Today we come to the fifth in a series of messages on the person of the Antichrist. And I have been going quite slowly in this series because we are dealing with a very difficult and also very important subject. And I don't want any of you — some of you are non-Christians perhaps, and some of you are very young Christians — and I don't want you to get lost in what is a difficult subject, the person of the Antichrist. This subject has a lot to do with each one of you, because in our lifetime, it may well be very soon that we are going to experience the coming of the Antichrist, and soon after, the coming of the Lord Himself.
Now, last time, we looked at the fact that the Antichrist is going to come from within the church. I'm not going to develop that message all over again, but it is truly a frightening prospect to consider that the church itself will be, you can say, the home or the breeding ground of the Antichrist. In a way, that makes any one of us a possible candidate for being the Antichrist. Now, today, there are lots of churches in Hong Kong, there are lots of Christians of one sort or another. The problem, and the sad thing about it, is that I have to say, of one sort or another. And all these people in the churches could potentially bring about the coming of the Antichrist. In fact, they could be the Antichrist.
Now, today what I want to do is to make two basic points. One is that the Antichrist is an arch-deceiver, a pseudo-Christian. The second point we have to ask is: how can we avoid being deceived? Now, those two are very important questions. The Antichrist is an arch-deceiver. He is going to be an expert in the matter of deception. The second question is: how can you and I avoid being deceived?
Now, last time we also saw the fact that the word "Antichrist" is used in the New Testament only in the two letters of John — the First and Second Letters of John. And I'm very happy just now, because I can see that Satan is not too pleased about my message, and he's trying to create a lot of noise and disturbance outside. And that makes me very happy. It's very strange. Many a time when I preach, there will be all kinds of distractions and noises. I'm very used to that by now. It makes me very happy. It shows that the enemy doesn't like my message very much. It's like when the BBC or Voice of America is trying to broadcast into Russia — the Russians put up all the jamming devices. And you know what is a jamming device? It means when you turn on the radio, all kinds of noise comes in so you can't hear what BBC or what Voice of America is trying to say. Things must be getting good, because I recently heard — I think only about three weeks ago — that Russia has stopped jamming the BBC. So I'm not sure if that's a good sign or a bad sign. Whether the BBC's message now is getting so tame that Russia doesn't have to bother to jam it anymore, or whether that is because Russia is really getting into glasnost — the one Russian word we have all learned recently about openness.
So in the Bible, in the New Testament, we read that the word "Antichrist" occurs only in the First and Second Letters of John. And therefore, in order to understand what the word "Antichrist" means, we have to turn to the First and Second Letters of John for a clear definition. And that's what we did last time.
Now what makes the matter extremely dangerous is that John warns us that the Antichrist is a false Christian. Now I would like to impress this point very clearly in your mind. The key idea, then — let me try to sum it up briefly about what the New Testament says about the Antichrist — is this: first, he is a religious person. He is not a non-Christian. This is the important thing you must understand. He is a religious person, and not primarily a political person. The importance of this statement will become clearer as we go on in this message.
Secondly, he is a false teacher. He is a teacher. This means he is a teacher in the church, which means that he is a leader in the church. This whole thing begins to get very frightening when you think about it. And clearly he is not going to be just any ordinary leader in the church. He is going to be an outstanding leader in the church. What makes him dangerous is that he will know the Bible very well. He will probably be well trained in theology. And that makes most Christians not his equal.
You wouldn't be able to deal with him. If you say, "Ah, but the Bible says..." he says, "My friend, listen, you know how much Bible I have studied? Which theological seminary have you gone to?" And by this time you are already coughing. "Well, I haven't actually..." "Well, you listen to me. I know the Bible because I have been trained thoroughly in the scriptures." Now how do you handle this? You are already defenseless by this time. You turn the Bible back and forth and you look at his Bible and it's well worn. And when he opens the Bible — wah, red markings, green markings, blue markings — you dare not even open your Bible in his presence. And then footnotes, all notes everywhere. Oh, you look at this and you are already afraid. He has drawn out his spiritual sword, and his sword is the Bible. And you look at your Bible and you wonder — well, not very presentable, can't open it. So when you open your Bible, you don't want him to look inside. "Now I think it says in the Bible..." you think. "Well, I'm quite certain it says in the Bible." And do you know what it means? "Well, I saw the commentator say..." "Commentator? Okay, give me a break. I'm just trying to get started."
