Alba 8-25-2024
BEWARE, BE WISE, BE WARNED
I John 4:1-3
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, our county was in a state of cultural change. At that time, Coca-Cola, a giant in the beverage world, found itself contending with increasing competition from brands such as Pepsi, Royal Crown Cola, and a variety of regional soda producers. Pepsi, in particular, was gaining traction with its "Pepsi Generation" campaign, positioning itself as the drink for the youth and the future.
In this competitive environment, Coca-Cola felt the need to reaffirm its position as the original, authentic cola choice. The result was the “It's the Real Thing” campaign, a masterful combination of marketing and cultural insight. This campaign was Coca-Cola's response to the larger feeling of the time, characterized by a yearning for authenticity and genuine connection in a world that was changing.
The slogan, while emphasizing the drink's unique taste and history, also specifically suggested that in a world of change and uncertainty, Coca-Cola was a constant: genuine, original, and real. (Information from History Oasis website)
By describing itself as "the real thing", it implied that Coke's competitors were merely impostors and of a lower quality. So, you have the real thing, and then you have the pretenders; the counterfeits, or the wannabes. The real thing is better.
While the campaign was certainly a commercial strategy to outpace competitors, it also resonated with deeper global sentiments, and is considered one of the most iconic advertising campaigns in history.
People want the real thing. But to find the real thing, we need to look beneath the surface to find the source of what is being said or done. As they say, “Don't judge a book by its cover”. So don't judge something by how logical it sounds, how fascinating it seems, or how it is presented with charisma and power. Look beneath the surface.
The apostle John calls us not to be gullible, not to believe whatever we hear especially in the spiritual realm, but to look for the real thing. So he writes in I John 4:1-3 saying this: “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. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, 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.”
There is a spirit of truth and a spirit of error in this world, as it says in verse six of this chapter. We need to know the difference. We need to know what is fake and what is real, especially when it comes to the difference it will make in eternity. So first:
1. Beware: Do Not Believe Every Spirit
There are two spirits at work in the world. There is the Spirit who comes from God, who glorifies and elevates His Son, Jesus Christ. And there is the spirit of antichrist, which is welcomed by the world and sabotages the truth about Jesus.
We should not believe everyone who claims to be Christian. Our ultimate battle is with the spirit that is behind the false teachers not the people themselves. But we need to beware! That's why first, we need to make sure what they believe about Jesus, and does their teaching agree with the revealed Word of God. There are many false teachers out there.
The Message version of scripture is more of a paraphrase but I like the way it gives us verse one. It says, “My dear friends, don’t believe everything you hear. Carefully weigh and examine what people tell you. Not everyone who talks about God comes from God. There are a lot of lying preachers loose in the world.”
Any teacher or leader who does not give Jesus His proper place cannot be trusted. He is the centerpiece of our faith. If someone says that Jesus is only one of many ways to God, what should our response be? We should say, “I believe Jesus, Who said, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.'”
Do you know what an anagram is? It is “a word or phrase formed by reordering the letters of another word or phrase.” For example, take the word “dormitory”. Simply rearranging the letters in that word it can be made to say “dirty room”. Or the words “slot machines”. Rearrange the letters in those words and you can get “cash lost in'em”. And the phrase “mother-in-law” becomes “woman Hitler”.
False teachers are a lot like anagrams. They try to present themselves as something they are not. They will use some truth from scripture but rearrange things to support the error they are teaching. They become wolves in sheep's clothing. So beware!
Knowing that not everyone is teaching the truth should also encourage us to...
2. Be Wise. Test the spirits
The true test of a teacher is this: Where does he or she stand on the person of Jesus Christ? In John's day there were teachers who were seeking to convince people that Jesus was less than God. Verses two and three give us a very specific test. “Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God.”
The importance of this test is that there were people (they were called Gnostics) who were teaching that Jesus did not come in a flesh and blood body. It did not make sense to them logically.
So they decided that He was just a spirit on earth, which is heresy. Why was it heresy? Why is it significant? Why couldn’t Jesus have been a spirit? Well, think back to the Old Testament. Every year, animals were sacrificed on the Day of Atonement to remind the Jewish nation that as Hebrews 9:22 says, “without shedding of blood there is no remission”. The sacrifice was necessary because of their sins.
Jesus said in Matthew 26:28, “For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” If Jesus did not come in the flesh, He would not have any blood to shed. It is essential for our salvation that Jesus was both fully God and fully man. This is non-negotiable.
You take away His deity, and He would not have been able to lead a sinless life. You take away His humanity, and it takes away the blood sacrifice He made to purchase our salvation on that cross. Both are of equal importance.
So the main way to test truth against error is to see what is said about Jesus. Check the teacher. Check the preacher. Who do they say Jesus is? Just a man, a prophet, a teacher? Do they acknowledge that Jesus is the Son of God? Do they see Jesus as God in the flesh? Do they see Jesus as the only way? Because God's Word teaches that it is only through Jesus' death and resurrection that you and I have the power to overcome the enemy. We need God's Word to be able to discern the truth or falsehood of the ideas that confront us each day.
So don't believe everything you hear. Be wise, apply some tests. But also...
