Gold Tried in the Fire - Robert J. Wieland

Any "Christ" who did not truly "come in the
flesh" is as remote from us and from our human
needs as a spaceman on this earth is from a remote
planet. He is the "Enemy of Christ," but not openly
such, of course. The word antichrist means one
who arrogates the place of Christ while actually
opposed to Him. It's the nearest that John's
language could come to a "counterfeit Christ." A
hoax has been foisted on an unsuspecting world—
and on the church. It has stalled the spiritual
development of a people who long ere this should
have grown up "into him who is the head, into
Christ" to the place where their sympathy and
affection for Him are like that of a bride for her
husband. The lack of such devotion for Christ is a
sure sign that the counterfeit is present somehow.
Christ's bride is caught in the vise grip of
worldly materialism and the endless allurements to
self-centeredness, which the Enemy has become so
skillful at devising. She can never find the strength
to wrench herself free from these things until the
counterfeit antichrist is unmasked for what he is
and the Christ of the New Testament stands
123