“Blessed are you when men hate you, and ostracize you, and insult you, and scorn your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of Man. “Be glad in that day and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven. For in the same way their fathers used to treat the prophets. (Luke 6:22–23, NASB95)
Demons Confess Christ
“For the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His. You have acted foolishly in this. Indeed, from now on you will surely have wars.” (2 Chronicles 16:9, NASB95)
Building on yesterday’s post about Jesus telling demons to shut up about His being the Christ, what else can be learned?
Demons can say the right thing, and still be demons. Their nature and behavior doesn’t change just because they know the truth. In fact, they are intimately acquainted with the truth. They know it backwards and forwards. They just don’t adjust themselves to it. Even though the demons “confessed Jesus” with their mouths, their hearts were not in it. Confession goes all the way to the heart. It doesn’t stop at the lips.
The “doctrines of demons” Paul mentions to Timothy (1 Timothy 4:1-5) are doctrines that seem right, but they are not God’s truth. The truth is God’s Word. Those who know the truth and adjust themselves to it (change of heart) will know the difference between the truth and a doctrine from hell. We know the truth if we do everything God says. The demon doctrine might use some of the words of the truth, but will be a lie. A lie is any teaching that departs in the slightest from the Word.
One is coming who will pass off a lie as the truth in such a convincing manner that most will be buy into the lie. Only those who know the truth and follow it, whose heart is completely His, will be able to tell the difference. The lie will be close to the truth, perhaps even using some of the same words that God uses, but the end is death. And the spirit of antichrist is already here.
They bend their tongue like a bow; falsehood and not truth has grown strong in the land; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know me, declares the LORD. Let everyone beware of his neighbor, and put no trust in any brother, for every brother is a deceiver, and every neighbor goes about as a slanderer. Everyone deceives his neighbor, and no one speaks the truth; they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they weary themselves committing iniquity. Heaping oppression upon oppression, and deceit upon deceit, they refuse to know me, declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 9:3–6, ESV)