A. How many of you remember the game show called “Truth or Consequences?
1. Truth or Consequences was an American quiz show, originally hosted on radio by Ralph Edwards from 1940 to 1957, and later on television by Edwards himself, and later by Bob Barker. (This picture shows Edwards and Barker)
2. The show ran on CBS, NBC and also in syndication through 1988.
3. The idea of the show was to mix the original quiz element of game shows with wacky stunts.
4. On the show, people had to answer a trivia question correctly (usually an off-the-wall question that no one would be able to answer correctly) before "Beulah the Buzzer" was sounded.
5. If the contestant could not complete the "Truth" portion, there would be "Consequences," usually some kind of a zany and embarrassing stunt.
6. "Truth or Consequences" is the only game show with an entire town named after it. After a request from Ralph Edwards in 1950, Hot Springs, New Mexico volunteered to be renamed in honor of the show.
7. In return, the show’s 10th anniversary special was taped there.
8. Every year on the first weekend in May, the "Truth or Consequences Fiesta" draws thousands of people to that little town in New Mexico.
B. “Truth or Consequences” may be lots of fun as a game show, but it is a serious matter when it comes to knowing and obeying God.
1. So many people today believe that it makes no difference what you believe, just as long as you are sincere.
2. But I doubt whether the people who hold such a belief have ever really thought it through.
3. Why in the world would “sincerity” be a magic ingredient to make something true?
4. It takes far more than sincerity to make something true, right?
5. Imagine a nurse in a hospital who gives a medication to a patient, and the patient becomes violently ill.
a. The nurse sincerely gave the wrong medication to the patient. The nurses sincerity didn’t make it the right medication.
6. Here’s another example: if a person wants to drive from Syracuse to Florida, no amount of sincerity will get him or her there if they are on a highway leading to Los Angeles!
7. Sincere faith in a lie will always cause serious consequences.
8. Sincere faith in the truth is never misplaced.
9. So, what a man or woman believes does make a difference!
C. So far in this letter of 1 John that we have been studying, John has been warning his beloved children about the conflicts that they will face.
1. There is the conflict of light and darkness – we must walk in the light, not just claim to walk in the light while continuing to walk in darkness.
2. There is the conflict between loving God and loving the world – we must live in the world, but not love the world. We must love God and our brothers and sisters.
3. In today’s text, John is going to address a third conflict: the conflict between truth and error.
4. It is not enough for a believer to walk in the light and to walk in love (both of these are good), we must also walk in truth.
D. The formation of cults and heretical movements among churches has plagued Christianity from its earliest days.
1. Throughout the NT we are warned that false teachers would come.
2. Look at what Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 4:1-3, “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth.”
3. There have always been and always will be people who love popularity, power, and wealth to the degree that they have no qualms about manipulating others.
4. Religion is as vulnerable to exploitation by evil people as is governments, businesses and families.
E. Knowing all this, the elderly apostle John warns his children.
1. He tells them that we are living in “the last hour” of history. What is the “last hour?”
2. It is the indeterminate time between Christ’s death and resurrection and His return. This is history’s final hour.
3. Someone has said that if John thought that he was living in the last hour, then we must be in the last minutes or seconds.
F. Satan knows that he has been defeated and that the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ will spell his final and complete destruction.
1. Therefore, the last-hour is a time of desperation for him.
2. If he is to undo any of God’s purposes, then he must act quickly and persuasively.
3. What better ally to enlist than religion?
4. What better to use to lure people away from heavenly truth than worldly wisdom wrapped in the package of spiritual enlightenment?
5. What better to offer as an alternative to God’s Christ than his own antichrist?
G. When John uses the term “antichrist” he is not thinking of one solitary figure, but rather he has in mind anyone who acts in opposition to God, and therefore expresses an antichrist spirit.
1. John said that “you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come.” (vs. 18)
2. Therefore, the emperors Nero and Domitian, Gnostic false teachers and heretics throughout time all can be labeled “antichrist” because of their God-opposing falsehoods, persecutions and deceptions.
H. Out of the community of Christians that John was familiar with some antichrist false teachers had arisen and separated themselves.
1. In true cult fashion, they were claiming special knowledge and a special anointing from God.
2. They had formed an alternative set of doctrines over and against the original teachings about Christ and Christianity.
