utter denial of the biblical gospel. OK, Canon 20. If anyone says that the man who is justified and how perfect so ever is not bound to observe the commandments of God and of the church, but only to believe, in other words, by faith alone, as if indeed the gospel were a bare and absolute promise of eternal life without the condition of observing the commandments.

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In addition, let him be anathema, let him be condemned. I mean, these people, it's almost like they do it on purpose.

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They say, hey, look at me. I'm antichrist. Whereas Jesus said, believe and therefore have eternal life.

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They say, no, that's not enough. So can we say that Catholics are

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Christians? No, we cannot. The Roman Catholic Church is not a true church because it condemned the true gospel.

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And those who believe it long ago, hundreds of centuries ago, thereby condemning herself as a synagogue of Satan, a synagogue of the devil, like Galatians 1, 6 through 9 says.

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My God, and this guy is a Ph .D. in theology, a seminarian who otherwise has some helpful stuff on Eastern Orthodoxy.

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He's one of the few people dealing with Eastern Orthodoxy, which is on the rise. But my God, what is going on here?

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We've lost we've lost something from the Reformation. And again, he makes these ridiculous like claims that are so shallow.

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We cannot judge Rome based on what Augustine said when the Roman Catholic Church state was barely in its infancy, barely in its infancy.

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And we cannot judge Rome merely based on the 1500s either.

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And Gavin has he ignores the reality that Romanism has only continued to devolve, worsen in her false, deceptive ecumenism and heresies of which there are many of Antichrist.

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So if there are two Christians in Roman Catholic churches and they may very well be, if there are two

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Christians who believe the true gospel, then by definition, they are no longer

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Roman Catholic and stand condemned by the popes and councils of Rome herself.

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And yet at the same time, the popes and the councils of Rome have the nerve to say out of both sides of their mouth by hypocritically declaring

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Protestants to be separated brethren. That's that's the lies of the deceptive

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Antichrist nature of the beast of Rome. That revelation prophesied about and the book of Daniel prophesied as well.

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Consider also how we have started to see that the

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Antichrist has all ready come and has already manifested in the world and we can identify exactly who and what he is and expose him, therefore, then and now, because Scripture clearly describes him to us and warns us against Antichrist, even back in the

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Old Testament. Right. And so we have to have our eyes open and not be deceived by this nonsense that is so common today in the spirit of the age that has also infected the church.

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But this is a historical, identifiable reality, because the apostle

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Paul told us that the mystery of iniquity, of lawlessness is already at work back in his time in 2

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Thessalonians 2, verse 7, as we covered last week. OK, here's the big question once again.

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Were the reformers and Protestants for more than 300 years and even before that correct in exposing the papacy as Antichrist, as THE Antichrist?

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Were they correct in their assertions, in their accusations? Let's go back over to 2

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Thessalonians 2 and dig a little bit further into this. 2

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Thessalonians 2. I'll start in verse 1.

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Now we ask you, brothers, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him, that you not be quickly shaken in your mind or be alarmed, whether by spirit or a word or a letter as if from us.

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But it's really not. It is Antichrist to the effect that the day of the Lord has already come.

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He's warning. Let no one in any way deceive you, for it has not come unless the apostasy, the falling away comes first and the man of sin, the man of lawlessness, really the man of sin is revealed, the son of destruction or of perdition who opposes and exalts himself above every so -called

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God or object of worship so that he takes his seat in the sanctuary of God, exhibiting himself as being

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God. Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things and you know what restrains him now so that in his time he will be revealed and has been revealed in history and prophetically, as we will see, for the mystery of lawlessness is already at work.

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The mystery of iniquity is already at work. And only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way.

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And take note of this. Take note of this. We're going to deal with this a little bit later. And then that lawless one will be revealed.

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Whom the Lord Jesus will slay with the breath of his mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of his coming, whose coming is in accord with the working of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders and with all the deception of unrighteousness for those who perish because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.

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That's all you need to do to be saved. Amen. Receive the love of the truth, but by believing alone, not by works.

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And so this is why God sends upon them a deluding influence from Antichrist so that they will believe what is false and be judged and condemned.

