Posted on 07/05/2022 12:50:16 AM PDT by metmom
“‘Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits’” (Matthew 7:19–20).
We can spot false prophets by the kind of people they attract. Their converts will have the same kind of superficial, self-centered, unbiblical orientation as they do. Of this sort of attraction Peter says, “Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned” (2 Peter 2:2). Many folks gravitate to false teachers because those men propagate what the majority of people want to hear and believe (cf. 2 Tim. 4:3).
God has not ordained false prophets, but within His will He allows them to exist. And it is within His purpose that false factions develop. “For there must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you” (1 Cor. 11:19). Factions often attract followers of false teachers. And in a sense, this protects genuine saints by separating the chaff from the wheat in the church.
Ultimately, the Lord makes sure that the converts of false prophets, who do not bear good fruit, get cut down and thrown into the fire of judgment. Peter says they are “bringing swift destruction upon themselves” (2 Peter 2:1; cf. Jer. 23:30–40; John 15:2, 6). A watchful, discerning, vigilant believer, armed with the Word of truth, will be able to isolate false teachers and withdraw from them, because he or she “will know them by their fruits.”
Ask Yourself
Discussions like these often get us labeled as haughty and narrow-minded. How do you handle these kinds of accusations? Why will some people never understand your concern for the church’s purity?
From Daily Readings from the Life of Christ, Vol. 1, John MacArthur. Copyright © 2008. Used by permission of Moody Publishers, Chicago, IL 60610, www.moodypublishers.com.
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God bless
My door is always open. 👍😀
May be a day or two
This message is right on IMHO
The best way to identify false prophets is to know scripture.
Especially the two core doctrines of Christianity: Who God is and what is his plan of salvation.
If you know scripture pretty well, you’ll be able to spot the false prophets because they will say things that are contrary to God’s word.
There are also those who speak the Word but it’s for show and insincere. “Look at what a great Christian I am. I even wear Christian clothing and jewelry, and have the biggest Bible.” They fool a lot of people.
One for sure.
I am sure there are others, too.
Matt7:22-23 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
Can I show examples of a false prophet in a devotional thread??
Take a look at a Joel Osteen audience. I refuse to call them a congregation. Thousands there to get their ears tickled. It’s like none of them know what is in the bible.
Then you have the ones like Copeland, who says God talks to him all the time and his audience eats it up.
The one in Africa who has his people on the lawn literally eating grass to be closer to God.
I have seen all of those. 👎
There are real Prophets speaking today..anointed by God..who predicted the pandemic and many others things happening today.
McCarthur always talks about false Prophets but his church has cast out all the prophets. His church has missed everything while I have been guided through all of this. He speaks only of judgement.
The prophets are alive and well..are their false ones sure..many but God will always raise up prophets especially in these last days
Generally, yes. And preliminatory let me say that though I do not always agree with John MacArthur, I emphatically count him over the forty or so years I have heard and read him as being a true prophet, in the modern sense, a good discerner of spiritual truths for a current audience.
But there is yet a further rule to apply if one employs Paul's counsel, well known--even memorized--by spirit-born trustees of The Word. To understand this better, please regard the context in which discernment is to take place, that of 1 Corinthians 2:12-16 (AV)(bolding added for emphasis):
12Now wePaul and Sosthenes have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.Here's the point:
13Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
14But the naturalψυχικός man receiveth not the deepthings of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he knowγινώσκω them, because they are spiritually discerned.
15But he that is spiritualπνευματικός judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
16For who hath knownγινώσκω the mind of the Lord, that hethe spiritually mature may instruct himthat uses logical reasoning only? But wethe spiritually mature have the mind of ChristPhp. 2:5.
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Notes:
(1) Paul and Sosthenes, the Spiritually commissioned authors, instructing "you" the constituents of the Corinthian assembly of "believers"
(2) ψυχικός (psuchos) psycho-logical only, dead in the Spiritual realm
(3) deep - referring to verse 10 (4) πνευματικός (pneumatikos) able to communicate with God in the Spiritual real, but not lacking in human logic awareness
(5) γινώσκω (ginohskoh) understand
(6) Php. 2:5 " Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: . . ." etc.
