Testing what I hear

 

Someone I know is so in tune with spiritual matters that she senses the spiritual status of people around her. For her, this is so distressing that she avoids crowds because those who reject Christ have a strong effect on her emotions. She is also discerning with all media, so their television set is often turned off. I’m uncertain how this happens but know that God calls all His people to be discerning. He says:

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. (1 John 4:1–3)

Normally these verses are applied to sects that try to imitate Christianity. They will not acknowledge that Jesus is the Lord who came in the flesh to die for our sin, nor will they fully acknowledge their sin and need of His grace. However, this sort of deception also creeps into churches. Some may attend yet err in their understanding of His identity and of the way of salvation. They may claim to follow Christ but cannot spot errors. Christians are told to test all spirits and be wary of what they teach because some are religious but actually not for Christ but are anti-Christ. 

This attitude is described as one person in the following long passage. It also describes the power behind the subtle lies that can deceive even genuine believers for a little while:

Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.
Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.
Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word. (2 Thessalonians 2:1–17)

Not everyone is gifted in discernment, but our protection from false teaching is secured in the Lord Jesus Christ. He works through His Word to help His people stand firm and recognize lies. The key is to read the Bible and keep short accounts with God so we can hear Him clearly. This long passage is a warning but also an assurance. I was chosen to glorify Christ, not to make up anything that suits what appeals to my flesh. Not only that, the One who called me also promises to keep me.

PRAY: While some of this seems complicated, Jesus I know that You are quick to impress my heart when someone teaches a lie that is against You. I might not have an immediate answer for them, but know that I can find truth in Your Word. I’m so glad to have the Bible and access to it, and to have the Holy Spirit who helps me recognize solid Christian teaching. I’m also thankful that You persist in feeding me truth to keep me trusting You — rather than anyone or anything else. Thank You, Jesus.

Word definitions are important!

 

 

Two ideas presented to me yesterday rang false. After researching them using God’s Word, I understood how both of them contradicted Scripture. One was a method of Bible study that was obviously relying on speculation and imagination rather than accurate interpretation. The other was a conspiracy theory also based on conjecture that contradicted the Bible’s description of God’s nature and His purposes.

Today’s word about God is BEGOTTEN, a word that can be interpreted two ways. One is “to father, to become the male agent responsible for the conception of a child and its eventual entry into the world.” This word is used in biblical genealogies with an emphasis on being born physically. This OT use of begotten makes it clear that God is the author of life and the only one who ultimately provides the barren with children, such as Abraham and Sarah.

The other definition is “to give rise to; bring about” and is used to describe how Jesus came into this world and how God raised Him from the dead. For instance, Psalm 2:7 says, “The Lord said to me, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you’” in a context that predicts how earthly leaders would lash out at Him thinking they had won until God the Father would raise Him from the dead. Having "begotten" Jesus or bringing Him forth from the grave, this prophetic psalm says the resurrection of Jesus proves that He is God, and that God won over those who mocked Him.

Begotten is repeated in the NT pointing to Jesus as a unique person. For example, Hebrews 1:5 says: “For to which of the angels did God ever say, ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you’? Or again, ‘I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son’?”

The NT word translated begotten can concern the birth of an attitude as in 2 Timothy 2:23: “Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels.” Paul even uses it to describe how he is the spiritual father of the believers in Corinth in 1 Corinthians 4:15: “For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”

Another NT word has the same dual idea of giving birth in a physical sense, but also causing something “to come into being, bring forth, produce” such as sinful desires that result in spiritual death:

James 1:15. “Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”

The danger of false teaching comes in when these dual meanings are mixed up. Some cults use the idea of human physical birth to explain that Jesus was God’s begotten Son in the sense that He was a created being. By doing this, they are forced to re-write other portions of Scripture that say Jesus always existed. Instead, they claim He was only a god and not God in human flesh. By changing their definition, the identity of Jesus Christ is changed and the plain Bible teaching of the virgin birth and His resurrection is dismissed. This takes away His redemptive power as the One who died for our sin and whom God raised from the dead. As a result, these cults decide they must earn their salvation by doing as their leaders prescribe. This adds up to false teaching.

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. John 1:1–2 and 14 describe the glory of God in His begotten Son . . . “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God . . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” When God revealed this to me, His glory changed my life. He has shown me that messing around with the full scope of Bible teaching is not only dangerous to my spiritual well-being, it can lead others away from God’s salvation by grace through faith — into a system of trying to do it without relying fully on the Son begotten by the Father, a ‘faith’ that the Word of God exposes as being useless. For this reason, I am continually fact-checking, willing to see errors in my Bible interpretation, and always wanting to glorify my Savior and Lord.