In the late 1980’s I was interviewing at various corporations in the San Francisco Bay Area for a position in one of the fast track executive programs that were being offered to recent college graduates, of which I was one. In many of these corporations I would go through a series of interviews before a decision was made to let me into the program or not, but at a few corporations, I had to pass a series of exams before even being interviewed.
Late one afternoon I arrived the prescribed 30 minutes early at the location given to me by the Human Resource Department to take the third exam in a series of six exams. The receptionist told me the location of the exam, she gave me a map, she even explained where I was to park and what entrance I was to use. I easily found the building, parked and proceeded to the entrance I was told to use, I had about ten minutes to spare at this point before the exam started, that would give me plenty of time to get ready for the exam.
However, when I tried the doors I found they were locked. I tried the doors again. Double checked the address - I was at the right place. I peered through the glass in the door and couldn’t believe my eyes - the building was completely empty, all I could see was a wheelbarrow, a shovel and a broom. I turned around there were several other people milling around the building now, appearing very confused.
I got in my car and drove back to where I started. The receptionist apologized for the mistake, but had no idea were the exam was. So, I asked a security guard at the entrance of the building about the exam….and he pointed out the building where the exam was. I got into my car and found the room the exam was to be given in, with two minutes to spare!
It turns out that the exam was to see if I could get to the exam. About 20 out of 100 people made it to the final destination. One person, the secretary, told me that reality was one thing, but it was just a dead end; I needed to find out what was real and what was fantasy to get where I was going.
We see this same thing in our Christian walk, we need to be able to distinguish between what is real and what, quite frankly, is just imagined. John has been explaining our faith in a very practical way. John has given us ways to examine ourselves and others concerning our faith, and today John gives us another, very practical way to distinguish reality from fantasy in our Christian faith.
Please keep your bibles open to 1 John 4:1-6 as we examine in depth, exactly what John is teaching us here. Remember, having your bibles open, and looking at the Scripture along with the sermon, helps you gain a deeper understanding of the Word of God. If you can bring your own bible, that is even better, for you can underline or circle things that you see as helpful and this will further help you gain a deeper understanding. If you need a bible, talk to me and we’ll help you get one.
Lets take a look at verse 1. John tells us to not believe every spirit, but to test the spirits we encounter. Why? Because there are false prophets that can fool us. So, John is addressing a specific issue here: False teaching. Let us keep in mind, first off that this practical way of dealing with our faith is specifically to help us discern false teaching. John is showing us one way to discern if a teaching is false or real.
Let me just note at this point, that there is a spiritual gift called “distinguishing of spirits”, but that is something completely different than what John is speaking of today. The spiritual gift of distinguishing spirits deals with individual people, whereas the concept that John is speaking of is specifically for evaluating Christian teaching.
Earlier we saw John call false teachers antichrists. John calls the false teachers antichrists because their teaching, in the end, rejects the true Jesus Christ. Their teaching may be about love, it may be about helping people, it may be about good and wonderful things - but because the teaching rejects Jesus Christ, it is antichrist. I cannot claim to teach you about Jesus Christ and at the same time reject Jesus Christ. That’s oxymoronic.
True story. My father, in the early 1950’s was a salesman for the mouthwash Listerine. He did OK. But, there was one man, Laramie, who sold the stuff like crazy. Laramie sold more Listerine than all the other salesmen put together.
One afternoon, my father asked Laramie for some advice on selling Listerine, In the process he found out that Laramie had never even tried Listerine. My father asked, “Laramie, how can you sell something you never tried”, and through a bit of persuasion my father got Laramie to try Listerine.
Laramie took a big swig of Listerine from the bottle and immediately spit it out shouting, “That’s horrible stuff, how can anyone use this stuff?” Laramie’s sales then plummeted. He could no longer sale what he didn’t believe in.
John will tell us one way to discern false teachers, but first he informs us that these false teachers are not on their own. These false teachers are influenced by spirits. These false teachers may not know they are influenced by spirits, they may not have a clue that spirits are involved and they may believe that their ideas are their own - it doesn’t matter what the false teachers think, John tells us, they are influenced by spirits. See when John says test the spirits, he is not telling us to directly deal with the influential spirit, we are to deal with the result of the sprit’s influence. We deal with those influenced by the spirits to see if their teaching is from God, or, from someplace else.
