Matthew 24:24, “False Christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.” John saw evidences of the last days not only in the victorious spread of the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit, but also in the multiplication of false Christs and false prophets and deceivers in the world.

If John saw that as a sign of the end, how much more should we be alert. That’s why it is clear, we live in the last hour of deception.

2 Thessalonians 2:9, “The coming of the lawless one by the activity of Satan will be with all power and with signs and wonders of falsehood, and with wicked deception for those who are to perish.”

Satan has always been a great imitator. When the rod of Aaron turned into a snake as a sign of God’s power, the Egyptian sorcerers turned their rods into snakes too by their secret arts (Exodus 7:11). One reason the new age fads are going to sweep so many away in our day is that they are not just fads: they have real satanic power behind them and there will be real signs and wonders worked not by God but by Satan, and people will be deceived. Revelation 12:9 says Satan is the deceiver of “the whole world.”

1 John 3:7. John says, “Little children, let no one deceive you [he has the false teachers in view]. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous.” He is saying beware of the false teachers because what they say is that you can be righteous and not practice righteousness. “Let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous.”

John opposes not only their view of Christ, that they disconnect his person from his ordinary bodily life of doing things, but he also opposes their view of the Christian life when they disconnected our person from our ordinary bodily life of doing things:

They say, The flesh didn’t really matter for Jesus; what mattered was that somehow, in a spiritual way, he was the Christ and there was no real union of the pre-existent Christ and the physical man Jesus.

And our flesh doesn’t really matter either; but somehow, in a spiritual way, we are born again, but there is no real union between that new creation and our physical life that does righteousness or does sin.”

This led directly to the error that John points out in 1 John 3:7, that you can be righteous in some spiritual way, and yet not do righteousness in your ordinary physical life.
We live in the last hour of deception.

The Word of God and the Spirit of God protect us from deception and lead us into eternal life.

The most important thing to focus on is how the Word and the Spirit work together to guard us from deception.

Knowing Truth Is a Gift of the Spirit

To know the truth is a gift of the Holy Spirit. 1 John 2:20–21: “You have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all know (or you know all things). I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and know that no lie is of the truth.”

The anointing probably refers to the coming of the Holy Spirit into our lives. Acts 10:38 says that Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit. And 1 John 4:13 says that God has given us of his Spirit. So the anointing referred to in verses 20 and 27 is probably the pouring of the Holy Spirit into our hearts when we are born again.

You have the Holy Spirit from God in you and so you know the truth. The Holy Spirit which you received from God abides in you and so you have no need that any one should teach you. That is, you don’t need these progressive prophets who claim to add new information about Christ beyond the truth you heard at the beginning.

The Holy Spirit Enables Us to Know the Truth

We can be certain that the antichrists and false prophets are claiming to have revelations from the Holy Spirit when they give their new revelation that Jesus is not really the Son of God come in the flesh.

That’s why 4:1 warns the church not to believe every spirit, but to “test the spirits to see whether they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

Every cult or false prophet does the same thing, or says the same thing. They claim some special revelation beyond the original one of the apostles, or it claims to have specially inspired prophets who give the hidden interpretation of the Bible.

1 John 2:24 is the key. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you.

If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you will abide in the Son and in the Father.”

John is not saying that the anointing of the Spirit enables us to know the truth of Christ by giving additional information beyond what they heard from the beginning. On the contrary John is intent on telling them they have enough revelation in what they heard from the beginning. He does not want to set them off in pursuit of something new.

1 John 2:7, “Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment which you had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard.”

John makes sure he states clearly that the church needs NO new revelation. It needs to let the original apostolic teaching about Christ abide in them.

We are what we repeatedly do, excellence then, is not a act but a habit, Aristotle

The Word Tests the Spirit

2 John 9 warns about the danger of progressiveness and newness in the doctrine of Christ: “Any one who goes ahead [progresses] and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God; he who abides in the doctrine has both the Father and the Son.”

