Inquiring Minds… Is This the Last Hour?

Part 2

Tim Moore: Children, many antichrists, last hour. There’s a lot to unpack. So Nathan, let’s dive right in.

Nathan Jones: Okay.

Tim Moore: Obviously, this verse in 1 John, his letter to the people that he refers to as children, has a lot of meat in it. So let’s get to the first word first. Who are these children he’s referring to?

Nathan Jones: Well, we’ve got to always think of John in the Gospels as one of the youngest apostles, if not the youngest apostle. He probably was in his 20s at the time period, but all the other apostles died from martyrdom except John, even though church history says he was boiled in oil and survived, he was sent to the Isle of Patmos in his 90s, and he was the bishop of the Church of Ephesus. So when he is writing these 1 and 2 John and 3 John, when he is writing Revelation, he’s much, much older.

And so everybody, especially when the average age of people at that time period was in their 50s that they died, you’ve got this guy in his 80s, 90s years old. Of course, everybody to him is children. And it shows, too, the relationship. John had a very loving relationship with his church in Ephesus, which from the people that he read and sent these letters to and so was a father-son or maybe even a grandpa-grandson personality. So he’s not calling them children, he’s not being derogatory, but it’s a sign of endearment.

Tim Moore: It is a sign of endearment. I think my father many times would refer to younger men as son. “Son, come here and let me…,” And I thought, “Dad, they’re not your son. They may not like that phrase.” But you know what, Nathan, as I’ve gotten older, I find myself talking especially to teenagers and in that ballpark as, “Come here son,” and I will refer to them because I mean it as a term of endearment.

And I think that’s exactly what John meant. He was not patronizing or condescending. He was showing love. And frankly, that comes even from the reference we have of God the Father. We are His children because it is a loving, communal relationship that we have with God the Father, a familial relationship. So in our perfect idea of what a father should be, we obviously enjoy being the child of a loving and benevolent father.

Nathan Jones: All through my daughter’s life, she’s an adult now, but I’ve always liked to say, “Hey daughter, hey daughter,” because it was just that term of endearment. And my son, strangely enough, calls me padre because there’s a ministerial side and a father side, and they’re terms of endearment. And this is what we see with John. The letters that John wrote were very deeply personal. He’s older and he’s sharing his love; he’s sharing his concerns. And so this means that we need to take and look at this. This is an important message that he’s saying if he’s using this term of endearment.

Tim Moore: Do you think we should reveal today what the terms of endearment our wives use for us, or is that for another subject altogether?

Nathan Jones: Therapy session, Tim.

Tim Moore: Yeah, therapy session. All right, well, we won’t go that deep on this dive, but obviously we relish the fact that we have a relationship with God, our Father, and in this case we take as great comfort that John is writing, not just to the people that he has mentored and discipled in his life, but his words echo down through the Word of God to us today. And so we can get great encouragement from this verse.

Nathan Jones: Yeah, he’s basically sitting us down and saying, “Son,” or “Children, listen to this.” So we’re ready.

Tim Moore: I love that. That sounds like one of my favorite preachers who would often say, “Listen, listen.”

Nathan Jones: Listen. It’s important, yes.

Tim Moore: Yeah, Charles Stanley, who would often say, “Listen.”

Nathan Jones: I was thinking that. Listen.

Tim Moore: So in this case, children listen to what I’m about to say. All right, so then we get to this concept of Antichrist has already appeared. You heard that Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared. Notice neither reference in our Scripture has a capital A, antichrist. So how in the world could John say that many antichrists have appeared when we believe the Antichrist is still coming?

Nathan Jones: Well, let’s step back one to the last hour, because that frames the context of the Antichrist. So John is the most prolific teacher of who the Antichrist is. Of course, later, he hasn’t written this yet in Revelation, he’ll write about the Antichrist in Revelation 13. We know from the writings of Daniel, there’s a lot of reference to Antichrist.

