Hello, brothers and sisters:
My name is Li Li. I’m a leader in charge of a house church. We hear someone preach that the Lord Jesus has already returned, yet we see that in the Bible the Lord Jesus said: “Then if any man shall say to you, See, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; so that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (Mat 24:23–24). From these words, we can understand that when the Lord returns, all kinds of false Christs and false prophets will arise to deceive believers. Thereupon, we dare not seek and investigate this preaching as we are afraid of being deceived by false Christs. However, thinking that the Lord said: “Surely I come quickly” (Rev 22:20), we fear that we will lose the opportunity of welcoming the Lord if He comes back. We feel so anxious in our hearts. Brothers and sisters, I want to seek from you how to appropriately practice in the matter of welcoming the coming of the Lord. Moreover, please fellowship with us about how to distinguish between the true Christ and false Christs.
Li Li
Jan 2, 2018
Sister Li Li:
Hello! As a leader of a church, you are responsible for the lives of brothers and sisters. You seek out fellowship, which is an action of having a thirst for truth and caring for God’s intentions. Now is the tail end of the last days, is the critical time when the Lord Jesus returns. It is certain that lots of false Christs will arise and deceive man during this time. We can understand your feeling of being afraid to be deceived and thus lose the chance of being raptured. Regarding your question, we will seek the truth and have a fellowship together.
We all know that the Lord Jesus once promised He would come back to receive us after He prepared a place for us. Nowadays, the last days have arrived. If we always deny claims of the Lord’s return and dare not seek and investigate for we are frightened of being deceived by false Christs, how can we welcome the Lord? The Lord Jesus once told us: “And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom comes; go you out to meet him” (Mat 25:6). “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (Jhn 10:27). And it is emphasized many times in Revelation that “He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (Rev 2:7). Through these words, we understand that when the Lord comes back He will still express His voice. Only those who hear the voice of the Lord and then recognize Him can welcome the Lord, and such men are the clever virgins and the sheep of the Lord. If someone witnesses the Lord has come back, but we neither seek to investigate it, nor hear the Lord’s utterances, then how can we welcome Him?
When studying the prophecies of the coming of the Lord, many Christians give priority to guarding against false Christs and false prophets, but don’t pay more attention to how to receive the coming of the bridegroom and how to hear the voice of the bridegroom. What problem is this? Isn’t this the behavior of giving up eating for fear of choking and losing the greater for the less? In fact, no matter how man guards against false Christs and false prophets, if we can’t welcome the return of the Lord and can’t be raptured in front of God’s throne, then we will be foolish virgins and be eliminated and abandoned by God. Then won’t our belief in God be an utter failure?
If we would like to welcome the return of the Lord and not be deceived by false Christs and false prophets, we have to be clear about how false Christs deceive man. Actually, the Lord Jesus has already told us about the practices of false Christs and false prophets. The Lord Jesus said: “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; so that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (Mat 24:24). From the words of the Lord Jesus, we can know that false Christs and false prophets deceive God’s chosen people mainly through showing great signs and wonders, which is their main manifestation. In this point, we must understand that the reason why false Christs display signs and wonders to deceive man is because they don’t have any truth. In nature and substance, they are extremely wicked evil spirits. And they aren’t able to do the work of saving and purifying man at all, nor can they show us the way or bestow life upon us, so they only lean on showing signs and wonders to deceive man. If they had the truth, they absolutely wouldn’t use signs and wonders to deceive man. Therefore, that false Christs and false prophets show some signs and wonders exposes that they have no other tricks left to play. We must see through this point. Otherwise, it is easy for us to be deceived.
I saw two paragraphs of words in a spiritual book: “If, during the present day, there is to emerge a person who is able to display signs and wonders, cast out demons, heal the sick, and perform many miracles, and if this person claims that they are Jesus who has come, then this would be a counterfeit produced by evil spirits which imitate Jesus. Remember this! God does not repeat the same work. Jesus’ stage of work has already been completed, and God will never again undertake that stage of work. … In the notions of man, God must always display signs and wonders, must always heal the sick and cast out demons, and must always be just like Jesus. Yet this time, God is not like that at all. If, during the last days, God still displayed signs and wonders, and still cast out demons and healed the sick—if He did exactly the same as Jesus—then God would be repeating the same work, and the work of Jesus would have no significance or value. Thus, God carries out one stage of work in every age. Once each stage of His work has been completed, it is soon imitated by evil spirits, and after Satan begins to follow on the heels of God, God changes to a different method. Once God has completed a stage of His work, it is imitated by evil spirits. You must be clear about this.” “Not ever does the work of God conform to the notions of man, for His work is always new and never old, and never does He repeat old work, but rather forges ahead with work never done before.”
