Check it out

About 4 years ago I was talking with a person I worked with and trying to convince them to come to church with me. She agreed on one condition, that the following week I would go with her to her church. So it was settled.

She came with me and heard a fantastic sermon by our preacher and everyone was kind and friendly toward her. She even already knew someone there and had gone to school with them.

The following week I got up and got ready and then went with her to church.

The Sunday School class was about Jonah and the teacher read from some little booklet and no one else said much.

Then when we went to church I was happy as everyone belted out the good old hymns from the book. 

Then the preacher spoke a sermon from the same booklet using the same text as the Sunday School lesson. I followed along in my Bible, underlining and taking notes as I always do. 

I had noticed something. I was the only person in this small congregation other than the preacher that had brought a Bible to church.

Hmmmm!

Now, how were the people here going to know if what is spoken is truth or not? How would they know if they were being deceived? Did they have that much trust in the teacher and preacher? Or didn't they really care? Why were they here then? 

Why would anyone spend two hours of their day going to church but not really care if what they were hearing is the truth of God or not?

Do you follow along when someone is teaching or preaching to you?

Check it out. 

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. (1 John 4:1-6 NASB)