12 - The Spirit of Error
Lastly we refer, very briefly, to a passage which presents again these two antagonistic Spirits, namely, 1Jn 4:5-6.
“They (unbelievers) are of the world; therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.”
Is it not so? Those who speak of the world, who sound its praises, who laud its progress and its civilization are of the world, and they are sure of an audience. “The world heareth them.” Many of our modern preachers understand this principle thoroughly. They preach the gospel of the age, and so “the world” goes to church to hear them, and contributes liberally to their support.
“We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us. Hereby know we the Spirit of Truth, and the spirit of error.”
This is very easy to apply. Where the theme is the world and its doings, the gathering, no matter what it may call itself, is under the direction of the spirit of error. He is here given this special name because not one good thing that is said of the world is true. It is all error. The god of this age is just as energetic and resourceful in his character of “the spirit of error” as he is in his character of “the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience.” All works of fiction, the imaginations of unrenewed minds, romances, poetry, theatrical representations—everything, in a word, which presents unreality as reality—is not from the Spirit of Truth, but from the spirit of error, and serves the great purpose of keeping the mind from resting on Christ. The most effective instruments which the devil employs for this purpose are the unconverted poets. Through them he succeeds even in spreading the idea that all the sorrows, griefs, calamities and misfortunes that befall man are part of God’s plan for humanity. There is abroad an enormous mass of religious poetry, from which Christ is left out, and which is eagerly devoured by pious souls. The doctrine running through them all is that boldly expressed by Pope’s well-known line “whatever is right;” whereas it is entirely safe to say that whatever is in man and his world is wrong; or that expressed in a line of Browning (which many quote as if it were Scripture), namely, “God’s in His heaven and all’s well with the world;” whereas the pertinent fact is that Satan is in heaven and that’s what is ill with the world. Whatever offers to the world or to man encouragement, or promise, or improvement, apart from Christ, has its source, not from the Spirit of Truth, who the world cannot receive, but from the spirit of error—the spirit of the world. But we, brethren, have not received the spirit of the world. Let us then have nothing to do with either his enterprises or his deceptions.
“We know that we are of God and the whole world lieth in the wicked one. And we know that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life” (1Jn 5:19-20).