Beware of ANTICHRISTS! | 1 John 2:18-19

So 1 John 2, remember the writer is the Apostle John who wrote the gospel, three epistles, and the book of Revelation. He's not the only one named John, right, Josiah? There's other Johns in the New Testament, especially John the Baptist, right, there's another one.

So we've been learning a lot about the Apostle John. He wrote this, and since he wrote the gospel of John, we expect many things to be similar, right? Remember we talked about an old commandment that's also a new commandment, talking about love your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus fulfilled that perfectly and said go and do likewise. And we found that he said that also in John chapter 13 when he washed the disciples' feet. So I'm just saying we make a lot of connection between this epistle and his gospel.

But we always talk about context. We always do a little bit of a review. Last week, we talked about the love God hates. Y 'all remember us talking about that? What is the love that God hates? The world, right?

You're exactly right, Laurel. I look at verse 15. Do not love the world or the things in the world. Now, let me ask y 'all a trick question. Y 'all did fantastic last time. Remember John 3, 16 says for God so loved the world, right?

Well, does that not go against what he's saying here? Do not love the world or the things in the world? And yet, for God so loved the world. What's going on there with John 3, 16 and verse 15 here? Delaney.

Well, I thought when it said God so loved the world that it was about the people, not the world as in the flesh and then all the spiritual things going around it.

Do you mean I have to look at context over in John 3 and then context over here in verse on two? You know, we laugh at that because it's so obvious, but I'm telling you in my apologetics ministry, interacting with tons of people, people abuse God's word left and right.

And we're all privy to it, right? But since we care about truth, since we're called to rightly handle the word of truth, I have to look at context. And that's why we preach the way we do expositionally, going line by line, letting the apostle Paul build his case, letting Jesus get his whole thought.

And so we don't just isolate a single verse and build a whole theology on that. We look at any verse within its context. And we let the clear passages help interpret the less clear passages. Scripture interprets scripture.

So it's one of the best principles I was ever taught. And so that's what we do pretty much every Wednesday here as we talk about context. We've been talking about the fellowship that we have with one another, right?

This new commandment where we can actually love one another in the spirit and be pleasing to God, right? That new commandment that Christ gave us. That's in the context of Christian fellowship. What's something else that we've talked repeatedly about throughout 1 John?

Justin, what do you think? Look at verse five, if you don't care, in chapter one and read that one for me.

This then is the message which we have heard of him and declare unto you that God is light and there is no darkness in the world.

Thank you, Justin. So the Apostle John's saying, look, we proclaim this message to you, which would be the gospel. Something that they saw Jesus live out and preach. And then he summed it up in kind of one statement.

He is light and there's no darkness in him. God is perfect, God is holy, God cannot sin, right? He's pure perfection. He's light, he is love. What's something else that we've talked about, we have been talking about in 1 John?

The blood of Jesus.

Oh, why is that important?

Because that's the only thing that can save you.

Yes, that's the only thing that can save you, that's the only thing that can cleanse us of our sin. Some people mistake that our baptism literally washes away sin. Ceremonies can't wash away sin, your works can't wash away sin, only the blood of Jesus, meaning that if you put your trust in him, then his blood that was shed at Calvary can be credited to your account.

He was satisfying the wrath of the father, right? We talk about the great exchange all the time. When you look to Jesus in faith, all of your sin gets put on the cross, and in exchange you get the perfect righteousness of Jesus.

So the verse that Josiah was referencing, look back at chapter one, verse seven. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us of some of our sin.

Is that what it says, Josiah? Of some of our sin? No, all of our sin. And so there are legalistic groups that say, well, when you do the right works that quote unquote God commands, only your past sins get forgiven.

Well, is that what this verse says? I was saying certain legalistic groups say, well, at the moment of your baptism, the moment that you do the right amount of works, your past sins get forgiven. Well, that's not what the Bible teaches.

The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all of our sin and God sees the entirety of our life. And one objection is, well, then can't I just continue to live in sin since all of my sin's forgiven? And it's like, well, good question because we are saved by grace and grace far surpasses the amount that we could possibly sin, but we've been changed from the inside out so we don't desire to live in our sin.