So when he’s saying the last hour, he’s putting a context here is that we’re at the end of the age. We know that the Lord’s kingdom is coming. We don’t know when. So when he’s referring to the Antichrist, the people would understand what he’s talking about. He’s talking about that one final world ruler, the ultimate of human emperors who will rule the world one day, but then that’s capital “A” Antichrist.

But then we get, like you said, he’s talking about little antichrist, lowercase “A”. Because there are, if you are of Christ, Christians, we are followers of Jesus Christ. We try to be like little Christians to show the world Christ’s love. Well, the Antichrist, Satan, has the same thing. He has antichrists, little Satan’s that go around trying to pull people away from the faith.

Tim Moore: And that’s an important point, obviously, not just in Revelation, much about the Antichrist is revealed in Daniel, where he foresees a series of beasts. We’ve talked about the series of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue vision. And then we know that one horn will elevate himself and speak boastful things. We get a lot about the personality and the methodology of the Antichrist, even in Daniel, but as you said, we are ambassadors of Christ. Satan has always had his minions and his ambassadors.

And you and I believe that because Satan does not know when the Rapture will occur and when the world will enter that absolute final stage of what is predicted and foretold about the End Times, he’s always had a candidate ready to go to step into that role as the Antichrist. So even looking back over the last century, you could say Adolf Hitler was an antichrist, and had the world swirled into the Last Days that we’re going to address in just a moment, he might’ve been elevated to be the Antichrist. I think Satan has always had a candidate waiting in the wings.

Nathan Jones: Well, when you read Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 and you get the first-person view, you get into the mind of Satan, what does he want more than anything else? He wants the world to worship him. And so that’s what these antichrists do. There are little prophets that go out and proclaim, “Hey, Satan will give you whatever you desire, you are free of that judgment of God, you’re free of His moral restrictions, come follow me.” And so that’s what he wants; he wants this worship.

So these little antichrists go out because Satan’s plan, and this has been going on for thousands of years, is to work his way up until world domination. Satan, the Bible tells us is master of this world, but he doesn’t directly rule it, and that won’t happen until he has the capital Antichrist, where he possesses him and rules the world through him.

But I think you’re absolutely right, Tim, there have been antichrists throughout history, terrible leaders who do Satan’s bidding in the attempt to take over the world. Now, I don’t think we’ve had the technology, and certainly God has restricted it because He has His own timeline, of when the Antichrist is supposed to come, but Satan’s always ready to have his one world ruler rise up.

Tim Moore: He certainly is. And I think there’s one other application that hits much closer to home, and that is when John says there are many antichrists that have appeared. I think anyone who dares to oppose the work of Jesus Christ or dares to deny the lordship of Jesus Christ, they become opposed to Christ, they are anti-Christ in their efforts or in their speaking, in their words. And so there are many today who we see opposing Jesus Christ in our day and age.

On the political front, there are some who are diametrically opposed to a biblical worldview. We talked about the rise in paganism and secularism and some who are actually worshiping pagan deities, Wiccans, et cetera. And so those people tragically are opposed to Jesus Christ. They would fall into this category as being one of the many antichrists who is opposed to our Lord and Savior.

Nathan Jones: Right, and really you could apply this to anybody who’s not saved, because the Bible teaches that we are born in rebellion against God with our sin natures. We are enemies of God until He saves us.

Tim Moore: Yes.

Nathan Jones: And so before we were saved, we could consider ourselves at some point antichrists. Now, it doesn’t mean we’ll have the power to rule the world, but Satan uses us to tear down against Christ’s kingdom, which He’s building, and then which He will take His throne when He comes back and establishes the Davidic kingdom.

Tim Moore: So let’s come back to this idea of the Last Days. John says we are in the Last Days. He uses that phrase twice. How can that be the case when we have lived, the world has seen, and not you and I personally, but the world’s seen almost 2,000 years of history since John wrote. He said we’re in the Last Days in the first century. My goodness, we’re in the 21st century. How can this be the Last Days?

Nathan Jones: Well, we knew that the Lord started the Church Age. He didn’t tell him, “I’m going to come back in 2,000 years.” He didn’t tell them. They were anticipating Jesus’ return at any time. And that’s why the Bible teaches us that the Rapture is an event that nothing precedes it before.

