“If any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders” - Matthew 24:23-24

    The vast majority of so-called ‘Christian’ religion in the world today is actually proclaiming ‘false Christs’. It is not that they proclaim and interact with the true Christ in a wrong way; their ‘Christ’ is actually false, exactly as the Lord Jesus Christ warned his disciples in Matthew 24. The question you should always ask of the those who try to persuade you to follow their ‘Christ’ is whether he is the Christ of the Bible. For example, is he a Christ who offers salvation to all without exception in the hope that they will exercise faith and believe him? That is a false Christ, an utterly impotent Christ when it comes to securing the eternal salvation of even one hell-deserving sinner. The Christ of scripture is the one who came to save his people from their sins (Matt1:21); they are the people, the elect of God, that the Father gave to Christ before the foundation of the world. He redeemed them alone, a multitude which no man can number and he accomplished his mission completely leaving nothing to the whim of human will.

    Then ask if the ‘Christ’ they point to is one who is trying his best to make this world a better place if only people will learn to cooperate with each other. If he is, then he too is a false ‘Christ’ because the word of God declares clearly that God’s purpose is to bring this present evil world to an end in judgment for sin and to bring in his glorious and unrivalled kingdom, the Kingdom of God, in which violated divine law and justice has been completely satisfied in the doing and dying of the Son of God as Substitute for God’s elect; hence true believers are called to pray sincerely, “Thy Kingdom come!”.

    Look at their methods, their programmes, their social objectives and ask whether these reflect the truth of scripture concerning the Christ of God. The salvation he has accomplished is certain; it depends in no way on human gimmicks to get people to ‘follow’ it. All that God requires of his true people is faithfully to declare what he has revealed of salvation accomplished for it is ‘by the foolishness of preaching that it pleased God to save those who believe’. He, in sovereign grace, gives each and every one of the multitude he loved with ‘everlasting love’ a new nature and a new will to trust Christ and the salvation he has finished for them.

    God calls his people simply to preach the Christ of scripture as faithfully as we can to the text of the Bible as we have it and leave the quickening, the calling, the regeneration of dead sinners to God’s Holy Spirit.