In the previous chapter we learnt that there are some enemies who are within the camp of God and pretend to be serving Christ, yet they are deceivers who have been sent by the devil to abuse the flock. In this chapter we will focus on how to identify whether a person has been sent by God or by the devil.
Once you start presenting on such a topic, some people will quickly interject and say “Do not judge others”, yes we are not supposed to condemn others but what we are doing here is testing whether a person is sent by God or not. The Bible actually gives us the right to do so, for it says in 1 John 4:1 “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”
We are not supposed to believe a person simply because they claim to be sent by God, but we are supposed to test the spirit behind that person, whether it’s from God or from the devil. Jesus actually commended the church of Ephesus on Revelation 2:2 for testing those who claimed to be apostles and were not, but were found to be liars. We need to discern, that is to separate the good from the bad, friends from the foes.
It is easier for a soldier to identify whether another soldier is real or fake but if you give that task to a civilian, it would be difficult to perform. Soldiers have standards, they dress in a particular way, they use certain words when communicating, and they carry themselves differently from the civilians. So someone already in the system can fish out any pretenders. You need to be in the system to be able to identify any pretenders from outside, you need to be a child of God in order to be able to separate other children of God from pretenders who would have been sent by the devil.
Let us consider the ways which we can test the spirits.
Be Guided By The Holy Spirit
First things first, be on the right side you yourself, it doesn’t help much to try to test for false gospel ministers when you yourself don’t believe in Jesus Christ. At the end of the day, you and the false pastor whom you have proved to be fake, you are both all lost. Establish a relationship with God first.
“But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” 1 Corinthians 2:14
God is Spirit, the devil is also a spirit and even the war which is going on is spiritual. You need to have the Spirit of God to be able to understand spiritual matters. Your natural knowledge or intelligence won’t help much to discern between those sent by God and pretenders, but the Holy Spirit will guide you. As Jesus said on John 14:26, The Holy Spirit shall teach you all things, ALL means everything, and even this issue of discernment is included in the word all. Let it be your prayer that you may receive the gift of the Holy Spirit because without Him you cannot separate the real from the fake.
1 John 4:1 which instructs us to tests spirits is part of an epistle written to believers in Christ. It was not written to people who don’t believe in Jesus. Even the previous chapter 1 John 3 is concluded with verse 24 which says “…And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.” The recipients of this letter were believers who had the Holy Spirit and on the next chapter they are given the charge to test spirits. How can we test other spirits when we ourselves are not spiritual?
One of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is the gift of discerning of spirits (read 1 Corinthians 12:10). By the way, to discern means to distinguish something as being different from something else, and The Holy Spirit helps us to do this well on spiritual matters.
There was a man named Ahijah who was a prophet of God whom we read of in 1 Kings 14:1-6. Due to old age his eyes could not see, he was now blind. Jeroboam the king of Israel wanted to take advantage of this man’s blindness, so he sent his wife to go this prophet disguised as someone else so that she won’t be recognized. However, God exposed this and informed Ahijah about this concealment before the wife of Jeroboam had even arrived. If you have a relationship with God, He will reveal to you that which you cannot see with the naked eye, He will expose deceptions formed by the enemy.
Some of these things which we wonder whether they are from God or not, we can just pray and ask God to reveal their true identity and source. If we are sincere, surely the Lord will answer us in ways which we can understand. As Jeremiah 33:3 says “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.”
Accurate Fulfilment
With regards to those who claim to foretell the future, one of the basic tests to see whether a prophet is sent by God or not is to check for the accurate fulfilment of their prophecies. Take note I didn’t just say fulfilment but ‘accurate fulfilment’ because sometimes false prophecies appear to have been fulfilled but there is much doubt on how accurate they were. There is a wide gap on what they predicted and what later happened. The true God doesn’t miss; what He says He will fulfil.
“When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.” Deuteronomy 18:22
When a person gives a prophecy in the name of the Lord - (Almost every one of them today speaks in the name of The Lord Jesus, though some are just using the name yet they have not been sent by Him (read Matthew 7:22-23) - And that prediction does not happen as they said it would. Then you must know that the Lord has not spoken to that person. Just like in the days of Jeremiah the prophets in that time prophesied lies in the name of the Lord. God declared that He didn’t send them, neither had He commanded them nor spoke to them (read Jeremiah 14:14). The predictions of these false prophets foretold prosperity which did not come to pass.