Tim Moore: It’s imminent.

Nathan Jones: It’s imminent. So we’re like “2,000 years, that’s hard to believe,” but at the time, in the first century, that John in Patmos was sitting around waiting, did the Lord, is it not true that He’s coming back? And then the Lord reveals Himself to him and it fulfills the prophecy where the Lord said that some of you will still be alive to see My return. John did. He was the one who was alive to see it. So yeah, we have been in the last hour, the last age, the Church Age…

Tim Moore: The last age. I like that phrasing. Because we really are the Church Age, as you say, it is the last age. There’s nothing else that has to happen. I believe the apostles themselves were looking forward to Jesus coming potentially in their lifetime.

Nathan Jones: Oh absolutely.

Tim Moore: They communicated to all the people they preached to be on the alert, be ready for the Lord’s coming, be watchful. Look up, your redemption draweth nigh, because even in the first century, He could have come, they didn’t know how fast these last events that Jesus foretold would come to pass, but it could happen very quickly.

Nathan Jones: And there could have been a clue there when you read the Great Commission in Acts 1:8, to reach all the world with the Gospel. It doesn’t mean everybody needs to be saved, but all the tribes, tongues, and people need to be reached. They had no idea of the New World and all those peoples there. And they didn’t know much about the East past, say India.

So the fact that Jesus didn’t come back in the first century is–we have hindsight we can look back and say, “That makes sense, not all the people have been reached by the Great Commission.” Tim, you and I, we’ve talked to various, like Doug Cobb and others who are into the Great Commission, and they think that our generation might be the one that sees every tribe, tongue, and nation given the Gospel.

Tim Moore: Well, we certainly hope so, and we hope that even through our efforts today through all the different networks we appear on, through maybe your local TV station, or through our streaming broadcast of this program and all of our other content, that we are helping to spread the Gospel to every corner of the world.

Folks, miraculously, this program through television does reach into every continent. And even lately we’ve added new outreach to Israel itself. And that’s something we praise the Lord for. But Nathan, since you and I became inflamed with anticipation that the Lord is coming soon, we’ve been crying out “Maranatha,” or in my Kentucky English, “Godspeed! Speed Your coming!” I can feel a little impatient. And yet that seems to be so typical of our human race. We can’t wait for the fulfillment that we’re anticipating.

Nathan Jones: But, if we’re talking about this is the last hour, as John says, the sign, the super sign that Israel would return as a nation again, that would be the Genea, generation, the era that would see the Lord return. So we could say that we’re in the last of the Last Days because that super sign, Israel’s back in the land again. And so we know that we are the ones who will see Jesus return. I might not live until the time of the Rapture. And I mean, we all as Christians will participate in the Rapture, but this is the time period and the era. So we know so much more than John did back then…

Tim Moore: Oh boy.

Nathan Jones: that we are truly in the last minutes of the Last Day.

Tim Moore: I think it’s so important to realize, as we said, that even the apostles were anticipating the Lord would soon return. We can turn to passages like Romans 8, where Paul talks about we are anxiously longing for, or the Creation itself, I should say, is anxiously longing for the revealing of the sons of God.

And then he goes on and says, “For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.” Verse 23, “And not only this, but also we ourselves having been the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, for the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he has already seen?”

And this is the key verse, verse 25, “But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.” You get this idea that he is so eager for the Lord to come and for all these blessed hopes to be fulfilled, and really that’s our whole message.

Nathan Jones: And that was the passion that John had for his children, as he says, he was like, “The Lord’s coming back. This is the last message for you.” And it’s still relevant 2,000 years or 1,900, it’s still relevant. I love Psalm 37:7, how should we as Christians, knowing that this is the last hour, what should we be doing? It says, “Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass.” Tim, this, in apologetics, it’s called the problem of evil. Why do the wicked flourish?

