“They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them.”

They are of the world.

False prophets find the source of their teaching in the satanic world system.  They do not understand God’s viewpoint on life.  God’s apostles are “of God” (4:4) and speak from God. 

Therefore they speak as of the world,

Note the contrast between “of the world” and “of God” (4:4).  The false teachers speak from the viewpoint of the world system.  Their message is consistent with the character of the source of the satanic system. 

and the world hears them

Those who reject Christ find reciprocity in false teaching.  These false teachers produce proselytes who relate to their teaching because of the correspondence of values between them.  False teachers tell people what they want to hear.  This makes their message invariably fashionable and popular.  The world loves their language, but their ideas never rise higher than human viewpoint. 

Jn 15:18-19, ¹⁸ “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. ¹⁹ “If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”

PRINCIPLE: 

False teachers invariably conform to the world system.

APPLICATION: 

False teachers invariably derive the character of their teaching from the satanic world system.  Because of this, they speak in a manner befitting that system.  The whole thing is a reciprocal system, each feeding on the other.  The world gives them an audience because their message is what they want to hear. 

Jn 3:19, “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” 

Christians cannot accommodate the world’s beliefs without doing serious damage to their walk with God.  If we accept the prevailing currents of our day’s value, we will lose dynamic fellowship with God.  We must choose to operate within God’s domain or the Devil’s domain.