You see what I'm getting at? The Antichrist will intimidate you by his thorough knowledge of the Bible. Look at the way Satan dealt with the Lord Jesus at the temptation. Did you see what Satan did with the Lord Jesus? Every time Satan tempted the Lord Jesus, he used the Bible to do it. He opened the Bible, he says, "The Bible says..." Good thing the Lord Jesus knew the Bible a bit better than Satan did. But what about you? There's where your problem is going to be.
The Antichrist, according to John, will be a teacher in the church. That means he could be a pastor, an evangelist, a leader in the church of Christ. That is what makes him so terribly dangerous. I've said before: could you tell the difference between the truth and falsehood if the speaker claims to base his message on the Bible? Could you tell the difference?
Deception is much more frightening than persecution. That's what I told you in the previous messages. In persecution, the enemy identifies himself. An identified enemy is not as dangerous as an enemy that sits among us. That is the danger of an enemy that is unidentified. You don't know. You're looking at the enemy there, and the enemy is standing behind you. He may be smiling. You turn around and he's not smiling. He's looking very seriously. You look back this way — he's smiling at your back. There is the enemy. Oh yes, and everybody's concentration is looking there. We pull the spring on our rifles, we are all ready, and the enemy is behind us. And at the right moment he says, "Will you gentlemen kindly not turn around? Slowly put down your guns. Turn around." And the enemy is there. He's got his gun on you. "Gentlemen, how are you today? You're all my captives." That is the kind of picture, and I'm putting it to you in picture language, of what's going to happen when the Antichrist comes.
The church will all be looking — "Is this the one? Is that the one? He's the enemy?" And the enemy is right behind us. And he's got us all covered, as they say. All covered. I want to tell you that the deception has already begun. Our leaders in the various churches don't even know how to identify the enemy, as I will show you in a moment. They have told us this is going to be the Antichrist, and let me tell you — and I'm going to prove to you in this series of messages — the Antichrist that our Bible teachers are telling us about today, not some future point, today in the church, is the wrong person. And we are all going to be looking for the Antichrist who isn't going to be the Antichrist at all. I'm going to make myself clearer as we go along.
But what I want to stress in this series of messages is that the Antichrist is a deceiver. In fact, that's the synonym of his name. "Deceiver" and "Antichrist" mean the same thing in John. Let me read to you from 2 John, the Second Letter of John, verse 7, that you can see it for yourself. The Second Letter of John, which is at the end of your Bible, just before the book of Revelation. 2 John, verse 7, reads like this: "For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the Antichrist." Notice that deceiver and Antichrist are synonyms. The Antichrist is a deceiver.
Now today's Bible leaders, Bible teachers, are telling us that the Antichrist would be a persecutor of Christians in the first place. That is a mistake. He will become a persecutor, but only when it's too late for us as a church. First he is going to deceive us all. And those who will refuse to be deceived, who can see through the deception — that small number of people, and I tell you the number will be small — who will see through the deception, those are the ones he will persecute. And we will be in such a small minority that nobody will even take notice of us. We will become the heretics, because the Antichrist will be the super orthodox Christian. We see it happening already. It has already come to pass.
