Jeremiah Knight, Oct 29, 2026
There is a lot of deception in Christendom these days. Some of it comes through false signs and wonders, just as Jesus warned us in Matthew 24:24 and as Paul did in 2 Thessalonians 2:9. But much of it comes quietly, through pulpits that never claim a single miracle. Peter warned that “there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies” (2 Peter 2:1), and Paul said “the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires” (2 Timothy 4:3).
Paul also warned us in 2 Corinthians 11:3-4 about the nature of this deception. It is being deceived by another Jesus, another spirit and another gospel.
“But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully.”
“Another Jesus” comes in many forms. There is the Jesus who never asks anyone to deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow Him (Luke 9:23). There is the Jesus who is only a good teacher or a life coach and not God in the flesh (John 1:1, 14). There is the Jesus who never spoke about sin, judgment or hell, which is not the Jesus of the Gospels at all (Matthew 25:46).
“A different spirit” also comes in many forms. There is the spirit who gives people thrills and exciting feelings but never gives them power to be holy, and the Holy Spirit is first of all the HOLY Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). And there is the cold, dead religion that has the right words but no life of the Holy Spirit in it at all, “holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power” (2 Timothy 3:5).
“A different gospel” comes in every shape. There is the gospel that requires no repentance and caters to people’s earthly needs but does not deliver them from sin, which is the root cause of ALL their problems. There is the gospel that promises wealth and health in exchange for money. There is the gospel that has shrunk down to doing good in society, feeding the hungry and fighting injustice, with no sin, no cross and no repentance in it, when Jesus said that “repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations” (Luke 24:47). There is the gospel that adds our works, our rituals or other mediators to the work of Christ, when “there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). And there is the gospel that turns grace into a licence to keep sinning, the kind of teachers Jude describes “who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” (Jude 4).
Thus people are being made what Jesus called “twice as much a son of hell” (Matthew 23:15) as those who taught them.
To escape deception, we must look at Jesus and at His Word, and see how today’s preachers compare.
Do they preach the same message?
This is the FIRST test, and Deuteronomy 13 makes it plain. The prophet in that chapter gives a sign and the sign actually comes true, yet God says, “you shall not listen to the words of that prophet,” because he says, “Let us go after other gods” (Deuteronomy 13:1-3). Even though the sign came true, it was the man’s MESSAGE that showed he was false. “To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn” (Isaiah 8:20). John tells us, “do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). Paul says that even if an angel from heaven preaches a gospel contrary to the one the apostles preached, “he is to be accursed!” (Galatians 1:8). Before we look at a preacher’s miracles, his crowds, his books or his degrees, we must ask one thing first: does he teach what the Bible teaches?
Do they have the same primary objective?
The very first promise in the New Testament is about the name of Jesus, “for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). This is the main purpose for which Jesus came to earth. “The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8), and He “gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession” (Titus 2:14). So a truly Holy Spirit led ministry will seek to bring people out of the power of sin and into holiness. Everything else, including healing and miracles and prophecy, will be secondary. That does not mean anyone reaches sinless perfection in this life, because “if we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves” (1 John 1:8). But it does mean that a ministry that leaves people comfortable in their sin, whatever else it offers, has missed the very reason Christ came.
Do they have the same attitude?
We are commanded in Scripture, “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). We should therefore compare the attitude of every preacher with that of Jesus, and we should ask ourselves these questions about every preacher we hear, whatever his church or tradition. Is he a humble man, as Jesus was? Does he lead people to freedom from sin and to genuine holiness, as Jesus did? Is he always asking people to give money to him or to his ministry, instead of depending on God? Can ordinary, poor people reach him, as they could reach Jesus? Does he lead people to Christ, or to himself? Are his children believers who fear God (Titus 1:6)? Has he built at least one godly church? Are the men who work most closely with him godly men?
This test cuts across every camp. Celebrity pastors are not only found on Christian TV. They are found in Reformed and evangelical circles too, men whose names sell conferences and whose followers defend them no matter what they do. John warned about “Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them” (3 John 9), and Paul asked the Corinthians, who were fighting over their favourite preachers, “What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed” (1 Corinthians 3:5). When a preacher has become bigger than the message in the eyes of his followers, something has gone badly wrong.
Do they have the same approach to healing?
In the Gospels, we do not read of Jesus preaching even one sermon on how to receive miracles or healing. But He actually healed thousands of people. In the Acts of the Apostles, we do not read of the apostles preaching even one sermon on how to receive miracles or healing. But they actually healed many people. The epistles do speak of healing, but very differently from what we hear today. Paul mentions gifts of healings (1 Corinthians 12:9), yet he also tells us that Epaphroditus was “sick to the point of death, but God had mercy on him” (Philippians 2:27), that he “left Trophimus sick at Miletus” (2 Timothy 4:20), and he told Timothy to take a little wine for his “frequent ailments” (1 Timothy 5:23). And in James 5:14-15, it is the elders who are told to pray in faith, not the sick person who is blamed for not having enough of it.
