1 John 2:18-19 NIV  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.

Dear Fellowship of the Burning Heart:

It is a precarious time for the people of faith. Why? Because of the monumental shift in the beliefs and values of our culture. It is becoming ever more obvious to me, as I have heard others suggest, that the time is coming when this “tolerant” culture will no longer tolerate people with strong faith and strong convictions. Some have even suggested that groups with strongly-held beliefs and convictions will either need to adjust their stance to align with cultural values, especially where gender and sex are concerned, or face the loss of members who either do not share the group’s values or who agree with the values but not with holding strong convictions.

To compromise the doctrinal foundation of our faith is to release it and set it adrift in the moral and spiritual chaos to soon be shattered on the rocks of doubt and unbelief. We will either stand for something, or fall for anything (as I have heard others profess). A choice will have to be made, for in this cultural battle, neutrality will prove to be impossible to maintain. We will have to leave the valley of indecision and take a stand, either with the culture or with Christ. We will take a stand or be forced into a corner.

The Apostle John’s congregation was facing just such a choice. Many were facing pressure from the Jewish community to conform to Jewish traditions and standards. Many more were facing, and would face in the future, the mounting pressure of the state religion, emperor-worship, to conform to its standards, which also involved political, social, and economic pressures. How were they supposed to understand what was transpiring? What were they to do about this pressure?

The hour is at hand – The word hour is used by John in two ways. It sometimes refers to a particular hour of the day. However, it often refers to a particular event. Jesus tells his mother and later to others that his hour has not yet come. Toward the end of his earthly life, he proclaims that his hour has come. He tells the woman at the well that an hour is coming when people will worship God in spirit and in truth. The hour is coming when the dead will hear his voice and live. There is an hour for the Son to be glorified, an hour of judgment, his hour of death, his hour to depart from this world to be with his Father, an hour when people will kill his disciples thinking they are serving God,  the hour of prayer, the hour of his coming, the hour of trial, and an hour to reap. Here hour should be understood in the say way we say “the moment of truth” or “the hour of my suffering” or “the day of opportunity.” We are not speaking of 60 minutes or 24 hours. We are referring to a specific event that we expect of uncertain duration.

There are two plausible explanations of “this hour” in this letter. One is that it refers to the time between Christ’s first and second returns, often called the Church Age. A second is that it refers to the period of time between Christ’s ascension and the destruction of Jerusalem. Perhaps, rather than spend time arguing for a particular position, I might wisely quote another commentator, who has expressed the relevance for us today.

In summary, John presents in great detail the nature of the deception that is being perpetrated by those who have left the community, and by so doing he passes on to every successive generation of believers “a study in the dangers, origin, and effects of the counterfeit teachings which constantly threaten to destroy the church. <Culpepper, 1, 2, 3 John, 43.>

The antichrist is coming/many antichrists have come – We have here the form of the attack. There are those who oppose Christ and his church. Because they stand opposed to him, they may be rightly judged antichrists. John identifies these antichrists for us through his epistles until we get to the book of Revelation and see the ultimate manifestation of evil, the Antichrist. Here are their marks of identification:

1. They deny the incarnation (1 John 4:2; 2 John 7 and that Jesus is the Christ, the one sent from God as the divine Son (1 John 2:22).

2. They deny the Father by denying the Son, for these two are related in a way that is impossible to acknowledge one without acknowledging the other (1 John 2:22).

3. They are liars like their father, Satan, the father of lies and a liar from the beginning (1 John 2:22) and because of their nature as liars, they are also deceivers (2 John 7).

4. They were many and seemed to multiply, revealing it was the last hour (1 John 2:18).

They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us – Although I am tempted to think of people who leave the local church and wander to another or stop attending any church at all, I don’t think that is exactly what John has in mind here. Now I know that church attendance has fallen out of favor as people continue to lose confidence in institutions and organizations in general and in religious institutions in particular. I will seek to lay no guilt trip here, except to say that if we are truly seeking to be obedient to Christ, we will “not forsake the assembling of ourselves together” as the church, expressing the love of God and care for each other.

Here in the context of the passage John is, no doubt, referring to those antichrists, false prophets and teachers, who separate themselves from the Apostles and their teachings. They creep in through IDENTIFICATION. They use name-dropping and other techniques to appear to align themselves with the Apostles and other servants of Christ. They seek to seem genuine and caring, but they veil secret motives and selfish desires and hidden agendas. Thus Satan masquerades as an angel of light, seeking to deceive even the elect. His servants practice the same deception. They also practice INFILTRATION. They, like a weed spreading out roots and entangling itself with the good grain, seek to become integrated into the church and thus begin to undermine it from within. They also utilize SEPARATION and DIVISION as tactics designed to “divide and conquer.” They besmirch the characters and reputations of good men and women serving Christ, maligning their motives, values and goals. Using slander, innuendo, character assassination, accusation, and ridicule, they seek to undermine the work of Christ and his servants. By their teachings, which contradict the “faith once delivered unto the saints”, and by their acts (actions, deeds, and works) they reveal their true character and intentions (“by their fruit you shall know them”).

Their separation from the believing community and especially from apostolic authority and doctrine only reveals that they were not really a part and did not really belong. They cannot conceal their desires and devices for long. It is obvious that they don’t fit with the apostolic model of servant hood and spiritual authority, nor do their lives, motives and attitudes match the shining example of the apostles.

Please understand that spiritual warfare is real, that false teachers and deceivers (antichrists) exist among us, and that we must remain constantly vigilant and on guard, if we are to remain true and faithful. The battlefield is here and now. We must refuse to remain complacent in the face of forceful spiritual opposition. The temptation that is presented is one of compromise. Can’t you just give a little, adjust this belief, drop that doctrine, make yourself more attractive to the world? NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT! The one quality that a steward must possess is FAITHFULNESS! We MUST remain true to Christ and his Word. It may set us apart from the world, but it will also point the world to HIM!