God, the Holy Spirit, inspired the Apostle John to take up his
pen and write this word of encouragement and warning to us. In these
words we will also find God's explanation regarding the raging
popularity of the Seeker-Driven Mega "churches". According to scripture,
they're not successful because they've tapped into the latest movement
of the Spirit, or because their on the cutting edge of revival or
because they've found a way to communicate the timeless truths of
scripture in fresh relevant ways. Nope. Here's what God says:
“Little children, you are from God and have overcome them,
for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are
from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world
listens to them. 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 4:4–6)
Here's what Bible scholar Dr. Paul Kretzmann said regarding this passage of scripture:
The spirit which the apostle has above called the spirit of
Antichrist is here identified with the spirit of this world, with the
spirit that works in the children of disobedience, Eph. 2:2.
This is shown by the contrast: You are of God, little children, and you
have conquered them, because greater is He that is in you than he that
is in the world. The believers belong to God, they are the children of
God...Therefore they not only have the knowledge necessary to examine
and test the spirits, but they also have the ability, the power to
withstand their allurements, to conquer them. All antichristian
temptation is powerless against the strength of God that lives in the
believers. For though Satan, the prince of darkness and the father of
lies, is in the false teachers, lives in them, actuates them, yet God,
who lives in us, who is our Strength and our Refuge, is greater and
stronger than the devil with all his evil angels.
The apostle adds another reason for carefully examining the claims
and for guarding against the evil influence of the false teachers: They are of the world, therefore they talk as of the world, and the world listens to them. No matter what their pretense and their glamour, the false teachers belong to the world, they have the world’s manner and mind.
This is shown also in their talking, in their teaching and preaching,
for its substance is not divine and leading to godliness, but it is
inspired by the world, by its manner of thinking and acting. False
teachers usually have messages that tickle the itching ears of their
hearers. The children of the world will gladly hear them, the world
receives their doctrines with enthusiasm. It is an almost unfailing
criterion: if a certain preacher is widely advertised and acclaimed as a
prophet for our times, he has probably managed to accommodate the old
Scriptural language to some of his own philosophy in denying the
fundamentals of the Bible. Witness the so-called Christianity of the
social gospel.
Of himself and of his coworkers John writes, by way of contrast: We
are of God; he that knows God hears us, he that is not of God does not
hear us; in this you can recognize the Spirit of Truth and the spirit of
error. The apostles were not only converted Christians, true believers,
but they were also messengers, ambassadors of God. Thus all true
preachers, whose call is from God, are messengers of God, no matter how
lowly they may be in the sight of the world. True Christians show their
knowledge of God, their faith in Him, by listening to these messengers,
by yielding due obedience to the Gospel-message which they bring. They
are thereby distinguished from those that know nothing of regeneration
and want to know nothing of the Gospel of salvation. The attitude of men
toward the true preachers of the Gospel is a reliable indication of
their own spiritual state, whether they are still governed by the spirit
of error, of falsehood and deceit, or whether they have opened their
hearts to the Spirit of Truth and have come to faith.
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