The Anointing of Truth vs the Lies of Deceivers | 1 John 2:26-27
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Lord's Day: Jan 19, 2025 Preacher: Carlos Montijo [https://www.thorncrowncovenant.church/sermons/preacher/p/19307/carlos-montijo] Series: First John [https://www.thorncrowncovenant.church/sermons/series/first-john] Topic: End Times [https://www.thorncrowncovenant.church/sermons/topic/end-times] Scripture: 1 John 2:20–27, 2 Timothy 2:13, John 8:51, Psalm 27:1–2, 1 John 4:4, 1 Corinthians 14:8, Galatians 1:10, Hebrews 5:14, 2 Peter 3:18
But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. 21 I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth. 22 Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. 23 Everyone who denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also. 24 As for you, let that which you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is the promise which He Himself made to us: eternal life. 26 These things I have written to you about those who are trying to deceive you. 27 And as for you, the anointing whom you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you. But as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as He has taught you, abide in Him. 1 John 2:20-27
IN LIGHT OF ALL “THESE THINGS” THAT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN TO US, YOU MAY HAVE HEARD THE SAYING THAT ESCHATOLOGY IS ONLY OF SECONDARY OR TERTIARY IMPORTANCE
* Wrong: Eschatology is not always a matter of secondary/tertiary importance
* This is confusing and misleading, because it’s one thing to have different views of the eschatological millennium (premillennialism, postmillennialism, amillennialism), but it’s another thing to have different views of the final judgment and of antichrist, more consequential
* Especially in light of the repeated warnings of the apostles against the eschatological Antichrists and the Antichrist, because “‘the mystery of iniquity [is] already [at] work...’ (2 Thess 2:7). So Antichrist must always be seen as a present reality in AD 65, in 1517, in 1999, [in 2025!]. Antichrist’s appearance belongs to the last days, and according to John, the spirit of Antichrist manifested in the false teachers was a harbinger [sign] of the end time.”[6]
* There are many antichrists, worldly antichrists and religious antichrists, there is a spirit of antichrist in the world and in churches, true and false churches, and then there is the antichrist—the papacy—all of whom “are trying to deceive you” (v. 26)
* The doctrines of the final judgment and of antichrist are too vital to dismiss or get wrong, they are highly consequential, and, to the extent that they are infected with error, can lead to a dangerous downstream of errors, heresies, and confusion
* They are not matters of mere secondary importance that we can just disagree on without any consequence
* Because a false view of the final judgment can pervert the true gospel—New Perspective on Paul, Final Justification/Salvation
* And because failing to identify/expose antichrists and the antichrist is a failure to identify ours and the true church’s mortal enemies—and makes us ineffective and worse, possibly do more harm than good, in the spiritual battle of this divine drama of redemption and judgment
* Unless—we are being careful to exercise and train our senses to discern good and evil, true and almost true, Christ and Antichrist, through constant practice (Heb 5:14)
* These doctrines are of vital importance to the salvation of our own souls and to knowing, identifying, exposing, and defending our faith, and our souls, against the real enemy and ever-present enemies—antichrist and many antichrists
* As soldiers of Christ’s army, we must adequately train with the whole armor of God and of light to fight against our mortal enemies
* But have no fear—the Captain of our Salvation is here! The leader of God’s spiritual army—Jesus Christ the Righteous, He leads the way, our Anointed Lord, Master, and Omnipotent Savior, our Conqueror, our Prophet, Priest, and King
* So then, continue to abide in Him, beloved, to grow in Him, not by your own mere strength and efforts, but by the anointing of His Spirit in the truth of the saving gospel, by His means of grace
* Tim Kauffman’s eschatology series on Semper Reformanda Radio: The Danielic Imperative
* https://thorncrownministries.com/eschatology [https://thorncrownministries.com/eschatology]
* Steve Matthews’ Radio Lux Lucet
* https://thorncrownministries.com/radio-lux-lucet [https://thorncrownministries.com/radio-lux-lucet]
We meet on Sundays for worship at 10:00am:
* ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church [https://www.thorncrowncovenant.church/]
4712 Montana Ave
El Paso, Texas 79903
Contact us at:
* web: ThornCrownCovenant.Church [https://www.thorncrowncovenant.church/]
call/text: (915) 843-8088
email: [email protected] [[email protected]]
Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org [http://lsbible.org/] and 316publishing.com [http://316publishing.com/]
[6] John W. Robbins, ‘Antichrist 1999’, The Trinity Review, 171, 1999 <https://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=137> [accessed 1 December 2024].