Thus says the Lord GOD: "Woe to the foolish prophets, who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing! Ezekiel 13:3
There are actually prophets who follow their own spirit, not the Holy Spirit, and claim to see spiritual things yet they don’t see anything, that’s why their prophecies don’t come to pass. Some of them actually see visions, though being false visions from divination (read Ezekiel 13:6)
If people would take time to seat down and check whether the predictions made by certain men and women of cloth where ever fulfilled, they would soon realise the truth. Where I come from, whenever the year starts a lot of prophets give predictions of things which will happen in that year, they make big predictions. But the year will come to an end without those things being fulfilled, come new year, they make other predictions again. The problem with the followers is that they never check to see whether those predictions were ever fulfilled.
A true prophecy is supposed to come to pass accurately as it was given unless if it’s a conditional prophecy where certain conditions have to be fulfilled for its occurrence or non-occurrence. Like Jonah gave a prophecy that Nineveh was going to be destroyed in 40 days (read Jonah 3:4) ‘IF’ the people did not repent. However, they repented so the prophecy was not fulfilled, that doesn’t make Jonah a false prophet, no, it was a conditional prophecy.
Nevertheless, if there are no conditions attached to it, then it has to be fulfilled. That being said, some false prophets try to smuggle in some conditions into their predictions so that when the prediction fails, they will quickly say the conditions were not met that’s why the prediction was not fulfilled. Therefore, this test might not be conclusive on its own, so we will consider other tests.
Accurate yes, but what is the source
Being a false prophet doesn’t necessarily mean giving false predictions, yes false predictions can be a sign that someone is not sent by God, but still a false prophet can give an accurate prediction. What they say can actually come to pass but still remain false prophets because their source of information is not God but the devil. A false minister can work a real miracle but he remains a false minister because the source of his power is the devil. On Matthew 24:24 Jesus said the false Christs and false prophets of the end days shall perform great miracles. He didn’t say they will pretend to perform great miracles but He said they will actually perform real miracles. I don’t deny the fact that there are some pretenders who stage manage miracles but in the context of Jesus’ words on Matthew 24:24 there are some who do real miracles but still are false gospel workers.
The fact that one preacher predicted that a certain President is going to die and it happened as he said does not make him a true prophet. We need to ask ourselves what source is that information coming from, God or Satan? The devil is in a habit of making predictions and then tries to use his power to make that prediction come to pass, though sometimes God stops him from succeeding.
In Acts 16:16-18 we read of a girl who had a spirit of divination and was a fortune teller who used to bring much profit to her masters from this practice. She followed Paul and his companions shouting loud and saying: "These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation”. What she was saying was indeed true, but the source of this information was a demon which was possessing her, which Paul later casted out. A person who has a spirit of divination is able to tell you about events in the past, in the present or even in the future which are accurate but the spirit is not of God but Satan.
“If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, "Let us go after other gods'--which you.” have not known--"and let us serve them,' you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the LORD your God is testing you to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Deuteronomy 13:1-3
After having seen a miracle or a prediction come to pass, some people are being led to idolatry. They are now esteeming someone or something else above God, they now place anointed oils, anointed wrist bands, anointed water, above God, that thing has taken the place of God, they even make an idol out of the pastor, he receives reverence and respect which is only due to God. But the preceding scriptures have told us that we must not listen to such prophets who having performed miracles or given true predictions, then lead us to the worship of other gods, these are false prophets.
Yes, a miracle has been performed, a prediction has come to pass but if by his or her teaching, this prophet leads you the worship of false gods then (s)he is false prophet.
The Bible Our Standard
The Word of God contained in the Bible is the standard by which we use to measure all things relating to the worship of God.
“To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” Isaiah 8:20
If a person teaches things which are not in line with what the Bible teaches, then there is no light in him/her. God has not sent such people but the prince of darkness (Satan) is the one using them. God is not an author of confusion (read 1 Corinthians 14:33) who in one instance says one thing and the next minute He sends a prophet to come up with another contradicting teaching. He does not change (read Malachi 3:6).
