"Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 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 not from God. And this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming; and now it is already in the world."
1 John 4:1-3, NRSV

Are you afraid of the things unknown? I'm talking about the spiritual experience or the story you heard which is clearly not from God.

Of course, some of them are out of delusion, imagination, or even misunderstanding. However, the Bible makes no doubt that evil spirit is as real as the Holy Spirit. Today's passage teaches us how to tell the evil one from the Holy One—whether it confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. If the spirit in question is not willing to confess that Jesus Christ is God incarnate, that was an evil spirit.

I had met someone possessed by the evil spirit. The things he did closely resemble the Gerasene demoniac in Mark 5. He admitted that he was indeed possessed when I asked him in the name of Jesus Christ. Probably not everyone had met a person like that, but today's world does not short of heresies. The method John teaches in this passage also works for identifying them from orthodoxy. Heresies will always try to deny that Jesus Christ is God incarnate and that He is the only way, truth, and life.

Have you ever approached by a heretical teaching? How did you know that it was heresy and how did you respond? Share the experience with your spiritual companion and pray for each other for the ability to tell the works of the evil spirit from the Holy Spirit.