- 00:01
- Let's begin in verse 20 of 1st John chapter 2 and we're going to continue once again to make good use of the analogies of Scripture and of faith.
- 00:20
- There's a lot of good stuff that we'll be covering here, some important passages. Verse 20,
- 00:27
- God's Word says, But you, beloved, have an anointing from the
- 00:32
- Holy One already, and you all know already. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it already, okay, and because no lies of the truth.
- 00:46
- Who is a liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist, the one who denies the
- 00:52
- Father and the Son. Everyone who denies the Son does not have the Father. The one who confesses the
- 00:58
- Son has the Father also. As for you, that is all of you who are anointed by the
- 01:05
- Holy One to know and believe the truth, let that which you heard from the beginning abide in you.
- 01:13
- If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the
- 01:18
- Father. And this is the promise which he himself made to us and which is why we know it is true.
- 01:26
- Because even if we are faithless, he remains faithful for he cannot deny himself.
- 01:33
- That's 2nd Timothy 2 .13. And this is the promise of eternal life.
- 01:41
- These things I have written to you about those who are trying to deceive you.
- 01:49
- And as for you, the anointing whom you have received from abides in you and you have no need for anyone to teach you.
- 01:57
- But as his anointing teaches you about all things and is true and is not a lie, and just as he has taught you already, abide in him.
- 02:09
- So as we continue to move on this passage, you'll see how verses 20 through 22 parallel verses 26 through 27.
- 02:20
- They are very strong restatements and a re -emphasis of what God is telling us here of all of these things regarding Antichrist and abiding in him.
- 02:33
- About the truth and the anointing and about the lies and deception. And once again, a lot of the driving thesis and conviction behind this passage is that is the words of Christ himself.
- 02:49
- Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word or abides in my doctrine, my
- 02:57
- Logos, he will never see death. Ever. From John 8 51.
- 03:04
- So the light of God, God's truth, is far greater, far greater than any darkness.
- 03:12
- The anointing of the truth is greater than the lies of deceivers.
- 03:20
- Now if you turn with me now to Psalm 27 in verse 1. In Psalm 27 verse 1, a very encouraging psalm here that is connecting the dots for us in this passage as well.
- 03:48
- We've already seen quite often how John, one of the themes, one of John's favorite themes, both in the
- 03:57
- Bible and in his letters, is the theme of light and darkness. And in Psalm 27 verse 1,
- 04:04
- God's word likewise says, Yahweh is my light and my salvation.
- 04:11
- Whom shall I fear then? Yahweh is the strong defense of my life.
- 04:17
- Whom shall I dread? Whom shall I fear? When evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh, my adversaries, and my enemies, they stumbled and fell.
- 04:28
- So the Lord is our light and our salvation. His anointing is what preserves us.
- 04:35
- And the Apostle John will later encourage us with another powerful promise.
- 04:43
- If we jump back over to 1st John in chapter 4 verse 4, which
- 04:49
- I've previously read as well, but in 1st John chapter 4 verse 4, you will find an amazing promise, gospel promise, of God's assurances and power.
- 05:08
- 1st John chapter 4 verse 4, God's word says, You believers are from God, little children, and have overcome them already.
- 05:20
- Who is he talking about? He's talking about Antichrist. Why? Because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.
- 05:33
- Amen to that. Greater is he who is in us and his anointing than he who is in the world, the devil and his devices, like we sang in today's hymn.
- 05:45
- Now, and in the catechism, remember too that we ourselves already abide in the anointing of the triune
- 05:58
- God of truth, not by our own mere efforts.
