The Holy Spirit and false spirits
1 My friends, do not believe everyone who says that they speak God's message. There are many false prophets who are travelling around everywhere. They say that they have a message from God's Spirit, but the message comes from a false spirit. So check each message carefully to see if it is really from God.
2 How do you know whether a person has God's Spirit in him? He must agree that Jesus is God's Messiah who was born as a human baby. If someone says that, then he has God's Spirit. 3 But if someone does not agree to say that about Jesus, he does not have God's Spirit. That person has a spirit that comes from the enemy of Christ. You have heard that this enemy of Christ would come among us. Now this spirit is already here in the world.
4 My little children, you belong to God. You have won against those people with a false message. You have been able to do that because God's Holy Spirit is in you. He is more powerful than the spirit that belongs to this world. 5 Those false prophets belong to this world. Their message comes from the ideas of people of this world. So the people of this world believe what they teach. 6 But we belong to God. Everyone who knows God believes our message. But anyone who does not belong to God does not believe it.
So that is how we know if someone's message comes from God's Spirit or not. God's Spirit brings us a true message, but false spirits tell lies.
4:6It is very important to know the difference between true spirits and false spirits. Some people say that Jesus was not really a man. Other people say that he was not really God. People like that do not have God's Spirit. What they teach is false.