The Holy Spirit does not expand the apostolic teaching of Christ. On the contrary, the Word tests the Spirit. 1 John 4:2 says, “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus has come in the flesh is of God.”

The Spirit agrees with the apostolic doctrine or it is not the Spirit of God. This is why we reject the teaching of these false prophets, because their claims does not square with the faith once for all delivered to the saints in the teaching of the apostles.

The work of the Holy Spirit is not to take us beyond the teaching of the apostles. It is to help us accept and abide in that teaching.

1 John 2:24: “Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you.”

The humble listening that accepts the truth of Christ and submits gladly to it, that listening is a sign of the Spirit of truth at work in the heart.

So the testimony of the Spirit that assures us that we are the children of God is the work of the Spirit to make us listen to the gospel submissively (verse 6) and confess the Christ of the gospel heartily (verse 2).

The point of 4:1–6 is not merely to give us a doctrinal test for discerning false prophets. The point is to give a test also for recognizing the true Spirit. Therefore the test must be more than doctrinal, because true doctrine by itself is no sure sign of the work of the Spirit. Anybody can say true doctrines with his lips. But only the Spirit can make sinners really listen and really confess the truth of Jesus.

The Christians to which John is writing have conquered the false prophets. They have conquered them in that they have not been swept away by their deception (2:14, 26). The prophets have attacked with their defective views of Christ, and the Christians have stood firm. They have not yielded. They have conquered. They have remained orthodox and loyal to the Son of God incarnate in the man Jesus Christ.

How? How did they conquer? The foe was not merely human. Satan himself, the god of this age, empowered the false prophets, and he is extraordinarily subtle and deceptive. John says they conquered because he who was in them is greater than he was in the world, they conquered by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is more powerful than the satanic forces of deception and blindness.

When you are threatened by any deception of the evil one—any temptation, or discouragement, or anxiety, or cowardice—remind yourself that “he who is in you is greater than he that is in the world.

2 Peter 2:1-9

2 But there arose false prophets also among the people, as among you also there shall be false teachers, who shall privily bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Master that bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

Their Message

The Source Test

Do they have as the source of their information the Word of God? Does it come from any other source other than the Bible? It must come from the Word of God. Find out if this person bases all that he says, all that he believes upon the Word of God.

The Savior Test

What do they believe about the Lord Jesus Christ? Do they believe that Jesus Christ is the very Son of God? Virgin born?

The Subject Test

What is the subject of their preaching? When you let all of the air out of it, when you boil it down, is it the Gospel of Jesus Christ? That Christ died for our sins, that He was buried, that He was raised again the third day, do they preach the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ?

The Salvation Test

Do they even talk about salvation, and how do they say you’re saved? By sending money to him? By some good works that you may do? Is it man-centered, or is it God-centered?

The Sanctification Test

Does that person live a clean, pure, godly, holy life, and does he teach others to do so? Now false prophets may pass one or two or three of these. They may say, “Yes, we believe the Bible is the Word of God,” or they may say, “Yes, we believe in the full deity of Christ.” Measure them. If they are not bringing the right message, they are a false prophet.

Their Method

2 Peter 2:1 in verse 1, “they will privily bring in damnable heresies.” Look at the word “privily.” It means to secretly bring in. Actually, the word has the idea of laying something along side something else. Laying something good alongside something that is bad.

Very few false teachers and false prophets will just deny the whole scope of Christianity. As a matter of fact, some of them will affirm what you and I believe.

Their Manner

Pernicious, it means unbridled lust. It means lasciviousness. Apostasy and immorality are always linked together? Jude, whose book is very much like 2 Peter, said in Jude verse 4, “For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Their Motive

verse 3, “And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you.” Their motive is to merchandise the Gospel. They call themselves prophets, but you spell that “P-R-O-F-I-T.” Merchandising the Word of God! Making merchandise of you with false words.

Remember what has happened to them.

