Daily Bread – July 12, 2022 (The Third Day – Genesis 1:9-13) 1 John 4:3 – And every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God, and this is that antichrist that you heard would come and now is already in the world. The Spirit Of Antichrist The false prophets, which can be anyone who speaks on behalf of God but does not speak the truth concerning Who Jesus is and what He has done, are also equated with antichrist. The word “antichrist” is found four times in the Bible, and is a word only used by John in his epistles (1 John 2:18, 22, 4:3; 2 John 7). The antichrist spirit denies Jesus is the Messiah, the Redeemer, or the Anointed One of God. The antichrist spirit denies the Father and the Son (1 John 2:22-23). The spirit of antichrist, which will be fully manifested in the person the Antichrist, is already at work. The deception makes Jesus less than He is, and His work of redemption less than it is. It denies that God became human to take on the sins of the world. It also denies that He raised a resurrected human body – which continues to join the divine with the human. It also denies that He now dwells with us and in us as the family of God redeemed by His blood. In fact, if one denies that Jesus has come in the flesh, they make void the entire New Testament. The antichrist spirit would not only deny the Lord Jesus as being the only true and living God manifested in the flesh, but also would deny any work of the Holy Spirit that would reveal Him. The antichrist is in fact the one opposed to the anointing of God – and specifically, the anointing that teaches us we dwell in Him (1 John 2:27). The one called the Antichrist, who is the man of sin and the son of destruction, will come and declare himself God; but while that is yet in the future, the spirit of antichrist paves the way (2 Thessalonians 2). Blessings, Pastor Mark Spitsbergen
Daily Bread 7/12/2022
