If you can't find a seat at the back, I see there are still a few seats at the front. So please don't feel that you have to stand through the rest of the service. There are still some seats in front.
Now as some of you will know, we have been talking about a rather grim subject. And I come to the ninth message in this series concerning the Antichrist. And in this series, I have touched on the matter of the Resurrection and the Antichrist, the cross and the Antichrist, the judgment and the Antichrist. And with all these headings, I think you will begin to see that this is the nearest in any series of messages I have preached so far to what is usually called systematic theology. The headings are the headings of systematic theology. But I have used the Antichrist as a foil, you might say, as a means of bringing in all these important subjects, these important themes which are taught in the word of God. And today's subject will come to the theme or the heading of Sin, Satan, and the Antichrist.
Now I think that Satan was looking at my notes as I was preparing the message, and he didn't like very much what he saw. So he decided to give me a hard time, which I welcome very much. I've been in the war with Satan for a long time, and his tactics and his techniques are very familiar to me. So as he watched me meditating and writing down my notes, he decided that, well, he'll have to try to weaken me somewhat. And so, last night the banging began. And banging went on for several hours. I don't know whether it was upstairs or downstairs. Quite mysterious in a way. Because I went upstairs, stood outside the door to see if it was from upstairs that the banging came. The banging was so loud that if you stand in the washroom, you really get a headache. But when I went and stood outside the door upstairs, there wasn't any banging. So I thought, ah, maybe it's downstairs. They are banging on the ceiling of the downstairs apartment. So I went downstairs and stood outside the downstairs apartment. But when I stood there, nobody was banging. The door was closed, so they wouldn't have seen me standing outside the door — in case you thought I stood there, so they stopped banging. I found this quite remarkable. But the banging went on.
Then later I went out for a walk and I could hear the banging from the outside. So I looked up along the apartment to see if I could trace where the banging came from, but I still couldn't see where it came from. So the banging went on to somewhere around 11 o'clock, and Grace was complaining that it was giving her a headache. So I thought, well, Satan and I, we have been fighting for a long time, so he's back to his old games again. Well, by 11 o'clock — oh, it's quiet — and things are going fine, so I got on with my work. But it looks like Satan was getting more and more displeased with what I was doing on my notes. And so I went off to sleep finally, and — wow — I was woken up with fierce banging this morning. I looked at my watch and I had got barely four hours of sleep, and Satan was determined that I wasn't going to get any more than that. So I thought, fine, I can't sleep, so I'll pray. That'll be fine too. Just like what Pat was sharing — that in all circumstances, amidst whatever noise and distraction, nothing can stop us from praying. So I continued there. The banging went on for half an hour, by which time I was wide awake and there was no more question of sleep, of course, and the time was better used in quietness than in prayer. When I came into the living room, I found Grace was wide awake and sitting in the living room. Now normally she's quite a good sleeper, but with the banging, even she couldn't manage that. So she decided to get up and start reading some devotional book.
So you can see, I'm very happy this message is not going to please my enemy. So let's get on with the message, and maybe you'll discover why he's not very pleased with this message.
Long time back, I think on some other occasions, I have shared that in my student days in London, we had an Easter conference, and at that Easter conference, we experienced such a powerful working of the Holy Spirit in our midst. It was only a small Easter conference with some 50 or so people there, but we experienced such a mighty working of the Holy Spirit in our midst that I think none of us who were there ever forgot that experience — when the presence of God could be felt in our midst, could be experienced in our midst, in a way that unless you have experienced God's presence, there is no way to describe this kind of an experience.
And so, immediately after that remarkable experience we all had of the presence of God and the Holy Spirit in our midst, I knew that the old enemy, Satan, was going to attack. And as one of the leaders of the church, I warned the church: "God has worked in our midst in an amazing way, as you have all experienced. But watch carefully, and you will see how Satan is going to work from this day on, for the next few weeks or months." And recently I looked through my papers before I came to Hong Kong from Canada, and indeed I found my notes which I wrote down at that time called "Observations on the Activity of Satan," in which I noted down every activity of Satan in the church, every attack that he carried out. It's a little booklet which covers only a very short period of time immediately after that amazing work that God did in our midst. A whole booklet covering only a matter of two or three months, in which I recorded case after case of Satan's attack. And since I was one of the younger leaders of the church at the time, of course these cases were being constantly reported to me as they occurred, and hence I was able to note them down — what was happening in the church.