We live in an age of deception. I was in Chengzhou Island with Helen for two days of rest. And I smiled a bit because I didn't get too much rest, but I did have two days of change. But on the way back from Chengzhou Island, I picked up a newspaper at the newspaper stand. Front page, Hong Kong Evening Standard, said this: it tells about three Singaporean girls who went to Sydney, Australia, between ages of 18 and 24. Three girls — they went to Australia, they came off at the airport in Sydney, and they were met by a very friendly Australian lady. Nice lady, very pleasant, all smiles, nicely dressed. And she came up to these three Singaporean girls and said, "Where are you going? You new in Sydney?" "Oh yeah, the first time, we came to see the sights." "Oh yes, Sydney is a beautiful city, you came to the right place. You have somewhere to stay?" "No, no, we are still looking." "Ah, no problem, I got a place for you. Do you trust me?" Well, they look up and down — "Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure." You know, we Asian people have to be polite and can't be rude. You can't say, "Oh no, no, who trusts you?" Of course. "Yeah, yeah, sure." "In that case, I'll show you around a bit in Sydney, you like that?" Oh, they thought this is wonderful. I mean, what good fortune to run into such a nice person like this, this nice lady.
So they get into her nice car and she drives them around. "You see, this is nice scenery here, and that is this pond," and she gets to see old Sydney. These three girls are given a free ride. "Well, it's getting late, shall we have a bit of supper together?" Oh, this lady is unbelievable. I mean, how good fortune to run into such a nice lady is unbelievable. So she takes them for a nice supper — generous, abundant, whatever they like for their supper. "Maybe it's time to go and get some rest." And so they come to a district called King's Cross District in Sydney — maybe Andrew, who was around in Sydney, may know where King's Cross is. And we're not talking about King's Cross London, we're talking about Sydney here.
And so they went to this place and came to a house. And of course they put down their purses and so on. They have their dinner. After dinner — what happened to the purses? Inside the purse is the passport, the return tickets to Singapore, all their money — everything disappeared. What happened? And who is this nice lady? She is the lady in charge of the brothel. What is the brothel? The prostitution center. These three girls discovered that they had been kidnapped. Well, very nicely, but kidnapped all the same. They lost all their papers, their passport, everything was gone. And now they were forced to work as prostitutes for her. That's the situation they were in.
Well, after some time, one of the girls managed to get to the police and explain what had happened — very dangerous, of course. She managed to slip away. If she got caught, she might never talk again. The police then investigated the place and have charged this Australian woman with kidnap and other crimes. Now many girls do not get away. This kind of what is called sex slavery is unfortunately a very common thing going on in the world today. And I say to you sisters, if you are going to travel somewhere, you'd better watch out. You are living in a very dangerous world. Very dangerous. But you see, nice people can be dangerous. But what about Christians? Christians could be even more dangerous, unfortunately.
So many of you read Time Magazine, and some person gave me some copies of Time Magazine — they have actually given me a few months' subscription of Time Magazine. And this past week has illustrated, in a frightening way, the kind of things that the New Testament is talking about. Because when you look at every place where Antichrist is spoken of in the New Testament — not just in the First and Second Letters of John; the word "Antichrist" is only used in the First and Second Letters of John, but he is referred to by other names such as false Christ, false prophet, and so on elsewhere in the New Testament — in every place where this fearful deceiver is referred to, the word deception occurs in the New Testament in one form or another. And Paul speaks about our living in these last days where people are deceived and deceiving. They both deceive and are deceived. The whole atmosphere in which we live in this world today is one of deception going on all the time. And believe it or not, you may catch yourself practicing exactly that.
Every time, for example, you try to pass yourself off as something better than you really are, you are deceiving others. Somebody asks you, "What is your profession? What do you do?" And then so you come up with a story that makes you really a lot better than what you really are. You are not all that, but you give off some story about your being something more than you really are. "I work in an engineering firm." Well, that's fine. It doesn't tell you that this person is a secretary in the engineering firm, maybe the doorkeeper in the engineering firm. But he hopes, when he says he works in an engineering firm, that you understand that he's an engineer. He didn't actually lie. No, he didn't say, "I'm an engineer." He only said, "I work in an engineering firm." And the listener assumes that he's an engineer. You go to the engineering firm and you find that he's the caretaker, the watchman at the door. He didn't want to say watchman or secretary — doesn't sound good. He wants to say something nicer than that. You see, we are doing this kind of thing, and if you start doing this kind of thing, you are already practicing deception.
