1 John 4:1-6 TEST October 8, 2017am www.newhopefwbc.com 1285 Ne w Hope R oad Joelton, TN 37080 6 1 5. 7 4 6. 6 4 0 3 READ 1 John 4:1-6 KIDS What are the two tests for teachers? What They Say and What They Accept Waking up kids in the morning is a tricky affair, or maybe some of you going through this season of life would say that getting kids to stay asleep in the morning is a tricky affair. On Sundays, my dad was the one to try and rouse his two teenage sons out of bed, and it wasn t pretty. He would start off nice enough. When we were younger, he might have have sung a few bars of Singing in the Rain s Good Morning. But as we grew and our alarm clocks apparently lost volume, it turned ugly. What started as a Time to wake up, guys usually ended with a Hey! You ve got 3 seconds to get feet on the floor! Of course there was that one morning that my brother and I woke up to the sound of a five gallon bucket sliding across our bedroom floor, a hissing sound and then a string of firecrackers exploding. Corey M. Minter Page 1 of 8
All throughout the New Testament, the apostles write for the Christian to wake up, to stay vigilant, to be spiritually discerning. I see this passage in 1 John 4 kind of as that first gentle rousing, Hey guys, wake up. Later, in Revelation, John is going to write in the firecrackers to the churches. Here, he starts with a warning and a command. 1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. DON T BELIEVE EVERY SPIRIT Don t believe everything you hear/read. Maybe you had a teacher give that warning before in a class not every source is trustworthy. That problem has always been around, but it has compounded with the advent of the internet in the last two decades. Abraham Lincoln once wisely said, Don t believe everything you read on the internet just because there s a picture with a quote next to it. We live in a world where information is so accessible that at times it is hard to know whether or not the source is trustworthy. Fake News is a hot term today with each group claiming that the other s alternative facts are false. Honestly, it s exhausting and pretty disgusting. But, spiritually, the issue of Fake News is not a new problem. It has been around since Lucifer slithered up to Eve and offered up some alternative facts for her to chew on. He bent the truth so subtlety that Eve did not recognize it as the bald-face lie that it was. Today, Spiritual Fake News abounds. In fact, that s just what John writes. Don t believe every spirit, but test the spirits The word spirit is Corey M. Minter Page 2 of 8
not a reference to some vaporous being some disembodied ghost it s a reference to anything under the guise of spiritual 1 Americans are infatuated with the term spiritual. In a 2016 Pew Research, DAVID MASCI AND MICHAEL LIPKA reported that when asked about their beliefs, many Americans responded with a form of the phrase that they were spiritual but not religious. 2 Saying you are spiritual is the best politically correct, non-exclusive, VAGUE term to describe your world view. It could literally mean anything, and that is exactly what John is combatting here. Not everything deemed spiritual is sound doctrine. I love listening to audiobooks. It is the best way for me to redeem the time while I drive to and from visits throughout the week, but it is always maddening to look under the best selling section of the Religion and Spirituality genre on itunes. Of just those thirty-six books listed as top sellers in religion, heresy and confusion ABOUNDS. Jesus was just a good teacher. You are the most powerful being in the universe. All religions are the same. Those are just a few statements of faith found on that bestsellers list. They certainly are not all bad, some of my favorite authors are on that list Ravi Zacharias, Francis Chan, C.S. Lewis but it is also filled with some who have done some very serious damage to Christians thinking. That s just the books today. This kind of spirituality has worked it s way into every corner of our media the music we listen to, the movies we watch, the shows we get hooked on. 1 Davey, Stephen. Putting Teachers to the Test. http://www.wisdomonline.org/cgi-bin/ media_player.cgi?id=2507 2 http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/01/21/americans-spirituality/ Corey M. Minter Page 3 of 8
I will never forget a few years back when Rachel and I were eating at a restaurant, and I was doing what I love to do people watch okay eavesdrop on their conversations especially couples on dates. From all appearances the couple we overheard were on a first date, and she was talking about her journey through her spirituality. From some of the lingo she was using, it sounded like she had a background of Christianity but had moved to a very New Age, Buddhist-type belief system. She finished gushing about all that she learned about karma and ended it with and I have My Name Is Earl to thank for it. She took a nonsense comedy show and turned it into a path to new spirituality. I wish I could say that she was the exception, but I fear she is not. I say this with all the love I can. The church today is spiritually gullible. As long as there is some kind of thought-provoking music playing in the background, if there is an emotional story or experience attached, then we bight hook, line and sinker. We care very little about checking, comparing, contrasting what the speaker, author, producer, musician has said, wrote, filmed, or sung against the Truth of Scripture. WARNING DO NOT BELIEVE EVERY SPIRIT COMMAND TEST THE SPIRITS I want to be careful here, because I consider it a great honor when someone asks my advice over a certain piece of media that he has come across recently, but John does not write Do not believe every spirit. Ask your pastor. He writes directly to the Christian, Beloved test the spirits. Corey M. Minter Page 4 of 8