That's why I said that I'm very familiar with the devices and attacks of the enemy, and I'm happy that he considers me a target worthy of attack. You know, I've been in Hong Kong — I was thinking this morning as the banging went on and I smiled to myself, we can manage without sleep for a little while, it's okay — and I thought to myself, I've been in Hong Kong for nearly two years. And I was thinking of what has Satan been doing in these two years? Is Satan real to you? For some people, God is not very real and Satan is not very real. That's unfortunate, because there's nothing so dangerous as to be attacked by an enemy and you don't know it.
And so I was thinking in these past two years, and I thought: what happened when I first came to Hong Kong, and we stayed in Lik Yuen? And Helen arrived — one week before I came, that is; Helen and Grace both arrived a month earlier, I should say, not a week. And Helen was already cautious, knowing that Satan finds me a particularly interesting target. And so in looking for an apartment, she checked out the surrounding area to make sure that nothing was going on, it would be as quiet as possible. And everything looked fine. Well, interesting — it wasn't long before we moved in that they started clearing a piece of ground not far away from Lik Yuen, and they started driving the piles into the ground for a new building. I'm sure if you live in Hong Kong, you're very familiar with this — steel piles being driven into the ground, and there's a machine that bangs it into the ground: zoom, bang, bang, and it goes on like this all day long. Oh, I thought, yes, yes, the survey was done, but the enemy kept his hand hidden, and once we moved in it all started again. And so the banging went on.
Then I went off to Singapore, and that's where the church in Singapore began. And by the grace of God, as I heard over the telephone yesterday, the church is growing both numerically and spiritually, and we give thanks for that. But when I got to Singapore and they took me to the apartment — oh, very quiet, very peaceful. That is, for the first few days. I was there for about, I think, three weeks or so. And then a few days later — can you believe it or not — they decided that they have to change the water tank on the roof. The water tank happened to be right above my room, and my room was on the top floor, so the water tank was directly above my room. Two weeks of banging. And the banging was so loud that my table was shaking, and my head was shaking too. I thought, wow, my old enemy is really determined. He is going to follow me everywhere — to Singapore too.
Very interesting. I went to Israel, and some of you know I stayed in Brother Johan's apartment. Very peaceful for the first few days. Then the enemy mobilized his forces, and suddenly upstairs has to do redecoration. The drilling starts, the grinding, and I don't know what — all sorts of interesting sounds were coming from upstairs. And by the way, before I went to Israel and after all that banging in Singapore, I came back to Hong Kong and we stayed in Lik Yuen. And I guess you'll know by now what happened. Yes, you guessed it: the upstairs apartment was being renovated. And so before I got to Israel, the entire period — the renovation, the banging, they were knocking down a wall — the whole thing was going on for many weeks. Just happens to be the apartment upstairs. You believe in coincidence?
And so on to Israel. And so on and so on. And when I came back from Israel, where did we stay? Well, we stayed in the kindness of our sister Winnie. We stayed at Prince Edward for a few months, Prince Edward Road. You guessed it again: they were beginning to build, or were in the process of building, an apartment right behind Prince Edward. Now, you imagine, in such a crowded built-up area, they wouldn't be building anything. But they were. I think it was again some sort of renovating of an old building or building a new one, I don't really know. But the banging and the noise accompanied us for almost the entire three months or so that we were at Prince Edward.
Ah, but this time, then we moved off to Shatin. And Helen, my wife, once more surveyed the area carefully. Check next door, check upstairs, check downstairs — everything fine. Very interesting. And for the last few months, on and off, somebody upstairs or downstairs or next door or wherever — yes, they have been renovating, and drilling, and banging, and knocking. And the last three weeks, our next-door neighbor — right next-door neighbor — have moved out, and, as you guessed it, they have been renovating for the last three weeks. And this morning's banging and knocking, by the way, was not to do with that next-door neighbor. It was to do with some other next-door neighbor that I haven't discovered yet who is renovating this time.
Two years now. If you are inclined to think of coincidence, then the mathematical probabilities of such coincidence, even in Hong Kong, may be somewhat doubtful. And anyway, a thing that happens regularly is no longer correctly defined as coincidence. Coincidence, by definition, means something that happens unexpectedly and also rather rarely. Anything that happens regularly through two years is no longer coincidence, especially when you move from place to place having carefully checked out the place in advance. Anyway, by the look of me, you will see that I am very energetic after four hours of sleep, and I am ready to do battle. So let's get on with what we have in hand. But before we do so, let us commit this time into the Lord's hands in prayer.