3. What they taught denied the incarnation of Jesus, and undermined holy living.
4. And they were willing to indoctrinate anyone that they could deceive with their false teachings.
I. John’s language is sharp and harsh about the leaders of this cultish group.
1. Verse 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.” (“us” 5 times)
2. Ultimately, they didn’t love the community of believers.
3. They didn’t care about Christ’s body.
4. They were serving their own selfish ends.
5. John’s final assessment of these false teachers is that they are liars.
6. Look at verse 22, “Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist – he denies the Father and the Son.”
J. We will come back in just a minute and examine the way that John attempts to safeguard his beloved children, but before we do, I want us to realize that the spirit of the antichrist is present in our time.
K. How many of you remember a man named Jim Jones?
1. Jim Jones was the founder and leader of Jonestown, Guyana, a community of over 900 members of The People’s Temple Full Gospel Church, which was an offshoot of the Disciples of Christ.
2. Jones had been an untrained preacher in Indiana and California before moving his congregation to Guyana to avoid government scrutiny.
3. In November 1978, California Congressman Leo Ryan arrived in Guyana to survey Jonestown and interview its inhabitants.
4. After reportedly having his life threatened by a Temple member during the first day of his visit, Ryan decided to cut his trip short and return to the U.S. with some Jonestown residents who wished to leave.
5. As they boarded their plane, a group of Jones’s guards opened fire on them, killing Ryan and four others.
6. Some members of Ryan’s party escaped, however. Upon learning this, Jones told his followers that Ryan’s murder would make it impossible for their commune to continue functioning.
7. Rather than return to the United States, the People’s Temple would preserve their church by making the ultimate sacrifice: the giving of their own lives.
8. Jones’s 912 followers were given a deadly concoction of purple Kool-Aid mixed with cyanide, sedatives, and tranquilizers. Jones apparently shot himself in the head.
L. We ask ourselves, “how could so many people fall for such a man and his influence?”
1. Almost 30 years later we say, “Nothing like that could ever happen again, right?” Wrong!
M. In the Feb. 5, 2007 issue of Newsweek there is an article titled, “Meet the Minister Who Says He Is Jesus Christ.”
1. His name is Jose Luis de (Hay-sus) Jesus Miranda; his followers call him everything from apostle to Dad, or simply Jesus Christ Man.
2. De (Hay-sus) Jesus Miranda himself believes he’s the living incarnation of “Jesus Christ” “the second coming of Christ.”
3. A follower of his believes “he is God, he is God.” She also lavishes him with money and gifts.
4. "I don’t have one Rolex,” de (Hay-sus) Jesus Miranda said, “I have 3 because they want to give it to me. It’s like that woman that came to Jesus with the expensive perfume and put it on his feet. He didn’t reject it, so when someone gives me a watch or a gift, I receive it. I like them too, they’re nice."
5. This self-proclaimed Son of God is a 60 year old former heroin addict and convict.
6. The divorced father of 4 was born in Puerto Rico and now lives in South Florida with his second wife.
7. From a warehouse in Doral, FL., near Miami, he presides over the Growing in Grace Ministry which he also calls “God’s Government On Earth.”
8. De (Hay-sus) Jesus presides over a sprawling organization that includes more than 300 congregations in two dozen countries, from Argentina to Australia. He counts more than 100,000 followers and claims to reach millions more through a 24-hour satellite TV channel, a radio show and several Web sites.
9. He is supported by the generosity of his followers, who have launched some 450 businesses to pour cash into Growing in Grace’s coffers.
10. All members of Growing in Grace are expected to tithe—which, along with offerings, yielded $1.4 million for headquarters last year. One of the first orders of business at every service is the collection of money (credit cards accepted).
11. As any other head of state, he is protected by a security detail that mimics the U.S. Secret Service.
12. De (Hay-sus) Jesus preaches a message of "freedom to indulge" because according to this modern messiah, there is no sin, no devil and no hell to pay.
13. It is music to the ears of his followers, mostly Hispanic men and women who believe they are God’s chosen people, predestined for salvation no matter what they do on earth.
14. They also believe all other faiths are false and must be destroyed, from Catholics to Baptists and Jehovah’s witnesses.
15. His followers have organized marches at which they destroy religious books and symbols. They also have had campaigns aimed at disrupting other religious gatherings, sometimes with violent consequences.
16. Florida International University professor, Daniel Alvarez, who holds a Masters Degree in Theology from Harvard Divinity School, said, “What disturbs me is that he fits into the typical mold of a cult leader, total complete submission to his authority."