We saw during the last days of the Biden administration, he was forgiving every prisoner and exonerating every death row inmate. He gave decades of pardons in the end. And we’re like, “Wait a minute, does that mean that evil is flourishing and gets away with it?” Well, we know the Lord will bring ultimate judgment, but we’re not to fret because we know that the Lord’s bringing ultimate judgment. He’ll be the final judge in all situations.

Tim Moore: He certainly will. Yet in this life, it’s hard sometimes to have patience. I’ve often said, and many of our viewers will remember me perhaps saying it in the past, I can’t wait till I learn to have patience. I am eager. I’m always in a hurry. My wife will tell you if I’m going through an airport, I’m in a hurry to get from point A to point B because I have things to do.

That tends to be true for much of the human race. Not everybody, some folks are meanderers, but I’m in a hurry because I’m looking forward, always looking forward. I think of what, again, the, the Psalmist David wrote in Psalm 40, he said, “I waited patiently for the Lord.” Now we know that David had to wait many years even to ascend to the throne, because he was not going to depose Saul, so…

Nathan Jones: Eight years.

Tim Moore: David was a man who was used to waiting.

Nathan Jones: Eight years he had to wait.

Tim Moore: He said, “But the Lord, He inclined to me and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay. He set my feet upon a rock, making my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and will trust in the Lord.” And even reading that, it kind of calms my impatient spirit to know that if I wait patiently on the Lord, that He will give me peace, peace which passes understanding, and resolute determination to serve Him faithfully even as I wait patiently for Him. I find it so calming, even just that passage.

Nathan Jones: That is, that is. You hear the agnostic world look at God and think He’s some doddering old man. Like the deist god, he’s wound up the universe and left, or even Christians that are getting anxious for the Lord, and they see how terrible the world is, and they want it to end. And we all agree with that. As the Lord said, “Do not fret.”

But look what Isaiah said in 40:28-31. He says, “Have you not heard the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth?” And now he sets it up here. “He neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might, He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall not run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint.” Isn’t that encouraging, Tim?

You look around the world and it is stressful, and it is terrible to see evil flourishing. But we know that God hasn’t just said, “Forget this,” and He’s left. He’s got a plan. He’s got an exact date when all these things were coming. This is the final countdown to the end of the Church Age, not of human history, but of the Church Age. So what do we do? We need to trust that God’s got it.

Tim Moore: I think this is such a beautiful passage. I know many people have probably cited this passage. Maybe you have it printed in your home somewhere, but I think it applies specifically to John, this older faithful saint. And we say that not because he’s a Catholic saint, but because he’s called a saint in Scripture, and he has been given a position of responsibility and prominence being called as an apostle, but he’s watched as all of his peers, all of the other apostles have been martyred for the faith, and yet he stands and he remains resolute and serving the Lord.

And while others may fall by the wayside, even in his old age, even after they tried to boil him in oil and banished him to an island to die, he is still renewing his strength and mounting up, as it says, with wings like eagles so that he is not tired or weary and looking forward to the Lord. My, what a great exemplar John is for those of us who are getting older by the day.

Nathan Jones: Amen, well, Tim, how do we live in these Last Days? I know we’ve got some good resources that, I mean, Tim and I can only hit the surface here, but if you want to go deeper, how do we get deeper into knowing how to live in these Last Days?

Tim Moore: Well, we do have two great resources we wanted to make you aware of right now. One is called Living on Borrowed Time: The Imminent Return of Jesus. Boy, that is our message from beginning to end here at Lamb & Lion Ministries. And another, Living for Christ in the End Times: Coping with Anarchy and Apostasy. These are two relevant books that were written by Dr. David Reagan. And they can be yours as a bundled package, that includes shipping, and so you can get true great resources to give you encouragement and hope in this last hour as we wait upon the Lord and as we determine to live, now on borrowed time, for Christ.

Nathan Jones: That’s a good deal because that’s like buying one book and getting the other one free.

Tim Moore: Virtually buy one, get one free, including shipping, yes, sir.

Nathan Jones: Excellent. Well, good. Well, we know that we are coming to–the question is, is this the final countdown? Are we coming to the end of all times? And I think Tim, a lot of Christians who don’t study prophecy think that Armageddon happens, and then Jesus returns, and then we’re in the eternal state and that’s it. So this countdown that we’re talking about, is it a countdown to the end of all of human creation or is it a countdown to an end of a particular age?