Let us pray, and let us worship the Lord. Father, we worship and adore and thank You that You are King of kings, and You are Lord of lords. And even though Satan may be a powerful enemy, He is an enemy that we do not fear. And we know that He has reason to fear us, and tries in every way to annoy, to distract, to irritate, to do whatever He can to cause as much disruption as possible, because He knows His time is short. We thank You that You have given to us, Your people, not to be on the sidelines of this battle, but to be participants, to be soldiers in this war against evil, and against Satan in particular. And so, Father, we do commit this service into Your hands, knowing that Satan will do His utmost to cause distraction and disruption even through this service. But we thank You, O Lord, that we will look to You to give to us the triumph and the victory that we need to conquer Him. Hear our prayer, and as we ponder the methods of Satan, His devices and His cunning, help us to learn to overcome Satan and to be set free. We pray for every person gathered here today, O Lord, that none will leave empty-handed, but that Your word will speak to every heart. We thank You in Jesus' wonderful name. Amen.
Let me start with a verse in scripture that I will read to you, and you may turn to it or just listen to it as I read it to you. I shall read from 1 John chapter 5 and verse 19. 1 John chapter 5 and verse 19, and this is what we read: "We know that we are of God" — that is, the Holy Spirit has given us an assurance that we are of God. It is not that we are arrogant enough to claim ourselves to be of God. But no one is of God unless the Spirit of God gives you that assurance in your heart. "We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one." It is the second part of this verse that I would like to impress upon your mind: "And the whole world lies in the power of the evil one."
Let me say at once that all these people who were knocking and banging through all these past two years had no malicious intentions whatsoever. Not in the least. They have nothing against me. I have nothing against them. Their knocking and their banging had nothing to do with any deliberate design. That's clear. And yet you can see that there was a power who orchestrated this entire performance without any of the individual people realizing that they were being used to attack a servant of God — no matter how lowly, how humble a servant of God — they were nonetheless being orchestrated, coordinated, to carry out this continual program of disturbance, of attack. Now none of them were aware of that. They themselves were entirely without blame in this matter. This is the point: the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And precisely because He is in control of the situation in the world, He can orchestrate it. He can do these things without your knowing that you are being used.
You may be used by Satan to cause harm if you are in the power of the evil one, when you did not intend to cause any harm, you had no malicious intention yourself. But you are willingly or unwillingly, wittingly or unwittingly, a tool in Satan's hands — unless you are in Christ. Now the Bible makes it absolutely clear, and I hope that none of you will have a shadow of doubt about this matter, that there are only two possibilities: either you are in Christ — that is, you are a genuine Christian, because a nominal Christian can be more dangerous as a tool of Satan than even a non-Christian — the Bible says that a Christian who behaves or lives like a non-Christian is worse than a non-Christian — so unless you are a genuine Christian, that is, one who knows what it is to live in the power of God, who knows what it is to walk with the living God. Unless you are that kind of a Christian and you are in Christ, then whether you like it or not, you are at this very moment in the power of the evil one. That is what it says here. Look at it very carefully. And it is not just because the Bible says so. It is something that we will know experientially. We know by our experience to be true. The Bible is not true just because it is written in the pages of a book called the Bible. It is true because we experience it to be true.
Now I would like you first in this message to grasp this point very clearly, so you know exactly where you stand, and that you are under no illusion about where you stand at this very moment. Every person in this hall is either in Christ — and you know it — or you are in Satan, in the power of the evil one — and you don't know it. That's the tragedy. You don't know it. And you don't think that you are because you don't know it. If you are in Christ, you know it. But if you are in Satan, you don't know it. That's the tragedy. That's the fearful thing about being in the power of the evil one: that you can live there all your life and you don't know it. It's like having some cancer in your body that is killing you right now, but you don't know it. And one day you may know it, but by that time it may be too late. Now that is the fearful thing. There is this realization that you must come to as to where exactly you are.
