INTRODUCTION
SLIDE #1
• When a person decides to go on a search for truth, a search to find God where do they turn?
• If you are trying to grow in your relationship with Christ, where do you turn, who do you listen to?
• When the critics attack our faith, when the liberal scholars launch another attack on the faith who do we believe?
• When Time Magazine, Newsweek and the other major publications come out with their “I do not believe the Bible or Jesus” I mean their feature on Jesus issue, who are we to believe?
• One of the things that complicates a persons search for truth is the fact that there appears to be so many different truths out there to believe.
• The problem is, all of these “truths” cannot be true. As bad is it is to say today, someone is wrong no matter how sincere they are.
• Who are we to believe? There are a lot of forces out there trying to lead you astray.
• How can you tell if a person is telling you the truth or lying to you? Some give it away by their body language, some by the tone of their voice. Sometimes what a person says is so incredible it is hard to believe them.
• How do you tell if a person is giving you the truth concerning spiritual matters? Are we to just be gullible and believe whatever we hear? If a person tells you they are educated, or if they hold a religious sounding title, does that mean they are proclaiming the truth?
• How can we determine if a person is a false prophet or in today’s vernacular, a false teacher?
• Today we are going to look at 1 John 4:1-6. As we study this text this morning we are going to learn some things about the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. I hope what we learn today will help us to be able to determine if a person posses the spirit of truth within them.
• SLIDE #2,#3,#4
• Let’s read 1 John 4:1-6 together this morning.
SLIDE #5
SERMON
I. YOU CANNOT BELIEVE EVERYONE! (1)
SLIDE #6
1. We are to test the spirits.
• A young American engineer named Billy was sent to Ireland by his company to work in a new electronics plant. It was a two-year assignment that he had accepted because it would enable him to earn enough to marry his long-time girlfriend, Irene. She had a job near her home in Tennessee, and their plan was to pool their resources and put a down payment on a house when he returned. They corresponded often, but as the lonely weeks went by, Irene began expressing doubts that he was being true to her, exposed as he was to lovely Irish lasses. Billy wrote back, 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 mail, Billy received a package. It contained a note from Irene and a harmonica. “I’m sending this to you,” she wrote, “so you can learn to play it and have something to take your mind off those girls.” Billy replied, “Thanks for the harmonica. I’m practicing on it every night and thinking of you.” At the end of his two-year stint, Billy was transferred back to company headquarters. He took the first plane to Tennessee to be reunited with his girl. Her whole family was with her, but as he rushed forward to embrace her, Irene held up a restraining hand and said sternly, “Just hold on there a minute, Billy. Before any serious kissin’ and huggin’ gets started here, let me hear you play that harmonica!”
• There are a lot of snake oil salesmen out there. It is up to us to test the spirits. John’s use of “beloved” may suggest the readers were gullible. The literal reading of the verse is “STOP BELIEVING EVERY SPIRIT.
• All claims were to be put to the test and the teachers were not to be trusted until they passed the test.
• The young lady in the story wanted to test the spirits before she took the leap! She wanted to make sure her man passed the test!
• When this passage speaks of testing spirits, is speaks false teachers and the spirit behind their teaching.
• Everyone can get things wrong but some are bent on perverting the truth.
• We need to test the spirits before we just accept them at face value because; CLICK #6
2. Some are from God and some are from Satan.
• Not everything we hear is from God, some of it; a lot of it is a lie from the Devil himself! SLIDE #7
• 2 John 1:10 - 11 (NLT) 10If someone comes to your meeting and does not teach the truth about Christ, don’t invite him into your house or encourage him in any way. 11Anyone who encourages him becomes a partner in his evil work.
• A prophet is one who speaks for another. If a person claims to speak fro God, they are literally a prophet of God. If you are speaking for God, your message better line up with God and be from God!
• False prophets are those who are not in accord with the truth.
SOME OBSERVATIONS
• Notice who is called to test the spirits, it is all of us, not just the leadership.
• Now, in order to test something, there must be a standard for truth. Truth is truth there is no such thing as truth for you and truth for me. 1+1=2 for all of us!
• Testing the truth has been something God has always encouraged all His people to do. SLIDE #8-9
• Deuteronomy 18:20 - 22 (NLT) 20But any prophet who claims to give a message from another god or who falsely claims to speak for me must die.’ 21You may wonder, ‘How will we know whether the prophecy is from the LORD or not?’ 22If the prophet predicts something in the LORD’S name and it does not happen, the LORD did not give the message. That prophet has spoken on his own and need not be feared.
• One of the standards for truth is also the Bible. What a person says must be in line with God’s word! What test does this text give to us?
SLIDE #10
II. THE CREDIBILITY TEST. (2-3)
We are given a test to determine the spirit of truth from the spirit of error.
SLIDE #11
1. The spirit of truth test.
CLICK #11
a. Must confess that Jesus came in the flesh.
• This seems simple. If a person will not confess that Jesus came in the flesh, they are not to be listened to as a source of truth.
• There are seminary trained people who will not acknowledge this fact.
• We are to accept, trust and teach Him to be the Son of God.
• John tells us we can know the spirit of God, we can do this by observation and deduction.