John and the early Christians did not have the luxury of modern communication. The church members could not shoot John a text, call him on a phone or even get a letter response within a month s time. Nor was John always going to be around, he was old. That is why John insists on every believer being spiritually discerning. Know the truth. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world. Having a good grasp of all world religions and cults is good, but it is not the most important thing in the world, especially as we come against our culture s challenge where each person has their own personalized spirituality/religion. You do not need to know what every false statement is in order to know the true statement; you need only to know the truth. In their masterful work, Kingdom of the Cults, by Walter Martin and Ravi Zacharias (and it is a book that I am convinced needs to be in every Christian home at very least for reference if not to read in its entirety) Martin and Zacharias reference the American Banking Association s two week training on recognizing counterfeit money. Do they look at the millions, perhaps billions, of different counterfeit styles and methods? No. For two weeks, all the trainee does is look and feel authentic Corey M. Minter Page 5 of 8
currency. They state, If a man is thoroughly familiar with the original, he will not be deceived by the counterfeit bill. 3 The Two Tests What They Say 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, In just one brief verse(2), By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, John exposes Judaism, Gnosticism and Cerenthianism (which were the false teachings of his day in his crosshairs) but also the more globally accepted now Mormon, Jehovah s Witness, Islam, Hindu, and Buddhist teachings of the 21st century. 4 Every religion or teacher which cannot boldly say that they confess Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah who has truly come to earth in the flesh should not be given an inch within the Believer s mind. What They Accept 6 We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. John writes that he and the apostles who followed him are of God; they sat at the feet of Christ. They heard word for word directly from God the Truth. If someone does not hear the apostles (and it is understood what 3 Walter Martin and Ravi Zacharias. Kingdom of the Cults p. 23 4 Davey, Stephen. Putting Teachers to the Test. http://www.wisdomonline.org/cgi-bin/ media_player.cgi?id=2507 Corey M. Minter Page 6 of 8
they wrote under the inspiration of the Spirit Scripture) then they are not of God While preaching a sermon on tolerance and acceptance, the Spiritual Fake News teacher will call a literal interpretation of the Bible s passages on creation, sexuality, eternity, etc. intolerable and unacceptable. They will not accept truth. They will not hear it. On a True and False test there are only two options. One is directly opposed to the other. You say that sounds great and all, but I cannot do that. I cannot test the spirits. There may be a question of spiritual maturity, but the most childlike faith is more profound, correct and wise than the most tenured professor without Christ. That is why my five year old who grabs her mom s hand leaving the edge of the Grand Canyon saying, Mommy, God made all this for us has more wisdom than the millions of scientists who say otherwise. So if you feel the pressure or the intimidation that this world puts upon every believer to verify validate your faith! Let these two verses calm you. 4 You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 5 They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them. It is not you who gives an answer. It is He Who is in you. The most prolific Christian author should still revel in being called a little child of God. Corey M. Minter Page 7 of 8
In the first three chapters of the book of Revelation John s final letter to Christians he writes to seven ancient local churches: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. Some are doing well; most are not. In chapter 3:2 he writes to Sardis 2 Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God. "Be Watchful is the firecracker in the bucket beside the bed. WAKE UP! To each of these churches, he writes for them to persevere, lest Jesus remove the influence of their church on their community. I heard one Christian apologist say once that at the meeting place of each of these ancient churches, mosques now stand. Each of these churches in modern day Turkey has folded. That is not say there are not Christians there nor churches only that those individual local churches were not watchful. In America, they may not be mosques, but old churches look great as a hipster coffee shop, art museum or restaurant. So goes the danger for New Hope Free Will Baptist Church for every Christian family. It will not be an overnight change. It will be a gradual slow-fade, a creeping in of false doctrine, seemingly small compromises of uncompromisable Truth. But you, Beloved, do not believe every spirit. Test the spirits. Corey M. Minter Page 8 of 8