First, there are no earthly prophets anywhere to whom the Triune God is directly speaking via special revelation, which are the prophecies contained in the canon of the Holy Scriptures, which were completed by the Beloved Apostle John, a personally instructed disciple of Jesus, and permanently closed at his death. There has been no special revelation of God's Word since then. That alone scuttles some who claim to be God's prophets; like Mohammed, for example; or Malcolm X. Or any Pope.
Secondly, It is the Holy Scriptures perfectly preserved through which the Holy Spirit speaks and instructs the regenerate (born in the Spirit) human servant-disciple-Friend of Jesus, and brought into verified spiritual maturity in which he/she has become a νεανίσκος (nehahniskawss, young adult) whose progress in sanctification has overcome the concerted efforts of "the wicked one" (cf. 1Jn. 2:13) because they are strong in The Faith in which they meditate on the Holy Scriptures which they have memorized, and are able to quote them in answer to the arguments of the adversary, just as Jesus did in His testing by Satan.
Thirdly, one does not wisely debate with, for instance, a Jesuit, who has succumbed to the philosophical thesis of Thomas Aquinas (circa 1200 A.D.), is highly trained to be expert in logical analysis as well as logical fallacies (the argumentative tool of worldly wisdom), and likely able to overwhelm with skill in logic the debater who only uses that approach, rather than principally relying on the rehearsal of Scripture passages that are presented exegetically through a correct literal--not allegorical--interpretation.
You will take as an inescapable fact that one of the central tenets of a Jesuit's theology is believing that the salvation of a human only occurs after the end of his/her spiritual journey, rather than at the beginning of it when (in reality) the regenerate servant of The Christ, each of whom has obtained the Indwelling Spirit of God to commanding one's application of The Word, whenever that person will permit.
Fourthly, there is a method by which this expertise of evaluating truthfulness is achieved in a way that is satisfactory to the Heavenly Father of the regenerate child, and to God's Son Who is the first-born from the dead of this generation of God's Children. The method of maturation in judgment is taught by David, who himself was guided the Holy Spirit in authoring Psalm 1 (as KJV translators put it):
1Blessed is the man thatFor the one who has not gained a saving confodence in Jesus, the Risen and Living Lord and Anointed One through the preaching of the Word (Rom. 10:17), been born anew in the Spirit realm, read deeply in an accurate reliable translation of the Holy Word's original manuscripts, and grown through meditation and application of them, that person is in no state to evaluate whether a person claiming to represent the Will and Word of The God of the Bible (which Jesus is, being the Living God Incarnate at this point residing in the Heavenly dDimension) is presenting the Truths, the Ways, and the Life Eternal as a God-appointed Herald of the Gospel, or not.walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,2But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. 3And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. 4The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. 5Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. 6For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.
nor standeth in the way of sinners,
nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
All this is tested, not by the human "wisdom" of well-constructed but Spirit-less logical reasoning, but by complete compliance with the Spiritual lexical value of the Word(s) as originally specially revealed outside one's natural faculties to mankind by giving His Prophetic Writers unalloyed Spiritual Truths and their History.
It cannot be said that any God-approved valid spiritually mature pastor/preacher/teacher is or can be 100% accurate all the time (as some religious cults to of their titular head-of-state). It is entirely proper and a noble thing for a hearer/reader to check any part and all the import of what information is imparted by them, against existing Holy Scripture, to see if it be so, as did the Bereans when Paul was acting to them as God's ambassador:
"And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.May it be for us today also, John MacArthur's valuable meditations need to be checked out, every one. I'm sure that he and those who bring his material to us on FR will deeply appreciate it if you curry his documents with a fine-toothed comb, to extract from them all this spiritually mature, experienced, regenerate ruling elder has to share.
Therefore many of them believed; also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few" (Act 17:10-12 AV).
‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
THE SCARIEST WORDS IN EXISTENCE.
And that in Christ's Incarnation, the finality of the Prophet has been accomplished.
Apostle Paul introduces various offices as Christ’s gifts by quoting from Psalm 68:18: When He ascended on high, He led captives in His train and gave gifts to men. The gifts given to men are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers (Ephesians 4:11).
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