Why? What's wrong with being a watchman? Is there some crime in being a watchman? No. But you want people to think more highly of you. "Say, I'm a watchman." "Fine." What's wrong with that? God doesn't despise watchmen, neither do we. What's wrong with that? One of my best friends in Shanghai was the son of a watchman. He wasn't even a watchman himself; he was only the son of a watchman. My father was so angry about my having a friend who was the son of a watchman. He thought it was socially degrading that we should be associating with people like that. I said to my father, "I really don't care what he is. He's a good person, and I look at the quality of his person, and that's fine with me." Eventually he actually became an engineer. But that didn't bother me either. I didn't really value him more because he became an engineer. He was still the same friend, the son of a watchman, as far as I was concerned. But you see, Christians want to do and practice deception.
Now let's ask: why do we practice deception? Pride, isn't it? We want to get something from others that we don't really deserve. We want them to look at us better than we really are. Or we want to get something else out of them. Sometimes deception is to get money out of them, to get something out of them. Be very careful of Christians or churches that are very interested in money. That should be a sign to you that there is something fishy about that church. And no matter what excuse they give for the reason they like money — "We have to build a new church." Well, that's of no interest to visitors in the church. That's their business, not yours. "We want money for this project and that project." And many times when you go to churches today, you wonder whether the church is simply a money-gathering organization. They're always talking money, money, money.
Some people go to a church and suddenly the first thing they see is a chart on the wall. The chart is how much money they have collected for the new building. And much of the talk will be about collecting money. One of the favorite topics of some pastors is tithing. "Tithe money! You must be faithful in tithing!" Tithing is to give one tenth of your income. Now it's true, the Bible does speak about tithing. And some people wonder why, in all these years, I have never once taught one single message on tithing. I think you've heard a lot of them already. Me too. I've heard a lot of them already. Some people come to this church and wonder, "When is the offering bag going to come around?" Then the service is over — no offering bag came around. They say, "What happened? What's wrong with this church? Have they lost their offering bags?" We don't take up any offering. No, because we are rich? No, we are not. We want people to understand we are not into the subject of money.
And then you have pastors — well, the battle between the board of the church and the pastors is whether the time has come for the next raise. "Yeah, I've had the same salary for too many years now. The church should consider that it's time for me to have a raise. Am I a good pastor? Am I right? Yeah, well, so give me a raise and prove that I'm a good pastor." The funny thing is, when people in this church go to the church meeting, they discover that the co-workers are asking for reduction in pay. They don't come to the right place. Since when do you come to a church where they ask for less money all the time? They're saying, "We got enough. We got..." Why do we deceive? And the reason is we want to get something out of others, whether it is respect or money, whatever it is. It is a dangerous thing. It is all said to be for the Lord's work.
For those of you who come from North America, who have studied in North America and Canada, you know — we switch on a television today, and North America is full of Christian television. Do you have any idea how much it costs to run a television station? One single program can run into hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars. But some of these Christian organizations not only have programs on the air, they run their own television stations. They own the whole station and the satellites that are up in the sky. Do you know how much a satellite costs? Well, they can afford that too. Now, in order to run this kind of organization, you need money. And therefore it's not surprising, every time you switch on the television to listen to news or something else, what you get is another appeal for money on some Christian television station. And it makes you feel utterly sick. Does the gospel have to be preached in this kind of way? Or is there some other way to preach the gospel, the New Testament way? Does it depend on money?
You see the problem we are in. Deception has to come because there has to be some way to get the money. And any organization that runs on this kind of basis is going to be committed to money gathering. But notice what will happen sooner or later — notice what will happen. Very dangerous.
A very famous Christian television station in North America is called PTL. When you ask what does PTL stand for, it's supposed to stand for "Praise the Lord." This television station owns its own station, it owns its own satellite as well to broadcast all around the world. You know what is their yearly income? I wonder if you could even guess. Their yearly income is over 120 million U.S. dollars. That's big business by any standard. That is very big business. And when Christians get into business of this kind in the name of God — and I'm saying this because there's a close parallel here to what the Antichrist will be doing, and there's a lot of danger in this — the Antichrist is going to be a well-known worldwide ministry of preaching, teaching, which is where all these television stations have already arrived at. 127 million U.S. dollars — we're not talking about Hong Kong dollars — U.S. dollars per year income. You can see what kind of temptation this will bring.
