Rising Spirit of Antichrist

I had a conversation recently with my pastor who said that he is seeing the hate and the lies rising all around us, and that this is clear evidence of the spirit of antichrist in the world today.

I said, “Welcome to the club.”  That’s not to pat myself on the back, but for those of us watching the fulfillment of Bible prophecy right before our eyes in these latter days, this is no surprise.

These three verses in 1 John 2:18,2; 4:3 are telling in this regard:

Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour.

Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son.

But every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

If you don’t know it yet, here’s the news: These are the end times and they’re coming to a head.  The return of Jesus is imminent.  Why?  Because all of the things prophesied in the Bible are coming to pass and are increasing exponentially.

One example will suffice for now.

Remember the recent Right to Life march in which the Covington, KY high school students were at the center of a controversy?  The mainstream media completely turned the incident around and truly produced fake news that made the actual perpetrators seem like saints and the students as though they were knuckle-dragging thugs.

Following a couple days of this, the extended video of the incident came out.  It showed that the only crime of these kids was that they wore MAGA hats.  Thus, as supporters of President Trump, they were enemies of the people (or at least of the Left).  The reality was that the students were accosted by these other groups that were full of identity politics and self-glorification.

Going a step further, a Hollywood film producer tweeted a picture for all to see.  Social media reveals so much!  The picture was from the movie Fargo from some years ago.  If you saw it, perhaps you recall what happened at the end.  Someone was fed into a wood chipper with the expected horrific result.  That was the picture this guy tweeted with, if I remember correctly, a lovely suggestion to go along with it: “MAGA kids go screaming, hats first, into woodchipper.”

How does this relate to our texts above?  These people projected onto others what was in their own hearts.  Hate blinds, and they were truly blinded by it.  As such, they were used by Satan, deceived by him, and were useful idiots in the purest sense.  Tell me this isn’t demonic and satanic.  This is the spirit of antichrist rampant in the world today.

It’s easy in our response to such lunacy and hate to get angry.  But at followers of Jesus Christ, we’re not called to that.  We have the Spirit of the living God within us.  Because of that we can and should respond differently.

This is what the apostle tells us in 1 John 5:19-20:

We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true. And we are in Him who is true by being in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

We should grieve—even as God grieves—for these ones lost in darkness.

Never forget the Apostle Paul’s admonitions in 1 Corinthians 13:

Love is patient

Love is kind

Love never fails

We are to love—even the most unlovable.