Welcome to From the Pulpit in Classic Sermons.
Each week we bring you a different message
from some of history's greatest speakers in the
Christian faith, and powerful sermons for modern preachers
too.
This week we have J.
Glenn Owen.
With his message, it is The Last Hour.
Will you turn prayerfully with me, if you
please, to 1 John, chapter 2, and to
the passage that begins with verse 18, which
we have already read this morning as our
lesson.
You might find it helpful to keep the
Bible open before you as we proceed.
We have already seen how the Apostle John
would apply certain tests to those in Asia
of old, who, whilst professing to be Christian,
have broken with the Christian church, have withdrawn
from Christian fellowship, and have gone on one
side and started a little group of their
own, with their own emphases and their own
alleged insights into truth.
The Apostle is concerned that the Christian community
should be able to discern whether or not
they are Christian.
And the inference running right through here, of
course, is that they are not.
We shall see that very especially as we
proceed with the passage before us.
One test which John has been applying has
been the test of obedience.
Obedience to God's commandments.
It is the insistence of the Apostle that
love for God can only come to full
bloom within the orbit of obedience to the
commandments that God has given.
So that if we really love Him, we
will keep His commandments, as Jesus said.
And that's the first test.
If a man says that he is in
fellowship with God, that he is right with
God, that he knows God, this is one
test always to apply.
Does he so love God that he keeps
His commandments?
Or are they very grievous to him, irksome,
against the grain of things?
If the law of the Lord is against
the grain of my total nature, then that
means that I need to be born again.
Not just to have a reformation, that will
not do.
If the commandments of the Lord are irksome
to me and against the grain of my
total nature, then I need a new and
a radical birth from above.
You cannot patch up human nature at that
point.
It must be changed radically and effectively.
And God alone can do that.
The other test that John has been applying
has been this.
It's the test of love for Christian men
and women.
Loving one another, as he puts it.
Again, this is vital.
If we find that we have no kinship
with the people of God, who love Him
and obey His commandments, then we're out of
step with the family of God and with
God Himself.
If we found ourselves in heaven, we would
be very lonely there.
If we found ourselves in the courts of
the New Jerusalem, we'd want to leave.
The most miserable man would be the man
who, unregenerate, without love for the saints in
his heart, or love for God, found himself
in heaven.
Now John comes to the third test.
And he will be applying these three times
in the course of his epistle.
And the third test is as vital, if
not more so, than the other two.
It's the test of truth.
Or, if you like, it's the test of
right belief.
It is this.
What do I think of Jesus Christ?
Or, to put it in its context here,
what do these people that have broken away
from the Christian community establish their own little
group?
What do they think of Jesus Christ?
Do they accept His deity, His sonship, His
Messiahship, in the terms that are specified here?
Or, have they wandered away from the Son
of God and the revelation of the Father
in the Son?
What think ye of Christ is the crucial
and all-revealing question.
Now, there are three main divisions in this
section.
We're not going to take them all today.
But I think I will enumerate the way
we're going to go over the next two
or three Sundays, God willing.
John deals with many things at once here.
First of all, we have the apostles' understanding
of the times.
That's our subject this morning.
Then, when we've gone through that, we shall
look at John's unmasking of the heretics.
And thirdly, John's undergirding of the believers.
Passing through the last hour, as John tells
us.
Facing heretical people all around us and not
quite sure what they are.
He undergirds the faith of the people of
God, telling them and assuring them that they
need not flounder.
There is a way right through the morass
of unbelief and of false beliefs.
We come then to our subject today.
It is the last hour.
John's understanding of the times.
Now, it has been cryptically said that all
history is his story.
That is God's story.
And so it is.
History is not a hodgepodge of meaningless events
all mixed up together into a stew.
History is God's story.
The story of God's doings.
Now, it is true that we can't at
any given moment in the course of history
look at any part of the whole affair
and ourselves understand everything about it.
You can't do that when you read a
book, can you?
Whilst you are half way through the book,
you may not be quite sure unless you
have read the last chapter before you read
the first.
You are not quite sure how it is
all going to end up.
The meaning of the whole thing is not
clear.
The plan is not clear.
How much more difficult it is for us
feeble men and women to be able to
understand the divine pattern at any given point
in the outworking of God's purposes.
But what we are assured is this.
Running through all the events of history there
is a white thread.
A thread of divine purpose.
God is working his purposes out as year
succeeds year.
And when at last the whole thing is
over we shall be able to see that
out of this apparent jumble of events God
has worked a perfect tapestry of his own
perfect will.
And that is the confidence of Christian people.
That is the faith that undergirds the saints.