Now what has this got to do with the Antichrist? What has sin and Satan got to do with the subject of Antichrist? It has everything to do. Let me read to you 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 3, and this is what we read: 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 3 — "Let no one in any way deceive you, for the day of the Lord will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of sin, the man of lawlessness, is revealed, the son of destruction." Let us pause for a moment to think carefully of this. The Antichrist is called the man of sin, or the man of lawlessness — that is, the person who rejects the law of God. He rejects God's law in his heart. He wants to do his own thing. He doesn't want to live under anybody's control, much less God's control, whom he thinks he can dismiss. He can forget about God's law because he says, "I don't believe in God anyway, so who cares?" Let me tell you this: your not believing in God is not going to set you free from God's law, because God is our Creator. You didn't create yourself. Neither did your parents create themselves, nor did your grandparents create themselves, and so we can go on backward. It is God to whom we shall answer, and we must answer.
Now, the man of sin — how does he function? Let's read verse 9, or let me read verse 9 to you: "The man of sin is the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders." There are exciting times ahead, my friends and brothers and sisters. Exciting times are waiting for you, for all of us. What kind of exciting times? Well, it says here there will be times when power, signs, and wonders will become manifest. Again, if you are longing to see a miracle, Satan is ready to oblige. And you know through whom these miracles will come — oh yes, it will come in connection with the man of sin.
Sin has its pleasures and its excitement. Sin has its joy. I mean, we are not so idiotic as to sin if sin provides us with no joy. The whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And the question is: how did this whole world come to lie in the power of the evil one? Or more specifically, how did you come to be in the power of the evil one, even without your knowing it? The answer is simple: because of sin. And will you or anyone here tell me that you don't know what sin is? That you have never sinned? I can say with complete certainty that there is not a single person in this room who doesn't know from experience what sin is. If you don't know who Satan is from your experience — and he would rather that you don't — he's an undercover agent of the first degree. I mean, James Bond does nothing compared to Satan. He is an undercover agent who wishes to function without being identified. That is the secret of Satan. And we read in Corinthians that if Satan ever appears, he will never appear as Satan — and most certainly not with horns and a tail. He will appear, the apostle Paul tells the Corinthians, as an angel of light.
And interesting thing — and that is what terrifies every government today: they can never tell who is the enemy in their ranks. Communists in China knew that very well. When the communists first came into China and I was there, the people who yelled the slogans the loudest may well have been the Kuomintang agents. Oh, they yelled the loudest. Everything is the loudest. The ones who waved the flags the most, who shouted louder than anybody else — who were they? Most likely the Kuomintang agents, or people who were hostile to the communists. And the communists were not so stupid as not to realize it. But the problem is — the problem is — how do you tell that this is an agent when he is yelling "Mao Zedong" louder than you can? When he is at every self-examination session, he is the one who is always saying, "I am most ashamed of myself that I don't love Mao Zedong's word as much as I ought to do. And you, my fellow comrades, I think you must face up to the same challenge." So that even the cadres didn't know how to open their mouth.
And what is worse is, these people may have long since become members of the Communist Party themselves. And every government understands: it is not the enemy outside who holds a submachine gun and yells slogans against you that is dangerous. It is the enemy within that yells slogans for you that is dangerous. And that is why when I spoke about Antichrist, I have repeated again and again: the danger of the church is not a person who fights against Christ openly and outwardly. An antichrist in the sense of a contra-Christ — he is not a real danger to us. It is the pseudo-Christ, the one who pretends to be more holy than everybody else in the church, the false teacher who operates within the church — he is the most dangerous.
And so Paul says to the Corinthians, "When you see an angel of light shining in your midst, you be careful — that could well be Satan himself." And the same applies for sin. Do you think sin parades itself as sin? Do you think that sin behaves in an ugly manner? Have you ever looked at the criminals — the really top criminals? Oh, they are the suavest gentlemen. They use the most expensive perfumes. Their hair is neatly combed. They wear lovely ties. They are slick and polite and courteous, because when it comes to the dirty work, they never dirty their hands. They have got the small fry to do the job. Have you ever realized how difficult it is to bring a mafia boss into court? Have you ever realized that the FBI have had the greatest difficulty even to get one mafia boss into trial?
The same with Satan. The same with the Antichrist. My whole point is — and that is why I have mentioned — that the teachings about the Antichrist being some world dictator persecuting the church is simply speaking blindness. It is failing to understand what the scripture is saying: that the enemy that is most dangerous is the Antichrist that operates from within the church.
Now how does the world come to lie in the power of the evil one? And how is it that Satan, in his cleverness and his cunning, is operating within the church? He infiltrates the church. How? What is the secret of Satan's power? That is what you must clearly understand. How does he control your life? With something very attractive to the sinner called sin.