I think many of you may also know who was the chairman or president or founder or whatever he is of the PTL Club, as they call it, of this television station that broadcasts all over the world. He is a person called Baker. His wife is called Tammy. And he himself is called Jim — Jim and Tammy Baker. Why am I mentioning their names? Because Time Magazine has already mentioned their names this week. In Time Magazine, for those of you who have read it — my heart, when I saw that, just fell within me, bled within me. You know what happened? Tammy, his wife, is being treated for drug addiction. This has now come out as public news. I'm not saying anything that is not already reported in the press. And Jim himself confessed to having an affair with a secretary back in 1981. You see, he himself now has had to withdraw because some other Christians uncovered the sins in which they live.
Jimmy Swaggart — I think many of you have heard — used to be a kind of Christian pop singer and who is now a well-known evangelist and preacher in the United States, denounced Jim Baker publicly and said that his cover-up and living in sin is a disgrace to the gospel, with which we all have to agree. And Jimmy Swaggart mercilessly exposed the sins of this fellow evangelist and preacher. The result now is the thing is public news, and it has done enormous damage to the gospel. The credibility of every preacher is called into question when this kind of thing comes. And of course the world, the presses, the newspapers love to have a chance to bash the church: "You are not as holy as you make everybody else believe. You sit in church singing hymns on Sunday, you preach on television talking about God and all this, and look at you. Look at the bunch of hypocrites that you are." And the church can't say anything. Caught with the facts.
From 1981 till now — six years — Jim Baker of PTL had to pay out in cover-up money to this girl with whom he had some kind of affair, according to the newspaper, $115,000 U.S. dollars. That is nearly one million Hong Kong dollars to keep her quiet. He had been blackmailed for all these years for the sin he committed, and finally it came out anyway, because the Bible says, "Be sure your sin will find you out." Sooner or later it's going to come out into the open. And if you're a Christian leader, you simply cannot afford this kind of thing. It's absolutely disastrous. The reputation of the gospel is simply blackened by this kind of conduct.
He himself — this preacher, this well-known evangelist in North America — has been living in sin and trying to cover it up all these years. I wondered what has been going on in his mind, that every time he stood up to preach on television, he had just been paying his last cover-up money against blackmail. How do you preach the gospel effectively? So he had to live deceiving his hearers, deceiving himself, deceiving everybody else. This poor man was deceived and deceiving.
You see what I'm getting at? Why? Because he lived in bondage to sin, in bondage to the flesh. How are you living? Before you become too self-righteous about Christian leaders, I wonder whether Christians in the churches are living very much better than they. I've been denouncing this unholiness of the church for a long time. Have you dealt with sin? Or are you living in bondage to the flesh, to the self? Because then you will be deceived.
I see my enemy is working hard. Praise the Lord, I'm doing fine. Let's press on. First it was the drilling noise, now it's the music. The drilling noise was disturbing, the music is more attractive. I think the enemy is getting a little bit cleverer as he goes along. We should try some more nice pop sounds, but this one will do for the moment.
So you can see what is happening. This Jim Baker was deceived, and he was trying to deceive others. He had to deceive others, because if the truth came out, he would have lost his job seven years ago, or six years ago. So he had to live in deception. That gives you an idea why the New Testament says the Antichrist is a Christian, a well-known teacher, who himself is deceived and will be deceiving others. I'm not saying that Jim Baker is the Antichrist, but he is an antichrist in the effect of what he has done. I've told you: who can do more damage to the church — the person who persecutes the church, or the person who disgraces the church? The answer, of course, is very clear: the person who disgraces the church, who is a false Christian, false by the standard of life that he lives, no matter what his mouth professes.