That is the belief of the Bible.
Addressing the harassed Christians of Ephesus and its
environs here.
Nearly two thousand years ago then.
The apostle John says that the world is
now leading up to their vital climactic hour.
When we shall see the meaning of it
all.
When God will consummate his purposes.
And when the order will appear even to
us human beings.
Because God will reveal his glory running through
the whole course of human history.
Now that brings us to our theme.
I want to say three things about this.
We start off with the solemn proclamation that
we have here.
Children says John it is the last hour.
Then we look at the accompanying explanation that
John gives and tells us how he knows
it is the last hour.
And then lastly we are going to look
at John's pastoral exhortation to the saints as
they face this last hour.
Now first of all then this solemn proclamation.
Children says John, little children, it is the
last hour.
We do well to give some serious consideration
to this statement and indeed to the entire
biblical language.
That refers to the consummation of the age
in which we live.
Now the first thing to grasp is that
in speaking of the last hour or elsewhere
of the last days.
Or of kindred notions as we encounter them
in scripture.
Bible writers are speaking theologically rather than chronologically.
Now let me explain what I mean by
that.
They are not measuring time according to our
calendars or our clocks.
When the Bible speaks of the last hour
it doesn't mean the hour which comprises 60
minutes and so many seconds.
Bible language is entirely different.
It is theological rather than chronological.
Now this is always difficult for us to
appreciate.
You see God is not subject to our
clocks and calendars.
God is eternal.
He is outside of the realm which is
bounded by day and night.
He neither slumbers nor sleeps.
He is eternally the same.
He is outside of this.
And he therefore in his experience if we
may so say has no morning or evening,
no day or night.
Now we can't take this in.
I find it very difficult to preach about
it, to talk about it.
Because you see you can't compare it with
anything else.
Let me attempt to illustrate it this morning.
And in so doing I know full well
that there is no illustration.
But I'm going to ask you to imagine
something quite hypothetically.
And then don't criticize the illustration because I
can do the criticism better than you can
this morning.
I'm very aware of the way it falls
before it starts, before I start.
But in order to illustrate it think for
a moment, hypothetically.
Imagine yourself somewhere able to live outside of
this world of ours.
No longer subject to the laws of time
and space.
And there you are somewhere perched outside of
the universe, outside of it.
Looking down upon the world.
Now assume, what an assumption.
If you're no longer subject to the laws
of day and night.
You don't need breakfast, lunch and supper, whatever
you have.
You're above it all, you're outside of it
all.
And you're looking down upon the whole business.
You see over there it's dawn of day.
Over there it's night.
Day's beginning here, day's ending there.
But now take another step.
Assuming that you can go still higher as
it were and become more elevated.
And have an eye that spans the whole
of time at one moment.
You can see the beginnings of history and
the end of history at a glance.
Now you don't talk up there, may I
say so very frequently.
From that vantage point you don't talk about
the 25th or the 26th of February or
the 3rd of January or anything like that.
You don't talk about morning, noon and night.
Everything is eternally present.
You see the whole thing from your vantage
point which is beyond this scene of time
with its limitations.
Now whether that's a good illustration in parts
or not, I know it's very fallible.
But perhaps it gives us some faint idea,
albeit faint, of the fact that God is
right outside the historical process.
And he doesn't talk of morning, noon and
night.
And he's not subject to the need for
sleep and the need for food and so
forth.
Calendars and clocks were made because we are
feeble and frail.
We need to sleep and we need food.
We have to be replenished.
God is all so different.
Self-sufficient and eternal.
Without beginning, without ending as the Catechism puts
it.
Now viewed then from outside of things, now
God addresses himself to men.
Through his Apostle and he says, Children, it
is the last hour.
Not as you measure time in ticks and
ticks of minutes and seconds.
But as I measure time from my vantage
point outside the universe as the Lord of
the universe.
I want to tell you, he says, it
is the very last hour.
Now this is important for us to see.
You see, many scoffers have come to a
passage like this in Scripture and have said,
Well, the last hour, that hour has run
out a long, long time ago.
And it's all out of ignorance that God's
measurement of time is so different from ours.
His hour may proceed for two thousand years
of our timing.
You see, God's timing is not measured by
ticks of the clock, but by moral and
spiritual conditions.
And his hour may be a very long
one if moral and spiritual conditions do not
proceed apace.
As a matter of fact, the Bible only
acknowledges two main divisions of time.
As true in the Old Testament, as true
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Fundamentally, there are only two main divisions.
Jesus spoke of them when he said to
the Pharisees, Whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit
will not be forgiven, either in this age,
now that's the right translation, age, or in
the age to come.