3. Be Warned. The antichrist is here
Remember, the antichrist is one who is against Jesus. John says this spirit was already in the world during his day. And it is still very prevalent today! Those who teach different things about Jesus fit this category. And there are several today.
Do you know what is part of the basic doctrine of some groups that are well known today? For example, what does the Mormon church teach about Jesus? In their books of doctrine they teach that Jesus Christ is our elder brother who progressed to godhood, having first been procreated as a spirit child by God and a heavenly mother. He was later conceived physically through intercourse between God and the virgin Mary (Achieving a Celestial Marriage, p. 129; Mormon Doctrine, pp. 546-547; 742). And Mormon doctrine says that Jesus and Lucifer are brothers (Gospel Principles, pp. 17-18; Mormon Doctrine, p. 192). We don't find that doctrine in Scripture.
Another example is found in the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy. She was the founder of the Christian Science faith. Her teachings hold that Jesus was a man upon whom the Spirit of Christ settled. And that the Spirit of Christ is eternal, who came upon Jesus at His baptism and left Him again before He died on the cross. Jesus, according to the teaching of the Christian Scientists, was born as a mere man and died as a mere man. The only part of Jesus' ministry that is worth anything to us, then, is His public ministry of teaching when He was influenced by the Spirit of Christ that was upon Him.
But here, John says that only a spirit that confesses that Jesus is the Christ who came in the flesh (that the two are identical, one and the same, never to be separated), that is the Spirit of God. Anything else is the spirit of error and of antichrist.
Another example of the twisting of truth by false teachers is the teaching of the Jehovah Witnesses who teach that Jesus is not God the Father, but a lesser god.
The apostle Peter warned that these things would happen. In II Peter 2:1-2 he writes, “But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed.”
A lot of things sound good, and even look good on paper. But we all know of promises that have not been made good by politicians and salesmen. If that causes you some skepticism about those two groups, and you feel the need to check out their claims, then it is even more important to do some homework when it comes to preachers, churches and their doctrines. Politicians and salesmen may cost you some money, but false teachers will cost you far more in the loss of your eternal soul.
You need to know what the Word of God says in order to test whether or not things that are taught are true. So how much do you really know? Now you may know John 3:16 and Psalm 23, and those are such good verses. But if that is the limit, there is a problem. Can you find Obadiah or even Philemon? I am sure that most of us have a Bible, probably several of them. God didn't give us His Word so that only a few could understand it. It is the weapon He has given to us all to use against error.
If you are going to be prepared to know the difference between truth and error, II Timothy 2:15 (KJV) says “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth”.
The New Century Version of that verse says, “Be a worker who is not ashamed and who uses the true teaching in the right way.”
The apostle Paul met people like that when he was starting a new church in a town called Berea. Acts 17:11 says of these Bereans, “These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.”
That is the only way to know the difference between what is truth and what is error. The way to test teachers and preachers as to whether their message is really from God is to check their words with what God says in the Bible. While I am all for Bible Colleges, it doesn't take a college degree to learn what God says in His Word.
How can you discern a false teaching if you do not even know the true one? We must study, study, study and then study some more. It simply takes some time. Time spent becoming familiar with what it says. And the more you do, the deeper will be your understanding of God's truth. Then you can use your knowledge to test whatever is being taught.
You should search your Bible to see if the sermons you hear here each Sunday are biblical, or if I am off base. You should scrutinize the lessons of any Bible teacher to make sure they are teaching God's Word. In other words, test the spirits.
This isn't the only place in the Bible that tells us to put things to the test. This same word for test is found in two other places in scripture. I Thessalonians 5:21-22 says, “Test all things; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.” And II Corinthians 13:5 adds this“Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.”
No matter who we are, we will only be able to pass that test if we know and do what the Word of God teaches. Let's be people of the Word. Certainly in this life, and as we prepare for the next, surely we want the real thing.
So, let's beware, be wise and be warned.
CLOSE:
I like the old story told about the young American engineer named Billy who was sent to Ireland by his company to work in a new plant. This two year assignment was desirable because it would enable him to earn enough money to marry his long-time girlfriend, Irene.
The separated couple corresponded often, but as the lonely weeks went by, Irene began expressing doubts that Billy was being true to her. After all, he was around many lovely Irish lasses. Billy wrote, declaring with some passion that he was paying absolutely no attention to the local girls. “I admit,” he wrote, “that sometimes I’m tempted. But I fight it. I’m keeping myself for you.”
In the next mailing that he received from Irene, Billy found a harmonica and this note, “I’m sending this to you so that you can learn to play it, and have something to keep your mind off those girls.” Billy replied, “Thanks for the harmonica. I’m practicing it every night and thinking of you.”
At the end of his two years, he returned on an airplane and Irene met him at the airport. He rushed forward to embrace Irene. But she held up a restraining hand and said, “Just hold on there a minute, Billy Bob. Before any serious kissin’ and huggin’ gets started here, let me hear you play that harmonica!”
And before we just accept anything someone is telling us about Jesus and God's Word, we need say, “Hold on! Where does it say that in the Bible?” Only then can we be sure that we are getting the real thing.