- 06:04
- It's never by our own mere efforts. It is by God's Spirit who continually works in us and by us therefore, consequently, participating in his means of grace and of deliverance, including the six
- 06:24
- S's that we've covered before in the Knowing Your Enemy series, which is scripture, sound doctrine, sacraments, the sacraments being the
- 06:34
- Lord's supper and baptism, self -awareness and self -denial, sage counsel, and spiritual warfare, right?
- 06:43
- Very important. So we do have a role to play, but it is God who works in us and energizes and empowers us and equips us to participate in his means of grace.
- 06:58
- Last time we also saw that Peter's warnings in his letter against the untaught, unstable, unprincipled men, such as Count Zinzendorf, the guy who had a lot of wacky, wacky false teaching, are what
- 07:20
- John the Apostle has been warning us about in his letter, right? So notice once again his repeated emphasis.
- 07:30
- John is making a very serious point as to why he has written these things.
- 07:36
- That's a common phrase that he uses a lot, these things that I've written to you, and he continues to remind us of the different reasons for writing these things to us, right?
- 07:50
- Just as he wrote these things earlier in verse 1 of this chapter, so that you may not sin, right?
- 07:58
- So that you may not sin, and how he wrote these things in the beginning of the letter, so that our joy may be complete, right?
- 08:08
- This time, in verse 26, he writes these things to warn us about those who are trying to deceive you.
- 08:18
- And who might that be, I wonder? Well, it's what he's been talking about all along, right?
- 08:24
- It's against Antichrists, deceivers, plural, against the deceptions of Antichrist.
- 08:33
- And again, we've seen this throughout the letter, John's letter, where the beloved
- 08:39
- Apostle tends to also jump back and forth quite a bit between subjects and the same themes, often for emphasis and for repetition, because they are important matters that God really wants us to understand, to always remember, and to never forget, right?
- 09:02
- To abide in, to remain in the truth of these things that are written for us, for our instruction.
- 09:12
- And we will continue to see this on throughout the rest of the letter as well.
- 09:20
- Now, speaking of Antichrists and deceivers, I do need to make a correction from a few
- 09:27
- Sundays ago, because I misspoke when I said that the highest blasphemy in Islam is to deny that God had a son.
- 09:38
- But I meant to say the exact opposite. In Islam, the highest blasphemy is to claim that God had a son.
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- And it is found in Surah 112, not in Surah 114. There's 114
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- Surahs in the Quran, and it's in Surah 112, which says, in the name of Allah, the
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- Gracious, the Merciful, say, O Prophet, he's referring to Muhammad, he is
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- Allah the One, Allah the Absolute. He begets not, nor was he begotten, and there is none comparable to him.
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- So that right there is an absolute denial of the Trinity and of the Son of God, Christ, the second person of the
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- Trinity, the God -man. Absolute denial. And it is one of the, it's the highest blasphemy in Islam to claim that God had a son, that he begat a son, his only begotten son, like John 3 16 says.
- 10:42
- So Islam, that's one of the many reasons why Islam is one of the many false antichrist religions that are trying to deceive the world, us as well.
- 11:00
- And they have deceived many, over a billion, I think. Lamentably, though, and in some ways, this is, in some ways, this is even worse than the threat of Islam.
- 11:17
- Sadly, we live in a day where it is now commonplace, it is all too common for very influential
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- Protestant scholars and theologians such as Michael Horton to praise the work of, quote, important theologians, quote -unquote.
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- And I say that with a very strong emphasis on the quotes, because by important theologians, he's referring to Pope Benedict XVI and Scott Hahn, who was a former
- 11:51
- Presbyterian minister who apostatized and fell away from the faith to become a
- 11:59
- Roman Catholic apologist and professor at a Franciscan University, a
- 12:05
- Romanist institution. Now, even though Horton has some good material, he has blatantly compromised himself and his witness on more than one occasion, and this keeps happening.
- 12:20
- That's why I bring it up today, because we have to watch out for this stuff. This is a quote from one of his endorsements of Scott Hahn's book.