And when we do sin, when we do fall into temptation that leads to sin, we have an advocate, right? We go to him and confess our sin. We repent, we confess our sins to one another. We desire to live our lives to the glory of God, right?

So we've been talking about this, the new heart disposition of Christians. And so that's something we see all throughout 1 John is we see those who are walking in the light. And it's not that one day you can walk in the light and then one day you walk in darkness.

That's impossible. Someone who's walking in the light is permanently on that path, even though that means we can fall into sin, but we combat it. If we are walking in the light, then we desire to confess, we desire to repent, we desire to reconcile, we desire to live our lives to the glory of God, right?

And so we've also talked about those spirits, those false teachings that rival the gospel message. Does anybody remember the two L's that try to say, hey, this is actually what the gospel is? Legalism.

Legalism. And what? How'd you know? My goodness, some of y 'all are paying attention out there. I'm impressed. So you can't answer since you know, but somebody help me with what does legalism mean? Why is that not the gospel, JD?

So it's kind of taking the Bible and taking it to extremes, but not the good.

Right, right, right, because we want to be balanced. The truth is a tightrope, like I've heard Pastor Nathan talk about. It's a narrow edge, right? So it's easy to kind of go left or right. And so if we're walking in the light, the gospel of grace, looking to Jesus in faith alone, that's right.

But some people twist that and say, well, if you love Jesus, Jesus says, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. And they'll say, see, you got to obey. You got to keep the commandments. And that kind of tends towards legalism, thinking that your right standing before God is contingent with how well you do certain works and how obedient you are.

That's legalism 101. It's trying to earn salvation. Whether someone says, well, I'm just trying to be obedient, but I'm not earning it. It's like, that's what that means. You know what I mean? So that's legalism.

That's a distortion of the gospel. What is licentiousness? It's the complete opposite extreme. Somebody else, JD, you already know everything. Anybody else over here? Licentiousness or antinomianism?

Lauren?

It's the complete opposite of legalism where you can live in sin and like, the grace of God will cover whatever I do.

Yeah.

This person says, I have a license to sin. I'm no longer under law, I'm under grace. Why not just sin so grace may abound? Well, that's just distortions of Christianity. That fails to take into account a loving heart relationship that we have with the Lord.

Because if you're flourishing in the fellowship, then you desire to be obedient, right? And when we do fall into sin, or we do fall into temptation that leads to sin, that actually breaks our heart. Because if you have the indwelling spirit, if you're actually saved, then you can't just nosedive and live it up in a life of sin.

It's just not a part of your nature, right? So that's a little bit of the context we've been talking about. We've talked a little bit about spiritual maturity. Does anybody remember the stages of spiritual growth?

Little children, I write these things to you. Then he talks to younger people, young men in the faith that have overcome the wicked one. And he talks about those who are grown in the faith, fathers that know he who is from the beginning.

Y 'all remember talking about that? One principle we took from that is we need discipleship. We need people to look up to in the faith. Remember, a lot of us have said, a lot of our parents disciple us.

We look up to them. That may not be everybody's story, okay? Well, what is someone to do if they don't have parents in their life? Maybe they have parents that are unbelievers. How can they get spiritual parents in the faith?

Where should they look to and go?

Their elders.

Elders to the church, right? That's where you're gonna find that Christian fellowship. Those that are like us in a similar level of spiritual growth, we can disciple other people and we can have mothers and fathers in the faith.

I love this. Jesus talked about this in the Gospels. His mother Mary and his half-siblings were seeking him and someone said, Jesus, your mother and your brothers are seeking you. And he said, who are my mother and my brothers?

And they're kind of looking at him confused. And he said, it's everyone that does the will of God. And so he's talking about a spiritual family. And so I think John is very pastoral. He's constantly writing to us as little children.

He cares deeply about us, right? He's trying to shepherd us in the truth and guard us from false teaching.

And we also learn about all the works of God that can be taught through the elders.

Yes, yeah.

So elders, we see this term in Scripture and it doesn't necessarily refer to someone who's old in physical age, but someone who's spiritually mature. And one good example of this is Paul told Timothy, do not let others despise you of your youth.

