Insider
trading has become such a common place thing that the stock market has invented
a specific way to do it and get away with it. They call it a short sale. As I
understand it, it goes like this. You buy the stock on borrowed money, and when
the stock goes down in price, which you manipulate through bad news, then you
sell the stock, paying back the loan at the lower price. You bet the stock goes
down, and then you make the stock go down by planting a story, often done these
days in a blog.
This
and many other tricks create a culture of insider and outsiders. The insiders
have the ability to make lots of money, manipulating the stock prices in a way that
benefits them. That is why there were over 200 more billionaires created last
year in a world where almost every economy is struggling to stay afloat. The
insiders suck the outsiders dry. They skim off the cream that would make the
rest of us just a little bit more comfortable.
Insider
and outsider language is used in many places in our society. The military has
its own language. Medical personnel use their own language to communicate. If
you have ever taken out a loan you know that banks and lawyers have their own
language. We even use insider and outsider language in the Church when we use
our theological terms.
John
tells us that there were some people who were part of their group but then they
left. He labels them as antichrists. Wow, that is just plain mean! But it is
true. Anyone who doesn’t stand with them are now against them. For John, there
was no middle ground for these people to occupy. They were once supporters of
the Gospel and now they oppose it. They once claimed membership, but now they
renounce any association with it.
They
joined a class of people John calls antichrists. And antichrists are in essence
followers of the THE Antichrist. I don’t want you to miss this. John tells us
that there is a person coming into the world who will fulfill the role of the opposition. He will be Satan’s
representative here on earth. This is not just a group of people who oppose the
Gospel, or some spiritual force that has come. There is a person, an actual
person, who will be called by the hosts of heaven “The Antichrist” as a proper
title. Just as demons are real, so the Antichrist is real.
And
John knows this because he understands the Scriptures. And the Scriptures tell
us that in the last hour, the timeframe designated as the end of the world as
we know it, that a particular person will come and oppose God’s rule here on
earth. John knows that the timeframe he calls the last hour has started because
the Holy Spirit has revealed it to him. He probably has been shown from the
Scriptures that the fulfillment of the Scriptures in Jesus’ coming were the
last gates to be opened before that time came.
But
you might say, “Didn’t he get it wrong, since it has been almost 2,000 years.”
John in his writings, both the Gospel of John and these three small letters,
uses this concept several times. He uses it to designate both a specific moment
in time and a more general period of time just before the final moments. It is
this more introductory time that John focuses on here.
Think
of it this way. When the TV coverage for the Super Bowl starts, it doesn’t
start with the kickoff. It starts with the pregame show. But when you see the
pregame show, you know that the kickoff is coming soon.
So
it was for John. He saw the events happening before him and he knew the pregame
show had started. It is only a matter of time until the rest of the events of
the Last Days start. And if it was so for John, how much more for us in our day!
Stay alert! Be ready! Jesus is returning!