We know that false prophets will be around in the last days because Jesus warned us about them. So what should we be looking for to help us identify them?
It seems to me that many Christians underestimate the cunning ability of the Devil and his prophets. For instance, focusing only on doctrinal error, rather than redefining evil as good. Our faith teaches us that everything is from God and that we can do nothing to earn our salvation, yet our culture teaches us that materialism and consumerism is good for the economy and the poor deserve their lot because they are lazy - to believe otherwise is to be anti-American and somehow less Christian!
All cynicism, sarcasm, self-righteous indignation, mocking, scoffing, and all other efforts to dehumanize other people are tools of the enemy and define the behavior of all principalities, both spiritual and in the form of worldly institutions. Even the church and Christians can fall into the same behavior of these principalities whenever they decide to dehumanize another person or group for whatever reason. Don't be fooled! Dehumanizing people is not the same as disciplining or correcting or even rebuking - the difference is the absence of love. It is crazy that the enemy has actually replaced righteous, loving, Godly correction with evil and convinced us it is good for us! Jesus knew differently - Luke 11:11
Furthermore, just because you can recognize the difference between Mormon doctrine and orthodoxy does nothing to protect you from false prophets who manipulate our false confidence in our ability to discern the Spirit. The fact is, if your understanding of what the spirit is telling you is not tempering everything you read and believe to be true with love, it is not the spirit of God.
It is my opinion that the enemy is much more subtle than we recognize - doctrinal error is the most obvious attack, but he also works on our terribly inaccurate, natural ability to know right from wrong. Love (what we were created to do before we decided to get into the right/wrong business) is the only way out of the dualism that we have created for ourselves and the same dualism that is exploited by the Devil.
It seems to me that many Christians underestimate the cunning ability of the Devil and his prophets. For instance, focusing only on doctrinal error, rather than redefining evil as good. Our faith teaches us that everything is from God and that we can do nothing to earn our salvation, yet our culture teaches us that materialism and consumerism is good for the economy and the poor deserve their lot because they are lazy - to believe otherwise is to be anti-American and somehow less Christian!
All cynicism, sarcasm, self-righteous indignation, mocking, scoffing, and all other efforts to dehumanize other people are tools of the enemy and define the behavior of all principalities, both spiritual and in the form of worldly institutions. Even the church and Christians can fall into the same behavior of these principalities whenever they decide to dehumanize another person or group for whatever reason. Don't be fooled! Dehumanizing people is not the same as disciplining or correcting or even rebuking - the difference is the absence of love. It is crazy that the enemy has actually replaced righteous, loving, Godly correction with evil and convinced us it is good for us! Jesus knew differently - Luke 11:11
Furthermore, just because you can recognize the difference between Mormon doctrine and orthodoxy does nothing to protect you from false prophets who manipulate our false confidence in our ability to discern the Spirit. The fact is, if your understanding of what the spirit is telling you is not tempering everything you read and believe to be true with love, it is not the spirit of God.
It is my opinion that the enemy is much more subtle than we recognize - doctrinal error is the most obvious attack, but he also works on our terribly inaccurate, natural ability to know right from wrong. Love (what we were created to do before we decided to get into the right/wrong business) is the only way out of the dualism that we have created for ourselves and the same dualism that is exploited by the Devil.
