Defense Against Deception

Living in Love is our series walking through the book of First John. My name is Adrian. I'm one of the pastors here at TLC. Thank you so much for joining us in person and on our live stream. Hey, just a quick note. Yeah, it's so good to be here together. This is my first weekend back with people in the room. And just a note, if you're watching this on the live stream on Sunday, we're using the Saturday night streams for a little bit just so you can know that you can come in person every Saturday night. Go to tlc.org/rsvp and you can sign up to come next Saturday. But we're so excited that you're here and tonight what I want to do is start our time with a story.

It's actually my story. It was the summer of 1990. I was 11 years old and I just got back from a Boy Scout camping trip. And this was like my first time going and where I was with a group of guys and we had to do everything ourselves. Pitch our own tent, which took like four hours and then like figure out how to open the sleeping bag. And the biggest thing was we had to buy and make our own food. So we went grocery shopping, brought all our stuff, but the problem is nobody knew what to do. And so by the end of the weekend, all I had was a bag of chips and some raw meat and raw vegetables. And I was so hungry.

So I got home from this camping trip and I told my dad immediately, "Take me to Wendy's right now. I need Wendy's." He's like, "Okay." And so we're getting ready to go and then there's a knock at the door and I open it and there's like this friend of mine who says, "Hey, we want to come to a Bible study with me. My youth pastor is in his station wagon. We're going to go to the church." And I look at him right dead in the eyes and I say, "Is there food at this Bible study?" He says, "Actually, yes. The youth pastor's mom cooks really good Korean food and it's going to be awesome." And I'm like, "Okay." I didn't go to church. I didn't know anything about Jesus. I just was hungry.

So I yelled in the house, "Dad, I'm going with this guy to eat Korean food at this church." He's like, "Okay." I didn't tell him where I was going when I was coming back. This is 1990. He was like, "You're leaving the house? Great. I can do whatever I want to do." Who knew? Who knows where I was going? But I jumped in this strange station wagon and off we went. I don't remember anything about the Bible or Jesus or anything about the study, but what I do remember is that food was so good. And then they told me they serve food after every service at this church. And I said, "I'm going to start going to church." And so after that weekend, I went to church every single week.

Korean churches know how to do church, I'm telling you. But it was really good food. I went, but soon after that, I started to listen and understand what was going on. And soon after that, I gave my life to Christ. I became a Christian, and it changed my life. But what came, but with that joy, would soon come trauma and a lot of pain. Because you see, this small Korean church would eventually end up becoming a cult. And not like the move to an island and drink, like a drink kind of cult, but a cult where the leadership took more and more control over our lives. Like we did study the Bible, but soon after a while, we stopped talking about Jesus.

We started talking about all these like weird secrets and codes and mysteries that only these pastors knew about, and only they could unveil. So eventually my life started to become ruled by these pastors in this place. Where I lived, who I could be friends with, where I worked, all those things were decisions that I had to run by the leadership there. And when you're in that, you think this is normal. This is what being a Christian is like. Asking your pastor, like, can I eat this? You know? And then a crack, you know, got into the that whole facade when I went to college. I went away to college and I went to Bible college and I met other Christians. And we're just talking, I started to make friends, and they started to hear my story and about my church. And they're like, hey, yeah, that's crazy, man. And I was like, what?

And so I went back to my pastor and I said, hey, these new friends I met said, we're crazy. And you know what his response was? Don't talk to them anymore. Don't be their friends. When you go to school, don't talk to anybody, learn and then get out of there. And I remember thinking, I didn't say this out loud, but I was like, this is weird. And you know, when like you start to see a crack and like a lie, it unveils itself pretty quick. And I'm like, oh, wait a second. This is crazy. And so I knew I had to get out of there. I don't like conflict. So what I did is I wrote this note like I'm leaving and I folded it, slipped it under his door. I never showed up again.

The next week, I got phone call after phone call from the pastor, his wife, and all these other people saying, don't leave. God just told me that if you leave, you will be cursed. You'll get sick. You'll get cancer. These are the kinds of things that they tell you when you try to leave a cult. The last call I remember getting was a girl that said, I know you're not supposed to leave because God just told me we're going to get married. I said, okay, bye. Obviously I got up. I'm here today, but I still suffer from trauma, from regret, from pain. I still, there are still relationships in my life that were broken that I have to deal with today.

