Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to determine if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses Jesus as the Christ who has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that refuses to confess Jesus, that spirit is not from God, and this is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming, and now is already in the world.
1 John 4:1-3 NIV
Our world is filled with prophets today. People who proclaim various messages, telling us what is wrong with the world and how to fix it. God sent the Old Testament prophets to warn Israel and Judah about their idolatry and social injustice, and their coming punishment if they did not repent. But there were other prophets in their day who represented other gods. And some who falsely claimed to represent God. Prophets who proclaimed a quite different message.
And what was true in the Old Testament was also true in John’s day and in ours today. There are prophets who faithfully proclaim God’s truth to the world. Other prophets claim they are from God, but their message is false. And there are prophets representing different philosophies and religions who proclaim a false truth about God and the world’s condition. They may even deny the existence of God and claim that an enlightened humanity is the world’s only hope.
Testing the Spirit of the Prophets
And John warns us not to believe all of them. We need to test the spirits of the prophets. Is their message one that is from God? Or the spirit of the antichrist? John gives us a test. Who do they claim that Jesus is? Is Jesus the Messiah sent from God to be the savior of the world? If that is what they are teaching, John says they are from God. But if they teach otherwise, they are antichrist.
Don’t be taken in by those who claim that Jesus was just a myth, a misunderstood teacher, or even a great prophet. The spirit of the antichrist is alive in our world today, just as he was in John’s day, seeking to deceive and draw people away from Christ and the salvation he brings to us. Immerse yourself in the Scriptures and learn to recognize and reject the spirit of the antichrist.
