TO CHEW ON: "By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is from God is not from God. This is the spirit of antichrist, which you heard was coming, and now is in the world already." 1 John 4:2-3
Professor Albert Mohler writes of a Rev. Klaas Hendrikse and new developments in the PKN, a mainstream Protestant denomination in the Netherlands:
"Pastor Hendrikse doesn’t believe in life after death, nor even in God as a supernatural being. He told the BBC that he has 'no talent' for believing historic and orthodox doctrines. 'God is not a being at all,' he says, 'but just an experience.'
Furthermore, as Pigott (the BBC reporter who broke this story) reports, 'Mr. Hendrikse describes the Bible’s account of Jesus’s life as a mythological story about a man who may never have existed, even if it is a valuable source of wisdom about how to lead a good life.'”
According to 1 John 4:2-3, such views are not new. They were present in the early church, persist to this day, and shouldn't confuse us. John labels the spirit from which they come the "spirit of antichrist."
And how can we inoculate ourselves from becoming infected with this spirit? By becoming familiar with God's word and what it says about Jesus. Because beliefs not founded on God's word become something other than Christianity entirely.
Professor Hijme Stoffels of the Free University of Amsterdam called the new approach to Christianity in the Netherlands “somethingism.” The majority of Dutch citizens, he explains, desire some form of spirituality, but not the God of the Bible: “There must be something between heaven and earth, but to call it ‘God’ and even ‘a personal God,’ for the majority of Dutch is a bridge too far” - Hijme Stoffels, quoted in "Dutch rethink Christianity for a doubtful world."
Let's get to know what the Bible says and cling to it. Or we are apt to find ourselves taken in by this antichrist spirit, which is alive and well all around us.
PRAYER: Dear God, please help me to learn Your Word so I can detect this antichrist spirit. Help me not to become infected by it. Amen.
MORE: Today is the Feast of St. Simon and Saint Jude
The liturgy for this day begins with the following collect:
"O God, we thank you for the glorious company of the apostles, and especially on this day for Simon and Jude; and we pray that, as they were faithful and zealous in their mission, so we may with ardent devotion make known the love and mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."
Read Dr. Albert Mohler's article "A Laboratory for Christianity's Destruction."
Read Robert Pigott's "Dutch rethink Christianity for a doubtful world."
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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