The reason I share my story with you is because that same thing is still happening today. Some of you have shared, sent in emails and shared with us your experiences in controlling communities or cults or people you know, people you love who are trapped in these places. And still today, even if you're not in one, we're in danger of being suckered by these smooth talking teachers claiming to have secret knowledge because day after day, people are being taken advantage of every day. And if you're not careful, you can fall into that trap. And soon you start saying to yourself, well, this, this person is the only person who knows this truth. My church, my friends, my family, they don't get it. I'm going to move to this place or to this island.

And it's exactly what John is dealing with in the passage we're going to talk about today. These same kinds of people are on the prowl, the people in John's churches. And John is like, no, no, no, no, you're not coming to my house. And he starts fighting back. Now, this is interesting because the theme of First John clearly is love, right? If you've been here the last couple of weeks, you've heard it said over and over, love one another as René and Mark have mentioned. But that doesn't mean that John has no backbone or that he is some kind of pushover or that he's willing to compromise the truth. In fact, I would say that John would say living as an agent of Jesus's love means also staying grounded in Jesus's truth. And that's what we're going to focus on today.

You can grab your message notes, open them up for watching us online. You can download them at tlc.org/notes. Today, we're going to learn the defense against deception. Defense against deception. I'm going to continue where René left off last week. We're in First John chapter two, starting in verse 18. What I want to do is I'm going to read the whole passage just to get the full gist of what John is saying in this section. And then we'll pick it apart and we'll learn what John has to say to us.

Verse 18, children, it is the last hour. And as you've heard that anti-Christ is coming, so now many anti-Christ have come. Therefore, we know that it is the last hour. 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 it might become plain that they all are not of us. But you have been anointed by the Holy One and you all have knowledge. I write to you not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ. This is the anti-Christ. He who denies the father and the son. No one who denies the son has the father. Whoever confesses the son has the father also.

Verse 24, let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the son and in the father. And this is the promise that he made to us, eternal life. I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. But the anointing that you receive from him abides in you and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything and is true and is no lie, just as it has taught you abide in him. Amen.

There's a lot going on in this passage and what we can't do today is hit every single aspect of what he's saying about these people. What I want to do is kind of hone in on the main point John has. And the way I want to do that today is break it up into three sections. We're going to start in section number one, the problem. John defines what the problem is starting in verse 18. Children, it is the last hour and as you have heard, the anti-Christ is coming. So now many anti-Christ have come. Therefore, we know that it is the last hour. So we got to pause for a second and I need to address something. He uses the phrase the last hour and the term anti-Christ and I know exactly what's happening right now.

Some people in this room, some people online, you're like, oh baby, we're about to get apocalyptic now. It's end time talk. There was a super flower blood moon on Wednesday. I don't know if you know about that. There's wars in the Middle East. Have you heard about those shootings? There's so much craziness. The pandemic, you're ready to go stock up on some more toilet paper that you already have too much of. But that's not what John is talking about here. Now, to be clear, the Bible does talk about the end times. That is a real thing. Jesus tells his disciples and he describes there's a time that's coming and you'll know when that's coming when there are wars and you know there are anti-christs and there are you know these false teachers and he tells them be alert, be awake, don't fall asleep.

And those things he's mentioned you probably have heard or maybe you've seen because the end times has captured the minds and the imaginations with so many people. There are movies, books, there's uh TV shows. When I was a kid, I was like an early Christian and somebody has shown me some like end time video about the rapture and people being left behind. I was like, oh gosh, I'm gonna get left behind aren't I? And I was like in a perpetual state of fear because at my church it was like you better do good or you're gonna you're not going to heaven. So I'm like, I'm not doing good enough. And I remember there was this one night the power went out in my house and I'm like, oh no, Jesus came back because in the Bible obviously it says when Jesus comes back, your power is gonna go out. That's the sign.