Timothy was probably 30 years old when he said that. And so I just think that's neat. I'm almost 31, by the way. And I serve as an elder here. And so I have to be on guard because sometimes it can be intimidating to talk to someone who's so much older than me.

But we're talking about spiritual truths, right? This is a particular calling. This is a way to serve in the body. So you're absolutely right. We've talked about spiritual maturity. And then last week, like we were saying earlier, we talked about a love that God hates.

God does not love sin. We are to hate the things that God hates. We are to hate sin. We are to love the things that God loves. And so one of those things that we talked about, love not the world or the things in the world, and then we kind of got three highlighted examples, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

What do y 'all remember about those things? What is it? Awkward silence. Let's see here. The lust of the flesh. Remember the word lust, we're talking about just a deep desire. And this desire is to love the things of the world, which instantly makes you an enemy of God, right?

You're either in one or the other. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, said you can either love God or love wealth, one or the other. Your heart can't be divided. And so lust of the flesh literally are all the things that you want to indulge in apart from glorifying God.

One example is food can be a God-glorifying thing, right, a blessing, or it can be used for fleshly indulgence, where you're overeating and you're not honoring God or being a good steward of your body, right?

Lust of flesh could be anything. Remember we see in Galatians 5, the fruit of the spirit is contrasted with all these sinful works of the flesh. And we actually went to Romans 1 and talked about all the things that are just debased.

Man chose to worship the creature rather than the creator, and God gave man over to a reprobate mind. Lust of the eyes is where it kind of starts. You know what I mean? You see something desirable, you covet it, meaning that you want it and that person not to have it anymore, and it's just sinful.

And then we talked about the pride of life. Pride is ultimately saying, I want to be God. I want to choose to live my life how I want and in opposition to God. That's the world. And verse 17 says, and the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

That reminds me of what Jesus said. What would it profit a man if he gains the whole world yet forfeits his very soul? It's foolish to try to invest only in this temporal world. The things that you accumulate here now, clothes, housing, power, influence, whatever, you can't take it with you.

How are those things gonna help you on judgment day? Those aren't gonna help you have your sin forgiven, right? But what we're doing here, we are spending time with one another in Christian fellowship, which has eternal value.

Many of us will be in eternity together, right? Something that's everlasting. Well, how do we know that? Whoever does the will of God abides forever. So we're talking about eternal truths. So here's a shift in the context I'm really excited to look at.

Look with me at verse 18 and follow along with me all the way to verse 27. Before I start, what's a caption that someone has above verse 18?

Lauren?

It's a warning concerning Antichrist.

That's gonna be one of the major things that we're about to get into today is warnings about Antichrist, okay? So have that in the forefront of your mind. Verse 18 says, children, it is the last hour and as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrist have come.

Therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us, but they went out that it might become plain that they are not all of us.

But you have been anointed by the Holy One and you have all knowledge. I write to you not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but he who denies Jesus is the Christ?

This is the Antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. Let what you have heard from the beginning abide in you.

If what you have heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he has made to us, eternal life. I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you, but the anointing that you have received from him who abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you, but as his anointing teaches you about everything and is true and is no lie, just as it has taught you, abide in him.

So it's kind of a mouthful. But one of the things that he brings out here is he warns us about Antichrist. And so that's what John is ultimately writing these things to Christians, reminding them to rest assured that they may know that they have eternal life, what it looks like to walk in the light, and to beware of false teachers, Antichrist.

But look how he starts out in verse 18. He says, children, it is the last hour. So remember a couple weeks ago, we talked about spiritual maturity. Children, remember back in verse 12, I am writing to you little children because your sins are forgiven for his namesake.

So he's talking to the family of faith here, right? If we are in Christ, it's like, okay, he's talking to us. Even though this has a first century context, the principles still apply to us today. He says, children, Christians, those who have their sins forgiven, it is the last hour.

And as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrist have come, therefore we know that it is the last hour. So I have a question, what's the first thing that you start thinking of when you hear the word Antichrist?