But this week has furnished us with other examples. It's quite remarkable. Every time I preach, all the examples come in. I don't even go searching for them. They come to me. It's quite remarkable. You see why the Antichrist or any arch-deceiver has to use the church? Because of course it removes all suspicion. You suspect a person, but you will suspect a person much less if he claims to be a Christian. No, you will suspect him even less if he claims to be a minister of the church, isn't it? Therefore every crook and every liar will have to use the church as a means to cover up his activities. Or that is the best way to do it.
What happened this past week? Did you read the newspaper? Oh, my heart felt sick within me. In that same newspaper that I got on the way back from Chengzhou, I read this, and I cut it out for you to have a look. The headlines are so big that I think that if you look at even at the back line you'll be able to see. This is the Hong Kong Evening Standard of Friday, March 27, 1987. And you see at the back, quite clear, so big are the letters. What does it say? "Hang my son." I mean, your eyes blink. I mean, in Hong Kong — I mean, this is a bit... No father is intending to hang his son. But here, look at this: "Hang my son, I'll pull the rope." It says here: "I myself," the father says, "I will pull the rope when you hang my son." What is this story about?
Let me make it very brief. You see the picture of this guy here. That's the son who is being taken away by the police. This happened, of course, in East Lake, Ohio, in the United States. This son was arrested claiming to be a pastor of a church — a pastor of a church of a denomination I've never heard of. It's called the United Church of the Ministers of God, or something like that. Now notice that even the name is designed to be deceiving, because "United Church" of course is an official, you can say virtually the state church of Canada, the United Church of Canada. But he didn't use the word "United Church." He just used the word "United Church," and United Church of course is a very common name also in other places in North America, but very well known in Canada. But he puts this: the United Church of the Ministers of God. Whatever does that mean?
What did he do? Well, the story was uncovered when a girl was apparently being driven in his car and she suspected that something was fishy. And probably at a red light or somewhere, she jumped out of the car when she saw a police patrol coming by — quick thinking, good for her. She jumped out and stopped the police patrol and said that she knew something about this so-called pastor or minister. The police went to the house of this so-called pastor and found, under the floorboards of his house — notice, under a trap door. There was a trap door, you know, it's a door on the floor that you pull up, which was covered by a sandbag and other things. Under the trap door, the police found three women chained down below. They had all been sexually abused. They had been raped. They were dehydrated and suffering from lack of water and food, and so on.
When the police further checked — it almost makes me feel sick to have to say this, but it was in the newspaper as well — they found in the freezer an arm of a woman. The police further investigation found that perhaps this so-called pastor had murdered at least two other women. And the fate of those three in the basement, or under the floorboards, would have been probably the same, because of course if he let any of them out, they would have reported him to the police. So his only alternative left was to kill them all in due time. It is so sickening.
Now what is this about? Who says these words, "Hang my son"? Of course, it is the father saying that. And his father is saying that he would himself pull the rope on this son. He is saying that this fellow deserves to be hanged. And I have to say I agree. Justice has to be done sometime. The background of this is that this father said that he had not seen his son in 20 years because he and his wife were divorced early on in the marriage, and the wife was not interested in his sons. So she abandoned these two sons, who were put in her custody by the court. And so the father, finding that his two sons had been abandoned, brought up these two sons from the first form — from grade one and two, that is from primary school, actually from very early days — brought them up. And so of course, maybe the father is waxing self-righteous, because it seems to me that when a son doesn't grow up well, the father has some responsibility too. Maybe he should not only hang his son, he should hand himself over also to be executed. It's very easy to pass the blame to the son and simply to say that he hadn't seen his son for 20 years is hardly an excuse. Why didn't his son want to see him for 20 years might be also a question.