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Right. So recall once again, in light of this passage and others, several others that there are worldly Antichrist and there are religious

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Antichrist, all of whom belong to the world, the flesh and the devil. They all oppose

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God. But some are worldly. Some are not trying to be

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Christian or disguise themselves as Christian. But some are. Some are religious. They have a religious spirit behind them.

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But however, the Antichrist has a distinctly religious spirit.

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He is a religious Antichrist who has already appeared in history. Note once again the verse in Thessalonians.

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That. In verse four, he opposes and exalts himself above every so -called

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God or object of worship so that he takes his seat. Just like the devil mentioned in Isaiah, I will be like the most high

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God. I will ascend above the stars of the north. I will be the highest star.

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I will try to replace God as Antichrist. So that he takes his seat,

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God's seat or attempts to in the sanctuary of God, exhibiting self as being

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God. It's a religious spirit. And as I said, this runs contrary to what many also consequently believe about the end times.

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And that sadly includes modern Protestants who have forgotten the Reformation roots.

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There's a lot of confusion about the end times and about who exactly Antichrist is.

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And continues to be. Because on the one hand, as I mentioned last week, there is a view of eschatology called futurism, which says that Antichrist, the

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Antichrist has not yet come. It's some future guy, right? Like in the, what's it called, that series

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Left Behind. Nikolai Karpathia, he's some future world ruler that hasn't come yet.

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And that's commonly taught in dispensational churches, which is very popular.

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And there is also, on the other hand, another view called preterism, in which Antichrist, the

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Antichrist already came. Typically identified as Nero, one of the emperors of Rome.

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So that he's no longer a problem for us today. Nero was already dealt with. So move along, folks.

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There's nothing to see here. But you will find historically, and this is why church history is also important to know, to understand and to study.

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Because the Bible admonishes us to look at history and at church history in order to identify

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Antichrist. It's not optional. And this is something

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I need to add this back to the church history sermons that I preached. We need to know church history in order to identify

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Antichrist. Very important. Because he had not yet appeared in the time of the apostles, like the

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Apostle John and Paul and others say, but they warn it's going to happen soon.

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And so there was a very nefarious, evil scheme behind these schools of thought, these prophetic schools of interpretation, futurism and preterism.

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It was intentional because it wasn't always this way. OK, these are relatively recent schools of interpretation of biblical and eschatological interpretation.

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But they are very problematic, very problematic on many fronts, on many aspects.

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And you will find that many dispensationalists today will even claim that the

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Jews are still the chosen people of God, even if they accept

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God, the father, but not Jesus Christ, his son as God. Even if they don't believe the gospel.

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Now, this rings very familiar to what Gavin said about Catholics still being true

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Christians, even if they don't believe the true gospel. By definition, you cannot be

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Roman Catholic. And by definition, you cannot be a true Jew who is one inwardly, like Romans 25, 229 says by what?

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By faith alone. That is impossible because the apostle

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Paul, as we just read. I mean, John, as we just read, just said, he who denies the son does not have the father either.

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Right. If you don't have the son, you don't have the father and you are not saved.

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So we have to therefore evangelize both Catholics and Jews if they do not believe

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Christ as the promised Messiah and the son of God, the second person of the

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Trinity. So. But many dispensationalists today are confused about these and Protestants are confused are about these very important matters.

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And we cannot be deceived, beloved, by Antichrist deceptions. Now. And again, the

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Jews were chosen in a very different sense in the Old Testament, though only the remnant was saved.

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That's what Paul explains and reveals in Romans 9. Right. Not all of Israel is

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Israel. Only the remnant that believes is saved is true Israel, in other words.

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So. Now, if you look at history, on the other hand,

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OK, there is a media. What is it called? Another way.

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I forgot what the Latin is, but there is a third way, an older way. That almost all

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Protestant reformers from the Reformation back in the 1500s and before that, into the 19th century, who held historicist views.

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OK. Now, what is historicism? What is that?

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Well, I thought you would never ask. That's very important to know, because this is where our

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Reformation heritage deposited to us. As the church, the true church of Christ.