You know, sometimes the preacher makes a mistake: he portrays sin as a terrible, ugly, repulsive thing. And it is nothing of the kind. Nothing of the kind. When was sin ugly and repulsive to the sinner? To God it is ugly and repulsive. But we don't see things from God's point of view, do we? You must be a spiritual man if you can see things from God's point of view. We haven't gotten there yet. And as long as we are not so spiritual as to see things from God's point of view, you and I will certainly find sin attractive. That is how we come to be in the power of the evil one.
Sin is — no good to steal? Stealing is a bad thing? Not nice? Well, who cares about whether it's nice? As far as he is concerned, it's nice. As far as he is concerned — what do you think he's doing it if it wasn't nice as far as he is concerned? Now what do you think is nice about it as far as he is concerned? Look at it from his point of view. Look at sin from the sinner's point of view, and you can see the attraction of sin. Stealing is very nice. Why? Well, who doesn't like to get something for nothing? I mean, that is the whole philosophy of the world. The whole point of being able to steal: you get something for nothing. Well, isn't that what lottery is about? You pay two dollars, getting something for nothing if you can get it. Our whole thinking is governed by this: to try and get something for as low a cost as possible. If you can get it for nothing, then you are really smart. Oh, you are smart. So who said that stealing is not nice? From his point of view, it's beautiful. To get something for nothing is always beautiful.
Secondly — the second reason which makes stealing so attractive — maybe I'll convince you how good it is to steal by the end of this. You say, "Is this a message about God or about stealing?" Well, right now it's about stealing. The second thing that is so attractive about stealing — or robbing, if you like; robbing follows the same principle, because you get something for nothing — the second thing that's so attractive about stealing is what? What do you think it is that is so attractive about stealing? Because it requires skill. You got to be a craftsman. You can take pride in your skill. Now you and I try and go and steal and see — you'll be grabbed the next minute, because why? You and I are not skillful. Your hand is not fast enough. Too clumsy. You're useless. The skillful thief is proud of his skill.
Oh, I went on a bus — and I'm already cautious when I go on a bus not to take too much money with me. I know that the skill of Hong Kong pickpockets is not to be despised. Light fingers — this must be some form of light kung fu. You can take something, you didn't know it was gone! And I went on the bus with a hundred dollars in my pocket. I came out without a hundred dollars. And he didn't even cut my pocket. Oh no — slit, no cut, no violence, nothing. Pure skill. I say I have to take my hat off, because I thought I was a pretty alert person and he beat me. He did. Skill — there is the second attractiveness about stealing.
I mean, take robbing. Can you rob a bank? I doubt it. You'd probably be put away before you could even get two dollars across the counter. Careful planning. You have to work this operation with the precision of a military operation. Americans must have got the wrong people on their military staff — every time they tried to pull off a hostage rescue operation, their planes crash, their commandos get captured and killed in the process, and all this kind of nonsense. I mean, what they should have done is gone to the jail — which sometimes, apparently, according to the movies, they do — and get some professional crooks to lead these kinds of hostage-freeing operations. But they got just conventionally trained military personnel who don't know how to pick locks, and apparently don't even know how to coordinate planes so that they don't crash into each other. But when you see how the robbers can pull off a bank robbery with military precision and skill, you have to say, you take your hats off to these guys. Say, really something. I think I would like to get a few of these people into our church so that they can carry off some operations for us of gospel outreach.
So there you have it. Sin is so attractive: you get something for nothing, you get a chance to act with skill and precision — it is a high-quality technique. And so, is it finished? Oh, that's not the end of the joys of sin yet. Let me talk to you more about the joys of sin. You say, "Hey, strange preacher! I thought he was here to tell us about the joys of righteousness, and now he's talking to us about the joys of sin." But I think you can echo with me that I am speaking the truth. You may not be sinning on the grand scale of robbery — maybe you don't have that kind of skill. You may not be sinning on the grand scale of theft on a big scale either. But think of it: the sins that you committed — why did you commit them? Same reason. You get something for nothing. Maybe you thought you had some skill.
