For people like this are not truly serving the Lord, our Messiah, but are being driven by their own desires for a following. Utilizing their smooth words and well-rehearsed blessings, they seek to deceive the hearts of innocent ones.
“Constantly be on your guard against phony prophets. They come disguised as lambs, appearing to be genuine, but on the inside they are like wild, ravenous wolves!
Delightfully loved friends, don’t trust every spirit, but carefully examine what they say to determine if they are of God, because many false prophets have mingled into the world.
But I have this against you: you are forgiving that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is seducing my loving servants. She is teaching that it is permissible to indulge in sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.
There have been some who have sneaked in among you unnoticed. They are depraved people whose judgment was prophesied in Scripture a long time ago. They have perverted the message of God’s grace into a license to commit immorality and turn against our only absolute Master, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Numerous deceivers have surfaced from among us and gone out into the world, people who will not acknowledge Jesus Christ coming as a man. These deceivers are antichrists!
For the time is coming when they will no longer listen and respond to the healing words of truth because they will become selfish and proud. They will seek out teachers with soothing words that line up with their desires, saying just what they want to hear.
I met with them privately because false “brothers” had been secretly smuggled into church meetings. They were sent to spy on the wonderful freedom that we have in Jesus Christ. Their agenda was to bring us back into the bondage of religion.
The man in white linen continued: “In his place will rise a despised usurper of the throne, who had no claim to royal status. He will attack the kingdom when the people least suspect it, and he will seize the kingdom through deceit.