One of the things I notice as search for the web sites of writers and pastors that I appreciate is that there is always a sprinkling of sights around them accusing them of heresy and of being false prophets. This is especially true of churches and pastors who minister in the fullness of the Spirit and who preach that God still moves in miraculous ways in the 21^st century.

I am often saddened by the harshness expressed in these sights that almost reflect hatred toward those who seek more of the Spirit and who have not embraced a theology that jettisoned the power of God for the church some 2000 years ago.  Undoubtedly we are not to accept every teaching that is presented to the church without question.  John specifically instructs us to test the spirits and Jesus tells us to evaluate the prophets. So lets look at some biblical guidelines for doing that and see how our critical brethren stand up.

1. Test the spirits to see whether they are from God.

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. (1 Jn.4:1-3).

False prophets in the New Testament are accused of three things primarily.  The first is false doctrines about Christ – whether or not he is the sinless Son of God, whether or not he actually came in the flesh and actually died and whether there was a physical resurrection. A number of heresies in the 1^st century denied those truths and so N.T. writers warned of such false teachings.

2. False prophets and false teachers attempted to install legalism in the church again rather than grace.  Initially, some orthodox Jewish teachers were trying to talk the followers of Christ into resubmitting to the Law of Moses as a requirement for salvation.  They didn’t deny that Jesus was the Messiah; they simply denied that salvation was by grace and faith alone rather than by keeping strict religious codes.  Later, false prophets with a Greek influence did the same forbidding marriage and laying down dietary laws and extreme self-denial as requirements to make believers acceptable to God. (See 1 Tim.4:1-5).

3. Some false prophets came preaching a grace that ignored the righteousness of God. These teachers encouraged the notion of sinning all you want because God’s grace will cover whatever you do.  These teachers taught that immorality was not an issue because you were saved by what you knew rather than by how you live.  We are not saved by how we live but the new birth and the indwelling Spirit prompt us to righteous living as evidence of our salvation. Those who “sin all the more that grace may abound” simply do not have the Spirit operating within them.

Another major issue in the church has always been division.  Those who cause division are to be marked and the church is to have nothing to do with such men. (See Titus 3:10).  There are many who believe that unity in the body is based on everyone being in doctrinal lock-step with one another and that any doctrines that vary from their own are heresies.  Yet Paul is very clear that we are to “accept him whose faith is weak without passing judgment on disputable matters.” Paul goes on to discuss faith and dietary preferences (vegetarians versus those who eat meat) and keeping one day holy or all days the same (See Rom.14:1-23) Remarkably, Paul says that believers can hold different views on dietary restrictions, holy days, what you can drink, etc. and each believer is acceptable to God. He says that we are not to judge one another in such matters.  Unity and love for one another take priority over disputable matters.

Jesus warned about false prophets and said that by their fruits you will know them.  From our list we could produce a criteria for fruit inspection that should reveal true and false prophets:

1.  Do they teach the truth about Jesus?

2.  Do they teach salvation based on faith and grace rather than works or a strict orthodoxy of belief in all facets of the faith?

3.  Do they call people to righteous living?

4.  Do they have grace for others in disputable matters?

5. Do they promote unity rather than division?

6.  Do they draw people to Jesus or push people away?

7. Since they speak for God, do they reflect the Spirit and character of Christ in all they do – love, joy peace, patience, gentleness, etc.?

I have to say, that the accusers on many websites seen to fit the criteria for false prophets more than the accused.  Their statements are vitriolic rather than loving, patient, and kind. They judge and promote division more than they accept one another  – especially regarding disputable matters such as miracles, prophecy, healing, tongues, etc.  I doubt that they have followed Matthew 18:15 which clearly states that if you have a problem with a brother you must first go and speak to him in private without airing the matter publically.  They tend to undermine faith in those who believe that God still works with power on behalf of his children and they often present a legalistic approach to salvation as they insist that we must all believe every biblical doctrine in the same way in order to be acceptable to God.

I can also tell you that those who believe in the present day power and move of the Spirit see more healings, more radical life transformation, more addictions broken, and more strongholds demolished than those who deny the power of God in these matters.  Good Fruit = Good Tree (See Matt.7:17).  I want to be clear that I am not condemning churches who don’t believe in the full ministry of the Holy Spirit.  Many of these churches are full of people who love Jesus, serve the poor, stand up for the unborn, and share their faith with others.  I wish that they would experience all the Spirit has for them but these are faithful believers.  My problem is with those who seem to carry on witch hunts and publically condemn faithful men and women who serve God and understand some scriptures differently while standing firm on doctrines about Jesus, salvation by grace, and righteous living.  I want to encourage you to not automatically reject the prophets and healers of today because of the accusations and criticisms you see on the Internet.

See what these men and women teach about the essentials of our faith, abut holy living, and see what fruit their ministries bear. Pray about it and see what the Spirit deposits in your heart about these servants of God before rejecting those who simply seek more of the Spirit.  Be blessed.

When I was young in the faith, I viewed spiritual error as drifting from the correct side of the road to the other side.  As I have grown older in the faith, I have realized that a ditch exists on both sides of the road.  Satan can damage the body of Christ and individuals in his body with either ditch.  God’s truth is in the center of the road and wandering too far left or right can put us into mud and weeds up to our bumpers.

I think one of the most subversive and diabolical strategies against the church today is the “tolerance card.”   The world rails against biblical values and biblical stances  and always polishes off its arguments with the accusation against the church of “intolerance. ”  Whoever is representing the world then smugly quotes Jesus when he said, “Judge not, lest ye be judged (Mt.7:1).