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What is this? Now, there is a well -known historicist called Edward Bishop Elliott from the 1800s.

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He wrote a book in 1862 called Horae Apocalypticae. And I think that's

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Latin. I forgot to look that up, but he wrote a book which is about the history of prophetic interpretation.

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And he explains that the third view of prophecy is what we may emphatically call the

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Protestant continuous historic scheme of interpretation. Very important.

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That which regards the apocalypse as a prefiguration in detail of the chief events affecting the church and Christendom, both then and now.

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Whether secular or ecclesiastical, whether in the world or in the church.

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From St. John's time to the consummation, to what John the

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Apostle says, the last hour, right? It is the last hour, even now.

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It is a scheme, not a bad scheme, not like Satan's scheme, right? But a good scheme in order to understand which applies the symbols of Babylon and the beast in Revelation and in the

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Old Testament to people, Rome, and to Popedom. I like that.

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That's a good word. Popedom. That means the Pope's jurisdiction. What lies under the

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Pope's jurisdiction and authority and was early embraced by the

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Waldensians, the Wycliffeites. That's the followers of John Wycliffe and the Waldensians of another early pre -reformer.

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And I think his name was Peter Waldo. And the Hussites, Jan Hus, the

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Bohemian reformer, then adopted with fuller light by the chief reformers, the magisterial reformers like Calvin and Luther, the

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German ones, the Swiss ones, the French ones, the English ones like Tyndale, Basel, William Farrell, Calvin, all these guys of the 16th century and hence transmitted downwards uninterruptedly, uninterruptedly even to the present time, the present time being the 1800s, 1862.

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Up until that time, things have changed since then, haven't they?

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Things have drastically changed since then. And that work began in the counter -reformation, as we will see, by the

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Jesuits. Now, in light of all these considerations, in light of these considerations, who is the most blasphemous man that you can think of in the entire history of the entire world?

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Think very carefully, who is the most blasphemous man in the history of the entire world?

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And this is something that would stick out like a sore thumb, right? It should stick out like a sore thumb.

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And it is something that was already clearly identified by the apostles, by the New Testament, by the Old Testament, that man who would try to purport himself to be

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God, who would sit in the seat of God. Where have we seen that in history?

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Think very, very carefully. Ask yourself. A lot of names have been put forth to suggest this most blasphemous man.

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People would say, oftentimes, men like Hitler, right? Hitler, a very vile and wicked man, or Stalin, or any of the other communists.

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And Karl Marx, a very demonic, demonically possessed man, possessed by the devil himself, wrote abominable stuff.

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All of these men did. But there's a problem with these men.

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These men were not trying to purport to be Christians in that sense of being religious.

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They were very ungodly, satanically inspired men. And so others have purported or proposed

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Islam, Islam and the false prophets of Islam, Muhammad, and stuff like that.

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But yet, again, there is a problem there. Even though Islam has a distinctly religious spirit, it is not purporting to be a

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Christian church. It doesn't claim to be Christian. In fact, the highest blasphemy in Islam, if you read

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Surah 114, says that the most blasphemous thing you can do is to deny that God had a son.

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So there's no way you can say that Islam is the Antichrist, even though it is

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Antichrist. It is one of many Antichrists. So did you guess it yet?

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There is only one man. Worse yet, there is only one office that takes on all three titles of every divine person of the

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Trinity in the history of the world and applies them to himself.

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OK, we covered this last week a little bit. Who calls himself the most holy father, the head of the church, the vicar of Christ, his holiness, none other than his holiness, the

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Pope, the Pope of Rome, the papacy, the

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Antichrist, singular, right? It is the

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Pope of Rome, the most holy father, Father God, the head of the church, who is

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Christ, as our confession says, and the Bible says, and the vicar of Christ, the paraclete, right?

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The one who would come in Christ's stead. I will send you a paraclete, the

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Holy Spirit, his holiness. Who alone is holy, holy, holy?

