Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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Please remain standing and let's turn our
attention. You may turn in your bibles
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if you would like to. First
John A, chapter four, and I'm
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want to read to you a few
verses from here. First John Four,
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verses one through six. We looked
at this passage last week a concerning how
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it is that we attest the spirits, how we know what is from God
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and what is from the world.
This time we look at the passage and
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consider another important thing that John Brings
to our attention, and that is the
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spirit of antichrist. Antichrist, let's
hear God's word. First John. For
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Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether
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they are from God, for many
false prophets have gone out into the world.
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By this you know the spirit of
God. Every spirit that confesses that
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Jesus Christ has come in the flesh
is from God, and every spirit that
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does not confess Jesus is not from
God. This is the spirit of the
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antichrist, which you heard was coming
and now is in the world already.
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Little children, you are from God
and have overcome them, for he who
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is in you is greater than he
who is in the world. They are
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from the world. Therefore, they
speak from the world, in the world
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listens to them. We are from
God. Whoever knows God listens to us.
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Whoever is not from God does not
listen to us. By this we
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know the spirit of truth and the
spirit of error. My God bless his
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word to us. You may be
seated. So, as I said,
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before we leave this passage, we
want to talk about something else, another
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important thing that John teaches us here, and that is about the Anti Christ,
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the spirit of Anti Christs, even
the many anti Christs that are now
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in the world. Now, for
some of you, when I say this
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word antichrist, this means about as
much to you as any other Bible word.
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Maybe it's an unfamiliar term and something
that you are perhaps curious about,
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want to know more about, but
but don't really understand yet. For others
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of you, I know that the
Word Anti Christ makes you squirm in your
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seat a little bit. Perhaps you've
read a certain novels or seen certain books,
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and there's a whole industry, we
might say, of media, surrounding
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this particular figure, much of it, I'll say, is wrong and unbiblical,
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and so we have to think carefully
about this. In fact, I
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think some of US may know a
certain novels and books better than we know
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the actual verses in the Bible that
teach us about the antichrist. It is,
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however, perhaps a scary word,
something that makes you squirm in your
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seat, a little bit like a
cold shadow coming over your heart. If
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your immediate reaction is fear or a
tiny bit of terror, let me talk
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to you for just a moment and
say this. Your concern is understandable.
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We are called in scripture to be
on guard, to be prepared. This
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is, after all, a warning
that we have in First John. Pay
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attention or, as we read in
First Lesslonians, be awake. There is
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a sense of danger that we ought
to have. As a Christian, however,
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you need to know that you don't
need to fear the antichrist anymore than
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you might fear, let's say,
death, if you have a resurrection that
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has been promised to you in Christ
if indeed there is a way in which
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the Bible speaks, you have already
been raised with him and the newness of
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life to walk in his ways and
to follow after him with the spirit of
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God residing in your heart, if
there's a way in which you have already
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overcome death. All of those same
things can be said of the antichrist.
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In other words, if you can
sort of picture, if you have this
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cat agory of death right in your
head and you have this sense of that.
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Okay, I know who I am
in Christ. I know this is
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something I don't need to fear,
but it is something I need to prepare
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for. I need to understand and
be ready transfer those that good theology over
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to this category, because it's the
same thing. In the same way,
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Christ has already overcome the antichrist.
As John says here, we are overcomers,
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we have overcome them, he says
in verse four, past tense.
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Well, consider that more. But
I want to start out by right away
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by saying you don't need to be
terrorized by this person or by the thought
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of this person, because the one
who overcame death for you is the one
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who is overcome Satan himself and all
those who would come from him, all
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those who are here his servants.
So I want you to hear first John
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Three and four. In this way, this is the spirit of antichrist which
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you have heard and was coming in, is now already in the world.
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Baptize that fear in faith, cover
it in this word that God has spoken
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to you in Christ. You don't
need to be afraid if you belong to
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God through the son and whom you
believe and confess. You don't need to
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be worried about your king's lesser enemies. Okay, so we'll start at the
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end now. Instead, then,
of approaching the scriptures in fear, let's
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go to them in faith and examine
what it is they have to say.
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Well, when we go to the
scriptures, what do we find? Well,
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one interesting thing is that this word
antichrist really only appears in John's letters.
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Maybe that surprises you that we don't
find this word in revelation, although
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the antichrist certainly is connected to the
beast in revelation. The passage that we
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have here is one of the mentions
of this. This word Anti Christ,
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and the others come from the letters
of John. Let's look at each of
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them. There's just a few places, so let's go ahead and do that.
