Devotion: Who Is Right?

God warns us that “there will come false Christs and false prophets who will give great signs and do great wonders, so much so that if it were possible, these things could turn the very elect from the true way” (Matthew 24:24; Mark 13:22).  This is a very illuminating and a very powerful passage.  The fact that the great signs and great wonders of the false Christs and the false prophets are so convincing, it is a little disturbing that these things could possible trick the very elect.  And while many believe they are the very elect, the possibility does exist that they may not be what they think they are.

The scriptures also tell us that “not everyone who says, Lord, Lord will enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 7:21-23).  Yes, they will make claims of prophesying, casting out demons, and doing all sorts of wonderful works in Jesus’ name, but the Lord will say to them, “I never knew you, therefore, depart from me you that work iniquity.”  Does this mean that the many who claim to be are not what they profess to be?   Have they been deceived by following the wrong “so-called messenger of God?”  Here is the disturbing part, they, the many who make the claim believing they are, will not find out any of this until the end, when it will be too late.

Imagine believing yourself to be a believer only to find out what you believed you were, you were not.  Imagine believing yourself to be a follower of Jesus only to find out that the one whom you claimed to follow was not the one that you needed to follow.  Imagine all that you believed was based in untruths, based in deception, based in lies, and based in fiction; all manufactured by the great deceiver himself, all for the sole purpose of taking you out of the kingdom of heaven.  Imagine not even being aware of any of this until it was too late.

Paul told us of such things.  He told us that it was “no great thing for men to appear as false apostles, workers of deceit who were able to transform themselves to appear as Apostles of Christ.”  He told us that even “Satan himself is able to transform into an angel of light, so it is nothing for his servants, his ministers to transform into ministers of righteousness” (II Corinthians 11:12-15).  And it is these servants of Satan, these ministers of righteousness that have deceived the many, the many who believe they are following Christ, who believe they are saved, and who believe they are part of the family.  But the question for us becomes, “With so much confusion in the Christian community, which ‘so-called messenger of God’ are we to believe?”

God warns us not to believe every spirit, which is great advice.  He tells us “to test the spirits to see whether they are of God but so few of us do so” (I John 4:1).  However, there is one major problem, a flaw, if you will with this testing of the spirits.  The testing of the spirits does absolutely nothing if the answers to the test are not available to the one performing the test.  A teacher who gives students test will already possess the correct answers before giving the test, which enables the teacher to determine if the answers from the students are correct or not.  In order to test, you must have some knowledge of the truth, for without it, you place yourself in a position where the wolves will devour you.  Knowledge is power and misinformation will lead to destruction.

God has warned us “to beware of these false prophets that come to us in sheep’s clothing because inwardly they are but greedy voracious predators” (Matthew 7:15).  But have we gotten things so mixed up that we listen to and believe, without question, the wolves in sheep’s clothing, and try our best to discredit the true men and women of God, that is, to not believe or not accept, as truth, the gospel that they speak.  So, “Who is right and whose teachings should we listen to?”  We will have to try to answer those question at another time. We just wanted to share a little revelation knowledge that we got from “studying the word of God” (II Timothy 2:15).  God has instructed us “to study his word to show ourselves approved unto him,” meaning he wants us to investigate, analyze, and question his word.  God wants us to find all that we can find about his word, which will help us “to rightly divide the word of truth.”  We were thinking that the last time we had to study in such a manner, in the manner that God requires us to study, was when we were in school.  Maybe it is time for us to go back to school.  If this message is a blessing to you, please share it so that others may be blessed by it as well.

Enjoy your blessings. - KW