See, the reality of both angelic or demonic spirits was not questioned by anyone in the church in John’s day as it is questioned in our day. The existence of spirits, both good and evil, was a given in the early church. Remember, the man who wrote this was the most trusted friend of Jesus Christ durning his ministry here on earth.
I want us to notice that John is not debating the existence of spirits, nor is he questioning the influence spirits - he takes the existence and influence of spirits at face value and as a given in our Christian walk. I also want to note that Jesus deals with spirits extensively in his ministry in Palestine.
Now some will say that Jesus was just dealing with the people at their cultural level. They would say that Jesus talks about demonic possession, or talks about spirits in a cultural way because that’s what the people believed. Talk about absurd logic. Why would Jesus teach about spirits and actively deal with spirits, if there are no spirits? Wouldn’t that be living a lie? Wouldn’t that be Jesus just plain outright lying to the people of the day? Why would Jesus or John for that matter lie to us about spirits?
Others, will say that ancient people spoke in terms of spirits, but today we would speak in terms of the psychological. Such arguments have no basis beyond speculation. When you read in the English in this passage in your bible the word ‘spirit’ or the word ‘spirits’ it means, in the Greek, what it says in the English, spirit or spirits. Remember whenever the word Spirit is capitalized it always refers to the Holy Spirit.
We need to stop right here for a moment this morning. Here we are at a crossroads for some of you this morning. Are their spirits or are their not spirits? Further, do these spirits, both good and evil influence us, or is John an ignorant man from the first century who has no idea how the world really works?
Now, I understand that you may have never had an experience with the occult, and because you have not had an experience with spirits, it is very difficult for you to believe spirits even exists beyond the Spirit of God. There is nothing wrong with that. However, at this moment, you must decide: Is John talking about reality here in this Scripture, or is John talking about fantasy? Is John living in a made up world of good and evil spirits that influence the Christian teaching…..or is John talking about a reality, you are not yet familiar with? You have to decide whether what John is talking about here in this Scripture, is it real or not, because if it is not real, then why would anything else in this book we call the bible real, and why are you wasting your time with fiction?
Let me ask you this question? As a Christian, what do you base your faith on?
Feelings. Hope. Personal experience. Testimony. Perhaps, you have never thought of what you base your faith on? We have to be careful what we base our faith on. Feelings, hope, personal experience, and testimony are all very subjective.
Now, I have had a very personal experience with Jesus Christ. Along with that personal experience I have been given great hope, and I have deep emotions that go along with my personal experience - but, I then compare my personal experience with the Word of God, the Bible. The Word of God is real, it is reliable, and we have talked about this many times, the bible we have today is very, very accurate. My experience must correspond to the Word of God. In other words, if I have never experienced spirits in my Christian walk, and the Word of God says there are spirits - I always trust the Word of God over my experience.
So, a big decision for some this morning. Do I trust my experience more than the Word of God, and quite frankly, am I so arrogant that I think I understand spiritual matters more than the Apostle John? My guess, and I may be walking out on a limb here, my guess is that no one in this room understands spiritual matters more than the Apostle John.
Still on verse, one here. John tells us Christian teaching is inspired, somehow, he doesn’t give us any specifics, somehow spirits influence Christian teaching. Understand this: It is the Holy Spirit who influences sound Christian teaching, and it is other spirits who influence unsound Christian teaching. Look, the concern here isn’t how teaching is influenced by these spirits, spiritual influence is a given; the concern here is how you and I discern if teaching is influenced by the Holy Spirit, or if the teaching is influenced by evil spirits.
Now this is incredibly important to discern the spirits. Imagine the emptiness and the spiritual hollowness that will result in your life if you follow teaching that is influenced by something other than the Holy Spirit?
Well, how do we do this?
Verse 2 and 3, John tells us in a very practical and applicable way: “This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.”
John gives us both a positive way to discern and a negative way to discern. John wants us to merge both the positive and the negative for our evaluation of Christian teaching. Now, remember the spirit is behind the teaching, the spirit is somehow influencing the teacher, so we deal with the result of the influence, which is the person being influenced. In other words, John is telling us to deal with the beliefs of the person who is teaching in our evaluation and by doing so, we will be dealing with the spirit. Our evaluation of his or her beliefs will determine what kind of spirit has influenced their teaching.