But what we find today, especially over Christian TV, is the exact opposite of this. We hear hundreds of sermons on miracles and healings, but we hardly ever see any genuine, miraculous healings. Many of the so called healings have never been confirmed by anyone independent, and some have been exposed as outright fraud, such as the healing evangelist whose “words of knowledge” turned out to be messages from his wife through a hidden earpiece (James Randi, The Faith Healers, Prometheus Books, 1987).
Jesus and the apostles did however speak a lot about being free from sin. But we hardly ever hear a sermon today, over TV or from church pulpits, on how to be free from sins like anger, lusting after a man or a woman, and the love of money, as Jesus preached in Matthew chapters 5 and 6.
Deception does not only come with signs and wonders
Some of the most dangerous deceptions never claim a single miracle. There is the teaching, so common here in India and all over the world, that every religion is just a different road to the same God, when Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (John 14:6), and Peter said, “there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). There is liberal teaching that denies that the Bible is God’s Word or that Christ physically rose from the dead, when Paul says, “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17). There is the progressive teaching that calls sin a lifestyle and calls repentance hatred, when God says, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil” (Isaiah 5:20). There is legalism, which adds rules and works to the gospel, and Paul says of those who seek to be justified by law, “you have fallen from grace” (Galatians 5:4). There are the cults that deny that Jesus is God, when “the Word was God” (John 1:1). There are those who bring new revelations, visions and angelic messages, “taking his stand on visions he has seen” (Colossians 2:18), when the faith has been “once for all handed down to the saints” (Jude 3). And there is dead orthodoxy, the church that has every doctrine right and no love left at all. To the church in Ephesus, which tested false apostles and found them out, Jesus still said, “But I have this against you, that you have left your first love” (Revelation 2:2-4). Nobody is beyond the reach of deception, and that includes us.
The Bible gives a clear name to those who deny the truth about Christ. “Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22). And “every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist” (1 John 4:3). That spirit has spread widely in our day, through every false Jesus and every false gospel, and it is one proof that Satan has penetrated Christendom deeply with deception.
Why does God allow deceivers among His people?
In Deuteronomy 13:1-3, we are told why God allows such deceivers to move freely among His people.
“If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes true, concerning which he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods (whom you have not known) and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the LORD your God is testing you to find out if you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.”
God allows false prophets to do signs and wonders and to prophesy things that come true, in order to test His people, to show whether they love Him or the gods that the false prophets invite them to follow. Paul says the same: “there must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you” (1 Corinthians 11:19). And there is a more fearful side to it. Of those who refuse the truth, Paul says, “they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false” (2 Thessalonians 2:10-11). When people do not want the truth, God in His judgment can hand them over to the lies they prefer. Jeremiah saw it in his own day: “The prophets prophesy falsely… And My people love it so!” (Jeremiah 5:31).
Two of the main gods that false teachers invite Christians to follow these days are the gods of MONEY and ENTERTAINMENT.
MONEY. People are urged to seek wealth and health by giving money to the preacher’s ministry. Paul warned about men “who suppose that godliness is a means of gain” (1 Timothy 6:5), and said that “the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil” (1 Timothy 6:10). Peter rebuked the magician Simon when he tried to give Peter money in order to purchase God’s gift, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money!” (Acts 8:20).
ENTERTAINMENT. Many churches have become places of entertainment, where worldly programs are promoted to attract people and keep them coming back. Thus Satan, “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31), has succeeded in making many Christians worldly minded and ineffective for God. Many follow these teachers because their teachings satisfy the desires of the flesh, and so these false gods have become the idols that many Christians worship in their churches today.
Yet here is the comfort for every true child of God. Jesus said false christs and false prophets would show great signs “so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect” (Matthew 24:24). Notice the words “IF POSSIBLE,” because Jesus was telling us that it cannot finally happen to His own. The Good Shepherd said of His sheep, “A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers” (John 10:5). God guards His own, and He does it through His Word and His Holy Spirit. “The anointing which you received from Him abides in you” (1 John 2:27). He gave His church faithful pastors and teachers so that, as Paul says, “we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming” (Ephesians 4:14). So do what the Bereans did. They heard the apostle Paul himself, and they still went home “examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so” (Acts 17:11). Compare everything you hear with what the Word of God says. If it contradicts the Bible, throw it out, no matter who said it.
And once we have seen that a teacher is false, the Bible tells us what to do. Paul says, “keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them” (Romans 16:17), and John says of the one who comes without the teaching of Christ, “do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting” (2 John 10). We do not sit under such men, we do not support them, and we do not share their videos with a smile. For our friends and family who are caught up in it, we keep praying and keep “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15), because God is able to open their eyes as He opened ours. And we should never forget how serious this is for the teachers themselves. Peter says they bring “swift destruction upon themselves,” and “their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep” (2 Peter 2:1, 3).
“Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:15-20).
He who has ears to hear, let him hear.