Anti-Christ and the children of God have a very different spirit.

1 John 4:1-11

Click for a description of the mark of the beast.
Click for a description of the image of the beast.

• Spirit of the Anti-Christ does not acknowledge Jesus Christ to be Lord.
• Spirit of truth and error is known by who hears the testimony of Christ and who don’t.
• Living in love is to know God, without love there is no knowledge of God.

Spirit of the Anti-Christ does not acknowledge Jesus Christ to be Lord. “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. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world. 1 John 4:1-3

The Apostle John gives a straightforward way to test the spirits: if one acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, they are of God; if they do not acknowledge this, they are not of God. The spirit of the Anti-Christ does not acknowledge that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.

Click here for a post on the one Anti-Christ and the many anti-Christs in 1 John 2:18-28.

The spirit of the Anti-Christ dominates today’s culture, which is global. Today’s culture lives by the atheistic entity that gives them what to say, feel, think, and do, and this entity is their leader, the Anti-Christ. The Anti-Christ gives life to the image of the beast to live and speak through the many anti-Christs of the global culture. The masses of the global culture are groomed to the mark of the beast, possessing the spirit of the Anti-Christ, by what they are given to say and do. They do not acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ who has come in the flesh.

Spirit of truth and error is known by who hears the testimony of Christ and who don’t. “You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them. We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” 1 John 4:4-6

Those of us who live for God through Jesus Christ are of God because we acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ. We have overcome the many anti-Christs who form today’s culture and ridicules our belief in God, belittles our faith in Jesus Christ, and uses the Holy Spirit for target practice. We are overcomers because Jesus Christ lives in us through the Holy Spirit and He is greater than the one who is in this world.

Today’s culture is worldly; it speaks of worldly matters, and the world listens. This is easily seen in the emphasis on human beings to bolster human dignity, esteem, and self-worth. They speak about the need to depend on human reasoning and efforts as the pathway to save humanity and the planet. Those who are worldly listen to one another and to the “universe,” seeking guidance from earthly wisdom. They follow the principles of humanism, which is the fig leaf worn by the anti-Christs, as the Anti-Christ gives them what to say, do, feel, and think. Humanism is of this world and is “…an outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters. Humanist beliefs stress the potential value and goodness of human beings, emphasize common human needs, and seek solely rational ways of solving human problems…”

We belong to God, and everyone who knows God listens to one another as a family, united in our recognition of Jesus as the Christ and our Lord and Savior, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish…” John 10:27-28 Those who do not belong to God turn a deaf ear to the Good News of the Gospel of Christ. This is how we distinguish between the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

Living in love is to know God, without love there is no knowledge of God. “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” 1 John 4:7-11

What more is there to say? Let us love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows Him. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because He is love. This is how God’s love was revealed among us: God sent His one and only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. Love is not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to atone for our sins. Since God has loved us in this way, we also should love one another.

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“….to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan’s so-called deep secrets,“
‘I will not impose any other burden on you, except to hold on to what you have until I come.’”
“I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.”
Revelation 2:24-25, 3:1