So you know what I did? I was like, oh no. And I was like being, I felt anxiety so I'm like, let me call my friend because he and his family, they're super Christians. And it was like 11 30 at night and I remember calling. This is back in the day, no cell phones, just a landline to their house phone rang and his mom answered like sleepily. Hello. And I'm like, oh good. See ya. And I hung up. I'm safe. I think nobody's gone. So what is John talking about? Why does he use those terms? Well, let's start with the last hour. What does he mean by that? Well, it couldn't have meant like Jesus was coming in 60 minutes because 2000 years about have passed since he's written this.

Another way the Bible uses the last days or in this case, the last hour is this. You know, there is history and history change and there was a new age that began when Jesus came into the world. There was the times before Jesus and the times after Jesus and then Jesus, Jesus and the Bible describe a time when Jesus will return and he will begin another new age when he makes all things new. And the Bible many times describes the last days is that time in between, between his first coming and his second coming. And what I think John is doing here is he's using the term last hour to remind these people like Jesus's words, don't fall asleep, be alert. This is urgent what I'm about to tell you.

Okay. Last hour. What about anti-Christ? Because that's the kicker, right? That sounds like the apocalypse. What do you think of when you think hear the word anti-Christ? For me, I think of like a little disturbed child who has born with a weird birthmark. There's like three numbers. Maybe I watched too many movies as a kid, like the Omen and the Seventh Seal. You remember those movies? Why? Why did I watch it? Why did my parents let me watch that at like seven? So I was freaked out. I remember in junior high, I was like super into the sign of the beast and I was looking for it everywhere. Does this clothing brand have 666 secretly in its threads or something? I can't buy that. And I remember I looked at my name. This is my name, Adrian Augusto Moreno. You want to guess how many numbers, how many letters are in each of my names? That's right. 666. It was like weeks before I was like, I'm not the anti-Christ.

But like literally, I'm like, oh my gosh, am I, is this why I'm so evil? Or maybe, or maybe you think of a specific person. I know a lot of people do this. You might have a name in mind. Yep, that's the anti-Christ. Maybe a politician or a person in leadership. You know, I was looking it up. Did you know that every single American president has been called the anti-Christ by somebody? Every single, George Washington, all the except one, Gerald Ford. He doesn't look like an anti-Christ, I guess. But the problem with doing that and what, you know, John didn't want these people to do is think of one person. They probably thought, oh yeah, that's Caesar. Because if you do that, if you think this one mega villain like Thanos from the Avengers, you're going to miss all the anti-christs that are among us, the false teachers out there.

That's why he says, that's why he uses that. Many anti-christs have come. So who is he talking about? Verse 22, watch this, he defines it. Who is the liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ. This is the anti-Christ. He who denies the father and the son. What John is doing here is he's using the term anti-Christ to describe people who oppose Jesus, oppose Christ. They are anti-Christ. People who deny that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God who came to save us from sin and redeem us. And these false teachers, these anti-christs, their message basically, it boiled down to this. What you have is not enough. What you think of salvation, that's not enough. What you think of yourself is not enough. Jesus is not enough. Pray this special prayer, go to this special place, do this special ritual and you can be saved. You can receive a new revelation or a new knowledge. You can become a real true Christian.

This is the anti-Christ message we know as Jesus plus. Jesus isn't enough. You need Jesus plus something. Jesus plus this issue. Jesus plus this politic. Jesus plus this practice or ritual. The problem in John's churches where people were listening, they were buying in because they didn't want to miss out. Like, oh, to be a true Christian, because what they were hearing was so interesting and John is saying, don't ingest this stuff. These people are false teachers. Don't be like little kids, right? Because if you don't tell a little child, don't eat that, what are they going to do? They're going to stick it in their throat. I looked it up. You know what kids have eaten? Screwdrivers, razor blades, toys, magnets. I remember one time I turned around, I mean, I had to be like a minute and I turned around and my daughter had found a highlighter and she sucked it dry. And I'm like, I'm a young parent. I'm like, will that kill the child? I don't know. I call poison control. The guy's like, no, it's fine. You know, I'm like, okay. She would eat anything. She ate everything. Bugs, books. I know there are things that are missing that were ingested by my offspring. Still can't find them. Where is that pin?