- 12:32
- Horton says, in Scott Hahn's remarkable book, it's called
- 12:37
- Covenant and Communion, the Biblical Theology of Pope Benedict XVI, Scott Hahn has drawn out the central themes of Benedict's teaching in a highly readable summary that includes not only the
- 12:49
- Pope's published work, but also his less accessible homilies and addresses. Oh, how useful.
- 12:55
- How wonderful. This is an eminently useful guide, he continues, for introducing the thought of an important theologian of our time.
- 13:06
- So, and I have that book. I have the book because Logos Software offers a book, free book, every month, including a free
- 13:18
- Catholic book, and you know, in this book, the Pope doubles down against the
- 13:24
- Reformers. He's calling out the Reformers and the Reformation. It's utterly,
- 13:31
- I mean, just, I'll save my comments for a little bit later. Now, and also, when
- 13:37
- I've talked to Pastor David about this, he also mentioned to me that Michael Horton has been more recently swimming in the cesspool of critical race theory.
- 13:49
- You know, all this critical race theory and, which is just a racist form of social justice and wokeness, right, this whole woke nonsense about critical race theory and systemic racism and how we're all a bunch of racists, especially those of us who are not minorities, and it's a bunch of Marxism, communism and Marxism, all combined into one cesspool of Antichrist false teaching.
- 14:19
- It is Antichrist, make no mistake about it, beloved. And that brings us to a very important question regarding what's going on in a lot of these men, like Horton.
- 14:35
- What we need to ask ourselves this important question, why would someone like Horton, who is a
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- United Reformed minister, a pastor, an elder, okay, and professor of systematic theology and apologetics at Westminster Seminary, which is the supposed fortress of Reformed theology and orthodoxy, which also holds to the
- 15:06
- Westminster Confession, by the way, take note of that, it'll be relevant shortly, and even worse, in a sense, one of Horton's ministries is called the
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- White Horse Inn for a modern Reformation, the Protestant Reformation, which claims to apply the riches of the
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- Reformation to the modern church. So why would
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- Horton then celebrate and endorse the work of a pope and of a
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- Roman Catholic apologist who used to be a Reformed minister like Horton?
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- What's the reason behind that? Is it academic respectability, ecumenical collegiality perhaps, or just plain hypocrisy, right?
- 16:02
- What's the, is it what the Apostle Paul said, that becoming pleasers of men?
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- And Paul says, no, if I become a pleaser of men, then I can no longer please God. Those are mutually exclusive, okay, so that's a dangerous, dangerous trajectory that many influential
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- Protestants, quote -unquote, professing Protestants, are doing and causing a lot of confusion in the process.
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- So this rampant ecumenical confusion subverts and undermines biblical
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- Christianity. For if the trumpet makes an uncertain sound, who will prepare for battle, right?
- 17:00
- 1 Corinthians 14 8. How are you supposed to go to war when you're celebrating the enemy, right?
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- You're celebrating, endorsing, and lauding the work of Antichrist. What on earth is, and this is what makes you a liability.
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- It makes you a liability to God's people in God's church because now you're confusing and blurring the line and failing to expose
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- Antichrist like the Bible clearly commands us to do. And Horton, sad to say, shamelessly defended his endorsement because people called him out on it, rightly so, but he doubled down and he defended himself.
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- And ecumenical, by the way, is a very, very prominent movement which seeks to all hold hands and sing kumbaya with other movements.
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- And there's a good ecumenical spirit which seeks to find common ground with true churches that are not necessarily a part of our denomination or persuasion.
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- There are faithful Lutheran churches, there are faithful Presbyterian churches, and Methodist churches that do believe the true biblical gospel.
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- Even though we may have disagreements, and important disagreements at that, we may believe that they are an error about a number of things, they may still be a true church mixed with various degrees of error.
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- But the false ecumenism is the one that seeks to find common ground with Rome, with the
- 18:47
- Church of Rome. And this is the error that many influential men have committed, like J .I.
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- Packer, like C .S. Lewis, like Horton, Michael Horton. And this isn't his first offense by any means.