Anybody watch any movies that kind of depict the end times with the Antichrist and people getting raptured or anything like that, JD?

Well, I think of someone like an Antichrist as like a really bad person.

Absolutely, absolutely a really bad person. For me, growing up, I was really interested in books that tried to predict who the Antichrist was. Is it the president? Is it the pope? I read a lot of crazy stuff online.

So I think in all scripture, when we see the word Antichrist, it only comes out in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, essentially. And so notice what he's saying here. Children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrist have come.

Therefore, we know that it is the last hour. So like JD said, it just makes us think of a really bad person. Think about the word Antichrist in itself. It's saying those who are opposed to Christ, right?

You're either in Christ, have the spirit of Christ, or you're against Christ. And so I'm saying you can only fall into two categories when it comes to Jesus. Jesus said, you're either for me or you are against me.

Everyone falls in one or two of those categories. And we're born, we're born in opposition to Christ. As we're gonna see in 1st John chapter three, you're either a child of God or you're a child of the devil, okay?

So I want us to start thinking about Antichrist are those people that oppose the truth about who Jesus is. Now, false teachers aren't gonna say, hey, I'm an Antichrist over here, right? No, we have to understand Satan masquerades or disguises himself as an angel of light.

And so those who he works through, essentially, it's gonna be the same tactic. And so John is saying, children, the last hour is basically now, how do we know that? Because Antichrist have already come.

So that's an interesting phrase when he says, it is the last hour. Because in scripture, we kind of get two big timeframes, this age and the age to come. And there's a lot of debate about what that means.

And I think the best way to understand this is we are living in this age, this temporal age, this world that's going to pass away. But then there's an internal age, an age to come in which God reigns forever.

And there's a sense where God is ruling and reigning right now. But we're still living in this temporal age, right? And where John is saying the last hour, almost to say, we long for the return of Jesus.

And he says, man, it seems like it could happen at any moment. It's the last days, it's the last time period. It's the last hour. Because look at all the evil and all the things that Christ has to ultimately vanquish.

And I'm excited to say, in a few weeks, we'll be talking more about the second coming of Christ because that's what he gets into at the end of chapter two and end of chapter three. So I look forward to that.

So when he says the last hour, I think he's just talking about the age that all of us Christians share together and how we long for the second coming. But he's saying it's the last hour and antichrist, false teachers are already among us.

So John is not saying there's not one particular antichrist or false teacher, but it's many. It's kind of the spirit of the age. It's the secular ideology that's rivaling the knowledge and truth of God.

Look with me at verses 22 and 23. This is kind of what he says about the antichrist. Talks about who is the liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ. This is the antichrist. He who denies the Father and the Son.

No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. And so the big thing here is he says, who is the liar but the antichrist? And the only way to detect who is opposing Christ is ultimately to test what they're saying, what they're teaching with God's word.

And so we always want to examine things in context. First John was written in the first century. So the major false teaching of this time was Gnosticism, which taught that, yeah, we believe Jesus came, but not as a person.

That's ridiculous. Jesus is God, but God could never take on flesh. So what he accomplished in his earthly ministry and what he accomplished on the cross was spiritual. He didn't actually come in the flesh, right?

We talk about the word incarnation. Does anybody remember what that word means? Incarnation means to take on flesh. You remember in John chapter one, in the beginning was the word, the word was with God.

That's verse one. And verse 14 says, and the word became flesh. This means as the second person of the Trinity, Jesus, the eternal word, took on flesh. He added humanity to his person. Jesus is God in man.

Doesn't mean he was eternally man. Means he was eternally God and then added flesh, humanity to his person. That's the incarnation. And so Gnosticism in the first century was opposing the doctrine of the incarnation and said Jesus was pretty much only a spirit.

Well, to say that Jesus is only a spirit, that's misrepresenting who Jesus is. Jesus has to represent humanity. We need a representative, an advocate that intercedes on our behalf perfectly. Why do we need someone perfectly representing us?

Because we're sinners, right? We deserve God's justice and his wrath. And so we need literally God to atone for our sins. And someone who's perfectly righteous is the only one that can do that. And so false teachers, the antichrist spirits, you know, is all in the first century in trying to distort who Jesus is.