Anyway, the newspaper also goes on to say that the son had been charged with more than 50 crimes, including murder, five counts of rape, and kidnapping. And this fellow, to cover his tracks, became a pastor of a church. I'm saying all this, not because I take any pleasure in saying this, but to warn you that the Bible had already told us that this would happen. All this is already in the Bible. John the apostle told us that that is how the Antichrist will appear. He will be a false Christian — more than that, a false teacher, a false pastor, a false evangelist, whatever he may be. You understand, the Bible is very true to its words. The Bible didn't say, "Yes, it's the non-Christians who are bad. The non-Christians will persecute us. The non-Christians are the evil people." You know what the Bible says, if you are a non-Christian? If you are a non-Christian, you'll be surprised what the Bible says. Read the Bible sometimes. The Bible turns the finger at Christians and says, "Out of the midst of us will come the greatest deceiver, the greatest of all evil men that ever lived will come from the church."
By now you will see how important it is that we speak the truth once and for all. And if the truth hurts us as Christians, so may it hurt us. Let us be severe — not with the non-Christians, but with ourselves. Let us start with ourselves. Because the Bible says — and if you are not a Christian, please listen to this — the Bible says the apostle Peter said that judgment will begin with the house of God, with the church. God will start His judgment with you and with me. And until the church is purified, we don't even have a right to talk to the non-Christian.
Oh yes, the churches — they all want to evangelize, evangelize. And I am suspicious as to what is the reason that these churches want to evangelize. You know why they want to evangelize? Because they want to be a big church. "Ours is the big church. We have 500 people in our church. 1,000 people. 2,000 people." Well, I don't care how many people you have in your church, if all those Christians are living in sin and in the flesh and in defeat and are a disgrace to the name of God. I don't care if you have 5 million people in your church. Let's have a church of 5 people, maybe 50, in which every person is committed to living in purity of heart, in which you look at me and I look at you, and I ask you, look at my life, and if you ever see a trace of sin in my life, show it to me. That is the greatest service you can do to the church of Christ.
If you see any of our co-workers living in any kind of sin, report them to me and to the church, and we shall not fail to deal with them as is necessary to be dealt with. We are the most severe in this church to all our co-workers. In this, in our churches today, we have, by the end of this year, some 50 full-time co-workers. And we demand of every full-time co-worker the highest standard of excellence. And should they fail ever so little — very little by the standards of the churches today — they will not escape disciplinary action, as you who have been in the church for a long time will know.
And if anyone can find any sin in my life, I lay this charge upon you — and it's on tape that I have said so — I lay this charge upon you, that you will charge me with sin if you can find any sin in my life. Only so can we maintain the purity of this church, the purity of the church of Christ. But look at the Christians today. We have elders in the churches today that the churches are only too eager to go off to play mahjong. What kind of church is this?
I have been denouncing the churches for years for the sin that is in the churches, and they hate me. I don't mind. They can keep on hating me, because I'm going to be doing this so long as I still have breath. I've been denouncing the churches and the sin in the churches for years, and the fellow pastors have said to me, "Hey, hey, not so loud! It's bad for the face of the church. You keep telling about the sin in the church." I said, "What do you think? The people in the world are blind? They can see the sin of the church with their own eyes. They can read it in the newspapers. I've been preaching against it all these years and you ask me to shut up? Well, I will not."
I think you know I'm very unpopular in the Chinese churches and any churches anywhere, I should think. I've been denouncing sin for a long time and proclaiming holiness. But we cannot have one standard for them and one standard for ourselves. We must maintain holiness, or else let us stop calling ourselves Christians. At least do this service to the church. At least make this contribution to the church, if you can't make any other. If you live in sin, just please quit coming to church, or at least please stop saying, "I am a Christian." At least do that service for the church. Otherwise, you are functioning as the Antichrist, as a false Christian that is going to harm the church exceedingly.
My time is almost gone, and there is so much to expound on the subject, but I have to close for today. I want to tell you, though, and I mentioned early on, that if we do not live in righteousness, we are going to be deceived. And so let me conclude quickly on two main points of how not to be deceived. I can sum up these many, many points in these two main points of how not to be deceived. First, you yourself have to live in holiness. I have been preaching holiness because that's the only way not to be deceived.