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God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, right? No other man, men in history have declared those titles for themselves in that religious way that distinctly, it's almost like they looked at 2

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Thessalonians 2 and said, I want to do that very thing. Look, y 'all,

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I am the Antichrist. That's why the reformers all pointed the finger. That's why they all agreed on who the

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Antichrist was, because it was so obvious. It was so obvious. And yet,

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I mean, it is the ultimate blasphemy personified. It is the personification of blasphemy.

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If you were to look up in a dictionary, the word blasphemy, you would find the

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Pope, the papacy, as the personification of the ultimate blasphemy.

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And this blasphemy is further compounded by the fact that it's not just one man.

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All these guys, Muhammad, Hitler, Stalin, Marx, they were all one guy.

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But the Pope is not just one man. It's not just one man, but an office of succeeding men that has descended on from the late 300s, the early 400s.

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Don't believe the lies of Rome that she came from Peter. It didn't come from Peter. Although you can say, in one sense, that it came from the

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New Testament. It came from another man called Diotrephes in 3 John. That's where the

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Pope came from, the papacy. But it didn't manifest itself clearly until, again, these things were to take place.

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2 Thessalonians 2 talks about revelation and the prophetic foreshadowings of the fifth kingdom that Daniel talks about.

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As the fall of the Roman Empire, another one would come, this religious one that was the kingdom of Antichrist.

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It was false, a false kingdom headed by the papacy, a succession of men.

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And as bad as all those guys were, and as Antichrist as they all are, none of them, they all pale in comparison to the wickedness, the lies, and the deceptions of the papal beasts of Rome.

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And because everything that they do, they claim to do in the name of God.

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Everything. Everything. Notice the disturbing cleverness of it all.

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How clever the devil is. How the Pope claims to be God's representative on earth to do his will in his church, the vicar of Christ.

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And yet, what does that mean? Latin for Antichrist, right?

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By taking all of his titles and blaspheming him as he purports to be

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God's God on earth. He is a usurper, just like the devil was, just like the devil attempted to be, and yet was kicked out for that reason.

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And this blasphemy is only further compounded.

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It's only further compounded and worsened still by all the other rotten fruit that Rome has produced and continues to produce.

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Various other heresies, the pedophilia, all of these other abominations that I appreciate how

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John Calvin, the Magisterial Reformer of Geneva, he was

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French, but he was in Switzerland as well, in his Institutes of the Christian Religion. So many people love to talk about how they like Calvin and Calvinism and the

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Institutes. And it's like, but have you actually read the Institutes? I encourage you to if you haven't.

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We should all take a look at that. That would be a great New Year's resolution. I'm going to set out to read

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Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion. Fantastic work. What does he say there?

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He says in Book 4, Chapter 2, Section 12, Daniel, the

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Prophet Daniel and Paul, the Apostle Paul had predicted, had prophesied that Antichrist, the

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Antichrist would sit in the Temple of God. And by the way, the Catholic Church claims they call that of St.

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Peter's Cathedral, the Temple of God. Coincidence? I think not.

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The head of that cursed and abominable kingdom in the

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Western Church, we affirm to be none other than the Pope.

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When his seat is placed in the Temple of God, remember, he claims to speak from the chair of Peter, from the chair of the

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Temple of God. It suggests that his kingdom will be such that he will not abolish the name of Christ or the

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Church. He's not trying to eradicate Christianity, so to speak, or the

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Christian religion. He's trying to disguise himself as a

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Christian, as the Christian Church. Hence, it appears that we by no means deny that churches may exist even under his tyranny.

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But he has profaned them by sacrilegious impiety, afflicted them by cruel despotism, tyranny, corrupted and almost terminated their existence by false and pernicious doctrines, of which there are many.

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Like poisonous potions in such churches, Christ lies half buried.

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The gospel is suppressed, piety exterminated, and the worship of God almost abolished in its entirety.

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In a word, they are altogether in such a state of confusion that they exhibit a picture of Babylon, that great whore of Babylon, rather than the holy city of God.

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Wow! If you can't say amen, Gavin, you ought to say ouch.

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And Gavin had the nerve to quote Calvin, to say that, oh, well, you know,

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Calvin really more agreed with me. Did he? Did he really? I think not.

