J. N. Darby
"All that is... not of the Father...
is of the world.”
A Christian has no right to have a will of his own, nor should he desire it, but rather to know “what is that good, and... perfect will of God.”
All that is in the world is not of the Father; the affections of the flesh are in the world and there is the power of Satan. The Father delights in Christ. If I delight in Christ, there is communion of affection. I have the affections of the Father: "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him," and the fashion of this world passes away, "but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever." All His counsels He will make good morally. I am brought into the way of God's will, and He is not going to destroy His own will; it abides forever. I am to grow up into Christ.
The address to the little children in 1 John 2 would be esteemed by many as the most obscure part of Scripture, "It is the last time." The thing that marks it is that there are many antichrists. That which characterizes the last time is the corrupting and spoiling of God's last testimony of good, and thus bringing weakness where there should be power.
We see in the case of the disciples and the dumb spirit that man is not able to use the power God gave to cast out Satan's power. "Why could not we cast him out?" This brought out the exclamation: "O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you?" It is as much as to say, "It is no use my staying here if there is not power to put out the evil.”
“It is the last time: and as ye have heard... even now are there many antichrists." That is a solemn thing. God's patience, how wonderful! As long as there is a soul to win, God's patience goes on bearing with wickedness and corruption, but many antichrists are come in. It is often thought to be something requiring depth of knowledge. No, little children are told of it; it is a common truth. Antichrist was to come in, but before he comes there are many antichrists, and they might seduce them—there is danger. The Antichrist is to come, who will deny both the Father and the Son.
They cannot mistake him, for there is no subtlety in Antichrist. His is a bold, open denial, but John speaks of antichrists already come. He says, "They went out from us, but they were not of us." Jude says, "There are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation." It was a common doctrine that Antichrist was to come, and the babes knew he would come in opposition to Christ, to oppose and set aside what Christ had done.
But the Apostle tells them there are many antichrists now, and there were those before the Antichrist came. He tells them they will need the unction of the Holy One, as well as the warning of the Apostle to be able to detect, for Satan transforms himself "into an angel of light." It is the seductions of the antichrists now in the world, against which he warns them-those who, by the power of Satan, set up to seduce away from Christ, not to frighten away, but to ensnare those who have not the unction from the Holy One.
He does not tell them there were many antichrists to come, but many now, and it is the direct power of Satan. That is what properly characterizes Antichrist. Satan is not only called a liar, but a serpent. Antichrist is a religious character; he works miracles and all that have not received the love of the truth are seduced by him. He is a prophet, and has a religious character, as spoken of in Thessalonians, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness, not merely civil power.
Of what is Satan the prince? Of this world. And how? By the lusts of this world. Where the object of the heart is the grandeur of the world, or prosperity in this world, the character of it is to obliterate that which shows what man is. The spirit of the world hides from man the secret of man's departure from God. I must keep myself from it. The saint has to be kept out of the spirit of the world. Whatever has not the character of the Word of God is of the world. And Satan is the prince of it; I cannot have Satan's prosperity without having Satan's idols.
If you take Christ and His glory, you must take His cross; you cannot have Christ and the world that rejected Him. Where there is the unction from the Holy One (if the Spirit is not grieved in us), though only a babe, we can say at once, It "is not of the Father, but is of the world." The Apostle said, "He that knoweth God heareth us." Where there is not due place given to the Word of God, there is no protection against the seducers. Is the place of the Church of God in the world that rejected Christ? No, it is in heaven joined to Christ. The Church takes the Word of God as a guide while on earth. If I desire a single thing in the world, it is not of the Father, it is of the world.
Speaking of responsibility in Christ, I do not see how we can be kept from imbibing the spirit of antichrist, except it is as being not of the world, even as Christ is not of the world.
First, then, we must have the Word of God abiding in us. Next, there must be the unction from the Holy One by which everything will be judged. And last, there must be the perception of the distinctness and definiteness of the place of the Church of God. The world cannot know the place of the Church. "They went out from us, but they were not of us.... But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.”
We are to judge, before the Antichrist comes, the many antichrists who minister to the flesh and seduce from the Father. "Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues." It is a moral thing to be kept from the things of the world; they are not of the Father. We must be identified with Christ if we would realize joy and strength.