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- It's not his first offense. He's got a track record here of sinful behavior.
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- And he needs to be called out on it, because they have platforms that cause confusion.
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- Horton, and compromised Protestants like him, should ask themselves if any single one of the
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- Reformers they admire so much would ever be caught dead endorsing a book by a
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- Roman Catholic apologist that celebrates the Pope. Anyone!
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- I mean, who according to Horton's own Reformation heritage that he claims to hold to, and claims to spread and teach the influence of in our modern day.
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- A little hard to do that when you're celebrating Antichrist, right? According to the heritage that he claims to hold to, and to the very, that of the very seminary that he teaches in, the
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- Pope is that Antichrist, that man of sin, that son of perdition that exalts himself in the church against Christ and all that is called
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- God. That's from the Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 25, verse 6.
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- Now even though Horton doesn't hold to the Westminster Confession, he teaches in a seminary that does.
- 20:36
- However, I recently learned from Brother Steve Matthews, I recommend that you also check out his work and his blog called
- 20:47
- Radio Lux Lucid and his podcast. It's also on our network, our Semper Ephraim on the
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- Thorncrown Network podcast, but I found out from him that many, if not most
- 21:04
- Presbyterian denominations and seminaries, even the conservative ones, have taken that part out of their confession completely, which reveals a much deeper and more foundational problem.
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- And what problem might that be? Well, I think a lot of it is this ecumenical spirit, this false ecumenism, but also, yeah, and including
- 21:34
- Westminster Seminary. If you go on their website, you will find that they took out that phrase from the confession that I just read that exposes the papacy as the
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- Antichrist. John Robbins has some very helpful commentary here about this more fundamental problem.
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- The Presbyterian Church at the turn of the 20th century revised the Westminster Confession of Faith and deleted the sentences identifying the papacy as Antichrist, capital
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- A, the Antichrist. The Reformation understanding of prophecy has been either deliberately rejected or forgotten.
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- The two contending factions, the Futurists and the Preterists, remember that Antichrist either will come in the future or already came in the past, can be traced directly to the
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- Jesuits, as I covered a few weeks ago. Both agree on one thing, that the
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- Protestant view is wrong, which is that the papacy is the Antichrist.
- 22:48
- Now, again, why is this happening? Robbins, again, gives us a helpful big -picture perspective of the forest here.
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- It is because the great truth, the great truth of the Reformation, of justification by faith alone, which by the way is the gospel, it is the one true gospel, it is no longer at the center of the church's attention.
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- It has fallen by the wayside. The truth has been eclipsed by an earthly, man -centered vision.
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- And what religion is more man -centered than the religion of Rome? It's all about the religion of man and of Antichrist, as I've preached on before.
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- And because, also to add a little bit to that, so many churches have neglected to preach the whole counsel of God.
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- That includes everything ranging from the doctrine of Christ to the doctrine of Antichrist.
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- All of it. All of it. And incidentally, when I was preaching on this a few weeks back, as well,
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- I also forgot to mention one of Rome's many blasphemous and false doctrine, and that is the false teaching of transubstantiation.
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- When this is a false view of the Lord's Supper, which teaches that the
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- Mass, in the Lord's Supper, they believe and teach that the sacrifice of the
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- Mass is a sacrifice in the sense of Christ's sacrifice being offered to us once again.
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- It's represented as a sacrifice once again, his body and blood, literally, which is why they believe that the bread and wine literally becomes into Christ, turns into Christ's body and blood by the act of transubstantiation, which is where the phrase hocus -pocus comes from.
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- And hocus corpus meum was the Latin that the priest would recite. This is my body.
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- And the problem, of course, is that is a completely false doctrine and a denial of what
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- Hebrews and what numerous New Testament passages teach about the sacrifice of Christ, that it was done once for all, and that it was finished on the cross.
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- Finished. Done. And so this re -offering of Christ's sacrifice in the
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- Mass, in the Lord's Supper, is a denial of the gospel.