Tim Moore: I think it’s a countdown to the end of particular age first and foremost, because those of us who have put faith in Christ during this Church Age, you used that term earlier. Since…

Nathan Jones: So yeah, what is the Church Age?

Tim Moore: We define the Church Age was from the time Jesus ascended. He said, “Wait for the comforter who I will send.” So at Pentecost, the apostles, other disciples were gathered there in Jerusalem, and the Holy Spirit came down. He rested on each one of them like a tongue of fire. And they were empowered. This band of, we’ll say weak-kneed people who fled when Jesus was arrested and crucified. They were empowered to go forth and boldly preach the Gospel.

As a matter of fact, they preached in all the languages of folks gathered there in Jerusalem at the time. And that sparked the Church Age. And of course it still continues to this day. We are still living in the Church Age. The Gospel is going out, we are serving the Lord, but we are waiting for Him to come and gather us to Himself.

Nathan Jones: And that’s the end of the Church Age, right? That’s the rapture of the Church at the end.

Tim Moore: Exactly right.

Nathan Jones: So there are other ages past this age, and there’ll be other countdowns.

Tim Moore: There will.

Nathan Jones: As we’ve been studying in the Tribulation. Now some people put the Tribulation as its own dispensation. Some put it in the Church Age. I don’t think it’s part of the Church Age because the Church isn’t even there, but it has a countdown, too, because we know that’s exactly seven years.

Tim Moore: Certainly.

Nathan Jones: And it has got different judgments that count down to that. When Christ returns and sets up His kingdom, He tells us it’ll be 1,000 years. And there’s a countdown to the end of that, too, by counting. The only thing that doesn’t have a countdown is the eternal state after the Millennial Kingdom, which we only get two chapters in the Bible, Revelation 21 and 22, and so that’s eternal. That goes on forever.

And there might be new ages within that time period, but God doesn’t think we need to know that right now. So I think that’s encouraging for people who think that the final countdown means the end of the world. It just means the end of the world as we know it.

Tim Moore: The end of the world as we know it. Great way to put it.

Nathan Jones: And that sounds like an old song.

Tim Moore: It does sound like an old song. I’m reminded, and I think John is yet another exemplar of this, and something that is written in James 4:14, James speaking to the people he’s writing to says, “Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.” He’s encouraging them to be faithful today, to heed the call of the Lord today. And he says, “You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.” Now Nathan, you and I have lived for approaching 60 years, somewhere in that ballpark.

Nathan Jones: Maybe you…

Tim Moore: Maybe me. Yeah. But in the scan of eternity, my life is just a blink of an eye. And yet during this time, I have the opportunity to serve the Lord, to glorify the Lord, to share the Gospel, and I need to take advantage of every opportunity.

Nathan Jones: Isn’t it funny as you get older, life seems shorter? When I was a kid, it just seemed like it would go on and on forever. And now that I’m seeing my children as adults, I’m like, “When did that happen? They were just little kids, and now all of a sudden, boom, they’re adults.” And I hear people, grandparents watch their grandchildren raising, and they can’t believe that they’ve reached that age.

This life is like a vapor. I think, Tim, when you think about the 6,000 years of human history plus the 1,000 Millennial Kingdom, 7,000 years, and you drop that onto an eternal timeline. we’re going to look back when we are 10 thousand, thousand years old and say, and if we even remember this, it’s such a blip. And so when we look at that big 30,000 foot picture, it puts everything in perspective and it keeps our eyes focused on Jesus and not worrying about all the horrible things going on in this world today.

Tim Moore: We like to say no regrets. And I think all of us, if our minds could reflect, because the Lord says he’s going to take away every tear, we will have many regrets that I did not take advantage of the time I had. Right now sometimes I realize I did not take advantage of that opportunity. Lord, please forgive me for that sin of omission. I did not love people around me, my children, friends, enough. And so I want to make sure I’m using and taking captive every thought but every moment to be able to serve the Lord here and now.

