The name of Jesus carries tremendous power, for our Father has placed His name above every other name. And so, even unbelievers can exercise faith in the name of Jesus to perform miracles. Nevertheless, even though false prophets can perform these signs in the name of Jesus, it still remains the work of the Holy Spirit and not demonic spirits. The question is then asked, if both the false ministers and the genuine ministers can perform the same signs by the work of the Holy Spirit, how can we tell which is which? As our Lord Jesus taught us in the earlier passage of scripture, the main way we can tell the true from the false, is by their fruits. In other words, do their lifestyles display the character of Jesus or the devil? For example, Jesus would never lie to His church and so His ministers would also never deliberately lie to the church. They may teach error to the church because of their ignorance, but they would never deliberately try to deceive the church. The false prophets however, have no problem deliberately deceiving the church because that is the agenda of their master. There is another way that the false prophets can also be identified however, which is in the way they are used by unclean spirits to perform supernatural signs other than the ones discussed in this section.
Michael E.B. Maher
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