“Believe not every spirit, but try [test] the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world” (I John 4:1).
False prophets lurk around the planet. They are here to deceive many people. The Bible warns us of such evil men and seducers – 2Ti 3:13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
But did many people listen to this plain warning of the Bible? Most of the people do not heed.
People get easily excited about what will happen in the future, and many deceivers prey on this natural fascinations of people. Jesus warns us about this, “And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many” (Matt. 24:11). Many people just ignore this message of Jesus Christ. They worry not of being deceived or not. And many will pay for ignoring this message.
Jesus also warned, “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” (Matt. 7:15). This means that it will not be easy to know these deceivers. They hide their true intentions and operating smoothly as they try to rip the understanding and wisdom of the people they preach upon just like wolves rip their prey.
Understand. God calls such possessors of “enlightened” knowledge “angels of light” (II Cor. 11:13-14). Such “angels” are only too willing to share their “knowledge.”
How can you tell a false prophet? Let Jesus answer: “You shall know them by their fruits…” (Matt. 7:16). And four verses later, “By their fruits you shall know them” (verse 20). The fruits are their works and their works are based from their teachings. We can know them by their teachings.
So, we have to check and analyze the teachings if they are of God.
Many use the Bible just to read verses, but when they explain the verses, they don’t let the Bible interpret by itself rather use their own understanding and opinion to interpret them.
The Bible says,
2Pe 3:16 This is what he says in all his letters when he writes on the subject. There are some difficult things in his letters which ignorant and unstable people explain falsely, as they do with other passages of the Scriptures. So they bring on their own destruction.
2Pe 3:17 But you, my friends, already know this. Be on your guard, then, so that you will not be led away by the errors of lawless people and fall from your safe position.
We must all be on guard and do not believe immediately on how other people interpret the Scripture, rather, let us examine what the Bible really says.
What we must do is the same with the people that Apostle Paul mentions in Acts, Act 17:11 Now these were more noble than the Jews of Thessalonica, for they gave serious attention to the word, searching in the holy Writings every day, to see if these things were so. To be able to know the truth, we must give full and serious attention to it. We need to search the Bible if what we hear are true and according to what it really says.
