This is how you can recognise the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist.
You can’t separate the person of Jesus from his title the Christ.
In fact, there are only four times where the word ‘antichrist’ is mentioned.
Here, in the verses we are studying, separating Jesus (the historical person of Jesus) from the Christ, the Spirit of Christ is the characteristic of the spirit of antichrist.
You only have the word ‘antichrist’ used in John’s letters.
Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour.
1 John 2:18
Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.
1 John 2:22
and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.
1 John 4:3
For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.
2 John 1:7
Therefore, we talk about the Antichrist but the ‘spirit of antichrist’ is defined here, in 1 John, where he says,
2 By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.
1 John 4.2-3
In other words, the Spirit of God is always going to connect Jesus with the Messiah, it is going to tell you that Jesus the Messiah is the Son of God who became man and lived, ‘God amongst us’ (Emmanuel). Anything else, is going to be from the spirit of antichrist.
Today, you have a whole teaching which will tell you something different, including Islam. By the way, Islam will tell you that Jesus is a prophet, not the Son of God. Islam will tell you: ‘Jesus is someone who you honour but you don’t believe in him that he didn’t die on the cross and rise from the dead.‘
So, such thinking, such teaching will be guided by the spirit of antichrist.
And I’ve talked to Muslims who say we believe in Jesus. Sure, you believe in your Jesus, but it’s not the real Jesus. And New Age people are saying, ‘We believe in Jesus, we’ve got our Jesus‘, but it’s not the real Jesus.
You have to understand the real Jesus and understand what the scriptures tell you about Jesus.
The real Jesus is both the Messiah and the Lord and the Saviour, He’s come in the flesh, He’s come historically, as a person, to live on the earth in the person of Jesus. He has suffered, He has died, He is risen from the dead, and He is going to come again in power and glory.
Jesus is the unique Saviour who came to redeem us through His death on the cross. He’s coming again, this time, not as the ‘Christ consciousness’ but in the same way that He left the earth at His Ascension in the ‘clouds of glory’ to the same place, at the Mount of Olives outside of Jerusalem.
At His return, Jesus will bring in God’s new age which will be a good new age in which He will restore the true worship of God and reign from Jerusalem, and bring peace and justice to the earth during the period which we call the Millennium (thousand year reign) of the Messiah.
That is something which we look forward to because, if you believe in Jesus, you’re going to be there. And it’s a Prelude to the ‘eternal state’ in which we will be with God in heaven for all eternity.
This time, Satan is going to be totally defeated and all of the Babylonian religion will be absolutely smashed.
So, what should you do you? You should come out of Babylon, and come to the true God, the God of Israel, the God who has revealed Himself in the scriptures.
I would like to pick up on a couple of things in the passage from Isaiah chapter 48 which I read to you earlier and to close with.
We’re not dwelling totally on the negative but on the positive here it says,
Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer,
Isaiah 48:17
The Holy One of Israel:
“I am the Lord your God,
Who teaches you to profit,
Who leads you by the way you should go.
The true God is the God of Israel, revealed in Jesus the Messiah Yeshua. He’s the one who is the true Redeemer, who can deal with the fundamental problem humans have, which is sin, which causes us to keep falling away from God, which causes us to worship false gods, and to be deceived by the Devil.
Jesus is the One who can redeem us from this condition and only He can do that because He is the true God. So, come to the true God not to the false gods.
He says,
“I have declared the former things from the beginning;
Isaiah 48:3
They went forth from My mouth, and I caused them to hear it.
Suddenly I did them, and they came to pass.
Babylonian religion has astrology and makes all sorts of false predictions.
However, God makes true prophecies and the Bible itself is full of things which are prophesied, written centuries ago, which either are coming true, have already come true, or will come true. And whatever God says in His word is going to happen because God knows the end from the beginning, and God gives you the truth, and He doesn’t lead you astray, He doesn’t deceive you.
He says,
For My own sake, for My own sake, I will do it;
Isaiah 48:11
For how should My name be profaned?
And I will not give My glory to another.
The true God is not going to share His glory with another god. That is why the Babylonian idea that you can bring all the religions together is a false idea, because the other religions worship false gods which will lead you astray.
To say that doesn’t give you much credit these days, yet it is true: there’s no other name given unto Heaven by which you must be saved but the name of Jesus. You can’t find Salvation, no matter how sincere you are, no matter how dedicated you are, in Buddhism, in Islam.
