Testing the Spirits

 Some time back, there was a post on here entitled, “How Easy It Is to Be Deceived.” Today’s post may be considered a companion piece to that one, albeit from a rather different perspective: how NOT to be deceived.

This world today is flooded with information as never before in recorded history. Well do we see the prophecy in Daniel fulfilled before our eyes: “Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase” (Dan. 12:4). You can find information of all kinds, about every topic imaginable. Some of it’s true and some of it isn’t, some of it’s helpful and much of it isn’t.

This ocean of information is littered with icebergs of deceit and fraud. Governments lie to us, the news media lie to us, scientists lie to us, and churches lie to us. And to top it all off, every village idiot and his brother now have microphones to broadcast their opinions far and wide. You’ll find endless rabbit holes of conspiracy theories, some of which turn out to be true and many of which don’t.

And yet many people are so trusting and gullible. Countless people unquestioningly believe whatever the government, media, or scientific establishment tell them. But being skeptical of these sources doesn’t make someone less gullible or more likely to question another. Many conspiracy theorists are as gullible as people who believe the government and the media. They just believe and follow different people.

But the most dangerous deceptions swirl around the Word of God and His way of life. Among those who profess to worship the God of the Bible and to follow His Word, you’ll find every doctrine imaginable: hundreds of calendars, lunar sabbaths, solar sabbaths, “lost” books of the Bible, flat earth theories, arguments about when a day begins, and many more. You’ll find every imaginable view about when and how to observe God’s Sabbath and Holy Days. If a thought has ever popped into someone’s head, you can find it on the Internet. Most of these folks are very sincere and zealous in their claims, too.

Amidst the sea of confusion, many folks ricochet from one opinion to another like a pinball. They are, as the apostle Paul wrote, “tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting” (Eph. 4:14). Lost in the ocean of information, they are “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim. 3:7).

The waves of deception crashing against us on every side are the work of Satan the devil, “for he is a liar and the father of it” (John 8:44). And yet, not everything we see, hear, or read is a lie. Though the government lies regularly, that doesn’t mean everything we hear from the government is a lie. Though conspiracy theorists often spout unfounded rumors, that doesn’t mean everything they say is false. No, if everything was false, that would make things much too easy for us, and Satan is far too clever for that.

When Satan deceived Eve in the garden of Eden, not everything he said was false. When he said, “For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5), that was actually true, as verses 7 and 22 reveal. Satan often seasons his lies with a few sprinkles of truth, and his purpose is to sow chaos, confusion, and disorder. In contrast, “God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints” (1 Cor. 14:33).

While we note the chaos and confusion in the world around us, let’s remember that not everything we already believe is necessarily true, either. Even if we’ve believed something our whole lives, and even if everyone we trust believes the same thing, that doesn’t mean it’s true. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, for instance, have taught the same falsehoods for centuries! A long lifespan doesn’t change a lie into truth.

No, we can neither believe nor reject everything we hear. We must neither be gullible nor close-minded. We must be willing to examine our beliefs, but not too quick to believe something else. As the old saying goes, “It’s good to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.”

The apostle John exhorted, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). Likewise, the Book of Proverbs tells us, “The simple believes every word, but the prudent considers well his steps” (Prov. 14:15). Again, “He who answers a matter before he hears it, it is folly and shame to him” (Prov. 18:13). And again, “The first one to plead his cause seems right, until his neighbor comes and examines him” (Prov. 18:17).

The apostle Paul admonished, “Test all things; hold fast what is good” (1 Thes. 5:21). The word “test,” as we’ve noted elsewhere, is the Greek word dokimazo (Strong’s # G1381), which Thayer’s Greek Lexicon defines as, “to test, examine, prove, scrutinize (to see whether a thing be genuine or not).”

So how do we scrutinize all things? With so much falsehood out there, how can we know what’s true and what isn’t? As Pontius Pilate asked Jesus Christ, “What is truth?” (John 19:38).

Search the Scriptures

A couple chapters before this we find the answer. In a prayer to God the Father, Jesus said, “Your word is truth” (John 17:17). God’s Word is truth. Psa. 119:160 says the same: “The entirety of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.”

God’s Word is truth. It’s the standard by which we measure everything else.

When the apostle Paul visited the Jews in Berea, they didn’t reject him without hearing him, nor did they believe him just because his message sounded good. Instead, here’s what happened:

10 Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews.

11 These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.

12 Therefore many of them believed, and also not a few of the Greeks, prominent women as well as men. (Acts 17:10-12.)

They listened to Paul’s preaching, and searched the Scriptures to see if the things he taught were true.

Did it displease Paul that someone would question him? No, and neither should it displease any other true servant of God! If someone gets angry at you for questioning his teachings, odds are high that person is trying to deceive you. The truth welcomes honest questioning, but a lie hates to be questioned lest it be exposed.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1). How would they know he was imitating Christ, but by searching the Scriptures? Again, Paul wrote to the Galatians not to believe him if he turned aside from the truth: “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed” (Gal. 1:8).

