Circuit Breaker Series

Circuit Breaker

Series: Turn on the light

Sunday Sermon / December 2nd, 2007

Intro: Function of a Circuit is to protect against dangerous overload.

A circuit breaker is an automatically-operated electrical switch designed to protect an electrical circuit from damage caused by overload or short circuit.

A short circuit allows a charge to flow along a different path from the one intended.

The Circuit breaker automatically breaks the flow the flow of rouge electricity and protects the system from damage.

John taught and warned against the false teachers who were trying to get the Christians to take a different path from the one intended. These were the Gnostics who claimed an extra Biblical enlightenment concerning the Faith. And the people were trouble about whether or not they knew the truth.

Text: 1 John 2:18-29 “Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. 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 it might become plain that they all are not of us. 20But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. 21I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. 22Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. 24Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. 25And this is the promise that he made to us eternal life.

26I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. 27But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him.

28And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. 29If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.

I. Every Christian needs a spiritual “circuit breaker.”

“Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.

26I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you.

a. There is one big “A” Antichrist

i. Only John uses the title “Antichrist.”

ii. Daniel refers to the “prince who is to come / Paul calls him the “man of lawlessness” / in Revelation he is called the “beast out of the sea”

According to Nelsons New Illustrated Bible Dictionary (pp 79-80), the antichrist is “a false prophet and evil being who will set himself up against Christ and the people of God in the last days before the second coming. The term refers to one who stands in opposition to all that Jesus Christ represent.”

iii. Many see the prefix "anti" and think “against” Christ.

iv. While this may be ultimately true, perhaps the real idea of the word is "substitute." The Antichrist is one who offers himself as a substitute for Christ.

John’s real concern in this present passage is not just for "the antichrist" that is yet to come, but to the existence of the "many antichrists" that were then present in the world.

b. There are many little “a” antichrists

i. Most of the world is antichrist

ii. This is the greatest threat to Biblical Christianity.

iii. This is the main reason we need a Spirit controlled circuit breaker guarding our minds, souls and spirits.

iv. There are many (Billions) of little antichrists.

Antichrist thinking shows up in the denial of or the depreciation of or the distraction from the full person and complete work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

v. The undermining of Jesus. Who he was and is. What he has done and does.

1 Timothy 4:1 “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.”

c. There is no middle ground

Matthew 12:30 "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.”