As the 21^st century presses on, fewer and fewer things are considered wrong. By today’s standards, God should have issued only two or three commandments on Sinai instead of the “pesky ten”.  Today, very few people are held responsible for their failures, shortcomings, crimes, or moral choices.  Science is being “used” as the ultimate authority to declare that hardly anyone is capable of restraint because of hormones, genetics, or brain chemistry.  Since no one can “help themselves” or because they were “born that way,” these poor people should not be held responsible for their actions.   Of course, Christians are exempt from that free pass.  They are mean, intolerant and bigoted by choice, not because they were born that way.

The greater problem is that Satan has sown that type of thinking in the church so that sincere Christians have begun to question biblical standards or, at least, their understanding of biblical standards.  Many followers of Jesus now wonder if we are being unloving and intolerant when we stand on the word of God. Too many of us give “science” more authority than the Word and begin to reason that if choices and behaviors are determined by genetics and brain chemistry, then surely God would not hold these individuals responsible and, therefore, neither should the church.  The “Christian thing to do” then becomes watering down God’s word so that it rarely means what it says or understanding morality differently now that we have been enlightened by culture and science.

In that climate, sin starts to sound old fashion and begins to be dropped from our vocabulary.  The cultural norms begin to define what is acceptable in the church and in our lives and anything that pushes back against cultural norms is unloving, intolerant, and bigoted.  Holiness loses all meaning and the church opens the door for the enemy to come in and camp out.  No wonder the church manifests no power. The next step becomes questioning biblical inspiration, biblical interpretation, and whether Jesus is really the only way to heaven. After all, that seems so intolerant and unloving.  But “unloving” is letting someone speed toward a ditch that is five hundred feet deep and certain death because we didn’t want to judge their driving practices.

The other ditch, however, can be just as devastating.  That ditch is a rigid legalism or dogmatism  in the church that divides the body of Christ over all kinds of issues that Paul says are “disputable matters.” He uses that language in Romans 14 about dietary laws, holy days, eating foods sacrificed to idols, and circumcision. Amazingly, he said the only absolute on those issues was that we could not insist that other believers understood those issues in the same way that we did.  He instructed us not to be dogmatic about those issues or demand our way since either might cause another brother to stumble.

I have always been amazed at the outcomes of the Jerusalem Conference in Act 15 regarding Gentile believers.  There was such a huge gulf between Jewish lifestyles and Gentile that I would have expected a long list of demands for changes in the life and ways of these former pagans. Yet, at the end, these new believers were asked only to change a few dietary laws, avoid sexual immorality, and to remember the poor.

We are not saying that they were not being called to biblical standards of holiness. It’s just that sometimes we believe we must all understand all of God’s word just alike or we can’t fellowship one another. If you want to know what the “big rocks” are, a quick study in “causes for withdrawal of fellowship” in the N.T. is enlightening.  I can tell you, no one got excommunicated for new expressions of worship, translations of the Bible, forms of church government, or the color of the carpet in the sanctuary.

In the New Testament, only a few things justify withholding fellowship from another believer. The first is teaching false doctrines about Christ – his deity, his Messiahship, his incarnation, his death and resurrection, and his return (2 Jn.7-11). Another is teaching that salvation is based on works rather than grace (Gal.1:8). The third is open and unrepentant immorality (1 Cor. 5:1-5). Another is causing division and disunity in the church (Rom.16:17) and, finally, we are told to have nothing to do with brothers in the Lord who refuse to work. (2 Thess.3:6).

I have served in fellowships where lines of fellowship were drawn about all kinds of things that seem to be disputable matters. Godly, biblically knowledgeable people who had every evidence of the Spirit of God living in them didn’t always agree on everything.  They often disagreed on issues related to spiritual gifts, end-times, the ministry of angels and demons, baptism of the Spirit, predestination, social issues, etc.

And yet they agreed on who Christ is and that we are saved by grace.  They worked hard, loved their families, and lived righteous lives. They worked to maintain unity in the body of Christ and yet these individuals were marked as unworthy of fellowship because they held different positions on some disputable matter.  Those who insisted on “doctrinal purity” in all doctrines, then became the ones who were actually causing divisions in the church.

Rigid doctrines about non-essentials or non-salvation issues are another huge ditch the enemy wants  to plunge us into. In today’s culture wars, I believe we will all have to guard our hearts, our lives, and our understanding against both ditches. Are we to love sinners, be tolerant of differences, and be patient while people grow? Yes, of course.  Are we to avoid judging others and being self-righteous?  Yes, of course.

But we are not to change God’s word and biblical standards and call it Christian tolerance and we are not to refrain from applying God’s word to a sinful situation so we can say we are non-judgmental. We “judge” others when we establish our own standards and call them righteous, not when we apply God’s standards.  That is called accountability and a call to repentance for the sake of our souls.

Satan can weaken and destroy believers by steering a church into either ditch.  Truth governed by love is the center-line that gives us authority over the enemy.  Pray for wisdom to always stay in the center of God’s will. Remember, that we are always growing in our understanding of God’s word and being absolutely correct in every point of doctrine is impossible because “we know in part.” But also remember that we do know what biblical standards of living and righteousness are and we have no right to change the standard or morph their meanings into culturally acceptable behaviors. Either creates a huge gap in the wall through which Satan may freely enter our lives or our church.