Nathan Jones: Amen.

Tim Moore: We look back throughout the prophetic Word of God with what we call prophetic hindsight. So much of what the prophets anticipated has already been fulfilled. And so we have an advantage over them. We can look backward and see it having been fulfilled where they were looking forward sort of through a glass dimly. But we realize that God’s timing is always perfect, it is never delayed, it’s always in accordance with His inscrutable will, and it’s always tied to His desire that none would perish, just as 2 Peter 39 says.

Nathan Jones: I was just thinking 2 Peter 3, because that’s the key to understanding, why does it seem like the Lord has been waiting so long? Because there is a set amount of people that are meant to get saved in this Church Age, like a crop. You don’t go out in your cornfield and harvest half of it and leave the other half. You get every corn stalk you can get. There is a harvest of believers and the Lord is going to try to get everyone that’s meant to be in the Church Age harvested before He moves on to His next harvest, which is the Tribulation.

Tim Moore: So that brings up an incredible application that applies, I think, to each one of us, even as we grow older. How do I use this time? Well, part of it is I want to make sure that my faith is passed on to those younger than me who will be here after I am called home if the Lord continues to tarry. It doesn’t give me discouragement. It actually gives me a determination to make sure I’m passing on my faith and even my anticipation of Jesus Christ.

And that’s why, folks, we would encourage you to partner with us as Prophecy Partners to make sure that this message that Jesus is coming soon and that His Gospel is for every person in every age continues to go forth. Some of our greatest outreach, Nathan, we think will happen even after the Rapture. As all of our internet material is still available, all the publications we’ve put out are still available for those who will want to know, where did all the Christians go?

Closing

Tim Moore: Well, we also know that Moses wrote that our lives are around 70 years, or by reason of strength, 80 years. Our God has made promises that transcend thousands of years and will outlast the Sun, because He will never fail to keep every promise.

Nathan Jones: Shortly after Jesus Christ rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven, the Holy Spirit was poured out on the disciples gathered in Jerusalem. Since then, the Lord has built His Church and ensured that the Gospel has reached every corner of the world.

Tim Moore: While he credited men like Abraham with righteousness in the Old Testament, since Christ’s crucifixion, we have the privilege of knowing both God’s provision for salvation and the name of His anointed, our Messiah, Jesus Christ. In that regard, the world has been in the Last Days throughout the Church Age.

Nathan Jones: Someday soon Jesus will come to collect His bride and the Church Age will end. Shortly after that, the world will descend into seven years of horrific tribulation. The Jewish people will suffer 3 1/2 years of Great Tribulation. Scripture tells us at least half of the gentiles and 2/3 of the Jews will be killed during that dreadful period. But folks, it’s not the end of the world. It’s just the end of the world as we know it.

Tim Moore: We’ve met people who say, “I’ll wait until all these things come to pass, then I’ll believe in Jesus.”
Friend, you may not live through this week or even today. Do not wait. Every morning you wake up could be your last day.

So right now, make up your mind to flee from the wrath to come and into the loving arms of our Savior. Call upon Him, confess your sin and your sinfulness, and affirm that He is your Savior and Lord. Then come what may, you will be guaranteed eternal life with Him. Nathan and I have been praying for you. When we get to Heaven, we hope we’ll see you there. Godspeed!

Announcer: As Lamb & Lion Ministries commemorates our 45th year of spreading the Good News of the Gospel and Jesus’s soon return, we hope you’ll join us to expand the kingdom of God. God’s prophetic Word offers hope to every believer as we eagerly await our Blessed Hope.

But it also conveys a stark warning for unbelievers who don’t yet know Him, urging them to flee from the wrath to come and into the loving arms of our Savior before it’s too late. God has raised up individuals around the world who share our love of the Lord and look forward to His soon return. These Prophecy Partners pray for us and provide the financial means for us to broadcast Christ in Prophecy on both television and radio and publish our bi-monthly Lamplighter magazine and other books and resources.

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End of Program