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If you have your bibles open,
you can flip back to first John,
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Chapter two. First John Chapter two, verse eighteen were John Speaks by
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the word of the spirit and says
children, it is the last hour and
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as you have heard that aunt,
that antichrist is coming. So now many
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anti Christs have come. Therefore we
know that it is the last hour,
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as you have heard, that antichrist
is coming. So now many antichrists have
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come. Therefore we know that it
is the last hour. Now Jump Down
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to Verse Twenty Two, same chapter, verse Chapter Two. Who is the
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liar? But he who denies that
Jesus is the Christ. This is the
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antichrist, he who denies the Father
and the son. And then we have
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our verse that we've read in for
first John Four, verse three. This
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is the spirit of antichrist which you
heard was coming and is now in the
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world already, namely the one that
denies that Jesus Christ has come from the
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father in the flesh. And then
we have one more verse in a second
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John Which is just a page or
so away, a second John so small
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it doesn't even have chapters. So
we go straight to verse seven. For
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many deceivers have gone out into the
world, those who do not confess the
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coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh, flesh. Such a one is the
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deceiver and the antichrist. Then he
adds this warning in Verse Eight Watch yourselves
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so that you may not lose what
we have worked for but may win a
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full reward. So this these are
the passages in which this word is mentioned
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and it's connected with other passages in
the Bible as well. We'll look at
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some today from some of Paul's Letters. We won't have time to look at
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everything in that light. I want
to recommend to you a book if this
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is something that you want to learn
more about, Dr Kim Riddlebarger. He's
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a pastor of Christ reformed church in
Anaheim, California, a minister in the
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United Reformed Churches, longtime cohost of
white horse and he has a book called
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the man of Sin, uncovering the
truth about the antichrist. A good book.
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It's very thorough, very helpful,
goes through all the verses and exegetical
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issues. I would commend that to
you. But let's head back to the
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scriptures here and see what it is
that they teach us. One thing we
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see from these passages is that there
is this warning, that's there's an application.
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We are to be alert, we
are to be testing, we are
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to be paying attention. Right corresponding
with what Paul said, and we read
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earlier and first Thessalonians five. Be
Awake, be sober, be be paying
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attention the the expression the thief and
the night sometimes is taken to mean that
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the Lord may return it any moment, and in a sense that's true.
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None of us know when he will
return. There's a little more depth than
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nuance to that we should add,
though, and it has to do with
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they on thy Christ and and other
things related to his return. We can't
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get into it all now, but
there's a whole confluence of events that are
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we are told, happen around that
the time before the Lord comes, the
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antichrist comes, he deceives many people. There is a great apostasy in these
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kinds of things. We haven't seen
that yet. We don't have that happening,
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at least as far as so we
can tell, not in any obvious
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way anyway at this point in time. I'll come back to that thought,
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hopefully if I remember a little bit
later. But Paul's paint main concern about
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this thief and the night is the
staying there are people. It's about attitudes,
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is what he's saying. It's not
about how quickly things can happen,
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although that's part of it. But
the main point has to do with an
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attitude. Are you sort of self
assured, thinking everything is fine, as
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he says, peace and security,
we're all fine, everything's okay, we
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can sleep and be safe. He
says it's not the case. If you
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are self assured, if you're confident
in yourself, if you're rejecting the Lord
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Jesus, be aware, because he
can come at any time. You will
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be thinking you're fine, but you
will not be. He will come like
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a thief in the night. You
will be caught off guard in your self
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confidence and your pride, in your
treasuring up the things of this world.
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You will suddenly realize how much the
castle that you have built for yourself has
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been built on a foundation of sand. It will be over in a moment
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and done. This sort of warning
is one of them primary applications of these
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passages. Now, there's, of
course, many other things in Christianity that
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we might think about in our priorities, for us things to be aware of,
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but this is one of them.
So how what is it that we
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are to be watchful for? What
is it we are to be testing?
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Well, a few things. One
thing that we learn here is that the
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antichrist is known by the things that
he says and things that he does.
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That's what the scriptures say. How
do we know the spirit of Anti Christ
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right? This is the whole point
in this is the big question that everyone
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has. Who is it right?
How do we know? By the way,
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all kinds of people have been called
the antichrist. Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald
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Reagan, John Calvin, all kinds
of popes, many, many, many,
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many people have been identified in this
way. How do we know,
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though? We look, good news
is God doesn't say there's this really scary
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thing and I'm not going to tell
you anything more about it. No,
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he says be watchful for this.
For what, let me tell you,
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the one who denies that Jesus Christ
is from God and has come in the
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flesh. That means that if we
are to identify who the antichrist is,
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we have my having a certain understanding
of our doctrine. What does the Bible
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say about these things? Who is
Jesus? What does it mean that he's
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the Christ? What is hevers relationship
with God? What does it mean that
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he has come in the flesh?
