31st January 2024

31st January 2024


Pray (ACts)


Read - (1 John 4:1-6 focus v2-3)


Message (Alan Burke)


There are many times I sit and have to think how I’m going to start these devotions and todays been one of those days so I’ll just throw this out there and I’m bound to get anonymous letters for it, phone calls with heavy breathing and nobody speaking but here goes. Did you know that I’m anti the proposed Ballynahinch bypass, not that the bypass will be built in my life time the way things work in this country but I’m anti it, against it, I might start an anti-bypass Facebook group, maybe dig myself into the hill side and make a fort the kind of thing that happens in England to try and delay it even further. Ok I’m not really anti-bypass especially the one in Ballynahinch as I hate when I’m suck in what seems like a carpark there, so for all you readers in Ballynahinch no anonymous letters or phone calls with heavy breathing or the like, please I was only messing with you. 


We know that Anti means against, right now in this world, in this land and even in the church there are many antichrists, those who are anti ie against Christ. John has just warned of the necessity to test the spirits, to test what we are being told in the church and while the situation that the church John wrote to may be unlike the one our church faces there are things that we can learn from it. What the church were facing in John’s day was a heresy known as docetism. In short it is a view that the Son of God Jesus Christ only appeared to have a human body, he was not truly human as the son of God and it was only an illusion. Why docetism was such an egregious heresy is that if you take away the virgin birth, you take away our once-for-all-time perfect sacrifice. You take away our hope. You take away our atonement for sin. 


The docetists denied this truth and John makes it clear that those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as the son of God, do not acknowledge the truth of the incarnation son of God, well they are not from God. All because those who were dying the truth of the incarnation were denying an essential of the Christian faith, essential to Christian discipleship, if Jesus is not true God and true man then his crucifixion is of nothing more than a historical fact and not a reality that makes one bit of difference in our lives. 


For those who were coming to the church, who claimed to be from God they were showing they have the spirit of the antichrist. John had already touched on how this was the last hour how many antichrists have come back in chapter 2 (1 Jn 2:18). What do we mean by antichrist, well in scripture we are warned about the antichrist and antichrists. Before Christ’s second coming there will be a completely evil man who will arise, the antichrist. He will be Satan’s tool, equipped with Satan’s power, Paul uses the term ‘man of lawlessness’ and he will proclaim himself as God (2 Thess 2:3-4,9). This will be the Antichrist, the one who will gather together anti-christian forces in opposition to Christ and his Church, some argue whether it is an individual or an all pervading ideology but it still awaits the church in our future. 


There are also antichrists, and what John means by saying that these people have the spirit of the antichrist is that they are those who deny Christ and as a result they are antichrists. They are hose who are not the children of God, those who are of the world, of the ruler of this age. It wasn’t just to the church to whom John wrote that they face antichrist’s there are antichrists in every age, Jesus himself warned his followers of their coming, Jesus wanted to be on our guard (Mk 13:22, Mt 24:24). Sadly we see the spirit of the antichrist all too often today even in those who claim to be ministers of the gospel, they deny the deity of Jesus, they deny the incarnation they say all roads lead to heaven, they teach untruths that Jesus taught about they are leading people astray whether they are aware of it or not. John’s focus is that the church would be prepared, that we would be on our guard, that they would be able to test and know to watch out because they threaten the faith of the believer, the threaten the fellowship of the church. Antichrists are often wolves in sheep’s clothing and John wants believers to recognise them, to compare what they say and what they do with the scriptures. We are to be on our guard, not just accepting what we hear as gospel for not all those who claim to preach the gospel or teach the gospel do so.  


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q56 What is the reason annexed to the third commandment?
The reason annexed to the third commandment is, That however the breakers of this commandment may escape punishment from men, yet the Lord our God will not suffer them to escape his righteous judgment. (1 Sam. 2:12,17,22,29, 1 Sam. 3:13, Deut. 28:58–59)
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