Welcome to Day 2714 of Wisdom-Trek. Thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Day 2714 – A Discerning Life – Dealing With Deceivers 1 John 2:18-27

Putnam Church Message – 09/14/2025

Sermon Series: 1, 2, & 3 John

“A Discerning Life: Dealing with Deceivers"

 

Two weeks ago, we explored 1 John 2:12-17 as we learned how to live a ‘Clean Life’ with “Strong Warnings About the World.”

This week, we continue through the letter of 1 John, and we will explore how to have A Discerning Life: Dealing with Deceivers" from 1 John 2:18-27 from the NIV, which is found on page 1900 of your Pew Bibles.

Warnings Against Denying the Son

¹⁸ 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. 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.

²⁰ But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.^[a] 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. ²² 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. ²³ No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.

²⁴ As for you, 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. ²⁵ And this is what he promised us—eternal life.

²⁶ I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. 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—just as it has taught you, remain in him.

Opening Prayer

As we continue in John’s first letter, the tone shifts from serious to severe. The warnings against sin and the world in the previous section now give way to portents of spiritual dangers—often invisible—that can lure unbelievers to hell and send a Christian’s faith skidding into the ditch.

The specter of spiritual deception doesn’t have to win. Just as Spirit-enabled fellowship with the Father and the Son produces a joyful life (1:1–10) and a clean life (2:1–17), it also produces a discerning life (2:18 –4:6). A close relationship with God requires an understanding of His truth. All too often, though, even seemingly mature Christians struggle to discern between true doctrine and false teaching, between right and wrong, between walking in the light and walking in darkness.

In this third section, John warns about the coming of “antichrists” (2:18 ), urges his readers to diligently “test the spirits” (4:1), and reminds them of the “anointing” of the Spirit that seals them with deep-down conviction of the essential truths of the Christian faith (2:20 , 27). In our deceptive world, filled with demon-led deceivers, discerning Christians must stand together in fellowship around the truth.

Think about a time in your life when you were deceived. Some of you might think back to a time when you were deceived by someone close to you. A friend, a family member, a long-term boyfriend or girlfriend, a spouse, or a business partner proved to be someone other than who you thought they were. And the pain of living with that deception is almost more than you can bear to think about even today.

Maybe you have been deceived by a marketing or sales scam. That happens all the time. Sometimes people get cheated out of just a few bucks; other times, people lose their entire life savings to smooth-talking charlatans who get fat and rich by swindling hundreds of people. Sometimes you buy something you think is genuine only to learn later that it’s a cheap knockoff. The “great deal” you thought you got turned out to be a total rip-off.

Then there’s spiritual or religious deception. This is the worst kind. Any deception can break your heart, mind, and bank, but this kind can crush your soul. A hypocritical pastor … an abusive church … or an outright cult—these can cause long-term psychological and spiritual damage in a person’s life. Such toxic deception can even lead to a disavowal of all religion, a rejection of God, and a hatred for His authentic people. How tragic!

1 John 2:18 –27 introduces a new set of sinister figures in the world of spiritual darkness. False teachers called “antichrists,” who foreshadow an ultimate end-times “Antichrist,” were already on the prowl in John’s day. This was a sure sign that God’s final countdown toward judgment had begun. Now, more than ever, believers must live with their eyes wide open to the wiles of the devil and their feet firmly fixed on the solid rock of God’s truth. Only then will they be equipped for dealing with deceivers.

2:18 –19

I’m speculating here, but if we could have caught a glimpse of the goings-on in the spiritual world as John dipped his stylus in his inkwell and scratched out the words of 1 John 2:18-19, my guess is we’d see a host of demons going from rattled to panicked. Why? Deceivers hate to be exposed. They love to operate under the radar, spreading false doctrines, twisting the truth, and exploiting the spiritually weak. But the apostle John boldly launches a tell-all exposé of the devil’s cunning strategies of deception.

John begins by reminding believers that with the coming of false teachers, dawn is on the horizon because, as he said in 2:8, “ For the darkness is disappearing, and the true light is already shining.” John can thus say in 2:18 , “Dear children, the last hour is here.”

Warren Wiersbe explains the image of the “last hour” well: All Old Testament history prepared the way for Christ's work on the Cross. All history since that time is merely preparation for “the end,” when Jesus will come and establish His kingdom.… “The last hour” began back in John’s Day and has been growing in intensity ever since. There were ungodly false teachers in John’s day, and during the intervening centuries, they have increased both in number and in influence. “The last hour” or “the last times” are phrases that describe a kind of time, not a duration of time.… In other words, Christians have always been living in “the last time”—in crisis days.

According to John, this “last hour” between Christ’s first and second comings is like an inky predawn inhabited by shadowy agents of evil. He calls these figures “antichrists” (2:18 ). The Greek term antichristos [500], used here for the first time in Christian literature, is a compound of two words: anti [473], meaning “in place of” or “against,” and christos [5547], “Messiah” or “Christ.” The ambiguity may be purposeful. While all “antichrists” are opposed to Christ and His teachings, some antichrists go so far as to claim to be a messiah, thus opposing the true Christ by seeking to replace Him.

Whereas the apostle Paul dwelt on the future Antichrist in 2 Thessalonians 2, the apostle John emphasizes the current antichrists in 1 John 2. What can we learn about these deceivers from John’s letter?

First, false teachers are plentiful (1 Jn. 2:18 ). By the end of the first century, the apostle John could say “many such antichrists have appeared.” Already by John’s day a well-educated man named Cerinthus had taught that this physical world had been made by a lesser god, much inferior to the primary God. Concerning Jesus, Cerinthus taught that He was just the natural son of Mary and Joseph. He asserted that though Jesus was more righteous than others, He didn’t become infused by the spirit of Christ until His baptism, when the heavenly “Christ” descended upon Jesus to use Him as a mouthpiece to proclaim the unknown Father. What rubbish!

The Apostle John was familiar with Cerinthus and his false teachings, and he responded to them boldly and decisively. In fact, Irenaeus of Lyons, a disciple of Polycarp of Smyrna, who had himself been a disciple of John, relayed this account from his former teacher: “John, the disciple of the Lor