3. What does the Bible encourage us to do and what is one criterion we should use? 1 John 4:1-2.
NOTE: ‘“Take heed, therefore, how ye hear” (Luke 8:18) is an admonition of Christ. We are to hear for the sake of learning the truth, that we may walk in it. And again: “Take heed what ye hear” (Mark 4:24). Examine closely, “prove all things” (1 Thessalonians 5:21), “believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). This is the counsel of God; shall we heed it?’ Selected Messages, book 1, page 79.
‘Jesus, the Prince of life, took the battlefield to meet and to contend with the prince of darkness, and to dispute his claims. . . . He did not come to our world as an angel of glory, but as a man. He was made in the likeness of sinful flesh, and condemned sin in the flesh. With His human arm He encircled the human race, and with His divine arm He grasped the throne of the infinite, linked man with God, and earth with heaven.’ Signs of the Times, April 16, 1894.
4. What is another simple Biblical test of a prophet? Deuteronomy 18:22.
NOTE: ‘There is another internal evidence of the truthfulness of the Bible, a test which the Bible itself gives us. It is the testimony of prophecy. We read these statements of the Lord: “The prophet which prophesieth of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known, that the Lord bath truly sent him.” Jeremiah 28:9. “And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously; thou shalt not be afraid of him.” Deuteronomy 18:21, 22. The Bible is full of predictions of events to take place, and nearly all of them are of things that are now in the past, so that we may see how exactly every prediction has been fulfilled. This is exactly in line with what I have before said, that the Bible is its own witness.’ E. J. Waggoner: Present Truth, November 1, 1900.