By Pastor Barron Greenwalt, En-Joy Ministries, November 18, 2025

We are living in the last hour.

The apostle John didn’t mince words: “Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come” (1 John 2:18). False christs, false prophets, and deceptive spirits are not future possibilities—they are present realities. Jesus Himself warned that the deception in the last days would be so convincing that, if possible, even the elect would be led astray (Matt 24:24).

So how do we stand? How do we keep ourselves from being deceived?

John gives us the divinely ordained defense mechanism: authentic koinonia—the shared life in Christ that is rooted in truth, expressed in love, and guarded by God-called elders.

1 John: Fellowship Is the Safeguard Against Antichrist Spirits

The entire letter of 1 John is built around one central idea: True fellowship with the Father and the Son inevitably produces visible fellowship with one another—and the absence of that fellowship is evidence that a person or teaching is of the spirit of antichrist.

· “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3).

· Walking in darkness while claiming fellowship with God is a lie (1 John 1:6).

· Those who went out from the apostolic fellowship did so because “they were not of us” (1 John 2:19).

· The anointing we received abides in us and teaches us to abide in the truth we heard “from the beginning” (1 John 2:24–27).

· The ultimate test of the spirits? “We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error” (1 John 4:6).

In other words, genuine koinonia—being in submitted, truth-guarding, love-practicing fellowship with those who hold unswervingly to the apostolic gospel—is the primary way the Holy Spirit protects us from end-time deception.

2 John: Don’t Even Greet the One Who Rejects This Fellowship

The tiny letter of 2 John drives the point home with startling force.

John writes to the “elect lady and her children” (a local church) and warns:

“If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching [the teaching about Christ that you heard from the beginning], do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works” (2 John 10–11).

Notice: the false teachers John has in mind were not immoral pagans—they were traveling “Christian” teachers who denied that Jesus Christ had come in the flesh (v. 7). They looked spiritual. They probably quoted Scripture. But because they rejected the apostolic doctrine preserved in the fellowship, John says do not even say “God bless you” to them.

Why so severe? Because deceptive doctrine is contagious, and casual fellowship with error opens the door for the spirit of antichrist to infiltrate the body. Protecting koinonia is that serious.

Acts 2:42 – The Blueprint That Still Works Today

When the Holy Spirit birthed the church on Pentecost, Luke records the immediate, instinctive pattern of New Testament life:

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship [koinonia], to the breaking of bread and the prayers… All the believers were together and had everything in common… And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved” (Acts 2:42–47).

This was not a weekly one-hour worship service followed by coffee and donuts. This was life-on-life, truth-saturated, mutually accountable, elder-shepherded koinonia. And it was the environment in which the Holy Spirit did His mightiest saving and sanctifying work.

Elders: Shepherds, Not Board Members

One of the greatest vulnerabilities in the modern Western church is that we have replaced biblical elders with corporate-style boards.

The New Testament knows nothing of a church being governed by a group of successful businessmen who meet monthly to sign checks, approve budgets, and hire/fire the pastor. Biblical elders (presbuteroi) and overseers (episkopoi) are the same people—shepherds who know the sheep by name, who model maturity, who teach sound doctrine, who guard the flock from wolves, and who give an account to God for the souls under their care (Acts 20:28–31; Heb 13:17; 1 Pet 5:1–4).

When a church lacks true koinonia under true elders, it becomes a sitting duck for deception. Lone-ranger Christianity, podcast-only discipleship, and “church” that is little more than a Sunday event leave believers isolated and defenseless in the very hour when deception is multiplying.

A Call to Return – Especially Now

As we see the day approaching, the Lord is not calling us to bigger buildings, flashier programs, or more sophisticated marketing. He is calling us back to devoted, truth-guarding, love-practicing, elder-shepherded koinonia—the same kind the apostles established, and John defended with his life.

At En-Joy Ministries, this is our heartbeat. We open our homes. We break bread together. We hold one another accountable to the apostles’ teaching. We refuse to give even a greeting to teaching that denies the Christ who came in the flesh and now reigns as Lord.

This is not legalism. This is love. This is protection. This is the New Testament pattern that the Holy Spirit still uses to add daily to the church those who are being saved, and to keep safe those who have been saved.

The spirit of antichrist is already at work. But greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4).

Let’s walk in the light—together.

Pastor Barron Greenwalt En-Joy Ministries