Watch Therefore! (1 John 2:18-19)

“Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour.” (1 John 2:18 NKJV)

If the first century was called the last hour by John, how much closer we are to the end of age. Why does the Scripture frequently and consistently mention about the end of age? It is because the time is moving toward to that culmination point since the creation of the world. When a life has been started to live by birth, it is equally true that the life has been begun to die, even gradually and slowly but surely. There is no exception. There is no favoritism or partiality. All is born to live and die.

In everything, there is beginning and ending. As there is the beginning of life, so is the end of life. As there is the beginning of winter, so is the end of it. As there is the beginning of storm, so is the end of it. As there is the beginning of school, so is the end of it. As there is the beginning of game, so is the end of it.

However, it is also true that there is no end because the end of one thing is the beginning of another. As there is the earthly life on earth, so is the heavenly one in heavens. We are now living in time and space but soon we will be in eternity forever. We are now bounded by the force of the law of gravity, but soon we will be free from the law of time and space and enter into the new dimension of living in heavens.

Apostle Paul helps us significantly to understand that how would it look like after this life in the letter to the Corinthians.

“For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.” (2 Corinthians 5:1-5 NKJV)

All humans and all creations are eagerly waiting for the hour to come, groaning inwardly and unceasingly with the hope of being eternally liberated from the unbreakable sense of futility and uselessness.

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. For we were saved in this hope, buthope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.” (Romans 8:18-25 NKJV)

Jesus Christ taught His disciples about the end of age in the Olivet Discourse recorded in the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 24 and 25. The Discourse of the Lord Jesus Christ can be summed up with one phrase if you will as “Therefore, watch!” The time is every quickly moving and advancing toward to the Day of the Lord. Paul admonishes all the saints with this pertinent word of truth.

“And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.” (Romans 13:11-14 NKJV)

Jesus Christ did not leave us alone to figure out what to watch when He warned the disciples to watch. First and foremost of all, the Lord warns us not to be deceived by the false prophets and teachers. That is what Apostle John is talking about in the Epistle Chapter 2 Verse 18.

“Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour.”

The last hour should be translated as the last hours because it has already been stretched out two thousand years since the latter was written. If the first century Christians ever lived with the looming sense of the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, how much more we also live in this twenty first century with the same urgency.

There have already been many antichrists in the days of the dawn of century and throughout the twenty centuries and more. Who are the antichrists? John tells us in the next verse. “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.” (2 John 2:19 NKJV)

The things antichrists teach are seemingly truths but not the truth. They look like genuine, maybe the ninety percent true, but errors, which fall into the wrong in entirety. Do not miss the point which those antichrists are not from without the church but from within. But they are not of the church but the tares which the devil planted in which Jesus Christ spoke in the parable of the weed (Matthew 13:24-30).

They are all but the fakes and shams from the beginning, being clothed with the lambs without and the wolves within. If they are genuinely born of God, they would never leave the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. God promised that He would never leave nor forsake the children of light who has been genuinely born again through the faith in the blood of the Lord (Hebrews 13:5-6).

When Apostle Paul was leaving Ephesus for Jerusalem, he warned of something unusual in his farewells that the wolves would be coming out of the church within and devouring the flock.

“For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore watch, and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears.” (Acts 20:29-31 NKJV)

Therefore, we shall remember what our Lord Jesus Christ lovingly and tenderly says to His disciples and take heed to it constantly and faithfully because the days are evil and indeed we are in the last hours.

“Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” (Matthew 24:42-42 NKJV)