This is how time was divided in New
Testament times and by the Jews of old
and by the early church.
There was the age that now is and
the age that is to come.
But now with the coming of our Lord
Jesus, with the completion of his work and
with the coming of the Holy Spirit, the
age to come has already arrived.
The kingdom of the heavens has come to
earth in the person of the Son and
is liberated by the Spirit.
So that we read in some places, we
read, for example, of the ends of the
ages of come.
Paul writing to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 10
and verse 11, he says, The ends of
the ages have come upon you.
Not only that, in the epistle to the
Hebrews we read that we have tasted of
the powers of the age to come.
The last age has broken into this age
and we are already in that last age.
But now John takes it further.
Not only are we in the last age,
but we are in the very last hour.
And whether this is the language of God
or the language of men upon earth, it
speaks of the fact that time is running
out.
I wonder, my friends, whether you and I
are alert to that fact this morning.
That for two thousand years we have been
living in the last hour, according to God's
reckoning of time.
Now, if we take this seriously, it ought
to have some very real impact upon our
living.
And if you've never got the message before,
my friend, look at this word of ours
this morning and pray that God will write
it upon your heart.
It is the last hour.
If it was two thousand years ago, it
must be the last hour today.
There was a passage of scripture which I
never understood until quite recently.
It's so simple on the face of it
that I guess many of us could miss
the message of it.
Do you remember these words spoken by our
Lord?
As it was in the days of Noah,
so will it be in the days of
the Son of Man.
He's speaking of the days of his second
coming.
They ate, they drank, they married, they were
given in marriage, until the day when Noah
entered the ark and the flood came and
destroyed them all.
Likewise, as it was in the days of
Lot.
They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold,
they planted, they built.
But on the day when Lot went out
from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven
and destroyed them all.
Now, I'm afraid that I took that simply
as a recitation of the facts of history.
And it is that, of course.
But don't you see the subtle thrust of
it?
What Jesus is saying is this.
They didn't do anything very terribly wrong.
They didn't do anything that was abominably, abysmally
evil.
What they did was this.
They just went on giving time to the
ordinary affairs of life.
They ate, and they drank, and they married,
and they built, and they did this.
There's nothing evil in any of these things.
Not one thing.
But they were oblivious of the fact that
they had been warned that the age was
coming to its end.
And they forgot and forgot about it.
It is not without good reason, therefore, that
John wrote telling his first readers not to
love the world, nor the lust of the
world, as we saw last Lord's Day.
Because the world and its lust are all
to pass away.
The world passes away and the lust thereof.
Do not allow yourself, therefore, to be duped
and doped by it into a drowsiness which
is unaware of what is going on.
We're in the last hour.
The times are serious.
But how does John know?
That brings us to the accompanying explanation.
Well now, let me read the second part
of verse 18.
As you have heard, he says, that Antichrist
is coming.
So now, many Antichrists have come.
Therefore, we know, he says, that it is
the last hour.
How does John know?
Well, put it in a nutshell, he knows
for this reason.
He has been told.
Now here we must assume that John had
got his knowledge from the Lord Jesus himself.
We have been told, he says, we know
that Antichrist is coming.
And already, he says, there are many Antichrists
abroad.
We know, therefore, because these have come, that
the last great Antichrist cannot be very far
away.
Now just a word about Antichrist and Antichrist.
The Antichrist, according to the language itself, is
either one who opposes Christ, he is opposite
to Christ, anti, the preposition anti can mean
that, one who is set over against, deliberately
opposed to Christ, and everything that Christ stands
for.
Or, it can be used in a slightly
different way, as an alternative to Christ.
The word means that too.
Now probably, here in this context, the reference
is to anti in the sense of being
absolutely, utterly, irrevocably opposed to Jesus Christ.
The Antichrist is one who is set against
everything he stands for, everything he says, everything
he has done.
He is over against it.
It may not be good taste to introduce
a joke at this point.
You may have heard the story of the
Irishman who landed in South Africa, and asked,
is there a government here?
He was told, yes, a very good government.
Well, I am against it, he said.
Now, pardon me, Irishman, but you know, that's
the Antichrist.
Whatever the Christ of God has said, whatever
the Christ of God has done, whatever the
Christ of God stands for, the Antichrist is
against it, set, solid, beyond repentance.
There is no way back.
There are no possible negotiations.
He is anti.
He is set.
The Antichrist is usually identified as having been
prophesied by Daniel the prophet in chapter 7.
If he is a personage of such importance
that the prophets of the Old Testament speak
about him before his coming, I think we
ought to know something about him.
God does not inspire his prophets in vain.