17. In the early years after founding Growing in Grace in Miami in 1986, de (Hay-sus) Jesus didn’t claim to be Christ. Instead, he worked as a pastor.
18. But as his following expanded, his claims did, too. In 1998, de Jesus avowed that he was the reincarnation of the Apostle Paul.
19. Two years ago at Growing in Grace’s world convention in Venezuela, he declared himself Christ.
20. And just last week, he called himself the Antichrist and revealed a "666" tattooed on his forearm. His explanation: that, as the second coming of Christ, he rejects the continued worship of Jesus of Nazareth, the first coming of Christ.
N. What do I want to say in response to that? Unbelievable! And yet, that’s exactly what the Bible says would happen!
1. In addition to the many and assorted individuals like Jones and de (Hay-sus) Jesus, there continues to be movements or cults that are ever increasing in numbers and respectability.
2. I’m thinking groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Mormons, and the Muslims.
3. Here’s a statement about what the Jehovah’s Witnesses Believe that I got right off their official website: “Christ is God’s Son and is inferior to Him.” (Wouldn’t you call that “antichrist”?
4. And from the official Mormon website: “There are many who say that Latter-day Saints believe in a ’different Jesus’ than do other Christians and that we are therefore not ’Christian’... We believe in the Jesus of the New Testament, and we believe what the New Testament teaches about Him. We do believe things about Jesus that other Christians do not believe, but that is because we know, through revelation, things about Jesus that others do not know…”
5. Note the focus on “special knowledge.”
6. And as you know, Islam teaches that Muhammad, not Jesus is the greatest prophet.
O. Additionally, we face all kinds of “experts” and “scholars” who are forever “reinterpreting” and “reinventing” Jesus.
1. For instance, in 2001, the British Broadcasting Corporation aired a documentary titled “Son of God” that was produced by its former Middle East correspondent Jeremy Bowen.
a. In a press release prior to its initial viewing, Bowen was interviewed. “I’d say I’m not religious, really – I wouldn’t rule it out,” he said.
b. “The important thing is not what he was or what he wasn’t – the important thing is what people believe him to have been.” Oh, really!
2. The year before that, Peter Jennings hosted “The Search for Jesus” on ABC.
a. It relied heavily on several members of the much-trumpeted Jesus Seminar.
b. These far-left scholars are the ones who, in the words of William Willimon at Duke, are a bunch of middle-aged, notoriously liberal college professors who always end up with a Jesus who looks, acts, and believes just like a middle-aged, notoriously liberal college professor.
P. We could go on and on about people and groups that are propagating error, but the important question is: what would John want us to know that will act as a safeguard?
1. What John said to his dear children included three things that they needed to be reminded of.
2. First, They are the ones with the anointing.
a. Verse 20, “But you have an anointing from the Holy One.
b. Verse 27, “As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit…”
c. When we professed our faith and were baptized into Christ, we received the anointing of God which is the gift of the Holy Spirit.
d. The Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit lives in us and is the deposit guaranteeing what is to come. The Spirit confirms that we are God’s children. The Spirit guides us into all truth. The Spirit helps us to pray.
e. So John reminds them and us that we have the anointing.
3. Second, John reminded them that they are the ones that know all that matters.
a. Verse 20b, “…all of you know the truth.”
b. Verse 21, “I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth.”
c. Verse 27, “But as his anointing teaches you about all things…”
d. The truth that matters is that Jesus is the Christ and that whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also. Jesus is the truth and in many respects He is all the truth we need to know.
4. Third, John reminded them that they must remain in the Son.
a. Verse 24, “See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father.”
b. Verse 27b, “…just as it has taught you, remain in him.”
c. Whoever remains in the Son has eternal life. The life is in the Son.
d. Stay with Jesus – the historical, biblical Jesus.
Q. Brothers and sisters, it is the last hour! Antichrists continue to come and lead many astray.
1. We must remain. We must hold onto that which was from the beginning.
2. We must remain with Christ, remain in the Word, remain in the Church of Jesus, and abide in the anointing of the Spirit.
3. In Matt 24:4, Jesus said, “Watch out that no one deceives you…” May God help us to avoid just that!
4. My job as a preacher is not to deliver new truth, but to keep reminding all of us of the truth that we have heard from the beginning.
5. If we don’t walk in the truth – there will be consequences.
6. Truth or consequences - these are the only two choices – Which will you choose?