I once asked a girl — a Christian girl, a very nice girl, and everybody thought she was a nice Christian — and one day she came to me and she confessed that she had committed fornication. I looked at her in disbelief. A Bible study leader, an active Christian, committing fornication. And she knew the consequences of confessing the sin. And I said to her, "I want to ask you one question which I find hard to understand in my mind. Why did you commit this sin? Just tell me why." She said, "I just wanted to prove one thing to myself." And I said, "What is that?" "I wanted to prove to myself that I am still attractive to men, and that I was able to seduce a man through my attraction, my charm, my skill." I said, "For that reason you committed fornication?" "Yes." I said, "Do you understand the consequences of such a sin in the church and what will happen to you?" "Yes." I said, "Why are you confessing it to me?" She says, "Because I would like you to deal with me in whatever way is necessary for me to be freed from the terrible bondage of sin that I have come under." I said, "You have really come to see the seriousness of your sin?" She said, "Yes. I want to take whatever consequences you consider it fit to prescribe for me, because I can't stand it to have this thing crushing me to death in my conscience. I can't live with this sin anymore. I've lived in this sin for several months. I can't stand it anymore."
You see, it started out so sweet, so enjoyable, so exciting. She could prove something to herself — her attractiveness, her skill at seducing a man, any man she wants. That is to be a fool. What she failed to understand is this: that if you give to any man who is a sinner something for nothing, including sex, he will take it, even if you are not that attractive. In the end she proved nothing to herself. Absolutely nothing. She only destroyed her life. In the end, the sinner will taste the bitter results. Sin tastes sweet in the mouth when you first taste it. Oh, very sweet. It makes you delirious. It makes you drunk with its beauty, with its sweetness. But afterwards it will sting you like a serpent, and you can't run.
But at the time of sinning, there is a third attraction. Let's come to the third attraction. What, you say, he's still talking about the attractions of sin? Let me go on more about sin. What is the third attraction? The excitement. Sin is exciting. Oh yes, it is. Look at the excitement. First, you get something for nothing. Secondly, the skill. But thirdly, anything that involves risk is exciting.
# Sin, Satan, and the Antichrist (Part 2)
You sit in front of the movie and it's the same old, dull, stupid plots that you have seen a hundred times. I mean, you sit there, you can predict what the next guy is going to do in the next move. He's going to pull out his gun, he's going to pull the trigger, that guy's going to drop dead. And this is the same old, boring story. But if I do it — if I do it — that's more exciting. I'm sick of seeing other people pulling phony triggers on phony deaths coming out of this. How about the real thing? Interesting.
Why do you think we have so many murders in the United States? In 1976, something like 18,000 murders. Yes, some of it was committed in anger. But the explanation for some others is beyond understanding. There was a criminal interviewed on TV the other day in the news. And he was asked, why did he commit murder? Well, he said, "I wanted to commit suicide." What a pity for his victim he didn't do just that. But he said, "I didn't have the courage to commit suicide, so I killed the first guy who came by." What kind of logic is this? It seems clearly that he was so bored to death with life, he needed some sort of excitement. And the excitement was at hand. Pull a knife and stick it into somebody and see what happens. Oh, that's the real thing. No more phony tomato juice coming out of somebody's mouth on the TV screen. Now you've got the real thing coming out of somebody's mouth. It's more exciting.
He was put away for a few years in jail — less than ten years. And he went scot-free, walking around in Australia. Maybe next time he gets bored and he hasn't got the courage to commit suicide, he'll do somebody else in. And spend another five, six years in jail and come out and try another one. Are these people lunatics? No. When this man was interviewed on the news, he was perfectly rational. He could think perfectly clearly. Why did he do it? Excitement, it seems to be the real reason. Life is too boring. We've got to figure out some way to make life worth living.
Three reasons for committing sin. And all three reasons are very good reasons, very attractive reasons — at least from the point of view of a sinner. Let it get drummed into our heads: next time you commit a sin, see which of these three reasons, or whether all of them, gives you satisfaction. You get satisfaction from blowing a subordinate to pieces. You've got frustration at home, and so you go to the place of work, and you see a subordinate, and you blow his head off, as they call it. Oh yes, it brings satisfaction. It means getting the pressure out of you. What is more, it may take skill to blow somebody off rather neatly. I mean, you've got to put your sentences together in some coherent way. It takes some skill to give a person a bad time in such a way that it sounds neat. To needle a guy in such a way that it really hurts, and gives you sweet satisfaction in so doing.
This is the reason why the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. Does it include you?