If there is some such character as this,
some personage of this order that is to
come into the realm of history, my good
people, you and I ought to know something
about it.
Daniel speaks of him in 7 and 25,
in these words, He shall speak words against
the Most High, and shall wear out the
saints of the Most High.
Did you get that?
Wear out the saints of the Most High.
There is a word in the New Testament
which says that when he comes, he shall
deceive even the very elect, if it were
not for the grace of God.
Later, Daniel refers to the same being as
one who shall exalt himself and magnify himself
above the very God.
Now, John is the only one who speaks
of him by the title Antichrist.
But it is fairly obvious from the description
given in comparison of the two that Paul
has the same person in mind when in
2 Thessalonians chapter 2 he writes of the
man of sin or the man of lawlessness,
as some manuscripts have it.
The man of sin or the man of
lawlessness.
It comes very much to the same thing.
And also that we have the same person
in Revelation chapter 13 verses 11 to 18,
called the false prophet.
Now, summarizing what is said of him in
Scripture, we may say that whereas the designation
Antichrist may apply to many people in the
course of history, the Antichrist refers to one
personage coming at the end who is the
embodiment of all that is against Christ and
his gospel and his truth and his revelation.
This person will be Antichrist theologically, in that
he will claim to be God himself.
He will be Antichrist politically, as he will
attempt to rule the world.
He will be Antichrist satanically, because his inspiration
is satanic indeed.
It seems that in many respects the future
Antichrist will be to Satan what Jesus Christ
is to God the Father.
Some such relationship binds Satan and the Antichrist
as binds the Son of God and the
Father in heaven.
Now, says John, we know that he is
coming because many Antichrists are already here.
John sees the last hour as having arrived
because many such people are emerging, not the
Antichrist, but people who have his spirit.
His spirit is already abroad.
These Antichrists already on the scene are not
supernatural beings as the Antichrist will be.
They are, in some cases, and this is
the tragedy of it, oh, that the Lord
would write this on our hearts.
These Antichrists already on the scene have been
members of the Christian church.
They've gone through the motions of being received
into membership.
They've been baptized.
They've been received in.
They've been given the right hand of fellowship.
But they went out from us, says John,
because they didn't belong to us.
If they belonged to us, they would have
remained with us, but they were not of
us.
Can you imagine such a thing?
Here are men and women who have sat
in the pew on the Lord's day, have
heard the word, and have apparently worshipped with
the people of God, and now they are
the precursors and the forerunners of the great
Antichrist himself.
Men and women, let us examine ourselves this
morning.
Is there a genuine work of grace that
is going on in my heart?
Is there something that is deeper than the
skin?
Is there something that is radical and transforming,
making me like God and his Son?
Or is my membership of the Christian church
something that is purely superficial?
I can shake it off like that, and
I can join forces with a great Antichrist.
Oh, this is challenging.
And I tell you, it's the more challenging
because it is the last hour.
You and I don't know how much time
we've got to put things right.
The day is far spent.
The might is at hand.
I know there are many things that have
to take place.
I know what 2 Thessalonians 2 says, and
I know what other passages say.
Some things must take place before the very
last event of all, and he comes in
his glory.
But I also know that God can hasten
events when it pleases him.
It is the last hour, men and women.
Do not trifle with spiritual things.
If there's anything wrong in your life, put
it right today.
Harden not your hearts as in the day
of provocation.
Today is the day of salvation.
This is no time to trifle.
This is no time to toy.
Many Antichrists have come out into the world.
For this reason we know, says John, the
Spirit is abroad.
And it's not a preparation of the way
for the embodiment of the Antichristian spirit.
Now one word.
And I move right to the end of
the passage because I think we need to
bring that truth in here.
A pastoral exhortation.
If this is so, what does John just
say to the Christians here?
Now you remember the situation.
A Christian group, a genuinely Christian church has
come into existence.
Then there's been this division.
These people have had some new light and
they've gone outside.
John says, now you must test them and
see whether they are of God or not.
Are they merely schismatics, which is serious enough,
dividing the true church?
Or are they heretics?
And you need to apply these certain tests.
But now he says, look, as you're doing
that, and as I warned you of the
coming of Antichrist, I want now to encourage
you.
And why doesn't he do so?
Look at verse 28.
Now, little children, he says, abide in him.
So that when he appears, we may have
confidence and not shrink before him at his
coming.
It is true that there are Antichrists abroad.
It is true that they are multiplying in
number.
And it is true that they are the
precursors of the great Antichrist.
And the time is fast moving.
But says John, don't simply concentrate on the
opposition.
Take note of the Antichrists and what is
happening and what their presence in the plural
means.
