Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction - What are Spirits & Difference between Spirits -

The term “spirits” can refer to a lot of things: the stuff you’re not supposed to lose during hard times.

Something cheerleaders are professionally obsessed with.

The beings you negotiate with after you’ve accidentally moved into a haunted house.

And, oh yes, bottles of power-packing alcohol.

However, the spirit that we are talking about is more like the being that needs to be removed from a haunted house.

The more technical meaning would be:

a supernatural being or essence: such as

a: HOLY SPIRIT

b: SOUL

c: an often malevolent being that is bodiless but can become visible (Ghost)

d: a malevolent being that speaks to or enters and possesses a human being

The Greek word pneuma means “breath” but in a biblical meaning is Spirit and A spirit is the nonphysical part of a person which is the seat of emotions and character - So the Spirit is also the breath of life.

So what does our passage for today say?

Transitional Sentence: God has given us the ability to discern between the Spirit of Truth and other spirits - spirits of the world.

Verse 1 immediately provides us with a word of caution and one of scrutiny for the readers about spirits.

A word of Caution (care taken to avoid danger or mistakes)- do not believe every spirit (or trust) Greek word believe - pisteuo

- From false prophets (teachers) Any prophet declaring anything other than what is true

Jesus Himself warned the disciples about wolves in sheep's clothing Matt 7:15

- Illustration - The cartoon road runner where Willy E. Coyote dressing up as a sheep to try and get a meal.

Hiding a true identity can be easy - that is why we need to be on guard and learn to test the spirits so we are not easily deceived and carried away.

After all satan is capable of dressing himself in light in order to take advantage of the weak.

The apostle Paul warned the Elders from the church in Ephesus about the same thing.

The savage wolves are false prophets.

It doesn’t necessarily take to much for one false prophet to destroy a church.

You’ve all probably heard stories about a church being torn apart by false teaching.

The history of this church shows it.

Another church I know about started simply enough...

- Story about a ruined church - Teach false doctrine and take advantage of the people.

The other idea of verse 1 is - Scrutiny - test the spirits.

In testing the spirits we must determine whether the spirit is of God or some other spirit such as the antichrist.

A spirit of the antichrist would be a false prophet.

For this particular point of this passage John is telling us a way of how to tell the difference between a prophet and a false prophet.

He is specifically pointing to one demonic spirit - the spirit of the antichrist.

Verses 2 & 3 of our passage says:

So the spirit of the antichrist will not be able to confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.

That spirit just can’t do it.

Unfortunately there are other demonic spirits in the world and they can speak the name of Jesus Christ.

Because they can speak His name we need to know how to test them.

We need to be able to test all the spirits.

So let’s take a look at some ways to test all the spirits.

The first and best way to do this would be easy for those with a spiritual gift...

The Holy Spirit provides a lot of different gifts for the use of the body of Christ and one of them is for being able to distinguish between spirits.

With this gift someone would be able to tell in a deep down sort of way.

The Holy Spirit within them would just start ringing bells.

A second way to tell the difference would be the way in which someone acts.

The prophet Hosea said:

The righteous will walk in the ways of the Lord.

False prophets will not be righteous.

It will be a matter of the actions and how they are acting.

False prophets will eventually show their true selves and stumble.

Later in the bible the apostle Paul provided us a list of habits that those with the presence of the Holy Spirit in them would exhibit.

We call them the fruits of the spirit.

He also provided a list of habits that those with a different spirit would exhibit - these he called the deeds of the flesh.

Test these against the fruits of the spirit:

There is a big difference between these two lists.

Carrying a lie of love and joy for very long would be difficult and eventually the stumbling should come.

The false prophet will trip and show the true nature of the spirit which is leading the body.

The third way to test the spirit is to take some time to look at what is being said and compare it to scripture to test it against the word.

Solid food of the word (scripture) and practice.

In other words as you grow in your knowledge of the word you can test what is being taught against the truth of scripture and determine if what is being taught is false or true.

A rather obvious example would be if someone told you that divorce for any reason is acceptable.

Well if you know the word you can open the scriptures and tell them exactly what Jesus said about divorce.

So how many other demonic spirits are named in the Bible?

According to Dr. Jerry Robison in his book, "Strongman's his name… What's his game?"

Says that there are 16 biblically named demonic spirits.

Each of these spirits has particular manifestations.

Here is the list of demonic spirits listed in the Bible:

Spirit of Divination; Familiar Spirit; Spirit of Jealousy; Lying Spirit; Perverse Spirit; Spirit of Haughtiness; Spirit of Heaviness; Spirit of Whoredoms; Spirit of Infirmity; Deaf and Dumb Spirit; Spirit of Bondage; Spirit of Fear; Seducing Spirits; Spirit of Anti-Christ; Spirit of Error; The Spirit of Poverty; Spirit of Death

I’m not going to talk about all of them - just three:

Lying spirit

Manifestations: Strong Deceptions, Flattery, Superstitions,

Religious Bondages, False Prophecy, Accusations, Slander, Gossip,

Lies, False Teachers

Spirit of Anti-Christ

Manifestations - Denies Deity of Christ, Denies Atonement, Against

Christ and His Teaching, Humanism, Worldly Speech and Actions,

Teachers of Heresies, Anti-Christian, Deceiver, Lawlessness

Spirit of Error

Manifestations - Error, Unsubmissive, False Doctrines, Unteachable,

Servant of Corruption, Contentions, Defensive/Argumentative, New-Age Movement

All 16 of these named spirits can lead the elected astray.

That is why we always have to make sure that we are vigilant to test what we hear and what we see.

A spirit of anti-christ or error could lead us astray not by being out right wrong but simply by not being right.

The big lie is easy to discern but it is the small lie that gets you to just step off of the narrow path.

Once you are off the narrow path it is easy to go a little farther and eventually you are no longer even close to the narrow path; you are caught in the mass of people heading to destruction on the wide path.

These spirits they are the voices of this world.

Those who hear these voices and follow them are of the world.

Verse 5 of our passage says:

1 John 4:5 (NASB95)

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

They are the false prophets.

They are the ones who do not speak truthfully of God and cannot profess Jesus Christ as Lord.

These false prophets will say lies that are slightly true or they will say flat out lies that are easy to discern for anyone who knows the truth.

The false prophets are the ones whose deeds will be of the world and those of the world will follow them.

However verse 6 says:

With this verse John flips his last message around.

In verse 5 it is about those of the world but with verse 6 it is about those of God… We are from God!

Those who are of God listen and the world doesn’t.

This passage ends with the point of these six verses - By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.