Or maybe there's another way of sinning, which is even more subtle and more interesting and much more appealing to nice people like us, who go to church on Sundays. I mean, we don't steal. We despise the thief. We don't do this kind of thing. But we feel superior. We feel self-righteous. We feel better than other people. We are proud of our being nice. We are goody-goodies. And let me tell you this: being a Christian has nothing to do with being a goody-goody. There are times when a Christian will speak the truth which will hurt, and will it ever hurt. And we don't pull the punches when we have to denounce evil or sin in a person or in a community, or even in the church. But do we pride ourselves that we are known to be the nice guy, the decent guy, that everybody praises? "He is so helpful. He is so nice." Now there is nothing wrong with being helpful or nice. But if it leads to pride, then let me tell you, you are guilty of the worst sin of all. Pride is an intolerable sin in God's sight.
And how can we escape this sin, as religious people? I said religious — not spiritual. The spiritual man is not proud. But the religious man is always subject to pride. You may be proud that you have never actually done all of these things. I mean, you only stole a pencil from the company, and every other guy stole ten. You only stole one. I mean, you are a decent person by comparison. I mean, you only stole a typewriter — but other people took five; you took one. I mean, you cheated a few thousand dollars on income tax, but that is nothing — the rich guy cheated a few million, and he's got tax havens where he can put his money away. Or you are a decent person by comparison. I mean, you are even decent compared to all those phony Christians that go to church on Sundays, that carry big Bibles. If anybody has the right to be proud that he is good, you are the one who has got that right. And when you think like that — then you, whether you are a Christian or not, are more under Satan's power than anybody else.
Terrifying. How Satan can get you. If you run for the good, he gets you. If you run for the bad, he gets you. He's checkmated you either way. You play chess with Satan, and he will beat you every time. There is only one way out, and that is through the power of God. There isn't another way.
Let's come back to the Antichrist. And the Antichrist will have it both ways, like the mafia bosses. He's going to be a good guy when he chooses to be a good guy, and he will be a bad guy when he chooses to be a bad guy. And this way he can balance the account in his own mind. It's interesting how a mafia guy can, on the one hand, give tens of thousands of dollars to some poor person, and on the other hand, kill a hundred people or two hundred people without blinking an eye. You see, he has to do some good and some bad. He cannot do all bad because he also can't live with it. But he can't do all good — he can't live with that either. And so, how to solve the problem about living under Satan's power and still live with your conscience without going insane? Do a bit of good and a bit of bad.
Does that sound familiar to you? Does that sound like the way you live? Steal a bit from the office, but remember to give the poor beggar by the street five dollars, because the coin that clinks into his pot or into his bowl will make you feel good for the rest of the day. Oh, it really does so much good. Give a little bit of money to Oxfam, or to some charitable organization, because it will help you to feel better about the money you cheated from taxes, or from your brother, or from the company, or from somewhere else. We play a game of deception with our conscience, and we think we are clever. But Satan has been doing it all the time.
And that's where the Antichrist is the supreme example of the faith. In 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, verse 3 — and I must close now as our time is gone — we read that before Jesus comes again, there will be the apostasy and the appearing of the man of sin, who is also called the son of perdition, the son of destruction — that is, a person who is going to inherit destruction. You know where that term comes from? You will find that term in John 17, verse 12, and there it refers to Judas. The only person before the Antichrist who is called the son of perdition is Judas. The Antichrist is Judas.
And that raises our last question, and we must deal with it very briefly as we close. Judas. You know about him, of course. He is very well known. He was one of the apostles. One of the 12 apostles. He was one of the top leaders of the church, appointed by the Lord Himself. Let us never forget about that. When we talk about the Antichrist and all this talk about some dictator who is going to persecute the church — the son of perdition is the title given to the man of sin, the Antichrist. And that title is shared by only one other person, namely Judas, who was not some Gentile dictator, but was an apostle of equal rank with the other 12 apostles — indeed, with even Peter and Paul as an apostle.
But we read the dreadful words in Luke chapter 22: that Satan entered into a Christian. Yes — much more than a Christian — an apostle of Jesus Christ. If you sit there feeling secure, you have not yet reckoned with the power of Satan.