• If the spirit of God is in us, it will show in the way we live.
• This confession about Jesus is to be an ongoing agreement. We must believe that He came lived and died for our sins and that He was raised on the third day. If we believe that, we have the spirit of truth in us.
• John says this person is from God. And God is the source or origin of the teaching.
• The false teachers of John’s day and our day questioned Jesus humanity and deity.
• In verse three John speaks of Jesus Christ. This name covers His humanity and His deity.
CLICK #11
2. The spirit of the false teacher test.
CLICK #11
a. Anyone who does not confess Jesus.
• If a person will not acknowledge Jesus, they are not of the truth.
CLICK #11
b. This is the spirit of the antichrist.
• 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!
SLIDE #12
III. GOD IS GREATER THAN SATAN.
SLIDE #13
1. Our victory comes through Jesus because God is greater than Satan!
• John emphatically reminds his readers that they belong to God and have overcome the false teachers.
• To overcome means to vanquish, subdue, conquer. The verb-tense of the word “overcome” denotes the readers had gained a previous victory and were still victorious. It gives them no future promise of victory, but it gives them hope for the future because of the past and present victories they had won over the spirit of error!
• The truth is greater than lies. Truth will always win out over lies. We were won to Christ through the truth of the gospel.
• If we have people who are trying to get you to doubt the Bible as the Word of God, you have to ask yourself why they would do that.
• The truth makes you free, why would you want to be entrapped by things that are not true.
• You are free today because of Jesus, why would you want to let someone try to entrap you again by getting you to listen to lies?
• Some people do not like to hear the truth because it makes them take real action on a problem, and accept real responsibility.
SLIDE #14
IV. THE CONTRAST BETWEEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH AND THE SPIRIT OF FALSE TEACHERS. (5-6)
There are some real differences between a false teacher and one who is on the side of truth. First let us look at:
SLIDE #15
1. The spirit of the false teacher.
CLICK 15
a. Comes from the world.
• These people come from the world, they are not of God. They do not belong to God
• Today, there are many pseudospiritual teachers. They teach that people have God or a spirit within them that only needs to be tapped. They claim many ways to discover this “inner” truth or spirit—most of which are not found in the Bible. While some may use forms of singing, prayer, or meditation, they are not Bible-based. Instead, they piece together parts of Christian truth and combine it with human teachings from many religions, some of which do not recognize God or Christ at all. (Life App Bible)
CLICK #15
b. They speak with worldly wisdom.
• Since they are not of God, they speak with worldly wisdom.
• In John’s Gospel and letters, the term “world” (which can mean “arrangement” or “system”) describes the world system of beliefs and the community of those who stand in opposition to God (see 4:3). The world system opposes God’s realm because Satan exerts his influence over the world. The false teachers, being a part of the world system, speak from the world’s viewpoint. (Life App Bible) SLIDE #16
• 2 Corinthians 4:4 (NLT) 4Satan, the god of this evil world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe, so they are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News that is shining upon them. They don’t understand the message we preach about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.
SLIDE #17
c. The world listens to them.
• The audience in which a person is popular will tell you a lot about what they are sayings.
• As Operation Iraqi Freedom raged, Mohammed al-Sahhaf, Iraq’s Minister of Information, daily refuted clear evidence that Iraq was losing the war. On April 6, after coalition forces seized Baghdad’s Saddam Airport, renamed it Baghdad International Airport, started flying planes in, and ventured into Baghdad itself, the Miami Herald quoted al-Sahhaf saying, "We butchered the force present at the airport." On April 7, after U.S. troops penetrated central Baghdad and stormed Saddam’s Republican Palace, the Washington Post quoted al-Sahhaf saying, "There is no presence of the American columns in the city of Baghdad at all.…We besieged them, and we killed most of them."
Referred to as Baghdad Bob by the media, his efforts to explain away coalition force victories as illusions were comical. In the same way, our spiritual enemy is already defeated at the cross of Christ, yet he continues to hurl out lies, insults, and condemnation at the saints
• There were some who actually believed this person; he was popular in some circles.
• The world wants their ears tickled with what they want to hear instead of the truth. SLIDE #18
• 2 Timothy 4:3 (NLT) 3For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to right teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever they want to hear.
SLIDE #19
2. The spirit of truth.
CLICK #19
a. Comes from God.
• God is a God of truth. All truth is of God! If we are of God, we will listen to God.
CLICK #19
3. Who you listen to determines if you are following the spirit of truth or the spirit of lies.
Reception of the truth depends on the hearer, not the message. In the parable of the Sower in Luke 8:4-15 Jesus tells of a sower sowing seeds. The same sower and the same seed had different results; it all depended on the soil in which the seed was planted. The harvest depended on the soil.
The end of verse 6 we are told we can tell the one who has the spirit of truth verses the spirit of error, it is by who they listen to.
CONCLUSION
Are you preparing the soil of your heart for the Gospel?
Are you ready to hear and absorb the truth?
When someone comes along with a “new” truth, we had better examine both the message and the messenger before we decide to jump on the band wagon.
Today are you ready to be set free by the truth of the Gospel message?
Today is the day of salvation!
