WHY WE DO NOT RECOGNIZE

ANY MODERN DAY PROPHETS

400 YEARS before the birth of Christ (400 B.C.) no true prophets of God appeared for the following reasons:

The entire Old Testament has been written and its books were made available as guide for God’s people.

It was God’s will that a period of about 400 years should lapse between the prophecies of the Messiah and His actual (first) coming.

The cessation of New Testament prophecy came when this portion (NT) of God’s Word was completed in 69 A.D. The completion of the Canon of the New Testament explained the absent of prophecy in the post-Canon Church Age.

In the early Church Age, men were called prophets only in the extended sense of presenting the people of God truths received from careful study of the Bible doctrine. Not truth received by direct revelation from God.

PURPOSES OF PROPHECY in the Old Testament:

1. Rebuke and encouragement to the people of God (Isaiah 1:31-2:5).
2. Revelation of facts about God and his creation.
3. Advance or information as to the action to be taken on a specific occasion [Isaiah 7:5-8, Jeremiah 38:17-21]
4. Authentication of a divinely appointed political or spiritual leader [1 Samuel 3:19-21, Jeremiah 38:15-17].
5. Laying a foundation for the climax of all the divine activities in the future work of Christ [Isaiah 7:14, 52:13-53:12]. 

1. A true prophet must speak in the name of the Lord [Deut. 18:20-22]. He spoke what he was told to speak.
2. A true prophet may produce a sign or wonder [Deut. 13:1-2].
3. The prediction given by a true prophet may be visibly consummated [Jeremiah 28:13 and Isaiah 44:28, 45:13].
4. The prophecy of a true prophet is in conformity with the previous revelation [Deut. 13:1-5, Galatians 1:8].

FALSE PROPHETS were men predicted or prophesied in the name of a false god or idol [Jeremiah 2:8, 23:13].

False prophets are men who falsely claimed to receive messages from the Lord [1 Kings 22].

False prophets are men who ceased to be true prophets of God because of material benefits they gained or because of compromise with false and twisted doctrine they upholds [1 Kings 13].

False prophets are teaching another Jesus and another salvation. They have another faith and another gospel.

They glorify and exalt men above God. They honor men above the Lord.

The modern day false prophets are worse than the Old Testament false prophets in the sense that they are more greedy, devious, wicked in many aspects. They are excellent deceiver and liars that their very words are regarded as the word of God.

YES INDEED! We have prophets today and they are 100% false prophets of Satan, men who reverse the Word of God for their own gains.

ANTICHRISTS & ANTICHRIST

ANTICHRIST (pseudochristo) refers to a person who denies Jesus Christ as God and Savior of all men. The term is found only in John’s epistles, which can mean: AGAINST CHRIST –one who opposes Christ or INSTEAD OF CHRIST –one who assumes the guise of Christ. There is a great difference between ANTICHRIST and ANTICHRIST.

ANTICHRIST refers to the various forerunners of the Antichrist himself. There are four categories of antichrists in the world today:

A PERSON WHO IS AGAINST CHRIST refers to anyone who rejected Christ from personal conviction, deceived by erroneous doctrines, evil scheming or enticed by antichrists movements. They are antagonistic, negative and critical toward God and His plan of grace.

They are enslaved by established and legalistic religion. They are enslaved by some distorted idealism, church rituals and traditions, or by demonic power.

A PERSON WHO PROFESS TO KNOW GOD BUT REJECTS CHRIST refers to the professing believers without true relationship with God. They are the wolves in sheep clothing, replacing Christ with another Jesus. They replaced Bible doctrine with another gospel, and the true salvation with another faith.

They are enslaved to humanistic social gospel. They accept the secularization of the church with all kinds of modern and liberal humanistic views. They are open to ecumenism, liberalism, and to all kinds of new teachings. The local churches are infiltrated with their new ideology without knowing it.

A SAVED PERSON WHO IGNORES THE LORDSHIP OF CHRIST in his life [1 John 2:8-11] refers to carnal believer who ignores the Lordship.

They are ignorant of Bible doctrine and always running ahead of God. They are walking against the will of God in every way and all the way. They reject the plan of God and substitute it with their own plan.

A PERSON WHO CLAIMED TO KNOW CHRIST BUT OPENLY OPPOSES HIM refers to those who made decision to reject and replace Christ with someone else. They are the religious leaders who are deceiving and misleading people. They are satanic emissaries who hinder the preaching of the true Gospel and persecute believers.

THE ANTICHRIST (pseudochristo)  will appeared during the Great Tribulation and refers to the evil power that already operates anticipatively of the Antichrist [1 John 4:3]. He is the first Beast [Revelation 13:1-10], the man of sin [2 Thessalonians 2:3-4].

He is the false Christ of the Great Tribulation who will not deny the existence of Christ, but will trade upon the very expectation of Christ Second coming, affirming that he is the true Christ.

He is Antichrist theologically because he will claim to be God himself [2 Thessalonians 2:4].

He is Antichrist politically because he will attempt to rule the whole world.

He is Antichrist satanically because he will use and prosper in satanic power.

The ANTICHRISTS could be anybody who reject and ignore Christ. The Antichrist is one and only person of the Tribulation whose triple imperfection is symbolize by 666 [Revelation 13:18].

APOSTASY

THERE ARE 5 categories of APOSTASY (APOSTASIA: apostasia = falling away) in the Scripture:

FALLING AWAY AS TO REJECT THE PERSON OF CHRIST (1 John 2:19, 4:6) refers to a person who does not depart from where he is, but standing away – having chosen from the beginning to stay away, not to believe instead of believing.

This refers to those who would reject Christ not to the saved persons who would depart [2 Thessalonians 2:3, Acts 21:21].

FALLING AWAY AS IN LIVING A LIFE OF SIN THAT DENIES THE FAITH. This is in reference to believers who have been enlightened, tasted the goodness of the Lord but turn away from faith. It involves the deliberate shifting of the KARDIA from partial obedience to total disobedience. The issue here is not salvation but the lost opportunity to spiritual maturity [Hebrews 6:4-8].

It is IMPOSSIBLE TO RENEW THEM AGAIN TO REPENTANCE. It indicates several things:

The statement is an unclear translation of a Greek philosophical language.

The believer cannot loss his salvation. For it is based on the essence of God not on wavering faith [2 Timothy 2:11-13].

Our salvation is the finished Work of God, there is nothing to add and there is nothing to change.

The believer in this context decided NOT TO REBOUND or changes his mind. God respect that decision and execute the divine discipline of SIN UNTO DEATH [Hebrews 10:26, 1 Corinthians 11:28-32].

JR Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries

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