Because if people believe in a wrong Jesus, then they can't have their sins forgiven. Look with me at chapter four in the opening verses. Let's see here. So beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits.

Let me pause. Is it kind of weird that we keep using the word spirits? Are y 'all thinking like ghosts kind of floating around? I think what John is saying is false teachers. Antichrist, spirits, persons that teach, or that are trying to deceive us, right?

That are teaching us lies. Back in 2 .26, John says, I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. So antichrist or false teachers, it are those spirits, those persons that are trying to malign or distort who the biblical Jesus is.

So back in four verse one. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world, okay? So how do we test the spirits?

Someone help me. How do we test the spirit to know that what they're saying is right or wrong?

Lauren?

They confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Yes, and so we know that based on God's revealed word, right? And so we test what they're saying with the objective standard of how God has revealed truth to us. Just like you said, if they deny that Jesus came in the flesh, Lauren, we can look and be like, oh, John warned us about him, right?

That's a false teacher. You gotta believe in the right Jesus. John said this about himself in John eight, I believe it's 24. He says, unless you believe that I am, then you will die in your sins. Does anybody know the significance of the I am?

Why Jesus referred to himself as the great I am? So do y 'all remember Moses in the burning bush? So Moses was talking to God. And God said, I want you to go to, I want you to lead my people out of Egypt.

And then Moses said, well, if they ask who sent me, what shall I say? And he said, tell them that I am has sent me unto you, okay? And so the point is, I am is referring to God everlasting. I am that I am.

I'm the one who was, the one who is, and will always be the eternally existing one. And Jesus is the I am. And so the point is, you have to believe in the right Jesus in order to be saved and have your sins forgiven.

Even the demons believe that.

Now, you're exactly right. They believe that. Does that mean that they're saved?

No.

They believe in the facts about who Jesus is. They know the facts to be true, but they don't believe from the heart and trust in him. Right, because for God so loved the world that he sent his one and only son, whoever believes in Jesus, believes in me, believes in him, will not perish by everlasting life.

That type of belief is different. That means to have repentant faith, trust from the heart. But the demons believe in the sense that they know facts. So what does that tell us? It's not enough just to know facts about who Jesus is.

That's not gonna save. But to trust in who he is and what he's done on our behalf.

Right?

Sound good? So look with me at verse two. By this you know the spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.

This is the spirit of the antichrist which you have heard was coming and is now in the world already. So I'm just wanting you to see we share something in common now, 21st century, with first century John.

Meaning that there's false teaching already about trying to distort the truths about Jesus. You're gonna have the spirit of antichrist being manifested in a lot of different ways. Some people have said, Jeremiah, well the spirit of antichrist in the context is just people that deny the flesh of Jesus.

I'm like, that's one antichrist, right? But you're either with me or against me, Jesus says. And you can be against Christ in a lot of different ways. Is that fair? And pick whichever one you want. That's a type of antichrist.

You're either in Christ or you're against him. And so the reason why that's important is because, as we're gonna see here in a little bit, false teachers, they deny Christ with what they actually teach.

And then we see some people being deceived in following false teachers. And then they leave the faith that way. And then you got some people that just throw up their hands and say, I'm tired of all this stuff.

And they prove to have the spirit of antichrist. So I'm wanting you to see that antichrist is firstly a false teacher, but it could also be anybody that opposes Christ with their life or what they say or what they do.

Sound good? So look back at verse 18 in chapter two. John says, children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.

Now verse 19 is very interesting. I want y 'all's thoughts on this. They, who's the they here, you think?

What?

Antichrist.

Antichrist, right? So we're talking about the false teachers. This is the primary context, but I want us to also make application. So they, the false teachers, the antichrists, went out from us, but they were not of us.

For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out that it might become plain that they all are not of us. So what are some first thoughts that come to mind when you hear this verse?

What does it mean that they were not of us?

Lauren?

I don't know if this is necessarily what you're asking, but in the thing that we listened to today, the...