So we need to keep our eyes open and be alert. Not everyone who looks like a spiritual leader is trustworthy. Don't just ingest anything you see and hear because it sounds intriguing. Because let me tell you something. There are countless people trying to lure you away with a secret message, with some secret knowledge. You know where they're on? YouTube, Facebook, all over the place. They are out there trying to lure you away from the truth. They want you to be in fear. They want you to feel like you can only go to them and listen to them and do what they say or you'll be lost or you'll be cursed or you won't be a real Christian.

So how do we defend against this problem, this deception? Number two, the protection. The protection John goes to describe and starting in verse 20, he says, "But you have been anointed by the Holy One and you all have knowledge. I write to you not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it and because no lie is of the truth." John tells him, "You've been anointed by the Holy One and you have knowledge. You have the truth." Now I think John is doing something really interesting here with the word anointing and he uses that I think for a specific purpose. The Greek word he uses here for anointing is chryzma, which is the noun version of this word chryo, which is the verb to anoint or anoint means smear or rub with oil.

The reason he uses chryzma here is because it directly contradicts these false teachers. You know they claim to have something only available, not available to ordinary regular Christians, only them super Christians know this secret knowledge. And in my study, I found this interesting thing. Some scholars have looked back at the time of John and there were these group of people just like in John's church is trying to lead these people astray and this is what they believe. They said if you want to receive this special knowledge, you need to receive this and they use that word chryzma anointing. They said, "Once I put this oil on you, I put this chryzma on you, you will get, you'll be granted this secret knowledge and you'll get on a whole new level. So come to me and receive this chryzma." What John is telling his church, these ordinary Christians, is you have a chryzma.

You have been anointed and it's not just oil on your head. You have been anointed supernaturally by Jesus Christ, the Holy One. And we see this word chryo, that root word of chryzma, we see that used in other places in the Bible. For example, in Acts chapter 10, Luke, he says this, "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit." Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit. And then it goes on to tell us in the Bible that we, when we become Christians, we are filled with the Spirit of God. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead lives inside of us. Second Corinthians chapter one, Paul says this, "It's God who strengthens us with you into the Messiah, the anointed one. And he, Jesus, has anointed us too. God has stamped his seal on us by giving us the Spirit in our hearts as a first payment and guarantee of what is to come." This is what John is saying to them and he's saying to us, you don't just have any just a chryzma, you have the chryzma.

You have the anointing from Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the living God lives inside of you. And you don't need any new kind of anointing. You don't need any other chryzma. You got the chryzma. And with this anointing, John then says with this chryzma, not only do you have that, but you have that knowledge they're trying to peddle. You have the truth. You already have it. What is the truth that they have? That Jesus' death and his resurrection alone is what we need for us, our salvation. That Jesus and Jesus alone is what redeems us and saves us. And the Spirit fills us, like Paul says, as a seal and a guarantee of that fact reminding us of that truth.

You know what Jesus said to his disciples? John being one of them, John can remember, he says the Holy Spirit will come and he will remind you of everything I've said. It isn't new truth you need. You just need to be reminded of the truth you already know. Paul talks about this when he writes in Romans, "I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another. Yet I have written you quite boldly on some points to remind you of them again because of the grace God gave me." Church, listen, don't fall for those anti-christs that are out there right now. They're going to try and lure you away from the truth of the gospel telling you that they have some secret thing code that only they know.

John is telling you there is no new truth, no anointing, no new anointing that you need. You have all you need through Jesus Christ who has redeemed you and anointed you with the Holy Spirit and he's given you the truth. Amen? Don't fall for those false teachers out there. That's the protection. So how do we use that? How do we use the protection? Number three is the practice. The practice, I'm going to read the last part of this passage starting in verse 24. You'll see a word repeated a few times here. Watch this. "Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he made to us." Eternal life. I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you.

"But the anointing that you received from him abides in you and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything and is true and is no lie, just as it has taught you, abide in him." Do you see the key word there? Yeah, it's abide. What does that mean? What does abide mean? Basically live in, right? Remain in. It's where we get the word abode, like my humble abode. It's the place where you live. So how do we do that? How do we abide in him? Live deeply in him. Well, John tells us two things in this passage. The first one is this is to abide in truth. Abide in truth. The only way you can know what a lie is, is if you know the truth, right?