And those are all things that I covered
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in my last sermon. And would
encourage you to listen to that or to
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go back and read, for example, the gospel of John and look for
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these phrases. That I why he
has come the reasons that Jesus has come
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in the flesh, namely to save
us from our sins, to overcome the
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evil one, to establish and bring
bring into the world a kingdom that is
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not of this world, the Kingdom
of Heaven. The antichrist, however,
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denies all of these things. He's
a liar, he's a pretender and in
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denying these things he denies Christ as
God, He denies Christ as the Messiah,
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as as the Christ, he denies
Jesus as the king who is worthy
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of worship. He lies, he
says things that are untrue. Now this
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corresponds to second Thessalonians and you can
turn there if you like, or I'm
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going to read it as well.
It's a few letters back before Hebrews.
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Second Thessalonians, Chapter Two. Let
me read to you from verse one through
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verse I'll read through verse eleven or
Verse Twelve and we'll notice some different things
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and see how that corresponds to what
John is saying here now concerning the coming
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of our Lord Jesus Christ and are
being gathered to him. So there's the
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subject right. We're talking about the
Lord's return and are being gathered to him.
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We ask you, brothers, not
to be quickly shaken in mind or
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alarmed. That's what I was saying
earlier, either by a spirit or a
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spoken word or a letter seeming to
be from us, to the effect that
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the day of the Lord has come. So it's Paul saying it has not
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come yet. Let no one deceive
you in any way, for that day
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will not come unless the rebellion comes
first and the man of lawlessness is revealed,
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the son of destruction, who opposes
and exalts himself against every so called
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God or object of worship, so
that he takes his seat in the temple
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of God, proclaiming himself to be
God. Let me pause there, so
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you see what he's saying. He
says before you. You know that the
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Lord has not returned because this thing
has not happened yet, a rebellion,
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and this one who ascends that in
the Temple of God, namely the Church.
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That is how the New Testament refers
to the people of God as the
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Temple of God. He takes his
seat, coming from the church, not
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an outside threat in a way,
but someone who arises from within and pretends
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to be the Messiah. He calls
himself God, he proclaims himself to be
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God, which means he attempts,
at least rhetorically and by the power of
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his words, to push Jesus off
his seat, to push him off the
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throne. You see, in his
dead in his ascendancy, his pretend ascendency,
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to being head of the Church,
head of the world, in his
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pretend assent, he of course,
has to deny the one who is the
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true king, the one who has
come in the flesh, the one who
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is sent from God. Well,
this man of sin, this man of
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lawlessness, is we are told to
to watch for him. This is what
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John is referring to, and he
says you've heard that he is coming.
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This is what he's talking about here. Verse Five. I'll keep reading.
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Do you not remember that, when
I was still with you, I told
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you these things? And you know
what? Is restraining him now so that
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he may re revealed in his time
right? So he is not at work
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now. He's not, or at
least he is restrained now to be revealed
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later. Verse seven for the mystery
of lawlessness is already at work pause.
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This corresponds to what John is saying
when he says they you have heard that
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the antichrist isscriming, but even now
many antichrists have come. It's already happening
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in a way, but in a
restrained form, continuing on. Only he
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who now restrains it will do so
until he is out of the way,
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and then the lawless one will be
revealed, whom, the Lord Jesus remember
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this, will kill with the breath
of his mouth. I love that will
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kill with the breath of his mouth
and bring to nothing by the appearance of
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his coming. The coming of the
lawless one is by the activity of Satan,
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with all power and false signs and
wonders and with all wicked deception for
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those who are perishing, but they
refuse to love the truth and so be
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saved. Therefore God sends them a
strong delusion so that they may believe what
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is false in order that all may
be condemned who did not believe the truth
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but had pleasure in unrighteousness. So
this lawless one, this evil one,
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Paul says, is now being restrained. He is now a being restrained he
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comes by the activity and the power
of Satan and he will work amazing things
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when he comes. False signs and
wonders. Revelation talks about him being wounded,
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the beast being wounded and then healed, like a resurrection, a mortal
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wound and then coming back from the
dead, and people will say, now
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there's the Messiah you've all been looking
for. How will we know that he's
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not Jesus? How will we know
that he is not the True Messiah?