In this, Paul did indeed imitate Jesus Christ, for Jesus said, “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him” (John 10:37-38). Over and over again, throughout His ministry and even after His resurrection (Luke 24:27), Jesus pointed to Scripture and showed how He fulfilled all that’d been written about Him. He told the Jews, “For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?” (John 5:46-47).

Something isn’t true just because your church or your pastor said it, or because we here on this blog or others on the Internet say it, or because it sounded good, or because you’ve always believed it. Even as God’s people, led by His Holy Spirit, we can easily be deceived if we don’t continually stand guard. “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12).

Even Joshua, one of Israel’s greatest leaders and a man filled with God’s Spirit and Divine wisdom (Num. 27:18; Deut. 34:9), was tricked by the Gibeonites because he took them at their word and failed to ask God for guidance (Josh. 9:1-16). Again, in 1 Kings 13, we find the story of a prophet of God who denounced King Jeroboam’s wickedness to his face, and through whom God worked miracles. And yet, as he returned home shortly thereafter, he heeded a lie told him by a false prophet, disobeyed God’s instructions, and died for his sin.

Even if miracles and prophecies accompany a teaching, that doesn’t make it true. Something is true only if it agrees with the Word of God. God warned ancient Israel,

1 “If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder,

2 “and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods’—which you have not known—‘and let us serve them,’

3 “you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the LORD your God is testing you to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

4 “You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear Him, and keep His commandments and obey His voice; you shall serve Him and hold fast to Him.

5 “But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has spoken in order to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of bondage, to entice you from the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall put away the evil from your midst.

6 “If your brother, the son of your mother, your son or your daughter, the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is as your own soul, secretly entices you, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which you have not known, neither you nor your fathers,

7 “of the gods of the people which are all around you, near to you or far off from you, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth,

8 “you shall not consent to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him or conceal him;

9 “but you shall surely kill him; your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. (Deut. 13:1-9.)

In today’s world, obviously we don’t have authority to put people to death. But this passage shows that we must believe God’s Word above all else. It doesn’t matter who contradicts it, it doesn’t matter how well-spoken a person is, it doesn’t matter if miracles accompany his preaching!

In the last days before Yeshua/Jesus’ return, the antichrist and the false prophet will come “according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders” (2 Thes. 2:9), even calling fire down from heaven (Rev. 13:13). Jesus warned us, “For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect” (Mat. 24:24). The world will marvel and worship the antichrist (Rev. 13:3-4).

We must not be swayed by the spectacle, no matter how spectacular. We must not get swept up in the public fervor and mass hysteria. We must hold fast to the Word of God.

The peer pressure will be like nothing we’ve ever experienced. Friends, relatives, and coworkers will call us insane and stupid for believing God’s Word instead of the false prophet. They will call us evil and betray us and hand us over to the authorities (Luke 21:16-17; Mic. 7:5-6). We will be hunted and forced to flee from one place to another (Mat. 10:23). And through it all we must not give in, but hold fast to our God and His Word!

Jesus set the example for us. When tempted by Satan the devil, the living Word of God responded again and again with the written words of God: “It is written…” (Mat. 4:4-10). Even when Satan quoted Scripture, Jesus simply responded with more Scripture. “It is written.”

Master the Sword

As Jesus showed us, the Word of God is the spiritual sword with which we fight the enemy (Eph. 6:17) and fend off his deceptions. How well can we wield it? How well do we know the Word of God? Every skilled swordsman has honed his craft with years of practice.

The apostle Peter admonished us, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear” (1 Pet. 3:15). How shall we defend our beliefs if not with the Word of God? And how can we be assured of our beliefs if we aren’t well-versed in it?

If we’ve ostensibly followed God’s way of life for many years and yet can’t defend our beliefs with the Word of God, then do we truly understand what we believe, and why? Or have we been asleep at the wheel all these years? If, when questioned, we have to fall back on saying, “You’ll have to ask my pastor,” or, “It made sense when my pastor explained it,” then we don’t really KNOW what we believe! We’re simply passing someone else’s beliefs off as our own. We’re ripe for the picking, easy marks for deception. And if that’s the case, then we’d better get busy studying!

Although most of us aren’t teachers within the congregation (Jam. 3:1), we should all be ABLE to teach: “And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition” (2 Tim. 2:24-25). The Book of Hebrews chastises its audience for falling short: “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God” (Heb. 5:12).

On one occasion, the apostle Paul preached the Gospel “from both the Law of Moses and the Prophets, from morning till evening” (Acts 28:23). On another, he spoke for a good portion of a day, and continued all night until the following morning (Acts 20:7-11)! Could we do likewise if the occasion demanded? Could we imitate the apostle Paul? Do we know the Word of God well enough to do so? If we don’t, that’s okay. There’s no time like now to get started!

Knowing a few key verses or memorizing a few talking points isn’t knowing the Bible. Knowing a few equations isn’t knowing Algebra. That’s not mastery, that’s entry level knowledge. It will soon fail when exposed to a strong challenge.

