IS THIS OF GOD?

JUNE 28, 2015

FIRST THOUGHTS

 

·        Here John is cautioning us not to believe everyone who says that they are from God.

·        John then gives instruction on how we can test their spirit to determine if what they teach is true or not.

·        The deceiver is always as subtle with his deceit as he needs to be to be convincing.

·        We are not all at the same level of spiritual maturity and some are fooled more easily than others.

·        Since we are our brothers keeper, we need and must be on the lookout for any error in our brothers, and be willing to come along side them and lovingly encourage them in the truth.

·        This as a debt of love we owe our brothers!

·        Therefore, we need to be on our guard to make sure that we have not been deceived ourselves.

·        This will be the subject of our passage today.

·        Trinity Broadcast Network and Daystar are great TV networks and they distribute excellent Biblical teaching; but, there is also great danger found with many of their programs.

·        They give an air of legitimacy to many teachers who are false.

·        Take notice that not all of the teachers found on these networks are true, they are poisonous to spiritual growth. 

“There are always those who come along with their deceptive schemes that purport to be biblical, that quote Bible verses, that say they have a message from God, that have a better way to understand the Bible and apply the Bible to make the Bible acceptable, to make the gospel acceptable. There are those who in outright fashion attack the Bible and then there are those who are much more subtle than that.”

John MacArthur 

UNDERSTAND THE CONTEXT 

·        John is still teaching the church about the Gnostics.

·        The Gnostics had been influenced by philosophers like Plato; being puffed up by their worldly knowledge.

·         This pleases their ego; they accept as revealed truth that matter was inherently evil and that which is spirit is good.

·        They are full of pride because they think that they have  insight that others do not have and boast about it.

·        Remember the old children’s taunt, “I know something you don’t know!”.

·        Dr. Williams has already told us that John is calling the church back to the basics of Christianity; the doctrine that John taught them when they first believed.

·        Remember, this was a seminal time in the formation and growth of the young true church.

·        Any error now could set the church on a path of certain destruction.

·        Today this poses a real danger to any local church.

·        Therefore as watchmen on the wall we are to be on guard against any false teaching that tries to gain a foothold among us.

·        This is not for lazy Christians.

·        Here we see John turning from the subject of love in his letter to the importance of light.

·        This light is true doctrine and requires knowing what scripture says and testing any teaching in the light of the scriptures. 

EXPLORE THE TEXT 

KEY DOCTRINE: EDUCATION

The freedom of a Christian teacher is limited by the pre-eminence of Jesus Christ and by the authoritative nature of the Scriptures.

MEMORY VERSE: 1 JOHN 4:2-3A

2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God;

3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God;     NASB

1 JOHN 4:1-6     NASB 

BE DISCERNING

VERSE 1:

1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.  

·        John warns us that there are false teachers in the world attempting to propagate their errors.

·        One way that error creeps in is by not listening or reading carefully to what the scriptures say.

·        We make the enemy’s job easier when we are not careful to read scripture.

·        Here is an example. 

John 21:21-23

21 So Peter seeing him *said to Jesus, "Lord, and what about this man?"

22 Jesus *said to him, "If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!"

23 Therefore this saying went out among the brethren that that disciple would not die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but only, "If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you?"     NASB 

·        You can see how easily we can be deceived.

·        Often we only skim or surface read the scriptures and we think that know what it said.

·        Much error has come into our churches just this way.

·        Remember how Satan deceived Eve in the garden by questioning God’s word.

·        He got her to mis-state the Word and thereby she fell into a serious error. 

Genesis 2:16-17

16 The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely;

17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die."     NASB 

 Genesis 3:1-6

1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?"

2 The woman said to the serpent, "From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat;

3 but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.'"

4 The serpent said to the woman, "You surely will not die!

5 “For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.     NASB 

·        What happens when you allow errors in God’s word?

·        It will end up costing you.

·        Take for instance Moses. 

Numbers 20:8-12

“ 8 ‘Take the rod; and you and your brother Aaron assemble the congregation and speak to the rock before their eyes, that it may yield its water. You shall thus bring forth water for them out of the rock and let the congregation and their beasts drink.’

9 So Moses took the rod from before the LORD, just as He had commanded him;

10 and Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly before the rock. And he said to them, ‘Listen now, you rebels; shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock?’

11 Then Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation and their beasts drank.

12 But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Because you have not believed Me, to treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.’”     NASB 

·        Or King Saul. 

1Samuel 15:17-20

“17  Samuel said, "Is it not true, though you were little in your own eyes, you were made the head of the tribes of Israel? And the LORD anointed you king over Israel,

18  and the LORD sent you on a mission, and said, 'Go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are exterminated.'

19  "Why then did you not obey the voice of the LORD, but rushed upon the spoil and did what was evil in the sight of the LORD?"

20  Then Saul said to Samuel, "I did obey the voice of the LORD, and went on the mission on which the LORD sent me, and have brought back Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.”     NASB 

TEST THE MESSAGE

VERSE 2:

2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God;  

Flesh – “sarx; a prim. word; flesh: — bodily.”     Strong’s 

·        Jesus is fully God AND He is fully human.

·        As God, it is in keeping that God is the initiator.

·        Every element of our receiving salvation was given to us by God; we only responded to His drawing us to Him.

·        As human He was able to show us that He understood completely and by His sinless life to become the spotless sacrifice that was necessary to die for our sins.

·        Anything less would be a distortion of the truth and even greater errors will come of it!

·        Both His Godhead and humanity were absolutely necessary.

·        If either were to be not true then we are in serious trouble. 

VERSE 3:

3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.  

·        The “spirit” not necessarily the man who does not confess Jesus is not from God and perhaps the man will be open to receive the true Jesus.

·        “this is the antichrist “,  or “this is of the antichrist”; the word “spirit”, is missing in the Greek and has been added in the translation. 

OBSERVE THE AUDIENCE

VERSE 4-5:

4 You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.

5 They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them.  

·        This is a contrast between believers and non-believers; “You are from God” and “They are from the world”.

·        You have overcome them and their delusions.

·        The Spirit that is in you has saved you, but the spirit that is in them cannot save them.

·        The world’s ears are tickled by them,  so the world listens. 

Overcome - “nikaō; to conquer, prevail: — conquer (1), conquering (1), overcame (2), overcome (11), overcomes (10), overpowers (1), prevail (1), victorious (1).”   Strong's 

VERSE 6:

6 We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.  

·        This is a comparison between verse 5 and verse 6.

·        Those who do not belong to God listens to the world; those who belong to God listens to Godly teaching.

·        With this in evidence we can tell what is Godly truth and what is error. 

CONCLUSION:

·        Questions to ask when testing the spirit.

1.     Does it confess that Jesus was fully human?

2.     Does it confess that Jesus was fully God

3.     Does it confess His physical death and burial?

4.     Do spiritually minded people agree with it?

5.     Does it tend to worldliness?

6.     Does it tend to generate love for other believers?

7.     Does it accord with the teaching of the scripture and the Holy Spirit?