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- It is an undermining and denial of the gospel. And so this is the religion that so many
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- Protestants and professing Protestants, even Protestants who have said and taught very good things in the past, even like I mentioned
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- Gavin Ortlund as well, who say, yeah, Catholics, sure, Catholics can be Christians as well.
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- It's like, really? Even though they practice a blasphemous Lord's Supper that denies the gospel of justification by faith alone and the finished work of Christ on the cross.
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- Okay, so this is not a matter of secondary issues. This is a matter of eternal life and death.
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- And this brings us to a very important lesson. A very important lesson that the
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- Apostle is teaching us here in this passage. Whereas men like Horton are generally considered to be very sound, as I've already mentioned, but this is what happens when even generally sound men compromise.
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- This is what happened with the Apostle Peter himself with contradictory and hypocritical behavior.
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- Okay, such as in the case of Peter when he compelled the Gentiles to live like Jews, contrary to the freedom that we have in the gospel of Christ.
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- And why in the reason why Paul rebuked him to his face in front of everybody.
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- And in the case of Horton, endorsing and celebrating the work of the
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- Antichrist Pope and an apostate Presbyterian minister, both of whom embody everything that goes against the fundamentals of the
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- Protestant Reformation that he so claims to promote. Okay, this is blatant hypocrisy.
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- So do not lose sight of what matters most, beloved. And those like Horton, who already have, must repent and stop compromising.
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- They've lost their first love in that sense. They are compromised. And this has become a very common thing and it will probably continue to happen.
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- You will see influential men falling away to Rome or to the Eastern Orthodoxy, compromising with the whore of Babylon and her many blasphemies and false, wicked, heinous teachings.
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- And that's not to mention that the Inquisitions and the murderous rampage of the
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- Church of Rome that has stained the world with her wickedness.
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- So it will continue to happen. It will continue to happen.
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- And this really brings us to a very important takeaway now regarding all of these things that have been written to us.
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- Because you probably have heard the saying that eschatology, you know, the study of last things, is a matter of secondary, of tertiary or tertiary importance.
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- You know, it's a secondary issue. It's nothing really that impactful or consequential.
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- It's okay to differ on those things. I want to put my foot down here though and say that this is wrong.
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- This is wrong. This is a very false and misleading statement, okay?
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- Because eschatology is not always a matter of secondary or tertiary importance, okay?
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- This is very confusing and misleading because it's one thing to have different views of the millennium, the eschatological millennium, you know, whether you believe in a pre or post or on millennium.
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- It's one thing to have different views of that. And yes, there is some disagreement there and that disagreement may be more or less secondary.
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- But it's another thing to have different views of the final judgment, okay?
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- And of Antichrist. That is highly, that is far more consequential.
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- Now, all doctrine is important. We don't want to be wrong about anything. But these two things, at the very least, are highly consequential, especially in light of the repeated warnings of the
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- Apostles against the eschatological Antichrist and Antichrist.
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- Because the mystery of iniquity is already at work, like 2nd
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- Thessalonians 2 .7 says. So Antichrist must always be seen as a present reality, present reality, a present threat in 8065, in 1517, when the
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- Reformation exploded and Luther nailed his 95 theses in 1999 and in 2025.
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- Because the Antichrist appearance belongs to the last days, to the last days, to the eschaton.
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- And according to John, the Apostle, the spirit of Antichrist manifested in the false teachers was a harbinger, a sign of the end time.
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- We need to know the enemy. How do you know your enemy if you don't know who Antichrist is?
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- So we cannot recklessly dismiss this as a secondary issue, because it is one of the fundamental duties that we have as soldiers in God's army, to know and expose the enemy.
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- There are many Antichrists, worldly Antichrists and religious
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- Antichrists. There is a spirit of Antichrist that operates both in the world and in churches, and especially in the papacy, both in true and in false churches as well.
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- Because they try to attack and undermine God's true church. And then there is the
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- Antichrist, which is the papacy, all of whom are trying to deceive you, like John warns us about in verse 26.
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- The doctrines of the final judgment and of Antichrist are far too vital to dismiss or get wrong, especially now.