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I think not. And, you know, we just have to be careful, beloved.

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We have to be so clear. We have to be black and white when it comes to these matters because the Bible is black and white on these matters.

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We can't blur the distinction by any means or be deceived in any way, like the apostle tells us, right?

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It should be no wonder, then, that our 1689

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Baptist confession, along with many historic confessions,

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Protestant confessions, both by individuals and by churches and larger synods, says this, chapter 26, section 4.

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The Lord Jesus Christ is the head of the church, the only head, in whom by the appointment of the

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Father, all power for the calling, institution, order, or government of the church is invested in a supreme and sovereign manner, in an exclusive manner, in other words.

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Neither can the Pope of Rome in any sense, any sense, behead thereof, but is that antichrist, singular, that man of sin, that son of perdition that exalts himself in the church against Christ, in the church, and all that is called

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God, whom the Lord shall destroy with the brightness of his coming. Wow, ain't that powerful?

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That's an amazing summary of the doctrine of antichrist right here in our own confession.

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And sad to say that many Reformed Presbyterian, and I hope not

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Reformed Baptist churches, but I think I suspect that it's happened with Reformed Baptist churches as well. They have edited this section of the confession out.

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They've taken it out. Sad to say. But I want to read some very helpful stuff here from John Robbins that I highly encourage you all to read as well.

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The articles on the Trinity Foundation. You can take a look at the sermon notes for follow -up.

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He says, The historic Protestant identification of antichrist is not a matter of cheap polemics against the papacy.

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We're not taking cheap shots here, y 'all. It's not about cheap shots. It's about truth and falsehood,

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Christ and antichrist. Rome is the religious personification of human nature.

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It is for good reason that the Apostle Paul calls the antichrist the man, man of sin.

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2 Thessalonians 2 .3 Paul's words echo the book of Daniel. OK, the book of Daniel that describes this power, which grew up out of the

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Roman Empire. Out of the Roman Empire and among the ten nations of Western Europe as having eyes like the eyes of man.

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Daniel 7 .8 While I was contemplating the horns. I'm sorry,

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Daniel 7 .8 says this. While I was contemplating the horns, behold, another horn, a little horn came up among them.

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And three of the first horns were pulled out by the roots before it. And behold, this horn possessed eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth speaking great boasts and blasphemies.

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Who is that, beloved? Who is that? I wonder. And the leopard like beast of Revelation 13, which is obviously the same power as the little horn of Daniel 7, is said to have the number of man, the number of man.

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What is that number? Six hundred sixty six. Revelation 13 18, right?

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The people system was developed by man and not

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God, not by God, but by men, by Antichrist, by the

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Antichrist. And its beginnings are found in third John. OK, it wasn't fully manifested at that time, but that spirit of diatrophies is that same spirit of Nimrod and of the devil.

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It's a proto. He's the proto pope, in a sense. Diotrophies that reviling church tyrant.

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These men are the spiritual descendants of satanic Antichrist like Nimrod. Proud, boastful, arrogant men who love to put themselves first.

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What does the pope do? My God. God help us. More and more.

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Robbins continues. The Roman state church bore the image and superscription of man until it sat in the temple of God, acting as if it were

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God. It was the expression of the one sin of all ages, man taking the place of God.

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What happened? What what what sin is that referring to? The sin of the garden.

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You shall be as God, right? And that's what the devil did.

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That's going back even further back to the devil who said he will be like the most high

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God. Man, this is this is this is amazingly powerful stuff.

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And all you all we had to do was look up the Protestant church.

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What did what they had to say? There's so much confusion now and there doesn't have to be because this has been made so clear by these faithful men of God.

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Now, another excellent resource I want to commend to you is that of Timothy Kaufman. He has an excellent article called

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One Kingdom Too Late, where he says. The name under which the papacy received the

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Roman Empire was by the donation of Constantine. But which, by the way, is the most famous fraudulent document in history, probably all of history, which falsely claims that Constantine, the emperor

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Constantine, transferred the authority, power and land of the Roman Empire and the western part.