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Lots of ways. One is the
Messiah has already come. We're not looking
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for a second messiah. The Lord
Jesus has come, and not as a
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man of sin, not as a
man of lawlessness, not as one who
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is attracting the the the and the
to himself, the powers and establishing a
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kingdom of Satan of this world,
but he has brought into the world the
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Very Kingdom of Heaven, of righteousness
and holiness, of love and peace and
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justice. That's who Jesus's that's who
God is. This is the one who
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who has prophesied for a long time
and came with powers and signs that were
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true to the work of God.
He's already come. That's one way we
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know. Another way we know is
that God has already spoken and warned us
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about this one to come and it's
told us how we are to know him.
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Because he denies the one who has
come, because he goes after the
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darkness, because he loves the things
of this world, the powers of the
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world, the pleasures of the world, the pride of life, the lust
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of the flesh, all these things
that John has been talking to us about,
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distinguishing for us the things that are
of God and of the world.
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God is a God of light,
of Love, of peace, of joy.
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These things are brought to us and
his son. Do not be deceived
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by counterfeits, by pretending by evil, this evil one, he exalts himself,
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he pretends he acts as Christ,
but there are big, big differences.
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So this is what Paul says in
all of us corresponds exactly what John
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is saying. But there's a second
aspect of this. There's this already presentness
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of what John's how John Describes it
as the spirit of antichrist. There's something
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that has already happened. There are
people, as he said earlier, who
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have gone out from us. What
does he mean by that? He means
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that they were part of the church, they were part of this new covenant
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community, but yet have denied the
very covenantal foundation and the covenantal Lord who
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upholds the community. They were from
us, but we found out they were
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not of us. This one who
desires to replace the the replace Jesus,
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to preside over the people of God, to sit in the temple, is
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not the real deal. But we
don't merely wait for this final one to
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come. There is something in the
moment, even now. In a way,
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the threat corresponds to the Kingdom of
God, and the way that the
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Kingdom of God is both already and
not yet so is the threat at the
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Kingdom of God has already been ushered
into the world. We ourselves are evidence
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of that fact. The spirit of
God has been poured out Pete, the
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word of God has gone out to
the gentiles. We here in Tucson,
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Arizona, far away from the original
ministry, Earthly Ministry of Jesus, are
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being ruled and defended and protected by
Jesus. The Kingdom of God is at
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hand, it has it has come, and yet at the same time we
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know that it is yet to be
consummated. Go to a passage, a
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beautiful passage, in revelation chapter twenty
with me, or rather twenty one,
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there is yet a hope that is
ahead of us. Paul are, I'm
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sorry, John Writing, of the
vision that he has given of these future
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times when the Lord returns expresses what
he sees in this way. Then I
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saw a new heaven and a new
earth, for the first heaven in the
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first Earth had passed away and the
sea was no more. And I saw
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the holy city, New Jerusalem,
coming down out of Heaven, prepared as
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a bride adorned for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice from the
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throne saying, behold, the dwelling
place of God is with men, that
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is the Temple of God, to
use Old Testament language, and he will
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dwell with them and they will be
his people and God himself will be with
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them as their God. He will
wipe away every tear from their eyes and
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death shall be no more. Neither
shall there be mourning, nor crying,
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nor pain anymore, for the former
things have passed away. The language of
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conquering also shows up here in verse
seven. The one who conquers will have
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this heritage and I will be his
God and he will be my son.
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This is the consummated kingdom, which
is already here, already been inaugurated.
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The king is sitting on his throne
restraining the evil one as the Gospel goes
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into the world, and this is
what we wait for. But, as
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I said, the Kingdom of God
has this parallel to it. There is
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this threat that is parallel to it, in a way, as there is
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a threat that happens right now.
Many antichrists in the world, people going
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out and and and in heresy,
saying that Jesus Christ did not come in
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the flesh, people act seen as
Christians, people with the title of Pastor
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Reverend Dr so and so, saying
things that are against Christ and his word,
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people that bring people unto themselves,
that deceive people, and sometimes in
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Church history we've even seen some of
these people ascend to such power that they
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are able to even physically persecute and
make the saints of the Lord Struggle,
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fight for their very lives when they
refuse to give worship to the evil one
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and the evil things that he says. But there is coming a time when
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this one will be revealed, when
these things that we experience now will come
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in sort of a consummated form,
a final form, and it will be
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in some ways scary, and we
need to be prepared for that. We
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need to have our faith. Real, genuine faith is faith the size of
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a mustard seed is still true faith
and is strong enough to overcome anything.
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But you can't say that. You
might well, what you might say about
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small faith, you cannot say about
counterfeit faith. Those are two different things.
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Counterfeit faith can't covercome a single thing. Counterfeit faith will be overcome if
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you're simply faking it, if you're
simply putting on a exterior that acts in
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one way, that says you believe
one thing, but it's not true.