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- They are highly, highly consequential. And to the extent that they are infected with error, they can also lead to a dangerous downstream of errors, heresies, and confusion.
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- They are not matters of mere secondary importance that we can just disagree on without any consequence.
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- Because a false view, a false view of the final judgment can pervert the true gospel.
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- And that is the first importance, like Paul says. This is a matter of eternal life and death. And some of the most pernicious and common false teaching running rampant in even
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- Protestant and Reformed churches is this false view of the final judgment, of the new perspective on Paul, of this false teaching of final justification or final salvation, like John Piper teaches.
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- The belief that, yes, you are justified initially when you believe, but then at the final judgment, you have to prove your worth and your holiness and your good works and your inherent righteousness in order to be allowed into heaven.
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- Of course, that's a blatant denial of God's Word and of the gospel, which says those who believe have eternal life already, already.
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- We don't have anything left to prove because God in Christ has proved it for us already.
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- It is on Christ and His finished work that has satisfied the final judgment so that we no longer shall come into judgment, like Jesus said in John 5 24.
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- That is a life, that is a such an important verse that we need to memorize because it strikes at the core, it refutes this false
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- Antichrist teaching of the final judgment. That's a teaching of Antichrist.
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- It is also, not surprisingly, the same false teaching of Rome, of Romanism, that you have to present your good works in the final judgment in order to be allowed in.
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- Now, and because failing to identify and expose
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- Antichrist and the Antichrist is a failure to identify ours and the true church's mortal enemies and makes us ineffective and worse, possibly do more harm than good, become a liability rather than an asset in this spiritual battle of this divine drama of redemption and of judgment, of God's judgment, okay?
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- Unless we are being careful to exercise and train our senses to discern both good and evil, true and almost true,
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- Christ and Antichrist through constant practice, like Hebrews 5 14 and countless other passages admonish us to do so, right?
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- These doctrines are of vital importance to the salvation of our very souls and to knowing, identifying, exposing the enemy and defending our faith and our souls against the real enemy and ever -present enemies,
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- Antichrist and the many Antichrist that are in the world and in the church as well, the true church.
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- As soldiers in Christ's army, we must adequately train and equip ourselves with the whole armor of God and of light to fight against our mortal enemies.
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- Like I mentioned, the sixth S of God's means of deliverance, spiritual warfare.
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- We are in a spiritual battle against the spiritual wickedness of in the heavenly places, in the prince of the power of the air.
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- Now, have no fear, however. Fear not, for the captain of our salvation is here, the leader of God's spiritual army,
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- Jesus Christ the righteous. He leads the way for us, our anointed
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- Lord, master and omnipotent Savior, our conqueror, our prophet, priest and king is with us.
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- So then, beloved, continue to abide in him because you already are in him.
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- We who believe are already in him and continue to grow in him, not by your own mere strength and efforts, but by the anointing of his spirit, his anointing of his spirit in the truth of the saving gospel by his means of grace, his means of grace.
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- Amen. I also encourage you to listen to Brother Tim Kaufman's eschatology series on on our podcast,
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- Emperor Ephraim on the radio, called the Danielic Imperative. This is really important teaching on Antichrist that we need to know.
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- And like I mentioned, Steve Matthews' Radio Lux Lucid program and, of course, the Trinity Foundation, the work of John Robbins.
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- Very, very important work that has, you know, a lot of Protestant churches have compromised. They are becoming compromised and compromising themselves and their witness and their testimony with the
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- Antichrist Church of Rome and the papacy. But let it not be so with us and our church.
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- We need to rightly recognize these things for what they are, things as they really are.
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- Know yourself, know God and know what's really going on and know the enemy because it is
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- Christ who also anoints us continually with his logos, his truth, the truth, the way, the life.
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- Amen. Let's wrap up here by turning to verse 27 of 1st John chapter 2.
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- In verse 27. In 1st
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- John chapter 2 verse 27, very important things that the apostle is telling us here.
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- And we will also pick up on this next week. God's Word says, and as for you, beloved, the anointing whom you received, this is past tense, okay?