Pastor Gabe? Yes, Lauren, listen, real quick. Anybody else listen to Pastor Gabe? Got a hand over here? Come on, Ayla. Anybody else listen to it? Shame on you, shame on you guys. JD already knows he's a heathen.

Thank you.

I don't even have to talk about it.

That's okay, we love you. So go ahead, Lauren.

Oh, you're saying like why they left the church. And it was so that they would not be associated with us.

Yes, okay, I'm so glad you brought that out. No, you're exactly right, because my big two main points this evening, I wanted to talk about what is antichrist, and how do we make sense of people leaving the church?

Because isn't it discouraging on one hand, when maybe we've grown up with people we've known for a long time in church, and they've left the faith altogether. That's discouraging on one hand, like what happened?

And I want us to think about it in two levels. You got false teachers, and then you have people that are deceived by false teaching, okay? And so we're gonna kind of talk about both. And so on one hand, it's very sad.

And we almost are, you know, I think about John's audience, maybe they get discouraged, like, oh no, what if I fall away from the faith too? Like, how can I know that I have assurance of my salvation that this won't happen?

Well, false teachers, we have to understand that they're not believing in the right Christ, meaning they're not truly saved. And yet they're gonna say, I'm a Christian, I believe in Jesus, but just because someone says they believe in Jesus, what Jesus do you believe in?

Do you believe that Jesus was the first of all created things? That's what Jehovah's Witnesses believe. They believe that Jesus was created by God the Father. Well, that means that that's a different Jesus than what we believe.

We believe that he's the second person of the Trinity, who's been in eternal relationship with the Father and Holy Spirit, okay? You got Mormons that say, well, we believe in Jesus, but when you ask what Jesus, oh, well, he's the brother of Lucifer.

And you're like, whoa, that's way different than what we believe, right? Muslims believe in Jesus, but they don't believe he died on the cross. Well, that's a different Jesus, you know what I mean? So it's important to say, what Jesus do you believe in?

Josiah?

And all this whole everything about trying to figure out who Jesus is and if he correlates to God, it actually goes all the way back to the Council of Nicaea when they resolve if Jesus is God or not.

Yeah, and I think that's a good point. And I think we would agree and recognize that even that council is a fallible human council, but they were trying to use the scriptures to say, hey, who is the right Jesus?

And I think they were right. Jesus is the second person of the Trinity and he is truly God and truly man. God the Son took on flesh and dwelt among us in his incarnation. And so I agree with that council.

So I think that's a good point. But that's something we hold near and dear to our hearts. We don't get swept away by these other spirits that try to come in and say, well, Jesus could be created. No, he's the creator, right?

I was actually gonna, I didn't find it quick enough. I was, oh, here it is. Paul actually warned Christians at Corinth to beware of false Jesuses. Well, how are we gonna know what a false Jesus is? We gotta know the real one, right?

How do you detect a counterfeit bill? You gotta know what the real one looks like. So let me read this verse to you real quick. Paul is kind of rebuking the Christians at Corinth, okay? And he says, for if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you've received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, he says, you guys are putting up with all that, essentially, like he's rebuking them.

And so that's what John is writing to little children, Christians who have been forgiven, and says, you have to beware of false teachers, the teachings of Antichrist that are gonna distort who Jesus is, okay?

Now here's something you can rest on. If you believe in the biblical Jesus, the Trinity, Jesus being the second person who took on flesh, dwelt among us, if you believe in that Jesus, and when I say believe, not like the demons and just facts, but trusting in the heart, then that'll never be taken away.

That's why he's trying to give assurance to his audience, because later, he's gonna say, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know you have eternal life.

But what do you think when you see people in the church leave, and show that they're actually not of us? Well, they didn't believe in the right Jesus. They were led away by false teachers. Or they maybe looked at the things of the world, which we're gonna talk about here in a moment, and they cared more about those things, proving that they didn't have the spirit of Christ dwelling in them, but the spirit of what? Antichrist.

So, because this is a huge point. If we love the biblical Jesus, then that'll never be taken away from us. Not because we made the right decisions, not because of how smart we are, but because that was gifted to us from above.

And God is going to purge his church. Does anybody know what purge means?

What?