There are a lot of preachers out there who put forward doctrines and sermons which directly oppose what the Bible teaches and they claim to be filled by the Holy Spirit. All scripture is given by Inspiration of God as 2 Timothy 3:16 says, The Holy Spirit inspired the writing of the Bible. 2 Peter 1:21 also says “for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” If we bring these two verses together, then If anyone claims to have the Holy Spirit, what (s)he prophesies or teaches must be in line with what the Bible teaches because the Holy Spirit who inspired the writing of the Bible is also the same Spirit who moves people to prophesy. Therefore, there should be no inconsistency there.
Deception is the mixing of truth and error. The devil doesn’t just take error and preaches it to you, no, he takes some truth and mixes it with error so that it might not be easily detected. It’s not every time that a false minister uses lies, sometimes they speak the truth from the Bible and then throw in some lies here and there though seemingly small but their effect is enough to lead you astray. So be on the lookout of deviations which some preachers present on the pulpit and various platforms.
Satan is in the business of opposing the word of God, starting in Genesis when God told man that if he eats the fruit from the forbidden tree he was SURELY going to die (read Genesis 2:17). The devil using a snake as a medium (he always uses other mediums to convey his messages), he said you shall SURELY NOT die (read Genesis 3:4). The devil took God’s word, and made some changes to it before republishing it to Eve. Be very analytical to the word which is preached to you, be on the look out of some changes which are presented by people but not in the Holy Scriptures.
It is necessary to know the scriptures very well so that whenever something preached or done is not in line with the Bible you can quickly detect it. But if you do not know the scriptures, you are in danger of being of deceived. Know your Bible, be like the Bereans, whenever the word was preached they would cross check against the Bible whether those things were so (read Acts 17:10-11).
By their fruits
In relation to false prophets, Jesus said we shall know them by their fruits (Matthew 7:16-20). We need to check what fruits a gospel minister is producing and this will give us a good indicator about who they are serving. Galatians 5:22-23 teaches us about the fruit of the Spirit which is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.
Anyone who claims that they have the Holy Spirit must exhibit all these virtues listed above. When a gospel minister expresses hatred to those who oppose him by making threats, is that showing love? Jesus Himself showed love to those who tormented him by praying for their forgiveness even though they had not asked for it (read Luke 23:34). Those who are Holy Spirit filled are supposed to love their enemies, bless those who curse them, do good to those who hate them, and pray for those who spitefully use and persecute them (read Matthew 5:44).
Another virtue among the fruit of the Spirit is temperance, one who is Holy Spirit led must exercise self-control in all things. This habit of failing to control appetites in regards to accumulating wealth for themselves, failure to control their sexual desires is a sign that one doesn’t have the Spirit of God. I have just explained two of the nine virtues listed, but there is need to examine one by one of each and checking it against the character of one who professes to be sent by the Holy Spirit.
By their fruits you shall know them, the gospel being preached, what kind of converts is it producing? If you consider the gospel of Jesus it changed people from their violent nature to be peace lovers. Consider the man who had a legion of demons on Mark 5:1-20, consider Saul (Paul) who used to persecute believers but after being changed by Jesus he desisted from violence. There is a certain ‘gospel’ which is being preached, a gospel not from Christ which is creating converts who are very hostile. They curse, threaten and can even engage in violent acts against anyone who does not agree with their leader. Vengeance is mine says the Lord (read Romans 12:19), but there is a false message out there which gives you God’s prerogative to execute revenge to those who offend you.
If there is one virtue that Jesus taught and practised so much is humility. A true servant of Jesus Christ is humble. The devil was chased out of heaven after he had developed pride and it is that pride which exists today in his agents. They exalt themselves above all other people, trampling down on their followers, demanding reverence which is only due to God.
In a summary, the lifestyle that the gospel minister is showing, is it in line with what the Bible teaches? Of course he might be preaching the correct message but is (s)he himself/herself living by that message (s)he is preaching?
Not For Sale (the sin of simony)
There is a word in the dictionary which was coined after a man whom we find in the Bible by the name of Simon Magus (read Acts 8:9-24). This word is “Simony” which is defined as the act of selling church offices and roles. The term also extends to other forms of trafficking for money in “spiritual things”. Simon was a sorcerer (magician/wizard) in the city of Samaria, after hearing the gospel preached by Philip he believed and was baptised together with other people. When he saw the Apostles laying their hands on the new converts so that they receive the Holy Spirit, he offered them money. He said, “Give me this power also, that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit”. But Peter responded by saying unto him, “Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money…”
The gifts of God cannot be purchased with money. Prophecy among many other things is a gift of the Holy Spirit (read 1 Corinthians 12:10). Therefore, you cannot pay in cash or in kind in order to receive a prophecy. If you are being charged directly or indirectly then know that it’s not from God.
“Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils freely you have received, freely you must give” Matthew 10:8
Those sent by Jesus do not charge for doing the work of God because they were given that power for free, if they are asking you to pay then they have not been sent by God.
“For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.” Romans 16:18
These people are not serving the Lord Jesus Christ but their own stomachs. They want to feed themselves on the flock of God instead of feeding the flock.
2 Peter 2:3 Gives us a warning concerning false teachers who through their greed shall exploit believers. They are greedy of gaining wealth so they charge you for that which is for free. A true servant of God doesn’t charge for that which is for free, beware of these conmen who put much emphasis on you giving them money for that which God availed for free.
Who are you led to follow?
John the Baptist being a true prophet of God, when he stood with two of his disciples, and looking upon Jesus as He walked he said “Behold the Lamb of God” and the two disciples heard him speak and they followed Jesus (read John 1:35-37). John was the kind of minister who led people to Christ, even his own followers (disciples) in this case he directed them to Christ. A true minister of the Gospel is supposed to direct people to Christ and not to themselves.
On 1 Corinthians 11:1 (KJV) Paul says “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ”. Though asking people to follow him, he sets a condition: ‘as I also follow Christ’. Meaning to say, before you decide to be a follower of Paul you must check whether Paul himself is following Christ. That’s not the case with false ministers today, they just want you to follow them even though they themselves are not following Christ. Some are following worldly riches and fame, some are following things which have nothing to do with the gospel of Christ, some are even following the devil and they want you to follow together with them.
True ministers are there to lead people to Christ, they are not supposed to look for followers for their own benefit but for Jesus because it is only Him who can save sinners. False ministers are the opposite; they look for followers for themselves.
“For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves” Acts 20:29-30
The wolves being referred to here are not the literal animals but false prophets (read Matthew 7:15) and the flock is the church (believers in Christ). These false ministers have an aim to draw away disciples after them, they just want to make a following using any means they can employ, whether be it stage managed miracles, faking testimonies, doing publicity stunts, the goal is draw disciples after them not after Jesus Christ.
The way false ministers preach and exalt themselves will leave you with the impression that you cannot be saved without them yet they also like everyone need salvation. They have elevated their names to an extent that even the prayers of their followers appear to be done in the name of the leader and not in the name of Jesus. Whenever the followers try to explain their beliefs they will quote what the leader said rather than quoting scripture. The leader has created followers for himself rather than followers for Jesus. When the leader backslides, he falls together with his followers because they were clinging onto him instead of holding on to Jesus.
Strengthened towards what?
The Pharisees and Scribes of the Bible times have something in common with false ministers of today.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.” Matthew 23:15
These religious people went far and wide looking for someone to convert to their religion, when they found him you would expect that they would surely do a good work by turning that person from an evil life to a holy life which pleases God. But it was not so, they made that person more wicked than themselves. Such is a sign of false ministers, instead of making converts to turn to God, they make them worse than they were initially.
Take for instance when a false minister comes into contact with a famous worldly person be it a politician, sportsmen, artiste etc., instead of preaching to that person that (s)he may repent and be saved, they strengthen him or her to remain in his or her ways which do not please God.
With reference to false prophets, Ezekiel 13:22 says “Because with lies you have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad; and you have strengthened the hands of the wicked, so that he does not turn from his wicked way to save his life.”
They speak lies in their teachings and prophecies which discourage the righteous people from continuing in the path of righteousness and make them sad. God’s true ministers actually strengthen the righteous to continue walking in the right way. To the wicked, the false prophets strengthen them to continue in their wicked ways instead of repenting from it.
If you find a prophet who gives you ‘holy water’ to empower you so that you can take someone’s husband and making him yours instead of teaching you to turn away from that adulterous act, is he not fulfilling what the verse in Ezekiel 13 said? Should ministers of God empower us to break the laws of God and even the laws of governments or they should empower us to obey? Surely God want’s total obedience from us. False ministers are in the habit of giving people various anointed items which empower them to continue in disobedience.
Be very alert to ministers who say peace and safety when sudden destruction is coming, who instead of warning you of the judgement to come they strengthen you to remain in a sinful life.