So what does it look like to live deeply in the truth? First thing is this. You need to abide in the truth of the gospel. What John says in the beginning of this passage in verse 24, "Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you." The original teaching that Jesus is the Messiah and died for your sins and rose from the dead live in that truth, which goes right to the heart of the anti-Christ argument. They were saying Jesus wasn't really the Messiah, who was just some guy. John is saying, "Remember who Jesus is, what he's done, and who you are. Live deeply in that truth day in and day out. Do not be deceived." It's like René has told me many times and he's told us, "Preach the gospel to yourself." Because when somebody tries to tell you, you need something more than Jesus, you're like, "No, no, no, no, no. Jesus is death and his resurrection. That's what saves me."

So the truth of the gospel. Second, abide in the truth of Scripture. Spend time steeping yourself in the Bible. What a blessing it is to have this Scripture, the Bible, that we can turn to. Because when you are abiding in the Bible, you become armed with God's promises. You see God's truth so that when the lies of the enemy come towards you, you can defend them with the truth and the promises of God that you read in Scripture. So spend time deeply living in Scripture. Some of you already do that and if you don't do that already, you're not spending time in the Bible. I would encourage you to do that. Maybe you don't have a Bible. Let us know. We want to get you on. If you don't know where to start, start in John's other book called John. It's a great book of the, great gospel to start in and then just start a few minutes a day.

Sometimes people try to start reading the Bible. I'm going to read the Bible this week. And I'm like, no, it's not going to happen. And you'll quit and then you'll never read the Bible again. Spend just a few minutes a day and just live deeply in what you are reading. You can also take advantage of the groups and classes we have here. We have verse by verse Bible studies, topical Bible studies, Bible classes, and they're offered all throughout the year. I encourage you to email Jim@TLC.org and he'd love to get you connected and let you know of any groups that are happening or get you connected to a group that's coming up. We also have one other thing I want to share with you, an amazing resource called RightNow Media.

RightNow Media, think of it as just the Netflix of Bible study. There are thousands and thousands and thousands of hours of biblical content for kids, for adults, for teens, for young adults, for people in college, for married people, for single people, for all the other kinds of people. Every kind of people, you're represented and they have a Bible study for you. And you know what? This gigantic library of content is free to you because we pay for it. So please take advantage. You can take advantage anytime on any device, TLC.org/RNM to sign up. It's an amazing resource. Abide in truth. The second thing I think John is telling us is this, is to abide in the Spirit.

John says, "The anointing that you received from him abides in you." So what does it look like to abide in the Spirit? I want to share with you three aspects of abiding in the Spirit. And the first one is this, is prayer. How do you build, how do you strengthen a relationship and get to know somebody and live deeply with somebody? You spend time together, right? A couple of years ago, my wife Jamie and I, we were out of sync. And so we decided we need to go to marriage counseling. So we started going to marriage counseling. We carved one hour a week to go to marriage counseling. And after a little bit, it was really helpful. We, you know, got connected. We got back in sync. But the greatest thing that we did was we decided to keep that hour a week. And so every, every week for one hour, we're going to carve that out and get childcare, make sure that the kids are taken care of, and we are going to spend time together.

And so every Friday, Jamie and I have Fridays off. And when the kids are in school, it's perfect. When they're not, my in-laws watch them. We work out at the gym. We head to Eastcliff, grab a coffee, and we sit and we talk for an hour to two hours to connect. And it has revolutionized our marriage and our relationship. If we want to abide and live deeply with, with Jesus, with the Lord, we need to spend time with Him. You know, in Ephesians, Paul says, "Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion." Because this is what prayer does. It helps us center our focus on God. Because when you pray, you pray, you spend time being grateful for, for God, to God for everything that you have.

You can bring all those concerns and worries of the world and whatever's going on, you can bring them to Him because He asks you to do that. And when you pray, you acknowledge your, your need of Him. So take time each day to pray. And like I, like with the scripture, just get started a little bit a day. Just take some time, spend some time in prayer, focusing on God. The second thing I want to talk about is spending time in worship. You know, Paul says something in Ephesians also. He says, "Be filled with the Spirit," and he falls that up right away with singing hymns and psalms and spiritual songs with each other. I think there was something special about worshiping God through music, like we did just earlier, and we're going to do in just a moment. Because music is extremely powerful outside of, of, you know, Christianity, religion, and it just music, that art form is powerful, right?