So the reason we combine both the positive and the negative in our evaluation is that a person cannot believe in two opposing concepts at the same time. The teacher either believes one thing or the other. If the teacher claims both, they are either self-deceived or a liar.
What is the measure we are to use in our evaluation? Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, (that’s the positive) but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God (that’s the negative).
Acknowledging that Jesus has come in the flesh means much more than a person saying, “I believe in Jesus” it is a theological understanding of who Jesus is and it is based upon stressing the fact that the incarnation of Jesus is a historical fact.
Here is what Jesus coming in the flesh means, this is what a Christian teacher is to believe, these are in fact the basics of Christian belief that cross all denominations.
First in the positive:
The incarnation of Jesus was not temporary. In other words, Jesus didn’t start out human, then God entered into him. No, Jesus was always God, the second part of the Trinity, who became human.
In the flesh means that humanity and God were truly united in Jesus, Jesus is fully human and fully God.
As a practical matter this means that the teacher must believe in the virgin birth, the sacrificial death of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, and the eventual return of Jesus Christ to earth. Let me highlight the virgin birth for us. The virgin birth is important because Jesus can only be fully God and fully human through a virgin birth - a birth that results from a conception by a man and a woman produces only a human. A birth that results from a conception of a woman and the Holy Spirit results in a person being fully human and fully God.
Second in the negative:
1. If a teaching negates who Jesus is, or what Jesus has done then it is not from God. For example someone who teaches that Jesus is one of many ways to God, negates the biblical teaching that Jesus is the only way to God. Therefore the teacher is not listening to the Holy Spirit - Do not listen to their teaching.
See, John gives us a very practical and useful tool in evaluating Christian teaching. If teachers do not believe in these core concepts, then folks, they are not listening to the right spirit. Do not listen to them, they will ruin your Christian walk.
Verses 4-6. John reassures us that we are from God, that we belong to Jesus. John tells us this because there are many times we run into false teaching, but the proponents are very good at presenting their false teaching, and we are not so good at defending what is true. John tells us this because we can apply this evaluation to a teacher and see that since the teacher does not believe that Jesus has come in the flesh, they are not listening to the Holy Spirit. We know they are wrong, we know they are not of God and we don’t follow their teaching. John does not say that we have to defend ourselves. John does not say that we have to prove them wrong. John does not say we have to convince them of their error. We just evaluate their teaching and if it is not real, we do not pay attention to them or follow them.
You don’t have to know all the intricate details to know when a teaching is real or when it is not do you? In verse 5 John tells us the world may find their teaching great and accept it. But, we do not evaluate teaching by popularity, book sales, talk show appearances, political correctness or by how great the discovery channel thinks it is. John tells us, does the teacher believe Jesus Christ came in the flesh or not? This isn’t so difficult. Many things that Christians believe are not popular - we are not here to win a popularity contest, we are here to worship and serve Jesus Christ.
Now this is not the only way we discern the truth of a teaching, but it is one way to eliminate false teachers from influencing us. For example, I cannot think of anyone who is associated with ‘The Jesus Seminar’ who by John’s definition believes that Jesus came in the flesh. They will say they believe in Jesus, but on further examination we see that they do not meet John’s test for believing that Jesus came in the flesh. They will say that Jesus was just a man, or God was in Jesus - but Jesus is not God; They deny the resurrection of Jesus; They deny the virgin birth; They don’t believe Jesus is the way to salvation; They do not believe Jesus was the promised Messiah; They do not believe Jesus will return.
So here is a practical application for us today. If these people belonging to the Jesus Seminar, no matter what their status, education, or literary output, if these people do not believe that Jesus Christ came in the flesh, then what does John say in our evaluation of them? DO NOT LISTEN TO THEIR TEACHING. It is corrupt. According to John, they are influenced by a spirit yes, but it is not the Holy Spirit, it is in fact the spirit of the antichrist.
John wants us to grow in our faith in Jesus Christ and that means being able to evaluate who is teaching us reality and who is teaching us fantasy. Though the evaluation that John gives us today is not exhaustive, it is very practical, and very effective in helping us discern true teaching from false teaching.