The truth is, Bible study takes time and effort, and no matter how much we study, there’s always much more to learn. Most people simply don’t want to put in the time and effort. They want to take the easy path. How many times do we sit down in the evening and decide we’d rather watch TV, play video games, or scroll social media than study the Bible?

Do we hunger and thirst after the words of our Creator? Are we like the psalmist who wrote, “My eyes are awake through the night watches, that I may meditate on Your word” (Psa. 119:148)? Are we like Mary, who sat at Jesus’ feet and eagerly listened to His words when He came to her house (Luke 10:39-42)?

Again, in Psa. 119:103, we find, “How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” From the earliest days of our conversion until the day we die, let us devour God’s Word with the eagerness that a bear devours honey!

If any of us think we’ve already mastered the Word of God, it is certain we haven’t! If any of us think we already know enough, it is certain we don’t. “And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know” (1 Cor. 8:2). “Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him” (Prov. 26:12). “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12).

However little or much we’ve studied already, let’s open our Bibles and study more. Let’s not wait until challenged to finally open our Bibles and start studying things that we should already know! We can never be too prepared to fight the enemy, never too well grounded in the truth, and never too armed against deception.

Pray For Wisdom

Now without God’s Spirit and His wisdom, we cannot understand His words. We’d be like the rest of those in the world, who, though they can read the words in the Bible, understand little of it. They’re reading a code without the decipher key. They’re stumbling along a dark passageway without a light.

But even with God’s Spirit, we must also WANT to understand His words. We must want His truth. We must earnestly seek it out. Many people don’t really want the truth, they want reassurance that their current beliefs are true. Others happily embrace any new harebrained idea, thinking they’ve discovered secret knowledge. The fact that something is new and different is more important to them than whether it’s true or not. As we’ve seen before, many of us, at various times, want to be deceived.

But if we WANT to know the truth, then let us simply ask. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him” (Jam. 1:5). Again, we read, “Yes, if you cry out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures; then you will understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God. For the LORD gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding” (Prov. 2:3-6).

If one of our beliefs is Scripturally unsound, God will show us, as long as we’re willing to listen to Him. If we hear some new teaching, God will show us whether it agrees with His Word or not. “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and depart from evil” (Prov. 3:5-7).

Seek Counsel

Having searched the Scriptures, prayed for wisdom, and searched the Scriptures some more, there’s yet another step that we should take. This is to seek counsel from our fellow brethren and teachers in our congregations. They may have insight we don’t, or may have noticed something we haven’t. Their knowledge of God’s Word complements our own. We’re to have each other’s backs, as fellow soldiers and comrades in arms.

As King Solomon wrote, “Where there is no counsel, the people fall; but in the multitude of counselors there is safety” (Prov. 11:14). Again, “Without counsel, plans go awry, but in the multitude of counselors they are established” (Prov. 15:22). And again, “For by wise counsel you will wage your own war, and in a multitude of counselors there is safety” (Prov. 24:6).

Trying to go it alone is exceedingly foolish, and a lone sheep is easily devoured by wolves. As Prov. 18:1 tells us, “A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; he rages against all wise judgment.”

So whenever we have questions, let us share them with our brethren and teachers. When we discover something new, let us discuss it with them to see if we’re on the right track. This doesn’t mean, of course, that we should unquestioningly believe whatever counsel we might receive. No, this also must be searched out in the Scriptures and compared to the Word of God! God’s Word is the final authority.

Seek First God’s Kingdom

Question everything. Search the Scriptures. Pray for wisdom. Seek counsel. By these means, we can hold fast to the truth and cast off the lies. “Test all things; hold fast what is good” (1 Thes. 5:21). We can stand guard against the wiles of the devil and his many servants. Yet there’s one more thing to keep in mind: our time is limited.

We simply do not have time to listen to, question, and search out every harebrained idea, nor are most of them worth one second of our time. Most of us don’t have time to examine every calendar someone has dreamed up, to read and examine all the supposed long-lost books of the Bible, or to keep up with all the various conspiracy theories. Satan loves to distract us, to waste our time, to lure us into chasing rabbits rather than the Kingdom of God. He wants us to major in the minors, to spend all our time on trivial things instead of what really matters.

No, we must prioritize. Remember the words of our Savior: “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Mat. 6:33). Seek first God’s kingdom, and He will provide us with everything we need. Therefore, let us spend the time God has given us accordingly. “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is” (Eph. 5:15-17). “But avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and useless” (Tit. 3:9).

Remember, God is not the author of confusion, but Satan is. Let us heed the apostle Paul’s warning in 2 Cor. 11:3-4: “But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted — you may well put up with it!”

Let us keep our focus on God and His Word, and He shall bring us through. Question everything. Search the Scriptures continually, so that you may be ready for the enemy before he attacks. Pray for wisdom. Seek counsel. And in all these things, seek first God’s Kingdom and His righteousness.

As this world plunges deeper into darkness, we must be ever more vigilant, ever more grounded in God’s Word. Stay on guard!