But then he says, remember this.
Your Lord is returning.
Jesus is coming back.
Our Master is coming back again.
There's the great appearing of the Lord himself
to which we look forward.
He says, remember that.
He's coming.
And now he says, you prepare for his
emergence in his glory as he appears.
Now, there are two alternatives he puts before
the Christians.
Look at them.
Now, little children, he says, you abide in
him so that when he appears, he appears,
we may have confidence and not shrink before
him at his coming.
The first alternative, the first possibility is this,
that when Jesus Christ comes, his people will
shrink and shrivel fearfully and timidly before him
at his appearance.
Now, this is a very graphic statement, but
you know what it is.
You have seen it happen in some sphere
or other.
Someone is guilty of something.
And then some key figure in the whole
business has emerged into the scene, and you
notice how they begin to blush, unless they've
completely lost the art of blushing.
And if they can't blush, they'll get a
little bit agitated.
And they don't want to look this key
figure in the face, and they'll gradually move
away until they get into a corner away
from the look of his eye.
Oh, men and women, I tell you, there's
a possibility that some of us, on the
day of our Lord's appearance, will want to
hide.
I have no time this morning.
Think of the parable of the talents.
Think of the parable of service.
Think of the parables of our Lord, all
relating to this hour.
And for one reason or another, we may
well want to hide and shrink back before
him at his coming.
What a terrible thing when the bride wants
to hide from the bridegroom.
We've professed a love toward him, and we're
awaiting for the marriage day, and then when
he comes, we want to hide from him
because we've been unfaithful.
That's one possibility, says John, that we prove
our infidelity, and at last, when he comes,
we'd rather not see him.
But the other alternative is this, that we
may have confidence before him at his coming.
And when confidence is one of the most
graphic ones, it means say everything.
Say everything.
Now, the best illustration I can think of
is something that happens very often in families
where there are little ones.
You know, Dad or Mum have been away
from home, and lots of things have gone
on in the house, and then at certain
ages, children just have the knack of saying
everything in one sentence.
And Daddy or Mummy comes home and get
in the front door, and suddenly everything's out,
and there may have been some secrets, you
know, something special kept for Daddy coming home.
And it shouldn't have come out just then,
but everything's out.
Everything's out.
You see, this utter openness, this love that
opens the heart and's got nothing to hide.
Now, says John, you should be like this,
and this is what you should pray for
and prepare for, that when he comes, your
heart will be open, you'll have nothing to
grieve about, nothing to hide, but with an
open heart, welcome your beloved.
And the secret of it all, says John,
is this.
And here we see the stamp of the
same writer in the epistle as in the
gospel.
Oh, my little children, he says, abide.
Nothing more.
It's all wrapped up there in that little
word, abide in him.
Can I apply it very briefly to this
chapter?
What does it mean to abide in him?
One, see that you keep his commandments out
of love.
Two, see that you love his people out
of the same love of God in your
heart.
Three, see that you continue to believe that
he is Jesus the Christ and honor him
as the Christ of God.
It's the test of obedience, it's the test
of love, it's the test of truth.
Now, he says, this is the way of
abiding, this is the prescription for abiding.
Oh, blessed day, when my Lord returns in
glory, and every eye shall see.
I trust that none of us will want
to draw back at that point.
Now's the time to prepare.
Now's the time to get ready.
This is the day, this is the hour,
these are the means of grace.
We have the word, we have the promises,
we have the covenant, we have the fellowship
of his people.
My good people, this is the Lord's day.
And a Sabbath on earth is but the
means given by God for the preparation of
souls for that eternal Sabbath in the heavens
with our beloved.
Are you using this day in its fullness
to prepare for that?
What more are we using our lives?
It is the last hour.
Don't fritter the moments.
Just one life will soon be past.
Only what's done for Christ will last.
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, in heaven thy dwelling place, hear
our acknowledgement of ill-desert, unworthiness, guilt, transgressions
of thy law, and lack of love for
thy people.
At times, O our Heavenly Father, in mercy
come and cleanse us, purge us, and forgive
us, and make us the agents of thy
forgiving love for the purifying and the edifying
of the fellowship of the church, and ride
out into the cold, abysmal world that lies
in ignorance of the meaning of history and
of the terminus towards which it is appointed
to move.
Father in heaven, hear our cry this morning
and bring anew earnestness and sobriety into our
lives.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
You've been listening to From the Pulpit in
Classic Sermons Series.
This week you heard J.
Glenn Owen.
With this message, it is the last hour.
Tune in next week to hear Keith Daniel
talk about the creation in Genesis on From
the Pulpit in Classic Sermons.