The recipe is simple.  Start with a soft lyrical acoustic intro.  Dash in a hard three-chord progression stirred with vocals both sung and screamed.  Season with ambiguous occult allusions. And for the main ingredient drop in an obtuse reference to beast from Revelation 13. Then as a garnish, include Vincent Price reading Revelation 13:18.

[T]his calls for wisdom; let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.

And voila! You have a classic heavy metal ballad.

Men have always speculated with fascination with the identity of this beast, This beastly man will set up the abomination of desolation in the place where it ought not be, work to cause the world to worship the ancient Dragon, make war on the saints, and exercise great power politically, militarily and economically on a global scale.  Was it Nero? Hitler? Putin? Some current or future political figure?

Paul called this man-beast the “man of lawlessness.”  And John calls him the Antichrist. The scope of his reign of terror tempts saints to fear.  We want to know who he is and when he will appear.  We secretly hope, like Hezekiah, that we will be long gone before such dreadful events transpire for fear that we might be either deceived by this Antichrist or face his wrath.

But there is a greater danger for God’s people that lurks in immediate the present.  For the Apostle John reminds us that “the spirit of antichrist which you hear was coming … is in the world already.”  “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.  Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.”  Indeed “it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come.”  

The church faces a great threat when it is so preoccupied with the future coming of The Antichrist that it fails to guard against present antichrists who bring division, deception, and deny the faith, theologically and practically.  Our ancient enemy, Satan, is subtle, appearing as an angel of light.  And his servants, the tares planted within Christ’s Church, appear as brothers and sisters all while creating division, deceiving through false teaching and denying the faith in their lives and conversations. 

This has been the case since the beginning.  And so, the beloved Apostle, John, writes to his little children in the faith not to be so distracted looking for the Antichrist that they are unaware of the “many antichrist” that have already come.  He writes to warn them of this present danger, instructing them to recognize these antichrists and to respond to their threat to the communion of the saints.

Join us as we examine John’s warning in 1 John 2:18-27 and consider how we can recognize antichrists and respond to the threat they bring to fellowship within the church.   We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube.