Stand Fast

DEVOTION 1 JOHN STAND FAST 1 John 2:18-19 18 Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. NIV Although it is true we are still waiting for the antichrist who will set himself up as a god, which will happen in what is referred by God, through John in the writing of revelation as the tribulation, it would appear there was and is a series of antichrists who have lived and may yet live before this final one. But what is this last hour? Has this past two thousand years been the last hour? We know with God time has a whole different set of rules, so what really matters is that there are and will be antichrists which we need to be aware of. As we will see in the next statement they are people who refuse to accept Jesus as the Christ. This is once again a group of people who are filled with false teachings. But in a sense are not all unbelievers’ antichrists? If they teach the strength and power of humanity and have no need to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, in fact refuse to acknowledge Him as such, are they not an antichrist? Yet does this speak of people who once pretended to by believers but then left and started some other belief system? Over the year could Buddha, Mohammad, Joseph Smith, St Cyril, Charles Taze Russell and others who have formed all sorts of belief systems other than the true Gospel message, be antichrists? Could those we know as wolves in sheep clothing spreading their “name it and claim” or their “prosperity” message, gathering so many followers to themselves be antichrists? They may well teach Jesus is the Christ, but because of their pollution of the rest of the message, does that simply make them false teachers, or could they be antichrists as well? One thing is for sure, we have to remain in the Word, the truth, and depend on the gift of discernment from the Holy Spirit to know this antichrists when we see them and to stay clear, keeping ourselves pure and holy acceptable to God, through faith in Jesus as the Christ, as our Lord and Savior. We cannot allow deceptive words of silver tongue antichrists to sway our thinking from the truth. No matter how great it may sound, no matter how right it might appear, if it is not the truth, the Spirit will give us insight to see what is wrong with their message. We need but to stand fast in the truth.