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I'm sorry of Rome and the western part of the Roman Empire to none other than the pope. There's only one problem.

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It was a forgery. It was a fake document. It was forged.

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And yet in that donation, the pope is called the vicar of the son of God.

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Or in Latin, Vicarius Filii Dei. Vicarius Filii Dei.

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The name of the man. Vicar of the son of God. When the Roman numerals are summed up, they are 666.

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Wow. So, I highly encourage you all to check that out.

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And along with his series on our podcast on Seperate From On The Radio called

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The Danielic Imperative. It is powerful, amazing stuff. Wycliffe, Tyndale, Luther, Calvin, Thomas Cranmer.

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In the 17th century, Bunyan, the translators of the King James Bible, and the men who published the

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Westminster and Baptist Confessions of Faith. Sir Isaac Newton, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, whom we have strong disagreements with.

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And yet nonetheless, he agrees. And more recently,

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Charles Spurgeon, J .C. Ryle, Dr. Martin Lloyd -Jones. These men, among countless others, all saw the

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Office of the Papacy as the Antichrist. Antichrist.

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Wow. And it's because historic Protestants showed such a powerful united front in identifying

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Antichrist as the Pope and the Papacy that the

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Jesuits rallied. Robbins explains for us what happened in history.

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They rallied to the Roman cause by providing two alternatives to the historical or historicist interpretation of the

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Protestants. They said, hey, what are we going to do, y 'all? Let's do something about this.

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These alternatives, known as Preterism and Futurism, were designed to deflect attention from the

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Papacy as Antichrist. How so? By making

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Antichrist exclusively either a figure of the past, which is

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Preterism, or of the future, Futurism. In this way, the

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Jesuits attempted to refute the Reformers' identification of the Papacy as Antichrist.

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Wow. The first alternative developed by the Jesuits was Preterism, which is now the view held by many liberals and post -millennialists, many of which are

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Reformed Protestants, who tend to deny either the inspiration of the

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Bible or they spiritualize away many relevant scriptures.

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They tend to over -spiritualize the Bible when they shouldn't. Luis de

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Alcazar 1554 -1613 of Seville, Spain devised what became known as He devised it, y 'all.

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He devised it. It became known as the Preterist system of prophetic interpretation. Preterist means past tense.

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It was done in the past. This theory proposed that Revelation deals with events in the pagan

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Roman Empire that Antichrist refers to and that the prophecies were therefore fulfilled long before the time of the medieval church of Rome.

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Alcazar's Preterist system has become popular among Protestant liberals, modernists, and post -millennialists.

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The second view developed by the Jesuits was Futurism, which is the view held by most dispensationalists and fundamentalists.

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King James Onlyists and the like. Clarence Larkin. I used to be a part of that group when

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I was a young and immature believer. This attack was taken by Francisco Rivera 1537 -1591 of Salamanca, Spain.

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Both of them Spaniards. That's another interesting historical note there. Spain never really took hold of the

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Reformation. It remained a Roman Catholic fortress even to this day in many ways even though now it's a lot more liberal.

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But the Reformation never really took hold there. So then this other

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Jesuit and he argued he was the founder of the

01:00:05

Futurist system of prophetic interpretation. Instead of placing Antichrist in the past as Alcazar did, he argued that Antichrist would appear far in the future.

01:00:16

About 1590 Rivera published a 500 page commentary on Revelation denying the

01:00:22

Protestant application of Antichrist to the Church of Rome. So take your pick.

01:00:29

Either he already came or he was in the future but move along folks. Nothing to see here today.

01:00:35

That was intentional. That was intentional. And we can see how one cause led to another and to where we are today.

01:00:47

And how the Roman Catholic Church does things in such a way she doesn't care about contradicting herself.

01:00:53

All she cares is how she spreads her influence just as the whore of Babylon did in the book of Revelation with her abominations.

01:01:06

How the Roman Church state does things in such a way almost as if to deliberately fulfill all the

01:01:15

Antichrist prophecies without ever even intending to because they're trying to claim that they are the true

01:01:22

Church of Christ. It is disturbing. It is disturbing.

