Spirit Of Antichrist At Work Today

In my first posting I alluded to a statement John makes in 1 John 2:18, when he states: "It is the last hour." Two thousand years later we must be in the last moments, even the last seconds, of time. I also mentioned John's statement in v.20 that everyone who denies that Yeshua is the Messiah is antichrist, i.e., is operating under the spirit of the antichrist. BTW - antichrist doesn't simply mean against Christ, or against Messiah - it means Messiah imitator.

There is, according to the Scriptures, e.g. 2 Thess. 2:1-3, a person who will one day be upon the earth known as the Antichrist. In the Thessalonian passage he is referred to as "the man of sin," and, "the son of perdition." However, what John is letting us know is that while we may be waiting for the manifestation of this particular person, the satanic spirit that will motivate this person is already operating among believers and indeed has been since these Scriptures were written.

We need to be like the men of Issachar were in the days when God was getting ready to finally put David on the throne of Israel. 1 Chronicles 12:32 - "Of the sons of Issachar who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do, their chiefs were two hundred; and all their brethren were at their command."
So, do you and I understand that in our day God is getting ready to put David's son, Yeshua haMashiach on the throne of His father David? Do we understand from the times we're living in that God is getting ready to restore the fallen tabernacle of David and that Yeshua is about to come back and reign on the earth?

So if that's true, then as Paul said in Romans 13:11, it is "it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed." It is the last hour! What is the evidence of that? The rest of v. 18 in 1 John 2 - "...even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour." Many antichrists, many preachers and false prophets (operating under this deceptive spirit) are on the loose, moving freely around in the body of Messiah, and are even revered by many in the body. What marks them? How can we know who they are? Verse 19 - "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us."

Who are they? They're the ones who have splintered themselves away from the body. They're the ones who don't want to come under authority of truly God-ordained leadership, who in their rebellious hearts won't make themselves accountable to God's leaderhip in local bodies. So they pull out to do their own thing under the guise of "The Lord told me to do what I'm doing." They try to put a spiritual veneer on their rebellious, unaccountable attitudes.

You need to know that you have every right to question people who say things like that and to ask them who sent them (besides the Lord); what local, reputable body has recognized and endorsed their call and commended them to the work they're doing for the Lord. You have every right to hold them accountable if you've attached yourself to their ministry. When they're guilty of what John talks about in v.19 of splintering off the body, their teaching will also be skewed - it will be a product of their warped minds and hearts, and their jaded thinking."
"They went out from us, but they were not of us; for it they had been of us, they would have continued with us..."