“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world” (1 John 4:11When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, (John 4:1)).
The recognition of the lordship of our Saviour with due allegiance and obedience is that which would cause us to “try the spirits whether they are of God.” Happy are those who look wholly to His good pleasure for their guidance. This is a time when allegiance to Him is put to the test, because Satan will deceive with increasing unrighteousness. The deception begins with unbelief in the lordship of Jesus Christ. Insubjection to the Lord and compromise with the world leads to commending what is earthly religion.
We are instructed to prove “the spirits” — to prove them by the work of the prophets who speak by these spirits. First, they must be proved by their work, which is not confessing Jesus come in flesh and therefore Lord of all men. Second, they speak as of the world. These are two very plain things, that there is no need that men should be deceived. Obeying Jesus as Lord will make us disown what He disowns and hold the good confession of the hope He has given.
We must not suppose that being false prophets “of the antichrist” makes those who are animated by this spirit speak like men possessed, acting violently and madly; they would in this case be quickly suspected or disregarded. In order to persuade men, they must propose some advantage, something that honors mankind. They say that man in his own honor and dignity has true nobility, that death is no judgment of God.
Man is so formed of God that some acknowledgment of Him is natural and necessary as a right condition of his existence. Wholly to reject Him is to denaturalize himself. But they do not acknowledge the lordship of Jesus. In politics man considers himself to be self-sufficient, as the Egyptian said of the Nile, “My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.” This simple characteristic is sufficient to try the spirits, and it brings about a sweeping judgment. But God judges all things in truth and gives a simple rule by which to judge, and all those not in Christ will be found out of Him. Their word will be as of the world, independent of God. These are they that speak by the spirit of antichrist. And the Apostle says, “Many false prophets are gone out into the world.”
But if the spirit of antichrist is at work, the same will produce a false prophet far above the rest. How wise is the arch-enemy! But you have here, in the description of the false prophets and their works, the sure marks of their beginning, and they lead to a solemn end.
The False Prophet
The development of the present state is leading to the time when there will be a great false prophet — antichrist (Dan. 11:36; 236And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done. (Daniel 11:36) Thess. 2; Rev. 13:1111And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. (Revelation 13:11)). The power he will receive of Satan will be very great. His business will be to commend the beast to whom Satan gives his power, throne and great authority. He, the false prophet, will deceive mankind by signs, wonders and miracles, even fire from heaven in men’s sight, to cause them to obey the beast out of the sea whom Satan has set up imperially as man’s glory and boast.
There will be a great cause of many falling into his deception because of the miracles and wonders which are done. They will be ascribed to God, but in this way men will give credit to Satan and be deceived. Scripture is plain on the subject, that as miracles were wrought at the beginning of Christianity, so miracles at the close of the age will be from the evil one, not from God. Men then will not discover the deceit, but will wonder and worship. The false prophet will, without doubt, find his representatives, who by the same deceit will commend the same lie to those subject to them, not to God — indeed all those whose names are not written in the slain Lamb’s book of life. Christianity will not fall into ignorance like heathenism, but into apostasy — into the full confidence of human intelligence and hatred of Christ. The false prophet will receive his doom with the head of the Roman Empire, as we learn from Revelation 17.
Who Is Lord Over Us?
It is not said that the prophets mentioned in 1 John 4 do any miracles. Their task is more ordinary; their primary character is that they do not confess Christ come in flesh. They say, as it were, “Who is Lord over us?” They speak as of the world and of its religion. But the time will come when, through hearing the deception of unrighteousness, they will be snared in the hands of the enemy through false miracles. At length the great false prophet, and those connected with him, will bring men into the last measure of deception and rebellion against the Lord. The time is not far off. It is written that in the last time false prophets shall come on the earth and speak by the power of antichrist. And this is written to warn and quicken those who confess the Lord, that they also be not deceived. “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world. They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them” (1 John 4:4-54And he must needs go through Samaria. 5Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. (John 4:4‑5)).
P. T., adapted, The Bible Treasury