Let’s turn to 1 John tonight.  I want to look at a couple of things that we’ve looked at, some, in the past, concerning the position of the church and the church's role in light of the hour that we’re living in.  The thing that we know is this: at any moment, Antichrist is going to come on the scene.  It’s great, just looking across the news, we’re seeing all kinds of references to work that’s going on.  Allegiances are beginning to form between Russia and Iraq, and some of these different countries.  It reads a lot like Ezekiel 38.  We’re living on the threshold of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ!

What comes along with that, of course, that we’ve mentioned time and time again over these last months is, “iniquity is going to abound, and the love of many is going to wax cold.”  We’re going to see a church—that verse is not about the world.  The world is already where Jesus made the statement, “I would that you be hot or cold.”  The world has always been cold.  The world is not who’s being addressed there.  He’s speaking to a church that He would have to be hot or cold.  The “lukewarm,” the Scripture says, “He will spew from His mouth.”  But in this hour of iniquity, many are going to “depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils.”  People want to sit back and spend a lot of time analyzing, “What are doctrines that are demonic and the doctrines of devils?’  Everything that’s not of Jesus is of the devil, okay?  There is no “neutral.”  There is secular and there is spiritual, but there is no neutral.  There is light; there is darkness.  You’re for Him, or you’re against Him.  It’s the kingdom of God.  It’s the kingdom of darkness; amen?

The problem we have today is a visible church, or a professed church, that uses all kinds of biblical jargon.  You have movements like the seeker-friendly church.  What’s happened in this hour is they’ve taken the new age mindset, they’ve combined it with biblical phrases and terms, but they’ve changed the definition in their own language and their own kingdom.  They might say, “Yes, I’m born again,” and it means nothing close to what we mean when we say we’re born again.  "Born again," to them, could be a refreshing and a renewing through transcendental meditation.  They’ve received some kind of refreshing or what they would perceive as a life change that took place.  We’re not born again by anything but the blood of Jesus Christ that was shed for us.  We’re not born again by anything but a strict statement of our profession, that God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, in the flesh to become a sacrifice and to die for our sins; amen?

Here we have a church that’s using all the same jargon, but not representing Jesus, building their own kingdom.  These churches lean greatly toward humanistic, Freudian psychology.  They say that the answer is within.  “We receive this enlightenment and we just need to come to the full expression and discovery of ourselves.”  I’ve discovered myself, and I am totally depraved; amen?  They say exactly the opposite, “Man is basically good.”  God says man is absolutely evil (amen?), and in him dwells no good thing at all.  Man, regardless of any effort made, cannot know his own heart.  This heart is wicked, it’s deceitful, and it can’t be known by the individual in which that heart dwells.