# The Arch-Deceiver and How Not to Be Deceived (Part 2)
Your sexual desires, which among our young people is quite common — you will not be able to discern the truth because your eyes will be veiled by sin, by the flesh. Sin, and especially the flesh, is in the Bible a veil — a veil of the flesh. And if the veil of the flesh covers you, you won't be able to distinguish what is true from what is false.
Now, I speak about the Antichrist because only when we know how to distinguish falsehood can we also distinguish what is truth. They are simply two sides of the same coin. If Jesus walked into this room today, would you have the spiritual discernment to know that it's Jesus? Let me tell you something. If Jesus came as an ordinary person, dressed in the same way as you and I are dressed, and walked into this room today as a visitor, I guarantee that the majority of you wouldn't even know that that is Jesus. When Jesus came the first time, what did John the Baptist say? He said exactly that: "There is somebody standing in your midst. He's standing right there, sitting right among you, and you do not know who He is. He is the King. He is the Messiah. He is God's appointed Savior. But none of you recognize Him."
Now, if you cannot recognize Jesus Himself, how are you going to recognize the Antichrist? If the Antichrist came in today and sat down here, you wouldn't know the difference either. You wouldn't know the difference. Spiritual perception is of the greatest importance because the stakes are so high. What is at stake now is eternal life, not just physical life. It is not just physical life and death. It is eternal life and death. We cannot afford to make a mistake here. This is why I'm preaching this series of messages. We cannot afford to be wrong.
So the first thing is: you cannot discern either the Lord Jesus Himself or the Antichrist. You couldn't discern anyone. You couldn't discern truth or falsehood with any degree of clarity until you yourself are freed from the bondage of sin. Are you free from the bondage of sin? Ask yourself this question. If not, you will be an easy victim for every deceiver.
The second thing is to be thoroughly rooted in the word of God. Now, some people say to me, "I've read the Bible a hundred times." I'm not asking you how many times you read the Bible. That is irrelevant. It has nothing to do with how many times you read the Bible. It's better to read the Bible once and understand what it's saying than read the Bible a hundred times and not know what the Bible is saying. Who cares if you read the Bible a hundred times? Some people have gone to church since they were in Sunday school. You ask them a basic question on the Bible and they don't understand what it means. Being in a Christian family, going to Sunday school, reading the Bible hundreds of times does not mean that you will understand it. You understand what I mean?
That is why all the training in this church — whether it's the intermediate training or the basic training — all of you who have participated in this training will know, is based on these two fundamental points. One: the principles of a holy life. Two: how to understand the Bible. How to expound the Bible. It's called exegesis — how to bring out the meaning in the Bible. Everybody can read it if you are literate. It doesn't mean you understand what you are reading. Exegesis is how to understand what's in it.
And I'm going to show you in this series of messages that many Bible leaders today err on both these points. They neither see the importance of a holy life, nor do they know how to expound the Bible. I have seen seminary graduates who do not have the vaguest idea how to expound the Bible. That is the tragedy.
And therefore I say to you, as we close for today: may God be gracious to you, to each one of us, that you will not be deceived. That your eyes will see clearly around you what is truth and what is falsehood. And look into the Bible and understand clearly what God is saying to you. You cannot have one or the other. You need both together. Many people live a holy life — that's excellent and that's good. But they don't understand the word of God. They have no training in the word of God. They have not been to basic training or intermediate training. Now these will help you. But if you go to the training living an unholy life, you still will not be able to expound the scriptures, because the two cannot be separated.
And I have mentioned it in that order. First, you have to get your relationship with God right. And then secondly, you need the training to understand God's word. That's why in this church, often in training, we don't make a point of simply saying, "This is what the Bible says, this is what the Bible says." The question is, how do you know that this is what the Bible says? It may sound like it, but is that really what the Bible says? Now how can you know? You need the training of understanding God's word.
We will continue next time to expound yet more deeply about the Antichrist. And in the meantime, I pray that the Lord will grant you to desire to be set free from sin and the power of sin, and grant you a desire to love the truth. Let's pray.