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You will be overcome. Faith in
Christ must be genuine, you must know
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him truly, follow him truly,
because there is this one coming who will
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deceive the UNRIGHTEOUS, who will demand
worship, who will perhaps even demand your
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life, and if you don't worship, if you don't obey his false kingship,
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you may be put to death.
As a Christian, you don't need
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to worry about that, because you've
already been brought to life. What's the
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worst thing that somebody could do to
you? They could kill you, not
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that bad for a Christian, considering
that we've been given eternal life and that
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the new heavens, in the new
earth will come down out of the sky
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and our Lord Jesus will send his
angels out to the four winds of the
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earth, that says in the Gospel, to the ends of the Earth,
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and gather up all the elect sounds
good, a real hope, a helmet
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of armor, Paul says, a
hope of salvation. But there is this
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one who is coming and we ought
to be aware, but we ought not
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to be afraid. Look at Chapter
Twenty. Right before the new heavens and
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the new earth, the new city
comes down out of heaven from God,
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prepared by the Lord and Savior.
We read and Chapter Twenty, verses seven
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through ten. This this period of
restraint that we are now in, these
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thousand years in which the Lord is
ruling and reigning over his people, they
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will come to an end. Verse
Seven says, and when this happens,
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Satan will be released from his prison
and will come out to deceive the nations
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that are at the four corners of
the earth, Gog and Magog, to
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gather them for battle. Their number
is like the sand of the sea.
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That's kind of scary. And they
marched up over the broad plane of the
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earth and they surrounded the camp of
the saints and the beloved city. But
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fire came down from heaven and consumed
them, and the devil who had deceived
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them was thrown into the lake of
fire and sulfur where the beast and the
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prophet were. And they will be
tormented day and night forever. At the
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some moment when everything seems to be
lost, when it's all over and it
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seems that Satan and his powers have
truly won the day, as many as
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the sands of the sea coming down
upon the scenes with all that they can
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muster, the Lord will send down
his judgment from heaven, as the Lord
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Jesus returns, and it'll all be
over and the blink of an eye.
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The Lord will separate the sheep from
the goats. He'll gather up the elect
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the dead will raise from the dead, the those who are alive will come
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up into heaven will all be there
with Jesus as overcomers. That, John
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00:31:18.250 --> 00:31:23.000
says, you already are, and
that's why we can sit in the camp
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and we say bring it doesn't matter
to me, because all the powers that
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you can muster are nothing compared to
the Lord Jesus, because all the powers
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that Satan and his evil empire can
muster are the Kingdom and powers of this
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world. Death, wealth, this
life, fame, fortune, good looks,
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intelligence. That's it. That's why
Jesus says don't store up your treasures
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here on earth, store them up
in heaven, where he is seated,
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where he reigns. That's how we
overcome. If you are as John has
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been saying, if you are bound
up in the things of this world,
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if you're storing up your treasures world, if this is where things matter,
356
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if this is where it all is
for you and you're all in on the
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things of this world, then when
the prince and of this world comes to
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take his and ascend to what he
believes is his rightful throne, you will
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belong to him, no doubt,
because you've been giving your heart to him
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all your life. Nothing's going to
be different. But if you belong to
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King Jesus, who rules and reigns
seated at the right hand of God,
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then you will overcome. Because the
because Satan and the kingdoms of this world
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and his servant, the antichrist,
will be destroyed by the breath of his
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mouth. It's as easy as that. For him, the sands of the
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sea, great armies, they don't
matter. Remember the psalms that say the
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Lord Does Not Take Pride and power
of the Horse. Lord does not look
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00:33:29.029 --> 00:33:34.589
at great armies and say wow,
that's a pressive the Lord Jesus is said
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00:33:34.630 --> 00:33:39.069
to have a hundred million angels at
his right hand. Do you think he's
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00:33:39.190 --> 00:33:47.099
worried about some armies of men?
And if you want to see conformation of
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the Lord's power and his goodness,
just go read your bibles over and over.
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Throughout human history, our Lord has
testified and shown us his power.
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You can imagine fire and brimstone coming
down on Sodom and Gomorrah. You can
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imagine the fire coming down on Mount
Carmel is Elijah is is standing there with
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these sacrifices soaked in water, the
priests of bail trying desperately to call down
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fire from heaven to prove that their
God is true. You think of Pharaoh
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and all of his mind and all
of his power ruling over slaves. He
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didn't win. None of them win. No one wins except for Jesus.
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So you don't need to be afraid, but you do need to be awake
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and put your faith in him.
True faith, hopeful faith, brave faith.
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Let's pray.