“For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment …”

Don’t get the idea that God somehow is going to overlook this. Why, the Bible makes it clear and the Bible makes it plain that judgment has already been executed. The last part of verse 3—the Bible says, “whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.” What that means is that the sentence has already been passed but it has not yet been carried out, but it will be carried out and God is giving an example, here in His Word.

There are several kinds of false prophets,

The heretic

The Heretic is the person who teaches what blatantly contradicts an essential teaching of the Christian faith. He is a gregarious figure, a natural leader teaching just enough truth to mask his deadly error. Yet in denying the faith and celebrating what is false, he leads his followers from the safety of orthodoxy to the peril of heresy.

The Charlatan

The Charlatan is the person who uses Christianity as a means of personal enrichment. Paul charged Timothy to be on guard against him. “If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain” (1 Timothy 6:3-5).

The Prophet, a New Revelation

The Prophet claims to be gifted by God to speak fresh revelation outside of Scripture, new, authoritative words of prediction, teaching, rebuke, or encouragement. In reality, though, he is commissioned and empowered by Satan for the purpose of misleading and disrupting Christ’s church. John offered an urgent warning about him. (1 John 4:1).

The Abuser

The Abuser uses his position of leadership to take advantage of other people. Usually, he takes advantage of them to feed his sexual lust, though he may also desire power. Both Peter and Jude were aware of the Abuser’s way “And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed” (2 Peter 2:2).

The apostate

The apostate denies the faith, denies Christianity, he apostatizes, departs from it. Just take your Bible and check it, it’s easy to spot apostasy because they’re denying it.

The Divider

The Divider uses false doctrine to disrupt or destroy a church. He divides brother from brother and sister from sister. Jude warned about him: “‘In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.’ It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life” (Jude 18-21).

Congregations and denominations have often been splintered by the Divider as he sometimes makes a minor doctrine into the mark of Christian maturity, causing factions to arise within the body.

The Ear Tickler

The Tickler craves popularity and praise from the world. He is the false teacher who cares nothing for what God wants and everything for what men want. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

The Speculator, Open Theology

The Speculator is the one obsessed with novelty, originality, or speculation. The Speculator tosses aside the bulk of the Bible’s content and the weight of the Bible’s emphasis in order to obsess about matters that are trivial or novel. Hebrews warns the church of these “strange teachings,” while Paul told Timothy to protect the church against any “different doctrine” (Hebrews 13:9, 1 Timothy 1:3).

The Speculator obsesses about the End Times, and somehow his failed predictions dissuade neither himself nor his followers. He can be seen obscuring the clear message of Scripture to search for hidden codes in Scripture. Sometimes he plants himself in academia, where one of his recent masterpieces is a re-imagined God who is unable to see and know the future. Well did Paul label the Speculator a contradictory, irreverent babbler (1 Timothy 6:20-21).

The deceiver

The deceiver is the one Jesus is referring to here, the one you don’t see, this is the one who comes with the cloak of the shepherd.

This is the one who talks about Jesus, the cross, God, the Bible, the church, the Holy Spirit and he hangs around with people that are true Christians .

They are on the radio and television, in the pulpit, writes books and always looks like a Christian.

2 Corinthians 11:14 “Satan comes masquerading as an angel of light.” He comes hidden, among us. And don’t be surprised, he says in if his ministers are angels of light.

Jude 4 says, “They creep in unawares.” They’re all over the place.

First of all they’re pleasant and they’re nice, they smile a lot, they seem positive, they seem affirming, they seem Christian, they hang around with Christians, they appear to be thoroughly Christian, they talk Christian talk, they seem to say the right things.

It isn’t what they say, it’s what they don’t ever say.

The false prophets lead to damnation.

They say, “Have we not prophesied in your name?” We’ve been Your preachers.

We’ve been preaching in Your name, it doesn’t mean getting revelations it just means we’ve been declaring in Your name. “And Jesus said, I’ll profess unto them, I never knew you; depart.”