Morning Devotional February 25, 2023

 

1 John 4:1-3

“1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.

2 Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:

3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.”

The past few weeks so called revivals have broken out all over our country. I have seen some Baptists get in heated arguments over whether these meetings are truly Holy Spirit driven or if they are more of the same charismatic/Pentecostal dribble we have seen with similar meetings in the past. Some are even trying to compare these to the Great Awakenings that took place in the early days of our country.

Something we often forget about those Great Awakenings of old is that they started out with hell, fire, and brimstone preaching. Men like Jonathan Edwards with his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” preached how our sins were leading us to hell and without repentance and belief in Jesus Christ we have no hope.

In all the news articles I have read and all the others I have heard speak on this matter, there seems to be no preaching of the gospel. Matter of fact there seems to be no preaching at all in some of these meetings. Only spiritualized music and singing, oh! signs and miracles!

My thought on all this hoopla is it is nothing more than “that spirit of antichrist” John wrote of in our text verses. It comes in and makes people feel good about themselves, we hear people say “if you come to this meeting you will be so blessed” or “the Holy Spirit is moving greatly among us all here” or the old standby “Jesus loves everybody, if you will come he can love you too”. What out and out blasphemy we are hearing and no one seems to be seeing it as such but God Himself!!!

It is these types of meetings that is why John warned us about when he said to “try the spirits”. Yet, so many will say that as long as they are claiming the name of Jesus we have no right to doubt the moving of the Holy Spirit upon those in attendance. We need to remember that the spirit of antichrist can and will present himself as though he were the Christ. Hence the name antichrist.

The first question we should be asking is “are they following the commandments of Christ?” A serious look at what is going on will answer this right away. Of course they are not following the commandments of Christ. For one, telling people Jesus loves everybody is antichrist. Telling people to come to one of these meetings and you will experience the Holy Spirit, is antichrist.

Jesus never said He loves everybody. Matter of fact Jesus said He loved those whom His Father gave Him. Is the Holy Spirit moving there like they say? I don't believe so. I do believe, if there are some of God's children there the Holy Spirit is there in them. But not moving throughout the crowd as they claim. I dare say the spirit that is moving throughout the crowd is that spirit of antichrist John wrote of.

Notice the vast majority of these meetings consist of singing and chanting only. Not much if any preaching. Where is the example of this type of meeting in the Bible? You won't find it in the New Testament for sure.

My purpose in all this is when we hear of these things going on in our day, before we praise God for such, let us try the spirits. Let us make for certain it is of God before we give God the glory for something He is not a part of.

Praise ye the Lord!!!