Sister, from these words we can know God is always new and never old. He doesn’t do the same work. Just as when the Lord Jesus came to work, He opened up the Age of Grace, ended the Age of Law and did a stage of the work of redemption: He healed the sick, cast out demons, performing lots of signs and wonders, and bestowed abundant grace upon man; finally He was crucified on the cross and redeemed man from sin. The Lord Jesus’ work of redeeming man has already been accomplished and God will never do it again. What about false Christs? They are all evil spirits that pretend to be Christ, simply unable to do the work of ushering in a new age and ending the old age. They can only imitate the Lord Jesus by displaying some simple signs and wonders to deceive man who is confused and has no discernment, but cannot copy the miracles the Lord Jesus did, so of course they absolutely can’t achieve, for example, the Lord Jesus resurrecting the dead, using only five loaves of bread and two fish to feed five thousand people, and rebuking the wind and sea. Now, we know that false Christs don't have any truth and can't open and close an age, we can know the reason why the Lord Jesus once warned us: “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; so that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (Mat 24:24). He did so to let us guard against those evil spirits that imitate the Lord Jesus by displaying signs and wonders. They are false Christs, are the ones that we should discern and reject. This is the Lord’s intention in these words. However, we didn’t understand the Lord’s will and mistook His word and even condemned all testimonies of the Lord's coming as fake. Isn’t this too preposterous? Don’t we go against God’s good intention? We can do such absurd things, which not only indicates that we have no discernment of false Christs, but also shows that we don’t understand how to know the true Christ!
We see another paragraph of words: “God become flesh is called Christ, and so the Christ that can give people the truth is called God. There is nothing excessive about this, for He possesses the essence of God, and possesses God’s disposition, and wisdom in His work, that are unattainable by man. Those who call themselves Christ, yet cannot do the work of God, are frauds. Christ is not merely the manifestation of God on earth, but also the particular flesh assumed by God as He carries out and completes His work among man. This flesh cannot be supplanted by just any man, but is a flesh that can adequately bear God’s work on earth, and express the disposition of God, and well represent God, and provide man with life. Sooner or later, those who impersonate Christ will all fall, for although they claim to be Christ, they possess none of the essence of Christ. And so I say that the authenticity of Christ cannot be defined by man, but is answered and decided by God Himself.” Sister, Christ is the incarnate God, is the flesh that God’s Spirit is materialized in, which is to say that what God has and is, God’s disposition and wisdom, are all materialized in the flesh. Christ possesses the substance of divinity, is the embodiment of the truth. He can express the truth to supply and shepherd man at any time and any place. Only Christ can do the work of redeeming and saving man, which can’t be imitated by anyone. This is indeed the fact no one can deny. On the contrary, false Christs are all possessed by evil spirits, and are all extremely arrogant and ridiculous. They are evil spirits and demons, so no matter how they show signs and wonders, distort the Bible or speak some profound knowledge and doctrines, all they do is deceive, harm, and ruin man, and won’t provide any edification for man, only making man continuously fall into darkness, have no way to walk on and be devoured by Satan in the end. It is obvious that all false Christs and false prophets are the incarnation of Satan and evil demons which are to interrupt and disturb God’s work. Thereupon, no matter how many people they deceive, harm or ruin, they will fall and disappear soon for they don’t have any truth. Sister, if we truly understand the truth about how to distinguish between the true Christ and false Christs, we definitely won’t refuse to hear God’s voice or welcome the appearance of God as we fear to be deceived by false Christs.
Sister Li Li, as to how to tell the true Christ from false Christs, you may have some knowledge of it. Only Christ is the truth, the way, the life. The One who can usher in a new age and conclude the former age, can express the truth to purify and save man and bestow life on man, is Christ. Those who can’t express the truth but can only show some simple signs and wonders to deceive man are certainly false Christs, are frauds. This is the basic principle of distinguishing between the true Christ and false Christs. All who seek and investigate the true way should obey this principle to seek and confirm the voice of God. This definitely can’t be wrong. If we understand this aspect of the truth, we will not worry about being deceived by false Christs and false prophets.
Source From: Find the shepherd