It can take you through a range of emotions. Like if you want to get excited, there's music for that. If you want to be sad, there's music for that. If you want to be angry, there's music for that too. Like the other day we were watching on YouTube, the voice, like, you know, I don't know if you've seen that show, The Voice, like, you know, people turn around and people are singing. And I was like crying. My daughter's like, "Are you okay?" I'm like, "It's just so beautiful," because I love, like, music touches me. Because it is a powerful tool. It can bring back memories. You know, there's a, think about a song that takes you back to childhood, and you can like think of the place you were at, smell the place, smell the food that you were eating, just from a song. And all throughout the Bible, people worship God through song, because it is so powerful, and it is really a gift from God.

So spend time worshiping God through music. You can do that every week with us here, worshiping God together, which is an amazing thing, especially in person, or even on the live stream, singing worship to God. But also on your own time, there's so much out there on a run, in your car, spending time just in worship of God, using that powerful tool of music. I think that is a powerful way to abide in the Spirit. And finally, abiding in the Spirit is living a life of love. Paul, both John and Paul say that a life lived in the Spirit is a life of love. As we've seen in this series, if you've been here, you've heard John's main point, it's love, love, love. And if you keep coming back, that's what you're going to hear. Love, love, love.

And in Galatians chapter five, Paul says, a life lived in the Spirit bears the fruit of the Spirit, which is what? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. So like you've heard the last few weeks, and like you will hear, we need to love. Of God, love one another. And so I encourage you to come back, keep coming back to this series. It's such a powerful book of the Bible and something we definitely deeply need, not just us individually, but us as a church, us as a community, us as a nation. We need more above. Amen. Abiding in the Spirit and the truth is protection against deception.

Because when you do, when you abide in the Spirit and in truth, you can know that you're in sync with Jesus on the path that he wants you to be on. But check this out, church. If you're not abiding in the Spirit and in truth, you put yourself in danger. And I want to say this, if you're right now, if you're listening to something or you're into something you saw on, you know, somebody was like, oh, this is the real Christianity and it's something different and something mysterious. And if you're into something or you're listening to something and it doesn't line up with the truth of Scripture or it isn't producing in you the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, or maybe it's producing in you anger and resentment towards people or it produces fear and anxiety and shame. If that's the fruit of what you're listening to, you are in danger of being led on a path that isn't in line with Jesus.

I'm going to wrap up this way. I want you to do this picture, the apostle John giving you this message. He's a very old man. He's the oldest surviving disciple, the last person on earth to have known Jesus personally, to see him, to remember what he sounded like. And now he's seeing people claiming to be Christians and yet they are teaching and acting nothing like the Jesus he knew. And they're coming into the church and trying to lead people astray. And he's saying, I knew Jesus. And believe me, these people, they are nothing like him. They are peddling their new teachings, their new anointing, but they are so inferior to Jesus. You don't need their new counterfeit stuff. You already have the real thing, the real Spirit, the real truth, abide in the truth and in the Spirit hold on to what you've got.

So you can defend against their deception and be on the path that Jesus wants us to be on. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for the truth of the gospel that you sent Jesus to this earth as a human to go through all that we would grow through to experience every emotion and everything that we would experience, but who did so without sin and died on the cross innocently for to pay the penalty of our sin, who through the power of the Holy Spirit rose from the dead. And God, I thank you that you say that when we confess that with our mouths and believe that in our hearts, we will be saved. And then that you will fill us with your spirit, empowering us to live this life you've called us to.

And we're so grateful that when we are filled to that spirit, it acts as a guarantee. And he reminds us, he bears witness with our spirits that we are children of God, that there was a place for us in your house. I pray that you protect us from all that anti-Christ and counterfeit Christ and false teachers that are out there, all the deception that is out in the world, the lies that are trying to lead us astray. Help us to remember the anointing that we have. Help us to remember the truth that we have so we can defend against all those deceptions. My prayer, God, is that we would be able to live free from the shackles of shame and guilt and all the other things that come with living a life under a deception and a lie. That we would remember that who you set free is free indeed. It's in your name we pray. Amen.