01:01:28

There are many so as we start to sum up here there are many

01:01:33

Antichrists. There is a spirit of Antichrist that is in the world and in true churches even.

01:01:40

As the Apostle Paul said, they went out from us. From us. Even in true churches there were

01:01:47

Antichrists that went out from us. And then there is the

01:01:54

Antichrist which I hope we all see more clearly now is none other than the

01:02:00

Pope of Rome. That blasphemous papacy of Rome. But be of good cheer beloved.

01:02:09

Take great comfort and joy because you beloved have an anointing from the

01:02:18

Holy One of God already. And you all know.

01:02:24

You all know. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth but because you do know it already.

01:02:30

Amen. And because no lie is of the truth.

01:02:37

And because my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me instead of Antichrist.

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And I give eternal life to them and they will never perish.

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Not ever. And no one will snatch them out of my hand as our

01:02:56

Lord Master and Savior said. Precious words. Precious promises. And as for you beloved, let that which you heard from the beginning abide in you.

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If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the

01:03:20

Son and in the Father. And this is the promise which he himself made to us.

01:03:30

Eternal life. Eternal life, beloved. Amen.

01:03:38

This is eternal life to know God. And this is what 1 John tells us.

01:03:44

This is the amazing assurance that we have in Christ. That he has already given us the anointing.

01:03:50

And it will bear fruit. And it will cause us to follow Christ instead of Antichrist.

01:03:56

Amen. And in light of this new year then, let us be resolved to cast away such things as I find abate or doubt my assurance.

01:04:12

That's Resolution 26 of Jonathan Edwards. Famous resolutions. And I like this other one he said.

01:04:20

67. Be resolved. Be resolved, beloved. Especially in light of what we've been through last year.

01:04:27

All the hardships, the trials, and the afflictions. Be resolved after afflictions even when they also come from Antichrist.

01:04:38

That was my addition. Personal addition. To inquire what I am the better for them.

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What good I have got by them. And what I might have got by them.

01:04:52

Let us remember, beloved, that this is all part of God's sovereign plan.

01:04:58

His divine drama that he has written beforehand. And he does this for our good.

01:05:06

So that we may know the truth from the lie. Christ from Antichrist.

01:05:13

The deceivers from the faithful men of God. This is why, beloved, the word of God the

01:05:23

Old and New Testaments presents us these things. So that we can identify them and expose Antichrist both then and now.

01:05:32

Amen? Let's go ahead and bow our heads with a closing word of prayer. Our dear precious

01:05:39

Lord and Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for the amazing truth of your almighty word by which you will slay that Antichrist and the devil with the breath of your mouth.

01:05:53

Father, we ask that you help us Lord to be encouraged and to be assured by you and your spirit and your word and the anointing that you have given us.

01:06:03

That knowledge of the truth, Father God, which we believe the true gospel and thereby refute and deny and reject all other false gospels from all the other and many

01:06:17

Antichrists that are out in the world and in the church that attempt to undermine your true gospel, your one and only true gospel

01:06:25

Father. We ask that you help us to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior as we pass on to this new year.

01:06:31

Help us Father God to not burden ourselves unnecessarily with legalistic burdens that do not correspond or that are not appropriate but to at the same time be motivated to seek and to grow as we also start to consider another fast

01:06:46

Lord as a church help us to be to stir one another to good works as your word says and to grow in the grace and knowledge of our

01:06:56

Lord and Savior. We ask these things Father God in your precious almighty all powerful name of your son the true one and only head of your church.

01:07:07

Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermons of Thorn Crown Covenant Baptist Church where the

01:07:18

Bible alone and the Bible in its entirety has applied to all of faith and life. We strive to be biblical, reformed, historic, confessional, loving, discerning

01:07:28

Christians who evangelize, stand firm in and earnestly contend for the Christian faith.

01:07:34

If you're looking for a church in the El Paso, Texas area or for more information about our church, sermons, and ministries such as Semper Reformanda Radio and Thorn Crown Network Podcasts, please contact us at thorncrownministries .com