Believe in the Correct Christ

Matthew 24:4-5, 11-13, 1 John 5:12, John 8:31-32

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Our devotion today is based on Matthew chapter 24 Select verses beginning with verse four.

Jesus answered them, “Watch out that no one deceives you. Because many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will deceive many people. (Matthew 24:4-5)

And then later, he says,

Many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because lawlessness will increase, the love of many will grow cold. But whoever endures to the end will be saved. (Matthew 24:11-13)

About 45 years ago there was a horrible event that took place in Guyana, South America. And Jim Jones led a large group of people down there, and more than 900 people ended up drinking poison to their deaths. Listen to something that he once said about himself. He said,

“If you see me as your savior, I’ll be your savior. If you see me as your God, I’ll be your God.””

There’s another man that years ago started what became known as the Unification Church, Dr. Sun Myung Moon. And in his book The Divine Principle, this is what he writes. He said,

“With the fullness of time, God has sent one person to this earth to resolve the fundamental problems of human life and the universe. His name is Sun Myung Moon.””

He died in 2012. He claimed at the time he had about 3 million followers. Jesus warns us about these false Christs who will come and deceive many people. And the thing that he’s teaching us about is something that’s very real. And every so often in history we see these great supposed prophets that rise up and claim to be the Christ. And what Jesus is trying to show us here that just believing in any old Christ is not good enough, just believing in any individual is not good enough and will not have us ready for the great day of judgment.

And so it’s so important for our faith to embrace the correct Christ, to embrace and believe in the real Jesus Christ, the Son of God from heaven. Listen to what John said.

The one who has the Son has life. The one who does not have the Son of God does not have life. (1 John 5:12)

That’s how simple it is and how basic it is. Where you will spend eternity is dependent upon the person in whom you are trusting. Is it truly the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, the Savior of all people, or is it possibly a fake Christ? The night before Jesus went to the cross, he had a long discourse with his disciples, and part of that lecture was to teach them once again about who he was and the relationship that he had established with God, the Father. If you look at His apostles, his disciples who write the books of the Bible, quite often they have sections where they expound for quite a few verses on exactly who Jesus is. In the very early Christian church, they had to fight battles to make sure that they would hold on to this teaching. And they wrote creeds to help summarize that so that we would not lose this wonderful truth.

And that shows that the devil realizes how important it is that we believe in the correct Christ. He knows if he can get us away from that Jesus, that he can possibly steal our souls away and keep us from going to heaven. And so he will often tempt us with many different things. But one of the things he can tempt us with as well is from inside of the church trying to get us to believe in an incorrect teaching about who Christ is.

So our Lord Jesus does not want you and me to be duped.

He says

But whoever endures to the end will be saved. (Matthew 24:13)

It’s his prayer and his command for us that we make sure to know and trust in him alone as our true Savior from sin and from death. He says,

“If you remain in my word, you are really my disciples. You will also know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32)