Day 19         The advice of a father  -  Warnings: False Teachers!                   1 John  2:18,19

1 John 2:18  Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.

19  They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.

         One of the key indicators of the last days is the presence of false teachers.  There have been two major times when Satan majored on bringing false teachings into the church.  The first time was in the time of the apostles.  When the scriptures were being compiled,  Satan worked endlessly trying to corrupt the Word of God. There were many false epistles and false teachings that wormed their way into churches.  In the letters to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3,  John warned against “them that hold the doctrine of Balaam,” those who “hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans,”  the woman Jezebel  “which calleth herself a prophetess,”  and about those “who say they are apostles, and are not.” 

         The second major time when the devil calls on false prophets is in the time we are living.  We understand that Satan has a major motivation,  “for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time”  (Revelation 12:12).  The last days even have a man that is called “the false prophet.” 

         It shouldn’t surprise us when we hear about churches who directly contradict God’s commands and God’s teachings.  Satan even places some of these false teachers in our churches.  John had the experience of knowing,  “they went out from us,  but they were not all of us.”  There were some in John’s church who were the spirit of antichrist.  It is part of Satan's plan, and we should expect to have Satan place false teachers in fundamental churches.  He desires to confuse and blind people to the truth of the gospel.  In many cases these will go out from us that it “might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” 

         As Fathers we have a responsibility to warn our kids of the way that Satan works,  how He goes about trying to ruin good churches.  We need to warn them about counterfeits.  Counterfeit Christians are very dangerous because they look so much like the real thing.  They use the same words,  the same emphases.  They use the same Bibles,  but they are not “of us.”  They do not have the same God or the same Savior.

         Warning our children is one of the most important tasks that we do as Fathers in our families.  If we don’t show them what is true and what is false, how will they tell the difference?  We are in danger of ruining our heritage.