Opposition to Truth and Knowing God in Christ

1 John 2:18-23 

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. 19 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.
20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. 21 I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth.  22 Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. 23 Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.

The end of time approaches and we should be always ready, not knowing exactly when, but only that the times grow worse as hearts grow cold (Matthew 24:12-14, 2 Timothy 3:1, Mark 13:21-23).  We know the deceivers are here, which tells us the time is short, and the final one opposed to Christ and His gospel will one day soon arrive.  This spirit of opposition to Christ is seen among those within the church who do not believe sound teaching, but spread falsehood as tares in the field of God’s wheat, imitating the true but not founded in the field of sound seeds of truth.  Eventually they are revealed and leave for other fields to corrupt, demonstrating that they are not of Christ nor of we who have trusted in the gospel’s word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15, Colossians 1:5-6).  Since we who are reborn all have His Spirit living in us (Ephesians 1:13) who gives us understanding (1 Corinthians 2:12-14), we can see the false teaching in due time.  Some things are immediately evident, while others are more subtle and take time to discern as the Spirit of God shows us.  Since He who lives in us teaches the word’s truth to our minds and hearts, we know the true and therefore can spot the lies better.  When these false teachers take away from who Christ is as both God and man, when they deny Him as God’s only begotten Son, then we know they do not possess Him, the truth, nor the Father of truth; following the father of lies, they refuse to acknowledge the Son of God and so leave us as they depart from hearing the truth to take to heart for faith (John 17:17, Romans 10:17) to repentance, regeneration, and adoption as His children.  We know the Father through the Son by the Spirit in us, and remain among His people and the truth of His word.