How did Satan get Judas? Simple. I have already outlined to you the technique that he uses: the attractiveness of sin, and of self-delusion, by which he will get every one of us if we are foolish enough not to be alert to what I have said today. Next time you find sin so exciting, so much an exercise of skill, the opportunity to get something for nothing, the opportunity to be proud — watch it. Satan has got his hook inside that thing. And if you so much as just taste it — you say, "I won't swallow it. I just taste it. I am too clever to swallow this thing. I know that Satan's hook is in there. I just — just a little taste." Any good fisherman knows that he doesn't have to wait. The moment that he feels a light touch on his line, he does what? He pulls. Why? He is not waiting for it necessarily to be swallowed. He just has to hook the lip of the fish. That's enough. He pulls, so that the hook will set right in and get the fish. Just let the fish touch it.
That is how Judas was caught. What do we read in John chapter 12 and verse 6? We read that Judas — the apostle, the super-Christian, because of being an apostle — you know what he is called there? A thief. What is a thief? I've just described to you a thief. I spent a lot of time describing a thief. Now you know why I've been talking about a thief. Because Judas was a thief. He got caught on one or three of these hooks that I have talked about in the attractiveness of sin.
Now if you think you cannot be caught and you are that much cleverer and smarter than Judas the apostle, then you have really deceived yourself. Judas, you see, was so trusted by the other apostles and the other disciples that he was made treasurer. He was the treasurer of all the disciples. That is how much they trusted him. Which shows that outwardly he showed himself to be so spiritual. He talked about the needs of the poor. "Don't waste money. Let's give more money to the poor. We really have to express our love to those who are needy. Is not the gospel to be preached to the poor? And shall we not show concern to the poor?" And all the time he was putting the money into his own pocket. Of course he was giving money to the poor. Yes. You see, he has to do good. He gives money to the poor. And presumably he thought himself to be one of the poor too. And therefore if it is to the poor, and he is poor, so why not in his own pocket as well? I am sure he found some way to rationalize all this, as every sinner knows how to rationalize his sin. Deception. That is what it is all about. And Satan has got you on his line.
Is Judas the Antichrist because he has the same name as the Antichrist? That is an interesting question. Some people think that the Antichrist is Judas who was raised again from the world of the dead, from Hades, and brought back. And that is why he has the same name. A well-known Bible teacher in North America called Dr. DeHaan holds this kind of view. He thinks that the Antichrist is simply Judas brought back again in the last days to serve as the Antichrist. And the Christian world, of course, will recognize that here is a great apostle. He might have come back even with words of repentance, and with such a remarkable change that they thought he is now a true apostle. And the fact that he came back may indicate that God raised him from the dead, because who can raise the dead except God? All this is possible and interesting.
But I think that is doubtful. I don't think the Antichrist is Judas come back again. The Antichrist will be like Judas, only much worse. Why do I say he will be even worse than Judas? Well, Judas seemed to have some sort of a conscience. When he betrayed the Lord, at least he felt bad about it. He suffered remorse — not repentance — but at least he felt bad. Bad enough to commit suicide. That is one reason. Now, only God can raise the dead, not Satan. Satan has a lot of power, but he hasn't got the power to raise the dead in the meaning of one who has passed into Hades and is brought back again. He certainly doesn't have that kind of life-giving power. So the only person who could bring Judas back would indeed be God Himself. And do you see any reason why God would bring Judas back to be the Antichrist? I certainly don't see any such reason.
Therefore I say that, for this and other reasons that we don't have time to go into now, the Antichrist will not be Judas brought back from the dead. But I will say that DeHaan is right to that extent, that many people will think that he is Judas come back from the dead — a repentant Judas, raised by the power of God.
One more important reason why he cannot be Judas is that Judas never had any aspirations to set himself up as God. That we see from 2 Thessalonians 2 — the Antichrist had precisely this kind of aspiration. And we shall go into that another time.
Sufficient to say that the Antichrist, like Judas — as I have throughout this series of messages maintained on the basis of scripture — the Antichrist will be a great church leader, a great Bible teacher, so great in fact that he will manifest signs and wonders. But most people will not know that it is through the power of Satan. And he will sweep the people away with his supposedly charismatic power. He will be a Christian — a Christian like Judas, who is a thief and a liar, but a great church leader.
We shall have to develop on this still further. But let me close on this final note, with which I began: at this very moment, you are either in Christ or in the evil one. If you are still in the power of the evil one, then, like Judas and like the Antichrist, you are a son of destruction, or a daughter of destruction. You are heading to disaster. So I beg of you: turn away from sin as fast as you can. Let Jesus set you free from sin without waiting for another moment, if you can help it. For Satan may not give you so much more time as you might hope for. Let us pray.