The Result of Your Faith, the Salvation of Your Souls (Outdoor Service)

This passage contains the apostle Paul's exhortation to believers to test the spirits, and his warning that false prophets have already gone out into the world. The key test of whether a spirit belongs to God is whether it confesses that Jesus Christ came to this earth in the flesh. Rejecting this means following the spirit of the Antichrist, and in the end it means being cut off from God.

The present process of the world becoming integrated and unified is interpreted as a sign that comes before the Antichrist is revealed. He will hunt down and persecute those who hold God's word, but God will rescue from that tribulation the believers who fully trust in Jesus Christ. This is a promise that, as with the judgment by water in Noah's time, before he judges by fire in the last days he will give believers a way of escape.

As descendants of the disciples who testified to Jesus' resurrection and ascension, we must come to faith through their testimony. If we are not sure that heaven is real, we may be left out in the last days, so we must hold on to God now, while we are still in this body. We must be parents who teach our children the faith and go into the kingdom of heaven together with them, and even amid the world's turmoil we must run to God without fear. Consider whether you can believe this promise that God will surely provide a way of escape, and keep your faith to the very end.