Even in Roman Catholicism unless you read the Roman Catholic Bible and come to believe in Jesus. At least, they do have the Bible but it’s all the other stuff they practice which is the problem.
You certainly can’t find the truth in New Age mysticism or in astrology. You find it only in Jesus Christ, He is the One who is the true Redeemer and, in that passage, there is a remarkable scripture which I read to you. Perhaps you didn’t get the whole point of it. It says,
14 “All of you, assemble yourselves, and hear!
Who among them has declared these things?
The Lord loves him;
He shall do His pleasure on Babylon,
And His arm shall be against the Chaldeans.
15 I, even I, have spoken;
Yes, I have called him,
I have brought him, and his way will prosper.16 “Come near to Me, hear this:
Isaiah 48.14-16
I have not spoken in secret from the beginning;
From the time that it was, I was there.
And now the Lord God and His Spirit
Have sent Me.”
That is one of the most amazing scriptures in the Bible. Why do I say it’s so amazing? Because you have someone who’s speaking there and the first person who’s saying ‘I am’, is saying that I was there from the beginning; from the time that it was, I was there. Otherwise, He’s saying that I have always existed ‘from eternity to eternity’, I was there before the world was made, I’ve always been there.
And He says now the Lord God and His Spirit have sent me. So, He is speaking here about the Lord God and His Spirit who have sent me.
Who is He talking about? Who is talking here?
Sure do you got one of the words of Jesus in the Old Testament.
He is saying that ‘I who have been there from the beginning, who have always existed, have now been sent into the world by the Lord God (by the Father) and by His Spirit, and I am part of the tri-unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.’
This verse is one of the pieces of scriptural evidence in the Old Testament proving that God is a tri-unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The Father sends the Son into the world, and the Holy Spirit comes to confirm the Son.
Read right through the New Testament and you have the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit working together through the ministry of Jesus.
Here you have it in the Hebrew scriptures too.
One of the most difficult things for Jewish people to believe and yet it’s there in their scriptures, is the tri-unity of God, of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that Jesus is the One who was sent into the world to redeem us all.
The other things I’ve been talking about tonight, Babylon, it’s all confusion. That’s what Babel means ‘confusion’. It leads people astray.
5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. 6 And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. 7 Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. 9 Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
Genesis 11.5-9
What comes from Jesus is going to lead you to the truth. And He is the One who has been sent into the world to redeem us. He is the One who has paid the price for the sin of the world.
Let’s see,
18 Oh, that you had heeded My commandments!
Then your peace would have been like a river,
And your righteousness like the waves of the sea. …20 Go forth from Babylon!
Isaiah 48:18–20
Flee from the Chaldeans!
With a voice of singing,
Declare, proclaim this,
Utter it to the end of the earth;
The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob. Go forth from Babylon!
The Jewish people are actually being told to get out of Babylon, to go back to Jerusalem. But God is telling us also to come out of Babylon, to come out of this doomed world system with its false religion and its false political system which is doomed to be destroyed (perhaps sooner rather than later).
So, don’t stay in Babylon. Come out of it, come to believe in Jesus. It doesn’t mean that you have to leave this world and you have to leave your job or whatever, but you do have to come out of the thinking and the spiritual power which is behind Babylon, and to believe in the truth which is in Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, the One who leads us to the Father. And, if we believe in Jesus, we are not part of Babylon, we are part of the bride of Christ which is faithful to Jesus and therefore, we have a glorious future and a glorious hope in Him.
So, the conclusion is: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for Salvation. Come out of the darkness of the present world system, don’t follow Babylon, false religion, whether it’s Mary worship or astrology, or whatever else, but believe in Jesus: the way, the truth, and the life, and peace with God through Him because he is the One way to God through Jesus Christ, amen.
Okay, I’ll just have a word of prayer:
Lord, we would you thank you that you are the way, the truth, and the life. We thank you that you’ve given us your truth.
Lord, as we see the world and its confusion and all the different forces of darkness which are around us, Lord, we pray you help us recognize what is of you and what is of the Devil.
Help us to come out of all the inferences that come from Babylon and to put our trust in the One true God who revealed Himself in Jesus the Messiah.
We pray that you’ll save people in these last days, that many people who are now trapped in wrong thoughts, wrong ideas, the occult, in false religion, even in Judaism, that you bring them out to believe in Jesus Yeshua the Messiah and that they find peace with God through our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, amen.