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- Take note of that. You have received already from him who abides in you already continually and permanently.
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- Permanently. I like how the Amplified Bible puts that. Permanently. And you have no need for anyone to teach you.
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- But as his anointing actively teaches you about all things, including discernment of Antichrist and of the truth through his spirit and means of grace and is true and is not a lie, which results in actively growing in our knowledge and understanding.
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- So we don't just know something. We continue to grow and to learn more and more of God's truth.
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- And it helps us to act. This anointing helps us to actively grow in the grace and knowledge of our
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- Lord and savior, Jesus Christ, like 2nd Peter 3 18 says. And just as he has taught you already, abide in him then.
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- Abide in him because, and amen to that, because our abiding union with Christ by his
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- Holy Spirit and means of grace will progressively and continually sanctify us unto holiness and perfection and ultimately glorification.
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- God will finish that work that he began in us. Amen? Never forget, beloved, that the anointing you receive from him abides in you already and will continue to abide in you.
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- Those of us who believe, we will endure and be saved to the very end.
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- God will by no means let us go. He will never, no never, forsake us.
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- Not ever. So with that, beloved, I hope that these things are becoming more and more clear as by God's anointing we continue to learn and to grow.
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- It's not a stagnant faith that we hold to. That is how we must measure our spiritual growth.
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- Not by how we feel on any given day. It is not by our emotional output or by our emotional state.
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- Not by how emotionally sensitive we are. Those are lies that stem from movements like pietism.
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- It is by measuring our doctrinal maturity and our discernment.
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- That is how you measure true spiritual maturity. Are you discerning like the
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- Bereans? Can you discern truth from error, Christ from Antichrist?
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- Are you learning and growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior? That is true spiritual growth.
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- And don't let anybody tell you any different and lead you astray and in any way deceive you.
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- Even if they claim to be Protestant. Even if they are professors and theologians who have written hundreds of pages of otherwise good material.
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- It doesn't matter. They can still be hypocrites and deceive us by their hypocrisy and their false ecumenical behavior like men like Horton that we need to call to a repentance and with which they need to repent beloved.
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- So I hope this message has blessed you and encourages you.
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- We will continue to dive further into God's truth and word here later on next
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- Lord's Day. Let us go ahead and bow our heads in a word of prayer. Our precious gracious Lord and Heavenly Father we thank you for this beautiful Lord's Day and for the opportunity to gather today as your people.
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- Lord we ask that you would bless us and encourage us with your means of grace. Father we ask that you would help us to continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of our
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- Lord and Savior. Father thank you so much for revealing to you to us by your word your logos your doctrine that that is what saved that saves us
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- Father. No amount of contrition not by our sorrowing in our sorrow that we are saved father but by your word and by your gospel by receiving it in faith and believing understanding it and accepting it as true.
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- That alone is what saves us father and that will bear fruit because your spirit your anointing will continue to work in us and help us to grow grow in grace grow in knowledge grow in sound doctrine of our
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- Lord and Savior Christ Jesus and grow in the discernment of Antichrist Lord so that that is so important in our last and evil day that we live in.
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- Father help us to not lose faith not lose heart and not lose hope because you are our hope and you are
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- God who cannot lie. Father your anointing is true and is not a lie never a lie father and we can take great comfort and joy in that father help us to rejoice in knowing that we have the spirit of truth and your sheep your people hear your voice and follow you even in the midst of lies and falsehoods and the spirit of Antichrist that is pervasive everywhere even in true churches father we know that you will help us to endure to the end you will preserve us to the very end by your means and by your spirit in Jesus Almighty name we pray amen.
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- Thank you for listening to the sermons of Thorn Crown Covenant Baptist Church where the Bible alone and the
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- Bible in its entirety has applied to all of faith and life. We strive to be biblical, reformed, historic, confessional, loving, discerning
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- Christians who evangelize, stand firm in and earnestly contend for the Christian faith.
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- 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 Ephraim on the radio and Thorn Crown Network podcasts please contact us at thorncrownministries .com