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!
The Arnold Journey 